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There are millions of distractions that the modern day writer has to put up with in order to get their ideas out there. Twitter, Facebook, email, they're all conspiring to distract you from getting your writing down on the page.
Did you know, when you're multitasking between writing and doing something else, it can take up to thirty minutes to get your mind back on track? Flip-flopping between activities is not an option for a writer who's trying to get some writing done.
This is why I subscribe to a method of pure writing flow. It's one of the many ways that I use to counter the background noise bubbling up from every direction.
What is flow? It's kind of like a river of writing, it's an uninterrupted stream of consciousness directly from the source of your creativity through your brain, into your nervous system, out your hands, into your computer. I like to think of it as zen writing meditation.
Shut the door to your study, turn off your cell phone, turn off your email program, shutdown your Twitter. Make note of any other things that I haven't mentioned here that could possibly distract you from entering the flow. Make sure they can't beep, howl, vibrate or demand anything from you.
2, Just you and computer.
I write with a program called WriteRoom, which turns my Mac into a tool for simply writing. A simple text editor will work as well. This way it's just me and the words I type, nothing more. There's no jumping dock icons grasping my attention, it's just me and the writing. This is important, because it's so easy to open Firefox and get lost in the internet. Sometimes if I find that WriteRoom isn't enough isolation, I'll turn off the internet altogether.
3, Don't start writing, yet.
Take a moment and center yourself. I usually do around fifteen minutes of quiet contemplation before I even start touching keys. Focus on the idea that you have, but not too hard, just enough to see a vague outline of what you want to achieve. Why? Because this gives my mind a chance to let everything else in the world go, and just focus on the task at hand: writing.
And now it's time to write, let the worlds spill out of you onto the page, and trust that they're okay. There are moments in every creative's life when they tap into the source of their creativity and they're able to ride that creativity unto a finished project. With this writing philosophy I'm trying to get at that creative source.
While you're flowing, it's important not to go back and edit things that you may have screwed up. Accept that you spelled miscellaneous wrong, and realize that you'll be able to go back and fix that after you're done. You'll be able to rearrange paragraphs, after your flow is complete. If you stop and fix these things now, you've broken the stream of thought and you'll have to start from scratch.
The time to edit yourself, to second guess what you did, is after your flow is over. When your copy has gone the full life-cycle from conception to being fully typed on the page.
You might be looking at the words coming out of you, and saying 'wow, this absolutely crap.' ignore that little voice. It's trying to sabotage your writing, if you stop and delete what you've put out now, you'll never get to the next sentence, which will inevitably be more brilliant than the one you're writing now.
The important part is to bypass your inner critic and editor, as they're conspiring to destroy your ability to get your ideas down on the page.
Imagine flowing like kayaking down stream a moving river, but you're not the boater, you're the kayak. No matter what happens, even if the person in control stops paddling for a bit, you're going to keep going. The words will keep coming out of you and out onto the page, until you've reached the place where you pull the boat out of the water.
There are several other art forms that tap into spontaneous flow.
MCing is one of these art forms, rappers commonly tap into a stream of consciousness, a process that bypasses any second guessing. The words are moving so quickly out of a rapper's mouth that they don't really have time to pre-formulate those words.
your mind. This same philosophy can apply to writing.
Like any skill, flow takes practice to master.
Some people will be better at it initially than others. Don't judge yourself if your inner critic is screaming at you to stop writing, just acknowledge that it's there, and with time you can learn to ignore it and just write with the pure energy of your thoughts. Try flowing for short periods of time initially, maybe twenty minutes? And then gradually build on that time frame.
Eventually you might be able to do an hour of free flow writing, or imagine being able to flow for six hours straight? You'd be able to write tens of thousands of words, wouldn't that be amazing?
Thanks so much! I love writing, but often have a hard time getting the character to really come alive.
I guess I'm the odd duck out – at least when it comes to the value of isolating myself. I can't think when I am all by myself. I'm much more creative and focused in a mall food-court, Starbucks, cafeteria, library, airport, airplane, train… anywhere with people, a myriad of background noises and lots of activity — then I can focus and be creative. Must be a weird gene I inherited, or perhaps a brain-virus!!
Love the post though. Flow part… not editing… great reminders.
Thanks for this article, also thanks to the person who wrote, edit your blogs 3x. I often look over my blogs once, but only see what I intended to write. When I read the blog after it is posted, it often has typos, and repeats. Take time, do it right, and transfer the message you intend. Give pleasure to the recipient's eyes.
This so true. I particularly like the metaphor of creativity being like a river and the importance of the flow while creating.
This is so exciting – not just all the tips but that now I think my Argentine tango, which is entirely improvisational, and yoga from meditative perspective, can be helpful to my writing. I am an engineer by education and have never had a chance to take a writing class. I love to write, and these set of brilliantly packaged ideas are now with me every time I meet my keys. THANK YOU !!!!!
I agree with not editing yourself, while you're writing the initial copy. I really do stand by this rule, it's the only way that I write.
If you're constantly going back and fixing small mistakes, this can hold back your writing from reaching full potential, and editing white you're writing can even stop you from finishing.
But do edit yourself! Once I'm done with a flow, I go back and organize my thoughts better. I fix all of the words I totally spelled wrong. I delete all of the paragraphs that are filled with junk.
It's not uncommon for me to go over a blog post at least three times after a flow to finalize my ideas and my writing.
Don't edit yourself this while you're writing initial copy, it's counterproductive to everything. Edit yourself after you have all your ideas on the computer/paper.
Let the ideas flow at the beginning, reign them into something that people can actually stomach later.
Thanks. I completely agree with your tips, and I needed to "hear"/read them as a reminder. The one idea I love is taking the free flow writing all the way | |
were both funded by international banks as tools to crush economically independent nations. Independence is in their DNA. After almost a decade of Western oligarchy taking over Russia's economy after the fall of USSR in 1991, Putin took power and drained the Russian swamp. Since then, each and every move that he has made aims to destroy the American Empire, or the entity that replaced the British Empire in 1944, which is the non-conspiracy theory name of the New World Order. The new empire is basically the same central banking scheme, with just a slightly different set of owners that switched the British army for NATO, as their world Gestapo.
Until Trump came along, Putin was single handedly fighting the New World Order who's century-old obsession is the control of the world oil market, since oil is the blood running through the veins of the world economy. Oil is a thousand times more valuable than gold. Cargo ships, airplanes and armies don't run on batteries. Therefore, to counter the globalists, Putin developed the best offensive and defensive missile systems, with the result that Russia can now protect every independent oil producer such as Syria, Venezuela and Iran. Central bankers and the US shadow government are still hanging on to their dying plan, because without a victory in Syria, there's no enlarging Israel, thus ending the century-old fantasy of uniting the Middle East oil production in the hands of the New World Order. Ask Lord Balfour if you have any doubt. That's the real stake of the Syrian war, it's nothing short of do or die.
A century of lies
Now, because a shadow government is giving direct orders to the CIA and NATO in the name of banks and industries, Trump has no control over the military. The deep state is a rosary of permanent officials ruling Washington and the Pentagon, that only respond to their orders. If you still believe that the «Commander in chief» is in charge, explain why every time Trump ordered to pull out of Syria and Afghanistan, more troops came in? As I'm writing this text, US and NATO troops pulled out of the Kurdish zones, went to Iraq, and came back with heavier equipment around the oil reserves of Syria. Donald has a lot more of swamp draining to do before the Pentagon actually listens to anything he says. Trump should be outraged and denunciate out loud that the military command doesn't bother about what he thinks, but this would ignite an unimaginable chaos, and perhaps even a civil war in the US, if the citizens who own roughly 393 million weapons in their homes were to learn that private interests are in charge of the military. It would also lead to a very simple but dramatic question: «What is exactly the purpose of democracy?» These weapons are the titanium fences guarding the population from a totalitarian Big Brother.
One has to realize how much trouble the US army and spying agencies have been going through in creating false-flag operations for more than a century, so that their interventions always looked righteous, in the name of democracy promotion, human rights and justice around the planet. They blew up the Maine ship in 1898 to enter the Hispanic-American war, then the Lusitania in 1915 to enter WW1. They pushed Japan to attack Pearl Harbor in 1941, knew about the attack 10 days in advance and said nothing to the Hawaiian base. They made up a North Vietnamese torpedo aggression on their ships in the Tonkin Bay to justify sending boots on the Vietnamese ground. They made up a story of Iraqi soldiers destroying nurseries to invade Kuwait in 1991. They invented mass destruction weapons to attack Iraq again in 2003, and organized 911 to shred the 1789 Constitution, attack Afghanistan and launch a War on terror. This totally fake mask of virtue has to be preserved for controlling the opinion of the American citizens and their domestic arsenal, who have to believe that they wear the white cowboy hats of democracy.
So how did Trump react when he learned that American troops were re-entering Syria? He repeated again and again in every interview and declaration that «we have secured the oil fields of Syria», and even added «I'm thinking about sending Exxon in the region to take care of the Syrian oil». Neocons, Zionists and banks were thrilled, but everyone else is outraged, because the vast majority doesn't understand that Trump is swallowing this pill solely for its after-effects. On this single bottle is written in fine print that «the use of this drug might force American-NATO troops out of Syria under the pressure of the united world community and flabbergasted American population.» Trump made the situation unsustainable for NATO to stay in Syria, and how he's been repeating this deeply shocking, politically incorrect position clearly shows his real intention. He destroyed over a century of fake virtue in a single sentence.
Trump is a historical anomaly
Trump is only the fourth president in US history to actually fight for the people, unlike all 41 others, who mainly channeled the people's money in a pipeline of dollars that ends up in private banks. First there was Andrew Jackson who was shot after he destroyed the Second National Bank that he openly accused of being controlled by the Rothschild and The City in London. Then there was Abraham Lincoln, who was murdered after printing his «greenbacks», national money that the state issued to pay the soldiers because Lincoln had refused to borrow money from Rothschild at 24% interest. Then there was JFK, who was killed for a dozen reasons that mostly went against the banks and military industries profits, and now is Donald Trump, who shouted that he would «Give America back to the people».
Like most businessmen, Trump hates banks, for the formidable power that they have over the economy. Just take a peek at Henry Ford's only book, «The International Jew» to find out how deep was his distrust and hatred of international banks. Trump's businesses have suffered a lot because of these institutions that basically sell you an umbrella, only to take it back as soon as it rains. Private banking's control over money creation and interest rates, through every Central Bank of almost every country is a permanent power over nations, far above the ephemeral cycle of politicians. By the year 2000, these nation looters were only a few steps away from their planetary totalitarian dream, but a couple of details stood still: Vladimir Putin and 393 million American weapons. Then came along orange-faced Donald, the last piece in the puzzle that we the people, needed to terminate 250 years of the banking empire.
Techniques and tactics
Early in his mandate, Trump naively tried the direct approach, by surrounding himself with establishment rebels like Michael Flynn and Steve Bannon, then by annoying each and everyone of his foreign allies, shredding their free-trade treaties, imposing taxes on imports and insulting them in their face in the G7 meetings of 2017 and 2018. The reaction was strong and everyone doubled-down on the Russiagate absurdity, as it looked like the only option to stop the man on his path of globalism destruction. Predictably, the direct approach went nowhere; Flynn and Bannon had to go, and Trump was entangled in a handful of inquiries that made him realize that he wouldn't get anything accomplished with transparency. He had to find a way to annihilate the most dangerous people on the planet, but at the same time, stay in power and alive. He had to smarten up.
That's when his genius exploded on the world. He completely changed his strategy and approach, and started taking absurd decisions and | |
warn the family that the garbage collectors are monsters
– and many more, so I'll name some more stories later
I've read Roog. I guess I didn't think of that story as horror, but I guess it could be labelled such in a more general way. Its true that the dog did see the garbage collectors as monsters. As I see it, PKD does use elements of horror, but for me his fiction doesn't usually have the feeling of horror. However, there is much from PKD I haven't read and so maybe they're are more horror-like stories I'm unaware of.
Do you read much horror? And how do you define horror? I usually define horror as any fiction that creates a feeling of horror, but that isn't how everyone defines it. As I see it, many shows such as Buffy aren't horror even though they use elements of horror because they don't cause a feeling of horror. Then again, horror merges with dark fantasy and so there is a wide variety. And, besides, what causes horror to one person might not cause horror to another.
My choice of reading material is quite eclectic, ranging from newspapers and scientific journals to humorous poetry, and from classics to comic books.
Most of my "reading" of horror has been movies, but I have read "Frankenstein", "Dracula" and "Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde". I read Anne Rice's "Interview with the Vampire", but I classify that more as a romance than as horror.
I used to teach classes in horror fiction and film, and when I asked my students to define horror, I got many different answers. My own definition is that horror first evokes fear and then purges it, much as the Greek tragedies did. I have a book titled "The Thrill of Fear", and that title suggests that horror is like a roller coaster ride – first we scream, but then we laugh.
Same here. My reading is eclectic too, but I can't say I read scientific journals too often. I suppose that most of my "reading" of horror has also been movies. Plus, I've read some interesting nonfiction books about horror the past couple of years. Two really cool books are The Secret Life of Puppets by Victoria Nelson and The Melancholy Android by Eric G. Wilson.
I don't think I'd previously heard of the book you mention. I did a search on it and I think I might enjoy it. I like books that give an overview. I also like books where the subject is analyzed across many media such as film and books.
Your definition of horror is pretty good. I think that fits a lot of horror. I was thinking, though, about how Ligotti would likely disagree. I get the sense that he wants to evoke fear without purging it aferwards, but maybe fear is purged just by the story ending.
1 day later
Most horror fiction either kills or confines the monster at the end. That is why "A Nightmare on Elm Street" and "Halloween" were so shocking to audiences of their time.
The author of "The Thrill of Fear" is Walter Kendrick. Perhaps that will help you to find it?
1Vector3 said
Cool discussion. I like the generalizations you made, Ben.
One of the most horrific stories I ever read I am not sure whether was fantasy or scifi. I have read a ton of the latter and almost none of the former. It was about white spiders, and how their bite would cause one to live in an alternate reality but not know that…. I have no ideas of author or title. But I know it led me to doubt my reality for many days, and of course to get even more phobic about light-colored spiders than I already am about them ALL !!!!!!
Most people might not think that having one's sense of reality undermined or shaken is "horror" but to me it might be the ultimate of horror…….
Does either of you consider Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness as horror? I don't remember any specifics about it now, except a few generalities, but the protagonist does say, at the end, as he looks back on his life "The horror [of it all that I have done…] and one FEELS that along with him. A kind of almost self-annihilating guilt. That's pretty horrifying, too !!!!!!
OM Bastet
Welcome to the discussion, OM. I'd have to think much more about it to figure out how much these generalizations make sense. I haven't analyzed the horror genre all that thoroughly. I usually only care about horror to the extent that it relates to sf.
The experience of having your sense of reality undermined could potentially fit into the horror genre. I'm somewhat familiar with the horror writers Ligotti and Quentin S. Crisp, and they both play around with the sense of reality. I love any writer of any genre that plays around with my sense of reality.
PKD plays around with reality perception, but he doesn't exactly focus on the horrific experience of it. The reason is that PKD's characters tend to take on an attitude of problem-solving which lessens the emotional impact of horror. PKD's protagonists don't usually have a victim mindset. They most often either overcome their problems or at least aren't overwhelmed by them.
I don't know about Heart of Darkness. I did a quick search about it in reference to the horror genre. I saw an article which stated that it could've been categorized as horror when it was first published. I wouldn't consider it horror myself, but my memory of it isn't perfectly clear. I read it in highschool and don't remember experiencing it as horrific. Even though some horror is expressed in it, I don't think it has an overall feeling of horror. That is a good example though because I'm not sure what the dividing line is. My friend likes Conrad and I'll ask him what he thinks.
Of books I read in highschool, I personally found some other books more horrific. Lord of the Flies was pretty darn horrific in that it was so believable. Another novel was Hardy's Jude the Obscure which has had a longterm existentially horrific influence on my poor psyche.
Its kind of hard to make an objective definition of horror as the experience itself is so subjective.
Yeah, I agree about Lord of the Flies. I am glad I've never read Jude the Obscure !!
Must we distinguish horror from terror from upset? From being disturbed or shaken? As you say, the experience is so subjective. My question is prompted by a couple of disturbing books I read when much younger: George Orwell's 1984 tops the list, and Animal Farm was very upsetting to me also, but there are psychological torture things in 1984 which freak/creep me out to this day if I ever think of them.
That's cool, about the attitudes of PKD heroes !! And it's cool that you love having your sense of reality messed with !! I can appreciate the great flexibility that requires. (I have more now than I did when younger.) Do you think that's an Intuitive characterstic, flexibility around "realities?"
We mustn't anything at all. In some ways, genres are arbitrary categories. A funny thing is how any genre writer that is particularly talented gets put in the mainstream literature section of bookstores and libraries. If a writer is good, his writings must not be genre because by definition genre is crap. For instance, I've read plenty of genre fiction that is closer to mainstream literature than is Kafka. I think Kafka is one of the greatest horror writers who ever lived.
I'd be perfectly happy if they simply got rid of genre categories or else made them more relevant. In particular, horror doesn't seem like | |
include information that identifies hardware devices that are in the data path of the data object between the source and the destination, such as for example intermediary host bus adapters (HBAs), routers, and switches.
In an alternative example, the sequence 400 may comprise sending a data object to a plurality of locations at substantially the same time, for example, to a first location and a second location at substantially the same time. This may be described as simultaneously writing a data object to a plurality of devices. The sequence 400 may also comprise determining if the data object was successfully stored at the first location and the second location, and if so, storing in a single meta data record, meta data corresponding with the data object, wherein the meta data comprises first path information including a first source identifier, a first destination identifier, and a second destination identifier. Alternatively, the sequence 400 may comprise determining if the data object was successfully stored at the first location, and if so, storing in a single meta data record, meta data corresponding with the data object, wherein the meta data includes first path information comprising a first source identifier and a first destination identifier, and, determining if the data object was successfully stored at the second location, and if so, also storing in the single meta data record, additional meta data corresponding with the data object, wherein the additional meta data includes additional first path information comprising a second destination identifier. As an example, the first path information may further comprise a first time identifier. The sequence 400 may also comprise sending the data object from the first location to a third location. The sequence 400 may also comprise determining if the data object was successfully stored at the third location, and if so, adding second path information to the meta data corresponding with the data object, to update the meta data. As an example, the second path information may comprise a second source identifier, a third destination identifier, and a second time identifier.
In another alternative example, the sequence 400 may comprise sending a data object to a first location, a second location, and a third location at substantially the same time. As an example, the first location may be in a disk array, the second location may be a first tape library and the third location may be a second tape library. The sequence 400 may also comprise determining if the data object was successfully stored at the first location, and if so, storing in a single meta data record, meta data corresponding with the data object, wherein the meta data includes first path information comprising a first source identifier and a first destination identifier. The sequence 400 may further comprise determining if the data object was successfully stored at the second location, and if so, also storing in the single meta data record, first additional meta data corresponding with the data object, wherein the first additional meta data includes additional first path information comprising a second destination identifier. The sequence 400 may additionally comprise determining if the data object was successfully stored at the third location, and if so, also storing in the single meta data record, second additional meta data corresponding with the data object, wherein the second additional meta data includes additional first path information comprising a third destination identifier. The sequence 400 may also comprise sending the data object from the first location to a fourth location. The sequence 400 may further comprise determining if the data object was successfully stored at the fourth location, and if so, adding second path information to the meta data corresponding with the data object, to update the meta data. As an example, the first path information may further comprise a first time identifier, and the second path information may comprise a second source identifier, a fourth destination identifier, and second time identifier.
The sequence 400 may also include operation 420, which comprises detecting that the data object is corrupted, (which may be also be described as determining whether the data object is corrupted). In some cases the data corruption may not be discovered until after attempting to restore the data object from a backup copy of data, and error logs may be lost by the time the data error is discovered. As an example, the operation of detecting that the data object is corrupted may comprise examining a CRC base in the data, or could comprise using other data validation methods. A CRC base may be embedded in the data. An error is present if the CRC base does not match. After detecting that the data object is corrupted, the sequence may also include operations 422, 424, 426, 428, and 430, which are described below.
The sequence 400 may include operation 422, which comprises searching for an uncorrupted copy of the corrupted data object. Device histories may be compared to determine the degree of confidence in a copy of a data object. As an example, if the device histories are the same, then a copy of the data object is suspect. If the device histories are completely different, then there is a greater chance that the copy of the data object is not corrupted. The sequence 400 may also include operation 424, which comprises analyzing error logs for all devices included in the meta data for the corrupted data object. The sequence 400 may also include operation 426, which comprises identifying all devices included in the meta data for the corrupted data object, which indicate an error in their error log. The sequence may also include operation 428, which comprises searching meta data corresponding with an additional data object to determine if any device in the meta data for the corrupted data object that has an error in its error log is included in the meta data corresponding with the additional data object. If in operation 428 it is determined that a device that has an error in its error log is included in the meta data corresponding with the additional data object, then the sequence 400 may also include operation 430, which comprises analyzing the additional data object to try to determine if the additional data object is corrupted.
Prior to the invention, there was no easy way to identify which devices in a computing system handled which data objects. Consequently, it was very difficult to determine which device caused a data error. Generally, it is very difficult and time consuming to examine every device in a storage area network. To avoid this problem, some examples of the invention focus on the data path, and track which specific devices and hardware paths a data object passes through while it is being stored. With some examples of the invention, the path of a data object is tracked through the computing system, and information indicating which devices have "touched" the data object are stored in meta data. Some examples of the invention limit the search for defective devices, because the hardware paths, devices, and time that data is handled, is tracked, thereby providing a clearer trail to follow for problem determination and data recovery. If an unreported error occurs during the transfer of a data object, devices whose error logs are candidates for being examined can quickly be identified by using the information in the meta data. Thus, some examples of the invention facilitate quickly identifying failed hardware and/or software components causing data corruption. The history of data objects may be tracked across an entire storage subsystem, from application to end point, thereby providing a systematic view of an operation, and devices used to perform the operation. In addition, because the time window of an error | |
7 cameras that revolutionized photography and changed how we take pictures
By Dan Ginn December 8, 2019
From the first camera obscura to 35mm film to the modern cameraphone, the tools photographers use have come a long way. How we understand and use imaging technology keeps advancing, and manufacturers are working hard to ensure they continue to create tools that meet the evolving needs of photographers. New cameras are released constantly, but most offer minor improvements and fail to leave a mark on history.
Leica I — 1925
Nikon F — 1959
Kodak invents the first digital camera — 1975
Canon AE-1 — 1976
Apple iPhone — 2007
Canon EOS 5D Mark II — 2008
Sony A7 — 2013
The next evolution
Show 3 more items
Here is a look at seven cameras that did the opposite, that revolutionized the industry and are still talked about today for their contributions to the art and craft of photography.
Copyright: Hubertl, Papperlapap, Markus G. Klötzer, Namrood, XanonymusX und Thomas Fries. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0
In the year 1925, Leica announced a camera that would change everything. Prior to its release, bulky glass plates were still the most common method of recording an image. But then Leica came along with an ingenious idea to take 35mm motion picture film, rotate it sideways, and put it into a handheld device. The Leica I wasn't the first 35mm camera, but it was the first to really push and refine the format, making it more viable in the process. With the Leica I, high-quality photographs could be produced from a pocket-sized camera, which opened up completely new photographic disciplines. Thanks to its introduction, 35mm would go on to be the most popular film format ever, and Leica would forever live as a brand name synonymous with street photography.
iPhone in space: SpaceX crew shares Earth image shot on Apple's handset
How to share iPhone photos with Android devices
The best camera apps for the iPhone
Photo by Dnalor 01. Wikimedia Commons. CC-BY-SA 3.0
Way back in April 1959, Nikon introduced to the world to its first SLR (single-lens reflex) camera, simply called the Nikon F. All the features of the camera had already been available in models from other manufacturers, things like a pentaprism viewfinder, instant return mirror, and bayonet-mounted interchangeable lenses. But what Nikon did that set the F apart was to bring all of those elements together into a single product that was vastly superior to anything the industry had ever seen and used before. Probably the biggest testament to the quality of the Nikon F was its long lifespan and use in extreme situations. Manufactured until 1973, it was used extensively by photojournalists around the world, including Don McCullin, who's F absorbed a bullet impact in the Vietnam war, possibly saving his life. Modified versions of the camera were also used in space, including aboard the Skylab space station in the early 1970s.
Remnants of the F can still be seen in modern cameras. It introduced the F-mount, a lens mount that remains in use today on Nikon's DSLRs (that's digital single-lens reflex).
In 1975, while working for Eastman Kodak, electrical engineer Steven Sasson developed the world's first portable digital camera, building on the earlier work of Kodak's Bryce Bayer, who invented the now commonly-used Bayer filter sensor that sees red, green, and blue light. Sasson's camera weighed around eight pounds and shot photos with a resolution 0.01 megapixels (that's just 100 x 100 pixels). The camera was a prototype and never reached the consumer market. However, it was a catalyst for other companies to use the technology and make it attractive to the general public. Apple — who always finds itself being an innovator — was the first company to widely release a consumer-level digital camera with a Bayer sensor in the Apple QuickTake, back in 1994. As for the first DSLR, that credit goes to Fujifilm with the release of the FinePix S1 Pro in November 2001.
Kodak, which was making plenty of money selling film at the time, would never fully capitalize on its digital invention. Nevertheless, every other digital camera today is a result of Kodak's pioneering work.
Photo by: Cburnett Source: Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 3.0
Released in Japan in 1976, the Canon AE-1 was revolutionary for two main reasons. One, it was the first SLR to be microprocessor-equipped, allowing for functions such as shutter-priority automatic exposure. Two, it was insanely popular. Because of a big advertising push, Canon sold over one million units, sales no other manufacturer was able to boast at the time. The AE-1 lived at the vanguard of the electronic SLR age, and its use of plastic and modular construction helped keep costs down, making it an attractive camera for beginners and more casual shooters. In 1981, Canon released the AE-1 Program, an updated model with a fully-automatic exposure mode that could set both aperture and shutter speed. The AE-1 used Canon's FD lens mount, which would later be replaced by the EF mount with the arrival of the first EOS SLR in 1987.
iPhone 11 Pro Max Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends
In 2007 when Apple first released the iPhone, the camera on the device wasn't anything to write home about — it couldn't even shoot video. But as the tech giant developed its hardware and image processing, the cameras on iPhones became better and better, to the point of the three-camera system on the iPhone 11 Pro today. But it wasn't so much the hardware that made the iPhone a popular camera, but the software. When apps like Instagram hit the scene (which was iOS-only in the beginning), people were suddenly taking and sharing photos from the same device, instantly. It changed both photography and social media, and inspired the annual iPhone Photography Awards, which showcases an incredible collection of work from around the world.
But it's not just in the average person's hands that the iPhone has found success as a camera. Photojournalist Michael Christopher Brown used an iPhone to document the war in Lybia in 2011. The iPhone is also commonly used in the street photography genre and the device's cult following has branded iPhone photography as iphoneography.
Canon EOS 5D Mark II on the set of the film "Act of Valor."
The EOS 5D series has been a mainstay of Canon's professional camera lineup for over a decade, but no model has achieved legendary status like 2008's 5D Mark II. This was the first time Canon put a video mode into a DSLR, offering full HD 1080p resolution at 30 frames per second (a firmware update would later add 24 fps support after feedback from customers). Full HD combined with the Mark II's large, full-frame sensor and interchangeable lenses made cinema-quality video more affordable than ever, and by a huge margin. Not only did independent filmmakers flock to the Mark II, but the camera also spawned an entire industry of accessory makers who built rigs, follow focus systems, sliders, and other lightweight support gear. The success of the Mark II with filmmakers is arguably what prompted Canon to launch its own line of dedicated cinema cameras a few years later.
Video is now a staple feature of virtually every new DSLR and mirrorless camera. Canon is no longer the star of this show, but the EOS 5D Mark II set the stage. That it was also a capable still camera with a high-resolution, 21-megapixel sensor was really just icing on the cake.
Although the Sony A7 was far from the first mirrorless camera (that title goes to the Epson RD1) it was a game-changer in the young DSLR-versus-mirrorless debate. It was the first mirrorless camera with full-frame, or 35mm, sensor, the same size as the sensors in professional-level DSLRs. Digital Trends named it camera of the year in 2013. This was | |
Bobby Fischer in Iceland – chess in the ping-pong room
After his tumultuous arrival in Reykjavik, the preparations for the Match of the Century in Laugardalshöllin, and the disaster he suffered in game one, Challenger Bobby Fischer was on the verge of abandoning the entire event and returning home.
Fischer complained to match arbiter Lothar Schmid that the camera poking through a hole in the blue-and-white FIDE sign located at the back of the stage in game one had been disturbing him.
For game two he demanded that all television cameras be dismantled, and a number of front row spectator seats be removed.
Game two was scheduled for Thursday, July 13. The camera towers were dismantled, and the cameras themselves moved into two small alcoves, above the stage, that housed the air-conditioning. From there they could film the action through four-inch holes. Match arbiter Lothar Schmid turned up in the playing hall at 2:40 p.m. and examined the setup. "If Bobby will object to this," he said, "I will rule against him," he said.
At 4:30 Fischer's manager Fred Cramer called from the playing hall and told Bobby: "The towers are out, and also the camera backstage. They've found a great new place for the cameras – completely invisible and inaudible!" But Fischer was adamant: "I want all cameras out!" He refused to proceed to the hall. At five p.m., the starting time of the game, Schmid walked onto the stage and started Fischer's clock. The challenger had 60 minutes to make his first move. If he didn't he would forfeit the game.
Icelandic Chess Federation President Gudmundur Thorarinsson (above) now suggested that Fischer should play the second game under protest – to which Bobby simply said: "What does he think I am, a fool? Tell Thorarinsson if they forfeit me that's it: I'm taking the next plane back home." Grandmaster Fridrik Olafsson intervened and at 5:47 p.m. and, after speaking with Fischer, called Schmid to tell him: "Bobby will play, but you must ask Spassky if he will agree to restart the clocks." Schmid replied: "I cannot. Bobby has twelve minutes to make his move." At 6 p.m. Schmid stepped up to the playing table and stopped the clock. "Mr Fischer did not appear in the playing hall," he announced. "According to rule five of the Amsterdam Agreement he loses the game by forfeit."
In the hallways the display showed: Fischer has forfeited the second game – the score was now 0:2
What then transpired is vividly described by Prof. Christian Hesse in A great moment in chess. It is part three of a 2008 article series you might be interested to read. Links are given at the end of this article:
Bobby Fischer formally protested the forfeit with a long letter to Lothar Schmid delivered by him in person in the early hours of July 14 to Schmid's hotel room. Another of Fischer's lawyers, Andrew Davis, arrived a few hours later from the US to convince members of the Match Committee to overrule Schmid's forfeit decision. The Committee met at 10 a.m. the same day. It upheld the referee's ruling.
After this ruling, Fischer asked Fred Cramer, his chief assistant in Reykjavik, to prepare for him to leave Iceland. Shortly afterwards, he holds a reservation for the 3:15 p.m. flight to New York on July 17. Fischer told Cramer: "I want you to pick up those tickets tonight and bring them up here to me. Then I want you to figure out some plan to sneak me out to the plane. They might try to stop me, you know. It has got to be secret."
While all this is going on, Henry Kissinger is in San Clemente, California, involved in several rounds of extensive talks with the Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin during a US-Soviet summit. At some stage during the day he found the time to place a phone call to Reykjavik 22322, the number to reach Fischer. In addition, many telegrams arrived for Fischer urging him to play on.
Fischer is known to have made the decision to continue almost at the last minute, sometime early afternoon on Sunday, July 16, the day scheduled for game three. He had earlier asked Cramer to change his reservation to the last plane leaving Reykjavik that day. Around 3 p.m. Cramer knocked on Fischer's door to pick him up for the flight. His second William Lombardy opened the door, Paul Marshall also being in the room, the telegrams being scattered all over.
Fischer: "That two-game edge is gonna make it hard. But I can still do it, you know."
Marshall: "I know you can, Bobby."
Fischer: "All right. But you have to get me in that back room."
Marshall acted by phoning Schmid, telling him that Fischer had agreed to play if game 3 was held in a small, thirty-by-sixty foot separate room at the back of the stage without cameras, out of view from the spectators in the main hall. It was normally used for ping-pong. The Amsterdam Agreement, signed by both players, stated that a game could be moved to this room if there was a disturbance in the main hall.
Brad Darrach reports that at this stage Marshall said: "I've got it!" Striding to the nearest wall he jerked a fire ax out of its socket and brandished it. "You need a disturbance? I'll give you a disturbance! I'm going down to the stage right now and but up that chess table! With the table wrecked you couldn't play in the hall, you'd have to play up here. How many days in jail for destroying private property? One day? Hell, it's worth it!" Schmid tried to laugh. "That will not be necessary," he said. "I-I will call Mr Spassky."
Schmid considered himself to be acting beyond his authority if he simply moved game 3 there. He had to get Spassky's approval. He called the Champion immediately. Spassky said: "Pozhaluista" (That's o.k. with me.) He took the decision without conferring with his team. The team members found out only when they took their seats in the main auditorium. Spassky had felt he had to give Fischer something in return for the free point.
Not much later, a few minutes before 5 p.m., Lothar Schmid was in the ping-pong room. It did not contain much more than a chrome and black chair for Fischer and a simple armchair for Spassky as well as a playing table.
Schmid opened a window. The sound of children playing outside could be heard. Spassky arrived shortly afterwards and looked around for Fischer. But he was not there. Spassky sat down at the chessboard. Then Fischer arrived. And his eyes fell immediately on a closed-circuit television camera that had been installed in the ceiling to broadcast the game to the large audience in the main hall, the journalists in the press room and the commentators. It had been wrapped in blankets. The spectators had paid five dollars each, and some of them later complained that there was only a TV-screen instead of the real thing.
"No cameras!" Fischer roared. He paced the room back and forth, turning switches on the wall on and off. Schmid asked him to stop since Spassky was being disturbed. "Shut up, Lothar!" Fischer yelled back at Schmid.
Spassky turned white and stood up. Schmid later recalled:"When Bobby yelled at me, Boris became upset and said "If you do not stop the quarrel, I will go back to the playing hall and demand to play there." Spassky had reached the door already. Schmid was panic-stricken. He pleaded with Spassky: "Boris, you promised." Spassky shrugged his shoulders. Schmid turned to Fischer: "Bobby, please be kind." Schmid recollects:"I felt there was only one chance to get them together. They were two grown-up boys, and | |
D-Core
Uncovering tomorrow's disruptors.
What Is Metaverse?
How a word from 1992 promises to make billions in crypto
What Is Metaverse? How a…
Oh, you didn't know the word Metaverse is almost 30 years old? Or that 1992 was nearly 30 years ago? Well, we might have a fascinating tale to tell you.
In 1992, the Sci-fi novel Snow Crash introduced the concept of a Metaverse. In the novel's fictitious world, users of a VR-powered post-Internet system use the Metaverse to escape their world's dystopian reality. This topic, as you might know, has also been explored in pop culture by the likes of Ready Player One and Black Mirror.
The word Metaverse and its associated meanings have been making waves in the crypto world for the past year. Still, it was Facebook's Meta announcement in late October that undoubtedly put the term back into the mainstream spotlight.
If you missed out on this year's action… well, this pretty much summarizes it.
The Metaverse definition
The Metaverse definition is exactly what you might expect given the word's origin. When people say "Metaverse", they often refer to a powerful VR world in which users can immerse themselves into an experience almost indistinguishable from reality by combining Virtual Reality with other technologies.
It's crucial to understand that "Metaverse" isn't a synonym of "virtual reality", although they go hand in hand. A metaverse is conceived to be a network of virtual 3D worlds rendered in real-time, experienced simultaneously by a theoretically unlimited amount of users. These worlds are persistent, in the sense that there is continuity of data and user interactions and their ramifications aren't meant to be reset or undone. The Metaverse concept also requires strong ownership, history, identity and payments mechanisms, and no other technology fits the role of providing these systems to these virtual worlds better than the blockchain.
To define Metaverse also requires mentioning the role augmented reality experiences can play in the real world. Some mainstream games, such as Pokemon Go. already implement these solutions to great success. With the creation of Google Lens and similar devices, the adoption of these technologies is only likely to grow.
A good example of what aren't metaverse experiences are VR games in which the user does not interact with others. Solo experiences like VR games tend to be interesting, but they still lack the interoperability part of the Metaverse concept – which can come in a later stage of the Metaverse's growth and evolution.
In the investment world, there has been a Metaverse stocks ETF since June. The Roundhill Ball Metaverse ETF, invests in Nvidia, Microsoft, Tencent, and many other companies that have shown interest in building the Metaverse. Asides from Facebook's announcement, we can also cite Neuralink's announcement that the company will begin human testing in 2022 as a sign that immersive virtual experiences are just getting started approaching the "real feel" of sensorial experience.
And so, thanks to the Zuckerberg Metaverse, Metaverse crypto prices skyrocket
The announcement by Mark Zuckerberg and his company prompted an almost instantaneous, magnitudinal price hike in Metaverse-related crypto assets such as $MANA and $SAND. These are tokens of projects that, in one way or the other, could bring cryptocurrencies and blockchain into the Metaverse.
The surge in prices given Facebook's rebrand announcement highlights the perceived importance of the bets blockchain Metaverse projects are making, along with the interest in the inclusion of NFTs and other blockchain-based solutions in virtual worlds. NFTs, by design, are highly important tools for creators to benefit from the Metaverse, so it wouldn't be rare to soon see implementations, possibly by Facebook itself.
Where there is a trend, there is money to be made
This might be a good time to remember that there is an ongoing class action against Facebook for their alleged role in the bear market of 2017 (from our podcast archives).
Of course, as tends to happen in the crypto-verse (and elsewhere), different industry players quickly realized that Metaverse projects were likely to be where innovation and capital were to flow over the coming years. Many traditional tech and videogame companies have started to make moves into the trend, hoping to become important players in the Metaverse right from the time it starts to emerge.
While VR is hardly a new niche with many existing experiences (and, to be fair, known limitations), this cascade of interest has taken its derivates and integrations to a new dimension. Below, we've compiled some of the top crypto (and non-crypto) Metaverse projects (Metaverse tokens are signalled with a $ before their name). Remember this is not financial advice, just a number of pointers for you to get started on your research!
The crypto Metaverse ecosystem is rich and diverse (Source).
Below is a list of the most well-known, more popular Metaverse crypto tokens and projects.
Decentraland ($MANA): Buy land on a virtual world
Decentraland is an open virtual world, the most popular so far, created by the private company Metaverse Holdings Ltd in 2015, going through a very successful ICO in 2017 that raised $24 million and launching in February 2020. Decentraland's virtual world is divided into 90601 parcels of land in a grid, each individually unique and represented as freely tradeable Ethereum NFTs, integrated with Polygon. Parcels are fully customizable through the Decentraland Builder, a tool that enables constructions and decoration of all kinds in a user's piece of land.
Apart from single parcels of land, there are locally-managed districts in Decentraland. Each one has its own rules and themes – including the cyberpunk district Aetherea and the gambling district called Vegas City, just to name a few. The rules of a district are set collectively by its parcel owners. There are also community-owned plazas, which all $MANA holders manage collectively and function as hubs for players to gather freely.
On October 21st this year, Decentraland organized the Metaverse Festival in one of these plazas. The virtual music festival featured more than 80 artists, some of them even big names such as DeadMau5, Paris Hilton and RAC. Decentraland also features more permanent attractions such as NFT art museums and get-togethers.
Visiting Decentraland's world is completely free. $MANA, the game's currency, is used to buy wearables, exclusive avatar names and other NFT items. $MANA holders also perform governance procedures through Decentraland's governance portal. Their role in steering the platform is set to continuously increase until the DecentralandDAO gets complete control of the game's administration.
Gala Games ($GALA): A full blockchain game studio
Kent Barton, podcast friend, is ShapeShift's head of Research and Development and has published research on the Metaverse concept and ideas.
The blockchain gaming company Gala Games, maker of Town Star, Spider Tanks, and many other titles in development, seems to be poised to take a leading role in the Metaverse's evolution while staying true to blockchain's principles of decentralization and distributed governance through their token, $GALA. $GALA was in fact one of the biggest gainers in this November Metaverse crypto rally, skyrocketing by about 350%.
Gala's approach to game development is to prioritize exciting mechanics that make their games worth playing while integrating blockchain and play-to-earn features in an "almost invisible" way. Gala plans to implement compatibility features amongst their own games, a project they've come to call the "Galaverse". There is great expectation amongst the GameFi and Metaverse communities on what Gala will do. It seems like the organization will need to form partnerships and hire experienced professionals to take the following steps in their development, a process that they intend to begin shortly.
The Sandbox ($SAND): Sandbox Metaverse DAO to rule them all?
The Sandbox metaverse comes from a very successful 2D mobile game launched in May 2012 by Pixowl. Its evolution to a blockchain-enabled metaverse happened after being acquired by Animoca Brands, a Chinese software development company, in 2018. The SAND token ICO raised $7 million in 2019, and | |
matthewmcdonald.com
Pfand Questions and Answers on compulsory deposits in Germany
Posted byadmin November 5, 2018 Leave a comment on Pfand Questions and Answers on compulsory deposits in Germany
As of 1 January, 2003 deposits on one-way drinks packaging is compulsory. Since 1 May 2006 this has applied to mineral water, beer, soft drinks and mixed alcoholic drinks. The deposit system has increased the reusable share and put an end to the throwaway mentality. Below is a summary of the main aspects of the applicable compulsory deposit.
When deposits are charged
Which one-way drinks packaging is subject to the compulsory deposit?
Carbonated and non-carbonated soft drinks
Alcoholic mixed drinks (especially so-called alcopops) Drinks
Which sorts of one-way drinks packaging require deposit?
Which one-way drinks packaging don't I have to pay a deposit on?
Why wasn't there a deposit on one-way drinks packaging made of bio-degradable plastics containing at least 75 percent renewable raw materials before 2013?
Why isn't there a deposit on one-way drinks packaging with a volume of under 0.1 litres or over 3.0 litres?
Why isn't there a deposit on one-way packaging for juice, milk, wine or spirits?
Why isn't there a deposit on one-way packaging for certain dietetic drinks?
What is the procedure for dealing with imported drinks?
Is the export of one-way drinks packaging exempt from the compulsory deposit?
Is a deposit charged for so-called gift cans and promotional cans?
What is important when purchasing and selling?
What should consumers take into consideration when purchasing drinks?
Does the compulsory deposit make drinks cans and one-way bottles more expensive?
Who is the first in the supply chain obliged to charge a deposit?
What happens when a retailer does not levy a deposit on one-way drink packaging that is subject to a deposit?
Is value-added tax charged on the deposit?
Return and deposit reimbursement at the retail store
Where can I return one-way drinks packaging for which a deposit has been paid and claim back the deposit?
Can retailers refuse to take back packaging?
What can I do with damaged cans and one-way bottles?
What about packaging sold from vending machines? Where can I return that?
Where can I return reusable drinks packaging for which a deposit has been paid and claim back the deposit?
Management of returned one-way packaging
Who deals with returned one-way drinks packaging? Retailers, wholesalers or fillers?
