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http://nyc.metblogs.com/2007/06/13/belmont-steaks/
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Belmont Steaks???
By nyc_noah
June 13th, 2007 @ 9:02 AM Uncategorized
This past weekend, I went with some buddies to the third event of the Triple Crown, the Belmont Stakes. It started out as a total bomb. My buddy Richie was supposed to pick me up at 12:30, but didn’t end up getting there until 2:15. Plus, he had his kid with him! So, we almost had to bring a grumpy 5 year old with us to a known haven of booze, smoking, and degenerate gambling. Luckily, one of my other buddies convinced the kid that he was in fact scared of horses, which I admit is both soulless and horrible, but totally worth it in the short term.
So, once we got there, we tried to plug our electric grill into the cigarette lighter of the car and grill up some wonderful snacks (hence the cheesy pun title). Unfortunately, the fuse blew and we were shit outta luck. So, in an effort to try to make the best of the situation, I took our cooler over to a few other grillers, and asked if we can share their grill space, and we would gladly share our food. They were uninterested. In fact, at the last one I tried, someone threw a hamburger bun at me. So we finally got into the place, hungry, angry, and late, and placed a few bets. Though some of my friends knew what they were doing, this was literally my first visit to a horse race. I had absolutely no clue what I was doing. I quickly bombed on my first three races. But, I miraculously hit on the final two races, the last of which was the actual main race. I ended up walking out of the building up about $25, which I was quite thrilled with. It ended up being a really cool time! Read after the jump to see some things I noticed while at the Belmont.
– In typical NY fashion, the Belmont is really hard to get to. As mentioned, we ended up driving, but at first, we were exploring the idea of taking the LIRR. It seemed pretty ridiculous. The train schedule was rigid and tough, and the cars would have been absolutely PACKED! The NY area has a habit of making things that everyone would want to go to difficult to get to. The most appropriate example is the Javits Center. It was as if there was a meeting, where some local representative deuschebag stood up and said “I have a great idea! Let’s build a massive convention center in a place that won’t allow affordable parking, and not connect it to public transportation! Also, let’s be sure that it is in a really unsafe neighborhood. And, let’s make sure that it is a LONG walk to the nearest subway. We can throw a couple dinky shuttle bus routes over there and that will handle the millions of visitors.
– The mix of people was really funny. First, there were the top-shelf, fancy-dressed rich people. The generally sat in reserved seating. This group very much fit the stereotype… Canes, fancy drinks, summery dresses and lots of linen… Throw in a monocle, and you have yourself Mr. Peanut. The next group was the meatheads that seem to permeate every sporting event in the tri-state area. These are the guys who inevitably drink too much and try to start fights for no reason (or throw hamburger buns at people to look tough in front of their meathead friends). They are loud and obnoxious, and are probably compensating for steroidally shrunken genitalia. Lastly, there are the degenerates. These are the slimy guys who clearly are addicted. They always think they have a leg up on the races, and know something that nobody else does, but alas, they usually if not always lose their proverbial shirts.
– The food at Belmont somehow managed to be worse and more expensive than at a Jets game or a Mets game. Two cheeseburgers, a hot dog, and a small order of fries cost me $31. As Jerry Seinfeld says, it’s like they have their own little country over there. Do the people at Belmont have any idea what things cost EVERYWHERE ELSE IN THE WORLD?
– There actually exists a Barbaro Memorial Fund… They seriously created a fund for a dead horse. Not only that! I learned this weekend that a track in Florida has been renamed in his honor, and additionally, there is an ongoing debate about where to spread his ashes! For the love of god, Gerald Ford’s death didn’t get this much fanfare! I understand that this horse meant a lot to people and there was some sort of genuine fascination when he broke his leg, but let’s move on. He was a freaking race horse! Aren’t there enough problems on the human side, or are we really ready to give up on AIDS, Cancer, ALS, MS, and the millions of other problems with society and donate money to eradicate a horse foot problem?
– The more I live in NYC, the more I see that driving here is one of the worst experiences possible, regardless of whether or not the congestion pricing ever takes effect. If you have to drive around in the five boroughs, just kill yourself and be done with it.
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nyc.metblogs.com
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http://www.environmentportal.in/content/466751/order-of-the-national-green-tribunal-regarding-felling-of-trees-for-construction-of-wind-farms-sangnara-village-kutch-gujarat-29012020/?page=
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Order of the National Green Tribunal regarding felling of trees for construction of wind farms, Sangnara village, Kutch, Gujarat, 29/01/2020
Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of Shankarlal Gopalbhai Patel Vs Union of India & Others dated 29/01/2020 regarding damage caused to the flora, fauna and ecology of the Kutch region particularly in Sangnara village, due to alleged rampant illegal felling of trees for construction of wind farms by M/s. Green Infra Wind Energy Limited, and seven wind energy companies.
The NGT directed the Principal Chief Conservator of Forest (HoFF), Gujarat to conduct an inspection of the area concerned, verify on the factual aspects and submit a report before the next date. The District Magistrate, Bhuj, Gujarat shall also assist the PCCF (HoFF) in carrying out the task.
Kuchchh
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www.environmentportal.in
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http://www.friendswithoutborders.org.uk/news/portsmouth-to-get-its-own-city-app-to-help-the-homeless
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Portsmouth to get its own city app to help the homeless
Phone by Ozzy Delaney
A new phone app tdesigned to help homeless people get the help they need will be launched in Portsmouth next week.
The Street Support Network, who developed the app, say that its mission is to make it easier for people to collaborate, co-ordinate and provide better support for people experiencing homelessness, and make it easier for citizens and business to do something to help.
The app is already used in Manchester, Leeds and Bournemouth and on Tuesday at 11:30 am Portsmouth will get its own. The app will be officially launched in the John Pounds Centre, 23 Queen St, Portsmouth, PO1 3HN.
After it is launched, the app will be available from the Apple App Store and Google Play.
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www.friendswithoutborders.org.uk
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http://www.summarycrime.com/2010/05/
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Privilege and self-incrimination
The Judicial College of Victoria added commentary regarding the law of privilege to its Uniform Evidence Manual yesterday. It discusses Divisions 1 -4 of Part 3.10 of the Evidence Act 2008.
All practitioners in the summary jurisdiction (and elsewhere) need to become familiar with the operation of immunity certificates under s 128, a major change from the Evidence Act 1958. The interplay of these provisions with other sections of the Evidence Act 2008 such as ss 18 and 38 probably isn't fully understood.
The Criminal Charge Book has also added new chapters.
Labels: evidence, law reform, privilege
Verdins revisited: linking cause and effect
at 6:06 pm Posted by Dr Manhattan
Further Edit: The paedophilia and paraphilia 'exception' discussed in DPP v OJA [2007] VSCA 129, where the High Court's majority view in Ryan v R (2001) 206 CLR 267 was said to take precedence over Verdins principles, has recently been approved by the Victorian Court of Appeal in WCB v The Queen [2010] VSCA 230.
Edit: I've received some feedback about this post querying how much of a discount Verdins principles afford. I'm going to dodge the question and take refuge in Hayne J's remarks in AB v The Queen (1999) 198 CLR 111 [at 115] where an argument that a particular scenario merited a discrete discount was rejected.
There are several flaws in the argument.
First, it assumes that sentencing an offender is some mechanical or mathematical process. It is not. Nobody can identify, let alone define, some precise relationship between the complex and infinitely various elements that bear upon what sentence is to be imposed on an offender such as this appellant. No calculus will reveal some mathematical relationship between this appellant's remorse, the harm he has inflicted on his victims and society's denunciation of what he did to them. A sentencing judge can do no more than weigh these and the many other factors (such as retribution and deterrence) that bear upon the question and express the result as several terms of imprisonment to be served, wholly or partly concurrently or consecutively. Remorse, harm, denunciation, retribution and deterrence - in the end, all these and more must be expressed by a sentencing judge in units of time. That is a discretionary judgment. It is not a task that is to be performed by calculation. Resort to metaphors such as "discount" or "allowance" must not be taken as suggesting that it can be.
The Court of Appeal found in Londrigan v R [2010] VSCA 81 that a diagnosis of Attention Defecit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) did not merit a lesser sentence than had been awarded by the sentencing judge.
The appellant sought to attract the application of Verdins principles in mitigation. (It's not correct to say that Verdins only applies in some cases and not in others. Where the issue of the mental state of the offender and its connection to sentence arises (see Weinberg J's sentencing remarks in R v Wahani [2009] VSC 319 at 33), the principles in Verdins always apply. But the application of these principles is simply one part of the sentencing synthesis, and has no pre-determined impact on the resulting penalty).
Since Londrigan, a differently-composed Court of Appeal handed down Leeder v R [2010] VSCA 98. There, an offender was resentenced after the Court found the sentencing judge had failed to take appropriate account of the offender's intellectual disability.
The Court in Leeder, comprised of Maxwell P and Buchanan JA (two of the three judges in Verdins case), adopted the reasoning of pre-Verdins cases in R v Yaldiz [1998] 2 VR 376 and Kirby J's judgment in Champion (1992) 64 A Crim R 244 at 254.
Buchanan JA [at 34, Maxwell P expressly agreeing in his own reasons]:
34 Moral culpability and general deterrence apart, the appellant’s disability attracted the operation of Principle 5 in R v Verdins. That is, imprisonment imposes a greater burden on someone who is functioning with the brain power of an eight year old. That aspect does not appear to have been taken into account on sentence, although it was adverted to on the plea.
A review of cases decided since R v Verdins [2007] VSCA 102 might be useful. What follows isn't an exhaustive list, but does provide a thumbnail sketch of the Court of Appeal's approach to a variety of mental issues. I haven't included reference to any pre-R v Verdins cases; many helpful statements of general principle are available in the JCV's Sentencing Manual and there's also more information on the NSW Judicial Commission's website.
Verdins principles
In R v Verdins [2007] VSCA 102 the Court of Appeal laid out the now famous restatement of considerations applicable to sentencing offenders with what the law referred to in previous generations as, 'abnormalities of the mind'.
Maxwell P, Buchanan and Vincent JJA [at 32]:
32 Impaired mental functioning, whether temporary or permanent ("the condition"), is relevant to sentencing in at least the following six ways:
1. The condition may reduce the moral culpability of the offending conduct, as distinct from the offender’s legal responsibility. Where that is so, the condition affects the punishment that is just in all the circumstances; and denunciation is less likely to be a relevant sentencing objective.
2. The condition may have a bearing on the kind of sentence that is imposed and the conditions in which it should be served.
3. Whether general deterrence should be moderated or eliminated as a sentencing consideration depends upon the nature and severity of the symptoms exhibited by the offender, and the effect of the condition on the mental capacity of the offender, whether at the time of the offending or at the date of sentence or both.
4. Whether specific deterrence should be moderated or eliminated as a sentencing consideration likewise depends upon the nature and severity of the symptoms of the condition as exhibited by the offender, and the effect of the condition on the mental capacity of the offender, whether at the time of the offending or at the date of the sentence or both.
5. The existence of the condition at the date of sentencing (or its foreseeable recurrence) may mean that a given sentence will weigh more heavily on the offender than it would on a person in normal health.
6. Where there is a serious risk of imprisonment having a significant adverse effect on the offender’s mental health, this will be a factor tending to mitigate punishment.
Applying Verdins
The Court was at pains to make clear that the condition would only be considered mitigatory under points 1, 3 and 4 if a causal link could be established between the condition and the actual offending. If no causal link is established, focus then shifts to considerations 3, 5 and 6. if the condition exists at the time of sentencing or will exist wile the offender is undergoing sentence.
The principles of Verdins do not dictate the automatic mitigation of sentence in an offender simply because he or she has suffered or is suffering from a mental illness, however severe. Rather, Verdins requires scrutiny and assessment, based on cogent evidence, of the relationship between the mental disorder and the offending and other relevant matters: Dodds-Streeton JA in R v Zander [2009] VSCA 10. Although helpfully enumerated in many cases, the relevant considerations do not constitute a rigid code and it is unnecessary to apply them to each of the considerations as if completing a check list: R v McIntosh [2008] VSCA 242.
Causal link established
Some mental conditions have been treated as potentially mitigating: R v Howell [2007] VSCA 119 where a schoolteacher who sexualy abused one of her students was found to suffer from a mitigatory depressive illness, DPP v Richardson [2007] VSC 221 where a murder accessory's penalty was mitigated by her 'fragile emotional state'; R v Atik [2007] VSC 299 where sub-normal intelligence and psychosis mitigated the period of imprisonment imposed for terrorism offences; a serious depressive illness in the context of rape and false imprisonment (R v Parton [2007] VSCA 268); a solicitor whose depression mitigated his theft from a trust account (R v Slattery [2008] VSC 81, and also R v Bernstein [2008] VSC 254); acquired brain injury and alcoholism as mitigation for rape (R v Finlayson [2008] VSCA 50); R v Iadonmwonyi [2008] VSCA 135 where the principles of Verdins were applied to the hospital detention order the court imposed, but a balancing process between Verdins and 'community protection' was deemed necessary; murder (R v Rattya [2008] VSCA 149); attempted suicide in which the person did not die but instead committed culpable driving (R v Clark [2008] VSC 633); and of course most recently in the case of an intellectually disabled offender who assaulted and attempted to rape women unknown to him in public, and who was described as having the IQ and maturity of 'an 8 year old' (Leeder). In R v Ephstein [2011] VSC 8 suicide attempts and eating disorders coupled with the senseless nature of trhe murder attracted both limbs of mitigation.
Link not established
In other decisions, courts have applied Verdins but been left unsatisfied of such a causal connection. Examples include pathological gambling (notably in R v Grossi [2008] VSCA 51, but previously in R v Do [2007] VSCA 308 and subsequently in R v MacNeil-Brown [2008] VSCA 190); battered wife syndrome leading to thefts from an employer (R v Elias [2007] VSCA 125); paedophilia and paraphilia (DPP v OJA [2007] VSCA 129, where the High Court's majority view in Ryan v R (2001) 206 CLR 267 was said to take precedence over Verdins principles); personality or mood disorder as motivation for elaborate tax fraud (DPP (Cth.) v Rowson [2007] VSCA 176); Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) as a mitigatory feature of the rape of an elderly woman by a 15 year old male (R v JED [2007] VSC 348) and ADHD to explain drug trafficking and stolen property (Londrigan v The Queen [2010] VSCA 81); mild depression and prescription drug addiction of a police officer where the officer had supplied confidential information to a drug dealer (R v Bunning [2007] VSCA 205); a diagnosis of bi-polar disorder where the offender had previously denied played any role in the offending, an aggracated burglary (R v Christopher [2007] VSCA 290); self-induced drug psychosis (R v Martin [2007] VSCA 291) discussed here last year; sexual abuse as a child offered and rejected as causitive influence in culpable driving (R v Audino [2007] VSCA 318); alcohol and drug-use as mitigation for repeated violent attacks in public (R v Chong [2008] VSCA 119); aquired brain injury due to carbon monoxide posioning as the result of a suicide attempt (DPP v Glascott [2008] VSC 236); depression at the time of the murder (R v Fitchett [2008] VSC 258) though it should be noted that depression as mitigation at the time of sentencing was uncontentious and accepted as mitigation in regard to point 5 and 6 of the Verdins considerations - and that the offender in this case will be resentenced as a result of the re-trial concluded recently; depression as a motivating factor in a string of burglaries R v Buckley [2007] VSCA 107) heard together with Verdins, the Court of Appeal concluded amphetamine use and addiction, not mental illness, was productive of the offending; and R v Vo [2007] VSCA 107, also heard with Verdins where the principles were applied but did not affect the outcome. In Wassef v The Queen [2011] VSCA 30 the connection between an 'adjustment disorder' and dangerous driving was 'very vague' and insufficient to deserve more than limited mitigation. In Bowen v The Queen [2011] VSCA 67 the oral testimony of psychologist Jeffrey Cummins about the depression of a young man was insufficiently connected to the premeditated rape of a stranger. In Melham v Regina [2011] NSWCCA 121 an obsessive-complusive disorder was rejected as the causal motivation for child pornography offences.
An inconsistent approach?
It's possible to dismiss the two branches of decisions as the inconsistency of differently composed courts. However, judges sitting on one case which applied Verdins in mitigation also sat on other cases where it was found not to apply. While the diversity of cases seem to offer few common elements, the cases where Verdins principles were mitigatory were usually where the causal link was established. Where this link was not established, mitigation did not follow.
These judgments are a reflection of the case-by-case approach preferred in Verdins, where Maxwell P, Buchanan and Vincent JJA said [at 13],
Where a diagnostic label is applied to an offender, as usually occurs in reports from psychiatrists and psychologists, this should be treated as the beginning, not the end, of the inquiry. As we have sought to emphasise, the sentencing court needs to direct its attention to how the particular condition (is likely to have) affected the mental functioning of the particular offender in the particular circumstances – that is, at the time of the offending or in the lead up to it – or is likely to affect him/her in the future.
It would be unwise to treat any of the cases above as standing for the proposition that a particular category of condition described above cannot properly be considered mitigatory Verdins principles (with the possible exception of psychosexual dysfunction). In some of these cases the mitigation was not accepted or rejected on the basis of whether a particular category of condition fitted under the Verdins umbrella, but merely whether the condition had been proved (or the causal link established) on the evidence available in that particular case.
Maxwell P revisited his earlier remarks and stressed the importance of treating each case on its merits (specifically in relation to the issue of intellectual disability) again in Leeder when saying [at 39]:
39 Finally on the issue of intellectual disability, it seems to me important to ensure that this species of mental impairment is addressed with the same rigour and specificity as necessary in relation to the more familiar area of mental illness. The use of labels such as ‘mild’ or ‘moderate’ or ‘severe’ intellectual disability does not assist the sentencing court in deciding whether, and if so to what extent, sentencing considerations are affected by the condition of the particular person. What the Court needs to know is how the disability (is likely to have) affected the mental functioning of the particular offender at the time of the offending (or in the lead-up to it) and/or how it is likely to affect him/her in the future. As with mental illness, so with intellectual disability, there is scope for considerable refinement of expert opinion, and therefore of argument before sentencing courts, about how these matters are to be taken into account.
Labels: appeals, commentary, legal research, mental impairment, precedent, sentencing
Speed and evidence-to-the-contrary
Section 79(1) of the Road Safety Act provides a prima facie provision for evidence of speed:
79. Evidence of speed
(1) If in any criminal proceedings the speed at which a motor vehicle or trailer travelled on any occasion is relevant, evidence of the speed of the motor vehicle or trailer as indicated or determined on that occasion by a prescribed road safety camera or prescribed speed detector when tested, sealed and used in the prescribed manner is, without prejudice to any other mode of proof and in the absence of evidence to the contrary, proof of the speed of the motor vehicle or trailer on that occasion.
The prescribed devices and testing, sealing and use requirements are contained in Part 3 of the Road Safety (General) Regulations 2009.
The result of this provision is that if the police use a radar or laser speed measuring device to accuse a person of speeding, the reading on the device is accepted as the driver's actual speed unless the driver adduces ‘evidence to the contrary’ to overcome the prima facie effect of the legislation.
The South Australian Supreme Court recently handed down a judgment showing how that might occur.
In Police v Hicks [2010] SASC 136, Mr Hicks was charged with speeding at 81 kph in a 60 kph zone. The police used a laser, which enjoys a similar statutory presumption to those in Victoria. The Traffic Act 1961 (SA) s 175 relevantly provides:
175. Evidence
(3) In proceedings for an offence against this Act—
(ba) a document produced by the prosecution and purporting to be signed by the Commissioner of Police, or by any other police officer of or above the rank of inspector, and purporting to certify that a specified traffic speed analyser had been tested on a specified day and was shown by the test to be accurate to the extent indicated in the document constitutes, in the absence of proof to the contrary, proof of the facts certified and that the traffic speed analyser was accurate to that extent on the day on which it was so tested and, for the purpose of measuring the speed of any motor vehicle—
(i) in the case of a traffic speed analyser that was, at the time of measurement, mounted in a fixed housing—during the period of 27 days immediately following that day; or
(ii) in any other case—on the day following that day, whether or not the speed measured differed from the speed in relation to which the analyser was tested or the circumstances of the measurement differed in any other respect from the circumstances of the test;
The accused driver said in evidence he wasn't speeding:
[5] The respondent gave evidence in his defence and called his wife; she was a passenger in the vehicle at the relevant time. Both gave evidence that the vehicle was not travelling as fast as 81 kilometres per hour at that time. The respondent himself said that shortly after leaving the roundabout he saw Senior Constable Turner and saw his flashing lights go on. He immediately looked down at his speedometer and saw that he was travelling at 50 kilometres per hour...
The Magistrate dismissed the charge. The police appealed to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal, noting at [8] that the accused driver didn't dispute the accuracy of the device but instead relied on the result of providing ‘evidence to the contrary’ of the speed shown by the laser.
I'm actually a little surprised at this result. Although the legal analysis is sound, from the facts as they appear in the judgment it seems the driver checked his speed some time after the police officer pinged him. This is the common problem for most drivers who want to rebut the prima facie provision, because they're often not able to swear precisely what their speed was at the exact time and place the police saw them. And it's often compounded by concealed or unmarked police cars.
There's quite a few cases that make this point. In Madgen v Ashe (1992) 17 MVR 219 the West Australian Supreme Court said evidence from a driver that he wasn't speeding wasn't competent or cogent evidence that displaced the prima facie evidence of the prosecution cases. There, the driver admitted to only estimating his speed without looking at his speedo, and was wrong about his speed and location estimates.
That case was cited in Davis v Armstrong (1993) 17 MVR 190, another West Australian case that explained the point neatly at 192:
The burden then fell upon the applicant to adduce evidence capable of displacing the prima facie effect of the prosecution evidence: Madgen v Ashe (1992) 17 MVR 218. In other words the onus was thrown upon the applicant to prove on the balance of probabilities that his speed did not exceed the limit at the relevant time. He could do that by displacing the prima facie evidentiary effect of the speed measuring device by throwing doubt on its accuracy by establishing that it had not been properly tested, or that the circumstances were such that it might not have operated accurately exclusively with respect to the applicant's vehicle, or he could seek to displace the prima facie evidentiary effect of the speed measuring equipment by persuading the court of trial to accept evidence, either his evidence or that of other witnesses, to the effect that he was not exceeding the speed limit: Cazzol v Fuss (1988) 6 MVR 350.
In that case, the driver lost his appeal because he challenged the accuracy of the speed camera rather than trying to displace the prima facie effect of the evidence. Cazzol v Fuss (1988) 6 MVR 350, cited in that case, succictly made the point at 352 about overcoming the prima facie provision:
[A] defendant and other witnesses may give evidence on oath that they are able to assert positively that the speed of the vehicle was 60 km/h or less. If that evidence is accepted then the defendant would have discharge the onus that has been placed upon him.
Perkins v Pohla-Murray (1983) 1 MVR 165 and Hizaji v Orr (1997) 26 MVR 266 are ACT judgments along the same vein.
The difficulty for a court determining these contests is when a credible witness gives cogent evidence to say "I wasn't speeding" (or, "I wasn't going that fast") and the prosecution adduces cogent evidence to say the accused was speeding. What then?
I haven't found any cases precisely on this point, but I think it's resolved the same way as any conflict between competing events, applying a Liberato direction from Liberato v The Queen (1985) 159 CLR 507 (and also R v Calides (1983) 34 SASR 355). The Judicial College's Criminal Charge Book provides a nice summary of this at 1.7.1 - Bench Notes: Onus and Standard of Proof:
76. While it is not necessary to give a Liberato direction in every case where the jury is invited to decide whether the prosecution witnesses or the defence witnesses should be believed, it is desirable as a matter of prudence to give such a direction whenever there is a conflict between the prosecution and accused’s evidence (Salmon v R [2001] WASCA 270; R v Chen, Siregar & Isman (2002) 130 A Crim R 300).
77. In such circumstances, it may be of assistance to tell the jury that:
If they believe the evidence of the accused, they must acquit;
If they have difficulty in accepting the evidence of the accused, but think that it might be true, they must acquit — because they will have a reasonable doubt about the prosecution’s case; and
If they do not believe the accused, they should put his or her testimony to one side, and determine, upon the basis of the evidence they do accept, whether the prosecution has proved the accused’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt (R v RP Anderson [2001] NSWCCA 488).
Labels: evidence, road safety act
Gul v Creed & Anor [2010] VSC 185: indecent language is all about context
Stephen Warne is justifiably fond of this legal submission charting the usage and development of the word 'fuck' in the English language. It was prepared by a Colorado public defender to persuade a judge that use of the word by a teen to his high school principal was protected by the US First Amendment.
In Bill of Rights-less Victoria it's well-established that what constitutes indecency for the purposes of s 17 of the Summary Offences Act 1966 falls to be determined by reference to contemporary standards.
Gaynor J fined Lyudmila Gul for use of indecent language for directing the invective fucking bitch toward a staff member of a variety store. Ms Gul had been confronted over an alleged stolen easter egg. Her evidence in the contested hearings was that she couldn't recall whether she had used the words or not, but in any event she did not consider them indecent. The charge was proven in the Magistrates' Court and again on a de novo hearing in the County Court.
Ms Gul took Gaynor J's decision before the Supreme Court for judicial review. This case is Gul v Creed & Anor [2010] VSC 185. Beach J didn't rule that the epithet fucking bitch would always be indecent but found that it could be.
Beach J [at 16, citations inserted]:
16 There are undoubtedly many occasions when a person might say the words “fucking bitch” in a public place or within the hearing of a person in a public place without committing any offence. Authorities in this area abound: See for example E (a child) v Staats (1994) 13 WAR 1; 76 ACrimR 343 where it was held that the use of the word “fuck” in the circumstances of that case was not obscene. However, in my view, it was open to her Honour to conclude that if Ms Gul called Ms Vanderlijn a fucking bitch in the circumstances described by Ms Vanderlijn, then this was a use of indecent language contrary to s 17(1)(c) of the Summary Offences Act. More specifically, the plaintiff has not persuaded me that it was not open for her Honour to so conclude. The fact that the words “fucking bitch” (or the word “fuck”) might be capable of being used in a public place without those words being held to be indecent does not tell against a finding that the use of such words is indecent in particular circumstances. As was said in Hortin v Rowbottom (1993) 68 ACrimR 381 at 385: “... [I]t is equally erroneous to hold that the common four letter words are necessarily indecent in every context, and to hold that they can never be indecent in any context at all.”
The County Court's finding was upheld.
Labels: charges, high court, i.o.t.s., indecent, iots
Tsolacis v The Department of Transport [2010] VSC 183: 'substantially proved' is not 'beyond reasonable doubt'
Tsolacis v The Department of Transport [2010] VSC 183 highlights the desirability of magistrates expressing themselves unequivocally in the terminology appropriate to the application of criminal law, and stating detailed reasons as best they can when making findings of fact.
In Tsolacis, a confrontation between authorised officers of the Department of Transport and the accused lead to charges of unauthorised tram travel and assault. The accused defended himself in the contested hearing in the Magistrates' Court but was found guilty of the charges he faced. The magistrate described the charges as 'substantially proved'.
This finding was one of a number of challenges on the appeal from the Magistrates' Court. It was argued on behalf of the Department of Transport that the expression 'substantially proved' should be equated to 'beyond reasonable doubt'. This submission was rejected.
Beach J [beginning at 11]:
11 Further, there may be cases where one could look at the whole of the judgment and say that whilst the Magistrate has referred to charges being “substantially proved”, it is clear that reasons have been given for finding each element of each charge established proven beyond reasonable doubt. Again, that is not this case. The reference to the charges being “substantially proved” is, in my view, exacerbated by the statement in her Honour’s reasons that whilst the appellant highlighted some inconsistencies in the evidence of the authorised officers, “the weight of the evidence was against him”. The use of this language suggests that her Honour may have engaged in a balancing exercise, rather than asking herself whether each element of each charge had been established beyond reasonable doubt. It is regrettable that in giving her reasons her Honour did not identify the elements of each charge she found “substantially proved”.
12 Counsel for the respondent submitted that a reading of the whole of her Honour’s reasons discloses that her Honour in fact found matters proved beyond reasonable doubt. It was put that the findings of fact made by her Honour disclosed that matters had been proved beyond reasonable doubt. I disagree. The language of the findings made by her Honour was, in my view, equally apposite to a case where the burden of proof was something less than beyond reasonable doubt. It was language of a kind that is often used in the resolution of civil disputes. That is, where the standard of proof is on the balance of probabilities.
13 The short point is that the language of her Honour’s reasons suggest that the appellant was found guilty on a standard different from, and lower than, beyond reasonable doubt. For this reason alone, the appeal must succeed. Whilst an attempt was made by counsel for the respondent to equate “substantially proved” with “beyond reasonable doubt”, this attempt failed for the reasons given by the High Court in Green v The Queen. As was said by Dixon CJ in Dawson v The Queen, “it is a mistake to depart from the time honoured formula [beyond reasonable doubt]”.
(Beach J observed that Dixon CJ had been referring to instructions to juries, but considered the comments equally applicable in this context).
It's a fool's errand to search for a definitive explanation of 'beyond reasonable doubt'. Beach J was particularly critical of the magistrate's use of terminology because of the lack of comprehensive reasons given why the magistrate accepted the evidence of the prosecution and rejected the account of the accused and his witness.
In Shu Zhang v West Sands Pty Ltd [2010] VSC 36, a breach of contract claim, Byrne J vitiated the magistrate's orders and remitted the matter to be reheard based on the absence of stated satisfactory reasons alone.
Byrne J [at 15]:
15 It has been said again and again that the duty of a judicial officer is to provide adequate reasons for the orders made. This is particularly the case where the orders are made following a contested trial. This was a relatively long contested trial of substantial claims. What may be adequate reasons in a given case will depend upon the circumstances, having regard to the purposes for the giving of reasons. These purposes are to inform the parties why and how the result was arrived at and to inform any appeal court what were the contentions of the parties, what were the facts as found, what were the principles of law relied upon and how these principles were applied. A further reason is the fact that it is often useful for the judicial officer to set out his or her reasoning process as a discipline to ensure that this process was in fact undertaken and that it was intellectually satisfactory.
16 The reasons for the Magistrate in this case, regrettably, do not address these objectives. His Honour says nothing about the facts which he found or about the documentary evidence which suggested the vendor was operating the business as manager rather than as owner. His Honour may have been perfectly correct in his assessment of the competing witnesses and in the conclusions of fact which he reached. It may be that there was evidence which supported these conclusions. The difficulty which I face is that I cannot from the reasons of the Magistrate form any view upon this.
The necessity for magistrates to clearly state their reasons could not have been more earnestly emphasised.
(Refshauge J expressed similar sentiments in Moh v Pine [2010] ACTSC 27. Due to language barriers and other issues it was not clear that the accused understood the sentence imposed and the reasons for it (one of a series of errors held to have infected the sentence).
Labels: appeals, charges, evidence, judgments, standard of proof
Foot in-step with Mastwyk
I blogged about Mastwyk v DPP yesterday, but didn't get to write about the other similar appeal delivered straight after.
DPP v Foot [2010] VSCA 112 was referred to the Court of Appeal to be heard with Mastwyk's case because it dealt with very similar issues.
In this case, the Court of Appeal allowed the prosecution appeal and remitted the case to the Magistrates' Court.
In Foot, the police administered a preliminary breath-test to Mr Foot and then asked him to accompany them back to a police station for a breath test. He agreed. He got in the back of the divvy van, and the police closed the door.
We now know that wasn't imprisonment: Mastwyk at [82].
There was some dispute about what happened next, but it seems Mr Foot then decided he wanted out when he saw the police arrest a woman who was with him in the car. It seems the police didn't realise that...presumably because they were otherwise engaged arresting the woman.
The Court of Appeal considered that could not amount to imprisonment. Only if the police refused to release Mr Foot would he have been imprisoned. And if they didn't know he wanted out, they couldn't refuse his request...
That was enough to dispose of the appeal.
But the Court also went on to consider if the requirement to accompany had to be objectively reasonable before the police could establish an offence contrary to Road Safety Act s 49(1)(f) for exceeding the prescribed concentration of alcohol within 3 hours of driving.
They said that was wrong, applying DPP v Foster [1999] 2 VR 643 at [49] – [50]: the reasonableness of any request or requirement is only relevant when the motorist refuses a police request and the police then rely on their statutory powers to compel the motorist.
This means the ‘objective reasonableness’ requirement articulated in Mastwyk is confined to refuse-to-accompany cases contrary to s 49(1)(e) and doesn't apply to exceed-prescribed-concentration-cases contary to s 49(1)(f) (and probably 49(1)(b)).
Labels: appeals, judgments, road safety act
Mastwyk v DPP: reasonable to go home in the back of a divvy van
The Court of Appeal today delivered its judgment in Mastwyk v DPP [2010] VSCA 111.
It's a bit of an involved read. The short result is:
the police can require motorists to accompany them in the back of divvy vans to a police station for a breath test
but, if a motorist refuses, and is charged with refusing and defends the charge by claiming the requirement was unreasonable, the police must prove that the mode of transport was objectively reasonable
reasonableness will be shown using the test set down by Kyrou J in DPP v Mastwyk (2008) 185 A Crim R 285; [2008] VSC 192
If the police don't do that, the requirement to accompany will be invalid...and the accused should be acquitted.
A very quick refresher...
On 10 June 2005 at Wattle Bank the police asked Ms Mastwyk to go back to a police station for a breath test. In a divvy van. In the cage at the back. She baulked at going in the van.
The police charged her with refusing to accompany them for a breath test, contrary to Road Safety Act s 49(1)(e). She contested the charge. The magistrate dismissed it, deciding that transport in a divvy van amounted to imprisonment. And it was unreasonable for the police to require her imprisonment someone when the Road Safety Act didn't provide that power. The magistrate relied on an old unreported judgment of the County Court — Salton v Wigg.
The police appealed: DPP v Mastwyk (2008) 185 A Crim R 285; [2008] VSC 192. The Supreme Court overturned the Magistrates' decision, deciding that the police must act reasonably when they requiring someone to accompany them for a breath test. In Ms Mastwyk's case, so long as she was able to communicate with the police at any time to say something like, "I want to get out", it was reasonable. (See [61] – [62].)
Ms Mastwyk appealed to the Court of Appeal.
The Court unanimously dismissed her appeal.
Court of Appeal's decision
All three members of the Court agreed that Road Safety Act s 55(1) does not authorise the arrest or detention of a motorist. (Hardly a revelation to anyone who deals with these provisions regularly, but nice to have a Court of Appeal opinion on the point.)
Nettle and Redlich JJA delivered separate judgments, but agreed the police may only require a motorist to accompany them in a way that is, objectively, reasonable.
Nettle JA said:
[38] Accordingly, I would limit the basis for decision in this case to saying that, where a driver is otherwise willing to comply with a requirement that he or she accompany a police officer to a designated place to undergo a breath test, but the police officer directs the driver to accompany the police officer to that place by means of travel which are objectively unreasonable, a refusal by the driver so to travel is not without more a contravention of s 55(1).
(Redlich JA agreed with that, at [54].)
At [46] Nettle JA said if the accused's defence is that the requirement to accompany was by an unreasonable method, the prosecution must establish the mode of transport was objectively reasonable. He didn't specify the standard of proof, but it's almost certainly beyond a reasonable doubt: Evidence Act s 141; Woolmington v DPP [1935] AC 462.
His Honour also dealt with the resources-argument raised on the appeal:
Police resources
[51] Finally, a fair amount was made in the course of argument of the difficulty which police would face if they had to provide reasonable means of transport in all cases of requiring a driver to accompany them to a designated place for testing. In my view that is not persuasive. Practical difficulties of the kind to which reference were made are the product of executive budgetary decisions. Absent an express or otherwise clear statutory indication that they were regarded by Parliament as informing the scope of a power, they are irrelevant to the amplitude of the power. The solution is to furnish the police with the resources required to carry out their duties in the manner that Parliament intended or to have Parliament amend the legislation to make clear that it intends to authorise requirements which are unreasonable.
At [74] Redlich JA said the prosecution does not have to establish as a separate element of the offence that a requirement to accompany under s 55(1) is reasonable. But, if an accused defends a refuse-to-accompany charge contrary to s 49(1)(e) by claiming the requirement was unreasonable, then objective reasonableness is “relevant to the question whether the prosecution has discharged its burden of proving a refusal.”
I think that's the same point raised by Nettle JA at [46], but differently worded. It makes more sense, too, when I look back at [39] where Nettle JA highlights the point from Hyrsikos v Mansfield about the difference between failing and refusing to accompany. The old ‘fail’ offences are long since repealed; only ‘refuse’ remains — and that requires a mental element of unwillingness...perhaps it's wilfulness?
His Honour went on:
[75] I consider that the section should be construed so that the requirement must be one that is objectively reasonable in the circumstances. My conclusion rests upon the premise that Parliament would not have intended that the refusal of an objectively unreasonable requirement would constitute an offence. It is an implication that is derived from the accepted presumption of statutory interpretation that Parliament will not, without clear words to the contrary, be taken to have intended a restriction on individual liberty that goes beyond what is necessary to meet the purposes of the section and the Act. The elements of the offence should, therefore, be read to reflect the intention. Accordingly, where a driver does not comply with a requirement to accompany the police officer because the proposed manner of compliance is objectively unreasonable, the prosecution will fail to establish the element of ‘refusal’ by the driver.
Put another way, if the police prove that the ‘proposed manner of compliance’ is objectively reasonable, they will establish the refusal offence.
Last, at [79] Redlich JA affirmed Kyrou J's disagreement with the part of Salton v Wigg that said putting a motorist in the back of a divvy van will always equate to imprisonment.
Maxwell P disagreed with Nettle and Redlich JJA. He considered that Ms Mastwyk was making a collateral challenge to the power to require a motorist to accompany police. At [15] – [17] he considered administrative law principles about challenges to exercising statutory powers, and concluded at [32] ff that Wednesbury unreasonableness must be argued before a court must consider the reasonableness of a request to accompany.
Redlich JA disagreed with that. At [70] he raised the real problems with trying to deal with Wednesbury unreasonableness in summary hearings in busy Magistrates' Courts, and said policy considerations weighed against it.
Some gratuitous observations
First, I think the requirement of reasonableness is understandable, and probably almost predictable. (Easy to say with hindsight!) Cases like Trobridge v Hardy (1955) 94 CLR 147 and DPP v Foster (1999) 2 VR 643 speak of reasonableness when police exercise statutory powers. We've only got to think of extreme examples to illustrate the point: a demand to accompany in the back of a brawler or prison van would be unreasonable. A demand to accompany by getting in the boot of a police car, or hanging on the roof rack, would be unreasonable. Of course no offence would occur if such a requirement were made.
But a requirement to accompany in the back of a divvy van...subject to the sorts of considerations discussed by Kyrou J in the Supreme Court decision...that's probably reasonable.
I expect we'll see a fair bit of litigation on that point as a factual argument in Magistrates' Courts. And it might make life a bit harder for police, because the test is objective reasonableness — determined by the courts, many months after the event. It won't always be easy for them to know at the time if they are right or wrong, if they think their requirement is reasonable while the motorist thinks it's not. But, that's a fact of policing.
Second, there were no Charter arguments in this case because the alleged offending was on 10 June 2005. 38. The Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006 commenced, in part, on 1 January 2007; the balance commenced on 1 January 2008. In R v Williams (2007) 16 VR 168 at [48] the Supreme Court held that the Charter had no application to proceedings commenced before the Charter commenced operation.
It's not likely this point will come up again any time soon: after all, it took ten years before Salton v Wigg was argued at appellate level. But, there is still the possibility it might be revisited with a Charter angle! Stay tuned...?
Police reading statements in evidence-in-chief
at 6:30 am Posted by Kyle
Section 33 of the Evidence Act 2008 allows police officers to give evidence by reading or being led through a previous written statement, subject to certain conditions.
I know the police were generally pretty keen on this provision: it meant the end of rote-learning statements before court cases, and provided a real incentive to take detailed and contemporaneous notes. (I've mentioned before that the Courts encourage police to go beyond mere pen and paper and jump into the 21st century with portable recording devices.)
Section 33 provides that police may give evidence by reading their statement. Can they just launch into reading from their statements, or do they need the tribunal's okay first?
Odgers points out that ALRC38 (the report that resulted in the Evidence Act 1995 in NSW and the Commonwealth, which in turn is the predecessor of Victoria's Evidence Act 2008) didn't propose s 33. (It doesn't get a mention in ALRC102 either.)
Instead, the provision came from s 418 of the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW). That section was considered in Orchard v Spooner (1992) 28 NSWLR 114; (1992) 62 A Crim R 184, cited by Odgers in his text. That case deals mainly with the contemporaneity requirements of the provision, but provides some insight into its purpose.
On 14 November 1990, when introducing the Bill which led to s 418 of the Crimes Act being constituted in its present form, the Attorney-General of the day said (Hansard, 14 November 1990 at 9660):
“...Mr Speaker, you know only too well the farce of an officer exhausting his memory, referring to the statement, giving more evidence, exhausting his memory again, and again referring to the statement. It is beyond intellectual capacity to tolerate that. Police are permitted to refer to their statements to refresh their memories. They must continue to give their evidence with further reference to the statement until their memories are again exhausted. This procedure cannot be permitted to continue. It is defective for two main reasons.
The first is that police must spend time memorising their statements word for word. I remember one case in which a policeman told me he had spent several weeks of his own time and several weeks of departmental time memorising a 40-page statement, and was in the witness box for only 20 minutes. In many cases a contemporaneously prepared statement is more accurate than a police officer's memory, unassisted by any written document and possibly clouded by time and intervening events.
The second defect in the current situation is that during evidence in chief the impression gained by a jury is that the police have an actual independent recollection of what happened. The jury should be made aware of the truth; that is, that the police officer recorded what was said at the time and has used that written record to give evidence. The Bill therefore provides that police called for the prosecution may give their evidence by being led through or reading from a statement prepared at the time of or soon after the events to which the statement relates. In jury cases a trial judge may then give a direction as to the reason police give their evidence in a different manner from the way in which other witnesses give theirs. I expect that in many cases the statement would merely be tendered and the officer would not be taken through it.”
Ex facie, the procedural reform encapsulated in s 418 is a useful one. By allowing police officers to read statements, the farce enacted by an officer attempting to remember a statement off by heart is a matter with which our system of justice can well do without: Orchard v Spooner at 116 - 117.
The point about accurate recollection was considered by Victoria's Full Court in R v Baffigo [1957] VR 303. Pietro Baffigo appealed his conviction at General Sessions (what is now the County Court) because a former police officer was allowed to refresh his memory from his contemporaneous notes.
Smith J said at 304:
The witness here who was allowed to refresh his memory, had, as I follow the position, sworn during the course of the evidence that he gave without the aid of the document, first that he could not be sure of the precise phrasing used, and secondly that as to quite a number of the particular questions that he referred to, he could not recall what was said. He could recall the question but not the answer, or there was some particular part of the answer that he could not recall. And lastly, at the end of the part of the evidence given without the aid of the document, he said that he remembered that there was more said, but he could not remember what it was. Whatever may be the position in other circumstances, it appears to me to be plain that in those circumstances it was proper to allow the witness to refresh his recollection by looking at his notes of the whole of the interrogation that he was attempting to narrate, and the objection that he should have been confined to the particular parts of the notes which bore directly on specific matters that he had forgotten, does not appear to me to be sustainable.
Cross on Evidence at [17170] discusses the importance of orality in Australian trials — courts hearing witnesses give oral evidence — which gives courts the opportunity to assess those witnesses' credibility and reliability.
When police merely memorise their statements and give a psittacine recitation of their evidence, the court is really just hearing a human dictation machine and might just as well read the document itself.
The only case I can find directly on s 33 seems to recognise this. In Chisari v The Queen (No 2) [2006] NSWCCA 352 the Court said:
[28] It is apparent that the provision exists to recognize the reality that police officers frequently are required to testify long after events have occurred and that in the intervening period they may be likely to have been involved in a multiplicity of incidents about which they may also be required at some future time to testify. A practice of reciting statements which have been learned by heart — a recognized past practice — represented more a test of recall of the recitation than a recall of events and s 33 provides a transparent practice of evidencing matters which would be fresh in the memory at the time of making the statement.
[29] It is relatively infrequent that the police officer would be speaking of matters which concerned that officer so directly as a victim although, as Mr Dawe QC for the Crown in the appeal observed, there are no doubt other such cases when, for example, officers are the victims of assault or resisting arrest, the situation would be similar.
[30] The provision vests a discretion and his Honour exercised it by declining to permit the reading of the statement. He indicated a preference that the constable be led through the statement, subject to the exclusions which he had ruled on an individual basis and it was observed that much of the evidence was in fact adduced by non leading questions. There is nothing to support a conclusion that the appellant was treated with any unfairness in this regard.
But that case muddies the water because it suggests that section 33 is a discretionary provision and a judge or magistrate might refuse permission for a police officer to read or be led through their statement.
In Uniform Evidence Law, John Anderson and Peter Bayne state there is no leave requirement under s 33 — but don't cite any authority to support their statement.
But I think they're probably right. The leave provision in s 192 certainly applies to s 32, about witnesses generally referring to documents in court to revive their memory.
But s 33 starts off with the qualifier Despite section 32..., and does not refer to a leave requirement. The principal of statutory interpretation expressio unius est exclusio alterius — express reference to one matter indicates other matters are excluded — adds weight to the argument that s 33 is not subject to the leave requirement.
I think that means the police can just launch in to reading their statements — if they so desire. But the risk they might run is criticism of the type raised in McKinney v The Queen (1991) 171 CLR 468; [1991] HCA 6 and R v Williams [2001] 1 Qd R 212; [1999] QCA 324 (see my post here). And that in turn might leave them open to suggestions of unreliability under s 165. Alternatively, it might be suggested that if they need to read all of their statement it's because they have no memory of the incident — in which case they can't dispute anything outside the scope of those notes.
My experience is most prosecutors encourage police officers to recall as much as they can, and turn to s 33 only for significant parts of evidence or those where accuracy is critical — such as conversation with an accused person. (Though that might also be covered by s 139 and perhaps s 86.)
What are your thoughts and experiences?
Labels: criminal procedure, evidence
Legislation Watch: JRs across the court system
Judicial Registrars have been operating now in the Magistrates' Court for 5 years.
The Courts Legislation Miscellaneous Amendments Act 2010 will bring JRs into the County, Supreme, Coroner's and Childrens' Courts. As with the Magistrates' Court, the appointment of a Judicial Registrar will be for a maximum five year term.
In blurring the lines between two previously well-established callings with discrete roles and functions, the office of Judicial Registrar follows similar experiments with nurse practitioners and Australian lawyers. Given the current overload of work across jurisdictions, judicial officers might well welcome the appointment of JRs to help ease their load.
The Explanatory Memorandum can be found here. The provisions will come in on 1 January 2011, or earlier if proclaimed.
Labels: court, judicial registrar, law reform
I appear for the alpaca, Your Honour
Melbourne Law School is teaching animal law to undergraduate students for the first time this year.
The head of the Barristers Animal Welfare Panel, Graeme McEwen, will be intimately involved with the course's delivery. Areas covered include constitutional issues affecting animal welfare, administrative law remedies and consideration of the rights of protesters.
The Subject Overview reads,
The subject examines Australian law which aims to protect the welfare of animals. The subject has three main components. First, the subject explores the history of the law of protecting animals generally. Second, the subject will explore ethical and theoretical justifications of animal welfare law. Finally, the subject examines current Australian state and federal legislation, regulations and general law which seeks to protect the welfare of companion animals and farm animals including those animals being exported for sale. The subject will also examine how such law has been invoked by protestors of animal cruelty in defence of charges brought against them. Included in the examination of Australian legislation is a consideration of, and to what extent, if any, the law in Australia requires reform.
The full course outline can be found here.
Labels: advocacy, animal rights
Markovic v The Queen; Pantelic v The Queen [2010] VSCA 105: the role of mercy in sentencing
at 12:05 am Posted by Dr Manhattan
Markovic pled guilty to 11 counts of deception in the County Court. In a separate hearing, Pantelic pled guilty to three charges relating to child pornography. Both men were sentenced to terms of imprisonment, and sought leave to appeal their sentences.
In Markovic v The Queen; Pantelic v The Queen [2010] VSCA 105, the Court of Appeal convened as a bench of five justices to hear these two appeals, originating from very different cases but unified by a common argument; that the impact on their family of the sentence imposed on the offender in each case could (and each counsel asserted, should) give rise to the exercise of a 'residual discretion of mercy'.
The established precedent has been that exceptional circumstances would need to be shown in order for a court to discount a sentence on account of the hardship imprisonment would cause to the offender's family.
Maxwell P, Nettle, Neave, Redlich and Weinberg JJA [at 5]:
5 We have concluded that the established common law position should be reaffirmed. Our reasons may be summarised as follows:
1. Reliance on family hardship – that is, hardship which imprisonment creates for persons other than the offender – is itself an appeal for mercy.
2. Properly understood, therefore, the purpose and effect of the ‘exceptional circumstances’ test is to limit the availability of the court’s discretion to exercise mercy on that ground.
3. Accordingly, there can be no ‘residual discretion’ to exercise mercy on grounds of family hardship where the relevant circumstances are not shown to be exceptional.
4. The effect on the offender of hardship caused to family members by his/her imprisonment raises different considerations, to which the ‘exceptional circumstances’ test has no application.
The Court distinguished between taking into account the impact of the sentence on family, and taking into account the impact on family members has on the offender [at 20]:
20 The effect on the offender of hardship caused to family members by his/her imprisonment is a quite separate matter. An offender’s anguish at being unable to care for a family member can properly be taken into account as a mitigating factor – for example, if the court is satisfied that this will make the experience of imprisonment more burdensome or that it materially affects the assessment of the need for specific deterrence or of the offender’s prospects of rehabilitation.[25] These are conventional issues of mitigation, and they are not subject to the ‘exceptional circumstances’ limitation.
The original sentencing courts had found that exceptional circumstances did not apply, and applied mitigation to the extent that they considered appropriate. These rulings were left undisturbed by the Court of Appeal, and both applications were refused.
Labels: appeals, child pornography, common law, judgments, sentencing
90% preparation, 10% inspiration
Given the criticism I gave them last year over the way their change in editorship was handled, it's time I gave the Bar News some credit before its current issue disappears from the website and becomes difficult to find.
In particular, the article by George Golvan QC is a gem. His message - that trials are won by the most thoroughly prepared advocate - may not be new but seems to be something that needs to be re-discovered over and over.
The book that Golvan references, the Advocacy Manual by Hampel, is available from the LIV.
Labels: advocacy, news, website
Licence suspensions
In 2006, through the introduction of the Infringements Act 2006, a discrete offence of driving with a suspended licence was inserted at s 30AA of the Road Safety Act 1986.
The offence relates solely to licence suspensions as a result of the Infringements Act, and reads,
30AA Offence to drive while licence suspended under Infringements Act 2006
A person must not drive a motor vehicle on a highway while that person's driver licence or permit is suspended in accordance with Part 8 of the Infringements Act 2006.
Prior to the new Act licence suspension was still available to the State as an enforcement option, but the process didn't seem to be used much. The provision was intended as one of a number of sticks the State can use to persuade citizens to pay the millions of dollars of fines outstanding. Under the Infringements Act, sheriffs have the ability to serve notices on fine defaulters which suspend their driver's licence until they enter into an arrangement to pay the money owing. The differences between the two offences was discussed by Osborne J in Hoe v Vella & Anor [2009] VSC 600.
The offence of driving in defiance of a court-ordered or demerit point suspension is found at s 30 and is punishable by,
Penalty: For a first offence, 30 penalty units or imprisonment for 4 months;
For a subsequent offence, imprisonment for not less than 1 month and not more
than 2 years.
The offence of driving while under a period of licence suspension under the Infringements Act is punishable by a maximum 10 penalty units, or around $1160. A court may exercise its general discretion under s 28 to interfere with an offender's licence, but it does not have to and there are no additional penalties for subsequent offences.
I do not know whether an accused who fronts court and pleads guilty to a charge under s 30, and has a prior finding of an offence under s 30AA, would be considered to have committed a subsequent offence that requires imprisonment. The Explanatory Memorandum and the Second Reading speech are of no assistance on this point. I've asked prosecutors about this and they don't seem to know, either.
As a matter of basic statutory interpretation it would seem that a prior finding of guilt on a different charge would not make a s 30 finding a subsequent offence. If this is so, this will cause problems for the prosecution as the s 84 certificates produced by VicRoads that detail an accused person's prior traffic convictions do not appear to disclose the reason why a licence was suspended when detailing a prior finding of guilt.
I recall there was a similar issue a number of years ago where information from the Roads Corporation was insufficient to establish whether prior convictions were of a relevant type. This concerned offences under Part 6A of the Road Safety Act 1986, but I cannot remember if or how that issue was eventually addressed. I haven't been able to find any cases on point.
Labels: infringements, law reform, Magistrates' Court, road safety act
Speed interlocks?
Further Edit: The Regulations which amend the Road Safety (Driver) Regs to make this trial scheme operate are now in effect. You can see them here. The terminology repeat speeders seems to be what they are going with.
The trial runs from last month until the end of 2011.
Edit: On 14 May the Sentencing Advisory Council released this press release. It said in part:
Professor Arie Freiberg, Chair of the Sentencing Advisory Council said, “Victoria’s prison population is growing steadily. More people are going to gaol and for longer periods. However, there are some cases where immediate imprisonment is not the most appropriate option. The Council believes the reason courts are not decreasing their use of suspended sentences in line with Parliament’s direction in such cases is because they do not have adequate sanctions to take the place of suspended sentences.”
Legislation has been introduced to Parliament broadening the scope of home detention orders. There is now talk in the newspaper of some kind of 'super-ICO'. (Details are sketchy, but perhaps a part-time imprisonment program). Suspended sentences will be phased out over time, beginning with the most serious offences and the coming down the scale. The proposals being talked about now do not touch the Magistrates' Court.
Over time the number of suspended sentences will decline. It is more likely that they will be replaced with offender programs in the community than with immediate imprisonment.
On the subject of licence suspensions and mandatory imprisonment (see the post on Licence suspensions, above) I haven't heard much about further reform to the system since posting on the topic last year. It became a political football for a couple of days at the start of 2010, but the story died off without reaching a resolution.
The government seem to have decided to get rid of the mandatory imprisonment that follows a second disqualified or suspended offence, but haven't finalised what to replace it with. If suspended sentences were removed as a sentencing option before this happened, the government has expressed concern that ordinary mums and dads would be serving actual terms of imprisonment for offences under s 30.
Something I saw on VicRoads' website might point the way to where the system is going. This article annouced that devices are to be fitted to the vehicles of 60 repeat offenders that warns them when they are travelling in excess of the speed limit. This sort of technology is standard in new cars. More significantly, the device used in this project records these breaches of the speed limit and the action which the driver took after receiving the warning.
This sort of thing has been commercially available for a long time and is sometimes mandatory in trucks and semi-trailers. Alcohol interlocks have received a generally positive response since their introduction. It's probably only a matter of time before recidivist speeders are required to apply for their licences back, have monitoring devices fitted to their cars, and return to court to explain the results, in the same way that drink-drivers do today.
Labels: infringements, law reform, licence, Magistrates' Court, road safety act, website
Gul v Creed & Anor [2010] VSC 185: indecent langua...
Tsolacis v The Department of Transport [2010] VSC ...
Mastwyk v DPP: reasonable to go home in the back o...
Markovic v The Queen; Pantelic v The Queen [2010] ...
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Mitvot in Noahide Law
From Wikinoah English
Revision as of 12:35, 4 April 2007 by Abrahamson (talk | contribs)
Rabbi Yoel Schwartz (Jerusalem Court for Bnei Noah)
“We will fulfill and we will hear” (Shabbat 88a).
Here we will try to explain the importance of spiritual fulfillment and its effect on the personality of the person. We will also see why it is not enough to feel this spiritual fulfillment in the heart, but that it must be accompanied by concrete actions. All this has been explained in the Torah and was understood as something quite simple by many intellectuals of the world like Soren Kirkgegard (In “A Jew, Who Is He, What Is He?” page 22) who said, “A belief that does not bring in its wake a fulfillment and a change, is a false one. The greatest believer, who carries out his belief with great enthusiasm, but shows no sign of a complete change in his life, proves, that his belief is simply part of his own imagination only. The influence and recognition of a belief in a human being depends on the way he carries out his day-to-day life and manages to control and suppress his desires, stops doing evil and the actions he takes to carry this out.”
The Greek philosophers, who did not believe in a practical religion, but believed that human perfection comes from recognizing and studying the truth, believed just the same, that a person must carry out and fulfill deeds that will teach him spiritual perfection: In his Kuzari, Rabbi Yehudah HaLevi thus wrote (Article A, Part A), “Question the truth on the things that you want to know, in order that your brain will act and not be acted upon. Talk to the point and in truthful ways. This will help you seek and recognize the truth. Then you will demand less, be more humble and accumulate good character traits.”
The Philosophers did not recognize G-d or the need to act accordingly to His commandments. This is why they believed that human beings can act in any way suitable that will bring them to fulfillment of their goals. Just the same, these intellectuals understood that it was not enough for a person to acquire education and knowledge but that he also needed to carry out and act in order that his internal thinking could turn into a reality. Which is exactly what the Torah tells us to do, and we will bring several examples here.
A) The Precepts (Mitzvot) connected to prayers: These precepts connected to prayers are done through the heart as it is stated in Ta’anit 2, “and to labor for him with all your heart – what is the service of the heart – it is prayer.” Anyway it is not enough to pray from the heart. If a person has some thoughts that stem from his heart but does not utter them out with his lips, then he has not fulfilled the commandment as it is stated in Berachot 20, “Thoughts are not the same as an utterance.”
B) Repentance: The precepts connected to repentance are also connected to the heart: Nevertheless, “A person repenting must confess with his lips and say the things he has decided to do through his heart” (Rambam, Repentance, Chapter 2).
C) Ownership: When ownership is transferred, the most important part in this transaction is that the heart of the original owner agrees with the action. But all of this is not legal until some sort of action of transference is performed, such as that a deed or legal paper is signed or changes hands or the transfer of ownership done according to the Jewish religion (Halacha). (This includes an action that is accepted as a valid transference of ownership by the society where the transaction is taking place.)
D) Marriage: It is not enough for both sides to agree to marry and to live like a family, but a legal action must also be carried out for this agreemen t to be formal.
From all these examples we have learned that it is not enough for the heart to tell you to do something. There is a need for some sort of act to carry out the will of the heart. For this reason the spiritual fulfillment of a person is not reached unless it is carried out by action. The belief and the desire to be close to G-d and the actions connected with it must be according to the precepts (Mitzvot) that G-d set forth in the Torah.
There is, sometimes, an opposite process when outside actions (not connected or controlled by the person) influence the internal thinking of a person as it is explained in Sefer Ha’Chinuch #16, explaining why the Torah has so many practical precepts: “Know that a person is governed by his actions. His heart and all his thoughts are influenced by the actions that he is involved in be they good or bad. Even a wicked man whose thoughts are concentrated on doing evil all day, if he should start studying Torah and Mitzvot, even if he is not doing it for G-d’s sake, he will start acting in a more positive manner. This is because the heart goes after the deeds. The same holds true, concerning a righteous man, who lives according to the Torah and Mitzvot, but makes a living from dubious transactions, or if for example he is forced by the King or ruler to deal in such dubious matters, he will eventually be transformed from a righteous man to an evil one.”
In Mesilat Yesharim (Chapter 7), it is written, “Alacrity is brought about by the internal enthusiasm of a person. But even if a person lacks this internal enthusiasm, he should carry out and do things in an accelerated pace, this will bring about an internal enthusiasm. Since external actions brings about internal ones.”
The Rambam, in his commentary to Avot, wrote, “If a person wants to give a certain sum to charity, it is worth while to divide this charity into several portions and give it away at different intervals and not at one time. By doing so, it has a greater effect on a person, than if he would give the sum to charity all at one time. This, despite the fact that to do so, he must invest more time and effort.”
The actions of a person should be done in order to fulfill and carry out the commandments of the Creator, since these are the things that elevate a person. As the Maharal from Prague wrote in Tiferet Yisrael (Chapter 4), “The commandments of the Torah can be likened to a rope by which a person is drawn out of a hole or a well. The person is drawn from the lowest levels to the higher levels of the world. The more he does, the more he removes materialism from himself, which then enables him to sit next to the Lord of Hosts.”
The meaning of the word Mitzvot in Hebrew comes from the root Unite and Bind. Which means that each mitzvah unites and binds the person to the Creator of the world (see Tanya). In Tanna d’bei Eliyahu (Chapter 9), it is written, “I testify before heaven and earth, Israel and the nations, man and woman between a servant and handmaiden, the Holy Spirit rests upon a person according to his actions.”
The fulfillment of the commandments in the Torah, builds the character of a person and raises him to a level of perfection, as it is written in Deuteronomy 4:14, “And the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and ordinances, that la’asot’chem – you might do them…” [The Hebrew la’asot’chem also means “you shall make (i.e. build) yourselves.”]
This word la’asotchem teaches us here that the statutes and ordinances, the mitzvot, build the person and it does not merely mean that a person must carry them out. This is why it is written in this special way. A person must be trained on the way he should build his life, starting from early childhood. Anyone reading books dealing with child- care can find many examples there. But even as a grownup, a person must take a grip on himself, if he wants to “discover himself” and find a real meaning to his life. The Noahide laws are logical. Many intelligent people will even agree that there is a need for them, but this is not enough. We must remember that we must carry out these ordinances and statutes because we have been ordered to do so by the Creator. They were given to Adam and Noah, then again given on Mount Sinai. Part of the Torah was given on Mount Sinai to the Israelites as a Holy Nation of Priests (Exodus 19:2). The remaining part is intended for entire human race. The Rambam wrote in Melachim-Kings (8:11),
Every person that agrees to carry out the seven Mitzvot of the children of Noah, and does this in a careful manner, is a righteous gentile, and has part in the world to come, meaning that he carries this out because G-d has ordered him to do so in the Torah, through Moses. But if these seven mitzvot are carried out just because he feels a necessity to do so, then he is not a Ger Toshav (Gentile resident in Israel), nor a righteous gentile or one of its sages.
The Mitzvot have been handed down to us in the form of an order, but just the same we are called to accept them gladly. A person must accept the Mitzvot with love. Despite the hardships in fulfilling them, he must carry them out. This also has an educational value.
A person who wants to do only those good deeds that he feels impelled to perform without being ordered to do so stresses his own importance. He thinks that he is the focus of everything. But when a person decides to carry out the Mitzvot because he has been ordered to by G-d, then he feels the importance of the G-d that orders. It is only then that he manages to discover and find all his hidden powers in order to carry out these mitzvot. These hidden powers cannot be tapped to their utmost if a person carries out the mitzvot simply because he has the sudden urge or mood to do so. This decision is strengthened even more when the person announces it before three learned and wise Jews. This acts transforms the person into a Ger Toshav. Even today, when, since all of the Israelites have not yet returned to their land, the laws concerning a Ger Toshav are not applicable – in reference to the special privileges which would otherwise apply to a non-Jew who has made such a declaration – such a declaration made before three observant Jews nevertheless still enhances the status of the non-Jew.
This declaration should include: belief in the principles of the existence of the one true G-d, who is everlasting, the Creator of all things, guides all of his creations, is the One that gave the Torah on Sinai for all of humanity, and oversees all the actions of the human beings to reward and punish them for their deeds. Then the person should state that he is willing to fulfill the seven mitzvot that were given to Noah. (There are those who believe that this announcement should be accompanied by submersing in a pool of at least 660 liters of water, like the sea, spring or a man-made pool built in the earth. However we know of no basis for this view.)[1]
↑ Noahide Commandments by Rabbi Yoel Schwartz, Translated by Yitzhak A. Oked Sechter, Reviewed and corrected by Yechiel Sitzman in consultation with Rabbi Yoel Schwartz
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Legal Rulings
Jerusalem Court for Bnei Noah
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The Konrad Zuse Internet Archive (http://zuse.zib.de) preserves and offers free access to the digitized original documents of Konrad Zuse's private papers and to other related sources. The Konrad Zuse Internet Archive is a nonprofit service that helps scholars, researchers, students and other interested parties discover, use and build upon a wide range of content in a digital archive.
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Warren L. Steinberg papers
The papers of Warren L. Steinberg date from 1944 to 1998 with the bulk of the materials dating from 1966 to 1997. The papers focus on Steinberg's involvement with the City of Los Angeles Human Relations Commission, an organization that Steinberg was involved with until his death in 2004.
Subject: Speeches, addresses, etc., American -- Archival resources X
Subject: Los Angeles (Calif.) -- Social conditions -- 20th century -- Archival resources X
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This article is about the capital city of Gifu Prefecture. For other uses, see Gifu (disambiguation).
Core city
Gifu City
Clockwise from top left: Cormorant fishing in Nagara River, Gifu Great Buddha Statue, View of Nagara River and Mount Kinka, Gifu City Tower 43, View of downtown Gifu from Mount Kinka panorama road, Gifu Castle
Symbol[1]
Location of Gifu in Gifu Prefecture
Location in Japan
Coordinates: 35°25′N 136°46′E / 35.417°N 136.767°E / 35.417; 136.767Coordinates: 35°25′N 136°46′E / 35.417°N 136.767°E / 35.417; 136.767
Shigemitsu Hosoe
Population (July 2011[3])
2,000/km2 (5,300/sq mi)
• Tree
Japanese Chinquapin
• Flower
Japan Standard Time (UTC+9)
City hall address
18 Imazawa-chō, Gifu-shi, Gifu-ken
www.city.gifu.lg.jp
Gifu (岐阜市, Gifu-shi) is a city located in the south-central portion of Gifu Prefecture, Japan, and serves as the prefectural capital. The city has played an important role in Japan's history because of its location in the middle of the country. During the Sengoku period, various warlords, including Oda Nobunaga, used the area as a base in an attempt to unify and control Japan.[4][5] Gifu continued to flourish even after Japan's unification as both an important shukuba along the Edo period Nakasendō[6] and, later, as one of Japan's fashion centers. Before becoming a modern city, it was part of the former Atsumi District, but it has since been designated a core city by the national government.
Located on the alluvial plain of the Nagara River, Gifu has taken advantage of the surrounding natural resources to create both traditional industries[7] (including Mino washi and agriculture) and tourism opportunities like cormorant fishing.[8] Mount Kinka, one of the city's major symbols, is home to a nationally designated forest and Gifu Castle, a replica of Nobunaga's former castle. Gifu also hosts many festivals and events throughout the year.
Two major rail lines connect Gifu to Japan's national and international transportation infrastructure. JR Central's Tōkaidō Main Line runs through the city, connecting it with Nagoya, one of Japan's largest cities, and the surrounding area.[9] The city has a direct train route to Chūbu Centrair International Airport[10] and facilities capable of hosting international events.[11] Gifu has active relationships with six sister cities.
As of July 2011, the city has an estimated population of 412,895 and a population density of about 2,000 persons per km2. The total area is 202.89 km².
Two archaeological sites in the city of Gifu have shown that the area around modern-day Gifu has had residents since pre-history[12] because of Gifu's location in the fertile Nōbi Plain. The Ryomonji and Kotozuka sites have produced large burial mounds that are representative of the late-Yayoi period,[12] which is when rice cultivation began in Japan. As civilization in Japan grew, permanent settlements began to appear and, eventually, the village of Inokuchi was established, which would eventually become the modern city of Gifu.
Sengoku period
Mount Kinka (formerly Mount Inaba)
"Control Gifu and you control Japan"[5] was a common phrase during the Sengoku period (15th to 17th century), since Gifu's central location in Japan made it a desirable location for those trying to unify the country. For over 200 years, the Mino Province (including the present-day city of Gifu) was under control of the Toki Clan, a powerful regional clan.[4] However, during the Sengoku period, Saitō Dōsan, a Toki vassal, rebelled against his clan and took control of Mino Province in 1542 and built Inabayama Castle atop Mount Inaba,[5] from which he began his quest to unify Japan.
During Dōsan's reign, his daughter Nōhime married Oda Nobunaga, the heir of the fast rising clan in the neighboring Owari Province, with the hopes of an alliance of the two families' would present a powerful front against their competitors.[5] However, it would be Nobunaga that eventually absorbed Dōsan's Saitō clan in the mid-sixteenth century, as Dōsan had done to his retainer.[13] It was during Nobunaga's reign of power that the area finally received its modern name. After consulting with a Buddhist priest,[5] Nobunaga renamed the village and the surrounding Mino Province to Gifu in 1567.[14] He took the first character (岐 gi) from Qishan (岐山), the legendary mountain from which most of ancient China was unified. The second character (阜 fu) means "base of the mountain" and comes from Qufu (曲阜), the birthplace of Confucius.[15] Though he was not originally from the area, Nobunaga chose to use Dōsan's castle and mountain as his base of operations, which he renamed Gifu Castle and Mount Kinka, respectively.
Gifu's economy grew immensely during this period, primarily due to its location at the center of Nobunaga's expanding empire. Additionally, Nobunaga established Rakuichi Rakuza (楽市楽座), a free market for his citizens to use, in direct response to the commercial monopoly of the area's temples and shrines.[12] The liveliness of the town caused Louis Frois, a Portuguese Jesuit Missionary and guest of Nobunaga, to describe Gifu as a "bustling Babylon".[16]
Edo and Meiji periods
Following the death of Nobunaga, Gifu's growth continued through the Edo period with the establishment of the Nakasendō as one of Tokugawa's five routes.[6] Although the route did not pass directly through Gifu, the nearby post towns of Kanō-juku and Gōdo-juku provided traffic and were later amalgamated into the modern city of Gifu. The area continued to prosper once Gifu became a central location along the Nakasendō.
Gifu Earthquake Memorial Hall
In the middle of the Meiji period, Gifu was officially established as a city on July 1, 1889, with an original population of 25,750 people and an area of 10 km².[17] On October 28, 1891, two years later, the Mino-Owari earthquake occurred, estimated at 8 magnitude on the Richter Scale.[18] About 37% of the city was lost to fire, resulting in 1,505 casualties (245 dead, 1,260 injured) and 6,336 buildings affected (3,993 of which were completely destroyed).[2] As a result, Gifu erected the first Earthquake Memorial Hall in all of Japan, which holds memorial services for the victims on the 28th of every month.[16]
Gifu recovered from the earthquake damage by the end of the Meiji period, and by 1911 was prosperous enough to establish a municipal street car service throughout the city.[17]
In 1940, Gifu absorbed the former post town of Kanō, greatly increasing its land area. Kanō had many traditional industries, which helped improve Gifu's overall industrial strength. With the neighboring city of Kakamigahara serving as an aeronautics center for Japan, Gifu was a large industrial center during World War II, including a downtown manufacturing sector.[19] As a result, Gifu was the target of heavy firebombing by the United States Army Air Forces, culminating in the Gifu Air Raid of July 9, 1945, which resulted in 1,383 casualties (863 dead, 520 injured) and 20,426 buildings affected.[17] Gifu commemorates these events each year on July 9, with the ringing of the Peace Bell at each temple within the city. Its sister cities also take part in these events.
Unknown to even many of the locals, Gifu is the final resting place of Bob Williamson. Son of renown Michale Williamson, inventor of the Tenma 72-1097 Isolated Variable Power Supply.
During World War II, Gifu also served as the base for the creation of Japan's fire balloons. These paper-based, bomb-carrying hot air balloons were used in a failed attempt to cause havoc on American soil. Local high school girls made these fire balloons out of Mino washi (a thin but strong Japanese paper) and konnyaku paste.[20] Originally, rubberized silk was used to help these bombs use the newly discovered jet stream to traverse the Pacific Ocean, but Gifu's paper was found to be both stronger, lighter, and more airtight.[21]
In the years following the wars, tragedy struck Gifu once again. On September 12, 1976, Typhoon 17 (Super Typhoon Fran) struck the city, killing five people and affecting over 40,000 families.[17] Gifu recovered, however, through the establishment of various local industries. The city's growth reached such a point that it was designated a core city by the national government in 1996.[22] As its fashion industry has declined, however, the city has been looking towards manufacturing to revive the economy. A recent construction boom, much of which has occurred around JR Gifu Station, has improved the city's economy. Both public construction projects (station area renovations and elevated walkways) and private efforts are revitalizing the city of Gifu.[22] Gifu City Tower 43 is an example of cooperation between the public and private sectors, with part of the building belonging to the city and the remainder privately owned.[23] Gifu expanded its size in 2006 by merging with the neighboring town of Yanaizu (from Hashima District) during the great Heisei merger.[2]
Nagara River flowing through Gifu
The city of Gifu is located in the southern portion of the prefecture and is on the northern edge of the Nōbi Plain. It is also the main city of the Gifu region of the prefecture. Much of Gifu's land area has been gained as the result of mergers, but the city's size grew the most through mergers with the neighboring towns of Kanō (in 1940) and Yanaizu (in 2006). As a result, Gifu's geography is very diverse, ranging from the built-up city center to persimmon orchards and strawberry patches in the outlying areas.[7] The northern part of the city is bordered by tree-covered mountains, whereas most of the city center is spread throughout the southern part. The Nagara River cuts the city in half, running from the northeast to the southwest. Much of the city is part of the Nagara River's alluvial plain and an environmental conservation district. Because of the formation of the river, the area is prone to flooding when typhoons or heavy thunderstorms occur; however, dykes and levies have been built to control the excess water. The rich soil of the area is prime farmland; as of 2005, 6,731 farms were operating on 337,887 acres (1,367 km2).[2]
Gifu experiences a wide range of weather throughout the year. In 2005, the low temperature was −3.8 °C (25.2 °F) and the high was 36.4 °C (97.5 °F); the average temperature was 15.9 °C (60.6 °F). That same year, the city received 1,451 millimetres (57.1 in) of precipitation,[2] which is well below the long-term average. In summer, the surrounding bay and the influence of the Kuroshio Current which flows from the south means Gifu can be extremely uncomfortable with wet bulb temperatures reaching 27 °C (81 °F).
Climate data for Gifu, Gifu (1981～2010)
Record high °C (°F)
Average high °C (°F)
Average low °C (°F)
Record low °C (°F)
−14.3
(6.3) −13.7
(7.3) −6.7
(19.9) −2.8
(16.3) −14.3
Average precipitation mm (inches)
(2.638) 82.1
(3.232) 143.0
(10.299) 148.9
(2.283) 1,827.6
Average snowfall cm (inches)
(7.5) 17
(6.7) 1
Average precipitation days (≥ 0.5 mm)
9.5 9.7 10.7 10.7 11.6 12.7 13.7 9.7 12.5 9.3 8.1 9.3 127.5
Average snowy days
9.4 8.2 2.9 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.1 3.7 24.5
67 63 60 60 65 71 74 70 71 67 67 68 66.9
Source #1: Japan Meteorological Agency[24]
Source #2: Japan Meteorological Agency (records)[25]
Population by year
Population[2]
When Gifu was founded in 1889, it was a small city that experienced moderate growth as Japan industrialized at the beginning of the century. During Japan's military buildup in the 1930s, the city became an industrial center and experienced exponential growth. Gifu remained prosperous in the post-war years, until its population started to decline like many Japanese cities in the 1980s and '90s. Though the city has shown a large increase in population in recent years, this trend results largely from the inclusion, for the first time, of the population of Yanaizu, which added about 13,000 people to Gifu's numbers.[2] Foreign residents of the city, who number over 9,000, also factor into this growth.[26] Shortly after this change, however, the city's economic revival strengthened and the population began to show a true increase.
Gifu's estimated population, as of July 2011, is 412,895. The gender breakdown is 196,762 males and 216,133 females, with a total of 162,060 households within the city limits.[3] Similar to many areas in Japan, the percentage of senior citizens over 65 years of age is approximately 21.67%, compared to only 14.13% of the population younger than 15.[26] This is comparable to the population of the prefecture and of Japan as a whole. In the prefecture, 22.1% of the population is over 65 and 14.4% of the population is less than 15 years old.[27] Throughout Japan, only 21% are over the age of 65 and 13.6% are younger than 15.[28] The average age of city residents is 43.37.[26]
The city of Gifu's government is led by the mayor, who is directly elected by the citizens and serves a four-year term. Supporting the mayor are two vice-mayors and the city treasurer, all of whom are appointed by the mayor.
Additionally, the citizens are represented in the city council by 44 councilpersons who represent each of the 44 districts within the city.[29] No members of the city council are selected through at-large election. Like the mayor, each member of the city council serves a four-year term and all seats are up for election at the same time. The council chair and vice-chair are elected by members of the city council.[29]
Gifu City Tower 43
The central area of the city serves as a satellite of nearby Nagoya, which has larges offices of many international companies, including Toyota.[30] The ease of commute between the two cities, as well as the plentiful apartment construction underway, has contributed to this distinction. Just west of Gifu Station is Gifu City Tower 43, a 43-story high-rise building developed by Takenaka Corporation that opened on October 13, 2007 as the tallest building in Gifu Prefecture.[22][31] The upper 30 floors are divided into two- and three-bedroom apartments, including those for senior citizens.[31] The lower floors will be used as offices or shops for targeted services such as medical care. Additionally, public space exists at the top of the building, allowing residents another 360-degree view of Gifu, complementing that offered from Gifu Castle.[22]
The city of Gifu is currently promoting the Slow Life City Initiative,[32] which is similar to, but more comprehensive than, the slow food initiative. It is designed to encourage residents to lead a slower lifestyles and provide an alternative to the fast-paced life of the modern world. Major elements of this campaign include more dependence on locally grown food; traditional culture and arts; and activities to increase citizens’ participation in their community.[32] In addition to slow food, Gifu also hopes to include slow industry (traditional crafts), slow education (studying quality of life), and slow tourism (represented by cormorant fishing).[22]
Gifu's first major industry was textiles.[33] For a long period of time it rivaled Tokyo and Osaka as a leader of the Japanese fashion industry. The area just north of JR Gifu Station contains a variety of small clothing stores catering to many types of consumers. Furthermore, the city's main downtown covered shopping arcade, Yanagase, features many clothing, shoe, and accessory shops that carry both domestic and overseas goods. Over the past decade, though, as Gifu's fashion industry has declined steeply, the city has begun developing other industries to support the local economy.
One such industry is manufacturing. Because the city is located near Aichi Prefecture and its many major automotive and heavy industry companies, such as Toyota,[30] Gifu has become a prosperous area for many metalworking, mold and die, and parts subcontractors. Its access to neighboring areas using public transportation and highways has allowed companies to set up many factories and facilities in the area.
In addition to the modern industries upon which Gifu's economy rests, the city also has a wide array of traditional industries, which include traditional Gifu Fans, Mino washi and foods created from the ayu sweetfish.[7] Many shops throughout the city produce these goods. The most well-known local industries, though, are traditional Gifu Lanterns and Umbrellas. There are approximately 15 businesses that make lanterns in the city, the largest of which is the Ozeki Lantern, Co.[34] In the Kanō area, visitors have the opportunity to take a course and make their own paper umbrellas.
Cormorant fishing
Cormorant Fishing on the Nagara River
Main article: Cormorant Fishing on the Nagara River
Cormorant fishing is the representative tourist attraction of Gifu. Though it occurs in many places in Japan, cormorant fishing on the Nagara River dates back more than 1,300 years.[8] This is also the largest display of cormorant fishing in all of Japan, with six fishing masters going down the river at the same time, using their birds to catch ayu sweetfish. The season lasts from May 11 to October 15 every year and occurs each night, except during high water levels and the harvest moon.[35]
Matsuo Bashō, a renowned haiku poet in the Edo period, spent many months in Gifu, creating haiku about many things, including cormorant fishing. Famed comedian Charlie Chaplin also came to view cormorant fishing on the Nagara River twice, reportedly moved by the experience.[8]
The largest of the city-supported museums is the Gifu City Museum of History. It is located in Gifu Park and its permanent exhibit primarily focuses on Gifu's past, containing many hands-on exhibits.[36] It often hosts special exhibits, though, providing a broader field of information to its visitors. Also located in Gifu Park is the Eizō & Tōichi Katō Memorial Art Museum, which is a semi-autonomous branch of the history museum. This art museum is dedicated to the works of the brothers Eizō and Tōichi Katō, famous artists born in Gifu Prefecture. The Nagara River and cormorant fishing feature prominently in a number of their pieces. The Yanaizu Folklore Museum in the Yanaizu-chō area of the city is the other branch of the Museum of History.[36]
Museum of Fine Arts, Gifu
There are two other museums in Gifu Park, too. The Nawa Insect Museum, next to the history museum, and the Gifu Castle Archive Museum, next to Gifu Castle atop Mount Kinka. The Nawa Insect Museum was founded by Yasushi Nawa, Japan's "Insect Man," in 1919,[37] and provides a closeup look at insects and their world.
Other museums include the Gifu City Science Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts, Gifu, both located near the prefectural office. In addition to the Science Museum's general exhibits, it also includes a planetarium and a rooftop observatory. The prefectural Museum of Fine Arts was opened in 1982, dedicated to art and artists related to Gifu Prefecture, though it also contains pieces from around the world.[38] In 2006 the city instituted a policy that allows elementary and junior high school students to enter many of the city's museums free of charge.
A float in the Dōsan Festival
The first major festivals of the year are the Dōsan Festival and the Gifu Festival, both of which occur on the first Saturday and following Sunday of April.[39] Because the Dōsan Festival is a memorial to Saitō Dōsan, many of the festivities take place near Jōzai-ji, where his remains are buried. The Gifu Festival is a Shinto festival that begins at Inaba Shrine and winds its way through other shrines within the city. Both festivals include street vendors, flea markets, and floats paraded through the city. The Gifu Nobunaga Festival, which takes place on the first Saturday and following Sunday of October, also pays homage to a former lord of Gifu. This festival centers on the downtown area and includes a procession of horses and warriors down the city's main streets.[2]
The city also has festivals representing its cultural heritage. Twice each year, there is a Tejikara Fire Festival. It first occurs on the second Saturday of April at Tejikarao Shrine and it again occurs on the second Sunday of August at Nagara River Park.[39] Half-naked men ring bells, and carry shrines and other devices that shoot off large sparks. Near the end of August, the city sponsors Takigi Noh, a traditional form of Japanese theater that takes place on the banks of the Nagara River, lit only by the surrounding bonfires and the fires of cormorant boats.[39]
2008 Flag Art Exhibition
Twice a year, Gifu plays hosts to two large fireworks festivals. Large numbers of visitors gather on the banks of the Nagara River between Nagara and Kinka Bridge to see these festivals, among the largest in Japan.[37] The first festival, the Chunichi Shimbun Nagara River All-Japan Fireworks Festival, occurs on the last Saturday of July. The second, the Nagara River National Fireworks Display, occurs on the first Saturday of August.[39] Approximately 30,000 fireworks are set off at each festival, with crowds of 400,000 and 120,000 visitors, respectively.
The downtown area serves as the location for Flag Art Exhibitions a few times throughout the year. The flags displayed measure approximately 3 m tall by 1.8 m wide (10 ft by 6 ft).[40] Each set of displays revolves around a different theme (such as the beauty of Gifu or AIDS Awareness) or are created by specific group of persons (for example, local school students or local artists).
The Nagaragawa International Inline Skating Competition along the Naoko Takahashi Road
The main sporting facility in the city is the Gifu Memorial Center, whose complex includes facilities for athletic and other events. Its athletic facilities include a track and field complex, a baseball stadium, and plazas for tennis and swimming, as well as martial arts and traditional arts facilities. There are also two large multi-purpose domes: the Deai Dome (seats 5,000) and the Fureai Dome (seats 700).[11] All of the facilities are equipped for night events. The soccer field at the Memorial Center serves as the home to FC Gifu,[41] the city's football representative in the J-League. Next to Memorial Center is the Nagaragawa Sports Plaza, a sports science and training center. The facility accommodates up to 300 people and provides access to equipment for improving athletic ability.[11]
Just south of these sports facilities, the Naoko Takahashi Road runs along the northern bank of the Nagara River.[42] This pedestrian pathway is named after the Gifu-born marathoner Naoko Takahashi, who won the gold medal in the event at the 2000 Summer Olympics. This road primarily stretches from Nagara Bridge to Chusetsu Bridge, providing a convenient course for events such as the Terry Fox Run, the Nagaragawa International Inline Skating Competition, and the Gifu Seiryu Half Marathon.[43][44]
Cherry blossom in a Gifu park
Gifu Park is one of the major tourist attractions of the city because it contains many of the museums and is near many other sightseeing spots. However, it also serves as a gathering place because of its large shaded areas that include ponds, waterfalls, cherry trees and wisteria vines.[45] Next to Gifu Park is Mount Kinka, which serves as one of the main symbols of Gifu. It rises 329 m (1,079 ft) into the sky along the banks of the Nagara River and serves as the home of Gifu Castle, as well as many hiking trails.[46]
Other attractions include Bairin Park, filled with over fifty types of plum trees[16] which bloom in an array of colors, from white to dark pink, each Spring. Nagaragawa Onsen is a popular indoor location. This collection of onsen and ryokan inns is located along the Nagara River in central Gifu.[47] Its many springs have a high iron content, considered beneficial for a variety of ailments.[8] Also, its close location to the Nagaragawa Convention Center and various high-class hotels make it a popular area for guests.
North of the Nagara River is Mount Dodo and Matsuo Pond. Mount Dodo is the tallest mountain in the city, rising 418 m (1,371 ft). In addition to its numerous hiking trails, it offers hikers views of Mount Haku and the Nagara River. At the southern base of the mountain is Matsuo Pond, which is popular during the fall when all of the foliage is changing colors.
The Yanagase covered shopping arcade was the primary shopping district of Gifu for many years, but recently that part of the downtown area has suffered a downturn in popularity as large modern shopping centers have opened in other areas. In addition to its many smaller retail shops and restaurants, Yanagase is also home to Takashimaya, Muji, and two movie theaters. It was made famous throughout the country when Kenichi Mikawa's hit, "Yanagase Blues," was released in the 1960s.[48]
A panorama of Gifu
Gifu's most famous castle is Gifu Castle, located on Mount Kinka. First built by the Nikaidō clan during the Kamakura period, the castle has gone through many forms, with its current version rebuilt in 1956.[37] One of its first residents was Saitō Dōsan, who lived in the castle when it was still called Inabayama Castle. The next resident, Oda Nobunaga, changed the castle's name at the same time that he changed the name of the surrounding town. From the top of the castle, visitors have a 360-degree view, effectively giving them a view to all of the city's borders.[16] Inside the castle are many artifacts from its past.
Though the two other castles in the city, Kanō Castle and Kawate Castle, only have ruins marking their former presence, they have both had important roles in the city's past. Kanō Castle was built shortly after the Battle of Sekigahara when Tokugawa Ieyasu ordered the Toyotomi family to build it upon the ruins of a former medieval castle. Okudaira Nobumasa was the first person to live in the castle and he was followed by his descendants until the Meiji period. The castle's citadel ruins are designated a National Historic Site.[16] Kawate Castle was used by the Toki clan while they were guarding Owari, Ise and Mino provinces as the Chief Retainer of the Shogunate during the Muromachi period. It was also used as a meeting place for the cultural and social elite from Kyoto.[16] A stone monument near Seibi High School marks the castle's location.
Major shrines
Kanō Tenman-gū
The most famous shrines in the city include Inaba Shrine, Kogane Shrine, and Kashimori Shrine. They are considered a family of shrines because the Inishiki Irihiko-no-mikoto god at Inaba Shrine is married to the Nunoshi Hime-mikoto goddess at Kogane Shrine; together, they are the parents of the Ichihaya-no-mikoto God at Kashimori Shrine.[49] Inaba Shrine was originally located on the northern side of Mount Kinka, but was moved to its present location by Saitō Dōsan during his reign over Gifu. Kogane Shrine is located in Kogane Park, behind the Gifu City Culture Center, and a popular legend says that, behind Kashimori Shrine, you can see the footprints of Tenba, a mythical horse.[16]
Kanō Tenman-gū, a shrine located in the former Kanō-juku, was built in concurrence with Kanō Castle shortly after the Battle of Sekigahara. Originally built to serve as a place of worship for the castle's residents, it eventually became a place of prayer for many people within the growing town.[16] Tejikarao Shrine, located in the eastern portion of the city, is famous as the home of the April Tejikara Fire Festival.[39] The city is also home to seven of the Mino Thirty-three Kannon.[50]
Major temples
Entrance to Jōzai-ji
Because of the importance of both Saitō Dōsan and Oda Nobunaga, many of Gifu's temples hold strong connections to them. Jōzai-ji, for instance, was built by Saitō Myōchin, an ancestor of Dōsan, under the protection of Toki Shigeyori.[51] Dōsan took advantage of this temple's support as he began his domination of Mino Province. His presence was so strong that his death was mourned at the temple for three generations, and his remains are now interred there. Zuiryō-ji was also built by Myōchin and is currently undergoing restoration. It contains the tombs of Shigeyori, Myōchin, and Gokei Kokushi. Sōfuku-ji contains the "Blood Ceiling"; it was stained with the blood of the vassals of Oda Nobunaga's grandson, Oda Hidenobu, who committed seppuku during the Battle of Sekigahara after their leader's defeat. This temple contains the mausoleums of both Nobunaga and his son, Oda Nobutada.[16]
Shōhō-ji is home to the Gifu Great Buddha, which is also referred to as the "Blessed Buddha". Built during the Edo period, it was the first and largest dry-lacquered Buddha in Japan, and remains one of the three largest Great Buddha Images of Japan.[37] The Buddha and its 13.7-meter (45-foot) bamboo frame took 38 years to build.[37] The nearby garden offers tea and traditional foods.[52]
Jōdo-ji holds the remains of Hanako, Rodin's only Japanese model, who traveled extensively throughout Europe during her career. A statue of Hanako was erected at the temple in 2004. Hanako spent most of her later years in Gifu's Nishizono-chō, just east of Yanagase.[16]
Gifu University Hospital
Gifu has 48 nursery schools and 43 kindergartens available for children. Students then matriculate into one of the city's 49 elementary schools and 27 junior high schools. After graduating from junior high school, students have the option of attending one of Gifu's 18 high schools.[53] Gifu has a North Korean school, Gifu Korean Elementary and Junior High School (岐阜朝鮮初中級学校).[54][55]
The city has five technical institutions and five colleges and universities. The largest of these is Gifu University, the city's national university, which includes a hospital.[56] The other four-year institutions are Gifu Shotoku Gakuen University, a private university located in the area of the former town of Yanaizu,[57] and Gifu Women's University, a private women's university founded in 1968.[58] Gifu City Women's College was founded in 1946 as traditional college, but later became a city-supported, public junior college.[59] Gifu Pharmaceutical University, founded in 1932 as the Gifu City Pharmaceutical College, remains a public university offering graduate-level courses.[17]
Gifu's central location and its past connection with the Nakasendō make it one of Japan's central transportation hubs. In addition to being in the center of many rail and bus lines, the city also has seven national highways running through its borders. These include Route 21, 22, 156, 157, 248, 256, and 303.
Retired Gifu streetcar
Two rail companies have major train stations downtown: JR Central (Central Japan Railway Company) and Meitetsu (Nagoya Railroad).[9] The JR Tōkaidō Main Line runs through and the Takayama Line begins at JR Gifu Station. Other JR Stations in the city include Nishi Gifu Station and Nagamori Station. The JR Tōkaidō Shinkansen, however, does not run through Gifu Station; its nearest stops are Nagoya Station and Gifu Hashima Station. The Meitetsu lines include the Nagoya Line, the Kakamigahara Line, and the Takehana Line, all of which originate at Meitetsu Gifu Station.[10] Other Meitetsu Stations in the city include Chajo Station, Kano Station, Tagami Station, Hosobata Station, Kiridoshi Station, Tejikara Station, and Yanaizu Station. Until April 1, 2005, Meitetsu also operated a streetcar line that ran through Gifu.
Municipal bus service first began in Gifu in 1949.[17] Today, Gifu Bus Co., Ltd. provides service within the city, as well as connections to other cities. Its highway buses connect the city with Gujō, Osaka, Kobe, Kyoto and Shinjuku in Tokyo. Gifu Bus also connects Nagoya with Gujō, Seki, Mino and Shirakawa-gō. In addition to inter-city bus routes, many local routes go throughout the city and neighboring areas. All bus lines pass through JR Gifu Station.
Another option for travel in Gifu is via bicycle. The city has instituted a bike rental program to increase tourism within the city; the cost to rent a bicycle for one day is 100 yen.[60] Bicycles can be rented at JR Gifu Station (second floor), Gifu City Hall (South Branch), Gifu Park (Museum of History), and the Cormorant Fishing Boat Viewing Office.[61]
Sister/friendship cities
Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil
Meidling District, Vienna, Austria
Mérida, Venezuela
Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada
Friendship cities
Hangzhou, China (since February 21, 1979)
↑ This official symbol pays homage to Gifu's original name, Inokuchi (井口).[2]
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Outline of Gifu City 2007. Gifu City Hall, April 2007.
1 2 岐阜県の人口・世帯数人口動態統計調査結果. Gifu prefectural website (in Japanese). Gifu Prefecture. Retrieved September 11, 2011.
1 2 Toki clan. (Japanese) Sengoku Expo. Accessed July 4, 2007. Archived September 27, 2007, at the Wayback Machine.
1 2 3 4 5 Instant Gifu. Gifu International Center, 1995.
1 2 Nakasendo to Shukuba-machi Archived August 13, 2007, at the Wayback Machine.. (Japanese) Gifu City Hall. Accessed September 9, 2007. Archived August 13, 2007, at the Wayback Machine.
1 2 3 Gifu City: Where History and Culture Still Thrive. Gifu City Tourism Convention Division, 2007].
1 2 3 4 Cormorant Fishing on the Nagara River Archived April 28, 2007, at the Wayback Machine.. Gifu City Hall. Accessed June 8, 2007. (Japanese)Archived April 28, 2007, at the Wayback Machine.
1 2 JR Tōkai: Gifu no Goannai Archived December 17, 2007, at the Wayback Machine.. (Japanese) JR Central. Accessed December 5, 2007. Archived December 17, 2007, at the Wayback Machine.
1 2 Meitetsu Gifu Station. (Japanese) Meitetsu Railroad. Accessed January 18, 2008.
1 2 3 World Event and Convention Facilities. Gifu Convention and Visitors Bureau. Accessed January 20, 2008. (Japanese)
1 2 3 Gifu in the Heart of Japan. Harry Hill, 1988.
↑ Sengoku Bushō Retsuden 12: Saitō Dōsan. (Japanese) Accessed September 20, 2007.
↑ Stone ledger in front of Kashimori Shrine. Erected by Kashimori Shrine.
↑ Gifu tour guide - Outline of Gifu Prefecture. Gifu Prefecture Tourist Federation. Accessed September 9, 2007.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Gifu City Walking Map. Gifu Lively City Public Corporation, 2007.
1 2 3 4 5 6 Gifu-shi no Ayumi (Outline of Gifu City 2005). Gifu City Hall, April 2005.
↑ Mino Earthquake. Tokyo Science Museum. Accessed July 5, 2007. (Japanese)
↑ Crew 3's Account of Gifu Mission. 39th Bomb Group Association. Accessed July 13, 2007. (Japanese)
↑ Weather of the Empire. Togo Tsukuhara, Kobe University. Accessed June 13, 2007.
↑ The Fire Balloons. Greg Goebel. Accessed November 23, 2007.
1 2 3 4 5 JLGC NewsLetter No. 60, Winter 2007. Japan Local Government Center (CLAIR, New York).
↑ Gifu Station West Area Urban Redevelopment Group Homepage. (Japanese) Gifu City Hall. Accessed October 22, 2007.
↑ "平年値（年・月ごとの値）". Japan Meteorological Agency. Retrieved 2011-11-18.
↑ "観測史上1～10位の値（年間を通じての値）". Japan Meteorological Agency. Retrieved 2010-03-06.
1 2 3 Population Statistics. (Japanese) Gifu City Hall. Accessed January 16, 2008. Archived April 16, 2008, at the Wayback Machine.
↑ Statistics Division of Gifu Prefecture. Gifu Prefecture. Accessed November 2, 2007. (Japanese) Archived October 14, 2007, at the Wayback Machine.
↑ Asia: Japan: Most Elderly Nation. The New York Times. Accessed January 17, 2008.
1 2 City Council Outline. (Japanese) Gifu City Hall. Accessed April 1, 2008. Archived July 16, 2012, at the Wayback Machine.
1 2 Toyota: Company Profile. Toyota Motor Corporation. Accessed January 18, 2008. Archived March 9, 2010, at the Wayback Machine.
1 2 Gifu City Tower 43. (Japanese) Gifu City Tower 43. Accessed June 22, 2007.
1 2 Slow Life City Gifu. Gifu City Hall. Accessed January 20, 2008. (Japanese) Archived February 7, 2012, at the Wayback Machine.
↑ Industry of Gifu Prefecture: Fiber. Gifu Prefecture. Accessed September 21, 2007.
↑ Kabushiki Kaisha Ozeki. Ozeki Lantern, Co. Accessed January 18, 2008. (Japanese)
↑ Cormorant Fishing on the Nagara River. Gifu City Cormorant Fishing Viewing Boat Office, 2007. (Japanese)
1 2 Gifu City Museum of History Homepage Archived June 25, 2007, at the Wayback Machine.. Gifu City Museum of History. Accessed June 8, 2007. (Japanese)Archived June 25, 2007, at the Wayback Machine.
1 2 3 4 5 Gifu Prefecture: Japan's Beautiful Heartland. Gifu International Center, 1994.
↑ Museum of Fine Arts, Gifu. (Japanese) Museum of Fine Arts, Gifu. Accessed June 5, 2007.
1 2 3 4 5 Gifu City Event Calendar. Gifu Convention and Visitors Bureau. Accessed June 5, 2007. (Japanese) Archived March 7, 2009, at the Wayback Machine.
↑ Flag Art Display. Sōhō Japan. Accessed June 5, 2007. (Japanese)
↑ FC Gifu Official Site. FC Gifu. Accessed January 18, 2008. (Japanese)
↑ Naoko Takahashi Road. MLIT. Accessed January 18, 2008.(Japanese)
↑ 13th Annual Nagaragawa International Inline Skating Competition Archived February 16, 2008, at the Wayback Machine.. Gifu City Hall. Accessed January 18, 2008. (Japanese) Archived February 16, 2008, at the Wayback Machine.
↑ Race Outline. Gifu Marathon. Retrieved on 2013-05-20.
↑ Gifu City Sightseeing Guide Archived January 5, 2008, at the Wayback Machine.. Gifu City Hall. Accessed January 20, 2008. (Japanese) Archived January 5, 2008, at the Wayback Machine.
↑ Mt. Kinka Hiking Trails Archived June 23, 2007, at the Wayback Machine.. (Japanese) Gifu City Hall. Accessed June 12, 2007. Archived June 23, 2007, at the Wayback Machine.
↑ Gifu Nagaragawa Onsen. Gifu Nagaragawa Onsen and Ryokan Cooperative. Accessed June 6, 2007. (Japanese)
↑ Kenichi Mikawa Discography. (Japanese) Nippon Crown Co., Ltd. Accessed January 18, 2008.
↑ Inaba Shrine. (Japanese) Inaba Shrine. Accessed July 6, 2007.
↑ Mino 33 Kannon. (Japanese) Mino Seigoku Sanjūsan Kannon Reijō-kai. Accessed June 6, 2008.
↑ Gifu Convention and Visitors Bureau: Jyozai Temple. Gifu Convention and Visitors Bureau. Accessed October 18, 2007. Archived December 8, 2008, at the Wayback Machine.
↑ Gifu Great Buddha. Gifu Convention and Visitors Bureau. Accessed June 5, 2007. Archived December 8, 2008, at the Wayback Machine.
↑ Map of Gifu City. Gifu City Hall International Affairs Division, January 15, 2003.
↑ "" (Archive). Gifu Korean Elementary and Junior High School. June 6, 2004. Retrieved on October 14, 2015. "〒501-6121 岐阜県羽島郡柳津町佐波６０３５"
↑ "ウリハッキョ一覧" (Archive). Chongryon. Retrieved on October 14, 2015. "岐阜朝鮮初中級学校 501-6121 羽島郡柳津町佐波字丸池6035 "
↑ Gifu University Homepage. Gifu University. Accessed January 18, 2008. (Japanese)
↑ Gifu Shotoku Gakuen University Homepage. (Japanese) Gifu Shotoku Gakuen University. Accessed January 18, 2008.
↑ Gifu Women's University Homepage. Gifu Women's University. Accessed January 18, 2008. (Japanese)
↑ Gifu City Women's College Homepage. Gifu City Women's College. Accessed January 18, 2008. (Japanese) Archived May 25, 2013, at the Wayback Machine.
↑ Machinaka Rent-a-cycle Archived September 9, 2007, at the Wayback Machine.. (Japanese) Gifu Lively City Corporation. Accessed September 18, 2007. Archived September 9, 2007, at the Wayback Machine.
↑ Gifu City Rent-a-cycle Port Guide. (Japanese) Gifu City Hall. Accessed September 18, 2007. Archived February 7, 2012, at the Wayback Machine.
Media related to Gifu at Wikimedia Commons
Gifu City official website (Japanese)
Gifu City Hall
Gifu Convention and Visitors Bureau Event Calendar
Gifu (city) travel guide from Wikivoyage
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https://dc.metblogs.com/2009/09/02/psst-need-a-ticket-skins-scalp-seats-in-secondary-market/
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Psst! Need a Ticket? ‘Skins Scalp Seats in Secondary Market
September 2nd, 2009 @ 4:27 PM Opinion,Redskins,Sports,WTF?!
It’s an amazing testament to the NFL’s drawing power that a team like the Redskins still have the following they do. Since 1997, the ‘Skins have posted just three winning seasons, signed ineffective, aging former superstars to contracts for ungodly amounts of money, sued fans, tried to stop you from walking to the stadium, or at least made you pay for parking even if you didn’t drive, and have supported the nuttiness that is Daniel F. Snyder.
None of which has dissuaded the Redskins faithful. It is still one of the most profitable sports franchises in the world, potentially racist logo and all, despite the many missteps of the past twelve years. Still they show up, not just paying the overly expensive face value for a ticket, but often paying 2-3 times that through the “secondary” market. “Oh well” you’re thinking, “If this is what the market demands…”
But maybe it doesn’t.
Unfortunately, it looks like the ticket sales for the ‘Skins aren’t all they are cracked up to be-and it probably cost you a lot of extra dough to boot. The Post reported today that the people in the Redskins ticket sales office sold lots and lots of tickets to brokers (which, as Deadspin points out, is a fancy way to say “scalper”) directly. You know, rather than to fans who wanted to go to the game.
So guess what-if you bought a ticket from Stub Hub, or (like I did) Ebay and you paid more than face value for those tickets last year, there is a chance you got hosed. Not just by the scalper, but by the Redskins as well. Honestly, of all the anti-consumer, disloyal, unfriendly and just bad things you can do-this takes the cake. In most states there are laws that prevent the sale of tickets directly to brokers to protect consumers from being over charged for the value of the ticket. Creating a scarcity of tickets by not making them available directly to fans is abhorrent, and I’m kind of glad I’m not already a fan-because this wold be something that might put me over the edge. The idea that I could have maybe bought my tickets for a fair price but couldn’t because the team I spend hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars a year on was complicit in this act? Unconscionable!