Who recovers one-way drinks packaging? How can I find a recovery enterprise?
Nationwide deposit/return system
What purpose does a nationwide deposit/return system have?
How does the nationwide return system of 1 May 2006 for one-way drinks packaging for which a deposit has been paid work and deposit reimbursement work?
What about individual solutions?
What is clearing for?
Is it true that the European Commission considers the compulsory deposit to be a violation of European law?
Background of the Packaging Ordinance
Why was the compulsory deposit introduced on 1 January 2003?
Why did the compulsory deposit first apply only to beer, mineral water and sodas but not to iced tea?
What changes were made by the Third Ordinance Amending the Packaging Ordinance?
Why aren't drinks cans and one-way bottles just banned?
How does the compulsory deposit benefit the environment?
Are reusable drinks packaging and ecologically advantageous one-way packaging really more environmentally sound?
Does the compulsory deposit create jobs, or will jobs be lost as a result?
Are there similar deposit systems in other countries?
With the entry into force of the Third Ordinance Amending the Packaging Ordinance on 28 May 2005, the compulsory deposit in effect since 1 January 2003 was simplified and modernised. According to the new regulation, a deposit must be charged on non-ecologically advantageous one-way packaging with a filling volume of 0.1 to 3 litres.
Whether or not a drink in non-ecologically advantageous one-way packaging falls within the scope of the compulsory deposit is determined by section 9 (2) of the Packaging Ordinance. The following overview is a non-binding guide to which drinks are subject to a deposit.
Since 1 May 2006, the following drinks have been subject to a deposit if packaged in non-ecologically advantageous one-way drinks packaging with a filling volume of 0.1 to 3 litres:
Beer drinks, including mixed drinks containing beer. These include alcohol-free beer, cola-beer or soda-beer drinks, beer with syrup (such as Berliner Weiße with a shot of syrup), beer mixed with other alcoholic drinks (such as beer with vodka) and flavoured beer (for example tequila-flavoured beer). Compliance with the purity requirement is not the deciding factor.
All water drinks, in other words sparkling and still mineral water, spring water, spa water, table water and other waters, such as "near-water products", irrespective of the additives (including flavoured water, water with caffeine and water with oxygen).
Besides cola and sodas, these include
mixed drinks containing fruit juice or teas and mineral water (such as sparkling apple juice)
so-called energy drinks
tea and coffee drinks intended for consumption as cold drinks
bitter drinks and other carbonated and non-carbonated drinks.
produced using
products which are subject to spirits tax under section 130 (1) of the Federal Spirits
Monopoly Act or
fermentation alcohol made from beer, wine or wine-like products, including in
processed form, which has been processed using technology which no longer meets
the requirements for good manufacturing practice and containing less than 15 percent
alcohol or
– containing less than 50 percent wine or wine-like products, including in processed form.
One-way drinks packaging that is not categorised as ecologically advantageous packaging pursuant to section 3 (4) of the Packaging Ordinance is generally subject to the deposit.
Irrespective of the content, no deposit is charged on one-way drinks packaging that is recognised as ecologically advantageous within the meaning of section 3 (4) of the Packaging Ordinance.
drinks carton packaging (brick packs, gable-top cartons, cylindrical packaging)
drinks packaging in the form of polyethylene bags
stand-up bags.
Also, there is a transitional period lasting until 31 December 2012 in which there is no compulsory deposit for one-way drinks packaging made of biodegradable plastics containing at least 75 percent renewable raw materials if the producer or distributor participates in a dual system.
There is also no deposit on one-way drinks packaging with a volume of under 0.1 litres or over 3.0 litres.
Furthermore, no deposit is charged on one-way drinks packaging not listed in section 89 (2) of the Packaging Ordinance (cf. A1) or on packaging expressly exempt from the compulsory deposit. These are in particular:
fruit juices, fruit nectars, vegetable juices and vegetable nectars
milk or other drinks with a milk base (drinks with a minimum of 50 per cent milk or other milk derived products).
dietetic drinks within the meaning of section 1 (1) of the Ordinance on Dietetic Foodstuffs that
are exclusively intended for infants and young children
wine, sparkling wine and spirits.
The categorisation of these drinks groups is based on food law provisions. For drinks that fall into the category of soft drinks, one-way packaging of certain dietetic drinks is not subject to the compulsory deposit.
Why wasn't there a deposit on one-way drinks packaging made of bio-degradable plastics
containing at least 75 percent renewable raw materials before 2013?
In the transitional period lasting until 31 December 2012, there was no compulsory deposit to promote plastic drinks packaging that are biodegradable and contain at least 75 percent renewable raw materials. This special regulation did not prove effective. It was not extended. Since 2013 the general rules also apply to these packages.
Why isn't there a deposit on one-way drinks packaging with a volume of under 0.1 litres or
over 3.0 litres?
There is no deposit on one-way drinks packaging with a volume of under 0.1 litres or over 3.0 litres, because no alternative reusables system exists. Containers that size are not suitable for return in standard commercial reverse vending machines. The economic cost of constructing a return system for these container sizes in not justified by the environmental benefits (cf. BR-Drs 919/04).
In general, the deposit is due on all one-way drinks packaging with a volume of 0.1 litres to 3.0 litres, which are not classified as ecologically beneficial. The compulsory deposit is, however, limited to those kinds of drinks for which the environmental benefit justifies | |
Office of the Leader
Week in Review for November 1, 2019
ETHICS/CORRUPTION
Bipartisan Group of Legislators Call for Ethics Reform. Amidst ongoing public corruption investigations entangling multiple layers of Illinois government, Assistant House Minority Leader Grant Wehrli and a group of lawmakers is renewing the call for comprehensive ethics reform. At a Capitol press conference last Monday, the lawmakers said the General Assembly must take swift action to not only enhance Illinois' current public ethics laws, but also called for the creation of a new task force.
"When the penalty for a litany of serious ethical violations is no more than a misdemeanor, it's no wonder our statutes are failing to deter corrupt behavior," said Wehrli. "Now the FBI is executing search warrants across almost every level of government, and officials who hold influential positions are at the center of several investigations. There can be no more excuses for inaction.
"Releasing House Bill 361 from the rules committee and giving it a fair hearing needs to be the first step in this process. If the General Assembly can't take some basic action to rein in our own bad actors, then the notion of this body acting in the best interests of the people of Illinois is a farce."
As a first step in the process to restoring public trust, HB 361 dramatically increases the fines legislators face for engaging in numerus restricted activities and for violations of legislator rules of conduct. Wehrli also noted several other pieces of ethics reform legislation that has been filed in recent years, but never received full consideration by the General Assembly.
Rep. Tony McCombie leads charge for Ethics Reform Task Force Legislation. In the wake of ongoing federal investigations surrounding state and municipal governments, state lawmakers announced legislation creating an Ethics Reform Task Force. The Task Force will assess current laws, study best practices, and propose legislation to ensure Illinois has among the most stringent ethics laws in the nation.
"There are too many lapses to ignore. Structural deficiencies require the General Assembly to take action together on behalf of those we serve," said State Representative Tony McCombie. "To not move this resolution forward is to embrace the status quo. We must begin the process of restoring the public's trust by passing this resolution before the end of Veto Session."
"Illinois has long had severe problems with ethical lapses in government," said State Senator Sue Rezin. "Corruption is costing hard-working taxpayers too much, and tougher laws to prevent this are long overdue in our state. This ethics task force is essential to sorting out what exactly our state needs to reform to make corruption more difficult to undertake, and easier to detect and prosecute."
McCombie filed House Joint Resolution 87, the resolution to create the State Ethics Task Force, in the lead-up to the Fall Veto Session. The Task Force will be comprised of nine members: Member of the Governor's Staff or the Lt. Governor and two legislative members appointed by each caucus leader. The Task Force has a limited time frame to accomplish its work, with findings and a final report recommending legislative changes to the Governor and General Assembly due within ninety days following passage of this joint resolution.
House Republicans call for Arroyo's resignation, file petition to remove him from office. Following a day that saw both House Republican Leader Jim Durkin then Speaker Michael Madigan call for resignation of State Representative Luis Arroyo (D-Chicago) after news of federal bribery charges against Arroyo, Representative Tony McCombie followed through in filing a Special Investigating Committee Petition aimed at beginning the process of removing Arroyo from office in the Illinois House.
House Rule 91 was invoked in initiating a Special Investigating Committee, the first step in the process for House members to remove a duly elected fellow House Member from office.
"A current House member's arrest on a federal bribery charge is a serious development that demands immediate creation of a Special Investigating Committee," McCombie stated after filing her Petition, which requires the signature of three fellow legislators. State Representatives Amy Grant and Blaine Wilhour, both Republican legislators, co-signed McCombie's Petition.
The Petition was called for earlier in the day by Republican Leader Jim Durkin unless Arroyo resigned his office before the end of the day. When that resignation did not occur, McCombie initiated the Petition to appoint a six member bipartisan Special Investigating Committee toward reprimanding their colleague.
Cited as background for filing her Petition was Arroyo's arrest on October 25, 2019 on a federal bribery charge following an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI). According to the charge, Arroyo allegedly offered a $2,500 bribe to a current sitting State Senator in return for support of Sweepstakes legislation. There was an expectation that this payment would be the first of a series of payments to the Senator in exchange for his vote. The Senator, who worked as a cooperating witness for the FBI is also expected to be charged with filing false income tax returns and apparently wore a wire on behalf of the FBI in exchange for consideration on his own federal charges.
"Yesterday, I called for an Ethics Reform Task Force. While our Press Conference was still ongoing, the news of this new scandal broke. The time to end corruption in Illinois is now. I urge my colleagues to co-sponsor House Joint Resolution 87 to initiate an Ethics Task Force while we go about the work of immediately starting to remove colleagues who are self-dealing," Rep. McCombie continued.
Demmer Introduces Legislation to Ban Lawmakers from Performing Paid Lobbying Work with Local Government Units. In light of news reports that a member of the Illinois House of Representatives was arrested by Federal agents for attempted bribery of a public official, Deputy Republican Leader Tom Demmer introduced legislation Tuesday that would ban lawmakers from performing paid lobbying work with local government units while in office.
"As evidenced by the case of State Representative Luis Arroyo, lawmakers who serve as lobbyists can push legislation they can benefit from financially. That is wrong and a violation of our oath of office," said Rep. Demmer. "There is a clear conflict of interest for sitting lawmakers to perform paid lobbying work while in office. House Bill 3947 would ban lawmakers, their spouses, and live-in immediate family members from that activity. I urge my Democratic colleagues to support this bill and other ethics reform measures so we can eliminate conflicts of interest and restore trust in state government."
The legislation, House Bill 3947, would ban members of the General Assembly, their spouses, and immediate live-in family members from performing paid lobbying work with local government units. Currently, members of the Illinois General Assembly – state representatives and state senators – are prohibited from lobbying the State of Illinois, but are not prohibited from lobbying local government units, such as a counties or municipalities.
On Friday, October 25, Democratic State Representative Luis Arroyo of Chicago was arrested by Federal agents for attempted bribery of a public official. Arroyo works as a registered lobbyist with the City of Chicago in addition to his duties as a state representative. According to the United States Department of Justice, Arroyo attempted to bribe an unnamed state senator $2,500 per month in exchange for supporting legislation that would benefit one of Arroyo's lobbying clients. If convicted of the corruption charges, Arroyo faces up to 10 years in prison.
If HB 3947 were law prior to Rep. Arroyo's attempted bribery scheme, he would have been precluded from performing paid lobbying work on behalf of his client while serving in office.
House creates Special Investigating Committee to remove Rep. Arroyo from office, leading to Arroyo's resignation Friday. The newly-created Special Investigating Committee was to meet on Friday to begin its investigation into the charges against | |
\section{Introduction}
\subsection{Background} Let $M$ denote the centered Hardy-Littlewood maximal operator on $\mathbb{R}^d$, i.e. for $f \in L^1_{loc}(\mathbb{R}^d)$,
\begin{equation}\label{Intro_max}
Mf(x) = \sup_{r >0} \frac{1}{m(B_r(x))} \int_{B_r(x)} |f (y)|\,\text{\rm d}y\,,
\end{equation}
where $B_r(x)$ is the ball centered at $x$ with radius $r$ and $m(B_r(x))$ is its $d$-dimensional Lebesgue measure. One of the classical results in harmonic analysis states that $M:L^p(\mathbb{R}^d) \to L^p(\mathbb{R}^d)$ is a bounded operator for $1<p \leq \infty$. For $p=1$ we have $M: L^1(\mathbb{R}^d) \to L^{1,\infty}(\mathbb{R}^d)$ bounded. In 1997, Kinunnen \cite{Ki} showed that $M: W^{1,p}(\mathbb{R}^d) \to W^{1,p}(\mathbb{R}^d)$ is bounded for $1 < p \leq \infty$, and that was the starting point on the study of the regularity of maximal operators acting on Sobolev functions. This result was later extended to multilinear, local and fractional contexts in \cite{CM, KL, KiSa}. Due to the lack of reflexivity of $L^1$, results for $p=1$ are subtler. For instance, in \cite[Question 1]{HO}, Haj\l asz and Onninen asked whether the operator $f \mapsto |\nabla Mf|$ is bounded from $W^{1,1}(\mathbb{R}^d)$ to $L^1(\mathbb{R}^d)$. Progress on this question (and its variant for BV-functions) has been restricted to dimension $d=1$.
\smallskip
Let $\widetilde{M}$ denote the uncentered maximal operator (defined similarly as in \eqref{Intro_max}, with the supremum taken over all balls containing the point $x$ in its closure). Refining the work of Tanaka \cite{Ta}, Aldaz and P\'{e}rez L\'{a}zaro \cite{AP} showed that if $f$ is of bounded variation then $\widetilde{M}f$ is absolutely continuous and
\begin{equation}\label{Intro_AP}
{\rm Var\,} \widetilde{M}f \leq {\rm Var\,} f,
\end{equation}
where ${\rm Var\,} f$ denotes the total variation of $f$. Observe that inequality \eqref{Intro_AP} is sharp. More recently, Kurka \cite{Ku} considered the centered maximal operator in dimension $d=1$ and proved that
\begin{equation}\label{Intro_Ku}
{\rm Var\,} Mf \leq 240,004\, {\rm Var\,} f.
\end{equation}
It is currently unknown if one can bring down the value of such constant to $C=1$ in the centered case. Other interesting works related to this theory are \cite{ACP, CFS, CS, HM, Lu1, St}.
\subsection{Discrete setting} In this paper we consider issues of similar flavor, now in the discrete setting. Let us start with some definitions.
\smallskip
We denote a vector $\vec{n} \in \mathbb{Z}^d$ by $\vec{n} = (n_1, n_2, \ldots, n_d)$. For a function $f:\mathbb{Z}^{d}\rightarrow \mathbb{R}$
we define its $\ell^{p}$-norm as usual:
\begin{equation}\label{Intro_l_p_norm}
\|f\|_{\ell^{p}{( \mathbb{Z}^{d})}}= \left(\sum_{\vec n\in \mathbb{Z}^{d}} {|f(\vec n)|^{p}}\right)^{1/p},
\end{equation}
if $1\leq p<\infty$, and
\begin{equation*}
\|f\|_{\ell^{\infty}{(\mathbb{Z}^{d})}}= \sup_{\vec n\in\mathbb{Z}^{d} }{|f(\vec n)|}.
\end{equation*}
We define its total variation ${\rm Var\,} f$ by
$$
{\rm Var\,} f= \sum_{i=1}^d \sum_{\vec n \in \mathbb{Z}^d} \big| f(\vec n+\vec e_{i})-f(\vec n)\big|,
$$
where $\vec e_{i}=(0,0,\ldots,1,\ldots,0)$ is the canonical $i-$th base vector. Also, we say that a function $f:\mathbb{Z}^{d}\to\mathbb{R}$ is a {\it delta function} if
there exist $\vec p\in\mathbb{Z}^{d}$ and $k\in\mathbb{R}$, such that
$$
f(\vec p)=k\ \ \ \text{and}\ \ \ f(\vec n)=0 \ \ \forall\ \vec n \in\mathbb{Z}^{d}\setminus\{\vec p\}.
$$
\subsubsection{A sharp inequality in dimension one} For $f:\mathbb{Z}\to \mathbb{R}$ we define its centered Hardy-Littlewood maximal function $Mf :\mathbb{Z} \to \mathbb{R}^+$ as
\begin{equation*}
Mf(n) = \sup_{r \in \mathbb{Z}^+} \frac{1}{(2r+1)} \sum_{k=-r}^r |f(n+k)|,
\end{equation*}
while the uncentered maximal function $\widetilde{M}f :\mathbb{Z} \to \mathbb{R}^+$ is given by
\begin{equation*}
\widetilde{M}f(n) = \sup_{r,s \in \mathbb{Z}^+} \frac{1}{(r +s +1)} \sum_{k=-r}^s |f(n+k)|.
\end{equation*}
In \cite{BCHP}, Bober, Carneiro, Hughes and Pierce proved the following inequalities
\begin{equation}\label{obj 0}
{\rm Var\,} \widetilde Mf \leq {\rm Var\,} f \leq 2\|f\|_{\ell^{1}(\mathbb{Z})}
\end{equation}
and
\begin{equation}\label{obj 1}
{\rm Var\,} Mf\leq \left(2+\frac{146}{315}\right) \|f\|_{\ell^{1}(\mathbb{Z})}.
\end{equation}
The leftmost inequality in \eqref{obj 0} is the discrete analogue of \eqref{Intro_AP}. The rightmost inequality in \eqref{obj 0} is simply the triangle inequality. Both inequalities in \eqref{obj 0} are in fact sharp (e.g. equality is attained if $f$ is a delta function). On the other hand, inequality \eqref{obj 1} is not optimal, and it was asked in \cite{BCHP} whether the sharp constant for \eqref{obj 1} is in fact $C=2$. Our first result answers this question affirmatively, also characterizing the extremal functions.
\begin{theorem}\label{lim d=1 C=2}
Let $f:\mathbb{Z}\to\mathbb{R}$ be a function in $\ell^{1}(\mathbb{Z}).$ Then
\begin{equation}\label{main theo cent d=1}
{\rm Var\,} Mf\leq 2\,\|f\|_{\ell^{1}(\mathbb{Z})},
\end{equation}
and the constant $C=2$ is the best possible. Moreover, the equality is attained if and only if $f$ is a delta function.
\end{theorem}
\noindent {\sc{Remark:}} In \cite{Te}, Temur proved the analogue of \eqref{Intro_Ku} in the discrete setting, i.e.
\begin{equation}\label{Te_Var}
{\rm Var\,} Mf \leq C \ {\rm Var\,} f
\end{equation}
with constant $C=(72000)2^{12}+4$. This inequality is qualitatively stronger that \eqref{main theo cent d=1} (in fact, ${\rm Var\,} f$ should be seen as the natural object to be on the right-hand side), but it does not imply \eqref{main theo cent d=1}. By triangle inequality, inequality \eqref{main theo cent d=1} suggests that it may be possible to prove \eqref{Te_Var} with constant $C=1$, but this is currently an open problem.
\subsubsection{Sharp inequalities in higher dimensions} We now aim to extend Theorem \ref{lim d=1 C=2} to higher dimensions. In order to do so, we first recall the notion of maximal operators associated to regular convex sets as considered in \cite{CH}.
\smallskip
Let $\Omega\subset \mathbb R^{d}$ be a bounded open convex set with Lipschitz boundary, such that $\vec 0\in$ int$(\Omega)$ and that $\pm \vec e_{i} \in \overline\Omega$ for $1 \leq i \leq d$.
For $r>0$ we write
\begin{equation*}
\overline\Omega_{r}(\vec{x}_{0}) =\big\{\vec{x} \in\mathbb R^{d}; \, r^{-1}(\vec{x}-\vec{x}_{0})\in \overline{\Omega}\big\},
\end{equation*}
and for $r=0$ we consider
\begin{equation*}
\overline\Omega_{0}(\vec{x}_{0}) =\{\vec{x}_{0}\}.
\end{equation*}
Whenever $\vec{x}_{0}=\vec 0$ we shall write $\overline\Omega_{r}=\overline\Omega_{r}\big(\vec{{0}}\big) $ for simplicity. This object plays the role of the ``ball of center $\vec x_{0}$ and radius $r$" in our maximal operators below. For instance, to work with regular $\ell^{p}-$balls, one should consider $\Omega=\Omega_{\ell^p}=\{\vec x\in\mathbb{R}^{d}; \|\vec x\|_{p}<1 \}$, where $\|\vec x\|_{p}=(|x_{1}|^{p}+|x_{2}|^{p}+\ldots+|x_{d}|^{p})^{\frac{1}{p}} $ for $\vec x=(x_{1},x_{2},\ldots,x_{d})\in \mathbb{R}^{d}$ and $1 \leq p < \infty$, and $\|\vec x\|_{\infty}=\max\{|x_1|, |x_2|, \ldots, |x_d|\}$.
\smallskip
Given $f:\mathbb{Z}^d \to \mathbb{R}$, we denote by $A_{r}f(\vec n)$ the average of $|f|$ over the $\Omega$-ball of center $\vec n$ and radius $r$, i.e.
\begin{equation*}
A_{r}f(\vec n) = \frac{1}{N(r)}\,\sum_{\vec m\in \overline\Omega_{r} }{|f(\vec n+\vec m)}|,
\end{equation*}
where $N(\vec x,r)$ is the number of the lattice points in the set $\overline\Omega_{r}(\vec x)$\ (and $N(r):=N(\vec 0,r)$). We denote by $M_{\Omega}$ the discrete centered maximal operator associated to $\Omega$,
\begin{equation}\label{Intro_disc_Omega_cent}
M_{\Omega}f(\vec n)=\sup_{r\geq 0}A_{r}f(\vec n)=\sup_{r\geq 0} \frac{1}{N(r)}\,\sum_{\vec m\in \overline\Omega_{r} }{|f(\vec n+\vec m)}|,
\end{equation}
and we denote by $\widetilde{M}_{\Omega}$ its uncentered version
\begin{equation}\label{Intro_disc_Omega_uncent}
\widetilde{M}_{\Omega}f(\vec n)=\sup_{\overline\Omega_{r}(\vec x_{0}) \owns \vec n}\,A_{r}f(\vec x_{0}) =\sup_{\overline\Omega_{r}(\vec x_{0}) \owns \vec n}\, \frac{1}{N(\vec x_{0},r)}\,{\sum_{\vec m\in \overline\Omega_{r}(\vec x_{0}) }{|f( \vec m)}|}.
\end{equation}
It should be understood throughout the rest of the paper that we always consider $\Omega$-balls with at least one lattice point. These convex $\Omega$--balls have roughly the same behavior as the regular Euclidean balls from the geometric and arithmetic points of view, in the sense that for large radii, the number of lattice points inside the $\Omega$-ball is roughly equal to the volume of the $\Omega$-ball (see \cite[Chapter VI \S 2, Theorem 2]{Lang}).
\smallskip
Given $1\leq p< \infty$ and $f\in \ell_{loc}^{1}(\mathbb{Z}^{d})$, we denote by $M_{p}$ the discrete centered maximal operator associated to $\Omega_{\ell^p}$,
\begin{equation*}
M_{p}f(\vec n)=M_{\Omega_{\ell^p}}f(\vec n)
\end{equation*}
and for $p=\infty$, we denote
$$
Mf(\vec n)=M_{\Omega_{\ell^\infty}}f(\vec n).
$$
Analogously, we denote by $\widetilde M_{p}f$ and $\widetilde Mf$ the uncentered versions of the discrete maximal operators associated to $\Omega_{\ell^p}$, for $1 \leq p \leq \infty$. Note that in dimension $d=1$ we have $M_{p}=M \ \text{and}\ \widetilde M_{p}=\widetilde M$ for all $1\leq p\leq \infty$.
\smallskip
In \cite{CH}, Carneiro and Hughes showed that, for any regular set $\Omega$ as above and $f:\mathbb{Z}^{d}\to\mathbb{R}$, there exist constants $C(\Omega,d)$ and $\widetilde C(\Omega,d)$ such that
\begin{equation}\label{obj 2}
{\rm Var\,} M_{\Omega}f\leq C(\Omega,d)\|f\|_{\ell^{1}(\mathbb{Z}^{d})}
\end{equation}
and
\begin{equation}\label{obj 3}
{\rm Var\,} \widetilde M_{\Omega}f\leq \widetilde C(\Omega,d)\|f\|_{\ell^{1}(\mathbb{Z}^{d})}.
\end{equation}
Inequalities \eqref{obj 2} and \eqref{obj 3} were extended to a fractional setting in \cite[Theorem 3]{CMa}. Here we extend Theorem \ref{lim d=1 C=2} to higher dimensions in two distinct ways. We find the sharp form of \eqref{obj 2}, when $d\geq 1$ and $\Omega=\Omega_{\ell^1}$ (i.e. rombus), and the sharp form of \eqref{obj 3}, when $d\geq 1$ and $\Omega=\Omega_{\ell^\infty}$ (i.e. regular cubes). As we shall see below, we use different techniques in the proofs of these two extensions, taking into consideration the geometry of the chosen sets $\Omega$.
\smallskip
For $d\geq1$ and $k\geq 0$ we denote $N_{1,d}(k)=\big|\overline{(\Omega_{\ell^1})_{k}}\big|=\big|\{\vec x\in\mathbb{Z}^{d}; \|\vec x\|_{1}\leq k\}\big|$. Here is our next result.
\begin{theorem}\label{main theo cent}
Let $d\geq2$ and $f:\mathbb{Z}^{d}\to\mathbb{R}$ be a function in $\ell^{1}(\mathbb{Z}^{d})$. Then
\begin{equation}\label{eq main theo cent}
{\rm Var\,} M_{1}f\leq 2d\left(1+\sum_{k\geq 1}\frac{(N_{1,d-1}(k)-N_{1,d-1}(k-1))}{N_{1,d}(k)}\right)\|f\|_{\ell^{1}(\mathbb{Z}^{d})}=:C(d)\|f\|_{\ell^{1}(\mathbb{Z}^{d})}
\end{equation}
and this constant $C(d)$ is the best possible. Moreover, the equality is attained if and only if $f$ is a delta function.
\end{theorem}
\noindent
{\sc{Remark:}} Note that $C(d)<\infty$, because there exists a constant $C$ such that
$$
N_{1,d}(k)=Ck^{d}+O(k^{d-1}),
$$
where $C=m(\Omega_{\ell^1})$ (see \cite[Chapter VI \S 2, | |
there appears to be a violation of current conservation at the junctions of the DW and the edges.
The apparent violation of current conservation is resolved by the self-consistent solution for the order parameter and excitation spectrum for the $p_x$-type single domain wall crossing the channel. A self-consistent calculation of the structure of a single, laterally confined $p_x$-type DW is carried out for $T=0.5 T_c$ and $D=20\xi_0$. The results include the current density at every point within the channel. We initialize the order parameter to be $-\Delta_{\perp}(x) p_x + i \Delta_{\parallel}(x) p_y$ in the region $y < 0$, and $+\Delta_{\perp}(x) p_x + i \Delta_{\parallel}(x) p_y$ in the region $y > 0$, with the domain wall centered at $y = 0$. The order parameter is calculated by self-consistent solution of the Eilenberger and gap equations (Eqs. \ref{equ-eilenberger-transport}, \ref{gap-equ-ss1}, \ref{gap-equ-ss2}), subject to the asymptotic boundary conditions for $y\rightarrow\pm\infty$ determined by the two possible degenerate chiral ground states in the channel. The mass current is calculated from Eq. \ref{equ-mass-current} once the self-consistent propagator and order parameter are determined.
\begin{figure}
\includegraphics[width=0.5\textwidth,trim={1cm 1cm 1cm 0}]{jxy_y.pdf}
\caption{
Slices of the components of the current density, $j_{x}(x,y)$ (top panel) and $j_y(x,y)$ (bottom panel), as a function of $y$ spanning the DW for several positions, $x$, in the channel.
}
\label{fig-domainwall-current-cut-selfconsistent}
\end{figure}
Figure \ref{fig-domainwall-current-selfconsistent} shows the current density in a region containing a single $p_x$-type DW. As expected, the current confined near $y=0$ flows in the $+x$ direction with a magnitude that vanishes on approaching the edges at $x=0$ and $x=20\xi_0$.
Current conservation is maintained by the appearance of two branches of current flowing in the $-x$ direction at distances of $y\approx\pm 5\xi_0$ from the DW, smoothly connecting to the currents on both the top and bottom edges as shown in Fig. \ref{fig-domainwall-current-selfconsistent}.
Finally, we note that the complex current pattern associated with the laterally confined chiral DW satisfies current conservation at every point within the computational cell, i.e. $\nabla\cdot\vec j(\vr,T)=0$ to the accuracy of our numerics which was set by an order parameter residual no greater than $10^{-4}$ at each point in the computational grid.
Finer detail of the current density of the chiral DW confined in the channel is shown in Fig. \ref{fig-domainwall-current-cut-selfconsistent}. The component $j_x$ exhibits the same sequence of current reversal on traversing the DW for all of the cuts defined by $x$. Indeed, the $p_x$-type DW appears to support \emph{three branches} of chiral Fermions, two branches with chirality $\nu =-1$ centered at $y=\pm 5\xi_0$, and a third branch with chirality $\nu=+1$ centered at $y=0$, for a net chirality of $\sum\nu=-1$. This is then consistent with the index we expect for the $p_y$-type DW with a single chiral branch bound to the DW.
\section{Stability of PDW phase near $D_{c_2}$}\label{sec-Free_Energy}
The self-consistent solutions for the order parameter, in a region where the chiral A phase has lower energy than the polar phase, yields the PDW phase with broken translational symmetry. The PDW phase spans a wide range of channel widths, $D_{c_1} \le D \le D_{c_2}$. The period of the PDW increases with increasing $D$ (weaker confinement) and diverges as $D\rightarrow D_{c_2}(T)$; i.e. the period becomes of order the system size. The upper critical channel dimension, $D_{c2}(T)$, can be defined as the value of $D$ at which it costs zero energy to introduce a DW wall separating two otherwise degenerate domains of laterally confined \Hea. In the limit $D\lesssim D_{c_2}$, the question is ``how is it possible for a domain wall to lower the total energy of \Hea\ in a laterally confined geometry?''
The answer is that in a laterally confined geometry there is competition between the DW energy and the pair-breaking energy - the occupied branch of chiral Fermions - at edges. Each edge can be shown to be mathematically equivalent to one-half of a $p_y$-type DW. Furthermore, the energy cost of the edge-DW is reduced within several coherence lengths of the point of intersection of the lateral DW ($p_x$-type) and the edge-DW ($p_y$-type). Since the energy per unit length of the $p_y$-type DW is greater than that for the $p_x$-type DW, there is a critical channel dimension at which the energy is lowered by entry of a lateral $p_x$-type DW. Once one DW can lower the energy, DWs proliferate the channel. Interactions between DWs regulate the DW density, and thereby determine the period of the PDW phase for $D\lesssim D_{c_2}$.
\begin{figure}
\includegraphics[width=\columnwidth]{PDW_Energy-Density.pdf}
\caption{Difference in energy density between PDW phase
and homogeneous A phase for confinement $D = 15\xi_0$,
the energy is in units of $2\pi T_c$.
The $x-y$ plane is the position of the channel.
}
\label{fig-energies-density}
\end{figure}
The stability of the PDW phase very near $D_{c_2}(T)$ is analyzed on the basis of a quasiclassical reduction of the Luttinger-Ward (LW) free-energy density for confined phases of \He.
The resulting LW free energy is then a functional of the quasiclassical Green's function, $\whg$, and mean-field pairing self energy, $\whDelta$,\cite{vor03}
\be
\Delta\Omega[\whg,\whDelta]
=
\frac{1}{2} \int_0^1\,d\lambda\,Sp'\left\{\whDelta(\whg_{\lambda}-\whg)\right\}
+
\Delta\Phi[\whg]
\,,
\ee
where the functional $\Delta\Phi[\whg]$ is defined by an digrammatic expansion of the free energy functional in terms of effective interactions of low-energy quasiparticles and Cooper pairs. For our analysis we retain the leading-order weak-coupling BCS corrections to the LW free-energy for the normal Fermi-liquid, c.f. Ref. \onlinecite{ali11}.
The operation, $Sp$, is short-hand for
\be
Sp\{\widehat{X}\}
= N_f T \sum_n\int d^3r \int \frac{d\Omega_\vp}{4 \pi}
Tr_4
\left(\widehat{X}(\vp,\vr;\eps_n)\right)
\,.
\ee
The stationary conditions for the LW functional generate both Eilenberger's transport equation for the propagator, $\whg$, as well as the self-consistency equation for the off-diagonal self-energy, i.e. the ``gap equation''.
The auxiliary propagator, $\whg_{\lambda}$, is a function of the variable coupling constant, $\lambda$, and is defined as the solution of the Eilenberger equation with a rescaled interaction, or equivalently $\whDelta_{\lambda}\equiv \lambda\whDelta(\vp,\vr)$. For $\lambda=1$, corresponding to the full pairing interaction, we obtain the self-consistent propagator, $\whg$, and self-energy, $\whDelta$, whereas $\lambda=0$ corresponds to the normal state with $\whDelta = 0$ and $\whg_0 = -i\pi\sgn(\eps_n)\tz$.
Using the self-consistency condition from variations of the LW functional with respect to the propagator, and using the linearized gap equation to regulate the log-divergent Matsubara sums, the LW functional can be reduced to a functional of the off-diagonal pairing self-energy, $\Delta\Omega[\Delta] = \int_{\text{V}} d^3r\,\mathcal{F}[\Delta(\vr)]$, where the free-energy density is
\begin{widetext}
\be
\mathcal{F}[\Delta(\vr)] = N_f\ln\frac{T}{T_c}\int dS_{\vp}|\Delta(\vp, \vr)|^2
-
\int_0^1 d\lambda\int dS_{\vp} T\sum_n
\left(
\Delta(\vp,\vr)\f^*_\lambda(\vp,\vr;\eps_n)
+
\Delta^*(\vp,\vr)\f_\lambda(\vp,\vr;\eps_n)
-
\frac{\pi}{|\eps_n|}|\Delta(\vp,\vr)|^2
\right)
\,,
\ee
\end{widetext}
where $f_\lambda(\vp,\vr;\eps_n)$ is the solution of the Eilenberger transport equation defined with the re-scaled self-energy, $\Delta_{\lambda}$. This functional generalizes the GL free energy functional to all temperatures and to length scales $\hbar/p_f \ll D \lesssim \xi_0$.
The difference in free-energy density between the PDW phase and the laterally confined A phase is shown in Fig. \ref{fig-energies-density}. The free energy density of the PDW phase is high at the center of domain wall, but the PDW phase gains in condensation energy at the junctions of the DW and the edges.
The gain in energy at the junctions dominates as the width of the channel is reduced. Below the critical channel dimension, $D_{c2}$, the PDW phase has lower free energy, and is thus the stable ground state.
The numerical results for the upper critical channel width, $D_{c2}(T)$, are shown in Fig. \ref{fig-inhomo-instability} as the blue squares. The resulting PDW phase is the thermodynamically stable phase over a wide range of channel widths ($\Delta D \approx 7\xi_0 \approx 5.6\,\mu\mbox{m}$) and temperatures for laterally confined \He.
\section{Summary and Outlook}
The ground state of thin films of \He\ is the chiral Anderson-Morel state (\Hea), which breaks both time-reversal symmetry and mirror symmetry. The 2D A phase is a topological phase with Chern number $N=\pm 1$ for the condensate of each Fermi disk. A consequence of the topology of \Hea\ films is a spectrum of chiral edge states, their signature being a ground-state edge current.
Under lateral confinement, edge states on opposing boundaries hybridize and develop a an intricate band structure for both the sub-gap and continuum spectrum. Hybridization of the edge spectrum leads to a reduction of the maxiumn edge current at any | |
written by frequent guest critic and writer for this blog, John W. Barker. Barker (below) is an emeritus professor of Medieval history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He also is a well-known classical music critic who writes for Isthmus and the American Record Guide, and who hosts an early music show once a month on Sunday morning on WORT-FM 89.9 FM. For years, he served on the Board of Advisors for the Madison Early Music Festival and frequently gives pre-concert lectures in Madison. He also took the performance photos.
Roberto Plano appeared last season in a four-piano concert in the Salon Piano Series at Farley's House of Pianos. This year, to open the 2017-18 season in the same series on last Sunday afternoon, the Boston-based pianist brought along his pianist wife, Paola Del Negro, for a duo program of utter fascination. (They are below.)
The first half of the program was devoted to music for piano-four hands, the duo alternating between primo and secondo parts. Robert Schumann's six "Pictures From the East," Op. 66, are examples of the composer's important duo output.
Burgmein was the pen name of the covert composer better known as the influential music promoter and publisher Giulio Ricordi (below). His set of six duet pieces evoking characters from the Italian Renaissance Commedia dell'Arte tradition followed.
Then came two of the Hungarian Dances (No. 2 and 5) by Johannes Brahms in their original piano-duo form. (You can hear them play Hungarian Dances by Brahms in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Ending the program's first half was one of its biggest hits. After composing the great orchestral cycle of six patriotic scenes called "My Country," Bedrich Smetana (below) made four-hand piano arrangements of each. Plano and Del Negro played that for the popular "Moldau." This arrangement managed to capture a good deal of the orchestral original's coloristic and dramatic effects, and was played with particular power.
The entire second half was devoted exclusively to a major work by Brahms, his Sonata for Two Pianos, Op. 34b. This work was created first as a string quintet, then later discarded. But the two-piano version (below) was superseded by Brahms' transformation of its material into a Quintet for Piano and Strings (reckoned as plain Op. 34).
The Quintet — which, by the way will be performed by the UW's Pro Arte Quartet in the Salon Series next March — is, of course, one of the composer's masterpieces. But the Two-Piano Sonata survives on its own merits. The parallel material is presented cogently, all of it redistributed in consistently keyboard terms, as against the mixed media of the Quintet.
The duo played it with the necessary Brahmsian burliness and power, and on Farley's wonderful vintage pianos it sounded simply magnificent.
As an encore, the duo played a two-piano arrangement of an energetic tango piece by Astor Piazzolla, but then followed with another, in this case, an eight-hand piano trifle in which the Plano-Del Negro duo were joined as parents by their two young daughters (below). The audience could hardly resist that!
Plano and Del Negro are great discoveries. And once again, the Salon Piano Series has shown itself as one of the exciting, if too-little-known of Madison's musical treasures.
For more information about the Salon Piano Series and its upcoming concerts, go to: http://salonpianoseries.org
Tags: American Record Guide, Arts, big, big hit, Brahms, Burgmein, Chamber music, character, Classical music, color, Commedia dell'Arte, composer, covert, critic, cycle, dance, daughters, discovery, drama, duet, duo-pianists, duo-piano, Early music, effect, emeritus, Farley's House of Pianos, four-hand, History, hit, host, Hungarian, Hungarian Dances (Brahms), Hungary, influential, Isthmus, Itaky, Italian, Jacob Stockinger, Johannes Brahms, John W. Barker, Madison, Madison Early Music Festival, major, masterpiece, material, media, Medieval, mixed media, Moldau, Music, My Country, Orchestra, patriotic, patriotism, Paula Del Negro, pen name, photo, Piano, Piano Quintet, Piazzolla, Pictures From the East, power, Pro Arte Quartet, professor, promoter, publisher, Radio, Renaissance, review, Ricordi, Roberto Plano, Salon Piano Series, Schumann, Sonata, string quintet, tango, tradition, transformation, treasure, two-piano, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Wisconsin, work, WORT-FM 89.9, YouTube
Classical music: This weekend brings two major piano recitals – by UW-Madison virtuoso Christopher Taylor and Italian duo-pianists Roberto Plano and Paola Del Negro – plus a public piano master class
As you have already seen from this week's postings so far, this coming weekend is loaded with conflicting concerts.
One result is that events that would normally receive separate postings must be combined.
Such is the case today, with previews of two very appealing piano concerts plus a master class.
This Saturday night at 8 p.m. in Mills Hall, the celebrated UW-Madison pianist Christopher Taylor (below), a bronze medalist in the Van Cliburn Competition, will perform a terrifically well-planned recital that is a classic case of contrast-and-compare, and reveals how music begets more music.
Here are some notes from the School of Music about the program:
"Christopher Taylor's conceptual program features Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 7, arranged by Franz Liszt.
Over 175 years later, New York City-based composer John Corigliano would use Beethoven's Seventh to inspire his Fantasia on an Ostinato. (You can hear the famous slow movement with the "ostinato," or continually repeated musical phrase or rhythm, that inspires it in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
On the second half, Taylor will feature two takes on the title "Moments Musicaux" or Musical Moments: first, he will play Franz Schubert's version, published in the last year of his life (1828); then he'll perform Sergei Rachmaninoff's version from the start of his career.
Tickets are $15 for adults, $5 for non-School of Music students and children. Ticket information is here.
On Saturday afternoon at 4 p.m., as part of the Salon Piano Series, the Italian husband-and-wife piano duo of Roberto Plano and Paola Del Negro (below) will hold a FREE and PUBLIC master class with local students at Farley's House of Pianos, 6522 Seybold Road, on Madison's far west side near the West Towne Mall.
Then on Sunday afternoon at 4 p.m., in the main showroom at Farley's, the duo will perform.
The program features: "Pictures from the East" (Bilder aus Osten), Op. 66, by Robert Schumann; Burgmein's (aka Ricordi) Suite "Les amoureux de Colombine"; Johannes Brahms' Hungarian Dances 1-5; "The Moldau" by Bedrich Smetana; and Brahms' Sonata for Two Pianos, Op. 34b, which later became his famous Piano Quintet.
Tickets are $45 for the public and $10 for full-time students.
For more information about tickets and biographies of the performers, go to: http://salonpianoseries.org/concerts.html
You can also call (608) 271-2626.
Tags: Arts, Beethoven, Beethoven Seventh, Chamber music, Christopher Taylor, Classical music, Colombine, concept, conceptual, Concert, conflict, Corigliano, dance, duo-pianists, east, Fantasia, Farley's House of Pianos, Franz Schubert, Hungarian, Hungary, husband, Italian, Italy, Jacob Stockinger, Johannes Brahms, life, Liszt, Madison, master class, Moldau, Moments Musicaux, Music, musical, New York City, note, ostinato, phrase, Piano, pictures, posting, quintet, Rachmaninov, recital, rhtyhm, School of Music, Schumann, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Smetana, Sonata, Student, symphony, ticket, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Van Cliburn, Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, virtuoso, West Towne Mall, wife, Wisconsin, YouTube
Classical music: The Salon Piano Series at Farley's House of Piano announces its new season of four concerts
The reliably virtuosic and musically enjoyable Salon Piano Series has just announced its 2017-18 season.
A piano duo, piano soloists and the Pro Arte Quartet provide traditional salon concert experiences with informal seating and restored pianos.
The 2017-18 Salon Piano Series season again includes piano soloists and ensembles typical of 19th-century European salon concerts, with well-known concert artists from Italy, Russia, Israel and Ireland.
According to a press release, the season's offerings are:
Roberto Plano and Paola Del Negro Duo (below) on Sunday, Sept. 24, 2017 at 4 p.m.
Italian husband and wife piano duo Roberto Plano and Paola Del Negro kick off the season with Schumann's | |
at their door, looking for something to occupy him. Miller couldn't help it; he liked the work, liked the challenge of it. Working in field ops was the career that never stopped being interesting, and Darius liked to be interested. Nothing else he'd ever done for Starfleet could quite match the pace of the cloak-and-dagger stuff. The fact that on more than one occasion it had almost killed him didn't cross his mind.
Even though his body-clock told him it was two in the morning—he was still operating on San Francisco time—here in Paris, it was a rainy weekday and the Palais was busy. He scanned the faces of the staffers who passed him in the corridor; the majority of them were serious and intent, focused on a myriad of tasks. Miller was good at reading the mood of a place, but it didn't test him to figure out what was hanging over everyone here.
A report on the incident at Da'Kel had been cycling on the Federation News Service feed as he donned his uniform before setting off to headquarters, so the word was out to the public at large. Over a thousand deaths and a dozen starships destroyed, several hundred of the victims UFP citizens, and many of the ships under the flags of Federation member worlds. One Starfleet vessel was on the list of the dead—the _U.S.S. Bode,_ a _Ptolemy_ -class tug lost with all hands. That data hadn't been released to the media yet, but it was only a matter of time before it broke. Right now, the news feeds were suggesting the incident was the result of some kind of accident; that, too, would soon be revealed as incorrect.
Although it wasn't his first time in the Palais, this was Miller's first visit to the Cézanne Room; a midsize conference space, it was dominated by a long oval table and a single window that looked out on the grey Parisian day. The walls at either side each sported one of the paintings of Mont Sainte-Victoire, and the ceiling was dominated by a crystal chandelier that also concealed a holographic projection rig. A mix of civilians and Fleet types filed in ahead of him, filling up the seats.
Miller fell into step behind a statuesque Andorian woman and hesitated a moment in the corridor, pausing to catch a glimpse of himself reflected in the glass frontage of a cabinet. He pulled at the hem of his claret-toned tunic to straighten it and brushed a speck of lint from his shoulder. A calm, steady face stared back at him, square-jawed and dark like carved teak, closely cut black hair tight against his skull. Satisfied that he presented a good example of Starfleet's finest, he walked in and searched for a seat in the rows away from the table proper.
A number of other officers were already there and he gave them a respectful nod. Miller immediately recognized Admiral Sinclair-Alexander; the woman was on the fast track to becoming the new chief of staff, so he'd heard. At her side, a tall man with Nordic features and a shock of blond hair caught his eye. He came over.
"Commodore Hallstrom."
"Darius," said the flag officer, with a warm smile. They shook hands. "I heard you were back on Earth. It's good to see you." His accent had the strong Scandinavian tones characteristic of those born on the Fenris Alpha colony.
Miller nodded. "Thank you, sir. Are you well?"
Hallstrom's easy smile faded. "Not since I woke this morning, no." He paused. "I have to admit, if someone saw fit to put you in this room, then I hate to imagine what might really have gone on out at Da'Kel."
"You haven't been fully briefed yet?"
The commodore shook his head. "There wasn't time. This has all been pulled together very quickly." He sighed. "I'd ask you what you know, but—"
"I think everyone here is going to find out in pretty short order, sir." He nodded toward the entrance as a group of three figures in heavy, steel-colored armor walked in, surrounding a fourth.
Kasiel was rail-thin for a Klingon, but he made up for it with a manner that mirrored his wiry, athletic build. The ambassador was the polar opposite of his predecessor Kamarag, slight where the other man had been broad, taciturn where the other had been bellicose. He took a seat at the far side of the table and his cohort of bodyguards formed a wall behind him, impassive and silent. Seven years on from the Gorkon assassination, and the Klingons still insisted on a full military escort for their representative. It was their way of reminding Starfleet of their failures.
Miller knew a little about Kasiel; Starfleet Intelligence's files on him were sketchy, but they had learned that he served with General Chang in the years leading up to the conspiracy to murder Gorkon. As the commander understood it, Kasiel had been cleared of any involvement in the plot, but his proximity to Chang—the architect of much of the Gorkon assassination's plans—had meant he was forced into a temporary form of exile. In this case, that meant the duty of being the Empire's ambassador to the Federation. Miller had no doubt Kasiel resented every day he was forced to spend on Earth, but the Klingon hid it well enough.
A Grazerite adjutant entered from another door on the far side of the room and addressed them all. "Gentlebeings, the President of the United Federation of Planets."
Everyone rose to their feet as the Efrosian walked in, his expression tense. President Ra-ghoratreii moved quickly to the head of the table and sat, gesturing with a nod for the assembly to do the same. He looked worn and his heavy brow was furrowed. This was to be his last year in the office, his term limit reached, and doubtless the politician wanted to end his tenure on a high note. An incident like this could destroy any hope of that.
"Here we go," said Hallstrom quietly, returning to his seat as Miller found a place where he could observe the proceedings as they unfolded.
"Thank you all for coming," began the president, absently stroking at his thin white beard. He glanced up as the room was sealed. "I think it is best if we go directly to the heart of this." At a nod from him, the adjutant activated the holoprojector in the chandelier and ghostly display panes formed over the middle of the table. Miller saw a tactical display of the Da'Kel System there, centered on the third planet and the orbiting utility platform. "I believe everyone is aware of the reports circulating about what took place at the Da'Kel transfer facility approximately twenty hours ago, Earthtime. A subspace discharge destroyed the station and several vessels in close orbit." The display showed a sphere picked out in white grid-lines, expanding to envelop the image. "I've asked our Klingon colleagues here to provide a more full and frank explanation. Ambassador?"
Kasiel stood and gave a shallow bow. "Mister President." His voice was firm and steady, but Miller immediately got the impression of a man who was working from a prepared script. "The current public data suggests that a warp drive system failure aboard a Tellarite transport vessel caused a cascade subspace event. That is incorrect. In fact, it was the deliberate and premeditated use of a weaponized subspace device, with the sole intent of taking as many innocent lives as possible, and in a most honorless manner."
Admiral Sinclair-Alexander leaned forward. "Are you suggesting this was the use of an isolytic weapon, sir?"
"I am not suggesting it at all, Admiral," Kasiel countered. "I am _confirming_ it. A weapons system prohibited under the addenda to the Khitomer | |
Did you know that the best micro drones is so discreet that it can easily fit in your hand? This means that they can easily be carried around as they comfortably fit into an average size pouch or bag. With that in mind, you may be thinking about getting one. Great idea!
Drones have become the modern rave when it comes to monitoring and surveillance, not to mention how fun they are to use. They are suitable for indoor and outdoor use.
You can even use them to watch breathtaking landscapes as you comfortably relax in your home. Ready to get one of your own? We have a great list for you this year.
4.1 What is the best micro drone?
4.2 What is the weight of Nano drones?
4.3 How to Fly a Drone?
4.4 How to keep the drone stabilized on air?
4.5 Which feature to consider while choosing a drone?
Best Micro Drones is designed to meet the needs of the consumers. After hours of research, testing and analyzing the features, we put Best Micro Drones is a one of the best in our Product Type List.
This Holy stone drone F181w is an easy to operate device quite suitable for anyone learning the ropes. With its long battery life and excellent image quality, it is a wonderful addition for any novice.
The drone has an inbuilt pressure altitude hold that gives it the ability to stabilize and take great pictures. The automatic function is intelligent enough to hold still and hover at the current height as you partake your favorite hobby. It allows you to let go of the throttle stick as you focus on the images.
When it comes to the use of drones the camera is non-arguably one of the most important features. This micro drone has an inbuilt HD camera. The camera has a high resolution that gives you excellent pictures. The cameras 720P° Wide-angle view allows you to take wide shots. You don't have to miss anything.
The camera comes with an inbuilt Wi-Fi that allows you see images in real time via the Wi-Fi. You are thus able to zoom in or out, change angles, move closer etc. to get the best images possible. Additionally, this allows you to transmit the images to other devices like laptops and phones via the Wi-Fi.
This is a very useful trait in that the camera is able to stay above ground. This is because the sensor allows it to sense when it is about to hit the ground.
The drone is able to stay longer in flight because of the two powerful batteries that come with it. The dual 3.7V 750 mAhLiPo batteries allow for double the time in play or work.
The Holy Stone F181W is extremely user-friendly. It is appropriate for kids who may not have experience in drone flying. This is because its operation is by a 6 Axis Gyro. No complicated buttons or controls.
Quickly overheats. Requires breaks after every 10 minutes of use.
The REDPAWZ R011 racing drone is a drone for more experienced drone users with high performance and convenient use. With its headless mode, one key return and HD goggles, the drone is suitable for indoor and outdoor activities.
This one of a kind drone is made with the ability to perform awesome maneuvers. The drone can flip, roll over to a whole 360 degrees, hover on its sides etc.
It is perfect for the drone lover who enjoys high action performance. The aerobatic flight maneuvers of the drone make it one of a kind suitable for novices and professionals.
The micro drone has four powerful propellers. Apart from helping in the high action movements of the drone, the propellers help the drone resisting crashes. The propellers utilize the wind power available to power themselves.
The Mini-drone is made with three variable speed modes. This is useful especially for new users who may need lower speeds to help them navigate the drones around. Also, the speed control is essential when you want to perform the flips and turns as they require lower speeds.
Watching the images from the drone has been made extremely easy because of the wearable eye viewer with a wide LCD screen in fitted.
You are now able to totally concentrate on the navigation as the customized googles are conveniently worn. The goggles are easy to set up with the auto search channel function.
The micro drone is able to give you better photos as its camera is able to focus on wide angles. This means you get a wider view and better pictures with the 120° wide angle camera lens. The image quality is good as the camera's lenses are light sensitive producing vivid colors.
The powerful 2.4GHz remote utilizes state of the art technology to control the drone. This technology ensures that the remote clicker has accurate control of the drone. In this way, you are able to not only control the movement of the drone but also its maneuvering capabilities.
The Syma X20 is a basic drone for beginners and for those who love door flying. Despite the fact that it does not come with a camera, its ease of use make up for it.
The SYMA X20 is possibly among the best nano fpv drones because of its ability to stay stable in flight. This is because of the altitude hold function that allows you to set a specified altitude mode of flight. Additionally, the mode enables the drone to stay hovering at a specific height giving you a better view of things.
The drone features a unique flat like a wide design. The power button is conveniently placed at the top for easy operation. The drone also has pop guards to provide extra security for the drone.
Additionally, the drones remote is designed with orientation led lights, green at the front and red at the rear. This helps you in orientation.
However, unlike the conventional light positions, the lights are internally located. This means that the lights illuminate a big portion of the drone making the drone more visible to you. The drone does not have any detachable parts.
Unlike the conventional control stick transmitters found in most drones, the Syma X2 has sliders. These unique sliders also work quite efficiently. The transmitter is also fitted with a pebble design which is wide enough making it comfortable to hold.
Further to make it easy to operate, the drone comes with a single button take-off and landing. This means that with just one press you can automatically power the drone to take off or recall it.
This mode enables the drone to automatically face the remote control as soon as it is powered. This means you can easily identify the direction of the drone for flight.
Can perform 360-degree rotations easily.
The Holystone F181c RC is another extremely easy to use micro drone suitable for beginners. With features like a HD camera, long flight time and easy controls, any novice will have an easy time enjoying the ride.
This easy to use the device is fitted with an inbuilt transmitter that allows you to control the drone in a range of an approximate maximum of 100 meters. It also allows you to easily maneuver the drone as you desire.
The drone has the ability to perform in different adjustable power modes. You can opt to set the power modes ranging from 0, 25, 50, 75, and 100%. This gives you the flexibility to select how much power you would like.
This helps you especially when you are new in drone flying as you can use the lower power levels as you learn to control the drone and ease into the higher power modes as you get better.
This micro drone is fitted with a headless mode that helps you in guiding the quadcopter. This means that as soon as | |
in return.
4. Account for your time.
5. Do not use the children to attack your partner.
24.
Elisa lies awake beside Derek wondering what else might be different. She remembers the moment of the switch—has been trying to remember it more precisely—and is certain that there were more or fewer clouds, or that the clouds changed position. And if the weather was different, then a lot of other things must be different. Right?
But then wouldn't Silas himself, Silas's existence, be the thing that changed the weather, changed everything that is different now? No. There was something before the van crash that kept him from going along for the ride, and something before that, and something before that. And so the world was already altered, and Silas's death or survival trivial. The world must be indifferent to Silas, to her affairs and her appearance and her personal demeanor. She is a casualty of circumstance, not the center of the universe. And so this change, this transference, cannot be meaningful. It's something that happened by accident: a glitch.
For this universe not to be about her, not to be made with her in mind, then, there would have to be more than just the one where Silas survived. There would have to be one where Silas was maimed, and one where Silas was never born, and one where he was a delightful and well-adjusted child, and one where he was a houseplant.
How many would there have to be? All of them.
Of course it's easier just to say she's nuts. She's the glitch. At least that way, she can imagine how she might ever return, if that's what she wants to do. The mind is more malleable than the universe, as far as she knows. You don't need to be a genius or a video game character or from the future to manipulate the mind. The mind is made to be fucked with.
This, then, is the most likely, the most sensible, explanation—the world is the same, and Elisa Brown is the thing that is different. There's a phenomenon she has read about, not déjà vu, but déjà vécu, false memory. You think you remember something, but it's your unconscious mind that has created it, for purposes the conscious mind can't fathom. The thing you remember seems real. But in fact only the thing before you is real. This room. This bed. This man.
She wonders what time it is. The clock is on Derek's side of the bed, turned away because its glow is too bright. Has she slept yet tonight? She feels that she hasn't, but there's light outside, almost. Or maybe that is the moon. At this hour, whatever hour it might be, anything and everything seems possible, anything at all could be true. What has happened seems real. The possibility of return seems real.
If she isn't insane, and if she could return, what would that mean? That is, if her consciousness leaped from one body to the next, then who is to say the body it left is still alive? Maybe the other Lisa isn't in it, mourning now for Silas; maybe that body is dead. Maybe it ran off the road and through the guardrail and there is a funeral in that world, for her, going on today. Maybe Derek is waking up alone today to bury her.
Or who is to say that this consciousness wasn't just copied, that the other Lisa is the same as ever, working at the lab and carrying on with her lover? Even if she could go back, maybe there is no place for her to go. Her body there is already occupied by the original.
And if this is so, then what happened to the woman who occupied this body? If Elisa leaves it now, perhaps it will drop dead, too.
Of course all of these thoughts are predicated on the idea that the consciousness in question is, in fact, a thing. A thing that has to be somewhere. And this is not a notion Elisa Brown has ever believed in. The soul. The God who tends it. All of it, nonsense. The soul is chemistry, it dies with the body. Consciousness is an illusion, a piece of software. When the machine shuts down, the program isn't merely resting. It doesn't exist.
What has happened to her does not fit into this worldview. Yet there is none she knows of that will accommodate it.
Derek stirs beside her. She doesn't want to wake him. She slides out of bed, pads to the toilet, and then down the stairs to the kitchen and her computer. She is hoping that when she powers it on she will find an e-mail from Sam. But what she finds instead is one from Amos Finley. It reads, Lisa. Have you thought about seeing me one on one as we discussed?
The e-mail has been cc'ed to Derek.
Her reply goes to the therapist only. No, I don't think so.
She is startled, first at this apparent breach of privacy, and then even more startled that the therapist is awake and sending e-mail at 5:00 a.m. on a Saturday.
Elisa sits and considers. There is some code here, some message that she does not understand. What is the value of betraying her to Derek in this small way? It is an effort to force her to reform. They are ganging up on her, the men.
As if the e-mails have summoned him, Derek appears, wrapped in his thin cotton robe.
"Who are you e-mailing?"
His back is to her. He has opened the coffeemaker and is dumping the grounds in the trash under the sink. He does this with the brusque, exaggerated movements that suggest displeasure at her not already having done it.
She says, "The therapist is suggesting a private session. With me. He cc'ed you."
"What therapist?" he asks, filling the coffee urn with water.
She says, "Our therapist."
"Why are you calling him 'the therapist'?"
"Sorry," she says, after a moment. "Amos."
He doesn't respond. Something in the curve of his back indicates that he believes he's being fucked with. Please, Derek, she wants to say, it's me! But she says nothing.
He asks her, "So when are you going?"
"I'm not."
"Why not?" Derek turns, straddles the stool across the table from her. Behind him the coffeemaker begins to pant and moan.
Instead of answering, she says, "It's strange that he's e-mailing at this hour."
"It's strange that you are."
Their eyes meet. His hand reaches for a mug of coffee that isn't there yet. Fluidly he transforms this motion into a gentle stroking of the table's surface.
And just like that she would like to have sex with him. She is startled by the thought, and he seems to notice, and to notice what it is that caught her attention. He moves, just barely—the head cocked a fraction of an inch, the single eyebrow twitching over one eye. She closes the laptop, slides down off the stool, and walks out of the kitchen without a glance behind her. She takes off her nightgown on the way up the stairs. By the time she's standing naked by the bed he has crossed the threshold of the bedroom, his robe billowing around him.
It's quick and intense. His body is better here. Stronger. He doesn't seem younger—indeed, he looks and feels his age. But this is better than the concealing softness of the other Derek. Her own, heavier body feels more erotic. She makes no sound other than a single deep involuntary groan.
For those moments there is nothing to apologize for and everything makes sense.
They lie beside each other, touching at the hip. Down in the kitchen, the coffeemaker beeps five times.
"You're different," he says, this time without hostility or accusation.
"Yes."
"Do you know why?"
"Not | |
Should bodybuilding be an Olympic sport? Our forum members share their thoughts on whether or not bodybuilding should be added. Learn the pros and cons of this sub culture sport being in the Olympics and see if you agree.
TOPIC: Should Bodybuilding Be An Olympic Sport?
This has been an ongoing debate amongst bodybuilders and almost anyone else who has an interest in the Olympics. Weightlifting already has its place in the Olympics, but not bodybuilding. Should bodybuilding be an Olympic sport? Why or why not? Why is bodybuilding not already an Olympic sport? Do you think making bodybuilding an Olympic sport would help the sport? Do you think it would help the Olympics?
Should bodybuilding be an Olympic sport? Absolutely. Ever since Ben Weider, President of the International Federation of Bodybuilders petitioned the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in the early 1970's regarding the issue of bodybuilding, this topic has become a hot issue.
The golden years of bodybuilding in the 1970s brought the sport to a new level of popularity. The days of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dave Draper, and Sergio Oliva shone a light on the beauty of the human body, as well as showing the amiable personalities of those who practice bodybuilding. This led to a rapid increase in the fan base as well as more competitors, a trend that is still prevalent today.
Arnold and Dave Draper working out.
There are plenty of fans who would love to see bodybuilding lifted to a whole new level of popularity as part of the Olympic Games, so what's the big problem?
Currently, the Olympic program consists of 35 different sports, 53 disciplines and more than 400 events. These sports widely range from cycling all the way to weightlifting. The fan base, competitors, and sponsors are willing; so would adding bodybuilding be that much of a difficulty?
Why Is Bodybuilding Not Already An Olympic Sport?
Bodybuilding is not already an Olympic Sport largely due to the stubbornness of the IOC and OPC (Olympic Planning Committee). In the 1970s, the two groups argued several reasons why Bodybuilding wasn't an applicable choice as an Olympic sport. Three main points were raised.
The IOC and OPC claimed that simply, bodybuilding is not a sport and therefore has no place in the Olympic Games. Who decides what a sport is in the first place? I searched and found a list of pre-requisites for a sport.
The relevance of the outcome of the activity and the individual's role in it extends to the groups and collectivities that do not participate directly in the act.
The activity consumes a greater proportion of the individual's time and attention due to the need for preparation and the degree of seriousness involved in the act.
Arguably, the primary problem the IOC and OPC have with allowing bodybuilding as an Olympic sport concerns drug abuse. The IOC and OPC claimed that the prevalence of the use of performance enhancing drugs would prevent bodybuilding from complying with Olympic drug policies. The Olympic Games have harsh and vigilant doping rules, which would clash with the common practices of many professional bodybuilders.
However, there is a whole natural aspect of bodybuilding that does not involve doping. The Olympics could continue their drug testing and allow only natural bodybuilders to compete on an Olympic level. This is in keeping with the tradition of the Olympics being a competition among amateurs in a field, not professionals.
The final reason stated by the OPC and IOC was that the judging in competitive bodybuilding was far too subjective for an Olympic judge to critique.
Of the 35 sports in the Olympics, are there no sports that are subjectively judged? Performances by athletes in diving, figure skating, ice dancing, gymnastics and many other Olympic sports are subjectively evaluated, so bodybuilding would fit in perfectly!
Along with the notion of subjectivity, the IFBB has set definite requirements for competitions and competitors alike. There is elimination, pre-judging, semi-final and final rounds which each have specific requirements.
The IFBB has plenty of judges who assess professional bodybuilding shows. If finding a judge would be such an issue, the IOC or OPC could easily have access to hundreds of judges who can readily judge any Olympic show.
Can It Help The Sport?
Do You Think Making Bodybuilding An Olympic Sport Would Help The Sport? Do You Think It Would Help The Olympics?
I definitely believe that making bodybuilding an Olympic sport would help the sport. The Olympics would boost bodybuilding to a whole new level of popularity.
Competitive bodybuilding has never been a mainstream sport, however its place in the Olympics would make it better known and recognized. Likewise, the more access to the sport would allow people to learn more about it, and possibly take part in it themselves.
Bodybuilding would help the Olympics by widening the range or sports being shown. The Olympics were started by the Greeks; people who revered aesthetic bodies that were well toned and well nourished.
By showcasing bodybuilding, the Olympics would be encouraging spectators, young and old, to eat right, work out, tone their bodies, and to take care of their health. These messages are critical in a world currently plagued by so many people who are overweight.
is not the triumph but the struggle."
If there are any questions or comments, please feel free to Email me at mcrosqrt23@aol.com.
The Olympics have been a way of individuals coming together from all over the world and showing off their talents representing their country of origin. Athletes train their entire lives in order to compete in the prestigious games.
If you ask anyone on the Bodybuilding.com forum or anyone who has been training (bodybuilding) for awhile they will tell you that this sport is NOT easy, far from it! It requires dedication, discipline, knowledge, courage, strength and much more.
However saying this, let us analyze what the IOC (International Olympic Committee) considers a sport.
Looking at the above, apart from the doping part, bodybuilding would fit right in.
Looking on to see what would make bodybuilding an Olympic Sport (again taken direct from the IOC website). I have highlighted important points throughout.
1.4 Sports are admitted to the program of the Olympic Games at least seven years before specific Olympic Games in respect of which no change shall thereafter be permitted.
2.1 A discipline, being a branch of an Olympic sport comprising one or several events, must have a recognized international standing to be included in the program of the Olympic Games.
2.2 The standards for the admission of disciplines are the same as those required for the admission of Olympic sports.
3.1 An event, being a competition in an Olympic sport or in one of its disciplines and resulting in a ranking, gives rise to the award of medals and diplomas.
3.2 To be included in the program of the Olympic Games, events must have a recognized international standing both numerically and geographically, and have been included at least twice in world or continental championships.
3.3 Only events practiced by men in at least 50 countries and on three continents, and by women in at least 35 countries and on three continents, may be included in the program of the Olympic Games.
3.4 Events are admitted not later than three years before specific Olympic Games in respect of which no change shall thereafter be permitted.
4.1 To be included in the program of the Olympic Games any sport, discipline or event must satisfy the conditions specified by this rule.
4.2 Sports, disciplines or events in which performance depends essentially on mechanical propulsion are not acceptable.
4.3 Unless the IOC decides to the contrary, a single event cannot simultaneously give rise to both an individual and a team ranking.
4.4 Sports, disciplines or events included in the program of the Olympic Games which no longer satisfy the criteria of this rule may nevertheless, in certain exceptional cases, be maintained | |
because of this. It's interesting because there are those riders. It's a story. If you want to be part of Ducati fans, or Kawasaki fans or Yamaha fans you have your idol and can keep pushing every race."
Marini also pointed out that though there was plenty of media buzz around WorldSBK, but race attendance was still relatively poor. "In Superbike the grandstands are empty which is a pity because for me this year it's very interesting."
There are a lot of reasons why MotoGP has seemed to have lost its way, but Marini is right to point to the role characters play. The loss of Valentino Rossi to retirement and Marc Marquez for the best part of two years to an arm injury has been a massive blow. Those who are left are relative unknowns, though Fabio Quartararo is chipping away at megastardom. That is where Dorna could really make a difference, by finding a way to present personalities, to give the fans a reason to care, a rider to root for, and a rider to root against.
If it was easy, of course, they would have done it already. All I can say is that I am glad I am not in charge.
If you enjoyed this article, please consider supporting MotoMatters.com. You can help by either taking out a subscription, supporting us on Patreon, by making a donation, or contributing via our GoFundMe page. You can find out more about subscribing to MotoMatters.com here.
Spielberg, Austria
round_number:
Well, Pecco tried to assert
GSP replied on Fri, 2022-08-19 23:14
Well, Pecco tried to assert himself as a "bad boy" character over the break, but that kinda fizzled.
I'm not a fan of the sprint race idea. I like the Superpole races only because there are such good battles in SBK, but even those I could happily do without. There's plenty of content in each series' weekend.
My buddy begs me to get a
mtiberio replied on Fri, 2022-08-19 23:32
My buddy begs me to get a WSBK subscription, but I barely have time to watch all the MotoGP sessions. Never mind moto 2 or 3. More races and classes dilutes.
WSBK Subscription
Matt Warburton replied on Sat, 2022-08-20 03:08
Highly recommend getting the WSBK subscription. The racing is fantastic, other than the incredibly irritating commentator (can't remember his name, not the Scottish guy). Toprak is a very frustrating guy to watch as he just block passes on the brakes and messes Rea or Bautista up. He has zero personality but the racing is great to watch. Rea is so bloody stubborn and determined (massive respect to him) and Bautista weighs 100lbs so he rockets away on every straight.
As to sprint races in MotoGP my question is why? Keep the focus on Sunday's spectacle. If anything go to a solo lap qualifying format. That would resolve the issue in MotoGP and Moto3 of people looking to or a tow. Funny how it doesn't seem to be an issue in Moto2.
As a Canuck I highly recommend the MotoGP subscription as well. We'll with the price and my 93 year old dad enjoys it as well!
Lilyvani replied on Sat, 2022-08-20 21:24
I think I know what you mean and yes, that commentator can be pretty irritating, but let's give him a bit of slack to learn the job. If you look at all the comments below, it took Simon Crafar a while to become liked and I suspect the same will happen here. One thing I've noticed this year is that he's stopped trying to show how incredibly knowledgeable he is (which you'd expect from a former champion) and started trying to make the race itself more exciting - so he's getting there.
Rudeboy replied on Fri, 2022-08-19 23:49
I do stream both series. Also F1. I will say they are both entertaining to me , however WSBK does have some characters …TopRak, the fearless , Alvaro Bautista , the lil' puppy chipping at your heels , Johnny Rea , the fighter and Scott Redding -the cry baby who always gets in his feelings when TopRak buzzes him like a fighter jet …..🤷🏿♂️
In the spirit of safety
tpnewsk replied on Fri, 2022-08-19 23:55
I think there's some kerbing on the right-hand-side of the track missing between 1 and 2a. We've seen Moto3 boys go onto the grass even before the new layout, and all classes are hugging the right side more than ever this year it seems.
I think if they want the
WaveyD1974 replied on Sat, 2022-08-20 00:02
I think if they want the characters back they should stop policing every aspect of the riders' character. What they wear. What they say. What gestures they can make with their middle fingers. There's a warm happy feeling whenever two rivals are all lovey but these days there's a lower limit of acting professionally....all the time. No more fighting in the stairwell. Possibly a reaction to the fall out of 2015 which did get all too ridiculous but I bet a lot of people became interested in MotoGP because of it. I don't think it can be manufactured, that would induce vomit. Maybe just need to step back a little. However, seeing how much grief Vinales got for ragging his motor last year maybe we now live in a world were riders need to be squeaky. I wonder if Dorna are the straightjacket or is it social media ?
Well hell, we could start
mtiberio replied on Sat, 2022-08-20 02:17
Well hell, we could start with all the babies and marriages last year. Any of them "shotgun"?
I wasn't a fan, but now I am
St. Stephen replied on Sat, 2022-08-20 02:23
I wasn't a fan of Simon Crafar when he started reporting from the pits. Hard to understand, stumbled, awkward, didn't get a lot out of his interview subjects. Fast forward to FP2 today and, honestly, I was blown away. Again. He is so good. Describing the difference a few mm of wheelbase makes, how he felt about Remy being odd man out at GasGas, and that amazing sequence where the camera was over Marc's shoulder looking at Pol in the box, and he interpreted Pol's hand movements to say that he had trouble with the rear on corner entry. Five years ago I motorcycled through Invercargill to worship my favorite Kiwi, but Simon has just moved past that guy on my list.
I wasn't a fan of the Superpole race in WSBK, but now I am. Dorna has turned FP3, and FP2 if the forecast isn't perfect, into qualifying for qualifying. So why not make it a real race? Sometimes I do get sick of the "win at the slowest pace possible" tire mgmt races--I would love to see an all-out battle between those who can get around the track fastest, tire degradation be damned. Bring on the sprints I say.
Crafar
larryt4114 replied on Sat, 2022-08-20 02:31
Agree completely with what you said about Simon Crafar. He was awful in the first year, been brilliant ever since. Today he's talking about noticing a difference of a cm in the headstock angle of bikes? Christ! And you're also right that he seems to have a real grasp of how the riders are reacting and feeling. He's a superb addition to the broadcasting.
As for Superpole, I'm a bit ambivalent. But I agree that now with FP1, 2,3 basically being qually sessions, a change wouldn't do any harm. I'm not keen on the Saturday race for these guys, but make the first three sessions just testing, and maybe the 4th for pre-qually?
stefank replied on Sat, 2022-08-20 05:59
I liked Simon right from the start. He may have seemed awkward then, but he seemed to know his stuff better than any other pit lane reporter I'd previously seen. And he has since grown comfortable in his role, and | |
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Support group leaders
Our Support Groups are to support people with Scleroderma or Raynaud's, their friends or family.
We have 8 Support Groups across the UK for people to come together to discuss and share issues around the conditions. Each Support Group has a Support Leader that runs the group and keeps in contact with all the members. All Group Leaders are volunteers who have experience of the condition themselves.
Some Support Groups are run by providing advice and information by email to member questions. Other groups are run as telephone meetings as it's sometimes difficult for members to attend meetings in person. Some meet in person, or are a mixture of the above depending on member needs.
Newcastle and Northumberland
Lindsay Wilkinson
I'm 52 years old. I was diagnosed with CREST syndrome in 2010 following a serendipitous meeting with my GP who had just read an article on that now defunct acronym. I had previously been misdiagnosed with ME in 1997, so have had Sclerosis for over 20 years as the symptoms have been affecting me since my 20s. It has affected me profoundly-especially my physical/mental health-but very recently I bought a puppy and he has helped to get my physical fitness back on track as well as my mental state. For queries about this Support Group use this form to contact us
Lucy Reeve
My name is Lucy Reeve and I am the local contact for Norfolk. I have lived just outside Norwich all my life, and so have most of my family and friends. I have a mixed connective tissue disease which first came to light in 1994, when I experienced severe inflammatory arthritis. Then in 2004 I was diagnosed with Limited Systemic Sclerosis, and latterly I have also developed features of Lupus. I am an Occupational Therapist, and I have always worked in Rheumatology. Due to my health situation I now work very part-time but I like spending time with friends, drinking tea and eating cake, reading, cuddling my cat and knitting. I also have an addiction to home design programmes. For queries about this Support Group use this form to contact us
Diane Unsworth
I was diagnosed with Diffuse Systemic Scleroderma on 29 June 2012, World Scleroderma Day. I have GI, pulmonary, renal involvement and also secondary Raynaud's, hypertension, angina and more recently small vessel disease. I first found SRUK's website when I was trying to gain information about my condition. Since then I have met up with a local contact, which helped me, to becoming one myself. Support is so important when faced with a chronic condition and I have been so lucky with mine from the clinical side to all my family and friends and of course SRUK! I am looking forward to using my own experiences to help and support others who are going through a similar journey. For queries about this Support Group use this form to contact us
Rita Boulton
I am a retired 63 year old and have been suffering from Raynauds and limited scleroderma for seven years. I joined both the RSA and the Scleroderma Society in the first year after being diagnosed in order to find out as much about the condition as possible. I started the local support group some three years ago, shortly after volunteering as a local contact, when I had a phone call from a lady so pleased to have someone to talk to that understood how she was feeling. We have met up every 2 months since. For queries about this Support Group use this form to contact us
Celia Bhinda
I was diagnosed with scleroderma over twenty years ago, and although it has been a life-changing experience, I have found that having accepted the condition and having adjusted to it, I have been able to live life as near normally as possible. In this respect, the Scleroderma Society (SRUK) has been extremely helpful over the years with telephone support, its ongoing informative and encouraging publications, and in enabling those affected to meet others in their local areas for mutual support. For queries about this Support Group use this form to contact us
Belinda Thomson
I live in Cardiff and have had scleroderma for over 16 years. My first contact with the society was to join and speak to someone with scleroderma, which I found really reassuring, and the information I was given was excellent. I then became part of what we fondly call the help liners about 14 years ago, which I find very rewarding. It's nice to speak to other people who are in the same situation as yourself, so if you would like to have a chat give me a call. For queries about this Support Group use this form to contact us
Portsmouth, UK
Tracey James
Location: Portsmouth, caters for Hampshire area. Support is for: People with diagnosis of Scleroderma or Raynaud's, their family friends or carers. Meeting times: Flexible. Or phone call support. Support Leader: My name is Tracey and I have been a member of the Scleroderma and Raynaud's UK since 2001 when my beloved dad, Robert, was diagnosed with the condition. I am a teacher by day. I love music and live gigs I have an extensive cd and vinyl collection, I am an Archer's fan (do not watch much TV but love radio 4 and 6). I love walking and cover many miles each week. I also enjoy reading, current affairs and modern art. For queries about this Support Group use this form to contact us
Mike Corbett
My wife Alison and I live in Exeter. I was diagnosed with Limited Cutaneous Systemic Sclerosis ten years ago, as is usually the case I now know I had the symptom's for a number of years prior. Along the way I have picked up a couple of other associate diseases G.A.V.E. Liver cirrhosis (M3 anti body), and Scleroderma/Intestinal Failure. My aim is to lead a positive life and I am still working all be it part time for Exeter University. As a Local Support Contact Ali and I meet one other sufferer regularly for coffee and a catch up. For queries about this Support Group use this form to contact us
Lorraine Jack
I was diagnosed with scleroderma in 2013, and had Raynaud's Phenomenon previous to this. I have diffuse systemic sclerosis and ILD with scl70 antibodies.
I was aware from the start of the creation of SRUK, when the 2 charities came together. I often direct newly diagnosed patients to the website and also share any relevant info pertinent to any questions they ask on our Facebook page.
I am looking forward to having our group added to the support group leaders as it will hopefully reach some Scottish members who are looking for some local support and friendship. The reason I became a support group leader as I felt there were a few people around my local area looking for some friendship, guidance and support so they don't feel alone with the disease. It's amazing when people realise there is another scleroderma sufferer in their local area, or not too far away.
I am also a volunteer trainer for a local partnership called LGOWIT. I help run Self Management courses for people with long term health conditions as I am a qualified facilitator trainer. This means I feel able to encourage and support someone who contacts me through Scleroderma Support Scotland. For queries about this Support Group use this form to contact us
Amersham, Herefordshire
Marilyn York
I was diagnosed with Raynaud's in 1988 and with Scleroderma in 1993. I belonged to the Raynaud's and Scleroderma Society for many years. I have run support groups in the past and wanted to help others learn about the condition and the possible things that may help. For queries about this Support Group use this form | |
Watch Online De De Pyaar De
De De Pyaar De is a movie starring Ajay Devgn, Tabu, and Rakul Preet Singh. A 50-year-old single father faces disapproval from his family and his ex-wife when he falls in love with a 26-year-old woman.
Jimmy Sheirgill, Tabu, Rakul Preet Singh, Ajay Devgn
Comedy, Romance
Akiv Ali
Luv Ranjan, Tarun Jain, Surabhi Bhatnagar
Daj mi ljubav, Quiero tu amor
A 50-year-old single father faces disapproval from his family and his ex-wife when he falls in love with a 26-year-old woman.
Download comedy «De De Pyaar De»
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15 customer reviews about romance «De De Pyaar De»
Craig Alvarez
In the world of Bollywood, it is rare to see a film that is so much fun and entertaining. This film is a perfect example of this. The story is very simple, yet very entertaining. The actors are very good, and the songs are great. I liked the background score, and I liked the dance sequences. The characters are very likable, and the comedy is very well done. It is a very entertaining film. I give it a 7 out of 10.
I loved this movie and I think all the reviews that are negative are just wrong. This movie is a little bit different and it deserves more respect than it's getting. The acting is great, the writing is good and it has a good mix of humor and romance. The story is realistic and keeps you interested throughout the movie. I think this movie will be enjoyed by many people because it is an extremely good movie. I think this movie deserves the Oscar. I am surprised that this movie is not being recognized more. I think this movie should be the biggest movie of all time.
Sunday, 13 Sep 2020 04:26
This is a very nice movie. It has some funny scenes and it's a great story about love. The story is a little bit slow but it's still good. The acting is really good and the acting of the characters are very good. This movie is a little bit different from the rest of the movie. It's a little bit different. But I like this movie. I don't like this movie a lot but it's still a good movie. I like this movie a lot. It's a very nice movie.
Timothy Rios
A very nice movie. Don't miss it.
This is a very good movie. The movie is very enjoyable to watch. It is a simple story about a guy who wants to get married and have a family. However, he does not want to lose his girlfriend. The movie has a good message. The movie is very entertaining. The acting is good. The music is also good. The movie is very good.
Ashley Webb
I'm not a big fan of Hindi movies, but this one was great. It's got good chemistry between the two leads and the story is very entertaining. The songs are great, the songs are catchy and the songs are very enjoyable. The story is not a good one, but it's entertaining. I also liked the story and the ending is a good one. Overall, it's a good movie. 7.5/10
Evelyn D.
Tuesday, 11 Aug 2020 22:40
This is a very touching movie. It shows the life of a poor man that never gave up hope for his son. It also shows the life of a society that believes in equality but tries to keep the poverty of the poor alive. It is a very moving movie. It will have a very great impact on the Indian public. I highly recommend this movie to all. I give this movie a 10/10.
Gerald Collins
A good movie, but one that can be watched again and again. A story of two people, one of them a rich man, and the other a poor man, who are forced to marry in the name of religion. A film that is not for the faint hearted. A movie that is not to be missed. And a film that is not to be forgotten.
I was very excited to see this movie, since it's a remake of the Hindi movie of the same name. But, I was a little disappointed with the movie. The movie was very predictable and had a lot of cliches. The acting was good, but the script was weak. The story was also predictable. I was expecting a lot more from the movie, and I was a little disappointed. I think it's a movie that can be watched once, and will be forgotten. If you are a fan of the Hindi movie, you can watch this movie once, but you will be disappointed. I think this movie is worth a watch, but I would not recommend it to anyone who has not seen the original movie.
This movie is one of the best comedy movie i have ever seen. The story is about two people, Jai and Abhishek, who meet for the first time in a hotel room and have a good conversation. They decide to go out for a romantic weekend. However, there is a problem, Abhishek is a successful actor and Jai is a student of a college. They are in a race to make it to their destination, so they can meet each other and begin their relationship. However, the problem is, they cannot meet each other, as they are on different dates. When they finally meet, they realize that they have never met each other before, and have not met each other in their life. They try to meet each other, but they do not meet each other, and they have to face the problem of what to do. They realize that they are in a race to find out the truth. It is an amazing movie, that I would recommend to all people who are in the mood for a good comedy. You will not be disappointed. I give it 7/10.
Sarah Weber
This is a good movie for people who love to laugh. I loved it. It's a story about a family and how they are falling apart. There are a lot of funny moments, and the script is great. I can't say it's the best movie I've seen, but I can say it's the best movie I've seen in a long time. I highly recommend this movie.
You can't get better than this!
Alan Curtis
I have watched this movie in theatres and it is still my favourite movie of all times. I think there is a definite reason for this. All the actors have done a great job. Amitabh, Amitabh Bachchan, Anupam Kher, Pratap Chatterjee, Ranveer and Sunny are so funny. I love the way they put in a big story in a small screen and it still works. You can see how much effort they have put in this film. I really love this movie, I am not surprised that this movie was nominated for best actor and best song. The movie has been made for a very simple audience. But the audience has to be mature enough to understand the story and the actors have done a wonderful job. This is one of the best movie of all time.
I had seen the trailer of this movie a few months back and I was curious to watch it. I liked it a lot. It was good to see Akshay Kumar back on the big screen after a long time. The story is simple but its worth watching. It is a typical love story with some twists. The movie is a must watch for all the people who like romance, comedy and Bollywood.
Nathan M.
I was skeptical of this film, as I'm not a fan of the | |
or preparing routine legal documents. Today, full-time paralegals do this work, accompanied by computers which store most of these documents as forms that can be readily customized for each client.
Very little legal work is innovative or unusual. If you are making novel arguments in a legal venue, that is often a sign you are in trouble - or very, very smart. But in most cases, a Will, Trust, or Personal Injury case is pretty routine, in terms of pleadings and documents. And these routine documents can be prepared by Paralegals.
And increasingly, as we shall see below, people are realizing that such cases are best settled from the get-go, as litigation means only enriching the attorney and your own expense.
A final word on paralegals: This is one area where outsourcing has taken its toll. Not a day goes by that I don't get an e-mail plea - or even a phone call - from an Indian Patent Firm who wants me to "farm out" my legal work to them. Initially this started out with the drudge work of Patent searching or drawing preparation. But increasingly, these firms are making pitches for amendment and even application preparation. I am not sure how many firms - if any - are farming out this work overseas or what the quality of work is. However it is an indication that any job can be outsourced if you are creative enough.
4. The Law Firm as Ponzi Scheme. I have talked about this before and alluded to it above. In any large firm, there are a few Senior Partners who make a lot of money, some Junior Partners who hope to make a lot of money, and a lot of Associates who work long hours and think they are making a lot of money. Stick around at the firm for a few years and you realize that a lot of these Associates end up going down the elevator with a photocopy box of desk ornaments and personal effects.
Simply stated, the odds of making even Junior partner are about 1 in 10, and making senior partner, maybe 1 in 100. Yes, there are a few lawyers out there who make millions a year. Most of use make thousands. Some of us are on food stamps.
And it has always been thus. The television (see below) likes to romanticize the practice of law and make it out that we all are making tons of money. But the reality is, more than half the graduates, perhaps 90% or more, don't get those high-paying jobs you see on television
5. America Wakes Up to Lawyer Antics? During the 1980's and 1990's, the law field was all go-go-go with stories about young law clerks being wooed by big-city law firms with things like luxury apartments, limousine rides, and free tickets to the firm's box seat at the ball game. Work? That was secondary. During that era, lawyers could charge what the market would bear, and the market would bear a lot.