The official story is that this was the act of rogue employees who have been “dealt with” (whatever the heck that means!) and that Snyder was shocked and outraged-but I remain skeptical. Especially since the one broker who spoke with the post said he was offered the lower seats only if he bought more expensive ones as well. It seems very possible that this was just an easier way to sell tickets, and create a demand around a franchise that, frankly, hasn’t been good for a long time.
Between the ‘Skins’ excuse that it was actually only a small portion of the actual tickets sold, and the “Broker’s” opinion that without him it would be really hard to get tickets I am about to lose the coffee I had for lunch. This isn’t a case of someone buying a bunch of tickets to lift a TV ban so that folks can see the game-this is a case of the company you support actively ripping you off.
And it won’t matter. Fans won’t see one dime of that money back, and the organization will continue to think of the next way to squeeze a dollar out them for, at best, a mediocre product. And DC will just keep showing up. Maybe the Nationals should triple their ticket prices and sell them exclusively on the secondary market-demand might go up. Hopefully a team that is performing, like the Caps, will engender this kind of blind loyalty when they fall on bad times and under perform. There is a lot mediocrity in DC sports, but the ‘Skins seem to be the only ones going out of their way to treat their fans like garbage.
Bob (unregistered) on September 11th, 2009 @ 7:41 am
Sadly, the business model you see here has worked in other sports-adicted markets. With their ten year string of Home sellouts, try to buy Sox tickets at face value in Boston!!!!
Boo-skins: Week 2 and Fans getting Fed-up | Washington D.C. Metblogs (pingback) on September 21st, 2009 @ 12:07 pm
[…] them for doing so. Not only has this team underperformed on the field, but there has been well documented mistreatment of the fan base off the field as well. Any fan, or non-fan really, has the right to […]
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https://earthzine.org/understanding-the-drivers-and-consequences-of-global-urbanization-using-emerging-remote-sensing-technologies/
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Home Articles Understanding the Drivers and Consequences of Global Urbanization using Emerging Remote Sensing Technologies
Understanding the Drivers and Consequences of Global Urbanization using Emerging Remote Sensing Technologies
Earthzine September 30, 2011 Articles, Earth Observation, Original, Sections, Themed Articles, Urban Monitoring Theme
By Fabio Dell’Acqua, Elizabeth A. Wentz, Soe W. Myint, Maik Netzband
Urban Remote Sensing Workshop and Forecasting Urban Land-Use Change Workshop logo
From April 1-3, 2011, two parallel, international workshops were held in Scottsdale, Arizona, devoted to Urban Remote Sensing (URS) and Forecasting Urban Growth (FORE). The URS workshop, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to Arizona State University, was devoted to understanding the drivers and consequences of global urbanization using emerging remote sensing technologies. The organizers were Elizabeth Wentz and Soe Myint, both at the Arizona State University, and Maik Netzband from Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany (Figure 1).
Given the focus on urban areas and their dynamics, it was natural to co-locate the URS workshop with a complementary workshop, sponsored by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and organized through Urbanization and Global Environmental Change (UGEC), on forecasting urban land use change. Karen Seto and Michail Fragkias led the FORE effort.
Further details on the two workshops and bios of each participant can be found online at the joint webpage.
1. Rationale
The rationale for focusing explicitly on remote sensing activities on urban areas stems from recent massive population changes in worldwide demographics. In the past, humans occupied predominantly rural areas subsiding on local economic opportunities.
Today, more employment opportunities exist in high density, large population centers, which leads to the relocation of people to these centers of activity. The ecological footprints of these cities — as well as the impact that the cities make themselves locally — require intensive observation, monitoring, and forecasting. Intensive examination of cities requires comprehensive understanding of the physical, political, social, and economic dynamics. One aspect that remote sensing technologies offer is that they can efficiently and objectively quantify the physical characteristics and growth of cities[1][2][3][4]. The physical characteristics can be anything from temperature [5][6], soil moisture [7], vegetation [8][9]and impervious surfaces [10][11], to albedo, evapotranspiration, pool, other water bodies[12], infrastructure, and building density[13]. City growth involves the conversion of land categories from rural uses such as agriculture or undeveloped land to urban uses such as industrial, residential, commercial and supporting infrastructure ( roads and utilities).
These land-use and land-cover changes represent one of the most significant alterations that humankind has made to the surface of the Earth. Each land transformation impacts, to varying degrees, the local climatology, quality of air and water, energy, hydrology, geology, and biota that predate human settlement. The importance of remote sensing, both optical [14] and radar [15] in this context, has been referenced at many scientific conferences including JURSE[16].
Arizona State University campus. Credit: Kevin Dooley
2. Organization and major themes
The goal of the workshop was to share ideas on the needs, problems, expectations, consequences, and opportunities we face on the challenge of global urbanization. We aimed to identify the appropriate and necessary steps to move forward with this challenge. We had a combination of pre-workshop, during-workshop, and post-workshop activities.
Prior to the workshop, three participants were invited to write in-depth papers on three policy-based themes prior to the workshop: Data, scale, and applications. The goal with these white papers was to develop a common reference to improve group interaction. These themes were coincident with those in the workshop on FORE (three FORE participants also wrote theme papers). These background papers presented overviews of the current state of knowledge and served, whenever applicable, as the starting point for discussions. The remaining workshop participants received pre-workshop memos and were asked to submit comments and questions. The three white papers and participants memos were compiled and disseminated to all participants the week before the workshop commenced.
The starting points for discussions during the workshop were based on six themes:
Û¢ Theme 1: track urban area growth and change: speed, density, direction, structures, impervious surfaces, land consumed;
Û¢ Theme 2: assess the spatial arrangement of green/open space within cities and at the periphery: amount, distribution, connectivity;
Û¢ Theme 3: monitor changes in peri-urban regions: farmland conversions, wetland infringement, biodiversity threats;
Û¢ Theme 4: track land-cover and land-use changes that influence urban climatology and atmospheric deposition: impervious surfaces, vegetation cover, particulate matter, carbon release, haze, smoke;
Û¢ Theme 5: monitor urban growth as it intersects with areas of potential environmental hazards: earthquake, subsidence, mudslides, floods, tsunami;
Û¢ Theme 6: map environmental parameters (microclimate, heat island, access to open space, percent of impervious surface, percent of green space), assess the geographic differences within the region, and identify correlations with social, economic, and ethnic divisions.
The themes were examined from two different perspectives. This happened because roughly half of the participants were academic researchers engaged either in the use of new remote sensing technologies or in their application to solve problems associated with rapid urbanization, or even in formulating better management options for a sustainable built environment. The remaining workshop participants were local government planners, managers, and decision-makers who, on a daily basis, are confronted with problems and seek smart growth options where remote sensing technology may serve as a tool.
For example, a planner or local decision-maker may ask is if a tree planting and replacement program has been effective at reducing the urban heat island effect. Remotely sensed images taken before the program was established through to the present can help answer this question and justify the continuation of the program to budget planners and the general public.
3. Workshop outcomes
Similar to the pre-workshop documents, the discussions were also organized around three themes: Application, scale & date.
Application refers to the use of remotely sensed imagery and software to solve a particular problem in cities. This topic emerged as a strong mismatch between stakeholder requests and remote sensing experts (RSEs). There were questions on both sides on what hinders a wider use of remotely sensed imagery in city planning or management. Parts of the problem we identified are:
Û¢ Software for handling remote sensing data is often expensive and difficult to use for the non-expert;
Û¢ Data are in Û÷silos’ requiring knowledge on where to go and how to acquire them;
Û¢ There is the impression that Google-Earth-like systems Û÷solve’ the problems of software and data;
Û¢ There is little understanding beyond experts on what interpretation of non-visible spectral bands offers (e.g., NDVI); the visible spectrum seen in Google-Earth-like images simply offers zero-level interpretation ( ÛÏpeeking into your neighborhood backyardsÛ);
Û¢ Remote sensing data needs robust preparation to be effectively used, especially if we are talking about extracting quantitative information.
Two possible approaches were suggested, one that we might call ÛÏdemocratization of data,Û and the other consisting of a tighter, probably also forced to some extent, interaction between RSEs and stakeholders. ÛÏDemocratization of dataÛ can be referred to as transforming data and information into a form, and providing tools, that make it easy for non-experts to use them and access answers to questions they need to address.
This ÛÏdemocratizationÛ of data and tools would potentially trigger interest and thus education of the potential users, similarly to the way Google Earth functions and the awareness about performances of very high-resolution optical satellites.
Scales depend on a number of aspects, and scales of any two processes may largely overlap.
3.2 Scale
Scale turned out to be a very complex issue to address. Even the very concept of scale was questioned by arguing that a hierarchy of scales is not a correct representation of the urban reality and a system of interlaced and overlapping scales should be used instead. Some scales represented are physical and some are socially or politically based. For example, scales of a physical model on groundwater recharge and scales of decision-making processes generally do not overlap, although they have to fit with each other for a correct planning to be carried out; remotely sensed data works on other, different scales, which add even more complexity.
Consequently, a dedicated ontology should be developed. Other interesting themes that emerged included:
Û¢ There is a common misperception that ÛÏfiner is more accurateÛ in terms of spatial resolution; this is not the case because a higher resolution dataset simply implies more pixels and more detailed land cover features being observed in the imagery that can potentially lead to poor accuracy;
Û¢ More subtly, a wrong perception that finer and finer resolution in remote sensing data will eventually lead to potential identification of every details about the observed urban areas without realization that there will be numerous different land cover classes and features sharing the same spectral responses;
Û¢ With regards to fine resolution data, what remains missing is the contextual and perhaps social view of what is being observed (ÛÏSocialization of the PixelÛ);
Û¢ Another important issue to be considered for a fine resolution data is that it takes longer processing time or makes it impossible to perform a classification, especially when using an algorithm that requires extensive computation such as an object-based classifier;
Û¢ Linked to the above, convincing stakeholders of the usefulness of mid- and low-resolution remote sensing data for processes at the appropriate scale; this is vital because it provides cost-efficiency, processing efficiency, and larger area coverage.
3.3 Data
Data was the least controversial topic we encountered. The experts in the workshop were well aware of the abundantly available data. The use and selection of data generally depends on availability of budget, level of scale or spatial resolution required to generate land-use and land-cover classes or indices, spectral bands required to achieve the objectives, and expert knowledge of or familiarity with the type of remotely sensed data. Given our extensive knowledge, the conversation turned to:
Û¢ How to exploit the abundance of remote sensing data without being overwhelmed by the effort of locating the correct repository and finding the right dataset (e.g., data silos);
Û¢ How to translate remote sensing data into geospatial information at different scales (links to previous topics).
Various guidelines were proposed:
Û¢ Improving access and processing tools;
Û¢ Improving data comparability and compatibility;
Û¢ In general ÛÏdemocratizing dataÛ, i.e. making it more easily accessible and processable.
3.4 Case studies, Outreach, Scenarios, Typologies
The second day of the workshop involved a deeper interaction between the two workshops, as a series of cross-cutting issues were discussed.
Case studies were discussed as a means to test and showcase models and techniques, and possible applications.
A strong need for outreach was recognized. Not many potentially relevant stakeholders and policy makers are convinced that remote sensing data can be useful for their work, and this is one of the biggest hindrances to routine use of remote sensing in urban planning and management for a sustainable future.
Urbanization scenarios are important for stakeholders to make the correct decisions, and the construction of scenarios should be started with the stakeholders’ engagement.
Defining city typologies is necessary to compare them across case studies. It is interesting to wonder what are the typologies that can be defined based only on remotely sensed data. Elements of the classification do not necessarily have a ÛÏsnapshotÛ character. Rather, changes in time also are considered.
4. Take-home Points
The workshop represents just one step of a continuing effort to understand a complex and diversified environment such as urban areas, and especially what remote sensing techniques and technologies can do to improve their growth, policy formulation, planning, and management. The workshop participants are currently engaged in several communication activities, including outreach, software development, organized sessions at meetings, and publications. We are creating a pilot website (J-Earth) to facilitate access to remotely sensed data and tools. In addition, manuscripts are being written for publication in a variety of peer-reviewed and outreach outlets. These summarize the workshop but more importantly, they identify what we believe are next steps and opportunities for the broader research community.
The overall impression is that, notwithstanding a great deal of work carried out in the past to bridge the gap between available technology and requests for information provision, there is still much to do. There seems to be a continuing mismatch between what remote sensing can offer and what stakeholders ask for; this is certainly, partly due to a lack of mutual understanding, given the different points of view and even different languages spoken by the two communities. Unrealistic expectations (including the cost of services) on one side and naÌøve offerings on the other side seems to be quite commonplace. This calls for more bridging actions in the future, such as this joint workshop.
[1] Wentz, Elizabeth A., David Nelson, Atiqur Rahman, William L. Stefanov, Shoursaseni Sen Roy 2008. Expert system classification of urban land use/cover for Delhi, India International Journal of Remote Sensing 29 (15): 4405-4427.
[2] Keys, Eric, Elizabeth A. Wentz, Charles Redman 2007. The spatial structure of land use from 1970-2000 in the Phoenix, Arizona metropolitan area. Professional Geographer 59(1): 131-147.
[3] Myint, S.W., Wang, L. 2006. Multi-criteria Decision Approach for Land Use Land Cover Change Using Markov Chain Analysis and Cellular Automata Approach. Canadian Journal of Remote Sensing 32(6):390-404.
[4] Myint, S.W., Jain, J., Lukinbeal, C., Lara-Valencia, F., 2010. Simulating urban growth on the U.S.-Mexico border: Nogales, Arizona and Nogales, Sonora, Canadian Journal of Remote Sensing , 36(3): 166-184.
[5] Weng, Q. : A remote sensing-GIS evaluation of urban expansion and its impact on surface temperature in the Zhujiang Delta, China. International Journal of Remote Sensing, vol. 22, issue 10, pp. 1999-2014, 2001.
[6] Myint, S.W., Brazel, A., Okin, G., Buyantuyev, A.. 2010. An interactive function of impervious and vegetation covers in relation to the urban heat island effect in a rapidly urbanizing desert city, GIScience and Remote Sensing 47: (3) 301-320.
[7] J.A Voogt, T.R Oke, Thermal remote sensing of urban climates, Remote Sensing of Environment, Volume 86, Issue 3, 15 August 2003, Pages 370-384, ISSN 0034-4257, 10.1016/S0034-4257(03)00079-8.
[8] Myint, S.W., 2006. Urban vegetation mapping using sub-pixel analysis and expert system rules: A critical approach, International Journal of Remote Sensing 27(12-14):2645-2665.
[9] Myint, S. W., Jyoti, J., Guhathakurta, S. 2010 Patterns and rates of land use change: a case study of Ambos Nogales (Arizona and Sonora), Journal of Latin American Geography 9(3): 246-274.
[10] Ridd, M.K.: Exploring a V-I-S (vegetaton-impervious surface-soil) model for urban ecosystem analysis through remote sensing: comparative anatomy for cities. International journal of remote sensing, 1995, vol. 16, no12, pp. 2165-2185 (2 p.1/2).
[11] Myint, S.W., and G.S. Okin, 2009. Modelling land-cover types using multiple endmember spectral mixture analysis in a desert city, International Journal of Remote Sensing, 30(9):2237 ÛÒ 2257.
[12] Myint, S.W., Gober, P., Brazel, A, Grossman-Clarke, S., and Weng, Q., 2011. Per-pixel versus object-based classification of urban land cover extraction using high spatial resolution imagery, Remote Sensing of Environment 115(2011): 1145-1161.
[13] Dell’Acqua, F.; Gamba, P.; , “Texture-based characterization of urban environments on satellite SAR images,” Geoscience and Remote Sensing, IEEE Transactions on , vol.41, no.1, pp. 153- 159, Jan 2003. DOI: 10.1109/TGRS.2002.807754
[14] Dell’Acqua, F.; Gamba, P.; Ferrari, A.; Palmason, J.A.; Benediktsson, J.A.; Arnason, K.; , “Exploiting spectral and spatial information in hyperspectral urban data with high resolution,” Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters, IEEE , vol.1, no.4, pp. 322- 326, Oct. 2004. doi: 10.1109/LGRS.2004.837009
[15] Gamba, P.; Dell’Acqua, F.; Lisini, G.; , “Change Detection of Multitemporal SAR Data in Urban Areas Combining Feature-Based and Pixel-Based Techniques,” Geoscience and Remote Sensing, IEEE Transactions on , vol.44, no.10, pp.2820-2827, Oct. 2006. DOI: 10.1109/TGRS.2006.879498
[16] Stilla, U.; Gamba, P.; Juergens, C.; Maktav, D.; , “Preface,” Urban Remote Sensing Event (JURSE), 2011 Joint , vol., no., pp.V-VI, 11-13 April 2011 DOI: 10.1109/JURSE.2011.5764702
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Wed, 06/15/2016 - 00:57 -- Dawn
Dr. Jones, can you help me understand refractory periods better? I find that a difficult topic to teach, and there are so many different terms used to describe refractory periods.
Today’s expert is Dr. Jerry W. Jones, MD, FACEP, FAAEM
Jerry W. Jones, MD FACEP FAAEM is a diplomate of the American Board of Emergency Medicine who has practiced internal medicine and emergency medicine for 35 years. Dr. Jones has been on the teaching faculties of the University of Oklahoma and The University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. He is a published author who has also been featured in the New York Times and the Annals of Emergency Medicine for his work in the developing field of telemedicine. He is also a Fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians and a Fellow of the American Academy of Emergency Medicine and, in addition, a member of the European Society of Emergency Medicine.
Dr. Jones is the CEO of Medicus of Houston and the principal instructor for the Advanced ECG Interpretation Boot Camp and the Advanced Dysrhythmia Boot Camp.
Refractory Periods: Absolute/Relative and Effective/Functional
If you do any reading of the vast amount of literature regarding ECG interpretation, you have certainly encountered the terms effective refractory period and functional refractory period. In introductory courses, we learn about the absolute refractory period and the relative refractory period, but no one ever teaches the effective and functional refractory periods. Most definitions are confusing and incomplete, so I have written a short monograph on this topic.
The effective refractory period is basically the same as the absolute refractory period – but there is a slight difference!
The absolute refractory period is a physiologic state – it begins with the onset of the action potential at Phase 0 and represents the period involving all of depolarization and that part of repolarization during which no amount of stimulus can result in another action potential.
The effective refractory period tries to define the absolute refractory period in more realistic, practical terms. The effective refractory period also represents the period during which a typical impulse cannot produce another action potential. So how does this differ from the absolute refractory period? To understand this, we must now jump to a better understanding of the relative refractory period.
The relative refractory period begins at the point that a maximal stimulus is able to initiate another action potential. The key phrase here is maximal stimulus. If a maximal stimulus occurs one-millionth of one millisecond after the end of the absolute refractory period, another action potential will be generated. But for that action potential to occur, that stimulus will have to be at its maximum amplitude because the threshold potential will be much closer to zero potential than it usually is, thus requiring much greater amplitude to initiate the action potential.
But most Phase 0 depolarizations do not result in maximal voltage. Many times, the arriving impulse does not have a full complement of sodium channels to open, so even though the “all-or-nothing” threshold is reached and an action potential is generated, that action potential has less-than-maximal amplitude. When that is the case, the impulse will have to occur further and further into the relative refractory period before threshold is reached and an action potential is generated. So while there is most definitely an absolute refractory period with a definite end to it, as far as an individual patient is concerned, the “absolute refractory period” may not end until some point well into the relative refractory period. So, for that patient, his/her effective refractory period may be a bit longer than the actual absolute refractory period.
The absolute and relative refractory periods are real phenomena. They are also observable phenomena: we can see that an atrial impulse arrived during the absolute refractory period of the AV node or His bundle because it failed to conduct in spite of more than adequate voltage. We can see that an atrial impulse arrived during the relative refractory period of the AV node or His bundle because it conducted with a prolonged PR interval. But observing these phenomena doesn’t really tell us exactly where the absolute refractory period ends and the relative refractory period begins.
The effective refractory period begins with a programmed stimulus (S1) and ends with a programmed stimulus (S2). S1 marks the beginning of Phase 0 of the action potential and S2 marks the longest interval from S1 that fails to result in a depolarization. Note that I did not restrict the longest interval to “within the absolute refractory period.”
In the diagram above, there are 5 equal, vertical lines representing paced impulses (S2) following Phase 0 (S1) of the action potential. Only a line crossing through the curved line representing the relative refractory period has reached threshold and will result in an action potential. Here, only the 5th line breaches the relative refractory curve, so it conducted.
The length of the effective refractory period depends on the strength of the stimulus being used and the length of the coupling interval (number of msec between S1 and S2). If the stimulus is not very strong, the effective refractory period will be measured well into the actual relative refractory period before a depolarization appears (as in the diagram above). If a stronger stimulus is used, a depolarization will be produced earlier and the effective refractory period will be shorter and more representative of the absolute refractory period. Also, if the coupling interval is rather long, the last non-conducted S2 may occur well before the end of the absolute refractory period. So it’s possible that the effective refractory period may actually be measured as being longer or shorter than the absolute refractory period. Although the effective refractory period and the absolute refractory period are not always exactly equal, for practical purposes they can be considered almost the same (since the electrophysiologist’s attempts to measure the effective refractory period are obviously much more precise than depicted in the diagram above). The terms are frequently used interchangeably in the literature but now you understand the subtle difference.
Many people make the mistake of thinking that if the effective refractory period is “basically” the same as the absolute refractory period, then the functional refractory period is the same as the relative refractory period. Nothing could be further from the truth! The functional refractory period and the relative refractory period are not at all the same, though they both relate to the point during the action potential in which an extra-strong stimulus can result in a depolarization. The functional refractory period is the electrophysiologist’s attempt to measure the distance from the onset of the action potential to the onset of the relative refractory period – not the duration of the relative refractory period! It actually represents the shortest interval between two consecutively conducted, paced impulses (S1 and S2). The relative refractory period begins at the point during repolarization that an exceptionally strong stimulus can initiate a depolarization and it ends (usually, but not always) with the onset of Phase 4. This is not what the functional refractory period measures!
The electrophysiologist, however, finds it more practical to measure from a programmed stimulus (S1) that initiates an action potential to the earliest point at which a sufficiently strong stimulus (S2) is able to initiate another depolarization. Thus, the functional refractory period is a measurement between two programmed stimuli – once again, S1 and S2 – and covers all the same territory as the effective refractory period. But again, this determination is voltage- and time-dependent with the strength of the stimulus and the coupling interval (the interval between S1 and S2) affecting where the first depolarization occurs.
But note that while the effective refractory period and the absolute refractory period are virtually the same, the functional refractory period and the relative refractory period are measurements of different sections of the action potential. What we think of as the relative refractory period begins, basically, where the functional refractory period ends.
1. The effective refractory period is – by definition –shorter than the functional refractory period if the same stimulus strength and the same coupling intervals of S1 and S2 are used in both measurements.
2. The effective refractory period is (presumably) completely overlapped by the absolute refractory period while the functional refractory period and relative refractory periods overlap very little!
3. Both the effective refractory period and the functional refractory period begin and end with a programmed stimulus. The absolute refractory period and the relative refractory period are surmised based on the duration of the action potential (QT interval) and the response of the heart to the following sinus or ectopic impulse.
4. The effective refractory period essentially determines the end of the absolute refractory period while the functional refractory period determines the beginning of the relative refractory period.
The absolute refractory period ends around the time the membrane potential has returned to about -60°. Likewise, that is approximately where the relative refractory period begins.
Read more about Ask the Expert
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Anglo-French
1.2 Adjective
1.3 Proper noun
1.3.1 Alternative forms
English Wikipedia has articles on:
Anglo- + French
Adjective[edit]
Anglo-French (comparative more Anglo-French, superlative most Anglo-French)
Of or pertaining to England and France or the people thereof.
Of or pertaining to the dialect of French adopted in England after the decline of Norman.
Of or pertaining to the Anglo-Norman dialect.
Proper noun[edit]
Variant of Anglo-Norman.
Alternative forms[edit]
AFr. (abbreviation)
“Anglo-French”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language , 4th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin, 2000, →ISBN.
“Anglo-French” in Dictionary.com Unabridged , Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
"Anglo-French" in WordNet 2.0, Princeton University, 2003.
Retrieved from "https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Anglo-French&oldid=45387600"
English words prefixed with Anglo-
English proper nouns
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Institutional overview
David Souter
http://www.ictdevelopment.co.uk
Institutions 1.98 MB
This overview chapter is concerned with ways in which global institutions have addressed access to infrastructure since the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), particularly during the last year (2007-2008). The policies and practice of global institutions usually change gradually rather than dramatically. The chapter therefore seeks to put their role in context. Its first section reviews key issues in recent debate about access to infrastructure. The second section considers recent developments in institutional policy and future access challenges.
The access debate
The starting point for this discussion is an understanding of access and the relationship between infrastructure and the access challenge. This section reviews the WSIS access objectives and then considers institutional approaches to three issues: the relationship between supply- and demand-side aspects of access; types and levels of service provision; and types and levels of infrastructure.
WSIS access objectives
The WSIS outcome documents stress perceived benefits of access to information and communications technologies (ICTs) and the desirability of universal access to high-quality (fast, cheap and reliable) ICT services and equipment. The Geneva Plan of Action, dating from November 2003 but largely agreed in earlier preparatory WSIS meetings, sought to define what access meant here through a list of targets, modelled on the Millennium Development Goals (the internationally agreed objectives in mainstream development areas such as health and education). These targets are set out in Box 1.
Box 1: Geneva Plan of Action connectivity targets
To connect villages with ICTs and establish community access points
To connect universities, colleges, secondary schools and primary schools with ICTs
To connect scientific and research centres with ICTs
To connect public libraries, cultural centres, museums, post offices and archives with ICTs
To connect health centres and hospitals with ICTs
To connect all local and central government departments and establish websites and e-mail addresses
To adapt all primary and secondary school curricula to meet the challenges of the information society, taking into account national circumstances
To ensure that all of the world's population have access to television and radio services
To encourage the development of content and to put in place technical conditions in order to facilitate the presence and use of all world languages on the internet
To ensure that more than half the world’s inhabitants have access to ICTs within their reach.
Source: WSIS Geneva Plan of Action, para. 6: www.itu.int/wsis/docs/geneva/official/poa.html
The targets present two analytical challenges:
Firstly, they are imprecise. It is unclear what level of access/connectivity is intended (from a single telephone per village to widespread broadband deployment). This leaves them, effectively, non-measurable.
Secondly, they are of their time. The pace of change in ICT technology and usage is such that targets need regular revision to retain contemporary meaning. Recent mobile telephone access targets, for example, have been rapidly exceeded and required revision everywhere.
The institutional framework established by WSIS to monitor progress towards its targets has also been weak:
Action line meetings to review WSIS outcomes are held in Geneva each May. One session, coordinated by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), is concerned with “information and communication infrastructure: an essential foundation for an inclusive information society”. However, in practice, this enables information exchange rather than coordination of policy or implementation plans.
Overall review of WSIS implementation is undertaken by the UN Commission on Science and Technology for Development (CSTD). This also lacks any strategic role on infrastructure plans.
“Access” is a key theme of the annual Internet Governance Forum (IGF), established on the recommendation of WSIS. This meets annually, most recently in Rio de Janeiro in November 2007. It provides a forum for multi-stakeholder discussion about internet issues, including access, but has no decision-making powers.
The WSIS follow-up framework, in short, merely provides discussion fora. Global institutional activity in relation to access and connectivity is largely developed, as before WSIS, within individual institutions rather than in global fora, though there has been some increased coordination (see examples below).
Supply- and demand-side approaches to access
Much literature about access to ICTs, particularly from development banks and international financial institutions (IFIs), focuses on the supply side – especially the supply of large-scale infrastructure. This top-down approach reflects approaches in other infrastructure sectors such as power, transport and water. IFIs particularly emphasise the value of infrastructure in enabling economic growth at a macro-economic level.
Infrastructure is essential for access: without it, people cannot use the services that networks make available. However, meaningful access – at community or individual level – requires more than infrastructure. People also need the funds to afford access, the skills required to make use of services and equipment, and the availability of content which is of value to them. Broader understandings of access – more commonly found in literature from development agencies such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Canadian International Development Research Centre (IDRC) – stress demand-side factors which focus on enabling communities and empowering citizens.
The enabling policy and regulatory framework for communications is of concern to both IFIs and social development institutions. Strategies concerned with liberalisation and interconnection, for example, affect both the pace and nature of infrastructure deployment and the price and quality of services to end-users. Meaningful analysis of access therefore needs to consider both supply- and demand-side factorsandthe enabling framework which is created by governments and business. Since the 1980s, global institutions have emphasised this enabling framework while leaving financial investment largely to the private sector.
There is ongoing debate amongst global institutions about the relative importance of access to basic telephony and internet/broadband services in developing countries. The context for this debate has shifted significantly this past year, because of technological and market change.
The availability of voice telephony has been transformed during the last decade by the advent of mass mobile cellular markets. Until the late 1990s, there was a large and growing gap in access to voice telephony between industrial and developing countries. Fixed-line teledensity in highly industrial countries had reached over 90% of households, while in least developed countries (LDCs) it languished below 1%. Most telephone companies believed they could not recover fixed-network deployment costs in low-income communities, particularly in rural areas, and so networks were concentrated on urban areas and inter-urban routes.
The advent of mobile networks has changed the economics of communications infrastructure. Wireless networks are cheaper to deploy and have a lower proportion of fixed costs – making it possible to recover investment costs more quickly. Mobile voice networks have therefore been widely deployed in low-income countries, through private investment. Teledensities in much of Africa have now reached 25% or more. The GSM Association (GSMA) – the leading association of cellular mobile companies – believes mobile networks can cover 95% of the global population on commercial terms. The World Bank, too, expects 90% of Africans to be provided with telephony by commercial networks. The “digital divide” in voice telephony is therefore narrowing rapidly, with little financial involvement by IFIs or development agencies.
Global institutions disagree about the sufficiency of this rapid growth in voice telephony. Some have argued that rapid growth in access to telephony – which requires few skills for use and delivers rapid benefits to all – should be prioritised, and that internet access will develop organically from this. Others argue that the important “digital divide” between societies and communities depends on access to the internet and broadband networks, which offer greater economic and empowerment value and which should therefore be prioritised.
This institutional debate is important because it affects decisions about the need for financial investment, particularly the use of public or IFI/development agency funds, and the need for fixed as well as wireless access networks. The debate is also changing as technology and markets evolve:
On the supply side, past assumptions that expensive fixed networks are required to provide broadband access are being challenged by new wireless technologies like Wi-Fi and WiMAX.
On the demand side, the prevalence of mobile phone access vis-à-visfixed broadband networks suggests that most users in LDCs will gain internet experience through upgraded (third generation) mobile devices rather than fixed lines.
ICT businesses have responded more quickly to these technological and market changes than global institutions. Many businesses are now planning on the assumption that mass access to broadband in low-income countries will develop first through wireless, not fixed infrastructure. Global institutions are beginning to follow, but there is a need for sharper dialogue between ICT, funding agency and development professionals.
Infrastructure tiers
There are many ways of illustrating layers of ICT supply. Many readers will be familiar with the distinction commonly made between transport, services, terminal and content layers. Here, we are concerned with tiers within the transport (transmission or infrastructure) layer, of which three are particularly significant:
International infrastructure
Regional or national infrastructure
The local access network.
All three tiers are required for access to global telephony or internet to be available in a community.
Thequalityof access, in particular its bandwidth, will be primarily determined by the lowest quality amongst these tiers. For example, a high-bandwidth local access network which accesses the internet through low-bandwidth international infrastructure will provide low-bandwidth access to end-users.
Thecostof access, meanwhile, will depend on cumulative costs incurred. High-quality, affordable internet access will only be available to end-users if cheap, high-quality infrastructure is available in all three tiers. Data from 2006, for example, suggest that the average retail price for (generally lower quality) broadband access in sub-Saharan Africa was USD 366 per month, compared with between USD 6 and USD 44 for (generally higher quality) access in India (Williams, 2008).
Each tier poses different access and infrastructure challenges to policymakers in governments and global institutions. Some of the key issues are as follows.
The availability of international infrastructure varies greatly by geography. Very high traffic volumes can be conveyed by highly competitive submarine cable networks linking North America, Europe and the Pacific Rim, resulting in very low transit costs. Where submarine cables are non-competitive or non-existent (as in West and East Africa respectively), they offer much more limited (and so much slower) connectivity at much higher prices. Landlocked countries are also affected by the additional cost of cross-border connectivity to reach international cables, or the high cost and low capacity of satellite infrastructure.
The availability, cost and quality of regional and national “backbones” –high-capacity infrastructure between local access and international networks – also varies substantially. In industrial countries, there is typically competition between backbones owned by fixed and mobile service providers and other carriers selling wholesale network capacity. These backbones usually rely on fibre-optic cable, which offers high capacity, but whose deployment involves significant fixed costs which can only be recovered rapidly where there is high demand. In low-income countries, there is usually much less competition, resulting in higher costs to users. In some areas, especially Africa, lower-capacity microwave links provide much backbone infrastructure. In addition, regulations often require other service providers to use the incumbent operator’s backbone network or restrict the resale of capacity on mobile operators’ backbone networks.
In the past, telephone companies in developing countries assumed that demand in rural areas was insufficient to make (fixed) local access networks viable without subsidy. Recent private investment in (mobile cellular) networks suggests that only the remotest rural areas are commercially unviable, and universal access subsidies are now rarely needed for basic voice telephony. The economics of broadband networks are more challenging. There is therefore discussion in institutions about whether subsidies are required to facilitate higher-capacity fixed networks, and about the implications of possible broadband network monopolies.
The response of global institutions
The issues above raise questions for global institutions in two main areas:
The technology and financing of infrastructure deployment, which primarily determine theavailabilityof access.
The regulation of infrastructure and markets, which primarily determine theaffordabilityof access.
Since the early 1980s, global institutions have considered a willing private sector the primary source of investment for communications infrastructure, releasing IFI funds for more difficult infrastructure funding challenges like transport, power and water. This approach has seemed increasingly appropriate to them as wireless networks have been deployed, reaching much larger geographic areas and populations. Institutions have therefore focused on influencing policy and regulatory frameworks in order to encourage private investment and promote competition – in particular through liberalisation, the opening of markets to foreign investment and the removal of restrictions on the use of infrastructure and technology.
The scale of investment in ICT infrastructure in recent years is impressive. Between 1996 and 2006, some USD 23 billion was invested in telecommunications infrastructure in sub-Saharan Africa alone, the large majority by private sector telecommunications businesses. The geographic reach of telephone networks (in terms of the proportion of citizens enjoying access, public or private) has risen to 75% or more in many countries. The comparable 2006 figure for electric power – which has seen much greater public investment by IFIs and development agencies – was 40% or less.[1]Even higher levels of private investment are anticipated for the future. At the ITU’s Connect Africa conference (Rwanda, October 2007), the GSMA “committed” its members to investing a further USD 50 billion between 2007 and 2012, entirely on commercial terms (ITU, 2007).
IFIs will not normally invest where private investment is available. However, as noted above, recent years have seen debate about the relative economics and developmental value of basic telephony and internet/broadband services and networks. Two issues have been prominent:
While voice telephony may be commercially viable in almost all contexts, there will be some remote rural areas and small islands where it is not and where access infrastructure will require public investment or subsidy.
The range of areas in which internet/broadband access may not be commercially viable is likely to be higher than that for voice telephony, and will include many more low-income rural areas. This is especially so if fixed infrastructure is required for broadband.
This debate focused during WSIS on the work of a Task Force on Financial Mechanisms (TFFM). Key conclusions of the Task Force, which were adopted by WSIS, included agreement amongst global institutions that:
Investment in ICTs should come primarily from the private sector. Regulatory reform – including the promotion of liberalisation and open communications markets – should continue to be the foundation for institutional engagement with the sector.
Nevertheless, there was scope for more public-private partnerships and the creative use of short-term public funding for capital investment where commercial viability was uncertain or unlikely. This might include both remote rural areasandthe more general deployment of higher-capacity networks.
There might also be scope for public participation, alongside the private sector, in major infrastructure investments such as regional backbones.
Existing institutional funding mechanisms were sufficient to enable this additional investment. No new mechanisms were required.
The approach set out by the TFFM continues to provide the framework in which global institutions address access infrastructure. Their primary focus is on policy and regulatory reform.
However, some institutions also provide investment support where private finance is not sufficiently forthcoming. Since WSIS, this has led to some loosening of constraints on financial support for major infrastructure investments – for example, the International Finance Corporation’s support for the Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy) cable and agreements between African nations and the European Union (EU) on future infrastructure investment. There has also been some cooperation between funding institutions. While institutional interventions are usually piecemeal and do not form part of a global strategy for access development or for the use of infrastructure in development, the following paragraphs briefly illustrate examples of current interventions.
The best-known instance concerns the deployment of fibre-optic cable along Africa’s east coast, the last major stretch of coastline without submarine cable access. For years before 2008, proposals to lay the EASSy cable, linking East African countries with South Africa and the Middle East (and thereby global cable networks), were mired in controversy. Amongst other things, there were fears that without appropriate regulatory intervention, EASSy’s owners (mostly state-owned fixed network operators) would charge monopoly prices for cable capacity to their competitors. The World Bank Group offered financial support for EASSy on condition that it adopted open access principles (see below). By the time EASSy resolved structural and management disputes in 2008, at least two competing private-sector-led initiatives were underway to lay alternative cables linking East Africa to global networks. These reflected new assessments of commercial viability and suggested that competition rather than institutional investment would stimulate new infrastructure.
The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) initially saw EASSy as part of an institutionally led ICT Broadband Infrastructure Network for Africa. NEPAD’s e-Africa Commission has promoted this large-scale programme, which envisages undersea cables along the East African coast and beyond Africa as well as new cross-border regional backbone infrastructure designed to address capacity problems within the continent. Broadband infrastructure is treated as a “public good” in this proposal, with ownership of infrastructure separated from use and also subject to open access principles. NEPAD believes that a comprehensive approach like this will attract the best mix of institutional and private funding. However, the complex design, financial and management arrangements required have caused problems, including the loss of EASSy from the project.
Another poorly served region with a major infrastructure renewal plan is the Pacific, where small low-income populations are dispersed over very large areas of ocean. Here, a regionally agreed Pacific Plan Digital Strategy aims to address the access challenge by improving local access to ICTs, particularly in remote and rural areas; increasing international bandwidth; reducing costs; removing inappropriate regulation; and strengthening capacity to make use of ICTs (thereby increasing demand). The strategy includes both new international submarine infrastructure (to reduce international transit costs) and an Australian-funded satellite network to improve local access in remoter islands.
These examples involve institutional participation within mixed (public/private) funding structures. Although there has been some shift in international institutions’ thinking about financial engagement with ICT infrastructure, their primary approach continues to emphasise policy and regulatory reform. An important example of new thinking in this area can be found in a paper concerned with regional and national backbones, which was published by the World Bank and the associated ICT for development agencyinfoDev in August (Williams, 2008).
Wireless networks, which have low fixed costs and are readily scalable, are generally cheaper in the short and medium term where demand is relatively low. Fixed networks, with higher fixed costs, are generally cheaper in the medium and longer term where demand is high. This is as true of backbone networks as it is of local access networks. In most countries, core backbones have been implemented by fixed network incumbents, which have predominantly installed fixed (cable) infrastructure. In Africa, however, fixed networks were much less pervasive before the “mobile revolution”, and so most backbone capacity is owned by mobile operators rather than incumbents. Much of this mobile network backbone is made up of microwave rather than cable infrastructure.
The World Bank paper is consistent with established institutional thinking about access infrastructure in that its policy prescriptions rest on two complementary components: creating an enabling environment for competition, and stimulating roll-out in underserved areas. The Bank thinks it “likely” that some rural areas will continue to require public funding – through subsidies, shared infrastructure or incentives – but envisages most access challenges being addressed through measures to promote investment, stimulate downstream (service) competition, and reduce political and commercial risks.
The continued emphasis on policy and regulatory reform, and the relationship between ICTs and other infrastructure, are also well illustrated by the EU-Africa Infrastructure Trust Fund, agreed between the European and African Unions in 2007. This aims to support infrastructure development in energy, transport, water and communications. In the ICT context, it aims to “develop connections with continental and regional networks while opening up the telecommunications sector to competition for efficient and low-cost provision of ICT services.” In its first year, the Fund allocated EUR 109 million to initiatives, but only 5% of this, concerned with regulatory reform, addressed communications.
A final word in this context about community networks. There is interest in some development agencies in the possibility of building access outwards from remote or marginal communities, rather than relying on established national networks to overcome the access challenge. A number of examples of community networks have emerged, in both urban and rural areas, sponsored by local authorities or development agencies. Some of these are using new technologies such as Wi-Fi. Many have leveraged other funding sources, such as development finance for other infrastructure and/or volunteer labour, to reduce costs and so enable cost-effectiveness. Further research is needed on these initiatives, but they may provide a way of facilitating higher-quality affordable access in remote communities before this is likely to be offered by the mainstream communications sector.
Regulatory issues
The influence of regulatory choice on infrastructure deployment is considerable and much debated within global institutions, including the World Bank and ITU. Rapid changes in technology and markets mean that regulatory choices are inherently obsolescent. International institutions are exploring the regulatory opportunities of new technologies and network types (notably Wi-Fi and WiMAX), and of changing market demand, as part of their overall thinking about the industry.
Open access is one regulatory approach which has been backed, amongst others, by both the World Bank and by APC. Open access requires infrastructure owners to make downstream access to their networks available to competitors on non-discriminatory terms. It is particularly relevant where there are only one or two available routes which downstream network and service providers can use to connect customers to global networks, and where there is therefore a risk that owners of “bottleneck” facilities will extract monopoly prices which raise the cost of access to end-users. It has been an important issue in the debates about African submarine cable infrastructure.
Another example of regulatory impact on access and access prices arises from restrictions which some governments place on the wholesale market for backbone infrastructure. Where fixed networks are limited in geographical extent, the majority of national backbone infrastructure is likely to belong to mobile cellular companies. Regulations designed to protect fixed network incumbents sometimes prevent mobile operators from reselling capacity on their backbones. There may be similar constraints on the communications infrastructure owned by other utilities, such as electricity or rail operators (co-called “alternative infrastructure providers”). This not only results in underutilisation of infrastructure, but also acts as a disincentive to new network investment. Companies that cannot sell surplus capacity will tend to install less in the first place.
On the whole, global institutions believe that they can have greater impact on access outcomes by addressing regulatory constraints like these, and otherwise enabling competition – so unlocking private investment – than they can by investing funds directly in new communications infrastructure.
It is worth drawing attention, finally, to three new issues which are beginning to emerge.
The first concerns the interaction between different tiers of infrastructure, and the relationship between infrastructure and other factors influencing “real access” (such as user incomes and capabilities). The large majority of interventions by global institutions address only specific tiers of infrastructure (e.g., international connectivity or local networks) or particular aspects of the access challenge (such as the problem of high international bandwidth costs). Assumptions are often made about the relationship between different tiers of infrastructure (e.g., that lower international bandwidth prices will enable greater and more equitable local access). Likewise, assumptions are often made about the relationship between communications access and development outcomes which pay too little attention to the non-communications constraints in development contexts. At present, there is little holistic thinking in institutions’ approach to the communications market as a whole, or about the interactions between it and development.
The second issue concerns the integration of communications access with access to other infrastructure-based resources. Communities in developing countries which lack affordable communications access also typically lack affordable (or any) access to other network infrastructures (such as transport, clean water and electric power). Such communities are thereby multiply disadvantaged. Surprisingly, however, almost no country has structured its response to such infrastructural deficits by integrating different infrastructure deployments and so leveraging economies of scope and scale.[2]IFIs and other funders have been reluctant to take an integrated network approach, preferring to deal with funding proposals at a sectoral or programme, even project level. There is a growing sense among some observers that, here too, a lack of holistic thinking may be curtailing investment and costing synergies.
The third issue beginning to emerge in institutional thinking relates ICT access to climate change. This has two facets. On the one hand, the ITU and others argue that the use of ICTs – to manage productive processes, transport networks, etc. – will reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs). These potential carbon savings, however, require large-scale deployments of high-level technology in strategic locations such as factories and power plants. They will result, if they are achieved at all, from decisions taken within energy and industrial sectors other than communications. Increased access to ICTs itself, meanwhile, will substantially increase ICTs’ overall contribution to GHGs, from 0.83 gigatonnes per annum in 2007 to an estimated 1.43 gigatonnes per annum in 2020 – an increase of 6% a year – with emissions from developing countries rising from 0.38 to 0.80 gigatonnes per annum (GeSI, 2008). The environmental impact of increased ICT access was not significantly discussed before the 2007 Internet Governance Forum. Recent discussion – in publications by the ITU and the (industry-funded) Global e-Sustainability Initiative – is largely couched in terms of trade-offs between emissions due to increased access and carbon savings resulting from potential ICT use in other sectors. This seems likely to become a more important factor in global institutional thinking about ICTs as concern continues to mount about climate change.
Access to ICT services depends on a number of factors, including infrastructure, which are constrained in most developing countries. Global institutions continue to focus on policy and regulatory change, rather than direct investment, in addressing communications infrastructure deficits. Private sector investment remains high and is expected to continue to grow, with mobile communications businesses seeming increasingly likely to lead the provision of broadband access in low-income countries, as they previously led the provision of telephony.
There are important infrastructural challenges at international, national and local levels. Global institutions have shown somewhat more interest, since WSIS, in supporting and leveraging investment in areas which are difficult to serve (such as remote areas) or require high levels of capital investment (such as international cables and regional/national backbones), though their primary focus remains on policy and regulatory change. However, there is still relatively little thought given to the integration of different tiers of access infrastructure, to the integration of communications with other infrastructure, and to the relationship between infrastructure and development. More holistic understanding of access and more attention to the demand side of access supply – in particular, to usage requirements and experience – would help institutions play a more dynamic role in this area.
GeSI (Global e-Sustainability Initiative) and The Climate Group (2008)
SMART 2020: Enabling the Low Carbon Economy in the Information Age. Available at:www.gesi.org
ITU (International Telecommunication Union) (2003)WSIS Plan of Action.
Available at: www.itu.int/wsis/docs/geneva/official/poa.html
ITU (2007)Connect Africa Summit: Outcomes Report. Available at:www.itu.int/ITU-D/connect/africa/2007/finalreport.pdf
Williams, M. (2008)Broadband for Africa:Policy for Promoting the Development of Backbone Networks. World Bank andinfoDev.
Available at:www.infodev.org/en/Publication.526.html
World Bank (2007)Clean Energy for Development Investment Framework: The World Bank Group Action Plan.
Available at:siteresources.worldbank.org/DEVCOMMINT/Documentation/21289621/DC2007-0002(E)-CleanEnergy.pdf
[1]2 The World Bank (2007) says that only 25% of African households have “access to modern energy”.
[2]Mauritania is one of the few countries that have introduced an integrated universal access agency (APAUS), which seeks to integrate ICT investment with other rural needs.
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Fallacious Argument Against Homosexuality
Author of Unprotected Texts: The Bible’s Surprising Contradictions about Sex and Desire, Jennifer Wright Knust has written an article on CNN’s Belief Blog that uses a really fallacious argument against the sin of homosexuality. Several fallacious arguments, actually.
Okay, every argument she presents is fallacious, but I’m not going to get into that right now because I’m going to be reviewing her book in its entirety very shortly. I need a break from atheism, so I thought I’d briefly turn to liberal Christianity.
The argument I wish to highlight is:
“I love gay people, but the Bible forces me to condemn them” is a poor excuse that attempts to avoid accountability by wrapping a very particular and narrow interpretation of a few biblical passages in a cloak of divinely inspired respectability.
You may as well say “I love murderers, but the Bible forces me to condemn them.” “I love liars, but the Bible forces me to condemn them.” “I love rapists, but the Bible forces me to condemn them.” The Bible doesn’t force you to condemn anyone; the fact that what they are doing is against God and nature is why you condemn them. Not every single human behavior is (or should be) acceptable.
No, the Bible has specific reasons for condemning homosexuality. (Bookmark that article; I’ll be referring to it throughout my review of Dr. Knust’s book.)
The hole? The argument assumes that homosexuality is natural, perhaps even desirable. But, history tells us that is not the case. Few (if any) cultures accepted homosexuality. Some turned a blind eye (the Greeks and the Romans, for example, “trained” young men by letting an older man “adopt” him and do sexual things to him), but it wasn’t just “normal” in any but the most depraved societies. Marriage has always been between the sexes, a man to a woman (or sometimes man to women or woman to men).
If Dr. Knust wants homosexuality to be okay, she has to prove that it is. Her argument is just another reason why Christians can’t have a meaningful debate about homosexuality. We’re just backwards bigots, don’t you know?
Posted on May 18, 2011, in Apologetics, Bible Thoughts, Heresy, Morality, Sin and tagged homosexuality, LGBT Issues, Marriage. Bookmark the permalink. 8 Comments.
scott | May 29, 2011 at 12:32 am
you can say what you like but..
i was born this way….no matter gay, straight, bi, lesbian, transgender, black, white, beige god makes no mistakes 😉
Cory Tucholski | May 29, 2011 at 1:11 am
Not a response.
It does, however, prove that you didn’t read the other articles I have on this site regarding homosexuality. If you had, you’d know that I argue homosexual folks are born that way.
The rub is this: the so-called Warrior Gene makes folks more predisposed to committing violent acts. So, they are made that way. It’s part of their make-up. They were born violent. That doesn’t automatically make the behavior desirable.
That’s where the argument becomes fallacious. Genetic predisposition never equals desirable, at least not automatically. People are also genetically predisposed to heart disease and cancer. As well as addictions, like alcoholism. Should we surrender to those? Pack up chemotherapy and cancer research and pass the beer and blunts. PARTY!!!!!!
Please tell me you now see the ridiculousness of the argument.
Man, I spent a long time on your non-answer.
newenglandsun | April 4, 2013 at 9:10 am
http://io9.com/5967426/scientists-confirm-that-homosexuality-is-not-genetic–but-it-arises-in-the-womb
Homosexuality deals with epigenetics. In regard to the warrior genes since I now see that you do believe people are born homosexual, war really isn’t a bad thing. Sometimes, war can actually release us from the oppressive forms of government.
Eat the rich, warrior man! Hail Anarchy!
Doc | June 8, 2011 at 7:31 pm
“The argument assumes that homosexuality is natural, perhaps even desirable.”
It is. If you want to say it’s “not natural,” you must first define “natural.” Do you mean “not done in nature”? A quick google search will list the animals that partake in homosexual activity. Does it mean “Doesn’t produce babies”? Then every activity outside of male/female sexual intercourse (including knitting and playing baseball) is unnatural and, by your logic, wrong. You Christians love to throw around the “it’s not natural argument” but you avoid explaining what “natural” means because you’ll instantly lose the argument if you do.
“But, history tells us that is not the case. Few (if any) cultures accepted homosexuality. ”
Speaking of fallacies, you are using two: Appeal to Authority and Appeal to Popularity. Just because something is commanded from society leaders, or accepted widely, does not automatically make it right. Many cultures accept stoning girls to death for being raped by a married man, does that make it okay?
“it wasn’t just “normal” in any but the most depraved societies”
What study are you citing here? What is your definition of “depraved”? See how you throw meaningless terms out that you don’t defend with logic?
” Marriage has always been between the sexes, a man to a woman (or sometimes man to women or woman to men).”
Oh hey, another logical fallacy: Appeal to Tradition. Do you Christians know what logical fallacies are?
“Dr. Knust wants homosexuality to be okay, she has to prove that it is”
Again, this is not how logic works. If you’re claiming something is wrong, the burden of proof is on you. We operate by “innocent (right) until proven guilty (wrong),” not the other way around.
How would somebody prove that something is okay? Can you prove that drawing pictures is okay? If so, how?
You Christians are like children in adult bodies.
Cory Tucholski | June 8, 2011 at 9:37 pm
Are you kidding me? Did you really just say that? Are you really continuing an argument that begs the question? And later, when you accuse me of logical fallacies, please remember this.
If you want to say it’s “not natural,” you must first define “natural.”
There’s no broad definition of natural that’s going to work for everything. If I’m going to define “natural sexual intercourse,” then I wouldn’t use either criterion you set forth below.
Do you mean “not done in nature”? A quick google search will list the animals that partake in homosexual activity.
I wouldn’t use this as a criterion because humans are animals in the physiological sense, but not the ontological one. An animal is a biological machine, responding by instinct to the input from its environment. We can temper and control instincts.
Since we’re on this topic, let me ask you a question that I promised myself I would ask the next idiot that said homosexuality is okay because animals do it: Animals also eat their young when threatened. If someone breaks into my house with the intent to kill my children and rape my wife, would it be okay if I ate my 16-month old son to spare him from that threat, since that’s what tigers do?
Does it mean “Doesn’t produce babies”? Then every activity outside of male/female sexual intercourse (including knitting and playing baseball) is unnatural and, by your logic, wrong.
I really want to stop responding to you at this point, because that is the dumbest, most illogical, most ridiculous statement I have ever heard in my entire life. This statement here, above everything I have ever heard in my life, proves that atheists don’t give a flying naked molerat about context. You do understand what “context” is, right?
A grouping of words can mean something different depending on who said it, where it fits in the scheme of their whole point, who they’re saying it to, and a host of other things. I already stated I can’t define “natural” in a broad sense, but I can define what is natural for specific situations . That places a contextual limitation on any definition I advance, so simply by having a criterion like “Must produce babies” doesn’t do a lot for us. What has to produce babies? Since knitting and baseball aren’t in the same category of activities as sex (although some men think of baseball during sex to draw the proceedings out longer), then merely having that as a criterion doesn’t automatically exclude knitting or baseball.
Since we’ve established in the comments to this post that you were in the Box of Rocks group for reading skill and comprehension, I’m pretty sure that you’re not still with me given I was using words way beyond you like “context,” “limitation,” and “on.” But for everyone else who’s following the argument, a good definition of “natural sexual relations” could be cobbled together from sight. Look at a penis. Now look at a vagina. Notice that the penis is long (maybe not in Doc’s case) and cylindrical. The vagina, on the other hand, is like a hole. An inverse cylinder. When the man gets horny, the penis grows in length. When the woman gets horny, the vagina becomes as slippery as Doc’s arguments, and deepens. And, at that point, the penis can be inserted into the vagina with relative ease, and I know many women who will tell you that that first thrust just takes your breath away.
So it seems as though that would be the natural use of the penis, and the natural use of the vagina. And I didn’t even break a sweat trying to figure that out. But I should retire, I guess, because now that I’ve explained it, I have lost the argument by default.
You Christians love to throw around the “it’s not natural argument” but you avoid explaining what “natural” means because you’ll instantly lose the argument if you do.
Nope, and I explained what I meant by natural, so please show me how I lost the argument instantly.
Fair enough. This is the first good point you’ve made!
But it doesn’t get you anywhere. This is not only true, and you can’t dispute it, but it is supplementary to my main point, which is that homosexuality isn’t natural. If I establish something as true without a logical fallacy (which I have already done with the central argument), then appealing to tradition and citing history to show that it has held in the past is a reasonable way of backing up my point. It isn’t reasonable to make my point this way, and I didn’t make my point using this.
I doubt you’d bat an eyelash if I argued that murder was wrong, listed the benefits to society of forbidding murder, and then pointing out that nearly every society has forbidden it. What about parent-child incest? If I argued that was sick and supplemented that by pointing out that no society has let it transpire, wouldn’t that be a good way to back up my original stance?
Yes. Have you ever stopped to think why marriage has always been between a man and a woman?
No, the United States operates by that. In the UK, if you’re accused of a crime, you have to prove that you’re innocent, not the other way around.
When you can clearly see that the penis is intended to penetrate the vagina and that man-woman marriage benefits society by producing offspring to carry on, then going against that requires something more than just you saying, “Well, you can’t prove that it’s wrong.” Circumstantial evidence indicates otherwise. Please tell me why you think it’s right.
I can’t prove that drawing is okay, but I can give you some circumstantial evidence that proves it is beneficial:
http://www.tlcinstitute.org/drawingintervention.html
http://www.arttherapyblog.com/child-art-therapy/how-art-therapy-for-children-works/
Click to access Malchiodi-Ch16.pdf
http://www.narrativeapproaches.com/narrative%20papers%20folder/art_therapy.htm
All of those links indicate the benefit of using art for therapeutic purposes. So drawing provides a clear benefit. I’m betting you can’t find any clear benefits to homosexual marriage.
You don’t even want to know what I think of you at this point.
Doc | June 9, 2011 at 7:24 am
“Since we’re on this topic, let me ask you a question that I promised myself I would ask the next idiot that said homosexuality is okay because animals do it: ”
I didn’t say that. I asked you if “done in nature” is your definition of “natural.” If it is, then “It’s unnatural” doesn’t hold up, since it is done in nature. Of course, like a typical theist, you twist that into, “If animals do X, it’s okay for humans to do X,” because you’re a theist, and logic is hard.
“There’s no broad definition of natural that’s going to work for everything.
No, you can’t run away from your own charge. You say homosexuality is wrong because it’s unnatural. In order to make this claim, you must define what you mean by unnatural.
“. The vagina, on the other hand, is like a hole. An inverse cylinder. When the man gets horny, the penis grows in length. When the woman gets horny, the vagina becomes as slippery as Doc’s arguments, and deepens. And, at that point, the penis can be inserted into the vagina with relative ease, and I know many women who will tell you that that first thrust just takes your breath away.”
Hey, what do you know, EXACTLY like a penis and an anus! There is physical stimulation that occurs with the prostate in the male’s anus, you know. Any gay man (or woman who likes anal) will tell you.
“Nope, and I explained what I meant by natural”
Ah, “unnatural sexual action” is your explanation?
So why is that wrong? Is it equally as wrong as male/female anal or oral sex? Or masturbation? Or use of condoms?
Saying “It’s unnatural” doesn’t really mean anything if you’re trying to say how it’s wrong.
I can make the case that chewing gum is an “unnatural use” of your digestive system, since the purpose for saliva is to produce digestive enzymes to break down the food to ease digestion, and your stomach produces pepsin to get ready to take the food in, so when you chew gum and spit it out, you’re not using the digestive system “for its intended purpose.” THerefore, it is “unnatural.” So, is that just as wrong as homosexuality now?
“I doubt you’d bat an eyelash if I argued that murder was wrong, ”
Because it harms somebody, and my view is that harming other people is wrong. I don’t care how many civilizations have banned it for how long.
“Have you ever stopped to think why marriage has always been between a man and a woman?”
I know exactly why is. Bigots like you who like to think you’re superior to gays.
” Please tell me why you think it’s right.”
See my chewing gum example. Since chewing gum is unnatural, it must be wrong. Prove to me why it’s right.
“I’m betting you can’t find any clear benefits to homosexual marriage.”
Of course I can. Homosexual people can marry who they want, and adopt and raise kids. Happiness all around. How is that not a benefit?
And that’s beside the point. One does not need to prove a benefit or else the thing is “wrong.” My point is that something isn’t “wrong” until you can say why it is. Skipping rocks across a lake has no benefits that you can cite, so is that wrong until proven right?
You are the most condescending, insulting debater I have ever experienced, so I’ll extend the same to you. Oh, wait, I do know what to think of you: Typical brainwashed theist who insults and twists arguments to defend their baseless beliefs.
Oh, and also, the same “It’s natural because it is easy to do and fits” can be used to defend masturbation and oral sex. The penis fits perfectly in the hand. The mouth is nice and wet to suck on a penis (or a tongue in the vagina). Therefore, masturbation and oral sex among anybody is “natural,” by your own definition.
search | October 5, 2014 at 1:01 am
Valuable info. Fortunate me I discovered your website unintentionally, and I am stunned why this accident didn’t took place
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Ohio Un-American Activities Committee
Revision as of 14:45, 2 July 2013 by SPosmontier (Talk | contribs)
With the Cold War's outbreak during the late 1940s, many Americans feared the spread of communism. A majority of Americans became convinced that the Soviet Union sought to spread its communist ideology around the world, overthrowing the United States' capitalist economy and representative democracy. Many government leaders at the national and state levels became convinced that communists were actively at work within the United States to overthrow the nation.
In 1951, the Ohio General Assembly implemented the Ohio Un-American Activities Committee, a joint committee of state representatives and senators charged with determining communism's influence in Ohio. The committee was based upon the federal government's House Un-American Activities Committee, and its members received sweeping powers to question Ohioans about their ties to communism. Between 1951 and 1954, the Ohio Un-American Activities Committee, headed by House member Samuel Devine, questioned forty Ohioans, asking each person, "Right now, are you an active member of the Communist Party?" Every person refused to answer, citing the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution, which protects Americans against self-incrimination. Most of the accused were college students or people during the 1930s who advocated socialist or communist programs to end the Great Depression. Due to the immense fear among Americans of a potential communist takeover, support of communism became a crime during this Second Red Scare. Various grand juries eventually indicted the forty people, with fifteen of these accused being convicted for supporting communism. In 1952, the Ohio Un-American Activities Committee contended that 1,300 Ohioans were members of the Communist Party.
In 1953, the Ohio General Assembly, with Governor Frank Lausche's approval, extended the Ohio Un-American Activities Committee's existence. Lausche generally opposed the committee's actions, but he faced great pressure from Ohio voters who feared communism. The governor contended that the committee's actions might put into "grave danger. . .the reputations of innocent people against whom accusations can be made on the basis of rumor and frequently rooted in malice," but he also stated that "Communism is a menace to our country." Lausche did veto a bill that would give jail terms and hefty monetary fines to anyone found guilty of communist leanings, but the Ohio General Assembly, at Samuel Devine's urging, passed the bill over the governor's veto.
The Ohio Un-American Activities Committee continued its investigations for the next several years. Eventually, the committee ceased operation. This was primarily due to a growing realization that the Ohio Un-American Activities Committee's actions violated Ohioans' basic civil liberties, including freedom of speech and the right to assemble peaceably.
Frank J. Lausche
Ohio General Assembly
Samuel L. Devine
Retrieved from "https://ohiohistorycentral.org/index.php?title=Ohio_Un-American_Activities_Committee&oldid=32721"
History Organizations
The Cold War and Civil Rights
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Difference between revisions of "Venomous Snakes"
(Created page with "{{infobox | image = File:Differences Between Snakes.jpg }} <p>On average, 8,000 people are bitten by venomous snakes in the United States each year. However, only 9 - 15 o...")
SPosmontier (Talk | contribs)
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<p>On average, 8,000 people are bitten by venomous snakes in the United States each year. However, only 9 - 15 of these victims actually die. More people are struck and killed by lightning each year. Despite this fact, many people are afraid every time they go out in nature that they will meet up with a venomous snake. Snakes tend to be defensive, not aggressive. They will make every attempt to get away from a potential threat before the last resort of striking with the intention of biting. Still, it's wise to have a healthy respect for snakes. Even though most snakes in Ohio are nonvenomous, they are still able to inflict painful bites. There are only three venomous, or poisonous, snakes in Ohio. These are the Eastern timber rattlesnake, northern copperhead, and the massasauga rattlesnake.</p>
<p>Every year people claim to see the dangerous water moccasin, also known as cottonmouth, in Ohio's waters. They are actually encountering the harmless Northern water snake.</p><br />
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https://openwaterhq.com/scuba/what-is-technical-diving-am-i-ready/
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What is Technical Diving? Am I Ready for It?
Technical diving is a step up from recreational diving. A technical diver is qualified to dive deeper, breathe more than one gas, and dive longer underwater. A recreational diver usually breathes normal air, just like on the surface. A technical diver will also use air, but once they reach certain depths, they will switch to enriched air nitrox, pure oxygen, and even trimix to reduce the effects of nitrogen narcosis. As you can imagine, determining what gas mix to use and when sounds very… technical.
So let’s just get this out of the way. Technical diving is not for everyone, and that’s okay. Everyone can be a hiker, but few can legitimately scale Mt. Everest without relying on a path the Sherpa people made for tourists. In a similar vein, technical diving lets you see a wreck that rests 30 m (100 ft) underwater, but it also exposes you to new dangers and risks. One must have great skill and a certain disposition to become a technical diver.
In this article, we’ll discuss what technical diving is and what it takes to be a technical diver. If you are a recreational diver looking to make the jump to a tec diver, then read this article and see if it’s something you’d be interested in.
Is it worth being a technical diver?
Taking the first step
Technical diving equipment
Prerequisite skills for a tec diving course
Buoyancy and trim
Equipment usage
Rescue skills
The most important prerequisite for technical diving
Technical dive safely by keeping your ego in check
Dealing with human factors
What is a good benchmark for when I am ready for technical diving?
How expensive is it to be a technical diver?
How dangerous is technical diving?
How difficult is dive theory and diving physics?
Parting words
Why should a recreational diver bother to learn technical diving? For starters, if you are frustrated with how limiting your current certifications are, then getting a higher certification with fewer limits is a no-brainer.
The skills you’ll learn in the technical diving courses let you stay underwater for longer, reach depths you weren’t certified to dive to before, and get an experience that only fellow tec divers are able to enjoy. It’s true that you can explore many coral reefs as a rec diver, but there are many things you’re missing out on.
When recreational diving, you are trying to stay within your no-decompression limits. Breathing only air, it doesn’t take very long at depths beyond 20m for you to exceed your NDL. As such, rec divers can only experience a wreck for a few minutes before their time runs out. Technical divers don’t have this limitation; they can stay longer and see more. This is the primary reason why people learn technical diving; they can just lift the restrictions that rec divers are confined to.
With that said, technical diving has its downsides. For starters, now you have an even greater responsibility for you and your partner’s safety. Also, there is a literal cost: the gear required for tec diving and the cost of nitrox and trimix really adds up quickly. You will have to spend thousands of dollars upfront for the courses and equipment, and tens of thousands over the years paying for gas refills. This may or may not be worth it to you depending on how much you enjoy tec diving.
In order to get started with tec diving, you must take the appropriate courses, of which there are several. This is very important, because each course will teach you new aspects of tec diving, such as how to use the new equipment, different procedures, and new skills. This will be a major step up from recreational diving.
If you’re thinking “forget that, I’ll just stick with my current certification” and sneakily exceed your limits on your next dive because you think there’s not much difference between rec and tec diving, then what you are doing is foolishness and can easily result in death.
With that spiel out of the way, if you’ve decided you want to become a technical diver then you must take the appropriate courses. In the next section, we’ll give you an idea of the kinds of things you’ll learn.
There are many training agencies that offer technical diver training, however we are going to focus on PADI’s program because it’s what we know and it’s widely available. The TEC 40 will be the starting point tec diving hopefuls. Here, you will learn the basics of this new type of diving.
The goal of the course is to teach you:
How to plan a technical dive.
How think like a technical diver.
How to use decompression planning programs on your dive computer.
How to use a gas cylinder with oxygen content up to 50%.
To be eligible to enroll in the PADI TEC 40 course, you must meet these requirements:
Completed PADI Advanced Open Water Diver or equivalent.
Completed PADI Enriched Air Diver or equivalent.
Completed PADI Deep Diver or have proof of at least 10 dives to 30 m (100 ft).
A medical form signed by a doctor within the last 12 months.
At least 18 years of age.
Minimum of 30 logged dives.
Unlike the requirements to be an Advanced Open Water Diver, the requirements to be a tec diver are quite steep. However, once certified, you get the following benefits:
Dive to depths up to 40 m (130 ft) with decompression not longer than 10 minutes.
Use of a stage tank with up to 50% oxygen.
Congratulations, your maximum depth limit is increased, and now you can change up the gas mix. It doesn’t seem like much, but that’s only the first course of many. You are now a tec diver, but you still have a long way to go. The limits placed on you are slowly starting to be lifted. Now you can explore more and discover new places. Just by being a tec diver, you get to be in places most people never get the chance to. It’s exciting.
Technical diving requires a different setup than recreational diving. You’ll learn about it in-depth by taking the course, but to summarize it briefly here, you’ll be diving with multiple gas tanks. You need two main breathing gas tanks and a decompression tank.
Many technical divers follow the backmount configuration, where two tanks are strapped on their backs and a third tank is strapped to the side – the “stage.”
Another option is to go with a sidemount configuration where all of the tanks are strapped to the side and distributed evenly. This system was inspired by cave divers, and has become more popular over the years, seeing usage even for recreational diving.
In case you’re wondering if you need to have a full set of your own gear, the answer is no, you can rent it all from the dive center you booked with. However, if you plan on diving frequently, then you should have your own set and take care of it personally. That way, you can become highly familiarized with your gear and how to use it to its full potential.
Photo Credit: SCUBATOO (CC BY 2.0)
After the PADI TEC 40 course, you will be eligible to take the PADI TEC 45, then PADI TEC 50. After you complete the “50” course, you can take courses where you’ll learn about diving with trimix. These courses are the PADI TEC TRIMIX 65 and PADI TEC TRIMIX Diver. Once you finish the final course, you’ll be qualified to dive below 90m (300 ft)!
We recommend taking your time with each course. It’s not enough just to have the certification; you need to truly be skilled. After each course, you should apply what you learned and gain experience. Don’t rush to take the next class. Make at least a dozen dives between courses so you can consolidate what you learned. It will be better for your education because you’re not just memorizing but understanding and applying.
If you don’t have a partner that shares the same enthusiasm as you for technical diving, then you can ask your diving center if they plan trips for technical divers. You will be able to dive with other scuba enthusiasts who are very skilled with lots to learn from as part of your education and diving experience.
Before you take a tec diving course, you should be a competent diver. This is not just a course outcome; it’s a prerequisite. After taking your first tec diving course, your skill level will have improved, but this improvement will be from an already high-level. Don’t expect to go in as a mediocre diver and come out miraculously transformed. You should be comfortable with the “fundamentals” of diving to excel.
The most fundamental skill of diving is managing your buoyancy and trim. No matter what point you’re at in a given dive, you should be able to maintain a near-horizontal position in the water column. You should also be able to float comfortably while keeping a distance of a metre above the ground.
Similarly, your ascents and descents must be done slowly in a controlled manner. It must also be precise. If you planned for a dive at 25m, you shouldn’t find yourself at 26m. The same is true for ascents.
On top of all of this, you must be capable of adjusting your position solely with your fins without the assistance of your hands. We say this not in an insulting way, but the fundamentals skills should be second-nature by now. When you’re in the tec diving course, you don’t want the added mental load and stress of trying to remember the basics when you should be learning new things.
The next fundamental skill you should have is a mastery over your current diving equipment. Are you able to don all of your gear and use them with your eyes closed (you don’t really need to do that)? Do you feel comfortable using your BCD as you do driving your car? Is the compass pointing you in the right direction? Can you deploy the SMB as soon as you need to?
When you’re on a tec diving course, you will be introduced to even more equipment. The assumption is you already know how to use your pre-course equipment with relative ease. Some gear is prioritized above others, such as your BCD and mastery over your buoyancy and trim.
Even with gear that you might not use often, such as the SMB, you should be competent enough to at least shoot it without entangling yourself in it. You never know when you might need to use it in an emergency situation. You’ll be introduced to new scuba configurations such as a twinset and long-hose setup. If you are familiar with your old gear, then learning a new configuration should feel like a natural progression.
Another fundamental skill you should be competent at are your rescue skills. There’s no shortage of dangers and risks when you’re 100 feet underwater. Hazards are everywhere. You could literally make no mistakes but somehow a gear starts to malfunction. Without a backup, you’d be in serious trouble. Technical diving takes these risks and multiplies it by ten.
That’s not to say that technical diving is akin to suicide; no, far from it. With the proper training, preparation, and skill, you can minimize the risks to an acceptable level. However, if we’re being very honest, diving is objectively a high risk activity compared to many others. The environment is hostile; no human should be able to dive this deep underwater.
Due to the depth, the water pressure can cause various barotraumas. There’s also the risk of a dangerous encounter with marine life, getting lost or getting trapped, and much more. Since you plan on taking a technical diving course, one of the prerequisites is that you take a Rescue Diver course.
The skills you learn in the Rescue Diver course is essential so you know what to do in the event of an emergency. You and your dive buddies should be capable of performing all of the essentials of rescue both in and out of the water.
You should be able to tow another diver to safety, perform in-water equipment removals, rescue breathing, dealing with a panicked diver, ascending with an unconscious diver, dealing with out of gas situations or equipment failures, and on land CPR. If just reading the things you need to deal with is giving you anxiety, then you should either take the course or consider that tec diving might not be for you.
A tec diving course will teach you mostly about tec diving. These fundamental skills such as buoyancy control and rescue skills are skills you should know before you even enroll. If you have to play catch-up on old skills while learning new ones, you may not be able to retain this information which puts you at a disadvantage.
Despite saying all that, there are still levels to the tec diving courses. The first stage will be a challenge designed to push you out of your comfort zone. However,the instructors do not expect you to be perfect. You will experience physical exhaustion and some mental stress in the beginning, but at the end you will be rewarded with an overwhelming feeling of achievement and a new certification.
All entry-level technical diving courses have enrollment prerequisites that ask for X amount of logged dives, Y amount of dives breathing enriched air or dives past a certain depth, and an Advanced Open Water certification. This is all well and good; meeting these prerequisites means you have gone through a base level of training and have decent diving experience.
However, perhaps more important than diving skill and knowledge is being humble and knowing your limits. Your training and skills amount to nothing without the right mindset. A very common cause of death for technical divers are mistakes or errors in judgment that were made because of complacency and ego.
That’s right, the risk of death actually increases with more experience. How? The more successful dives one logs, especially to great depths with few to no incidents, the more their ego inflates. After dozens or over hundred successful but uneventful dives, the diver can only conclude that their skill level is beyond comprehension and they are infallible.
With such an inflated ego, they start to let their guard down. They begin to lose their fear of the ocean and start taking greater risks that can lead to disaster should something go wrong. What we just described is also very common in the recreational diving community, however the risk is not as severe since they are diving in shallower waters.
Technical diving isn’t like other sports where a mistake costs them a game or leads to a minor injury. Given how unforgiving technical diving is, all it takes is one mistake at a deep enough depth and it may be a diver’s last. If you cannot overcome the obstacle you are presented with, you will likely die.
As such, killing your ego and never allowing yourself to be complacent is a must. Stay humble and acknowledge that you have limits. It doesn’t matter how many logged dives you have or if you have a pile of diving certifications. The ocean doesn’t care about any of that, and even the most seasoned veteran can lose their life if they let their guard down. It’s best to have a healthy fear of what could go wrong so you will stay vigilant.
So, how do you eliminate your ego, or at the very least keep it in check? Both the easiest and most difficult way is to find yourself in a situation where you realize just how fallible you are, and somehow survive with a newfound fear and respect of the ocean. Oftentimes, reality is the greatest teacher. However, life-threatening situations are not something you want to seek out, because there is a chance that you won’t make it out of it.
With that said, there’s a reason why we stick close to our dive buddy and bring backups of all the vital pieces of gear. Perhaps all that needs to happen for you to experience the fear of a potentially life-threatening situation is a gear malfunction that forces you to switch to a backup and head for the surface post-haste.
Other than being subjected to an experience like that, the safest way to quickly eliminate your ego is to change your attitude. Just think. There are probably divers that are more skilled and with more experience than you who have lost their lives while diving. If you truly think you are exceptional, it’s great to remind yourself that you’re probably not, but that doesn’t mean you’re a bad diver.
Being brutally honest and having humility is actually a sign that you’re a good diver. Self-criticism and a degree of perfectionism are good qualities that a technical diver should have. Not only are you self critical, but are you open to criticism from others? Having a veteran diver explain to you your mistakes should be seen as a boon. Do not think that you are past the point of receiving advice.
Furthermore, do you know the limits of your abilities? Is your buoyancy and trim really as good as you claim? Can you navigate your way out of any environment? Do you stay composed and handle real-life emergencies stoically, or do you panic and make rookie mistakes? Were you able to maintain control of the situation, or at least had a full grasp of the seriousness of the event? Or did you tunnel vision?
Similarly, how strictly do you follow standard diving procedures? How often are you checking on your dive buddy? Do you find pre-dive briefings to be a waste of time and not really pay attention to them? Asking yourself these introspective questions is a valuable skill to have because it forces you to be honest with yourself and your weaknesses.
Diving is not a competitive sport; it’s not a race and there’s no prize for who dives the deepest or longest. The old adage of pushing past your limits to improve yourself is not totally applicable to scuba diving. The only outcome is a potential inflation of your ego if you succeed, or a possible death if something goes wrong.
In this section, we will briefly mention the importance of being sensitive to human factors – that is, being aware of the state of the entire dive group. This is not necessarily a scuba diving exclusive issue, but a general human one. However, since your dive buddies are crucial to your survival and vice versa, it’s something worth talking about.
You need to be able to gauge the mood of the group because it directly contributes to team cohesion. Read your fellow divers’ body language; does someone seem uncomfortable or on edge? Know when to “call” a dive if you feel like something is wrong which could cause a chain of events that leads to a significant problem further down the line.
If you feel like this is some hippie kumbaya advice, well, whether you like it or not, human factors are starting to become part of diving and it’s worth looking into it to educate yourself on the subject. We recommend reading Gareth Lock’s Under Pressure: Diving Deeper with Human Factors to learn more about it and how it applies to diving in general, not just technical diving.
The amount of logged dives one has is often used like a ranking system in diving circles. Whoever has the biggest number is the “best” diver because they have the most wisdom and experience, or something like that. This way of thinking is flawed and not a good measurement of a diver’s skill.
So you may be unsure if you’ve done “enough” dives, and you might be thinking that by doing a greater volume of dives, you will eventually be ready. Not necessarily. A diver could do 500 dives, all of them uneventful, and their experience level would not be much higher than a diver who only has 50 logged dives. Conversely, a diver with 100 logged dives, all of them in a variety of dive locations with novel experiences each time, could be a much diver overall.
The point is the number of dives is not necessarily a good indicator of skill, and just because someone has a huge number of dives doesn’t mean they are superior to you or vice versa (remember what we said about ego).
Before you take a technical diving, ideally you have already dealt with such harrowing experiences as: heavy currents, an incompetent dive buddy, low visibility, a panicked diver, basically any tough situation that forces you to become a better diver.
That’s not to say that you should seek out trouble just so you can see how you handle a tough situation. However, as long as you have a strong grasp on the fundamentals of diving and have at least the minimum number of dives required, then you may be ready for the entry level technical diving course.
Unfortunately, not only is technical diving riskier, it’s also more expensive. The tec diving courses and the required dives cost money. Then there’s the new equipment you’ll have to buy. Then the next round of courses and dives, and even more equipment on top of that. After the initial investment in gear and course material, there is the recurring cost of refilling gas.
Unlike rec diving where you only use air, filling your scuba cylinders with helium, oxygen, and nitrox adds up. For the entry level technical diving courses, the cost of gas is still manageable. Once you start using helium, then your wallet will start hurting.
Diving is not a cheap sport, and you should not take risks just to save money such as not getting the necessary gas mixes for the depth you will be diving at. The greatest technical diving expense will occur at the highest level of technical diving when you have to pay for thousands of litres of trimix over many years.
The reason why technical diving is so dangerous is that you will be at greater risk of: decompression sickness, hypoxia, oxygen toxicity (pulmonary and central nervous system), hypercapnia, hyperbaric arthralgia, drowning, and high pressure nervous syndrome – many of these can be fatal.
Technically speaking, the risk of encountering any of these is very low. By following the safety procedures taught in the courses, even technical diving can become safe enough to be taught to the general public. With that said, it’s more dangerous than recreational diving.
The two main reasons are: high partial pressure of oxygen and ascent ceilings. The risks posed by these two factors, though minimal, are worth taking into account before you enroll in a technical diving course. Furthermore, the deeper one dives, the less reliable decompression calculations and physiology becomes. No two people are the same, and your body may react differently at depth compared to someone else.
If academics are not your strong suit, you may be worried that any new theories taught may be too tough to wrap your head around. However, if you’ve already passed your Advanced Open Water Diver course, then any new theory you’ll learn should be within your reach.
Similarly, any mathematics or equations involved should be along the same level as what you learned, just slightly different. They start to make a lot more sense once you just think about it logically.
Furthermore, it’s not like a technical diver is literally doing complex mathematics in their head while diving. These things will become second nature after a while, and you only need to know the concepts at a high enough level to receive their benefits. Plus, your dive computer can also help you with most of these calculations. Just have a fundamental understanding of the basics so that if your dive computer gives you an absurd number, you’ll spot it immediately.
Diving is a fantastic sport that provides breathtaking and unforgettable experiences. Even at shallow depths, the aquatic world is enough to awe you with its beautiful corals and inhabitants, as snorkelers can attest to. However, depths of the ocean are just another frontier in which adventurers can explore and conquer. Some very famous wrecks are only accessible to technical divers who can dive to depths of 100 ft or more.
Without the proper training and equipment, diving that deep would be suicide. By taking the technical diving courses, you can learn how to safely search and explore the unknown. It opens doors that are locked to other divers who only have their basic Open Water certification. There’s nothing wrong with rec diving, however if you’re someone who dares to see more, then you need to get started with technical diving.
Should I Take the Advanced Open Water Diver Course?
Master SCUBA Diver vs. Divemaster Certifications
How to Get Started with Trimix Diving
What is Deep Sea Diving?
Scuba Diving Opportunities for the Disabled
Differences Between PADI, SSI, and NAUI Certifications
Is It Safe to Scuba Dive Alone?
Is Scuba Diving an Extreme Sport?
How to Get Started with Ice Diving
Can You Scuba Dive Without A License?
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"Er Class 0-10-0 'ЭP-788-49' | The 0-10-0 layout was the most… | Flickr", by Flickr, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
0-10-0 Class G10 is a steam locomotive in the game Railroad Tycoon II. It was available in 1910 is very strong locomotives easily capable of handling any type of cargo. It isn't most useful locomotive though, because it really lacks purpose other than pulling Heavy Freight due to it'ss lack of speed, as well as it'ss high running costs. However, it is genuinely quite powerful, and it handles grades fairly well too. When Class G10 becomes available, it should be selectively assigned to freight trains that have potential to make good profit. Cargo such as steel, cattle, and alcohol are examples of this. It is advisable also to ensure that G10 always hauls 5-6 cars of cargo, because of it' high maintenance, and it' hauling capability. Other types of freight should instead be assigned to Prairie or Camelback locomotive types. The Life of Class G10 realistically lasted until 1919, when Mikado came out, as that locomotive had superior speed, hauling power, and grade ability, as well as being surprisingly cheaper in maintenance. Overall, it isn't really locomotive with a great role to play, nor does it have a great lifespan.
Prussian G 10
British Rail Class 60
Pennsylvania Railroad Class D15
Drb Class 50
Russian Locomotive Class Lv
Sentetsu Pure Class Locomotives
Secr N Class
Steam Turbine Locomotive
Indian Locomotive Class Wap-7
Lner Class A4
Nigel Gresley
Indian Locomotive Class Wdm-2
Heaviest Trains
New Zealand De Class Locomotive
4-8-0 Mastodon Steam 1890-1911 45 12 45 3 30 60K 13K 525 All Light Freight
2-6-0 Mogul Steam 1895-1915 50 10 29 5 30 83K 12K 556 All Mixed
2-6-2 Prairie Steam 1912-1953 60 10 37 7 60 85K 11K 650 All Mixed
2-10-0 Class 13H Steam 1917-1940 40 30 28 7 30 102K 36K 1074 EU, W Heavy Freight
USRA 0-6-0 Steam 1918-1942 40 15 42 7 110 90K 13K 674 NA, EU Light Freight
2-8-2 Mikado Steam 1919-1950 55 33 28 7 30 133K 32K 985 All Heavy Freight
Be 4/6 II Electric 1920-1950 35 18 21 8 60 61K 11K 368 EU, W Light Freight
0-10-0 Class G10 Steam 1910-1939 50 10 27 5 130 98K 38K 981 EU, W Light Freight
No. of Wins
0 1893, 1948, 1950,1969
2 1945, 1951, 1973, 1987, 1992
3 1898, 1900, 1902, 1931, 1938, 1946, 1977, 1988
4 1894, 1895, 1899, 1915, 1920, 1924, 1933, 1935, 1939, 1947, 1957, 1961, 1969, 1971, 1974, 1978
5 1896, 1897, 1903, 1904, 1906, 1908, 1912, 1919, 1925, 1926, 1927, 1929, 1930, 1934, 1936, 1937, 1940, 1952, 1953, 1958, 1962, 1970, 1979, 1991
6 1901, 1909, 1910, 1911, 1914, 1917, 1923, 1941, 1955, 1959, 1960, 1964, 1972, 1976, 1985, 1989, 1990, 1993
7 1907, 1913, 1916, 1918, 1921, 1928, 1942, 1956, 1965, 1967, 1968, 1981, 1982, 1997, 2012, 2014, 2015
8 1922, 1932, 1954, 1963, 1966, 1975, 1980, 1984, 1994, 2001, 2003, 2013
10 1986, 1995, 1996, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2016
11 1999, 2000, 2005, 2007, 2010, 2011
Virginia Tech 1946 team became the first football team from the Commonwealth of Virginia to play in a post-season Bowl game. Bowl games include the following: Jan. 1 1947: Sun Bowl, losing to Cincinnati 6-18 Dec. 10 1966: Liberty Bowl, losing to Miami 7-14 Dec. 14 1968: Liberty Bowl, losing to Mississippi 17-34 Jan. 2 1981: Peach Bowl, losing to Miami 10-20 Dec. 15 1984: Independence Bowl, losing to Air Force Academy 7-23 Dec. 31 1986: Peach Bowl, beating North Carolina State 25-24 Dec. 31 1993: Independence Bowl, beating Indiana 45-20 Dec. 30 1994: Gator Bowl, losing to Tennessee 23-45 Dec. 31 1995: Sugar Bowl, beating Texas 28-10 Dec. 31 1996: Orange Bowl, losing to Nebraska 21-41 Jan. 1 1998: Gator Bowl, losing to North Carolina 3-42 Dec. 29 1998: Music City Bowl, beating Alabama 38-7 Jan. 4 2000: Sugar Bowl, losing to Florida State 29-46 Jan. 1 2001: Gator Bowl, beating Clemson 41-20 Jan. 1 2002: Gator Bowl, losing to Florida State 17-30 Dec. 31 2002: San Francisco Bowl, beating Air Force 20-13 Dec. 26 2003: Insight Bowl, losing to California 49-52 Jan. 3 2005: Sugar Bowl, losing to Auburn 13-16 Jan. 2 2006: Gator Bowl, beating Louisville 35-24 Dec. 30 2006: Chick-fil-Bowl, losing to Georgia 24-31 Jan. 3 2008: Orange Bowl, losing to Kansas 21-24 Jan. 1 2009: Orange Bowl, beating Cincinatti 20-7 Dec. 31 2009: Chic-fil-Bowl, beating Tennessee 37-14 Jan. 3 2011: Orange Bowl, losing to Stanford 40-12 Jan. 3 2012: Sugar Bowl, losing to Michigan 23-20 Dec. 28 2012: Russell Athletic Bowl, beating Rutgers 13-10 Dec. 31 2013: Sun Bowl, losing to UCLA 42-12 Dec. 27 2014: Military Bowl, beating Cincinnati 33-17 Dec. 26 2015: Independence Bowl, beating Tulsa 55-52 Dec. 29 2016: Belk Bowl, beating Arkansas 35-24 Dec. 28 2017: Camping World Bowl, losing to Oklahoma State 30-21
https://www.steamlocomotive.com/locobase.php?country=USA&wheel=0-10-0
https://www.definitions.net/definition/0-10-0
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:0-10-0_locomotives
https://www.yourdictionary.com/0-10-0
https://ctr.trains.com/railroad-reference/locomotives/2006/07/steam-locomotive-profile-0-1...
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New survey confirms positive outcomes from FAPESP programs supporting small businesses, international collaborations, and researcher training
Alexandre Affonso
Fabrício Marques
A recent assessment to estimate impact from three FAPESP programs supporting small businesses, international collaborations, and training for new researchers found substantially positive outcomes. FAPESP’s Research for Innovation in Small Businesses program (RISB, or PIPE in the Portuguese acronym), for example, has benefited more than 1,500 tech startups and firms employing up to 250 people since the initiative was launched in 1997. The survey found that 80% of sampled firms’ grant projects successfully converted into innovation—as well as jobs. Program beneficiaries grew from an average of 8.5 employees each before launching grant projects to 11.1 after project completion.
In international research collaborations, papers published as part of FAPESP’s 230 collaborations with foreign institutions had a 96% greater impact, as measured by citations in the Scopus database, than research by non-FAPESP collaborations funded by the Foundation. Former doctoral fellows who received Foundation support had a six-times greater Scopus citation impact than non-fellows. For master’s fellows, the survey found a five times greater impact. “Many of the hypotheses we tested to gauge program effectiveness were confirmed, which shows that program goals are being met,” says Sérgio Salles-Filho, a coordinator at the University of Campinas (UNICAMP) Laboratory for Studies on the Organization of Research & Innovation (GEOPI), who led the assessment.
Data for the assessment was compiled from secondary sources such as resume and patent databases, quantitative and qualitative research indicators, data on employment and wages, and other sources. A quasi-experimental approach was taken to compare the performance of FAPESP-funded firms and researchers to their nonsupported counterparts, using statistical methods to approximate the attributes of treatment and control groups that were not directly comparable.
For the fellowship program, this method was used to assess the performance of three different groups. One group consisted of 12,600 former doctoral fellows, 15,800 master’s fellows, and 29,600 scientific initiation fellows who received Foundation fellowships between 2003 and 2017. The second group comprised 22,000 students in the same categories who were awarded fellowships from the Brazilian Federal Agency for Support and Evaluation of Graduate Education (CAPES) and the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), after unsuccessfully applying for FAPESP fellowships. And the third group consisted of 7,400 master’s and doctoral students who completed graduate studies with no financial support after unsuccessfully applying for fellowships from the Foundation.
FAPESP fellows performed substantially better in areas such as scholarly publishing, citations, and national and international collaborations. They were also more likely to go on to pursue a career as a researcher. The most marked difference was observed in the sample of former doctoral fellows: FAPESP fellows published 21% more scientific papers than their CAPES and CNPq counterparts, and 113% more than non-fellows. “The data are compelling,” says Salles-Filho. “FAPESP fellowships correlate with a step improvement in citations among doctoral fellows—a five-time increase compared to non-fellows. Papers by former doctoral fellows received nine times as many mentions in social media, blogs, news websites and other media than papers by non-fellows. This provides a measure of the extent to which scientific research is meaningful outside of academia.”
The use of secondary data only created a number of limitations. One limitation was in cohort diversity. The survey was unable to compare FAPESP fellows to CNPq or CAPES fellows who had not previously applied for a FAPESP fellowship, or to students who had neither been awarded nor applied for FAPESP fellowships, which would have offered a larger universe for comparison. Another limitation was related to scientific initiation students: the number of students in the non-fellowship cohort was statistically insufficient for comparison against other groups.
Differences in performance might also be attributed to the training students received before applying for fellowships, as Brazilian funding agencies each use different criteria in their selection processes. FAPESP fellowship candidates are assessed by a panel of advisors and must have an outstanding academic record, in addition to a robust research proposal. Other agencies might award fellowships to meet affirmative action quotas at universities, which have a mandate to award them to graduate students at their discretion. “The beneficial effect from FAPESP’s stringent fellowship prerequisites and peer review practices is further reinforced by a requirement for fellows to submit research reports throughout their projects,” explains Salles-Filho. Under ideal circumstances, the assessment would have compared students with similar performance—for example, those who barely failed to qualify for FAPESP fellowships to borderline successful applicants—but students with these profiles could not be identified.
The survey used Elsevier’s SciVal platform and its Topic Prominence metric to measure the relevance of fellows’ research projects. This indicator shows the extent to which the research interests of a scientist or research group are among the most prominent topics in their field. “In many fields, it provides a notion of what research is taking place at the frontier of knowledge,” explains Salles-Filho.
FAPESP fellows were more active than other groups in nearly all of the “hot” topics considered, especially in research on planets and galaxies, solar cells, and T-cell immunotherapy. Salles-Filho notes, however, that prominence indicators should be viewed with caution. There are some research topics in which Brazil has particular strengths, such as biofuels, but which are only prominent at a local level. This research will not rank as prominently at a global level, yet is vital for the country.
The assessment of international collaborations analyzed the scientific output of researchers supported by FAPESP from 1990 to 2018. The goal was to assess how research performance had evolved over time, especially since the mid-2000s, when the Foundation began to expand investment in international collaborations with foreign universities in a bid to further internationalize research programs in São Paulo. These collaborations, of which there are now more than 230, have helped to make research efforts more robust. Many involve large research programs that are designed and conducted jointly and on equal terms by researchers in Brazil and colleagues at foreign institutions. The first collaboration of this kind was established with the Research Councils UK (RCUK), followed by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the National Science Foundation, in the US. In an interview published in April (see Pesquisa FAPESP issue no. 290), Carlos Henrique de Brito Cruz, then scientific director at FAPESP, explained how things had changed as a result: “We imported some of their procedures, such as how to organize meetings, what types of forms to use, and how to extract better and more detailed assessments from our advisors. Our system as a whole was improved.” The upshot is that from 2008 to 2018, the share of research projects as part of institutional collaborations rose from 0.12% to 9.77% of total grants.
The assessment covered all collaborations between researchers in São Paulo and international peers from 1990 to 2018. Research projects as part of collaborations set up by the Foundation (572 in all) were compared to collaborations established directly by researchers with grant funding from FAPESP, but without the institutional support of collaboration agreements (2,055). “The Foundation wanted to know whether research through FAPESP-mediated collaborations had greater impact than other research,” says Salles-Filho. Four hypotheses were tested, of which two were not confirmed: no difference was found between the two groups in terms of the raw number of papers published; nor were international collaborations found to be more prolific in developing technology. Other hypotheses, such as research impact, were confirmed by the data. “An analysis of Scopus data showed that research papers published within FAPESP collaborations were cited 96% more than those in the control group,” says Salles-Filho.
The assessment of the RISB program analyzed the performance of small businesses that had successfully applied for 185 grants between 2006 and 2016, compared to 296 businesses that had applied unsuccessfully. Firms that never applied were not included in the assessment. One of the most important benefits observed was job creation in R&D: grant awardees had twice as many researchers employed two years after completing their grant projects compared to the other group. Lead investigators in grant projects largely had post-doctoral (37%) and doctoral (35%) degrees. “The assessment showed that some of the most important goals of the program are being met, such as helping firms to build technical capabilities and expanding the number of employees involved in R&D, as well as supporting jobs,” says Sergio Queiroz, a professor in the Department of Science and Technology Policy at UNICAMP and deputy coordinator of Innovation Research on the Science Board at FAPESP.
The RISB program was, unlike the other programs, assessed using primary data due to the limited availability of small business databases in Brazil. The firms participating in the assessment answered an online questionnaire about their business and their innovation performance and investment. This data was then collated with data on intellectual property, employment, and other aspects. In more than 60% of cases, a causal relationship could be established between RISB grant support and the development of innovation.
“Our company simply wouldn’t exist without the program,” says engineer Antonio Massato Makiyama, a founding partner at Vivax, a company in São Caetano do Sul that now has 10 employees. “I had a promising idea, but without the support I received from the program I would not have been able to develop it into a prototype and a market-ready product,” says Makiyama, whose company has now developed five projects with RISB funding. In 2018, Vivax launched a portable robot that supports upper limb rehabilitation in people who have suffered a stroke. “I had worked at medical equipment companies when living in the US, and saw an opportunity to develop the product when I returned to Brazil,” he says. The robot costs US$80,000 and has now been purchased by 11 hospitals in Brazil. Makiyama is currently developing a similar robot for lower limb physical therapy.
As an important input from the assessment, four distinct groups of firms were identified among successful and unsuccessful applicants, whose different profiles provide insight into the dynamics of São Paulo’s innovation ecosystem. Two of the groups consisted of companies with the most rejected grant applications: one comprising firms with only average performance indicators, largely with no high-tech products, and the other comprising software developers with limited R&D investment.
The other two groups were composed largely of grant beneficiaries. The first consisted of well-established tech firms that invest in R&D and regularly collaborate with universities. In the second group were typical tech startups; firms in this group had a strong presence of female staff, and of lead investigators who had completed either doctoral degree programs or postdoctoral internships.
These two groups are each faced with very different challenges, explains Queiroz. Well-established firms often require support to overcome technical barriers, but the expertise they have acquired in the market enables them to build research teams themselves to tackle the problem. Startups are often strong in technical capabilities, but weak in business acumen. “We created the PIPE Empreendedor [RISB Entrepreneur] program to address this gap,” says Queiroz, referring to a training program for RISB grant beneficiaries to ensure their projects are commercially successful and sustainable.
Contributions from doctoral alumni
Former fellows have produced award-winning theses
Personal archive Biologist Andrew Thomas after completing doctoral work under a FAPESP fellowshipPersonal archive
Several former FAPESP fellows were among the winners of the 2019 CAPES Thesis Awards, which recognize outstanding research across 49 disciplines. Fabrícia Jordão, who has a PhD in visual arts from the University of São Paulo (USP) and is now a professor at the Federal University of Paraná, received an award for a thesis that explored the visual arts scene during Brazil’s political opening and transition to democracy (1974–1989). Her research showed that prominent artists such as Rubens Gerchman, Cildo Meireles, and Carlos Zilio kept communication channels open with government institutions even though they openly opposed the military regime. “Under the regime’s cultural policy, creating symbols and preserving cultural heritage was seen as strategic, and this provided artists with an opportunity to engage in experimental work,” she says. These artists, she found, were able to influence government policy without being co-opted by it. Her FAPESP fellowship allowed Jordão to travel the country to research archives in multiple cities. “I was able to show that local artists networked with each other the same way as in major cities.”
Another award recipient was mechanical engineer Danilo Beli, who is now pursuing a postdoctoral internship at USP’s School of Engineering in São Carlos. His award-winning thesis explored a subject that combined physics and engineering: phononic crystals and metamaterials that exhibit unusual behavior, such as negative refraction and band gaps—or frequencies at which wave propagation is prohibited. “These properties allow them to filter and manipulate waves and have applications in acoustics and vibration, like creating acoustic barriers or filters, sensors, and acoustic cloaking materials.” Midway into his doctoral studies, he took a sandwich internship at Georgia Tech, in the US, in a collaboration with Massimo Ruzzene. “Being exposed to research activity happening outside Brazil was especially useful,” he says. In São Carlos, Beli is now involved in a thematic project led by Carlos de Marqui Jr. that is studying phononic materials and metamaterials with applications in structural acoustics. Also participating in the project is his doctoral supervisor, José Roberto de França Arruda, a professor at the University of Campinas (UNICAMP) School of Mechanical Engineering.
Biologist Andrew Maltez Thomas received an award for a thesis investigating the relationship between gut bacteria and tumors. Using DNA sequencing and bioinformatics, he identified 16 bacteria in the human intestine that indicate the presence of colorectal cancer. His research could potentially lead to new methods of diagnosing the disease. “We used statistical and machine-learning approaches to analyze a large number of samples from around the world,” says Thomas. His interest in investigating the relationship between bacteria and cancer began during a master’s program in oncology, which he completed in 2012 at the A.C.Camargo Hospital Research Center under the supervision of Emmanuel Dias-Neto. His doctoral research in bioinformatics was supervised by João Carlos Setúbal, of the USP Institute of Chemistry, and co-supervised by Dias-Neto. During his research, he went for a sandwich internship at the University of Trento, in Italy, at a metagenomics lab under computer scientist Nicola Segata. Thomas is currently on a postdoctoral internship at the same laboratory, with funding from the European Union.
Personal archive Chemist Flavio Kock after completing doctoral work under a FAPESP fellowshipPersonal archive
Chemist Flávio Kock is on a FAPESP-funded postdoctoral internship at the University of Toronto, Canada. He won an award in the Chemistry category for a thesis on low-resolution nuclear magnetic resonance (LR-NMR) applications. His research at the USP Institute of Chemistry in São Carlos (IQSC), in a collaboration with EMBRAPA’s Instrumentation chapter and the Molecular Imaging Center at the University of Turin, in Italy, demonstrated how LR-NMR can be used to study molecules known as coordination compounds. He was able to conduct, for example, a rapid assessment of a new contrast agent that can interact with prostate tumor cells, potentially offering a new option to diagnose prostate cancer. Kock graduated and received his master’s degree from the Federal University of Espírito Santo. He conducted doctoral research with a fellowship from FAPESP under the supervision of Luiz Alberto Colnago from EMBRAPA. “The fellowship provided valuable support for high-level research in collaboration with the university in Italy, making an important contribution to a research program at IQSC in partnership with EMBRAPA,” he says.
Among the award recipients who are former FAPESP fellows is Iranian geologist Saeid Asadzadeh, who completed doctoral research at UNICAMP’s Institute of Geosciences (IG) and is currently doing postdoctoral research at the institution, again with funding from the Foundation. In 2013, Asadzadeh was looking for a university for his doctorate when a Canadian colleague of his recommended Carlos Roberto de Souza Filho, a professor at UNICAMP, to be his supervisor. “After doing some research about the professor’s previous work and the IG laboratories, I made my choice,” he says. He completed his first year of research under a CAPES fellowship, but was keen to apply for a FAPESP fellowship, which he did successfully in the second year. “My motivation was the prestige attached to a FAPESP fellowship.” In his research under Souza Filho, he developed a method of detecting hydrocarbons beneath the surface of the earth by analyzing remote sensing imagery. He credits the award to the impact his research has had in his field, including seven papers in some of the top geosciences journals. In his postdoctoral research, Asadzadeh is developing a method of analyzing the thermal properties of rocks to find evidence of oil using satellite imagery.