But since then, America - particularly Corporate America - has wised-up to the antics and billing practices of attorneys. As one in-house attorney explained it to me, their medium-sized electronics firm was bringing in $5 Million a year in profits on $100 million in sales. Their legal bills were about $2 Million a year. If they could cut their legal expenses in half, they could show a 20% increase in profits - which would drive the stock price through the roof.
In another case, two electronics firms were suing each other and we were enjoying billing one of them about $100,000 a month in legal fees. I am sure the opposing side's firm was doing the same thing. The CEO's of both companies did the unthinkable - they went out to play golf together, and by the 18th hole, and worked out a settlement agreement that would put an end to the endless (and unprofitable) litigation and allow them both to confront their real nemesis - the threat of cheap foreign-made products.
It is said that no one wins lawsuits but the lawyers, and that is indeed true. We get paid, generally, win or lose. And even "the little guy" is wising up to this. If you google "unhappy with personal injury settlement" you will see pages of postings. People are realizing that hiring a lawyer to "litigate" (and I use that term loosely) their case resulted only in endless delay of the settlement and a smaller payout in many cases - as opposed to what they could have negotiated with the insurance company.
6. The Myth of the Law Business. Television shows loved to depict life at a law firm as romantic - literally. Shows like L.A. Law or Alley McBeal depicted law firm life as one fabulous lunch date after another, followed by a little sack-time with your law partner. Once in a while, you'd go to court and say outrageous things to a Judge, who, impressed by your wit and wisdom, would acquit your client.
Of course, this is not reality, just television. Today, more realistic portrayals of the life of lawyers - as low-paid drudges or folks living marginally- are becoming the norm. Shows such as "Better Call Saul" depict lawyers as losers and quasi-criminals. And perhaps this is a bit of an exaggeration in the other direction, but at least a less glamorous portrayal.
When I was in law school, you could tell the types who went there because of television. They clearly thought that working in a law firm was going to be like on TeeVee. And they thought that law school itself would be like television as well. They were disappointed in both. It turns out that both are just a lot of work, and the pay isn't all that great.
If your idea of what it is to be a lawyer is based upon some television show - even if you won't admit to this - you might want to re-think a law career.
7. The Death of Litigation. The courts have put a damper on the good-old-days of lawsuits. Things like punitive damages have been curtailed severely. The idea that you can win "litigation lottery" and win millions of dollars at trial is basically hooey.
Oh, sure, you'll still hear of jury verdicts with outrageous damage awards. But these are usually reduced severely on appeal - and you never hear about that. In the famous "McDonald's Hot Cup of Coffee" case, the lady won $3.8 million at trial (not $5M as often reported) but it was reduced to a little more than $600,000 on appeal. McDonald's probably spent more on legal fees. It was hardly a lottery-like payout as people like to claim.
This doesn't stop lawyers from advertising that they will win big settlements for your car crash or whatever. But the reality is, if you get into a fender-bender, you are not going to receive a life-changing amount of money. You may not even receive enough to buy a new car. You may not even get enough to repair your old car and pay your hospital bills - after paying legal fees. And you do pay them, with contingency-fee attorneys.
In other fields, similar curtailment of abuse has occurred. Class-action suits were once huge money-makers for law firms. You have probably been a member of such a suit and never realized it. A clever law firm finds some billing discrepancy or some disclosure issue or some other situation were a big company has arguably cheated a lot of people out of a little money each. They file the case in Illinois (one town there claiming about half of all such suits filed in the country - until recently) and then almost immediately offer | |
but in this case I think, for the sake of clarity, it is necessary. It's easy to dismiss critics as ideologically motivated and use that as an excuse not to engage fairly or indeed at all with the points they raise. Though it is presumptuous to say so, it seems to me likely that part of the motivation of the critics that you have found the time to reply to - Christopher Snowdon, Peter Saunders and the Tax Payers Alliance - is indeed ideological. Nevertheless, as I constantly remind my students, the provenance of an idea is completely irrelevant to the evaluation of its truth and I must confess that I find many, if not all, of the points raised by this trio reasonably argued, deserving of serious attention and, in the cases where they are factually wrong, careful point by point refutation. I'm not sure that you have always held yourselves to this ideal standard, but then in the rough, tough battle of ideas, and with human nature being what it is, I'm probably just naive to expect scientists to welcome stringent assaults upon their ideas with truly Popperian equanimity.
By now you are probably impatient to learn what this is all about and I beg your indulgence for just a little longer while I explain. I thought it would be interesting to ask my students to read The Spirit Level. They are all bright graduates with a keen interest in public affairs and, given the nature of my department, a keen interest in learning how to evaluate quantitative social scientific research. They are assuredly not your average group of sociology students, and all the better for it. In order to keep our seminar within the bounds of the allotted two hours I asked them to focus exclusively on the sections relating to physical health and assigned them a number of review and commentary articles as supplementary reading. I realize that your book is about so much more than just physical health but I feared that if we were to attempt to discuss all the domains that you write about our conversation would become unfocussed, inconclusive and pedagogically useless. In any case, unless I have seriously misunderstood you, I take it that evidence about physical health is actually central to the claims you wish to advance.
My first task was to clarify exactly what those claims are so that the students could home in on the precise evidence that is most likely to speak to them. Again I have to ask for indulgence. As an educator I'm wont to simplify things and in my quest for pedagogical clarity I may be prone to over-simplification. I hope what I said is not so gross a distortion of the case you wish to make as to make what I wish to say irrelevant to your concerns.
My pitch to the students was as follows. Nobody of any repute disputes the fact that for many health related outcomes there is a soci-economic gradient. For simplicity let's just say that at the individual level income predicts mortality risk. The relatively rich live longer and the relatively poor die earlier. It is plausible to believe that this predictive relationship, which may or may not be interpreted causally, is non linear. If a cut purse takes ten pounds out of the pocket of a rich man he probably won't notice and it is implausible to believe that his loss will have much, if any, discernible effect on his mortality risk. On the other hand if Robin Hood gives ten pounds to a poor man on the verge of starvation it makes quite a big difference - he lives to fight another day. This is nothing more than the standard welfare argument for equality. Up to a point, distributing income away from the rich towards the poor is likely to increase aggregate welfare because dw/dy ~=c. Whether this is true or not is ultimately an empirical issue albeit one that it is quite difficult to produce clinching evidence about, but like me I imagine you believe it is likely to be true.
The key point, for our purposes, is that this has nothing to do with the aggregate level of inequality in the society in which the rich and poor man live. If we want to know, what the direct contextual effect of aggregate level income inequality is on individual level mortality risk then we must correctly specify the relationship between income and mortality risk at the individual level. Otherwise part, though probably not all, of the apparent relationship at the aggregate level turns out to be spurious - a form of the ecological fallacy. Of course you know this and I apologize if in my eagerness to make things clear to my students I seem to be teaching granny to suck eggs.
The take home message to me is clear: if the relationship at the individual level between mortality risk and income is non linear there is quite a lot of good we can do to improve the health of the least well off portions of society by spending money in ways that reduce the exposure of the poor to well known risk factors. The net effect of this, depending on exactly where the money comes from, may well also be to produce a more equal society both in terms of money income and in terms of welfare which is what, after all, we should actually care about. And all this could be achieved, I conjecture, without having to give much weight to a speculative theory of the psychosocial aetiology of illness. But more on that later.
Of course we live in an imperfect world and it is particularly imperfect, as you are well aware, in terms of the data resources we can use to evaluate our empirical claims about it. Given the impossibility of carrying out a randomized controlled trial - we can't randomly select a bunch of rich Americans, force them to live in Sweden, and wait and see if they live longer than the ones we left in the US - we are stuck with observational data. I believe, and I doubt this is contentious, that if we want to know whether aggregage level income inequality has a direct effect on individual level mortality then the ideal data source would be a multi-level time series with observations at both the individual and aggregate level within one nation state - to control for all the confounding unobservable cultural and institutional stuff that makes one country different from another - while allowing us to see what happens at the individual level (after controlling for individual level exposure to risk factors) when aggregate level income inequality changes. If we could solve the serious problems of data comparability there is no reason why we shouldn't throw more than one nation state into the pot, but let's not get our hopes up, getting good quality multi-level time series data for just one country is a big ask.
So we have to go with what we have got. What you have got comes in essentially two flavours: aggregate level data on a sample of rich countries, subject to various inclusion and exclusion criteria (which have been pretty thoroughly picked over by your critics) and aggregate level data on US states. You show us in Figure 1.1 (pp 7) that your scope conditions are defined by those countries from that part of a bivariate scatterplot of per capita national income by life expectancy where the increase in life expectancy for a unit increase in national income is close to zero. Your interpretation is that for this set of countries national income has no discernible effect on | |
madness don't'cha think.
Mags x
For more information about the authors and their novels, visit: http://www.newromantics4.com/
Tuesday Chit Chat with… CONTRACTED AUTHOR, OUR VERY OWN LAURA JAMES
Sorry for shouting. It wasn't the aggressive shouty type. More of a town cryer style because Hear ye, Hear ye we have some fantastic news for you today. And without further ado, we'll get on with asking the lady herself…
We've noticed at Romaniac HQ that Laura hasn't been eating her cake of late. We know this means something is on her mind. So, tell us Laura, what's occurring?
You know me, stomach's always the first to give when anything major happens in my life.
Don't leave us guessing, Laura! You are being interviewed by a lady who is heavily pregnant with twins. I'm not in a position to be left in the lurch. What is the MAJOR thing that has happened in your life?
Sorry, Catherine. Hang in there.
I should warn you, I'm liable to spontaneously combust at any moment, and that's something even I can't plan for, so it might be best if you take cover somewhere.
I am exceedingly happy…no…make that ecstatic…to tell you the lovely people at Choc Lit , under their new Choc Lit Lite imprint, have said yes to my first novel, 'Truth or Dare?' *dowses self with cold water* And I'm going to have a cover! *Reaches for the jet-wash*
Jan, Jan! Where is the honk-o-meter? We need to offer up our biggest congratulations to Laura.
Jan: Yeeeeeee Ha!! To all of it! HONKS of gargantuan, major league, A1, epic, fantabulously titanic proportions!
I knew Jan would sum up how the rest of us Romaniacs feel. Knowing how much hard work you've put in, Congratulations didn't quite cover it.
Fantastic honking, Jan 🙂 Thank you, my wonderful Romaniac chums. What would I do without you? You have been and continue to be my pillars of strength. If pillars were built from laughs, you'd be that, too.
Right, time to calm you down for a moment and ask what is 'Truth Or Dare?' about?
Chesil. Portland. Dorset.
In a nutshell, which, as you know, is quite a difficult state for me to achieve, 'Truth or Dare?', as it currently stands, is a gritty, twenty-one year story, (is that split-era?) revolving around the influence of past events on the present and future. There is a romance at its heart, a family I'd love to visit for holidays, and a shed load of moral dilemmas, as the title suggests. And for the most part, it is set in Dorset, a county I adore.
Did you know there is a law against taking the pebbles from Chesil Beach?
We can't wait for the moment it's available, but we know you have lots of hard work in the meantime. But for now it's time to celebrate so what have you got planned?
Eating properly. Maybe getting a little sleep. All the things I've failed to do over the last few weeks. And, since it's a special occasion, I might even hug a few people.
In my head, I'm dancing with wild abandon. In my kitchen, I'm singing Paloma songs. With gusto. And you know it.
Love you 🙂 xx
We love you too, Laura 😉 'Tis quite worrying, I've never known you to be this gushy and huggable. And we've got through this announcement without my waters breaking or you fainting. Just, if the other Romaniacs don't mind, maybe we should ease off on the group hug so Laura and I can collapse on the sofa. And as it's Romaniac HQ, I'd like to raise my glass (of lemonade, the rest of you have something more fancy) & HONK a toast to Laura and her much deserved success.
Crimefest – A guest report from Evonne Wareham
17/06/2013 11/06/2013 The Romaniacs6 Comments
As I write romantic suspense – a genre that can have as a high a body count as a kiss-count – I sometimes get to play on the shady side of the street. Which is how I came to spend a recent weekend in the company of assorted serial killers, drug dealers, spymasters, global conspirators and all round bad lots, and the lovely people who create them. Yes, this was Crimefest, the Bristol crime writing convention that brings together criminal elements from all walks of life – and the sleuths who pursue them – from the cosy amateur, solving puzzles over tea and scones, to the adventurer on the trail of an ancient artifact with mystic powers, by way of the jaded cop with the bottle of whisky stashed in his desk drawer. It takes all sorts to make a crime wave.
When you attend an event like Crimefest you realize just how many varieties of fictional crime there are – and locations. Scandinavian and American authors are always in demand, but delegates set their mayhem in Africa, Alaska, Italy, the Greek Islands, Iceland, … the Isle of Wight. The on-site bookshop was bursting with titles from all round the globe, with the chance of having them signed by the author in attendance. And it's not just exotic places, but also a variety of time periods – Roman Britain, the eighteenth century, the roaring twenties …
Panels looked at everything from the North/South divide, to mixing crime and comedy. There were discussions on writing about the cold war and authors who have become overlooked or forgotten, often unjustly. Fans of Dame Agatha squared up to those of Sir Arthur …
And all that was quite apart from the enthusiastic after-hours discussion that went on in the hotel bar.
The convention mixes writers and readers and everyone seemed to be in agreement that the panels this year were better than ever. I certainly enjoyed the ones I attended – even the one I was on. This year's big coup was the appearance of Mark Gatiss, Steven Moffat and Sue Vertue of TV Sherlock fame – currently filming the third series, working round the availability of two stars who have suddenly become big cinema box office and determinedly ducking all requests to explain exactly how Sherlock is coming back from the dead. It was a fun session, packed with enthusiastic fans – but I have to say that the personal convention high spot for me was the appearance of author Robert Goddard. He's a great story teller. I've been a fan of his complex plotting for years. Fingers crossed that some of that complexity stuff may have rubbed off. I hope so, as there's nothing I like better than a plot like a corkscrew.
It was a criminally enjoyable weekend.
Roving Romaniacs – An Earthless Melting Pot anthology launch
I was very happy to spend a lovely, sunny, writerly couple of days in London at the end of May, traveling up on the Friday for author drinks arranged by super-agent Juliet Mushens. In a busy bar in Soho, around twenty of Juliet's authors gathered to drink and chat. It was lovely to spend time with an eclectic group of writers at all different stages of the journey to publication: Those, like myself, at the nail-biting editing/submitting stage, those who have the longed for book deal who are now awaiting publication, and the published ones – the writers on the Richard & Judy list, the bestsellers, the debut writers and the ones sweating over their second. All lovely, all inspiring – I'm already looking forward to the next Team Mushens outing!
Day 2 saw me back in Soho, this time in The Gallery at Foyles bookshop, for a private party to celebrate the launch of the Words with JAM short story anthology. My partner in crime for this do was fellow Romaniac Sue Fortin. The anthology is a collection of the prize-winning stories from the annual Words with JAM short story competition and I was thrilled | |
to mind Confucius any longer; I am now in the "sweet land
of liberty," as they sing in their national anthem. I heard my father
say once that the gentleness and modesty of Oriental women was really
beautiful; but it would not be beautiful in America.
I hurried back to the establishment of the Parisienne modiste, and found
my aunt and her friend still talking about sleeves. They had never
noticed my absence. How very important sleeves are in America! I never
heard them talked about in China.
The talkers had evidently forgotten me, so I slipped out again, and
walked several blocks, watching the manners, and catching snatches of
the conversation of Americans.
"I'm going to have mine eighteen gores----"
"Pleating down the front, frills at the side----"
"Pocahontas hat, and Prince Chap suit----"
"Front panel, and revers turned----"
"Frills and pipings all around----"
"Gored, or cut in one piece----"
"Oh, pompadour, by all means, with----"
These were the snatches of conversation which I caught from the women as
they passed me. The men were mostly silent and glum.
This curious country, that Aunt Gwendolin says has gone away ahead of
the rest of the world, why do its women talk more about dress than
anything else? And why have its men such pushing, hurrying,
knock-you-down-if-you-stand-in-my-way faces?
When I got back to the establishment of the Parisienne modiste I found
my aunt ready to take me to the milliner's to be "outfitted with hats."
Walking a block or two we entered a much-decorated room, and at my
aunt's request an attendant brought several hats for our
inspection--curious-looking things like straw bee-hives, or huge wasps'
nests, covered over largely with wings and the heads of poor little dead
birds, ends and loops of ribbon, roses and leaves, looking as if they
were only half sewed on and liable to tumble off if touched, and long
feathers, buckles, and pins. My aunt selected several, fitted them on
my head, and declared they were very becoming to my Spanish style of
beauty. I, almost in tears, whispered into her ear, so the attendant
would not hear me, "I shall not have to wear them where any one can see
me, shall I?" Aunt Gwendolin smiled (the attendant was looking) and
replied sweetly, "Yes, they are very pretty, indeed."
We in China could never kill our birds and wear them on our heads--the
breasts of our beautiful mandarin ducks, the wings of our gold and
silver pheasants, the heads of our pretty parrakeets--we never could do
it--we would feel like murderers. Our majestic-looking wild geese, that
fly over our heads in flocks sometimes thirty miles in length, going
south in the autumn and north in the spring, we never molest them. The
Buddhists believe that all geese perform an aerial pilgrimage to the
holiest of the lakes in the mountains every year, transporting the sins
of the neighbourhood, returning to the valley with a new stock of
inspiration for the people in the locality where they choose to alight.
Here in this civilised country--I have been reading in one of their
magazines that grandmother loaned me--they catch the beautiful
water-fowls, kill them, and hack off their downy breasts to make ladies'
hats. And the little young birds starve in the nest, because the mother
never returns to feed them. Ugh! Civilised countries are dreadful!
When the hats were selected my aunt conducted me to the furrier's.
"The cold weather is not over yet," she said, "and while we are about it
I shall select some necessary furs."
I had noticed as we were passing through the streets that the ladies
had curious looking things around their necks and shoulders, capes
trimmed with heads of animals, and tails and paws of the same. I
wondered the dogs did not bark at them. They looked like some hunters
who had been out shooting and had thrown their dead game over their
shoulders.
The furrier whose shop we had entered seemed to know my aunt, and as
soon as she said, "I want you to show me some of your best fur garments
suitable for a young lady," he brought down from some shelves the
greatest quantity of fur articles, ermine, mink, seal, sable, all
covered with heads, tails, paws, claws, eyes, mouths, teeth, whiskers. I
shuddered and drew back when my aunt went to place one around my neck.
"Oh, auntie!" I cried, "don't touch it to me!"
"Ha, ha, ha," softly and politely laughed the shopkeeper, "the young
lady has not become acquainted with the newest thing in furs, so
beautiful and realistic--so charming!"
Aunt Gwendolin frowned. She evidently did not like my display of nerves,
and resolutely fastened around my throat an ermine scarf with seven or
eight heads, and twice as many tails. "There!" she said, "that will do
nicely, it is very becoming to her creamy Spanish."
"It could not be better," said the polite shopkeeper.
A muff was then chosen to match the scarf, with just as many horrible
grinning heads, and little snaky tails; and paying for them, my aunt
ordered them sent home.
On my return home I dropped a silver coin into the housemaid's hand,
and told her when the parcel of books arrived she was to carry it up to
my room and say nothing about it. She seemed to understand, and asked no
questions.
An hour later she came to my door with the books in her arms, and found
me examining my new set of furs.
"Betty," I cried, throwing wide the door of my room, "come in and tell
me all about my furs--how the man that sells them gets all those little
heads and tails. Where do they get them? And how do they catch them? I
want to know it all."
"Oh, miss," said Betty, stepping briskly into the room, nothing loath to
accept the invitation to examine the new furs, "they lives out in the
wild woods--these little critters, an' men poisons 'em, an' traps 'em.
An' when they is dead, they skins 'em, tans the skins, an' makes 'em up
into muffs, an' boas, an' tippets, an' fur coats, an' so forth, an' so
forth."
"Poison and trap them!" I cried, "doesn't that make the little creatures
suffer?"
"You bet!" said Betty.
"How cruel!" I added.
"Yes, miss, ain't it awful?" returned Betty, making a wry face. "They's
a book just been throwed in at the door to-day telling all as to how it
is done. The American Humane Association has wrote the book--_they_
don't approve of killin' things. I'll bring it up an' let you read it."
Suiting the action to the thought Betty rushed away down to the kitchen
for the book.
She returned in a few moments with a small pamphlet, and thrust it
hastily into my hand--my aunt was calling her--and hastened away.
I glanced down at a picture on the front page--a hare caught by the hind
leg in a trap. A most agonised expression was on the little animal's
face. Below the picture was the title of the story, "_The Cost of a
Skin_." I dropped into a rocking-chair and read the story:
"Furs are luxuries, and it cannot be said in apology for the wrongs
done in obtaining them that they are essential to human life. Skins
and dead birds are not half so beautiful as flowers, or ribbons, or
velvets, or mohair. They are popular because they are barbaric.
They appeal to the vulgarians. Our ideas of art, like our
impulses, and like human psychology generally, are still largely in
the savage state of evolution. No one but a vulgarian would attempt
to adorn herself by putting the dead bodies of birds on her head,
or muffling her shoulders in grinning weasels, and dangling
mink-tails. Indeed, to one who sees things as they are, in the full
light of adult understanding, a woman rigged out in such cemeterial
appurtenances is repulsive. She is a concourse of unnecessary
funerals; she is about as fascinating, about as choice and
ingenious in her decorations, as she would be, embellished with a
necklace of human scalps. She should excite pity and contempt. She
is a pathetic example of a being trying to add to her charms by
high crimes and misdemeanours, and succeeding only in advertising
| |
Posts Tagged 'The Gate'
Don't Read The Latin! Episode 74: Horror For Kids!
Welcome back! Now that hosts Jennifer and Rhias are back from the dead, they want to talk about how to get your kids hooked on… I mean, introduced to horror! Listen them both try to give good recommendations AND keep the show PG!
7th Voyage of Sinbad, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Annihilation, Arachnophobia, Avatar: The Last Airbender [TV], Beetlejuice, Book of Life, Buffy the Vampire Slayer [TV], Casper, Check It, Coco, Coraline, Corpse Bride, Creature From the Black Lagoon, Escape to Witch Mountain, Final Girls, Frankenweenie, Fullmetal Alchemist, Ghostbusters (1984), Ghostbusters (2016), Goosebumps, Gravity Falls [TV], Gremlins, Hell House LLC, Hocus Pocus, Hotel Transylvania, Jaws, Jessica Jones [TV], Labyrinth, Lady in White, Legend of Korra [TV], Little Shop of Horrors, Lost Boys, Manolo: The Boy Who Made Shoes For Lizards, Monster House, Monster Squad, Monsters Inc, My Best Friend Is a Vampire, My Boyfriend's Back, ParaNorman, Poltergeist, Ponyo, Return to Oz, Runaways [TV], Scooby Doo: Mystery Incorporated, Silver Bullet, Sleepy Hollow, Something Wicked This Way Comes, Spirited Away, The Addams Family, The Bad Seed, The Birds, The Blob, The Canterville Ghost, The Dark Crystal, The Enfield Haunting, The Frighteners, The Gate, The Gifted [TV], The Goonies, The Incredible Shrinking Man, The Lodgers, The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Raven, The Skeleton Key, The Undertaker and His Pals, The Watcher in the Woods, The Witches, Them, Tremors, Valley of Gwangi, Voyeur, Wolfblood, Wonder Woman, X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes, Yellow Submarine, Young Frankenstein
Don't Read The Latin! Episode 62: Rock and Roll Horror!
0 Comments | This entry was posted on Aug 08 2017
Hello Don't Read the Latin fans!
Thank you for joining us for our latest episode ROCK AND ROLL HORROR! Where I promise not to call Stephen King an asshole but we will share at length all our favorite horror movies with a side of metal! This episode contains these guest stars: Jillian Venters of Gothic Charm School, Jeff Harris of Fanboy News Network, Handsome Boyfriend Jim of Fire When Ready, and last but absolutely not least, Rhias Hall of The Villain Edit.
And like Lemmy said, "It's fast and it's aggressive and it's rebellious and their parents hate it, which has always been the mark of good rock and roll. If your parents don't like it, it's good."
7 Witches, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, Abbatoir, Amber: Journeys Beyond [video game], An American Werewolf in London, An American Werewolf in Paris, Arachnophobia, Attack on Titan [TV], Bad Batch, Beyond the Gates, Blade, Brutal Legend [video game], Christine, Crossroads [book], Dark Floors, Dead Last [TV], Deathgasm, Devil's Carnival, Eegah (MST3K), Giant Gila Monster, GLOW [TV], GLOW: The Story of the Gorgeous Ladies Of Wrestling [TV], Gothic, Green Room, Hard Rock Zombies, Heavy Metal, Hell House LLC, Holliston [TV], Jack Frost, Jennifer's Body, Kiss Meets The Phantom of the Park, Lipstick and Dynamite, Lost Boys, Malice Mizer (band), Man VS, Maximum Overdrive, Midnight Ballad for Ghost Theater, Night Nurse, Night of the Demons, Night of the Demons (remake), Pet Sematary, Phantom of the Paradise, Preacher, Psycho Beach Party, Queen of the Damned, Repo! The Genetic Opera, Return of the Living Dead, Rock and Rule, Rockula, Shock Rock [book], Shocker, Slumber Party Massacre, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Spinal Tap, Stigmata, The Changeling, The Crow, The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years, The Gate, The Muppet Show [TV], The Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Sadist, The Vampire Lestat [book], Thirteen Women, Todd and the Book of Pure Evil [TV], Trick or Treat, Turbulence 3: Heavy Metal, Underworld, Valerian and the City of A Thousand Planets, Vampire Junction [book], War For the Planet of the Apes, West of Zanzibar, What Remains of Edith Finch [video game], Wild Zero
DRtL Episode 31: The Kids Are Alright
Horror movies with kid heroes. It's a natural. How better to make an audience scared for your protagonist than to make him (or her) a young, vulnerable, innocent child? Throw in the "your parents will never believe you" trope, and you're set for some real scares. This episode, we salute the best child protagonists the horror genre has to offer.
Join Michael and Jennifer as they dissect the casting and plot direction of Hannibal's third season, play with an Angel puppet, talk about the Paul Stanley / Dee Snyder feud, and reveal the secret of how to get Jennifer's daughter to watch a movie that might be slightly scary. Listen in amazement as Michael fucks up immediately! (We talked about People Under the Stairs during the Wes Craven episode, not the Stephen King episode. Obviously.)
We apologize once more, I'm afraid, for the sound quality of this episode. We forgot to set up the powered USB port for the microphone, and therefore that "robots gargling underwater" background echo is back. Yay. Also you can hear traffic outside and Jennifer's cat meowing, although hopefully that last part is endearing. Anyway. We'll try to set things up a little better next time.
Here's a fan-made music video for the Scissor Sisters song Return to Oz that Michael mentioned:
Bonus Tumblr Meme
For those who haven't seen it, here's the "Public Service Announcement" Michael mentions making on Tumblr, in a post that's received over 25,000 notes so far:
A History of Horror with Mark Gatiss, A Nightmare on Elm Street, A Tale of Two Sisters, Battle Royale, Casper, Children of the Corn, Cooties, Coraline, Creepshow, Crimson Peak, Critters, Dracula: Prince of Darkness, Escape to Witch Mountain, Evil Dead, Firestarter, Flowers in the Attic, Frankenweenie, Goodnight Mommy, Hannibal [TV], Hocus Pocus, Invaders From Mars, It, iZombie [TV], Jurassic Park, Let Me In, Let the Right One In, Mean Girls, Monster House, Pan's Labyrinth, Paperhouse, ParaNorman, Parents, People Under the Stairs, Poltergeist, Poltergeist (2015), Poltergeist 2, Poltergeist 3, Red Dragon, Return to Oz, Scooby-Doo! and Kiss: Rock and Roll Mystery, Scream [TV], Scream Queens [TV], Something Wicked This Way Comes, Super 8, The Bad Seed, The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years, The Devil Rode Out, The Devil's Backbone, The Gate, The Good Son, The Goonies, The Lady in White, The Legacy (1978), The Legend of Hell House, The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane, The Lost Boys, The Monster Squad, The Omen, The Other, The Visit, The Watcher in the Woods, The Witches, They Live, Trick or Treat, Troll, Troll 2, Veronica Mars [TV], Wayne's World 2
DRtL Episode 29: Wolf at the Door!
Jennifer Lovely was unable to make it to a recording session this week, since she is in the process of moving and is busy doing All the Things, so instead Michael Montoure is joined by horror movie aficionado Miranda Wolf! We've been meaning to have Miranda on the podcast for ages, and this seemed like a good time to do it.
We kind of flirt with the idea of having an overall theme for the episode, such as Slasher Movies, but it never quite happens. Join us as we talk instead about 80's slasher movies; Star Trek and Babylon 5 fans fighting in the streets; Montoure's literal scar from a science fiction convention; differences between the Hannibal TV series, books, and films; ideas for slasher movie role-playing games and the horror board game Betrayal at House on the Hill; puns about feet (so very, very many puns about feet); the literal and figurative horrors that are lurking within Miranda's Netflix queue; and so much more!
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, A Very Long Engagement, Apollo 18, Are You in the House Alone?, Baby, Banshee Chapter, Baron Blood, Barracuda, Body Melt, Bring Me the Head of the Machine-Gun Woman, City of Lost Children, Critters, Cube, Daughters of Satan, Delicatessen, Devil's Pass, Dumplings, Dune, Ex | |
her face.
Then she got the naughtiest look of all on her face and pulled him deep into her throat, sucking hard. It was so fucking good he nearly saw stars. He almost missed when she switched on the vibrator and held it against his balls. A raw shock wave of pleasure coursed through his body.
Then he was exploding, shooting hot jets of cum down her throat and yelling, fucking her mouth even as he came, and she continued to rub the vibrator against his sac, working her mouth over his cock and getting every last ounce of cum from him.
When he collapsed back on the bed again, she sat up and licked her lips, giving him the most satisfied expression.
"Damn," he panted, grinning up at her. "I think I need another shower."
She smiled and moved up to kiss him. "In a minute," she said. "I just want to touch you for a while without my head exploding in another orgasm."
"Is that such a bad thing?"
"Hell no."
He grinned, pulled her into his arms, and tucked her close, trapping her leg in between his.
No way was he letting Miranda Hill get away again. She was amazing. She was wild in bed, and hot as hell.
And she was all fucking his.
# FIFTEEN
One Week Later
Beth Ann dropped by Miranda's place after she closed her salon. Usually when Miranda had a day off, she'd stop in to chitchat, and Beth Ann would trim her ends, give her a manicure.
But the salon had been strangely quiet this week, and Beth Ann's suspicions were roused.
She'd called Miranda a few times, and her friend had seemed cheery but distracted. "You busy moving?" Beth Ann had asked her, and Miranda had said she was. But Miranda had the week off, and she hadn't stopped in to say hello or hang out. _Fine way to treat a friend when you were moving away for good_.
So she brought a roll of contact paper with her to work that day, and when Miranda didn't drop by the salon, she went to Miranda instead, toting her present as an excuse.
Miranda had a small, neat little cottage on a quiet street. Tall pecan trees littered the yard, and her tiny rental house was older, but charming. Beth Ann had half a mind to take the lease off of Miranda's hands when she left—anything would beat another month living at home with her parents until Allan got his act together...
She sighed. She needed to stop thinking that way. Allan wasn't getting his act together, and she wasn't getting together with him ever again. That was her mother planting ideas in her head.
She swung the screen door open and knocked on the wooden door. Silence. Beth Ann glanced in the window—lights were on. She leaned in close to the door. A murmur of voices, and then a scramble to get to the door.
Annoyed, Beth Ann hit the doorbell.
The door swung open quickly, and a flushed Miranda answered, pushing strands of her hair out of her face. "Hey, girl," she exclaimed in greeting. "What are you doing here?"
"Thought I'd help you pack," Beth Ann drawled, not fooled for a second. Miranda's shirt was untucked, the zipper on her jeans was down. Her feet were bare.
Yeah. Beth Ann wasn't dumb. She shoved the contact paper roll into Miranda's hands and pushed her way inside. "Since you're so busy packing, I thought I'd come and help you finish," she said. "Brought you some contact paper for the new place."
The house was just as she suspected—boxes lay scattered in the room but nothing seemed to be put in them. In fact, if she looked hard, it almost seemed as if there was less stuff in them than the last time she'd been over. Beth Ann whirled, tapping one pink fingernail on her chin.
"You didn't have to do this, Beth Ann," Miranda said awkwardly. "I'm almost done with the packing."
Beth Ann turned to look back at her friend, hurt. "You are a terrible liar."
There was a sound in the bedroom, and Miranda stiffened. A dreadful feeling began to rise in the pit of Beth Ann's stomach. Before Miranda could stop her, Beth Ann moved to the bedroom door and pushed it open.
A large man sat on the edge of the bed, sliding on his shoes. He wore no shirt over his bronzed, rippling muscles, and he looked up at the sight of her in the bedroom door.
"Hi," said her best friend's worst enemy. "Beth Ann, you haven't changed."
"Neither have you," she said through clenched teeth, and shut the door in his face. She turned and gave Miranda a look of disappointment, and then walked right back out of the house.
Miranda followed her out. "Beth Ann! It's not what you think—"
"Really?" she snapped, angry and afraid for her friend all at once. "Because I'm thinking he's moved in."
"Don't be silly," Miranda scoffed. "We've only been seeing each other for the last week."
Beth Ann crossed her arms over her chest. "And how many times has he slept at his place in the last week?"
Silence.
Beth Ann gave her friend an exasperated look. "Really?"
To her credit, Miranda blushed. "I know what you're thinking—"
Beth Ann whipped out her cell phone. "That I should just take the picture of your tits and post it on the Internet right now so we can get this over with?"
Miranda flinched, and immediately Beth Ann felt like a jerk. She sighed and moved to hug Miranda.
"I'm sorry, girl," Beth Ann said.
"You're just worried about me," Miranda said in a soft voice. "I know."
"He hurt you so badly," Beth Ann said, and hated the knot rising in her throat. "Humiliated you in front of everyone and broke your heart. I know what that feels like, too."
"Of course you do," Miranda said soothingly, and patted Beth Ann on the back. "But this is...this is different, Beth Ann." Her face flushed with pleasure, and her pretty brown eyes gleamed. "He's not the guy I thought he was. He's different. You just have to trust me."
"Oh, honey," Beth Ann said, and gave her best friend another squeeze on the arm. "Of course I trust you."
It was that low-life fink Dane Croft that she didn't trust.
She and Miranda chatted for a moment longer on the porch, and then Beth Ann made up an excuse about having to go back to the salon to make sure she'd unplugged everything.
Miranda looked uncomfortable. "You sure you don't want to stay for a few? I made some sweet tea."
She shook her head and managed a cheerful smile. "Gotta run, but thanks for asking. I'll stop by tomorrow and help you pack for real." She gave her friend a stern look. "No excuses."
"No excuses," Miranda said with a smile.
Beth Ann moved back out to her small, sea green Volkswagen Bug and started the car. But instead of turning back toward Main Street, she got on the highway and headed outside of town, toward the Daughtry Ranch.
She'd find out on her own if Dane Croft was playing games this time. If Miranda wasn't worried...Beth Ann would be worried for her. One of them needed to be ready, and Beth Ann wanted to be prepared for the worst.
Beth Ann parked her car in front of the Daughtry Ranch. There was a gravel parking lot and a scatter of cabins, but other than that, it really didn't look like much. In the distance, she could see a long barn, but it looked deserted. Beth Ann got out of the car, gripped her keys, and headed for the big ranch house. A sign hung above the door, proudly proclaiming WILDERNESS SURVIVAL EXPEDITIONS, and a plastic pamphlet case nailed to the porch wall was stuffed full | |
came up with it, was just asking to be spoofed.
By the time the second installment came out, the comic was a hit. She didn't know if people actually liked it, or liked it solely for being the only comic strip in the paper, but suddenly people were talking to her who had never talked to her before. It was like she was the one in the band. This ego boost gave her the slight nudge she needed to break up with the singer. He was stunned and soon, she heard via the still-girlfriends, wrote songs about how much she broke his heart. She wondered how this was possible, since he hadn't shown any interest in her outside of his bed, but she let the information fuel Lawn Mowers. While she thought the strip might end with the relationship, she saw at that moment how it could be an outlet, one that—even then—she thought might stick around for a while.
"Dog, how do you make art about feelings when you don't have feelings?" asks the rat.
"Stop trying," the dog responds.
"I see," the rat says. "So you're saying the idea of feelings is enough. I shouldn't try to feel, I should just sing about what I imagine feelings are like."
The dog stares.
The possum skates in.
"Feeeeeeelings! I haaaaaave themmmmmm," the rat sings while the dog walks away and the possum skates out of frame.
She'd been seeing Jeremy for a little over a year. She liked him because he was different from her. He was generally excited about life, outwardly friendly, and a bit of a spectacle—a walking canvas of loud vintage prints, a head nodding in perpetual interest sticking out the top—while she tended toward evasive, wore black, sunglasses, headphones playing nothing, trying to just slip by. It didn't matter that they didn't have the same demeanor or hobbies, they just, so far, liked being around each other and both seemed to be more amused about their differences than needing to battle over them. It was an unfamiliar dynamic to her, so she had no idea how long the relationship would last, but she thought it had the potential to be a while. In some ways, it was what she'd always wished her high school relationship had been—stable, mostly relaxing, occasionally spontaneous. There was one night, after the K-Mart by her house shut its doors for good, they pushed each other around the empty parking lot in shopping carts for a solid hour, totally sober, as their personal close-out party to this weird emptied edifice of cheap stuff that she'd lived around the corner from for years. But mostly they got take-out food and fawned over his cats.
For a few months, he'd been asking to see her comics. He could have found them online—Eversburgh no longer had an alt-weekly, so he would never just come across them in print—but he seemed to think he needed permission. Or maybe, she thought, he wanted it to be a moment of connection—her ceremoniously pulling out a scrap book of published strips and laying it on their laps, one side on her right leg, the other side on his left leg, her pointing, him laughing, him loving her even more. But she knew it wouldn't happen like that, so she avoided it each time. "I'm embarrassed," she would say. "Whenever you're ready," he would respond. But he would ask again a week or two later, making it clear it wasn't whenever she was ready, because she would never be ready. "What if you don't like them?" she'd ask. "How could I not?" he'd reply.
But, as she knew from experience, it was possible, even likely, he would not. The singer wasn't the only one to think her comics were pointless. In the decades since, she'd dated a couple men—both of whom worked really basic, unmemorable jobs from which they made a lot more money than her—who, eventually, came to think of the comic as childish. At first they each had a how interesting! how random! reaction to this aspect of her life, thinking it a charming little thing she did. But once they were past those first few dates, the men realized how it wasn't a little thing at all and keeping up with a weekly strip—52 comics, 260 panels a year—meant a time dedication they felt somehow wronged by, as if she had tricked them.
She had dated a few rare guys over the years who seemed to like her almost solely because of Lawn Mowers. Each time this had seemed ideal in the beginning but had inevitably become uncomfortable. These men seemed to want an anecdote for later in life, when they'd settled down with someone who wasn't her. Once, I dated an underground comic artist, she could hear them say. One of these men, in the days before their city's alt-weekly had died, introduced her to everyone as "the girl who does the comic with the rat and the dog." She initially liked the pride he said it with, but it soon made her feel like she wasn't a person but a comic in human form.
Mostly she'd dated men who were indifferent to it. She tried not to take it personally, but she was always mildly offended that they each acted like it was her equivalent of a desk job that had no personal meaning to her life whatsoever. She understood, all too well, that not everyone thought of a weekly comic strip as art. And she was mostly okay with that. But Lawn Mowers also wasn't, in her mind, so far away from art that it could be dismissed as just work—some poorly conceived-of hustle she'd come up with solely to partially avoid a 9-5 and still receive a paycheck. It felt like, after all these situations, if she had to add Jeremy to any of these clumps of men it might break her will, or at least her comic's will.
Your comic still has one more year until legal drinking age, Jeremy texted her back a few hours later. She'd been waiting for his response, wondering what his slow reply time could be a sign of. Did he feel offended she hadn't made time for the ceremonial viewing he desired? she had wondered. Was her text too quick, too casual? Even knowing full well he kept his phone off at work, she felt like the delay was weighted with meaning. But this text made her feel like, maybe, it was okay.
As I am a law-abiding person, he wrote, I'll wait until next year to go out drinking with you and your cartoon children.
But I'll buy beer for them from the corner mart.
If they're going to drink, I'd rather they drink at home.
While these were, in most ways, the best of all possible responses, doing the celebration at home also created a level of intimacy that felt more difficult to navigate. But she didn't know how to push against it and still stay casual and playful, so wrote, Okay, apartment party this weekend then.
For the rest of the week, she tried to figure out how to handle this. She had made an occasion of it, so she didn't see any easy way out of showing him what she actually did—the small thing that, by the fact of its longevity, had become big—but she still didn't want to. After two decades of her short-lived relationships to men mixing with her long-term relationship to her comic, she'd become sensitive enough that there maybe wasn't even a good way he could respond. Any slight hesitation, or poorly phrased comment, would play in her head for weeks, signaling impending doom. She felt like her single-mom friends who dated, expecting that, at | |
The Televisor
Facebook succeeds in blocking German FCO's privacy-minded order against combining user data
Natasha Lomas
Facebook has succeeded in blocking a pioneering order by Germany's Federal Cartel Office earlier this year that would have banned it from combining data on users across its own suite of social platforms — Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — without their consent.
Pioneering because the antitrust regulator had liaised with EU privacy authorities during a long-running investigation of Facebook's data-gathering activities — leading it to conclude that Facebook's conduct in the German market where it also deemed it to hold a monopoly position amounted to "exploitative abuse".
The Bundeskartellamt (FCO) order had been likened to a structural separation of Facebook's businesses at the data level.
Facebook appealed, delaying application of the order, and today's ruling by the Dusseldorf court grants a suspension (press release in German) — essentially kicking the matter into very long legal grass.
The FCO has a month to lodge an appeal. A spokeswoman confirmed to TechCrunch is will do so. But with the order suspended pending what could be years of appeals there's little near-term prospect of any change to how Facebook does business based on this particular regulatory intervention.
It's undoubtedly a major victory for Facebook — to win at the very first appeals layer — and a major blow for regulatory 'innovation' (for what of a better word) which sought to evolve the interpretation of current competition law to respond to the outgrowth and dominance of surveillance-based digital business model via applying privacy-focused conditions to data processing.
Europe's data protection regulators do have the power to order the suspension of infringing data processing, under the bloc's updated privacy framework (GDPR).
But so far very such orders are as rare as hen's teeth — barring a recent threat to Google also by a German privacy regulator. (Just the threat of an order in that case triggered a voluntary suspension of the data processing in question.)
This made the FCO's order against Facebook all the more notable for boldness and forethought. And means Facebook's success in cutting it down at the first legal hurdle is a depressing result for those in the EU hoping platform power linked to privacy-hostile surveillance of Internet users might be regulated in a meaningful timeframe via an existing antitrust lens.
The European Commission's own 'big tech' antitrust interventions have so far focused their attention elsewhere, in addition to taking years to conclude.