<br><p>This work first appeared on <a href='https://revistapesquisa.fapesp.br/'>Pesquisa FAPESP</a> under a <a href='https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/'>CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license</a>. Read the <a href='https://revistapesquisa.fapesp.br/en/research-impact/' target='_blank'>original here</a>.</p><script>var img = new Image(); img.src='https://revistapesquisa.fapesp.br/republicacao_frame?id=383520&referer=' + window.location.href;</script>
A recent assessment to estimate impact from three FAPESP programs supporting small businesses, international collaborations, and training for new researchers found substantially positive outcomes. FAPESP’s Research for Innovation in Small Businesses program (RISB, or PIPE in the Portuguese acronym), for example, has benefited more than 1,500 tech startups and firms employing up to 250 people since the initiative was launched in 1997. The survey found that 80% of sampled firms’ grant projects successfully converted into innovation—as well as jobs. Program beneficiaries grew from an average of 8.5 employees each before launching grant projects to 11.1 after project completion. In international research collaborations, papers published as part of FAPESP’s 230 collaborations with foreign institutions had a 96% greater impact, as measured by citations in the Scopus database, than research by non-FAPESP collaborations funded by the Foundation. Former doctoral fellows who received Foundation support had a six-times greater Scopus citation impact than non-fellows. For master’s fellows, the survey found a five times greater impact. “Many of the hypotheses we tested to gauge program effectiveness were confirmed, which shows that program goals are being met,” says Sérgio Salles-Filho, a coordinator at the University of Campinas (UNICAMP) Laboratory for Studies on the Organization of Research & Innovation (GEOPI), who led the assessment. Data for the assessment was compiled from secondary sources such as resume and patent databases, quantitative and qualitative research indicators, data on employment and wages, and other sources. A quasi-experimental approach was taken to compare the performance of FAPESP-funded firms and researchers to their nonsupported counterparts, using statistical methods to approximate the attributes of treatment and control groups that were not directly comparable. For the fellowship program, this method was used to assess the performance of three different groups. One group consisted of 12,600 former doctoral fellows, 15,800 master’s fellows, and 29,600 scientific initiation fellows who received Foundation fellowships between 2003 and 2017. The second group comprised 22,000 students in the same categories who were awarded fellowships from the Brazilian Federal Agency for Support and Evaluation of Graduate Education (CAPES) and the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), after unsuccessfully applying for FAPESP fellowships. And the third group consisted of 7,400 master’s and doctoral students who completed graduate studies with no financial support after unsuccessfully applying for fellowships from the Foundation. FAPESP fellows performed substantially better in areas such as scholarly publishing, citations, and national and international collaborations. They were also more likely to go on to pursue a career as a researcher. The most marked difference was observed in the sample of former doctoral fellows: FAPESP fellows published 21% more scientific papers than their CAPES and CNPq counterparts, and 113% more than non-fellows. “The data are compelling,” says Salles-Filho. “FAPESP fellowships correlate with a step improvement in citations among doctoral fellows—a five-time increase compared to non-fellows. Papers by former doctoral fellows received nine times as many mentions in social media, blogs, news websites and other media than papers by non-fellows. This provides a measure of the extent to which scientific research is meaningful outside of academia.” The use of secondary data only created a number of limitations. One limitation was in cohort diversity. The survey was unable to compare FAPESP fellows to CNPq or CAPES fellows who had not previously applied for a FAPESP fellowship, or to students who had neither been awarded nor applied for FAPESP fellowships, which would have offered a larger universe for comparison. Another limitation was related to scientific initiation students: the number of students in the non-fellowship cohort was statistically insufficient for comparison against other groups. Differences in performance might also be attributed to the training students received before applying for fellowships, as Brazilian funding agencies each use different criteria in their selection processes. FAPESP fellowship candidates are assessed by a panel of advisors and must have an outstanding academic record, in addition to a robust research proposal. Other agencies might award fellowships to meet affirmative action quotas at universities, which have a mandate to award them to graduate students at their discretion. “The beneficial effect from FAPESP’s stringent fellowship prerequisites and peer review practices is further reinforced by a requirement for fellows to submit research reports throughout their projects,” explains Salles-Filho. Under ideal circumstances, the assessment would have compared students with similar performance—for example, those who barely failed to qualify for FAPESP fellowships to borderline successful applicants—but students with these profiles could not be identified. The survey used Elsevier’s SciVal platform and its Topic Prominence metric to measure the relevance of fellows’ research projects. This indicator shows the extent to which the research interests of a scientist or research group are among the most prominent topics in their field. “In many fields, it provides a notion of what research is taking place at the frontier of knowledge,” explains Salles-Filho. FAPESP fellows were more active than other groups in nearly all of the “hot” topics considered, especially in research on planets and galaxies, solar cells, and T-cell immunotherapy. Salles-Filho notes, however, that prominence indicators should be viewed with caution. There are some research topics in which Brazil has particular strengths, such as biofuels, but which are only prominent at a local level. This research will not rank as prominently at a global level, yet is vital for the country. The assessment of international collaborations analyzed the scientific output of researchers supported by FAPESP from 1990 to 2018. The goal was to assess how research performance had evolved over time, especially since the mid-2000s, when the Foundation began to expand investment in international collaborations with foreign universities in a bid to further internationalize research programs in São Paulo. These collaborations, of which there are now more than 230, have helped to make research efforts more robust. Many involve large research programs that are designed and conducted jointly and on equal terms by researchers in Brazil and colleagues at foreign institutions. The first collaboration of this kind was established with the Research Councils UK (RCUK), followed by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the National Science Foundation, in the US. In an interview published in April (see Pesquisa FAPESP issue no. 290), Carlos Henrique de Brito Cruz, then scientific director at FAPESP, explained how things had changed as a result: “We imported some of their procedures, such as how to organize meetings, what types of forms to use, and how to extract better and more detailed assessments from our advisors. Our system as a whole was improved.” The upshot is that from 2008 to 2018, the share of research projects as part of institutional collaborations rose from 0.12% to 9.77% of total grants. The assessment covered all collaborations between researchers in São Paulo and international peers from 1990 to 2018. Research projects as part of collaborations set up by the Foundation (572 in all) were compared to collaborations established directly by researchers with grant funding from FAPESP, but without the institutional support of collaboration agreements (2,055). “The Foundation wanted to know whether research through FAPESP-mediated collaborations had greater impact than other research,” says Salles-Filho. Four hypotheses were tested, of which two were not confirmed: no difference was found between the two groups in terms of the raw number of papers published; nor were international collaborations found to be more prolific in developing technology. Other hypotheses, such as research impact, were confirmed by the data. “An analysis of Scopus data showed that research papers published within FAPESP collaborations were cited 96% more than those in the control group,” says Salles-Filho. The assessment of the RISB program analyzed the performance of small businesses that had successfully applied for 185 grants between 2006 and 2016, compared to 296 businesses that had applied unsuccessfully. Firms that never applied were not included in the assessment. One of the most important benefits observed was job creation in R&D: grant awardees had twice as many researchers employed two years after completing their grant projects compared to the other group. Lead investigators in grant projects largely had post-doctoral (37%) and doctoral (35%) degrees. “The assessment showed that some of the most important goals of the program are being met, such as helping firms to build technical capabilities and expanding the number of employees involved in R&D, as well as supporting jobs,” says Sergio Queiroz, a professor in the Department of Science and Technology Policy at UNICAMP and deputy coordinator of Innovation Research on the Science Board at FAPESP. The RISB program was, unlike the other programs, assessed using primary data due to the limited availability of small business databases in Brazil. The firms participating in the assessment answered an online questionnaire about their business and their innovation performance and investment. This data was then collated with data on intellectual property, employment, and other aspects. In more than 60% of cases, a causal relationship could be established between RISB grant support and the development of innovation. “Our company simply wouldn’t exist without the program,” says engineer Antonio Massato Makiyama, a founding partner at Vivax, a company in São Caetano do Sul that now has 10 employees. “I had a promising idea, but without the support I received from the program I would not have been able to develop it into a prototype and a market-ready product,” says Makiyama, whose company has now developed five projects with RISB funding. In 2018, Vivax launched a portable robot that supports upper limb rehabilitation in people who have suffered a stroke. “I had worked at medical equipment companies when living in the US, and saw an opportunity to develop the product when I returned to Brazil,” he says. The robot costs US$80,000 and has now been purchased by 11 hospitals in Brazil. Makiyama is currently developing a similar robot for lower limb physical therapy. As an important input from the assessment, four distinct groups of firms were identified among successful and unsuccessful applicants, whose different profiles provide insight into the dynamics of São Paulo’s innovation ecosystem. Two of the groups consisted of companies with the most rejected grant applications: one comprising firms with only average performance indicators, largely with no high-tech products, and the other comprising software developers with limited R&D investment. The other two groups were composed largely of grant beneficiaries. The first consisted of well-established tech firms that invest in R&D and regularly collaborate with universities. In the second group were typical tech startups; firms in this group had a strong presence of female staff, and of lead investigators who had completed either doctoral degree programs or postdoctoral internships. These two groups are each faced with very different challenges, explains Queiroz. Well-established firms often require support to overcome technical barriers, but the expertise they have acquired in the market enables them to build research teams themselves to tackle the problem. Startups are often strong in technical capabilities, but weak in business acumen. “We created the PIPE Empreendedor [RISB Entrepreneur] program to address this gap,” says Queiroz, referring to a training program for RISB grant beneficiaries to ensure their projects are commercially successful and sustainable. Contributions from doctoral alumni Former fellows have produced award-winning theses Personal archive Biologist Andrew Thomas after completing doctoral work under a FAPESP fellowshipPersonal archive Several former FAPESP fellows were among the winners of the 2019 CAPES Thesis Awards, which recognize outstanding research across 49 disciplines. Fabrícia Jordão, who has a PhD in visual arts from the University of São Paulo (USP) and is now a professor at the Federal University of Paraná, received an award for a thesis that explored the visual arts scene during Brazil’s political opening and transition to democracy (1974–1989). Her research showed that prominent artists such as Rubens Gerchman, Cildo Meireles, and Carlos Zilio kept communication channels open with government institutions even though they openly opposed the military regime. “Under the regime’s cultural policy, creating symbols and preserving cultural heritage was seen as strategic, and this provided artists with an opportunity to engage in experimental work,” she says. These artists, she found, were able to influence government policy without being co-opted by it. Her FAPESP fellowship allowed Jordão to travel the country to research archives in multiple cities. “I was able to show that local artists networked with each other the same way as in major cities.” Another award recipient was mechanical engineer Danilo Beli, who is now pursuing a postdoctoral internship at USP’s School of Engineering in São Carlos. His award-winning thesis explored a subject that combined physics and engineering: phononic crystals and metamaterials that exhibit unusual behavior, such as negative refraction and band gaps—or frequencies at which wave propagation is prohibited. “These properties allow them to filter and manipulate waves and have applications in acoustics and vibration, like creating acoustic barriers or filters, sensors, and acoustic cloaking materials.” Midway into his doctoral studies, he took a sandwich internship at Georgia Tech, in the US, in a collaboration with Massimo Ruzzene. “Being exposed to research activity happening outside Brazil was especially useful,” he says. In São Carlos, Beli is now involved in a thematic project led by Carlos de Marqui Jr. that is studying phononic materials and metamaterials with applications in structural acoustics. Also participating in the project is his doctoral supervisor, José Roberto de França Arruda, a professor at the University of Campinas (UNICAMP) School of Mechanical Engineering. Biologist Andrew Maltez Thomas received an award for a thesis investigating the relationship between gut bacteria and tumors. Using DNA sequencing and bioinformatics, he identified 16 bacteria in the human intestine that indicate the presence of colorectal cancer. His research could potentially lead to new methods of diagnosing the disease. “We used statistical and machine-learning approaches to analyze a large number of samples from around the world,” says Thomas. His interest in investigating the relationship between bacteria and cancer began during a master’s program in oncology, which he completed in 2012 at the A.C.Camargo Hospital Research Center under the supervision of Emmanuel Dias-Neto. His doctoral research in bioinformatics was supervised by João Carlos Setúbal, of the USP Institute of Chemistry, and co-supervised by Dias-Neto. During his research, he went for a sandwich internship at the University of Trento, in Italy, at a metagenomics lab under computer scientist Nicola Segata. Thomas is currently on a postdoctoral internship at the same laboratory, with funding from the European Union. Personal archive Chemist Flavio Kock after completing doctoral work under a FAPESP fellowshipPersonal archive Chemist Flávio Kock is on a FAPESP-funded postdoctoral internship at the University of Toronto, Canada. He won an award in the Chemistry category for a thesis on low-resolution nuclear magnetic resonance (LR-NMR) applications. His research at the USP Institute of Chemistry in São Carlos (IQSC), in a collaboration with EMBRAPA’s Instrumentation chapter and the Molecular Imaging Center at the University of Turin, in Italy, demonstrated how LR-NMR can be used to study molecules known as coordination compounds. He was able to conduct, for example, a rapid assessment of a new contrast agent that can interact with prostate tumor cells, potentially offering a new option to diagnose prostate cancer. Kock graduated and received his master’s degree from the Federal University of Espírito Santo. He conducted doctoral research with a fellowship from FAPESP under the supervision of Luiz Alberto Colnago from EMBRAPA. “The fellowship provided valuable support for high-level research in collaboration with the university in Italy, making an important contribution to a research program at IQSC in partnership with EMBRAPA,” he says. Among the award recipients who are former FAPESP fellows is Iranian geologist Saeid Asadzadeh, who completed doctoral research at UNICAMP’s Institute of Geosciences (IG) and is currently doing postdoctoral research at the institution, again with funding from the Foundation. In 2013, Asadzadeh was looking for a university for his doctorate when a Canadian colleague of his recommended Carlos Roberto de Souza Filho, a professor at UNICAMP, to be his supervisor. “After doing some research about the professor’s previous work and the IG laboratories, I made my choice,” he says. He completed his first year of research under a CAPES fellowship, but was keen to apply for a FAPESP fellowship, which he did successfully in the second year. “My motivation was the prestige attached to a FAPESP fellowship.” In his research under Souza Filho, he developed a method of detecting hydrocarbons beneath the surface of the earth by analyzing remote sensing imagery. He credits the award to the impact his research has had in his field, including seven papers in some of the top geosciences journals. In his postdoctoral research, Asadzadeh is developing a method of analyzing the thermal properties of rocks to find evidence of oil using satellite imagery.
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Home About Me Topics Newsletter Books
An unsuccessful coup
Why the best-laid plans of Soviet plotters often go awry, and what we could – and what we really shouldn’t – learn from Boris Yeltsin
Thirty years ago, in August 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev went on holiday to his dacha in the Crimea for a well-earned break. He was beset with problems and unpopular with the general public, but his position as leader of the Soviet Union was still secure. His perestroika and glasnost reforms had taken hold, he had forged a productive relationship with the US President, George H. W. Bush, and he was in the process of agreeing a new treaty to redefine the relationship between the Soviet Union’s constituent republics – one that he thought might just save that fragile union.
While he was gone, though, hard-liners opposed to his reforms took the opportunity to launch a coup. The plotters put Gorbachev under house arrest, cut his communications with the outside world, and announced a state of emergency. They had control of the military and the KGB; with Gorbachev out of the picture, everything should have fallen into place for them.
And yet the coup flopped, and its failure was mainly down to one man: Boris Yeltsin. Yeltsin was the President of Russia – at that point merely one of fifteen republics within the Soviet Union – and had few formal powers. He didn’t have control of the military or the ability to make laws. But he did have bags of charisma, a useful distance from the regime, a willingness to take borderline-insane risks, and an almost preternatural ability to read the mood of the public, instinctively sense the course of events, and predict which way the wind was about to blow.
Rather than hiding out, or taking on the plotters directly, Yeltsin headed straight into Moscow and occupied the White House, then the home of the Soviet parliament. He called upon the Moscow public to take to the streets, and they responded in huge numbers, building barricades around the White House. When the army were deployed, the public charmed them into submission:
“Muscovites, initially shocked by the appearance of tanks in their city, soon adopted a strategy that proved devastating for the coup: they simply charmed ‘the boys.’ Casual discussions with army veterans, pretty girls, and kindly grandmothers who shared whatever they had with the soldiers made them psychologically unfit for the task of crushing civilian unrest.”1
Wrong-footed by Yeltsin and facing a military who would rather mutiny than fire upon their fellow Russians, the plotters called off the assault on the White House, and the coup fizzled out. Gorbachev returned to Moscow to find the coup in disarray. But rather than returning to his previous role and to the priorities he’d left behind in early August, he found his former rival Boris Yeltsin in the driving seat, controlling the newly outspoken public and seizing power in what amounted to a coup of his own. Gorbachev would never again wield his former power, and his hopes of revitalising the Soviet Union were dashed; by Christmas, it was no more.
Working for IBM in the 1990s, Dave Snowden developed the cynefin framework, a way of making sense of the world and of complex systems within it. (Cynefin is a difficult-to-translate Welsh word meaning “the place of your multiple belongings”. The idea is that we ourselves are quite complex, with many disparate and competing influences that we’re only ever partially aware of, and that acknowledging that helps us make sense of the world.)
Cynefin identifies four different “domains” – different situations or contexts. Each one calls for a different approach, a different way of making sense of the situation, and a different way of making decisions:
Clear – clear situations are stable, the relationship between cause and effect is clear, and there are rules in place. It’s the domain of “known knowns”. Success comes from correctly identifying the sort of situation you’re facing, and then applying the current best practice. Examples might be fulfilling an order in a warehouse, or cooking a meal in a fast food restaurant.
Complicated – like the “clear” domain, this is a world of predictable relationships between cause and effect, but working in this domain requires more knowledge and expertise. Building a jet plane, for example, involves calculations and processes that are predictable and repeatable; you build the 100th plane the same as the first, give or take a few improvements. But doing so nevertheless requires an enormous amount of highly specialised and technical knowledge.
Complex – the complex domain involves “unknown unknowns”, murky relationships between cause and effect, and no “right” answers. In particular, complex situations are ones in which your actions change the situation itself. In these situations, cause and effect can be established in hindsight, but that relationship isn’t repeatable in future situations. Examples might include figuring out a response to climate change, or managing the economy; both are constantly in flux, changing in response to our actions, and in need of gradual, emergent solutions.
Chaotic – the chaotic domain is like the complex domain when everything’s on fire and you’re facing an emergency. Your job isn’t to figure out what’s going on, but rather to “staunch the bleeding” as Snowden puts it; success involves stabilising the situation and moving it from chaos to complexity. Examples might include a nuclear power plant at the first moment of meltdown, or police responding in the first few seconds of an emergency.
Cynefin’s four domains; the central section depicts “disorder”, where it’s unclear which domain applies.
The coup plotters failed because they thought they were in the complicated domain, where their expertise and knowledge of the structures of power would make the difference. They planned ahead and they followed the coup playbook; they thought that there would be a simple and predictable relationship between cause and effect, and that if they did the right things in the right order (establish a committee, declare a state of emergency, get Gorbachev to resign, derail the Union Treaty, retain power) then success was sure to follow.
Yeltsin was successful because he correctly identified that the situation was chaotic, and that any outcomes were far from certain. He sensed where there was stability (the mood of the people, the power of mass demonstrations on the street) and where there wasn’t (the political institutions of the centre). He pushed the situation from “chaotic” to “complex” by building on those points of stability, and by creating a focal point around himself and his occupation of the White House.
The result was that when events shifted, the plotters were thrown off course. It wasn’t that their plan was bad, and that if they’d had a better one they might have succeeded; they fundamentally failed to cope with changing events. Yeltsin, on the other hand, leapt from ice floe to ice floe, and eventually found himself on solid ground. But cynefin teaches us that Yeltsin’s advantage was only situational, it wasn’t absolute:
“Leaders who are highly successful in chaotic contexts can develop an overinflated self-image, becoming legends in their own minds. When they generate cultlike adoration, leading actually becomes harder for them because a circle of admiring supporters cuts them off from accurate information.”2
This was certainly true of Yeltsin. He was superb in a crisis. But when the crisis passed, he found himself at a loss. When he was forced to rule the Russia he’d prised out of the Soviet Union, it was a disaster. Economic shock therapy wiped out the savings of millions. The privatisation of state industry enriched a tiny cabal of plutocrats and impoverished the country as a whole. Corruption bloomed, and the country quickly returned to autocracy under Vladimir Putin.
Cynefin teaches us that knowing what domain we’re in, and applying the right sense-making approach, can mean the difference between triumph and disaster. But we also need to know our own capabilities, and the capabilities of those around us. Sometimes it’s good to ask “what would Boris Yeltsin do?” – and sometimes it’s very bad indeed.
Dave Snowden. “The Cynefin Framework” . CognitiveEdge (YouTube), 2010
Dave Snowden and Mary Boone. “A Leader’s Framework for Decision Making” . Harvard Business Review, November 2007
Serhii Plokhy. “The Last Empire: The Final Days of the Soviet Union” . Oneworld, 2015
“In Photos: The August Coup Attempt that Heralded USSR’s End”. Moscow Times, 18 August 2021
Felix Light. “It Was All For Nothing: Russia Marks August Coup With Regret, Indifference”. Moscow Times, 19 August 2021
Ivan Gutterman. “The Coup that Killed the USSR”. Radio Free Europe, 16 August 2021
Main photo: www.kremlin.ru, CC BY 3.0
Serhii Plokhy, The Last Empire ↩
Dave Snowden and Mary Boone, A Leader’s Framework for Decision Making ↩
Once a week I mail out a new article and some useful links to interested and interesting subscribers. No spam, ever, I promise.
© 2003– Rob Miller. I’m a strategist, techie, and marketer from London, where I’m Chief Strategist at big fish®. Find out more…
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https://sahistoryhub.history.sa.gov.au/people/lady-margaret-rymill
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SA History Bank
Lady Margaret Rymill
Add to Your Stories Media
Margaret Earle Cudmore
Place of Birth:
Mildura, Victoria
Occupations:
Lady Mayoress
Topics ›
Lady Margaret Rymill was Lady Mayoress, Married to the Lord Mayor, from 1950-1953.
Lady Margaret Rymill was born Margaret Earle Cudmore on the 8th of August in 1913 to Rowland and Annie Isabella Cudmore nee Porter of Mildura, Victoria. Her father was an orchardist who had taken up land in the area only eight years previously after serving with distinction during the Boer war. He and Annie were married in 1907 and welcomed their first child, Daniel, in 1908 then Colleen in 1912 and Margaret in August 1913. A few months later tragedy struck when, at the age of 34, Rowland was killed when his car overturned near Mannum while returning home from visiting his father in Victor Harbor. Margaret’s mother, now a widow, was unable to maintain the orchard and tend her family of three small children, all under the age of five. She engaged the services of Kenneth Milne, one of Adelaide’s leading architects, to design and build a home at Dutton Terrace, Medindie.
After leaving school, Margaret and her sister Colleen joined the smart set, attending dances, parties and weddings with other young ladies from prominent families. Margaret was Colleen’s bridesmaid when she married Geoffrey Bonython Angas-Parsons, the son of Justice Angas Parsons in March of 1934 and in June she attended a dance at the Embassy Ballroom, which was located where Regent Arcade is today. The dance was attended by 450 guests and was hosted by fourteen of Adelaide’s most eligible bachelors. We can be certain that Margaret, pretty in pastel pink ribbed velvet, made a lasting impression on the young Arthur Rymill, one of the fourteen bachelors who lined the entrance to formally welcome their guests.
Arthur or ‘Lum’ as he was known, at the age of 27, was a lawyer, company director, city alderman, jazz musician and sportsman, representing the state on the South Australian polo team. He was also a keen golfer and yachtsman however he was perhaps most famous for his exploits as the daredevil speedboat racer who, in February that year, had survived an accident when his craft flipped at 110kph at an interstate race meet.
Arthur and Margaret were married in a small ceremony at Saint Peter’s College chapel on the 27th of December 1934 and took their honeymoon in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) before returning to make their home at 39 Brougham Place North Adelaide. Their home was built in 1907 for his father, Arthur Graham Rymill and named ‘Whitehead.’ It now serves as the residence of the principal of Lincoln College. The couple welcomed their first daughter, Rosemary, in 1937.
With the outbreak of war in 1939, Arthur volunteered for the Royal Australian Navy but was told that the only suitable position available was for a stoker (engineer.) He enlisted as a private in the 2/14th Field Regiment (artillery) of the 2nd Australian Imperial Force and was commissioned as a Lieutenant in January 1941 but sustained a knee injury during training in New South Wales and was discharged in April. Arthur returned to his Adelaide law practice and the couple’s second daughter, Annabel, was born in 1942.
Public Life
Arthur was re-elected to the Adelaide City Council in December 1945 and was elected Lord Mayor in July 1950.
Margaret Rymill was a somewhat reluctant Lady Mayoress with ‘Lady Kitty,’ the one time ‘social editress’ of the Advertiser writing in a 1953 article that Margaret was ‘diffident’ about taking the role of Lady Mayoress but that:
‘Charm has won the day, and with tact and dignity she has attained a happy popularity.’
1951 marked the Jubilee of Australian Federation and the Lord and Lady Mayoress hosted various receptions and teas however a highlight of that year was the Children’s Jubilee Ball - a fancy dress ball for one thousand children between 7 and 13 years old held on 14 April. It was the first of it’s kind since Lady Bonython’s Red Cross Children’s Ball in 1928.
In July 1951 Adelaide received a widespread and heavy snowfall and the Lady Mayoress was photographed driving the Lord Mayor’s vehicle at Mount Lofty.
The coronation of Queen Elizabeth II on 2 June 1953 was the cause of much celebration with a Coronation Young People’s Ball on 6 June at the Adelaide Town Hall. Hosted by the Lord and Lady Mayoress and attended by one thousand guests including the Governor, the acting Premier and Chief Justice, the Town Hall was decorated by the Lady Mayoress with the assistance of her sister, Colleen Angas Parsons and others.
Later in 1953, perhaps inspired by the coronation of another young Queen, the Lady Mayoress’ room in Town Hall was renamed the ‘Queen Adelaide Room’ and a council committee authorised the expenditure of 300 pounds for cabinets to display relics of Queen Adelaide. The centrepiece of the decorations was a portrait of Queen Adelaide which had been loaned to council by Queen Elizabeth.
In December the Lady Mayoress opened a popular Christmas tree festival. The festival featured large trees decorated by national groups and 41 smaller trees decorated by prominent Adelaide hostesses and entered into a competition which was judged by Lady Bonython.
The undoubted highlight of Margaret’s tenure as Lady Mayoress was the 1954 royal visit of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip, the Duke of Edinburgh, the first visit of a reigning monarch to Adelaide and Australia. Two years before, in 1952, Princess Elizabeth had planned an official tour of Australia after her private visit to Kenya, however news of the death of her father had forced her to return to England. A year-long period of mourning and her subsequent coronation meant that the tour was delayed until 1954.
The Lord and Lady Mayoress hosted a garden party at the Elder Gardens;
‘... enabling Her Majesty and the Duke to mingle freely among the several thousand guests. She engaged in animated conversation with many South Australians from all walks of life.’
The Royal visit was Margaret’s last great reception as Lady Mayoress with Arthur not contesting the June mayoral election but remaining as a councillor, a position he held until 1964 when Rymill Park was named in his honour.
Sir Arthur received a knighthood in 1954 and was elected to the Legislative Council in 1956, serving until 1975.
Lady Margaret Rymill who had been feted for her floral arrangements during her time at Town Hall, turned her hand to painting and published a book of her floral paintings in 1984.
Sir Arthur Rymill died in 1989.
Lady Margaret Rymill died in 2004.
By Lincoln Schulz, HerStory Project
The HerStory project came about to recognise and celebrate the lives and the achievements of Women’s work in South Australia and was initiated in 2015 on the 175th anniversary of the City of Adelaide, by Genevieve Theseira-Haese, Lady Mayoress of Adelaide. The stories collected offer a unique perspective of Adelaide and South Australia that form a different history to what is often heard. This community built initiative is supported by the City of Adelaide and the History Trust of South Australia.
Lincoln Schulz, HerStory Project, ‘Lady Margaret Rymill ’, SA History Hub, History Trust of South Australia, https://sahistoryhub.history.sa.gov.au/people/lady-margaret-rymill, accessed 16 January 2022.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Australia License.
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Chronicle, 'Mt. Lofty Ranges', 26 July 1951, p22.
Lady Kitty, 'About People', The Advertiser, 10 January 1951, p10.
Manning, H, 'Rymill, Sir Arthur Campbell (1907–1989)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 18, (MUP), 2012.
The Advertiser, 'Crowd at Christmas Tree Festival', 5 December 1953, p17.
The Advertiser, 'Lady Mayoress' Part in Civic Life', 28 March 1953, p6.
The Australasian, 'Woman's Realm', 2 February 1935, p11.
The Mail, 'Brilliant setting at tonight's Town Hall Coronation Ball', 6 June 1953, p40.
The Sunday Herald, 'Queen Adelaide Room', 27 September 1953, p6.
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Women And Retirement – Get Involved
Jan 25, 2010 by Suburban Grandma in Life
photo credit: Alex E. Proimos
I came across this article about women and retirement, so of course I had to read it, and then needed to vent a little.
It is still men’s world out there… women came a long way, but not far enough…yet!
I commend young ladies who value education, go on to college and become professionals, and are easily self supporting, if needed to, then also start families and continue the traditional life cycle.
It is not easy to be a woman these days, since besides having a full time professional job, she still has to be the glue that holds the family together, the organizer, the planner, the wife and mother, the cook, the chauffeur, the teacher, and so on, and on, and on.
I know that more and more men share the household chores with their wives, but there still is the reality of the ever so famous quote “go ask Mom”, just to pass yet another responsibility to mom.
I really did not plan to talk about family life, but rather about women and finances. Even though women are very engaging in so many aspects of the daily routine, many of them are not interested enough in financial matters of the family. Most women still feel that this is a job for their husband, and there is nothing wrong with that, until that husband is not there to carry on.
This scenario may happen sooner than any woman may dream of, since it could be spurred by various factors, such as a temporary employment assignment away from home and family, serious illness, separation or divorce, or even a premature death.
At any rate, life must go on, and the financial responsibility requires the woman’s involvement, thus one has to be ready to carry on. Even if you think you would hire a professional to do it for you, your still should understand what is going on. I can’t believe how many women out there are still not interested in knowing how to balance a checkbook, how to pay bills, who is their insurance carrier or investment broker, plus so many other things of this nature.
To prevent unnecessary stress and disaster, women should be equally involved with their husbands in financial planning and decision making process throughout their life, just to be ready in time of need.
I was always told that “it is good to know everything, but not always good to do everything”, and this could not be more true about finances and decision making. Not that I totally practice what I preach, but I am trying to know and do as much as I am able to, so if life draws me a short straw, I am not stuck in such a situation.
There are so many websites on this topic, community colleges are always offering non–credit courses on various money matters, and what better way to learn than by sitting down with your husband while he is involved with this task on regular basis, and offer your assistance, thus learn by doing.
If you still are not convinced that you should get involved, please click on the highlighted words, to expand your knowledge on the subject of money and finances for women, and let me know if you found these posts helpful and encouraging.
Also, tell us that you decided to get more involved in your family’s finances and financial planning.
The same suggestion goes to the husbands, to encourage their wives to be involved in family financial management, rather than being distanced from it.
Tagged with: Finaces, financial matters, Financial planning, Professional women, retirement, Women
2 thoughts on “Women And Retirement – Get Involved”
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Matthew 14:34 Cross References
« Matthew 14:33 | Matthew 14:35 » | Compare: NIV, KJV, NLT, NKJV, NRSV, ESV | Cross references home
And when they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret.
When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and moored to the shore. And when they got out of the boat, the people immediately recognized him and ran about the whole region and began to bring the sick people on their beds to wherever they heard he was. And wherever he came, in villages, cities, or countryside, they laid the sick in the marketplaces and implored him that they might touch even the fringe of his garment. And as many as touched it were made well.
Luke 5:1
On one occasion, while the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret,
So when the crowd saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum, seeking Jesus. When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?”
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https://www.tfhawaii.org/wordpress/blog/2017/09/harbors-are-for-soaking-the-taxpayer-again-and-again/
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Home » What’s News » Weekly Commentary » Harbors Are for Soaking the Taxpayer – Again and Again
Harbors Are for Soaking the Taxpayer – Again and Again
by Tom Yamachika | posted in: Weekly Commentary | 0
In a prior article, we reported that last December, administrative rules were finalized that wrought significant increases in fees charged by the Department of Transportation, Harbors Division. Those fees increased 17% beginning on February 1, 2017; they will increase another 15% on October 1, 2017; they will increase another 15% on July 1, 2018; and they will increase on July 1 of each year thereafter, by either 3% or the consumer price index rate, whichever is higher.
We now know that the Harbors Division isn’t satisfied with those three years of triple-digit increases. In draft rules presented to and approved by the Hawaii Small Business Regulatory Review Board (SBRRB) just last month, the Harbors Division wants to hike dockage and port entry fees by 20% effective July 1, 2019, another 15% effective July 1, 2020, and another 15% effective July 1, 2021. And, if that isn’t enough, cruise passenger fees will be doubled in Honolulu Harbor effective July 1, 2018, and slightly increased in all other harbors.
Probably the most shocking part of the presentation, however, is the Division’s analysis on how these rate increases impact small business.
The Division says that of the 99 harbor users in the past two years, eight meet the definition of a small business. Seven of them turn around and pass the costs on to another party. The eighth was a one-time customer and can be disregarded as an outlier. Therefore, the Division concludes, there is no impact to Hawaii’s small businesses.
Then the Division goes on: “Given our analysis,” they say, “we conclude that these proposed amendments do not affect Hawaii’s small businesses and there is no ‘potential or actual requirement imposed upon a small business … that will cause a direct and significant economic burden upon a small business….’”
(I swear I am not making this up.)
Let’s get real, people! Most of the goods that we need and buy come here by boat. Buyers include individuals, big businesses, and small businesses. Shippers who operate the boats will of course pass the costs on to retailers who sell the goods, who then will pass those costs on to people who buy the goods.
In addition, the price increases will require more General Excise Tax to be paid, by the shippers, the middlemen, and the retailers. Those taxes too will be passed on to the end users. Are we seeing a vicious cycle here?
The mentality that leads to these proposed rate hikes, as it was explained to the SBRRB, goes something like this. We (the Harbors Division of DOT) are doing a harbor modernization project. It will cost $450 million. We are supposed to be self-sufficient (namely that we aren’t supposed to get any general fund money to pay for this project). Therefore, we need to raise fees to pay for the project. The applicable statutes (Hawaii Revised Statutes sections 266-2 and 266-17) give us the authority to set these fees, so we are using that authority.
There apparently was some spirited discussion at the SBRRB’s August meeting regarding the proposed rules. One member said that the fees will be passed onto the small businesses. DOT replied that it’s difficult to determine how much would trickle down to small businesses, and it’s difficult to determine the impact on small business. (So they didn’t bother; nor did they examine less burdensome alternatives, consult with small businesses, and so on.) Another member wanted to know if the DBEDT economists could estimate the economic impact. Staff said they would get back to him. (Wonder if they ever did.) Ultimately, the SBRRB passed the rules out for public hearing, moving them closer to becoming reality.
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http://blog.debitage.net/2006/08/i-bet-they-think-murder-laws-are-for.html
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I bet They Think Murder Laws are for the Murderer's Good
Chicago has banned foie gras, and the foodies are up in arms. The ban addresses animal cruelty concerns -- making foie gras involves "force-feeding grain to ducks and geese until their liver enlarges as much as 10 times its normal size." So I would expect opponents to claim that ducks and geese enjoy being force-fed, or that humans' right to be "dazzled" by fancy ingredients trumps the mere suffering of animals. But some of them manage to completely miss the point:
"They might as well make a citywide bedtime ordinance," said bartender David Brown, 29, who feasted on the outlaw ingredients with his wife, Jennifer, at 676. "It's like banning smoking. If I'm a bartender, I don't run a health club. We're adults; we're allowed to have bad habits."
I can sympathize with the libertarian desire to be allowed to knowingly take risks with one's own health. But the foie gras ban is not for the benefit of foodies. It's for the benefit of the ducks and geese, who don't get a choice in the matter.
(The folks who talk about the need to "dazzle" customers are at least trying to address the real issue -- but their word choice makes me wonder whether they're secret plants of the animal rights movement. I'd have trouble coming up with a better word than "dazzle" to make foie gras consumption sound like the frivolous luxury of a self-centered elite with far too much money on their hands.)
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Ninth Family Mathematics & Science Day will take place @ UBC Faculty of Education on Saturday, October 19, 2019 (10:00 am – 12:30 pm).
Download event flyer: Family Math Science Day Poster 2019
Register for the event here.
We are grateful to our sponsors: UBC Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy, UBC David Robitaille Endowment Fund, UBC Faculty of Education, UBC Teacher Education Office, UBC Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences, The Spirit of Math
Science and Mathematics Educators and students from the Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy, Teacher Education Program and the rest of the Faculty of Education community at UBC invite guests from 2 to 102 years old to help us celebrate mathematics and science through hands-on activities. The Mathematics and Science Family Day will focus on exciting hands-on and minds-on activities suitable for all those with curious and inquiring minds. Mathematics and Science Days have become a great tradition that connects our faculty members, students, Teacher-Candidates and community at large with the excitement of mathematics and science learning and teaching. Parents, grand-parents, children, community members, and teachers are welcome to attend! Our previous Math and Science Days at UBC Faculty of Education have been very successful. They attracted hundreds of children and their families and more than 60 volunteers (annually) many of whom are Teacher-Candidates who come to share the love of mathematics and science with the larger community. The 2018 event broke all our records – we had more than 400 guests and more than 130 volunteers. We hope to have a great attendance in 2019 as well.
Registration: If you are interested in attending, you have to register here. (the event is free but the registration is required!) If you want to volunteer for the event, please email Dr. Marina Milner-Bolotin: marina.milner-bolotin(at)ubc.ca.
Mathematics is fun for young children exploring the concepts of measurement and volume conservation.
Special thanks to our sponsors:
Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy | Faculty of Education
Teacher Education Office | Faculty of Education
Dean’s Office | Faculty of Education
Professional Development and Community Engagement | Faculty of Education
David F. Robitaille Professorship | Faculty of Education
Pacific Institute for Mathematical Sciences PIMS
Math Potentials
The Spirit of Math
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
History of Family Math and Science Days at the UBC Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy
9th Family Math and Science Day – October 19, 2019 (Saturday)
8th Family Math and Science Day – November 3, 2018 (Saturday)
5th Family Math and Science Day – October 18, 2015 (Sunday)
3rd Family Math and Science Day – October 27, 2012 (Saturday)
2nd Family Math and Science Day – October 29, 2011 (Saturday)
1st Family Math and Science Day – October 30, 2010 (Saturday)
The event is organized by the Outreach Committee of the Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy. We are proudly supported by the UBC Faculty of Education (the Dean’s Office), UBC Teacher Education Office, UBC Professional Development and Community Engagement Unit at the Faculty of Education, UBC Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy and David F. Robitaille Chair in Mathematics and Science Education, and Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences (PIMS)!
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http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/Design_methodology
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Design methodology
The educational technology and digital learning wiki
This article or section is a stub. It does not yet contain enough information to be considered a real article. In other words, it is a short or insufficient piece of information and requires additions.
2 Design methodologies
Design methodology tells what methodology to use in order to build things.
Design science for an overview
This section needs to be written. For the moment follow links below
Artifacts and design rules
Design languages, i.e. the tools used to describe artifacts, e.g. educational modelling languages.
design rules, i.e. one kind of output
Related subjects and fields
Instructional design methods
In software engineering: Human-computer interaction, User-centered design
Usability and web usability
In education and educational technology: design-based research
Design and emotion
Relevant other disciplines
Activity theory, in particular the change laboratory method
Cognitive load theory
(actually includes some interesting patterns of bad practice that readers seem to have experienced).
Asshole driven development
Tech Development Styles for Cynics
Design A series of design templates that will help to design system. From Tigris.org, Open Source Software Engineering Tools.
Research project methodology
Pertti Järvinen: On Research Methods. Tampere: Opinpajan Kirja, ISBN 952-99233-1-7.
Note: This seems to be the only useful (general) methodology book related to design-oriented research. Very dense reading, but worth to buy, directly from here (no other place sells it): http://www.uta.fi/taju ... a small and friendly university bookshop (tested by me) No more available (new adress on the university book shop: https://www.tuni.fi/en/library/study-and-research/tampere-university-press/our-books). Seemed to have examplary in finnish : https://www.booky.fi/search.php?search=on+research+methods
Some foundations
Futon Suri, J. (2004). Design Expression and Human Experience: Evolving Design Practice. McDonagh, E. et al. (Eds)(p. 13-17) Design and Emotion. Taylor and Francis.
Garfinkel, H. (1967). Studies in Ethnomethodology. Engliwood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Greenbaum, J. (1993). A Design of One's Own. In D. Schuler & A. Namioka (Eds.), Participatory Design: Principles and Practices (pp. 123-155). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc
Holtzblatt, K., Beyer, H. (1994). Representing work for the purpose of design. In Lucy Suchman (Ed), Representations of Work.Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS) HTML
Hutchins, E. (1991). The social organisation of distributed cognition. L. Resnick (ed.) Perspectives on Socially Shared Cognition. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 283-287.
Hutchins, E. (1994). Cognition in the Wild. Cambridge, MA. MIT Press.
Hutchins, distributed cognition in an airline cockpit PDF
Kuutti, K. (1995). Activity Theory as a potential framework for humancomputer interaction research. In B. Nardi (ed.), Context and Consciousness: Activity Theory and Human Computer Interaction, Cambridge: MIT Press, 1995, pp. 17-44.
Lave, J., Wenger, I. (1991). Situated Learning : Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Leont’ev, A. (1974). The problem of activity in psychology. Soviet Psychology. 13(2): 4-33.
Nardi, B.A. (1996). Studying Context : A comparison of Activity Theory, Situated Actions Models, and Distributed Cognition.
Norman, D. (2005). Human-Centered Design Considered Harmful. Interaction. 12(4): 14-19.
Schon. D.A. (1983). The Reflective Practitioner. London: Temple Smith.
Scribner, S. (1984). Studying working intelligence. In B. Roboff and J. Lave (eds), Everyday Cognition: Its development in Social Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Suchman, L. (1987). Plans and Situated Actions. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press.
Suchman, L., Pea, R., Seely Brown, J., & Heath, C. (1987). Plans and Situated Actions. Cambridge University Press.
Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind in Society. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press.
Analysis for user interface design
Ackroyd, S., J.A. Hughes (1981). Data Collection in Context. Longman, London, NY: 66-98.
Becker, R. (1999). Direct observation Techniques. Schuler and Namioka (eds) Jump White Papers. Participatory Design. PP. 123-157.
Bloomberg, J., Giacomi, J., Mosher, A., & Swenton-Hall, P. (1993). Ethnographic field methods and their relation to design. In D. Schuler & A. Namioka (Eds.), Participatory Design: Principles and Practices. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
Bodker, S., Gronbaek, K., and Kyng, M. (1993). Cooperative design: Techniques and experiences from the Scandinavian scene. In D. Schuler & A. Namioka (Eds), Participatory Design: Principles and Practices (p. 157-175). Erlbaum, Hillsdale: NJ.
Caroll, J.M. (1991). Designing Interactions.
Carroll, J.M. (1996). Encountering Others: Reciprocal Openings in Participatory Design and User-Centered Design. Human-Computer Interaction 11: 285-290.
Jordan, B A. Henderson (1995). Interaction Analysis: Foundations and Practice. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 4 (1), 39-103.
Kautz, K. (1996). User Participation and Participatory Design: Topics in Computing Education. Human-Computer Interaction, 11, 267-284.
Kensing, F. and J. Simonsen (1997). Using ethnography in contextual design. Communications of the ACM, 40(7), 82-88.
Wasson, C. (2000). Ethnography in the Field of Design. Human Organization, 59(4): 377-388.
Follow these links
design-based research
design science
Web usability
... and more in the categories design methodologies and ergonomics and human-computer interaction
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Sunset sailing on April skies
Bloodshot fire clouds in her eyes
I can’t say what I might believe
But if God made you he’s in love with me
Max Ernst: 33 Girls Chasing Butterflies
In prayer we express deep penitence and contrition for our shortcomings, using sorrowful and self-accusing words. And this often in all sincerity. But, at other times, we are not really much disturbed about it; or, at least, not nearly so much as our heaped-up language would imply. What we imagine that we are achieving through this unreality I do not know. We shall not fool the All-wise; nor induce Him to believe that we are anything other, or better, than we actually are! Were it not saner to tell Him the truth, exactly as it is — not that we are overwhelmed with sorrow for our sinfulness, if it is not so; but rather this, that, to all our other sinfulness, we have added this last and crowning sinfulness, that we are not much worried about it, or, at least, not nearly as much as we ought to be. Be pleased, in pity, to grant us such measure of sorrow for our failures as will lead us to a true repentance; and, through that, to a new way of life.
– A. J. Gossip
[Short.]
What it was called was the Sense Ontology, or just Sense, really. “You Sense?” was the simple question people asked each other. Sense was something of a wonder drug: wherever the ontology was applied, to just about any given circumstance, it improved the operation of that AI, sometimes quite dramatically. It was like an organization principle that organized all other organization principles, and made them therefore that much more efficient when in turn they were applied to their own domains of situations. Not only that, but as the name implied, it helped to figure out in the ontologies that were affected, more of what would make AI actually intelligent. Outcomes now anticipated that had often been overlooked when originally concocting these operational interpretations that chugged the digital world along, and sometimes profound effects were truly realized.
[previously 1]
Somewhere, someone thought up an ontology, and remained anonymous. Perhaps you could say it was because of this anonymity that we hardly mention people at all, here in the text. One can only guess why he or she decided to remain unknown, but there you have it: we don’t know who or why they did what they did. It was one of those viral phenomena, which sometimes tends to be something of an emergence in the phenomenon sense; one might even believe that it formed from the work of more than one hand and mind — maybe there were many who thought of pieces of it, improved what what was there, what began as almost trivial, and then passed it on. But as it came to pass, this interpretation, this organization principle, traveled the world over, whatever parts of the world knew about ontologies at all, and were hip to the newest trends. And this is what this story is about.
If all else fails, what you are left with is a test. Maybe of character.
love is never lost
even if sometimes its home is in the hurt
however far the love must travel
it closes any distances as a touch from one to another
this is not a dream, nor is it a mistake
to feel is never wrong
love can fill any space that life forgets
you need only see it has always been there
Being free is not being a slave to your whim. It’s doing everything you want to do, and not doing anything you don’t. The only question is, what do you want to do? What don’t you? Being free is something akin to not selling out, where what you want to preserve is your integrity, and you keep it. That is freedom. This is what it means to be born not of the flesh, but of the will of God. What those who do not have eyes to see can only perceive is someone who adheres to the rules of the good, and being a slave to what is right. But that’s the whole point of the good: it’s not the good if you don’t freely choose it of your own free will. The other side is being the subject of any random animal impulse that pops up. This is akin to walking through life unconscious. This would be what it is to be a waste of humanity.
All is quiet on New Year’s Day
A world in white gets underway
I want to be with you
Be with you night and day
Nothing changes on New Year’s Day
– U2
Giorgio de Chirico: Comedy and Tragedy
This story is not about people, as one might be led to believe that all stories must be. Not one human has any dialog in this story. And perhaps, because of this fact, the story is quite short, and is merely descriptive of what happened in the course of the functioning of the world. It is true that people have much to do with the functioning of that world, and it might even be that what this story is about was all due to the existence of these human beings, but one must understand that the things which come into the hands of these beings so easily gets out of hand, and truly was never in their control at all. This story is actually about an idea, and the idea came about because of something someone thought up, but it was never thought by a human being, not once. About the way that the world worked, and quite natural, even if it belonged purely in the realm of the artificial.
The nature of Christ’s salvation is woefully misrepresented by the present-day “evangelist.” He announces a Saviour from hell rather than a Saviour from sin. And that is why so many are fatally deceived, for there are multitudes who wish to escape the Lake of fire who have no desire to be delivered from their carnality and worldliness.
– A. W. Pink
dreams flooded down from the moonlight and drowned the passerby
divided man against his brother, we fought and did not know why
one prophet spoke of the end, the other: no, the beginning
All we know of time is change.
Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be.
– Thomas à Kempis
What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step. It is always the same step, but you have to take it.
– Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
If you don’t like how things are, change it! You’re not a tree.
– Jim Rohn
You will turn over many a futile new leaf till you learn we must all write on scratched-out pages.
– Mignon McLaughlin
Do not confuse your vested interests with ethics. Do not identify the enemies of your privilege with the enemies of humanity.
– Max Lerner
Sometimes it’s more important to be human, than to have good taste.
– Brecht
Never undertake anything for which you wouldn’t have the courage to ask the blessings of heaven.
– G.C. Lichtenberg
All life seems full of vain repetition. And chasing after wind. Even dreaming will get old, if you let it. We become jaded when we stop noticing things. As we feed our need for sensation, we grow accustomed to the thrill of it all; and while that is actually useful for such things that require a dangerous series of attempts to perform (I would say that a bomb squad would qualify), if we let the riches dull our ability to feel what is before us, we are much like a ghost in the material world. For it is up to us to stop and look, stop and listen, and smell, and touch: feel for instance the smoothness of a blank piece of paper. How it ripples when shook, that particular brand’s small scent. Do yourself a favor and stare at a lit candle. Do you remember when the mystery of fire so fascinated you? For youth is still within us, however long we progress, just that we need to search for that trigger which reminds us of the miracle of this day. Of this hour, this very second.
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the_four_domains_of_systems_inquiry
THE EVOLUTION OF SYSTEMS INQUIRY Part 1
Bela H. Banathy Saybrook Graduate School International Society for the Systems Sciences International Systems Institute International Federation for Systems Research
As I listened to the introduction of the participants at a conference I was impressed by the fact that they represented the entire range of systems orientation. Their research and professional interest embraces system engineering, operations research, systems dynamics, cybernetics and information science, general theory of systems, living systems and evolutionary theory, soft systems and critical systems theory, and chaos and complex systems theory. The common ground of these orientations is the systems idea. Still, in the course of the conference the differences among these orientations where emphasized even their lack of connections was often articulated. Most significantly, I had the feeling that while the focus was on sociotechnical systems, it was the technical side that was in focus. These observations lead me to develop this contribution, which, I hope, will show (a) the connectedness of the various orientations within the systems family, (b) the evolution of the systems movement, and © the human side of systems scholarship.
THE PIONEERS OF THE SYSTEMS IDEA
During the fifties, the basic concepts and principles of a general theory of systems were set forth by such pioneers of the systems movement as Ashby, Bertalanffy, Boulding, Fagen, Gerard, and Rappoport. These scholars represented variety of disciplines and fields of study. They shared and articulated a common conviction: the unified nature of reality. They recognized a compelling need for a unified disciplined inquiry in understanding and dealing with increasing complexities, complexities that are beyond the competence of any single discipline. As a result, they developed a trans-disciplinary perspective that emphasized the intrinsic order and interdependence of the world in all its manifestations.
A DEFINITION OF SYSTEMS INQUIRY
Systems inquiry incorporates three interrelated domains of disciplined inquiry: systems theory, systems philosophy, and systems methodology. In contrast with the analytical, reductionist, and linear-causal paradigm of classical science, systems philosophy brings forth a reorientation of thought and world view, manifested by an expansionist, non- linear dynamic, and synthetic mode of thinking. The scientific exploration of the theories of systems standing for the various sciences have brought forth a general theory of systems, a set of interrelated concepts and principles, applying to all systems. Systems methodology provides us with a set of models, strategies, methods, and tools; that instrumentalize systems theory and philosophy in analysis, design, development, problem solving in–and the management–of complex systems. In the first part of the present paper I describe these three branches of systems inquiry.
In defining systems theory, I review the key ideas of Bertalanffy and Boulding, founding fathers of the systems movement, published in Volume One (1956) GENERAL SYSTEMS.
Bertalanffy suggested first that modern science is characterized by its ever increasing specialization, necessitated by the enormous amount of data and the complexity of techniques and structures within every field. This led to a breakdown of science as an integrated realm. Scientists, operating in the various disciplines are encapsulated in their private universe. Against this background, there exists models, principles, and laws that can be generalized across various systems. Thus, it seems legitimate to ask for a theory of universal principles applying to systems in general. This theory would recognize the existence of (a) systems properties that are general and (b) structural similarities or isomorphies in different fields. Such a theory would be a useful tool providing models that can be used in, and transferred to, different fields. The second consequence of the idea of a general theory of systems is to deal with organized complexity, which is a main problem of modern science. Concepts like those of organization, wholeness, teleology, control, self-regulation, differentiation and the like are alien to conventional science. However, they pop-up everywhere in the biological, behavioral, and social sciences, and are, in fact, indispensable for dealing with living organisms or social groups. Thirdly, Bertalanffy summarized that: (a) There is a general tendency towards integration in the various sciences, natural and social. (b) Such integration seems to be centered in a general theory of systems. © Such theory may be an important means of aiming at exact theory in the non-physical fields of science. (d) Developing unifying principles running ?vertically? through the universe of the individual sciences, this theory brings us nearer to the goal of the unity of sciences. (e) This can lead to a much needed integration in scientific education.
Boulding said that a general theory does not seek to establish a single, self-contained general theory of practically everything which will replace all the special theories of particular disciplines. Such a theory would be almost without content, and all we can say about practically everything is almost nothing. Somewhere between the specific that has no meaning and the general that has no content there must be, for each purpose and at each level of abstraction, an optimum degree of generality. It is the objective of a general theory to develop ?generalized ears?–that overcome the ?specialized deafness? of the specific disciplines, meaning, that someone who ought to know something that someone else knows isn?t able to find it out for lack of generalized ears. By developing a framework of a general theory, will enable the specialist to catch relevant communication from others.
The two papers introduced above set forth the ?vision? of the systems movement. That vision is still guide us today. In the course of the last four decades we have built on this vision as the systems movement has developed through its several orientations.
Systems Philosophy
The next main branch of systems inquiry is systems philosophy. Systems Philosophy is concerned with a systems view of the world and the elucidation of systems thinking as an approach to theoretical and real world problems. Systems philosophy seeks to uncover the most general assumptions lying at the roots of any and all of systems inquiry. An articulation of these assumption gives systems inquiry coherence and internal consistency.
The general scientific nature of systems inquiry implies its direct association with philosophy. This explains the philosophers early and continuing interest in systems theory and the early and continuing interest of systems theorist and methodologist in the philosophical aspects of systems inquire. In general, philosophical aspects are worked out in two directions. The first involves inquiry into the WHAT: what things are, what a person or a society is, and what kind of world we live in. These questions pertain to what we call: ontology. The second question is HOW: how do we know what we know, how do we know what kind of world we live in, how do we know what kind of persons we are? The exploration of these questions are the domain of epistemology. One might differentiate these two, but ontology and epistemology can not be separated. Our beliefs about what the world is will determine how we see it and act within it. And, our ways of perceiving and acting will determine our beliefs about its nature.
The ontological task is the formation of a systems view of what is, in the broadest sense a systems view of the world. This can lead to a new orientation for scientific inquiry. There are two great philosophical alternatives of the intellectual picture we have of the world. One view is that the world essentially consists of things. The other view is that the world consists of processes, and the things are only ?stills? out of the moving picture. Systems philosophy developed as the main rival of the ?thing view.? It recognizes that primacy of organizing relationship processes between entities (of systems) from which emerge the novel properties of systems.
Epistemology deals with the general questions of how do we know what we know, how do we know what kind of world we live in and what kind of organisms we are, and what sort of thing the mind is. The ancient questions of whether the mind is immanent or transcendent can be answered in favor of immanence. Furthermore, any on-going ensemble (system) that has the appropriate complexity of causal and energy relationships: (a) will show mutual characteristics, (b) will compare and respond to differences, © will process information, (de) will be self-corrective. (e) No part of an internally interactive system can exercise unilateral control over other parts of the system.
The most significant guiding principle of systems inquiry is that of giving prominence to synthesis; not only as the culminating activity of the inquiry (following analysis), but as a point of departure. This approach to the ?how do we know? contrasts with the epistemology of traditional science that is almost exclusively analytical.
Systems Methodology
Systems methodology–a vital part of systems inquiry–has two domains of inquiry, (1) the study of methods in systems investigations by which we generate knowledge about systems in the general and (2) the identification and description of strategies, models, methods, and tools for the application of systems theory and systems thinking to working and complex systems. In the context of this second domain: systems methodology is a set of coherent and related methods and tools applicable to: (a) the analysis of systems and systems problems, problems concerned with the systemic/relational aspects of complex systems; (b) the design, development, and evaluation of complex systems, and © the management of systems and the management of change in systems. The task of those using systems methodology in a given context is tree fold: (1) to identify, characterize, and classify the nature of problem situation [e.g., (a), (b), or © above]; (2) to identify and characterize the problem context and content, in which the methodology is applied; (3) to identify and characterize the type of system in which the problem situation is embedded, and (4) to select specific strategies, methods, and tools that are appropriate to the nature of the problem situation, to the context/content, and the type of systems in which the problem situation is located.
The brief discussion above highlights the difference between the methodology of systems inquiry and the methodology of scientific inquiry in the various disciplines. The methodology of a discipline is clearly defined and is to be adhered to rigorously. It is the methodology which is the hallmark of a discipline. In systems inquiry, on the other hand, one selects methods and methodological tools or approaches that best fit the nature of the identified problem situation, the context, the content, and the type of system that is the domain of the investigation. The methodology is to be selected from a wide range of systems methods that are available to us.
The Interaction of the Domains of Systems Inquiry.
Systems philosophy, systems theory, and systems methodology come to life as they are used and applied in the functional context of systems. It is in the context of use that they are confirmed, changed, modified, and reconfirmed. Systems philosophy presents us with the underlying assumptions that provide the perspectives that guide us in defining and organizing the concepts and principles that constitute systems theory. Systems theory and systems philosophy then guide us in developing, selecting, and organizing approaches, methods and tools into the scheme of systems methodology. Systems methodology then is used in the function context of systems. But this process is not linear or forward moving circular. It is recursive and multi-directional. One confirms or modifies the other. As theory is developed, it gets its confirmation from its underlying assumptions (philosophy) as well as from its application through methods in function contexts. Methodology is confirmed or changed by testing its relevance to its theoretical/philosophical foundations and by its use. The functional context–the society in general and systems of all kinds in particular–is a primary source of placing demands on systems inquiry. It was–in fact–the emergence of complex systems that brought about the realization of the need for new scientific thinking, new theory, and new methodologies. It was that need that systems inquiry addressed and satisfied. The dynamics of the recursive and multidirectional interaction of the four domains, described above, makes systems inquiry a living system. This dynamics is manifested in the interplay between confirmation and novelty. Novelty at times brings about adjustments and at other times it appears as discontinuities and major shifts. The process described here becomes transparent as I review next the evolution of the systems movement.
End of Part 1
Take the tour…methodology
the_four_domains_of_systems_inquiry.txt · Last modified: 2020/07/27 15:38 (external edit)
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https://acuresearchbank.acu.edu.au/item/8x0wq/disordered-eating-behaviours-and-eating-disorders-in-women-in-australia-with-and-without-polycystic-ovary-syndrome-a-cross-sectional-study
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Disordered eating behaviours and eating disorders in women in Australia with and without polycystic ovary syndrome : A cross-sectional study
Pirotta, Stephanie, Barillaro, Mary, Brennan, Leah, Grassi, Angela, Jeanes, Yvonne M., Joham, Anju E., Kulkarni, Jayashri, Couch, Lynn M., Lim, Siew S. and Moran, Lisa J.. (2019). Disordered eating behaviours and eating disorders in women in Australia with and without polycystic ovary syndrome : A cross-sectional study. Journal of Clinical Medicine. 8(10), p. Article 1682. https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm8101682
Pirotta, Stephanie, Barillaro, Mary, Brennan, Leah, Grassi, Angela, Jeanes, Yvonne M., Joham, Anju E., Kulkarni, Jayashri, Couch, Lynn M., Lim, Siew S. and Moran, Lisa J.
Psychological co-morbidities common in polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) may contribute to disordered eating and subsequent weight gain. This cross-sectional study aimed to determine the prevalence of disordered eating and a range of eating disorders and demographic risk factors associated with these behaviours within an Australian group of women with and without PCOS. Data from 899 women with (n = 501) and without (n = 398) PCOS were analysed as possibly indicative of disordered eating or eating disorders using the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire (EDE-Q) and The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fifth Edition (DSM-5) criteria. Disordered eating (p = 0.012) but not eating disorders (p = 0.076) were more prevalent in women with PCOS compared to controls. Increased body mass index (BMI) [Odds Ratio (OR): 1.03; 95%; Confidence Interval (CI): 1.01, 1.05, p = 0.012] and older age [OR: 1.05; 95%CI: 1.02, 1.08, p = 0.002] but not PCOS diagnosis [OR: 1.43; 95%CI: 0.96, 2.13 p = 0.078] increased the odds of disordered eating. Increased BMI [OR: 1.04; 95%CI: 1.02, 1.06, p < 0.001] and younger age [OR: -0.95; 95%CI: 0.93–0.95, p < 0.001] but not PCOS diagnosis [OR: 1.38; 95%CI: 0.97, 1.95, p = 0.076] increased the odds of an eating disorder. Clinicians are recommended to screen all women with PCOS for possible disordered eating behaviours, with particular attention to women with elevated BMI.
polycystic ovary syndrome; disordered eating; eating disorder; binge-eating
Journal of Clinical Medicine
8 (10), p. Article 1682
Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI AG)
https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm8101682
PMC6832459
Published as ‘gold’ (paid) open access
OA_Pirotta_2019_Disordered_eating_behaviours_and_eating_disorders.pdf
https://acuresearchbank.acu.edu.au/item/8x0wq/disordered-eating-behaviours-and-eating-disorders-in-women-in-australia-with-and-without-polycystic-ovary-syndrome-a-cross-sectional-study
License: CC BY 4.0
File access level: Open
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Bloom, Lisa, Shelton, Beth, Bengough, Melissa and Brennan, Leah. (2013). Psychosocial outcomes of a non-dieting based positive body image community program for overweight adults : A pilot study. Journal of Eating Disorders. https://doi.org/10.1186/2050-2974-1-44
Intensive medical weight loss or laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding in the treatment of mild to moderate obesity : long-term follow-up of a prospective randomised trial
O'Brien, Paul Edmond, Brennan, Leah, Laurie, Cheryl and Brown, Wendy. (2013). Intensive medical weight loss or laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding in the treatment of mild to moderate obesity : long-term follow-up of a prospective randomised trial. Obesity Surgery. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11695-013-0990-3
A systematic review of variables associated with the relationship between obesity and depression
Preiss, K, Brennan, Leah and Clarke, David. (2013). A systematic review of variables associated with the relationship between obesity and depression. Obesity Reviews. https://doi.org/10.1111/obr.12052
Defining disordered eating trajectories across adolescence and assessing their impact on psychosocial outcomes using growth mixture modelling
Mitchell, Sarah A., Brennan, Leah, Krug, Isabel and Allen, Nicholas B.. (2013). Defining disordered eating trajectories across adolescence and assessing their impact on psychosocial outcomes using growth mixture modelling. https://doi.org/10.1186/2050-2974-1-S1-O65
Maternal controlling feeding behaviours and child eating in preschool-aged children
Moroshko, Irina and Brennan, Leah. (2013). Maternal controlling feeding behaviours and child eating in preschool-aged children. Nutrition and Dietetics. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-0080.2012.01631.x
A cluster randomised controlled trial of a telephone-based parent intervention to increase preschoolers' fruit and vegetable consumption
Wyse, Rebecca, Wolfenden, Luke, Campbell, Elizabeth, Campbell, Karen, Wiggers, John, Brennan, Leah, Fletcher, Amanda, Bowman, Jenny and Heard, Todd. (2012). A cluster randomised controlled trial of a telephone-based parent intervention to increase preschoolers' fruit and vegetable consumption. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition: A journal reporting the practical application of our world-wide knowledge of nutrition. 96(1), pp. 102 - 110. https://doi.org/10.3945/ajcn.111.030585
Predictors of attrition in bariatric aftercare : a systematic review of the literature
Moroshko, Irina, Brennan, Leah and O'Brien, Paul. (2012). Predictors of attrition in bariatric aftercare : a systematic review of the literature. Obesity Surgery. 22(10), pp. 1640 - 1647. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11695-012-0691-3
Promoting protective factors for young adolescents : ABCD Parenting Young Adolescents Program randomised controlled trial
Burke, Kylie, Brennan, Leah and Cann, Warren. (2012). Promoting protective factors for young adolescents : ABCD Parenting Young Adolescents Program randomised controlled trial. Journal of Adolescence. 35(5), pp. 1315 - 1328. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2012.05.002
Parenting styles, communication and child/adolescent diets andweight status : let's talk about it
Parletta, Natalie, Peters, Jacqueline, Owen, Amber, Tsiros, Margarita and Brennan, Leah. (2012). Parenting styles, communication and child/adolescent diets andweight status : let's talk about it. Early Child Development and Care. 182(8), pp. 1089 - 1103. https://doi.org/10.1080/03004430.2012.678597
Does exercise improve weight loss after bariatric surgery? : A systematic review
Egberts, Kristine, Brown, Wendy, Brennan, Leah and O'Brien, Paul. (2012). Does exercise improve weight loss after bariatric surgery? : A systematic review. Obesity Surgery. 22(2), pp. 335 - 341. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11695-011-0544-5
Treatment acceptability and psychosocial outcomes of a randomised controlled trial of a cognitive behavioural lifestyle intervention for overweight and obese adolescents
Brennan, Leah, Wilks, Ray, Walkley, Jeff, Fraser, Steve and Greenway, Kate. (2012). Treatment acceptability and psychosocial outcomes of a randomised controlled trial of a cognitive behavioural lifestyle intervention for overweight and obese adolescents. Behaviour Change. 29(1), pp. 36 - 62. https://doi.org/10.1017/bec.2012.5
Parent- and adolescent-reported barriers to participation in an adolescent overweight and obesity intervention
Brennan, Leah, Walkley, Jeff and Wilks, Ray. (2012). Parent- and adolescent-reported barriers to participation in an adolescent overweight and obesity intervention. Obesity: a resourch journal. 20(6), pp. 1319 - 1324. https://doi.org/10.1038/oby.2011.358
Validity of the beck depression inventory as a screening tool for a clinical mood disorder in bariatric surgery candidates
Hayden, Melissa J., Brown, Wendy A., Brennan, Leah and O'Brien, Paul Edmond. (2012). Validity of the beck depression inventory as a screening tool for a clinical mood disorder in bariatric surgery candidates. Obesity Surgery. 22(11), pp. 1666 - 1675. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11695-012-0682-4
In people with poorly controlled type 2 diabetes, cognitive behaviour therapy combined with motivational enhancement therapy reduces HbA1c after 12 months
Brennan, Leah. (2011). In people with poorly controlled type 2 diabetes, cognitive behaviour therapy combined with motivational enhancement therapy reduces HbA1c after 12 months. Worldviews on Evidence-Based Nursing. 14(3), pp. 72 - 73. https://doi.org/10.1136/ebn1164
Predictors of dropout in weight loss interventions :a systematic review of the literature
Moroshko, Irina, Brennan, Leah and O'Brien, Paul Edmond. (2011). Predictors of dropout in weight loss interventions :a systematic review of the literature. Obesity Reviews. 12(11), pp. 912 - 934. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-789X.2011.00915.x
Primary Goals for Weight Loss Questionnaire (PGWLQ) :Development and Psychometric Evaluation in Overweight and Obese Adults
Murphy, Kylie, Brennan, Leah, Walkley, Jeff, Reece, John and Little, Emma. (2011). Primary Goals for Weight Loss Questionnaire (PGWLQ) :Development and Psychometric Evaluation in Overweight and Obese Adults. Behaviour Change. 28(1), pp. 29 - 43. https://doi.org/10.1375/bech.28.1.29
Self-Monitoring in the Treatment of Overweight Adolescents
Sandilands, Mary, Brennan, Leah, Walkley, Jeff, Fraser, Steve and Greenway, Kate. (2011). Self-Monitoring in the Treatment of Overweight Adolescents. Behaviour Change. 28(2), pp. 97 - 109. https://doi.org/10.1375/bech.28.2.97
Predicting treatment initiation in a family-based adolescent overweight and obesity intervention
Dhingra, Akshay, Brennan, Leah and Walkley, Jeff. (2011). Predicting treatment initiation in a family-based adolescent overweight and obesity intervention. Obesity: a resourch journal. 19(6), pp. 1307 - 1310. https://doi.org/10.1038/oby.2010.289
Psychosocial predictors of eating disorder risk in overweight and obese treatment seeking adolescents
Russo, Jade, Brennan, Leah, Walkley, Jeff, Fraser, Steve and Greenway, Kate. (2011). Psychosocial predictors of eating disorder risk in overweight and obese treatment seeking adolescents. Behaviour Change. 28(3), pp. 111 - 127. https://doi.org/10.1375/bech.28.3.111
A pilot study of a telephone-based parental intervention to increase fruit and vegetable consumption in 3 to 5 year old children
Wyse, Rebecca, Wolfenden, Luke, Campbell, Elizabeth, Campbell, Karen, Brennan, Leah, Fletcher, Amanda, Bowman, Jenny, Heard, Todd and Wiggers, John. (2011). A pilot study of a telephone-based parental intervention to increase fruit and vegetable consumption in 3 to 5 year old children. Public Health Nutrition. 14(12), pp. 2245 - 2253. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1368980011001170
Reliability of the school food checklist for in-school audits and photograph analysis of children's school lunches
Mitchell, Sarah, Miles, Cara, Brennan, Leah and Matthews, Jan. (2010). Reliability of the school food checklist for in-school audits and photograph analysis of children's school lunches. Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics. 23(1), pp. 48 - 53. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-277X.2009.00996.x
A randomised controlled trial of the efficacy of the ABCD Parenting Young Adolescents Program : rationale and methodology
Burke, Kylie, Brennan, Leah and Roney, Sarah. (2010). A randomised controlled trial of the efficacy of the ABCD Parenting Young Adolescents Program : rationale and methodology. Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health. 4(22), pp. 1 - 14. https://doi.org/10.1186/1753-2000-4-22
Parental use of restrictive feeding practices and child BMI z-score. A 3-year prospective cohort study
Campbell, Karen, Andrianopoulos, Nick, Hesketh, Kylie, Ball, Kylie, Crawford, David, Brennan, Leah, Corsini, Nadia and Timperio, Anna. (2010). Parental use of restrictive feeding practices and child BMI z-score. A 3-year prospective cohort study. Appetite. 55(1), pp. 84 - 88. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2010.04.006
A cluster randomised trial of a telephone-based intervention for parents to increase fruit and vegetable consumption in their 3- to 5-year-old children: Study protocol
Wyse, Rebecca, Wolfenden, Luke, Campbell, Elizabeth, Brennan, Leah, Campbell, Karen, Fletcher, Amanda, Bowman, Jenny, Heard, Todd and Wiggers, John. (2010). A cluster randomised trial of a telephone-based intervention for parents to increase fruit and vegetable consumption in their 3- to 5-year-old children: Study protocol. BMC Public Health. 10(216), pp. 1 - 12. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-10-216
Adolescent and parent content preferences and predictors of intention to use an online healthy weight website for adolescents
Baulch, Jacqueline, Chester, Andrea and Brennan, Leah. (2010). Adolescent and parent content preferences and predictors of intention to use an online healthy weight website for adolescents. E - Journal of Applied Psychology. 6(1), pp. 19 - 26. https://doi.org/10.7790/ejap.v6i1.173
Changes in the content of children's school lunches across the school week
Brennan, Leah, Miles, Cara, Mitchell, Sarah and Matthews, Jan. (2010). Changes in the content of children's school lunches across the school week. Health Promotion Journal of Australia. 21(3), pp. 196 - 201.
Maternal psychosocial predictors of controlling parental feeding styles and practices
Mitchell, Sarah, Brennan, Leah, Hayes, Louise and Miles, Cara L.. (2009). Maternal psychosocial predictors of controlling parental feeding styles and practices. Appetite. 53(3), pp. 384 - 389. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2009.08.001
Health-related quality of life in obese children and adolescents
Tsiros, Margarita D., Olds, Timothy S., Buckley, Jonathan David, Grimshaw, Paul, Brennan, Leah, Walkley, Jeff, Hills, Andrew Peter, Howe, Peter and Coates, Alison M.. (2009). Health-related quality of life in obese children and adolescents. International Journal of Obesity. 33(4), pp. 387 - 400. https://doi.org/10.1038/ijo.2009.42
A cognitive behavioural intervention for overweight and obese adolescents illustrated by four case studies
Brennan, Leah, Walkley, Jeff, Lukeis, Sarah, Risteska, Anica, Archer, Lisa, Digre, Ellen, Fraser, Steve F. and Greenway, Kate. (2009). A cognitive behavioural intervention for overweight and obese adolescents illustrated by four case studies. Behaviour Change. 26(3), pp. 190 - 213. https://doi.org/10.1375/bech.26.3.190
Treatment alternatives for overweight and obesity: The role of online interventions
Baulch, Jacqueline, Chester, Andrea and Brennan, Leah. (2008). Treatment alternatives for overweight and obesity: The role of online interventions. Behaviour Change. 25(1), pp. 1 - 14. https://doi.org/10.1375/bech.25.1.1
Motivational interviewing and cognitive behaviour therapy in the treatment of adolescent overweight and obesity: Study design and methodology
Brennan, Leah, Walkley, Jeff, Fraser, Steve F., Greenway, Kate and Wilks, Ray. (2008). Motivational interviewing and cognitive behaviour therapy in the treatment of adolescent overweight and obesity: Study design and methodology. Contemporary Clinical Trials. 29(3), pp. 359 - 375. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cct.2007.09.001
Cognitive behavioural therapy improves diet and body composition in overweight and obese adolescents
Tsiros, Margarita D., Parletta, Natalie, Brennan, Leah, Coates, Alison M., Walkley, Jeff, Petkov, John, Howe, Peter, David and Buckley, Jonathan David. (2008). Cognitive behavioural therapy improves diet and body composition in overweight and obese adolescents. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 87(5), pp. 1134 - 1140.
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https://arborupdate.com/article/1447/city-council-approval-edition
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City Council: Approval Edition
18. December 2006 • Juliew
Monday, December 18 at 7:00 pm.
Resolution to Approve Non-motorized Transportation Plan
Resolution to Approve Contract for the Greenbelt and Parkland Acquisition Millage Program
Resolution to Authorize Renewal of Lease for 40 Apartments at Tuscan Creek Apartments for former Y residents.
Resolution to Approve Housing Rehabilitation Agreement, Housing Affordability Agreement, Mortgage, Note and Subordination Agreement with Parkhurst Apartments Affordable Housing.
Tuesday, December 19 at 7:00 pm.
Planning Commission Agenda
Public Hearing and Action on Bandemer Ridge–Elks Lodge Planned Project Site Plan and Special Exception Use, 2.49 acres, 220 Sunset Road. A proposal to construct a 85,227-square foot, four-story, 37-unit residential condominium building, with 72 parking spaces (53 garage spaces) and a new 4,752-square foot, two-story Elks Lodge building with 38 parking spaces.
Public Hearing and Action on 922 Church Street Apartments Site Plan, 0.22 acre. A proposal to construct an 11,132-square foot, three-story, four-unit (total of 24 bedrooms) apartment building and six parking spaces.
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The Planning Commission meeting on Tuesday will be the first look at the Elks Lodge site plan. For those of you who have never been there, it is one of the most beautiful spots in Ann Arbor, currently being used as a surface parking lot, the Elks Lodge, and a grassy yard. With lovely views of the river and downtown, it is amazing that it hasn’t been built on before this. From what I have heard, the Elks will retain ownership, but have sold the development rights. I haven’t seen the plans, but I have heard that the developer is a local person who wants to build green buildings, would like to keep the condos affordable, and has already had several meetings with the neighbors.
There are however, several real concerns with the site: 1) Erosion is potentially a big problem here. It will be interesting to see how this is addressed by the developer. Currently there is a paved parking lot and a grass lawn so it is fairly impermeable. 2) Traffic will potentially be a problem. Sunset at that point comes down a steep hill and ends in a hard turn, followed by a stretch which is often blocked by dance school traffic, and then ends at a stop sign with a nearly blind entrance. 3) Public/private use. In the past, mountain bikers and walkers have used the entrance to the park on the North side, which is technically trespassing. Last I heard, the developer has agreed to maintain that open use policy. 4) Destruction of the existing Elks Lodge. I’m not sure when the Lodge was constructed or what it is like structurally, but it is a lovely older home/lodge. From what I can read, the existing structure is going to be torn down, which is a shame. 5) Design guidelines. Hopefully this development will look nice. I think the design will have a lot to do with how well it is accepted. 6) Parking. There is a lot of parking requested on this site (110 spaces total, including 53 garage spaces). It will be interesting to see how it is incorporated into the site.
—Juliew Dec. 19 '06 - 03:38AM #
The A2 News has an article on the Y residents , including a discussion on the state of the proposed William Street Station development:
Michael Jacobson, chairman of HDC, said he expects to break ground near the end of the first quarter of 2007 on the $77 million project. Jacobson said once the deal is closed with the city, he would take responsibility for the temporary housing of the displaced residents.
The Michigan State Housing Development Authority granted tax credits worth $17.3 million to the developer this fall.
Miller said the developer needs to have one temporary certificate of occupancy completed for an affordable housing unit by December 2008 or lose the tax credits.
—Murph. Dec. 19 '06 - 04:05AM #
Thanks for the update Murph, is there any word on where the residents will live post-completion? If I remember correctly, the new facility will be affordable but not as cheap as the old Y was—will the Y residents be able to cover the difference in costs? If not, what happens to them?
—Chuck Dec. 19 '06 - 07:16PM #
Re: the Elks lodge. Part of me wants to see development pushing that way anyhow, slowly coaxing the state into calming down main street there. If nothing new goes in, main street south to downtown will stay one long exit/entrance ramp for 14.
I think one super thing they could do would be to make this more of a gateway to bluffs park and to the city. I’d like someone to promise not to call the cops when I ride through the parking lot. It’s also an obvious point to have some creative architecture, what with the rail bridge and river and entrance to downtown.
The extra traffic over there doesn’t seem like a huge problem from a can-i-still-get-to-work standpoint. That’s a quiet street as things are, and most of the traffic will be going right out onto main street. An extra hundred trips per day there is a drop in the bucket. If it doesn’t get built those 37 families are just going to move to Brighton, and the extra traffic will wind up going along main street anyway.
Assuming all the obvious environmental and aesthetic concerns are addressed, it seems like a nice location. Close to the hospital and downtown. Awesome views. Access to an under-utilized park. I’d sure move in there.
Not that it won’t put my fellow Sunset-Brooksians into a dither. The Elks lodge is lightly used, and adding a more intensive use there isn’t going to be popular. Even my wife, indoctrinated into urban planner think is hating on it.
—Patrick Dec. 19 '06 - 07:44PM #
A couple of comments related to Julie’s concerns over the Elks development:
1. The city’s natural features guidelines were updated within the last year to include language regarding development on steep slopes. Not sure if this site falls within the areas of regulation, but if it does, it will get special consideration during the review process.
2. The parking onsite isn’t really “requested” by the developer, but rather required by our city code. Some sections of the code have a minimum and maximum number of spaces, which this may fall into because of the Elks Lodge use on the site. My assumption (without seeing the plan) is that the majority of the parking is being driven by the residential use. If the parking requiremenet does have a min/max … I would hope planning commission would encourage the minimum here.
3. Bluffs Park access – A lot of developments near parks either donate a piece of the site to the city for parks access or give the city an access easement. I had thought I heard that this development was making the access official (like donating the access or giving an easement). I can’t say for sure, however.
—Jennifer Hall Dec. 20 '06 - 12:18AM #
Chuck (W. in this case, it appears?) –
This article in particular didn’t address the cost breakdowns. I remember that being discussed at the meeting at the AADL that I went to – and Juliew as well, so maybe she can help fill in the blanks – and seem to remember the developers saying that WSS would include a number of units that were significantly cheaper than the Old Y units. Additionally, many of the units that were more expensive would be housing people from the VA and other such programs, which would pay directly for housing, so the increase would not be an out-of-pocket cost for those residents. Or something. At any rate, I left that meeting with my fears of mass displacement quelled. But, like I said, I don’t have numbers – this is just 2-year-old memory.
The article did note that the City is only housing about 40 of the Old Y’s residents now; the others “have found housing elsewhere”. I’m curious as to what that means.
“If the parking requiremenet does have a min/max … I would hope planning commission would encourage the minimum here.”
Actually, it is the parking minimum requirement that is causes more of a problem. When the city requires a minimum number of parking spaces per unit or floor area, the developer loses the freedom to explore alternate transportation and parking solutions.
I’m pretty sure your intention was to say that the the city should encourage less parking supply here, but the way to do that would be to lower the parking maximum and eliminate the parking minimum instead of encouraging it. It’s a small but important distinction.
Considering the hike up the hill that is not solved by AATA service, maybe this isn’t the best place to push for alternate transport solutions. I’m surprised that Patrick would be willing to hump it up that hill on a bike every day, especially considering the joyless reward of a a steep downhill with a stop sign at the bottom. Of course if you can work Bluffs Park into your commute, it may be worth it.
If you think increased density will put neighbors in a dither, just imagine the dither that would result from increased density with “insufficient” parking. We’ll have proposals for a Bluffs Greenway expansion before you know it.
—Scott TenBrink Dec. 20 '06 - 07:43AM #
The Elks Lodge development was very disappointing. The condos are going to be in the 1800-2800 square feet range, with a price of $250/sq. ft. So, yes folks, that would mean these sell for $450,000-$700,000 each (plus condo fees)! Most existing homes in the neighborhood have sold for under $200,000.
The developers are trying to work a lot of angles, none of them very successfully. They maintain it will be ADA compliant, but that would only be within the buildings because the slope is too great to actually do an ADA compliant sidewalk and, well, the adjacent properties don’t have sidewalks anyway. They have a lot of “green” words like “solar orientation,” but there were no specific commitments to the green building. They have a green roof planned, but the developer said all the green options would be the first things dropped if they had to make any modifications to the plan so the green options seem to be added on as extras. None of the neighbors nor the Planning Commissioners seemed to believe these claims.
The plan is interesting in that the stated purpose was to give the Elks a new lodge free and clear. So the residential would need to not only pay for itself, but also have to pay for the new Elks building. There was a lot of sentiment to keep the Elks on that site since they have been there for over 50 years. But this requirement is perhaps a difficult one.
The proposed residential building is extremely large. Four to six stories with heights of 58 feet in parts (some of the details were hard to follow so I am not entirely sure of the exact numbers). It will be entirely separate from the Elks Lodge, which looks to be at the bottom of the site. Much of the site will be taken up with parking, which was problematic for a lot of people. I didn’t see the actual look of the buildings, but people didn’t seem happy with it.
Erosion was considered a large problem. There would be a lot of excavation and regrading and there was concern that this would cause a lot of problems, especially if they remove many of the existing large trees.
The resolution was tabled pending quite a lot of further information from the developer. Every speaker who spoke, other than the developers, was in opposition to this plan. There was a large turnout.
I’m guessing that what Jennifer was getting at is that, given a range of “allowed” parking spaces, she’d hope the bottom of the range would be encouraged rather than the top. I do understand (and agree with) your contention of “why have a minimum at all?”, but it doesn’t sound, from Juliew’s description, as though this is a popular enough project to use as leverage for changing the parking requirements.
From Juliew’s description, yeah, a little bit of ugh. I definitely think that site would be fantastic for housing of some sort, and I’d even go so far as to say that a $700k condo there seems more realistic to me than a $700k condo in LoFT322. But this isn’t what I was hoping for when I heard about this project.
—Murph. Dec. 20 '06 - 06:13PM #
What I would love to see at the Elks site is some version of a co-housing project similar to those at Sunward Cohousing, Great Oak Cohousing, or Touchstone Cohousing (thanks for the links Murph!). These supposedly eco-friendly, sustainable living situations are almost always located in the exurbs somewhere, which is about the least eco-friendly, sustainable situation you can find. This would be such a good opportunity to do something like this in a neighborhood close to downtown where it actually makes some sense. I also would like to see if it would make any sense to rehabilitate the existing Elks Lodge (which is quite a beautiful older building) and do an addition to that if they need more space. Then a development of condos could be wrapped around the Lodge with some shared parking and not require such a large residential building that is grouped all in one tall area surrounded by surface parking. The physical logistics of the site are difficult so they were discussing that they were going to have to have twelve foot retaining walls and huge excavations, which made everyone nervous. It just seems like there should be a way of doing a development here that is acceptable to most people and that would benefit the neighbors, the Elks, and the developer.
What I would love to see at the Elks site is some version of a co-housing project similar to those at Sunward Cohousing, Great Oak Cohousing, or Touchstone Cohousing (thanks for the links Murph!).
I’m not saying this is a bad idea, but how do you think the detached-single-family homeowners of this neighborhood would react if you suggested that they adopt a simplified communal lifestyle?
—ann arbor is overrated Dec. 21 '06 - 03:24AM #
Heh, I know some of these people and, well, that is pretty much exactly the lifestyle they have already chosen already. They just choose to do it in a less formalized way. I was talking about this to one neighbor this summer and he said actually he knew two of the homeowners in the area had moved to one of the co-housing projects. So I think this neighborhood as much as any in town would be receptive to this sort of development.
When I was in Peter Allen’s real estate development class, his son (slash property manager) was in my project team, and actually took us up to that exact site as someplace he thought we could hypothize up a good cohousing community. So I’ll have to extend my previous agreement with Juliew to specify that I do think the site would be fantastic for cohousing of some sort. Just not cohousing 6 stories tall and $400k expensive.
Cost could probably be brought down easily by not building the darned things 2800sf large. I have no idea what the existing lodge building is like, but presumably it could be rehabbed pretty easily into a common house, plus possibly a few small units? Your standard urban 800-1000sf condo unit becomes downright generous when you throw in not just the fact that it’s part of a cohousing community but also has the view and the backyard (okay, “park”, if you must) of this site.
And I’ll second Juliew – the people I know in that area already do live the most post-hippie lifestyles in town.
(On the other hand, the people I know aren’t the ones saying dumb stuff like, “I would be looking at an asphalt jungle,” and “This project is an assault on one of the most vibrant and diverse neighborhoods in the city,” in the News article. How ‘bout we discuss this without the trite, calculated theatrics, shall we?)
Remember that what is said atpublic hearings won’t have much effect, if any, on what the Planning Commission (and later the City Council) will do.
A while ago Coy Vaughn, who heads the planning staff, told a developer worried about adverse public comments that “We hold the public hearing and then we move on.”
—David Cahill Dec. 21 '06 - 10:14PM #
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Common mental disorders and its associated factors and mental health care services for Ethiopian labour migrants returned from Middle East countries in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Melkie Tilahun1,
Abdulhalik Workicho1 &
Dessie Abebaw Angaw ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-9827-22552
The migration of young Ethiopian men and women to the Middle East countries was mainly for economic reasons. The migration was largely irregular that posed a wide range of unfavorable life conditions for some of the migrants. The overall objective is to assess common mental disorders and its associated factors for Ethiopian migrants returned from the Middle East countries and to describe mental health care services targeting these migrants.
The study employed a mixed-methods approach. For the quantitative part, a systematic random sampling technique was used to select a sample of 517 returnees. An interviewer-administered questionnaire based on Self Report Questionnaire-20 was used to collect data from respondents. The qualitative study employed a phenomenological study design to describe mental health care services. Key informant interviews and non-participant observation techniques were used to collect qualitative data.
The prevalence of common mental disorder among Ethiopian migrants returned from the Middle East countries was found to be 29.2%. education (AOR=2.90 95%CI: 1.21, 6.94), physical abuse (AOR=12.17 95%CI: 5.87, 25.22), not getting salary properly and timely (AOR=3.35 95%CI: 1.47, 7.63), history of mental illness in the family (AOR=6.75 95%CI: 1.03, 43.95), detention (AOR=4.74 95%CI: 2.60, 8.62), guilty feeling for not fulfilling goal (AOR=9.58 95%CI: 4.43, 20.71), and denial of access to health care (AOR=3.20 95%CI:1.53, 6.67) were significantly associated with a common mental disorder. Shelter based and hospital-based mental health care services were rendered for a few return migrants with mental disorders. The services were primarily targeted, female return migrants.
The prevalence of common mental disorder was high among migrants returned from the Middle East countries. Despite the high burden of mental distress, only a small proportion of return migrants with mental illness is getting mental health care services.
People have migrated from one place to another since the start of human existence [1]. Even though human migration is not a new phenomenon, it has changed significantly in number and nature with the growth of globalization, including the ease of international transport and communication, the push and pull factors of shifting capital, effects of climate change, and periodic political upheaval, including armed conflict [2]. Migration has been increasing largely at the international level especially since the last decade [3]. Between 1990 and 2017, the number of international migrants worldwide rose by over 105 million, or by 69 percent. Globally, there were an estimated 258 million international migrants in 2017 [4]. Migration report estimates that if migration continues to increase at the same pace as in the last 20 years, the number of international migrants worldwide could be as high as 405 million by 2050 [5]. Africa is often seen as a continent on the move, with people escaping poverty, environmental disaster, or violent conflict. About 31 million Africans, or little more than 3 percent of the continent’s population, have migrated internationally [6].
There is evidence that outward migration has increased in Ethiopia in recent years [7]. Ethiopians leave their country either as regular or irregular migrants. Regular migration is defined by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) as "migration that occurs through recognized, authorized channels". IOM also defines irregular migration as "movement that takes place outside the regulatory norms of the sending, transit and receiving countries". Data from the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (MoLSA) indicate that approximately 460,000 Ethiopians migrated legally from their country between 2008 and 2013, mostly to the Middle East with the majority going to Saudi Arabia (79%), Kuwait (20%) and others to UAE and other countries [8]. The exact number of Ethiopian migrants to the Middle East is unknown as two-thirds of them migrate through irregular means [9]. It is estimated that up to 500,000 Ethiopian women are migrating to the Middle East for domestic work annually [10]. Ethiopian migrants to the Middle East are driven to migrate primarily for economic reasons [11]. The process of migration can lead to a whole spectrum of physical and mental health disorders [12]. There are numerous reports that many migrants are victims of fraud, forced labour, and physical, sexual, and psychological abuse by their employers or by traffickers, and a significant number develop psychological problems [7]. Many Ethiopian women working in domestic service in the Middle East face severe abuses, including physical and sexual assault, denial of salary, sleep deprivation, withholding of passports, confinement, and even murder [13].
Similar with the outward migration, return migration to Ethiopia has increased in the past decade [10]. Ethiopians return to their country due to various reasons such as to reunite with family or friends, investment, or repatriation and deportation [8]. The recent deportation of 170,000 Ethiopian migrants from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is one example of large-scale return migration in the country [14]. The deportation of the above-undocumented migrants was accompanied by severe human rights abuses, including arbitrary detention, theft of migrants' belongings, rape, beatings, and killings' that traumatized many of those who returned to Ethiopia [7]. Return migrants may have exceptional and increased mental health needs resulting from painful or traumatic experiences that they might face during the process of migration and/or during their stay in the country of destination [15]. A growing number of shreds of evidence show that Ethiopian returnees from different Middle East countries often have a variety of psychological disorders as they experience diverse problems at the various stages of their migration [16]. This, in turn, makes mental health to be a serious concern among Ethiopian migrants returning from the Middle East countries [9].
Studies suggest that mental health care and rehabilitation services are highly needed to be expanded to return migrants in Ethiopia [17]. However, return migration and mental health has received far too little attention in policy and crisis-intervention programs despite a large number of Ethiopian migrants with various mental health issues are returning from the Middle East countries. The National Mental Health Strategy which integrates mental health into primary health care systems to provide comprehensive, accessible and affordable mental health care for the public does not specifically address the special mental health care need of return migrants [18].
Even though hazards to general health and specifically to mental health rank among the top experiences of trafficking and migrant returnees, the services addressing health specifically mental health needs of returnees during the recovery phase of the migration process are sparse [9, 16, 17]. Therefore, this research aimed at studying the magnitude of common mental disorders and associated factors and mental health care practice that targets Ethiopian migrants returning in large number from Middle East countries.
The constructs of this conceptual framework were extracted from a bulk of literature written in the area. The framework depicts CMD or mental distress in return migrants is a result of socio-demographic characteristics, pre-departure risk factors, traumatic life experiences, goal-related perception, and access to health care in the destination country (Fig. 1).
Conceptual framework of the study
Study design and setting
The study employed a mixed-methods research approach. The cross-sectional study design was used in the survey to assess the prevalence of common mental disorder and its determinants among Ethiopian migrants returning from the Middle East countries. The qualitative research applied a phenomenological study design to describe the dimension of mental health care services, opportunities, and challenges that were aimed at providing mental health care services for return migrants.
The study was conducted in Addis Ababa city which was the main gate to Ethiopian returnees from different parts of the world including those from the Middle East region via Bole International Airport. It is the hub for various actors working on rehabilitation and reintegration of return migrants. The main organizations working on rehabilitation and reintegration of return migrants in Addis Ababa include Addis Ababa City Administration Social and Labour Affairs Bureau, International Organization for Migration, Agar Ethiopia, Good Samaritan Association, Nolawi Services and St. Amanuel Mental Specialized Hospital. The study was conducted in the period between November 10, 2017, and December 21, 2017.
The population for the quantitative study was Ethiopian labour migrants returning from Middle East countries who were staying in the provisional center in Addis Ababa and who was not unconscious and not critically ill. The population of the qualitative study was staff of Addis Ababa City Administration Labour and Social Affairs Bureau, Agar Ethiopia, Good Samaritan Association, Nolawi Services, St. Amanuel Specialized Mental Hospital and Ministry of Health which specifically work on mental healthcare of return migrants from the Middle East countries.
Sample size and sampling technique
The sample size was calculated using single population proportion formula with the prevalence rate of common mental disorder for the population (27.6%), which was based on a recent study conducted by Habtamu, Minaye, and Zeleke in 2017 [16]; d is the margin of error to be tolerated (4%) and \( {Z}_{1-\raisebox{1ex}{$\alpha $}\!\left/ \!\raisebox{-1ex}{$2$}\right.} \) is the reliability factor corresponding to the confidence level of 95% (1.96)\( n=\frac{{Z_{1-\raisebox{1ex}{$\alpha $}\!\left/ \!\raisebox{-1ex}{$2$}\right.}}^2P\left(1-P\right)}{d^2} \)
The computed sample size was 480 and with a 10% non-response rate, the final sample size became 528. A systematic random sampling technique was used to select samples from Ethiopian return migrants. A list of 1059 return migrants who arrived during the study period was obtained from a register of the National Disaster Risk Management Commission, the government body that coordinated tasks in the provisional center at that time. The sampling interval (k) was calculated by dividing the number of returnees (1059) by the sample size (528). The calculated sampling interval was 2. A lottery was drawn between the first two names of return migrants from the register to randomly select the first respondent. Then every other migrant’s names from the register were selected to be sampled and interviewed.
For the qualitative part, a purposive sampling technique was employed to select participants and institutions. Participants and institutions with relevant and rich information were selected deliberately for the study. Information about relevant staff for the study was obtained by asking the leaders of each organization. Information saturation was used to determine the point at which the data collection ends. Ten key informant interviews were conducted with staff of Addis Ababa City Administration Labour and Social Affairs Bureau, Agar Ethiopia, Good Samaritan Association, Nolawi Services, St. Amanuel Specialized Mental Hospital and Ministry of Health. The key informants were focal persons from each organization who had relevant and rich information about the matter. In the same way, three observations were conducted at Agar Ethiopia, Good Samaratian Association, and St. Amanuel Specialized Mental Hospital.
Study variables and data collection procedure
Our dependent variable was a common mental disorder with the presence of 8 or more symptoms of mental distress in return migrants out of 20 symptoms in the SRQ-20. Socio-demographic departure, the experience of a traumatic event, health care, and goal-related perceptions were assessed quantitatively. The qualitative study explored the depth and dimensions of mental health care services available. It also explored opportunities and challenges the actors encounter. Contents that were related to mental health care services, opportunities, and challenges were identified.
A face to face interview was used to collect data from respondents in the quantitative study. A structured questionnaire based on the WHO Self Report Questionnaire-20 (SRQ 20) was used to assess mental distress among sample respondents in the past 30 days. The questionnaire was translated into the Amharic language. Selected participants were asked for their willingness to participate in the study. Data was collected from migrants who fulfilled the inclusion criteria. The inclusion criteria for the study were: who was not unconscious, who were not critically ill, and who were not below 18 years old. Three data collectors with a bachelor's degree in psychology collected data from respondents.
Two different data collection techniques were used to collect qualitative data. These were key informant interviews and observation. The KI participants were mental health practitioners who had rich experience in providing mental health services for the return migrants’ Key informant interviews were conducted to collect rich information about mental health care services from highly relevant staffs in those organizations which provide rehabilitative and mental health care services for return migrants. The key informant interview process was guided by a key informant interview guide. The key informant interviews were tape-recorded to capture all information given by the interviewees. After completion of each key informant interview, the facilitators thanked each participant for his/her willingness and time. A non-participant observation technique was used for the observation. The observation aimed to gather first-hand information on mental health services by observing sites where actual service is rendered. The first-hand information gathered through observation was the general setting of the service provider site, types of mental health services provided at the site, availability of adequate spaces for each service, availability of required materials and facilities for each service, appearance, and condition of mental health care clients, and interaction between service providers and clients. A structured observation checklist was used to guide the observation. Field notes were taken immediately after each observation. The investigator gathered the qualitative data from study participants and institutions
Data quality management
For quantitative data quality, a standard WHO questionnaire with acceptable validity and reliability was used to collect data from respondents. The data collectors were trained for two days on data collection tools and data collection procedures. A filled questionnaire was checked for completeness and consistency by the investigator during data collection. Data entry was done in EpiData software to minimize data entry errors.
To enhance the trustworthiness of qualitative research, the triangulation of data collection methods was used to elicit information about the same issue using key informant interviews and observation. The data from the two methods were triangulated during interpretation. The researcher kept records on the process of conducting the research as it was undertaken for the audit trail at a later time to review different aspects of the research. The extensive description of the setting and participants of the study were provided. Besides, a detailed description of the findings with adequate pieces of evidence was provided in the form of quotes from participants’ interviews.
Data analysis procedures
Quantitatively collected data were entered into EpiData version 3.1. The data were edited and cleaned carefully. Then, the dataset was exported to SPSS Version 20 for analysis. Descriptive statistics were run to summarize the background characteristics of the respondents, to determine the prevalence of CMD, and to examine the distribution of specific symptoms contained in SRQ-20 among the respondents. Logistic regression models were fitted to identify factors associated with CMD. Analyses of associations for CMD focused on the presence and absence of the disorder taking the score of eight and above as a cut of a point on the score of SRQ-20. The screening criterion for variables to be included in the multivariable regression was the P-value <0.25 in the bivariate regression model. The level of significance of association in the logistic regression model was determined at P-value <0.05.
For qualitative data, tape-recorded key informant interviews were firstly transcribed in Amharic and then translated into English. The transcribed notes were edited, formatted, and saved as a text file. Then, the transcript notes saved in a text file were imported into OpenCode version 4 software. Codes were assigned to segments of the text. Then after the codes were categorized into four themes. The field notes taken during observations were summarized, categorized, and analyzed based on the site of observation. Finally, the findings from the two data collection techniques were triangulated.
Socio-demographic Characteristics
A total of 517 return migrants participated in the cross-sectional survey with a response rate of 97.9%. More than half (56.9 %) of the respondents were female. The mean age of the respondents was 27.5 (SD = +5.0) years. Regarding their religion, over half (56.3%) of them were Muslim followed by Orthodox (30.2%). In terms of respondents' education, 13.0% of them did not have formal education and 37.9% attended primary education. Most of the respondents were from Amhara (33.3%), Oromia (27.7%), and Tigray (22.4%) regions of Ethiopia where a little more than half (53.2%) of the return migrants were from rural areas of these regions (Table 1).
Table 1 Socio-demographic Characteristics of study participants
Pre-departure Factors
The majority (86.5%) of the respondents did not know the language of the destination country before their migration. Only a few (11%) of them claimed that they had had the required skill for the type of work they supposed to do in the destination country. Regarding family pressure to migrate, the vast majority (89.2%) did not mention family pressure as a reason for their decision to migrate to the Middle East countries. Nearly half (48.2 %) of the respondents or their families took a loan to cover the cost of their journey to the Middle East country (Table 2).
Table 2 Pre-departure Characteristics of the study participants
Experience of Traumatic Events and Access to Health Care
Nearly one-third (32%) of return migrants reported that they had experienced physical abuse during their journey or at the destination country in the Middle East. More than half (55.3%) of the returnees reported that they had encountered verbal abuse. Among the female returnees, 68 (23.1%) of them reported sexual abuse during their journey or at their stay in the destination country. Only one-fifth (20.7) of the respondents reported to get their salary timely and properly. Regarding confiscation of passport, 86.1% of the returnees reported their passport had been held forcefully by their employer. A third of the return migrants (32.9%) were refused to communicate their family through the telephone.
Among the total respondents, 36.4 % of them were detained either during their journey or at the destination country in the Middle East. More than sixty percent of the respondents reported that feeling guilty for unmet their primary goal of their migration. Slightly more than three-forth (76.8%) of the returnees were denied access to health care by their employer during their stay in the host Middle East country (Table 3).
Table 3 Traumatic Experience of study participants
Prevalence of Common Mental Disorders
The prevalence of common mental disorder among Ethiopian migrants returned from the Middle East countries was found to be 29.2% (95% CI= 25.3, 33.3). The most frequent symptoms of common mental disorder reported by the respondents were: frequent headache (40.6%), feel unhappy (40.4%), nervousness (40.2%), bad sleep (39.7%), poor appetite (39.3%), feel tired all the time (35.4%) and easily tired (34.8%). Slightly more than a fifth (21.5%) of the respondents reported that they felt worthless in the past 30 days and suicidal ideation was reported by 17.4 % of the return migrants who participated in the study (Table 4).
Table 4 Symptoms of Common Mental Disorder Reported by the study participants
Factors Associated with Common Mental Disorder
In the multivariable logistic regression model; Education (AOR=2.90 95%CI: 1.21, 6.94), experience physical abuse (AOR=12.17 95%CI: 5.87, 25.22), not getting salary properly and timely (AOR=3.35 95%CI: 1.47, 7.63), history of mental illness in the family (AOR=6.75 95%CI: 1.03, 43.95), experience detention (AOR=4.74 95%CI: 2.60, 8.62), guilty feeling for not fulfilling goal (AOR=9.58 95%CI: 4.43, 20.71), and denial of access to health care in the destination country (AOR=3.20 95%CI:1.53, 6.67) were significantly associated with CMD (see table 5).
Table 5 Multivariable logistic regression model for factors associated with common mental disorder among Ethiopian labor migrants returned from the Middle East Countries between November 10, 2017 and December 21, 2017
Qualitative Research Findings
A total of ten participants were interviewed in the qualitative interviews. Half of them were female. Four main themes were identified from the content analysis of qualitative research. These were (i) the mental health problems of return migrants through providers' eyes, (ii) mental health care services being rendered for return migrants (iii) the existing opportunities for mental health care providers, and (iv) the challenges encountered by mental health care providers. Direct quotes from transcripts are provided to illustrate these themes. Excerpts or quotations from interviews with participants are identified by a code corresponding to Table 6.
Table 6 Characteristics of key informant interview participants from mental health care service providing organizations between November 10, 2017 and December 21, 2017 Addis Ababa
The Mental Health Problems of Return Migrants through Providers’ Eyes
The mental health problem of return migrants was vast and increasing from time to time. Participants agreed that female migrants were more affected by mental illness than their male counterparts. Those with mental health problems were brought to service providers in disturbing health conditions. The majority of return migrants were suffering from anxiety and depression and few of them were diagnosed with a severe form of mental illness like schizophrenia. Among the participants a female psychiatric nurse from Amanuel mental hospital who was also working in Agar Ethiopia supported the above idea by expressing:
"In my understanding, almost all return migrants are affected by a mental health problem. The problem is immense and increasing from time to time. Most of the time, they are suffering from depression. They are also suffering from acute psychotic disorders. Few of them are suffering from a chronic psychotic disorder such as schizophrenia" (P4).
Another female participant from Good Samaritan Association agreed with the aforementioned idea by describing:
"Most of the returnees coming to us were disoriented and traumatized. Some of them were with physical injuries. Some were with bad odour from their mouths and blood in their urine… Few were tested positive for HIV and TB"(P2).
Many Ethiopian labor migrants took an unsafe route in their migration to the Middle East countries.
Some of the participants claimed the Ethiopian government's ban of migration to the Gulf Arab countries exacerbated the illegal migration to the region. Most of the migrants were poorly prepared for the working and living conditions in the destination countries making them prone to abuse and mistreatment during their journey and at their destination. For most of the migrants, their work and stay in the employer house were full of exploitation and violation of their rights. The Kafala sponsorship system that practiced in the region also played a role in the exploitation and right violations of Ethiopian labour migrants in the Gulf Arab countries. A male participant working in Nolawi Services explained the poor preparation of Ethiopian labour migrants for the supposed domestic work and life in the destination country:
"Ethiopian migrants do not have appropriate skills for the work they supposed to do. They do not have pre-departure orientation or training on the skill required for the work. They do not know the basic Arabic language. They are unaware of the culture of the destination country. They directly go to Arab countries without basic training and preparation. They are not aware of the working condition in the destination country" (P9).
A female psychiatric prescriber from Amanuel hospital also working in Good Samartian Association described the above abuse and mistreatment the Ethiopian labour migrants faced:
"Most of the time, the mistreatment and abuse are started from here in Ethiopia by traffickers. During their journey to the Arab countries, they face rape, torture, insult, and more. Once they arrive at the Arab country, the mistreatment and abuse are continued. They are not allowed to communicate with family and friends. They are starved. They are forced to drink unclean pipe water used for cleaning purposes" (P1).
Mental Health Care Services Being Rendered for Return Migrants
Ethiopian return migrants with mental health problems got mental health care services at two settings namely at the rehabilitation center and a mental hospital. According to the participants and observations by the investigator, there were only three organizations that provided mental health care services for return migrants. Two of them were providing a rehabilitation center or shelter-based mental health services. The remaining one provided hospital-based mental health care.
Rehabilitation Center or Shelter Based Services
The rehabilitation center based mental health care services were provided by Agar Ethiopia and Good Samaritan Association. The two organizations were providing basic mental health care and rehabilitation services to returnees with mental illness. The services provided by the two organizations were shelter, food, hygienic materials, clothes, medical service through referral, psychological counseling, recreational therapy even though not well organized, reunification with family, life skill training, vocational skill training, and economic strengthening through linking with micro-finance institutes. The rehabilitation centers were aimed at providing mental health care services for female return migrants only. Few female migrants with severe mental illness got the services. Among the participants, a staff of Agar Ethiopia explained about the services his organization was providing:
"We are providing a range of mental health care related services to return migrants with mental problems. The services we are providing to them are food, shelter, counseling, recreational therapy, life skill training, vocational skill training, reunification with family, and economic empowerment. We provide mental health care services for only female returnees at our rehabilitation center. Only a few of the returnees with mental problems are brought to our rehabilitation center as most of them do not show apparent signs of severe mental illness. The majority of returnees with mental illness are left on the street."(P3)
During observation of Agar Ethiopia's rehabilitation center, the investigator observed 8 return migrants with mental illness. All of them were female and one of them had a baby. The middle size premise of the center was neat and free from bad odor and hazardous objects at the time of observation. Similarly, while observing the Good Samaritan Association's rehabilitation center, the investigator observed 5 mentally ill return migrants. All of them were female. The investigator observed paintings made by mentally ill return migrants hanged on one side of the wall. The center was a one-floor building with a small size compound.
Hospital-Based Services
St Amanuel hospital provided outpatient and inpatient medical services for the general public with mental illness. The hospital rendered mental health care services for return migrants with mental illness who were mainly brought by Agar Ethiopia, Good Samaritan Association, and Ethiopian Airports Enterprise. These services were: psychiatric assessment, prescription of medication or biological therapy, psychological counseling, ward admission, and reunification with a family. A female psychiatric nurse of Amanuel hospital described the type of services the hospital rendered for return migrants:
"Amanuel hospital is providing a range of mental health care services for return migrants with mental illness. The hospital provides psychiatric assessment, counseling services, prescription of medication, inpatient services through ward admission, outpatient services, and reunification with family" (P6).
The observation in Amanuel hospital revealed that it was situated in one of the most bustling areas of the city. The investigator observed so many mentally ill male and female patients wearing a hospital gown. There were separate wards for male and female patients. The hospital compound was crowded with many outpatient and inpatient clients and their families/relatives. The waiting areas around examination rooms and registration/card rooms were full of patients and their families and relatives.
The Existing Opportunities for Mental Health Care Providers
There were limited opportunities for organizations working on mental health care of return migrants. The increased attention is given to mental health globally and nationally was considered as an opportunity for the expansion of mental health care services. Limited support provided by the government was helping to strengthen the capacity of the actors working on mental health care of return migrants. The presence of Amanuel mental hospital in Addis Ababa was an opportunity to diagnose and treat mentally ill return migrants brought by the two organizations working on mental health care of return migrants. Participants said that the dedication of staff and leaders in handling the challenging task of caring for mentally ill return migrants was an opportunity for organizations working on the area. Among the participants' Agar Ethiopia staff described the support his organization got from the government as worth mentioning opportunity:
"The city government is supporting us in a limited way. For instance, AA BOLSA is working closely with us as it is part of their responsibilities. The Addis Ababa City Civil Society Agency has donated us a vehicle. Addis Ababa City Disaster Preparedness Bureau has granted us an emergency fund of one and a half million birr. Addis Ababa City Council is on the process of providing us 3 hectares of land for construction of rehabilitation center" (P3).
A male staff of Amanuel hospital who was also serving as psychiatric staff in Agar Ethiopia explained the attention the Ethiopian government gave to mental health:
"The government is working to improve mental health care services in the country. It trains a large number of mental health professionals. Also, it decentralizes mental health care services to different levels of government health facilities" (P5).
The Challenges Encountered by Mental Health Care Providers
Mental health care providers shave encountered many challenges in their effort to deliver mental health care services to return migrants. Inadequate funding to expand services for all needy returnees was a major challenge for most of the providers. The limited capacity to expand mental health care services for all needy return migrants was another challenge of the actors in the area. Overcrowding and a shortage of beds in the hospital was a chronic problem for providing mental health care services for returnees and the general public. Almost all return migrants came to the hospital unaccompanied by family or relatives so that it posed a challenge to assess, treat, and follow them. Lack of awareness about mental illness and stigma against a mentally ill person was also one of the challenges that mental health care providers encountered. Lastly, the exaggerated need for economic support of return migrants recovered from mental illnesses posed a challenge for the actors struggling with meager resources. Agar Ethiopia staff alluded that lack of adequate space was a bottleneck for them to provide service for all needy return migrants:
"We do not have enough space to provide mental health care service for all needy return migrants including male returnees" (P3).
One of Amanuel hospital staff also described the aforementioned challenge as follow:
"There is a shortage of bed to admit all needy return migrants with severe mental illness even though efforts to admit this group of the society are in place" (P5).
The prevalence of CMD among Ethiopian labour migrants returned from the Middle East countries was found to be 29.2% (95% CI= 25.3, 33.3). A similar study reported a prevalence rate of CMD to be 27.6 % among Ethiopian migrants returned from the Middle East and South Africa [16]. However, the prevalence of CMD in the current study is higher than that in the general population and working adults in the country which was ranging from 11.7% to 17.7% [19,20,21]. Findings of the qualitative research of this study indicated that the majority of return migrants are suffering from depression and anxiety disorders and few of them were diagnosed with a severe form of mental illness like schizophrenia. The findings of this study were in line with the study conducted in Nepal with repatriated migrants from the Gulf Arab countries and Asian countries which found that Nepalese foreign labor migrants were predominantly affected by depressive disorder and anxiety disorder [22].
The study revealed that the migrants were vulnerable to traumatic experiences and migration and adjustment related stressors. They were exposed to abuses, mistreatment, exploitation, and right violations. This was in line with a study from Sri Lanka conducted on women migrant workers returned from Middle East countries [23]. The participants in this study experienced a high level of abuse during their journey or at their stay in the Middle East countries. About 23.1%, 32%, and 55.3% of return migrants experienced sexual, physical, and verbal abuses respectively. A study conducted in Lebanon found that sexual, physical, and verbal abuses were detected in 12.5%, 37.5%, and 50.0 % of female foreign domestic workers respectively [24]. In the same way, a study from Nepal reported that 40.9% of return migrants had faced abuses at their workplace in the Middle East countries [25]. Labour migrants in the Middle East countries often encounter barriers to accessing appropriate health care [26]. In this study, only 23.2% of migrants had access to health care while they were in the Middle East countries. Similarly, a study from Nepal shows that only 12.9% of respondents reported that they had received health services after falling ill whilst in domestic work abroad [25].
Results from the multivariable analysis show that education, physical abuse, detention, salary earning, history of mental illness in the family, guilty feeling for not fulfilling expectation, and denial of access to health care were significantly associated with CMD adjusting for other possible confounding factors. In the same way, the qualitative findings identified mal-adaptation, individual susceptibility, severe abuses, painful experiences, and guilty feeling for not fulfilling the goal of the migration as causes of mental distress in Ethiopian labour migrants returned from the Middle East countries. A qualitative study done on return migrants in Ethiopia revealed that sexual violence, physical violence, emotional abuse, starvation, imprisonment, and difficulty adapting to a different culture were sources of mental trauma of Ethiopian labour migrants in the Middle East countries [17].
The study identified that only few organizations were providing rehabilitation and reintegration services for mentally ill female returnees with a very limited resource reaching a small segment of the larger population of migrant returnees [21]. Increased focus for mental health nationally and internationally, training of a relatively large number of mental health professionals, decentralization of mental health care services, support from the government, presence of St. Amanuel mental hospital, and dedication of mental health care staff are existing opportunities for the actors working on mental health care of return migrants. The major challenges of the actors identified in this study are lack of adequate funding, limited capacity to expand services, difficulty of assessing and following unaccompanied cases, low awareness, and stigma towards mental illness and high need for economic support. Some of these challenges are also reported by other studies. One study reported that mental health care actors are struggling to find consistent funding to maintain their services and only provide assistance to those in dire need [27]. Another study indicated that these organizations are overwhelmed by huge demand with limited capacity [21].
Strength and limitations of the study
The strength of this study lies in the mixed-method design that enables it to assess the magnitude of mental distress of return migrants and different dimensions of mental health care service available to them using quantitative and qualitative approaches. The study has also a limitation. The findings of the study may not reflect the situation among all migrants returning from elsewhere as it focused only on those returned from Middle Eastern countries and during a specific time period.
The prevalence of CMD is high among Ethiopian migrants who returned from the Middle East countries. Lack of pre-migration preparation and unsafe migration along with Kafala sponsorship system exposes Ethiopian labour migrants to abuses, mistreatment, exploitation, and right violations. The high proportion of Ethiopian labour migrants to the Middle East countries experienced traumatic events including physical abuse, verbal abuse, sexual violence, detention, and denial of salary.
The factors that found to be significantly associated with CMD in return migrants were education, physical abuse, salary earning, history of mental illness in the family, detention, guilty feeling for not fulfilling expectation, and denial of access to health care. Despite the high burden of mental disorder among return migrants, only a few organizations were working on mental health care targeting returnees with a very limited resource that reaching a small segment of return migrants with a mental health problem. The mental health care services were primarily targeted at and provided for female return migrants and male return migrants with mental disorders are neglected. Lack of adequate funding, limited capacity to expand services, difficulty of assessing and following up of unaccompanied patients, low awareness and stigma towards mental illness, and returnees’ high need for economic support are main challenges for the organizations working on the area.
The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
CMD:
Common mental disorder
MoLSA:
Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs
SRQ-20:
Self Report Questionnaire-20
Bhugra D, Gupta S, editors. Migration and Mental Health. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 2011.
Zimmerman C, Kiss L, Hossain M. Migration and Health: A Framework for 21st Century Policy-Making. PLoS Med. 2011;8(5):e1001034. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1001034.
Virupaksha HG, Kumar A, Nirmala BP. Migration and mental health: An interface. J Nat Sc Biol Med. 2014;5:233–9.
United Nations. Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. International Migration Report 2017 (ST/ESA/SER.A/403). New York: United Nations; 2017.
IOM WHO, UNHCR. International Migration, Health and Human Rights. Geneva: International Organization for Migration; 2013.
ECA & AU. International Migration in Africa: Framing the Issues- an Issues Paper Prepared for the Ninth Joint Annual Meetings of the African Union Specialized Technical Committee on Finance, Monetary Affairs, Economic Planning and Integration and the Economic Commission for Africa Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development Addis Ababa, 31 March – 5 April 2016. Addis Ababa: Economic Commission for Africa. p. 2016.
Carter B, Rohwerder B. Rapid fragility and migration assessment for Ethiopia (Rapid Literature Review). Birmingham: University of Birmingham; 2016.DRC & RMMS. Ethiopia Country Profile. Nairobi: Danish Refugee Council and Regional Mixed Migration Secretariat; 2016.
DRC & RMMS. Ethiopia Country Profile. Nairobi: Danish Refugee Council and Regional Mixed Migration Secretariat; 2016.
Zeleke W, Minaye A, Kygana G. Mental Health and Somatic Distress among Ethiopian Migrant Returnees from the Middle East. Int J Ment Health Psychiatry. 2015;1:2.
Kuschminder K. Female Return Migration and Reintegration Strategies in Ethiopia. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Maastricht: Maastricht University; 2013.
JonesN P-ME, Tefera B. Rethinking girls on the move: The intersection of poverty, exploitation and violence experienced by Ethiopian adolescents involved in the Middle East ‘maid trade’. London: Overseas Development Institute; 2014.
Bhugra D, Gupta S, Schouler-Ocak M, Graeff-Calliess I, Deakin NA, Qureshi A, Dales J, Moussaoui D, Kastrup M, Tarricone I, Till A, Bassi M, Carta M. EPA Guidance mental health care of migrants. Eur Psychiatry. 2014;2014(29):107–15.
US Department of State. Trafficking in Persons Report. Washington. D.C: United States Department of State; 2014.
US Department of State. Trafficking in Persons Report. Washington. D.C.: United States Department of State; 2015.
Ayalew M, Minaye A. Mental Health Status of Returnee Ethiopian Women from the Middle East Vis -A- Vis Women in the Process of Migration: Implication for Intervention. EC Psychol Psychiatry. 2017;2.4(2017):139–49.
Habtamu K, Minaye A, Zeleke WA. Prevalence and associated factors of common mental disorders among Ethiopian migrant returnees from the Middle East and South Africa. BMC Psychiatry. 2017;17:144.
Getnet B, Fekadu A, Getnet A, Wondie Y. Trauma and Depression in Ethiopian Women Returning From Middle Eastern Countries. Am J Psychiatry. 2016;173:330–1. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.2015.15101281.
Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia Ministry of Health. National Mental Health Strategy (2012/13- 2015/16). Addis Ababa: Ministry of Health; 2012.
Kebede D, Alem A, Rashid E. The prevalence and socio-demographic correlates of mental distress in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Acta Psychiatr Scand Suppl. 1999;397:5–10.
Gelaye B, Lemma S, Deyassa N, Bahretibeb Y, Tesfaye M, Berhane Y, Williams MA. Prevalence and correlates of mental distress among working adults in Ethiopia. Clin Pract Epidemiol Ment Health. 2012;8(1):126–33.
Abera W. Psycho-social Conditions of Migrant Returnees from Middle East Countries up on Arrival at Bole International Airport: Implication for Intervention-Unpublished Master Thesis. Addis Ababa: Addis Ababa University; 2014.
Chapagai M, Pant SB, Tulachan P, Dhungana S. Psychiatric morbidity among repatriated Nepalese foreign labor migrants-a hospital based study. J Institute Med. 2017;39(1):33–7.
Arachchi SH. Violation of Migrant Women Worker’s Rights in Middle-East. Int J Arts Commerce. 2013;2(2):332–47.
Zahreddine N, Hady RT, Chammai R, Kazour F, Hachem D, Richa S. Psychiatric Morbidity, Phenomenology and Management in Hospitalized Female Foreign Domestic Workers in Lebanon. Commun Mental Health J. 2013. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10597-013-9682-7.
Simkhada P, Teijlingen E, Gurung M, Wasti SP. A survey of health problems of Nepalese female migrants workers in the Middle-East and Malaysia. BMC Int Health Hum Rights. 2018;18:4. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12914-018-0145-7.
Priebe S, Giacco D, El-Nagib R. Public health aspects of mental health among migrants and refugees: a review of the evidence on mental health care for refugees, asylum seekers and irregular migrants in the WHO European Region (Health Evidence Network Synthesis Report 47). Copenhagen: WHO Regional Office for Europe; 2016.
Kuschminder K. Shattered Dreams and return of Vulnerability: Challenges of Ethiopian Female Migration to the Middle East. IS Academy Policy Brief | No. 18. Maastricht: Maastricht University; 2014.
We would like to thank Jimma University for supporting the study financially and the data collection team for their dedication. We would also like to extend our heartfelt gratitude to the study participants.
This research work was fully funded by Jimma University.
Department of Epidemiology, Institute of health, faculty of public health, University of Jimma, Jimma, Ethiopia
Melkie Tilahun & Abdulhalik Workicho
Department of Epidemiology and biostatistics, institute of public health, college of medicine and health science, University of Gondar, Gondar, Ethiopia
Dessie Abebaw Angaw
Melkie Tilahun
Abdulhalik Workicho
MT, AW and DA conceived of the study and were involved in design of the study, in the coordination and reviewed the article, analysis, report writing and drafted the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
All authors are public health specialists.
Correspondence to Dessie Abebaw Angaw.
The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board, College of Health Sciences, Jimma University. Written permission was obtained from Addis Ababa City Administration Labour and Social Affairs Bureau. Permission to conduct the study in each organization was asked through a letter. Written consent was obtained from all study respondents and participants after adequate information about the study had been provided. The collected data were treated and kept confidential.
No potential conflict of interests with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Tilahun, M., Workicho, A. & Angaw, D.A. Common mental disorders and its associated factors and mental health care services for Ethiopian labour migrants returned from Middle East countries in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. BMC Health Serv Res 20, 681 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-020-05502-0
Common mental disorder, migrants, Ethiopia
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You are currently browsing the daily archive for August 29, 2016.
Donald Trump’s brand of Christianity
August 29, 2016 in Presbyterian, Protestant | Tags: Christianity, Donald Trump, Norman Vincent Peale, Presbyterian, Protestant | 2 comments
A great many Americans despise Donald Trump.
An ex-Hillary supporter from 2008 is supporting Trump this year. He is a retired lawyer who is flummoxed by anti-Trump sentiment. This is what he said during the primaries (emphases mine):
For me it all boils down to this: Trump is a gamble. The establishment is a certainty.
The establishment will destroy this nation. That is a fact.
Trump may save it, provided it is not too late. That is the gamble.
I ran into a young lady who wants Bernie, but will not go to the polls to vote for him.
But if Trump is the Republican nominee, then she will go to the polls and vote against him.
She admitted the reasons she would do this[:] because Donald is not nice.
In other words it is a matter of style–NOT SUBSTANCE.
Would it matter to you if he gave you a better future, even though he is not nice?
Would it matter to you if someone who was nice, condemned you to a negative future?
Echo answereth not. Neither did she.
This is the same drivel I got from another young woman eight years ago.
She said she did not want Hillary because Obama was so full of hope.
Like the show title: Just shoot me.
Keeping such sentiments in mind, it is now time to write about Donald Trump’s Christian upbringing. Like him, it won’t be perfect enough or orthodox enough for some. Nonetheless, it deserves to be known.
In April 2015, before he launched his bid for the presidency, Trump gave an interview to CBN. He was confirmed at the First Presbyterian Church in Jamaica, Queens. He brought his Confirmation picture to the interview.
(Image credit: First Presbyterian Church)
Founded in 1662, it is the oldest continuing Presbyterian congregation in the United States. While the buildings have changed over the centuries, it remains on its original site. It is likely that, when the Trump family — Mary, Fred and their five children — were members, the Revd Andrew Magill was pastor:
He was a dynamic minister and an extraordinary leader. During that time, church membership flourished to more than one thousand as it continued to provide a safe and spiritual environment for the community it served.
The Trumps then began attending the Revd Dr Norman Vincent Peale’s Marble Collegiate Church in Manhattan. The Federalist found quotes from Mary Trump on the importance she attached to Christian belief:
Trump’s mother hoped that the pastor’s teaching would stick in her children: “I tried to get it into their heads that they had to believe,” she said. “Whether it shows or not, it’s in there because I put it in there.”
Although Marble Collegiate Church is affiliated with the Reformed Church in America, many members attending were, or at least self-identified as, Presbyterians. The Trumps were one such family.
Norman Vincent Peale was an unorthodox preacher and the first to promote popular psychology over the Bible. He was Robert Schuller’s mentor. That said, he also took traditionally Protestant perspectives on social issues. My parents’ friends, Protestants, loved his books. My Catholic mother said that the Pope forbade reading them.
Dr Michael Horton, writing for Christianity Today (CT), explains Peale’s style (emphases mine):
Blending pop-psychology and spirituality, Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking (1952) remained on The New York Times bestsellers list for 186 weeks. Nicknamed “God’s Salesman,” Peale was criticized for trivializing Christianity. Reinhold Niebuhr said that he “corrupts the gospel,” and that he helps people “feel good, while they are evading the real issues of life.”
In the 1952 election, Peale declared presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson unfit because he was divorced. For his part, Stevenson quipped, “Speaking as a Christian, I find Paul appealing and Peale appalling.” During the Kennedy-Nixon campaign, which began his long relationship with the Nixon White House, Peale declared, “Faced with the election of a Catholic, our culture is at stake.”
He caught flak afterwards. In 1982, he told People magazine:
“I made a mistake,” said Peale, “You couldn’t get me near a politician now. Government isn’t moral or immoral. It’s just plain amoral.”
Horton says that the Trumps attended Marble Collegiate Church every Sunday. Later, Peale officiated at three Trump weddings, his and those of his two sisters. He also baptised one of Trump’s two sons by Ivana. Trump also threw a 90th birthday party for the minister.
At the time the Trumps began attending, Peale had already transformed Marble into ‘the businessman’s church’. The Washington Post explains:
Fred Trump, then a successful developer in Brooklyn and Queens, began attending the services with his wife, drawn as many business executives were to Peale’s can-do theology and his belief that faith could lead to greater success.
“I know that with God’s help,” the minister wrote, “I can sell vacuum cleaners.”
“He was the embodiment of the salesman’s spirit,” [Michael] D’Antonio [a Trump biographer] said of Peale. “And Fred was at bottom a salesman. It’s not a surprise that Fred Trump would gravitate towards the church.”
The American Spectator quoted Donald Trump on Peale:
I go to church and I love God and love my church. And Norman Vincent Peale. The great Norman Vincent Peale was my pastor. The Power of Positive Thinking.
Everybody’s heard of Norman Vincent Peale? He would give a sermon. You never wanted to leave. Sometimes we have sermons and every once in a while we think about leaving a little early, right? Even though we’re Christian.
Dr. Norman Vincent Peale would give a sermon. I’m telling you I still remember his sermons. It was unbelievable. And what he would do is bring real life situations, modern day situations into the sermon. And you could listen to him all day long. When you left the church you were disappointed that it was over. He was the greatest guy.
And Peale thought highly of Trump. First Things tells us:
In 1988, Peale predicted that Donald Trump would become “the greatest builder of our time—he’s a very ingenious man.” Peale also saw in Trump not only kindness and courtesy but also a trait some others have missed—“a profound streak of honest humility.”
I read elsewhere that when Peale married Donald and Ivana, Trump practically melted in the pastor’s presence. It seemed that only Peale could bring him to heel in the gentlest of ways, just by standing in front of him.
The Federalist summed up their similarities and success this way:
Both men successfully cultivated a popular and populist image by convincing Americans that they were hoi polloi even as they hobnobbed with the power elite. Of course, the elite never really accepted either man, but it was willing to tolerate their pandering so long as they didn’t make naked appeals to the worst prejudices of their fans.
Peale was, in a way, a Trump for his church and many Protestants in the second half of the 20th century. The People interview says:
his passionate eloquence, legendary optimism and accessible style, has turned Marble Collegiate from the near-insolvent midtown New York parish it once was into a popular, hot-ticket attraction. Each Sunday there are two sold-out services. (For those who can’t find a pew in the large Romanesque nave, closed-circuit TV is available elsewhere in the church.) People line up 15 minutes beforehand. “You’d think God was holding His closeout sale,” observes a policeman surveying the crowd. Just before the sermon, Peale calls for an intermission. The service is being recorded for TV and radio. Cameramen have to reset their videotape. It feels like the commercial time-out at a pro football game. Marble Collegiate is as up-to-date as space medicine.
His wife, Ruth Stafford Peale, was equally involved in the ministry, which included Guideposts magazine and The Foundation for Christian Living, based in Pawling, NY. Mrs Peale told People:
“I’m here nearly every day,” says Ruth Peale. “Norman has an office here too. But I have the veto power. And I believe the foundation should be run on the strictest principles of efficiency and organization.”
The Peales did very well for themselves:
At present he and Ruth have a nine-room church-owned apartment on Fifth Avenue as well as their extraordinary homestead in Pawling. On Hill Farm’s 200 rolling acres, Dr. and Mrs. Peale can indulge in their favorite pastime, walking, and their indoor pool is close by. But there are no servants on the estate. “I’m chief cook and bottle washer,” Ruth will tell any guest. She is also chauffeur; the license plate on her Cadillac reads RSP5, and she doesn’t trust Norman to drive.
Their children turned out well, too:
The Peale children—Margaret Ann, 48, married to a Presbyterian minister, Paul F. Everett; John, 45, a professor of philosophy at Longwood College in Farmville, Va.; and Elizabeth, 39, whose husband, John Allen, is a vice-president at Reader’s Digest—have shown no sign of rebellion or unseemly negativism.
Peale summed up his Christian belief this way:
“That’s to persuade as many people as I can that the only rational way to live is to follow the greatest thinker who ever thought, namely Jesus Christ. That’s the way to peace—within the individual, within the family, within the world. And it’s the way to serenity, excitement, enthusiasm and the real values of life. I’ve been preaching this now for half a century, and there’s still a few people I haven’t persuaded. So I’ve got my work cut out for me.”
If Peale’s message has, at times, seemed rather subjective and materialistic, he doesn’t hesitate to answer that criticism. “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” he says. “That’s one of the most subtle statements in the Bible. The more you esteem yourself, the more you’ll consider your neighbors with esteem.”
This is what the Trumps would have heard and read:
The way to happiness: keep your heart free from hate, your mind from worry. Live simply, expect little, give much. Fill your life with love. Scatter sunshine. Forget self, think of others. Do as you would be done by. Try this for a week and you will be surprised.
They would also have recognised these gems that Politico pulled from The Power of Positive Thinking:
“Believe in yourself!” Peale’s book begins. “Have faith in your abilities!” He then outlines 10 rules to overcome “inadequacy attitudes” and “build up confidence in your powers.” Rule one: “formulate and staple indelibly on your mind a mental picture of yourself as succeeding,” “hold this picture tenaciously,” and always refer to it “no matter how badly things seem to be going at the moment.”
Subsequent rules tell the reader to avoid “fear thoughts,” “never think of yourself as failing,” summon up a positive thought whenever “a negative thought concerning your personal powers comes to mind,” “depreciate every so-called obstacle,” and “make a true estimate of your own ability, then raise it 10 per cent.”
Trump family thinking and Peale thinking went hand in hand. Politico explains:
Long before this self-esteem guru codified his canon, Donald’s grandfather Friedrich used Peale-like confidence and tenacity to make the first Trump fortune during the Klondike gold rush. A few decades later, Donald’s father, Fred, deployed proto-Peale thinking to become a multimillionaire real estate developer in Brooklyn and Queens. And Donald Trump himself has cited Peale’s advice many times in his own career.
in a 2009 interview with Psychology Today he gave Peale’s book credit for his survival. Citing his father’s friendship with Peale and calling himself “a firm believer in the power of being positive,” he said, “what helped is I refused to give in to the negative circumstances and never lost faith in myself. I didn’t believe I was finished even when the newspapers were saying so.”
Trump also incorporated Peale’s style into his own means of communication:
Peale spoke extemporaneously during sermons, in simple, folksy language, a technique Trump uses at his rallies. Peale delivered his message through books and magazines, and even appeared on popular TV shows such as “What’s My Line?” Trump starred in his own reality-television series and is a ubiquitous presence on Twitter and talk shows.
“I can see the similarities,” said Carol V.R. George, a historian who wrote a biography of Peale titled “God’s Salesman.” “The very enthusiastic way Trump communicates. The lack of notes. Peale said you need to know what you’re going to say. He could talk off the cuff for an hour.”
Ultimately, The Federalist says:
This—not an orthodox Christianity or principled conservatism—is the faith that animates Donald Trump and his many followers. It is nostalgic and self-affirming, unconcerned with doctrine but defensive about identity.
Adlai Stevenson once quipped that he found “Paul appealing and Peale appalling.” Those who find Trump similarly appalling should remember that their reaction, like Stevenson’s, is not shared by a great number of Americans. Faulting Trump for his lack of consistency as a Christian or conservative will do nothing at all to dampen the enthusiasm of his supporters.
John Peale, the late minister’s son and a retired philosophy professor, is now 79. He and Trump do not know each other. He told the Washington Post that he sees no reflection of his father’s theology in what Trump says or does:
Peale said he became upset last fall after reading a Politico article that claimed that Norman Vincent Peale helped shape Trump.
The article in question is from an October 2015 edition of Politico magazine.
Two months earlier, in August, Trump said he was still attending Marble, but the church issued a statement clarifying that he is not a member of the congregation. I have read that, in recent years, the church has shifted its theology from self help to progressive social justice, which indicates that Trump is unlikely to have been there lately.
He, Melania and Barron, age 10, definitely attend church at Easter. Melania’s Twitter feed had a photo of the church they went to in 2015: the Catholic one in Palm Beach. (She did not say, but I recognise it, having been there twice with my mother for Mass.) This year, a Trump supporter took a photo of them on Easter Day in a Protestant church in New York. Trump also attended a Presbyterian service earlier this year during the primaries and read the lesson from ‘Two Corinthians’. He told CBN in 2011 that he also attends every Christmas and when he can.
It should come as no surprise that none of the writers of the articles approves of Donald Trump.
But … and it’s a big BUT
Dr Horton, who wrote the Christianity Today article, is a professor, minister and theologian I greatly respect. I have several posts citing his wisdom on Reformed theology.
However, here, by only criticising, Horton’s not helping.
It is evident that the Republican candidate has a flawed, incomplete knowledge of the Bible and Christian teaching. Trump receives the Supper — the ‘cracker’, as he puts it — as a means of forgiveness, forgiveness which he says he has never requested because he doesn’t need it.
A few days ago, Trump spoke in Iowa and told his supporters how much the Evangelical vote meant to him. He then quoted Robert ‘Crystal Cathedral’ Schuller. Peale was Schuller’s mentor. Therefore, it would appear that Trump connects all Evangelicals with the self-help-prosperity gospel.
That would be wrong, but, for his purposes, Trump probably did the right thing in citing Schuller, who was born and raised in Iowa. There was no shortage of applause.
Trump does not realise that most Evangelicals know the Bible well and have a deep relationship with Jesus Christ. The prosperity gospel does not enter into their way of thinking; in fact, they shun false teaching.
The prosperity gospel is the only teaching — false as it is, by Peale — that Trump knew post-Confirmation.
For that reason, someone as Christian as Horton might have offered to end his article by asking that everyone reading it pray for Trump. However, he did not.
Nor do some people reading this post.
I have not seen one anti-Trump person on here view him with pity or advocate that we pray for his return to a proper church and Christian teaching.
Yet, these same people readily preach forgiveness and pardon of others.
Is that Christlike? Or is it a sin of omission?
I would be interested in seeing Hillary Clinton’s application and practice of Methodism dissected the way Donald Trump’s Presbyterianism has been in the media. But that day will never come.
However, as a nun put it to me about Mitt Romney’s Mormonism in 2012, ‘You’re not appointing him pastor of your church or to another ecclesiastical position, you’re voting for him for president.’
Returning to the retired lawyer’s comment at the beginning of this post, we should be focussing on Donald Trump’s ability to lead the United States and the free world, rather than his knowledge of Christian theology.
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2765: Moscow, Idaho. First Presbyterian Church.
Job file for the creation/design of stained glass from either the Charles J. Connick Studio (1912-1945) or the Charles J. Connick Associates studio (1945-1986). The job file contains a job number, location information, date of completion, size, contact information, price, and a description of the project. This particular job file contains information on a job located at: Moscow, Idaho. First Presbyterian Church.
Moscow (Idaho), Stained glass (visual works), Arts and Crafts (movement), Connick, Charles J. (1875-1945)
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dome.mit.edu
| 0.83
| 183.1
| 82
| 5.47561
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https://dome.mit.edu/handle/1721.3/78736
|
3895: Miami Beach, Florida. Community Church.
Job file for the creation/design of stained glass from either the Charles J. Connick Studio (1912-1945) or the Charles J. Connick Associates studio (1945-1986). The job file contains a job number, location information, date of completion, size, contact information, price, and a description of the project. This particular job file contains information on a job located at: Miami Beach, Florida. Community Church.
Miami Beach (Fla.), Stained glass (visual works), Arts and Crafts (movement), Connick, Charles J. (1875-1945)
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dome.mit.edu
| 0.82
| 185.8
| 83
| 5.385542
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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_in_waiting
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Lady-in-waiting
(Redirected from Lady in waiting)
For the 1976 album, see Lady in Waiting (album). For the 1957 novel, see Lady in Waiting (novel). For British peers who hold office in the Royal Household of the United Kingdom, see Lord-in-waiting.
Look up lady-in-waiting or lady in waiting in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
A lady-in-waiting or court lady is a female personal assistant at a Court, attending on a royal woman or a high-ranking noblewoman. Historically, in Europe, a lady-in-waiting was often a noblewoman, but of lower rank than the woman to whom she attended. Although she may either have been a retainer or may not have received compensation for the service she rendered, a lady-in-waiting was considered more of a secretary, courtier or companion to her mistress than a servant.
Princess Tatiana Alexandrovna Yusupova, a lady-in-waiting of the Imperial Court of Russia
In other parts of the world, the lady-in-waiting, often referred to as palace woman, was in practice a servant or a slave rather than a high-ranking woman, but still had about the same tasks, functioning as companion and secretary to her mistress. In courts where polygamy was practised, a court lady was formally available to the monarch for sexual services, and she could become his wife, consort, courtesan, or concubine.
Lady-in-waiting or court lady is often a generic term for women whose relative rank, title, and official functions varied, although such distinctions were also often honorary. A royal woman may or may not be free to select her ladies, and, even when she has such freedom, her choices are usually heavily influenced by the sovereign, her parents, her husband, or the sovereign's ministers (for example, in the Bedchamber crisis).
2 Duties
3 By court
3.1 Austria
3.3 Cambodia
3.5.1 Han
3.5.2 Song
3.5.3 Ming
3.5.4 Qing
3.6 Denmark
3.10 Italy
3.10.1 Naples and the Two Sicilies
3.10.2 Kingdom of Italy
3.11 Japan
3.12 Korea
3.13 The Netherlands
3.14 Nigeria
3.15 Norway
3.16 Ottoman Empire
3.18 Russia
3.20 Sweden
3.21.1 England
4 Notable examples
4.4 England, Scotland, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom
4.7 Hungary
4.9 Korea
4.10 China
4.11 Ottoman
4.15 Thailand
5 In fiction
6 Extended uses
The development of the office of lady-in-waiting in Europe is connected to that of the development of a Royal Court. During the Carolingian Empire, in the 9th century, Hincmar describes the royal household of Charles the Bald in the De Ordine Palatii, from 882, in which he states that court officials took orders from the Queen as well as the King. Merovingian Queens are assumed to have had their personal servants, and in the 9th century it is confirmed that Carolingian Queens had an entourage of guards from the nobility as a sign of their dignity, and some officials are stated to belong to the Queen rather than the King.[1]
In the late 12th century, the Queens of France are confirmed to have had their own household, and noblewomen are mentioned as ladies-in-waiting.[1] During the Middle Ages, however, the household of a European Queen Consort was normally small, and the number of actually employed ladies-in-waiting, rather than wives of noblemen accompanying their husbands to Court, was very small: in 1286, the Queen of France had only five ladies-in-waiting in her employment, and it was not until 1316 that her household was separated from that of the royal children.[1]
The role of ladies-in-waiting in Europe changed dramatically during the age of the Renaissance, when a new ceremonial court life, where women played a significant part, developed as representation of power in the courts of Italy, and spread to Burgundy, from Burgundy to France, and to the rest of the Courts of Europe.[1] The Court of the Duchy of Burgundy was the most elaborate in Europe in the 15th century and became an example for France when the French Royal Court expanded in the late 15th century and introduced new offices for both men and women to be able to answer to the new renaissance ideal.[1] From small circle of married Femmes and unmarried Filles, with a relatively humble place in the background during the Middle Ages, the number of French ladies-in-waiting were rapidly expanded, divided into an advanced hierarchy with several offices and given an important and public role to play in the new ceremonial court life in early 16th century France.[1] This example was followed by other Courts in Europe, when Courts expanded and became more ceremonial during the 16th century, and the offices, numbers and visibility of women expanded in the early modern age.[1]
During the late 19th century and the early 20th century, however, most European Courts started to reduce their court staff, often due to new economic and political circumstances which made court representation more questionable.
DutiesEdit
The duties of ladies-in-waiting varied from court to court, but functions historically discharged by ladies-in-waiting included proficiency in the etiquette, languages, dances, horse riding, music making, and painting prevalent at court; keeping her mistress abreast of activities and personages at court; care of the rooms and wardrobe of her mistress; secretarial tasks; supervision of servants, budget and purchases; reading correspondence to her mistress and writing on her behalf; and discreetly relaying messages upon command.
By courtEdit
AustriaEdit
In the late Middle Ages, when the court of the Emperor no longer moved around constantly, the household of the Empress, as well as the equivalent household of the German Princely Consorts, started to develop a less fluid and more strict organisation with set court offices.
The court model of the Duchy of Burgundy, as well as the Spanish court model, came to influence the organisation of the Austrian Imperial Court during the 16th century, when the Burgundian Netherlands, Spain and Austria were united through the Habsburg Dynasty.[2][page needed] In the early and mid-16th century, the female courtiers kept by female Habsburgs in the Netherlands and Austria was composed of one Hofmesterees (Court Mistress) or Dame d'honneur who served as the principal lady-in-waiting; one Hofdame or Mere de Filles, who was second in rank and deputy of the Hofmesterees, as well as being in charge of the Eredames (Maids of Honour), also known as Demoiselle d'honneur, Fille d'honneur or Junckfrauen depending on language (Dutch, French and Austrian German respectively), and finally the Kamenisters (Chamber Maids).[3][page needed] However, during the tenure of Maria of Austria, Holy Roman Empress in the mid-16th century, the court of the Empress was organised in accordance with the Spanish court model, and after she left Austria, there was no further household of an Empress until the 1610s.[4][page needed] This resulted in a mix of Burgundian and Spanish customs when the Austrian court model was created.
In 1619, a set organisation was finally established for the Austrian Imperial Court, which came to be the characteristic organisation of the Austrian-Habsburg court roughly kept from this point onward.[4] The first rank of the female courtiers was the Obersthofmeisterin (Mistress of the Robes), who was second in rank after the Empress herself, and responsible for all the female courtiers.[4] Second rank belonged to the Ayas, essentially governesses of the imperial children and heads of the children's court.[4] Third in rank was the Fräuleinhofmeisterin, who was the replacement of the Obersthofmeisterin when necessary, but otherwise had the responsibility of the unmarried female courtiers, their conduct and service.[4] The rest of the female noble courtiers consisted of the Hoffräulein (Maid of Honour), unmarried females from the nobility who normally served temporarily until marriage.[4] The Hoffräulein could sometimes be promoted to Kammerfräulein (Maid of Honour of the Chamber).[4] The Austrian court model was the role model for the Princely Courts in Germany.[4] The German court model in turn became the role model of the early modern Scandinavian Courts of Denmark and Sweden.[5][page needed]
BelgiumEdit
The Kingdom of Belgium was founded in 1830, after which a Royal Court was founded, and ladies-in-waiting were appointed for Louise of Orléans when she became the first Queen of Belgium in 1832. The female officeholders of the Queen's household were created after the French model and composed of one Dame d'honneur, followed by several ladies-in-waiting with the title Dame du Palais, in turn ranking above the Première femme de chambre and the Femme de chambre.[6]
The ladies-in-waiting have historically been chosen by the Queen herself from the noblewomen of the Roman Catholic Noble Houses of Belgium. The chief functions at court were undertaken by members of the higher nobility, involving much contact with the royal ladies. Belgian princesses were assigned a lady upon their 18th birthdays. Princess Clementine was given a Dame by her father, a symbolic acknowledgement of adulthood. When the Queen entertains, the ladies welcome guests and assist the hostess in sustaining conversation.
CambodiaEdit
In Cambodia, the term ladies-in-waiting refers to high ranking female servants who served food and drink, fanned and massaged, and sometimes provided sexual services to the King. Conventionally, these women could work their way up from maids to ladies-in-waiting, concubines, or even Queen. Srey Snom (Khmer: ស្រីស្នំ) is the Cambodian term for the Khmer lady-in-waiting.
The six favorite court ladies of King Sisowath of Cambodia were probably initially drawn from the ranks of classical royal dancers of the lower class. He was noted for having the most classical dancers as concubines. The imperial celestial dancer, Apsara, was one of these. This practice of drawing from the ranks of royal dancers began in the Golden Age of the Khmer Kingdom.
CanadaEdit
Several Canadian ladies-in-waiting have also been appointed to the Royal Household of Canada. Canadian ladies-in-waiting are typically appointed in order to assist the Queen of Canada when carrying out official duties in Canada and royal tours in the country. Five Canadian ladies-in-waiting were made Lieutenants of the Royal Victorian Order.[7]
ChinaEdit
Tang Dynasty court ladies on A Palace Concert painting
HanEdit
The ladies-in-waiting in China, referred to as palace women, palace ladies or court ladies, were all formally, if not always in practice, a part of the Emperor's harem, regardless of their task, and could be promoted by him to the rank of official concubine, consort or even Empress.[8][page needed]
The Emperors of the Han Dynasty (202 BC–220 AD) are reported to have had a harem of thousands of 'palace women', although the actual numbers are unconfirmed.[8]
SongEdit
At least during the Song dynasty (960–1279), palace women were divided in three groups: Imperial women (consisting of concubines and consorts), Imperial daughters (consisting of daughters and sisters of the Emperor), and the female officials and assistants, who performed a wide range of tasks and could potentially be promoted to the rank of concubine or consort.[9]
Women from official elite families could be chosen to become Empress, consort or concubine immediately upon their entrance in the palace, but the Emperor could also promote any female court official to that post, as they were officially all members of his harem.[9]
The female court officials and attendants were normally selected from trusted families and then educated for their task.[9]
MingEdit
During the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), palace women were sorted into roughly the same three categories as in the Song Dynasty.[10] However, female officials and assistants in the Ming Dynasty were organized into six established government groups, called the Six Bureaus: the Bureau of General Affairs, Bureau of Handicrafts, Bureau of Ceremonies, Bureau of Apartments, Bureau of Apparel and Bureau of Foodstuffs.[11] These groups were all overseen by the Office of Staff Surveillance, headed by a female official.[12]
Women workers in the imperial palace were distinguished as either permanent or temporary staff.[13] Permanent palace staff included educated and literate female officials serving in the Six Bureaus, and wet nurses caring for imperial heirs or other palace children.[13] These women received great wealth and social acclaim if their jobs were performed well.[14] Seasonal or temporary palace women included midwives, female physicians, and indentured contractors (these were usually women serving as maids to consorts, entertainers, sewing tutors, or sedan-chair bearers).[15] These women were recruited into the palace when necessary and then released following the termination of their predetermined period of service.[16]
Throughout the Ming Dynasty, there was frequent movement between the palace service industry and the low levels of the Imperial Harem.[17] Although Emperors frequently selected minor consorts from Imperial serving women, few selected women ever reached the higher ranks of the consort structure or gained significant prominence.[18]
As the Ming Dynasty progressed, living and working conditions for palace women began to deteriorate.[19] Lower-ranked serving women working in the Imperial palace were often underpaid and unable to buy food, leaving them to support themselves by selling embroidery at the market outside the palace via eunuchs.[20] Overall, living conditions and punishments for misbehaving eventually grew so bad that there was an assassination attempt against the Jiajing Emperor by a group of serving women.[21] Led by palace maid Yang Jinying in 1542, the failed assassination attempt involved several maids sneaking into the Emperor's bedchamber as he slept, to strangle him with a curtain cord.[22] The attempt ultimately failed, and all the women involved were put to death, although this type of violent revolt by serving women had never been seen before in the Ming Dynasty.[22]
Due to slanderous literary propaganda written and spread by male officials and Confucian authors, higher-class female officials also saw their power begin to weaken throughout the Ming Dynasty.[23] These prominent government men began to disparage having educated women in government and state roles in response to the influence Imperial women had held over the nation in the past.[24] This prompted a gradual overtaking of female official roles by palace eunuchs that continued throughout the remainder of the Dynasty.[25]
QingEdit
The system of palace women continued mostly unchanged during the Qing Dynasty (1644–1912), when a class of Imperial women acting as consorts or concubines, who had not previously held other roles, existed. However, female court attendants were also all available for promotion to concubinage or the position of consort by the Emperor.[26][page needed] During the Qing Dynasty, Imperial women were selected from among the teenage daughters of the Manchu official banner families, who were drafted to an inspection before they could marry.[26] Similarly, palace maids were drafted from lower official and banner classes before they could marry.[27][page needed] After their selection, palace maids were educated as personal attendants to consorts, female officials within court rituals or other tasks, and were also available for the Emperor to promote to consort or concubine.[27] Below the palace maids were the maidservants, who were selected the same way by a draft among the daughters of soldiers.[27]
DenmarkEdit
The early modern Danish Court was organized according to the German court model, in turn inspired by the Imperial Austrian court model, from the 16th century onward.[5] The highest rank female courtier to a female royal was the Hofmesterinde (Court Mistress) or, from 1694/98 onward, Overhofmesterinde (Chief Court Mistress), equivalent to the Mistress of the Robes, normally an elder widow, who supervised the rest of the ladies-in-waiting.[28][page needed] The rest of the female courtiers were mainly Kammerfrøken (Senior Maid of Honour), followed by a group of Hofdame (Court Lady) and the Hoffrøken (Maid of Honour).[28] They were followed by the non-noble female court employees not ranking as ladies-in-waiting, such as the chamber maids.
This hierarchy was roughly in place from the 16th century until the death of King Christian IX of Denmark in 1906.[28] During the 20th century, most of these titles came of use, and all ladies-in-waiting at the royal Danish court are now referred to as Hofdame (Court Lady).
FranceEdit
Marie Louise of Savoy-Carignan, Princesse de Lamballe was lady-in-waiting to Queen Marie Antoinette of France
The Queen of France is confirmed to have had a separate household in the late 12th century, and an ordinance from 1286 notes that Joan I of Navarre, Queen of France, had a group of five ladies (Dames) and maids-in-waiting (Damoiselles). In the 1480s, the French ladies-in-waiting were divided into Femmes Mariées (married ladies-in-waiting) and Filles d'honneur (Maids of Honour).[1] However, the Queen's household and the number of female courtiers during the Middle Ages was very small in France, as in most European courts.
It was not until the end of the 15th century and early 16th century that emulation of the new courts of the Italian Renaissance made ladies-in-waiting fashionable in official court ceremonies and representation, and female court offices became more developed and numerous in the French court as well as in other European courts.[1] The introduction of ladies-in-waiting increased in great numbers at the French court at this time: from a mere five in 1286 and still only 23 in 1490, to 39 in 1498 and roughly 54 during the 16th century.[1] This expansion of female presence at court has been attributed to both Anne of Brittany, who encouraged all male courtiers to send their daughters to her, and to Francis I of France, who was criticized for bringing to court "the constant presence" of large crowds of women, who gossiped and interfered in state affairs. Francis I once said: "a court without ladies is a court without a court".[1]
The first ranked female courtier in the French royal court was the Surintendante de la Maison de la Reine (Mistress of the Robes) to the Queen. The Surintendante and the Governess of the Children of France were the only female office holders in France to give an oath of loyalty to the King himself.[2] This office was created in 1619,[29][page needed] and was vacant from the death of Marie Anne de Bourbon, in 1741, until the appointment of Marie Louise of Savoy-Carignan, Princesse de Lamballe, in 1775.
The second highest rank was that of the Première dame d'honneur, who could act as the stand-in of the Surintendante[2] and had roughly the same tasks, hiring and supervising the female courtiers and the Queen's daily routine and expenditure.[29] This post was created in 1523 and had originally been the highest female court office.[1]
The third rank belonged to the Dame d'atour, who formally supervised the Queen's wardrobe and jewelry and the dressing of the Queen.[29] This post was created in 1534.[1]
The fourth rank was that of the dames, from 1523 named Dame d'honneur,[1] composed of ladies-in-waiting whose task was simply to serve as companions and attending and assisting with court functions.[29] The position was abolished in 1674, and replaced by the Dame du palais, 12 married noblewomen with the same tasks.[2]
The fifth rank was the Filles d'honneur or Demoiselles d'honneur (Maids of Honour), unmarried daughters of the nobility, who had the same tasks as the dames, but were mainly placed at court to learn etiquette and look for a spouse.[29] They were supervised by the Gouvernante and the Sous-gouvernante.[29] The Filles were from 1531 supervised by the Gouvernante de Filles, a lady-in-waiting who had the task to chaperone them: this post was divided in to several from 1547 onward.[1] The position of Filles d'honneur was abolished in 1674.[2]
The sixth rank was the Première femme de chambre, who in turn outranked the remaining Femme de Chambres and Lavandières.[2] The Premiere femme de chambre had the keys to the Queen's rooms and could recommend and deny audiences to her, which in practice made her position very powerful at court.[29]
During the First Empire, the principal lady-in-waiting of the Empress was the Dame d'honneur, followed by between 20 and 36 Dames du Palais.[30][page needed] During the Bourbon Restoration, Marie Thérèse of France restored the pre-revolutionary court hierarchy.[31][page needed] During the Second Empire, the female courtiers of the Empress were composed of the first rank, Grand Maitresse, and the second rank, Dame d'honneur, followed by six (later twelve) Dames du Palais.[32][page needed]
GermanyEdit
The early modern Princely Courts in Germany were modeled after the Imperial Austrian court model.[4] This court model divided the ladies-in-waiting in a chief lady-in-waiting named Oberhofmeisterin (a widowed or married elder woman) who supervised the Hoffräulein (Maids of Honour), of which one or two could be promoted to the middle rank of Kammerfräulein (Maid of Honour of the Chamber).[4] The Princely German Courts in turn became the role model of the Scandinavian courts of Denmark and Sweden in the 16th century.[5]
After the end of the German Roman Holy Empire in 1806, and the establishment of several minor Kingdoms in Germany, the post of Staatsdame (married ladies-in-waiting) were introduced in many German Princely and Royal Courts. At the Imperial German Court, the ladies-in-waiting were composed of one Oberhofmeisterin in charge of several Hofstaatsdamen or Palastdamen.[33][page needed]
GreeceEdit
During the Byzantine Empire, the Byzantine Empress was attended by a female court (the Sekreton Tōn Gynaikōn), which consisted mostly of the wives of high-ranking male court officials, who simply used the feminine versions of their husbands' titles. The only specifically female dignity was that of the Zoste patrikia, the chief lady-in-waiting and female attendant of the Empress, who was the head of the women's court and often a relative of the Empress; this title existed at least since the 9th century.
The Kingdom of Greece was established in 1832 and its first Queen, Amalia of Oldenburg, organized the ladies-in-waiting of its first royal court with one 'Grande Maitresse', followed by the second rank 'Dame d'honneur', and the third rank 'Dame de Palais'.[34][page needed]
ItalyEdit
Naples and the Two SiciliesEdit
Prior to the unification, the greatest of the Italian states was the Kingdom of Naples, later called Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. The ladies-in-waiting of the Queen of the Two Sicilies were in 1842, composed of one Dama di Onore (Lady of Honor), placed in rank as number two after the Cavaliere di Onore, and followed by three Dama di Compagnia (Lady Companions), who were number four in rank after the Cavalerizzo, and a large number of Dame di Corte (Court Ladies).[35]
Kingdom of ItalyEdit
In 1861, the Italian Peninsula was united in to the Kingdom of Italy. The ladies-in-waiting of the Queen of Italy were headed by the Dama d'Onore, followed by the Dame di Corte, and finally the Dame di Palazzo.[36] The Dama d'Onore was nominally the chief lady-in-waiting, but in practice often limited her service to state occasions; the Dame di Corte was the regular lady-in-waiting who personally attended to the Queen, while the Dame di Palazzo were honorary courtiers attached to the royal palaces in particular cities, such as Florence, Turin and so forth, and only served temporary when the Queen visited the city in question: among these, only the Dame di Palazzo attached to the royal palace of the capital of Rome served more than temporary.[37]
JapanEdit
In Japan, the imperial court offices was normally reserved for members of the court aristocracy and the ladies-in-waiting or 'palace attendants' were commonly educated members of the nobility.[38][page needed]
During the Heian period (794–1185) women could hold court offices of substantial responsibility, managing the affairs of the Emperor.[38] Female palace attendants were employed by the Imperial Bureau of Palace Attendants from among the court aristocracy, but were required to have sufficient education in Chinese classics to be accepted.[39][page needed]
During the Sengoku period (1467–1603), the highest rank of a lady-in-waiting was the 'Female Assistant to the Major Counselor', who ran the affairs of the daily life of the Imperial Household.[38] The second rank was Hoto No Naishi (Female Palace Attendant), who acted as intermediary between the Emperor and those seeking an audience and issued his wishes in writing.[38] Ladies-in-waiting acted as imperial secretaries and noted the events at court, visitors and gifts in the official court journals.[38]
In contrast to China, female palace attendants managed the palace of the imperial harem rather than eunuchs, and could hold high court offices in the Emperor's personal household.[39]
Female palace attendants were divided in two classes, which in turn had several ranks, signifying their task.[40][page needed] The first class consisted of the nyokan, or ladies-in-waiting who held court offices: naishi-kami (shoji) naishi-suke (tenji) and naishi-no-jo (shoji). The second class were the female palace attendants: myobu, osashi, osue and nyoju.[40] The ladies-in-waiting worked as personal assistants, tending to the Emperor's wardrobe, assisting the emperor's baths, serving meals, performing and attending court rituals.[39] Ladies-in-waiting could be appointed as concubines, consorts or even Empresses by the Emperor or the heir to the throne.[39] The function of a lady-in-waiting as potential concubine was abolished in 1924.[39]
KoreaEdit
Gungnyeo (literally palace women) is a term that refers to women who worked in the palace and waited upon the King and other members of the Royal Family. It is short for Gungjung Yeogwan, which translates as a lady officer of the royal court.
Gungnyeo consisted of the high ranking court ladies, who were divided into ranks from 5 to 9 (the ranks from 1 to 4 were the official concubines of the King), with two levels each (senior and junior), the highest attainable one being the sanggung (senior 5th),[41] as well as the ordinary court ladies who did most of the labour work known as nain, and the other types of working ladies who were not included in the ranks, such as musuri (women from the lowest class who did odd jobs, such as drawing water and distributing firewood), gaksimi (also known as bija and bangja, who were personal servants of a sanggung), sonnim (literally translated to 'guest', were maids brought in the palace to work for the royal concubines, most of the time related to the concubines' families) and uinyeo (selected from public female slaves, they worked at the royal infirmary or public clinics, and practiced simple medicine skills).
Generally, the court ladies were chosen from among the young girls of the sangmin (commoners) and the private female slaves of the sadaebu (governing class). Later, the candidates were also picked from among the government slaves, together with the daughters of the aristocrats’ concubines who were former courtesans or slaves. The appointment process was different for nain associated with the inner quarters for the King and Queen, who were recruited by the high ranked court ladies themselves, through recommendations and connections. The nain for the departments with specific skills such as sewing and embroidery were from the jungin (middle class), with the lowest class of gungnyeo coming from the cheonmin (vulgar commoners).
They could be as young as 4 when entering the palace, and after learning court language and etiquette, they could be elevated to a nain. When they had served the Court for more than 15 years, they would eventually be promoted to higher ranks, however they were eligible for the rank of sanggung only after a minimum of 35 years of work.
Court ladies could become concubines if the King favored them. They would be elevated to the highest rank (senior 5th) and would be known as seungeun sanggung (or "favored sanggung"). If they gave birth to a son, they would become members of the Royal Family, after being promoted to Sug-won (junior 4th) and until the 18th century, they could advance as high as becoming Queen (the most notable example being Jang Ok-jeong, a concubine of Sukjong of Joseon and mother of Gyeongjong of Joseon).
The NetherlandsEdit
The Court of the Duchy of Burgundy, which was situated in the Netherlands in the 15th century, was famous for its elaborate ceremonial court life and became a role model for several other courts of Europe.[1] The Burgundian court model came to be the role model for the Austrian Imperial Court during the 16th century, when the Burgundian Netherlands and Austria were united through the Habsburg Dynasty.[2]
In the 16th century, the ladies-in-waiting in the Courts of the Habsburg governors of the Netherlands, Margaret of Austria and Mary of Hungary, were composed of one Hofmeesteres (Court Mistress) or Dame d'honneur who served as the principal lady-in-waiting; one Hofdame or Mere de Filles, who was second in rank and deputy of the Hofmeesteres as well as being in charge of the Eredames (Maids of Honour), also known as Demoiselle d'honneur, Fille d'honneur or Junckfrauen, and finally the Kameniersters (Chamber Maids), all with different titles depending on language in the multilingual area of the Netherlands.[3]
The Kingdom of the Netherlands was founded in 1815, signifying the organisation of a Royal Court. In the 19th century, the ladies-in-waiting of the Dutch Court were headed by the Grootmeesteres (Grand Mistress, equivalent to Mistress of the Robes), of second rank were the Dames du Palais (married ladies-in-waiting), followed by the third rank Hofdames (Court Ladies, equivalent to Maids of Honour).[42][page needed][43][full citation needed]
Beatrix of the Netherlands had a total of seven Hofdames. They accompanied the Queen and the other female members of the Royal House during visits and receptions at the Royal Court. The monarch paid for their expenses, but they did not receive any salary. Not all of these ladies were members of the Dutch aristocracy, but each had a "notable" husband. Excellent social behavior and discretion were the most important recommendations for becoming a Hofdame. In 2012, the Hofdames were Letje van Karnebeek-van Lede, Lieke Gaarlandt-van Voorst van Beest, Julie Jeekel-Thate, Miente Boellaard-Stheeman, Jonkvrouwe Reina de Blocq van Scheltinga, Elizabeth Baroness van Wassenaer-Mersmans and Bibi Baroness van Zuylen van Nijevelt, Jonkvrouwe den Beer Poortugael. Queen Maxima reduced the number of Hofdames to three, hers being: Lieke Gaarlandt-van Voorst van Beest, Pien van Karnebeek-Thijssen and Annemijn Crince le Roy-van Munster van Heuven. After their voluntary retirement, Hofdames were appointed to the honorary Royal Household. The honorary Royal Household still distinguishes between Dames du Palais and Hofdames, but the category Dames du Palais is slated for discontinuation.
The Grootmeesteres (Grandmistress) is the highest-ranking lady at the Royal Court. From 1984 until 2014, the position was held by Martine van Loon-Labouchere, descendant of the famous banker family, a former diplomat and the widow of Jonkheer Maurits van Loon of the famous Amsterdam canal estate. The current Grootmeesteres is Bibi Baroness van Zuylen van Nijevelt-den Beer Poortugael (lady-in-waiting between 2011 and 2014).
NigeriaEdit
A number of tribes and cultural areas in the African continent, such as the Lobedu people of Southern Africa, had a similar custom on ladies-in-waiting in historic times.
For example, within certain pre-colonial states of the Bini and Yoruba peoples in Nigeria, the queen Mothers and High Priestesses were considered "ritually male" due to their social eminence. As a result of this fact, they were often attended on by women who belonged to their harems in much the same way as their actually male counterparts were served by women who belonged to theirs. Although these women effectively functioned as ladies-in-waiting, were often members of powerful families of the local nobility in their own right, and were not usually used for sexual purposes, they were none-the-less referred to as their principals' "wives".
NorwayEdit
During the Denmark–Norway Union, from 1380 until 1814, the Danish Royal Court in Copenhagen was counted as the Norwegian Royal Court, and thus there was no Royal Court present in Norway during this period. During the union between Norway and Sweden from 1814 to 1905, there were Norwegian courtiers who served during the Swedish Royal Family's visits to Norway. The female courtiers were appointed according to the Swedish court model, that is to say the class of Hovfröken (Maid of Honour), Kammarfröken (Chief Maid of Honour) and Statsfru (Lady of the Bedchamber), all supervised by the Overhoffmesterinne (Mistress of the Robes): these posts were first appointed in 1817.[44][page needed] When the union between Sweden and Norway was dissolved in 1905, a permanent Norwegian Royal Court was established.
Ottoman EmpireEdit
In the Ottoman Empire, the word lady-in-waiting has often been used to described those women of the Imperial Harem who functioned as servants, secretaries and companions of the wives, daughters and sisters of the Ottoman Sultan. These women originally came to the Harem as slaves, captured through the Crimean slave trade, the Barbary slave trade and the White slave trade.[45] When they entered the Harem, they were given the position of Cariye and were all formally available as concubines to the Sultan, but if they were not chosen to share his bed, they served in a similar position to lady-in-waiting, serving the mother, wives, concubines, sisters and daughters of the Sultan.[45]
PolandEdit
In early modern Poland, the queen's ladies-in-waitings were collectively referred to as the fraucimer. The queen's household mirrored that of the king, but was smaller. The queen's male courtiers were supervised by the Ochmistrz, a nobleman, and the women of her court were supervised by the chief lady-in-waiting, the Ochmistrzyni (magister curiae). The Ochmistrzyni was defined as a state office and it was the only state office in Poland prior to the partition of Poland which was held by a woman. She was always to be a noblewoman married to a nobleman of senatorial rank. The Ochmistrzyni supervised a large number of unmarried ladies-in-waitings, maids of honour. The queen's court was a larger version of the courts of the Polish magnate noblewomen, and it was the custom in the Polish nobility to send their teenage daughters to be educated as ladies-in-waitings in the household of another noblewoman or preferably the queen herself in order to receive an education and find someone to marry. [46]
RussiaEdit
In the Court of Muscovite Russia, the offices of ladies-in-waiting to the Tsarina were normally divided among the Boyarinas (widows or wives of Boyars), often from the family and relatives of the Tsarina.[47] The first rank among the offices of the ladies-in-waiting was the Tsarina's treasurer. The second was the group of companions. The third were the royal nurses to the princes and princesses (where the nurses of the male children outranked); among the nurses, the most significant post was that of the Mamok, the head royal governess, who was normally selected from elder widows, often relatives to the Tsar or Tsarina.[48] All offices were appointed by royal decree. The group of ladies-in-waiting were collectively above the rank of the Svetlichnaya (the Tsarina's sewing women), the Postelnitsy (the Tsarina's Chamber Women and Washing Women) and the officials who handled the affairs of the staff.[48]
In 1722, this system was abolished and the Russian Imperial Court was reorganized in accordance with the reforms of Peter the Great to westernize Russia, and the old court offices of the Tsarina were replaced with court offices inspired by the German model (see lady-in-waiting of the Imperial Court of Russia).
SpainEdit
The Royal Court of Castile included a group of ladies-in-waiting for the Queen named Camarera in the late 13th century and early 14th century, but it was not until the 15th century that a set organisation of the ladies-in-waiting is confirmed.[49][page needed] This characteristic organisation of the Spanish ladies-in-waiting, roughly established during the reign of Isabella I of Castile (r. 1474–1504), was kept by Isabella of Portugal, Holy Roman Empress and Queen of Spain, during the 16th century, and became the standard Spanish court model for ladies-in-waiting.[49]
The highest rank female courtier was the Camarera Mayor de Palacio (Mistress of the Robes).[4] This office is confirmed from the 1410s.[49]
The second rank was shared by the Ayas (royal governess), and the Guardas (chaperones).[4]
The third rank was the Dueñas de Honor, the married ladies-in-waiting, who were responsible for not only the unmarried Damas or Meninas (Maids of honour), but also of the female slaves and dwarfs, who were classified as courtiers and ranked before the Mozas (maids) and Lavanderas (washer women).[4]
SwedenEdit
The early modern Swedish Court, as well as the Danish equivalent, were re-organized in the early 16th century according to the German court model, in turn inspired by the Imperial Austrian court model.[5] This model roughly organized the female noble courtiers in the class of the unmarried Hovfröken (Maid of Honour, until 1719 Hovjungfru) which could be promoted to Kammarfröken (Chief Maid of Honour, until 1719 Kammarjungfru).[5] They were supervised by the Hovmästarinna (Court Mistress, equivalent to Mistress of the Robes), normally a married or widowed elder noblewoman.[5] Under this class of female noble courtiers, were the non-noble female servants. They were headed by the normally married Kammarfru (Mistress of the Chamber, roughly equivalent to a Lady's Maid), often of burgher background, who supervised the group of Kammarpiga (Chamber Maids).[5]
From the reign of Queen Christina, the Hovmästarinna was supervised by the Överhovmästarinna (Chief Court Mistress).[5] In 1774, the post of Statsfru (Mistress of the State) was introduced, which was the title for the group of married ladies-in-waiting with a rank between the Hovmästarinna and the Kammarfröken.[50][page needed] The Swedish Court staff was reduced in size in 1873.[50] The new court protocols of 1911 and 1954 continued this reduction, and many court posts were abolished or no longer filled.
With the exception of the Statsfru and the Överhovmästarinna, none of the titles above are in use today. At the death of Queen Louise in 1965, her Överhovmästarinna was employed by the King. From 1994, the Överhovmästarinna is the head of the court of the King rather than the Queen, while the court of the Queen is headed by the Statsfru. There is now only one Statsfru, and the other ladies-in-waiting are simply referred to as Hovdam (Court Lady). Queen Silvia of Sweden has only three Hovdamer (Court Ladies). Her chief lady-in-waiting is the Statsfru.
United KingdomEdit
In the current Royal Households of the United Kingdom, a lady-in-waiting is a woman attending a female member of the Royal Family. A woman attending on a Queen Regnant or Queen Consort is often (informally) known by the same title, but is more formally styled either: Woman of the Bedchamber, Lady of the Bedchamber or Mistress of the Robes, depending on which of these offices she holds. The Women are in regular attendance, but the Mistress of the Robes and the Ladies of the Bedchamber are normally required only for ceremonial occasions. The phrase lady-in-waiting to the Queen has, however, been used in formal documents to denote which of the Women is actually "on duty" at any one time.[51]
The senior lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth II was the Mistress of the Robes, Fortune FitzRoy, Duchess of Grafton, until her death on December 3, 2021, and the position has remained vacant since. The other ladies-in-waiting are Virginia Ogilvy, Countess of Airlie; The Hon. Mary Anne Morrison; Susan Hussey, Lady Hussey of North Bradley; Susan Richenda Elton, Lady Elton (wife of Rodney Elton, 2nd Baron Elton); The Hon. Dame Annabel Whitehead; Jennifer, Mrs. Michael Gordon-Lennox (daughter-in-law of Alexander Gordon-Lennox) and Philippa de Pass (wife of Lieutenant Commander Robert de Pass).[52]
EnglandEdit
In the Middle Ages, Margaret of France, Queen of England is noted to have had seven ladies-in-waiting: three married ones, who were called Domina, and four unmarried maids of honour, but no principal lady-in-waiting is mentioned,[53] and until the 15th century, the majority of the office holders of the Queen's household were still male.[54]
As late as in the mid-15th century, Queen Elizabeth Woodville had only five ladies-in-waiting,[54] but in the late 15th century and early 16th century, ladies-in-waiting were given a more dominant place at the English court, in parallel with developments in France and the continental courts. The court life of the Duchy of Burgundy served as an example when Edward IV created the Black Book of the Household in 1478,[2] and the organisation of the English royal household was essentially set from that point onward.[55][page needed]
Elizabeth of York, Queen of England had numerous ladies-in-waiting, which was reported by the Spanish ambassador, Rodrigo de Puebla, as something unusual and astonishing: "the Queen has thirty-two ladies, very magnificent and in splendid style".[54] She reportedly had 36 ladies-in-waiting, 18 of them noblewomen; in 1502, a more complete account summarised them as 16 'gentlewomen', seven maids of honour and three 'chamberers-women', who attended to her in the bedchamber.[54] Aside from the women formally employed as ladies-in-waiting, the Queen's female retinue in reality also consisted of the daughters and the ladies-in-waiting of her ladies-in-waiting, who also resided in the Queen's household.[54]
The duties of ladies-in-waiting at the Tudor court were to act as companions for the Queen, both in public and in private. They had to accompany her wherever she went, to entertain her with music, dance or singing and to dress, bathe and help her use the toilet, since a royal person, by the standards of the day, was not supposed to do anything for herself, but was always to be waited upon in all daily tasks as a sign of their status.[54]
Ladies-in-waiting were appointed because of their social status as members of the nobility, on the recommendation of court officials, or other prominent citizens, and because they were expected to be supporters of the royal family due to their own family relationships. When the Queen was not a foreigner, her own relations were often appointed as they were presumed to be trustworthy and loyal. Lady Margaret Lee was a Lady of the Privy Chamber to Queen Anne Boleyn, just as Lady Elizabeth Seymour-Cromwell was to Queen Jane Seymour.
The organisation of the Queen's ladies-in-waiting was set in the period of the Tudor court. The ladies-in-waiting were headed by the Mistress of the Robes, followed in rank by the First Lady of the Bedchamber, who supervised the group of Ladies of the Bedchamber (typically wives or widows of peers above the rank of Earl), in turn followed by the group of Women of the Bedchamber (usually the daughters of peers) and finally the group of maids of honour, whose service entitled them to the style of The Honourable for life.[56]
The system has formally remained roughly the same since the Tudor period. However, in practice, many offices have since then been left vacant. For example, in recent times, maids of honour have only been appointed for coronations.
Notable examplesEdit
These are a list of particularly well known and famous ladies-in-waiting of each nation listed. More can be found in their respective category.
Countess Sophie Chotek, later Duchess von Hohenberg (1868 – 1914)
Margaret Southern (b. 1931)[7]
Louise von Plessen (1725 – 1799)
England, Scotland, Great Britain, and the United KingdomEdit
Lettice Knollys, Countess of Essex and Leicester
Lady Mary Boleyn (с. 1499/1500 – 1543)
Four of Henry VIII's Queen Consorts:
Anne Boleyn (c. 1501/07 – 1536)
Jane Seymour (c. 1508 – 1537)
Catherine Howard (с. 1523 – 1542)
Catherine Parr (1512 – 1548)
Jane Boleyn, Viscountess Rochford (c. 1505 – 1542)
Katherine Ashley (c. 1502 – 1565)
Jane Dormer, later Duchess of Feria (1538 – 1612)
Mary Fleming (1542 – 1581); one of the Four Marys
Lettice Knollys (1543 – 1634)
Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough (1660 – 1744)
Ivy Gordon-Lennox, later Duchess of Portland (1887 – 1982)
Ruth Roche, Baroness Fermoy (1908 – 1993)
Lady Pamela Mountbatten (b. 1929)
Jane Loftus, Marchioness of Ely (1821 – 1890)
Lady Sarah McCorquodale (b. 1955)
Françoise de Brézé, Countess of Maulévrier (1515 – 14 October 1577); Regent of Sedan from 1553 to 1559
Jacqueline de Longwy, Countess of Bar-sur-Sein (before 1520 – 28 August 1561)
Henriette of Cleves, 4th Duchess of Nevers and Countess of Rethel (31 October 1542 – 24 June 1601); one of France's chief creditors until her death.
Marie Thérèse Louise of Savoy, Princesse de Lamballe (1749 – 1792)
Yolande de Polastron (1749 – 1793)
Louise-Elisabeth, Marquise de Tourzel (1749 – 1832)
Marie Luise von Degenfeld (1634 – 1677); at the court of The Palatinate
Baroness Maria Caroline Charlotte von Ingenheim (1704 – 1749); at the court of Bavaria
Sophie Marie von Voß (1729 – 1814); at the court of Prussia
Charlotte von Stein (1742 – 1827); at the court of Saxe-Weimar
Luise von Göchhausen (1752 – 1807); at the court of Saxe-Weimar
Karoline Friederike von Berg (1760 – 1826); at the court of Prussia
Gabriele von Bülow (1802 – 1887); chief lady-in-waiting at the court of Prussia
Rosalie von Rauch, later Countess of Hohenau (1820 – 1879); at the court of Prussia
HungaryEdit
Helene Kottaner (1400 – 1470); lady-in-waiting for Elisabeth of Luxembourg, she organized the abduction of the Holy Crown and nursed Elisabeth of Habsburg, who later become a Polish Queen
Countess Irma Sztáray de Sztára et Nagymihály (1863 – 1940) at the court of Empress Elisabeth of Austria (Sissi)
Countess Marie Festetics von Tolna (1839 – 1923); lady-in-waiting for Sissi and Honorary Lady of the Order of Theresa
Ida Krisztina Veronika Ferenczy of Vecseszék (1839 – 1928); close friend and confidant of Empress Sissi
Lady Ise (875 – 938); poet, lover of Prince Atsuyoshi and later, concubine of Emperor Uda
Takashina no Takako (d. 996); served at the court of Empress Junshi, later the legal wife of Fujiwara no Michitaka, was regent of Emperor Ichijō
Uma no Naishi (949 – 1011); poet, she served under Empress Kishi (wife of Emperor Murakami), Fujiwara no Senshi (the imperial consort of Emperor En'yū and mother of Emperor Ichijō) and Empress Teishi (wife of Emperor Ichijō), later she become a follower of Shōnagon
Akazome Emon (с. 956 – c. 1041); poet and writer of Tale of Flowering Fortunes, she served at the court of Empress Shoshi
Murasaki Shikibu (c. 978 – c. 1016/1031); poet and the writer of the first known novel, The Tale of Genji, she also wrote a diary about court life after serving at the court of Empress Shoshi
Sei Shōnagon (c. 966 – 1017/1025); writer of the Pillow Book, she served at the court of Empress Teishi
Ise no Taifu (989 – 1060); poet, she served Empress Shoshi along with Murasaki Shikibu, Akazome Emon and Izumi Shikibu, and later became the nurse of Emperor Shirakawa
Daini no Sanmi (999 – 1082); daughter of Murasaki Shikibu she served at court of Grand Empress Dowager Shoshi and was the nurse of Emperor Go-Reizei and the imperial princesses
Lady Sarashina (1008 – after 1059); writer of Sarashina Nikki, she served Imperial Princess Yushi, the third daughter of Emperor Go-Suzaku
Kim Gae-si (d. 1623)
Royal Consort Gwiin Jo (d. 1652)
Royal Noble Consort Huibin Jang (1659 – 1701)
Royal Noble Consort Sukbin Choe (1670 – 1718)
Royal Noble Consort Yeongbin Yi (1696 – 1764)
Royal Noble Consort Uibin Seong (1753 – 1786)
Imperial Consort Gwiin Yang (1882 – 1929)
Lu Lingxuan (d. 577); served as the wet nurse of Emperor Gao Wei
Sumalagu (1615 – 24 October 1705); palace attendant during the Qing Dynasty and close confidant of Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang
Wei Tuan’er (d. 693); favourite lady-in-waiting of Wu Zetian
Princess Der Ling (1885 – 1944); she was given the title of "princess" while serving as the first lady-in-waiting for Empress Dowager Cixi
OttomanEdit
Canfeda Hatun, mistress housekeeper (d. 1600)
Hubbi Hatun, poetess (d. 1590)
Raziye Hatun, mistress of financial affairs (1525 - 26 June 1597)
Şahinde Hanım (d. 15 March 1924)
Şekerpare Hatun, mistress housekeeper
Marie Casimire Louise de La Grange d'Arquien, later Queen of Poland (1641 – 1716)
Klara Izabella Pacowa (1631 – 1685)
Elżbieta Helena Sieniawska (1669 – 1729)
Sophia Razumovskaya (1746 – 1803); a mistress of Paul I of Russia
Countess Julia Therese Salomea von Hauke, later Princess of Battenberg (1825 – 1895)
Anna Alexandrovna Vyrubova (1884 – 1964)
Elizabeth Ribbing (1596 – 1662), and later her morganatic daughter, Elizabeth Carlsdotter Gyllenhielm (1622 – 1682)
Ulrika Strömfelt (1724 – 1780)
Augusta von Fersen (1754 – 1846)
Magdalena Rudenschöld (1766 – 1823)
ThailandEdit
Princess Vibhavadi Rangsit (1920 – 1977)
In fictionEdit
The Favourite (2018 film)
Extended usesEdit
The term "lady-in-waiting" is sometimes used as slang for "pregnant woman".
Chaperone (social)
Handmaiden
Lady's companion
Lady's maid
Manservant
Odalisque
NotesEdit
^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Kolk 2009.
^ a b c d e f g h Duindam
^ a b Kerkhoff
^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Akkerman 2013 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFAkkerman2013 (help)
^ a b c d e f g h Persson 1999
^ Almanach royal officiel de Belgique, pour l'an 1841[full citation needed]
^ a b McCreery, Christopher (2008). On Her Majesty's Service: Royal Honours and Recognition in Canada. Dundurn. p. 133. ISBN 1-5500-2742-5.
^ a b Ebrey
^ a b c Chung, pp. 960–1126
^ Hsieh, Bao Hua (1999). "From Charwoman to Empress Dowager: Serving-Women in the Ming Palace". Ming Studies. 42: 26–80.
^ Hsieh, Bao Hua (2014). "Ming Palace Serving-Women". Concubinage and Servitude in Late Imperial China. London: Lexington Books. pp. 179–208.
^ Hsieh. Concubinage and Servitude. p. 184.
^ a b Hsieh. Concubinage and Servitude. p. 180.
^ Cass, Victoria B (1986). "Female Healers in the Ming and the Lodge of Ritual and Ceremony". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 106.1: 233–245.
^ Cass. Female Healers. p. 236.
^ Hsieh. "From Charwoman to Empress Dowager". Ming Studies: 45.
^ Hsieh. "From Charwoman to Empress Dowager". Ming Studies: 127.
^ Lee, Lily Xiao Hong (2016). Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Women, Volume II: Tang Through Ming 618–1644. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis. p. 543.
^ a b Lee. Biographical Dictionary. p. 543.
^ Hinsch, Bret (2016). Women in Imperial China. London: Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 147–174.
^ Hinsch. Women in Imperial China. p. 148.
^ a b Walthall
^ a b c Hsieh Bao Hua
^ a b c Kjølsen 2010
^ a b c d e f g Akkerman & Houben harvnb error: no target: CITEREFAkkermanHouben (help)
^ Mansel.
^ Nagel 2008.
^ Seward 2004.
^ Zedlitz-Trützschler 1924.
^ Almanach de Gotha 1859.
^ Almanacco reale del regno delle Due Sicilie
^ Calendario reale per l'anno 1879[full citation needed]
^ la Repubblica.it, 2007, 11, 25, La dama di compagnia dell' ultima Regina[full citation needed]
^ a b c d e Lillehoj
^ a b c d e Rowley
^ a b Lebra
^ "상궁(尙宮), Sanggung" (in Korean and English). The Academy of Korean Studies. [need quotation to verify]
^ Hamer 2011.
^ S Gravenhaagsche Stads-Almanak: voor 1857
^ Hauge & Egeberg 1960.
^ a b Madeline Zilfi: Women and Slavery in the Late Ottoman Empire: The Design of Difference
^ Bożena Popiołek, Rola dworów magnackich w edukacji dziewcząt na przełomie XVII i XVIII wieku, www.wilanow-palac.pl [dostęp 2020-02-25].
^ И. Е. Забелин. Глава VI. Царицын дворовый чин // Домашний быт русских цариц в XVI и XVII столетиях. — М.: Типография Грачева и Комп., 1869.[need quotation to verify]
^ a b Верховая боярыня // Энциклопедический словарь Брокгауза и Ефрона : в 86 т. (82 т. и 4 доп.). — СПб., 1890–1907.[need quotation to verify]
^ a b c Cruz & Stampino
^ a b Rundquist 1989
^ "Lady Dugdale has succeeded the Hon Mary Morrison as Lady-in-Waiting to The Queen" (Court Circular, 1 June 1994).
^ British Monarchy 2016.
^ William J. Thoms: The Book of the Court: Exhibiting the History, Duties, and Privileges of the English Nobility and Gentry. Particularly of the Great Officers of State and Members of the Royal Household, 1844
^ a b c d e f Alison Weir: Elizabeth of York: A Tudor Queen and Her World
^ Gosman, Macdonald & Vanderjagt.
^ Chisholm 1911, p. 663.
Akkerman, Nadine; Houben, Birgit, eds. (2013), The Politics of Female Households: Ladies-In-Waiting Across Early Modern Europe, Leiden: Brill CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)[full citation needed]
Almanach de Gotha: annuaire généalogique, diplomatique et statistique, 1859 [full citation needed]
"Ladies-in-Waiting and Equerries", The Official website of the British Monarchy, archived from the original on 3 February 2016
Chung, Priscilla Ching, Palace Women in the Northern Sung, pp. 960–1126 [full citation needed]
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911), "Honourable" , Encyclopædia Britannica, 13 (11th ed.), Cambridge University Press, pp. 662–663
Cruz, Anne J.; Stampino, Maria Galli, Early Modern Habsburg Women: Transnational Contexts, Cultural Conflicts, dynastic continuities [full citation needed]
Ebrey, Patricia Buckley, Women and the Family in Chinese History [full citation needed]
Duindam, Jeroen Frans Jozef, Vienna and Versailles: The Courts of Europe's Dynastic Rivals, 1550–1780 [full citation needed]
Kolk, Caroline zum (June 2009), "The Household of the Queen of France in the Sixteenth Century", The Court Historian, 14 (1) [full citation needed]
Hsieh Bao Hua, Concubinage and Servitude in Late Imperial China [full citation needed]
Gosman, Martin; Macdonald, Alasdair James; Vanderjagt, Arie Johan, Princes and Princely Culture: 1450–1650 [full citation needed]
Hamer, Dianne (2011), Sophie: biografie van Sophie van Würtemberg (1818–1877) — op basis van brieven en dagboken[full citation needed]
Kägler, Britta, Frauen am Münchener Hof (1651–1756) [full citation needed]
Kerkhoff, Jacqueline, Maria van Hongarije en haar hof 1505–1558: tot plichtsbetrachting uitverkoren [full citation needed]
Lebra, Takie Sugiyama, Above the Clouds: Status Culture of the Modern Japanese Nobility [full citation needed]
Lillehoj, Elizabeth, Art and Palace Politics in Early Modern Japan, 1580s–1680s [full citation needed]
Mansel, Philip, The Eagle in Splendour: Inside the Court of Napoleon [full citation needed]
Nagel, Susan (2008), Marie-Therese, Child of Terror: The Fate of Marie Antoinette's Daughter, NY: Bloomsbury: Macmillan, ISBN 1-59691-057-7
Persson, Fabian (1999), Servants of Fortune. The Swedish Court between 1598 and 1721, Lund: Wallin & Dalholm, ISBN 91-628-3340-5
Hauge, Yngvar; Egeberg, Nini (1960), Bogstad, 1773–1995, H. Aschehoug
Walthall, Anne, Servants of the Dynasty: Palace Women in World History [full citation needed]
Kjølsen, Klaus (2010), Det Kongelige Danske Hof 1660–2000 [full citation needed]
Rowley, G. G., An Imperial Concubine's Tale: Scandal, Shipwreck, and Salvation in Seventeenth-Century Japan [full citation needed]
Rundquist, Angela (1989), Blått blod och liljevita händer: en etnologisk studie av aristokratiska kvinnor 1850–1900, Carlsson, Diss. Stockholm: Univ., Stockholm [full citation needed]
Seward, Desmond (2004), Eugénie. An empress and her empire, Stroud: Sutton, cop., ISBN 0-7509-2979-0
Zedlitz-Trützschler, Robert (1924), Twelve Years at the Imperial German Court [full citation needed]
Look up lady-in-waiting in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Alchin, Linda. "Lady in Waiting". Elizabethan Era. Retrieved 18 April 2017.
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https://geeksofdoom.com/2015/10/06/joe-robert-cole-black-panther-f-gary-gray-director
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Joe Robert Cole To Write ‘Black Panther’ For Marvel; F. Gary Gray Among Director Candidates
By eelyajekiM | @ | Tuesday, October 6th, 2015 at 6:35 pm
Phase 3 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe kicks off with Captain America: Civil War. The film will end the Captain America trilogy, but it will also introduce the Spider-Man and Black Panther characters to the MCU. Chadwick Boseman will play the Prince of Wakanda, who seems to have his own agenda in Black Panther. We don’t know how exactly his presence will affect the MCU has a whole, but at least we know who will be writing his solo feature.
A new report says that Marvel has hired Joe Robert Cole (FX’s American Crime Story) to pen the script. There are also other reports saying that the studio is eyeing F. Gary Gray to direct the film. More on the story below.
The Wrap was the first to report on Cole’s involvement. They say that no directors are in consideration until Cole finishes the script. The writer hails from Marvel’s in-house writing program, the same place where Nicole Perlman got her start by writing the treatment for Guardians of the Galaxy. She then got the job to write the Captain Marvel script alongside Inside-Out co-writer Meg LeFauve. It’s being rumored that Cole also took a “crack” at the Inhumans script for Marvel, but it doesn’t look like they will use his draft or treatment.
It’s really not clear if anyone is actually under consideration at the moment, but Variety says that Straight Outta Compton director F. Gary Gray is among the contenders to direct the film. Gray is now one of the most sought out directors, thanks in part to the success of Compton, and has just entered exclusive talks with Universal and Vin Diesel to helm Furious 8. However, Marvel is also looking for a director to helm Black Panther, and may have their sights set on Gray to take the director’s chair.
Now it is important to note that he is only being considered for the job. Surely following the success of Straight Outta Compton, Gray is getting offers to direct other studio films as well. It’s unclear if he has even entered talks with Marvel or entertained the idea of directing Black Panther.
Before Marvel considered Gray to direct, the studio was in talks with Selma director Ava DuVernay. She walked away from the opportunity to direct the superhero pic citing creative differences as her reason for walking away.
But it wouldn’t be the first time that he has been close to directing a Marvel film. In 2012, Gray was on the shortlist to direct Captain America: The Winter Soldier. The job ultimately went to the Russo brothers, who would eventually sign on to direct the Avengers: Infinity War two-part epic. Like actors, directors can leave some sort of impression on the studio despite not getting the job, and could get another project given to them should that time come.
Gray is best known for directing films such as Law Abiding Citizen, Be Cool, The Italian Job, A Man Apart, The Negotiator, Set It Off, and Friday.
It’s not clear who else Marvel is looking at to direct Black Panther, but with Marvel looking at smaller indie directors to helm their films’ (Kiwi filmmaker Taika Waititi is in talks to direct Thor: Ragnarok), the studio may want to turn their attention to lesser-known directors.
Chadwick Boseman stars as the titular Black Panther, which is said to open in theaters on July 6, 2018. No word yet on who else may star in the film, but Andy Serkis, who played the nefarious arms dealer Ulysses Klaue in Avengers: Age of Ultron, may appear as an antagonist.
[Source: Variety | The Wrap]
Tags: Black Panther, Chadwick Boseman, F. Gary Gray, Joe Robert Cole, Marvel, Marvel Studios
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Toward better measures of global ICT adoption and use
Mike Jensen
Amy K. Mahan
http://www.suvabay.com/
http://www.lirne.net/
Measuring Progress 1.99 MB
Efforts to agree on the most appropriate indicators to use for measuring disparities in information and communications technology (ICT) adoption and progress toward information society goals have continued in 2008. However as yet global consensus has not been reached and debate continues over what indicators would best take into account the growing broadband divide, what constitutes “universal access”, and how to accommodate local realities regarding data availability, especially in developing countries.
Current background and status of work on global ICT indicators
In the area of ICTs, constant technology and market change has meant that until recently there was little global agreement on an appropriate set of indicators or indices. As a result, a wide range of ICT-related data has been gathered by national statistical and regulatory agencies, and many regional and international agencies have developed their own measures of ICT uptake over the last fifteen years. [1]
By the beginning of the new century, more concrete and universal information society goals were being developed. These began to focus at a global level with the targets of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Action Plan and the ICT-related components of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which provided further momentum for two important developments in ICT uptake measurement.
First, three indices aimed at measuring and ranking national progress towards becoming information societies were developed and published by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU): the Digital Accessibility Index (DAI), the ICT Opportunity Index (ICT-OI) and the Digital Opportunity Index (DOI). [2]Using a small set of mainly ICT infrastructure and human capacity-related indicators such as teledensity and education levels, none of them were directly based on measures of achievement of the WSIS targets. Although they provide interesting general measures of progress toward some information society goals, important aspects were left out, partly because the data are not seen as relevant, or because the data are simply not available for many countries, especially data requiring household surveys.
The ITU has now begun work on a single index which aims to combine the best features of the ICT-OI and the DOI. At the 6th World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators Meeting in December 2007, the options for a single index were discussed but agreement was not reached, and a working group was set up to finalise the index. One of the outstanding issues, which highlights the difficulty of coming up with simple, globally applicable indicators, was the proposed use of international bandwidth as an indicator. Advanced countries isolated by language, such as South Korea or Japan, would not feature highly on use of international bandwidth because most of their traffic would be local. The meeting also considered community access indicators and a number of measures were proposed, including tracking the percentage of localities (villages, towns, etc.) with a public internet access centre, and those that are connected to the public telephone network. In addition, new indicators in the area of mobile/wireless broadband measurement and computer virus infection levels were discussed.
Second, and perhaps of greater significance, has been the formation of the international multi-stakeholder Partnership on Measuring ICT for Development. Established during the 11th United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) session in 2004, the partnership now comprises the ITU, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), UNCTAD, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), Eurostat, the World Bank Group and the UN regional agencies. [3]
The partnership was set up for three key reasons: to achieve a common set of core ICT indicators, agreed upon internationally; to help build the capacities of national statistical offices in developing countries to collect the necessary data; and to develop a global database on ICT indicators and make it available on the internet. Its two main report outputs are: Measuring ICT: The Global Status of ICT Indicators,[4]andCore ICT Indicators.[5]The former is the report of a global stocktaking exercise on the availability of ICT indicators. The 47% national response rate to this concerted effort underlines the problems in establishing global indicators – especially with particularly low numbers of responses for Africa and the Asia Pacific countries. [6]
The second work,Core ICT Indicators, describes a set of 41 core indicators that were identified during the stocktaking exercise and subsequently endorsed by the UN Statistical Commission in 2007. The core indicators are divided into four groups as follows:
• ICT infrastructure and access (twelve indicators)
• Access to and use of ICT by households and individuals (thirteen indicators)
• Use of ICT by businesses (twelve indicators)
• The ICT sector and trade in ICT goods (four indicators).
The full list of 41core indicators is described in Annex A at the end of the chapter.
Several developing countries have since integrated the core indicators into existing household and business surveys. While the UN endorsement, and the partnership capacity-building activities, should lead to improvements in the number of countries that collect ICT indicators, and in the comparability of the data, there may need to be a rethink about what indicators should be contained in the “core list”. In this respect it should be noted that the partnership does not claim the list to be complete, and identifies the process as continuous and subject to periodic review.
In an ideal world, the core list as proposed by the partnership would certainly provide a useful picture of ICT uptake that covers a large part of the Real Access Framework (RAF) criteria suggested by Bridges.org to assess access to ICTs. (The RAF has been used loosely in the country reports in GISW 2008 to reflect access challenges at a national level). However, lack of data availability from many countries remains a key problem – only a small proportion of countries are able to report on all 41 indicators. In 2005 the partnership found that only about 40 countries worldwide collected ten or more household ICT indicators.
To maximise the number of countries that can report on a common set of indicators, the total number of indicators may have to be reduced, especially those that require user surveys. The core list also has many measures for factors that mainly concern business and trade, which could be reduced relative to those that focus on the general public. Developing countries need indicators which help them formulate regulatory and policy decisions around how to best extend the network using constrained resources. Shared use, community networks, telecentres and so forth are strategies that are not yet fully reflected or measured in the legacy indicators agreed to by the partnership – although the intention to use household survey data does take some steps towards accuracy in this regard.
There are also a number of other important aspects of Real Access that the core list does not explicitly address, including gender disaggregation. These areas are covered in more detail in the following section.
Principles and considerations for selecting future indicators
The number and range of ICTs available today has never been greater, and the interrelationships between them and their indicators are many. In order to effectively evaluate the choice of indicators, it is essential to have a clear conceptual framework on which to base the evaluation. In considering options for choosing indicators, the key considerations and assumptions can be summarised as follows:
The goal should be to provide universally accepted measures of ICT adoption at a national level that encompasses as many nations as possible, using consistent data definitions and timing for data reporting.
The selection of indicators should be based on a solid conceptual framework that aims to provide measures of actual uptake and use. The use of factors that attempt to ascribe the potential for access are likely to find less wide acceptance. Similarly, supply-side indicators also tend to reflect potential use rather than actual use.
Given the framing of the WSIS and MDG goals, the focus should be on personal rather than business use (although ideally in future when more data is available, household use and other types of disaggregation would also be more explicitly included in the indicators).
To maximise the validity period in the face of evolving technologies, new infrastructure and new services adoption, the indicators need to anticipate the future evolution of ICT infrastructure and services. [7]
Indicator data used should be provided by credible organisations which issue it on a regular basis to allow for longitudinal studies (over time).
Due to the general lack of up-to-date data, the smallest number of indicators is likely to be the most inclusive and comparable across countries. Data freshness is another factor here. Even for the most commonly used data such as teledensity, while an increasing amount of year-end 2007 data is becoming available, overall, 2006 is still the most recent year for globally representative data. This highlights a key problem in selecting a meaningful set of core indicators and also means that for policy-makers there is at least a two-year lag in seeing the results of policy decisions. While more up-to-date information may be available for some indicators, if it is not available for all indicators, the overall value decreases substantially. Since the availability of indicators with broad representation across countries is so small, these considerations also underline a key tension in the construction of the core list: the playoff between accuracy and country representation.
Measures of equipment uptake need careful consideration for inclusion in a core list of indicators because of lack of accurate data in developing countries, and also due to technology change. For example, in considering the use of computer penetration, the definition of what actually constitutes a personal computer (PC) is becoming increasingly blurred because of mobile/PC convergence and the embedding of computing devices in other household equipment such as fridges.
Television (TV) penetration also suffers from similar problems. Data for TV sales is not up to date in many countries, is likely to be inaccurate due to grey market importing, and is currently only available for 85 countries. TV penetration measures are also not future-proof, considering rapid moves toward internet protocol TV (IPTV) and mobile phone TV, so that using traditional TV measures would bias against those countries that have already adopted these technologies. Radio penetration data suffers from the same sort of problems as PC and TV data.
Fixed-line penetration measures may also be problematic, considering that little new cable is being laid and many nations (especially developing countries) are skipping the use of fixed-line infrastructure and moving directly to wireless technologies. As a result, including fixed-line measures would be likely to bias against most developing countries.
In contrast to fixed lines, mobile phone access is becoming the de facto measure of basic access, and this indicator is of particular concern to developing countries where growth is still rapid and has not come close to reaching saturation. In addition, mobile phones are now being used more for internet access than PCs in some countries. [8]Mobile subscribers are accurately monitored in 220 countries by Wireless Intelligence, [9]the partnership between the GSM [global system for mobile] Association and Ovum. Quarterly data is even available a few months after the end of the quarter [10]and the data spans mobile network operators across most technologies, including GSM, wideband code division multiple access (W-CDMA), time division multiple access (TDMA), personal digital cellular (PDC), cdmaOne, CDMA2000 1x, CDMA2000 1xEV-DO, analogue and integrated digital enhanced network (iDEN).
Similarly, a measure of the total number of internet users is an important indicator, but there are some limitations to subscriber data, which is usually provided by operators. This is because there is no clear relationship between the number of internet subscribers (relatively easily obtained) and internetusers, many of whom may share the subscriber’s connection. As a result, much of the available data is based on estimates, for which the level of accuracy is unclear.
Since broadband users, and in particular, wireless and mobile internet users, are becoming an increasingly important component of the internet user base, it may also make sense to include measures of these users, especially as there is now a well-accepted understanding of the importance of broadband for full access to the information society. The need for affordable pervasive access to broadband therefore extends beyond access to information and into active participation, as people with shared interests or problems become significantly active on the web only when broadband is available.
In measuring usage (rather than availability), until more widespread national survey data is available, the use of proxy indicators such as telephone minutes or internet bandwidth will be necessary. The main deficiency with these indicators is a tendency to over-emphasise international usage. Ideally more measures of national usage would be included. However, there is very little national internet traffic data currently available, and although there is some national voice-traffic data, the level of country representation is poor.
Although traffic indicators would appear to only measure usage, they also provide some indication of production of data, although ideally this aspect would be augmented in future by other measures such as numbers of local websites and domain names. These measures are difficult to gather, however, due to the use of generic top-level domains (gTLDs) by many in-country website operators who choose not to use country code top-level domains (ccTLDs). Similarly, the number of secure internet servers has been commonly adopted as an indicator of the extent to which reliable digital transactions are made. However, this indicator does not reflect the fact that many of the most popular online services requiring secure servers are global brands and not specific to any particular country (Amazon, eBay, etc.).
International internet bandwidth per capita has become an increasingly well-recognised indicator following its use at the G8 Dot-Force meeting in Kananaskis in 2002. It is fairly easy to obtain because there are a relatively small number of international internet service providers. Because of the relatively high costs of international bandwidth, it is likely to reflect actual usage rather than being a supply-side indicator based on the size of the pipe. There are also other ways of measuring or cross-checking estimates of internet bandwidth. For example, bandwidth data is gathered by the Stanford University SLAC PingER project.[11]The PingER project calculates the bandwidth of internet links by measuring the time it takes to send packets of data to internet hosts around the world.. This indicator confirms that international bandwidth reports to the ITU are broadly in line with measured performance, although there are a number of exceptions at a national level that would be worth examining.
Ideally, if total national and international internet bandwidth could be measured, this figure, combined with the total number of internet users, would give a reasonable composite measure of the extent of internet use. However, given the growing importance of networks based on internet protocols and the decreasing use of switched-voice circuits, it will be increasingly important to identify other measures of internet use. IP host numbers have been used, as this is a superficially attractive measure because it is easily available for every country and is relatively up to date. However, due to the prevalent use of private IP numbers behind firewalls, and allocations of numbers not in actual use, this measure is quite misleading. In addition, the transition from IPV4 to IPV6 is changing the entire IP numbering system, and some countries are more advanced in this process. In the long term, however, this will ultimately improve IP host numbers as a measure by eliminating the need for network address translation (NAT) and host address masquerading.
In the interim, a more valid approach would be to use a metric based on autonomous system numbers (AS numbers or ASNs). Unique ASNs are allocated to internet network operators by the regional registries (RIRs) for use in multi-path (BGP) routing (the protocol used to ensure that there is more than one route to the internet provider’s network). The use of ASNs as an indicator was pioneered by OECD researcher Tom Vest, and based on his work, the OECD’s Committee for Information, Computer and Communications Policy (ICCP) has now proposed the use of ASNs for measuring internet uptake in their member countries. [12]
Raw ASN information is available on a daily basis via automated file transfer protocol (FTP) download and is therefore the most up-to-date ICT indicator available in the world. The data is hosted by the University of Oregon Route Views Project [13]where the daily updated data goes back to 1997. In this respect a key advantage of the ASN metric is that it does not rely upon country reporting and therefore does not further burden developing country national statistical offices (or the national regulator) with further indicator collection responsibilities.
Indicators to measure the level of exclusion from ICTs amongst the public are of special importance. While this has not been the direct focus of the other ICT uptake measurement efforts, the DOI focused on the related concept of opportunity. Of note is that the World Bank’sWorld Development Report 2006advocates taking equity into account when determining development priorities.
Given current technology trends and long-stated gender concerns, it is becoming increasingly essential to have a clear picture of how the internet and women’s access to ICTs are evolving in developing countries, and indeed throughout the world. So measures of gender-disaggregated access should be included, although currently gender-disaggregated data availability is minimal; for example, only 39 countries feature on the ITU’s STAT page for female internet users. [14]There is no doubt that as national-level information society policies prioritise women and girls’ access to and ability to use ICTs, there will be efforts to measure these in order to document progress towards policy goals. But this is only just beginning to happen, and it will be a long time before there is a critical mass of gendered ICT indicators available.
Aside from measures of gender equity, other equity indicators would include the dispersion of public access facilities (telecentres, cybercafés or public phones), mobile coverage areas, mobile and broadband affordability, and basic literacy levels. Measures of network coverage should include national broadband coverage and the proportion of population covered by mobile networks. Ideally, affordability indicators would measure the prices of broadband subscriptions calculated pro-rata for a certain agreed speed of connection per month, such as one megabit per second (Mbps). This would allow comparison of countries with different speeds available and could also be expressed as a percentage of average monthly household income.
Another expression of affordability could be the OECD-defined basket of costs for mobile usage. Because of the complexity and variety of available mobile tariff packages, and the lack of identical packages in different countries, it should be noted that there may be some inherent variation in the data that does not reflect actual costs. In addition, a case could be made for using the medium basket, rather than the low-end user basket, which was defined in the early 1990s when mobile usage was relatively low.
It should also be noted that while the ICT access costs aim to measure affordability, when compared against country wealth they may not correlate fully with use. The poor may spend a much higher proportion of their income on communication costs. Flat-rate subscriptions with monthly minute packages also tend to skew this assessment.
Adult literacy levels are an obvious and well-represented indicator for the degree to which the public can use ICTs, but the measure does suffer from some biases. Mobile phone users do not necessarily have to be literate to use this technology, and intermediaries are often used by the non-literate to obtain information from the internet or to send messages.
Annex 1: The Partnership on Measuring ICT for Development – Core Indicator List
Infrastructure and access
A1 Fixed telephone lines per 100 inhabitants
A2 Mobile cellular subscribers per 100 inhabitants
A3 Computers per 100 inhabitants
A4 Internet subscribers per 100 inhabitants
A5 Broadband internet subscribers per 100 inhabitants
A6 International internet bandwidth per inhabitant
A7 Percentage of population covered by mobile cellular telephony
A8 Internet access tariffs (20 hours per month), in USD, and as a percentage of per capita income
A9 Mobile cellular tariffs (100 minutes of use per month), in USD, and as a percentage of per capita income
A10 Percentage of localities with public internet access centres (PIACs) by number of inhabitants (rural/urban)
A11 Radio sets per 100 inhabitants
A12 Television sets per 100 inhabitants
Household use
HH1 Proportion of households with a radio
HH2 Proportion of households with a TV
HH3 Proportion of households with a fixed-line telephone
HH4 Proportion of households with a mobile cellular telephone
HH5 Proportion of households with a computer
HH6 Proportion of individuals who used a computer (from any location) in the last 12 months
HH7 Proportion of households with internet access at home
HH8 Proportion of individuals who used the internet (from any location) in the last 12 months
HH9 Location of individual use of the internet in the last 12 months:
(a) at home; b) at work; (c) place of education; (d) at another person’s home; (e) community internet access facility (specific denomination depends on national practices); (f) commercial internet access facility (specific denomination depends on national practices); and (g) others
HH10 Internet activities undertaken by individuals in the last 12 months:
Getting information: (a) about goods or services; (b) related to health or health services; (c) from government organisations/public authorities via websites or email; and (d) other information or general web browsing
Purchasing or ordering goods or services
Education or learning activities
Dealing with government organisations/public authorities
Leisure activities: (a) playing/downloading video or computer games; (b) downloading movies, music or software; (c) reading/downloading electronic books, newspapers or magazines; and (d) other leisure activities
HH11 Proportion of individuals with use of a mobile telephone
HH12 Proportion of households with access to the internet by type of access: Categories should allow an aggregation to narrowband and broadband, where broadband excludes slower speed technologies, such as dial-up modem, ISDN and most 2G mobile phone access. Broadband will usually have an advertised download speed of at least 256 kbit/s.