Commenting on the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court's decision today in a statement, FCO president Andreas Mundt said: "Data and data handling are decisive factors for competition in the digital economy. The Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf has today responded differently than the Bundeskartellamt to key legal issues. These legal issues are highly significant for the future state of competition in the digital economy. We are convinced that we can act in this area based on the existing antitrust law. For this reason, we are going to appeal on points of law to the Federal Court of Justice to clarify these issues."
We've also reached out to Facebook for comment.
Professor Rupprecht Podszun, a chair for civil law, German and European competition law at Heinrich Heine University, who has been following the FCO's intervention, dubs the court ruling a "major blow" for the regulator.
"The FCO had accused Facebook of abusing its dominant position by unlawfully gathering and combining user data. Thus it had ordered Facebook to change its Terms & Conditions within a year. The judges from Düsseldorf have stopped enforcement of this decision now. They have serious doubts as to the lawfulness of the decision," he said via email. "The case is regarded as a landmark case against the digital giants and it had gained worldwide recognition. To fail at the Düsseldorf court, at the very first step, is a bitter result."
Podszun said the Düsseldorf court did not accept it follows from a possible violation of privacy rules that it is automatically a violation of antitrust rules if a dominant company is acting. That would require the court to see competitive damage — which it did not in this case.
Additionally, the court took the view that users decide autonomously whether they agree with Facebook's T&Cs when signing up for the service. It also did not agree that consumers are exploited by Facebook's data collection since they could continue to make the same data available to other companies.
From here on in he believes legal back and forth is likely to take years — hence, even if the FCO were to prevail at a higher court in future the impact on Facebook's business at that point would likely be long out of date. (Meanwhile, earlier this year it emerged that Facebook is working on merging the back-end infrastructure of its three social networks — seeking to further collapse cross-platform user privacy, even as its scrambles discrete business units in a way that would complicate any regulatory order to break apart its business.)
"The Cartel Office had shown courage in its decision and had explored new paths. The Higher Regional
Court did not follow this reasoning. The FCO took a long shot by integrating a privacy investigation into the competition assessment. I have a lot of sympathy for that, because data has become a crucial competitive factor. Thus, I think that data collection must be a topic for antitrust law," said Podszun.
"The law is at its limits with the internet giants. It is too slow. A final decision in a few years on the privacy terms of Facebook is too late either way. Before taking the decision, the FCO had investigated the case for three years. The Google Shopping procedure of the European Commission took seven years. You cannot tame these companies with such proceedings and lengthy litigation in court."
"The decision is a wake-up call to legislators: If you want to regulate Google, Amazon, Facebook & Co., the existing tools are not enough," he added. "A new version of the Antitrust Act is currently pending in Germany. This is an opportunity to change the legal bases. Also, the authorities for data protection need to step up their efforts – they seem to lack the bravery of the antitrust watchdog."
Asked how legal bases need to change to enable local antitrust law to respond intelligently to data-mining platform giants, Podszun suggested four areas of focus — telling TechCrunch:
Competition law needs to get away from traditional market definition. There should be a rule that the authorities can interfere with companies like GAFA [Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon] in cases where they move into new markets where they are not yet dominant but can easily tip the market. Conglomerate effects and digital ecosystems currently are a blind spot in competition law
There may be room for a new example of what constitutes an abuse in digital markets
The German Competition Office should have powers in consumer law fields (currently, there is no public enforcement of economic consumer protection issues in Germany). An integrated approach with consumer and competition issues could be helpful (including privacy, possibly). Privacy enforcers are particularly weak in Germany
Procedures need to be speeded up, e.g. by stricter time limits, less haggling over access to file, more technically savvy staff and more priority-setting by the authorities
"All very difficult – but it's vital to have some fresh air here," he added. "Whether this would have helped in the case under debate is a different question."
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matches out and handed them to him. Approaching the bag, Carlos struck a match to the tie around the top. Frank saw something flare and run around the bag top, puffing black smoke, exactly like a long fuse on a firecracker. When the thing stopped Carlos went forward again and peered critically at the bag.
"Fine," he said. He moved the bag and tongs twenty feet away from where the chipmunk had been. "Now, you'll find a bottle of murky-looking soup there in my bag, Frank. Toss it to me."
Carlos caught the bottle, sloshed the long gloves liberally, then treated the tongs the same way before collapsing the handles again. At last he pulled off the gloves and stowed them and the tongs in another plastic bag, which he also heat-sealed. Finally he took another deep breath and sat down on the log with a wan smile. Frank saw that his hands were trembling.
"Now, what the _hell_ was all that about?" Frank said.
Carlos looked up, startled. "About?"
"All the hocus-pocus."
The little doctor shrugged. "Look, my large friend. A flea can jump four feet or more if it feels like it. That chipmunk's fleas could be carrying some very nasty customers around with them — I didn't want them jumping on _me._ If you want to go up and fondle the next little beast, that's _your_ problem. Not me, thanks."
"Sorry," Frank said. "But that's a pretty fancy setup."
"A couple of our EIS recruits down in New Mexico worked the system out, mostly for collecting trapped rats, to minimize any possibility of getting a plague-infected fleabite. It's not foolproof, but it beats bagging them up bare-handed. You think you could work the system?"
Frank nodded. "If you'll run through it again and explain exactly why I'm doing what."
"Good. We'd better get back to town now, but I'll give you a lesson with a catnip mouse tonight."
"You want me to look for more of these?"
Carlos nodded. "I can't spend more time up here, I've got things to do down in town, but we need as many dead rodents as you can find in the next few days. Take a crew with you, but you handle the dead ones. Try to get them from different places, high and low elevation, north and south. You know where to look, you be in charge. But believe me, this is no game — it's critical. Our little friend in the bag here could be a major key."
# **21**
As the battle was joined, those first few days, there were far more troubles than triumphs for Carlos and his crew of workers. Four new cases were spotted in Canon City the first two days; three of them were dead of pneumonic plague within forty-eight hours despite swift and vigorous antibiotic treatment, while the fourth lingered on in a coma, with spiking fever and chills. ("A brain abscess, maybe? Those sputum plates and blood cultures are _clean_.") Out of the blue, two cases were reported in Gunnison, 120 miles to the west, no identifiable contact with Canon City, EIS people raking over reports item by item and finding nothing, and then another case down in Walsenburg, a town located between a north and south segment of the San Isabel National Forest, again with no identifiable contacts. "Brush fires," Carlos said, shaking his head and staring at the reports. "Brush fires, all over. Where are they coming from?" and teams were dispatched to both places in hopes of stopping the spread. City fathers in Pueblo were vocally alarmed, Colorado Springs officials next to irrational, the State Attorney General's office in Denver very, very quietly investigating the possible legal ramifications of imposing selective roadblocks on certain state, county and local highways without precisely declaring a state of emergency and scaring everybody in Colorado to death...
Then, late in the week, JTLM-TV News Denver laid its little egg, and the fat was really in the fire. Under the able guidance of announcer Marge Callum and a team of cameramen and reporters, and despite all CDC efforts to maintain a news brownout, JTLM-TV News preempted Thursday-night primetime to air their own thirty-minute special, engagingly entitled "Plague in Colorado" and done with all the stops pulled out. They had everything possible in it and much, much more. There were shots and stills of the Enchantment Lakes Plateau in the Washington Cascades and shots of a Forest Service chopper in the air, ostensibly hauling Pam Tate's body out. Somehow or other they had gotten footage of the interior of the Harborview Hospital morgue in Seattle, with four early victims on view on their slabs, the shots made all the more grisly due to the graininess and bad quality of the black-and-white film — it looked like the ovens at Buchenwald. Next they focused on the Rampart Valley Community Hospital, still closed up tight, featuring a hair-raising through-the-window interview with the young doctor there, apparently filmed after he was good and sick but somewhat before he died. And then, homing in on Canon City, there were interviews with parents and friends of victims, with vivid descriptions of how the infection struck and killed. For wrap-up, a scathing attack on the "do-nothing attitude" of the Centers for Disease Control, a rousing "citizens' call" for action, a demand that Canon City be isolated completely "to see that this horror does not move beyond its boundaries..."
The show had impact, all right. The town councilmen of Canon City howled exploitation, while the ACLU screamed foul at the very suggestion of isolating a community — "This is not medieval Italy" — and the CDC people in Canon City gritted their teeth and very carefully refrained from responding at all, much as they might have liked to, on orders from Carlos Quintana, who held the fatalistic conviction, reinforced by long and bitter experience, that howling at JTLM-TV News Denver would be considerably less fruitful than howling at the moon — and a great deal more dangerous to their mission.
In Atlanta, Ted Bettendorf fielded the howls officially and — unlike Carlos — decided that action was demanded. Within an hour of the broadcast he had a senior PR man on a plane for Denver with three legal men in tow, their major mission to abort any reruns of the show that might be planned. Then, after a half-hour phone conference with the Secretary HHS in Washington, Ted got an assistant commissioner of the FCC on the line. "Damon, for God's sake! This kind of broadcast has got to stop, this is absolutely intolerable. We can't work with this kind of light in our faces."
"Ted, I can certainly sympathize, I guess the show was a little raw, but I don't know what we can do about it. We can't precensor those producers, you know."
"Maybe not," Bettendorf said, "but you can knock them across the room later, can't you? This is a clear and present public danger, what they're doing. They didn't bother to check one single fact. They've taken a few cases of infection in one isolated region and blown it up into a raging epidemic."
The FCC man was vastly apologetic. "I'll do anything that's legal, Ted, you know we want to cooperate with you guys, but the laws are pretty tight."
"Well, you can keep the damned thing off the air elsewhere, can't you? It's not prior censorship once it's been shown."
"We can't block it unless the station voluntarily pulls it, Ted. The freedom-of-speech people are watching us like hawks these days, and believe me, you're going to have more press, not less, if you try to get rough. Why don't you have your man out there just pat the producer's ass and see if he can't talk him | |
case, the one on the red die is meant to indicate an ace. The red die has the lowest point numbers: A, 2, 3, 4, 5, and a Deer with Antlers. The blue die has the middle point numbers: 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and a Deer with Antlers. And finally the beige die has the highest point cards represented: J, Q, K, Car, Running Deer, and Deer with Antlers.
The most common rolls are for three card values such as 2, 6, and Q. When this happens and no symbols are rolled (e.g. Running Deer, Car, or Deer with Antlers) the player who rolled may discard all of the cards that match the values rolled to the center discard pile from their hand. If they are unable to play any cards from their hand from this roll, any and all opponents around the table may discard from their own hand those cards and give them to the rolling player. The second most common roll is two middle or lower point numbers and a deer with antlers such as 4, 7, and a deer with antlers. When this happens, the player may discard to the center pile all of the 4's or 7's in their hand.
Deer in the Headlights contains three dice, one blue, one beige, and one red.
A more uncommon roll is to get two numbers and a car. The car essentially indicates that any cards discarded will not go to the center pile but will instead by distributed by the current player to the other opponents around the table as they see fit. When two numbers and a running deer are rolled, the player may discard to the center pile all of the cards in their hand for the numbers shown, plus an additional wild card of their choosing. So if a 3, 8, and running deer are rolled, the player could discard all the 3's, 8's, and Kings they have in their hand if they were to so choose.
When a number, a deer with antlers, and a car are rolled, the player may discard any card that matches the number rolled, as well as any number of cards that add up to that number. So if the player rolled a six, she could discard all of her sixes and any other combination within her hand that adds up to six. Three twos, one four and two ones, and one five and one one would all count. Because the car was rolled, all of these cards discarded are distributed to any of the opposing players the current player chooses.
When a number, a deer with antlers, and a running deer are rolled, the player may discard any odd or even cards based on whether the number rolled was odd or even. So, if the player rolled a 10, she would be able to discard all of the even cards in her hand to the center pile. Face cards are not included in the odd/even count, so jacks, queens, and kings may not be discarded in this way.
If two deer with antlers are rolled with one number, the player loses a turn. If however, two deer with antlers and a car are rolled, the player who rolled may select an opponent to lose the turn for them. If two deer with antlers and a running deer are rolled, the player may discard all of any two kinds of cards they choose from their hand to the center pile.
The most tragic move of all is to roll three deer with antlers. This "freezes" the player. They must pick up all cards from the center pile and they are unable to play a full turn again until they successfully roll a set of dice with at least one deer with antlers. This can be a real rotten game changer and has the potential to make a sore loser in a hurry. It is surprising how rare it actually ever happens, however.
Dice Rolls and Corresponding 'Card Plays' sheet from Instruction Manual.
Deer in the Headlights is a good game for teaching young children how to play basic card and dice games. Its sophistication is greater than that of Go Fish and Candy Land so parents won't be as bored out of their minds playing it. It's still quite a tedious game for me to play with my six-year-old son where I have my algorithm all worked out for each and every turn while he takes forever trying to figure out how many nines he has in all of the cards strewn about his hand. Given there is no strategy involved, I really can't wait until he's graduated from this one.
Deer in the Headlights might also serve as a decent social game for people who don't like to play games. In most rounds I have played, most players were about to run out of cards at the same time which tends to provide the illusion that a player is playing "well." This also increases the possibility that a player will have a "good" round regardless of their level of gaming skill. For those who are new to and scared of more sophisticated games, this could be used as a gateway game to get them interested in something more complex as time goes on.
Posted in 2 Player, 2 Player Competitive, 2014, 3 Player, 3 Player Competitive, 4 Player, 4 Player Competitive, 5 Player, 6 Player, 7 Player, 8 Player, C100/S0, Card Game, Card Game, CRD-0011, DCE-0001, Dice Game, Dice Game, Exercise in Probability, Game Review, University Games Corporation, University Games Corporation | Leave a comment
Qwirkle – Tile-Based Game Review
Posted on December 15, 2018 by ElbinoBunny
Qwirkle Game Box
Qwirkle is a tile-based game for two to four players. It was released in 2006 by publisher MindWare and was designed by Susan McKinley Ross. It is one of those wonderful games that is approachable to young children while simultaneously rich in complex strategy such that there is a great deal to enjoy for advanced players as well. I was introduced to Qwirkle by my five year old son who learned how to play it with his friends at a board game night we attended. He nearly taught me how to play all on his own, though the more advanced strategies seem to be difficult for him to implement and it will take him some practice to ramp up. It is also one of the rare games that doesn't vary in gameplay based on the number of players playing. The game plays pretty much the same with two players as it does with four players, and no one will feel like a third wheel when playing it with three players.
The Qwirkle set I purchased at Target on sale for 15 dollars has high quality wooden tiles that fit nicely into the supplied cloth bag. Much like Scrabble, players draw their hand from the bag without looking to see what they will get. Each player's hand is six tiles to start with. After each player plays, they draw the correct number of tiles to replenish their hand.
Qwirkle Game Pieces
There are six different shapes: a square, an x, a diamond, a circle, a star, and a clover. The six different colors are red, blue, purple, green, yellow, and orange. There are 108 tiles in all which divided out means there are three of every shape and color combination that may be played in any game. Having this knowledge comes in handy in the later stage of the game when you are running out of moves for maximum points and want to know if a move can potentially allow an opponent to qwirkle.
In each turn a player plays a single line of tiles that | |
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Our Second Overseas Family Trip: Phuket, Thailand
When we booked our flight to Phuket for early evening on Christmas Day, I don't think I anticipated exactly how long that day would feel. Though the flight time was less than two hours, we took off at Harper's bedtime, after a day that started early and included quite a lot of action for small kiddos. Especially because it seemed as if a switch had been trigger for Harper and she was suddenly walking independently and impressively fluidly. She tested this new trick out all over the airport, which made standing in lines a little tiresome and had me scared about the flight. Thankfully learning how to walk takes a lot of energy and she crashed with takeoff.
Overall, from stockings, to presents, to a festive lunch out, packing and schlepping to the airport, and flying to Thailand – it was a long day that led to the two kids arriving at the resort looking like this:
The staff was gracious upon our arrival, offering me a lovely glass of tropical juice and launching into a long winded spiel about every possible thing you could ever want to know, which is exactly what you want to listen to when you have two exhausted children whose nighttime sleep is being interrupted by the check-in process. I know some people have these kids who will like stay asleep as they are carried from the couch to the bedroom, or even as the car seat leaves the car and heads somewhere attached to the stroller. But those are not my kids.
My kids are also usually a part of the wake up before the sun's up crew, but on our first morning they did both sleep until 7am, which was actually 8am in Singapore, so we chalked that up to an epic win and began to explore our surroundings. I have never been to a place that was more thoroughly landscaped to resemble something out of a fairy tale. The gardens all had this vibrancy and charm that felt like walking through a storybook. And my favorite local flower was everywhere.
We spent our first day exploring the resort. It had a beautiful pool that had at one point apparently been the largest freshwater pool in South East Asia. It sprawled all over the property, with no shortage of shallow spots for Harper to practice her walking. A newly mobile baby in a pool is great fun actually because the weightlessness allows them to move quicker and more fluidly, so she was feeling pretty darn impressive toddling through the water. The resort's buffet did not disappoint. In addition to the croissant which Penny fell in love with on our last vacation, they also had mini sugar donuts somewhere reminiscent of American munchkins, which delighted my child to no end.
The resort beach was fun for sandcastle building and fascinating from an ecological perspective. It was an intertidal zone that revealed all these interesting rock formations when the tide went out, each one full of sea life forms. But this geological phenomenon made a dip in the ocean a little logistically complicated for little ones and so for our second day, we decided to venture off-resort to the famous Patong Beach. Here the water was brilliantly blue and you could wade right in, but the vibe here was reminiscent of my college break trip to Acapulco. Clearly tourism is a huge industry in Phuket and between stands renting everything from unicorn floatation devices to jet skis and the large crowds hailing from all over the globe, this beach was teeming with activity at 10am on a Friday morning.
We spent the rest of the day back at the resort, where Penny was delighted to interact with the resort pets. The sweet bunny I placed on her lap happily ate the greens and then bounded off and we needed some help to lure him back to his friends.
We capped off our trip by having dinner at the beachside restaurant on site. It didn't have French fries on the menu, so we were able to order them from the beachside bar and bring them over. The meal included lots of walking around holding Harper's hand between courses and Penny completed an entire sticker book, but we got to eat delicious Thai food and watch a beautiful sunset. For me, this was the highlight of the trip.
Watch me go guys!
Our flight back was mid-morning the next day, so we only had time for breakfast and "saying goodbye to the ocean". The trip was quick, but I honestly think that's what made it so sweet. It was the perfect length to feel like we soaked up what was easily available, and I felt ready to go home but not overly so. There are no doubt lots of excursions we could have done, but most of the those things are for adults adventuring on their own or families with bigger kids, honestly. My kids right now are happy with time with their parents and a bucket, and I'm more than aware that won't always be the case.
The only notable thing about our trip home was how crowded the airport was when it was time to board your plane. Passengers were bused from the terminal to their aircraft, and the same departure gate was used for flights as close as 15 minutes apart. It definitely made me want to have one hand on each child at all times.
Overall, this trip felt like a vacation, which is a feat in itself with two children. I definitely left wanting to see (and eat my way through) more of Thailand, but maybe a sleepier side of it next time.
Thavorn Resort Highlights:
Great food. A seafood ceviche I had was one of the best things I've eaten in a while.
Landscaping. I was struck by the natural beauty everywhere I looked.
Animals! This was unexpected and so fun for the kids.
Pool – It was sprawling with easy toddler access.
Phuket as a whole felt really eco-conscious. No plastic straws or bags, smart housekeeping suggestions to limit waste.
The beach wasn't really functional for family use.
Phuket in general has a strong party vibe. Our last night at the resort there was a wedding in progress, which was beautifully to witness, and a rowdy bachelorette party which was less so the kind of thing I want my kids to see.
Hotel gym had some of the most ancient exercise machinery I'd ever seen.
January 15, 2020 KJU Leave a comment
Out of sight, but not out of mind
When we discussed this opportunity to spend two years living in Singapore, when we consulted our good old fashioned pro/con lists, when I said yes, trying to choose the "bigger life" and go beyond my comfort zone, I couldn't do it without contemplating the things that I'd miss.
Because going somewhere new inevitably means you're leaving somewhere old, and for me that meant leaving nearly everyone I knew and loved. On the spectrum of loving, I trend towards the effusive end and there are no shortage of people who I can picture in my mind's eye and feel my heart wince.
I made myself mentally list the obvious things I'd hate to miss – from the traditions and occasions that let me connect with those I love, like the annual Girls Running Club race and how last year's combination of new and old students, family, and friends made the day a pinnacle of perfection, I thought of the Class of 2020 graduating from high school and me not being able to scream their names, names that I've been holding near in my heart for eight plus years of coaching and teaching and loving. I thought of the time we'd | |
the fli I[3] allele to a canB2 mutant background significantly increases the numbers of uncollapsed DLM. However, the suppression is not complete, and this may be due to the relatively mild effect of the fli I[3] allele. Null alleles of fli I cause lethality in the early embryonic stages. The fli I[3] allele is a less severe mutation, caused by a change of a highly conserved glycine to serine. It is possible that even with the disruptions of the sarcomeric structure, fli I[3] does not completely inhibit IFM contraction (Gajewski, 2005).
A reduction of calcineurin function has a profound effect on the expression of the mhc gene in the IFM. One copy of canB2[EP(2)0774] enhances the severity of IFM defects in flies heterozygous for the antimorphic Mhc[5] allele. mhc transcripts are barely detectable in the IFM of canB2 mutant flies, and many of the mutant myofibrils have greatly reduced or completely absent thick filaments. However, there is no interference with the tissue-specific splicing of the five versions of Mhc exon 11. The reduction of mhc expression is not due to a nonspecific reduction in transcription; the levels of GFP transcript from a reporter driven by mhc upstream sequences (mhc-GFP) are also reduced in a mutant background, but expression of actin88F is unaffected. The simplest explanation is that transcription of mhc is greatly reduced in the absence/reduction of calcineurin function, but further studies will be needed to confirm it (Gajewski, 2005).
The function of calcineurin in transcriptional activation is well documented, for example, its role in regulating transcription factors such as NFAT and Mef2. There are multiple Dmef2 binding sites upstream of the mhc gene, as well as a binding site for the zinc-finger transcription factor CF2. Work in other systems has established that calcineurin can activate Mef2 both directly and indirectly; it is likely that this will also hold true for Drosophila. Whether calcineurin can affect CF2 activity is not yet known, but the phosphorylation state of CF2 has been demonstrated to play a role in its regulation via the EGFR pathway in Drosophila ovaries. Phosphorylated CF2 is found predominantly in the cytoplasm of the anterodorsal follicle cells, where it is fated to be degraded. It is speculated that removal of the phosphate group allows entry in the nucleus CF2 is expressed in all three muscle types of the Drosophila embryo (Bagni, 2002), but it is not yet known if this protein is required for IFM development. It will be of interest to investigate whether CF2 is expressed in the developing IFM, and what effects calcineurin function (or lack thereof) would possibly have on its subcellular localization (Gajewski, 2005).
It is also interesting to note that the lack/reduction of calcineurin has a much more drastic effect on mhc transcript levels in the IFM than it does on the various muscle types of the abdomen. The amount of total mhc transcripts are readily detectable in the mutant abdominal musculature, but not in the mutant IFM under the same PCR conditions. The transcript is not completely missing in the mutant IFM; if extra PCR cycles are done, or extra fly equivalents of cDNA are added for the mutants, a mhc band can be amplified. The reason for greater IFM sensitivity to lack of calcineurin function is unknown, and warrants further investigation. It may be that calcineurin is part of a system to promote maximum expression of mhc. The IFM are the largest muscles in the fly, and their tightly packed hexagonal arrangement of thick and thin filaments (unique in the fly musculature) could require increased expression of myosin and other structural proteins. There are numerous examples of mutations in muscle structural protein genes that result in a flightless phenotype, but do not impair the functions of other types of muscles (Gajewski, 2005).
The myofilament structure of the canB2 mutants reflects the reduction in mhc transcripts. While about 20% of the adult mutant IFM tissue examined resembled wild type, the majority of samples exhibited some degree of defect. Some myofibrils had patches of organized filament structure at the periphery, but have no recognizable structures in focus at the center region. This is likely the result of hypercontraction, which can lead to random myofilament orientation. In the most severely affected myofibrils, no organized structures of any sort could be detected. Examination of longitudinal sections confirmed this range of phenotypes. Some samples resembled the wild type sarcomeric pattern. Mildly affected mutant tissue had broken Z-bands, partial or missing M-lines (indicative of reduced or missing thick filaments), and shorter sarcomeres (indicative of hypercontraction). The most severely affected mutant muscles lacked any Z-bands or M-lines. The mutant pupal samples tended to display the most severe myofibrillar phenotypes. It is likely that using adults for examination selects against the most severe phenotypes; the animals examined in the pupal stage are likely to represent those that would not have successfully eclosed, and a small sample of canB2 mutant pupae could easily display a propensity for the strongest defects. The canB2[EP(2)0774] mutation is semi-lethal; life cycle analysis reveals that many of the animals that die do so in the pupal stages. It may be that the most severe canB2 phenotypes render the animals unable to eclose, although the role, if any, of the IFM is this process is yet to be confirmed. It is also possible that the most severe canB2 phenotypes could impair other muscles (Gajewski, 2005).
The effect of the canB2 mutation on Tn I expression represents a possible novel role for calcineurin, that being in different isoform formation. Although no direct role for calcineurin in the control of RNA splicing has yet been demonstrated, it is interesting to note that phosphorylation status of SR proteins plays a role in their localization within the nucleus, and assembly, disassembly, and activity of the spliceosome may by influenced by a cycle of protein phosphorylation. The degree of phosphorylation is believed to effect protein-protein and protein-RNA interactions in the spliceosomal complexes. The splicing of at least one variant exon of the mouse CD44 gene is coupled to signal transduction via the protein kinase C/ras signaling pathway. Therefore, it is possible that calcineurin helps regulate a system responsible for transition in the pupal IFM from the smaller Tn I isoform to the larger version, by control of the phosphorylation states of one or more proteins in the spliceosome complex that are required for inclusion of the third exon (Gajewski, 2005).
It should be noted that the effects of the canB2 mutation on the relative levels of the two Tn I isoforms in the adult IFM are highly variable. In some PCR experiments, the smaller, exon 3 lacking transcript is predominant, but in others, both forms can be clearly seen. However, the results for the wild type adults are consistent: the larger transcript is clearly present, with little or no smaller form detected, in multiple repeats of the experiment. Thus, it must be considered that the differential formation of the Tn I isoforms may not be a direct result of altered calcineurin control of splicing in the IFM, but an indirect consequence of the physiological status of mutant versus normal muscle. That is, the switch to the larger exon 3 containing isoform may normally occur in a wild type genetic background due to some signal (or muscle state) perceived and transmitted within IFM that is of a proper developmental age and competency. In canB2 mutants, an abnormal cellular environment may exist in some or all IFM that prevents the normal sensing of this signal and subsequent isoform switch. Thus, the variability observed in the relative ratio of the two Tn I mRNA forms may simply reflect a nonequivalent status of collapsed muscles as to their competency to sense and | |
shall never forgive myself if you have taken the fever
from me!"
"I do not fear that, father. My head aches, and I am very tired. I have
been so busy all day, you know."
"Yes, and for many other days. You are, without doubt, overworked. I
hope this may prove to be all the matter with you. A night's rest may
quite cure you."
"Yes sir," she answered, chokingly. "You will excuse me to ----,
downstairs?"
"Certainly. Would you like to have your mother come up to you?"
"Oh, no, sir! Please tell her there is no need of it. I shall be better
to-morrow."
"Your sister"--and he looked more serious, instead of smiling--"has a
visitor. Her friend is an acquaintance of yours, also, it appears--the
Mr. Benson whom you met at your aunt's in July."
"Yes, sir. I know it."
"I understood you to say that Lucy had never said positively who her
lover was; but this was not the name you told me of, as the person whom
you imagined him to be."
"I was misled for a time myself, sir," replied the poor girl, pressing
her temples between her palms.
"I see that I am tiring you. Forgive me! but it is so natural to
consult you in everything. I must trouble you with some questions,
which it is important should be answered to-night, before this
gentleman and myself have any conversation. Is Mr. Benson a man
whom you consider worthy of trust? Your mother represents him to be
enormously wealthy--a reputation I had concluded he possessed, from
Lucy's pet name for him. It is well that your sister has a prospect
of marrying advantageously in this respect, for she would never be
happy in an humble sphere; but antiquated people like myself regard
other things as of greater consequence in concluding a bargain for a
lifetime. Is your opinion of Mr. Benson favorable as to disposition,
principles, and conduct?"
Sarah's head rested on the foot-board of her couch, in weariness or
pain, as she rejoined: "I saw and heard nothing of him, during our
intercourse in the country, that was not creditable. His uncle and aunt
are very partial to him, and speak of his character in high terms.
Their testimony ought to have weight with you, for they have known him
from his boyhood up."
"It ought and does. I am relieved to hear all this! very much pleased!"
said Mr. Hunt, enthusiastically. "I have all confidence in Nathan
Benson's judgment and integrity. I hope his nephew is as sterling a
man. Thus far," he continued, playfully, "I have learned but one thing
to his discredit, and that is, having seen this one of my daughters, he
could afterwards fall in love with the other."
"I am not beautiful and good like Lucy, father."
"Very dear and lovely in my eyes, my child! Again forgive me for having
worried your poor head with my inquiries. I was unwilling to decide
a matter where Lucy's happiness was involved, without obtaining your
evidence in the case. A last good-night! and God bless you, my dearest,
best daughter!"
Sarah held up her face for his kiss without attempting to speak. This
burning ordeal, the harder to endure because unexpected, was over. She
was as weak as a child with conflicting passions when she arose and
endeavored to undress. After stooping several times to regain breath
and strength, she was at last ready to creep into bed, there to lie
until morning broke, sleepless and suffering.
Her sharpened senses could discern her father's and mother's voices
in the sitting-room, in confidential talk--interrupted, by-and-by, by
Lucy's pure, mellow tones, apparently conveying some message to the
former. Its import was easily surmised, for his step was then heard in
the hall and on the stairs, until he reached the parlor where Philip
awaited him. Their conference did not occupy more than twenty minutes,
which time Lucy spent with her mother--how gayly, Sarah could judge by
the laugh that, again and again, reached her room. Mr. Hunt returned,
spoke a few sentences in his calm, grave way, and the closing door was
followed by a flutter of silk and fall of gliding footsteps, as Lucy
went down to her now formally and fully betrothed husband.
"Husband!" Yes! it was even so! Henceforth the lives of the pair
were to be as one in interest, in aims, in affection. Ere long, they
would have no separate outward existence in the eyes of the world.
Was his chosen love, then, in a truer and higher sense, his other
self--the being sought so long and carefully? The pretty fiancee
would have stretched her cerulean orbs in amazed wonder at the
ridiculous doubt, and asked, in her matter-of-fact way, how the thing
could have happened, if it had not been intended? Philip's indignant
affirmative would have gained fervor from his exultant consciousness of
possession--so novel and sweet. But one above stairs, taught sagacity
by the depth of her grief, looked further into the future than did
they, and read there a different reply.
She heard the clang of the front door as it shut after the young
lover, and in the still midnight, the echoes, faint and fainter, of
his retreating footsteps--the same free, light tread she used to
hearken for in porch and hall of that riverside farm house; and as the
remembrance came over her she turned her face to the wall, murmuring
passionately: "Oh! if I could never, never see him again!"
This feeling, whether born of cowardice or desperation, was the ruling
one, when her mother looked in upon her before breakfast, and expressed
her concern at finding her still in bed.
"I am not well enough to get up, mother," Sarah said sincerely, and
Mrs. Hunt, reading in the parched lips and bloodshot eyes proof of the
justice of the fears her husband had expressed to her the preceding
evening, resolved that the doctor should see her "before she was two
hours older."
In vain Sarah entreated that this should not be done, and prophesied
her recovery without his assistance. For once her parents were a unit
in sentiment and action, and the physician was summoned to his second
patient.
"All febrile symptoms were to some extent contagious," he affirmed;
"and while Mr. Hunt's malady was not generally classed with such,
it was very possible that his daughter had contracted an analogous
affection, in her constant attendance upon him."
This decision Sarah dared not overthrow, much as she wished to do so,
when she saw how it afflicted her father.
Undaunted by any fears of infection, Lucy repaired to her sister's
chamber when she had despatched her breakfast.
"Isn't it too provoking that you should be sick just at this time?"
she began, perching herself, school-girl fashion on the foot of the
bed. "I really admired your staying upstairs last night; but I did not
dream that you really were not well. I promise you that I made capital
of your absence. I told Philip (how odd it sounds, doesn't it?) that
you ran away when he rang the bell, because you had made a fright of
yourself by crying over the prospect of my leaving you, and that I had
no doubt that you had grieved yourself into a headache. He wanted to
know forthwith if you objected to my marrying him; but I said 'No';
that you were charmed with the match, and preferred him to any other
admirer I had ever had; but that we--you and I--were so devoted to one
another, that it was acute agony to us to think of parting. About ten
o'clock he asked to see father, and they soon settled affairs. When I
went down again, he tried a little ring on my finger that he always
wears, and it fitted nicely. So I knew what it meant when he put it
back upon his own hand, and that with that for a measure he could
not go wrong in getting the engagement ring. I do hope it will be a
diamond. Vic. West declares that she would not accept anything else.
I considered for a while whether I couldn't give him a delicate hint
on the subject, but I did not see how I could manage it. And don't you
think, while I was studying about this, he fancied I was sober over
'the irrevocable step I had | |
about social exclusion from IT and the reassurance we heard from the Government and the noble Viscount, Lord Chelmsford, that electronic commerce can be used to reduce social exclusion. I hope that we can hear that reassurance again today in the context of international development.
I need no persuasion so far as concerns school exchanges. From my time at Save the Children I know that learning across frontiers is enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child and that both the British Council and several NGOs have developed successfully electronic links between schools at all levels of education. But we have not yet fully understood the true educational needs of the poorest. I know of a case in rural Afghanistan where a UN agency delivered heavy unwanted school furniture to a primary school and thus halved the space in which children were able to sit on the floor. In many parts of Asia you only sit on a chair when you have achieved a certain educational standard. We are still learning ourselves when it comes to appropriate education for others.
On the face of it, there are many forms of communications other than IT which need support and which help the poorest communities to identify problems and solutions. There are non-formal literacy classes, and night schools for adults and working children, such as I have seen in India and Bangladesh, where the priorities are often social as well as educational, helping to understand the ownership of land or to locate the source of advice and funding. There are many forms of oral communication used in health and education: posters, video, street theatre and puppets which are highly successful in urban and rural communities. Those will not be done away with in favour of one Internet user in the vicinity. Latin America has a strong tradition of communications of this kind. I am sure, however, that ways of adapting the new technology will be found.
In the sense that it assists the developmental process, I accept that IT, especially e-mail, is now a rapidly growing resource for NGOs and agencies. It is especially valuable to human rights agencies and those who belong to networks and hold electronic conferences. Provided it is properly financed, managed, backed up and serviced, as some noble Lords know in this place, computers should be seen as an efficient accounting, training and management tool.
Health and education professionals can use electronic media to enhance their own training and reflect new experience directly to students or beneficiaries, as they would anywhere in the world. In certain circumstances, such as video or radio, IT can be helpful in directly assisting projects in the field, for example, by providing educational resources and distance learning programmes which are valuable. As the noble Lord, Lord St. John, mentioned, the BBC World Service uses IT for its many English language teaching programmes.
1662 IT can directly help rural development. The Intermediate Technology Development Group, for example, is planning to strengthen the information systems of small-scale producers in Zimbabwe and local government offices in Peru through Internet training. Provided you know what you are looking for and, as has been mentioned, it is well-targeted, you can usually find technical information more efficiently on the net than anywhere else. Unlike most published media it will be updated regularly.
I repeat that these processes are to enhance agencies of sustainable development, not to assist sustainable development directly; to enable the helpers to help rather than empower the poor themselves. We should not forget that the aim of sustainable development is to give the poor opportunities which will release them from that dependence, not divide them from the rest of society with more inaccessible technology.
The Secretary of State said last week: In a world increasingly dominated by services, knowledge is increasingly a traded product. If knowledge can be disseminated more easily and more cheaply, location will be less important and if geography has dealt you a poor hand, this need not necessarily be a penalty". There may be some ambiguity here about the purpose of international development if knowledge is primarily a traded commodity. Section 3 of the Government's latest departmental report on international development restates the universal primary education target by 2015. It records that 150 million primary age children do not attend school and over 900 adults—two thirds of them women—are illiterate.
I applaud the efforts of DID through the Commonwealth to promote distance education and increased access to information through normal channels. But I should also like to ask the noble Lord what steps the Government are taking, while exploring these new technologies, to ensure that the poor themselves benefit from and, where possible, choose for themselves the information they will acquire.
§ Lord Thomson of Monifieth
My Lords, I join with other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Hardinge, for introducing this important issue and speaking about it in such an authoritative way from his own direct experience.
I should say straightaway that I cannot speak in any authoritative way about information technology, having just emerged from the harrowing experience of my first lesson in a room upstairs on what is laughingly called a lap-top personal computer. But I have no doubt that the people of the developing world, the people of Africa, will be much more apt pupils in information technology than I am ever likely to be. I am sure that information technology has an important part to play in the development of international aid policy in the future.
On the whole, I share the broad balance of the argument put by the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, in regard to the place of information technology in overall international aid policy. There are two points I should like to make on these matters. One is of a general 1663 character about the background to international aid policy. The other is specifically about the role of English language text books in development aid policy.
My general point is to plead with the Government not to turn their governmental international aid policy into too much of a rigid dogma targeted narrowly on giving direct aid to the poorest people in the world. I use the phraseology of the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, a Minister in the previous government.
The final aim of international aid policy is to relieve the poverty of the poorest people in the world, but the methods of doing that ought to be seen on a wide canvass. The World Bank has already been quoted as pointing out that to invest in literacy is probably one of the most effective forms of investment in the final development of economic and social welfare.
But in my view, the investment in literacy should be made on a broad and balanced educational front with many different aspects, of which information technology is no doubt a part. The illiteracy of the poorest children is one aspect, but the educational campaign must be seen on many levels. Certainly, for the foreseeable future, books are bound to continue to play a major role in that campaign. Nor is the educational element in overall aid policy to be seen in the widest possible way in terms of the groups that it affects. It must not only be seen as being directly related to economic and social development but should be for education in democracy and good governance. These forms of educational help to the poorer countries of the world are as important as direct education in the economic field.
I should perhaps declare an interest as a trustee of a charity which deals with the training of journalists in the third world and the countries emerging from the Soviet empire. The money that is devoted to providing help in | |
Developer Interview with Lynn Carahaly, M.A., CCC-SLP of Speech-EZ® Apps & Giveaway!
Today's interview is with Lynn Carahaly, M.A., CCC-SLP, Developer of The Speech-EZ® Apraxia Program and Speech-EZ® apps. Please visit their website, Facebook and Twitter pages.
Thank you for participating our interview. Please tell us a little about yourself and Speech-EZ® apps.
I have been practicing as a Pediatric Speech-Language Pathologist for over 15 years now. I received her Bachelor's and Master's degrees from "The" Ohio State University. I am the owner/director of private practice, Foundations Developmental House, LLC, located in Gilbert, AZ, which is home of The Speech-EZ® Apraxia Program and Speech-EZ® apps. I work in the clinical setting and the school based setting and develop Speech and Educational apps. My area of specialization is with the treatment of childhood apraxia of speech, auditory processing disorders, related disorders and learning disabilities, as well as pragmatic language.
How is your Apraxia Picture Sound Cards app different from other apps for apraxia?
Our patent pending sharing technology is probably the feature that makes Apraxia Picture Sound Card superior. If communication between SLP and parent is important to you, then this is your app. I really wanted to create an innovative way to increase communication and participation between SLP and parent. Providing parents with a sound tool to work with their child is key. If the SLP has the Pro version, and the parent has the Parent version, SLP and parent can communicate between devices! The SLP has the ability to create customized stimulus homework sets and "share" directly to the parent's app.
You can also create a team if your child is working with more than one therapist. For example, many children have a school SLP and a private SLP or home-based SLP. Progress can be viewed by the whole team so everyone is on the same page. Goals for CAS, Phonological Processes and more can be hand selected and customized from goal bank and shared with parent.
What also makes this app a stand out is the use of Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) treatment techniques using Hand Cues which are manual gestures used to mimic articulatory movements, leading to increasing procedural memory and improved motor planning. You are investing in a method and not just an app with flash cards. The full Speech-Ez Manual is now included with print functions.
I would love the opportunity to continue to develop more apps in other areas that I am passionate about, including auditory processing, Executive functioning and working memory. I also have ideas to continue to make our current apps even more amazing.
Is there any news you would like to share with The iMums?
Speech-EZ® GIVEAWAY time NOW and HUGE 48 SALE to follow August 7th! Speech-EZ® is giving away an iPad mini 2 (16GB); Apraxia Picture Sound Cards (Parent) app; and APSC (Pro) app Live NOW-Aug 5th. Enter here: If you don't win, don't worry: HUGE 48hr SALE Aug 7th at 12:00pm Eastern Time on all SPEECH-EZ® apps! APSC Pro from $299 to $89 APSC Parent from $179 to $79, all other Speech-EZ apps from $29.99 down to $4.99. The last Speech-EZ Sale that was this big was 18 months ago. They are far and few between, so if you are considering, NOW is the time! You can enter to win here!
Thank you so much for talking with us today Lynn and sharing a bit about your company. We really appreciated the chance to get to know you and are excited to be giving away a copy of Apraxia Picture Sound Cards to celebrate the interview and your latest update!
If you would like to win a promo code for Apraxia Picture Sound Cards APSC parent app valued at $179 USD, please enter via the widget below. You can read iMum Mary's review of the app here.Winners will be emailed and must contact The iMums within 48 hours to claim their prize. This giveaway is open to everyone, worldwide, and an iTunes account is required to claim the prize. Please ensure you have read and understand our Terms & Conditions. Good luck!
CASANA is the acronym that stands for the Childhood Apraxia of Speech Association of North America. We are the only national 501c3 nonprofit organization dedicated exclusively to children with apraxia of speech and their families.
What is Childhood Apraxia of Speech ?
Childhood Apraxia of Speech is a neurologically based speech disorder in which children have difficulty with planning the movements that underlie speech. We often do not think about speech as a motor action, but in fact, the act of physically producing speech is probably the most refined movements that humans create! What people most notice in children with apraxia of speech, before treatment or when severely affected, is that they have limited speech or speech that is very difficult to understand, sometimes even their own family does not understand. It is among the most severe of speech and communication disorders in children.
How and when was CASANA founded? CASANA was incorporated in 2000, but informally started several years earlier when I created an online email discussion group about apraxia. A short time later, with the help of other volunteers, we created the Apraxia-KIDS.org website too. At that time – the mid to late 1990's, the world wide web was brand new and there was no information available to families about apraxia. My son had been diagnosed in 1994 and aside from a few obscure professional journal articles in a university library, I had no information to go on. That seems almost hard to believe now given the internet and how much information is available now! And so around the time CASANA incorporated, the whole thing was just getting way to big to operate alone or solely in my living room on my home computer. Clearly, a bigger response was needed because the problem of speech apraxia is one with enormous impact on these children and the families too. So, I gathered some dedicated other parents and family members of those with CAS and together we have made this thing not only survive, but grow strong and be a world wide source of information for all those who are impacted. We also believed that in order for the children to thrive, we needed 3 legs to our stool. Families represent one leg. Speech – language pathologists and other professionals, the 2nd leg, and researchers the 3rd leg. Together – we could all make a difference for the children and their futures.
Tell us about your personal experience with Apraxia ? My youngest son was diagnosed with severe apraxia at a little over 3 years old. He had been in speech therapy through early intervention birth to three program for an entire year, first at 1x a week then at 2x a week. But yet, he did not really say anymore at the end of that year than he had at the beginning. I was very concerned and through a physician friend had him evaluated by the head of Audiology and Communication Disorders at our Children's Hospital and one of the other SLPs there. After the evaluation, they met with me and delivered the news that my son had something called apraxia of speech and that it was severe. I remember feeling relieved because I knew something more was wrong than just a speech delay and hoped that finding out the "what" would lead to help that truly helped. But I was also like a deer in headlights. I had no idea what it would mean. What was said to me did not totally absorb that day.
But the blessing that came from that fateful day was being connected to an SLP who had great success with kids who had apraxia and having a new | |
for business, the name, though, still up for grabs. All agreed Nick should make the decision, which delighted him. He's excited to be an owner. It's there in the way he palms the storeroom keys, responds patiently to salespeople who phone nonstop, checks and rechecks condiments, floors, appliances though no customer has yet been served. She's careful not to undercut his pleasure, careful to keep certain worries to herself. Because, really, it's not the best time to start a new venture. Look at how difficult it was to secure the mortgage, and what if they don't make enough to cover it? What if all the stuff they bought and still have to pay for doesn't result in more customers? What about her friends, now employees? They, too, must wonder, can she and Nick pull this off? If the diner fails, they'll be out of work. What then? These are the thoughts that visit before her day begins.
It's not that Nick's free of worry, he frets all the time, always has, about something happening to her, about Glory in Mali, whatever. Yet he sleeps, one arm up under the pillow. Amazing. Her eyes flick to her dead husband's portrait, a man who didn't fret. She offered to remove it. Nick said, no, he's gotten used to it, feels some affection for the guy.
Slipping out of the flannel robe, she climbs into bed. He curls around her back, warm, reassuring in its way.
"Couldn't sleep again?" she's surprised to hear him whisper.
"Umm."
"Want to say why?"
"Uh-uh."
"Nervous?"
"A bit," she admits.
"Me too. Things tank. We could live in a tent, no expenses, go from park to park."
"What about winter?"
"Problem," he agrees.
"We could go south."
"We could," his words low in his throat.
"There's Bobby—"
"Don't be real," he admonishes softly.
"That's a challenge," she whispers more to herself. The streetlamp flickers off and milky morning light brightens the sky.
Acknowledgments
My deep gratitude to Jane Lazarre for her talent, time, and unwavering eye on this book; to Jocelyn Lieu and Jan Clausen, whose attention to all on the page continue to impress me; to Tom Engelhardt for getting me started on the long journey here; to Denise C. for her insight and encouragement; and to Judi Brand, Elizabeth Strout, Barbara Schneider, Marsha Taubenhaus, Vickie Breitbart, Prue Glass, and Liz Gewirtzman for constant support and friendship.
Huge thanks to Dan Simon, Publisher extraordinaire, for his ongoing belief in this project; to my editor, Gabe Espinal, whose intelligence and easy ways made the process more than pleasant; to Gail Heimberg for her technical wizardry; to John Samuel Wiggins for his video; to Jesse Lichtenstein, Anne Rumberger, Elizabeth DeLong, and everyone at Seven Stories Press for their thoughtful and tender care in making this into a book. And deep and abiding appreciation to my agent, Melanie Jackson, a national treasure.
As always I remain grateful to my beloved, Charlie Wiggins, for his unfailing devotion, enthusiasm, and faith in what I do. And to the lights of my life, Georgina, Dónal, and Maya, you make it all matter.
About the Author
beverly gologorsky is the author of the acclaimed novel The Things We Do to Make it Home, originally published by Random House in 1999, reissued by Seven Stories in 2009, named a Notable Book by the New York Times, Best Fiction by Los Angeles Times, and a finalist for the Barnes and Noble Discover Great Writers Award. Her work has appeared in anthologies and magazines, including the New York Times, Newsweek, The Nation, and the LA Times. Former editor of two political journals, Viet-Report and Leviathan, she is acknowledged in the publication Feminists Who Changed America. She lives in New York and Maine.
About Seven Stories Press
seven stories press is an independent book publisher based in New York City. We publish works of the imagination by such writers as Nelson Algren, Russell Banks, Octavia E. Butler, Ani DiFranco, Assia Djebar, Ariel Dorfman, Coco Fusco, Barry Gifford, Martha Long, Luis Negrón, Hwang Sok-yong, Lee Stringer, and Kurt Vonnegut, to name a few, together with political titles by voices of conscience, including Subhankar Banerjee, the Boston Women's Health Collective, Noam Chomsky, Angela Y. Davis, Human Rights Watch, Derrick Jensen, Ralph Nader, Loretta Napoleoni, Gary Null, Greg Palast, Project Censored, Barbara Seaman, Alice Walker, Gary Webb, and Howard Zinn, among many others. Seven Stories Press believes publishers have a special responsibility to defend free speech and human rights, and to celebrate the gifts of the human imagination, wherever we can. In 2012 we launched Triangle Square books for young readers with strong social justice and narrative components, telling personal stories of courage and commitment. For additional information, visit www .sevenstories.com.
A Seven Stories Press Reading Group Guide
Stop Here
by Beverly Gologorsky
The following questions are suggested to enhance individual reading and invite group discussion regarding Beverly Gologorsky's Stop Here. We hope these questions provide additional topics for consideration and generate a stimulating dialogue with others.
For a complete listing of Seven Stories Press books featuring Reading Group Guides, please visit our website at www.sevenstories.com.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. War affects most of the characters, both directly and indirectly. How does each character react to the effects of war and what do their reactions say about their personalities?
2. Most of the characters in Stop Here are struggling to make ends meet and have limited opportunities because of their economic situations. How does each character respond to the stress of supporting themselves and their families? How does each character feel about their economic situation and how does that reflect their view of the world?
3. How does money affect the way the characters view Murray, the owner of the diner? How does it affect the way they view Sylvie, Murray's new wife?
4. What role does romantic love play in each character's life? Why do you think Ava is so hesitant about falling in love, first with Mark and then with Nick? How does Rosalyn use her illness as an excuse not to get close to Jack?
5. A prominent theme in this novel is the betrayals of the body—we see this through Dina and also Rosalyn. How do Dina and Rosalyn's reactions differ as their bodies start to fail them? What do they find comfort in to help them through these experiences?
6. What did the author accomplish by telling the story from multiple points of view? How did you feel when returning to a character after spending a few chapters away from him/her?
7. Many of the characters spend time fantasizing about what they thought their lives would look like or actions they would take if they could disregard the consequences. What role does fantasy play for each character and how does exploring their inner fantasies help you understand their characters?
8. Murray has never fought in a war and his thoughts on war differ greatly from other characters' opinions. How does his attitude compare with Bruce's, Liam's, and Ava's views on war and its place in society?
9. Do you think Sylvie loves Murray? What are her reasons for marrying him and how does her view of their relationship change when she gets pregnant and lets Murray believe the baby is his?
10. Shelly advises Sylvie to "Take what you can when you can where you can" (page 37). What do you think of this advice and how does this sentiment tie into the novel as a whole?
11. What is Sylvie searching for in her relationship with Liam? Does caring for him at the end of his life change anything for Sylvie?
12. What would you do if you were in Shelly's place, deciding between leaving Bruce and helping him through his debilitating depression?
13. Does Dina blame herself for her son Tim's actions? Do you understand her decision to help him escape and her refusal to ask | |
Is Tax Reform the Cure for the Ailing Health Care System?
POSTED BY Galen Institute on August 1, 2001 .
IPI Insights
President Bush has made expansion of health coverage to the uninsured a top priority of his health reform agenda. A key element of that initiative is providing refundable tax credits to the uninsured to assist them in purchasing private health insurance.
The idea of providing refundable tax credits has broad support on both sides of the political aisle, but it is often rejected by experts in tax policy as adding yet another layer of complexity to the tax code.
However, tax credits for the uninsured can help to solve some of the most difficult health policy issues, and they also are a step in the right direction for tax reform. In fact, before we can close the books on our highly burdensome, overwhelmingly complex, internally inconsistent income tax system to create a flatter, fairer tax system, we must take a hard look at the current tax treatment of health insurance. Unless a careful strategy is developed, the current favored tax treatment of employment-based health insurance could well be the Achilles Heel of overall tax reform.
The challenge is worth taking: The tax treatment of health insurance needs to be modernized both for the sake of tax reform and health reform.
It is no coincidence that the United States offers the highest-quality health care in the world and that, during the twentieth century, it repeatedly has turned its back on government-run health systems. The challenge for the twenty-first century is to modernize policy decisions made nearly 60 years ago that are increasingly out of step with today's economy in order to make high-quality health care accessible and affordable for all Americans. The key is tax reform.
Today, the tax code provides a generous yet highly invisible subsidy for the health insurance that more than 160 million Americans receive through the workplace. This tax benefit is worth more than $130 billion in tax savings to working Americans and their families,2 a benefit that is much more valuable than the mortgage interest deduction.
Yet this subsidy leaves millions of people behind, especially those at the lower end of the income scale. Further, the subsidy is invisible to those who do receive it, causing a cascade of distortions in the marketplace for health insurance.
The political battles over a new tax system could run into a brick wall unless strategies are developed for alternatives subsidies and people are educated about these other options. Because people are not well-informed about how the current tax subsidy contributes to their health insurance, they are particularly susceptible to scare tactics by opponents of tax reform. This is not an idle threat: Opponents already have signaled they will use the health care issue to try to derail tax reform.
Reforming the tax treatment of health insurance is essential to achieve a more efficient and equitable market for medical services and health insurance in the United States. Correcting the tax distortion would lower the costs of health insurance coverage in both the public and private sectors and thereby allow broader access to quality health care.
Early in the 20th Century, the link between health insurance and the workplace began to be established in the United States.3 During and after World War II, however, employment-based health insurance became more widespread, and the link became much stronger.
Factories were pushed to meet wartime production schedules. Competition for good workers was intense but was hampered by wartime wage controls. Employers found they could compete for scarce workers and boost compensation without running afoul of these controls by offering health insurance as a benefit in lieu of cash wages. In 1943, the Internal Revenue Service ruled that employers' contributions to group health insurance would not count as taxable income for employees.
That ruling, a later codification of it by Congress in 1954, rising tax rates on middle class incomes, and the rising demand for health insurance all combined to create a strong incentive for health insurance to be obtained through the workplace.
The generous tax preference accorded job-based health insurance is a historical accident that has increased automatically over the decades without legislative authorization or appropriations. It has percolated through the economy for nearly 60 years to become the foundation for a system that provides subsidies and therefore strong incentives for working and retired Americans and their families to get health insurance through the workplace.
But this form of subsidizing health insurance is increasingly out of step with our rapidly changing economy and workforce. When people change or lose their jobs, they also lose their health insurance. In addition, the current subsidies for job-based health insurance are very regressive: Current tax law provides generous benefits to those who have higher incomes and receive health insurance through the workplace. Yet it offers little or no assistance to those at the lower end of the income scale. A taxpayer earning $100,000 a year or more gets an annual subsidy worth $2,638 while one earning $15,000 gets only $79 a year in assistance toward the purchase of health insurance.4
What that means is that an executive with a high-paying job gets a generous tax subsidy for health insurance from the taxpayer while the waitress serving her lunch gets little or no help in purchasing health insurance.
As long as Americans remain under the mistaken illusion that they are getting "free" or heavily subsidized health insurance at work, they will be shielded from the full cost of their health care consumption decisions. They will not understand that their cash compensation is lower because of high health insurance costs. And they will not see the generous tax break they are getting for their job-based health coverage. They also will become increasingly frustrated with a system that robs them of control and choice over their health care and health coverage decisions.
Clearly, it is not a system we would have designed if we were starting from scratch. It is a relic of World War II wage and price controls, and changes are needed.
Making reform a reality
The convergence of frustration with the tax system and frustration with the health care system may provide a historic opportunity for change. In 1999, the average household paid nearly 40 percent of its income in federal, state, and local taxes.
This high tax rate during peacetime and prosperity, coupled with growing disaffection with centralized government, leads many political analysts to believe that the country is ripe for tax reform. However, a debate over a major simplification or restructuring of the federal tax system would necessarily focus attention on the generous tax benefit provided for employment-based health insurance. It is imperative that tax reform advocates approach changes to the tax treatment of health insurance with an understanding of its politically volatility and alternatives that are being developed.
There is a solution in a system of reforms advanced by the Health Policy Consensus Group5 and supported by political leaders on both sides of the aisle. These reforms could provide a tax cut to individuals, targeted to those who currently do not have health insurance. This would give individuals more choice as to where and how they obtain medical care and could create new incentives for a competitive, consumer-driven market for health insurance and medical services.
Coupling tax reform with free-market health reform could finally make a win-win political scenario possible.
Even with the generous $130 billion subsidy for job-based health insurance, more than 40 million people are without coverage at some point during the year because they don't receive or can't afford the health insurance offered by their employers.
Therefore, as an interim measure to move toward greater fairness, the Health Policy Consensus Group has advocated providing tax credits to individuals for the purchase of private health coverage. It | |
But is it patentable? It definitely is a method with specific, discrete steps. Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 101, it may even have a specific, substantial and credible utility. Even though Fezzik's method is inherently dangerous to the lives of others, namely Westley, it might still be patentable. Considering the nature of this method, however, the government of Florin would likely step in and declare Fezzik's way to be secret and not subject to public disclosure, even if he filed a patent application. See generally 35 U.S.C. § 181 (Invention Secrecy Act of 1951). Fezzik's method could be classified alongside nuclear technology or bio-weaponry. Even Westley is a believer in the utility of Fezzik's method. Fortunately, Fezzik prefers sportsmanlike encounters.
8. Iocaine Powder – patent
Westley describes iocaine powder as "odorless and tasteless" and also one of the more deadly poisons originating from Australia. Is it patentable as a chemical compound? If it occurs in nature, it is not patentable. Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 101, it would not be new composition of matter. According to the U.S. Supreme Court, it also would not be patentable if the inventor merely isolated this chemical from its naturally occurring state. See Ass'n for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., 133 S. Ct. 2107 (U.S. 2013). Iocaine powder could be the naturally occurring version of sodium fluoroacetate, which would negate patentability.
If, however, iocaine powder is not naturally occurring but is derived from other naturally occurring chemical or pharmaceutical compositions, it could be patentable under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as being novel and non-obvious, even if it is one of the more deadly poisons known to man.
9. The "Dread Pirate Roberts" – trademark / trade name / collective mark
Throughout the movie, the name "Dread Pirate Roberts" is used to invoke fear. Westley is initially captured by the Dread Pirate Roberts and taken hostage on his ship Revenge. Buttercup then identifies the Man in Black as the Dread Pirate Roberts. Westley later explains to her the origin of the name and the history of those who have used the name. Westley even succinctly summarizes the purpose of trademark law in his story. The name is what matters. "No one would surrender to the Dread Pirate Westley!"
Yet Westley concedes that he is not really the Dread Pirate Roberts. He is just the current titleholder to the name. How does this work under trademark law?
The name itself should be subject to a trademark or service mark, as it is a brand name "intended to be used to identify and distinguish the goods/services of one seller or provider from those of others, and to indicate the source of the goods/services." It should therefore satisfy the requirements of 15 U.S.C. § 1127. What if there are multiple users of the same mark? Can this collective claim equal rights in the name? According to the law, yes. To the extent each of the known current and/or former Dread Pirate Robertses each recognize each other as members of a collective or organization, they may each claim rights to use the mark. To be a collective mark, the law requires only the following:
The term "collective mark" means a trademark or service mark (1) used by the members of a cooperative, an association, or other collective group or organization, or (2) which such cooperative, association, or other collective group or organization has a bona fide intention to use in commerce and applies to register on the principal register established by this [Act], and includes marks indicating membership in a union, an association or other organization. 15 U.S.C. § 1127.
To the extent the name "Dread Pirate Roberts" is a collective mark, it is not owned by any individual member, but is instead owned by the collective and used by its members. See Trademark Manual of Examining Procedure § 1302.
10. The Machine – patent
The impetus for this article. Count Rugen is proudly compiling notes on a personal torture study (#11 below). To assist in his studies, he has invented what he calls "The Machine." Sadly, this may be the worst trademark of a product as it is merely descriptive or generic, but I will ignore that for now. The Machine is quite an invention. It is novel and non-obvious and it has utility. Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 101, it meets all of the definitions of patentability.
Even more interesting is that The Machine can be claimed as both a utility patent and a method patent. The physical invention itself is the utility patent or product while the method for sucking years of life from a subject is a separate invention. Additionally, it seems he is not finished tweaking his invention as he has yet to test it to "5" yet. His private experimental use may also allow him to avoid the one-year window of time to file a patent application. 35 U.S.C. § 102(b).
Count Rugen may be cruel but he also appears to be very smart and scientific. A true evil genius. He even gives the audience a synopsis of the prior art that led to this invention:
As you know, the concept of the suction pump is centuries old. Really that's all this is except that instead of sucking water, I'm sucking life. I've just sucked one year of your life away. I might one day go as high as five, but I really don't know what that would do to you. So, let's just start with what we have. What did this do to you? Tell me. And remember, this is for posterity so be honest. How do you feel?
Count Rugen calmly explains that he has taken a known concept (the suction pump) and created something novel from it. Given his scientific acumen, why Count Rugen felt the need to commission Inigo's father to make him a sword remains a mystery. The Machine is quite a work of art, and it appears to work at level "50" too, as Prince Humperdinck demonstrated.
11. Count Rugen's unfinished (and untitled) torture study – copyright
Count Rugen explained to Westley that he is working on the "definitive work on the subject" of human torture. Presumably, Count Rugen has been working on this for years and Westley was not his first subject. The notes and any writings Count Rugen may have compiled on this study are protected by copyright law. The moment Rugen committed pen to paper it became copyrighted. Pursuant to the statute, a work is "fixed" in a tangible medium of expression when it "is sufficiently permanent or stable to permit it to be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated for a period of more than transitory duration." 17 U.S.C. § 101. Unless Count Rugen is compiling this study in his role as an employee of the government (as the government cannot be the author of copyrighted works, 17 U.S.C. § 105), his writings are definitely subject to copyright protection even if the work is unfinished (thanks to Inigo) and likely will never be published.
12. Miracle Max's potion pill – trade secret / patent
Miracle Max was fired by the King's stinking son, Prince Humperdinck. That means he no longer works for the government. Usually an employee has a duty to assign patent rights to his employer, but Max is now an independent contractor only performing miracles for substantial sums of money or in instances of noble causes. Much like The Machine, Miracle Max's pill to revive the mostly dead is patentable subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101 and he could seek to exclude others – especially his replacement at the castle – from performing his miracles. The step of dipping the pill in chocolate syrup would naturally be a dependent claim to any invention he discloses.
Max is a proud and | |
un _mustagōgós_.
Les « petits mystères » étaient célébrés au début du printemps, à Athènes et plus précisément à Agra sur la rive orientale de l'Ilissos47. On ne sait pas très bien en quoi consistaient les cérémonies qui s'y déroulaient et qui rassemblaient des foules considérables. Les « grands mystères » étaient célébrés, eux, à l'automne, fin septembre-début octobre. Ils duraient dix jours. Le jour précédant le début des cérémonies, on transportait d'Eleusis à Athènes les objets sacrés ( _hierá_ ). Ces objets sacrés, conservés dans l'Anaktoron, au cœur du Telesterion, étaient portés en procession dans des cistes, des « coffres », jusqu'à l'Éleusinion, au pied de l'Acropole.
Le premier jour devait être consacré à la vérification des candidats, à l'initiation. Le jour suivant, ceux qui avaient été admis allaient se purifier dans la mer et offraient un cochon de lait en sacrifice. Le troisième jour, on offrait des sacrifices. Il semble que le quatrième jour ait été un jour de repos. Le cinquième jour, les objets sacrés étaient ramenés à Eleusis, où ils retrouvaient leur place dans l'Anaktoron au cœur du Telesterion. Le sixième jour, après avoir jeûné et bu le _cyceion_ , une boisson « sacrée » dont on ne sait rien, on procédait à l'initiation proprement dite appelée _telet_ ḗ.
En quoi consistait cette initiation ? On est à peu près sûr que les rites comprenaient trois éléments : les _dr_ ṓ _mena_ , représentations dramatiques, les _deiknúmena_ , objets sacrés qu'on montrait, et les _legómena_ , commentaires qu'on faisait sur les _dr_ ṓ _mena_. Qu'en était-il de chacun de ces éléments ? Les _dr_ ṓ _mena_ devaient consister en une représentation dramatique de l'enlèvement de Korê et de la recherche entreprise par sa mère, Déméter, pour la retrouver. On ne peut savoir si les _legómena_ consistaient en de brefs commentaires sur les _dr_ ṓ _mena_ ou en des mythes qui mettaient en scène les _dr_ ṓ _mena_. Quoi qu'il en soit, ils étaient essentiels ; ne pas les avoir compris annulait l'initiation. Les _deiknúmena_ , les objets sacrés qui étaient montrés jouaient un rôle déterminant. Le prêtre le plus important des mystères d'Éleusis n'était-il pas le hiérophante, c'est-à-dire « celui qui montre les objets sacrés » ? Que pouvaient être ces objets sacrés ? Il est impossible de le savoir avec certitude. Mais on peut penser qu'il s'agissait de petites reliques mycéniennes transmises de génération en génération au sein des Eumolpides et des Kerykes, les deux familles qui réclamaient l'honneur d'avoir institué les mystères. Après l'initiation proprement dite, se tenaient les cérémonies de clôture qui duraient quatre jours. Un an après l'initiation, certains initiés étaient admis à un degré plus élevé, l' _epopteía_. Quelques-uns des objets sacrés étaient alors montrés à ceux qui voulaient compléter ainsi leur initiation.
On trouve dans le discours de Diotime rapporté par Socrate une transposition philosophique de cette expérience religieuse dans la mesure où il est recommandé de s'affranchir du monde sensible pour accéder à la sphère de l'intelligible, comme cherche à le montrer Christoph Riedweg48 en découpant le discours de Diotime à partir des articulations de ce passage de Clément d'Alexandrie : « Ce n'est donc pas sans raison que les mystères commencent chez les Grecs par les rites purificateurs comme chez les Barbares par le bain. Ensuite, ce sont les petits mystères qui ont pour fonction d'enseigner et de préparer à ce qui doit suivre, puis les grands mystères qui concernent l'ensemble des choses, où il ne reste plus à apprendre, mais à contempler et à comprendre la nature et les réalités » ( _Stromates_ , XI, 70,7-71,2, trad. À. Le Boulluec). Le découpage que propose Christoph Riedweg est légèrement différent de celui que je suggère ; mais les deux sont compatibles.
Dans une introduction (198a1-199c2), Socrate explique d'abord pourquoi il est embarrassé d'avoir à parler après Agathon (198a 1-7) ; puis il critique la méthode adoptée par tous ceux qui viennent de faire l'éloge d'Éros (198a8-199b7). Enfin, après un bref échange avec Phèdre (199b8-c2), Socrate passe à l'essentiel.
Dans un premier temps, à tout le moins, il s'agit non point d'un discours, mais d'une discussion entre lui et Agathon (199c3-201c9). Cette discussion est un entretien réfutatif, _élenkhos_49 qui équivaut en fait à une purification (voir _Soph_. 230b-d). Ce dialogue avec Agathon est suivi par un interlude (201d1-e7) où Socrate annonce qu'il va rapporter l'entretien qu'il a eu avec Diotime.
L'entretien lui-même comprend deux parties. La première (201e8-209e4), qui correspondrait aux petits mystères, consiste dans le récit du mythe de la naissance d'Éros, dont le père est Poros (Expédient) et la mère Pénia (Pauvreté). Cette ascendance fait de lui non un dieu, mais un _daímōn_ , c'est-à-dire un être occupant une position intermédiaire entre les dieux et les hommes. On pourrait voir dans cette première partie une allusion aux _tà legómena_ qui intervenaient dans les mystères. La seconde partie (209e5-212a7), qui correspondrait aux grands mystères, décrit l'ascension de l'âme du sensible vers l'intelligible et constitue le récit d'une véritable initiation au terme de laquelle l'âme contemple l'intelligible dont le sensible n'est qu'une image, un reflet. D'où la présence obsédante d'un vocabulaire de la vision50 dans cette section qui se termine sur ces mots qu'adresse Diotime à Socrate : « Voilà sans doute, Socrate, en ce qui concerne les mystères relatifs à Éros, les choses auxquelles tu peux toi aussi être initié ( _muētheíes_ ). Mais la révélation suprême et la contemplation ( _tà télea kaì epoptiká_ ), qui en sont également le terme quand on suit la bonne voie, je ne sais si elles sont à ta portée » (209e-210a). Il est difficile d'être plus explicite.
Vient alors la conclusion (212bl-c3), où se trouvent rappelés les degrés de cette initiation. D'un seul beau corps, il faut passer à la beauté qui réside dans tous les corps. Puis de cette beauté corporelle, il faut s'élever à la beauté des âmes, puis à la beauté des connaissances et des productions de l'âme en général, de façon à ne pas retomber, au niveau de l'âme, dans le particularisme. Enfin, et de façon soudaine, alors que les autres degrés ont été franchis de façon progressive, l'initié contemplera le Beau en soi, c'est-à-dire le Beau intelligible, dont participent toutes les autres choses belles. À ce niveau, le vocabulaire du toucher ( _ephaptoménōi_ , 212a4, 5) prend le relais de celui de la vue.
VI. LE BIEN ET LE BONHEUR
Dans la dernière partie de son discours, Diotime établit cette correspondance entre le beau et le bon : « Mais encore une petite question : pour toi, les choses bonnes ne sont-elles pas en même temps belles ? » (201c). Et elle en tire cette conséquence : « Oui, et ceux que tu déclares heureux, ce sont ceux qui possèdent les bonnes et les belles choses » (202c).
Puis elle se lance dans une argumentation (203e-206a)51 qui établit que l'amour ( _érōs_ ) peut être défini comme le désir d'être heureux, c'est-à-dire de posséder pour toujours le beau et donc le bien. Cette conclusion est provisoire et sera dépassée. En effet, après avoir établi ce point, Diotime pose à Socrate cette question : « Puisque à présent, poursuivit-elle, il est clair que l'amour consiste toujours en cela, quel genre d'existence mènent ceux qui poursuivent cette fin et à quel type d'activité se livrent-ils, si l'on est prêt à donner au sérieux dont ils font preuve et à l'effort qu'ils consentent le nom d'"amour" ? » (206a-b). Devant l'incapacité où se trouve Socrate à lui apporter une réponse convenable, Diotime se lance dans une autre argumentation (206b-209e), où elle montre que l'immortalité ne peut être obtenue que par l'intermédiaire de la procréation, de l'enfantement. Cela est vrai évidemment sur le plan du corps, pour les espèces, dans | |
FOSSFA Constitution
Constitution adopted online in 2004 and ratified by the Assembly General the 24 th Day of February 2006 at Safari Park Hotel, Nairobi, Kenya. The name of the association shall be FOSSFA , representing 'the free and open software foundation for Africa'. Subject to matters set out below, FOSSFA and its property shall be administered and managed in accordance with this constitution by the members of the Council, constituted by clause ... of this constitution. ('The Council')
The objects of FOSSFA are to work with all stakeholders to ensure that Open Source is available as a platform to engineer solutions that meet the needs of Africans at affordable prices. FOSSFA's vision is to:
1.Create Awareness of Open Source software.
2.Build Capacity in Open Source software;
3.Develop a Knowledge Warehouse of expertise in the countries/continent.
4.Development of national and regional Open Source Portals.
5.Ensure that technical experts in Africa have full opportunity to participate in the development of open source software .
In furtherance of the objects but not otherwise the Council may exercise the following powers:
i) Power to raise funds and to invite and receive contributions provided that in raising funds the Council shall not undertake any substantial permanent trading activities and shall conform to any relevant requirements of the law;
ii) Power to buy, take on lease or in exchange any property necessary for the achievement of the objects and to maintain and equip it for use;
iii) Power subject to any consents required by law to sell, lease or dispose of all or any part of the property of FOSSFA.
iv) Power subject to any consents required by law to borrow money and to charge all or any part of the property of FOSSFA with repayment of the money so borrowed;
v) Power to employ such staff (who shall not be members of the Council) as are necessary for the proper pursuit of the objects and to make all reasonable and necessary provision for the payment of pensions and superannuation for staff and their dependants ;
vi) Power to cooperate with other persons, charities, voluntary bodies and statutory authorities operating in furtherance of the objects or of similar purposes and to exchange information and advice with them;
vii) Power to establish or support any charitable trusts, associations or institutions formed for all or any of the objects;
viii) Power to appoint and constitute such advisory committees as the Council may think fit;
ix) Power to do all such other lawful things as are necessary for the achievement of the objects.
Membership of FOSSFA shall be open to:
i) individuals (over the age of 18 years) who are interested in furthering the work of FOSSFA and who have paid any annual subscription lad down from time to time by the Council, and
ii) any body corporate or unincorporated association which is interested in furthering FOSSFA's work and has paid any annual subscription (any such body being called in this constitution a 'member organisation'.)
iii) Council shall determine the rates of membership dues, but concessionary rates shall be made available to students and similar groups.
Every member shall have one vote.
Each member organisation shall appoint an individual to represent it and to vote on its behalf at meetings of FOSSFA and may appoint an alternate to replace its appointed representative at any meeting of FOSSFA if the appointed representative is unable to attend.
Each member organisation shall notify the name of the representative appointed by it and of any alternate to the secretary. If the representative or alternate resigns from or otherwise leaves the member organisation, he or she shall forthwith cease to be the representative of the member organisation.
The Council may terminate the membership of any individual or member organisation, provided that the individual concerned or the appointed representative of the member organisation concerned (as the case may be) shall have the right to appeal to the members at AGM (or other special meeting) to be reinstated.
At the annual general meeting of FOSSFA the members shall elect from amongst themselves persons to serve as members of the Council, who shall hold office from the conclusion of that meeting for a period of 2 years.
The Council shall consist of not less than 5 and not more than 21 persons, and at least 2 of which must be female.
The Council members shall elect a Chairman, a Treasurer and a Secretary from amongst themselves.
The Council may in addition appoint not more than 5 co-opted members but so that no one may be appointed as a co -opted member if, as a result, more than one third of the members of the Council would be co-opted members. Each appointment of a co-opted member shall be made at a special meeting of the Council and shall take effect from the end of the meeting or such other time as decide by the Council. Any decision to co-opt a Council member must be ratified by members at AGM.
All members of Council shall retire after two years but may seek re-election or re-appointment.
The proceedings of Council shall not be invalidated by any vacancy among their number or by any failure to appoint or any defect in the appointment or qualification of a member.
No person shall be entitled to act as a member of eth Council whether on a first or any subsequent entry into office until after signing in the minute book of the Council a declaration of acceptance and of willingness to act in the objects of FOSSFA.
A member of the Council shall cease to hold office if he or she:
i) becomes incapable by reason of mental disorder, illness or injury of managing or administering his or her own affairs;
ii) is absent without permission of the Council from all their meetings for a period of 6 months and the Council resolve that their office be vacated; or
iii) notifies to the Council a wish to resign ( but only if at least 3 members of the Council shall remain in office when the notice of resignation is to take effect).
No member of the Council shall acquire any interest in property belonging to FOSSFA (otherwise than as a trustee for FOSSFA) or be interested in any contract entered into by the Council, unless the matter is fully disclosed to Council and the member takes no part in any deliberations regarding such contract.
Council shall appoint (funds permitting) a Director and an Administrator on terms to be agreed by the Council. Council may also dismiss both officers.
The Director is to report to Council, but cannot be a member of Council, and- is ultimately responsible to members at AGM.
The Administrator, who shall if at all possible be bi-lingual, reports to the Treasurer.
MEETINGS AND COUNCIL PROCEEDINGS
The Council shall meet regularly online (using message boards, voting buttons etc as appropriate). Council shall determine its method of operation BUT on the application of any member a decision shall be taken by vote. A quorum for a Council meeting shall be 4 members.
Any Council member can call a Council meeting.
Notice for an o nline Council meeting shall be 7 days, but if there will be consideration of co-opting a person notice shall be 15 days.
The Chairman shall act as chair of Council meetings, but if the chairman is absent from any meeting, the members of the Council present shall choose one of their number to be chairman of the meeting before any other business is transacted.
There shall be a quorum of 4 members of the Council.
The Chairman shall have a casting vote in the event of a tied vote.
The Council shall keep minutes of Council or sub-committee meetings which shall be open to view by any Council member.
The Council may appoint one or more sub-committee to assist in pursuing its objects provided that all acts and proceedings of any such sub-committee shall be fully | |
are looking better."
Subpoena Watch
Back on June 27, Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy announced that he had fired off subpoenas to the White House and the Vice President's office, demanding that they turn over legal documents related to the administration's warrantless wiretapping program.
Yesterday, after two deadlines had come and gone, Leahy announced he's had enough.
Eric Lichtblau writes in the New York Times: "A leading Democrat threatened on Monday to pursue contempt charges against the White House next month over its response to a subpoena for internal documents on the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program.
"'Time is up,' said Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. 'We've waited long enough.' . . .
"The White House, in a letter to Mr. Leahy on Monday, said it had identified a number of classified documents that appeared to fall under the subpoena but it said the documents could be covered by a claim of executive privilege. The White House asked for more time to research the issue.
"'It remains our goal to avoid a conflict between the branches on this important issue of national security,' the White House counsel, Fred F. Fielding, said in the letter. . . .
"Some administration officials suggested that Mr. Leahy's remarks were merely a negotiating ploy.
"'Senator Leahy regularly uses hyperbole in his reactions to these things,' Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman, said in an interview."
The White House has previously blown off congressional subpoenas regarding the controversial firings of U.S. attorneys last year, but these subpoenas will be much harder to ignore. As I wrote in my June 28 column: "There is no way that [this latest] request can be dismissed as a partisan fishing expedition. The subpoenas were approved by members of both parties. They call for basic information about the legal reasoning behind an important government program that appears to violate federal law. They request information that is necessary for the committee to assess the administration's requests to rewrite the applicable laws. And they properly ask for some explanation of why the president blocked an inquiry by the Justice Department's own ethics office."
Cheney's Response
Because the Judiciary Committee separately subpoenaed Vice President Cheney's office, Cheney chief counsel Shannen W. Coffin responded to Leahy with his own letter yesterday. Talking Points Memo has a copy.
Dan Eggen writes in The Washington Post: "Vice President Cheney's office acknowledged for the first time yesterday that it has dozens of documents related to the administration's warrantless surveillance program, but it signaled that it will resist efforts by congressional Democrats to obtain them. . . .
"Coffin identified by date a series of memos and orders that 'may be responsive' to the Senate committee's demands. They include 43 separate authorizations from President Bush for the program, which had to be renewed approximately every 45 days beginning on Oct. 4, 2001.
"The letter also lists dates, from October 2001 through February 2005, for 10 legal memoranda from the Justice Department. . . .
"The disclosure of the existence of the documents and their dates sheds new light on some events surrounding the NSA program, including a now-famous legal dispute in March 2004. A half-dozen senior Justice officials threatened to resign if the White House did not agree to change parts of the program that Justice lawyers had determined were illegal. Coffin's letter indicates that Bush signed memos amending the program on March 19 and April 2 of that year. The details of the dispute have never been revealed publicly."
Legal blogger Marty Lederman finds the Coffin letter fascinating for several reasons -- chief among them its assertion that: "The Office of the Vice President reserves the limitations on congressional inquiries set forth in Barenblatt v. United States, 360 U.S. 109 (1959), which makes clear that the power to inquire extends no further than the power to legislate."
Why is that so interesting? Lederman writes: "Now, I happen to think that this so-called 'limitation' on congressional inquiries is not nearly so clear: Many of the earliest legislative investigations were not for the purpose of designing statutory amendments, but were instead 'only' to investigate wrongdoing or malfeasance in the Executive branch; and the better view is probably that Congress has at least some such broad investigative power, unrelated to its lawmaking functions.
But even if it were the case that Congress can only investigate in areas where it can legislate, . . . so what? Such an objection would only be meaningful in the context of this subpoena if there were some question about Congress's power to legislate with respect to the relevant Executive branch conduct.
"So think about what the VP's letter is suggesting -- that perhaps Congress can't legislate on the topic of the government's domestic electronic surveillance!"
To back up his assertion, Lederman notes that in Sunday's New York Times, James Risen and Eric Lichtblau reported that the administration still refuses to concede being bound even by the minimal restraints of the newly-amended surveillance statute:
Risen and Lichtblau wrote: "Bush administration officials have already signaled that, in their view, the president retains his constitutional authority to do whatever it takes to protect the country, regardless of any action Congress takes. At a tense meeting last week with lawyers from a range of private groups active in the wiretapping issue, senior Justice Department officials refused to commit the administration to adhering to the limits laid out in the new legislation and left open the possibility that the president could once again use what they have said in other instances is his constitutional authority to act outside the regulations set by Congress.
"At the meeting, Bruce Fein, a Justice Department lawyer in the Reagan administration, along with other critics of the legislation, pressed Justice Department officials repeatedly for an assurance that the administration considered itself bound by the restrictions imposed by Congress. The Justice Department, led by Ken Wainstein, the assistant attorney general for national security, refused to do so, according to three participants in the meeting. That stance angered Mr. Fein and others. It sent the message, Mr. Fein said in an interview, that the new legislation, though it is already broadly worded, 'is just advisory. The president can still do whatever he wants to do. They have not changed their position that the president's Article II powers trump any ability by Congress to regulate the collection of foreign intelligence.'"
Still the Fourth Branch?
From Leahy's remarks yesterday: "Incidentally, in the administration's response today, they claimed the Office of the Vice President is not part of the Executive Office of the President. So it's some kind of fourth branch of government.
"Well, that's wrong. Both the United States Code says it is part of the president -- oh, incidentally, at least this morning, as I left Vermont, I checked the White House Web site. And even their own Web site, this morning, at least, says that the Executive Office -- that the vice president is part of the Executive Office of the President."
Elana Schor writes in The Hill that "the response from the vice president was more surprising, because the White House was believed to have abandoned the argument that Cheney is a hybrid entity with both executive and legislative powers. . . .
"Cheney's lawyers first crafted the argument to bolster his lack of compliance with an executive order on the safeguarding of classified information, a tactic that backfired amid Democratic anger and derisive jokes on late-night talk shows. Yet Cheney counsel Shannen Coffin wrote to Leahy on Monday that 'the issuance of the subpoena to this office was procedurally irregular' because the judiciary panel only authorized Leahy to issue summonses to the Executive Office of the President (EOP) and the Justice Department. . . .
"Telling Coffin to look at the White House | |
of four battalions each, three independent infantry battalions, one armoured regiment, a parachute regiment, an armoured regiment and three artillery regiments.[22] There were 50 Alvis Saladins, 60 Ferret armoured cars, and 45 Commando armoured cars, about 50 25-pounders, 40 105-mm howitzers, 20 120-mm mortars, and 80 Bofors 40-mm guns.
On May 25, 1969, several young officers, led by Colonel Jaafar an Nimeiri, seized power, thus bringing the army into political control for the second time. From 1969 until 1971, a military government - the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), composed of nine young officers and one civilian - exercised authority over a largely civilian cabinet.[23] The RCC represented only a faction within the military establishment. From 1971 Nimeiri led a more civilian-based government. The first civil war ended in a negotiated settlement in 1973. Sudan sent at least one infantry brigade to the Sinai peninsula as a reinforcement to the Egyptian forces during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. It arrived too late, on October 28, 1973 and saw no fighting.
The Second Sudanese Civil War broke out again in 1982 and continued until 2005.
By the time of the coup in 1989, over fifty percent of most Army units were staffed by soldiers and NCOs from the South. Most had little commitment or dedication to the government - they joined for the sugar and other rations given to soldiers, as well as the salary. Although they often acquitted themselves well in battle, generally surrendering only when their food and ammunition were depleted, they had little stomach for offensive operations.
The Land Forces were "basically a light infantry force in 1991, supported by specialized elements. Operational control extended from the headquarters of the general staff in Khartoum to the six regional commands (central, eastern, western, northern, southern, and Khartoum). Each regional command was organized along divisional lines. Thus, the Fifth Division was at Al-Ubayyid in Kurdufan (Central Command), the Second Division was at Khashm El Girba (Eastern Command), the Sixth Division was assigned to Al-Fashir in Darfur (Western Command), the First Division was at Juba (Southern Command), and the Seventh Armoured Division was at As Shajarah just south of Khartoum (Khartoum Command). The Airborne Division was based at Khartoum International Airport. The Third Division was located in the north, although no major troop units were assigned to it. Each division had a liaison officer attached to general headquarters in Khartoum to facilitate the division's communication with various command elements. This organisational structure did not provide an accurate picture of actual troop deployments. All of the divisions were understrength. The Sixth Division in Darfur was a reorganised brigade with only 2,500 personnel. Unit strengths varied widely. Most brigades were composed of 1,000 to 1,500 troops."[24] Keegan, writing in 1983, indicated that the northern command was located at Shendi.
To reduce the pressure on the regular armed forces, the Sudanese government made extensive use of militias, such as the South Sudan Defence Forces. This largely symbolic coalition of seven groups was formed with the signing of the Khartoum Peace Agreement with the NIF in 1997. The SSDF was led by former Garang lieutenant Riek Machar.[25]
In 2007 the IISS estimated that the SAF had 104,800 personnel supported by 17,500 paramilitary personnel.[3]
Jane's Information Group said in May 2009 that 'There are a number of infantry divisions, divided among [the six] regional commands. The commander of each military region traditionally commanded the divisional and brigade commanders within his territory. It is understood that there are six infantry divisions and seven independent infantry brigades; a mechanised division and an independent mechanised infantry brigade; and an armoured division. Other elements are understood to include a Special Forces battalion with five companies; an airborne division and a border guard brigade. Support elements include an engineer division.' Jane's reported the army's strength as 100,000 plus militias.[26] Afdevinfo has reported that the 1st Division at Juba has been disbanded.
Jane's Sentinel reports that there are two engineer brigades supporting the 9th Airborne Division. Jane's Amphibious and Special Forces, 2010, lists the 9th Airborne Division headquartered in Khartoum which includes two airborne brigades and the 144th Special Forces Battalion, an anti-terrorist unit.[27] It also mentions the two engineer brigades for special forces support.
It was reported that a Republican Guard exists as a presidential security unit, led by Major General Khalid Hamad.[28]
The military and allied militias have fought in the Sudanese Civil War, the Darfur Conflict, the Sudan–SPLM-N conflict and the 2012 South Sudan-Sudan border conflict.