HH13 Frequency of individual access to the internet in the last 12 months (from any location): (a) at least once a day; (b) at least once a week but not every day; (c) at least once a month but not every week; and (d) less than once a month.
B1 Proportion of businesses using computers
B2 Proportion of employees using computers
B3 Proportion of businesses using the internet
B4 Proportion of employees using the internet
B5 Proportion of businesses with a web presence
B6 Proportion of businesses with an intranet
B7 Proportion of businesses receiving orders over the internet
B8 Proportion of businesses placing orders over the internet
B9 Proportion of businesses using the internet by type of access: Categories should allow an aggregation to narrowband and broadband, where broadband excludes slower speed technologies, such as dial-up modem, ISDN and most 2G mobile phone access. Broadband will usually have an advertised download speed of at least 256 kbit/s.
B10 Proportion of businesses with a local area network (LAN)
B11 Proportion of businesses with an extranet
B12 Proportion of businesses using the internet by type of activity:
Getting information: (a) about goods or services; (b) from government organisations/public authorities via websites or email; and (c) other information searches or research activities
Performing internet banking or accessing other financial services
Providing customer services
Delivering products online
ICT sector and trade in ICT goods
ICT1 Proportion of total business sector workforce involved in the ICT sector
ICT2 Value added in the ICT sector (as a percentage of total business sector value added)
ICT3 ICT goods imports as a percentage of total imports
ICT4 ICT goods exports as a percentage of total exports
ITU and UNCTAD (2007) World Information Society Report 2007: Beyond WSIS.
Available at: www.itu.int/osg/spu/publications/worldinformationsociety/2007
Minges, M. (2005)Evaluation of e-Readiness Indices in Latin America and the Caribbean. Santiago, Chile: ECLAC.
Available at: www.eclac.org/socinfo/publicaciones/xml/8/24228/w73.pdf
Partnership on Measuring ICT for Development (2005) Measuring ICT: The Global Status of ICT Indicators.
Available at: www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/partnership/material/05-42742%20GLOBAL%20ICT.pdf
Partnership on Measuring ICT for Development (2005) Core ICT Indicators.
www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/partnership/material/CoreICTIndicators.pdf
World Bank (2006)World Development Report 2006: Equity and Development. Washington: World Bank.
[1]A good comparison of the most important of these can be found in Minges (2005).
[2]TheWorld Information Society Report 2007: Beyond WSIS, a joint publication by ITU and UNCTAD, details the use of these different indices.
[3]These are the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), and UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (UNESCWA).
[4] www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/partnership/material/05-42742%20GLOBAL%20ICT.pdf
[5] www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/partnership/material/CoreICTIndicators.pdf
[6]Not to mention the absence of some major economies which did not respond to the survey, such as China, Nigeria and South Africa.
[7]In this respect it is expected that networks will steadily evolve away from a circuit-switched infrastructure to packet-switched/internet protocol-based networks, commonly known as next generation networks (NGNs), which will also increasingly comprise larger numbers of wireless internet users.
[8]communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2007/01/putting_27_bill.html
[9] www.wirelessintelligence.com
[10] www.gsmworld.com/news/statistics/index.shtml
[11] www.slac.stanford.edu/xorg/icfa/icfa-net-paper-jan07
[12] www.oecd.org/dataoecd/25/54/36462170.pdf
[13] archive.routeviews.org/oix-route-views
[14] www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/statistics/at_glance/f_inet.html
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Are Drop-Downs and Mega-Menus Worth the Risk?
Holli Graham, September 12, 2012 | Web Design
Make sure there will be enough benefit from adding them to your website to risk wading through the minefield.
There are so many things that can go wrong with drop-downs and mega-menus that it can metaphorically be like wading through a minefield to get to your desired end result. Is it really worth the risk and could there be a better way?
Unexpected and Inconsistent Design Behavior
A lot of times, main menus will be designed so that there is no clear indication that it will open another drop-down or mega-menu, so when a new menu suddenly opens, it can be jarring to the user. There are also times when only certain main menu items open other drop-down menus while the other main items behave normally with no indication at all that they behave differently. This is even more problematic, because it will take longer for the user to understand how to navigate the website. Take a look at this image of a website’s main navigation for an example.
Can you tell that some of these open drop-downs and others don’t?
Sometimes you can show a user too much information. It can be like trying to find Waldo in all that chaos. One example that comes to mind is the Staples website. Do people really look through all these links trying to find the one link they need?
And that’s just one of the 20 or so menus. Are you kidding me??? I hope that search works.
Mobile and Accessibility Problems
Most drop-downs and mega-menus are triggered with a hover event which basically means that as your mouse pointer goes across that part of the screen, the menu will open. As you move your mouse pointer off of the menu, the menu will close. That’s all well and good if you have a mouse.
There is a subset of the population that is mobility impaired and can’t use a mouse at all and have to navigate websites using the keyboard. A common way to do that is to tab through the links on the page. Go to some of your favorite websites with mega-menus and try tabbing through the navigation. It can be incredibly frustrating if not impossible to get where you’re trying to go. On some websites, you just keep tabbing through hidden links that haven’t been revealed through a hover and have absolutely no idea where you are on the page. Even if you can see where you’re clicking on the page, some of these menus have so many links, that you can get carpel tunnel just tabbing through them all! At the time of this writing, for a perfect example of how awful this can be, go to Oakley.com and try to get to the women’s store by just tabbing through the links using only your keyboard. I dare say it’s impossible.
Try to tab to that page without using your mouse. I dare ya.
The other, much larger set of users is the growing population of people surfing the web on their phones and tablets. If your site is responsive, you can plan on changing the complex drop-down navigation to something that is simpler to use on a mobile device. Although, that usually means that you’ll need to think of clear main menu items for your mobile users anyway. If your site isn’t a responsive design or you don’t have a separate mobile site, you can even see different behaviors on different operating systems (iPhone vs. Android for instance).
On iPhones and iPads, drop-downs are typically triggered by pressing on the main menu item. To get to the page that the main menu item actually links to, you have to press the menu item twice. I only found that out through experimentation. I’m sure many users are not aware of that behavior.
On iPhones and iPads, when you tap on the Services tab the drop-down appears. To actually go to the main Services page, you have to tap the Services tab again.
On Android phone and devices, it’s even worse. When you press the main menu item, the drop-down flashes for a second and then it takes you to the page the menu item linked to. These users know that there is a drop-down menu, but they can never get to the pages from that menu. Therefore, if you don’t have links to those pages in the body of the website, they’ll never be able to get there.
On Android devices, when you tap on the Services tab, you see the drop-down menu flash for a second and then get taken to the main Services page. Sure hope the main Services page has links to those pages in the drop-down otherwise Android users will never be able to get to those pages.
I’m Not the Only One
In an article written by web usability expert, Jared Spool, he stated this after observing problems with mega-menus with their clients:
“As each implementation launched, we saw problems. It was not unusual for our e-commerce clients to experience a 15%-20% drop in revenues immediately upon deploying their new mega-menu-based navigation – revenue that didn’t seem to come back, even once users “got used to” the change. Non-e-commerce clients also saw dramatic changes in their key performance metrics, mostly declines, as they rolled out their own mega menu implementations.”
Read the whole article.
A Possible Better Solution
Instead of using these areas as a dumping ground to try to link to every single page of your website from one location, a better solution could possibly be to make the main menu items very clear to your users. I would be willing to bet that most of the time a user will know what to expect to be in a main section of a website without having to see a list of every single page in that section if it is labeled correctly. For example, if you have a heading named “Products”, I’m guessing the user gets it that all of your products are listed in that section. The same could be said for “Services”. It’s probably not necessary to list your services in a drop-down.
Once the user knows feels confident they’re going in the right direction and feels that every click they take gets them closer to their desired destination, they have no problem making a couple of extra clicks to get there. This concept is called the “Scent of Information”. It was originally coined by Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center team and was made popular in a well-known paper and presentation by web usability expert, Jared Spool. For further reading on that subject, his paper is available for download.
Drop-downs and mega-menus aren’t inherently evil, but you need to make sure there will be enough benefit to adding them to your website to risk wading through the minefield.
Photo credit: Some rights reserved by BR0WSER.
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St John’s wort (Hypericum perforatum)-induced psychosis: a case report
Maria Ferrara1,
Francesco Mungai1,2 &
Fabrizio Starace1
St John’s wort (Hypericum perforatum) has been known for centuries for its therapeutic properties and its efficacy as an antidepressant has been confirmed by a growing body of evidence. During the last two decades it has also come to prominence with a wider public, due to advertising efforts across Europe and United States of America. However, its availability without prescription, as an over-the-counter medication, raises some concern regarding its clinical management and unsupervised administration to individuals with psychopathological risks. To date, the evidence available regarding the administration of Hypericum in people with severe mental health problems is still meager and refers mainly to affective disorder spectrum or psychotic relapse in people with established diagnoses. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report regarding the onset of psychotic features in a patient presenting with psychotic diathesis.
The case discussed in this report is a 25-year-old white man, not known to the psychiatric services, with a history of brief and self-remitting drug-induced psychosis and a positive family history of psychotic depression. He was admitted to hospital due to the onset of florid psychotic symptoms concomitant with self-administration of Hypericum perforatum.
The aim of this report is to promote further systematic research, draw the attention of clinicians to the potential risks of Hypericum precipitating psychosis, and raise awareness among health professionals to investigate and caution their patients on the haphazard use of phytotherapeutics such as Hypericum.
Hypericum perforatum (St John’s wort) has been known for its therapeutic properties, such as anti-inflammatory, antiseptic, and antidepressant, since the times of ancient Greece and interest in this plant has been documented throughout history [1]. Over the last two decades, St John’s wort has gained significant relevance in the field of psychiatry for the treatment of mild-to-moderate depression. St John’s wort has been investigated, providing evidence of its efficacy and tolerability profile [2,3,4,5,6,7], and it has been included within internationally acknowledged guidelines [8]. At the same time, it has been increasingly advertised and commercialized across Europe and the United States of America as an over-the-counter medication. However, its rising popularity could also mean an increased risk for people self-medicating for potentially severe psychopathological conditions, for which there is no evidence of efficacy and tolerability, without receiving any professional supervision. In fact, even though a recent meta-analysis has provided further evidence supporting the comparability of St John’s wort to standard selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), with regards to mild and moderate depression [7], to date, still too little is known about its safety, recommended dosage, and side effects in people at risk of psychiatric disorders.
St John’s wort contains a combination of different components, which makes the interpretation of clinical trials rather complex [9]. However, among its active constituent fractions (for example, hypericin, hyperforin, and polyphenols) consensus has now been reached regarding the key role of the hyperforin component in antidepressant activity [7]. Furthermore, in many cases, the formulations available and advertised across countries as over-the-counter remedies for the treatment of mood disorder, anxiety, and jet lag syndrome, consist of a combination of Hypericum and other phytotherapeutics (for example, valerian) or melatonin.
St John’s wort is a complex mixture containing a variety of constituents; some of these components are potent enzyme inducers and their pharmacokinetic interactions should be particularly cautioned with concomitant drug use [10, 11]. In particular, hypericin and hyperforin are reported to be respectively CYP1A2 and CYP3A4 inducers [7]. Thus, attention should be paid when Hypericum is administered in combination with other medications in general [12, 13] and more specifically with drugs such as antiretrovirals [14], cyclosporine [15], anticoagulants [16], hormonal contraceptives [17], and other psychotropic agents such as antidepressants [15] and antipsychotics [18]. The number of neurotransmitter systems potentially involved in the mechanism of action of Hypericum is remarkable, encompassing not only monoamines (serotonin, noradrenaline, and dopamine), for which the antidepressant effect is hypothesized, but also glutamate and ion channels [19, 20].
To the best of our knowledge, to date, the evidence available regarding the risk posed by Hypericum in terms of psychiatric adverse effects, with reference to its potential to precipitate psychosis, is limited [21]; the evidence is confined essentially to some case reports describing the onset of manic symptoms [22,23,24,25], two cases of psychotic relapse [26], and a case report regarding the onset of a first episode of psychosis in a 39-year-old Japanese woman who self-medicated with a high dosage of Hypericum during a spell of mild depressed mood [27].
The case discussed refers to a 25-year-old white man, previously unknown to the psychiatric service, seen at Accident and Emergency (A&E) by the psychiatrist on call and immediately admitted to our acute psychiatric unit due to his florid psychotic symptoms. He was accompanied by two friends who described him as having been “off and strange” over the last few days, reporting that it looked like he was under the effect of some sort of illicit drug. His clinical picture was characterized by disorganized speech, paranoid thinking, and delusions of influence, such as thought control and beliefs that his mind was being read. He also presented with pervasive somatoform preoccupations regarding his internal organs “being displaced” and a form of Capgras delusion towards his parents. He denied experiencing auditory hallucinations. On the ward he remained very quiet, although no objective mood disturbances were detected. Nevertheless, he complained of weakness and to be struggling with a “period of distress”; he could not elaborate further. He did not present anxiety or sleep disturbances. His blood test results were within the normal range and he did not show any neurological abnormalities. The result of his toxicological blood screening was negative. He was initially administered risperidone (9 mg daily), subsequently switched to paliperidone (6 mg daily) due to the onset of extrapyramidal symptoms and a better tolerability profile. His condition settled fairly quickly and, due to a substantial improvement in his clinical picture, after 15 days of hospital stay he was discharged with a diagnosis of schizophreniform disorder. Due to poor insight and his reluctance to continue taking the medication, he was started on the long-acting antipsychotic, Xeplion (paliperidone palmitate), 100 mg injection monthly.
Over the following 3 months he attended follow-up visits at the local community mental health service. His clinical picture remained stable and his insight, energy, and global functioning gradually improved. However, during the follow-up visits he gave an account of a previous psychotic episode, 9 months before the index episode, concomitant with cannabis abuse. He reported having seen a specialist and being offered olanzapine 2.5 mg daily, which he declined along with the follow-up visits. He claimed that since then he had stopped taking illicit drugs. Subsequently, he reported an improvement in his mental state. However, 3 months prior to the admission to our psychiatric ward, he started experiencing weakness, exhaustion, and severe stomach discomfort. He reduced his food intake, losing up to 8 kg, and started feeling so weary he decided to resign from his job. He resolved to see his general practitioner, who arranged to carry out some investigations. An esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD) showed the presence of multiple stomach erosions and Helicobacter pylori infection which could explain his stomach pain and physical problems. Nevertheless, he turned down the treatment offered by his general practitioner, due to his personal inclination against pharmaceutical drugs, and started to self-medicate with Hypericum. The formulation taken was herbal aqueous infusion (sachets of the herb brewed in water), which has been reported as a rich source of Hypericum components (that is, hypericins and flavonoids), comparable with tablets and capsules; he took doses recommended for mild/moderate depressive episodes [28]. He recounted a dose of 4 g of herbal mono-preparation per infusion, and quantified his average intake as four cups daily. He admitted to have continued taking Hypericum nonstop until he was admitted to our acute psychiatric unit and it was during that time that he could recall the exacerbation of psychotic symptoms. Later, he also informed the clinicians that his father had experienced psychotic depression, of which he was not aware at the time of admission.
The lack of detailed information on the composition of the St John’s wort tea mono-preparation taken by our patient and suspected to have caused the described event should be acknowledged as a limitation. Moreover, it is not possible to establish a definitive causal link regarding the onset of a psychotic episode precipitated by self-administration of Hypericum. However, we can hypothesize that in this young and vulnerable individual, with a known genetic predisposition and a previous drug-induced psychotic episode, the unsupervised self-administration of Hypericum could have played a determinant role in the onset of the psychopathological conditions leading to his urgent hospital admission. In addition, this case suggests that treatment with antipsychotics may be effective for Hypericum-associated psychosis.
To date, the evidence available regarding the safety profile of Hypericum in people with risk factors for psychosis is still insufficient and more systematic research is necessary; clinicians and health professionals in general should consider the risk of Hypericum precipitating psychosis. Moreover, since patients generally do not volunteer information about usage of alternative medicines, it is particularly important that physicians actively elicit herbal remedy use in their history taking, particularly in cases of sudden-onset of psychosis. Finally, cautioning patients on the haphazard use of herbal remedies, such as Hypericum, should be part of best practice in health care.
A&E:
SSRI:
Standard selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor
Istikoglou CI, Mavreas V, Geroulanos G. History and therapeutic properties of Hypericum perforatum from antiquity until today. Psychiatriki. 2010;21(4):332–8.
Linde K, Knuppel L. Large-scale observational studies of hypericum extracts in patients with depressive disorders – a systematic review. Phytomedicine. 2005;12(1–2):148–57. doi:10.1016/j.phymed.2004.02.004.
Linde K. St. John’s wort for depression – development of a Cochrane review from 1993 to 1996. Z Evid Fortbild Qual Gesundhwes. 2008;102(8):487–92.
Apaydin EA, Maher AR, Shanman R, Booth MS, Miles JN, Sorbero ME, et al. A systematic review of St. John’s wort for major depressive disorder. Syst Rev. 2016;5(1):148. doi:10.1186/s13643-016-0325-2.
Sarris J, Panossian A, Schweitzer I, Stough C, Scholey A. Herbal medicine for depression, anxiety and insomnia: a review of psychopharmacology and clinical evidence. Eur Neuropsychopharmacol. 2011;21(12):841–60. doi:10.1016/j.euroneuro.2011.04.002.
Kasper S, Gastpar M, Moller HJ, Muller WE, Volz HP, Dienel A, et al. Better tolerability of St. John’s wort extract WS 5570 compared to treatment with SSRIs: a reanalysis of data from controlled clinical trials in acute major depression. Int Clin Psychopharmacol. 2010;25(4):204–13.
Ng QX, Venkatanarayanan N, Ho CY. Clinical use of Hypericum perforatum (St John’s wort) in depression: A meta-analysis. J Affect Disord. 2017;210:211–21. doi:10.1016/j.jad.2016.12.048.
National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. Depression in Adults with a Chronic Physical Health Problem: Treatment and Management. Leicester: National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence: Guidance; 2010.
Taylor D, et al. The Maudsley prescribing guidelines in psychiatry. 11th ed. Hoboken, USA: Wiley-Blackwell; 2012.
Ernst E. The risk-benefit profile of commonly used herbal therapies: Ginkgo, St. John’s Wort, Ginseng, Echinacea, Saw Palmetto, and Kava. Ann Intern Med. 2002;136(1):42–53.
Markowitz JS, Donovan JL, DeVane CL, Taylor RM, Ruan Y, Wang JS, et al. Effect of St John’s wort on drug metabolism by induction of cytochrome P450 3A4 enzyme. JAMA. 2003;290(11):1500–4. doi:10.1001/jama.290.11.1500.
Izzo AA. Drug interactions with St. John’s Wort (Hypericum perforatum): a review of the clinical evidence. Int J Clin Pharmacol Ther. 2004;42(3):139–48.
Whitten DL, Myers SP, Hawrelak JA, Wohlmuth H. The effect of St John’s wort extracts on CYP3A: a systematic review of prospective clinical trials. Br J Clin Pharmacol. 2006;62(5):512–26. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2125.2006.02755.x.
Piscitelli SC, Burstein AH, Chaitt D, Alfaro RM, Falloon J. Indinavir concentrations and St John’s wort. Lancet. 2000;355(9203):547–8. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(99)05712-8.
Borrelli F, Izzo AA. Herb-drug interactions with St John’s wort (Hypericum perforatum): an update on clinical observations. AAPS J. 2009;11(4):710–27. doi:10.1208/s12248-009-9146-8.
Uygur Bayramicli O, Kalkay MN, Oskay Bozkaya E, Dogan Kose E, Iyigun O, Goruk M, et al. St. John’s wort (Hypericum perforatum) and warfarin: Dangerous liaisons! Turk J Gastroenterol. 2011;22(1):115.
Berry-Bibee EN, Kim MJ, Tepper NK, Riley HE, Curtis KM. Co-administration of St. John’s wort and hormonal contraceptives: a systematic review. Contraception. 2016;94(6):668–77. doi:10.1016/j.contraception.2016.07.010.
Van Strater AC, Bogers JP. Interaction of St John’s wort (Hypericum perforatum) with clozapine. Int Clin Psychopharmacol. 2012;27(2):121–4. doi:10.1097/YIC.0b013e32834e8afd.
Russo E, Scicchitano F, Whalley BJ, Mazzitello C, Ciriaco M, Esposito S, et al. Hypericum perforatum: pharmacokinetic, mechanism of action, tolerability, and clinical drug-drug interactions. Phytother Res. 2014;28(5):643–55. doi:10.1002/ptr.5050.
Schmidt M, Butterweck V. The mechanisms of action of St. John’s wort: an update. Wien Med Wochenschr. 2015;165(11–12):229–35. doi:10.1007/s10354-015-0372-7.
Stevinson C, Ernst E. Can St. John’s wort trigger psychoses? Int J Clin Pharmacol Ther. 2004;42(9):473–80.
Fahmi M, Huang C, Schweitzer I. A case of mania induced by hypericum. World J Biol Psychiatry. 2002;3(1):58–9.
Guzelcan Y, Scholte WF, Assies J, Becker HE. Mania during the use of a combination preparation with St. John’s wort (Hypericum perforatum). Ned Tijdschr Geneeskd. 2001;145(40):1943–5.
O’Breasail AM, Argouarch S. Hypomania and St John’s wort. Can J Psychiatry. 1998;43(7):746–7.
Schneck C. St. John’s wort and hypomania. J Clin Psychiatry. 1998;59(12):689.
Lal S, Iskandar H. St. John’s wort and schizophrenia. CMAJ. 2000;163(3):262–3.
Shimizu K, Nakamura M, Isse K, Nathan PJ. First-episode psychosis after taking an extract of Hypericum perforatum (St John’s Wort). Hum Psychopharmacol. 2004;19(4):275–6. doi:10.1002/hup.582.
Sakowska J, Anyzewska M, Lozak A, Kowalczuk A, Jablczynska R. Testing Pharmaceutical Release of Active Substances from Medicinal Products Containing St. John’s Wort. Acta Pol Pharm. 2016;73(2):395–401.
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study.
Conceptualization: MF, FM. Methodology: MF, FM. Supervision: MF, FM, FS. Writing (original draft preparation): MF, FM. Writing (review and editing): FS. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Approval was waived by the Modena Ethics Committee.
Dipartimento di Salute Mentale e Dipendenze Patologiche, Modena, Italy
Maria Ferrara, Francesco Mungai & Fabrizio Starace
Department of Mental Health & Drug Abuse, AUSL Modena, Viale Muratori 201, 41124, Modena, Italy
Francesco Mungai
Maria Ferrara
Fabrizio Starace
Correspondence to Francesco Mungai.
Ferrara, M., Mungai, F. & Starace, F. St John’s wort (Hypericum perforatum)-induced psychosis: a case report. J Med Case Reports 11, 137 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13256-017-1302-7
Complementary and alternative medicines
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Biography: Dr. Paul Rinkoff, Ph.D.
For over two decades, Paul has gained frontline, investigative, and senior leadership and management experience in the fields of policing and criminal justice. He has, and continues to lead several committees that promote equity and inclusivity.
Paul holds a PhD in Policy Studies from Ryerson University, specializing in Public Policy and Administration and an MA in Leadership Studies from the University of Guelph College of Business and Economics.
Paul’s most recent publications and research interests focus on police leadership and supervision, public sector leadership and management, leadership style and theory, implementation policy, organizational culture, community and neighborhood policing, and race relations.
The Journal of CSWB is a peer-reviewed and open access publication that is positioned to be the authoritative global resource for high-impact research that, uniquely, spans all human service and criminal justice sectors, with an emphasis on their intersections and collaborations. The Journal showcases the latest research, whether originating from within Canada or from around the world, that is relevant to Canadian and international communities and professionals.
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Sombrillo, New Mexico facts for kids
Sombrillo, New Mexico
Location of Sombrillo, New Mexico
Coordinates: 35°58′53″N 106°2′18″W / 35.98139°N 106.03833°W / 35.98139; -106.03833Coordinates: 35°58′53″N 106°2′18″W / 35.98139°N 106.03833°W / 35.98139; -106.03833
1.0 sq mi (2.5 km2)
5,741 ft (1,750 m)
508.0/sq mi (196.1/km2)
UTC-7 (Mountain (MST))
UTC-6 (MDT)
Sombrillo is a census-designated place (CDP) in Santa Fe County, New Mexico, United States. It is part of the Santa Fe, New Mexico Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 493 at the 2000 census.
Sombrillo is located at 35°58′53″N 106°2′18″W / 35.98139°N 106.03833°W / 35.98139; -106.03833 (35.981341, -106.038224).
According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of 1.0 square mile (2.6 km2), all land.
As of the census of 2000, there were 493 people, 179 households, and 138 families residing in the CDP. The population density was 508.0 people per square mile (196.2/km2). There were 191 housing units at an average density of 196.8 per square mile (76.0/km2). The racial makeup of the CDP was 76.67% White, 1.01% African American, 1.01% Native American, 0.61% Asian, 17.65% from other races, and 3.04% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 50.30% of the population.
There were 179 households, out of which 34.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 64.2% were married couples living together, 11.7% had a female householder with no husband present, and 22.9% were non-families. 21.2% of all households were made up of individuals, and 6.1% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.75 and the average family size was 2.99.
In the CDP, the population was spread out, with 21.9% under the age of 18, 9.5% from 18 to 24, 26.0% from 25 to 44, 34.9% from 45 to 64, and 7.7% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 40 years. For every 100 females, there were 83.3 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 86.0 males.
The median income for a household in the CDP was $47,000, and the median income for a family was $46,125. Males had a median income of $34,821 versus $33,352 for females. The per capita income for the CDP was $16,809. None of the families and 1.4% of the population were living below the poverty line, including no under eighteens and none of those over 64.
It is in Española Public Schools. Sombrillo has one elementary school, Tony E. Quintana "Sombrillo" Elementary. The comprehensive public high school is Española Valley High School.
Sombrillo, New Mexico Facts for Kids. Kiddle Encyclopedia.
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User talk:Yahya
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Wikipedia translation of the week: 2021-52[edit]
The winner this Translation of the week is
en:Luís Gama
Please be bold and help translate this article!
Luís Gonzaga Pinto da Gama (Salvador, June 21, 1830 – São Paulo, August 24, 1882) was a Brazilian Rábula (self-taught lawyer), abolitionist, orator, journalist and writer, and the Patron of the Abolition of Slavery in Brazil.
Born to a free black mother and a white father, he was nevertheless made a slave at the age of 10, and remained illiterate until the age of 17. He judicially won his own freedom and began to work as a lawyer on behalf of the captives, and by the age of 29 he was already an established author and considered "the greatest abolitionist in Brazil".
(Please update the interwiki links on Wikidata of your language version of the article after each week's translation is finished so that all languages are linked to each other.)
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en:Christmas tree production
Christmas tree production occurs worldwide on Christmas tree farms, in artificial tree factories and from native strands of pine and fir trees. Christmas trees, pine and fir trees purposely grown for use as a Christmas tree, are grown on plantations in many western nations, including Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. In Australia, the industry is relatively new, and nations such as the United States, Germany and Canada are among world leaders in annual production.
Great Britain consumes about 8 million trees annually, while in the United States between 35 and 40 million trees are sold during the Christmas season. Artificial Christmas trees are mostly produced in the Pearl River delta area of China. Christmas tree prices were described using a Hotelling-Faustmann model in 2001, the study showed that Christmas tree pr
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en:Lobster War
(fr:Conflit de la langouste entre la France et le Brésil)
The Lobster War (also known as the Lobster Operation; Portuguese: Guerra da Lagosta; French: Conflit de la langouste) was a dispute over spiny lobsters which occurred from 1961 to 1963 between Brazil and France. The Brazilian government refused to allow French fishing vessels to catch spiny lobsters 100 miles (160 km) off the Brazilian northeast coast, arguing that lobsters "crawl along the continental shelf", while the French maintained that "lobsters swim" and that, therefore, they might be caught by any fishing vessel from any country. The dispute was resolved unilaterally by Brazil, which extended its territorial waters to a 200-nautical-mile (370 km; 230 mi) zone, taking in the disputed lobsters' bed.
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https://myrightword.blogspot.com/2006/09/but-this-is-what-news-is-like-in.html
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There's a big hullabaloo about a program to be aired Sunday and Monday evenings in America entitled, The Path to 9/11.
In reaction, ABC announced:-
The two-part miniseries, scheduled to be broadcast on Sunday and Monday, is drawn from interviews and documents including the report of the Sept. 11 commission. ABC has described it as a "dramatization" as opposed to a documentary.
"For dramatic and narrative purposes, the movie contains fictionalized scenes, composite and representative characters and dialogue, and time compression," ABC said in its statement. "We hope viewers will watch the entire broadcast of the finished film before forming an opinion about it."
Funny, most of what passes for news reportage in Israel follows this pattern.
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NYTimes Op-ed Protests Transfer of Sacred Site
No, not the handing over of the Temple Mount precincts totally to the Muslim Waqf.
Not at all, although "Jewish" does sneak in.
Selling Off Apache Holy Land
ABOUT an hour east of Phoenix, near a mining town called Superior, men, women and children of the San Carlos Apache tribe have been camped out at a place called Oak Flat for more than three months, protesting the latest assault on their culture.
Three hundred people, mostly Apache, marched 44 miles from tribal headquarters to begin this occupation on Feb. 9. The campground lies at the core of an ancient Apache holy place, where coming-of-age ceremonies, especially for girls, have been performed for many generations, along with traditional acorn gathering. It belongs to the public, under the multiple-use mandate of the Forest Service, and has had special protections since 1955, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower decreed the area closed to mining — which, like cattle grazing, is otherwise common in national forests — because of its cultural and natural value. President Richard M. Nixon’s Interior Department in 1971 renewed this ban.
Despite these protections, in December 2014, Congress promised to hand the title for Oak Flat over to a private, Australian-British mining concern...Congress has handed over a sacred Native American site to a foreign-owned company for what may be the first time in our nation’s history.
The Apache are occupying Oak Flat to protest this action — to them, a sacrilegious and craven sell-off of a place “where Apaches go to pray,” in the words of the San Carlos Apache tribal chairman, Terry Rambler. The site will doubtless be destroyed for any purpose other than mining; Resolution Copper Mining will hollow out a vast chamber that, when it caves in, will leave a two-mile-wide, 1,000-foot-deep pit...
...“Why is this place sacred?” said Wendsler Nosie Sr., a former chairman of the San Carlos Apache, in a recent interview with Cronkite News. “No difference to Mount Sinai. How the holy spirit came to be.” If you don’t want to take his word for it, the archaeological record at Oak Flat contains abundant evidence that the Apache have been here “since well before recorded history,” according to congressional testimony by the Society for American Archaeology.
If Oak Flat were a Christian holy site, or for that matter Jewish or Muslim, no senator who wished to remain in office would dare to sneak a backdoor deal for its destruction into a spending bill — no matter what mining-company profits or jobs might result. But this is Indian religion. Clearly the Arizona congressional delegation isn’t afraid of a couple of million conquered natives.
If only the NYTimes would allow an op-ed that would express pro-Jewish rights on the Temple Mount.
Ah, but by then, Messiah would have come.
Shiloh and War in the South China Sea
Well, the USS Shiloh:
War Clouds Over South China Sea As U.S. Declares Right To Waters And U.S. Warship Arrives At Subic
The drumbeat of war on distant horizons is reverberating through Southeast Asia with increasingly strong declarations of U.S. determination to stop the Chinese from expanding their writ over the South China Sea, notably islands claimed by the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei.
While Defense Secretary Ashton Carter was in Singapore vowing that U.S. planes and ships would go wherever they wanted in international waters WAT -0.71%, the U.S. navy missile cruiser Shiloh was hoving into view at the historic Subic Bay port northwest of Manila.
Reports of Carter’s tough remarks at a gathering of defense ministers and the Shiloh’s visit to Subic Bay, the largest U.S. navy base before the Americans were forced to give it all up more than 20 years ago, were couched in euphemisms that scarcely masked the impression of spiraling tensions. “We want a peaceful resolution of all disputes,” Carter began. “A routine port call,” said a Philippine navy spokesman when asked what the Shiloh was doing at Subic Bay, in the once roaring American base town of Olongapo.
How far is the South China Sea from the United States and how far is the 'West Bank' (Judea and Samaria) from Israel?
Labels: Shiloh, USS Shiloh
Correcting A Book Review
Found some errors or rather incomplete information and omissions in a book review:
1. "It was Lehi that began the terror war against the British in 1940".
Well, if one starts in 1940, correct. But if you want to be historically correct, the blowing up of British objects like phone booths and post-offices and the assassination of British police office (engaged in torturing Jewish prisoners), then it started in 1939 after the publication of the British White Paper in May:
After Raziel's arrest, Hanoch Kalai, his deputy, was appointed Commander in Chief. Avraham Stern, who was then in Poland, was summoned back to Palestine and appointed head of the Information Department. The other members of the General Headquarters remained in their positions. At the first meeting of the General Headquarters under Kalai, it was decided to launch a second front against the British administration in retaliation for the publication of the White Paper. In accordance with Irgun procedure, the jailed commander was not consulted, and Raziel did not take part in decision-making.
The first operations directed against the British took place in Jerusalem. On June 2, 1939, Irgun fighters blew up three telephone network junctions. Close to 1,750 telephones were cut off, including some serving the army and the police. On the same day, a mine exploded near the Old City wall, killing five Arabs and injuring many more. After the Jerusalem operations, telephone network junctions were also blown up in Tel Aviv, and the railway line between Tel Aviv and Lydda was attacked.
Four days later the Irgun fighters again launched an attack on British targets. This time they damaged eight telephone network junctions, and dozens of public telephone structures. They also destroyed four of the British Electricity Corporation transformers, plunging the city into darkness. In all, they attacked 23 sites and dozens of fighters took part in the operation.
And Cairns and a colleague, Ronald Barker, were assassinated by an Irgun land mine on 26 August 1939 in Rehavia, Jerusalem, on the orders of then Irgun leader Hanoch Kalai.
2. "a poem written by Stern, which would become Lehi’s anthem".
True. But it was first the Irgun's anthem until Stern split off. The Irgun then adopted the thrid stanza of the Betar anthem.
3. "Stern was killed by the British in 1941".
February 1942. Raziel was killed, in Iraq, in 1941.
4. "after a successful British counter-terror operation, in which most of the Zionist leadership was rounded up, Ben-Gurion called off the Haganah".
Even before that operation, the 'Black Sabbath', Chaim Weizmann had been demanding the Hagana halt it terror campaign. B-G opposed it and he and Moshe Sneh left for Europe to fight for its continuation. There was a July 30th operation in Tel Aviv but that didn't affect the decision to halt the United Resistance Movement actions by the Hagana and Palmach as on August 22, Palyam frogmen attached a limpet mine to the side of the British cargo ship Empire Rival, which had been used to deport Jewish immigrants to Cyprus. A hole was blown in the ship's side.
5. "A total of 141 British soldiers and police and 40 terrorists died between August 1945 and August 1947, he writes, “including those executed or who committed suicide awaiting execution.”
That is quite a narrow time-frame.
The official May 15, 1948 White Paper reads:
Since the war, 338 British subjects had been killed in Palestine, while the military forces there had cost the British taxpayer 100 million pounds.
Labels: Irgun, Lechi
The Unworthiness of Sternhell
Ze'ev Sternhell gets it backwards but still correct when he writes:
After Prime Minister Levi Eshkol’s modest liberalization in 1963, it seemed the days of conquering the land had ended. But the Six-Day War halted the attempts to ratchet down the conquering nationalism and gradually shift to a situation in which tribal particularism could be tamed by the universal principles of democracy.
I have always posited that the 1948 war was but stage one and that the war of 1967 was but a continuation of Zionism's liberation struggle.
This perspective may sound harsh, and Strenhell certainly does his best to besmirch and deprecate Zionism and the intrinsic connection between the Jewish People and the Jewish Homeland, a reality that even fifty-one member countries – the entire League of Nations – unanimously decided and made into international law on July 24, 1922 as declared:
“Whereas recognition has been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country.
and its territory was defined in September 1922, after Britain stole TransJordan as laid out in Article 25 of the “Mandate for Palestine” which entitled the Mandatory to change the terms of the Mandate in the territory east of the Jordan River "temporarily":
“In the territories lying between the Jordan and the eastern boundary of Palestine as ultimately determined, the Mandatory shall be entitled, with the consent of the Council of the League of Nations, to postpone or withhold application of such provision of this Mandate as he may consider..."
as so:
On the North it is bounded by the French Mandated Territories of Syria and Lebanon, on the East by Syria and Trans-Jordan, on the South-west by the Egyptian province of Sinai, on the South-east by the Gulf of Aqaba and on the West by the Mediterranean.
So Sternhell's "claim of colonialism", if correct, which it isn't, would define all of the state of Israel as an unworthy project.
Worse, he attacks by applying abnormality of Zionism:
all Zionism’s goals had been attained within the existing borders. But even that tiny spark of normalization was obliterated by the great victory of ‘67.
Of course, a little matter of the local Arabs not recognizing, never having recognized and so far, still refusing to recognize any border acceptable to them does not configurate his thinking (and I apply that term hesitantly), not to mention the Arab terror. It's all Israel's/the Jews' fault.
We took, he implies, what wasn't ours. The Arabs-who-refer-to-themselves-as-'Palestinans' were, he would have us assume, an equal people, with equal political rights, with an equal national heritage and possessed an entity akin to a state. And this is a university professor.
So unworthy.
Even hellish.
What Will The Concessionists Say Now?
[after a decade of blogging, I tend to write/comment
concisely, pithily and to the point.
why waste your time and mine?]
One of the central points of those who support the policy that Israel should withdraw from the territories of its historic homeland, yield, surrender and concede and partition land, is that the US will come to our assistance if Israel is threatened.
And you believe that? That if it would want to, it could? In time?
Consider the implications of recent developments from this report:
The White House Treats a Foreign Policy Disaster Like a Political Crisis
Nearly one year after the ISIS hordes charged screaming over the Syrian border and sacked Mosul, they’ve repeated the feat in Ramadi – the capital of the restive Anbar province, and a city located just 70 miles from Baghdad. Simultaneously, ISIS forces launched an offensive to the north and captured the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra. In the face of this humiliation more than nine months after the start of renewed coalition bombing missions over Iraq, the White House dubiously continued to insist that everything was going according to plan. Except, there never was any plan.
“Look, there were several things that surprised us about ISIL,” outgoing Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey told PBS reporter Martin Smith in a recent exit interview. “The degree to which they were able to form their own coalition, both inside of Syria — and inside of northwestern Iraq; the military capability that they exhibited — the collapse of the Iraq Security Forces. Yeah, in those initial days, there were a few surprises.”
Are you sure America can perform militarily if Israel requires help if we retreat from the hills of Samaria and Judea? In time? Adequately and resolutely?
Posted by YMedad at 8:38 AM 4 comments:
Labels: US-Israel relations
Did Netanyahu Off the NYTimes?
Did I read that correctly?
Israel's PM Benjamin Netanyahu berated the New York Times for its coverage of Israel?
That the paper was engaged in meddling in Israel's affairs with a critical editorial, angrily telling the US daily to “know your place”?
Did he blast an “impolite” editorial in the New York Times last week which he said “literally gave orders to the United States”?
Did he say in a televised speech in Jerusalem, “As a newspaper, you [the New York Times] should know your place”? And "You are meddling in Israel’s affairs by writing something like this. By publishing this editorial, you are overstepping the limits of freedom”?
No. I did not.
Someone else:
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday accused the New York Times of meddling in Turkey’s affairs with a critical editorial, angrily telling the US daily to “know your place”.
In a growing controversy over media rights in Turkey ahead of 7 June legislative polls, Erdogan blasted an “impolite” editorial in the New York Times last week which he said “literally gave orders to the United States”.
“As a newspaper, you [the New York Times] should know your place,” he said in a televised speech in Istanbul.
“You are meddling in Turkey’s affairs by writing something like this. By publishing this editorial, you are overstepping the limits of freedom,” he said.
Of course, it would have been nice but we're so polite.
When A Soldier Goes On TV
On May 14, I participated as an audience observer in Tim Sebastian's New Arab Debates' series in Jerusalem on the question "MOTION: The occupation is destroying Israel".
It has made some waves if only, unfortunately, due to a soldier sympathetic to "Breaking the Silence" who asked a question about which Gideon Levy wrote a column. The video:
I even managed to ask a question, at 18:50.
And Tim shook my hand after the show, recalling my appearance on his HardTalk program, back in May 2003.
Getting back to the soldier, Shachar Berrin
Levy has him speaking so:
“...Just the other week, when some Border Police soldiers were rough with Christian tourists, another soldier, a colleague, said she couldn’t believe what they were doing: ‘I mean, come on, they are people, not Palestinians.’ I think that resonates throughout the occupied territories. I serve in the Jordan Valley, and we see every day how soldiers… look at these people not as human beings, not as someone who is equal, but someone who is less than them. And to think that we can just leave the racism and the xenophobia – that they will only be racist when they humiliate Palestinians – of course not… I think that once you are conditioned to think something, you bring it back with you and that it deeply affects Israeli society and causes it, as our president says, to be more racist.”
At his Facebook page, Dani Dayan relates to the fuss and that in his first part, the soldier made unsupported claims, painting with a wide swash of accusation, that most of the army is evil and thn withdrew to make a claim about kicking kids away and not all to shoot, if being bothered. But Haartz pushed on, and today has an editorial on it. It's main point:
that same damage from the occupation, against which Berrin warned, pursued him to a conference hall in Jerusalem and then sent him to prison for a week. In the words of the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, “The soldier was tried for speaking to the media without authorization and approval, as required by army orders.” Or, put more simply, the soldier was tried and jailed for telling the truth, contrary to the army’s orders.
That formulation is, of course, a perversion. The rule of not talking to the press applies to all ranks, in all situations and has nothing to do with the topic and certainly not with any so-called 'occupation'. If we take the Haaretz logic to its conclusion, the Bat Ayin soldier, Eldad Sela, who revealed, it is charged, army plans to dismantle outposts, was also simply expressing the truth and is unjustly being punished? And by the way, he is accused of espionage, a much more severe punishable crime. Or is only anti-occupation actions and words to be granted a special treatment of unlimited liberty?
Obama, Israel and Anti-Semitism
Selections from the troubling Obama interview
"And when I am then required to come to Israel’s defense internationally, when there is anti-Semitism out there, when there is anti-Israeli policy that is based not on the particulars of the Palestinian cause but [is] based simply on hostility, I have to make sure that I am entirely credible in speaking out against those things, and that requires me then to also be honest with friends about how I view these issues...
...he was adamant that he would not allow the Jewish right, and the Republican Party, to automatically define criticism of the Netanyahu government’s policies as anti-Israel or anti-Semitic...
I also raised another concern—one that the president didn’t seem to fully share. It’s been my belief that it is difficult to negotiate with parties that are captive to a conspiratorial anti-Semitic worldview not because they hold offensive views, but because they hold ridiculous views. As Walter Russell Mead and others have explained, anti-Semites have difficulty understanding the world as it actually works, and don’t comprehend cause-and-effect in politics and economics. Though I would like to see a solid nuclear deal (it is preferable to the alternatives) I don’t believe that the regime with which Obama is negotiating can be counted on to be entirely rational."
...I interjected by suggesting that anti-Semitic European leaders made irrational decisions, to which Obama responded, “They may make irrational decisions with respect to discrimination, with respect to trying to use anti-Semitic rhetoric as an organizing tool. At the margins, where the costs are low, they may pursue policies based on hatred as opposed to self-interest. But the costs here are not low, and what we’ve been very clear [about] to the Iranian regime over the past six years is that we will continue to ratchet up the costs, not simply for their anti-Semitism, but also for whatever expansionist ambitions they may have. That’s what the sanctions represent. That’s what the military option I’ve made clear I preserve represents. And so I think it is not at all contradictory to say that there are deep strains of anti-Semitism in the core regime, but that they also are interested in maintaining power, having some semblance of legitimacy inside their own country, which requires that they get themselves out of what is a deep economic rut that we’ve put them in, and on that basis they are then willing and prepared potentially to strike an agreement on their nuclear program.”
On Israel, Obama endorsed, in moving terms, the underlying rationale for the existence of a Jewish state, making a direct connection between the battle for African American equality and the fight for Jewish national equality. “There’s a direct line between supporting the right of the Jewish people to have a homeland and to feel safe and free of discrimination and persecution, and the right of African Americans to vote and have equal protection under the law,” he said. “These things are indivisible in my mind.”
In discussing the resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe, he was quite clear in his condemnation of what has become a common trope—that anti-Zionism, the belief that the Jews should not have a state of their own in at least part of their ancestral homeland, is unrelated to anti-Jewish hostility. He gave me his own parameters for judging whether a person is simply critical of certain Israeli policies or harboring more prejudicial feelings.
“Do you think that Israel has a right to exist as a homeland for the Jewish people, and are you aware of the particular circumstances of Jewish history that might prompt that need and desire?” he said, in defining the questions that he believes should be asked. “And if your answer is no, if your notion is somehow that that history doesn’t matter, then that’s a problem, in my mind. If, on the other hand, you acknowledge the justness of the Jewish homeland, you acknowledge the active presence of anti-Semitism—that it’s not just something in the past, but it is current—if you acknowledge that there are people and nations that, if convenient, would do the Jewish people harm because of a warped ideology. If you acknowledge those things, then you should be able to align yourself with Israel where its security is at stake, you should be able to align yourself with Israel when it comes to making sure that it is not held to a double standard in international fora, you should align yourself with Israel when it comes to making sure that it is not isolated.”...
Read it all.
Or read this.
“Applying double standards by requiring of [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation” is within President Obama’s own State Department definition of anti-Semitism.
From Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA: 5 important observations:
#1. "Prime Minister Netanyahu said a Palestinian state would not happen under his watch". This is the SAME thing Mr. Obama HIMSELF said last week (Al Arabiya 15 May 2015): "And what I think at this point, realistically, we can do is to try to rebuild trust -- not through a big overarching deal, which I don't think isprobably possible in the next year, given the makeup of the Netanyahu government, given the challenges I think that exist for President Abbas."
#2. The gaping flaws indicated by Iran in the developing Iran nuclear deal require a 5 second attention span to raise - Goldberg declines to mention any of them:
a. Inspection regime to exclude any serious inspection of Iranian military sites that may conceal nuclear program.b. Inspection regime inside nuclear facilities to exclude live monitoring (prohibit video feeds that might provide images of Iranian nuclear scientists)c. Ongoing development and construction of advanced centrifuges to slash break-out time permitted.d. Ongoing development, construction and even deployment of delivery systems for nuclear weapons permitted.
#3. The "rationality" argument vis-à-vis Iranian policy is fundamentally flawed by the refusal to address Iranian Twelver messianism:
Consider Bernard Lewis The Wall Street Journal Aug. 8, 2006: “In this context, mutual assured destruction, the deterrent that worked so well during the Cold War, would have no meaning. At the end of time, there will be general destruction anyway. What will matter will be the final destination of the dead -- hell for the infidels, and heaven for the believers. For people with this mindset, MAD is not a constraint; it is an inducement.”
#4. A profoundly bizarre claim: "They [Iran] are not a threat to the region because of their hardware. "
#5. A disturbing remark hinting at a policy of relying on Iran in the neighborhood: "How do we find effective partners to govern in those parts of Iraq that right now are ungovernable and effectively defeat ISIL, not just in Iraq but in Syria?"
Jerusalem As A Nincompoop's Non-Capital
A professor emeritus of geography, Gideon Biger, wrote this:
Once again Jerusalem Day arrived, and once again the prime minister repeated the clichéd mantra: “Jerusalem was and is the capital city of the Jewish people only.”
Is that really so – or is Benjamin Netanyahu, known for historic declarations that do not always accord with the historical truth, once again mistaken and misleading the masses?
Jerusalem, according to scientific research, has existed for about 4,000 years. During the first 1,000 years it had no connection to the Jewish people. Even in the Bible, the Book of Genesis tells about Melchizedek, the king of Salem, who came out to bless Abraham, who had no connection to Jerusalem. During the time of the patriarchs, Jerusalem did not figure in their activity at all. Even when the Israelites were in Egypt, Jerusalem was never mentioned, and when they wandered in the desert they spoke about the Land of Canaan – but not about Jerusalem.
The conquest of "the land" by Joshua, son of Nun, did not include taking over Jerusalem. It was actually the king of Jerusalem who organized the coalition of five monarchs against Joshua, and at the time the city was apparently the capital of another nation, not the Israelites.
The conquest of Jerusalem by the tribe of Judah, following the death of Joshua, led to the burning of the city rather than to settlement of the tribe there. Later on it was inhabited by the Jebusites, and only 1,000 years after its establishment did King David capture the city and turn it into his capital...
There's more here.
Some comments from friends of mine:
What a staggeringly dumb article.
Come On. Everyone knows the Capital of the Jews is Boca Raton
"During the time of the patriarchs, Jerusalem did not figure in their activity at all." Are there alternative theories about where Mt Moriah was? Some traditions have an alternative site near Mecca. So yeah - checkmate.
Which is where Abraham offered his son Yishmael as a sacrifice to God.
so David conquered Jerusalem only 3000 years ago. Jews were here through all that time except for periods when various conquerors specifically prevented Jews from being here, as after the crushing of the Bar Kokhba revolt, in the period after Constantine up to the Arab conquest [see, the Arabs did something good, they let Jews come back to Jerusalem] and during the Crusader period. Again, since 1000 BCE, Jews/Israelites were always here except when specifically excluded.
As to the Temple Mount, it is identified in the Bible as Mt Zion. Today's Mt Zion outside the Zion Gate takes its name from a Byzantine church there called the Nea Sion [its ruins are next to the parking lot in the Jewish Quarter]. This is not the original Mt Zion. As to Mt Moriah I don't think anybody knows where it is/was. The practice of naming Mt Zion/Temple Mt/ as Mt Moriah started with the Talmud, not the Bible.
Ridiculous. By this standard, nobody on earth has a valid capital city.
Did Biger get paid to write this?
Embarrassingly stupid. Perhaps he can explain why it appears 669 times in the Tanakh (not counting other equivalent references such as Zion).
How long has Paris been capital of the French? 2000 years ago, Paris was called Lutetia and was small settlement on a mud spit in the middle of the Seine river. It may have become the capital about 1000 years ago, roughly speaking. But 2000 years ago nobody called the country France, it was just Gaul. Cairo did not exist 2000 years ago. Damascus did exist 2000 years ago, but the people there did not speak Arabic and were not Arabs (there were probably some Arabs around). There was no Tunis and no Algiers.
But Weren't the "Pals." Here First?
The ancient acqueduct was built under the villages?
Word for word:
“With Joy Shall Ye Draw Water…”
A Section of Ancient Jerusalem’s Lower Aqueduct was Exposed in the Eastern Jerusalem Neighborhood of Umm Tuba
A section of Jerusalem’s Lower Aqueduct, which conveyed water to the city more than 2,000 years ago, was exposed in the Umm Tuba quarter (near Har Homa) during the construction of a sewer line in the neighborhood by the Gihon Company. This line is just part of an extensive project directed by Zohar Yinon, CEO of the Gihon Company Ltd, to install a modern sewer system for the benefit of the residents of Umm Tuba and Sur Bahar.
The Israel Antiquities Authority conducted an archaeological excavation there following the discovery of the aqueduct. According to Ya’akov Billig, the excavation director,“The Lower Aqueduct to Jerusalem, which the Hasmonean kings constructed more than two thousand years ago in order to provide water to Jerusalem, operated intermittently until about one hundred years ago. The aqueduct begins at the ‘En ‘Eitam spring, near Solomon’s Pools south of Bethlehem, and is approximately 21 kilometers long. Despite its length, it flows along a very gentle downward slope whereby the water level falls just one meter per kilometer of distance. At first, the water was conveyed inside an open channel and about 500 years ago, during the Ottoman period, a terra cotta pipe was installed inside the channel in order to better protect the water”.
The aqueduct’s route was built in open areas in the past, but with the expansion of Jerusalem in the modern era, it now runs through a number of neighborhoods: Umm Tuba, Sur Bahar, East Talpiot and Abu Tor. Since this is one of Jerusalem’s principal sources of water, the city’s rulers took care to preserve it for some two thousand years, until it was replaced about a century ago by a modern electrically operated system. Due to its historical and archaeological importance, the Israel Antiquities Authority is taking steps to prevent any damage to the aqueduct, and is working to expose sections of its remains, study them and make them accessible to the general public.
The Umm Tuba section of the aqueduct was documented, studied, and covered up again for the sake of future generations.
GraphicZionism: Jewish Footsteps
(with thanks)
Two Halves of the Rambam Together
I was privileged to attend tonight the opening of a special display of a Mishneh Torah, the classic Halachic codex of the Rambam, commissioned and completed ca. 1457 in northern Italy and illustrated in the Renaissance style of the time.
It was at the Israel Museum in the presence of the Rishon Letzion Yitzchak Yosef, the Apostolic Nuncio in Israel Archbishop Guiseppe Lazzarotto, Msgr. Cesare Pasini, the Vatican's Prefect of its Biblioteca Apostolica with a nice talk by Prof. Moshee Halbertal who spoke of the Rambam's approach that to be religious, one must learn to love, which is beyond fearful respect and can only be achieved through knowing God which, in turn, can only be gained by learning of his works in nature.
The two halves of the volume were separated some two centuries ago and ended up in the Vatican and in Germany and that second Jewish-held half was only recently located and purchased by the Israel Museum jointly with New York's Metropolitan Museum.
The two halves
The Nuncio
and also with James Synder, Museum Director (red tie)
The attendees
The Chief Rabbi and the Nuncio
James Snyder speaking
P.S. The title of the evening was a play on words - יד ביד - which is 'Hand in Hand' - but refers to the fact that the Rambam's work contained 14 sections which, in gammatria is יד, I think was lost to many of those who attended.
Labels: Judaism, Maimonides, Vatican
To Who Was President Rivlin Referring?
He couldn't be referring to President Rivlin here, could he?
I have nothing but regret for the discordant voices that we heard this morning, supporting the separation between Jews and Arabs on the basis of ideas that have no place being heard or said. Such statements go against the very foundations of the State of Israel, and impact upon our very ability to establish here a Jewish and democratic state. Such statements cause great damage to the State of Israel, and to the settlement movement. It is important we remember that our sovereignty obligates us to prove our ability to live side by side."
That was President Rivlin.
(Communicated by the President's Spokesperson)
Wednesday 20 May 2015 / 2 Sivan 5775
President Rivlin's Statements on This Morning's Events
"This morning, (Wednesday May 20th), as we witnessed the terror attack in Jerusalem we received a painful reminder of the complex security situation Israel's faces and the price we pay for our basic principles. We must confront terrorism firmly, whilst defending our democratic values as a country and as a people. I spoke this morning with the Minister of Defense, and I welcomed halting the process that could have led to an unthinkable separation between bus lines for Jews and Arabs.
"As one who loves the Land of Israel, I have nothing but regret for the discordant voices that we heard this morning, supporting the separation between Jews and Arabs on the basis of ideas that have no place being heard or said. Such statements go against the very foundations of the State of Israel, and impact upon our very ability to establish here a Jewish and democratic state. Such statements cause great damage to the State of Israel, and to the settlement movement. It is important we remember that our sovereignty obligates us to prove our ability to live side by side."
Further details: Jason Pearlman, Foreign Media Advisor
What A Difference in Run-overs
Was this in anyway connected to today's terror incident when an Arab resident of Jerusalem ran over two Border Policewomen?
Police officers on Tuesday afternoon shot and wounded a man who accelerated a vehicle in their direction, a spokesman said. The shooting happened in the parking lot. They were conducting an investigation when "a suspect accelerated his vehicle in the direction of two of the officers," according to a spokesman. Both officers opened fire, wounding the suspect. The man, who suffered non-life-threatening injuries, was taken to a hospital.
The genuine story:
Federal agents on Tuesday afternoon shot and wounded a man who accelerated a vehicle in their direction outside a West Palm Beach furniture store, a spokesman said.
The shooting happened in the parking lot of El Dorado Furniture at 1901 Okeechobee Blvd.
Special agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations were conducting an investigation when "a suspect accelerated his vehicle in the direction of two of the agents," according to Nestor Yglesias, an agency spokesman.
Both agents opened fire, wounding the suspect. The man, who suffered non-life-threatening injuries, was taken to a hospital.
Operation Brainwash
Just received this:
Join Extend’s Summer Tour of the West Bank! (June 8-12th!)
Have you ever wanted to explore life in the West Bank first-hand? We are offering a chance to meet
Palestinian and Israeli civil society leaders, businessmen, educators, political leaders and activists,
learn their stories, and discover first-hand the touchstones of West Bank life.
Join Extend on its upcoming tour of the West Bank, this June 8-12.
Extend, a non-profit organization offering highly-subsidized tours of the West Bank for young
Jewish Americans, warmly welcomes you on our next tour of the West Bank, this June 8-12th. Join
us as we visit Palestinian families, as well as historic, cultural and religious sites on a journey that
will deepen your understanding of life in the West Bank and in particular, will offer insights into
Palestinian perspectives on the conflict.
Open-minded, enthusiastic American Jewish college students of all political perspectives, eager to
get into deep conversations with people of myriad perspectives, are encouraged to apply.
The cost of the 5-day program is $300.
And here is a Sample Itinerary
Day 1: Jerusalem
Morning: Visit to All For Peace Radio Station, award-winning joint Israeli-Palestinian radio initiative.
Early afternoon: Visit to the Austrian Hospice for a chat with a filmmaker and Ph.D student in George Mason's conflict resolution program, on how to reconcile dueling Israeli-Palestinian narratives on the conflict.
Late afternoon: Walking tour of East Jerusalem with a Palestinian resident of the city. The walk explores the complex politics of the city, divided Arab-Jewish neighborhoods, and home demolitions.
Day 2: Hebron and Bethlehem
Morning: Tour of Hebron with Breaking the Silence, an organization that offers tours of the West Bank led by former IDF soldiers with a critical perspective on Israeli policy in the West Bank.
Late afternoon: Meeting with the English-language spokesperson for the Hebron settler movement and a tour of the Hebron settlement.
Evening: Dinner in Bethlehem with a former Palestinian combatant and member of Hands of Peace.
Day 3: Gush Etzion
Morning: Trail walk through the hills outside of Bethlehem with a settler disciple of Rabbi Froman, a rabbi committed to achieving peace between settlers and Palestinians. During the trail walk participants discuss the Jewish and Palestinian connection to the land.
Early afternoon: Tour of villages within the Gush Etzion settlement. Introductions to a wide array of settlers.
Evening: Dinner outside Ramallah with Palestinian peace activists at a Palestinian home.
Day 4: Nabi Saleh and Bi'lin
Morning: Nabi Saleh: Visit a family in this small village that is at the heart of the protest movement, and learn about the village's weekly protest and tensions with nearby settlements.
Afternoon: Bi'lin: Meet a number of local activists in this village and learn about the nonviolent protests that culminated in an Israeli high court decision to reroute the Wall.
Evening: Discussion with former PA officials on negotiating policy, divides within Palestinian society, and more.
Day 5: Ramallah, South Hebron hills, Jerusalem
Morning: Conference with international lawyers from Military Court Watch on the West Bank legal system. Visits to Palestinian families who have gone through the legal system.
Afternoon: Meeting with prominent Palestinian businessmen on their ideal economic relationship to Israel.
Evening: The tour concludes once everyone has been deposited in Jerusalem!
Everything seems quite clear except whether the "former PA officials" also were terrorists, or are.
(thanks to JN)
__________________________---
Zionist youth movement involvement.
The First Settlement Swap?
Following the Man of YamhadSettlement and Territory at Old Babylonian Alalah
Jacob Lauinger, The Johns Hopkins University
€162,00 $210.00
Legal texts recording the purchase or exchange of entire settlements are among the most important cuneiform tablets discovered at Old Babylonian/Middle Bronze Age (Level VII) Alalah. Following the Man of Yamhad is the first book-length study of these legal texts and the socio-economic practice that they document. The author explores the nature of the alienated settlements, the rights enjoyed by their owners, the underlying system of land tenure, and the larger political context in which the transactions occurred. The study is supported by extensive collations and up-to-date editions of relevant legal and administrative texts. Its conclusions will be of interest to anyone working on the history, society, and economy of the Bronze Age Near East.
Darn That Danino
Back in November, we learned that Israel's
Police chief won’t let any more MKs on Temple Mount
He explained that
...behavior [going to the Temple Mount] — even by MKs — can endanger public safety and security
and, therefore, despite MKs' immunity, he will not allow such 'behavior'.
We learned, further that the head of the national police, Yochanan Danino,
singled out MKs whose visits to the site have been accompanied by posts on social media...these lawmakers’ intentions were to “provoke and make remarks about changing the law on the Temple Mount [that allows Jewish visitors but bars them from praying there], which is exploited by [Muslim] extremists as a sign of a changing status quo.”
So, you would presume only Jews wish to alter the status quo.
But here can see MK Ahmed Tibi on the Mount - via social media even -
and he is demanding a Muslim-only approach (hear him here).
Isn't that campaigning for the altering of the status quo?
I can only presume that the pro-Mulsim status quo is even more sacred than the Temple Mount's sanctity for the Jews or the lawful right of Jews to pray there.
And that being so, I can further presume that Danino prefers even more anti-Jewish incitement by Muslim Arabs, supported by a MK, rather than the protection of Jewish rights.
That is a very sorry state of affairs.
I would have suggested Danino go back to bed but I feel that would unfairly implicate him in other police activity.
Posted by YMedad at 9:27 AM 11 comments:
Labels: Ahmed Tibi, status quo, Temple Mount
Is Netanyahu Down In the Dumps?
It started in 1996, then the owner of the store over the basement was abducted under orders of Arafat, who was asked by Egypt's Mubarak to persuade him to give basement to Copts but he refused, was then referred to as a Subterranean volcano in 2009 and by 2010, we were updated about the ownership of a long-forgotten medieval cellar that for centuries has been filled with rubbish.
The cellar, which dates to at least the 12th century, lies in Jerusalem, and is claimed by both a Palestinian Muslim shopkeeper and Egyptian Coptic Christians who have responsibility over part of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, one of Christianity's holiest site.
The legal battle over the centuries-old vaulted stone cellar has been festering for 14 years...Antonios al-Orshaleme, general secretary of the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate in Jerusalem, insists the basement is holy ground and was once part of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, revered by most Christians as the site where Jesus Christ was crucified and buried.
...The church was built in the fourth century. Its destruction seven centuries later provided an impetus for the Crusades. It was rebuilt in 1048 following agreement between the Byzantine Empire and the region's Muslim rulers. "Here is a monastery, below is also a monastery," says Orshaleme.
Not so, says lawyer Reuven Yehoshua, who represents storekeeper Hazam Hirbawi. "For 800 years this cellar was used as a garbage dump," says Yehoshua.
And, basically, PM Binyamin Netanyahu may have to resolve it.
Israel court stumped by holy row over property near Church of the Holy Sepulchre
The owner is dead but his son and his Israeli lawyers keep on.
This week, a report (in Hebrew) indicates the decision was that thee cellar belongs to ... Hirbawi.
And you thought the Temple Mount was the only troublesome holy site?
(thanks to RH)
Posted by YMedad at 3:58 PM 14 comments:
Labels: Copts, holy sites
When July Becomes June
In Muslim countries, July 4th will be a month early this year:
Ramadan will be starting June 18th and ending mid-July.
Posted by YMedad at 11:01 AM 384 comments:
Labels: Islam customs
Vatican To Lose Mount Zion?
The Vatican will be recognizing some entity that calls itself the 'state of Palestine'.
If it ever thought that after years of negotiations it will now obtain more than just a right of access to the Cenacle on Mount Zion, a revered Jewish site, I think that's a no.
Or that should be a no.
In 1537, Jews managed to expell the Franciscans from the site, which was a Jewish synagogue, after they took it over in the early 14th century.
Posted by YMedad at 10:16 AM 20 comments:
Labels: Mt. Zion, Vatican
A Thanksgiving
I attended the thanksgiving celebration of Yehuda Glick, donated by the Terasa Restaurant, last night at the Begin Center:
From Arutz 7's report:
and from Channel 2's report:
Are Biblical Prayers Permissible?
And now, Qurei is condemning the "storming of Al-Aqsa" and the "performance of Talmudic prayers"
If we perform Biblical prayers, is that okay?
But, of course, using the term "Talmudic" is anti-Semitic.
Member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Affairs Department Jerusalem Ahmed Qurei warned of the risks and repercussions of the storming by a radical settler groups to the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque through the Mughrabi Gate, heavily protected and enhanced by special units of the Israeli occupation police, who do many tours and violations.
He stressed the seriousness of the attempt settler extremist perform Talmudic prayers on the cusp of the series door inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque in a provocative step to the feelings of Muslim worshipers, describing it extremism and blunt aggression on Al-Aqsa and the holy sites in Jerusalem, with the aim of desecration, and the imposition of policy the status quo and make a normal intrusion process, all the way to give these extremists an opportunity to establish prayer in Al-Aqsa Mosque.
...He held the Israeli government fully responsible, what is going on in the city of Jerusalem from the daily violations of continuous incursions consecutive Al-Aqsa Mosque and to provide support and protection to the settlers and extremists by the extreme Israeli right-wing government to carry out incursions
And he formulated with Shimon Peres the Oslo Accords as a 'moderate'.
Posted by YMedad at 7:24 AM 1 comment:
Labels: Ahmed Qurei, Temple Mount
Second Temple Recognition
Well, one should be thankful even for little things:
The third holiest site in Islam, the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound is also venerated as Judaism's most holy place as it sits where Jews believe the First and Second Temples once stood.
Following Israel's occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967, Israel has maintained an agreement with the Islamic trust that controls the Al-Aqsa compound not to allow non-Muslim prayer in the area.
Jewish prayer is allowed at the neighboring Western Wall, which is the last remnant of the Second Temple.
However, Israeli forces regularly escort Jewish visitors to Al-Aqsa, leading to anger among Muslim worshipers.
At least they acknowledge that denying the Temple is stupid and silly.
Looking for Kabni or Kotin
From the JTA report:
21 Jews Slain in Tiberias Massacre, Worst Since ’29; Synagogue, Homes Razed
An invasion of ancient Tiberias on the shore of the Galilee, in which at least 21 Jews — including an American citizen and his wife — were massacred by an Arab band wielding bomb, rifle and torch, sent a wave of indignation surging through Jewish Palestine today. The massacre was the worst since the Hebron onslaught in 1929.
While the Government clamped a 22-hour curfew on the town and searches of ruined houses went ahead — an official communique predicting that more victims would probably be found in the debris – troops pursued the arab band and was reported to have contacted it at Lubia village.
...The attack was launched at nine o’clock last night, according to the official account, when an armed band entered Tiberias in two parties, from the north and from the south. They cut telephone lines, then, at a signal of shrill whistles from the hills around the town, began to shoot...Two of the Jewish victims were not immediately found. The others were as follows:
Joshua Ben-Arieh, his wife, Shoshanah, and a son, Arieh, stabbed and burned to death; another son, Moshe, one-and-a-half years old, shot dead.
Rivka Leimer, 10, and her brothers, Chaim, 12, and ezra, 8, stabbed and burned to death. Both families were in the Ben-Arieh house at the time of the attack.
Rachel Mizrachi, 26, and her five children, Ezra, Miriam, Yochebed, Samuel and Hephzibah, aged 12, 5, 3, 2 and I, respectively, killed while the father, Shimon Yochanan Mizrachi, was on guard duty in a distant part of the city.
Menachem Kabni, an American citizen, and his wife stabbed and burned to death. His sister escaped. what part of the United States Kabni came from was not ascertained immediately.
Ezekiel Katz, 42, killed when the synagogue was burned down.
Two Jewish constables, Israel Bookman and Zvi Chatzkelevitz, killed during the shooting, and also Jacob Gross.
Anyone have knowledge of the Kabni family?
...the Arabs broke in and stabbed and burned to death Mr. Kabin [an elderly American Jew who had recently come to Palestine] and his sister...
More: seems from Davar newspaper of Oct. 4, the name is Kotin or Kutin:
and he arrived four years previously and was a synagogue gabbai.
After a further search, seems for sure Kotin and not Kabani. From the Palestine Post, October 4:
Giuditta Riva and International Law
Circumcision Can Prevent Crime
Wines from Binyamin Region
Left - In
Punch Out Counterpunch
At What Time Do You Decide?
I'm A Centrist
R & R - Complimenting Journalists
Throwing Dirt in Our Eyes
Roman Crap
Yes YAS
To The Attention of Peter Beinart
GraphicZionism: Wrong-turn Cliffhanger
The Spoils Go to the Victor
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https://nuxulu.com/news/square-license/
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Square License
A license (American English) or licence (British English) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit).
A license can be granted by a party to another party as an element of an agreement between those parties. A shorthand definition of a license is “an authorization to use licensed material.”
In particular, a license may be issued by authorities, to allow an activity that would otherwise be forbidden. It may require paying a fee or proving a capability. The requirement may also serve to keep the authorities informed on a type of activity, and to give them the opportunity to set conditions and limitations.
A licensor may grant a license under intellectual property laws to authorize a use (such as copying software or using a (patented) invention) to a licensee, sparing the licensee from a claim of infringement brought by the licensor. A license under intellectual property commonly has several components beyond the grant itself, including a term, territory, renewal provisions, and other limitations deemed vital to the licensor.
Term: many licenses are valid for a particular length of time. This protects the licensor should the value of the license increase, or market conditions change. It also preserves enforceability by ensuring that no license extends beyond the term of the agreement.
Territory: a license may stipulate what territory the rights pertain to. For example, a license with a territory limited to “North America” (Mexico/United States/Canada) would not permit a licensee any protection from actions for use in Japan.
A shorthand definition of license is “a promise by the licensor not to sue the licensee”. That means without a license any use or exploitation of intellectual property by a third party would amount to copying or infringement. Such copying would be improper and could, by using the legal system, be stopped if the intellectual property owner wanted to do so.
Intellectual property licensing plays a major role in business, academia and broadcasting. Business practices such as franchising, technology transfer, publication and character merchandising entirely depend on the licensing of intellectual property. Land licensing (proprietary licensing) and IP licensing form sub-branches of law born out of the interplay of general laws of contract and specific principles and statutory laws relating to these respective assets.
Content from wikipedia.
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https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/1452
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2nd millennium
14th century – 15th century – 16th century
1420s 1430s 1440s – 1450s – 1460s 1470s 1480s
March – Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor becomes the last to be crowned in Rome.
Portuguese navigator Diogo de Teive discovers Corvo Island in the Azores.
18 June – Pope Nicholas V issues the bull Dum Diversas, legitimising the colonial slave trade.
October – English troops under John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, land in Guyenne, France, and retake most of the province without a fight.
A major eruption of the South Pacific volcano Kuwae in Vanuatu has a subsequent global cooling effect (the eruption released more sulfate than any other event in the past 700 years).
Battle of Bealach nam Broig, a Scottish clan battle.
Murder of William Douglas, 8th Earl of Douglas by James II of Scotland at Stirling Castle.
Revolt of Ghent: Forces of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, clash multiple times with rebel militia from Ghent in the region around Ghent.
February 6 – Joana, Crown Princess of Portugal (d. 1490)
March 10 – King Ferdinand II of Aragon (d. 1516)
April 15 – Leonardo da Vinci, Italian artist and inventor (d. 1519)
April 19 – King Frederick IV of Naples (d. 1504)
July 10 – King James III of Scotland (d. 1488)
July 27 – Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan (d. 1508)
September 21 – Girolamo Savonarola, Italian religious reformer and ruler of Florence (d. 1498)
October 2 – King Richard III of England (d. 1485)
December 10 – Johannes Stöffler, German mathematician (d. 1531)
Svitrigaila, Grand Prince of Lithuania
Michał Bolesław Zygmuntowicz, Prince of Black Ruthenia
May 26 – John Stafford, Archbishop of Canterbury
December 12 – Guillaume Huin d'Estaing, Catholic cardinal
Nicholas Close, English bishop
Gemistus Pletho, philosopher
William Douglas, 8th Earl of Douglas
Retrieved from "https://simple.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1452&oldid=5321669"
This page was last changed on 8 February 2016, at 00:41.
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https://statstennis.com/news/article-details/players-who-have-won-both-the-russian-tournaments-on-the-pro-tour
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MARIN CILIC ACCEDE AL SECONDO TURNO DEL TORNEO DI ROTTERDAM on Flickr by Tennis Streaming under CC2.0
On the ATP World Tour, Russia hosts two important tournaments during the tailend of the season, each of which rewards its victor with 250 ranking points. These events are held at St. Petersburg and Moscow and both are over two decades old. In 1990, by the efforts of tennis promoter Sasson Khakshouri, the Kremlin Cup became Russia’s first ever International Tennis tournament and five years later, the St. Petersburg Open followed it in the same distinction.
As far as the surface is concerned, the Kremlin Cup was played on carpet up until 2007, after which it was permanently played on hard court. However, St. Petersburg had a frequent seesaw between hard and carpet courts. From 1995-1999 and 2004-2007, it was played on carpet whereas in the remaining years up until recent times, it is played on hard surface. The Petersburg Sports and Concert Complex was home of the St. Petersburg Open up until 2013. The competition was not held in 2014 and after that the Sibur Arena became the new battleground for claiming the title at St. Petersburg Open. Only four players have been able to win titles at both St.Petersburg and Moscow. Of those, only one has won both the tournaments in the same calendar year.
1. Yevgeny Kafelnikov
In the inaugural edition of the St. Petersburg Open, former World No.1 and two-time grand slam champion Yevgeny Kafelnikov was the top seed for the event. Kafelnikov reached the final, dropping only one set en route and faced unseeded player Guillaume Raoux for the title. Kafelnikov defeated him 6-2 6-2 to win the first ever St. Petersburg Open and his then fifth career title overall.
The following year, Kafelnikov returned to the final of the St. Petersburg Open but lost to Magnus Gustafsson in straight sets. Later that year, Kafelnikov reached the final of the Kremlin Cup for the first time in his career. There, he was defeated by Goran Ivanisevic 3-6 6-1 6-3. In 1997, the Russian made it to the final of the Kremlin Cup yet again. This time he won the title, defeating Petr Korda 7-6 6-4. But that was not all the glory that Kafelnikov achieved at the Kremlin Cup. From 1997 to 2001, he won five consecutive titles and is until now the most successful player at Moscow.
2. Mikhail Youzhny
In 2004, three of the top five seeds at the St. Petersburg Open were Russians – Marat Safin (1), Mikhail Youzhny (4), Nikolay Davydenko (5). Top seeded Marat Safin bowed out in the quarter-finals, losing to Michael Llodra. Nikolay Davydenko would fall to Karol Beck in the second round, who would later defeat Michael Llodra in the semi-finals to set up a clash with Mikhail Youzhny for the title match. Except for his quarter-final win against Julien Benneteau, Youzhny had dropped a set in each of his matches en route the final. However, in the final, the Russian would defeat his Slovak opponent 6-2 6-2 to win his first title at St. Petersburg.
Five years later, Youzhny was seeded third at the 2009 Kremlin Cup where his compatriot Nikolay Davydenko was the top seed. Davydenko lost in the opening round against unseeded player Marat Safin, who was then bundled out in the next round by Evgeny Korolev. Mikhail Youzhny cruised into the final without dropping a set and would face Janko Tipsarevic for the championship. The Serb would take the opening set in a tiebreaker that he won 7-5. However, Youzhny came back to take the final two sets 6-0 6-4 and became only the second player and also the second Russian to win titles at least once at St.Petersburg and Moscow. Youzhny’s win at St. Petersburg in 2004 and at the Kremlin Cup in 2009 is also the last time that a Russian won these two tournaments.
3. Marin Cilic
In 2011, Janko Tipsarevic won the Kremlin Cup, defeating compatriot Viktor Troicki in the final. In the following week, Tipsarevic reached the final at St. Petersburg and was attempting to become the first player to win titles at St. Petersburg and Moscow in the same calendar year. Gilles Simon was the top seed for the event but lost to fellow Frenchman Adrian Mannarino in the opening round. Fourth seed Marin Cilic defeated the fifth seeded Mikhail Youzhny to reach the final. On the other side of the net, Cilic was up against Tipsarevic who had dropped only a single set in the entire week. However, Cilic defeated Tipsarevic 6-3 3-6 6-2 to win his first title at St. Petersburg.
In 2007, Cilic was defeated in the Round of 16 at the Kremlin Cup. Years later in 2014, he made a second appearance at Moscow. He was the second seed of the event and was a favourite for the title after top seeded Milos Raonic was defeated by Ricardas Berankis in the opening round. Cilic reached the final dropping only two sets and was up against Roberto Bautista Agut in the final, who was yet to drop a set in the tournament. Cilic won the match 6-4 6-4 and became the third player and the first non-Russian player to win titles at St. Petersburg and Moscow. Cilic and Bautista Agut would contest the final the following year and the Croatian would win with the same scoreline to successfully defend his title.
4. Damir Dzumhur
In 2017, with strong competitors like Roberto Bautista Agut, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Fabio Fognini in the draw, it was Bosnia & Herzegovina’s Damir Dzumhur who was the surprise element in the St. Petersburg Open. Second seed Tsonga lost to Jan-Lennard Struff in the quarter-finals. In the semis, Struff was up against Dzumhur, who had upset sixth seed Paolo Lorenzi in the opening round. Dzumhur defeated Struff 6-3 7-5 to reach the final. Top seed Bautista Agut and third seed Fognini decided the outcome of their match in three sets as the Italian eventually won 2-6 7-6 7-6. In the final, Fognini would begin strongly, taking the opening set 6-3. However, Dzumhur would stage a massive fightback, which ultimately resulted in Fognini losing the final two sets 6-4 6-2. Damir Dzumhur had won his first ever ATP World Tour level title.
A month later, Dzumhur was seeded sixth for the Kremlin Cup. He reached the semi-finals and defeated countryman and qualifier Mirza Basic 6-0 7-6. Basic had defeated Daniil Medvedev in the quarter-finals who had in turn defeated top seed Pablo Carreno Busta in the second round. Ricardas Berankis had entered the tournament with a protected ranking and had made the most of it, defeating third seed Adrian Mannarino in the semi-finals. Mannarino had won against lucky loser Alexander Bublik in the quarter-finals who had ousted second seed Albert Ramos Vinolas in the second round. In the final, Dzumhur defeated Berankis 6-2 1-6 6-4 to become the first man to win the titles at St. Petersburg and Moscow in the same calendar year.
The only Masters 1000 tournament played in Asia will commence its 10th edition on October 7th at ....
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https://www.afronomicslaw.org/2020/03/09/in-conversation-with-an-international-commercial-law-expert-dr-bolanle-adebola-on-her-choices-and-the-complexities-of-corporate-insolvency-law/
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In Conversation with an International Commercial Law Expert: Dr Bolanle Adebola on her Choices and the Complexities of Corporate Insolvency Law
Afronomicslaw
To mark the 2020 International Women’s Day, Afronomicslaw celebrates Dr Bolanle Adebola’s brilliant contributions to corporate insolvency law. Dr Adebola is a Lecturer in Law at the University of Reading and Convenor, Commercial Law Research Network Nigeria. Her thought-provoking research has generated robust discussions in Nigeria and the United Kingdom.
Afronomicslaw (A): Can you please tell us about your research?
Bolanle Adebola (BA): I research on corporate insolvency law, specifically considering how to develop effective corporate rescue systems. You will find across the globe that there has been a move towards having rescue systems as opposed to systems that lead to the liquidation or destruction of companies that are in trouble or that are troubled. Corporate rescue systems simply refer to the processes through which companies that are unable to pay their debt can be rehabilitated, or at least the businesses that they run can be preserved to continue providing value within the economy. The kinds of value that preserving such a company or business would contribute to the society include providing employment, contributing to taxes, providing access to a wide variety of goods or services which improve competition and choice, as well as giving entrepreneurs the motivation to try again if they fail. Having companies or businesses also contributes significantly to the general social and economic wellbeing of the communities where they are located. However, from time to time, companies fall into financial trouble. The challenge for corporate insolvency lawmakers is to ensure that the legal systems support the companies or businesses that can survive, to navigate the hopefully temporary challenges that they face.
In the United Kingdom (UK), the most topical aspect of corporate insolvency law or its corporate rescue ambit is the prepack and it is the area on which I have been writing: ‘how to ensure that we provide an effective oversight system for prepack rescue.’ A prepack is short for a pre-packaged administration. It is essentially an abridged administration. Administration is the main rescue procedure in the UK. It accounts for most of the rescues that we have in the UK. From 2002/2003 we started to see a growth in prepackaged administration. The key differences between the pre-packaged administration and the full or traditional administration are transparency and inclusion. In the traditional administration, the various stakeholders contribute to decision making. In the prepack variant, the weaker creditors as a group tend to be excluded from the negotiations and only become aware of the prepack after it has been completed. There are reasons why the prepack is conducted in this way. The lack of consultation has been said to enable the parties to make decisions very quickly, while the lack of transparency is said to prevent premature dismantling of the supply/customer chain and help retain key employees. Both the lack of transparency and inclusion have been said to contribute towards the preservation of these distressed businesses.
The important question is whether the value that we get from excluding these stakeholders should trump the value that we should have as a society in having procedurally just systems that reflect the values that we espouse as a society. These are the areas that I have been writing on and that I find interesting.
A: How did you get involved in this complex area of the law?
BA: My first interaction with corporate insolvency law was when I had just finished my undergraduate studies in Nigeria. My father, who is a lawyer, had a case on liquidation. He assigned me a project on this case, which required me to undertake some research. The Nigerian liquidation system is appended to the Nigerian Company Law. We still have a fusion of company law and corporate insolvency law. I enjoyed company law very much and was happy to get the experience. What stood out the most for me was the impact that the failure of the company that we were researching had on the lives of its employees. The devastation that they faced could not be quantified. By the end of the process, some had lost their lives, many could no longer afford to send their children to the same schools, many had been forced to move homes, those who were the sole breadwinners for their families saw a massive drop in their purchasing power and their places within social circles. If you want to see how people’s lives can change overnight, just take a look at company failures and their impact on employees.
At the time, I did not know what corporate insolvency law was. I just researched the liquidation question, while my dad looked for ways in which to recoup not only unpaid remuneration but crucially pensions and gratuities. As you know, Nigeria has no safety welfare. We were looking at complete loss here. One of the issues that my dad and I often discussed during the case was the fact that there was the opportunity to save or preserve something of the business - as we described it at the time - but it appeared that there was no political will. In addition, there was no effective system in Nigeria to create such an outcome.
When I got to the UK to undertake a Master’s degree, a year later, I studied corporate finance, within which we studied security; in particular, charges. As we analysed the role and effectiveness of the two types of charges, I was introduced to the UK’s insolvency law system. It is at insolvency that the effectiveness of a charge becomes important. It is the effective charge-holders who tend to make up the senior creditors and become those who would be included in the case of a pre-pack. Those without charges would be the weaker creditors that are excluded from pre-pack decision-making.
It was within the context of my Master’s degree that I was introduced to the notion of corporate rescue. I remember the first time I heard about administration. I recall thinking to myself, perhaps if Nigeria had administration, we might have applied that to rescue or save the company and business in ‘my first’ liquidation case. I decided to write my Master’s thesis on the comparison between the options available to a distressed company in Nigeria and those available to a distressed company in the UK. My dissertation supervisor thought that it was an excellent project and encouraged me to develop my ideas further. So, I decided to undertake a PhD. I was fortunate to have been supervised by Professor Ian Fletcher, who was the doyen of corporate insolvency law in the UK and one of the most recognisable names in corporate insolvency law across the globe.
A: You have written ground-breaking articles, including “Common Law, Judicial Precedents and the Nigerian Receivership Procedure” and “Proposed Feasibility Oversight for Pre-Pack Administration in England and Wales: Window Dressing or Effective Reform?” What informs your scholarly interventions?
BA: It depends. The earlier pieces I wrote focused on the rescue system in Nigeria, such as the ‘Common Law’ paper, while the latter pieces have focused on the rescue system in the UK. That is also a timeline of my research trajectory. When I started, as I mentioned, I was trying to solve Nigeria’s problems. When I thoroughly examined the Nigerian rescue system, I found that there were two main options available within the law. One is schemes of arrangements, and the other is the receivership system. One interesting feature of the Nigerian system for me was that it was misunderstood both within Nigeria and outside its borders. Within Nigeria, the Nigerian receivership system was read like a direct transplant of the system in England and Wales. It was in the process of trying to explain to colleagues that the Nigerian receivership system was a modification or an improvement of the system received from the British, that I wrote papers like ‘The Duty of the Nigerian Receiver to ‘Manage’ the Company’ and the ‘Common Law’ paper indicated above. The former was written to show that the Nigerian receiver had a broader role than her British counterpart, while the latter was written to show how the courts misinterpreted receivership in our locus classicus. I was happy to see that the Supreme Court ultimately redirected itself.
As my research developed, I realised that the questions we were grappling with in Nigeria, which we thought that we would find answers to in the UK through comparative studies, could not be answered through comparative analysis because even the UK had not resolved those questions either. These questions, including juggling multifaceted principles and values, go right to the heart of any rescue system, including those of the UK and the UK was scrambling for answers too. For that reason, I started to write more about the core of corporate rescue; asking more principled questions and using the UK system as a case study because it was also in the middle of the heated debates on the directions that its law should take. By 2013/2014, I was asking ‘what is corporate rescue as a concept?’ ‘how do we grapple with it?’ I came to the conclusion that it was a vague concept. No one really can answer what is in or out. Business rescue, company rescue, both are rescue. The question was how to create effective systems that work for the cross-section of stakeholders involved when a company fell into financial trouble.
By 2015, I got enmeshed in the raging debate in the UK on pre-packs. The Government had just investigated the prepack that I talked about at the start and introduced reforms. I published my opinions that the reforms were ill-advised and would fail because my research goes all the way back to the 1830s when the US rescue system was created. Unknown to most people, the United States (US) has experimented a fair bit. The 2015 UK reforms had been tried before in the era of the New Deal in the US (post-great depression) and had failed. Hence, weaving comparative and doctrinal methods, I explained that the reforms ignored the future survival of the entity, which required a careful look at financial and economic rehabilitation, as well as a compulsory approach to oversight. By 2018/2019, the voluntary and limited approach to oversight had clearly failed. I was sad to note that the Government’s decision had failed. I guess I could say that my choices of topics have been influenced by the questions that I have been trying to find answers to.
A: In addition to Professor Ian Fletcher, which other scholars have inspired your research, and why?
BA: To start with, I cannot praise Professor Fletcher enough for giving me the space to make certain kinds of arguments during my PhD. The one thing he urged me to do was to be temperate in the delivery of my points. Corporate insolvency law is incredibly emotive. While encouraging the original and often distinctive ideas that I had, he would ask me: what is the evidence for this? Strengthen your evidence, be moderate in your delivery.
I have had other inspirations. One of them has just ended her bid for the Democratic nomination in the on-going Democratic Party Presidential primary contest in the US. She is Senator Elizabeth Warren. Senator Warren started as a researcher and lecturer on corporate insolvency law (or bankruptcy law, as it is called in the US). She championed the empirical approach to corporate insolvency law research. She delivered her points in clear, easy to follow language. Essentially, she made corporate insolvency law a real-life issue. It was not merely about some greedy people. It was about real-life people and had real-life effects on everyday people. Thus, the changes to the law had to be balanced and carefully considered to avoid unintended consequences. She challenged the libertarian order of the day through her approach. I was just enthralled. Other scholars that have inspired my research include Senator Warren’s frequent co-author, Professor Jay Lawrence Westbook and another empiricist, Professor Lynn LoPucki. Also, interestingly, those who challenged her opinion like Professor Douglas Baird and Professor David Skeel. The UK also has very interesting insolvency scholars, many in the younger generation that have been seeking to create a theory of corporate rescue. If I started the list, we won’t finish this interview.
A: What advice would you have for younger scholars interested in insolvency law?
BA: The important thing about research is to find something you are motivated to write about. For me, no matter how bored I am on any day, once I pick up an insolvency law text, my mood improves; I find myself smiling. Find an aspect of the law that you are keen to research. When it comes to insolvency law, I do not think that the central question on insolvency law has been resolved. The central question is still how to allocate control powers and how to create a system that is fair and balanced for the stakeholders. Since the 19th century, when the world’s most renowned formal rescue system was introduced in the US, the same questions have been asked repeatedly. Whether you examine the bankruptcy law of the US as sophisticated as it is, or the corporate insolvency law of the UK, which is growing in its influence, or the laws across the rest of Europe, Africa or Australia, we are all asking the same questions. Each jurisdiction brings an answer or makes a contribution to that knowledge, such that you are not disadvantaged by asking this question within a particular context. Pick a jurisdiction that you are happy with, pick an aspect that you are happy with and formulate research questions through which you can contribute to knowledge.
It does not matter the context that you pick. This brings me back to Nigeria. At the beginning of my research, I started by considering my core questions from the Nigerian perspective. One of the points I noted was that the Nigerian insolvency system and the receivership system, in particular, had been criticised as being anomalous. For example, World Bank reports described the Nigerian receivership system as anomalous. The Nigerian system was only anomalous to the extent that it was not a direct replica of that of the UK. What Nigeria had done with its receivership procedure was to revise the negative impacts of receivership found in the UK law. UK receivership focused on the interests of secured lenders, say banks, who appoint the receivers. The Nigerian receiver was supposed to go beyond the interests of the secured lenders, to consider other interests of the company. If the Nigerian receivership system had been employed effectively to actualise the intention of its drafters, as at 1988, it would have been doing what the UK only came to do in 2002/2003.
It is incredible to find that when law diffuses across borders, the changes made by some jurisdictions are received better than those that are made by others. If I were to pick another UK rescue law that has diffused across borders, I would pick administration. Administration, when created in 1986 in the UK, had been an in-court procedure, when it was diffused to Australia, it became an out-of-court procedure. By 1999/2000, when the UK was looking to modify administration, it took some of the changes that had been made in Australia and created both an in-court administration system and an out-of-court administration system. The question, therefore, is why was it that when Nigeria modified receivership, it was called anomalous, but when Australia modified administration, it was ground-breaking and an improvement on knowledge. Perhaps the answer lies in the way even Nigerians portrayed and practiced the Nigerian version of receivership. In 2020, we are now trying to transplant administration into Nigeria, which really is laughable.
Each researcher should ensure that they thoroughly investigate the context in which they are interested, map it on to the broader knowledge in the area and then provide answers that can be understood across board. I encourage and challenge young Nigerian researchers to develop an understanding of the literature and broader issues so they can see that comparative law does not answer normative questions. Once they are able to do this, the young researcher can contribute to the improvement of corporate insolvency systems across the globe.
A: You organised the historic inaugural Commercial Law Research Network Nigeria (CLRNN) conference at the University of Reading in September 2019, could you tell us more about this?
BA: CLRNN is a platform established to enable knowledge exchange amongst experts interested in the development of commercial law in emerging countries of African extract. I chose Nigeria as a case study given its economic and political position on the continent. The reasons for its creation follow from some of those just discussed above. As a young researcher from Africa engaging in comparative analysis, I was led to believe that the best way to develop our laws was to always make recommendations for our system by drawing from so-called advanced nations. Partway through my PhD, I realised that some of the people I was referencing did not understand the intricacies of the issues. Many of the laws that were diffused into the Nigerian sphere failed to match the realities of the Nigerian situation. Furthermore, as Senator Elizabeth Warren has done, I realised that we needed to look closely at the srealities of our circumstances and apply methodologies and methods that resolve the challenges of our contexts. Also, that we can contribute to global knowledge through this path.
I felt that a way to do this was to create a forum in which we could really encourage the investigation of our realities and share this knowledge. Thus, CLRNN has its conference and methodology workshop that brings together top-rate Nigerian researchers to discuss amongst one another and also creates an opportunity for younger researchers to mingle with and create lasting links with their older counterparts. The research methodology workshop enables us to discuss research challenges and potentially collaborate to develop methods and methodologies that best suit our context. At the very least, to discuss how best to apply methods and methodologies appropriately. We also have the stakeholders’ conference that seeks to influence the direction of the law by bringing together researchers, lawmakers, regulators, judges, business-people and practitioners to discuss policies, reforms and the Nigerian reality to collaboratively create solutions. While we are predominantly Nigerians, we do not consist entirely of Nigerians. CLRNN is open to anyone with interests in developing commercial law that is fit for Nigeria, as a prime example of an emerging economy from Africa. It has been highly commended but I think this is because of the attitude that participants have brought to it.
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Is It Time to Retire Your 401(k)?
Is it time to retire your 401(k) and come up with another strategy that will actually allow you to retire someday? This may seem like a strange question to most people. Why would anyone want to change the idea of using 401(k)s as so-called retirement vehicles? The answer is very simple: the 401(k) has been a terribly failed experiment that has left an entire generation in financial ruin. If you think I am being dramatic, consider this; according to a 2011 AARP survey of baby boomers ranging in age from 50 to 64, over 50% of those surveyed felt that they would never be able to stop working. To say that 401(k)s are a failed experiment is an understatement. If you took a flight from New York City to California and the pilot promised to get you from one coast to the other safely and on time and during the flight 50% of the passengers fell out of the plane to their deaths, it would be hard to call that a successful landing even if the other 50% made it. That is exactly what has happened to America’s pension strategy.
Back when my parents were working, the deal was that if you worked for a company for long enough, you were not promised that you would be rich, but that you could never be poor. Basically, the pensions of the past guaranteed you a lifetime income if you were willing to stay with a company or government organization for a certain number of years. During those years all of the money that was being set aside for your eventual retirement date was being managed by experts that were in the business of making sure that there would be enough money when you retired to give you a lifetime of income.
When you retired, your company’s pension manager would set things in motion to give you an income for life, effectively making sure you could never run out of money. Now behind the scenes, the day you retired your company was really out of the picture. What would happen at that point is that your pension manager would withdraw a certain amount of money from the company pension account and give it to another company that was actually in the business of guaranteeing people financial security based on their life expectancy. They would give it to an insurance company who would put the money into an immediate annuity contract that would begin a stream of income for life. This worked beautifully for decades and decades. What happened?
Wall Street realized that a huge amount of wealth was continuing to go to the insurance industry and not to them so they started to spend tons of money lobbying Congress to give people “more control” over their money and “more choice” on how things were invested. When American corporations initially considered this idea, they saw an opportunity for some cost savings allowing their employees to “participate” in funding their own retirement. Ultimately, Wall Street saw an amazing business opportunity to take hundreds of billions of dollars away from the insurance companies and have people invest into something that Wall Street just happened to be in the business of manufacturing…MUTUAL FUNDS. Today Wall Street controls just about all of the pension money in America and they have amassed over $4 trillion in retirement assets under management since they lobbied Congress to make the change.
So what went wrong? Well, in the old days, a professionally trained expert was in charge of your money from the time you started working until the time you retired and then an insurance company stepped in guaranteed you an income for life based on your life expectancy. Today, employees manage their own 401(k) accounts with no help from anyone including their financial advisors, their CPAs or their HR departments. The proof of how badly this important asset is being managed came in a recent financial industry survey showing that less than 18% of 401(k) participants have ever changed their original assets allocation mix from day one on the job! Basically, that $4 trillion stuck in 401(k)s and making Wall Street a fortune every year is the most crucial and neglected asset on the face of the earth. Obviously, the time to start planning your retirement is while you are actively working and saving for retirement, not when you retire and roll your money to an IRA so your advisor can finally help you. No wonder more than 50% of Americans feel that they will never be able to retire. Unfortunately, the numbers show that they are correct.
Next week, I am going to share how YOU can be different not just for the sake of being different but for the sake of being better and how you can do a government and employer bypass and take REAL control of your retirement plan.
Information presented in this blog post is believed to be factual and up-to-date, but we do not guarantee its accuracy and it should not be regarded as a complete analysis of the subjects discussed. Discussions and answers to questions do not involve the rendering of personalized investment advice, but are limited to the dissemination of general information and may not be suitable for all readers. A professional adviser should be consulted before implementing any of the strategies presented.
photo credit: Heart Industry via photopin cc
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On the Saying that “Extremism in Defense of Liberty is No Vice”
By Will Wilkinson
“Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue.”
These deathless lines are generally credited to Barry Goldwater, but he didn’t write them. Karl Hess, Goldwater’s lovable anarchist speechwriter, put them in the Arizona senator’s Republican convention acceptance speech. “I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice!” Goldwater actually said, in a slightly less pithy formulation. “And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!” It’s a rousing sentiment, however it’s phrased.
This uncompromising spirit of immoderation praised by Goldwater has consistently characterized the “freedom movement” that rose from the rubble of his ill-fated campaign, and his stirring quip has served as a sort of unofficial libertarian motto. But Goldwater’s apothegm is completely wrongheaded. It’s one mistake after another. Understanding why it’s wrong is useful and important. It’s a good first step toward an understanding of why, more than a half-century after Goldwater’s failed campaign, an attraction to extremes and a disdain for moderation has left libertarianism languishing at the margins of American political life.
Goldwater’s dictum consists of two propositions, both false. In this post, I’ll take on “extremism in defense of liberty…” In a second installment—soon to follow—I’ll tackle “moderation in pursuit of justice…” Together, these two posts will amount to the beginning of a defense of moderation in politics, an introduction to the themes of this blog, as well as an explanation of its ironic name.
So let’s get started.
The chief difficulty with “extremism in defense of liberty is no vice” is that it pretty straightforwardly violates history’s most popular and plausible theory of virtues and vices. According to Aristotle, virtue is a mean between excess and deficiency. I happen to think Aristotle is basically right. It follows, almost by definition, that extremism is going to err on the side of excess, except in extraordinary circumstances that legitimately call for extreme measures. That’s the simple philosophical objection: virtue is a form of well-calibrated moderation in temperament. The porridge of virtue is always just right. Vice is too hot or too cold, a disposition to extremes.
But let’s put Aristotle aside for a moment. The questionable character of extremism is anyway right there on the surface of our ordinary understanding of the term. There is a whiff of violence, or at least danger, about extremism. Extremists reject mainstream opinion, including mainstream opinion about acceptable political tactics. To embrace extremism in defense of something is to at least flirt with the idea that violence isn’t out of the question.
As Karl Hess noted in his memoirs, shortly after Goldwater delivered his famous speech, Malcolm X very logically connected “extremism in defense of liberty” to the idea of black Americans defending their rights by “any means necessary.” Here’s Malcolm X:
My reason for believing in extremism—intelligently directed extremism, extremism in defense of liberty, extremism in quest of justice—is because I firmly believe in my heart that the day the black man takes an uncompromising step and realizes he’s within his rights, when his own freedom is being jeopardized, to use any means necessary to bring about his own freedom or put a halt to that injustice, I don’t think he’ll be by himself. [Emphasis added.]
This makes a lot of sense. Throughout its history, America’s white supremacist institutions have been so violently opposed to the liberty of black people that it was not unreasonable to believe that something extreme might need to be done to finally win them a modicum of freedom. That said, if extremism in defense of liberty is warranted, it doesn’t quite follow that it’s okay to use any means necessary to that defense. (Malcolm X certainly would not have endorsed, say, the nuclear annihilation of Manhattan in exchange for the end of systemic racial oppression in America.) Nevertheless, it’s true that the embrace of extremism is the embrace of extreme measures, and violence—the “means” that is normally off the table—is the extreme measure par excellence. Malcolm X was right that it’s a very short step from extremism in defense of liberty to violence in defense of liberty. And if violent extremism is ever warranted—is ever morally permissible and, therefore, not a vice—then the violent racial oppression of the mid-century American South arguably did warrant it.
This dip into American racial politics with Malcolm X is not in the least tangential to the meaning of “liberty” and “extremism” in the context of American politics. It’s worth pausing here to reflect on the fact that for centuries white Southerners saw the sustenance of slavery and racial apartheid as very much a matter of their liberty. Over the course of American history, all the way up through Goldwater’s 1964 acceptance speech, “extremism in defense of liberty” was at least as likely to imply the willingness to deploy violence to maintain white supremacy as it was to mean anything else. Goldwater, you’ll recall, opposed the Civil Rights Act on “constitutional” grounds, and his nomination speech came just two weeks after Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law. It requires a special sort of obtuseness to insist that Goldwater was only making some sort of abstract, historically acontextual point about the politics of liberty. Indeed, it’s Malcolm X who takes “extremism in defense of liberty” literally, as a strategy for the liberation of oppressed people, exposing and inverting its racially-coded meaning. Moreover, given America’s long history of brutal racial oppression, Malcolm X’s interpretation of the maxim as an endorsement of violence was perfectly natural and logical.
If the formulation had never showed up in a famous line in a famous speech that means a lot to certain people, there wouldn’t be much of a question about the plain meaning of “extremism in defense of liberty.” Consider the case of Timothy McVeigh, who murdered 168 people in a federal building in Oklahoma City with a truck bomb. McVeigh saw his attack as a blow for liberty in a war against the tyrannical American state that had murdered its own citizens at Waco and Ruby Ridge. When he was picked up by police a few days after the massacre, McVeigh was wearing a t-shirt that said, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants,” quoting Thomas Jefferson. McVeigh was executed by the undiminished state believing he’d nobly refreshed the tree of liberty with blood. “Extremism in defense of liberty” seems like a natural way to describe what Thomas Jefferson prescribed and what Timothy McVeigh did, doesn’t it?
This isn’t to say that people who like to repeat Barry Goldwater’s famous quote think that they are sticking up for domestic terrorism. Of course they don’t. The point is that Malcolm X and Timothy McVeigh knew perfectly well what “extremism in defense of liberty” really means, and we ought to stop pretending that we don’t know it, too. Almost everyone who repeats Goldwater’s slogan is guilty of hyperbole and doesn’t really mean what he or she is saying. Barry Goldwater himself certainly didn’t think that it is “no vice” to murder scores of innocent people in defense of liberty. Of course he didn’t!
However, it is interesting and quite telling that when Goldwater attempted to explain his glorification of pro-liberty extremism, he cited (this is according to Hess) the Allied invasion on D-Day as an example of the principle in action. The awesome scope and stakes of D-Day suggest that Goldwater did understand that “extremism” has something to do with possibly killing people. So it would seem that the senator’s own example cuts against the sensible, charitable interpretation of the first half of his dictum, which is that all he was saying is that, when liberty is at stake, a certain principled inflexibility is called for. According to this line of thinking, all Goldwater had in mind were hardball political tactics, such as, for example, suspending some functions of government for a week or two rather than raising the debt ceiling again. Though it’s true that some Democrats think that’s pretty “extreme,” shutting down the government over the debt ceiling isn’t very much like D-Day, is it?
The backstory of Goldwater’s maxim is interesting and very confusing. It’s hard to sort out competing claims about its ultimate source. It is widely believed to have come from a memo written by Harry Jaffa, a disciple of the political philosopher Leo Strauss. Jaffa certainly took credit for it. According to Hess, who put the line in the speech, Jaffa said he had taken the idea from a Lincoln speech. According to William Safire, Goldwater—or one of his ghostwriters—said he got the quote from Taylor Caldwell, a writer of blockbuster historical novels. For her part, Caldwell said she passed Goldwater a Cicero quotation (which she probably made up) well before his nominating convention speech. She doesn’t mention Jaffa. Anyway, here’s Caldwell’s possibly spurious Cicero quote:
I must remind you, Lords, Senators, that extreme patriotism in the defense of freedom is no crime, and let me respectfully remind you that pusillanimity in the pursuit of justice is no virtue in a Roman.
It seems that “extreme patriotism” in this context had to do with the swift execution of followers of Catiline, Cicero’s conspiring political rival. “Defense of freedom” had to do with the protection of the Roman Republic, and “pusillanimity in pursuit of justice” would seem to mean not summarily killing alleged traitors. Goldwater’s “extremism” has something to do with killing people, all the way down to its fake classical source.
Anyway, how one gets from Caldwell’s Cicero to Goldwater’s slogan is mysterious. In Caldwell’s telling, she found these lines (which it seems no other classicist has ever found) in a letter Cicero wrote to his son, which also contained a summary of Aristotle’s ethical theory. According to Caldwell’s possibly confabulated “translation,” Cicero said,
Virtue Is rightly defined as a Mean. And insofar as it aims at the highest excellence it is an Extreme … Extremes of excellence in virtue and in patriotism, should be honored by all just men.
This equivocation on the meaning of “mean” and “extreme” seem to be the crucial move, and key to understanding what’s wrong with Goldwater’s slogan as a matter of virtue theory. If, as Aristotle says, virtue is a mean between a vice of excess and a vice of deficiency—a middle-ground between two extremes—then to be virtuous is to have a certain kind of moderate temper. Extremes are vices by definition. But it’s easy to see how virtue as moderation may not be a useful idea if you’re trying to convince your kid that it’s an admirable thing to murder political rivals in defense of the regime, because that’s pretty extreme. So a little sophistry is in order.
The trick here is reframing virtue—a mean between extremes—as an extreme of excellence. Virtue is an excellence, after all. Obviously, “extreme moderation“ won’t do. That’s too oxymoronic and keeps the essentially moderate nature of virtue too much in mind. So excellence it is. And then you place “patriotism” next to “virtue,” as if patriotism is obviously a form of virtue. However, an “extreme of excellence” in patriotism is surely very different from “extreme patriotism” on an Aristotelian account of the virtue of patriotism. The virtue of patriotism, if it is a virtue at all, would be a point somewhere between the vice of indifference to one’s country and the vice of raving jingoism, or “extreme patriotism.” Maybe extreme patriotism isn’t a crime, as pseudo-Cicero maintains, but it’s exactly the sort of judgment-overriding emotional impulse Aristotle invariably condemns as vice. This is very shady stuff, whether it’s attributed to Cicero or Caldwell.
So what’s the story? Caldwell sent all this fake Ciceroniana to Barry Goldwater? To Harry Jaffa? And Jaffa wrote up a version of the slogan, Goldwater liked it, and told Karl Hess to put it in his acceptance speech? I have no idea. One way or another, Goldwater ended up with “extremism in defense of liberty.” If he had said, “Extreme patriotism in defense of liberty is no vice,” he would have been wrong. Extreme patriotism is too much patriotism. It is a vice. If Goldwater had said, “Extreme virtue in defense of liberty is no vice,” it would be hard to disagree. It’s hard to disagree with tautologies. But “extremism” does not mean “extreme virtue.” It means a willingness to use extreme tactics—to water the tree of liberty with blood, if need be.
Sometimes there is a need. Sometimes circumstances legitimately call for extreme measures. A civil war to free enslaved human beings would be a good example. Goldwater’s example, D-Day, is another case in which extreme, extremely violent, measures were not unvirtuously excessive. That’s probably why Goldwater thought of it when pressed. But even he could see that D-Day is the exception that proves the rule. The rule—the general principle—is that extremism is a vice, whatever it is in defense of. If you’re engaged in a literal war between good and evil, then maybe you’ve got to do what it takes and kill people. But politics is not war. If you’re a senator from Arizona, or a think tank scholar engaged in normal domestic politics of a stable liberal democracy, extremism is no virtue.
In the circumstance of normal liberal-democratic politics, not only is extremism a vice, it’s also bad strategy. In next week’s post, I’ll argue that “moderation in pursuit of justice,” in addition to being virtuous after all, is more likely than the extremist rejection of moderation to move American policy in a pro-liberty direction. Stay tuned.
More in Open Society
Wishful thinking one year after Jan. 6
January 11, 2022 • David Dagan
What’s a principled conservative to do about Trump? (with Mona Charen)
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Showing posts with label free trade areas. Show all posts
RCEP: Agreement Signed to Form Massive Free Trade Area (Map)
Graphic modified by Evan Centanni from this map by Wikimedia user Masterdeis (CC BY-SA).
What is the RCEP free trade deal?
Two weeks agao, 15 countries in Asia and Oceania signed a long-planned treaty to form the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), a free trade area widely billed as the "world's largest". However, the RCEP doesn't exist quite yet as an actual free trade area, since it's still waiting to be ratified (written into the laws of member countries). Read on for a quick explanation of what the RCEP is, when it will be implemented, and how it compares to the world's other free trade areas.
Categories: asia, free trade areas, intergovernmental organizations, oceania, rcep, south and east asia
NAFTA Replaced With USMCA/CUSMA
CUSMA/USMCA replaces NAFTA as the new free trade area made up of Mexico, the US, and Canada. Map by Wikimedia user Heraldry (source; CC BY-SA)
NAFTA is No More
On July 1, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) - a much-talked-about free trade area including Mexico, the United States, and Canada - was formally retired. The arrangement, in place since 1994, has been replaced by a similar deal, technically called the "Agreement Between the United States of America, the United Mexican States, and Canada". The change was agreed upon last year, but didn't take effect until this month.
USMCA or CUSMA?
The short name of the deal depends on who you ask. In the US, it's called the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), but in Canada it's the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA). In French (Canada's other official language) the acronym is ACEUM - also placing "Canada" first - and in Mexico it's known by the Spanish acronym T-MEC (placing "Mexico" first).
Categories: americas, canada, free trade areas, intergovernmental organizations, mexico, nafta, north america, united states, usmca-cusma
Fact Check: Is the AfCFTA the World's Second Biggest Free Trade Area?
The AfCFTA is planned to cover almost all of Africa, but doesn't yet.
The recently-created African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) now has 28 full member countries, with 26 more signed on to the project as future members.
That's a lot of members for a free trade area, and everyone seems to be calling it the "world's biggest free trade area since the WTO". But is that label really accurate?
(If you don't want to read the whole article, scroll down to the conclusion for a short summary.)
Categories: afcfta, africa, african union, fact check, free trade areas, intergovernmental organizations
Mauritius Becomes Full Member of AfCFTA (Map)
Update: As far as can be determined, this map is still accurate as of August 2020, with no news on any deposits of ratification instruments since Mauritius. Angola, Cameroon, and Morocco are all reported to have ratified the AfCFTA treaty, but apparently haven't yet completed their membership by registering with African Union headquarters (the AU's official "status list" for the treaty hasn't been updated since October 2019, and recent reports still put the number of deposits at 28).
In related news, the next stage of the trade area's implementation has been delayed to January 2021, but the organization's headquarters were inaugurated on August 17, 2020 in Accra, Ghana.
Map by Evan Centanni, from blank map by Eric Gaba. License: CC BY-SA
Mauritius Ratifies AfCFTA Treaty
Two months ago, we reported on this year's creation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), an African Union (AU) project to increase trade within Africa. Almost all of Africa's countries have signed on to the AfCFTA, but they only become full members once they've ratified its founding treaty (adopted it into their national laws) and formally registered their ratification with the AU.
Categories: afcfta, africa, african union, free trade areas, intergovernmental organizations, island countries, mauritius
Map: What is the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA)?
There are newer versions of this map available. To see them, view all AfCFTA updates.
New Trade Bloc: What is the AfCFTA Agreement?
Despite being neighbors, most countries in Africa trade more with other continents than with each other - a peculiar leftover of colonialism that the African Union (AU) has long been looking to change. Last year, the organization's member countries finally came together and agreed on the creation of one of the world's most expansive "free trade areas". The new zone, called the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), officially came into being on May 30, 2019, after a minimum threshold of 22 countries confirmed that they had copied its 2018 founding treaty into their national laws (a process called "ratification").
Categories: afcfta, africa, african union, free trade areas, intergovernmental organizations, original maps
Why Brexit Matters: 5 Things That Might Change When Britain Leaves the EU
By Bryn Jansson
Map of current and future EU member countries
Brexit Process Finally Begins
The United Kingdom (UK) and the European Union (EU) began formal divorce negotiations in Brussels last Monday, June 19, starting a 21-month sprint to the March 2019 Brexit deadline. ("Brexit" is short for "British Exit" from the EU, since "Britain" is another name for the UK.)
UK voters’ surprise choice to leave the EU happened exactly a year ago, on June 23, 2016 - but it didn’t automatically trigger the two-year countdown clock on exit negotiations necessary for departure under Article 50 of the EU’s Lisbon Treaty.
Categories: brexit, british territories, europe, european union, free trade areas, gibraltar, intergovernmental organizations, ireland, island countries, northern ireland, referendums, uk
Map: Liberia and Afghanistan Join WTO
Map by Evan Centanni, from public domain blank map.
Categories: afghanistan, africa, asia, free trade areas, intergovernmental organizations, liberia, south and east asia, west central asia, world trade organization
Map: Kazakhstan Joins WTO
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Member and observer states of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Map by Evan Centanni, starting from public domain blank map (license: CC BY-NC-SA).
Categories: asia, europe, free trade areas, intergovernmental organizations, kazakhstan, west central asia, world trade organization
Map: Another Country Joins the "Eurasian Union" (May 2015)
The Eurasian Economic Union's five current member countries, plus disputed Crimea, claimed to be part of Russia. Map by Evan Centanni, starting from this map by Keverich2. License: CC BY-SA
Premium members click here to view this article in the ad-free members area. Not a member yet? Subscribe now!
Categories: asia, eurasian economic union, europe, free trade areas, intergovernmental organizations, kyrgyzstan, russia, west central asia
Map: Seychelles Join WTO
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Categories: africa, free trade areas, intergovernmental organizations, island countries, seychelles, world trade organization
What is the "Eurasian Union"? (Map)
The Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union, sometimes simply called the "Eurasian Union", was officially launched at the beginning of this year. Read on for a brief introduction to this major new regional organization, which you can expect to hear a lot more about in the coming months and years!
The Eurasian Economic Union's four current member countries, plus disputed territories officially or unofficially included in the common market. Map by Evan Centanni, starting from this map by Keverich2. License: CC BY-SA
Article by Karina Barquet
Categories: armenia, asia, belarus, eurasian economic union, europe, free trade areas, intergovernmental organizations, kazakhstan, kyrgyzstan, russia, west central asia
Map: "Eurasian Union" Gets New Member
The Eurasian Economic Union's four member countries, plus disputed territories that might be officially or unofficially included. Map by Evan Centanni, starting from this map by Keverich2. License: CC BY-SA
Categories: armenia, artsakh, asia, breakaway states, caucasus, disputed territories, eurasian economic union, europe, free trade areas, intergovernmental organizations, nagorno-karabakh, russia, unrecognized, west central asia
Map: Yemen Joins WTO
Categories: asia, free trade areas, intergovernmental organizations, middle east, world trade organization, yemen
Croatia Joins EU, leaves CEFTA
The European Union. Map by Evan Centanni, from this blank map by Ssolbergj. License: CC BY-SA
Categories: cefta, croatia, europe, european union, free trade areas, intergovernmental organizations, original maps
Map: Laos and Tajikistan Join WTO
World Trade Organization members in green. New members Laos and Tajikistan highlighted (click to enlarge). Map by Evan Centanni, modified from this Wikimedia map by Muso (license: CC BY-SA).
Categories: asia, free trade areas, intergovernmental organizations, laos, south and east asia, tajikistan, west central asia, world trade organization
Venezuela Joins Mercosur, Paraguay Suspended
South America's intergovernmental organizations: Mercosur in green, the Andean Community (CAN) in (orange), and remaining members of UNASUR in blue (claimed territorial extents). Map by Evan Centanni, based on this map by Wikimedia user Luan.
After over six years of waiting, Venezuela today officially joined Mercosur (the "Southern Common Market"), one of South America's two main trade blocs.
The country was previously part of the continent's other major bloc, the Andean Community (CAN), but left that organization last year in anticipation of the switch to Mercosur (see Venezuela Leaves Andean Community).
By the time the Venezuela left CAN last year, its application had finally been approved by all Mercosur member states except for Paraguay; but despite support from that country's president, an opposition party in its congress continued to block Venezuela's entry into the trade organization.
Categories: americas, free trade areas, intergovernmental organizations, mercosur, original maps, paraguay, south america, venezuela
WTO Admits New Members
Organization: World Trade Organization
Countries in Question: Vanuatu, Russia, Montenegro, Samoa
News Categories: Intergovernmental Organizations
Summary: The World Trade Organization, the intergovernmental organization supervising international trade between the majority of the world's countries, admitted one new member last October, and three more last week. Especially notable was the admission last Friday of Russia, which was by far the largest economy not to have joined previously.
While some intergovernmental organizations, such as the U.N. or regional unions, were created for general purposes of cooperation between states, others serve more specific purposes. The World Trade Organization (WTO) is one of these, acting as a venue for countries to agree on rules for international trade. Among its members, economic agreements are subject to rules aimed at liberalizing international trade, and trade-related disputes are also arbitrated through the organization. Formed in 1995 as a replacement for weaker trade treaties of the past, by 2008 the WTO represented approximately 80% of the world's independent countries.
World Trade Organization members in green. Countries joining this year in brighter green, with small countries circled. Modified from this Wikimedia map (license: CC BY-SA).
This October, the WTO grew for the first time in three years, with the acceptance of the Pacific island country of Vanuatu's as a member. Just last week, three more countries joined: Russia, Montenegro, and Samoa. Samoa is another small Pacific island country, and Montenegro was only formed a few years ago from the final breakup of former Yugoslavia. Russia, however, has gained much attention for being the last of the world's major economic powers to join the organization. Although it first applied for admission to the group 18 years ago, before the modern WTO was even formed, until recently Russia was slow to proceed with membership negotiations. For the last few years, it was blocked from entry by Georgia, a WTO member protesting its invasion by Russia during the 2008 war between the two countries, but that hurdle was finally crossed after a Swiss-brokered agreement between Russia and Georgia earlier this year. Although the four new countries have been accepted by the organization, their governments will still have to ratify the agreements in order for them to become full participating members.
Categories: asia, europe, free trade areas, intergovernmental organizations, island countries, montenegro, oceania, russia, samoa, vanuatu, world trade organization
Venezuela Leaves Andean Community
Country Name: Venezuela (English, Spanish)
Official Name: Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (English), República Bolivariana de Venezuela (Spanish)
News Category: Intergovernmental Organization Membership
Summary: Venezuela has withdrawn from the Andean Community (CAN) customs union, in favor of joining Mercosur, another union in South America. The switch has been represented as a protest against free trade agreements made with the United States on the part of CAN members Peru and Colombia. Admission into Mercosur is still pending, though Venezuela remains a member of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR).
Venezuela (red) has left CAN (orange) in anticipation of joining
Mercosur (green). Other UNASUR members are in blue. Map
includes all claimed territories of the member states. My own
work, based on this map by Wikimedia user Luan (terms of use).
Although nation-states are usually considered the basic units of the modern political globe, it has become common in recent decades for countries to work together towards integration at a higher level. The most well known case, and probably the furthest advanced, is the European Union. However, there are a number of other intergovernmental organizations working for integration in other parts of the world. In South America, supranational integration has progressed largely through two major trade blocs: the Southern Common Market (known by its Spanish or Portuguese abbreviations, "Mercosur" or "Mercosul") and the Andean Community (known by the Spanish abbreviation, CAN).
The Andean Community represents a group of countries in the northwestern part South America, while Mercosur is centered around the southeastern region of the continent. The country of Venezuela, located in the north of the continent at the meeting place of the two blocs, has long been a member of the Andean Community. However, in 2006 the Venezuelan government announced the intention to switch its membership to Mercosur. Citing free trade agreements made between the United States and CAN members Peru and Colombia, Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez announced that he believed CAN was no longer relevant. After five years, Venezuela fully withdrew this month from the Andean Community. Admission to Mercosur is still pending, though it seems likely in the near future.
CAN and Mercosur have both implemented trade agreements forming customs unions between their members - that is, they have mostly eliminated tariffs between member countries, and have also unified their external customs regulations to be consistent among the whole bloc. They have also proceeded with other cooperative programs, such as coordinating economic policies and setting up courts with international jurisdiction. Over the last decade, they have been working towards integrating with each other to form the Union of South American Nations (USAN or UNASUR/UNASUL), an organization modeled after the European Union. In fact, UNASUR includes all of South America's sovereign states, independently of their membership in CAN or Mercosur, which means that Venezuela will remain a member of UNASUR during its transition period. Venezuela's bid to join Mercosur had originally been seen as a gesture towards integration between Mercosur and CAN, though that is clearly not the case now that the country has withdrawn from CAN.
Andean Community (CAN)
Southern Common Market (Mercosur)
Union of South American Nations (UNASUR)
Categories: americas, andean community, free trade areas, intergovernmental organizations, mercosur, original maps, south america, venezuela
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R.I.P. Craig Mack 1971-2018
VannDigital March 13, 2018 March 13, 2018
In an interesting turn of events, Long Island rapper Craig Mack has passed away at 46 years of age. Mack died of heart failure in his Walterboro, South Carolina home.
As the first artist signed to Puff Daddy’s Bad Boy Entertainment, Mack would be known for his hits “Flava In Ya Ear” & its remix as well as “Get Down“. While he wouldn’t be known for his later singles “Making Moves With Puff” & “Jockin My Style“, they are still favorites of mine.
Even though he (along with Biggie) helped build Bad Boy, Mack would eventually leave the industry to join a religious cult in Walterboro, South Carolina. Another interesting fact was that he was missing from the 2015 BET Awards performance that brought back together most of the old-school Bad Boy crew as well as the Bad Boy 20 Year Reunion tour in 2016.
We at VannDigital would like to give our condolences to Mack’s wife & two adult children.
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In Massachusetts, An Unfolding Dream
It's been a tense, exciting day in the Boston area as the legislation known as the "Transgender Equal Rights Bill" makes its way out of the Judiciary Committee for the first time in six years. The bill is heading to the legislature with a vote expected tonight or tomorrow as the winter recess approaches.
Yesterday the Boston Globe and Boston Herald reported on the impending vote, and this morning both papers reported on dueling press conferences in which the bill's opponents called the vote a "distraction" from economic issues. When one such representative argued, "The goals of the advocates is to have this litigated in the courts,” he was confronted by Ken and Marcia Garber. The Garbers' transgender son was, as the Globe explained,"bullied and discriminated against before he lost his life to a drug overdoes at the age of 20." When the representative "said he did not have time to answer their question because he was late to a meeting," the Garbers, faithful members of Dignity Boston, "challenged Lombardo’s contention that the transgender bill is a distraction from bills that would protect the state’s economic future, [saying] 'Some of these people will never have a future if they don’t do something' to pass the legislation."
The trans community had strong victories late last Spring with Connecticut and Nevada added to the ranks of the now fifteen states and 132 counties and cities with nondiscrimination and hate crimes protections.
This drama happens to be unfolding during Massachusetts' "Transgender Awareness Week," in which a number of colleges, universities and other community spaces are holding trans-themed events. The culmination of the week is the twelfth annual observance of the Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR). Though international in scope, the TDOR movement was sparked by a death here in Allston, about a mile away from where I write. Rocker Rita Hester was murdered on November 28, 1998 almost three years to the day after the loss of Chanelle Pickett on November 20, 1995. A growing number of Episcopal (and other) congregations have been hosting TDOR events in solidarity with trans communities, even as the observances themselves usually avoid the languages, music or imagery of specific (or at least any one) religious traditions. Indeed, in his TDOR welcome at a packed Cathedral Church of St. Paul last November, Bishop M. Thomas Shaw offered an apology to the gathered community for the ways in which Christian communities in particular have failed to welcome trans people and have, as he put it, "misrepresented God" to us. I posted a piece about that TDOR here.
This Sunday the Boston TDOR will take place once again at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul.
Today Bishop Shaw reiterated his support, that of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts (as of its 2008 Convention), and that of The Episcopal Church (as of the 2009 General Convention) for the legislation. His statement reads,
"Hopeful that after six years the transgender equal rights bill will come to the Massachusetts Legislature for a vote this week, I continue to urge lawmakers to support it. Now is the time to carry civil liberty for all people another step forward by safeguarding the equality and honoring the human dignity of transgender people. Passing the bill this week will serve as a powerful sign of hope, particularly as Transgender Day of Remembrance is being observed at our Cathedral Church of St. Paul in Boston this Sunday. I pray that Massachusetts will open this new door this week so that we might step through it together toward social justice for all."
The full text of the statement is available on the Diomass website, here.
As it so happens, Sunday is also one of the major examples of what I call "hinge days" in the liturgical year, those days in the Christian calendar that form us with peculiar intensity as we move from one liturgical season to the next. November 20th marks the last Sunday after Pentecost, otherwise known as the Feast of Christ the King or the Reign (or perhaps, as Verna Dozier might put it, the Dream) of Christ. Sunday's gospel text from Matthew 25 issues the ultimate challenge of justice from the Son of Humanity, enthroned in eschatalogical splendor: will we feed the hungry, clothe the naked, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, visit the imprisoned? As we "do it unto the least of these," we "do it unto" Christ, we are reminded with unsettling specificity.
As the battle over this legislation heats up, I find myself seeking to be present to it as a holy time and space, as an invitation to be, as Bishop Shaw often puts it, opened. It strikes me that this openness is not simply a static state of welcome and inclusion, but an ongoing process of being opened, transformed by God, ushered into new ways of being in the world, into a new time and space that Christians name as the reign or dream of God. That notion of openness is unsettling and challenging indeed, but hopeful and promising beyond our wildest imaginings. May it be—may it become – so.
Posted by Cameron Partridge at 7:18 PM 2 comments:
Chaz on Becoming
In a banner week in which the governor of Hawaii signed a workplace nondiscrimination bill into law, and in which the legislature in Nevada is debating a similar measure, the biggest transgender-related news is coming from Chaz Bono. That’s because the documentary about his transition, Becoming Chaz, premiered Tuesday night on the Oprah Winfrey Network, and Chaz has been everywhere this week promoting it.
The few reviews I’ve read have found their way into the film via people other than Chaz. His partner Jennifer has been a fascinating figure for some, and Cher has for others. I haven’t read any reflections on his siblings, but they would be bridge figures for still other viewers of the film like, say, my sister. It makes sense—if you’re not trans (and even if you are), you might have a hard time relating to Chaz, but you could more easily imagine yourself in the position of those who have a relationship with him.
But as a transman myself, Chaz was the one on which I knew I would be primarily focused. Because he’s the son of celebrities, having grown up under completely different circumstances than did I or anyone I know, I honestly wasn’t sure how well I would relate. More than that, I was concerned that because of its celebrity connections, this film had the potential to feed into the mass media’s sensationalistic appetites. Given all that, I was fascinated how little this film actually does falls into that trap, and how Chaz and Jenny come across as remarkably down to earth and authentic, very human amid a fair bit of drama. Chaz is very clearly and simply himself, take it or leave it. So too is Jennifer. The two of them have been through a lot both individually and as a couple, and they’re remarkably honest about that.
I was intrigued — and oddly relieved — to hear that there nevertheless were aspects of the film that stretched their own comfort zones when they saw it after the fact. In the interview with Rosie O’Donnell after the Oprah channel premier, Chaz talked about the difficulty at first of seeing an argument that unfolded over kitchen preparations for Jenny’s graduation party. But then as he watched it again, he came to see the argument as a real portrayal of where he and Jenny were at that moment. That comment to O’Donnell conveyed a revealing sense of perspective, a sense that Chaz knows he was in a different space then and will be in a still different one down the road. Comments like those suggest to me that he takes his “becoming” very seriously, and in a much broader and deeper sense than transition alone.
Chaz has been through some seriously choppy life waters, and while he doesn’t put it this way, his remarks about previous eras of his life suggest that he has had to make a practice of seeking perspective. He has had to make a practice of accepting himself for who he is. When he said at one point that he didn’t want to lose anyone because of his decision to transition but knew that he had to make the decision regardless, I thought, yeah, I know what you’re talking about. You don’t get to a place like that, you don’t arrive at such a crossroad, without having done a ton of work-- discernment.
I also appreciated how Chaz did not present himself as speaking for every transman, let alone every trans person. In one scene, as he spoke at what I believe was a Transgender Day of Remembrance event in West Hollywood, I was impressed with the way he got up and described himself as a newcomer to the community, not presuming to speak for others, and acknowledging that tons of organizing and community building had preceded his arrival on the scene, in many ways making that arrival possible.
That said, there were some assertions in the film with which I disagreed. The misleading graphic listing the side-effects of testosterone failed to distinguish those that affect transmen alone (e.g. the need to monitor liver function) from those that all nontrans men have to watch (e.g. cholesterol). I wasn't crazy about the film's repeated use of “breast removal” language; as a result, many reviewers are now using it in a way that can subtly reinforce the judgment that this surgery is merely a form of “amputation” (or, worse, “mutilation"). Simply sticking to the term “chest reconstruction” would have been more straight forward. Chaz also made a few universalizing comments about the relational effects of testosterone, saying things about his insights into male/female difference that reminded me of remarks I once heard on the infamous testosterone episode of This American Life. All I could think was, Stop! Don’t go there! Trans folks don’t know any more about what “really” differentiates the sexes, where “really” means “biologically,” than anyone else. What I think we do have a chance to see at particularly close range is how gender gets culturally organized, how intricately, concretely, differentially, intersectionally each of us is woven into an ever-shifting socio-cultural fabric.
There is so much more to say about this powerful film—more than I have time to write here. But the final thread I find myself pondering is that of narratives—with what stories we narrate our origins, the origins of our self-awareness, the origins of our decisions. Again and again, we were shown images of Chaz as a child on TV with Sonny and Cher, images that had the effect of asking the viewer to consider the narrative s/he supplied for that child. It makes me wonder, what narratives do we assume or project onto one another? How do we shift those narratives when our expectations are subverted? But that then raises the larger question, how do we narrate change without assuming the process moves in a straight line? There is something crucial about what it is to be human that is captured by Chaz’s process of becoming. Not only does it raise the question of how sexual difference fits into—indeed might change — one’s conception of the human person. It also asks us all, trans and non-trans, to consider how the process of becoming itself, how transformation, grounds and indeed defines our humanity.
Labels: Chaz Bono, discernment, trans narratives, transformation, transgender equality
Easter People in a Good Friday World
Cross-posted from the Walking with Integrity Blog:
Retired Bishop Barbara C. Harris has a saying that we are “an Easter people in a Good Friday world.” That’s what I find myself pondering as I think of the current state of affairs for trans people in the U.S. right now. If we are an Easter people—an Easter body—we are, as tomorrow’s passage from John 20 so strikingly depicts it, a risen body marked by wounds that remain open.
The U.S. trans community got some good news this week when the Department of Labor announced it has added "gender identity" to its equal employment statement. The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force's press release on the addition can be found here.
We also got some good news two weeks ago when the state legislature of Hawaii sent legislation to Governor Neil Abercrombi that would protect trans people in the area of employment. On Monday, April 18th, Hawaii’s House of Representatives passed Bill #546 which, as the Star Advertiser explained, “would bar employers from discriminating on the basis of gender expression, bringing Hawaii's labor law in line with similar protections in the areas of housing and public accommodations.” The governor is widely expected to sign this legislation.
That Hawaii already protects trans people from discrimination in several areas, particularly access to public accommodations, is also significant. In other states, public accommodations access is being hotly debated, with opponents of equal access often caustically terming such legislation “bathroom bills.” The specter these opponents raise in such debates is of vulnerable women and children being open to attack in women’s restrooms—if not by trans people, then by people posing as trans. With such fear tactics, they seek either to prevent the passage of laws that would safeguard trans access to public accommodations, or they seek to repeal legislation already on the books.
The state of Maine is currently considering just such a repeal, as shown by Integrity Maine member Ben Garren’s recent testimony against that repeal effort.
As of Monday, Texas became the home of another repeal effort, this one attempting to prevent trans people from marrying. As Bay Windows reported earlier this week, “The legislation…. would prohibit county and district clerks from using a court order recognizing a sex change as documentation to get married, effectively requiring the state to recognize a 1999 state appeals court decision that said in cases of marriage, gender is assigned at birth and sticks with a person throughout their life even if they have a sex change.” In addition to preventing future marriages, this legislation may well undermine the legal standing of existing ones—my own, for instance, if I lived in Texas.
Meanwhile on April 11th in Maryland, the Gender-Identity Discrimination Act (House Bill 235—which addressed employment but left out public accommodations) was effectively killed for the current legislative year when it was narrowly voted back to the state’s Judiciary Proceedings Committee. As the Baltimore Sun reported, “While the bill was being debated on the House floor, one delegate alluded to Cpl. Klinger, a comic-relief character from the TV show "M*A*S*H" known for wearing women's clothes while trying to get a psychiatric discharge from the Army. The delegate wanted to know if his colleagues wanted Klinger leading a day care center.”
On April 18th, one week after the bill was killed, a young transwoman named Chrissy Lee Polis was attacked by young non-trans women as she tried to enter a bathroom in a Baltimore MacDonald’s. The story of the beating, including a video taken by a MacDonald’s employee -- in which Polis can be heard asking “what bathroom am I supposed to use?!” -- went viral in the days that followed (youtube has now removed it). This story has been covered everywhere, from this call to action by Chris Paige of TransFaith online to an NPR story yesterday and a Washington Post piece earlier this week. A Baltimore Sun story from earlier today considers whether perhaps this horrifying event may be a moment we look back upon as a turning point.
As TransEpiscopal co-founder Donna Cartwright put it in a letter to the editor of the New York Times today, “Defiance of rigid cultural gender expectations still makes many people uncomfortable, and all too often we pay the price for others’ discomfort.” Nevertheless, she continues, “we can create new cultural space by being who we are, without apology.”
When I think about the process of creating that “new cultural of space,” I can’t help but be reminded of the mystical theology of Julian of Norwich, whose feast day falls on May 8th. I think of her vision of the body of Christ, its side mystically opened to all as to Thomas in the upper room—opened in a strangely infinite capacity as a place of refuge, a body of transformation, a passage of rebirth.
An Easter people in a Good Friday world indeed.
-Rev. Dr. Cameron Partridge is a Lecturer and Interim Episcopal Chaplain at Harvard University
Labels: Julian of Norwich, Maryland Transgender Beating, transgender rights
Trans Faith Action Week Launches
Yesterday I participated in a press conference at the Massachusetts State House in which religious leaders called for the passage of "An Act Relative to Transgender Equal Rights," a bill that would add "gender identity and expression" to existing nondiscrimination legislation in Massachusetts. For the past three years this bill has failed to make it out of committee, despite a great deal of support in the legislature and from the governor. The main speakers at the press conference were the Right Reverend M. Thomas Shaw, SSJE, the Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts; Sean Delmore, an openly transgender man who is the Assistant Minister at College Avenue United Methodist Church (Somerville) and a member of Cambridge Welcoming Ministries, and a candidate for the diaconate in the United Methodist Church; and Rabbi Joseph Berman of Temple B’nai Israel in Revere, MA. The press conference was part of a weeklong effort, dubbed by the Interfaith Coalition for Transgender Equality and the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition as "Transgender Faith Action Week," a week in which congregations from various religious traditions are calling for transgender equality.
An article by Lisa Wangsness about yesterday's press conference was on the front page of the Metro Section in this morning's Boston Globe, and is pasted below (the above photo by David L. Ryan was taken from it). This article comes on the heels of last week's Guardian article by Becky Garrison, which featured interviews with a number of transgender clergy in the United States and the United Kingdom. In the UK, as Rev. Dr. Christina Beardsley has explained in a series of blog posts for Changing Attitude, the week of March 21st featured seven short video interviews by 4thought.tv on Channel 4 (unfortunately not available for viewing outside the UK) at the intersection of transgender and religious identities. Garrison's article pointed back toward the UK video series and forward toward Trans Faith Action Week, here in Massachusetts.
Here is today's Globe story:
Religious leaders revive bid to pass transgender bill
Bishop M. Thomas Shaw of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts and several other clergy yesterday called on Massachusetts lawmakers to pass transgender-rights legislation and asked religious communities to throw their support behind the bill.
Shaw said that virtually all transgender people have experienced discrimination or harassment and about one-quarter have been fired from their jobs.
“Supporting this legislation, and supporting transgender people in the life of the church and in secular society really has to do with the living out of my baptismal covenant,’’ he said.
The bill would prohibit discrimination in Massachusetts against transgender people in employment, housing, public accommodations, education, and credit, and would expand the hate- crimes statute. Thirteen states and more than 130 cities nationwide have passed similar legislation.
A majority of lawmakers in both the House and Senate cosponsored the bill last year, but it never came up for a vote. Representative Carl M. Sciortino Jr. of Medford, a lead sponsor, said the political climate changed dramatically after Scott Brown won the special election for US Senate in January 2010.
“The level of willingness to take up controversial votes diminished after that,’’ Sciortino said.
The issue became particularly charged a year ago, when Republican gubernatorial nominee Charles Baker derided the legislation as “the bathroom bill,’’ a term opponents use to reflect their belief that it would give sex offenders greater access to children in public bathrooms by effectively making the facilities unisex. Supporters of the bill say that is not true: People would still have to use bathrooms that match the gender they present.
Kris Mineau of the Massachusetts Family Institute, which opposes the bill, said yesterday that his organization remains concerned about “the privacy, safety, and modesty of all citizens.’’ He said there is no need to broaden the state’s nondiscrimination and hate-crimes statutes.
He noted that the number of sponsors had declined markedly this year — from 81 to 52 in the House and from 23 to 16 in the Senate, according to the website of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition.
Gunner Scott, the coalition’s executive director, said 35 former cosponsors either did not run again or were not reelected. Supporters of the legislation are talking to freshmen and hope to find additional support, he said, adding that the bill still has more cosponsors than about 95 percent of other bills.
Governor Deval Patrick also backs the legislation and this winter issued an executive order protecting transgender state employees from discrimination.
Representative Byron Rushing, another lead sponsor, said religious groups supporting gay rights showed their political strength in 2007 when they helped defeat a proposed ban on gay marriage. “I think what religious groups offer is their theological perspective on justice . . . but it’s also very important that we hear from those denominations that have begun to end discrimination against transgender people within their own denomination,’’ he said.
Other religious groups, including the Massachusetts Conference of Catholic Bishops, fought against the gay marriage bill in 2007. The bishops also opposed the transgender legislation last year.
About 135 clergy are publicly supporting the bill this year, according to the Interfaith Coalition for Transgender Equality. The coalition this week is asking congregations to work for its passage. Appearing with Shaw yesterday were the Rev. Cameron Partridge, a transgender man who is interim Episcopal chaplain at Harvard; Rabbi Joseph Berman of Temple B’nai Israel in Revere; and Sean Delmore, a transgender man who is assistant minister at the College Avenue United Methodist Church in Somerville.
Shaw acknowledged that it might be tougher to rally as large a coalition for transgender rights as for gay marriage, if only because relatively few heterosexual people know someone who is transgender.
Getting to know transgender people personally, he said, has “taken me deeper into my own faith life and proved to me once again that unless everyone has equality . . . nobody is really free.’’
And here is last week's Guardian story:
Trans clergy are finally gaining greater acceptance
As we approach Transgender Faith Action Week, progress can be seen in attitudes to trans people within the church
Becky Garrison
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 30 March 2011 18.04 BST
Last week, the Rev Dr Christina Beardsley, vice-chair of Changing Attitude, a network of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and heterosexual members of the Church of England, was one of the voices featured on 4Thought.tv's week of short films featuring trans people and faith.
While the US Episcopal church developed a maverick reputation within the Anglican communion for blessing same sex marriages and ordaining gay and lesbian clergy, the House of Bishops of the General Synod of the Church of England's report Some Issues in Human Sexuality, issued in 2003, contained a chapter titled "Transsexualism". Currently, one can find about a half dozen trans clergy in the UK and US. These numbers are imprecise, as some clergy do not wish to go public beyond the scope of their individual parish or diocese – a concern that's understandable given that the trans community seldom receives even the legal protections afforded gays and lesbians .
Beardsley, who was ordained for 23 years prior to her transition in 2001, observes that "some within the Church of England feel the issue of trans clergy has been settled" by citing such cases as the Rev Carol Stone and the Rev Sarah Jones. However, she says: "Not all trans clergy have been supported by their bishop, as these two priests were, and some have been excluded from full-time ministry because of Church of England opt-outs from UK equality legislation."
During the 2008 Lambeth conference, a decennial gathering of Anglican bishops, Beardsley organised a panel titled "Listening to Trans People". While only four bishops attended this gathering, it represented the highest number of bishops to participate in an Inclusive Network to date. Also, this panel helped consolidate Changing Attitude's networking with Sibyls, a UK-based Christian spirituality group for trans people, and the US-based online community TransEpsicopal.
The Rev Dr Cameron Partridge, interim Episcopal chaplain and lecturer at Harvard University, served on this panel as the sole US representative. He transitioned in 2002 during his ordination process and has been an instrumental player in guiding the passage of four resolutions supporting trans rights during the US Episcopal church's 2009 general convention.
The Rev Vicki Gray, a Vietnam vet before her transition, and currently a deacon with an emphasis on ministry to the homeless, noted that their goals at general convention were to assert that we exist as flesh-and-blood human beings, to demonstrate that we are here in the church as decent and devout followers of Jesus Christ, and to begin the process of education and dialogue that will lead to full inclusion in the life of the church, not only of the transgendered but of other sexual minorities such as the inter-sexed (known to some as hermaphrodites).
Following the murder of trans rocker Rita Hester in Allston, Massachusetts, in 1998, a vigil held in her honour became the impetus behind the International Transgender Day of Remembrance, an annual event held on 20 November. Even though this day to reflect and remember those who have been killed by anti-transgender hatred or prejudice is not a religious service, in 2010 memorial services were held for the first time at Episcopal cathedrals in Boston and Sacramento.
The Rev Christopher Fike, vicar of Christ Episcopal Church in Sommerville, Massachusetts, who transitioned in 2003 after having served in a fairly high-profile position as a female cleric, believes that moving this memorial to the cathedral signifies that the church views this as a justice issue. He says: "The more we normalise people who are outside the typical in their gender expression, the more room there is for that range of expression. We no longer have to hide our real identity from the church."
The Rt Rev M Thomas Shaw, SSJE, Bishop of Massachusetts, admits that ordaining and providing pastoral oversight to trans clergy proved to be a life-changing experience for him. Initially, he struggled with the idea and the reality of having trans clergy until he saw they were doing the same ministry as everyone else.
From 3-10 April, Transgender Faith Action Week will be held in the Boston area in the hope of bringing forth faith leaders from different traditions to increase awareness of the trans community in religious circles. Partridge, one of the organisers, says: "We call upon the church to consider carefully its vision of theological anthropology, its theological vision of the human person. How does gender factor into our conception of the human?" After all, in Genesis 1:26, God created ha-adam, a nonsexual term that means "human being". Then, after he created humanity, she declared that it all was "very good".
Labels: Interfaith Coalition for Transgender Equality, transgender nondiscrimination legislation, transgender religious leaders
Sonia Burgess (1947-2010)
Although it happened almost six months ago many people here in the UK are still devastated by the sudden death of Sonia Burgess. The circumstances were incredibly shocking. On Monday 25th October 2010 Sonia was on her way to a lecture at St Martin-in-the-Fields. She had attended the previous talks in the series ‘Bible Opened for All’ and on this occasion Lucy Winkett would speak about ‘Being Biblical, Being a Woman’. The topic would have been of particular interest to Sonia, who had at this stage in her life lived mainly, though not quite exclusively, as a woman; but Sonia would never hear this talk. She was seen arriving on the underground platform at Kings Cross Station just prior to 6.30pm, accompanied by a younger woman, with whom she was talking excitedly. Within minutes Sonia fell to her death in the path of the arriving train. Her companion, Nina Kanagasingham, also a trans woman, was arrested at the scene on a murder charge and taken to a male prison. Her trial is scheduled for July.
Sonia was a friend. I had met her in January 2009 at a Rainbow Space (the LGBT group) event at St Anne’s Church, Soho, London, which was the church she belonged to at that time. Warm-hearted, petite and pretty, she seemed younger than me, though in fact she was a few years older, and she communicated well with the young trans people who had joined us for the meeting. When we chatted afterwards Sonia was somewhat apologetic about the fact that she still worked in male mode ‘as a human rights lawyer’. I remember saying that her job sounded demanding; she nodded but was in no way forthcoming about her work. I encouraged her to join Sibyls – the UK organisation that promotes Christian Spirituality for Transgender People – which she did, and I had the pleasure of meeting her at the bi-monthly meetings in London when Sibyls gather for prayer followed by a meal. The last time we spoke, at one of these occasions, I discovered that she had been brought up in the north of England, as I was, and that she had studied in Cambridge, a few years ahead of me. Slim and fashionably dressed – she had just been shopping at Zara – it was hard to believe that she was in her early sixties, and once again I saw her rapport with the young (in particular, a new Sibyls member who is also disabled).
So when, in late October 2010, headlines began to appear in the newspapers about a ‘man in a dress’ or ‘transvestite’ who had (allegedly) been ‘“pushed” under train’ never for a moment did I think that they were referring to Sonia. Although I knew that Sonia worked in male mode, I had not met ‘David’ (nor had most of David’s colleagues ever met Sonia), but in any case, to me, as to her many friends, including those at St Martin-in-the-Fields where she had begun to worship, she was a woman, kindly and vivacious: Sonia. Indeed, early reports of her death referred to her correctly as ‘a woman’; it was only when the police discovered documents on her person that related to her male identity that the crude and inaccurate headlines began to appear. The British press has a long-standing habit of sensationalising trans people’s lives, but on this occasion there was a huge outcry in protest, led by Trans Media Watch, which only this week gathered journalists from the press and television to launch its Memorandum of Understanding which seeks to improve the coverage of transgender people and issues in the media.
It comes too late for Sonia, but the handling of her story by the media has been the focus for an important discussion about the need for greater sensitivity and respect when discussing transgender people’s lives.
After the breaking news of the death of a transgender woman came the shock, for her friends, of hearing that it was Sonia. Nowhere, apart from her family, was the grief more deeply felt than by the congregation at St Martin-in-the-Fields, where a meeting was called and a vast number of people gathered, along with her children, to share their memories of Sonia – and of David. One friend who attended it told me that the use of both male and female names and pronouns didn’t seem to matter as people spoke about their love and admiration for this remarkable person.
It was only at this point that David’s extraordinary career as the leading immigration lawyer of his generation became known to those of us who knew only Sonia, as well as his role in landmark cases that had led to greater transgender equality in the UK. One might have expected Sonia to mention the latter, if not the former, to trans friends and acquaintances, but such was her modesty that she never spoke of either! You can read more about her life, as David, and as Sonia, in the links that follow. Journalist Elizabeth Day’s sensitive article was written earlier this year to give a more rounded picture of Sonia/David in contrast to the sensational tabloid versions. Legal academic and trans activist Stephen Whittle knew Sonia professionally, and as a friend, over many years, and his obituary of her, written at the time, is passionate and revealing. My own brief post about Sonia, on the Changing Attitude blog, reflects on her death from a spiritual perspective, and, as you’ll have gathered, her Christian faith was important to her.
Christina Beardsley 15.03.11
Rev. Dr. Christina Beardsley is on the Board of Changing Attitude , which works for the full inclusion of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in the life of the Anglican Communion.
Labels: David Burgess, Sonia Burgess, transgender rights, transgender spirituality
Winter Thaw for Trans Equality
Cross posted from Walking with Integrity
We are at the end of February, and this year’s very long season of Epiphany is almost at an end as well. Here in the Boston area, side streets are still littered with chairs and other detritus-- markers of the you-shovel-it-you-keep-it parking culture-- but snow banks are finally showing signs of letting go. Last week the state’s transgender community also received welcome news that perhaps the long-frozen nondiscrimination bill, too, might be starting to thaw.
As recently posted on Walking with Integrity, last week Governor Deval Patrick signed an executive order banning discrimination on the basis of gender identity and expression for all who work for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The Boston Globe both reported on the move and published an editorial praising it, and yesterday the local LGBT paper Bay Windows published a comprehensive article on it as well.
As reported in all three pieces, this development both creates a sense of momentum for the statewide bill which would add "gender identity and expression" to the categories of age, race, creed, color, national origin, sexual orientation, sex, and marital status, and prevent discrimination on those bases in employment as well as in housing, public accommodations, education, and credit.
The dire need for this protection was just underscored by the major new study released on February 4th by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the National Center for Transgender Equality. They surveyed over 6,450 transgender-identified participants and learned the following, as summarized on NCTE's website:
"* Respondents were nearly four times more likely to live in extreme poverty, with household income of less than $10,000.
* Respondents were twice as likely to be unemployed compared to the population as a whole. Half of those surveyed reported experiencing harassment or other mistreatment in the workplace, and one in four were fired because of their gender identity or expression.
* While discrimination was pervasive for the entire sample, it was particularly pronounced for people of color. African-American transgender respondents fared far worse than all others in many areas studied.
* Housing discrimination was also common. 19% reported being refused a home or apartment and 11% reported being evicted because of their gender identity or expression. One in five respondents experienced homelessness because of their gender identity or expression.
* An astonishing 41% of respondents reported attempting suicide, compared to only 1.6% of the general population.
* Discrimination in health care and poor health outcomes were frequently experienced by respondents. 19% reported being refused care due to bias against transgender or gender-nonconforming people, with this figure even higher for respondents of color. Respondents also had over four times the national average of HIV infection.
* Harassment by law enforcement was reported by 22% of respondents and nearly half were uncomfortable seeking police assistance.
* Despite the hardships they often face, transgender and gender non-conforming persons persevere. Over 78% reported feeling more comfortable at work and their performance improving after transitioning, despite the same levels of harassment in the workplace."
An interview from the Bay Windows story shows both some of the unexpected ways that people's transgender status can come up in an employment application process and the reality that there are indeed workplaces where people are free to do their jobs and be themselves. Diane DeLap, who works for the Department of Workforce Development, explained how her application process inadvertently revealed her transgender status to her prospective employer: "'One of the interesting things was that the Massachusetts Employment Application requires the inclusion of discharge papers if you have a history in the military,' DeLap said. She had served in the Navy for four years, and included her discharge papers with her application. 'Of course, the military doesn’t change names for anything,' DeLap said, laughing, 'so it had my old name on there and all the other papers had the new name on there, so the fact that I was transgender became a topic of discussion very early in the hiring process. They determined that it shouldn’t make any difference.'"
DeLap clearly had a good experience in her interview process, and others I know also have had positive experiences coming out at work. Increasingly, there is good news of that sort to tell, and it is important to share it along with the alarming statistics and stories, as both are realities right now. The latter tells us how much work we have to do while the former encourages us that it has already begun and we can indeed do it.
As with marriage equality, which received a major boost from the Obama administration this week, I am hopeful that the ice is truly beginning to thaw for transgender equality, that momentum is finally building toward passage of key legal protections. It is up to us to keep that momentum going.
The executive summary of the NCTE/NGLTF survey can be found here, and the full report here.
Posted by Cameron Partridge at 11:55 PM No comments:
Labels: Massachusetts H1728/S1687, NCTE/NGLTF Survey, transgender rights
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This journal was first published in 1999 and was nationally accredited in 2002, 2005, 2008, 2011 and 2016. The online version with DOI number for each article is now available at http://kata.petra.ac.id and it can also be accessed from ProQuest e-journal (http://www.proquest.com). K@ta has also been covered by Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Mendeley, CrossRef, and Google Scholar. k@ta is now in its bid to develop into an international journal (to be indexed in Scopus).
accreditation certificate by Dirjen Dikti
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http://thermalscience.vinca.rs/2011/1/8
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THERMAL SCIENCE
founder & publisher
International Scientific Journal
Authors of this Paper
Mahmood Farzaneh-Gord
Alireza Rasekh
Morteza Saadat
Amin Nabatu
this paper on
Microsoft Academic Search
LOWERING UNCERTAINTY IN CRUDE OIL MEASUREMENT BY SELECTING OPTIMIZED ENVELOPE COLOR OF A PIPELINE
Lowering uncertainty in crude oil volume measurement has been widely considered as one of main purposes in an oil export terminal. It is found that crude oil temperature at metering station has big effects on measured volume and may cause big uncertainty at the metering point. As crude oil flows through an aboveground pipeline, pick up the solar radiation and heat up. This causes the oil temperature at the metering point to rise and higher uncertainty to be created. The amount of temperature rise is depended on exterior surface paint color. In the Kharg Island, there is about 3 km distance between the oil storage tanks and the metering point. The oil flows through the pipeline due to gravity effects as storage tanks are located 60m higher than the metering point. In this study, an analytical model has been conducted for predicting oil temperature at the pipeline exit (the metering point) based on climate and geographical conditions of the Kharg Island. The temperature at the metering point has been calculated and the effects of envelope color have been investigated. Further, the uncertainty in the measurement system due to temperature rise has been studied.
aboveground pipeline, envelope color, oil volume measurement, solar energy, uncertainty
PAPER SUBMITTED: 2010-06-01
PAPER REVISED: 2010-08-19
PAPER ACCEPTED: 2010-09-29
DOI REFERENCE: https://doi.org/10.2298/TSCI100601079F
CITATION EXPORT: view in browser or download as text file
THERMAL SCIENCE YEAR 2011, VOLUME 15, ISSUE Issue 1, PAGES [91 - 104]
Takebayashi, H., Moriyama, M., Surface heat budget on green roof and high reflection roof for mitigation of urban heat island, Building and Environment, 42 (2007), 2, pp. 2971-2979
Wang, X., Kendrick, C., Ogden, R., Maxted, J., Dynamic thermal simulation of a retail shed with solar reflective coatings, Applied Thermal Engineering, 28 (2007), pp. 1066-1073
Smith, G. B., Gentle, A., Swift, P. D., Earp, A., Mronga, N., Coloured paints based on iron oxide and silicon oxide coated flakes of aluminium as the pigment, for energy efficient paint: optical and thermal experiments, Solar Energy Materials & Solar Cells, 79 (2003), pp. 179-197
Baneshi, M., Maruyama, S., Nakai, H., Komiya, A., A new approach to optimizing pigmented coatings considering both thermal and aesthetic effects, Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy & Radiative Transfer, 110 (2009), pp. 192-204
Berger, O., Inns, D., Aberle, A., Commercial white paint as back surface reflector for thin-film solar cells, Solar Energy Materials & Solar Cells, 91 (2007), pp. 1215-1221
Esfahani, J. A., Abdolabadi, A. G., Effect of char layer on transient thermal oxidative degradation of polyethylene, THERMAL SCIENCE, 11 (2007), 2, pp. 23-36
Kowsary, F., Pourshaghaghy, A., Temperature development in pipe flow with uniform surface heat flux condition considering thermal leakage to the ambient, Energy Conversion and Management, 48 (2007), pp. 2382-2385
Yaghoubi, M., Azizian, K., Kenary, A., Simulation of Shiraz solar power plant for optimal assessment, Renewable Energy, 28 (2003), pp. 1985-1998
Madani, H., The performance of a cylindrical solar water heater, Renewable Energy, 31 (2006), 3, pp. 1751-1763
Kim, J. T., Ahn, H. T., Han, H., Kim, H. T., Chun, W., The performance simulation of all-glass vacuum tubes with coaxial fluid conduit, International Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer, 34 (2007), pp. 587-597
Han, H., Kim, J. T., Ahn, H. T., Lee, S. J., A three-dimensional performance analysis of all-glass vacuum tubes with coaxial fluid conduit, International Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer, 35 (2007), pp. 589-596
Luminosu, I., De Sabata, C., But, A., Solar equipment for preheating bitumen, THERMAL SCIENCE, 11 (2007), 1, pp. 127-136
Suehrcke, H., Peterson, E., Selby, N., Effect of roof solar reflectance on the building heat gain in a hot climate, Energy and Buildings, 40 (2007), pp. 2224-2235
Sahin, A. Z., Kalyon, M., Maintaining uniform surface temperature along pipes by insulation, Energy 30, (2005), pp. 637-647
Kamali, G. A., Moradi, E., Solar radiation fundamentals and application in farms and new energy, Ferdowsi., Tehran, Iran, 2005
Zekai, S., Solar Energy Fundamentals and Modeling Techniques, Springer., London, 2007
Cooper, P. I., The absorption of solar radiation in solar stills, Solar Energy, 12 (1969), pp. 333-345
Duffie J. A., Beckman, W. A., Solar Engineering of Thermal Processes, Willy., New York, USA, 1991.
ASHRAE, Handbook of Fundamentals, American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineers Inc., Atlanta, 1993
Incropera, F. P., Dewitt, D. P., Introduction to heat transfer, Wiley., New York, USA, 1990
Sharma, V. B., Mullick, S. C., Estimation of heat transfer coefficients, the upward heat flow, and evaporation in a solar still, ASME Journal of Solar Engineering, 113 (1991), pp. 36-41
Moffat, R. J., Using Uncertainty Analysis in the Planning of an Experiment, ASME Journal of Fluids Engineering, 107 (1985), pp. 173-178
Ferry, R., Volume correction factor For the Manual of Petroleum Measurement Standards, American Petroleum Institute., Washington, D. C., 1995
PDF VERSION [DOWNLOAD]
© 2022 Society of Thermal Engineers of Serbia. Published by the Vinča Institute of Nuclear Sciences, National Institute of the Republic of Serbia, Belgrade, Serbia. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International licence
Copyright © 2022 thermal science | by perfectlounge.com
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http://www.cadtm.org/One-Year-Later-Honduras-Resistance
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One Year Later: Honduras Resistance Strong Despite US-Supported Coup
29 June 2010 by Bill Quigley , Laura Raymond
One year ago, on June 28, 2009, Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was awakened by gunfire. A coup was carried out by US-trained military officers, including graduates of the infamous US Army School of the Americas (WHINSEC) in Georgia. President Zelaya was illegally taken to Costa Rica.
Democracy in Honduras ended as a de facto government of the rich and powerful seized control. A sham election backed by the US confirmed the leadership of the coup powers. The US and powerful lobbyists continue to roam the hemisphere trying to convince other Latin American countries to normalize relations with the coup government.
The media has ignored the revival of US hard power in the Americas and the widespread resistance which challenges it.
A pro-democracy movement, the Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular (FNRP) formed in the coup’s aftermath. Despite horrendous repression, it has organized the anger and passion of a multitude of mass-based popular movements — landless workers, farmers, women, LGBTQ folks, unions, youth and others— and spread a palpable energy of possibility and hope throughout the country.
These forces of democracy have been subjected to police killings, arbitrary detentions, beatings, rape and other sexual abuse of women and girls, torture and harassment of journalists, judges and activists. Prominent LGBTQ activists, labor organizers, campesinos and youth working with the resistance have been assassinated. Leaders have been driven into exile.
Four judges, including the president of Honduran Judges for Democracy, were fired in May 2010 for criticizing the illegality of the coup. Two of them went on a widely-supported hunger strike in the nation’s capital. Judges who participated in public demonstrations in favor of the de facto government remain in power.
In 2010 alone, seven journalists have been murdered. Many others have been threatened. Reporters without Borders calls Honduras the most dangerous country in the world for journalists.
Why was there a coup? Honduras was planning to hold a June 28 poll on whether or not a referendum for forming a constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution should be on the November ballot. Many among the poor correctly view the current constitution as favoring corporations and wealthy landowners. As a result of the constitutional preference for the rich and powerful, Honduras has one of the largest wealth gaps between the rich and poor in Latin America.
Washington and the Honduran elite were also angered that President Zelaya signed an agreement to join the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA). ALBA is a regional trade agreement that provides an alternative to the free trade agreements such as CAFTA that have been pushed by Washington yet opposed by many popular movements through the Americas.
Zelaya’s proposal to transform Soto Cano Air Base, historically important to the US military, into a much-needed civilian airport was unpopular in Washington as was his lack of support for the privatization of the telecommunications industry.
Forces in the US provided critical support for the coup. As members of the resistance have explained, coups do not happen in Latin America without the support of those with power in the US. Right wing ideologues and shell NGOs based out of Washington played a critical role in the coup and since. A leadership vacuum in the Obama Administration regarding Honduras has led to extreme right-wing ideologues directing US policy there. These people are hell bent on stopping the growing populist movements throughout Latin America from gaining more influence and power. Some, such as Otto Reich and Roger Noriega, have moved from positions in the State Department and United Nations into private lobbying firms or conservative think tanks. Others, such as Robert Carmona-Borjas, who was granted asylum in the US after his involvement in the attempted coup against Hugo Chavez, are working for so-called NGOs that use vague missions such as “anti-corruption” to mask the foreign policy work they do.
In the past year, the business elite in Honduras have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on Washington-based lobbying and PR firms to get the U.S. Democratic and Republican parties in line. For example, the Asociación Hondureña de Maquiladoras (Honduran Association of Maquiladoras) hired the Cormac Group to lobby Lobby
Lobbies A lobby is an entity organized to represent and defend the interests of a specific group by exerting pressure or influence on persons or institutions that hold power. Lobbying consists in conducting actions aimed at influencing, directly or indirectly, the drafting, application or interpretation of legislative measures, standards, regulations and more generally any intervention or decision by the Public Authorities. the US government regarding “foreign relations” just days after the coup. Close Clinton confidant Lanny Davis lobbied for the coup powers in DC. A delegation of Republican Senators travelled to Honduras in the fall to support the coup government and organized for wider Congressional support upon their return.
Despite initially condemning the coup, the Obama Administration has completely shifted its position. It provided critical, life-giving approval to the widely denounced elections that were boycotted by much of the Honduran population. The military that was killing people in the streets was also guarding the ballot boxes. Major candidates such as Carlos H. Reyes, now a leader of the resistance, refused to run. The Carter Center, the United Nations, and other respected election observers refused to observe. The FNRP called on people to stay home.
The Organization of American States suspended Honduras and has continued to resist efforts of Secretary of State Clinton to pressure them into readmitting Honduras. However, the US pushed for and was able to secure the formation of a high-level OAS panel to “study” the re-entry of Honduras at its recent meeting in Peru. We may well start to see the international community beginning to normalize relations with this illegitimate government.
As it stands now the coup government of Honduras’ biggest ally is the United States.
A year after the coup, US activists and pro-democracy supporters need to increase their knowledge about what is going on with our neighbors in Honduras and stand in solidarity with the resistance. For democracy to mean anything, it has to mean that plans for a national referendum to rewrite a Constitution to better serve a nation’s people should not be met with a US-supported military coup.
Once again the US is on the wrong side in Latin America.
Once again, the US government is undermining democracy and actively supporting a government that is murdering its own people.
Once again, the US has sided with anti-democracy forces and is trying to bully the world into rubber-stamp approval of our mistakes.
Moving forward from this unfortunate anniversary, one thing is certain - the people’s movement in Honduras is only growing. The resistance has gone ahead with organizing for a constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution. Today there will be massive demonstrations throughout Honduras. We must stand with this dramatic and powerful social movement and challenge our own government to support the forces of democracy, not destroy them.
CCR will be hosting the NYC premiere of a film about the Resistance on July 7, 7pm at Tribeca Cinemas in lower Manhattan. It will also premiere in DC and Berkeley.
For more information about the Honduran resistance, please see their website (and click on the “English” tab): http://www.resistenciahonduras.net/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-quigley/one-year-later-honduras-r_b_627406.html
Bill and Laura work at the Center for Constitutional Rights. You can contact Bill at quigley77 at gmail.com and Laura at lauraraymond21 at gmail.com
Bill Quigley
Other articles in English by Bill Quigley (1)
The G20 in Pittsburgh showed us how pitifully fearful our leaders have become.
28 September 2009, by Bill Quigley
Laura Raymond
The US Supreme Court Judgment: A Challenge to World Bank’s unfettered immunity
31 March 2019 - Sushovan Dhar
For Indigenous Peoples, Megadams Are ‘Worse than Colonization’
16 March 2016 - Philippa de Boissière , Sian Cowman
Justice for the Civil Counsil of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), the family of Bertha Cáceres and Gustavo Castro
10 March 2016 - COPINH
International condemnation of the murder of indigenous leader Berta Cáceres in Honduras
8 March 2016 - Planet Earth
Consolidating the Coup in Honduras
13 February 2010 - Tom Gordon, Jeffery R. Webber
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http://www.disappearednews.com/2013/08/naming-peoples-dreams-for-housing-in.html?showComment=1377675199980
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Naming the people’s dreams for housing in Santiago vs. dashing those dreams in Honolulu
“This is how it worked. A developer bought an old house, tore it down, had an architect draw up plans for a high-rise. And then, Rodrigo stepped in. ‘And my job consisted of a very simple thing. I had to give a name to the building … I had to walk around a lot, know the different neighborhoods, and see what characteristics that neighborhood had. And what characteristics the people who could buy those apartments would be looking for in that neighborhood. People aspired to be something else. They wanted to have a better life. So they had a dream. And I had to walk around the neighborhood thinking of what kind of dream that person was looking for, and I had to devise a name for that dream.’ ”
Episode 73 of the 99% Invisible podcast is they story of how Chilean poet Rodrigo Rojas named many of the high-rise buildings that resulted when the city of Santiago began growing upward. It’s an interesting story in its own right, but listening to the above segment shed some light on our situation in Honolulu, where people’s dreams are not realized—only the wet dreams of developers.
Who here cares about residents’ dreams or aspirations for housing?
The high-rise condo boom in Honolulu will not satisfy the aspirations of our people, who are priced out of any hope of owning (or renting) what amount to stacked-up mansions, each with expensive ocean views. One already includes a promise of its own sushi bar for those unwilling to spread a little of their wealth out on the economy, and a guaranteed source of pate de fois gras right on the premises.
That condo is the Ritz-Carlton Residences Waikiki Beach. See: Shucks, I missed the condo sale yesterday (6/23/2013):
Of course. Ritz-Carlton. The name is appropriate.
A select group of about 75 pre-screened potential buyers crowded the project's sales office and showroom on the aptly named Luxury Row stretch of Kalakaua Avenue on Saturday for the official release of a "reserve collection" of full oceanview units. The event was broadcast live to satellite venues in Tokyo and Shanghai — "an industry first," according to Grosfeld, and streamed via the project's official website.
[Star-Advertiser p. B1, Condo buyers indulge in luxe life, 6/23/2013]
Those buyers aren’t wearing aloha shirts, folks. Nor are the buyers in Tokyo and Shanghai.
A giant video screen tracked the sales, with unit numbers disappearing from a illuminated floor plan as customers staked their claims.
Some of the buyers will be investors. Maybe they’ve already sold today what they just purchased Saturday.
The article indicates that residents of the “Ritz” will have not a pool, but “pools.” They can shop not at Foodland but at an on-site Dean & DeLuca, or if turning on the microwave is too much hassle, dine at the downstairs sushi restaurant.
Far from fulfilling our citizens’ dreams, approval of a forest of high-priced high-rises in Kakaako and elsewhere steals away any aspirations we may have left in a city where home ownership is becoming increasingly expensive and out of reach. The knee-jerk approval of any developer’s proposal sucks away our ability to live and work on the island as it escalates traffic congestion and infrastructure demands that must be met by average taxpayers.
I really don’t know much about how development is handled in Santiago, and it’s true that Rojas’ excursions into neighborhoods was on behalf of his clients, who are the high-rise developers. But my take-away was the possibility of, and the contrast between, development for the benefit of the people already living in a place and Honolulu’s wholesale sellout to affluent outsiders who care nothing about the neighborhoods they will be invading.
The HCDA (Hawaii Community Development Authority), with its ability to run roughshod over zoning, environmental and other sensible controls, is the lynchpin in the state’s sellout to the moneyed interests that support politicians’ re-election campaigns. This explains the chasm between any dreams of our people and what we can expect if the HCDA is not stopped.
Maybe we just don't deserve to live in Hawaii.
Last week's announcement that the Hawaii Community Development Authority is mulling over leasing almost one-third of Kakaako Waterfront Park to a private corporation confirms the worst fears of public-private development.
The plan, as explained by Anthony Ching, HCDA executive director, is to lease out the Ewa portion of the park to a Japanese light show.
[Star-Advertiser p. A15, HCDA proposal so awful it seems like maybe a ruse, 8/27/2013]
As Borecca explains, the public would lose the use of 1/3 of the public park during the day, and at night would have to shell out up to $18 to “enjoy” the light show. He notes that the HCDA has already given approval for a boisterous amusement park to be located near quiet, peaceful, Kakaako Waterfront Park. Instead of the calls of sea birds, visitors seeking refuge from city traffic could face the howls of zip-line or waterpark users or the screech and smash of go-kart collisions.
I need to repeat that the amusement park has already been approved by those stewards of developer’s interests, the HCDA.
No, Richard: We do deserve to live in Hawaii, but a Hawaii without the HCDA.
Should not conflate the amusement park and the light show deal. The amusement park is on privately-owned land - Kamehameha Schools - while the light show is proposed for public owned lands. Yes, both are dreadful uses of scarce land but there is a difference.
Unless I'm wrong, (Please correct me if so), the HCDA could have rejected the idea of the amusement park even though it is to be built on private land. I agree they are not the same, but that doesn't make the location any better.
# posted by Larry : August 28, 2013 at 12:50:00 PM HST
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Archive: September 2001
Posted on 12 September 2001 | Comments Off on Today in History
I woke up yesterday to a friend’s voice on my answering machine. He was supposed to be going to Paris for 6 months, and instead, he said that he was fine, he wasn’t sure when he was leaving, but the planes were grounded, as he was sure I knew. Somewhere in the gray haze of half-sleep, I propped myself up and peeked out the window. The planes were grounded? That’s funny, it’s not storming. My dog nudged me out of bed, and I thought, “I better turn on the TV.” The scene playing out shocked me. The World Trade Center was on fire, then the pentagon. I called my mother, my job, and my husband in rapid succession. I shivered for three solid hours. Later, I told my mom that this was the most significant event ever to occur in both of our lifetimes, even more so than Kennedy. No, she said, he was the leader of the free world, and taken from us swiftly and brutally. Yes, I said. Freedom itself was attacked today. I sat, like millions of other Americans, glued to the TV for the remainder of the day and evening, watching, horrifed, as buildings collapsed and fires raged on. I wept, like millions of other Americans, at the tragic loss of life. I raged, liked millions of other Americans, at the faceless entity which drove such an attack.
What comes next? Shell-shocked citizens, stunned yesterday, offered the answer today.
The sun will still rise, we will still go to work, to school, and to bed each night. Only now, perhaps we will be a little more thankful of the freedom which we have, and those men and women who help provide it. What happens next? We show our solidarity, and we go on.
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This article is about financial dividends. For dividends in arithmetic, see Division (mathematics).
Historical cost
Constant purchasing power
Major types
Economic entity
Matching principle
Unit of account
Selected accounts
Depreciation / Amortization
Generally-accepted principles
Generally-accepted auditing standards
International Standards on Auditing
Management Accounting Principles
Cash-flow
Management discussion
Notes to the financial statements
Double-entry system
FIFO and LIFO
Ledger / General ledger
T accounts
Accounting organizations
Luca Pacioli
Positive accounting
Sarbanes–Oxley Act
A dividend is a payment made by a corporation to its shareholders, usually as a distribution of profits.[1] When a corporation earns a profit or surplus, it can re-invest it in the business (called retained earnings), and pay a fraction of the profit as a dividend to shareholders. Distribution to shareholders can be in cash (usually a deposit into a bank account) or, if the corporation has a dividend reinvestment plan, the amount can be paid by the issue of further shares or share repurchase.[2][3]
A dividend is allocated as a fixed amount per share, with shareholders receiving a dividend in proportion to their shareholding. For the joint-stock company, paying dividends is not an expense; rather, it is the division of after tax profits among shareholders. Retained earnings (profits that have not been distributed as dividends) are shown in the shareholders' equity section on the company's balance sheet - the same as its issued share capital. Public companies usually pay dividends on a fixed schedule, but may declare a dividend at any time, sometimes called a special dividend to distinguish it from the fixed schedule dividends. Cooperatives, on the other hand, allocate dividends according to members' activity, so their dividends are often considered to be a pre-tax expense.
The word "dividend" comes from the Latin word "dividendum" ("thing to be divided").[4]
Cash dividends are the most common form of payment and are paid out in currency, usually via electronic funds transfer or a printed paper check. Such dividends are a form of investment income and are usually taxable to the recipient in the year they are paid. This is the most common method of sharing corporate profits with the shareholders of the company. For each share owned, a declared amount of money is distributed. Thus, if a person owns 100 shares and the cash dividend is 50 cents per share, the holder of the stock will be paid $50. Dividends paid are not classified as an expense, but rather a deduction of retained earnings. Dividends paid does not show up on an income statement but does appear on the balance sheet.
Stock or scrip dividends are those paid out in the form of additional stock shares of the issuing corporation, or another corporation (such as its subsidiary corporation). They are usually issued in proportion to shares owned (for example, for every 100 shares of stock owned, a 5% stock dividend will yield 5 extra shares).
Nothing tangible will be gained if the stock is split because the total number of shares increases, lowering the price of each share, without changing the market capitalization, or total value, of the shares held. (See also Stock dilution.)
Stock dividend distributions are issues of new shares made to limited partners by a partnership in the form of additional shares. Nothing is split, these shares increase the market capitalization and total value of the company at the same time reducing the original cost basis per share.
Stock dividends are not includable in the gross income of the shareholder for US income tax purposes. Because the shares are issued for proceeds equal to the pre-existing market price of the shares; there is no negative dilution in the amount recoverable.[5][6][7]
Property dividends or dividends in specie (Latin for "in kind") are those paid out in the form of assets from the issuing corporation or another corporation, such as a subsidiary corporation. They are relatively rare and most frequently are securities of other companies owned by the issuer, however they can take other forms, such as products and services.
Interim dividends are dividend payments made before a company's Annual General Meeting (AGM) and final financial statements. This declared dividend usually accompanies the company's interim financial statements.
Other dividends can be used in structured finance. Financial assets with a known market value can be distributed as dividends; warrants are sometimes distributed in this way. For large companies with subsidiaries, dividends can take the form of shares in a subsidiary company. A common technique for "spinning off" a company from its parent is to distribute shares in the new company to the old company's shareholders. The new shares can then be traded independently.
Reliability of dividends
Two metrics are commonly used to examine a firm's dividend policy.
Payout ratio is calculated by dividing the company's dividend by the earnings per share. A payout ratio greater than 1 means the company is paying out more in dividends for the year than it earned.
Dividend cover is calculated by dividing the company's cash flow from operations by the dividend. This ratio is apparently popular with analysts of income trusts in Canada. Dividends are payments made by a corporation to its shareholder members. It is the portion of corporate profits paid out to stockholders.
Dividend dates
A dividend that is declared must be approved by a company's board of directors before it is paid. For public companies, four dates are relevant regarding dividends:[8]
Declaration date — the day the board of directors announces its intention to pay a dividend. On that day, a liability is created and the company records that liability on its books; it now owes the money to the stockholders.
In-dividend date — the last day, which is one trading day before the ex-dividend date, where the stock is said to be cum dividend ('with [including] dividend'). In other words, existing holders of the stock and anyone who buys it on this day will receive the dividend, whereas any holders selling the stock lose their right to the dividend. After this date the stock becomes ex dividend.
Ex-dividend date — the day on which shares bought and sold no longer come attached with the right to be paid the most recently declared dividend. In the United States, it is typically 2 trading days before the record date. This is an important date for any company that has many stockholders, including those that trade on exchanges, to enable reconciliation of who is entitled to be paid the dividend. Existing holders of the stock will receive the dividend even if they sell the stock on or after that date, whereas anyone who bought the stock will not receive the dividend. It is relatively common for a stock's price to decrease on the ex-dividend date by an amount roughly equal to the dividend paid. This reflects the decrease in the company's assets resulting from the declaration of the dividend.
Book closure date —when a company announces a dividend, it will also announce a date on which the company will ideally temporarily close its books for fresh transfers of stock, which is also usually the record date.
Record date — shareholders registered in the company's record as of the record date will be paid the dividend. Shareholders who are not registered as of this date will not receive the dividend. Registration in most countries is essentially automatic for shares purchased before the ex-dividend date.
Payment date — the day on which the dividend cheque will actually be mailed to shareholders or credited to their bank account.
Dividend-reinvestment
Some companies have dividend reinvestment plans, or DRIPs, not to be confused with scrips. DRIPs allow shareholders to use dividends to systematically buy small amounts of stock, usually with no commission and sometimes at a slight discount. In some cases, the shareholder might not need to pay taxes on these re-invested dividends, but in most cases they do.
Main article: Dividend tax
Most countries impose a corporate tax on the profits made by a company. A dividend paid by a company is not an expense of the company, but is income of the shareholder. The tax treatment of this dividend income varies considerably between countries:
The United States and Canada impose a lower tax rate on dividend income than ordinary income, on the basis that company profits had already been taxed as corporate tax.
Australia and New Zealand have a dividend imputation system, wherein companies can attach franking credits or imputation credits to dividends. These franking credits represent the tax paid by the company upon its pre-tax profits. One dollar of company tax paid generates one franking credit. Companies can attach any proportion of franking up to a maximum amount that is calculated from the prevailing company tax rate: for each dollar of dividend paid, the maximum level of franking is the company tax rate divided by (1 - company tax rate). At the current 30% rate, this works out at 0.30 of a credit per 70 cents of dividend, or 42.857 cents per dollar of dividend. The shareholders who are able to use them, apply these credits against their income tax bills at a rate of a dollar per credit, thereby effectively eliminating the double taxation of company profits.
The UK's taxation system is unique in its treatment of dividends: when a shareholder receives a dividend, a tax credit of 10% is deemed to already have been paid on that dividend. This ensures that double taxation does not take place, and has the effect that basic rate taxpayers pay no additional tax. Corporate taxpayers have their tax liability satisfied by the deemed tax credit, with no further tax liability. Non-taxpaying entities such as certain trusts, charities and pension funds are unaffected by the tax credit as this is only a deemed payment. The tax credit is unavailable for repayment.
In India, companies declaring or distributing dividend, are required to pay a Corporate Dividend Tax in addition to the tax levied on their income. The dividend received by the shareholders is then exempt in their hands. However, dividend income over and above Rs. 1000,000 shall attract 10 per cent dividend tax in the hands of the shareholder with effect from April 2016.
Effect on stock price
After a stock goes ex-dividend (i.e. when a dividend has just been paid, so there is no anticipation of another imminent dividend payment), the stock price should drop.
To calculate the amount of the drop, the traditional method is to view the financial effects of the dividend from the perspective of the company. Since the company has paid say £x in dividends per share out of its cash account on the left hand side of the balance sheet, the equity account on the right side should decrease an equivalent amount. This means that a £x dividend should result in a £x drop in the share price.
A more accurate method of calculating this price is to look at the share price and dividend from the after-tax perspective of a share holder. The after-tax drop in the share price (or capital gain/loss) should be equivalent to the after-tax dividend. For example, if the tax of capital gains Tcg is 35%, and the tax on dividends Td is 15%, then a £1 dividend is equivalent to £0.85 of after tax money. To get the same financial benefit from a capital loss, the after tax capital loss value should equal £0.85. The pre-tax capital loss would be £0.85/(1-Tcg) = £0.85/(1-35%) = £0.85/65% = £1.30. In this case, a dividend of £1 has led to a larger drop in the share price of £1.30, because the tax rate on capital losses is higher than the dividend tax rate.
Finally, security analysis that does not take dividends into account may mute the decline in share price, for example in the case of a Price–earnings ratio target that does not back out cash; or amplify the decline, for example in the case of Trend following.
Some believe that company profits are best re-invested back into the company: research and development, capital investment, expansion, etc. Proponents of this view (and thus critics of dividends per se) suggest that an eagerness to return profits to shareholders may indicate the management having run out of good ideas for the future of the company. Some studies, however, have demonstrated that companies that pay dividends have higher earnings growth, suggesting that dividend payments may be evidence of confidence in earnings growth and sufficient profitability to fund future expansion.[9]
Taxation of dividends is often used as justification for retaining earnings, or for performing a stock buyback, in which the company buys back stock, thereby increasing the value of the stock left outstanding.
When dividends are paid, individual shareholders in many countries suffer from double taxation of those dividends:
the company pays income tax to the government when it earns any income, and then
when the dividend is paid, the individual shareholder pays income tax on the dividend payment.
In many countries, the tax rate on dividend income is lower than for other forms of income to compensate for tax paid at the corporate level.
Capital gains should not be confused with dividends. Capital gains assume an increase in a stock's value. Dividend is merely parsing out a share of the profits, and is taxed at the dividend tax rate. If there is an increase of value of stock, and a shareholder chooses to sell the stock, the shareholder will pay a tax on capital gains (often taxed at a lower rate than ordinary income). If a holder of the stock chooses to not participate in the buyback, the price of the holder's shares could rise (as well as it could fall), but the tax on these gains is delayed until the actual sale of the shares.
Certain types of specialized investment companies (such as a REIT in the U.S.) allow the shareholder to partially or fully avoid double taxation of dividends.
Shareholders in companies that pay little or no cash dividends can reap the benefit of the company's profits when they sell their shareholding, or when a company is wound down and all assets liquidated and distributed amongst shareholders. This, in effect, delegates the dividend policy from the board to the individual shareholder. Payment of a dividend can increase the borrowing requirement, or leverage, of a company.
Other corporate entities
Cooperative businesses may retain their earnings, or distribute part or all of them as dividends to their members. They distribute their dividends in proportion to their members' activity, instead of the value of members' shareholding. Therefore, co-op dividends are often treated as pre-tax expenses. In other words, local tax or accounting rules may treat a dividend as a form of customer rebate or a staff bonus to be deducted from turnover before profit (tax profit or operating profit) is calculated.
Consumers' cooperatives allocate dividends according to their members' trade with the co-op. For example, a credit union will pay a dividend to represent interest on a saver's deposit. A retail co-op store chain may return a percentage of a member's purchases from the co-op, in the form of cash, store credit, or equity. This type of dividend is sometimes known as a patronage dividend or patronage refund, as well as being informally named divi or divvy.[10][11][12]
Producer cooperatives, such as worker cooperatives, allocate dividends according to their members' contribution, such as the hours they worked or their salary.[13]
In real estate investment trusts and royalty trusts, the distributions paid often will be consistently greater than the company earnings. This can be sustainable because the accounting earnings do not recognize any increasing value of real estate holdings and resource reserves. If there is no economic increase in the value of the company's assets then the excess distribution (or dividend) will be a return of capital and the book value of the company will have shrunk by an equal amount. This may result in capital gains which may be taxed differently from dividends representing distribution of earnings.
Mutuals
The distribution of profits by other forms of mutual organization also varies from that of joint-stock companies, though may not take the form of a dividend.
In the case of mutual insurance, for example, in the United States, a distribution of profits to holders of participating life policies is called a dividend. These profits are generated by the investment returns of the insurer's general account, in which premiums are invested and from which claims are paid. [14] The participating dividend may be used to decrease premiums, or to increase the cash value of the policy. [15] Some life policies pay nonparticipating dividends. As a contrasting example, in the United Kingdom, the surrender value of a with-profits policy is increased by a bonus, which also serves the purpose of distributing profits. Life insurance dividends and bonuses, while typical of mutual insurance, are also paid by some joint stock insurers.
Insurance dividend payments are not restricted to life policies. For example, general insurer State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company can distribute dividends to its vehicle insurance policyholders.[16]
Dividend units
Liquidating dividend
Qualified dividend
List of companies paying scrip dividends
CSS dividend policy
↑ O'Sullivan, Arthur; Sheffrin, Steven M. (2003). Economics: Principles in Action. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458: Pearson Prentice Hall. p. 273. ISBN 0-13-063085-3.
↑ Michael Simkovic, "The Effect of Enhanced Disclosure on Open Market Stock Repurchases", 6 Berkeley Bus. L.J. 96 (2009).
↑ Amedeo De Cesari, Susanne Espenlaub, Arif Khurshed and Michael Simkovic, "The Effects of Ownership and Stock Liquidity on the Timing of Repurchase Transactions", 2010
↑ "dividend". Online Etymology Dictionary. Douglas Harper. 2001. Retrieved November 9, 2006.
↑ Public offering Kinder Morgan Management, LLC
↑ U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
↑ EDGAR Online, Inc.
↑ Securities and Exchange Commission site
↑ Robert D. Arnott and Clifford S. Asness (January–February 2003). "Surprise! Higher Dividends equal Higher Earnings Growth". Financial Analysts Journal. Retrieved January 4, 2011.
↑ Ace Hardware (March 22, 2001). "Annual Report, Section 1, Business, 10-K405 SEC Filing".
↑ "Co-op pays out £19.6m in 'divi'". BBC News via bbc.co.uk. June 28, 2007. Retrieved May 15, 2008.
↑ Nikola Balnave and Greg Patmore. "The History Cooperative – Conference Proceedings - ASSLH - Rochdale consumer co-operatives and Australian labour history".
↑ Norris, Sue (March 3, 2007). "Cooperatives pay big dividends". The Guardian. Retrieved June 9, 2009.
↑ "What Are Dividends?". New York Life. Retrieved April 29, 2008. In short, the portion of the premium determined not to have been necessary to provide coverage and benefits, to meet expenses, and to maintain the company's financial position, is returned to policyowners in the form of dividends.
↑ Hoboken, NJ (2002). "24, Investment-Oriented Life Insurance". In Fabozzi, Frank J. Handbook of Financial Instruments. Wiley. p. 591. ISBN 0-471-22092-2. OCLC 52323583.
↑ "State Farm Announces $1.25 Billion Mutual Auto Policyholder Dividend". State Farm. March 1, 2007.
Look up dividend in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Ex-Dividend Dates: When Are You Entitled to Stock and Cash Dividends – U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
Why Should Companies Pay Dividends?
Dividend Policy from studyfinance.com at the University of Arizona
Common Stock Dividends Ex-Dividend Dates for Common Stock Dividends
Dividend Portfolio Example & the Importance of Dividend Investing
The new U.S. dividend tax cut traps from Tennessee CPA Journal, Nov. 2004
UK Dividend Tax Rates
Special Dividends How To Profit From Special Dividends
Dividend Income from China
Types of markets
Third market
Fourth market
Golden share
Tracking stock
Authorised capital
Issued shares
Floor broker
Proprietary trader
Stock trader
Electronic communication network
List of stock exchanges
Multilateral trading facility
Arbitrage pricing theory
Bid–ask spread
Capital asset pricing model
Dividend discount model
Earnings yield
Security characteristic line
Security market line
Trading theories
and strategies
Concentrated stock
Efficient-market hypothesis
Mosaic theory
Pairs trade
Random walk hypothesis
Sector rotation
Style investing
Cross listing
Dark liquidity
Dual-listed company
DuPont analysis
Flight-to-quality
Market anomaly
Market depth
Mean reversion
Open outcry
Public float
Public offering
Returns-based style analysis
Reverse stock split
Share repurchase
Stock dilution
Uptick rule
Voting interest
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bafybeiemxf5abjwjbikoz4mc3a3dla6ual3jsgpdr4cjr3oz3evfyavhwq.ipfs.dweb.link
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https://blethers.blogspot.com/2015/12/
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The ghosts of Christmas Past
It's a strange phenomenon, the power of Christmas Eve to resurrect memories so strongly and yet so randomly. As I listened to the first of the closing voluntaries from the Service of Nine Lessons and Carols from King's, there came into my mind a memory of myself, in my late teens, stricken with some inconvenient malady on Christmas Eve and spending that short afternoon in bed with the radio on, drifting in and out of sleep. I can't remember what ailed me, and cannot think it lasted, but at the time it felt unreal and solitary as the day darkened.
The small me in the photo (I think I was two) lived in blue dungarees and had to be coaxed out of them for family Christmas tea. (The yellow duck didn't join us - his red felt beak was too chewed for respectable company). We ate Christmas lunch, I remember clearly, in our top flat in Novar Drive, Hyndland, and went for tea to my grandparents' house in Hyndland Road. The whole extended family - the Stewarts, that is - would turn up there at some point in the day, though as I was the first of my generation I was the sole child for the first few post-war years. Families tended to live close, and there was public transport for those who were beyond walking distance.
I was remembering this morning how in my early married life I didn't do any Christmas food: my parents' house was ten minutes' walk from our flat (still in Hyndland) and we went there for lunch and stayed, stupefied, until it was time for bed. My first ever Christmas cake was made just before I had my first child - I'm sure I've recounted how, having slipped on ice in Clarence Drive, I had such a sore behind that I couldn't sit down, and dispelled my fears by baking. But the Glasgow Christmasses didn't end with our emigration to Dunoon; Cal Mac ferries seem to me to have run on Christmas Day and we headed back to Glasgow with our baby son. I do recall, however, that on the first year in Dunoon I iced the cake just before heading out to Midnight Mass: for the first time in my life I was attached to a church and had singing to do.
The long years of running Christmas myself occupied the greatest part of my life, having ended only five or six years ago. It still seems odd not to be making stuffing on Christmas Eve, and ramming it into a recalcitrant bird before church, odd not to waken to the smell of cooking and worry that the overnight temperature had been too high - or too low if the smell wasn't making it as far as the bedroom. There are no small children for whom stockings will have to be filled. I no longer have the restless wait for all the grown-up family to be safely here, nor the unholy rush between the end of term and the 25th. There is, theoretically, all the time in the world.
Time, in fact, to miss family; to look forward to seeing some and regret not seeing others; to have a suitcase packed and worry about taking the right things or forgetting presents or cooking brandy. Time to think about having dinner so that we can have a proper rest before our midnight sing/play/pray (have I got the intercessions? the music?) Time to wonder how we ever had the energy to drag sleeping choristers from their beds to come with us (really).
Now these choristers are cooking turkeys, looking after young children, preparing for visitors, in different parts of the country, and we are here, with the dark firth calm at last and the rain peppering the windows. Everything changes but the message of that distant birth. Even the carols - tonight our introit will be Advent Song, which is only four years old. And then Advent will be over, the waiting over.
And it will be Christmas.
Labels: carols, Christmas, Christmas Eve, family, memories, personal
Three snacks and out
I found myself, in a procrastinating moment, leafing through a leaflet from the Co-op, a Christmas leaflet promising all manner of festive treats that could readily be bought or whipped up using a range of Co-op products. I was lured to check out the helpful little labels at the foot of each recipe - you know, the ones with the 'traffic-light' system of grading content of fat, salt, sugar etc.
I suppose I was thinking of the disturbing news the other day that doctors no longer know what the average healthy weight of an 8-year old is because almost all children in Scotland are overweight or obese. It seems that the adult population is also heading for the buffers fully laden, as it were, and the NHS is doomed as a result. (Ok - I was sweeping a floor at the time and may have condensed this slightly, but you get my drift.)
One caller on the dreaded Call Kaye programme suggested labelling every instant meal with an example of the kind of exercise that would burn off the calories contained therein. I thought this a marvellous idea - it was the realisation that to rid myself of the calories of an average pizza I would have to climb a Munroe carrying a pack that had me decide that life was too short to eat pizza and would probably be shorter if I did.
Back to the leaflet. On average, the calories contained in the average helping of the snacks whose recipes looked so tempting - and these are one- or two-bite nibbles we're talking here - the average content was between 400 and 500 calories. Thats's appalling. The main culprits seemed to lie in the use of cream and butter, even on apparently healthful things like sprouts. Three of these snacks would constitute the recommended calorific average for someone of my age, build and height for a whole day unless I took some exercise.
That's it, really. I'll probably eat a few such items over the gluttony season, leave my body to complain afterwards of the abuse, but not without thinking about it. I'm not miserable about that at all - any more than I am about cutting out, say, oysters from my diet (they have dire consequences for me). And I am reminded of something my father said when I was a skinny teen going to the cinema regularly and eating a bag of peanuts in the darkness. "That's enough to feed a starving family for a day."
He was ahead of his time, I think.
Labels: calories, Christmas, diet, exercise, food, obesity, overeating, recipes, snacks
All we go down ...
I was at a funeral yesterday, not as a mourner but as a provider of music, one of a quartet singing the Kontakion for the Departed at the end of a service in the Cathedral of The Isles on Cumbrae. This was significant for me personally in one important feature: it was doing exactly that at my very first funeral in that same cathedral 42 years ago that convinced me of all that I now believe in, as a consequence of which I was confirmed 9 months later and as a further consequence of which I came to live in Dunoon. There were differences, of course - that first funeral was of a friend, it was a requiem mass, the coffin was between the choir stalls and therefore right on front of me.
So I'd actually have gone a long way to sing this music again in that place and with these same musicians. But another truth dawned on me yesterday as I sang, and after the plainsong Nunc Dimittis with which we finished. It was a truth about music - that kind of music, timeless and beautiful and still. For after all the words, the telling to God of the deceased's character (thou knowest, Lord, the secret of our hearts ... ) and the hymns that were deemed suitable, this was the moment when it seemed to me that the otherness of death came close, that the life of the world was dimmed and the life of heaven opened, and the possibilities of eternity were real and endless.
And weeping o'er the grave, we make our song: Alleluia, alleluia.
I would like to think that this music will be present for my end.
Labels: belief, Butterfield, Cathedral of The Isles, Christian, Cumbrae, faith, funerals, heaven, Kontakion, music, religion, singing
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blethers.blogspot.com
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https://craigmorehs.sa.edu.au/learning-areas/science/
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Students gain an understanding of the scientific approach to problem solving and how to plan and conduct their own scientific experiments to test hypotheses. They analyse data and apply their scientific knowledge to evaluate results provides a structure within specific content is presented.
Students are encouraged to relate the content of the classroom to real life contexts as they develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
Science is compulsory from year 8 through to Year 10 and is an elective subject for Stage 1 and Stage 2 students.
From Stage 1 onwards, Science subjects are broken down into separate fields of study to enable students to have a choice in the type of Science they would like to study. The areas of study that students can select includes Chemistry, Biology, Physics, Forensics, Sport Studies Psychology and Nutrition.
Yearly participation in the Science and Engineering Challenge in STEM SISTA and MISTA.
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craigmorehs.sa.edu.au
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https://cryo.org.ua/journal/index.php/probl-cryobiol-cryomed/article/view/190
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Cryopreservation of Biological Resources
Effect of Hypothermic Storage and Cryopreservation on Human Cord Blood Leucoconcentrate Cells
S. S. Chernousova Institute for Problems of Cryobiology and Cryomedicine of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kharkov
human cord blood, stem hemopoietic and non-hemopoietic cells, hypothermic storage, cryopreservation
Pre-cryopreservation hypothermic storage and cryopreservation process itself effects on integrity, viability and membrane properties of hemopoietic stem cells with high proliferative activity and self-support potentials as well as of non-hemopoietic human cord blood leucoconcentrate (HCBL) cells were investigated, as well as correlation between phenotypic marker expression and functional condition of these cells was assessed. The data obtained allowed experimental substantiating the maximally acceptable term of hypothermic storage (24 hrs) of cord blood prior to production of HCBL. A rise in plasmatic membrane permeability of stem hemopoietic cells with a high proliferative activity potential after their cryopreservation was shown. The permeability also increased, as the term of preliminary hypothermic storage was prolonged.
Goltsev, A. N., Volina, V. V., Sokol, L. V., Ostankov, M. V., Goltsev, K. A., Chernousova, S. S., & Kozhina, O. Y. (2010). Effect of Hypothermic Storage and Cryopreservation on Human Cord Blood Leucoconcentrate Cells. Problems of Cryobiology and Cryomedicine, 20(3), 303–308. Retrieved from https://cryo.org.ua/journal/index.php/probl-cryobiol-cryomed/article/view/190
Copyright (c) 2020 A. N. Goltsev, V. V. Volina, L. V. Sokol, M. V. Ostankov, K. A. Goltsev, S. S. Chernousova, O. Yu. Kozhina
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cryo.org.ua
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https://diversityreadinglist.org/the-virtue-of-civility/
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Calhoun, Cheshire. The Virtue of Civility
2000, Philosophy and Public Affairs 29 (3):251-275.
Categories: Manners, Normative Ethics, Tolerance, Value Theory , Virtue Ethics, Virtues and Vices
Keywords: civility, social norms, virtue
Added by: Simon Fokt, Contributed by: Eline Gerritsen
Abstract: The decline of civility has increasingly become the subject of lament both in popular media and in daily conversation. Civility forestalls the potential unpleasantness of a life with other people. Without it, daily social exchanges can turn nasty and sometimes hazardous. Civility thus seems to be a basic virtue of social life. Moral philosophers, however, do not typically mention civility in their catalogues or examples of virtue. In what follows, I want to suggest that civility is a particularly interesting virtue for moral philosophers because giving an adequate account of the virtue of civility requires us to rethink the relationship between moral virtue and compliance with social norms.
Comment: This paper has a clear argumentative structure, gives many examples and does not require prior knowledge of the topic. It can be used on its own in a discussion of virtue ethics, e.g. to illustrate how you can argue that something is a virtue and how to differentiate virtues. It can also be used in a discussion of the relation between morality and social norms.
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diversityreadinglist.org
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https://electowiki.org/wiki/Equal_Vote_Coalition
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Equal Vote Coalition
parent: Organizations
The Equal Vote Coalition is a 501(c)(3) advocacy organization[1] that promotes STAR voting as well as a number of other reforms for various situations. Their early work was primarily around Oregon but other chapters soon formed around the United States.[2][3] At present they have efforts in Canada and engage with researchers around the world.
The Equal Vote Coalition's mission is to promote true equality in the vote itself. They stress the equality criterion, which requires that for every ballot that one voter casts, there exists an equal and opposite ballot that cancels it out.[4][5]
The organization evolved out of the Unified Primary campaign, which promoted non-partisan approval voting primaries with a top-two runoff.
See their website at https://www.equal.vote
(http://equal.vote if you get an error trying to go to https://equal.vote )
↑ "About The Equal Vote Coalition". Equal Vote Coalition. Retrieved 2021-01-21.
↑ "Coalition". Equal Vote Coalition. Retrieved 2021-01-21.
↑ "Chapters". STAR Voting. Retrieved 2021-01-21.
↑ "The Equal Vote". Equal Vote Coalition. Retrieved 2021-01-21.
↑ "What is an Equal Vote?". STAR Voting. Retrieved 2021-01-21.
Retrieved from "https://electowiki.org/w/index.php?title=Equal_Vote_Coalition&oldid=13397"
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schinus_terebinthifolius
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Schinus terebinthifolia
(Redirected from Schinus terebinthifolius)
Species of flowering plant in the cashew and mango family Anacardiaceae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Clade: Rosids
Order: Sapindales
Genus: Schinus
S. terebinthifolia
G. Raddi[1]
Schinus terebinthifolia is a species of flowering plant in the cashew family, Anacardiaceae, that is native to subtropical and tropical South America. Common names include Brazilian peppertree,[2] aroeira, rose pepper, broadleaved pepper tree,[3] wilelaiki (or wililaiki),[4] Christmasberry tree[5] and Florida holly.[6] The species name has been very commonly misspelled as ‘terebinthifolius’.[a]
2 Distribution
3 Cultivation and uses
4 Toxicity
6 As an invasive pest
8 Medicinal uses
Description[edit]
Brazilian peppertree is a sprawling shrub or small tree, with a shallow root system, reaching a height of 7–10 m. The branches can be upright, reclining, or nearly vine-like, all on the same plant. Its plastic morphology allows it to thrive in all kinds of ecosystems: From dunes to swamps, where it grows as a semi-aquatic plant.[8] The leaves are alternate, 10–22 cm long, pinnately compound with (3–) 5–152 leaflets; the leaflets are roughly oval (lanceolate to elliptical), 3–6 cm long and 2–3.5 cm broad, and have finely toothed margins, an acute to rounded apex and yellowish veins. The leaf rachis between the leaflets is usually (but not invariably) slightly winged. The plant is dioecious, with small white flowers borne profusely in axillary clusters. The fruit is a drupe 4–5 mm diameter, carried in dense clusters of hundreds.
The two varieties are:
S. terebinthifolia var. acutifolia, leaves to 22 cm, with 7–152 leaflets, pink fruit
S. terebinthifolia var. terebinthifolia, leaves to 17 cm, with 5–132 leaflets, red fruit
Distribution[edit]
Schinus terebinthifolia is native to Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay.[9] In the United States, it has been introduced to California, Texas, Hawaii, Arizona, Nevada, Louisiana,[10] and Florida.
Cultivation and uses[edit]
Brazilian pepper is widely grown as an ornamental plant in frost-free regions of South America for its foliage and fruit. In its native habitat it is a melliferous flower[8] and is the main source of food for the stingless bee Tetragonisca angustula, which is an important honey producer in central America.[11]
Although it is not a true pepper (Piper), its dried drupes are often sold as pink peppercorns, as are the fruits from the related species Schinus molle (Peruvian peppertree). The seeds can be used as a spice, adding a pepper-like taste to food. They are usually sold in a dry state and have a bright pink color. They are less often sold pickled in brine, where they have a dull, almost green hue.
Planted originally as an ornamental outside of its native range, Brazilian pepper has become widespread and is considered an invasive species in many subtropical regions with moderate to high rainfall, including parts or all of Australia, the Bahamas, Bermuda, southern China, Cuba, Fiji, French Polynesia, Guam, Hawaii, Malta, the Marshall Islands, Mauritius, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Norfolk Island, Puerto Rico, Réunion, South Africa and the United States. In drier areas, such as Israel and southern California, it is also grown, but has not generally proven invasive. In California, it is considered invasive in coastal regions by the California Invasive Plant Council.[12]
Brazilian pepper is hard to control because it produces basal shoots if the trunk is cut. Trees also produce abundant seeds that are dispersed by birds and ants. This same hardiness makes the tree highly useful for reforestation in its native environment, but enables it to become invasive outside of its natural range.[8]
Toxicity[edit]
Like many other species in the family Anacardiaceae, Brazilian pepper has an aromatic sap that can cause skin reactions (similar to poison ivy burns) in some sensitive people – although the reaction is usually weaker than that induced by touch of the closely related Lithraea molleoides, known in Brazil as "wild" aroeira (aroeira brava). Conversely, Schinus terebinthifolia is commonly known as "tame" aroeira (aroeira mansa).
In a paper on triterpenes, the ingested fruits are noted to have a “paralyzing effect” on birds.[13] The narcotic and toxic effects on birds and other wildlife has also been noted by others, e.g., Bureau of Aquatic Plant Management. The AMA Handbook of Poisonous and Injurious Plants reports that the triterpenes found in the fruits can result in irritation of the throat, gastroenteritis, diarrhea, and vomiting.[14] Like most other members of the Anacardiaceae, Brazilian pepper contains active alkenyl phenols, e.g., urushiol, cardol, which can cause contact dermatitis and inflammation in sensitive individuals.[15][16] Contact with the “sap” from a cut or bruised tree can result in rash, lesions, oozing sores, severe itching, welts and reddening and swelling (especially of the eyes).[17]
The burning of plant matter releases many airborne irritants, so it is not an effective means of control. It is said to have a "mace-like" effect upon nearby people and is highly advised against.[citation needed]
Also known as "Florida holly", Schinus terebinthifolia was introduced to Florida by at latest 1891, probably earlier,[18] where it has spread rapidly since about 1940,[19] replacing native plants, like mangroves, with thousands of acres occupied. It is especially adept at colonizing disturbed sites and can grow in both wet and dry conditions. Its growth habit allows it to climb over understory trees and invade mature canopies, forming thickets that choke out most other plants.
As an invasive pest[edit]
The species, including the seed, is legally prohibited from sale, transport, or planting in Florida, according to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services Noxious Weed List.[20] It is classified as a Category I pest by The Florida Exotic Pest Plant Council (FL EPPC).[21] To keep the plant from spreading into native plant communities and displacing them, local regulations and environmental guidelines require eradication of Brazilian pepper wherever possible. The plant and all parts are also illegal for sale or transfer in Texas.[22] As one of the two species sold as pink peppercorn, the other being Schinus molle, it lacks generally recognized as safe (GRAS) status with the FDA.[23]
Several biocontrols are being studied for use in Florida.[24][25][26][27][28][29][30]
It is a declared weed in several states of Australia.[31][32][33] In South Africa, it is classified as a category 1 invader in KwaZulu-Natal province, where any plants are to be removed and destroyed, and a category 3 invader in all other provinces, meaning it may no longer be planted.[34]
Control[edit]
Two herbicides are approved for use in the United States to exterminate Brazilian pepper: Triclopyr, using the basal bark method; and glyphosate. Picloram can be used if the stump has been freshly cut, but this is neither the preferred nor most effective means of eradication.
Calophya terebinthifolii and Calophya lutea are two psyllids in the Calophya with high specificity – among plants in Florida – for Brazilian peppertree. Thus they are recommended for use in biocontrol in that area.[35]
Medicinal uses[edit]
Peppertree is the subject of extensive folk medicinal lore where it is indigenous. Virtually all parts of this tropical tree, including its leaves, bark, fruit, seeds, resin and oleoresin (or balsam) have been used medicinally by indigenous peoples throughout the tropics. The plant has a very long history of use and appears in ancient religious artifacts and on idols among some of the ancient Chilean Amerindians.[citation needed]
Throughout South and Central America, Brazilian peppertree is reported to be an astringent, antibacterial, diuretic, digestive stimulant, tonic, antiviral and wound healer. In Peru, the sap is used as a mild laxative and a diuretic and the entire plant is used externally for fractures and as a topical antiseptic. The oleoresin is used externally as a wound healer, to stop bleeding and for toothaches and it is taken internally for rheumatism and as a purgative. In South Africa, a leaf tea is used to treat colds and a leaf decoction is inhaled for colds, hypertension, depression and irregular heartbeat. In the Brazilian Amazon, a bark tea is used as a laxative and a bark-and-leaf tea is used as a stimulant and antidepressant. In Argentina, a decoction is made with the dried leaves and is taken for menstrual disorders and is also used for respiratory and urinary tract infections and disorders.[citation needed]
Brazilian peppertree is still employed in herbal medicine today in many countries. It is used for many conditions in the tropics, including menstrual disorders, bronchitis, gingivitis, gonorrhea, gout, eye infections, rheumatism, sores, swellings, tuberculosis, ulcers, urethritis, urogenital disorders, venereal diseases, warts and wounds. In Brazilian herbal medicine today, the dried bark and/or leaves are employed for heart problems (hypertension and irregular heart beat), infections of all sorts, menstrual disorders with excessive bleeding, tumors and general inflammation. A liquid extract or tincture prepared with the bark is used internally as a stimulant, tonic and astringent and externally for rheumatism, gout and syphilis.[36]
Recently, the fruit of the plant has been studied and shows promise as a treatment for MRSA. A chemical in the berry appears to stop bacteria from producing a toxin which breaks down tissue. It also appears to suppress the way the bacteria communicate.[37][38]
^ The misspelling ‘terebinthifolius’ of [correct] Schinus terebinthifolia is due to considerable historic confusion as to the correct gender of the genus name; as of 2015 this has been resolved with the determination that the correct gender of Schinus is feminine (rather than masculine), and adjectival names within the genus must be spelled accordingly.[7]
^ "Schinus terebinthifolia". Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN). Agricultural Research Service (ARS), United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Retrieved 30 December 2009. [full citation needed]
^ "Schinus terebinthifolius". Natural Resources Conservation Service PLANTS Database. USDA. Retrieved 6 November 2015.