Yemen Civil WarEdit
As part of the Yemeni Civil War, dozens of Sudanese soldiers were reported killed in an ambush by Houthis in Hajjah Governorate in April 2018.[29]
Education and trainingEdit
The Military College at Wadi Sayyidna, near Omdurman, had been Sudan's primary source of officer training since it opened in 1948. A two-year program, emphasizing study in political and military science and physical training, led to a commission as a second lieutenant in the SPAF. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, an average of 120 to 150 officers were graduated from the academy each year. In the late 1950s, roughly 60 graduated each year, peaking to more than 500 in early 1972 as a result of mobilisation brought on by the first southern rebellion. Students from other Arab and African countries were also trained at the Military College, and in 1982 sixty Ugandans were graduated as part of a Sudanese contribution to rebuilding the Ugandan army after Amin's removal from power.
Main article: Military Industry Corporation
The modern Sudanese Armed Forces is equipped mainly with Soviet, Russian, Chinese, Ukrainian, and Sudanese manufactured weaponry. Significant data has been made available by the UN Experts' Groups on the Sudan on arms supplies to Sudanese forces.
The standard issue battle rifle is now an H&K G3 variant that is domestically manufactured by Military Industry Corporation - the Dinar.
The IISS reported in 2007 that the SAF had 200 T-54/55 main battle tanks and 70 Type 62 light tanks. [3] By 2011 the total that the IISS listed was 360: 20 M-60, 60 Type 59, 270 T-54/55, and 10 'Al Bashier' (Type-85-IIM).[7] The 'Al-Bashier' is a licensed version of the Type 85M-II tank.[30] In addition, the 'Digna'a modernisation programme for the T-55 has been reported.[31] Chinese Type 96 tanks have also been known to serve in the Sudanese Army. These are by far and away Sudan's most modern and powerful tanks.[32]
The IISS reported 218 armoured cars (6 French Panhard AML-90, 60 BRDM-2, 80 British Ferret, and 30 British Alvis Saladin) in 2007, alongside 15 Soviet BMP-2.[33] Also reported were 42 US M-113, 19 US LAV-150/V-100 Commando, Soviet BTR-152/BTR-50, 20 Czech or Polish OT-62/OT-64. 104 Egyptian Walid were ordered in 1981-1986.[33]
The IISS estimated in 2011 that Sudan had 778+ artillery pieces, including 20 US M-101, 16 D-30, Soviet D-74, Soviet M-30, and 75 Soviet 130mm M-46/Type-59-I.[7] The IISS estimated in 2011 that the Army had 20 pieces of self-propelled artillery, including 10 Soviet 2S1 Gvozdika and 10 French (AMX) Mk F3.[7] Multiple rocket launchers include Soviet 122mm BM-21 Grad and Type-81.
Also reported were Soviet M43 mortars (120mm). Anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons reported included a number of British-made Swingfire. 54 Soviet 9K32 Strela-2 (SA-7 Grail) were reported, and many anti-aircraft guns. According to a UN official document.[34]
T-72 main battle tanks, FB-6A mobile air defense systems, 9K33 Osa mobile air defence systems, and ws1 and ws2 mrls have also been spotted with the Sudanese armed forces.
Armored vehicles are repaired and produced at the Elshaheed Ibrahim Shams el Deen Complex in Khartoum.[citation needed]
TanksEdit
This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
AL- ZUBAIR - 1
Sudan DAA02 main battle tank -10 A Locally produced version of the Russian made T-72AV at MIC. Should replace | |
Writing, Press Releases, Copywriting, Editing, Event Planning, Event Management, Project Management, Newsletters, Speech Writing, Fundraising, Community Development, Strategic Communications, Leadership
Bob Sailler
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Kansas University 1998 — 1999
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Blue Springs, Missouri
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H&R Block December 1988 - May 2012
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DST Systems, Inc 1985 - 1996
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Greg Chirpich
Controller/Operations Chief at Douthit Frets Rouse Gentile & Rhodes, LLC
University of Michigan 1977 — 1979
Master of Business Administration (MBA), Accounting and Finance
Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, Accounting and Economics
Douthit Frets Rouse Gentile & Rhodes, LLC September 2007 - August 2013
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Greg Richter
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Salton, Inc. 1999 - 2003
Jack Reichmeier
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JAMES BAUCHUM
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Events Services
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DeLaSalle & Bishop Hogan High Schools 1968 — 1972
Excellerant Inc. November 2013 - May 2015
Five Star Speakers LLC February 1993 - February 2012
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James Brosnahan
Sr. Project Manager Currently Open to new Opportunities. Recently laid off at Dearborn MidWest Conveyor Co.
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Dearborn Mid-West Conveyor Co. April 1984 - August 2014
Engineering, Manufacturing, Continuous Improvement, Project Planning, Process Improvement, Microsoft Project, MS Project, Leadership, Commissioning, New Business Development, Procurement
Jay Haden
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Jayne Vehlewald
Enterprise Center of Johnson County December 2006 - September 2013
Advanced Systems Concepts, Inc. October 1983 - December 2011
Accenture July 1977 - June 1980
Angel Investing, Public Speaking, Project Management, Business Development, Entrepreneurship, Events, Management Consulting, Leadership, Microsoft Office, Non-profits, Office Management, Organization, IT Operations, Problem Solving, Strategic Planning, QuickBooks, Recruiting, Internships, Youth Mentoring, Small Business
Jerry Chick
Consulting Technical Manager at Oracle
3+ years, Information Systems
Kansas City Kansas Community College 1965 — 1967
AB, Computer Science
Oracle October 2014 - Present
Oracle Corp June 2007 - October 2014
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I.T. Personnel Solutions August 2005 - May 2007
Open-c Solutions September 2003 - June 2005
Severn Trent Systems April 1996 - March 2003
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Joan Lueger
Topeka, Kansas Area
Controller at Midwest Ag Service, LLC
Kansas State University 1999 — 2001
BSBA, MIS
Lake Central High School 1970 — 1972
Midwest Ag Service, LLC April 2005 - Present
GAAP, General Ledger, Internal Controls, Fixed Assets, Financial Reporting, Customer Service, CPA, Journal Entries, Microsoft Excel, QuickBooks, Process Improvement
Joan Lynch
RN at The University of Kansas Hospital
BSN, Registered Nursing/Registered Nurse
Benedictine College 1977 — 1979
Bachelor of Arts (B.A.), Accounting
The University of Kansas Hospital March 2014 - Present
Menorah Medical Center June 2013 - January 2014
Overland Park Regional Medical Center January 2013 - March 2013
University of Kansas Hospital 2010 - 2012
Overland Park Regional Medical Center 2006 - 2010
Cath Lab, ACLS, Critical Care, Nursing, BLS, Acute Care, Inpatient, Patient Advocacy, Cardiac..., Accounting, Tax Preparation, Hospitals, Healthcare, Cardiac Cath, Patient Safety, EMR, Healthcare Management, Healthcare Information..., Clinical | |
Travel Guide: Old Vegas/Downtown Las Vegas
Fremont Street was and/or still is home to Las Vegas' classic casinos and hotels such as Golden Gate Hotel, Binion's Horseshoe, Golden Nugget, The Pioneer Club, and Eldorado Club. The street itself dates back to 1905 when the city itself was founded and has been showcase in countless pop culture from movies like Elvis' Viva La Vegas and James Bond's Diamonds Are Forever and music videos like The Flaming Lips' "Do You Realize??" and U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For."
The city has revamped the area into an unique entertainment district called The Fremont Street Experience. Buskers such as street performers, dancers, impersonators, and artists can be found along the street, while the Slotzilla zipline shoots people overhead. This area is renown for more affordable Sin City entertainment and is generally less crowded than the Strip, but I love the history behind it's long-term tenants.
Visit The Oldest Casino In Vegas & Drink Where Sinatra Drank
@goldengatevegas | Address: 1 Fremont St, Las Vegas, NV 89101
The city's original casino—yes, the first casino in Las Vegas—established in 1906 has seen it all. The birth of Vegas as we know it, prohibition, crooners, and more! The Golden Gate Casino established shrimp cocktail as a Vegas tradition for pete's sake! They've been around. It was the original hangout of the Rat Pack in the 1960s who reportedly frequented the wooden bar (still there today with a plaque dedicated to the threesome—Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin. So order Jack on the rocks and toast to The Chairman of the Board at the oldest bar in the city.
Viva Vision
When the sunsets the lights on the ceiling of the Fremont Street Experience come on. Viva Vision takes over the sky and showcases one of the world's biggest musical acts on the the world's biggest video screen (It's 1,500 feet long and 90 feet wide!) Check the schedule for showtimes during your visit.
Check the calendar for showtimes, but sets typically include a Dj and a live band. Free of course.
Slotzilla Zipline
This superman-style zipline launches guests from the world's largest slot machine past classic hotels and casinos, and above the pedestrians below. I've never personally done it (for no reason other than I have done ziplines before) but it seems to be pretty popular as there are always people zooming overhead.
Fun & Free (Albeit Slight Cheesy) Activities
If you're here for the Fremont Street Experience, you've got to get the entire Fremont Street Experience, am I right? So don't forget these unique (and FREE) attractions.
Get Up Close With One Million Dollars Cash
Ever wonder what $1,000,000 looks like? Well wonder no more. Stop by Binion's to see their million dollars cash pyramid and get your photo taken with it. It was cool to see though I found it underwhelming so if I ever won a million dollars I would ask for it in $1 bills…bigger pyramid ya no?
Marvel A Golden Nugget At The Golden Nugget
Now this isn't any old golden nugget, it's the Hand of Faith, the biggest golden nuggets in existence, and it's on display in the lobby of the aptly-named Golden Nugget in Las Vegas. It was discovered in 1980 in Australia and weighs more than 61 pounds!
See Some 'Jaw'esome Sharks
On your way to see the Hand of Faith nugget, walk by the 200,000-galloon shark tank aquarium in the center of the Golden Nugget's pool—complete with five different species of sharks and several species of fish! Non-hotel guest can swim at the pool (and use the slide through the tank) for a small day fee. Guided tank tours are also offered on Wednesdays and Sundays. Check the website for the most up-to-date pricing and time information.
Play The World's Largest Keno Board
You can't miss it! It's on the side of The D Las Vegas. The board shows live Keno games in real time as they happen in the casino's Keno Lounge.
Get A Photo Of Vegas Vic
Continuously manning his post outside The Pioneer Club casino since 1951, Vegas Vic remains the world's largest mechanical neon sign standing at 40 feet tall! Despite the mechanical parts no longer functioning (his arm and cigarette), his a Fremont Street icon and pretty good lookin' for a 67-year-old if you ask me.
Enjoy Antiques & Curiosities at Main Street Station
Address: 200 N Main St, Las Vegas, NV 89101
Grab a map from the front desk and take a self-guided tou r through the hotel's collection of antiques and oddities from around the world. Main Street Station's collection includes bronze doors from The Royal Bank of Kuwait, Chandeliers from the Figaro Opera House in Paris, Louisa May Alcott's Pullman car, and even a portion of the Berlin Wall which is located inside the men's restroom (women can asked to escorted to see it)!
RELATED: Classic Vegas is…well…classic. For the Strip experience as we know it today head to south to Las Vegas Boulevard. My Las Vegas Strip Travel Guide is coming SOON!
The Neon Museum
@theneonmuseumlasvegas | Address: 770 N Las Vegas Blvd, Las Vegas, NV 89101
Located less than one mile from Fremont Street is one of the most unique tours / most Instagrammable places in Vegas, the Neon Museum is a non-profit "dedicated to collecting, preserving, studying and exhibiting iconic Las Vegas signs for educational, history, arts and cultural enrichment." Hour-long guided tours by local guides take you through the history of neon trends and sign design and its effect on the city of Las Vegas, with collection pieces dating from the 1930s till today. Book in advance, though walk-in are accepted pending availability.
Downtown Container Park
@containerpark | Address: 707 Fremont Street, Las Vegas, NV 89101
Comprised of up-cycled colorful shipping containers, the park "contains" restaurants, bars, a cafe, boutiques, salons, and even a treehouse-inspired jungle gym for kids. Their stage hosts fun local events each month including Karaoke In the Park so check their website for events during your stay.
Pinball Hall of Fame
Address: 1610 E Tropicana Ave, Las Vegas, NV 89119
Another place to escape the heat off the beaten path is the Pinball Hall of Fame, which is exactly what it sounds like, a museum dedicated to restoring, preserving, and sharing old school entertainment. There is an impressive amount of machines in the space with 25 and 50 cent options. It's a lovely dose of nostalgia, plus entry is free.
Mob Museum
@themobmuseum | Address: 300 Stewart Ave, Las Vegas, NV 89101
The history of Sin City is closely tied to organized crime and The Mob Museum explores this history with real story accounts and authentic artifacts. The museum also explores organized crime around the world that still exists today. NOTE: It's a bit graphic so just use your discretion if visiting with young children.
First Friday Las Vegas Art Walk
@firstfridaylv | Address: 1025 First Street, Las Vegas, NV 89101
This free monthly cultural and arts festival hosts more than 100 local artisans, food trucks, live bands, and more. Occurring on the first Friday of each month (hence the name) from 5 p.m. to 12 a.m.
Life is Beautiful Festival
@lifeisbeautiful | Address: Downtown Las Vegas If you're around mid-September, you may have the opportunity to attend the annual three day celebration of love music, art, food and ideas. 2018's lineup including The Weeknd, Florence + The Machine, Odesza, Arcade Fire, and several more household name acts.
VegeNation
@vegenation | Address: 616 Carson Ave #120, Las Vegas, NV 89101
Whether you are vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, or allergy-free, you'll love VegeNation! Their dishes are packed with flavorful, fresh, and wholesome ingredients, and they serve a wide range of options so there is something for everyone from tacos to pizza to pub favorites. No one will leave disappointed!
What to Order: Their menu is seasonal, but if available get the Chicken Pot Pie Gnocchi, Hot | |
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and could tell their squadron commander. Arnold's bravery was mentioned in dispatches.
Zeebrugge capture and Caterpillar Club
In the Second World War, the survival rates for bailing out into the sea were not great with roughly one third surviving and despite the fact that he could not swim, Bruce, with at least air-gunner Thomas Bax, baled out into the sea, hoping that the current would take him south towards France and the resistance life lines that had been established there. However, motor launches were quickly despatched from the port and he was picked by the German Navy in the sea near Zeebrugge. He earned membership of the "Caterpillar Club" as a result of this exit from a "disabled aircraft" as can be seen from his wearing of the Club tie in the photo taken in 1995 at RAF Fairford (right).
He was also a member of the Goldfish Club for those who parachuted into water.
Bruce would later write, "This was a silly daylight raid... with no escort against enemy fighters." He suffered burns. He was sent to Dulag Luft, then immediately sent to Hohemark for treatment for burns.
Presumed KIA
At first, it was thought that all the crew had died as a result of their Wellington being shot down. After two weeks without news, the International Red Cross sent a message to his wife, Mary Lagan Bruce, that her husband was alive. In recordings, now lodged in the Oral History Sound Archive of the British Library, she tells how that she had been utterly convinced that he was alive, despite all the evidence to the contrary.
Spangenberg Castle
On 23 June 1941 Bruce was sent to Oflag IX-A/H, a German prisoner-of-war camp at Spangenberg Castle. Spangenberg Castle () is a schloss above the small German town of Spangenberg in the North Hesse county of Schwalm-Eder-Kreis.
Upon arrival, Bruce was also awaiting trial after being involved with an altercation with an overzealous guard in Dulag Luft. Inside the castle he would be joined by the injured No. 9 Squadron air gunner Thomas Albert Bax. His other surviving No. 9 Squadron comrades were sent to other POW camps.
Inside the castle Bruce would meet persistent want-to-be escapees like Eric Foster, Joe Barker, Eustace Newborn and Pete Tunstall. Tunstall once stated about the Schloss, "the castle had earned a reputation as escape-proof of all German POW centres of the Second World War." Tunstall also explained that the dry moat in the castle had been available to POWs as an exercise yard, but after a couple of escape attempts, this privilege had been withdrawn and that to discourage the slightest thought of escaping, the guards had even placed savage wild boars with sharp tusks to live inside the moat.
Innovator of the wooden horse technique
It has been argued that Bruce and Tunstall are the original innovators of the wooden horse escape technique.
Along with Eustace Newborn and Peter Tunstall, Bruce came up with the escape plan now known as "the Swiss Red Cross Commission." Tunstall, also highlights that in 1941, prior to he and Bruce planning an escape with the famed 'Swiss Red Cross Commission,' he and Bruce had been digging an escape route with a wooden horse tunnel from inside the gymnasium, the wooden horse was placed roughly four feet from the wall that separated the gym from the moat. The digging was a very slow process, it required the removal of spoil, bricks and stone work, and was aided by other prisoners distracting the guards. They were later joined by Douglas 'Sammy' Hoare and a syndicate who were promised a second go if they escaped undiscovered. Other members of this syndicate were also named as: Harry Bewlay, John Milner and Eustace Newborn.
When Bruce and Tunstall noted the slow process they began examining the rest of the castle and left the digging to the other team involving Sammy Hoare. The tunnel almost reached completion but unfortunately the digging team got caught when a guard become suspicious at the large stones that were accumulating outside of the gym. The guard then called a search, and then found the escape tunnel. When the guards found the shaft they called an Appell and Hauptmann Schmidt confidently stated to the prisoners, "It is impossible to escape by tunnel or any other way."
This wooden horse gym escape tunnel was two years prior to the famed Sagan wooden horse escape. Tunstall stated that he would like to think some of the watchers and workers who helped on their original wooden horse escape may have mentioned it from time to time; and would like to think that their idea contributed to the success of the effort at Sagan.
Swiss Red Cross Commission escape
The 'Swiss Red Cross Commission' has been described as the most audacious escape of World War II. Bruce's MC citation described it as a very clever escape. In late July and early August 1941, Bruce, Newborn and Tunstall took an interest in the architecture of the building and broke into a flat in the Schloss belonging to a forestry principal. Inside the flat the trio obtained escape material such as disguises, maps and a compass. After sourcing the escape resources, they carefully crafted an escape that involved the gate security of the castle, with the eventual aim being after escaping the castle, to break into Kassel airfield and then fly to Basle on a stolen aircraft. After carefully planning and waiting many weeks for the conditions to be just right, on 3 September 1941 the trio, brazenly walked across the moat bridge. The three POWs simply walked out of the camp posing as a German officer (Tunstall) and two doctors (Bruce and Newborn) of a Swiss Red Cross inspection team. Upon reaching the bottom of the hill outside the castle's grounds, they quickly removed their Swiss Commission disguises and then made their way to Kassel, a strong Nazi military centre, dressed as Luftwaffe airmen, aiming to steal a plane.
Eventually, after a turn of unfortunate events, they were forced to change their plans and the three decided to march onwards towards the Belgium border. After ten days on the run, they were recaptured by an off-duty guard. Following their capture, Bruce, Newborn and Tunstall were interrogated by the Gestapo and sentenced to 53 days in solitude. The escape and the fact that Bruce defied his solitary confinement would put Bruce in serious legal peril with the German military authorities.
Solitary confinement
After being recaptured following the Swiss Red Cross Commission escape, they were then sent back to Spangenberg. Hauptmann Schmidt was incensed at the audacity of the escape. The three were each held to a long period in solitary confinement. Bruce received 53 days in solitude for the Spangenberg Castle escape, which was longer than the Geneva convention suggested. In Spangenberg they were not sentenced for their escape but held in preventative arrest. The Senior British Officer also complained that according to the Geneva convention guidelines, the exercise yard in Spangenberg was too small, and they needed to be moved to another camp.
Defying solitude with a card school
In solitary confinement, Bruce, Newborn and Tunstall were placed in three separate cells in front of, and high above, the moat they had previously escaped from. The approach by C company to Bruce, Newborn and Tunstall was different to A and B company. When compared to C company, A and B company treat Bruce, Newborn and Tunstall with good humour. To the amusement of Bruce, Newborn, and Tunstall, in the remaining cell, Blockhead was also doing his time in confinement for letting the fake inspection team through the gate. Whilst they were held in confinement, they even managed to defy solitude after Bruce picked the lock on his, Newborn's and Tunstall's | |
The Pope arrives in Turkey, a land able to promote an encounter of civilisations and identify viable paths of peace and authentic progress
Vatican City, 28 November 2014 (VIS) – This morning Pope Francis began the sixth apostolic trip of his pontificate. His visit to Turkey is essentially of an ecumenical nature, like those of his predecessors; the country has occupied a privileged position in the geography of papal trips ever since the visit of the Apostolic Delegate Angelo Roncalli, referred to by the Turkish authorities as "the first Turkish pope in history" following his election as Pope John XXIII. Turkey was also the destination of Paul VI's fifth apostolic trip in 1967, a corollary of his pilgrimage to the Holy Land and his historic embrace with the Ecumenical Patriarch Atenagoras in Jerusalem. John Paul II continued the tradition with his fourth trip (1979) as did Benedict XVI with his fifth apostolic trip, in 2006.
The Holy Father departed from Rome's Fiumicino airport at 9 a.m., and reached the Turkish capital Ankara at 1 pm (local time) where he was received by the civil and religious authorities. He transferred by car to the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder and first president of the Turkish Republic, the "Father of the Turks" who guided Turkey's radical rupture with its Ottoman past, laying down the foundations of the modern secular state in its 1937 Constitution. Upon arrival the Pope was received by the Commander of the Guard, ascended the Steps of Honour, left a floral tribute and prayed for a moment. He was then accompanied to the nearby "Tower of National Pact", where he signed the guest book.
He then paid a visit to the Presidential Palace or "Ak Saray" (White Palace), inaugurated just two months ago by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and substituting the historic Cankaya Palace. The Holy Father was received by the president, and the two spoke in private for a few minutes, after which Pope Francis gave his first public address on Turkish soil, addressed to the authorities gathered in the Ak Saray.
"I am pleased to visit your country so rich in natural beauty and history, and filled with vestiges of ancient civilisations. It is a natural bridge between two continents and diverse cultures", the Pope began. "This land is precious to every Christian for being the birthplace of Saint Paul, who founded various Christian communities here, and for hosting the first seven Councils of the Church. It is also renowned for the site near Ephesus which a venerable tradition holds to be the 'Home of Mary',the place where the Mother of Jesus lived for some years. It is now a place of devotion for innumerable pilgrims from all over the world, not only for Christians, but also for Muslims.
"Yet, the reasons why Turkey is held with such regard and appreciation are not only linked to its past and ancient monuments, but also have to do with the vitality of its present, the hard work and generosity of its people, and its role in the concert of nations. It brings me great joy to have this opportunity to pursue with you a dialogue of friendship, esteem and respect, in the footsteps of my predecessors Blessed Paul VI, Saint John Paul II and Benedict XVI. This dialogue was prepared for and supported by the work of the then apostolic delegate, Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, who went on to become Saint John XXIII, and by the Second Vatican Council".
The Pope reiterated the need for a dialogue to "deepen the understanding and appreciation of the many things which we hold in common. Such a dialogue will allow us to reflect sensibly and serenely on our differences,and to learn from them. There is a need to move forward patiently in the task of building a lasting peace, one founded on respect for the fundamental rights and duties rooted in the dignity of each person. In this way, we can overcome prejudices and unwarranted fears, leaving room for respect, encounter, and the release of more positive energies for the good of all".
Therefore, "it is essential that all citizens – Muslim, Jewish and Christian – both in the provision and practice of the law, enjoy the same rights and respect the same duties. They will then find it easier to see each other as brothers and sisters who are travelling the same path, seeking always to reject misunderstandings while promoting cooperation and concord. Freedom of religion and freedom of expression, when truly guaranteed to each person, will help friendship to flourish and thus become an eloquent sign of peace.
"The Middle East, Europe and the world all await this maturing of friendship. The Middle East, in particular, has for too long been a theatre of fratricidal wars, one born of the other, as if the only possible response to war and violence must be new wars and further acts of violence. How much longer must the Middle East suffer the consequences of this lack of peace? We must not resign ourselves to ongoing conflicts as if the situation can never change for the better! With the help of God, we can and we must renew the courage of peace! Such courage will lead to a just, patient and determined use of all available means of negotiation, and in this way achieve the concrete goals of peace and sustainable development".
Addressing the president, the Pope reaffirmed that "interreligious and intercultural dialogue can make an important contribution to attaining this lofty and urgent goal, so that there will be an end to all forms of fundamentalism and terrorism which gravely demean the dignity of every man and woman and exploit religion. Fanaticism and fundamentalism, as well as irrational fears which foster misunderstanding and discrimination, need to be countered by the solidarity of all believers. This solidarity must rest on the following pillars: respect for human life and for religious freedom, that is the freedom to worship and to live according to the moral teachings of one's religion; commitment to ensuring what each person requires for a dignified life; and care for the natural environment. The peoples and the states of the Middle East stand in urgent need of such solidarity, so that they can 'reverse the trend' and successfully advance a peace process, repudiating war and violence and pursuing dialogue, the rule of law, and justice.
"Sadly, to date, we are still witnessing grave conflicts. In Syria and Iraq, particularly, terrorist violence shows no signs of abating. Prisoners and entire ethnic populations are experiencing the violation of the most basic humanitarian laws. Grave persecutions have taken place in the past and still continue today to the detriment of minorities, especially – though not only – Christians and Yazidis. Hundreds of thousands of persons have been forced to abandon their homes and countries in order to survive and remain faithful to their religious beliefs.
Turkey, which has generously welcomed a great number of refugees, is directly affected by this tragic situation on its borders; the international community has the moral obligation to assist Turkey in taking care of these refugees. In addition to providing much needed assistance and humanitarian aid, we cannot remain indifferent to the causes of these tragedies. In reaffirming that it is licit, while always respecting international law, to stop an unjust aggressor, I wish to reiterate, moreover, that the problem cannot be resolved solely through a military response. What is required is a concerted commitment on the part of all, based on mutual trust, which can pave the way to lasting peace, and enable resources to be directed, not to weaponry, but to the other noble battles worthy of man: the fight against hunger and sickness, the promotion of sustainable development | |
against eponyms is that it's sort of a simplification of complex stories where generally a white dead male will get the eponym. But if you look at the process of discovering and categorizing diseases, it's often over the course of more than a lifetime, and it involves many many people. And it's sort of a false history to just use this name.
And then there are ridiculous extremes, where there's four or five people that all have a similar form of the disease named after them, and then later on they discover that it was the same disease the whole time, and then it gets all messed up. I have one of them written down because I can never remember it. But I think it's the longest eponym that I've come across, and it's a four barreled name: Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser Syndrome.
HZ: Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser Syndrome is congenital anomalies in or absence of the uterus and vagina.
IS: So basically, it sounds like four people all had some sort of a claim to the discovery of the disease.
HZ: Really, there were far more than four: people had been writing about the condition all the way back as far as the Greek physician Hippocrates, in the fifth century BC. Mayer, Rokitansky, Küster and Hauser all made significant contributions to the understanding of the disease, but they weren't even working together: Mayer described the syndrome in a paper in 1829; that's fifty years before Küster was born, 92 years before the birth of Hauser, who went on to name the disease Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster Syndrome. Someone else added Hauser to the end.
IS: And you don't hear that disease name a lot. But I feel like every time I hear it, the order is a little different, so I don't even know if there's a standardized name order to it.
HZ: Maybe they shuffle it so that everyone gets a turn at the front.
IS: Yeah. They take turns.
HZ: The problem with quite a lot of eponyms is the person named therein.
IS: Reiter's Syndrome is a condition where your joints - you get joint pain related to a kind of systemic inflammation, and it's named after Hans Reiter, who was a famous Nazi war criminal who did terrible experiments on inmates at Buchenwald.
HZ: Hans Reiter discovered the eponymous syndrome in 1916, when he treated a soldier during the First World War - prior to his Nazi affiliations, of which the American rheumatologist Dr Ephraim Engleman was unaware when he coined the eponym in 1942. But he later joined the campaign, which began in 1977, to replace the eponym with a name that doesn't honour somebody associated with war crimes and mass murder. If you don't want to evoke Hans Reiter, you can call this condition 'reactive arthritis'.
But, while usage of the eponymous term has decreased, it is still being used in medical schools and in journals. The debate rages on. Do you pick and choose which parts of history are marked? Or do you allow a person's scientific achievements to be honoured despite whatever horrible things they did? Controversial things, eponyms.
IS: But there's even more controversy about eponyms: there's a sub-conflict going on about whether to use the possessive or not in eponyms. So even within people that use eponyms or don't, the people that use eponyms are having debates about whether it should be Down's - apostrophe S, for possessive - or Down Syndrome, and there's research about which should be used in medical journals to simplify searches so that you don't have to search both terms.
RM: Yeah, I think that's the one thing I would simplify. I would get rid of all apostrophes in eponyms. That seems like the right solution.
HZ: It's a Caesar salad, it's not Caesar's salad. Caesar knows.
RM: Yeah. That should just be what it is. But yeah, the apostrophes - it messes up a little too much, and you shouldn't have to think about it. There's already enough stuff to think about.
HZ: Yes, you need to worry about the horrible disease you've got. Or that you've got to cure.
RM: And the great rich story behind the name.
HZ: Something to keep you occupied in the waiting room isn't it.
RM: Exactly. It's just that an eponym just does have so much story embedded in it. In fact last night I was eating dinner with my kids and my wife and we were talking about childbirth and mentioned the Caesarian Section. The way that these two babies, my twin boys, came into this world; and it caused us to talk about Caesar and was Caesar really the first person to be the result of a section in which case, I have no actual knowledge of this, but I said probably not - it's hard to imagine that the first person to be born through this procedure also became one of the most famous people in all of history.
HZ: And invented one of the most famous salads.
RM: The eponyms - they're endlessly fascinating. But it causes great conversation at a dinner table with two 9-year-olds and my wife and we had fun talking about it and even the parts of it that are the caveats - generally the etymology with the tidiest story is the least true. You know? That's the nature of it, unfortunately; they're shaggier and messier - in general, the true ones are shaggier and messier.
HZ: Yours is a gory dinner table.
RM: It was getting on the edge there.
HZ: But if you're talking messy, good grief.
HZ: I do an eponymisode in October as Roman's birthday gift, and because it's Radiotopia's annual fundraiser time. I kept Roman around for a chat about Radiotopia and our work.
HZ: Do you know what, Roman... This is going to sound stupid. I've been podcasting for nearly ten years now, and it has taken me this long to really understand the point. And it wasn't like I thought they were nothing; I thought, "Oh yeah, podcasts are fun and nice"; but this year, I really got why people like them and need them. And I think it's because this year has been, in so many ways, wretched. My country in particular has taken a massive dump on its breakfast and is now mixing it into the breakfast. And then we are all going to have to be force fed that very slowly for a long time. So I've been not enjoying myself and I've been doing a lot of inner screaming. And I realized that the most normal I was feeling was either when I was listening to podcasts or when I was making them. And so I understood these emails I've had over the years from people saying, "I have anxiety and this helps me quell it," or, "I have depression and listening to your show gets me through some of the day," and... wow, I get where you people are coming from now.
RM: Yeah. I mean I have the same relationship with podcasts for sure, as a listener.
HZ: Do you?
RM: Oh yeah. I mean, I listen to more podcasts than definitely most people do. It's definitely my main form of media consumption by by a long shot. And it is my way of connecting with the world. I forget sometimes how much I'm alone because of work and just because of all the things I do, and my podcasts are my connection to the outside world; and they're not always the quelling-the-anxiety podcasts, especially right now I listen to a lot of election-themed podcasts.
HZ: Yeah, stare right into that abyss.
RM: But in general, I think that there is something about the medium and the connection you get from the medium which is kind of singular. I don't know anything else like it.
HZ: | |
space with this alien creature being chased by a high order of hunters.
"I also enjoy the episode The Forsaken with Majel Barrett Roddenberry as Lwaxana Troi. In fact, I was talking to my dad and his wife yesterday and they had just seen it the night before. It is just a very personal and sweet story."
Another of the actor's personal favorite is the second-season story Necessary Evil. This unusually dark and gritty episode takes viewers back to the time the Cardassians controlled Deep Space Nine and also explores the relationship between Odo and Major Kira (Nana Visitor). "That whole relationship has evolved into a kind of unrequited love story for Odo in relationship to Kira," Auberjonois explains. "She is totally unaware of his deep feelings for her. She considers him, if not her dearest, one of her dearest friends, but she's completely unaware of how he feels about her. For Odo his feelings are very conflicted and confused. There's so much that's unanswered about him and a lot of his background has not prepared him in any way to deal with emotions.
"A lot of the fans find their relationship very touching and really hope that Kira and Odo will get together someday. I've always said that would never happen - it's just out of the question - but I don't have the answers to what is going to happen. We just shot an episode [Crossfire] which, I think, resolves the relationship. It's a very touching and sweet story in which she remains totally oblivious to his feelings and it's Quark [Armin Shimerman] who, in the wonderful sort of symbiotic love/hate relationship he has with Odo, helps him to come to terms with his feelings."
While the feelings Odo has for Quark are much less congenial than those he expresses toward Major Kira, the actors portraying Deep Space Nine's oddest couple are much closer in real life. "Armin is my closest friend," he says. "I'm always happy when I open the script and there's a scene between Odo and Quark. I love working with Armin and I think the writers bring out some wonderful aspects of our characters on the show.
"People always say they love the relationship between the two characters which surprises both Armin and me because we actually have very little to do with each other on the show. We're sort of like a seasoning to the stew but we've never been the stew. Perhaps that's for the best. Maybe it means there really isn't anywhere to go with those characters except to have occasional scenes in which they sort of lock horns or jibe at one another."
When Star Trek: Deep Space Nine made its American television debut four years ago some critics were quick to attack the program, comparing it to its immensely popular older sibling Star Trek: The Next Generation. The show, which finished filming its fourth season at the end of April 1996, has survived some early growing pains and warped ahead to become America's top syndicated dramatic series.
"When you begin a show the writers have a concept and it's the actor's job to come in as the instrument and interpret the music conceived by the writers. As time goes on you become part of the music. You're not only interpreting the music but you begin to influence it. They see what your instrument is and what is does and they respond to it. The whole thing becomes a more collaborative effort in the sense that your input as an actor begins to influence what is written about your character and how it is used.
"Looking back over the seasons and seeing how the show has evolved is fascinating to me, not only for myself, which, of course is fascinating," laughs the actor, "but to see how other members of our cast have evolved, shifted, changed and grown. That's one of the joys of being part of an ensemble.
"When people first questioned whether or not DS9 was as good as The Next Generation or if it would ever really find its audience I would say, 'You know, we're all lucky that this show is probably going to run for a number of years. In that time we'll find our way and the audience will find us.' The fourth season is the proof of the pudding. It's the best season we've ever had and the audience is the most positive.
"It took a long time for people to get to know us and for us to know ourselves,' says Auberjonois thoughtfully. "That was true of The Next Generation and now it's true of us. We've found ourselves and it's going to take Voyager that long too, that's the way it is. It takes time to get it so you're all hearing the same music."
Tags: Armin Shimerman, Cardassians, Constable Odo, Entertainment, Ethan Phillips, Lwaxana Troi, Majel Barrett Roddenberry, Michael Westmore, Nana Visitor, Quark, Rene Auberjonois, Science Fiction, Star Trek, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, TV
This Week on Shooter - "Killing Zone" (USA Network)
Rathford O'Brien (William Fichtner) in "Killing Zone." Photo copyright of The USA Network.
This week on USA Network's Shooter, Bob Lee (Ryan Phillippe) goes off the grid to track down his former instructor, Sergeant Major Rathford O'Brien (William Fichtner), who may have critical information to uncovering the conspiracy, as Nadine (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) interrogates Jack Payne (Eddie McClintock) following his arrest. Meanwhile, Isaac (Omar Epps) discovers the conspiracy has a much darker history than he imagined, while a reporter presents Julie (Shantel VanSanten)with another way out. Check out the clip below from Killing Zone and then tune in Tuesday, December 20th @ 10:00 p.m. EST/9:00 p.m. CT for the entire episode.
Tags: crime drama, Cynthia Addai-Robinson, Eddie McClintock, Entertainment, Omar Epps, political intrigue, Ryan Phillippe, Shantel VanSanten, Shooter TV show, The USA Network, TV, William Fichtner
This Week on Z Nation - "Everybody Dies In The End" (Season Finale - Syfy US)
(L-R) Caitlin Carmichael as Lucy and Keith Allan as Murphy in "Everybody Dies in The End." Photo copyright of Syfy.
This week on Z Nation, Addy (Anastasia Baranova) and Doc (Russell Hodgkinson) have no idea where Lucy (Caitlin Carmichael) is when they're approached by a very unusual Zombie! They catch up with Warren (Kellita Smith) and the others but the reunion is short-lived. The Man (Joseph Gatt) has Lucy captive at the highest point for miles, and while the Heroes must battle Zona Blends, Enders, Zombies, the fate of humanity hangs in the balance in this season three finale cliffhanger. Check out the clip below and then make sure to tune in for Everybody Dies in the End on Friday, December 16th @ 9:00 p.m. EST/8:00 p.m. CT on Syfy (US).
Tags: Anastasia Baranova, Caitlin Carmichael, Enders, Entertainment, Joseph Gatt, Keith Allen, Kellita Smith, Russell Hodgkinson, Syfy., TV, Z Nation, Zona Blends
Sci-Fi Blast From The Past - Jennifer O'Dell (The Lost World)
Veronica (Jennifer O'Dell) in The Lost World.
Once again, I have decided to open up the interview vault and revisit some of the many interviews I have had the pleasure of writing over the years and that just appeared in-print and not on-line. Today's interview is with actress Jennifer O'Dell, who talks about played resident action gal Veronica in The Lost World. Enjoy, and keep coming back for more familiar faces and shows!
In the past three years, Jennifer O'Dell has gained quite a following with her portrayal of the beautiful blonde jungle bombshell Veronica on The Lost World. Each week she fends off the unwanted advances of two and four-legged foes by using her brute strength and feminine wiles. Although it's hard to picture anyone else wearing Veronica's loincloth, O'Dell was, in fact, nearly passed over for the role when the | |
publicity," I pointed out, glaring at Jay, "and I even let you pick the wedding date, because you whined about how good it would be for the campaign, but when you start to dress me, that's when we have problems," I snapped. _"Capisce?"_
"Everyone who's anyone has a personal shopper, Easton," he whined. "She can tell you which clothes are best for your coloring—"
But I yelped, cutting off Jay's lecture, as my fiancé's hands grabbed me and I fell into Tyler's lap. His lips came down on mine, and I moaned, holding his face in my hands.
We pulled apart, laughing at each other, and I heard the camera click.
"Ah," the photographer sang. "That's the cover of _New Orleans_ magazine."
She looked at the screen of her digital camera, smiling.
"Now, Mr. Marek," she instructed. "Would you stand, please, and move to your fiancée's other side?"
Tyler rose from the chair and moved around to my left side, while I remained sitting.
She looked to me and asked, "Would you turn to him slightly and then cock your head a bit?"
I followed her directions, placing my arm around Tyler and leaning in to him as I tilted my head.
"Chin up," she chirped, and disappeared behind her camera again.
Tyler's scent invaded my head, and as much as I'd grown to love Christian, I was glad he was joining his friends in the country during spring break. Which started in a few days.
I still kept my apartment and would until the wedding in October, but it was getting harder and harder to stay there. Tyler and I found our time together when we could, and even though Christian wasn't stupid—he'd caught me there early one morning, probably figuring out I had stayed the night—we did make a huge effort to not make it obvious or inappropriate.
I was still a teacher at his school, after all.
And I'd decided to stay there, even taking on tennis coaching responsibilities for the girls' team for the next school year.
After the election, though, if Tyler won, we'd reevaluate whether or not we needed to relocate to Washington, D.C., for the length of his term.
For now, though, we simply worked on his campaign and planned the wedding, which we decided to have at Degas House to commemorate the paintings we discussed when we first met.
"I want my son in some photos as well," Tyler said, and the photographer nodded.
I looked over at Christian, loving how close he and Tyler had become. They didn't always have the same interests, but they'd found a lot of common ground and enjoyed doing things together.
Christian had even started tagging along with Tyler on some of his campaign trips around the state, touring factories and neighborhoods, and he was very interested in his father's business. Not the office work part of it, but when Tyler had to take a trip to see equipment or check out a building site, Christian loved to join him as much as his school schedule allowed. Tyler was a good father, and he hardly went anywhere without Christian now.
Which got me thinking . . .
"We still haven't talked about that," I said under my breath just to him.
"What?" He glanced at me.
I licked my lips, not sure how I would answer the question I was about to ask. "Do you want children?" I questioned, and then corrected myself. "I mean, _more_ children?"
Tyler blinked, looking surprised, and then I saw his gaze go to Christian before turning back to me.
"Yes," he answered. "If it's with you."
My lips curled, and I felt strangely excited. A baby?
"You?" he hinted.
I inhaled a long, deep breath. "I think so." And then I looked at him, nodding as realization hit. "Yeah. I'd love to have one or two."
He leaned down and kissed me, his teasing lips making me promises for later that I couldn't wait for.
"Do you think we can balance it all?" I spoke against his lips. "Our careers, the campaign, children . . ."
He let out a sigh and stood back upright. "All we can do is try," he stated. "But we don't break our commitment. Family, fortune, future," he dictated. "None of it means anything without him or you."
I tightened my arm around him, not giving a damn that I needed him so much. I'd gotten very good at being weak, and I wasn't ashamed of it.
But in truth, I knew it wasn't weak to need people. To need love and connection.
You're only strong if you can stand on your own, right?
Nope.
The truth was, you're happier when you're needed and stronger when you're loved.
I could survive without Tyler, but why would I want to? Ever?
Nothing could replace him or erase him.
Except . . .
I opened my mouth, narrowing my eyes. "I forgot to ask." I looked at him with amused curiosity. "Which political party do you belong to?"
He broke out in a laugh, his chest shaking as he looked down at me.
"How is it that you don't know that?" he exclaimed. "You researched me online."
I shrugged. "I went to your website and social media, nosing around, but that was it."
Although we'd had discussions about his platform, and I'd accompanied him here and there, I realized it was the one thing that never came up.
He shook his head and stared at the camera.
"So?" I hinted.
"So what?"
I instantly hooded my eyes, unamused. "Which political party are you a member of, Tyler?"
"Does it matter?" he played.
"It might," I shot back.
But he just turned and wrapped me in his arms, bending me backward with the force of his kiss. I squealed under his lips and then let my eyes roll back, my head feeling dizzy, as his tongue entered my mouth.
"Ew." I heard Christian's complaint from across the room.
And then Jay. "All right," he chastised. "I'm getting the child out of here."
Tyler didn't break the kiss as he shot out his hand, waving goodbye to them, while I tried not to giggle.
He definitely knew how to shut me up.
# ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First, to all of the teachers in the world—the days are endless, the workload only increases, and you're not paid nearly what you're worth. But you're the greatest of all artists. Some paint with brushes, while others play guitars, carve wood, or perform onstage. But you work with living minds and diverse spirits and create dreams that cultivate futures. Thank you for everything you do!
Next, to the readers—this was the first book and the first characters I dived into after finishing the Fall Away series. So many of you have been there, sharing your excitement and showing your support, and I am continually grateful for your continued trust. I know my adventures aren't always easy, but I love them, and I'm glad so many others do, too.