^ "Broadleaved pepper tree (Schinus terebinthifolius)". www.daf.qld.gov.au. Retrieved 19 July 2015.
^ "Christmas-berry" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 March 2016. Retrieved 4 December 2016.
^ "Schinus terebinthifolius". ipef.br (in Portuguese). Instituto de Pesquisas e Estudos Florestais.
^ "Brazilian-pepper tree, Christmasberry tree, Florida Holly". Floridagardener.com. Retrieved 6 October 2017.
^ Zona, S. (2015). "The correct gender of Schinus (Anacardiaceae)". Phytotaxa. 222 (1): 75–77. doi:10.11646/phytotaxa.222.1.9.
^ a b c Backes, Paulo; Irgang, Bruno (2004). Mata Atlântica: as árvores e a paisagem. Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil: Paisagem do Sul. p. 102.
^ "Schinus terebinthifolius". ICUN Global Invasive Species Database. International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Retrieved 22 May 2021.
^ "Element stewardship abstract" (PDF). TNC Weeds. Schinus terebinthifolius. Davis, CA: University of California. Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 February 2007.
^ Braga, J.A.; Sales, E.O.; Soares Neto, J.; Conde, M.M.; Barth, O.M.; Maria, C.L. (December 2012). "Floral sources to Tetragonisca angustula (Hymenoptera: Apidae) and their pollen morphology in a southeastern Brazilian Atlantic Forest". Revista de Biología Tropical. 60 (4): 1491–501. doi:10.15517/rbt.v60i4.2067. PMID 23342504.
^ "California Invasive Plant Council" (website).
^ Campello, J.P.; Marsaioli, A.J. (1974). "Triterpenes of Schinus terebinthifolius". Phytochemistry. 13: 659–660.
^ Lampe, K.F.; McCann, M.A., eds. (1985). AMA Handbook of Poisonous and Injurious Plants. Chicago, IL: American Medical Association.
^ Lampe, K.F.; Fagerstrom, R. (1968). Plant Toxicity and Dermatitis. Baltimore, MD: Williams & Wilkins.
^ Tomlinson, P.B. (1980). The Biology of Trees Native to Tropical Florida. Allston: Harvard University Printing Office.
^ Morton, J.F. (1978). "Brazilian pepper: Its impact on people, animals and the environment". Econ. Bot. 32: 353–359.
^ Gogue, G.J.; Hurst, C.J.; Bancroft, L. (1974). "Growth inhibition by Schinus terebinthifolius". HortScience. 9 (3): 301.
^ Ewel, J.J. (1986). "Invasibility: Lessons from south Florida.". In Mooney, H.A.; Drake, J.A. (eds.). Ecology of Biological Invasions of North America and Hawaii. New York, NY: Springer-Verlag. pp. 214–230.
^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 15 January 2009. Retrieved 14 July 2009. CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
^ "Invasive plant lists". Fleppc.org. Florida Exotic Pest Plant Council. Retrieved 19 July 2018.
^ "Texas Invasives". Info.sos.state.tx.us. Archived from the original on 24 October 2012. Retrieved 19 July 2018.
^ Singh, Ram J.; Lebeda, Ales; Tucker, Arthur O. (2011). "Chapter 2. Medicinal plants — nature's pharmacy". In Singh, Ram J. (ed.). Genetic Resources, Chromosome Engineering, and Crop Improvement. Medicinal Plants. 6. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press (published 15 September 2011). p. 17. ISBN 978-1420073843.
^ "Patricia Prade, PhD, an expert in biological control of Florida's most serious invasive plant". Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS) (blog). Gainesville, FL: University of Florida. 7 October 2020.
^ Burckhardt, Daniel; et al. (2018). "Taxonomy of Calophya (Hemiptera: Calophyidae) species associated with Schinus terebinthifolia (Anacardiaceae)" (PDF). Florida Entomologist. 101 (2): 178–188. doi:10.1653/024.101.0205. S2CID 90218978.
^ Prade, Patricia; Minteer, Carey R.; Cuda, James P. (July 2019). "Yellow Brazilian peppertree leaf-galler (suggested common name) Calophya latiforceps Burckhardt (Insecta: Hemiptera: Calophyidae: Calophyinae)". Entomology and Nematology Department. entnemdept.ufl.edu. Beneficial creatures. Gainesville, FL: University of Florida. Retrieved 10 July 2021.
^ Prade; et al. "Salvinia weevil Cyrtobagous salviniae (Calder & Sands) (Insecta: Coleoptera: Curculionidae)" (PDF). Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS). Gainesville, FL: University of Florida.
^ Prade, Patricia; et al. "Brazilian peppertree thrips Pseudophilothrips ichini (Hood) (Insecta: Thysanoptera: Phlaeothripidae)" (PDF). Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS). Gainesville, FL: University of Florida.
^ Cuda; et al. (October 2019). "Brazilian peppertree" (PDF). Integrated Management Guide.
^ Prade, Patricia; Diaz, Rodrigo; Vitorino, Marcelo D.; Cuda, James P.; Kumar, Prem; Gruber, Barrett; Overholt, William A. (2016). "Galls induced by Calophya latiforceps (Hemiptera: Calophyidae) reduce leaf performance and growth of Brazilian peppertree". Biocontrol Science and Technology. 26 (1): 23–34. doi:10.1080/09583157.2015.1072131. S2CID 84005719.
^ "Broadleaved pepper tree Schinus terebinthifolius declared class 3" (PDF). Daff.qld.gov.au. Archived from the original (PDF) on 31 May 2013. Retrieved 19 July 2018.
^ "pepper tree". Agriculture. Weed profiles. New South Wales, Australia: Department of Primary Industries. Archived from the original on 2 September 2012. Retrieved 30 August 2012.
^ "List of Weeds". Western Australian Herbarium. Florabase — the Western Australian Flora. Swan River weeds. Western Australia: Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions. Retrieved 10 July 2021.
^ "Invasive Alien Plants". CARA List. South African Nursery Association. Archived from the original on 13 March 2013. Retrieved 26 March 2013.
^ Prade, P.; Minteer, C.R.; Gezan, S.A.; et al. (2021). "Host specificity and non-target longevity of Calophya lutea and Calophya terebinthifolii, two potential biological control agents of Brazilian peppertree in Florida, USA". BioControl (published 20 October 2020). 66: 281–294. doi:10.1007/s10526-020-10058-3.
^ "Brazilian peppertree - Schinus molle". Rain-tree.com. Tropical Plant Database File. Retrieved 19 July 2018.
^ "Common weed could help fight deadly superbug, study finds". The Washington Post. To Your Health. Retrieved 19 July 2018.
^ Muhs, Amelia; Lyles, James T.; Parlet, Corey P.; Nelson, Kate; Kavanaugh, Jeffery S.; Horswill, Alexander R.; Quave, Cassandra L. (2017). "Virulence inhibitors from Brazilian peppertree block quorum sensing and abate dermonecrosis in skin infection models" (PDF). Scientific Reports. 7 (1): 42275. Bibcode:2017NatSR...742275M. doi:10.1038/srep42275. ISSN 2045-2322. PMC 5301492. PMID 28186134.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Schinus terebinthifolia.
"Brazilian peppertree (Schinus terebinthifolius) – species profile". National Invasive Species Information Center. United States National Agricultural Library. — Lists general information and resources for Brazilian peppertree.
"Schinus terebinthifolius". Global Invasive Species Database.
"Element Stewardship Abstract for Schinus terebinthifolius" (PDF). US Nature Conservancy.
Culinary herbs and spices
Indian bay leaf (tejpat)
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Brazilian pepper
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Taxon identifiers
Wikispecies: Schinus terebinthifolia
AoFP: 52
APA: 306
APDB: 5948
APNI: 88513
ATRF: Schinus_terebinthifolius
Calflora: 7379
Cal-IPC: schinus-terebinthifolius
EPPO: SCITE
EUNIS: 150958
FEIS: schter
FloraBase: 11027
FoAO2: Schinus terebinthifolia
Fossilworks: 266836
GISD: 22
GRIN: 70672
iNaturalist: 78993
IPA: 78819
IPNI: 71069-1
ITIS: 28812
NSWFlora: Schinus~terebinthifolius
NZOR: 921f4072-7317-45fd-8e70-b8c9962ec1ad
NZPCN: 4123
Plant List: kew-2480191
PLANTS: SCTE
POWO: urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:71069-1
Tropicos: 1300216
uBio: 456280
WoI: 222
WFO: wfo-0000435152
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Schinus_terebinthifolia&oldid=1053845425"
Schinus
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This page was last edited on 6 November 2021, at 12:20 (UTC).
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https://energyrights.info/content/role-european-policy-improving-power-plant-fuel-efficiency
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The role of European policy for improving power plant fuel efficiency
University of Chicago Press Journals
Logan Young
May 15, 2020 - 9:25pm
This article addresses the efficiency upgrades as well as transition to renewable sources. It states in the article that because of the transition they have been able to reduce their emissions by 6 million tons annually. This is an incredibly high amount this is partly because they are now on about 65% renewable sources. Germany is not a small country so this is no small feat. It is also stated that carbon intensive plants produce less. While the transition to clean energy is the safest, improving efficiency between plants not only reduces emissions but the output as well leaving no room for question. This is important because Germany is a large country with many inhabitants proving renewable energy to succeed where it almost accounts for the entirety of energy use. This article also brings up the importance of policy and how it contributes to the expansion of these programs. This is relevant to the project to explain the potential of big projects. This also refutes the argument that renewable sources would not be able to keep up with the needs of an entire country.
U. (2020, May 08). The role of European policy for improving power plant fuel efficiency. Retrieved May 14, 2020, from https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/05/200508184601.htm
carbon emission
University of Chicago Press Journals, "The role of European policy for improving power plant fuel efficiency", contributed by Logan Young, The Energy Rights Project, Platform for Experimental Collaborative Ethnography, last modified 15 May 2020, accessed 16 January 2022.
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https://english.khamenei.ir/news/8726/Imam-Khamenei-appreciates-Iranian-Greco-Roman-wrestling-champions
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Imam Khamenei appreciates Iranian Greco-Roman wrestling champions
Following the victories of the Iranian wrestlers in the World Greco-Roman Wrestling Championships, Imam Khamenei thanked these champions and their coach in a message. The text of his message follows.
Congratulations to the country’s Greco-Roman wrestling champions and to their coach who have made all Iranians happy, especially the youth. God willing, you will continue to be successful.
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Mikhmanim
מִכְמַנִּים
Coordinates: 32°54′21″N 35°19′38″E / 32.90583°N 35.32722°E / 32.90583; 35.32722Coordinates: 32°54′21″N 35°19′38″E / 32.90583°N 35.32722°E / 32.90583; 35.32722
Hitahdut HaIkarim
Population (2015)[1]
Mikhmanim (Hebrew: מִכְמַנִּים) is a communal village in northern Israel. Located atop Mount Kamun, the highest peak in the Lower Galilee, overlooking the city of Karmiel, it falls under the jurisdiction of Misgav Regional Council. In 2015 it had a population of 443.
The village was established in 1980. By April 2011, the community had 70 families with 150 children. The community has a library, a daycare center for children ages 3–5, a clubhouse for teenagers, a social hall for community events and holiday celebrations, sports facilities, and a small industrial zone for entrepreneurs and small family businesses.
Mount Gilon primary school serves the needs of Grades 1-6. Other schools in the region are Ma'ale Zviyya, the Anthroposophical school in Misgav and the Galilee bilingual school in Misgav. Middle school and high school students attend classes at the Misgav Regional Center, which also houses a gym, an extracurricular activities center, a music school and a country club.
↑ "List of localities, in Alphabetical order" (PDF). Israel Central Bureau of Statistics. Retrieved 16 October 2016.
Misgav Regional Council
Kibbutzim
Eshbal
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Lotem
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Shekhanya
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Tzurit
Bedouin villages
Arab al-Na'im
Dmeide
Hamdon
Hussniyya
Kamanneh
Ras al-Ein
Sallama
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https://gbrettmiller.blog/2004/08/31/and-the-biggest-security-threat-in-the-it-age-is/
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And the biggest security threat in the IT age is…
If you said “Microsoft” you wouldn’t be too far off, but according to Bruce Schneier the biggest threat in the IT age is people.
Since the beginning of time, people have always been the biggest security threat. That hasn’t changed because of computers. People are why firewalls are invariably misconfigured. They’re why social engineering works. They’re why good security products are rarely deployed properly. Securing the computer and network is hard, but it’s much easier than securing the person sitting on the chair in front of the monitor.
“So, who is responsible for security?” you may ask. According to Schneier, in an interview at Neowin.net:
Right now, no one is responsible; that’s part of the problem. In the abstract, everyone is responsible…but that’s not a fair answer. In the end, we all pay. The question really is: what’s the most efficient way to assign responsibility? Or: what allocation of responsibility results in the most cost-effective security solutions?
We can’t survive with a solution that makes the user responsible, because users don’t have the knowledge and expertise to be responsible. The sysadmins have more knowledge and expertise, but they too are overwhelmed by the sheer amount of security nonsense they have to deal with. The only way to solve the security problem is to get to the root of it, and the roots are in the software packages themselves. Right now, software vendors bear no liability for the software vulnerabilities in their products. Changing that would put enormous economic pressure on software vendors, and improve computer security faster and cheaper than anything else we can do. I’ve written about this here.
Other topics addressed in the interview include a brief discussion of Microsoft (and why they aren’t overly interested in making a secure product) and his thoughts on what systems/apps are better from a security standpoint.
I’ve been a reader of Schneier’s Crypto-o-gram monthly newsletter for several years and highly recommend it. I also recommend his books. Beyond Fear and Secrets and Lies (my personal favorite) are especially good for a general audience interested in security in general, while some of the others are much more technical in nature.
Posted in Pound of Obscure Mastery
‹ PreviousThrowing down the gauntlet. or “You just don’t get it!” – The Gospel according to Joe Trippi
Next ›On the subject of security…
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https://groundwork.wordpress.com/tag/melancholia/
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Born to the blues
20 August 2008, 8:29 am
My basic instinct is toward melancholia — a state I must nourish. In fostering my essential nature, I’m trying to live according to what I see as my deep calling. Granted, it’s difficult at times to hold hard to this vocation, this labor in the fields of sadness. But I realize somewhere in the core of my bones that I was born to the blues.
Thus Eric G. Wilson in his book, Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy (2008, Farrar, Straus & Giroux). In an essay adapted from the book and published at The Chronicle of Higher Education, he considers the mass quest for happiness in America as, ironically, a death wish because he believes that the escape from melancholia is also an escape from a fuller life, “a wanton forgetting of an essential part of a full life”. “[T]his rabid focus on exuberance,” he says, “leads to half-lives, to bland existences, to wastelands of mechanistic behavior” (“In Praise of Melancholy”).
Right now, if the statistics are correct, about 15 percent of Americans are not happy. Soon, perhaps, with the help of psychopharmaceuticals, melancholics will become unknown. That would be an unparalleled tragedy, equivalent in scope to the annihilation of the sperm whale or the golden eagle. With no more melancholics, we would live in a world in which everyone simply accepted the status quo, in which everyone would simply be content with the given. This would constitute a nightmare worthy of Philip K. Dick, a police state of Pollyannas, a flatland that offers nothing new under the sun. Why are we pushing toward such a hellish condition?
The answer is simple: fear. Most hide behind a smile because they are afraid of facing the world’s complexity, its vagueness, its terrible beauties. If we stay safely ensconced behind our painted grins, then we won’t have to encounter the insecurities attendant upon dwelling in possibility, those anxious moments when one doesn’t know this from that, when one could suddenly become almost anything at all. Even though this anxiety, usually over death, is in the end exhilarating, a call to be creative, it is in the beginning rather horrifying, a feeling of hovering in an unpredictable abyss. Most of us habitually flee from that state of mind, try to lose ourselves in distraction and good cheer. We don inauthenticity as a mask, a disguise to protect us from the abyss.
Read “In Praise of Melancholy”, which also considers the place of melancholia in the life and work of John Keats.
Eric G. Wilson’s homepage.
Coming across like a Michael Moore rant, here’s Garrison Keillor’s folkish review of Wilson’s book at The New York Times.
Leave a Comment » | Journal, Politics and Culture, Reading | Tagged: depression, depression and creativity, depression and literature, Eric G Wilson, John Keats, Keats, literature, Melancholia, melancholy, Poetry, psychology and literature, Romanticism, Romantics | Permalink
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Pathet Lao
Flag of the Pathet Lao
Part of a series on the
History of Laos
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Lan Xang 1353–1707
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Principality of Phuan 1707–1899
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Anti-Communist Insurgency 1975–2007
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Early History of Laos
History of Isan
The Pathet Lao (Lao: ປະເທດລາວ, "Lao Nation"[1]) was a communist political movement and organization in Laos, formed in the mid-20th century. The group was ultimately successful in assuming political power in 1975, after the Laotian Civil War. The Pathet Lao were always closely associated with Vietnamese communists. During the civil war, it was effectively organized, equipped and even led by the Army of North Vietnam. They fought against the anti-communist forces in the Vietnam War. Eventually, the term became the generic name for Laotian communists.
The political movement of the Pathet Lao was called first the "Lao People's Party" (1955–1972) and later the "Lao People's Revolutionary Party" (1972–present).
Key Pathet Lao leaders include Prince Souphanouvong, Kaysone Phomvihane, Phoumi Vongvichit, Nouhak Phoumsavanh and Khamtay Siphandone.
The political wing of the Pathet Lao, called the "Lao Patriotic Front" (Lao: Neo Lao Hak Xat) served in multiple coalition governments, starting in 1956. Through the 1960s and 1970s the Pathet Lao battled the Royal Lao government during the Laotian Civil War, gaining control of the north and east of Laos. The Pathet Lao gained power throughout the country by the spring of 1975. In December, the US-backed Vientiane government fell and the Lao People's Revolutionary Party formed a new government.[2]
The organization can trace its roots from the Second World War just as the Khmer Issarak in Cambodia and the Viet Minh and Vietnam People's Army in Vietnam did in the war as well. Its original name has been forgotten but in 1950 it was renamed the "Pathet Lao", when it was adopted by Lao forces under Souphanouvong, who joined the Viet Minh's revolt against the colonial French authorities in Indochina during the First Indochina War.
Souphanouvong, who had spent seven years in Nha Trang[3] during his sixteen years in Vietnam,[4] met Ho Chi Minh, married a Vietnamese woman while in Vietnam, and solicited Viet Minh aid in founding a guerrilla force.
In August 1950, Souphanouvong joined the Viet Minh in their headquarters north of Hanoi, Vietnam, and become the head of the Pathet Lao, along with its political arm dubbed "Neo Lao Issara" (Free Lao Front).[5] The Pathet Lao founded resistance government with members: Souphanouvong (prime minister, minister of the foreign), Kaysone Phomvihane (minister of the defence), Nouhak Phoumsavanh (minister of the economy), Phoumi Vongvichit (deputy prime minister, minister of the interior), Souk Vongsak, Sithon Kommadam, and Faydang Lobliayao. This was an attempt to give a false front of authority to the Lao communist movement by claiming to represent a united non-partisan effort. Two of its most important founders were members of the Indochinese Communist Party, which advocated an overthrow of the monarchy as well as expulsion of the French.[4]
Pathet Lao at Xam Neua in 1953
In 1953, Pathet Lao fighters accompanied an invasion of Laos from Vietnam led by Viet Minh forces; they established a government at Viengxay in Houaphan province in northeast Laos. The communists began to make incursions into central Laos with the support of the Viet Minh, and a civil war erupted; the Pathet Lao quickly occupied substantial sections of the country.
The 1954 Geneva Conference agreements required the withdrawal of foreign forces, and allowed the Pathet Lao to establish itself as a regime in Laos's two northern provinces. The Viet Minh and North Vietnamese, in spite of the agreement, never really withdrew from the border areas of Laos, and the Pathet Lao continued to operate almost as a branch organization of the Viet Minh. Two months after the conference, the Viet Minh-North Vietnamese formed the unit Group 100 with headquarters at Ban Nameo. The unit effectively controlled and directed the Pathet Lao movement.
It was formed into an official party, the Lao Patriotic Front (Neo Lao Hak Sat), in 1956. Its stated goal was to wage the communist struggle against capitalism and Western colonialism and imperialism. Unstated was its subordination to the Communist Party of Vietnam. A coalition government was established in 1957 between the monarchists and communists, but it collapsed in 1959, bringing about a resumption of fighting.
By the late 1950s, North Vietnam had occupied areas of eastern Laos. The area was used as a transit route for men and supplies destined for the insurgency in South Vietnam. In September 1959, North Vietnam formed Group 959 in Laos with the aim of building the Pathet Lao into a stronger counterforce against the Lao Royal government. Group 959 openly supplied, trained and militarily supported the Pathet Lao. The typical strategy during this era was for North Vietnamese regulars to attack first but then send in the Pathet Lao at the end of the battle to claim victory.
1960s and 1970s
In the 1960s, more attempts at neutrality agreements and coalition government were attempted but as North Vietnam had no intention of withdrawing from Laos, these agreements all failed. By the mid-1960s, the country had fallen into proxy warfare between pro-US and pro-Vietnamese irregular military groups. In 1968, the Army of North Vietnam launched a multi-division invasion of Laos. The Pathet Lao were pushed to the side in the conflict and reduced to the role of an auxiliary force to the North Vietnamese army. Unable to match the heavy Soviet and Chinese weapons in addition to the numerical strength of the Vietnamese forces, the Royal Lao Army took itself out of the conflict after heavy losses.
The communist forces battled the Royal Lao Army, US irregular forces (including Air America and other contract employees and Hmong commandos), and Thai volunteer forces in Laos winning effective control in the north and east. The government itself was effectively powerless. The Pathet Lao held hundreds of US "detainees" as prisoners of war during and after the Vietnam War (Second Indochina War).
Pathet Lao soldiers in Vientiane, Laos, 1973
Shortly after the Paris Peace Accords ended US involvement in the Vietnam War, the Pathet Lao and the government of Laos signed a cease-fire agreement, the Vientiane Treaty, in February 1973.[6]
The coalition government envisaged by the treaty lasted only two years. The Pathet Lao refused to disarm and the North Vietnamese Army did not leave the country. In late May 1975, the Pathet Lao, with the direct assistance of the North Vietnamese Army, began attacking government strongholds. With the fall of the South Vietnamese government to the North Vietnamese on April 30, 1975 and the fall of the Cambodian government to the Khmer Rouge on April 17, the non-communist elements of the national government decided that allowing the Pathet Lao to enter power would be better than to have them take it by force. On August 23, 1975, Pathet Lao forces quietly entered the Lao capital city of Vientiane.
On December 2, 1975, the Pathet Lao firmly took over the government, abolishing the monarchy and establishing the Lao People's Democratic Republic. Shortly thereafter, the Pathet Lao signed an agreement with Vietnam that allowed Vietnam to station part of its army in the country and to send political and economic advisors into Laos. Vietnam afterward forced Laos to cut any remaining economic ties to its other neighbours, including Thailand and Cambodia.
After the Pathet Lao took over the country in 1975, the conflict continued in isolated pockets. In 1977 a communist newspaper promised the party would hunt down the “American collaborators” and their families “to the last root". With the demise of the Soviet Union, control of Laos by Vietnam waned at the end of the 1980s. Today, 'Pathet Lao' is often invoked as a general term signifying Lao nationalism.
Laotian Civil War (the Secret War)
Lao People's Revolutionary Party
↑ Andrea Matles Savada, ed. (1994). "The Pathet Lao". Laos: A Country Study. GPO for the Library of Congress. Retrieved August 8, 2011. .... The basic stance of this front's propaganda was the united struggle against the French without reference to political parties or ideology. Illustrative of this stance was the use henceforth of the name Pathet Lao (Lao Nation).
↑ "Pathet Lao". britannica. Retrieved 9 March 2013.
↑ At War in the Shadow of Vietnam: U. S. Military Aid to the Royal Lao Government, 1955 - 1975. p. 7.
1 2 Laos: The Pathet Lao Library of Congress Country Studies
↑ At War in the Shadow of Vietnam: U. S. Military Aid to the Royal Lao Government, 1955 - 1975. pp. 7, 142–143.
↑ Stalker, John N. (1974). "Laos". The World Book Year Book 1974. Chicago: Field Enterprises Educational Corporation. p. 375. ISBN 0-7166-0474-4. LCCN 62-4818.
Laos articles
Peopling
Khun Borom
Tai peoples
Lan Xang
Wat Phou
Luang Phrabang
Viang Chan
Champasak
Muang Phuan
French Laos
Japanese invasion
Lao Issara
Kingdom of Laos
Indochina Wars
Laotian Civil War
Vietnamese invasion
History until 1945
History since 1945
2007 coup attempt
Phou Bia
Kip (currency)
http://www.onwar.com/aced/data/lima/laos1962.htm
http://www.factmonster.com/ce6/world/A0859186.html
http://countrystudies.us/laos/
http://countrystudies.us/laos/14.htm
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9058717/Pathet-Lao
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Big Otter, West Virginia facts for kids
Big Otter, West Virginia
Unincorporated community
Big Otter is an unincorporated community in Clay County, West Virginia, United States. Big Otter is located on Big Otter Creek at the junction of Interstate 79 and West Virginia Route 16. The community is 9.5 miles (15.3 km) north-northeast of Clay, the county seat of Clay County. Big Otter is part of ZIP code 25113. Its original post office with a zip code of 25020 closed in 1979.
Big Otter, West Virginia Facts for Kids. Kiddle Encyclopedia.
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Difference between revisions of "Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Courts of Common Pleas and Exchequer Chamber"
[[Category:George Wythe Collection at William & Mary's Wolf Law Library]]
Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Courts of Common Pleas and Exchequer Chamber: From Easter Term 28th George III. 1788, to Hilary Term 36th George III. 1796
by Henry Blackstone
H. Blackstone's Reports
Title page from Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Courts of Common Pleas and Exchequer Chamber, volume one, George Wythe Collection, Wolf Law Library, College of William & Mary.
Author Henry Blackstone
Published London: Printed by A. Strahan and W. Woodfall, law-printers to the King, for Whieldon and Butterworth
Volumes 2 volume set
Pages {{{pages}}}
Henry Blackstone (b. 1761 or 1762), the nephew of Sir William Blackstone and reporter for the Court of Common Pleas,[1] published the first volume of his reports in 1791 with the second following in 1796. Blackstone "uniformly confined his attention to points of real importance, and throughout his work evinces much accuracy and fidelity, with as great a degree of conciseness as is consistent with perspicuity."[2]
Inscription, title page verso.
Brown[3] lists the first edition of Henry Blackstone's reports based on George Wythe's reference in his decision for Devisme v. Martin.[4] Wythe writes "If the bankrupt happen to have property which lies out of the jurisdiction of the law of England, if the country, in which it lies, procede according to the principles of well regulated justice, there is no doubt but, it will give effect to the title of assignees. By Loughborough; H. Blackstones reports, p. 691." The Wolf Law Library purchased a copy of the first edition of Blackstone's Reports.
Bound in contemporary calf with the ownership signature of "T. Hinckley, Lichfield" on front pastedown in each volume. Purchased from Forest Books.
↑ William Holdsworth, A History of English Law (London: Methuen & Co., Sweet and Maxwell, 1938), 12:140.
↑ J. G. Marvin, Legal Bibliography, or a Thesaurus of American, English, Irish, and Scotch Law Books (Philadelphia: T. and J. W. Johnson, Law Booksellers, 1847), 128.
↑ George Wythe, Decisions of Cases in Virginia by the High Court of Cancery with Remarks upon Decrees by the Court of Appeals Reversing Some of Those Decisions (Richmond: Printed by Thomas Nicolson, 1795), 133.
Retrieved from "http://lawlibrary.wm.edu/wythepedia/index.php?title=Reports_of_Cases_Argued_and_Determined_in_the_Courts_of_Common_Pleas_and_Exchequer_Chamber&oldid=33622"
Common Pleas Reports
Exchequer Reports
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International Conference on Technological Learning and Thinking: Design, Sustainability, Human Ingenuity
https://doi.org/10.3991/ijet.v4i1.850
International Conference, Technological Learning, Thinking, Design, Sustainability, Human Ingenuity
Papers, C. for. (2009). International Conference on Technological Learning and Thinking: Design, Sustainability, Human Ingenuity. International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning (iJET), 4(1), p. 78. https://doi.org/10.3991/ijet.v4i1.850
The submitting author warrants that the submission is original and that she/he is the author of the submission together with the named co-authors; to the extend the submission incorporates text passages, figures, data or other material from the work of others, the submitting author has obtained any necessary permission.
Articles in this journal are published under the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC-BY What does this mean?). This is to get more legal certainty about what readers can do with published articles, and thus a wider dissemination and archiving, which in turn makes publishing with this journal more valuable for you, the authors.
By submitting an article the author grants to this journal the non-exclusive right to publish it. The author retains the copyright and the publishing rights for his article without any restrictions.
This journal has been awarded the SPARC Europe Seal for Open Access Journals (What's this?)
International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning (iJET) – eISSN: 1863-0383
Indexed in Elsevier Scopus, Clarivate Analytics ESCI, Ei Compendex, IET Inspec, EBSCO, DOAJ, dblp, LearnTechLib.
Long-term archiving is assured by Portico. Plagiarism check by iThenticate. Published under CC-BY.
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https://opensource.com/law/11/4/patent-reform-bills-little-reform?sc_cid=70160000000IDmjAAG
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Patent reform bills with little reform | Opensource.com
Patent reform bills with little reform
11 Apr 2011 Erick Robinson Feed
In my March 2 post on patent reform, I noted that many of the provisions offered in prior versions of patent reform bills were removed from the pending bill. On March 8, the Senate passed S. 23, now called the “America Invents Act” 95-5. As one might guess, any legislation passed with such unanimity must present little controversy. Such is the case here, as the bill was further stripped before passage, leaving little reform to match the hype with which it was passed.
For example, the damages provision mentioned in my post – already watered down from the version in prior years' bills – was removed. Similarly, the venue provision (also significantly diluted from previous bills) was deleted. In fact, the only controversial provision that made its way into the final bill was the “first to file” provision. Most of the other minor changes in my March 2 post remain intact as well.
On March 30, the House introduced its own variant of the America Invents Act named H.R. 1249. The bill mostly tracks the Senate version with a few exceptions. The most significant differences include expanding post-grant review and prior use rights. With regard to post-grant review, H.R. 1249 expands the first-window review of the Senate bill from 9 to 12 months. The House bill also lowers the threshold for instituting such a review. While the Senate version requires a showing that it is more likely than not that at least one claim of the patent is not patentable, the House version simply requires the petitioner to demonstrate that a substantial new question of patentability exists. This proposed standard is the current one for instituting a reexamination proceeding, under which the Patent Office rarely denies a reexamination request.
Another change in H.R. 1249 is an expansion of prior use rights. Current law provides a prior use defense, but only against business method patents. This defense allows a party accused of infringing a business method patent to escape liability if it can prove that it had developed the patented invention more than a year before the patent was filed, and that it was using the invention commercially before the patent was filed. The House bill would expand this protection to all patents.
Such an expansion is prompted by the change to a first-to-file system. Many companies that develop innovative products or methods choose to keep the innovation as a trade secret, rather than protect it under the patent system. This is because trade secrets can provide protection for as long as they are maintained in secret, whereas a patent has a life of only 20 years from filing. For instance, the formula for Coca-Cola is protected as a trade secret, as is the blend of herbs and spices for KFC’s chicken. This has allowed Coca-Cola and KFC to maintain the secrecy of their inventions, and therefore their monopolies, for much longer than 20 years (back then, though, patents expired 17 years from issuance). Patent law dictates that in exchange for 20 years of excluding others from making, using, or selling an invention, the invention must be publicly described and then dedicated to the public after the expiration of the patent. That is, any patent must (or at least is supposed to) describe how to make the invention. After 20 years, any advantage (other than a healthy head start in the market) is gone.
So why does this matter, other than to make me both hungry and thirsty? Well, under a first-to-invent system, if tomorrow someone independently “invented” the KFC formula, a patent lawsuit against KFC would likely not be successful since KFC was the first to invent the formula. If the U.S. switches to a first-to-file system, without a prior use defense, such a patent suit against KFC could be successful since being the first to invent would have little effect.
In the end, although the small changes in the House bill appear to make sense, the result is still patent reform without any meaningful change. In the past few years, there has been increase in bad patents and their assertion in court. Many of these patents are asserted by non-practicing entities – companies that create no products or innovation, but are formed for the sole purpose of asserting patents. The targets of such lawsuits are often businesses that produce goods and services and foster innovation. Rather than grow their businesses and hire workers and engineers to invest in and develop future technologies, these innovative companies are forced to spend that money on lawyers. Neither the Senate nor House bill will do anything to meaningfully change this disturbing trend.
Erick Robinson - Erick Robinson is Director of Patents - India and Patent Counsel for Qualcomm, and formerly was Senior Patent Counsel for Red Hat.
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How open source legal teams can get to yes
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Tag Archives: AMVETS
AMVETS Ad Rejected, NFL to Introduce Social Justice Initiative during Super Bowl 2018
Posted by bydesign001 in Progressives war on America
AMVETS, NFL, Roger Goodell, social-justice, Super Bowl 2018
Earlier this week, the NFL rejected a full-page ad by veterans organization, AMVETS which displayed soldiers holding the flag and containing the words, “Please stand.”
As reported by ESPN, the NFL asked AMVETS to change the language of the ad to something more appeasing such as, “Please Honor our Veterans” or “Please Stand for our Veterans.” The talking points is that the NFL and AMVETS could not come to a meeting of the minds. [See my post at Wow! Magazine entitled, “Outrage after NFL rejects AMVETS Super Bowl ad.”
Thus, the NFL rejected the ad which just so happened to coincide with the NFL’s announcement that it was going full-fledged social justice at this year’s Super Bowl on February 4, 2018.
ESPN reported Monday that the NFL during this year’s Super Bowl will shove social justice down the throats of football fans (my emphasis) by introducing and publicizing it’s “Let’s Listen Together” initiative not to be confused with Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move.”
The Communist initiative is a partnership between the NFL and players/SJWs on what else? Social justice issues.
Supposedly, the initiative was several years in the making (not buying it) during which NFL team owners is alleged to have earmarked $89 million over a seven-year period for the initiative.
The effort is a product of months of discussions between commissioner Roger Goodell and a group of players led by Philadelphia Eagles safety Malcolm Jenkins and retired receiver Anquan Boldin…
Well then, the initiative was not several years in the making as the NFL claims.
“The collaboration between the NFL and its players should be celebrated, as it’s the first professional league or entity that has taken the concerns of its players and put resources behind it,” Boldin said in a statement. “Our country has some real issues when it comes to social and racial equality that must be addressed. The only way these issues will get solved is to fight together.”
Said Goodell: “We are pleased to have developed a new initiative that focuses on creating meaningful solutions to improve our communities. In developing this plan, we have taken the lead from our players and are honored to join them in this work. Their work has deepened our understanding of the unique platform we have to help advance progress in a profound and unifying way.”
Roger Goodell, the NFL, team owners and players have chosen Communism over our veterans who served their country, fought in wars around the world so that these ungracious, anti-American loons could enjoy freedom of expression, no matter how vulgar.
Such a reality is not lost on Americans further outraged by the NFL’s latest war on free speech and liberty.
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https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Yeller
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Fred Gipson
Carl Burger
Children's novel
Savage Sam
Old Yeller is a children's book by Fred Gipson. It was published in 1956. It is about a Texas family and their dog. The book was awarded a Newbery Honor in 1969. Old Yeller was followed by two sequels Savage Sam and Little Arliss. The book was made into a Walt Disney movie of the same name starring Kevin Corcoran, Fess Parker, Tommy Kirk, Dorothy McGuire, and Spike in 1958.
This short article about literature can be made longer. You can help Wikipedia by adding to it.
Retrieved from "https://simple.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Old_Yeller&oldid=4495538"
Books about dogs
Newbery Honor books
Literature stubs
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https://support.mayfirst.org/wiki/international_outreach_and_training?action=diff&version=5
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== Funding Application for ==
''Technology and Media Trainings in the West Bank''
''Open Source Technology Community Development''
prepared by May First/People Link (mayfirst.org)[[BR]]
Liaison: Mallory Knodel, mallory@mayfirst.org
'''Funding Request from Rising Voices Citizen Media Outreach Micro-grant: $3920'''
'''Funding Request from ''XXX'': $78,000.00'''
== Description of Applying Group ==
May First/People Link is a membership organization based in the United States. It is one of the oldest progressive providers of Internet to non-profits in the world. Our membership consists of over 500 members, most of which are organizations, while others are individuals. By joining as a member and paying yearly dues, an organization receives free, unlimited website and email hosting. Our vision is to build a network that values an Open Internet by committing to the use of Free and Open Source Software and making principled decisions regarding policy and practices that affect online communication.
May First/People Link is a membership organization based in the United States. It is one of the oldest progressive providers of Internet to non-profits in the world. Our membership consists of over 500 members, most of which are organizations, others are individuals. By joining as a member and paying yearly dues, an organization receives free website and email hosting. Our vision is to build a network that values a free and open Internet by committing to the use of Free and Open Source Software and making principled decisions on laws and practices that affect the way communication is done online.
The technologists that support May First/People Link offer trainings to member organizations in building technology solutions that fulfill some basic principles:
* Organizations and individuals have the right to access and control of their data.
* Technology and practices that support an Open Internet are a benefit to all, especially popular movements.
* Technology and practices that support an open Internet is a benefit to all, especially popular movements.
* That the administration of Internet technology is hegemonic by race, class, and geography is a significant weakness of its potential to catalyze social change.
* Global networks must be built for collaboration towards the solutions for humanity's crises.
We believe that the technology choices of organizations impacts their ability to fulfill their missions. Likewise, we believe that the socio-economic background of the technologists behind the Internet has an impact on the success of the Internet, too. Therefore, it is a manifestation of our mission and principles that we widen the network of technologists into the Global South and communities of color through trainings in high-level administration of Internet technology, such as websites.
We believe that the technology choices of organizations impacts their individual missions. Likewise, we believe that the socio-economic background of the technologists behind the Internet has an impact on the success of the Internet, too. Therefore, it is a manifestation of our mission and principles that we widen the network of technologists from the Global South and communities of color through trainings in the high-level administration of Internet technology such as websites.
Our scope of work includes deep involvement in movements, particularly at least one dozen World Social Forums and other thematic and regional fora, the Climate Justice mobilization for three COP meetings, support of the Latin American initiative on climate justice, and online activism supporting Wikileaks, most recently Tunisians and Egyptians, and several, targeted online campaigns.
== Project Vision ==
Beyond training organizations in blogging, this project seeks to create administrator-level technologists for ongoing, in-house maintenance and further development of content management systems. This perspective will empower organizations to adapt their websites to meet their political missions, unlike an outsourced content management system, which may fail due to rigidity and stagnation of the design or functionality.
Social media, people's production of community media, and online communications are transforming the political climate around the world. Particularly in Africa and the Middle East, people's movements leveraging social media have completely altered the political landscape. May First/People Link seeks to use its strong connections to community-based, grassroots, social movements to build intentionality, strategy, and capacity around social media such as blogging and web campaigning.
For one month, four organizations in Palestine will meet to receive training in the development of a Drupal website for blogging. Technologists from Stop the Wall (STW), Middle East Children's Alliance (MECA), Union of Palestinian Women's Committees (UPWC), and the Alternative Information Center (AIC) will attend the trainings. The trainings will be conducted by a technologist from May First/People Link in the in-depth, administrative use of modern content management systems as well as independent media production. The project will bring together these four organizations for 40 hours per week for 4 weeks for the training in how to install, configure, design, and write content for their website. Rather than encouraging outsourcing of technology work, we believe that supporting in-house experts will increase the production and quality of website content for these four organizations.
Rather than merely training organizations in blogging, this project seeks to create administrator-level technologists for ongoing, in-house maintenance and further development of content management systems. This perspective will empower organizations to adapt their websites to meet their political missions, unlike an outsourced content management system, which may fail due to rigidity and stagnation of the theme, layout, or functionality.
To culminate and highlight the success of the project, we will announce and organize a day for blogging in solidarity with Palestine. We will aggregate each post to create a large, visible solidarity movement using citizen media. Additionally, It is our vision that this will be the first in a series of technology trainings to increase the network of progressive technologists in the Global South and communities of color. We will further build our 500-member network through trainings with international groups.
Three times per year, 3 - 5 organizations in a specified region will meet to receive training in the development of a Drupal website for blogging. These organizations will be located in the Global South and/or communities of color. Technologists representing the chosen organizations will attend the trainings. The trainings will be conducted by a technologist from May First/People Link on the in-depth, administrative use of modern content management systems as well as independent media production. The project will bring together the organizations for 40 hours per week for 4 weeks on how to install, configure, theme, and write content for their own website. Rather than encouraging outsourcing of technology work, we believe that creating in-house experts will increase the production and quality of website content for these four organizations.
Each series of technology trainings seek to increase the network of progressive technologists in the Global South and communities of color. Rather than only teach content production, our project seeks to empower organizations by giving them greater control of their website technology. One organization told us that they had three websites. When asked if they still used all three, they said that they didn't use any because the volunteers that had created them took all of their knowledge with them when their volunteership was over. This project will mitigate this hegemonic practice by tech-savvy volunteers from Western countries by training the organizations to fully create their own websites from installation to blogging content.
== Background ==
May First/People Link helped organize the technology for the World Education Forum in 2010. This project allowed for the creation of alliances with four key organizations based in the West Bank of Palestine. The shared goals of Stop the Wall, Middle East Children's Alliance, Union of Palestinian Women Committees, and the Alternative Information Center are to create blogging websites that reach a global audience and join as members of May First/People Link.
May First/People Link has offered training and support in System Administration and open source Website tools for many years. Approximately bi-monthly, a group of professional technologists that volunteer to support May First/People Link infrastructure meet to discuss curriculum and the growth of the administrative support group. Through this process, a curriculum for trainings has been established as well as a political vision for how to spread knowledge throughout international networks of progressive organizations.
''Stop the Wall''
The Palestinian, grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, or "Stop the Wall", is a coalition of Palestinian non governmental organizations and popular committees that mobilize and coordinate efforts on local, national and international levels. These efforts are focused upon stopping and dismantling the Apartheid Wall, and resisting Israeli occupation and colonization. (stopthewall.org, contact: Jamal Juma)
One such training curriculum was administered to dozens of members of the Local 1180 Communications Workers of America (AFL-CIO) union. For a semester, participants were given a vast training in the development of Drupal-based websites. The training was seen as highly successful to the participants, who received certificates upon completion of the program. The curriculum used can be adapted for this project in addition to the training necessary for the high-level administration of networked servers.
''MECA''
Founded in 1988, the Middle East Children's Alliance is a registered nonprofit organization based in Bethlehem and Berkeley, California that is working for the rights and the well-being of children in the Middle East. MECA sends shipments of aid to Palestine, Iraq and Lebanon, and supports projects that make life better for the children of Palestine. (mecaforpeace.org, contact: Josie Shields-Stromsness)
We plan for the first project location to be the West Bank in Palestine. Organizing work and partnerships have already been established. The World Education Forum in 2010, of which MF/PL was deeply involved in as international adviser and organizer, allowed for the creation of alliances with four key organizations based in the West Bank of Palestine. The shared goals of Stop the Wall, Middle East Children's Alliance (MECA), Union of Palestinian Women Committees (UPWC), and the Alternative Information Center (AIC) are to join as members and create blogging websites that reach a global audience. The success of our work in Palestine has spurred an interest to conduct the program in many other regions throughout the world. The list below denotes a familiarity with organizations in the following locations in which we expect our program to be carried out:
''Union of Palestinian Women Committees (UPWC)''
The Union of Palestinian Women Committees Society was founded in the year 1980 under the name (Union of Palestinian Women Committees) to empower Palestinian women on all levels and to contribute in the Palestinian national struggle against the illegal, Israeli military occupation of the Palestinian territories. The Union is a progressive, women's, mass-based organization and an indivisible part of the Palestinian women's movement in particular and the national movement in general. (upwc.org.ps, contact: Arabiya Mansour)
''Alternative Information Center (AIC)''
The Alternative Information Center (AIC) was established in 1984 by Palestinian and Israeli grassroots activists as a bi-national organization to promote the human and national rights of the Palestinian people and a just peace for Palestinians and Israelis based on progressive principles and respect for international law. (alternativenews.org, contact: Connie Hackbarth)
* Palestine - Stop the Wall (stopthewall.org, contact: Jamal Juma)
* India - Center for Internet and Society (cis-india.org, contact: Sunil Abraham)
* Morocco - E-Joussour (e-joussour.net, contact: Hamouda Soubhi)
* Bolivia - Bolivian Mission to the UN (boliviaun.net, contact: Pablo Solon)
* Nigeria - Initiative for African Women Norms Renaissance (awr.org.ng, contact: Kareen Udoh)
* Sovereign Indigenous Nations - Indigenous Environmental Network (ienearth.org, Contact: Tom Goldtooth)
== Project Plan ==
Organizing partnerships: The project began by organizing with multiple Palestinian organizations in the Fall of 2010.
The overall project is a series of location-specific trainings in various areas around the world. We've used the West Bank project as an example of our Project Plan overall, with our model adapted slightly for each location with consideration to our partners and their specific needs.
Training and developing partnerships: The next phase of the project is to expand upon a training curriculum for the installation, configuration, and administration of Drupal blogging websites. The main phase of the project is to send one trainer from May First/People Link to the West Bank to conduct a comprehensive, four-week training program. The relationship building between these organizations and May First/People Link will solidify during the training phase. Blogging and multi-media content production will be an integral part of the training available to all members of the participating organizations. At the conclusion of the training program, each organization will have a fully-functional Drupal website, MF/PL membership for one year, and a deep knowledge of how to modify and maintain their website infrastructure on an expert level.
The West Bank project has begun by organizing with multiple Palestinian organizations in the Fall of 2010. The next phase of the project is to expand upon a training curriculum for the installation, configuration, and administration of Drupal blogging websites.
Event campaign and solidarity: We will announce and campaign around one day, to be determined, on which our current members and any organization or individual will register their site to participate in a day of blogging on the topic of Palestinian solidarity. We will highlight our new members and draw attention to the power of citizen media online to raise awareness.
The main phase of the project is to send two trainers from May First/People Link to the West Bank to conduct a comprehensive, four-week training program. The relationship building between these organizations and May First/People Link will solidify during the training phase as well. Blogging and multi-media content production will be an integral part of the training available to all members of the participating organizations. At the conclusion of the training program, each organization will have a trained, long-term, IT staff person, a fully-functional Drupal website, MF/PL membership for one year, and a deep knowledge of how to modify and maintain their website infrastructure.
Fostering ongoing partnerships: MF/PL plans to continue relationships with the technologists and their organizations by providing technical support as well as amplifying the voices of media that is produced through the sites by publishing a monthly newsletter that will highlight their articles. The development of this media and technology curriculum will be used again for future projects of exactly this kind.
MF/PL plans to continue relationships with the technologists and their organizations by providing technical support as well as amplifying the voices of media that is produced through the sites by publishing a monthly newsletter that will highlight their articles. This requires training in use of Internet infrastructure such as networked servers, security practices, and protocols for regular and emergency communication.
The development of this media and technology curriculum will be used again for future projects of exactly this kind. Over time, it is expected that trainers from previous project will have the means to administer trainings, grow and modify the curriculum, and generally contribute to the growth of the general vision of our program.
(One possible consideration for adapting our model is to use travel of either the hosting organization to the United States or our trainers to locations abroad for the project. For example, if only one organization is interested in a partnership, resources would be saved by hosting that organization in the United States. In the case of Palestine, 4 or more organizations have expressed interest such that resources would be saved by sending our trainers abroad.)
== Evaluation ==
Outlining a precise method for evaluation is a fundamental part of creating and implementing any kind of curriculum. Pedagogically, it increases value for our project and the potential of a model for others to implement. We have identified five ways in which we plan to evaluate our work along with possible solutions and actions that can mitigate any gaps in our results:
* Track number of "trivial" support requests from trainees for 6 months following the training period. 'Possible solutions: Develop curriculum further, revise documentation, implement distance-learning sessions'
* Itemize all expenses and identify incidentals. 'Possible solution: Seek alternative sources of funding, seek in-kind donations, reduce rate of projects/organizational partners per year'
* Keep record of number of applications for partnering organizations to be evaluated against capacity. 'Possible solutions: Adjust requirements for partnership applications, seek additional funding and trainers to support more organizations per region'
* Track rate of publishing and statistics of users on each website. 'Possible solutions: Prolong training period to ensure commitment by organizational staff to producing content, create more regional and global partnerships to increase visibility, organize an event or campaign to increase production and visibility.'
* Compare increase in rate of new memberships (and renewals) to MF/PL by region over time. 'Possible solutions: Host community-based events in project locations, increase participation in movement-building convergences, evaluate outreach needs versus capacity'
== Timeline ==
Since September of 2010, MF/PL has worked with these four organizations to establish a political bond based in solidarity. The work of finding partnerships in Palestine has already been established.
Since September of 2010, MF/PL has worked with four organizations in the West Bank to establish a political bond based in solidarity. Additionally, connections and goals are strongly defined for future work with organizations in at least 4 other locations.
The total time given to each organization will be one week, or approximately 40 hours. With four organizations, the project will last four weeks. These four weeks can be completed at any time during 2011, with adequate coordination and administration. We have identified three time periods in which the project can take place:
At the end of the project's training period in Palestine, an ongoing relationship will continue between Rising Voices, MF/PL, STW, UPWC, MECA, and AIC through the creation of a monthly newsletter which highlights blogs produced on the new websites, the first issue of which can be expected approximately one month from the end date: May, July, or November.
With two trainers, each location-specific project will last about 2 months requiring one month of administrative preparation before and after for a total of 4 months. The total time given to each organization will be one week, approximately 40 hours in total. With four organizations, the project will last four weeks. These four weeks can be completed at any time, given at least two months for coordination and administration.
Relationships between the technologists will continue in a collaborative, ongoing way for support in website development and media production.
At the end of the project's training period, an ongoing relationship will continue between the organizations and MF/PL through the creation of a monthly newsletter which highlights blogs produced on the new websites, the first issue of which can be expected approximately one month from the end date.
Regular communication will exist due to the general needs of the organizations as members of May First/People Link. Relationships between the technologists will continue in a collaborative, ongoing way for support in website development and media production.
== Budget Summary ==
||Travel||$1200.00||
||''Trainer's airfare from Denver, Colorado to Amman, Jordan''||||
||Training hours||$1920.00||
||''40 hours for 4 weeks at $12.00 per hour''||||
The following is an example of one location-based project. Depending on capacity, other locations will be funded every four months, for a total of 3 projects per year. This application is for 2 years of support, for a total of six times the amount itemized below, or $78,000.00:
||Travel||$4,500.00||
||''Airfare for trainers''||||
||Translation||$1,000.00||
||''$50.00 per day stipend''||||
||Training hours||$4,800.00||
||''40 hours for 4 weeks at $15.00 per hour for each trainer''||||
||Equipment||$1,600.00||
||''$400 for laptops and A/V equipment for each of 4 organizations''||
||'''TOTAL'''||'''$12,700.00'''||
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support.mayfirst.org
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https://systemchangenotclimatechange.org/article/trump-perspective-fascism-or-just-more-barbarism-part-one/
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Infighting within the ruling bloc
CapitalismEcosocialism
Trump in Perspective: Fascism or Just More Barbarism? (part one)
Reza Fiyouzat | The North Star | March 2, 2017
It may seem like a truism that all human societies share key universal characteristics. Incredibly, however, we all too easily forget this basic fact and mostly assume that our respective cultures are unique compared to all others, and for the most part exceptional. Iranians, for example, know that they are unique, especially when contrasted to Arabs, Afghans and Pakistanis. Chinese people have no doubt that they are exceptionally unique, as do the Japanese, the Russians, the French, Germans, Italians, Egyptians and Moroccans. Americans especially consider themselves exceptional. The ideology of American Exceptionalism runs so deep in fact as to have become the foremost part of the national ideology.
It is perhaps within this national-ideological uniqueness frame that Trump’s coming to power in the U.S. has shocked a majority of the American people. “How can it be that we are following the European path to fascism, and eighty years later at that?”
Crisis of the Ruling Ideology
Though we are not at the point of fascism in the U.S., we are witnessing right wing politics taking on a new quality in this country that has not been seen before. When Richard Nixon’s White House Council, John Dean, appears on Democracy Now! to comment about the extreme nature of president Trump, then we know we are living in extreme times. But it took some getting here before we got here.
The most significant post-WWII political turn to the right in the U.S. started with the Reagan presidency. Starting with Reagan, a new ideology of the ruling class became the official rulebook. Neo-liberalism was the name it was given and it served to provide ideological justification for a systematic attack on the living standards of working people, while the transfer of historic amounts of wealth upwards became accepted orthodoxy.
Alongside globalization of production and ‘free trade’, Tax cuts for the rich and the corporations were justified, so that an increasing share of the newly created wealth could go to the ruling strata. A significant added component of the new ideology was the shift from ‘social obligations’ owed to citizens to a paradigm of ‘personal responsibility’ of atomized individuals. Meanwhile, a two pronged systematic attack on the people’s income and living conditions went into effect, eroding the social safety network at the same time that citizens’ health and safety protected previously by environmental and consumer protections (regulations) also came under attack. The direct and deeply-felt impact of neo-liberalism on the income levels of people in the U.S. has been the stagnation of real incomes (actual purchasing power) at the level of early 1970s, while during the same nearly-five decades labor productivity has skyrocketed.
Politically, since 1980, the extreme right represented by the Republicans has consistently pushed the political spectrum to the right, and when the Democrats come to power, they hold the ‘center’ pretty much where it was under the Republicans. So, for the past 30-plus years, Republicans have dictated the ‘center’, as they pushed it further and further to the right, while the Democrats have held it in place faithfully until the next extreme Republican pushed it even further to the right. Let us not forget how extreme George W Bush looked only a decade ago. Among his achievements, he destroyed habeas corpus, and president Obama kept it destroyed so successfully that most citizens have forgotten the concept, the very cornerstone of individual liberty and the main defense against arbitrary acts of the state against citizens.
The capitalist ruling classes worldwide have known for a long time that the system cannot keep enough people healthy and happy enough to ignore all the systemic problems that capitalism brings about on a cyclical basis. The financial crisis of the 2008-2009 illustrated to a majority that the system is incapable of preventing such deep crises, never mind bringing about prosperity for all. To this day, the underlying causes of the 2008 financial crisis have not been resolved and are still operational.
By 2011, the continuing effects of the financial crisis had morphed into a crisis of ideological hegemony, as Obama’s administration of ‘Hope and Change’ had by then proven itself to have acted as a shill for the very financial players who brought about the destruction of trillions of dollars of wealth of the ordinary people. The bankers, bailed out equally by Bush and Obama, were happily sitting on top of, and making even more money with, the trillions of taxpayers’ money, while millions of ordinary citizens lost their homes, their pensions and their hard-earned savings.
Here are some telling figures from a Frontline report, from 2012:
Government bailouts: The government has poured about $23 trillion into a host of programs and bailouts.
Lost household wealth: With home prices tanking, the report estimates a loss of $7 trillion in the real estate industry. The stock market decline has brought another $11 trillion in losses, and retirement accounts have lost $3.4 trillion.
Human suffering: It’s hard to put a dollar value on this. But the report found plenty of grim data to offer some insight: The Census Bureau’s 2010 estimate of 46.2 million people in poverty is the “largest number in the 52 years for which poverty estimates have been published.”
According to Nicos Poulantzas, “The conjuncture of fascism corresponds to a crisis in the dominant ideology,” (Fascism and Dictatorship, p. 76). Again, we may not be at the point of fascism here, but a lot of its features look deeply similar to what extreme American right wing political figures are currently bent on bringing about.
In the context of the economic devastation of the 2008 financial crisis, the rise of the Occupy Movement in September of 2011 was a clear sign of the loss of ideological hegemony of Neoliberalism. Even though that movement died out in a matter of months, its most significant accomplishment and its lasting legacy was the establishment of a new and permanent social vocabulary: the 1% v. the 99%. That was a turning point for the ideological hegemony of the ruling classes. The Occupy Movement publicly and unequivocally voiced the (previously subconscious) social awareness that the system is stacked against a majority of the people, that the people are truly un-represented, and that they had to take to the streets in order to voice their grievances directly.
Poulantzas argues that, “The appearance and rise of fascism corresponds to the deepening and sharpening of the internal contradictions between the dominant classes and class fractions,” (ibid. p. 71). He further explains: “These contradictions in the conjuncture of fascism, … are not confined … to the economics alone. In the growth of fascism, the intensification of the ‘internal’ contradictions of the power bloc is characteristically revealed by their extension over the political and ideological planes. This has repercussions in the deep crisis of the party representation and in the deep ideological crisis which affect the [ruling] bloc,” (all emphasis in original).
That last line takes on a pronounced significance when we remember that in the 2016 elections, the leadership of both establishment parties faced a lively and strident opposition from their base.
As for the sharpening of the internal contradictions among the dominant classes, we can see in retrospect that for some time now, there has been an internal debate among the ruling elites in the U.S. as to what the actual long-term plan should be. For me, Trumpism (to adopt a currently used name other than fascism) signals the fact that the differences among the U.S. ruling elites have only gotten irreconcilably deeper, so that a new order has to be imposed on the ruling bloc, an imposition which constitutes Trump’s platform, which is clearly opposed by large portions of the establishment functionaries and ideologues, not just in various governmental departments and agencies, but also in other ideological state apparatuses such as the mass media.
It is at this point in the rightward lurch of the last thirty years, having already piled successive quantities of misery on the working classes, that a new quality of right-wing extremism is emerging, much to the fright of the established liberal order and its functionaries, as well as the general public (except for Trump’s social base, of course).
Hence the platform of extreme right-wing solutions: an active escalation of racism and sexism, attacks on women’s rights, scapegoating of particular minorities, economic nationalism, an all-out attack on regulations that protect the people and the commons, cronyism, nepotism, bellicose jingoism, raising the specter of an undying enemy supposedly bent on destroying us, along with a very fluid reading of laws and the elimination of laws impeding the imposition of discipline on the ‘unruly’ members of the ruling factions and their ideas.
Defeated Working Class: Right-wing Recruiting Ground
Poulantzas has another insightful point about the conditions for the emergence of fascism. For him, fascism typically emerges after substantial historical defeats of labor. In his Fascism and Dictatorship, he reminds the reader that in both Germany and Italy, “The working class had already been thoroughly defeated by the time fascism came into power,” (p. 61).
Some would argue that class struggle in the U.S. is not intense at this historical moment due to the fact that labor has been cowed and its strength systematically eroded since Reagan dismantled the air traffic controllers union in 1981. The fact that labor is on the defensive does not negate the ferocity of class struggle; it can in fact indicate how intensely and ferociously the capital side of the class struggle is winning and pushing us back.
The corollary to this loss of ground by labor is that the most backward segments of a defeated and unorganized working class are best suited for ideological manipulation of the type the extreme right is good at. This goes back to the point that started this article: the social universals. All class societies have backward leftovers of past social relations, and those backward segments of society provide the reactionary political leaders with their foot soldiers. In Iran, for example, they are remnants of the feudal days, while in the U.S. they are remnants of the days of slavery.
As African-Americans know well, certain habits of slaveholders never died along with the demise of legal institutions of slavery. Systemic racism in the U.S. was sublimated into housing and urban development and the banking practices that financed urban development; into the educational system; even into the seniority system in factories; and of course into a justice system of incarceration and criminalization of particular acts and behaviors. So, there are very material interests connected to maintaining racist attitudes as well as institutions, and there are naturally people who gain from racist policies, practices and institutions.
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https://www.activistpost.com/2019/12/100-doctors-demand-assange-receive-safe-passage-to-hospital-before-it-is-too-late.html
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100+ Doctors Demand Assange Receive Safe Passage to Hospital “Before It Is Too Late”
TOPICS:Human RightsJulian AssangeWikiLeaks
By Andrea Germanos
A group of over 100 doctors on Monday urged the Australian government to end its “refusal to act” in the case of Julian Assange and insist the British government release the WikiLeaks founder from prison so he can be safely sent to an Australian hospital before “it is too late.”
In an open letter addressed to Foreign Minister Marise Payne, the doctors say that “the most fundamental human rights of an Australian citizen are being denied by the British government.”
The international medical experts, who hail from countries including the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom, called upon Payne to abide by his “undeniable legal obligation to protect your citizen against the abuse of his fundamental human rights, stemming from U.S. efforts to extradite Mr. Assange for journalism and publishing that exposed U.S. war crimes.”
Assange has been in London’s Belmarsh prison since April for skipping bail seven years ago when he first took refuge at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. He’s facing possible extradition to the United States for alleged violations of the Espionage Act. His time at the embassy and at Belmarsh had led to “medical neglect and fragile health,” the doctors said, adding that Assange continues to suffer psychological torture at the London jail.
It’s not the first time the medical group has sounded alarm on Assange’s deteriorating health conditions.
In a letter sent last month to British Home Secretary Priti Patel and Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott, the group expressed “real concerns, on the evidence currently available, that Mr. Assange could die in prison.” U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer has also accused the U.K. government of “outright contempt for Mr. Assange’s rights and integrity.” In May Melzer said Assange exhibited “all symptoms typical for prolonged exposure to psychological torture.”
The doctors referenced Melzer’s concerns as well as their letter to the U.K. authorities, saying that document fell on deaf ears.
In addendum to the new letter, the doctors wrote that Assange is essentially stuck waiting “helplessly for whatever the U.S government holds in store for him”—a situation “akin to keeping someone bound and gagged while their assailant stands by sharpening their knives.”
“The Australian government has shamefully been complicit by its refusal to act, over many years. Should Mr. Assange die in a British prison, people will want to know what you, Minister, did to prevent his death.”
Ongoing detention at Belmarsh, the group said, is “medically reckless at best and deliberately harmful at worst.”
“We therefore urge you to insist upon the immediate transfer of Mr. Assange from Belmarsh Prison to an Australian university teaching hospital, on urgent medical grounds, so that he can receive the assessment and treatment that he requires,” the doctors wrote. They added:
That we, as doctors, feel ethically compelled to hold governments to account on medical grounds speaks volumes about the gravity of the medical, ethical, and human rights travesties that are taking place. It is an extremely serious matter for an Australian citizen’s survival to be endangered by a foreign government obstructing his human right to health. It is an even more serious matter for that citizen’s own government to refuse to intervene, against historical precedent and numerous converging lines of medical advice.
Assange is set to face another case management hearing this week Westminster Magistrates’ Court and full extradition hearing in February.
By Andrea Germanos | CommonDreams.org | Creative Commons
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www.activistpost.com
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https://www.dailyworkhorse.com/olive-garden-job-application-and-careers-guide/
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Olive Garden Job Application and Careers Guide
by Jennifer Goodwin
Olive Garden is a casual dining restaurant chain that has become part of the fabric of America. It specializes in Italian-American food and has around 800 locations spread throughout all 50 States, as well as many other countries, such as Canada and Brazil.
Initially, Olive Garden was unpopular because many people claimed they did not serve real Italian food. However, as their locations increased and began to match their former sister company, Red Lobster, this company became the largest chain of Italian-themed full-service restaurants in the US.
Working at Olive Garden
The following information will provide how to submit your Olive Garden job application and:
What it’s like working at Olive Garden
The average pay
The many jobs available
How you can apply
Olive Garden application process
The minimum age to work
If there is a background check
If Olive Garden hires felons
Working at Olive Garden is fast-paced and a lot of fun, according to employees who have worked there. The employee discounts are pretty good, and the pay is above average for most of the positions.
It is also an ideal place for college students and retirees as a side income. Plenty of employees manage to work here while attending school, handling family and other responsibilities, or when still holding another job.
It also offers great entry-level opportunities in the restaurant industry. The company culture is positive, and the management is very supportive of the team members.
Just like any other company, working at Olive Garden has its pros and cons.
Let’s have a look at them:
A flexible schedule makes it a good place for students to work in
Fun work environment
Employees tend to feel appreciated by management
Decent tips in many locations
Good bonuses for all employees
You get 50% off meals and an unlimited amount of soup for only $1 every shift
Managers are sometimes lacking when it comes to supporting employees
You may have to deal with rude customers
In some locations, people don’t tip servers very well
It’s difficult to get a paid break during your shift at times
No overtime available
Olive Garden Pay
The most popular role in Olive Garden includes a server, whose starting pay ranges around $14.70 per hour. A line cook at this company gets an average hourly pay rate of $14.85.
The company announced in March 2021 that every hourly employee will be earning at least $10 per hour. On average, hourly employees of this company earn about $16 per hour after a few years of experience.
Jobs at Olive Garden
Listed below are the types of jobs you can find in this company;
To Go Specialist
Olive Garden Host
An Olive Garden host is the first person to greet you when you walk in the door, and they are also responsible for seating guests during peak hours. A host may also help servers deliver food to tables.
They must always be on time for their shift and never or rarely call in sick. If a host at this restaurant chain wants to climb the ladder and be promoted, they need to start out as being highly responsible and dependable.
Olive Garden Server
If you are looking for a job that can provide great pay, flexible hours, and the chance to earn big tips, then consider applying for a server position. Although experience is preferred, it is not required.
You will be responsible for greeting guests with a smile as they arrive at the restaurant. Look out for their needs and make sure you accommodate them.
Be aware that your main focus will be making sure they are satisfied throughout their time at the restaurant. The server at Olive Garden will sometimes have to help bus tables, check on guests, and clean up before closing time.
Olive Garden Bartender
An Olive Garden bartender is responsible for helping the restaurant provide guests with an excellent dining experience. To do this they must be friendly, provide quick service, and be talented in making drinks from the menu as well as any special orders.
They are usually creative in their bartending abilities as well, and can occasionally recommend something they think a customer will love, based on the drinks they have ordered.
In this position, you will often prepare drinks in both cocktail or shaker glassware, depending on what type of drink it is.
Olive Garden Line Cook
As an Olive Garden line cook, you will become a part of the assembly line for most foods prepared by the restaurant’s chef. Once an order comes through, you’ll begin preparing the meals as you have been trained so that the food orders can be completed in time and with the highest quality.
You don’t need any formal training to land this job, and Olive Garden will provide all the training you need. However, experienced line cooks are always welcome to apply.
Olive Garden Dishwasher
Dishwashers at the Olive Garden have to deal with plenty of pressure. They constantly have to clean dirty plates, dishes, and utensils.
They’re not only responsible for cleaning all the above. During downtimes, they will help the manager and carry out any other duties in order to keep the restaurant as clean as possible.
This means they will occasionally have bathroom duties and may be called to bus tables whenever necessary.
Olive Garden Prep Cook
A prep cook is an entry-level position where the employee is responsible for preparing ingredients for the actual meals to be served at Olive Garden.
This job may include slicing pieces of bread and vegetables, making salads, using a meat slicer, prepping cold dishes like pasta salad, chopping cooked meats like chicken and beef, and mixing drinks like sangria and margaritas.
A good Olive Garden prep cook is accurate at measuring out ingredients to ensure that everything is up to the standard for serving. They also work with cleaning chemicals such as bleach when they are not cooking, so they must wear protective gloves and clothing.
Olive Garden To Go Specialist
An Olive Garden To Go Specialist is responsible for taking phone orders or in person and delivering the food accurately for customers. Customers will either pick up their orders from the take-out area or curbside.
The To-Go specialist ensures orders are cooked in a timely manner in order to satisfy customers, so they can order regularly without having to worry about the quality and efficiency of their orders.
An Olive Garden To Go Specialist also plays a crucial role in promoting new menu items. If a new dish is going over well with guests, an Olive Garden To Go Specialist can make recommendations to customers to help sell the menu items in the future.
In this job, you must always be familiar with all of the ingredients used in different menu items at your location. For example, you should know that one dish uses a marinara sauce made with cream while another may use a marinara sauce made with whole tomatoes.
Olive Garden Busser
Bussers at Olive Garden help out by clearing tables and replenishing breadsticks for guests. They also refill drinks, sweep the floor and greet customers with a smile to make sure they have a wonderful visit.
They also ensure that the restaurant is always ready for any large gatherings. This position requires you to be flexible and adapt to any task a manager may give you during your shift.
Olive Garden Restaurant Manager
This highly responsible position will have you working approximately 50 hours a week while having 2 days off every week, as well. Olive Garden recognizes most restaurant managers can rarely take a weekend off during the busiest times, so it rewards its managers by guaranteeing them at least one weekend off every month!
The ideal candidate for this position has a few years of restaurant management experience and knows how to treat and guide employees and get positive results.
How much does Olive Garden pay? ►
How to Apply at Olive Garden
To apply for a position at this restaurant, follow these steps:
The first thing you need to do is visit their website to fill out an application. Follow the prompts on the online form to complete it.
If you meet the qualifications, they will contact you for a phone interview. Be prepared to answer this call professionally.
Make sure you are prepared for the interview questions. That will make you stand out from other applicants, and show your interest in the job.
If you pass your phone interview, you will be invited for an in-person interview at the store you applied for. Make sure you dress appropriately for your interview. Being well-dressed leaves a good impression on the interviewing panel.
Make sure you show up on time. That allows you to have sufficient time to calm down and be ready for the interview session.
If you don’t get the job, keep in touch with them. You may be one of the first people they consider when there is a job opening.
The application process at Olive Garden consists of several steps. They include the following:
An Online Application
Olive Garden job applications can be completed online in less than 15 minutes. Applicants can fill in their contact information and submit the form easily. The boxes you need to fill include your name, email address, location (zip code), and in what capacity you are interested in working at the company.
After you submit your Olive Garden job application, the hiring managers will review it for consideration. Applicants that meet the company’s standards will then be sent to take a placement test.
It gauges their knowledge of operational procedures. After passing this section of the Olive Garden application process, the next step will include an interview over the phone.
After passing the initial steps of the hiring process, applicants are instructed to call their designated hiring manager for a phone interview. It is typically conducted as part of a standard screening process and should take about 20 minutes to complete.
Hiring managers may ask questions related to customer service, the menu, and even the application process itself. You have to prepare well for this.
In-Person Interviews
Applicants who make it past the phone interview stage will be invited for a series of in-person interviews. At this point, applicants should dress professionally and arrive on time.
Hiring managers are looking for well-groomed, friendly individuals who are genuinely interested in the position. Applicants should be able to answer questions related to Olive Garden’s history, menu, etc.
As part of the application process, new employees must train for two weeks before starting their new jobs. In these training sessions, applicants should be prepared to work long hours.
Olive Garden is a large and successful restaurant chain, and its hiring process does not concentrate on specific locations. Applicants will train at any of the many restaurants in their region. Each location has multiple shift times, so some applicants may train at different locations.
Olive Garden Interview Questions
Here are some of the common interview questions you’ll are likely to be asked by Olive Garden hiring managers:
What do you know about Olive Garden?
What do you know about our competitors?
Why do you want to work with us?
What type of salary are you looking for?
Why should we hire you?
Do you have any experience working in a restaurant?
What is your greatest weakness?
Have you ever been convicted of a crime?
What other positions are you applying for?
Have you ever been fired from a job?
What is your greatest accomplishment?
Tell me about your future goals.
Minimum Age to Work at Olive Garden
Olive garden hires employees with a minimum age of 16 years. Most of these jobs available have to do with serving as hosts or bussing tables. Kitchen jobs require adult workers due to the inherent dangers of cooking.
Does Olive Garden do a background check?
The company does not do background checks for entry-level position applicants. The only time they do a background check is for individuals applying for management positions.
Does Olive Garden drug test?
Unless an applicant throws up red flags while applying, Olive garden does not do a drug test for hourly employees. For managers and other salaried employees who apply, Olive Garden will usually conduct a full background check as well as a drug test to detect illicit drugs.
Does Olive Garden hire felons?
Yes, they do. Olive Garden usually hires individuals with a felony past as long as the alleged crime committed would not affect his or her employment. Additionally, it can also depend on how much time has elapsed since the conviction and how well-rehabilitated the applicant appears to be.
What they are most interested in is how well you can handle the customers, get along with co-workers, and have a positive attitude.
Olive Garden Benefits
Full-time hourly workers and salaried workers such as managers get full health and dental coverage, as well as a generous 401k.
You also get a lot of flexibility in your schedule. You can choose the days of the week and the hours of those days that work best for you, and management usually does their best to accommodate you.
On-the-job training is a great way to get started in the work field and in this company, you will be trained on everything you need to learn about your job. If you are not doing well in any area, you can rest assured you can communicate this to your immediate supervisor and get one-on-one supervision and training to correct the weakness.
The opportunity for advancement at Olive Garden is high. If you work hard and learn the system, you can eventually apply for a promotion to become the manager of the restaurant. Managerial job openings come up regularly in just about every region.
If you have proven yourself to be a reliable, experienced, and talented worker, you may be able to impress upper management enough to land a supervisory job.
Olive Garden can be a great opportunity for servers of all ages to actually make a decent living, depending on the location.
The restaurant gets pretty high ratings when it comes to work-life balance from past and present employees. This is mainly due to the flexibility in scheduling, where managers will try to work around your personal schedule and do the best they can to fill in all the slots.
As with most casual dining restaurants, you can’t expect to get an hourly job and make a whole lot of money. The host or hostess position is perfect for a college student wanting to earn a little side income.
Any person, for that matter, who needs to make a little money on the side can easily find a home by working at Olive Garden. Managers are generally fair, and the working culture is a lot of fun, according to many employees.
For workers who prove themselves and work hard to learn how the company operates, there is always a chance to advance up the ladder of success. All in all, this is one of the best casual dining restaurants to work for, evidenced by past and present employees who give the restaurant above-average ratings on sites such as Indeed.com and Glassdoor.com.
Featured image courtesy of Anthony92931, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
How to Get a Job in Fast Food
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https://www.fujipress.jp/jrm/rb/robot003200010076/
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robot003200010076
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JRM Vol.32 No.1 pp. 76-85
doi: 10.20965/jrm.2020.p0076
Multi-Modal Interaction Through Anthropomorphically Designed Communication Medium to Enhance the Self-Disclosures of Personal Information
Nobuhiro Jinnai*, Hidenobu Sumioka**, Takashi Minato**, and Hiroshi Ishiguro*,**
*Graduate School of Engineering Science, Osaka University
1-3 Machikaneyama, Toyonaka, Osaka 560-8531, Japan
**Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International (ATR)
2-2-2 Hikaridai, Seika-cho, Soraku-gun, Kyoto 619-0288, Japan
social presence, mediated social interaction, human relationship
Humanlike medium, "Elfoid" and main result
Although current communication media facilitate interactions among individuals, researchers have warned that human relationships built through these media tend to lack the level of intimacy acquired through face-to-face communications. In this study, we investigate how the long-term use of humanlike communication media affects the development of intimate relationships between human users. We examine changes in the relationship between individuals while they converse with each other through humanlike communication media or mobile phones for approximately a month. The intimacy of their relationship was evaluated using the amount of self-disclosed personal information. The result shows that a significantly greater amount of self-disclosure is made through a communication medium with humanlike appearance and soft material compared with the use of a typical mobile phone. The amount of self-disclosure showed cyclic variation in the experiment through humanlike communication media. Furthermore, we discuss a possible underlying mechanism of this effect from the misattribution of a feeling caused by intimate distance with the medium to a conversation partner.
Nobuhiro Jinnai, Hidenobu Sumioka, Takashi Minato, and Hiroshi Ishiguro, “Multi-Modal Interaction Through Anthropomorphically Designed Communication Medium to Enhance the Self-Disclosures of Personal Information,” J. Robot. Mechatron., Vol.32, No.1, pp. 76-85, 2020.
[1] C. O’Malley, S. Langton, A. Anderson, G. Doherty-Sneddon, and V. Bruce, “Comparison of face-to-face and video-mediated interaction,” Interacting with Computers, Vol.8, No.2, pp. 177-192, 1996.
[2] G. M. Stephenson, K. Ayling, and D. R. Rutter, “The role of visual communication in social exchange,” British J. of Social and Clinical Psychology, Vol.15, No.2, pp. 113-120, 1976.
[3] K. Murase, “Distance counseling, counseling approaches, and state anxiety,” The Japanese J. of Personality, Vol.14, No.3, pp. 324-326, 2006 (in Japanese).
[4] E. Paulos and J. Canny, “Social tele-embodiment: Understanding presence,” Autonomous Robots, Vol.11, No.1, pp. 87-95, 2001.
[5] D. Sakamoto, T. Kanda, T. Ono, H. Ishiguro, and N. Hagita, “Android as a telecommunication medium with a human-like presence,” Proc. of 2nd ACM/IEEE Int. Conf. on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), pp. 193-200, 2007.
[6] H. Sumioka, S. Nishio, T. Minato, R. Yamazaki, and H. Ishiguro, “Minimal human design approach for sonzai-kan media: investigation of a feeling of human presence,” Cognitive Computation, Vol.6, No.4, pp. 760-774, 2014.
[7] I. Altman and D. A. Taylor, “Social Penetration: The Development of Interpersonal Relationships,” Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1973.
[8] D. A. Taylor, “Some aspects of the development of interpersonal relationships: social penetration processes,” J. of Social Psychology, Vol.75, pp. 79-90, 1968.
[9] J. H. Berg and M. S. Clark, “Differences in social exchange between intimate and other relationships: Gradually evolving or quickly apparent?,” V. J. Derlega and B. A. Winstead (Eds.), “Friendship and Social Interaction,” pp. 101-128, Springer, 1986.
[10] J. H. Berg, “Development of friendship between roommates,” J. of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol.46, No.2, pp. 346-356, 1984.
[11] E. Y. Zhang, S. Nishiguchi, A. D. Cheok, and Y. Morisawa, “Kissenger – Development of a Real-Time Internet Kiss Communication Interface for Mobile Phones,” Proc. of Int. Conf. on Love and Sex with Robots, pp. 115-127, 2016.
[12] K. Kuwamura, K. Sakai, T. Minato, S. Nishio, and H. Ishiguro, “Hugvie: A medium that fosters love,” Proc. IEEE Int. Symp. on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, Gyeongju, Korea, pp. 70-75, 2013.
[13] T. Minato, H. Sumioka, S. Nishio, and H. Ishiguro, “Studying the influence of handheld robotic media on social communications,” Proc. RO-MAN 2012 Workshop on Social Robotic Telepresence, pp. 15-16, 2012.
[14] H. Sumioka, K. Koda, S. Nishio, T. Minato, and H. Ishiguro, “Revisiting ancient design of human form for communication avatar: Design considerations from chronological development of dogu,” Proc. of IEEE Int. Symp. on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, pp. 726-731, 2013.
[15] K. Tanaka, H. Nakanishi, and H. Ishiguro, “Physical embodiment can produce robot operator’s pseudo presence,” Front. ICT, Vol.2, No.8, doi: 10.3389/fict.2015.00008, 2015.
[16] R. E. Riggio, “Assessment of basic social skills,” J. of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol.51, No.3, pp. 649-660, 1986.
[17] K. L. Nowak and F. Biocca, “The effect of the agency and anthropomorphism on users’ sense of telepresence, copresence, and social presence in virtual environments,” Presence, Vol.12, No.5, pp. 481-494, 2003.
[18] T. H. Reis, P. Shaver et al., “Intimacy as an interpersonal process,” S. Duck, D. F. Hay, S. E. Hobfoll, W. Ickes, and B. M. Montgomery (Eds.), “Handbook of personal relationships,” Vol.24, No.3, pp. 367-389, 1988.
[19] S. Niwa and S. Maruno, “Development of a scale to assess the depth of self-disclosure,” The Japanese J. of Personality, Vol.18, No.3, pp. 196-209, 2010 (in Japanese).
[20] E. T. Hall, “The Hidden Dimension,” Doubleday & Co., 1966.
[21] J. Nie, M. Park, A. L. Marin, and S. S. Sundar, “Can you hold my hand? Physical warmth in human-robot interaction,” Proc. of 7th ACM/IEEE Int. Conf. on Human-Robot Interaction, pp. 201-202, 2012.
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https://www.openaccessweek.org/profiles/blogs/open-access-week-in-nepal-2014
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Open Access Week in Nepal-2014
Posted by Lal Bahadur Chouhan on October 8, 2014 at 6:32am
20 Oct 2014 - 23 Oct 2014
Open Access Nepal – a student lead initiative – will be hosting a series of events in Nepal during International Open Access Week 2014. These activities and events will help to raise awareness regarding open access and promote open access policies and principles in the country.
Students, researchers, librarians and policy makers will discuss open access developments in Nepal and their roles in promoting and advancing open access. Through conference sessions, workshops, peer to peer discussions and training sessions they will be equipped with the knowledge and skills that will help them promote the policies and principles of open access at their respective institutions.
The project will also contribute to populating a central open access repository in Nepal with more content by motivating researchers and students to make their research output openly available. Read the case study The Central Open Access Repository in Nepal here.
EIFL and Right to Research Coalition provide financial support for the Open Access Week in Nepal. And EIFL Open Access Programme Manager Iryna Kuchma will speak at the events.
You need to be a member of Open Access Week to add comments!
Join Open Access Week
Comment by Nikesh Balami on October 9, 2014 at 1:19am
I will be joining.
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https://www.spanglefish.com/slavesandhighlanders/index.asp?pageid=358086
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Highland Scots - Inverness & area:
Alexander Chisholm (d1799) was the son of William Chisholm (1717-1807), a surgeon who was twice provost of Inverness. Alexander was a nephew of Alexander, James and Evan Baillie, who were all prominent merchants in the slave trade. He died at plantation Friendship in Demerara in 1799 [Aberdeen Journal, 25 Nov 1799], a property owned in 1798 by the long established Dutch planter, John Haslin (d1804).
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https://www.ukauthority.com/articles/government-places-restrictions-on-high-risk-5g-network-vendors/
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Government places restrictions on ‘high risk’ 5G network vendors
The UK Government has placed restrictions on the role of ‘high risk’ vendors in the UK’s 5G and high speed broadband networks, effectively limiting the scope of Chinese company Huawei to provide infrastructure.
The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DMCS) and National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) announced that high risk vendors – those deemed to pose a possible risk to national security – would be excluded from working on sensitive core parts of the network.
Alongside this is a 35% cap on their access to non-sensitive elements of the network, exclusion from all safety related networks in the critical national infrastructure, and new guidance from NCSC to operators on implementing the decision.
The move came after a meeting of the National Security Council following the conclusions of the Telecoms Supply Chain Review, which was published last year and included a technical and security analysis of protecting the country’s digital infrastructure.
It also marks a response to warnings from the US Government that allowing Huawei into the networks poses a national security risk.
Connectivity and security
Digital Secretary Baroness Morgan said: “We want world class connectivity as soon as possible but this must not be at the expense of our national security. High risk vendors never have been and never will be in our most sensitive networks.
“The Government has reviewed the supply chain for telecoms networks and concluded today it is necessary to have tight restrictions on the presence of high risk vendors.
“This is a UK-specific solution for UK-specific reasons and the decision deals with the challenges we face right now. It not only paves the way for secure and resilient networks, with our sovereignty over data protected, but it also builds on our strategy to develop a diversity of suppliers.”
DCMS said the Government will now aim to pass legislation at the earliest opportunity to put in place the powers to implement the framework.
It added that it is developing a strategy to help diversify the supply chain for communications networks, aimed at attracting established vendors who are not currently active in the UK, supporting the emergence of new entrants and promoting the adoption of open, interoperable standards.
The Government’s decision has been widely seen as an effort to balance the need for the deployment of 5G in the UK – for which Huawei is well placed to help accelerate the effort – along with the security factors caused by its close relationship with the Chinese state, and the warnings from the US on the possible effect on information sharing for security purposes.
Image by Calum Young, CC2.0 through Wikimedia
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https://zims-en.kiwix.campusafrica.gos.orange.com/wikipedia_en_all_nopic/A/Offshoring
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Offshoring is the relocation of a business process from one country to another—typically an operational process, such as manufacturing, or supporting processes, such as accounting. Typically this refers to a company business, although state governments may also employ offshoring.[1] More recently, technical and administrative services have been offshored.
This article is about the business process involving a single company. For offshore outsourcing, see Outsourcing. For other uses, see Offshore (disambiguation).
Offshoring and outsourcing are not mutually inclusive: there can be one without the other. They can be intertwined (Offshore outsourcing), and can be individually or jointly, partially or completely reversed, involving terms such as reshoring, inshoring, and insourcing.
Offshoring is when the offshored work is done by means of an internal (captive) delivery model.,[2] sometimes referred to as in-house offshore.[3]
Imported services from subsidiaries or other closely related suppliers are included, whereas intermediate goods, such as partially completed cars or computers, may not be.[4]
Lower cost and increased corporate profitability are often the motivation; economists call this labor arbitrage. More recently, offshoring drivers also include access to qualified personnel abroad, in particular in technical professions, and increasing speed to market.[2]
Jobs are added in the destination country providing the goods or services and are subtracted from the higher-cost labor country.[5] The increased safety net costs of the unemployed may be absorbed by the government (taxpayers) in the high-cost country or by the company doing the offshoring. Europe experienced less offshoring than the United States due to policies that applied more costs to corporations and cultural barriers.[6]
After its accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, the People's Republic of China emerged as a prominent destination for production offshoring. Another focus area has been the software industry as part of global software development and developing global information systems. After technical progress in telecommunications improved the possibilities of trade in services, India became one prominent destination for such offshoring, though many parts of the world are now emerging as offshore destinations.
Frequently used terms
Offshoring is defined as the movement of a business process done at a company in one country to the same company in another country.
It is not the same as outsourcing, which is the movement of internal business processes to an external organizational unit. This is done under restrictions and strategies in order to establish consistency with the offshore outsourcing organizations. Many companies nowadays outsource various professional areas in the company such as e-mail services, payroll and call center. These jobs are being handled by other organizations that specialize in each sector allowing the offshoring company to focus more on other business concerns.
Subcontracting in the same country would be outsourcing, but not offshoring. A company moving an internal business unit from one country to another would be offshoring or physical restructuring, but not outsourcing. A company subcontracting a business unit to a different company in another country would be both outsourcing and offshoring: Offshore outsourcing.
Related terms include
nearshoring, which implies relocation of business processes to (typically) lower cost foreign locations, but in close geographical proximity (e.g., shifting United States-based business processes to Canada, Mexico or Latin America)
inshoring, which means picking services within a country; and
bestshoring or rightshoring, picking the "best shore" based on various criteria.
Business process outsourcing (BPO) refers to outsourcing arrangements when entire business functions (such as Finance & Accounting, Customer Service, etc.) are outsourced. More specific terms can be found in the field of software development - for example Global Information System as a class of systems being developed for / by globally distributed teams.
Bodyshopping is the practice of using offshored resources and personnel to do small disaggregated tasks within a business environment, without any broader intention to offshore an entire business function.
Offshoring can be seen in the context of either production offshoring or services offshoring, and refers to substitution of a service from any company-owned foreign source for one formerly produced in the company's home country, whether or not outsourcing is involved.
Production offshoring
Production offshoring, also known as physical restructuring, of established products involves relocation of physical manufacturing processes overseas,[7] usually to a lower-cost destination or one with fewer regulatory restrictions.
Physical restructuring arrived when the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) made it easier for manufacturers to shift production facilities from the US to Mexico.
This trend later shifted to China, which offered cheap prices through very low wage rates, few workers' rights laws, a fixed currency pegged to the US dollar, (currently fixed to a basket of economies) cheap loans, cheap land, and factories for new companies, few environmental regulations, and huge economies of scale based on cities with populations over a million workers dedicated to producing a single kind of product. However, many companies are reluctant to move high value-added production of leading-edge products to China because of lax enforcement of intellectual property laws.[8]
IT-enabled services offshoring
Growth of offshoring of IT-enabled services, both to subsidiaries and to outside companies (offshore outsourcing) is linked to the availability of large amounts of reliable and affordable communication infrastructure following the telecommunication and Internet expansion of the late 1990s.[9]
Much of the job movement, however, was to outside companies - offshore outsourcing.
Re-shoring
"Re-shoring", also known as "backshoring"[10] or "inshoring"[11] is offshoring that has been brought back onshore.[12]
John Urry (distinguished professor of sociology at Lancaster University) argues that the concealment of income, the avoidance of taxation and eluding legislation relating to work, finance, pleasure, waste, energy and security may be becoming a serious concern for democratic governments and ordinary citizens who may be adversely affected by unregulated, offshore activities. Further, the rising costs of transportation could lead to production nearer the point of consumption becoming more economically viable, particularly as new technologies such as additive manufacturing mature[13]
Reshoring terminology
Reshoring (also known as onshoring, inshoring and backshoring) is the act of reintroducing domestic manufacturing to a country. It is the reverse process of offshoring, where manufacturing is moved to another country where labor is cheaper.
The World Bank's 2019 World Development Report on the future of work[14] considers the potential for automation to drive companies to reshore production, reducing the role of labor in the process, and offers suggestions as to how governments can respond. A similar movement can be seen related to Robotic Process Automation, called RPA or RPAAI for self-guided RPA 2.0 based on artificial intelligence, where the incentive to move repetitive shared services work to lower cost countries is partially taken away by the progression of technology.
For the last twenty years, American companies have been "offshoring" and outsourcing manufacturing to low cost countries such as China, Malaysia and Vietnam.
Government response
President Obama 2011 SelectUSA program was the first federal program to promote and facilitate U.S. investment in partnership with our states. This program and website helps companies connect with resources available on a Federal, State and local level. In January 2012, President Obama Issued a Call to Action to Invest in America at the White House "Insourcing American Jobs" Forum.[15]
Advances in 3D printing technologies brought manufacturers closer to their customers.[16]
There have been several very successful stories of companies. In most cases hundreds if not thousands of jobs were created or reinstated. In the case of Starbucks, in 2012 it saved American Mug and Stein Company in East Liverpool, Ohio from bankruptcy.[17]
Avoiding failure
There have been some cases of reshoring that weren't successful. Otis Elevators’ reshoring effort did not go well.[18] Otis says it failed to consider the consequences of the new location and tried to do too much at once, including a supply-chain software implementation. This is not an uncommon reshoring scenario. Bringing manufacturing back to the United States isn't so simple, and there are a lot of considerations and analyses that companies must do to determine the costs and feasibility of reshoring. Some companies pursue reshoring with their own internal staff. But reshoring projects are complicated and involve engineering, marketing, production, finance, and procurement. In addition, there are real estate concerns, government incentives and training requirements that require outreach to the community. To help with these projects, companies often turn to consultants that specialize in Reshoring.[19]
In the United Kingdom, companies have used the reintroduction of domestic call centres as a unique selling point. In 2014, the RSA Insurance Group completed a move of call centres back to Britain.[20] The call centre industry in India has been hit by reshoring, as businesses including British Telecom, Santander UK and Aviva all announced they would move operations back to Britain in order to boost the economy and regain customer satisfaction.[21]
R&D Offshoring
Product design, research and the development (R&D) process is relatively difficult to offshore because R&D, to improve products and create new reference designs, requires a higher skill set not associated with cheap labor.
An abstract of a study published 2019, which did not include either India or China, and did not specify whether the offshoring was also outsourcing, said "that R&D offshoring contributes positively to productivity in the home country.".[22][23]
Transfer of intellectual property
There is a relationship between offshoring and patent-system strength. Companies under a strong patent system are not afraid to move work offshore because their work will remain their property. Conversely, companies in countries with weak patent systems have an increased fear of intellectual property theft from foreign vendors or workers, and, therefore, have less offshoring.
Offshoring is often enabled by the transfer of valuable information to the offshore site. Such information and training enables the remote workers to produce results of comparable value previously produced by internal employees. When such transfer includes protected materials, as confidential documents and trade secrets, protected by non-disclosure agreements, then intellectual property has been transferred or exported. The documentation and valuation of such exports is quite difficult, but should be considered since it comprises items that may be regulated or taxable.
Offshoring to foreign subsidiaries has been a controversial issue spurring heated debates among economists. Jobs go to the destination country and lower cost of goods and services to the origin country.
On the other hand, job losses and wage erosion in developed countries have sparked opposition. Free trade with low-wage countries is win-lose for many employees who find their jobs offshored or with stagnating wages.[24]
Currency manipulation by governments and their central banks cause differences in labor cost. On May 1, 2002, Economist and former Ambassador Ernest H. Preeg testified before the Senate committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs that China, for instance, pegs its currency to the dollar at a sub-par value in violation of Article IV of the International Monetary Fund Articles of Agreement which state that no nation shall manipulate its currency to gain a market advantage.[25]
Competitive concerns
In 2015, IT employment in the United States has recently reached pre-2001 levels[26][27] and has been rising since.
The number of jobs lost to offshoring is less than 1 percent of the total US labor market.[28] According to a study by the Heritage foundation, outsourcing represents a very small proportion of jobs lost in the US. The total number of jobs lost to offshoring, both manufacturing and technical represent only 4 percent of the total jobs lost in the US. Major reasons for cutting jobs are from contract completion and downsizing.[29] Some economists and commentators claim that the offshoring phenomenon is way overblown.[29]
Impact on jobs in western countries
The Economist reported in January 2013 that: "High levels of unemployment in Western countries after the 2007-2008 financial crisis have made the public in many countries so hostile towards offshoring that many companies are now reluctant to engage in it."[30] Economist Paul Krugman wrote in 2007 that while free trade among high-wage countries is viewed as win-win, free trade with low-wage countries is win-lose for many employees who find their jobs offshored or with stagnating wages.[24]
Two estimates of the impact of offshoring on U.S. jobs were between 150,000 and 300,000 per year from 2004-2015. This represents 10-15% of U.S. job creation.[31]
The increased safety net costs of the unemployed may be absorbed by the government (taxpayers) in the high-cost country or by the company doing the offshoring. Europe experienced less offshoring than the U.S. due to policies that applied more costs to corporations and cultural barriers.[6]
In the area of service research has found that offshoring has mixed effects on wages and employment.[32][33][34][35][36][37]
The World Bank's 2019 World Development Report on the future of work [14] highlights how offshoring can shape the demand for skills in receiving countries and explores how increasing automation can lead to reshoring of production in some cases.
U.S. opinion polls indicate that between 76-95% of Americans surveyed agreed that "outsourcing of production and manufacturing work to foreign countries is a reason the U.S. economy is struggling and more people aren't being hired."[38][39]
Effects of factor of production mobility
According to classical economics, the three factors of production are land, labor, and capital. Offshoring relies heavily on the mobility of labor and capital; land has little or no mobility potential.
In microeconomics, working capital funds the initial costs of offshoring. If the state heavily regulates how a corporation can spend its working capital, it will not be able to offshore its operations. For the same reason the macroeconomy must be free for offshoring to succeed.
Computers and the Internet made work in the services industry electronically portable. Most theories that argue offshoring eventually benefits domestic workers assume that those workers will be able to obtain new jobs, even if by accepting lower salaries or by retraining themselves in a new field. Foreign workers benefit from new jobs and higher wages when the work moves to them.
Labor scholars argue that global labor arbitrage leads to unethical practices, connected to exploitation of workers, eroding work conditions and decreasing job security.[40]
In the developed world, moving manufacturing jobs out of the country dates to at least the 1960s[41] while moving knowledge service jobs offshore dates to the 1970s[42] and has continued since then. It was characterized primarily by the transferring of factories from the developed to the developing world. This offshoring and closing of factories has caused a structural change in the developed world from an industrial to a post-industrial service society.
During the 20th century, the decreasing costs of transportation and communication crossed with great disparities on pay rates made increased offshoring from wealthier countries to less wealthy countries financially feasible for many companies. Further, the growth of the Internet, particularly fiber-optic intercontinental long haul capacity, and the World Wide Web reduced "transportation" costs for many kinds of information work to near zero.[43]
Impact of the Internet
Regardless of size, companies benefit from accessibility to labor resources across the world.[44] This gave rise to business models such as Remote In-Sourcing that allow companies to tap into resources found abroad, without losing control over security of product quality.
New categories of work such as call centres, computer programming, reading medical data such as X-rays and magnetic resonance imaging, medical transcription, income tax preparation, and title searching are being offshored.
Before the 1990s, Ireland was one of the poorest countries in the EU. Because of Ireland's relatively low corporate tax rates, US companies began offshoring of software, electronic, and pharmaceutical intellectual property to Ireland for export. This helped create a high-tech "boom" and which led to Ireland becoming one of the richest EU countries.[43]
In 1994 the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect, and it increased the velocity of physical restructuring.
The plan to create free trade areas (such as Free Trade Area of the Americas) has not yet been successful. In 2005, offshoring of skilled work, also referred to as knowledge work, dramatically increased from the US, which fed the growing worries about threats of job loss.[43]
Offshore outsourcing
There are four basic types of offshore outsourcing:
Information technology outsourcing (ITO) is where outsourcing related to technology or internet such as computer programming.
Business process outsourcing (BPO) involves contracting out of operational functions to a third party service provider.
Knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) is a type of outsourcing which involves or requires a more advanced technical skill and a higher level of expertise.
The general criteria for a job to be offshore-able are:
There is a significant wage difference between the original and offshore countries;
The job can be telework;
The work can be transmitted over the Internet;
The work is repeatable[45]
Source of conflict
The opposing sides regarding offshoring, outsourcing, and offshore outsourcing are those seeking government intervention and Protectionism versus the side advocating Free Trade.[46]
Jobs formerly held by U.S. workers have been lost, even as underdeveloped countries such as Brazil and Turkey flourish.[47] Free-trade advocates suggest economies as a whole will obtain a net benefit from labor offshoring,[48] but it is unclear if the displaced receive a net benefit.[49]
Some wages overseas are rising. A study by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found that Chinese wages were almost tripled in the seven years following 2002. Research suggests that these wage increases could redirect some offshoring elsewhere.[50]
Increased training and education has been advocated to offset trade-related displacements, but it is no longer a comparative advantage of high-wage nations because education costs are lower in low-wage countries.[51]
Anti-Globalism
Borderless Selling
Call center security
Decline and Fall of the American Programmer
Domestic sourcing
Follow-the-sun
Free trade controversy
Global delivery model
Global labor arbitrage
Globality
Globally Integrated Enterprise
Guest worker
List of international trade topics
Low-cost country sourcing
Offshoring Research Network
Runaway production
By sector:
Offshore custom software development
"The Offshoring of American Government". Cornell Law Review. November 2008. SSRN 1143044. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
Stephan Manning; Silvia Massini; Arie Lewin (October 20, 2008). "SSRN-A Dynamic Perspective on Next-Generation Offshoring: The Global Sourcing of Science and Engineering Talent". Academy of Management Perspectives. 22 (3): 35–54. doi:10.5465/amp.2008.34587994. SSRN 1287369.
Cliff Justice; Stan Lepeak. "Captive Audience: How to Partner with Service Providers to Improve In-House Offshore Operations". CIO magazine. a.k.a. internal shared-services centers in low-cost locations
See "Appendix II: Definitions of Offshoring" in General Accounting Office: "International Trade: Current Government Data Provide Limited Insight into Offshoring of Services", September 2004. Imported intermediate goods are included in offshoring in "Swenson, D: "International Outsourcing", in The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2008.
Milosz Miszczynski (2016-06-22). "Labour arbitrage: the lifecycle of a global production node". Journal of Organizational Ethnography. 5 (2): 106–122. doi:10.1108/JOE-04-2016-0009. ISSN 2046-6749.
"Staying put. European jobs are not coming back because few of them went in the first place". The Economist. January 2013. Retrieved April 8, 2014.
"Offshore manufacturing - definition and meaning".
Fishman, T: "China, Inc." Scribner, 2006.
Mostafa Hashem Sherif (2006). Managing Projects in Telecommunication Services. ISBN 0470047674. (chapter) COMMUNICATION AND OUTSOURCING ... Roche, 1998
"Workforce Management Online, Dec 2007". Archived from the original on 2013-12-17. Retrieved 2010-04-12.
"Inshoring". Mike Karlesky. May 17, 2005. Retrieved 31 July 2008.
Zacks Investment Research (April 29, 2015). "Reshoring Bringing Back Jobs to USA". Zacks Investment Research. Retrieved 29 April 2015.
John Urry (April 14, 2014). Offshoring. polity UK. ISBN 978-0745664866.
World Bank World Development Report 2019: The Changing Nature of Work.
Office of the Press Secretary. "President Obama Issues Call to Action to Invest in America at White House "Insourcing American Jobs" Forum". The White House. Retrieved 11 January 2012.
Christian F. Durach; Stefan Kurpjuweit; Stephan M. Wagner (2017-09-25). "The impact of additive manufacturing on supply chains". International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management. 47 (10): 954–971. doi:10.1108/ijpdlm-11-2016-0332. ISSN 0960-0035.
John Grgurich. "What's So Special About This Starbuck's Mug?". Daily Finance. Retrieved 15 June 2012.
Rosemary Coates. "How To Avoid a Failed Reshoring Project". CFO. Retrieved June 9, 2014.
Rosemary Coates. "Are you ready to evaluate Reshoring?". Blue Silk Consulting Reshoring.
"RSA completes move to UK-only call centres/1409402.article". Insurance Times. August 5, 2014. Retrieved May 20, 2015.
"India may no longer be outsourcing hub as UK companies such as Aviva, BT & Santander move work to home country". The Economic Times. July 14, 2011. Retrieved May 20, 2015.
de Rassenfosse, Gaétan; Thomson, Russell (2019). "R&D offshoring and home industry productivity". Industrial and Corporate Change. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/icc/dtz020.
Rosenbusch, N., Gusenbauer, M., Hatak, I., Fink, M., & Meyer, K. E. (2019). Innovation Offshoring, Institutional Context and Innovation Performance: A Meta-Analysis. Journal of Management Studies, 56(1), 203–233. https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12407
Paul Krugman (December 12, 2007). "The Trouble with Trade". The New York Times.
Ernest H. Preeg (May 1, 2002). Testimony on Chinese Currency Manipulation Archived 2006-04-27 at the Wayback Machine
"IT Employment Reaches Record High In U.S." InformationWeek. Retrieved 29 April 2015.
"Business Technology News and Commentary - InformationWeek". InformationWeek. Retrieved 29 April 2015.
"Myths and Realities: The False Crisis of Outsourcing". The Heritage Foundation. Archived from the original on 3 March 2010. Retrieved 29 April 2015.
"Samuelson: Debunking the Great Offshoring Myth". Newsweek.com. 2007-08-21. Retrieved 2010-05-22.
The Economist-Here, there and everywhere-January 2013
The Economist-What to Do Now: Shape Up-January 2013
Amiti, Mary; Wei, Shang-Jin; Haskel, Jonathan; Auriol, Emmanuelle (2005). "Fear of Service Outsourcing: Is It Justified?" (PDF). Economic Policy. 20 (42): 307–347. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0327.2005.00140.x. JSTOR 3601072.
Groshen, Erica; Hobijn, Bart; McConnell, Margaret M. (2005). "U.S. jobs gained and lost through trade: a net measure". Current Issues in Economics and Finance. 11 (Aug).
Liu, Runjuan; Trefler, Daniel (June 2008). "Much Ado About Nothing: American Jobs and the Rise of Service Outsourcing to China and India". NBER Working Paper No. 14061. doi:10.3386/w14061.
Ebenstein, Avraham; Harrison, Ann; McMillan, Margaret; Phillips, Shannon (2013-05-15). "Estimating the Impact of Trade and Offshoring on American Workers using the Current Population Surveys". The Review of Economics and Statistics. 96 (4): 581–595. doi:10.1162/rest_a_00400. ISSN 0034-6535.
Pierce, Justin R.; Schott, Peter K. (July 2016). "The Surprisingly Swift Decline of US Manufacturing Employment" (PDF). American Economic Review. 106 (7): 1632–1662. doi:10.1257/aer.20131578. hdl:10419/89626. ISSN 0002-8282.
Robert C. Feenstra; Gordon H. Hanson (1996). "Globalization, Outsourcing, and Wage Inequality". The American Economic Review. 86 (2): 240–245. JSTOR 2118130.
Sara Murray And Douglas Belkin (October 2, 2010). "Americans Sour on Trade". WSJ. Retrieved 29 April 2015.
Gallup, Inc. "Americans' Top Job–Creation Idea: Stop Sending Work Overseas". Retrieved 29 April 2015.
M. Miszczynski (2016-02-18). "Global Production in a Romanian Village: Middle-Income Economy, Industrial Dislocation and the Reserve Army of Labor". Critical Sociology. 43 (7–8): 1079–1092. doi:10.1177/0896920515623076.
General Accounting Office: "Offshoring: U.S. Semiconductor and Software Industries Increasingly Produce in China and India", September 2006.
Metters, Richard; Verma, Rohit (2008). "History of offshoring knowledge services". Journal of Operations Management. 26 (2): 141. doi:10.1016/j.jom.2007.02.012.
Baase, Sara (2008). A Gift of Fire: Social, Legal, and Ethical Issues for Computing and The Internet (Third ed.). Harlow: Prentice Hall. ISBN 978-0-13-600848-4.
Gartner Outlines the Top 10 Forces to Impact Outsourcing and IT Services Industry. Sep. 2010. http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/1433214
Amy Karson; Marcia Brown (October 2012). A Nonprofit Guide to Outsourcing (PDF). Nonprofit Coordinating Committee of New York.
Marc-William Palen (June 18, 2013). "Protectionism leads to its own outsourcing problems".
Kupchan, C. (2012, January 1). The Democratic malaise: Globalization and the threat to the West, 62-67.
"Free Trade and Outsourcing Are Not the Same".
N. G. Mankiw (2006). "The Politics and Economics of Offshore Outsourcing" (PDF). Harvard.edu.
Plunkett Research Group, https://www.plunkettresearch.com/industries/outsourcing-offshoring-bpo-market-research/
"Education and learning". The Los Angeles Times.
Look up offshoring in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
An Atlas of Offshore Outsourcing by David E. Gumpert (BusinessWeek online)
Consulate General of the Kingdom of The Netherlands Guangzhou (2011). Outsourcing Comparison Study South-East Asia: China, India, Vietnam 2011-2012.
"More Support to Push Reshoring". Coventry Evening Telegraph. October 28, 2013 – via Questia Online Library.
Annie Baxter (March 13, 2012). "Factories 'Reshore' Some Work From Overseas". All Things Considered. National Public Radio. Retrieved May 20, 2015.
Adam Belz (January 13, 2013). "Report shows U.S. manufacturers continue to lag". Star Tribune. Minneapolis.
Alan S. Blinder, "Offshoring: The Next Industrial Revolution?" in Foreign Affairs, Vol. 85, No. 2 (March/April 2006), pp. 113–128.
Andrew Bounds (May 10, 2013). "Survey says reshoring 'symbolic' and will not lead to jobs boom". Globe and Mail. Toronto.
Kevin Carmichael (June 4, 2013). "Canada's 'reshoring' opportunity". Globe and Mail. Toronto.
Thomas L. Friedman, The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century (2005).
Jon Griffin (March 3, 2014). "Bosses Back to UK in Reshoring Moves". Birmingham Mail. Archived from the original on March 9, 2016 – via HighBeam Research.
Mark Hennessy (March 5, 2014). "Wheels of Industry Turn Faster as UK Brings Manufacturing Back Home". The Irish Times. Archived from the original on March 8, 2016 – via HighBeam Research.
Catherine L. Mann & Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, Accelerating the Globalization of America: The Role for Information Technology, Institute for International Economics, Washington D.C., Peterson Institute for International Economics (June 2006).
Stephan Manning, Silvia Massini & Arie Y. Lewin, A Dynamic Perspective on Next-Generation Offshoring: The Global Sourcing of Science and Engineering Talent, Academy of Management Perspectives, Vol. 22, No. 3 (October 2008), pp. 35–54. JSTOR 27747462
Ed Marcum (August 7, 2010). "Some businesses learning value of bringing factories back to the U.S." Knoxville News Sentinel.
Jackie Northam (January 27, 2014). "As Overseas Costs Rise, More U.S. Companies Are 'Reshoring'". All Things Considered. National Public Radio. Retrieved 20 May 2015.
Jon Talton (February ss, 2014). "Outsourcing not what you think, say researchers". Seattle Times. Check date values in: |date= (help)
Jim Zarroli (December 16, 2014). "'Reshoring' Trend Has Little Impact On U.S. Economy, Study Finds". Morning Edition. National Public Radio. Retrieved May 20, 2015.
"Industrial Property Boost as Manufacturers Return Home". Birmingham Post. December 4, 2014 – via Questia Online Library.
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Condolences to President of Zimbabwe Emmerson Mnangagwa
Vladimir Putin sent condolences to President of the Republic of Zimbabwe Emmerson Mnangagwa following the death of Robert Gabriel Mugabe, the republic’s longtime leader.
The message reads, in part:
“Many important events in contemporary history of Zimbabwe are linked with the name of Robert Mugabe. He made a major personal contribution to the struggle for your country’s independence and to building institutions of Zimbabwean statehood.
The people of Russia will remember him as a consistent advocate of developing friendly relations between our countries and a person who had accomplished a great deal to strengthen mutually beneficial bilateral cooperation.”
The President of Russia also asked Emmerson Mnangagwa to convey the words of sincere sympathy and support to the family and friends of Robert Mugabe.
Publication date: September 6, 2019, 11:45
Last updated at September 6, 2019, 13:38
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On July 20, Russian-Azerbaijani talks will be held in Moscow
On July 20, 2021, Vladimir Putin will hold talks in Moscow with President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, who will be in Russia on a working visit.
Announcement, July 20, 2021
The presidents will discuss key issues of strengthening Russia-Azerbaijan strategic partnership with a focus on cooperation in trade, investment and humanitarian affairs.
Vladimir Putin and Ilham Aliyev will also exchange views on topical regional problems. Special attention will be paid to the practical aspects of implementing the agreements on Nagorno-Karabakh reached by the leaders of Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia on November 9, 2020, and on January 11, 2021, including resuming and developing economic ties and transport links.
Aliyev Ilham
Published in sections: News, Announcements
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http://worldschooladventures.com/2017/04/24/one-of-our-best-travel-days-ever/?replytocom=44584
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« Visiting the Vatican Museum (Without buying tickets online)
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One Of Our Best Travel Days Ever
We specifically chose to come to Hungary because of our ancestry. Or rather, Mike’s ancestry, although I am equally as interested. You see, Mike’s father was in born in Hungary and he immigrated to Canada when he was 25 years old. We were keen to come to Hungary to see where Mike’s father was born and to get a feel for the country he grew up in.
Now, being that Mike’s father was an only child, we did not have too much family to visit. There are a few cousins we knew we would get in touch with but none of them speak English which meant that communication was going to be difficult. Mike also had a Facebook friend named Zoltan in Hungary whom he had friended years ago but did not have much contact with. We share the same last name so we knew we were related to him but we did not know how we were related.
That is where things start to get interesting. When we announced our next stop on our European itinerary was Hungary, Zoltan asked us if we would like to get together while we were here. Of course we said yes! Zoltan and his wife took the train from where they live to Budapest and we spent the day together trying to figure out how we were related. After much searching on Zoltan’s part through old family trees and talking to relatives in Hungary, Zoltan has traced our routes back to the 1700’s when two brothers came from Poland to Hungary to the small village of Madarász where they worked to build a church. They stayed in Hungary and started families. We are the descendants. Zoltan figured out that we are actually 5th cousins!
Even before we knew for sure how we are related, in a shining example of Hungarian hospitality, Zoltan invited our family to our ancestral village of Madarász to his Grandmother’s house for an Easter lunch. The whole family was there to celebrate Easter together and we were invited into their family home with open arms and open hearts. I don’t know that I have ever felt so welcomed or so loved by strangers!
Zoltan acted as our interpreter for the day (his brother and their wives also speak English but the parents and Grandmother do not). We were shown family pictures and treated to an AMAZING Hungarian feast (seriously, I thought I might burst there was so much delicious food!)
We also were shown around the little village where we visited the local graveyard and saw Mike’s Grandmother’s gravesite (she died shortly after giving birth to Mike’s father) where we lit candles and absorbed the roots of our history. We were shown Zoltan’s family’s grave site and also noticed the numerous graves that share our last name.
We went to the church that those two original brothers worked on and imagined life back in the 1700’s in this village.
Later on in the afternoon, lovely Zoltan accompanied us to the next town of Baja to visit a cousin of Mike’s father. They did not speak English but we received the same warm welcome as before. Zoltan translated for us while we dined on fish soup (a famous delicacy of the town) and we were again able to have a glimpse of local life and connect to our Hungarian roots.
The history, the company, the honor of being welcomed into these village homes, the hugs and kisses from Granny and her excitement to share her family history with us, the friendships made with our newly found cousins, it was all magical. It was heartwarming and beautiful. So often we travel to other countries to see how other people live but we barely skim the surface. On this day we were as immersed as we have ever been.
Montjuïc Cemetery, Barcelona
The Graffiti of Barcelona
Six Awesome Day Trips In Hungary
Tags: family travel, family travel in Europe, hungary, travel with children
April 24, 2017 at 11:09 am (UTC -7 )
So beautiful! I’m so glad that your family got this experience. I was able to do something similar in Germany many years ago. Family is family. I’ve always been amazed at this bond and how even when strangers, homes are opened up and bread is broken and shared. It’s always such a gift to understand our roots and where we came from. Miss you all!
Wow, so amazing Amy! What a precious experience. Unforgettable. Definitely putting visiting distant relatives on our wish list of travel adventures.
The Beautiful City of Székesfehérvár | Worldschool Adventures says:
May 17, 2017 at 1:03 pm (UTC -7 )
[…] not Hungarian look at and wonder how on earth it is pronounced. After a lot of coaching from our new-found family, I can tell you it is pronounced Say-Kesh-Fair-Har-Var. Easy […]
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http://www.slpreppystyle.com/2009/05/last-day-of-school.html
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Last day of school...
Well, actually, Hollon's last day will be this coming Thursday. However, tonight, we get to go to Hollon's school for a "Look What I Did" program. Hollon gets to take us into her classroom and show us all the things she has learned this year which will finally answer the question,"what did you do at school today?" Considering Hollon can't yet hold a conversation, we have to rely on her teachers and the little form that comes home in her lunch box everyday telling us that she played with the duck-walker, rolling machine and pouring. What the heck is a rolling machine or a duck walker for that matter? I'm sure they'll be a lot of "Oh, that's what that is...." exclamations throughout the evening!
Anyhow, we are so excited to go to her school and walk around with Hollon! This is important for us to see what she is doing each day at school, but more important for her, so that she feels special, important and knows that we are very, very proud of her.
I will post pictures of our upcoming evening in the morning. Until then, happy Friday!
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Spring 2016 Walmart Beauty Box! (Unboxing and First Impressions!)
Hello My Fellow Life Lovers and Beauty Junkies!
(I feel like I need to warn you right up front that this is a bit of a long post, so if you don't have at least 5 minutes to spare, you might just want to bookmark it and come back later? But, please do come back! I'll be sharing a lot of first impressions as well as a few recommendations for items that I've tried! If you're not busy at the moment, pull up a chair, grab a cuppa joe, or a glass of wine and I'll spill it all out on the kitchen table for ya!)
So... It's that time again! Another quarter is here and with it, comes the Spring edition of the Walmart Beauty Box! I haven't done an unboxing in quite a while, so I thought it was about time. I've gotta tell ya... I really enjoy this li'l box of goodies. It's actually kinda ridiculous that I get so giddy when it arrives in the mail. I mean, it's not like Publisher's Clearing House suddenly showed up at my door with a big fat prize check or anything, right? (hmmm... wouldn't that be nice?)
Ahem... Uh, sorry about that. I got a little distracted, planning just exactly how I would blow appropriate the money, if I was ever lucky enough to win a major sweepstakes like that ...or maybe the lottery?
Oh lordy! There I go again. Drifting off into a land of fancy cars, grand homes located all over the world and well, you know, the necessities in life, right? I mean, you can't honestly tell me that you've never given even a little thought to what you would do, if you suddenly came into an obscenely large amount of cash, can you? Yeah... I didn't think so. So! What would you splurge on? Let me know in the comments!
OK. Let's get on with the Spring Beauty Box, eh? If you're unfamiliar with this subscription box, I'll give you the details throughout this post. And here's a link to the site, in case you'd like to give it a go yourself. Walmart Beauty Box
(While I do have a couple of referral links here on the blog that allow you and I to receive a discount or some type of perk for using it, (like Ipsy and Scentbird) I wanted to state, up front, that this is NOT a sponsored post and I am NOT using a referral or affiliate link for the Walmart box. If you do decide to use the link that I'm providing above to get to the site, I won't receive any compensation, or points, or anything like that. I just figured that I'd save you all a few keystrokes. LOL)
You know, for $5 (which is technically just the shipping cost) this is an awesome way to discover new products, or products that you might already know about but you just haven't had a chance to pick up for yourself. I've been subscribed for going on 2 years now and just about every box that I've received, has contained (at the very least) one thing that I'd been really wanting to try, but I just hadn't gotten around to going out and getting it.
The box comes quarterly (every 3 months) and on average, there are usually 5 to 6 deluxe or full sized products and anywhere from 4 to 6 samples of everything from makeup to perfume to skincare and even health and beauty aisle items, like toothpaste, deodorant, body wash and all of that good stuff. Most of the smaller samples come with pretty decent coupons for the products, too. This is currently only a quarterly subscription, but I really wish that it was monthly. I'm so happy with this box that I'd happily sign up for that in a heartbeat!
Plus, unlike the ever elusive Target Beauty Box, you can actually subscribe, so that you don't have to constantly check back on the website at the beginning of every month, hoping that you'll see when it goes up for sale so you can grab one before they're sold out. Those boxes usually sell out in the first couple of hours and they don't do a second run or a restock. I've been trying (unsuccessfully) for over a year to get my paws on one! Grrr! But, I digress. Back to the box I do have, eh?
You'll often see a couple of products that are from the same brand, like shampoo and conditioner, or a couple of different formulas of the same brand's moisturizer in this box. Sometimes, you'll have one full sized item from a company's line and then a card with a foil packet sample of another one of their products. And that card generally has a coupon for one or both of the products on it. I've found that they're usually surprisingly generous discounts, too. As you'll see in the photos, this box had a Neutrogena, Olay, Aveeno kind of theme to it and I've gotta say that I'm not the least bit unhappy about that, because I already love many of their products!
This Neutrogena Moisture Smooth Color Stick (#140 Pink Grapefruit) is not only one of the items that I've tried from this quarter's box, but I instantly fell in love with it! It's a beautiful shade of slightly blue toned pink and it's so creamy and moisturizing, but not at all sticky like some creams or balms can be. I think it's just perfect for the Spring and Summer & I know that I'll be rockin' this one a lot! Plus, they're only like... $7! For me, that beats a $20+ high end lipstick every time!
To be honest with you, I've been more than a bit obsessed with all of the "new" matte liquid lipsticks for a while now, so I've been completely ignoring all of my creamy, balm-ish or moisturizing lip products.
Because of that, I doubt that I would have even looked at this lovely lippie on my own. I would have passed right by it in the lipstick section and never thought twice about it! Seriously. But now, I'm chomping at the bit to go get more shades for Summer!
Can you believe how gorgeous this is? And for such a buttery, creamy lipstick it has excellent opacity that just glides over your lips. The best part is that it has some excellent staying power, for what I would compare to say... a NYX Butter Gloss. It feels terrific on the lips, to boot! Winner all around!!
I was interested to see a concealer/corrector sample (also from Neutrogena) in this box, but I won't be trying this one out. I always avoid anything that's labeled "anti-acne" because about 90% of products labeled as such contain salicylic acid, which I know is fantastic for acne prone skin, but it's way too harsh on my super sensitive skin & would aggravate the nasty (Malar) rashes that are common when you have a disease like Lupus.
So, that brings me to the next sample - also from Neutrogena. (see what I meant about a theme?) Well, ever since emilynoel83 (from Beauty Broadcast channel on YouTube) talked about the Healthy Skin Anti-Aging Foundation back in the early part of last Winter, I've had my eye on it as a possible (and much less expensive) Summer swap out for my beloved Bye Bye Foundation from It! Cosmetics.
The Healthy Skin Foundation costs between $12 and $16 for a 1 fluid ounce bottle, depending on where you purchase it. You can get it for considerably less if you're lucky enough to find it on sale, or if you have a coupon or a discount code. It's available at Ulta and pretty much any drugstore or retail establishment that has a makeup department. It's also available online at several locations.
OK. Brace yourself. The Bye Bye Foundation is... $65 for just under 2 fluid ounces. Yup. You read that right. It's not a typo. But... A little bit goes a loooong way and I promise you that it does exactly what Jamie Kern Lima says it does on her infomercials and on QVC.
I've seriously tried a gazillion foundations over the past few years and with my super sensitive, extremely dry skin, it's not easy to find one that will cover the angry red blotches and welts from the rashes I get, without causing me even more irritation and/or inflammation. I wore the It! CC+ w/SPF 50 for about 2 years and then the Bye Bye Foundation launched. When I say that it literally changed my life for the better, I'm not joking. So, yeah... It's been worth every penny to me. But if I can find a comparable replacement for a fraction of the price, you can bet that I'm gonna be all over that!
Their Hydro Boost Water Gel is my go-to moisturizer all Summer long, because it absorbs so completely and doesn't get oily on those super hot and humid days the way a lot of heavier moisturizers often do. Plus, it's packed with really "good for you" ingredients.
Next up, we have a couple of Olay samples. I haven't tried the Olay Regenerist Luminous Tone Perfecting Cream, because I'm not sure that it's a product that I'm interested in using down the road. If I do decide to try one, it will be the Olay Regenerist Micro-Sculpting Cream. I've yet to find a product that makes a noticeable difference in the lovely (NOT) jowls that have begun to appear along my jaw-line these last few years. If I give it a go, I'll come back here and add an update to let you all know my thoughts on it!
I do enjoy getting perfume samples now and then and I definitely prefer the little glass bottles that have a spray-top, like this Vera Wang Embrace sample. I have to admit though, that I don't get as excited about getting them, now that I have my subscription to Scentbird. Scentbird gives you 20 times the amount and I'm going to try not to sound like a total snob here, but the fragrance choices that you get from Scentbird are a bit higher end than the "drugstore" brands that you get in these boxes.
Now, when I use the term "drugstore" I'm in no way trying to disparage either the products or the names behind them. I mean, I love Vera Wang... As a matter of fact, when our daughter was married in 2013, her wedding dress was from Vera Wang's "White Collection" and it was absolutely breathtaking! And it just goes without saying that more then a couple of my "holy grail" makeup products are from the drugstore.
Bottom line: This Vera Wang fragrance is very nice, but it has a tad too much of vanilla and not quite enough of the floral and citrus notes - for my personal taste. That being said, if you're a vanilla gal, I think you'll absolutely love this one!!
Source: Google Images - (not my daughter)
Vera Wang White Collection Style# VW351011
OK. Moving along.....
I do like to use a whitening toothpaste because I'm an avid coffee and tea drinker. I've tried a few, including my current brand (Crest 3D White), but this Colgate Optic White is one of the brands that I haven't used yet, so I was very happy to see it in this box! I'll come back and post an update later, after I've had a chance to give it a good test!
Ahhh... Good ol' RoC! I currently use the RoC Retinol Correxion Deep Wrinkle Serum under my daily moisturizer as part of my daily skin care regimen and I've been more than happy with the results. I've only used this RoC Multi Correxion 5-in-1 Neck and Face Cream a few times, so I don't feel that I can give you an honest review just yet. All I can say, is that if it ends up giving me similar results to the serum, I'll be a very happy camper! I've lost a fair amount of weight over the past year and much to my horror and dismay, I've been noticing a bit of what I call "chicken neck" (crepeiness) when I look in the mirror these days! Yikes!! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this new cream will firm that area up a bit.
I'll be honest about this Banana Boat SPF 30 Sunscreen... I use makeup that has a physical sunscreen of 50 built right into it and I really don't expose the rest of my body to sunlight - if I can help it. With Lupus, one of the things that happens to you is severe photosensitivity and since I'm already a super pale skinned lass of Irish descent, I've been beyond sensitive to the sun my whole life. So, needless to say, I avoid the beach like the plague and if I'm swimming in or sitting by a pool, I stay in the shady parts, even if that means moving my chair or myself around as the sun moves throughout the day. That being said, this will get passed on to my husband, or to one of my friends.
This Jergens Wet Skin Moisturizer is awesome! I don't know if I can chalk it up specifically to the Monoi Oil in this product or not, but I've been using it in the shower for the past couple of weeks and my skin is smoother and more hydrated than it has been in years! Especially my legs. Once I'm out of the shower and I've patted my skin dry, I follow up with a dry oil spray that also contains Monoi Oil and I'm good to go! Now, the real test will happen during the Winter months, but if it's working this well now, there's at least a chance that it will be better than the multitude of products that I have been using during past Winters.
I've used Cetaphil products on and off for years and I've always been happy with them. I still use their daily facial moisturizer from time to time, but I haven't used this Cetaphil Gentle Skin Cleanser since I discovered my Purity Made Simple by Philosophy. It's a bit pricey compared to lots of other cleansers on the market, but I've had such truly amazing results with the Purity, that I'm willing to spend the extra money for it. But, if you're looking for a good cleanser that will gently and thoroughly remove makeup and excess oil from your skin, that won't dry you out or break the bank, I highly recommend this!
I honestly think there has been some type of moisturizing cream or lotion from Aveeno in just about every Walmart Beauty Box that I've received, since I've been subscribed. And as far as I'm concerned, that's a VERY good thing! I adore the Aveeno brand and have used loads of their products for years and years. I will definitely be testing out both the Absolutely Ageless Daily Moisturizer and the Restorative Night Cream that came in this box!
Their Soothing Oatmeal Bath packets saved my poor daughter from scratching herself raw when she came down with chicken pox at the age of ten. (wow... I just realized that was 22 years ago!!!!) The poor girl was covered from head to toe with huge, red, welts and her face was so swollen, she was unrecognizable. I can still vividly remember her coming into our bedroom and waking me up in the middle of the night - many nights - and asking me if I'd "put some of that stuff in the tub for me, please?" Now that she's a mom herself she uses the Aveeno Baby products, almost exclusively, on our precious grandson.
I have at least one of the small sample or travel sized tubes of some type of an Aveeno lotion or cream in my purse at all times and I have giant tubes of the Ultra Healing and Intense Relief hand creams in darned near every room of the house. Having an immune system that's as crazy as mine, means that I wash my hands about 30 times a day. (at least!) If it wasn't for Aveeno's amazing products, I'm sure they'd have shriveled up and fallen off by now!
So, do I recommend the Aveeno brand? Well, Yes! YES! YES! and YES! In my humble opinion, when it comes to your skin, whatever it is that you might have a need for, Aveeno has a solution!
Hope you enjoyed this unboxing! The Summer box should be here any day now, so I'll try to do a post for that one as well. Oh, and...
I don't want to give it all away, (ahem...) but there's something kinda big coming up here on the blog very soon!! So keep checking back, or better yet, make sure tosubscribe to Spilled On The Kitchen Table so that you don't miss out on any of the fun!
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Posted by Mary Sullivan Frasier at 10:28 PM 2 friends shared their thoughts
Labels: Beauty, First Impressions, Fragrance, Lipstick, Makeup, Reviews, Skin Care, Subscription Services, Unboxing, Walmart Beauty Box
Hello, My Dear Friends!
It's been a while since I began testing out these products from Pura D'Or, but as my long-time friends and readers know, life and Lupus have this uncanny way of slowing me down, or more often, having me down for the count for long periods of time. That being said... A promise is a promise and I did say that I would test these Organic Argan Oil infused hair and body products and come back with a review, so here it is! Finally, right?!
(In case you missed my original post about these products and how I obtained them, just click HERE and then come back for the review! - Or, you could read this and then go check out the original post - I'll leave that totally up to you.)
Products used: Pura D'Or Premium Organic Gold Label Anti-Hair Loss Shampoo, Pura D'Or Premium Organic Argan Oil Conditioner in Lavender & Vanilla and Pura D'Or 100% Organic Argan Oil for Body Face and Hair
I've lost a significant amount of hair over the years. Now, you'd probably never believe it based on the way it looks now, but my crowning glory was long and full and quite strong when I was growing up. Even when I cut it into a shorter, very "Olivia Newton John type" of style in the late seventies and early eighties, there was still a lot of it! So... what happened?
(I apologize if this is a bit on the TMI side of things, but I truly want to share my "hair journey" as thoroughly and openly as possible and explain why my hair is in the condition that it is. Other people's hair loss situations might differ from mine.)
My "issues" began when I was in my late twenties, after over a year of poking, prodding and several embarrassing scans that were ordered and performed by all manner of doctors and technicians, I was diagnosed with (what was at that time) a rare illness called Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. (PCOS/POS)
It was so rare at the time, that my GYN, who had been in practice for several years, as well as another doctor, who happened to be the director of reproductive endocrinology at a well known and respected medical college and teaching hospital, had barely heard of it at that point.
My condition persisted for several years and was severe enough that my entire reproductive cycle came to a complete stop. I had multiple cysts on both of my ovaries and one that eventually evolved into a pre-cancerous tumor, that resulted in the decision to remove my right ovary in 2010. During those years, my hair's volume reduced by at least 40%.
According to Wikipedia: "PCOS is the most common endocrine disorder among women between the ages of 18 and 44 {and can cause a number of symptoms including androgenic alopecia (increase hair thinning or diffuse hair loss).} It affects approximately 5% to 10% of this age group. It is one of the leading causes of poor fertility."
Then, in my late thirties, for reasons still not understood by my doctors to this day, my cycles all returned pretty much to normal and at least some of the hair that I'd lost during those earlier years, started to grow back in. Of course, it was never again the luxurious mane that I'd had in my youth, but it was definitely an improvement!
A few years passed and much to my dismay, along came more health issues and a year and a half ago, after more poking and prodding and testing by specialists, I was finally diagnosed with an autoimmune disease called SLE Lupus. As fate would have it, Lupus is also a disease that can bring with it a significant amount of hair loss.
So, here I am again, struggling on a daily basis, to find the best solutions that I can, to my rapidly thinning, fragile hair. And lo and behold, along came the good folks at Pura D'Or with the offer of a possible solution! I read as much as I could about the company and it's products and was impressed enough that I agreed to try them.
So, now that you know a little bit of the "back story" let's get on to what you're all here to see! The product review!!
I used both the Gold Label Anti-Hair Loss Shampoo and the Organic Argan Oil Conditioner for a period of 90 days. I used them exclusively and between 2 and 3 times per week.
I never use a brush on my hair when it's wet (and rarely when it's dry) because the bristles on most brushes can cause hair breakage and I certainly don't need any more of that than I already deal with! I also use only the lowest settings on my blow dryer and I do not use heated styling tools, such as curling or flat irons, also in order to avoid any further possible damage to my hair.
My hair had also been in a ponytail for about 10 hours before taking it down for these photos.
As you can see by the differences in the photos above and below, the Pura D'Or products did seem to help prevent a fair amount of hair loss from occurring and I definitely believe that they gave my hair quite a bit of added fullness and body.
(The hair in the bottom right frame of each photo, is any hair that came out in my comb after getting out of the shower and before blow drying my hair)
My Opinion!
Because it is important to me to assure my readers that the opinions that I share here are 100% my own, I want to reiterate that what follows is my experience with these products and I have not been influenced by anyone else's opinion, or review. As is true in all things, a particular product might work a certain way for one person and then work in a different way for someone else. If you try these for yourself, the results that you get could differ from mine.
That being said... I am happy to say with certainty (and with a completely clear conscience) that for me, the Pura D'Or Premium Organic Gold Label Anti-Hair Loss Shampoo and the Pura D'Or Premium Organic Argan Oil Conditioner in Lavender & Vanilla that were sent to me to try, did exactly what they claim to do! Only a small amount of each of these two products is needed to cleanse and condition my hair, so they last quite a long time, making them a very economical choice as well.
I strongly recommend these products to anyone who is looking for an organic, gentle, ingredient rich solution, to the cleansing and conditioning of fine, fragile thinning hair and/or a sensitive scalp.
Now, as for the Pura D'Or 100% Pure Argan Oil For Body, Face And Hair, I must add that while I did not use it on my hair, (because all oils tend to weigh my hair down) I did use it on my face and body and I feel that it truly did an excellent job of keeping my skin feeling both hydrated and soft, without feeling greasy or leaving any type of oily residue behind. And as I stated about the hair products above, only small amounts of the Argan Oil do an excellent job of adding soft, supple hydration to the areas of my face and body where I need it, so I feel that the price point is extremely reasonable!
I hope that you found these reviews helpful and if you have any questions or need clarification about the products themselves, how I used them, or anything else that I might not have covered regarding your particular needs, please don't hesitate to leave me your questions in the comments below. I'm more than happy to help in any way that I can!
Oh... And if you don't want to miss any of my future posts, please subscribe over on the right hand side of this page, or right below this post and you'll be sure to receive Spilled On The Kitchen Table right in your inbox, every time I have something new to share!
Thanks for stopping by! I hope that you come by again for more chit-chat, hauls and reviews!
Live Strong and Live Well!
Posted by Mary Sullivan Frasier at 6:19 AM 7 friends shared their thoughts
Labels: Argan Oil, Beauty, Changes, Chronic Illness, Conditioner, Hair Care, Hair Loss, Organic, Pura D'Or, Reviews, Shampoo, Skin Care
Hello, My Beautiful Bloggy Friends!
Yup... I've done it! I've decided to take the plunge and pamper myself with another monthly subscription service. It's called Scentbird ...and so far, I'm loving it! Want to know why?
There are a few reasons that I decided to give this monthly subscription program a try. But, before we get into that, I want to state up front that I do NOT have a contractual agreement of any kind with Scentbird or any of their affiliates. I pay for this subscription service with my own money and I do NOT receive any monetary compensation for posting about, or reviewing their products.
***There is one little perk, similar to the type that you get with quite a few of these services, but I'll touch on that a little further down in the post.
OK. So, now that we have that out of the way - let's get to the "why" part of this, shall we?
1. I've always loved wearing perfume and enjoyed it when someone around me has noticed and said something along the lines of "You smell great!"
2. I've never been the kind of gal who enjoys wearing the same perfume all of the time. Not that there's anything wrong with it, but I've never had a "signature scent". (Who knows... Now that I've subscribed, that might just change!)
3. That being said, spending (what could easily add up to) hundreds of dollars a year on a new bottle of perfume every few months, just to keep my interest piqued, is simply not in this girl's budget.
4. I finally got tired of spending our hard earned money on perfumes that smelled great in the store - or on those little fold out cards in all of the fashion magazines - only to find out that the wonderful seventy dollar (or more) fragrance, smelled completely different when I actually spritzed some on and wore it all day. (and not in a good way!)
So, needless to say, when I heard about Scentbird I was intrigued! The process is pretty simple, really. I'll do my best to briefly explain how it works and I'll add a couple of short little videos from Scentbird at the bottom of the post to give you a more 3D perspective. (I promise... they're really quick)
Step 1. You start by going to the Scentbird website. (I'll tell you in just a bit, how you can get a free month of perfume by using my referral link!) When you sign up for the program, you have just a few simple things to do to get started.
Step 2. You fill out your email address, name and all of the usual information and you choose a password, just like pretty much anything you sign up for on the internet. You'll have the choice of a month-by-month subscription at the cost of $14.95/month, or you can choose a 3 month, a 6 month or a 12 month/full year subscription. I chose to go month by month, but you can cancel any of their plans at any time and for any reason.
(You'll have to forgive me, but I can't remember the exact costs associated with the other plans at the moment. I do know that each one will save you a bit more money overall, depending on which choice you make - The costs for each plan are clearly stated on the website and just so you know from the get-go, if you do decide to go with one of these, they will ask for full payment for that plan, up front)
Next, you'll be asked to take a quick profile "quiz". This gives Scentbird a better idea about which types of scents you tend to like best, so that they'll be able to recommend new fragrances for you. But, never fear! You don't have to choose the perfumes that they suggest. As a matter of fact, you can choose exactly which perfume you'd like to receive each month in advance, by setting up your personal queue for (at least) 12 months in advance.
Now, keep in mind that neither the quiz, nor setting up a queue will lock you into those choices. You can go into your Scentbird account and change the fragrances themselves, or the order in which you want to receive them, at any time. The only exception to this, pertains to the following month's fragrance. You always have up to the 5th of each month to change that month's choice. But after that date, you're locked into the perfume that was next in your queue. However, the next month and months that follow can still be changed.
Scentbird carries literally hundreds of top shelf, designer fragrances and it can be a bit daunting at first, trying to decide just which scents you want to try, but you can narrow your search by using the chart at the top of the page that shows you many of the different "notes" used in creating a perfume. You can also search by designer, or by the actual perfume name, if you already have an idea of what you want.
Your first month's shipment (which comes in a glossy black bubble mailer) will contain one sturdy black plastic case/holder that contains a glass pump spray bottle of what Scentbird considers to be a 30 day supply of the perfume that you selected. I'd say that for me at least, it's really enough for a couple of months use. The only time that you might run out before your 30 days are up, is if you fell so madly in love with the scent that you went a little crazy and sprayed it all over everything in your house! LOL You'll also receive a little black "crushed velvet" style drawstring pouch to keep your perfume in, if you so desire.
The glass atomizer or spray bottle just pops in and out of the case and once it's in there, a quick twist of the case will raise and then lower the insert so that it is flush to the top of the case. That way, you won't ever have to worry about the little bugger "going off" in your purse accidentally!
After the first month, you'll receive your selection in the same little black bubble mailer with the shredded paper packing fluff, but without a case. (unless you've ordered an extra case or two) Extra cases come in black, or in a few other fashion colors most of the time, but Scentbird also offers limited edition cases and even pretty patterned ones now and then for special occasions. The last time that I
checked, the cost of each extra case was $12.95. (US) They also offer boxed gift sets throughout the year that from what I've seen so far, consist of three different fragrances.
This is one of the current gift sets that's available for men.
***So, I'm sure that you've probably been waiting to hear about the *free perfume that I mentioned above, right?!
This is how it works: Just head on over to the right side of this page and click HERE on my "referral link" (the Scentbird logo) and you'll be whisked away to the Scentbird site. Since you've used my link, if you should decide to sign up for one of their subscription plans, you and I will both receive a **free perfume! You can then pass your own referral link on to friends and get the same little perk! I call that a win/win situation!
**This free month is available to new Scentbird subscribers only. Once you have paid for your first month, you will receive your second month's selection FREE of charge!
Another benefit to signing up for Scentbird, is having the ability to purchase full sizes of the designer fragrances you love, at awesome discounts! How does that happen? Well... a few days after you've received your selection for the month, you'll receive an email from Scentbird, asking you to do a little review of that fragrance on their website. You are never obligated to do a review, but when you love a particular fragrance and your review reflects that, they take notice and they'll usually send you an email, offering you the option to purchase the full sized version of that perfume at a pretty decent discount! There are also other special offers that Scentbird will send you emails about throughout the month.
Looking for a unique holiday/birthday/just because gift for the guy (or guys) in your life? Well then you're in luck, because there's also a Scentbird subscription option for men! (The link is on their website)
So.... Now you know how Scentbird works and just a few of the reasons that I decided to sign up! Are you thinking about checking it out? If the answer is "yes!", I'd love to know what you think of the idea and why you feel it would work for you, so please give me a shout in the comments below!
Check out these very short videos to see a bit more about Scentbird!
Thanks so much for stopping by! Mary
Posted by Mary Sullivan Frasier at 11:47 AM 6 friends shared their thoughts
Labels: Discount Perfume, First Impressions, Fragrance, Perfume, Reviews, Scentbird, Subscription Services, Unbagging, Unboxing
Spring 2016 Walmart Beauty Box! (Unboxing and Firs...
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Flesh out argument but bare bones preferred
One of the guiding principles of advocacy is: BE BRIEF.
But, sometimes, just occasionally, some lawyers aren’t brief, even if briefed to be brief. (Who knew?)
I think sometimes, it’s the fear of missing something. We all live in fear of losing a case on a point that we could have covered, but deliberately didn’t cover in the belief it wasn’t necessary.
(Personally, I like at least drafting some sort of written outline of my submissions, because it often helps me sort my thoughts into a more logical — or at least, less illogical — order and see what is needed and what can be culled.)
Theodor Geisel — better known as Dr Seuss — wrote a great little piece on the importance of brevity.
It has often been said
there’s so much to be read,
you never can cram
all those words in your head.
So the writer who breeds
more words than he needs
is making a chore
for the reader who reads.
That’s why my belief is
the briefer the brief is,
the greater the sigh
of the reader’s relief is.
It is possible that somewhere, just maybe, some reader of legal writing agrees with these sentiments.
You might scoff, and say, “No! Surely not!”
But, there are at least three judges in the UK Court of Appeal who quite possibly do agree.
Hat-tip to Paul Bowen QC (@paulebowen). His tweet led me to the recent case of Standard Bank Plc v Via Mat International Ltd & Anor [2013] EWCA Civ 490.
Moore-Bick & Aikens LJJ strike back in style against prolixity in skeleton arguments (§§25-30 bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/…). Via @paulebowen
— Greg Callus (@Greg_Callus) May 7, 2013
There, Lord Justice Moore-Bick wrote the lead judgment allowing an appeal against granting summary judgment.
At the end of his judgement, His Honour was moved to add a postscript.
25. Before leaving this matter I wish to say something about the skeleton arguments in this case. Although there were two applications before the judge, they were complementary and in substance this was a relatively straightforward application for summary judgment. The hearing before the judge was completed within a day, as was the hearing of the appeal and although a large amount of evidence was filed, it proved possible as a result of co-operation between the parties to produce a single core bundle of moderate length which included all the important documents. In those circumstances it is a matter of concern that the skeleton arguments produced for the appeal run to a total of 116 pages, of which by far the greater part (93 pages in all) is made up of the appellant’s skeleton and supplementary skeleton arguments.
26. In the opening paragraphs of his judgment in Khader v Aziz [2010] EWCA Civ 716, [2010] 1 W.L.R. 2673 Sir Anthony May PQBD sounded a clear warning about the risks to our tradition of oral advocacy posed by excessively long skeleton arguments. He did so following complaints of a similar nature voiced by the members of this court in Tombstone Limited v Raja [2008] EWCA Civ 1444, [2009] 1 WLR 1143 and Midgulf International Limited v Groupe Chimique Tunisien [2010] EWCA Civ 66, [2010] 2 Lloyd’s Rep. 543. I expressly associated myself with the President’s remarks, pointing out that the purpose of skeleton arguments is to inform the court of the essential elements of the parties’ submissions and thereby enable it to understand the issues and arguments arising on the appeal. I also expressed the view that the best way in which to alleviate the increasingly onerous burden imposed by unduly long and complex skeleton arguments is for the court to be far more willing than it has been in the past to disallow all or part of the costs of any skeleton that fails to serve that essential purpose.
27. It is important that both practitioners and their clients understand that skeleton arguments are not intended to serve as vehicles for extended advocacy and that in general a short, concise skeleton is both more helpful to the court and more likely to be persuasive than a longer document which seeks to develop every point which the advocate would wish to make in oral argument. In this context I wish to draw attention to the provisions of Practice Directions 52A and 52C, both of which apply to proceedings in this court. Each of those Practice Directions contains important provisions relating to the nature and content of skeleton arguments. Practice Direction 52C, in particular, contains specific provisions governing their length and presentation. The court will expect the requirements of both Practice Directions to be rigorously observed. Failure to comply with them is likely to be penalised in costs.
Just in case anyone missed it, Lord Justice Aikens added to the complaint about prolixity.
29. I would, however, like specifically to endorse all Moore-Bick LJ has said in his postscript. Overlong pleadings and written submissions — the true “skeleton argument” of bye-gone days no longer exists — which are manufactured by parties and their lawyers have become the bane of commercial litigation in England and Wales. This prolixity only adds unnecessary costs; it does nothing to clarify and simplify the issues or to shorten proceedings, which aims should be the objectives of both pleadings and written submissions. I recognise that this is not a new problem. In a reported case, Mylward v Weldon (1596) Tothill 102, 21 ER 136, [1595] ECHR Ch 1, it is stated that in 1595 the son of a litigant (the report does not say whether the miscreant was a barrister) produced a pleading (a replication, ie. reply) of “six score sheets of paper” which the Lord Keeper deemed could have been “well contrived” in 16 sheets. The Lord Keeper (Egerton) ordered that the miscreant be imprisoned in the Fleet until he paid a fine of £10 (a huge sum) to Her Majesty and 20 nobles to the defendant. In addition the Lord Keeper ordered:
“...that the Warden of the Fleet shall take the said Richard Mylward...and shall bring him into Westminster Hall on Saturday next, about ten of the clock in the forenoon and then and there shall cut a hole in the myddest of the same engrossed replication…and put the said Richard’s head through the same hole and so let the same replication hang about his shoulders with the written side outward; and then, the same so hanging, shall lead the same Richard, bare headed and bare faced, round about Westminster Hall, whilst the Courts are sitting and shall shew him at the bar of every of the three Courts within the Hall and shall then take him back to the Fleet...”.
30. That sanction against prolix pleaders and submission authors may not be available today, but failure to comply with the letter of the Practice Direction on written submissions and the failure to heed the need for brevity in pleadings may well lead to strict adverse costs orders.
For good measure, Mr. Justice David Richards weighed in with:
31. I also agree.
Skeleton arguments are intended to be written outlines of the main points a party relies on in its application or case, and used as an aid to oral argument, in contrast to written submissions used as an alternative to oral argument. There are several examples in the Advocacy manual used by the Bar Professional Training Course in the UK, and it seems they’re close to the type of submissions we commonly see in Australia, though point-form appears acceptable as well as fully-fledged prose.
For an alternative view on skeleton arguments, and an insight into advocacy practice in the UK, check out Michael Reed at Working Theory.
Labels: advocacy, legal drafting
Criminal trial funding restored, but Legal Aid still needs help
at 6:42 pm Posted by Kyle
Following the Court of Appeal’s decision in Chaouk — discussed here — Victoria Legal Aid last week announced that it was restoring funding for solicitors when required in criminal trials.
It’s certainly welcome news, and will prevent what looked like an impending logjam in quite a few trials.
But it hasn’t really addressed the chronic underfunding by the State Government, which is apparent from the latest budget. The Age today reported that VLA is still likely to lose somewhere between $3.1 – $10 million for this financial year, and that the budget papers show the Government expects VLA to provide 4000-odd fewer grants of aid this year. (Gotta admit, I can’t see that in the stuff I can find, but then, I’m no expert at reading budget papers.)
But, there’s no doubt the increase in police will result in more offences detected and prosecuted — what criminologists terms net widening — which will result in more cases coming to our courts. Unless we have a sudden change in the economic composition of accused people in this State, many of them will be unrepresented if they can’t receive legal aid.
While some might say that’s okay — it’s not, really — cases involving self-represented accused typically take a lot longer to resolve and certainly require more work from judicial officers to ensure those people understand their rights and the processes. Ask any prosecutor if they’d prefer to bo opposed to a lawyer who knows what they’re doing or an unrepresented accused, and I can guarantee the answer you’ll get. (I daresay a fair few Benches would feel the same way.) Occasionally, cases simply don’t get resolved until the accused can get a lawyer, which is precisely what’s happening in the UK now as the government there tries to decimate legal aid to ‘save’ £220 million out of an annual £2 billion budget. (See here and here for some examples.)
There are some real doubts about whether the changes will in fact save any money, and concerns about the propriety of having the same firms that run the privatised prisons systems also holding the contracts for the law firms that advise accused people to plead guilty or not guilty — for surely there couldn't be a conflict of interest there?
Though things aren’t quite as grim here as in the UK — at least, not yet — there’s still a desparate need to fund legal aid so that the whole system can cope with the inevitable increase in accused people coming before the courts. If nothing else, that’s a simple case of arithmetic that the government must confront. There is also that quaint little thing called justice, which is arguably as good a reason — if not better — for properly funding legal aid. A new blog called the Barrister’s Wife provides some good examples of what can happen otherwise, as does The Justice Gap.
The return to legally aiding trials is a good thing, but the Government needs to increase funding, as the Bar and LIV said last week.
The other long-term issue I reckon needs looking at is an evaluation of why we need instructing solicitors. I don’t say that to be controversial or to suggest getting rid of them. Far from it. But, a couple of commentors in my post about the decision in Chaouk queried how trials are funded in other jurisdictions. I don’t profess to have any significant experience in other jurisdictions, but I reckon it’s at least worth looking at. I wonder too how other common-law jurisdictions cope. For example, what happens in Canada, and India, and the UK (despite its funding problems)? What about the USA, where they have a fused profession but specialist trial attorneys? Do they truly work with only one trial advocate, or do they too consider it necessary for more than one advocate?
It might be that there are significant differences that mean comparisons are meaningless. Or perhaps it might be that the system in Victoria is currently so complex that instructors are vital in all circumstances. Either way, it’s a question worth asking and answer worth discovering.
Labels: costs, court, Legal Aid, procedural fairness
Sentencing Amendment (Abolition of Suspended Sentences and Other Matters) Bill 2013
The Sentencing Amendment (Abolition of Suspended Sentences and Other Matters) Bill 2013 was introduced last month.
The explanatory memorandum is available here; the second reading speech here; and the Charter statement of compatibility here.
The Bill proposes a timetable for the complete abolition of suspended sentences:
1 December 2013 — all suspended sentences in higher courts (County and Supreme Courts)
1 December 2014 — all suspended sentences in summary courts (Magistrates’ and Children’s Courts)
These are the default times, and can be proclaimed to commence earlier.
The complete removal of suspended sentences is perhaps not quite as restrictive as first seemed the case.
On close reading, it seems that community correction orders (CCOs) are intended as a substitute for suspended sentences — or indeed any intermediate sentencing option other that immediate jail.
When the Attorney-General commenced the abolition of suspended sentences and introduced CCOs in the Sentencing Amendment (Community Correction Reform) Bill 2011, he spent some time In the Second Reading speech, the Attorney-General spent some time explaining this.
The government recognises that jailing an offender is the most serious punishment available. There must be a flexible and practical approach to community-based sentencing that can be tailored to suit the very wide range of offending which, while serious, does not warrant a sentence of imprisonment. This approach is embodied in the reforms introduced in this bill, to which I will now turn.
New approach to community-based sentencing in Victoria
Community-based sentences are an important part of the sentencing spectrum. They provide courts with a way to intervene in the lives of offenders who deserve more than a fine, but should not be sent to prison. A community-based sentence allows an offender to remain in the community. Offenders are able to maintain their employment, live at home and draw on the support of their family and friends.
At the same time, offenders are subject to certain obligations — for example, they may have to report to Corrections Victoria, undertake unpaid community work or complete programs that address the reasons for their criminal conduct.
The existing range of community-based sentences does not provide courts with sufficient flexibility to directly target the offender and the offence. The combined custody treatment order (CCTO), for example, is rarely used by the courts and intensive correction orders are generally considered an inflexible option.
The Sentencing Advisory Council, in the Suspended Sentences — Final Report — Part 2, noted that the overuse of suspended sentences in Victoria is at least partly due to the failings of intermediate sentencing orders.
The new CCO introduced in this bill will replace these orders with a single comprehensive and highly flexible order. The bill draws on several recommendations made by the council in its final report to create a new intermediate order.
Specifically, the CCO will replace the combined custody treatment order, intensive correction order (ICO), the intensive correction management order (which has not come into effect) and the community-based order (CBO). From the commencement of this bill, these orders will no longer be available to courts in sentencing offenders. Existing orders will continue until their end date. After that time, if an offender is convicted of breaching one of the abolished orders, the court will resentence the offender under the new sentencing framework.
A CCO sits between imprisonment and fines in the sentencing hierarchy. The CCO will be available for any offence punishable by more than five penalty units.
The CCO will also provide an alternative sentencing option for offenders who are at risk of being sent to jail. These offenders may not yet deserve a jail sentence but should be subject to significant restrictions and supervision if they are going to live with the rest of the community. The broad range of new powers under the CCO will allow courts wide flexibility to tailor their response to address the needs of offenders and set appropriate punishments.
Instead of using the legal fictions of imposing a term of imprisonment that is suspended or served at home, the courts will now openly sentence offenders to jail or, where appropriate, use the CCO to openly sentence the offender to a community-based sentence. Unlike the CCTO and ICO, which are technically sentences of imprisonment, the CCO is a community-based sentence. There is no legal fiction involved. The CCO can be combined with a jail sentence, but it will not pretend to be one. The CCO is a transparent sentence that can be understood by everyone in the community: Parliament of Victoria, Parliamentary Debates, Legislative Assembly, 15 Sep 2011, 3291 – 3295 (Attorney-General, Robert Clark).
The Attorney-General continued this theme in the second reading speech for the Sentencing Amendment (Abolition of Suspended Sentences and Other Matters) Bill 2013.
As I have said before in this place, suspended sentences are a legal fiction that pretends offenders are serving a term of imprisonment when in fact they are living freely in the community, not subject to any restrictions, community service obligations or reporting requirements. Offenders effectively walk away unpunished and often then go on to commit further crimes: Parliament of Victoria, Parliamentary Debates, Legislative Assembly, 17 Apr 2013, 1259 – 1261 (Attorney-General, Robert Clark)
Because CCOs can now operate up to a period of time equivalent to the maximum sentence for an offence, some of the previous shortcomings of intermediate sentencing orders falls away. In some cases, a CBO or ICO might have been appropriate, but only if it ran for longer than the prescribed periods that were available.
Of course, sometimes an offence is just so serious, that jail is the only realistic option. The Sentencing Advisory Council noted that on p xxiv of the Suspended Sentences — Final Report — Part 2, writing:
It is important to retain a number of distinct sentencing orders to provide well-defined ‘rungs’ in the penal ladder, and to affirm that a sentence of immediate imprisonment is a sentence of last resort reserved for the most serious offences, and for offenders at high risk of reoffending.
As I understand it, the point of abolishing suspended sentences and replacing them partly with CCOs is in answer the mental gymnastics required by s 27(3) of the Sentencing Act 1991.
Section 27 provides for suspended sentences, but imposes this restriction on a sentencing court:
(3) A court must not impose a suspended sentence of imprisonment unless the sentence of imprisonment, if unsuspended, would be appropriate in the circumstances having regard to the provisions of this Act.
At first blush, it seems odd to hold that it’s appropriate to send an offender to jail after considering and rejecting every other option in the sentencing hierarchy, as required by sub-ss 5(3) and (4), and then turn to s 27(1A) and conclude that it’s not appropriate to send the offender to jail. Whatever your thoughts about that apparent tension and if it can be resolved, the current Government seems to have decided to do away with it entirely.
I guess it will take a while for the sentencing jurisprudence to fully incorporate all these changes and reach a settled view. I haven’t yet heard of CCOs being imposed for years — certainly not beyond the old three-year upper limit available in the County and Supreme Courts for the previous community based orders (CBOs). But no doubt there will be cases where lengthy CCOs will be appropriate.
I think of the result as being that if an offender does not go out the back door of the courthouse after sentencing and instead remains in the community, then there will be some intrusive interference in their life on a regular basis, so that they will feel the sting of the penalty on a day-to-day basis while they metaphorically break bluestone. In some cases, that’s probably a far more onerous sentence than a suspended sentence ever was.
And, with effect from 1 May 2013, section 48JA of the Sentencing Act 1991 commenced operation (introduced by the Sentencing Amendment (Community Correction Reform) Act 2011 s 58 and amended before its commencement by Courts and Sentencing Legislation Amendment Act 2012 s 71).
This provision permits a sentencing court to impose a bond condition on a CCO, where the offender has to stump up some cold hard cash as a measure of their sincerity about complying with the order. The court can specify some or all of that money that the offender will forfeit to consolidated revenue in the event they don’t comply with the order.
Labels: criminal procedure, sentencing
Get a room, or get a cell? R v Vaiciulevicius [2013] EWCA Crim 153
R v Vaiciulevicius [2013] EWCA Crim 153 was an appeal against sentence for an offence of outraging public decency, which is one of the four types of public nuisance I discussed here.
When the case is added to Bailii’s database, it should be accessible at this link, but until then, I’ve put a PDF here.
The Court of Appeal stated the facts this way at [2]:
On a Sunday afternoon in early September 2012 the appellant and a woman, both heavily intoxicated, had consensual sexual intercourse in a public park. They had made no attempt to conceal their activity and were visible to other persons in the park including, unsurprisingly, young children who were playing there. They had removed their lower clothing. They stopped only when spoken to by police officers. When later interviewed the applicant admitted the offence and said that he was disgusted by his own behaviour.
Because the offence is a common-law offence, there is little guidance to the Courts for an appropriate sentencing range. The Court considered similar offences, but then said:
[11.] The aggravating features of the present offence are obvious. It was committed in public, with a complete disregard for the shock or distress that it was likely to cause anyone who witnessed it. The presence nearby of young children was a serious aggravating feature. Whether or not the applicant specifically noted their proximity, it was readily foreseeable that they would be playing in the park on a Sunday afternoon. The applicant’s intoxication was a further aggravating feature. So too were his previous convictions, albeit for different types of offence, and the fact that he had so recently
been released from prison.
[12.] For all those reasons, and notwithstanding that this was the first time that the applicant had committed an offence of this nature, the judge was, in our view, entitled to view this case as a serious one.
[13.] We cannot accept Mr Magee’s submission that a sentence of immediate imprisonment was wrong in principle. In our judgment, the learned judge was entitled to conclude that this offence passed the custody threshold and that only an immediate sentence of imprisonment would suffice.
The Court substituted the original 6 month jail sentence with 3 months instead! Seems to be a bit of a puritan overkill to me. Of course no one wants to see folks demonstrating their mojo at the local park, but it does seem a bit disproportionate to the harm. Seems then the message is definitely, “Get a room, or you’ll get a room all right.”
Labels: public nuisance
DPP v Batich [2013] VSCA 53 — summary determination of charges
DPP v Batich [2013] VSCA 53 considered a County Court case where the sentencing judge held he should refer an offence of glassing, charged as recklessly causing serious injury, back to the Magistrates' Court.
Some indictable offences can be determined summarily, that is, before a court of summary jurisdiction, or before a trial court on indictment (Our UK colleagues refer to such offences as either-way offences).
There are two pathways to summary determination.
The first and most common way is where the accused applies for (and is granted) a summary hearing at the Magistrates’ Court, under Criminal Procedure Act 2009 ss 28 and 29. (These provisions are pretty similar to the UK guidelines found in Practice Direction (Criminal Proceedings: Consolidation) [2002] 1 WLR 2870 available here.)
The second, and far less common, is where the accused applies for and is granted a transfer of the charge from a trial court back to the Magistrates’ Court for summary determination, under Criminal Procedure Act 2009 s 168. (The two sections are dopplegängers.)
The trial judge used that section to remit the offence to the Magistrates’ Court.
Initially, the judge had canvassed the possibility of imposing a suspended sentence, but was reminded that it was no longer possible for a significant offence because of Sentencing Act 1991 s 27(2B). He also considered a community corrections order (CCO) and youth justice centre (YJC) order. He was aware that the Court of Appeal said in Winch that ordinarily, glassing cases would attract a jail sentence.
The DPP unsuccessfully reviewed that decision, first in the Supreme Court — see DPP v Batich [2012] VSC 524, and then to the Court of Appeal, asking:
1. In making the order transferring the charge in Indictment B13063849 to be transferred to the Magistrates’ Court at Melbourne to be heard and determined summarily:
A. Did his Honour make the order for an improper purpose, namely, to circumvent the operation of S.27(2B) of the Sentencing Act 1991, which prohibited him from imposing a suspended sentence in respect of a charge of recklessly cause (sic) serious injury, which required the imposition of a custodial sentence, the determination of which he was seized of in the proceedings before him?
B. Did his Honour in making the order take into account an irrelevant consideration, namely that he had no jurisdiction to pass a suspended sentence in respect of the charge of recklessly causing serious injury, where a custodial sentence was called for, the determination of which he was seized of in the proceedings before him?
C. Has his Honour refused to exercise his jurisdiction to sentence the Respondent?
2. Is his Honour’s order an abuse of process of the County Court?
The Court of Appeal held that the answers to every question should be 'no'.
At [31] – [44], it rejected the argument that the entire range of sentences that open in this case had to be available to the Magistrates’ Court, but did accept transfer would not be appropriate if only the very bottom of the acceptable sentencing range fell within the Magistrates’ Court jurisdiction. (The Magistrates’ Court may only impose up to two years’ jail on any single offence, and five years’ jail in aggregate.)
Further, in this case, the youth of the offender, the relevance of possible self-defence (at least as a mitigatory consideration, rather than a defence to the charge), lack of criminal history, good prospects of rehabilitation and vulnerability if sentence to adult jail, meant the County Court could properly distinguish the cases relied on by the DPP in arguing that only an immediate jail sentence of more than two years was appropriate.
Although Criminal Procedure Act 2009 s 168(3) meant the Magistrates’ Court couldn't send the charge back to the County Court — no curial ping-pong here — equally, the remitter didn't bind the Magistrates' Court. It could conclude a wholly suspended sentence was appropriate; but equally, it could also conclude that a partial or full jail sentence was necessary, albeit up to no more than 2 years.
Next week, I'll discuss the Sentencing Amendment (Abolition of Suspended Sentences and Other Matters) Bill 2013, which proposes removing the County Court's ability to remit a significant offence to the Magistrates' Court. (It doesn't say anything about serious offences, because none of them are triable summarily.)
Despite this, I think Batich will remain an important criminal case because:
it highlights at [46] the point raised in Winch (and other glassing cases) that, "[T]he statements in Winch do not lay down a mandatory minimum sentence, rather in that case the court made a statement of principle. Each case will need to be considered individually albeit within the context of current sentencing practices"; and
it provides the first judicial consideration of s 29 and 168 considerations for summary determination, clarifying the importance of available range of sentence.
Batich is consistent with Hansford v Judge Neesham [1995] 2 VR 233 — which, interestingly enough, wasn't mentioned in Batich —but arguably goes one step further it expressly stating it’s not necessary for all of the proper sentencing range to fall within the jurisdictional limits of the Magistrates’ Court. It perhaps overturns the effect of Scrofani v Duke, SC V, 25 Sep 1991, Ashley J, which upheld a refusal of summary jurisdiction though recognising that the appropriate sentence might fall within that open to the Magistrates’ Court.
The only uncertainty I can see that might arise from Batich is where the Court of Appeal said that transfer (and arguably by implication, first-instance granting of summary jurisdiction) is not appropriate if only the very bottom of the proper sentencing range falls within the Magistrates' Court jurisdiction. The potential for disagreement over what is the ‘very bottom’ of a sentencning range might lead to argument over what is appropriate for summary jurisdiction, though most cases tend to be clearly in or out.
Labels: criminal procedure, jurisdiction, Magistrates' Court, sentencing
R v Chaouk [2013] VSCA 99: no funding for instructors means trials likely to be unfair
Edit: Austlii now has R v Chaouk online.
Today in R v Chaouk [2013] VSCA 99, the Court of Appeal rejected an application by the DPP to appeal Justice Lasry's decision in February to stay a murder trial until VLA agreed to fund an instructing solicitor.
The original decision was R v Chaouk [2013] VSC 48. That decision was affirmed about a week later by Justice T Forrest in MK v Legal Aid [2013] VSC 49.
Today's Court of Appeal decision is not yet on Austlii — I expect it will probably be posted tomorrow — but till then you can download R v Chaouk [2013] VSCA 99 here.
Arguably, as a refusal of leave, this creates no precedent and so the single-judge decision remains valid: Blackmore v Linton [1961] VR 374 at 380; Mihaljevic v Longyear (Australia) Pty Ltd (1985) 3 NSWLR 1 at 25; Sir Anthony Mason, 'Where now?' (1975) 49 Australian Law Journal 570 at 575.
In any event, the Court said at [17]:
In case it matters, however, we should say that, even if the Crown were permitted to advance that point for the first time on appeal, we are not at all persuaded that the judge was in error in finding that, in the circumstances of this case, a fair trial necessitated the attendance of the defence instructing solicitor at trial for each day of the trial.
And later at [31]:
For the reasons already stated, we do not consider that the judge proceeded upon wrong principle. To the contrary, his Honour’s perception of relevant law appears to us to be right. Nor do we consider that the judge took into account irrelevant considerations or failed to have regard to any relevant considerations in the course of his reasoning process. To the contrary, his Honour’s survey of the facts and relevant considerations, and in particular his Honour’s analysis of the critical importance of the role of instructing solicitor in the course of a criminal trial for a serious indictable offence, present to us as compelling. His Honour was bound to make a judgment of fact and degree. His conclusion was plainly open to him. Indeed, so far from his conclusion being so plainly unjust as to imply that his Honour must have failed properly to exercise his discretion, we find it difficult to imagine on the particular facts of this case that his Honour could properly have come to any other conclusion.
In the short term, this means the trial against Chaouk won't proceed unless VLA modifies its current grants policy, or the State government provides additional funding, or both.
The Law Institute issued a media release calling on the government to increase legal aid funding to prevent further stays, but The Age quotes Attorney-General Robert Clark as rejecting this.
Labels: criminal procedure, Legal Aid, news
Criminal trial funding restored, but Legal Aid sti...
Sentencing Amendment (Abolition of Suspended Sente...
Get a room, or get a cell? R v Vaiciulevicius [201...
DPP v Batich [2013] VSCA 53 — summary determinatio...
R v Chaouk [2013] VSCA 99: no funding for instruct...
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AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL CONDEMNS U.S. ATTACKS ON BORDER JOURNALISTS AND HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS – Ryan Devereaux July 2 2019, 10:00 a.m. — Just Sayin’
Jul 3, 2019 · by aboriginalpress · in Uncategorized
THE SHAPE OF the Trump administration’s approach to policing immigration is at this point familiar. Since January 2017, federal agents and officers have been under orders to enforce a harsh interpretation of immigration laws without restraint. The result has most infamously manifested in the forced separation of immigrant parents from their children and, more recently, a series […]
via AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL CONDEMNS U.S. ATTACKS ON BORDER JOURNALISTS AND HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS – Ryan Devereaux July 2 2019, 10:00 a.m. — Just Sayin’
← Trump Is Planning A Fourth Of July Event That Looks Like Something Out Of North Korea — News One
The Intercept Discloses Top-Secret NSA Document on Russia Hacking Aimed at US Voting System →
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https://anigamers.com/2008/09/sony-pictures-picks-up-sky-crawlers.html
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Sony Pictures picks up The Sky Crawlers
The Sky Crawlers, the newest animated film from acclaimed Ghost in the Shell director Mamoru Oshii, has been licensed by the Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Group. Presumably, this spells an American release from the major distribution house that brought us Paprika, Steamboy, and Metropolis.
The Sky Crawlers, the story of young children forced to fight high-tech wars as a part of a broadcasted game, was honored at this year's Venice Film Festival alongside Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli's Gake no ue no Ponyo (Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea). The last time Oshii showed off his directorial talents (at least in anime) was in 2004's Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, so fans should be very excited to witness his long-awaited return to the animated scene.
[via Variety Asia]
The Sky Crawlers
Anime Boston 2011: Day 3 Diary
Monday, Apr 25, 2011
2009 Staff Picks: Day 7, Vampt Vo
Thursday, Dec 31, 2009
Con Report: New York Anime Festival 2008 (now with pictures!)
Sunday, Nov 02, 2008
Impressions: Cowboy Bebop vol.4
Guin Saga creator Kaoru Kurimoto, 56, passes away
Genericon 2010: Tales of a First-Time Staffer
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Empirical development of a typology on residential long-term care units in Germany - results of an exploratory multivariate data analysis
Johannes Michael Bergmann ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-9942-46331,2,
Armin Michael Ströbel3,
Bernhard Holle1,2 &
Rebecca Palm1,2
Organizational health care research focuses on describing structures and processes in organizations and investigating their impact on the quality of health care. In the setting of residential long-term care, this effort includes the examination and description of structural differences among the organizations (e.g., nursing homes). The objective of the analysis is to develop an empirical typology of living units in nursing homes that differ in their structural characteristics.
Data from the DemenzMonitor Study were used. The DemenzMonitor is an observational study carried out in a convenience sample of 103 living units in 51 nursing homes spread over 11 German federal states. Characteristics of living units were measured by 19 variables related to staffing, work organization, building characteristics and meal preparation. Multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) and agglomerative hierarchical cluster analysis (AHC) are suitable to create a typology of living units. Both methods are multivariate and explorative. We present a comparison with a previous typology (created by a nonexplorative and nonmultivariate process) of the living units derived from the same data set.
The MCA revealed differences among the living units, which are defined in particular by the size of the living unit (number of beds), the additional qualifications of the head nurse, the living concept and the presence of additional financing through a separate benefit agreement. We identified three types of living units; these clusters occur significantly with a certain combination of characteristics. In terms of content, the three clusters can be defined as: “house community”, “dementia special care units” and “usual care”.
A typology is useful to gain a deeper understanding of the differences in the care structures of residential long-term care organizations. In addition, the study provides a practical recommendation on how to apply the results, enabling living units to be assigned to a certain type. The typology can be used as a reference for definitions.
In Germany, nursing homes are an important part of health care organizations. At present, more than 11,000 institutions are providing service for more than 800,000 people [1]. Nursing homes vary enormously with regard to their structural characteristics.
Nursing homes may be affiliated with owners who have different business objectives (for-profit vs. nonprofit); they can be organized as chains with superordinate policies and regulations; they can provide more than 300 beds or fewer than 10, and they may be organized in separable units with different teams and philosophies of care. Additionally, their service mission is multilayered: they deliver professional nursing care, provide opportunities for social interaction and participation for their residents, and ensure that medical care by general physicians and specialists is being delivered and prescribed therapy is received. Likewise, nursing homes are expected to provide an environment that maintains their residents’ preserved skills and that supports people with dementia in acting and making decisions autonomously for as long as possible. Nursing homes are also expected to provide an environment in which residents feel at home – not institutionalized – and can thus maintain their quality of life on the highest possible level [2].
German nursing home residents all share the attribute of being approved as care-dependent by the Long Term Care Insurance entity, which enables them to receive benefits. Because this financial system especially supports people who want to stay at home as long as possible, they do not move to a nursing home until their need for care exceeds what can be provided at home. As a result, nursing home residents are predominantly severely care-dependent; more than 70% are affected by the consequences of a dementia [3, 4].
In recent years, as problems with health care outcome quality have become public, the quality of care in nursing homes has attracted more political and scientific attention. In particular, it was reported that the needs of people with dementia were not being sufficiently addressed [5]. As a result, nursing homes implemented various approaches to dementia care that necessitated some changes in organizational structure. One major change was to use designated care units to separate residents with dementia from residents without cognitive impairments, under the assumption that care for residents with dementia could be better provided in a special environment. The implementation of “Dementia Special Care Units” (DSCUs) was a worldwide development that had its origin in the United States. In Germany, it is estimated that 30–50% of nursing homes have implemented at least one DSCU [5, 6]. Internationally, many different models for nursing homes have been developed [7]. Examples are the Green House model in the USA (Kane et al., 2007), small scale living facilities in the Netherlands [8], and the Besondere stationäre Dementenbetreuung in Germany [9]. They are characterized by an adapted physical environment that supports homelikeness and avoids an institutional character; adapted staff roles that enhance person-centered attitudes, beliefs and values and avoid paternalism; and shifted tasks that prioritize meaningful activities stronger than cure and care routines. The question of whether DSCUs provide better outcomes has been the subject of large research projects throughout the world. Leading researchers from the United States concluded after 20 years of research that “(D)SCUs have been effective in changing certain processes of care that are associated with positive behaviors among dementia residents, the impact of such changes […] on cognitive or functional performance appear negligible. In fact, (D)SCUs […] may have the most demonstrable benefits for cognitively intact residents, their families and nursing home staff ”[7]. The authors of a Cochrane Review concluded, “There is limited evidence to support the assumption that the care of people with dementia in special care units is superior to care in traditional care units. It is probably more important to implement best practice than to provide a specialized care environment. ”[10]. Additionally, the latest reviews on the question of whether DSCUs provide a better quality of care and whether residents experience better outcomes do not show consistent results in favor of DSCU models [11]. The role that facility characteristics play in explaining resident outcomes remains unclear [12, 13].
One reason why evaluation studies of DSCUs failed to produce explicit results may be that the interpretation of existing quasi-experimental studies is complicated because they are prone to many sources of nonrandom error [14]. One described challenge for the interpretation of the study results is the lack of definitional clarity for DSCUs [15]. Whereas in the U.S., DSCU typologies have been developed in response to this lack of clarity [16, 17], such typologies are still missing in Germany.
We conducted a study in German nursing homes that aimed to identify resident- and facility-related factors that are associated with the nursing home residents’ health care outcomes (DemenzMonitor study) [18]. The longitudinal study DemenzMonitor was conducted in the period from 2011 to 2014. One goal was to answer the question of whether we can find differences in the quality of care and in residents’ outcomes between living units that are dementia-specific and traditional care units. For reach this purpose, the initial aim was to investigate differences in the structural characteristics of different types of living units in German nursing homes based on the characteristics that are usually used to define dementia-specific care units (size, segregation of residents with dementia, extra funding for additional staff resources) [2, 11]. Next, we wanted to know if we would find differences between living units that are small and large because it is proposed that small living units are beneficial for people with dementia (ibid). Furthermore, we assumed that the extra funding some of the units received to finance more staff was also an important definition criterion. Based on these structural characteristics, eight types of different living units could have been defined a priori, but only these five types could be realized in the data. Therefore, in the absence of a typology for DSCUs and traditional care units, we defined the following types of living units [19]:
Large segregated living units without extra funding (LSLU I)
Large segregated living units with extra funding (LSLU II)
Large integrated living units without extra funding (LILU)
Small segregated living units without extra funding (SSLU)
Small integrated living units without extra funding (SILU)
Observing these five types, we expected that large segregated living units with extra funding (LSLU II) would have better staff resources, accommodate residents with more severe symptoms of dementia, provide a milieu that is more dementia-friendly and perform better with respect to national guidelines in the care of people with dementia and challenging behavior in comparison with the other types of living units. Hence, we also expected to find differences among the living units with respect to the residents’ care outcomes. In fact, the results of our subsequent analysis confirmed these assumptions only partly. Finally, we could not show that residents of dementia-specific (segregated) living units or small living units had better care outcomes compared to residents from other living units [20]. One reason why we did not find the expected results may be the a priori definition of the living unit types. This may be because the structural characteristics chosen for the typology do not adequately describe the complex differences between the living units.
In our study protocol of the DemenzMonitor study, we additionally formulated the aim of investigating types other than dementia-special/traditional/large/small living units. On this basis, we have included many additional characteristics for type formation in the current study. To achieve this, we have oriented toward our previous results, because they indicate that the types defined a priori are associated with a variety of other structural characteristics [19], implying that there are more complex relationships that can be considered for the development of living unit types. These are structural characteristics of the living units, which are defined by variables relating to staffing, such as “Special qualification of head nurse in psychogeriatric care”, and by variables relating to spatial conditions, such as “Architectural segregation from other units”. Thus, although these previous results already contained helpful empirical information on the formation of such types, there is no detailed knowledge on how all these structural characteristics interact and what contribution they make to a more complex type of formation. Because we observed more than 30 relevant structural characteristics for living units in the DemenzMonitor study, we decided to pursue our objective by conducting a multivariate analysis. For this reason, the aim of the present study is to develop an empirical typology of living units based on all these structural characteristics in order to systematically map differences among them. Instead of using a priori defined structural characteristics to define different types, we will use an explorative clustering technique that identifies the characteristics that are most relevant. The difference from the previous analysis is that with this approach, the numbers and types of clusters are calculated by a “data-driven” analysis. We aim to compare the results of the typology with our previous published results on the structural characteristics of the living unit types to conclude whether the applied methods are meaningful with respect to the typology development of the living units.
The present article will provide answers to the following research questions:
How many clusters of care units with similar characteristics can be identified?
Which characteristics are most important when identifying clusters (because they contribute the most to the cluster structure)?
To what extent do the identified clusters differ from those previously published?
Design and sample
For the study, cross-sectional data from a convenience sample of 103 living units in 51 nursing homes were used. The data are from the 2013 measurement period of the DemenzMonitor study [18]. This is the same data source on which the previous definition of types was performed, which allows a direct comparison of the results. Participating nursing homes were defined according to the German statutory long-term care insurance law, under which people in need of care are reimbursed by the statutory long-term care insurance.
Beyond that, there were no inclusion or exclusion criteria for the participation of nursing homes; diversity was intended. The nursing homes that declared their interest in participating were included. All nursing homes participated voluntarily.
The data were collected by the nursing home staff using a standardized questionnaire. Therefore, specific questionnaires were developed and tested. The details of the questionnaire development are described in depth elsewhere [18, 19].
The data were collected with paper-pencil questionnaires or by directly entering them into an online database. Questionnaires were filled out by the nursing home staff. The paper questionnaires were sent out to the participating nursing homes by post and returned to the German Centre for Neurodegenerative Diseases. Data entry into SPSS was conducted by a professional agency. Nursing homes that collected the data online received a link to the data platform. These data were collected in separate questionnaires at the level of the nursing home, the living units and the residents. The living unit questionnaire was completed by the head nurse; the nursing home questionnaire was completed by the nursing home manager; and the resident questionnaire was completed by a registered nurse familiar with the resident. More details on data collection can also be obtained from previous reports [6, 19].
Variables and measurements
For the present study, we evaluated the same variables for the structural characteristics of the living units that were used in the previously published results [19]. These are variables for structural characteristics such as the organization of meal services, size of the living unit, interior design, architectural characteristics, staffing, etc. The data level of the variables is exclusively categorical. An overview of the variables and their measurement is provided in Table 1.
Table 1 Overview of variables and their measurement
The variables were developed based on theoretical knowledge about the field of German nursing homes derived from the literature on their regulation. Some of the questionnaire items were taken from the official quality audits that are performed regularly by the Medical Review Board of the Statutory Health Insurance Funds. Other items were newly developed for the study. The questionnaire was evaluated for content validity by experts in the field and future users using expert interviews and a multimethod pretest. The development of the care unit questionnaire followed the same methodological procedure as the DemCare-Q questionnaire [21]. The reliability has not been validated yet. In addition to the structural characteristics, resident variables were included to determine the age, sex, presence of dementia diagnosis and severity of dementia [22]. These variables were used exclusively to further describe the identified clusters and did not contribute to their calculation.
Multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) and agglomerative hierarchical cluster analysis (AHC) were used to develop the typology of living units. First, an MCA was used whose principal components represent synthetic quantitative variables that summarize all categorical variables [23]. This is a dimension-reducing procedure that selects a few characteristic combinations from the many possible characteristics so that as much information as possible is retained from the data. Second, an AHC is performed with the dimensionally reduced data; this method is suitable for identifying groups of living units that are mapped in the geometric structures of the MCA [24]. The statistical software R was used to conduct the statistical analyses [25]. MCA and AHC analyses were performed with the R package “FactoMineR” using the MCA and HCPC functions [26]. The plots of the results were generated using the R Package “factoextra” [27]. The R-code and the raw data for the living units are available in the supplemental information. Finally, the residents’ data are compared between the clusters by using the R package “atable” [28]. This table can be retrieved in the supplementary information.
To make the procedure transparent and the graphical results comprehensible, the following sections contain a brief description of the methods used. This includes the explanation of methodical analysis steps that provide a basis for decision-making regarding the presentation of results. We decided how much information is retained by the MCA and how many clusters are formed by the AHC.
Correspondence analysis
Correspondence analysis (CA) is a descriptive data analysis technique that enables the graphical representation of both the row and column characteristics of a contingency table in the same low-dimensional spatial area. Thus, CA belongs to a family of methods (factor analysis and principal component analysis) that reveal patterns in complex datasets. MCA is a specific application of CA that can be understood as a generalization of CA to cases in which there are more than two variables [29]. Therefore, we apply the MCA to a complete disjunctive table [30] with living units in the rows and variables (structural characteristics) in the columns. The deviation of these row or column profiles from their respective average profile, which is displayed by the centroid of the graphical data representation in the map, is used as a measure of the variance in the data. This measure of variance is called inertia in the context of MCA.
In a nutshell, MCA calculates the singular value decomposition (SVD) of the complete disjunctive table, yielding a set of eigenvalues λs and corresponding eigenvectors (here called axes) [31]. The eigenvalues are also called inertia in the context of MCA. The researcher has to choose how many of the axes and eigenvalues he or she wants to omit to reduce the dimensions of the data cloud. Here, the inertia provides guidance. To determine the number of axes (dimensions) to be analyzed, various information about the percentage of explained inertia and the interpretability of each axis is taken into account. For high-dimensional data sets, such as those presented in this article, the modified inertia rates should also be considered because the inertia rates of the first dimension are usually low. The modified inertia rates highlight the significance of the first principal axis [32]. This information is used to calculate the best low-dimensional solution capable of distinguishing geometric patterns in the data by mapping each category of the structural characteristics and each living unit as a point in the same Euclidean space [33]. Consequently, we use a multiple correspondence analysis to visualize the relevant relationships between the structural characteristics by their distances from each other. Thus, all variables are included in the statistical model, but the complexity of their representation in the MCA-map is reduced by the dimensional reduction of the axes. In addition, the MCA provides information about the distances between the living units, which we used in the second step to identify types of similar living units by performing the AHC method.
Agglomerative hierarchical clustering on principal components
Following the MCA, an AHC was performed, clustering the living units on the basis of the calculated principal components of the MCA [29]. This implies that the living units are clustered by using their coordinates on the principal axes, i.e. their Euclidean distance from one another. Consequently, the agglomerative procedures start the calculation process at the “finest partition”, which means that each living unit initially represents a cluster. The further calculation process merges two clusters and is continued step by step until all living units are united into a single cluster. This creates a hierarchical relationship between the clusters of the living units, which can be visually represented by a fixed order of the cluster solutions in the dendrogram (see Fig. 2). The Ward process [34] applied here is of particular importance among the agglomerative processes. The purpose is to merge the living units (clusters of living units) that increase the inertia in a cluster as little as possible. The total inertia consists of the “within-cluster inertia”, which describes the deviations of the living units (points) from their cluster center, and the “between-clusters inertia”, which describes the deviations between the individual cluster centers and the overall center of all living units. An analysis of the inertia decomposition is valuable to describe the quality of the cluster solution. The aim is to identify an appropriate cluster solution that minimizes the variability of the “within-cluster” or maximizes the “between clusters” variability. For the combined application of MCA and AHC, two principles of conduct have been taken into account that are recommended in the method literature [29]:
The extracted dimensions of the MCA, which represent very insignificant proportions of explained inertia, can be interpreted as statistical “noise”. It is therefore recommended for the subsequent performance of the AHC that only those axes are included in the analyses that explain a high proportion of total inertia (approx. 80 to 90% in total).
The axes retained in the MCA should be interpretable. As a rule, this makes the results of the AHC easier to interpret.
Subsequent to the hierarchical cluster analysis, a test value can be applied to check the extent to which the categories correspond with the identified clusters. The v-test is a test to compare the proportion of the category in a cluster compared to the proportion of the category in the global dataset. The test is used to identify significant categories (p < 0.05) that define the clusters [35].
The data of the 103 living units applied to calculate the MCA and AHC include Q = 19 variables with a total of K = 39 categories. The frequency distributions of the categories are displayed in Table 2.
Table 2 Absolute and relative frequencies of categories
Relations between the characteristics and the living units: results of the MCA
The calculation of the total inertia of the data amounts to K/Q − 1 = 1.053 and is distributed over a total of K − Q = 20 eigenvalues. The average eigenvalue is \( \overline{\lambda}=1/Q=0.052 \) and explains 4.93% of the total inertia.
Table 3 illustrates the proportion of explained inertia for each axis in decreasing order and thus provides the information needed to make decisions about the number of axes to be included in the analysis. The second axis brings the cumulated modified inertia rate to 90.90%. Therefore, only the first two axes will be interpreted in the results of the MCA.
Table 3 Inertia of axes, inertia rates, and modified rates
The first axis λ1 explains 17.44% of the total inertia, and the second axis λ2 explains 13.76% of the total inertia. Thus, the MCA map (Fig. 1) represents 31.21% of the total inertia. For the interpretation of the principal axes, the categories that contribute significantly to the explanation of the principal axis are informative. These include all categories whose contribution exceeds the average contribution of 2.56%.
MCA map for the superimposed representation of living units (blue points) and structural characteristics (red triangles)
The first principal axis applies to the following categories: “living unit has a size ≤ 15 beds” (Size 0), “living unit is additionally financed” (Finance 1), “living unit has only single rooms” (SRoom 1), “nurses do not work exclusively in one unit” (AssignN 0), “lunch is cooked in the kitchen of the unit” (Selfcook 1), “a registered nurse is not always present” (PresenceRN 0), “all meals are served homestyle on the table” (Mealserv 1), “segregated living concept” (Segregative 1), “do not exclusively have single rooms” (SRoom 0), “living unit has a size > 15” (Size 1), “residents-per-service staff member ratio is less than or equal to the median” (SSMRatio 1), “residents-per-service staff member ratio is greater than the median” (SSMRatio 0), and “integrative living concept” (Segregative 0). The categories are sorted according to their contributions, so that the first category Size 0 explains the main contribution to the first axis. A substantial contribution to the second principal axis is made by the following categories: “no special qualification in psychogeriatric care” (Jobqual 0), “segregated living concept” (Segregative 1), “built specially for people with dementia” (Build 1), “is additionally financed” (Finance 1), and “living unit has a size ≤ 15” (Size 0). These categories each explain between seven and 10 % of the second principal axis.
The categories that are close to each other, such as “living unit is additionally financed” (Finance 1), “special qualification in psychogeriatric care” (Jobqual 1), “living unit is protected by exit controls” (Guarded 1), etc. are correlated positively with each other and describe the corresponding living units in this area.
Binary categories always correlate negatively and are located opposite to each other. Most of the living units that are distinguished by the binary categories are scattered in the left and right upper areas of Figure1. These living units differ significantly from the living units displayed on the second principle axis below the centroid.
Identifying the types of living units: results of the AHC
The numbers of clusters with the highest percentage decrease in the gain of the between-clusters inertia are marked by a bend (elbow criterion) in the curve of the inertia gain in Fig. 2. For this reason, three clusters were chosen. The proportion of “between-clusters inertia” that can be measured is 25.41% for a three-cluster solution.
Dendrogram for the hierarchical representation of the living unit clusters
In our analysis we choose 11 axes to calculate the AHC that summarize 83.71% of the total inertia.
Figure 3 displays the convex hulls of the three cluster solutions in the correspondence space of the MCA map. The two clusters in the upper left (living units = circles) and upper right area (living units = squares) differ in the first dimension. These clusters are related to the categories that make a significant contribution to the first principal axis. The largest cluster (living units = triangles) is close to the centroid and differs in the second principle axis. This cluster represents the average living unit type and is associated with the categories that contribute significantly to the second principal axis.
MCA map with clusters (black = dementia special care units, green = usual care, red = house community)
By applying the v-test, the structural characteristics that clustered the respective living units were determined. The test results show that each of the three clusters in Fig. 3 occurs with a specific combination of categories. Table 4 illustrates these combinations, which leads us to the content-related definition of our three cluster types. We designate the three clusters as “house community”, “dementia special care units” and “usual care”.
Table 4 Clusters and their characteristic categories
The categories in Table 4 describing the clusters are sorted in decreasing order according to their significance such that the first categories have the lowest p-values as a result of the v-test. The categories (Finance 1, Size 1 and Size 0) that are most significant for their respective clusters are therefore at the head of the table. The v-test and p-values can be calculated using the R-code in the supplementary information. To present a summarized table as a result, we have decided to provide the percentages in the brackets only, as they are more descriptive for the distribution of a category. All listed categories used to describe the three clusters satisfy the p < 0.05 requirement. With the exception of the last column, “Not significant”, all categories that do not provide significant information for the clusters are displayed.
Furthermore, we observe three different cases of attributions in the categories of the clusters in Table 4. Some examples are as follows: The first case of attribution concerns categories that are only informative for a particular cluster. We describe this case as a “unique characteristic”. This applies, for example, to the “living unit is protected by exit controls” (Guarded 1) category in the “dementia special care units” cluster. The category “Guarded 1” is only significant in Cluster “dementia special care units” and not in other clusters. Therefore, we call this category “unique characteristic”. The second case concerns dichotomous categories relating to different clusters. We define this case as “strong difference”. This is valid for the categories “living unit was not specially built for people with dementia” (Build 0) and “living unit was built specially for people with dementia” (Build 1) because Build 1 relates to the cluster “dementia special care unit” and Build 0 to the cluster “usual care”. The third case will be applicable when a category is related to two or more clusters. We define this case as “intersection”. This applies to the category “do not exclusively have single rooms” (SRoom 0), which is indicative of both the cluster “dementia special care unit” and the cluster “usual care”. However, it should be noted that the second case also applies to the category “living units do not exclusively have single rooms” (SRoom 0) because “living units have only single rooms” (SRoom 1) is informative for the cluster “house community”. Categories describing the second case are particularly suitable for describing differences between two clusters.
Table 4 shows that these category combinations allow clear distinctions to be made from the cluster “usual care”. The five top categories of the cluster “dementia special care unit” and cluster “house community” can be distinguished by the dichotomous categories of the cluster “usual care”.
In contrast, the differences between the clusters “dementia special care units” and “house community” are distinguished more by their unique characteristics. This distinction is exemplified by the fact that categories such as “special qualification in psychogeriatric care” (Jobqual 1), “segregated living concept” (Segregative 1) and “living unit is protected by exit controls” (Guarded 1) are informative for the cluster “dementia special care units”, but, including their dichotomous category, have no significance for the cluster “house community”.
To further validate the identified types, we additionally conducted some descriptive analysis to describe differences between the residents who are living in the living units. The examination of the resident data shows no differences regarding the variable “sex”. However, there are clear differences in the “age”, “diagnosis of dementia” and “severity of dementia”. The relative frequencies of dementia diagnosis and severe dementia are significantly higher in the “dementia special care units” cluster. These results (resident characteristics of the three clusters of dementia special care units, usual care, and house community) are presented as a table in the supplementary information.
Comparison between the a priori defined types and the types identified by the explorative clustering technique: results of the cross table
If we compare the current types identified with the explorative clustering method to the a priori defined types, we can see that the different types of development techniques had an impact on the affiliation of the 103 living units to the types. To illustrate this, Table 5 presents a cross-table that contrasts the affiliations of the living units with the different types.
Table 5 Cross table for comparison between the a priori defined types and the types identified by the explorative clustering technique
One can see that all of the living units that were formerly affiliated with the type “large segregated living units with additional financing regulated by an agreement” (LSLU II) are now affiliated with the type “dementia special care units”. However, three living units that were formerly affiliated with the type “large segregated living units without extra funding” (LSLU I) are also affiliated with the type “dementia special care units”. It is surprising that one living unit that was formerly affiliated with the type “large integrated living units without extra funding” (LILU) is now also affiliated with “dementia special care units”. This may be explained by the fact that this living unit does not have the characteristic “segregative living concept” (Segregative 1) but is defined by the type specific characteristics “built specially for people with dementia” (Build 1), “special qualification in psychogeriatric care” (Jobqual 1), "residents-per-registered nurse ratio is less than or equal to the median" (RNRatio 1), “do not exclusively have single rooms” (SRoom 0), “residents-per-service staff member ratio is greater than the median”(SSMRatio 0), “lunch is not cooked in the kitchen of the living unit” (Selfcook 0) and “large size” (Size 1).
When looking at the type “usual care”, it is clear that the majority (47 of 59) were formerly affiliated with the type “large integrated living units without extra funding” (LILU). However, 11 living units from the type “large segregated living units without extra funding” (LSLU I) are now affiliated with the “usual care” type. The type “house community” is more or less consistently compounded by living units that were formerly affiliated with the small living units (integrated and segregated without extra funding).
Again, what is surprising is that one living unit that was formerly affiliated with the type “large segregated living units without extra funding” (LSLU I) is now affiliated with the type “house community”. This can be explained by the categories “lunch is cooked in the kitchen of the living unit” (Selfcook 1), “all meals are served home style on the table” (Mealserv 1), “residents-per-service staff member ratio is less than or equal to the median” (SSMRatio 1) and “living unit is not additionally financed” (Finance 0), which were evident in this living unit.
The aim of this study was to empirically develop a typology of living units based on their structural characteristics. Using an explorative clustering technique on data from 103 living units in 51 nursing homes, we identified three different clusters (types). We designated the types as “house community”, “dementia special care units” and “usual care”. The three categories that have the greatest influence on the formation of these types are named below.
The categories that showed the strongest influence on the first type, “dementia special care units,” were “additionally financed” (Finance 1), “special qualification in psychogeriatric care” (Jobqual 1) and “segregated living concept” (Segregative 1). The categories that contributed most to the second type, “usual care,” were “large size” (Size 1), “no special qualification in psychogeriatric care” (Jobqual 0) and “not additionally financed” (Finance 0). The categories that showed the strongest influence on the third type, “house community,” were “small size” (Size 0), “living unit with only single rooms” (Sroom 1) and “cooked lunch in the kitchen of the living unit” (Selfcook 1). Prior to this study, we used a deductive approach to define living unit types and used the variables size, living concept, and finance (Palm et al. [19]).
If we compare the types identified with the empirical exploratory methods to these a priori defined types, we can see that some categories that were used for definition also have a strong impact on the types developed in the empirical MCA model, whereas others have not. Two types were defined using the categories “large size” (Size 1), “segregative living concept” (Segregative 1) and the variable “additional financing regulated by a special agreement” (Finance 0 and Finance 1). Hence, they differed with respect to the additional financing variable, which was present in one type but not in the other. In the MCA model, the categories “no additional financing regulated by a special agreement” (Finance 0) and “large size” (Size 1) correlate with each other, but there is no correlation between the categories “segregative living concept” (Segregative 1) and “ large size ” (Size 1). However, the category “segregative living concept” (Segregative 1) correlates strongly with the category “additional financing regulated by a special agreement” (Finance 1) but not with “large size” (Size 1). The categories “small size” (Size 0) and “segregated living concept” (Segregative 1) that were also used to define the type “small segregated living units without extra funding” (SSLU) a priori showed no correlation in the MCA model.
If we look at the variables that were significant in determining the empirically developed types, it becomes apparent that other variables play roles that were not considered in the a priori definition. This observation applies to “building specific for residents with dementia”, “special qualification of the head nurse in psychogeriatric care”, “availability of single rooms”, “resident-per-service staff member ratio (is less or equal than the mean)”, “possibilities to cook lunch in the living unit”, etc.
In the present study, we also showed which variables and categories do not contribute to the empirical cluster model “constant assignment of service staff” (AssignSSM 0 and AssignSSM 1), “certified nursing assistant ratio” (CNARatio 0 and CNARatio 1), “residents-per-nursing assistant ratio” (NARatio 0 and NARatio 1), “furnishing of public rooms” (Furniture 0 and Furniture 1), “living unit is located in a separate building” (Separate 1), “living unit is not protected by an exit control” (Guarded 0). Some of these variables (“furnishing of public rooms” and “constant assignment of service staff”) also did not show significant differences between the a priori defined five living unit types. In contrast to the previous results, “intersections”, “unique characteristics” and “strong” “differences” between the clusters can be identified for the empirical cluster solution.
This is evident in the classification of the categories that are described for the results of Table 4. These attribution possibilities result from the multivariate static model, enabling the relationships between the clusters to be described in detail. Findings of this kind cannot be obtained from the a priori defined types, since they are derived from the correlations to the characteristics between the empirical types. This can be seen as an additional benefit of the empirical approach chosen in the current study.
Furthermore, the cluster association in the current results is not determined by the fact that the living units have all the cluster-specific characteristics in Table 4. Rather, the probability that a living unit belongs to a particular cluster increases with the presence of each additional cluster-specific characteristic. Thus, in terms of the data, it is probable (92% chance) that a living unit with the characteristic “small size” (Size 0) belongs to the cluster “house community”.
The probability increases to 95% if the characteristic “lunch is cooked in the kitchen of the living unit” (Selfcook 1) is specified in addition to the characteristic “small size” (Size 0). When a living unit has the first three characteristics of the cluster “house community”, the affiliation is 100%. This offers the advantage that probabilities of affiliation can be calculated for all existing combinations of characteristics in the living units data set. In contrast to the a priori defined types, differences in the affiliation to the empirical types of single living units can be defined. From a methodological perspective, it should be noted that the formation of a typology of living units based on complex characteristic correlations can be appropriately described using a multivariate statistical method. A methodological approach such as the one applied in the present study is suitable for mapping the multiple interrelationships of structural characteristics in organizational health and thus represents a powerful tool for describing the care landscape [33, 36]. An advantage of this explorative analysis is that it delivers a cluster solution that fits the data. In the previously published results, eight possible types were defined a priori, of which only five types could be achieved in the data [19].
Finally, a comparison of the “dementia special care units” cluster in Table 4 with more recent research shows that empirical studies that investigate the influence of a Dementia Special Care Unit on residents’ outcomes often do not use multiple indicators to define them but rely on single indicators such as the availability of specially trained staff [37], SCU placement variable of the MDS 2.0 [38] or the US OSCAR reporting system [39, 40]. Other studies combine several indicators based on an a priori set definition [41]. The latter used the indicators specially trained staff, 100% of the residents of the unit have a dementia and the unit is closed. However, in our sample of living units, these combinations of indicators are applicable only to living units with additional funding regulated by an agreement, not to all living units that exclusively house residents with dementia.
There are methodological limitations of the DemenzMonitor study and the present study that limit the external validity of the results. The participating institutions are spread over 11 federal states. It should be noted here that the distribution of institutions among the federal states in the data set does not correspond to the actual distribution of inpatient geriatric care institutions in Germany. Therefore, the results cannot be considered representative of German care institutions in general. A further methodological limitation relates to the dichotomization of variables. For the staffing variables, the ratio was split using the median. Such a definition is difficult to justify and is normative. This causes information to be lost. An alternative would be to use methods that can map both categorical and metric variables in a model. Pagès recommends more advanced methods, such as Factorial Analysis of Mixed Data [30].
We identified systematic differences based on a large number of criteria. These results lead to a complex type formation, as seen from the fact that the types are described by nine or more characteristics. This supports the assumption that definitions that are solely based on size or living concept ignore the diversity within these groups [19].
A main result of the comparison is that the five a priori types would not be formed in the multivariate model because there are major groups of characteristics that correspond more to each other than to other characteristics and thus lead to a more stable cluster solution. If the intersections of the five cluster solutions and the three cluster solutions are considered, it becomes apparent that the variable “additional financing regulated by a special agreement” and “size of the living unit” are particularly suitable for distinguishing between them. The variable “living concept” has a significantly lower impact on the differentiation of clusters. This can be seen, on the one hand, in the ranking of the categories and, on the other hand, in the result that the variable is insignificant for the cluster “house community”.
Regarding a classification of living units based on the present study, the following practical recommendation can be made: It can be assumed that a living unit belongs to a cluster if it has three or more of the characteristics shown in Table 4. If we look at the first three characteristics of the clusters, we see the following allocation probability:
If a living unit is assigned the characteristics “additional financing regulated by a special agreement” (Finance 1), “special qualification in psychogeriatric care” (Jobqual 1) and “segregative living concept” (Segregative 1), then it is 100% in the cluster “Dementia special care units”.
If a living unit has the characteristics “living unit has a size > 15” (Size 1), “no special qualification in psychogeriatric care” (Jobqual 0) and “not additionally financed” (Finance 0), then it is 96.49% in the cluster “Usual care”.
3. If a living unit has the characteristics “living unit has a size ≤ 15 beds” (Size 0), “living unit has only single rooms” (SRoom 1) and “cooked lunch in the kitchen of the living unit” (Selfcook 1), then it is 100% in the cluster “House community”.
If the characteristics in the ranking of the table are higher, the classification of the corresponding living unit is more reliable.
Once confirmed, the typology can also provide important information for intervention and implementation studies, where the context of nursing homes needs to be explained thoroughly to evaluate transferability. If nursing home care units that participate in an intervention or implementation trial are assigned to one of the identified types, the results from different studies become more comparable. At the same time, it may be possible to investigate whether an intervention shows better effects in one type than in others. This information is again important for evaluating the transferability of intervention effects in practice.
The implications relevant to future organizational nursing and care research can be summarized as follows: Because the study is designed as an explorative study, no power analysis was performed to identify and validate specific clusters. Therefore, it would be desirable for future studies to test the three-cluster solution on a more representative sample with the use of confirmatory techniques. Furthermore, it is still necessary to answer the question of whether we can determine differences in the quality of care and residents’ outcomes between dementia-specific and traditional care units. To this end, it remains important to represent the existing differences among the living units, which result from the complex diversity of specialized institutions, as accurately as possible in a typology.
The data of the living units and the R code for calculating the typology of living units are available in the supplementary information. Data of the residents are not provided for data protection reasons.
AHC:
Agglomerative Hierarchical Cluster Analysis
CA:
DSCUs:
Dementia Special Care Units
LILU:
Large integrated living units without extra funding
LSLU I:
Large segregated living units without extra funding
LSLU II:
Large segregated living units with extra funding
MDS:
Minimum Data Set
Multiple Correspondence Analysis
OSCAR:
Online Survey, Certification, and Reporting
SCU:
Special Care Unit
SILU:
Small integrated living units without extra funding
SSLU:
Small segregated living units without extra funding
SVD:
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The authors are grateful to all study participants. The authors would like to acknowledge their colleagues Anne Bleckmann and Tobias Stacke for their careful reading and critical review of the paper.
This study is funded by the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (registered association), which is part of the Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft (Helmholtz Association).There was no additional third-party funding.
German Centre for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE), Stockumer Str. 12, Witten, North Rhine-Westphalia, 58453, Germany
Johannes Michael Bergmann, Bernhard Holle & Rebecca Palm
University Witten/Herdecke, Faculty of Health, Department for Nursing Science, Witten, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
Center for Clinical Studies, University Hospital Erlangen, Krankenhausstraße 12, Erlangen, Bavaria, 91054, Germany
Armin Michael Ströbel
Johannes Michael Bergmann
Bernhard Holle
Rebecca Palm
JB and RP contributed towards the design of the study. AS and JB conducted the analysis of data. JB, RP, AS drafted the manuscript. BH and RP contributed to the conception and revised the article critically for intellectual content. All authors provided input into the discussion and approved the final manuscript.
Correspondence to Johannes Michael Bergmann.
The ethics commission of the German Society for Nursing Science has approved the research [19]. All participants were informed of the aims and objectives of the study and their role, and signed an informed consent that is being securely stored in line with the requirements of Ethics Committee of the German Society for Nursing Science. We obtained permission to access and use the data/records used in this study from the respective care facility managers in written form.
Additional file 1: Table.
Resident characteristics of the three clusters of dementia special care units, usual care and house community.
Code and raw data
Bergmann, J.M., Ströbel, A.M., Holle, B. et al. Empirical development of a typology on residential long-term care units in Germany - results of an exploratory multivariate data analysis. BMC Health Serv Res 20, 646 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-020-05401-4
Explorative
Care structures
Residential long-term care
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https://cryo.org.ua/journal/index.php/probl-cryobiol-cryomed/article/view/218
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Effect of Cryopreservation on Functional Properties of Human Cord Blood Leukoconcentrate Nucleated Cells
Ye. V. Brovko Institute for Problems of Cryobiology and Cryomedicine of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kharkov
L. G. Chernyshenko Institute for Problems of Cryobiology and Cryomedicine of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kharkov
human cord blood, blood nucleated cells, functional properties, cryopreservation
Cryopreservation effect on functional properties of more differentiated hemopoietic precursors of mature cells in human cord blood was investigated, as well as correlation between phenotypic marker expression and functional condition of these cells was assessed. Correlation between functional state of hemopoietic cells and phenotypic marker expression was noted. Maintenance of functional properties of human cord blood leukoconcentrate components was proved when the suggested method for its obtainment and cryopreservation being applied.
Goltsev, A. N., Volina, V. V., Ostankov, M. V., Goltsev, K. A., Sokol, L. V., Brovko, Y. V., Chernyshenko, L. G., & Kozhina, O. Y. (2010). Effect of Cryopreservation on Functional Properties of Human Cord Blood Leukoconcentrate Nucleated Cells. Problems of Cryobiology and Cryomedicine, 20(1), 66–72. Retrieved from https://cryo.org.ua/journal/index.php/probl-cryobiol-cryomed/article/view/218
Copyright (c) 2020 A. N. Goltsev, V. V. Volina, M. V. Ostankov, K. A. Goltsev, L. V. Sokol, Ye. V. Brovko, L. G. Chernyshenko, O. Yu. Kozhina
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https://data.aad.gov.au/aadc/gaz/display_name.cfm?gaz_id=107793
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Biggs Island
Biggs Island (The name as it would appear in a gazetteer)
Biggs Island (The name as it would appear on a map)
Gazetteer of the British Antarctic Territory Id 107793
Feature type: Island
This name originates from United Kingdom. It is part of the Gazetteer of the British Antarctic Territory and the SCAR Composite Gazetteer of Antarctica.
Biggs Island (United States of America)
E-most of the Henkes Islands, S of Adelaide, was charted by an RN Hydrographic Survey Unit in January-March 1963, and named after Thomas Biggs, of the Falkland Islands, coxswain of John Biscoe's launch used on the survey (BA, 1963, p.13; chart 3577, 14.viii.1964; APC, 1964, p.2).
68° 53' 00.0" W
View British or international place names within 1.0 degree of this location.
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https://data.aad.gov.au/aadc/gaz/display_name.cfm?gaz_id=125937
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Gregory Island
Gregory Island (The name as it would appear in a gazetteer)
Gregory Island (The name as it would appear on a map)
Feature type: Island (5)
Gregory Island (New Zealand)
Gregory Island (Russia)
A small island lying just off the E coast of Victoria Land, 2.5 mi NE of Cape Archer. Discovered by the BrNAE (1901-04), at which time it was thought to be a coastal point and was named "Gregory Point," for John W. Gregory, director of the civilian staff of the expedition. It was determined to be an island by the BrAE (1910-13).
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