To my family—my husband and daughter put up with my crazy schedule, my candy wrappers, and my spacing off every time I think of a conversation, plot twist, or scene that just jumped into my head at the dinner table. You both really do put up with a lot, so thank you for loving me anyway.
To Kerry Donovan and the rest of the team at New American Library—you've all been a joy to work with, and you've helped make one of my dreams come true. Every time I see my book in a book store, I know I didn't do that alone, and it makes me feel on top of the world. Thank you for helping me be the best I can be and for believing in me.
To Jane Dystel, my agent at Dystel and Goderich Literary Management—there is absolutely no way I could ever give you up, so you're stuck with me. I mean, I would literally wrap my body around your leg and chain | |
it seemed that the lizard had different plans.
Garnet suppressed the urge to growl and merely spoke, "He'll be fine," he attempted to reassure the Archeops.
"What if something attacks?" the vannilish spoke up, seeming to side with Acro on this newfound predicament. A look of worry crossed the ice cream cone's face as a hand lifted up to touch its cheek as if it were concerned for the safety of the glaceon.
The charmeleon was quick to respond, "If something attacks, and he can't handle it, what makes you think we'll be able to handle it?" Garnet spoke. Honestly, if something attacked he would be charging straight for it even if it meant he would get hurt. The others...he expected them to stay back. He did not know how strong the Archeops was, but he at least knew that flying types were weak to ice.
Meanwhile Linus had merely took flight into the air again, deciding to avoid any further conversaiton as he had his own issues to attend to within that small bird brain of his. The honchkrow ignored Acro's worried look as the archeops looked from Linus to the glaceon. The crow did not know whether his team leader was aware of his condition or not, but he blamed him for it. If he had not been put in this blasted team with this blasted Cursed Archeops, he would have been just fine. It was his fault that he couldn't think straight. His fault he always felt so angry now. It was all. Acro's. Fault.
The glaceon continued to walk toward the two specs, ignoring the conversation going on behind him. It seemed some of the group doubted him. That was fine, since he was doubting himself a fair bit lately. However, Garnet managed to calm the others, or rather get them to shut up and keep moving. He liked having Garnet around. Garnet fixed things so he didn't have to. He glared at the two black dots as they slowly grew larger, not letting his gaze off them for even a moment. Within not too long, they seemed to notice him, and he could clearly see the details on the two. One was normally colored, while the other had blue markings rather than yellow. Dusk and.... a friend?
The one presumed to be Dusk waved a paw. The glaceon gave no response. He just continued glaring as he approached. Dusk began to back away while the other umbreon stepped out of the way, as if to open its friend up for attack.
"Heeey, Sova! I'd like you to meet Nop-"
Sova was in dashing range. It was Dusk's voice. His temper was getting the best of him.
-Dusk-
Dusk stopped upon noticing a blue spec in the distance. It was slightly difficult to see on the white background, but she could tell it was Sova. They'd been spotted? Well, maybe Sova wouldn't be mad....? She attempted to wave a paw, but got no response. Sova was mad. A bit worried about the drone-like fashion in which the glaceon was approaching, she began to back away, attempting to speak up and ease some tension in the process. "Heeey, Sova!" she started off nervously.
Maybe she could make fun of "Nope" to calm the glaceon down? "I'd like you to meet Nop-"
A flash of blue appeared in front of her and she felt a stinging pain in her chest, forcing her off her paws and onto the ground. Sova was standing over her, pinning her to the ground on her back and glaring at her. The pressure was hurting her, making it difficult to breathe, and it was kind of starting to worry her. She knew Sova was much stronger than her. "I know you're mad I followed you, but-" she started.
The pressure of the paw bearing down on her then increased, making her wince and let out a quiet whine.
"I could break your bones, then you wouldn't be able to follow me," the glaceon spoke hollowly.
"I.... I can't breathe...." Dusk strained herself to speak.
She was no longer worried. Now, she was scared; terrified, even. Then, as abruptly as it started, it all stopped. The paw was lifted off her chest and she gasped and panted to catch her breath while trying to scramble to her paws and get away from the glaceon.
-Krikka-
Krikka spotted the "friend" that they were apparently following at about the same time as her companion. At first, she wasn't worried; the guy was just a glaceon! Two on one, so they could take him if he tried to pull anything. But Dusk's clear hesitance made Krikka just a bit hesitant as well. She began to back away just for the sake of caution, but when she heard what the glaceon's name was.... she sped up just a bit. She recognized Sova. Even if she hadn't met him before, she knew of the dangerous Grassveil Guild member.
An afterimage was left behind when the glaceon suddenly bolted for dusk, and Krikka was distracted staring at it before she realized Sova had moved. She watched as the fox pinned the vixen and began suffocating her. Dusk seemed to be trying to play it cool despite how painful it looked. The situation was getting so tense that the shiny umbreon wondered if she was about to witness a Guild member murdering an innocent. But alas, this was not the case, and it was probably for the best, as she likely would have been the next target.
She watched as the other umbreon was allowed to stand and speak.
"I came because I was worried about you!" said Dusk.
"That same worry has hurt many stronger than you," retorted Sova.
This was getting pretty good.
(Sova - 94)
Lord E V carried out 10 launched of one Mt. Frostmeer (Image not informed.) :
, , , , , , , , ,
(Dusk - 7)
Lord E V carried out 7 launched of one Mt. Frostmeer (Image not informed.) :
(Krikka - 6)
, , , , ,
Subject: Re: Frozen Heights Sun Mar 27, 2016 6:29 pm
The icy air seemed to pierce his feathers and dig into his skin. He flapped his wings in attempt to prevent them from becoming numb. The honchkrow shivered as he paid attention to what was in front of him, occasionally looking back to check on the glaceon. Eventually, the glaceon seemed to be running back towards them to catch up. Nothing important. He probably told the black dots to go away or something...or killed them. Did not matter, there were more important things at hand...like how difficult it had been as of late to think straight.
It had passed by the two umbreons and the ever so familiar looking glaceon with ease, hardly being noticed and simply waving as it passed should it be spotted. It had a plan in mind, as its pink blobby form began to shift and shape once it was a decent distance away from the trio as it headed towards the larger group that continued to walk away.
The group had been silenced, and it was time to get a move on. The charmeleon remained silent as he walked, ignoring his tiring legs and focusing on the trek ahead they still had to go through in order to reach the beginning of the ruins. He heard rushed footsteps behind him and turned to see that "Sova" was catching up to them. Good. It seemed that Sova was about to say something...wait...was he smiling?
The archeops turned to the glaceon as he caught up. He opened his mouth to speak and question who it was that was back there, but "Sova" interrupted him, "Hi!" he piped with strange and sudden enthusiasm.
"...hi?" Acro asked, a bit suspicious of this strange new attitude. The arhceops's head | |
Rise of Agon: Team Update and Live Discord Q&A Announcement
Hi everyone and happy Friday,
Today we felt it was a good time to give you all in our community some insight into the inner workings of our team seeing as we are coming up on a year since our first official team meeting. We have come quite a long way from our first meeting on Ventrilo on June 20th, 2015 (ugh, Ventrilo) and have evolved from a ragtag group of people passionate about the Darkfall franchise with a dream of being a part of something once in a lifetime, to an independent game studio developing a commercial MMORPG. That being said, there have been many struggles and obstacles that we have had to overcome throughout the past year, and many lessons learned that have shaped how we operate as a team now.
Our Journey Over the Past Year:
Our first team meeting was held on June 20th of last year, and encompassed members of the Darkfall community that Andrew Ballinger had reached out to in various means. The beginning of the meeting was chaotic, with everyone really at a loss as to why we were all sitting there in the same voice channel (many of us sworn enemies from the days of Darkfall Online). In enters boisterous Andrew, and we all quieted down to hear what he had to say. "Who wants to help create the next Darkfall?" he said, and a few us laughed at the time, not realizing how much a reality that statement would become.
Flash forward to October 2nd, the date that we officially incorporated Big Picture Games as a company. We had a core group of team members that had already begun working vigorously on many aspects of the project. The marketing team began orchestrating their short and long-term plans, designing the company and project logo, and debated what to call our project (with us finally deciding on "Rise of Agon"). The development team began planning ahead for how they were going to tackle development, and our talented website and forum developers started working vigorously on our initial concepts (and thanks @KeithStone for the Xenforo suggestion for the forums!). All during this time members of the team continued to work behind the scenes with our partners at Aventurine, trying to secure an actual license. There was still a lot of doubt among some members of the team, and over the months while we negotiated for a license we lost members, something we expected seeing as we all were working on a volunteer basis.
The months went on, and many members of the team began to have doubts that a license would actually be given to us, and we began wondering if all of this time we had invested would be for naught. Then it happened; Andrew sends a company wide announcement on Slack (the team coordination tool we have been using for many months, after trying a few others that simply did not fit our needs) stating he had an important announcement on our licensing progress. The day was February 29th, 2016 and at that moment we realized as a team that our passion project and dream was turning into a reality – we had acquired a license for the Darkfall Online source code.
As you all know, we began our work immediately after acquiring the license to try and get a server up and running so that we could get our growing community (and our team members) in game. Our web developers launched the first iteration of our official website, the marketing team began creating videos and working with external partners to plan for the road ahead, and we began to inch closer to getting team members on a working server. Unfortunately we let external (and internal) pressures get the best of us, and despite having a successful Alpha launch, we did not do our due diligence to make sure the game client was secure.
That brings us to today, with us working around the clock to address the security concerns that have arisen so that we can bring back up our servers and get our community back in game. Throughout this time we have lost team members both due to personal reasons and others due to inactivity or them coming to the realization they cannot invest the time needed for their roles to be successful. It has certainly been a unique challenge to manage such a diverse group of people, with members from 9 different countries, all working on a volunteer basis. Most of us have jobs we work 40+ hours a week on to pay our bills, and then many put in an additional 40 hours into this project after our day job ends. We all have had our bad days, where the effort required for us to be successful seems overwhelming, and each of us has made many sacrifices to ensure we can give you all the game you have longed for for so many years.
In regards to managing teams, we have made some changes to our organizational and management structure that we will now discuss below. We have already begun seeing immediate results in how our numerous teams interact with one another, and believe that we have found the "right recipe" to make our company as organized and successful as possible. Although we do not have the luxury to sit next to each other in the same office, our team now operates in such a way that we might as well be. The team continues to evolve and change for the future with new members joining and a few moving on to other challenges and projects.
Organizational and Management Restructuring:
As we mentioned in the section above, we have learned a lot as a company about what works as well as areas that we have faced difficulties in. In order to better organize our teams, ensure that the tasks at hand get completed and that we stay true to our vision as a game company, we are pleased to announce our new management roles. This new structure will allow us as a team to focus on the areas we most excel at, and provide more structure and organization moving forward. Without further ado we would like to introduce you to the new management team at Big Picture Games:
Andrew "Kimoshu" Ballinger – Chief Executive Officer
As the CEO of Big Picture games, Andrew will be focused on working on the business and legal side of the company. He will also be working on securing funding to allow us to continue to grow as a team and get the key personnel needed to make the project a long term success. He is the main reason this entire project started in the first place, and brought together the diverse and talented group of people that comprise the current team at Big Picture Games. With this new management structure, Andrew will be taking more of a step back from managing the numerous aspects of the project on a daily basis so that the new Directors can manage their team as they best see fit. All directors will report directly to Andrew and he will be involved in all major decisions the company makes on a more long term level.
Michael "Kasmos" Taylor – Director of Marketing and Communications
After recently taking on the role of Community Manager, one that he will continue to hold with these new management changes, Michael has also taken on the role of Director of Marketing and Communications. He brings close to a decade of sales and marketing, as well as management, experience to the team at Big Picture Games, and was one of the first to join the team back in | |
in the same way, from the adjoining wall he measured a certain number of its lengths, which he also counted distinctly. He then told her that at the point[260] where these two lines met, at a depth of a certain number of feet which he also told her, treasure lay buried. And so the dream broke up, and her remarkable visitant vanished.
She took the girls with her to the old castle, where, having cut a switch to the length represented to her in her dream, she measured the distances, and ascertained, as she supposed, the point on the floor beneath which the treasure lay. The same day she related her dream to Mr. Baily. But he treated it laughingly, and took no step in consequence.
Some time after this, she again saw, in a dream, the same remarkable-looking man, who repeated his message, and appeared displeased. But the dream was treated by Mr. Baily as before.
The same dream occurred again, and the children became so clamorous to have the castle floor explored, with pick and shovel, at the point indicated by the thrice-seen messenger, that at length Mr. Baily consented, and the floor was opened, and a trench was sunk at the spot which the governess had pointed out.
Miss Anne Baily, and nearly all the members of the family, her father included, were present at this operation. As the workmen approached the depth described in the vision, the interest and suspense of all increased; and when the iron implements met the solid resistance of a broad flagstone, which returned a cavernous sound to the stroke, the excitement of all present rose to its acme.
With some difficulty the flag was raised, and a chamber of stone work, large enough to receive a moderately-sized crock or pit, was disclosed. Alas! it was empty. But in the earth at the bottom of it, Miss Baily said, she herself saw, as every other bystander plainly did, the[261] circular impression of a vessel: which had stood there, as the mark seemed to indicate, for a very long time.
Both the Miss Bailys were strong in their belief hereafterwards, that the treasure which they were convinced had actually been deposited there, had been removed by some more trusting and active listener than their father had proved.
This same governess remained with them to the time of her death, which occurred some years later, under the following circumstances as extraordinary as her dream.
THE EARL'S HALL.
The good governess had a particular liking for the old castle, and when lessons were over, would take her book or her work into a large room in the ancient building, called the Earl's Hall. Here she caused a table and chair to be placed for her use, and in the chiaroscuro would so sit at her favourite occupations, with just a little ray of subdued light, admitted through one of the glassless windows above her, and falling upon her table.
The Earl's Hall is entered by a narrow-arched door, opening close to the winding stair. It is a very large and gloomy room, pretty nearly square, with a lofty vaulted ceiling, and a stone floor. Being situated high in the castle, the walls of which are immensely thick, and the windows very small and few, the silence that reigns here is like that of a subterranean cavern. You hear nothing in this solitude, except perhaps twice in a day, the twitter of a swallow in one of the small windows high in the wall.
This good lady having one day retired to her accustomed solitude, was missed from the house at her wonted hour of return. This in a country house, such as Irish houses Were in those days, excited little surprise, and no harm.[262] But when the dinner hour came, which was then, in country houses, five o'clock, and the governess had not appeared, some of her young friends, it being not yet winter, and sufficient light remaining to guide them through the gloom of the dim ascent and passages, mounted the old stone stair to the level of the Earl's Hall, gaily calling to her as they approached.
There was no answer. On the stone floor, outside the door of the Earl's Hall, to their horror, they found her lying insensible. By the usual means she was restored to consciousness; but she continued very ill, and was conveyed to the house, where she took to her bed.
It was there and then that she related what had occurred to her. She had placed herself, as usual, at her little work table, and had been either working or reading—I forget which—for some time, and felt in her usual health and serene spirits. Raising her eyes, and looking towards the door, she saw a horrible-looking little man enter. He was dressed in red, was very short, had a singularly dark face, and a most atrocious countenance. Having walked some steps into the room, with his eyes fixed on her, he stopped, and beckoning to her to follow, moved back toward the door. About half way, again he stopped once more and turned. She was so terrified that she sat staring at the apparition without moving or speaking. Seeing that she had not obeyed him, his face became more frightful and menacing, and as it underwent this change, he raised his hand and stamped on the floor. Gesture, look, and all, expressed diabolical fury. Through sheer extremity of terror she did rise, and, as he turned again, followed him a step or two in the direction of the door. He again stopped, and with the same mute menace, compelled her again to follow him.
She reached the narrow stone doorway of the Earl's[263] Hall, through which he had passed; from the threshold she saw him standing a little way off, with his eyes still fixed on her. Again he signed to her, and began to move along the short passage that leads to the winding stair. But instead of following him further, she fell on the floor in a fit.
The poor lady was thoroughly persuaded that she was not long to survive this vision, and her foreboding proved true. From her bed she never rose. Fever and delirium supervened in a few days and she died. Of course it is possible that fever, already approaching, had touched her brain when she was visited by the phantom, and that it had no external existence.
I have no materials for compiling a fresh memoir of Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. The thing has been done in the Dictionary of National Biography, in his brother William's amusing book Seventy Years of Irish Life, and in the introductions to The Purcell Papers, and to his Collected Poems. My concern is with his novels and stories, and for the understanding of what has to be told it is not necessary to know more at the outset than this: that Le Fanu, an Irishman of Huguenot descent, lived his life in Ireland, and for the most part in and near Dublin, from 1815 to 1873. His literary career began about 1838. He was a scholar and a gentleman, and, by all accounts, a most attractive personality; but after the death of his wife in 1858 he became a good deal of a recluse, and devoted himself almost entirely to writing. From 1861 to 1869 he owned and edited the Dublin University Magazine. To this periodical he was a not infrequent contributor—anonymously for the most part, as the body of this work has shown; but in and after 1861 he began issuing in it serial stories under his own name; and after he had retired from the editorship he continued to write in other magazines. He died on February 7th, | |
with them; you may work with happiness vampires or may even be related to them. What do you do then?
Learning to create appropriate boundaries is a must. As Dr. Phil says, "We teach people how to treat us"—by what we accept or don't accept from them. When you have to be around toxic people, here are some ways to bolster your immunity:
1. Break the chain reaction: Now that you know about mirror neurons, put them to work to your advantage. If you have to talk to an angry or negative person, consciously soften your gaze, keep your expression neutral, use body language that's the opposite of his or hers. Don't reflect the other person's tension, or your body will hijack you by mirroring that negativity.
2. Put up an invisible barrier: When you can't leave and you're being bombarded by toxic emotions, the author and UCLA psychiatrist Judith Orloff recommends imagining an invisible wall or a shield around yourself. This will give you a feeling of emotional protection and may help to buffer your desire to respond in kind.
3. Stay on your side of the road: Don't try to change the other person. It may be tempting to think that you can help others by trying to save them or pointing out the "error of their ways," but it rarely ever works. The most effective way to influence others is to model the behavior you'd like to see in them.
### Shower the People You Love with Love
The best way to keep relationships happy, healthy, and supportive can be summed up in one word: appreciation. (What you appreciate, appreciates.) When we demonstrate our appreciation for the support we receive from others, it reinforces that behavior and deepens our connection to them.
Appreciation is a basic human need, both at home and at work. In fact, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor, 40 percent of employees leave their job not because of salary or workload, but because they don't feel appreciated.
Too often, we take our closest personal relationships for granted as well, giving little energy and paying little attention to the people who mean the most to us. Psychologist John Gottman did a famous study of marital happiness using what he calls "the magic ratio" to predict whether 700 newly married couples would remain married or get divorced. Dr. Gottman said that couples who had a ratio of five positive interactions for every one negative interaction would stay together. In a follow-up done ten years later, a staggering 94 percent of the couples he had said would divorce were, in fact, no longer married.
Judith W. Umlas, author of The Power of Acknowledgment, says, "One of the most important things a person can do to raise his or her happiness level is to acknowledge those around them. According to a recent Gallup Management Journal article, when someone is acknowledged, dopamine is released—a neurochemical that's directly linked to being happy!"
In 2004, Dr. Donald O. Clifton and his grandson, Tom Rath, wrote How Full Is Your Bucket? based on over fifty years of comprehensive research done by social scientists and the Gallup Organization. Its message is easy to understand and apply: The most effective way to motivate, connect to, and inspire others, what the authors call "filling up a person's bucket," is through specific and sincere positive recognition. And when you fill someone else's bucket, it raises your own happiness level as well.
When I want to amp up the appreciation, I love using the following technique, called The Appreciation Practice. It's a wonderful way to enrich your relationship with anyone—spouse, child, friend, or coworker. Sergio and I practice this almost every night before going to sleep, and it always leaves me smiling.
Exercise
The Appreciation Practice
1. Begin by acknowledging something you appreciate about the other person (for example, "You make me laugh," "I feel supported by you," "You're kind"). When you're finished, switch roles. Go back and forth at least five times or as long as you like.
2. Now repeat the exercise, only this time acknowledge one thing you appreciate about yourself. Then let the other person have a turn. Go back and forth at least five times or as long as you like.
Happiness Habit for Relationships #2
Surround Yourself with Support
You have to do it by yourself,
And you can't do it alone.
—Martin Rutte, corporate consultant and speaker
We sometimes need more support than our friends and family can provide. When we're having a tough time or deciding to go for our dreams, the people closest to us may commiserate, take our side, or tell us we're fine the way we are, rather than offer us the strength and honesty we need to move forward.
Often, the best way to surround yourself with support is to join or form a group that meets regularly, whose sole purpose is to provide guidance and straight feedback—and keep you from sliding into your old patterns of victimhood.
During our research, Carol met the woman who told us the following story and was instantly impressed by her friendly, loving, and open manner. When Carol told her about the book we were writing on happiness, the woman said she had learned how to be truly happy many years ago and kindly agreed to be interviewed. Although Molly Baker is not her real name, her inner peace and well-being are the genuine article. Molly's story is a beautiful example of the role a support group can play in moving us toward greater experiences of happiness.
Molly's Story
That's What Friends Are For
John (a pseudonym) and I met in October and he proposed in December. I said yes on the spot. I didn't need to think about it. I was very attracted to him. Besides being an Ivy League graduate and having a good job, John was funny, popular, and a born leader—everything I felt I wasn't. Plus, I was twenty-one and ready to get married. This was the early 1950s, and I had no career goals except to be a wife and mother. Still, when John and I married ten months later, we really didn't know each other.
I soon discovered that my new husband drank—often and to excess.
That first year of marriage was a very unhappy time for me. John, a high-functioning alcoholic, was busy making a name for himself at his company. He worked late most nights, and then went out for business meetings, arriving home at all hours, almost always "under the influence." Yet, no matter how much he drank, he never seemed to have a hangover. He invariably got to the office on time and never missed a day of work. His boss had no idea of his problem.
I, on the other hand, was painfully aware of John's drinking. When John drank, his entire personality changed: he became wobbly, uproarious, sloppy, and stumbling. I was very uncomfortable being around him. There were car accidents—luckily only the cars were seriously damaged—and trips to the emergency room to stitch up his injuries. I was ashamed to tell my parents and sisters what was really going on in my life.
When I complained to John that he was drinking too much, he always denied it, claiming that I was being stupid or ridiculous. The sad thing was that I believed him. What's more, I saw that getting mad at John about his drinking just made him defensive and uncomfortable, which served only to make him drink more. I knew things were terribly wrong, but I didn't know what to do. What made it so hard was that at his core, John was such a good man. When he wasn't drunk, I loved being with him and respected him. My unhappiness and unexpressed anger grew steadily—as did my loneliness.
When our son, and | |
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a self-sacrificing plan.
She breaks into the radio shack, knocks out the operator and sends a coded radio message to Britain with details of the planned assault on Kuwait. Then arranges for the operator to come round to witness Willie and Modesty fighting, making it look like Modesty is the traitor and Willie caught her at it. They stage manage it that Willie and the operator overcome Modesty (as if!) and then haul her before Karz who, inevitably, condemns her to death.
Which sets up a great scene in the amphitheatre the next day, as the crowd of cheering thugs watch an epic fight between Modesty and the Twins. Guess who wins? But, like all the fight scenes in these books, it is described clinically and precisely and persuasively. Willie pleads for Modesty's life, using the grim reason that Modesty can be used in the seraglio, the comfort rooms, as one of the army's sex slaves.
Hmm. In my review of the first MB novel I mentioned the unspoken pact between O'Donnell and the reader: we promise not to burst out laughing at the preposterous plots and cartoon characters, and he promises not to be cheap, vulgar or degrading about his heroine. This pushes the agreement right up to the brink. But I think it works and the novel emerges the stronger for it and even gains a measure of depth and true dignity.
For three hard nights Modesty is made a sex slave in the harem, and Willie has to put up with the taunts and boasts of the men who've had her. I think it's well and persuasively done that Willie suffers most. When his allotted evening comes round, and he goes into her cell/bedroom, the pair keep up the pretence of animosity between them until they've disabled the inevitable bug, and then he quickly releases her.
But it is Willie who has suffered. Modesty was raped and abused as a child and is still able to turn it off, to leave her body, making it happening to someone else. It is Willie's mental torment at knowing what was being done to his 'princess', the woman he has pledged to protect with his life, that is dwelt on at length. It isn't exactly 'literature' – but it isn't pulp played just for exploitation, either. And this new tone lasts to the end of the book, adding a measure of depth to Modesty and Willie's characters and really bringing to life the special bond they enjoy – much deeper than love or sex or friendship.
Long story short, they find Lucille is being held in the same building as the sex slaves, rescue her, go under dark to the airfield, kill the guards (who just happen to be the ones who boasted about 'having' Modesty – ah justice is done).
They mine the huge arms cache hidden in a cave by the side of the dam (yes, dam!) holding back the enormous lake (enormous lake!), set the fuses – oh and there's just time for them to be caught and held at gunpoint by Modesty's lover from the early stages of the book, big Mike Dalgado, and some goons – before they take them out, run to the plane, and just manage to take off as the rest of the army comes running up with machine guns. Phew.
As the plane circles over the valley they see the arms dump explode big time, demolishing one wing of the dam and letting the vast lake of water flood through the camp, drowning half the army and wrecking their base.
They crash land in Afghanistan among American contractors building a road, are treated for their wounds and then flown back to Europe. In the final scene Sir Gerald meets them at Modesty's home in Algiers. She is being courted by the American millionaire to whom she lost at cards in the rigged game at the casino. And now Sir Gerald arrives to apologise for putting her through such a horrendous ordeal.
On the drive up the hill Sir Gerald tells Willie that he doesn't know if he can even face Modesty, knowing what his initial suggestion ended up putting her through. Willie stops the car and explains there is no guilt: he and Modesty went into the 'caper' with eyes wide open and it was her plan all along. They're professionals and they've put it behind them and so should Sir G.
O'Donnell conveys real delicacy and sensitivity in both the characters in that scene, and then builds up Sir G's nervousness and embarrassment as he finally arrives at Modesty's house – so that there is a real sense of relief and release when she welcomes him in the old polite and civilised way, going out of her way to reassure him and put him at his ease. It is a psychologically important moment in the story, which Modesty, and her author, meet with panache.
Tarrant stood very still, watching the dimly seen figure in white moving down the broad stairs which led up from one side of the living-room. He heard a series of clicks, and wall-lights sprang up in different parts of the room. She was just turning at the angle of the staircase, moving quickly and lightly down the last few steps into the room.
She wore a very simple sleeveless dress in white nylon. It was short, with the hem just above the knees. Her brown legs were bare and she wore open pale-blue sandals with small heels. Her hair was loose and gathered back at the nape of her neck by a jet clip.
She was smiling at him, moving towards him with both hands extended.
'Sir Gerald.' Her eyes were warm with welcome. (p.281)
In a number of scenes throughout the book, O'Donnell's characterisation achieves a kind of dignity and depth which lift it far above its comic-strip origins. I really like these characters. Crisply written, with a good steady pace, a comprehensible plot, and a warm feeling throughout, this is a hugely enjoyable and uplifting novel.
Sabre-Tooth on Amazon
Modesty Blaise Wikipedia article
US paperback cover of Sabre-Tooth
Posted in Adventure, Books, Novel, Thriller
Tagged 1966, Modesty Blaise, Peter O'Donnell, Sabre-Tooth, Sir Gerald Tarrant, Willie Garvin
https://astrofella.wordpress.com/2015/03/24/sabre-tooth-peter-odonnell/
Levkas Man by Hammond Innes (1971)
'You don't think about the world you live in, your species. You're just a healthy, normal human animal. That's why I need you. To keep me from thinking about my own species – the explosion of its populations, the massing in concrete jungles, the destructive assault upon the balance of nature which can only lead to nature's retaliation – a long, slow, terrible battle of disease, famine and war.' (p.192)
After the bright fluorescent modernity of Len Deighton, Innes reads almost like a Gothic writer, with his lingering on ancestral curses and implacable fates. As with the doomed relationship between the brothers in Atlantic Fury (1962) and the even more ill-fated relationship between father and son in The Doomed Oasis (1960), this is another tangled family saga.
Two things filled my mind – the way this house drew those who were connected with my father, as though his brooding personality were a living force within its walls, and the extraordinary pattern that was dragging me almost against my will into the area of his activities. (p.49)
Moreover, this novel is dominated by a gloomy early-1970s feeling that the world is coming to an end, that Man is destroying the environment and himself.
Levkas Man
The first-person narrator, Paul (28) is the adopted son of a famous Dutch archaeologist – Dr Van der Voort. The relationship was a stormy one, with much anger and beatings, until he ran away to become a merchant seaman. The narrative opens as, back from a long sea journey and fleeing some kind of waterfront brawl, | |
up to constant factors.
In~\cref{sec:identity-uknown}, we study the identity testing for unknown structure Bayes nets:
We start by proving a sample complexity lower bound showing that, for the unknown structure regime,
uniformity testing is information-theoretically as hard as learning -- even for the case of trees.
We then show that this lower bound can be circumvented under a natural non-degeneracy condition
on the explicit Bayes net distribution. Specifically, we give an identity tester with
sub-learning sample complexity for all low-degree non-degenerate Bayes nets.
Our identity tester for unknown structure non-degenerate Bayes nets relies on a novel structure tester
that may be of interest in its own right. \cref{sec:closeness} studies the corresponding closeness testing problems
for both known and unknown structure Bayes nets.
Finally, in~\cref{sec:it:ub} we consider the case of high-degree Bayes nets and
obtain testers for identity and closeness of unknown-structure Bayes nets.
Our testers in this section have optimal (and sub-learning) sample complexity as a function of
the maximum in-degree $d$
and polynomial dependence in the dimension $n$.
\section{Preliminaries} \label{sec:prelim}
\new{
In this section, we record the basic
definitions and technical tools that will be used throughout this paper.
\vspace{-0.2cm}
\paragraph{Basic Notation and Definitions.}
The $L_1$-distance between two discrete probability distributions $P, Q$ supported on a set $A$ is defined as
$\normone{P-Q} = \sum_{x \in A} \abs{P(x)-Q(x)}$. Our arguments will make essential use
of related distance measures, specifically the KL-divergence, defined as
$\dkl{P}{Q} = \sum_{x \in A} P(x) \log \frac{P(x)}{Q(x)}$, and the Hellinger distance, defined as
$\hellinger{P}{Q} = (1/\sqrt{2}) \cdot \sqrt{ \sum_{x \in A} (\sqrt{P(x)} - \sqrt{Q(x)})^2}$.
We write $\log$ and $\ln$ for the binary and natural logarithms, respectively, and by $H(X)$ the (Shannon)
entropy of a discrete random variable $X$ (as well as, by extension, $H(P)$ for the entropy of a discrete distribution $P$).
We denote by $\mutualinfo{X}{Y}$ the mutual information between two random variables $X$ and $Y$,
defined as $\mutualinfo{X}{Y} = \sum_{x,y} \probaOf{(X,Y) = (x,y) } \log \frac{\probaOf{(X,Y) = (x,y)}}{\probaOf{X=x}\probaOf{Y=y}}$.
For a probability distribution $P$, we write $X\sim P$ to indicate that $X$ is distributed according to $P$.
For probability distributions $P, Q$, we will use $P\otimes Q$ to denote the product distribution with marginals $P$ and $Q$.
}
\vspace{-0.2cm}
\paragraph{Identity and Closeness Testing.}
We now formally define the testing problems that we study.
\begin{definition}[Identity testing]
An \emph{\new{identity} testing algorithm of distributions belonging to a class $\mathcal{C}$}
is a randomized algorithm which satisfies the following. Given a parameter $0< \epsilon <1$
and the explicit description of a reference distribution $Q\in \mathcal{C}$, as well as
access to independent samples from an unknown distribution $P\in \mathcal{C}$,
the algorithm outputs either $\textsf{accept}$ or $\textsf{reject}$ such that the following holds:
\begin{itemize}
\item(Completeness) if $P=Q$, then the algorithm outputs $\textsf{accept}$ with probability at least $2/3$;
\item(Soundness) if $\normone{P-Q} \geq \epsilon$, then the algorithm outputs $\textsf{reject}$ with probability at least $2/3$.
\end{itemize}
\end{definition}
Note that by the above definition the algorithm is allowed to answer arbitrarily if neither the completeness nor the soundness cases hold.
The closeness testing problem is similar, except that now both $P,Q$ are unknown
and are only available through independent samples.
\begin{definition}[Closeness testing]
A \emph{\new{closeness} testing algorithm of distributions belonging to a class $\mathcal{C}$}
is a randomized algorithm which satisfies the following. Given a parameter $0< \epsilon <1$
and access to independent samples from two unknown distributions $P, Q\in \mathcal{C}$,
the algorithm outputs either $\textsf{accept}$ or $\textsf{reject}$ such that the following holds:
\begin{itemize}
\item(Completeness) if $P=Q$, then the algorithm outputs $\textsf{accept}$ with probability at least $2/3$;
\item(Soundness) if $\normone{P-Q} \geq \epsilon$, then the algorithm outputs $\textsf{reject}$ with probability at least $2/3$.
\end{itemize}
\end{definition}
Finally, we also consider a third related question, that of \emph{structure testing}:
\begin{definition}[Structure testing]
\new{Let $\mathcal{C}$ be a family of Bayes nets.}
A \emph{\new{structure} testing algorithm of Bayes nets belonging to $\mathcal{C}$}
is a randomized algorithm which satisfies the following. Given a parameter $0< \epsilon <1$
and the explicit description of a DAG $\mathcal{S}$, as well as access to independent samples
from an unknown $P\in \mathcal{C}$,
the algorithm outputs either $\textsf{accept}$ or $\textsf{reject}$ such that the following holds:
\begin{itemize}
\item(Completeness) if $P$ can be expressed as a Bayes net with structure $\mathcal{S}$,
then the algorithm outputs $\textsf{accept}$ with probability at least $2/3$;
\item(Soundness) if $\normone{P-Q} > \epsilon$ for every $Q\in\mathcal{C}$ with structure $\mathcal{S}$,
then the algorithm outputs $\textsf{reject}$ with probability at least $2/3$.
\end{itemize}
\end{definition}
In all cases the two relevant complexity measures are the \em{sample complexity}, i.e., the number of samples drawn by the algorithm,
and the \em {time complexity} of the algorithm. The golden standard is to achieve sample complexity
that is information-theoretically optimal
and time-complexity linear in the sample complexity.
\new{
In this work, the family $\mathcal{C}$ will correspond to the family of Bayes nets over $\{0,1\}^n$,
where we will impose an upper bound $d$ on the maximum in-degree of each node.
For $d=0$, i.e., when the underlying graph has no edges,
we obtain the family of product distributions over $\{0,1\}^n$.}
\paragraph{Relations between Distances.} We will require a number of
inequalities relating the $L_1$-distance, the KL-divergence, and the Hellinger distance between distributions.
We state a number of inequalities relating these quantities that we will use extensively in our arguments.
The simple proofs are deferred to \cref{sec:prelim:distances:proofs}.
A binary product distribution is a distribution over $\{0, 1\}^n$ whose coordinates are independent.
Note that such a distribution is determined by its mean vector.
We have the following:
\begin{lemma}\label{lem:prod:kl}
Let $P, Q$ be binary product distributions with mean vectors $p, q \in (0, 1)^n.$
We have that
\begin{equation}\label{eq:prod:kl}
2\sum_{i=1}^n (p_i-q_i)^2 \leq \dkl{P}{Q} \leq \sum_{i=1}^n \frac{(p_i-q_i)^2}{q_i(1-q_i)} \;.
\end{equation}
In particular, if there exists $\alpha > 0$ such that $q\in[\alpha,1-\alpha]^n$, we obtain
\begin{equation}\label{eq:prod:kl:balanced}
2\normtwo{p-q}^2 \leq \dkl{P}{Q} \leq \frac{1}{\alpha(1-\alpha)}\normtwo{p-q}^2 \;.
\end{equation}
\end{lemma}
\noindent Recall that for any pair of distributions $P, Q$,
Pinsker's inequality states that $\normone{P-Q}^2 \leq 2\dkl{P}{Q}$.
This directly implies the following:
\begin{corollary}\label{lem:prod:dtv:kl}
Let $P, Q$ be binary product distributions with mean vectors $p, q \in (0, 1)^n.$
We have that
\[
\normone{P-Q}^2 \leq 2\sum_{i=1}^n \frac{(p_i-q_i)^2}{q_i(1-q_i)} \;.
\]
\end{corollary}
\noindent The following lemma states an incomparable and symmetric upper bound on the $L_1$-distance,
as well as a lower bound.
\begin{lemma}\label{lem:prod:dtv:hellinger}
Let $P, Q$ be binary product distributions with mean vectors $p, q \in (0, 1)^n.$
Then it holds that
\[
\min\left( c, \normtwo{p-q}^4 \right) \leq \normone{P-Q}^2 \leq 8 \sum_{i=1}^n \frac{(p_i-q_i)^2}{(p_i+q_i)(2-p_i-q_i)} \;.
\]
for some absolute constant $c\in(0,1)$. (Moreover, one can take $c = 4(1-e^{-3/2}) \simeq 3.11$.)
\end{lemma}
\noindent While the above is specific to product distributions,
we will require analogous inequalities for Bayes nets.
We start with the following simple lemma:
\begin{lemma}\label{lemma:kl:bn}
Let $P$ and $Q$ be Bayes nets with the same dependency graph.
In terms of the conditional probability tables $p$ and $q$ of $P$ and $Q$, we have:
\[
2\sum_{k=1}^m \probaDistrOf{P}{ \Pi_k } (p_k-q_k)^2 \leq \dkl{P}{Q} \leq \sum_{k=1}^m \probaDistrOf{P}{ \Pi_k } \frac{(p_k-q_k)^2}{q_k(1-q_k)} \;.
\]
\end{lemma}
Finally, we state an alternative bound, expressed with respect to the Hellinger distance between two Bayes nets:
\begin{lemma}[{\cite[Lemma 4]{DiakonikolasKS16b}}]\label{lemma:hellinger:bn}
Let $P$ and $Q$ be Bayes nets with the same dependency graph.
In terms of the conditional probability tables $p$ and $q$ of $P$ and $Q$, we have:
\[
\hellinger{P}{Q}^2 \leq 2\sum_{k=1}^m \sqrt{\probaDistrOf{P}{ \Pi_k }\probaDistrOf{Q}{ \Pi_k }} \frac{(p_k-q_k)^2}{(p_k+q_k)(2-p_k-q_k)} \;.
\]
\end{lemma}
\section{Testing Identity and Closeness of Product Distributions} \label{sec:product}
\new{The structure of this section is as follows: In Section~\ref{ssec:product-upper}, we give an identity testing
algorithm for $n$-dimensional binary product distributions with sample complexity $O(\sqrt{n}/\epsilon^2)$.
In Section~\ref{ssec:product-lower}, we show that this sample bound is information-theoretically optimal.
Sections~\ref{sec:closeness:product:ub} and~\ref{sec:closeness:product:lb} contain
matching upper and lower bounds respectively for the task of closeness testing between product distributions.
}
\subsection{Identity Testing Algorithm} \label{ssec:product-upper}
In this section, we prove the following theorem:
\begin{restatable}{theorem}{identityproductub}\label{theo:identity:product:ub}
There exists a computationally efficient algorithm which, given an \new{explicit} product distribution $Q$ \new{(via its mean vector)},
and sample access to an unknown product distribution $P$ over $\{0,1\}^n$, has the following guarantees:
For any $\epsilon >0$, the algorithm takes $\bigO{\sqrt{n}/\epsilon^2}$ samples from $P$,
and distinguishes with probability $2/3$
between the cases that $P=Q$ versus $\normone{P-Q} > \epsilon$.
\end{restatable}
Let $Q=Q_1\otimes\cdots\otimes Q_n$ be a known product distribution over $\{0,1\}^n$ with \new{mean vector $q$},
and $P=P_1\otimes\cdots\otimes P_n$ be an unknown product distribution on $\{0,1\}^n$ \new{with unknown mean vector $p$}.
The goal is to distinguish, given independent samples from $P$, between $P=Q$, and $\normone{P-Q} > \epsilon$.
\new{Let $0 < \gamma < 1/2$. We say that a product distribution $P$ over $\{0,1\}^n$ is $\gamma$-balanced if | |
EthicsOral Questions
Mr. Speaker, does the Prime Minister still believe that all senators meet the residency requirements to sit in the Senate? If so, would he be kind enough to tell us where Senator Carolyn Stewart-Olsen lives?
Once again, Mr. Speaker, after a complete audit the leader of the NDP gets up and makes an accusation against someone who is accused of absolutely nothing.
The fact of the matter is that the Senate has done an audit and the Senate is responding to its recommendations.
What has not been responded to is NDP members taking public money and putting it into their own party organization. That is what was done in the sponsorship scandal. They have done that at a level of three times all of the accusations against senators combined.
It is totally unacceptable. I look forward to Canadians passing judgment on them.
Mr. Speaker, Carolyn Stewart-Olsen, the senator for Ottawa-Moncton.
Does the Prime Minister agree with his Conservative senator, Jean-Guy Dagenais, who thinks that his office is entitled to claim money from taxpayers for mileage on travel that he admits never took place?
Mr. Speaker, the Auditor General issued his report and the Senate is acting on it. The NDP leader is obviously trying to make up accusations against some individuals. The truth is that this member took $400,000 from taxpayers, as in the sponsorship scandal, for his own political party. That is completely unacceptable, and the public will have a chance to have its say.
National DefenceOral Questions
Justin Trudeau Liberal Papineau, QC
Mr. Speaker, it is 2015. Sexual harassment in our military is—
Some hon. members
Oh, oh!
Order. The hon. member for Papineau has the floor.
Mr. Speaker, it is 2015, and sexual harassment in our military is unacceptable. Someone in a leadership role excusing it as biological wiring is unacceptable. An apology that says this was just an awkward characterization is unacceptable.
The Prime Minister just said that he agrees, so why will the Prime Minister not immediately dismiss his Chief of the Defence Staff?
Mr. Speaker, I am glad to see that the leader of the Liberal Party has been briefed on the facts in terms of the year.
In terms of the more serious issue, as I have said, obviously the comments made here are offensive. They are inappropriate, they are inexplicable, and the general did immediately apologize. As we have said repeatedly, sexual misconduct is unacceptable in any institution, government or non-governmental. The Canadian Armed Forces takes this issue very seriously. They commissioned a report, with a series of comprehensive recommendations, and they are acting on them.
Mr. Speaker, sexual harassment is unacceptable. Those in leadership positions need to set an example.
The Canadian Armed Forces Chief of the Defence Staff made unacceptable comments on that subject. His apology is not good enough.
Once again, seriously this time, can the Prime Minister tell us why he did not immediately demand that the Chief of the Defence Staff resign?
Mr. Speaker, the general apologized immediately. As I said, his comments were inappropriate, offensive and unacceptable. The Canadian Armed Forces are acting on recommendations and taking a comprehensive approach to eliminating sexual harassment among military personnel. The Chief of the Defence Staff has already announced his retirement, his successor has been appointed, and the transition will take place soon.
Supreme CourtOral Questions
Mr. Speaker, for 10 years, the Prime Minister has repeatedly attacked the Supreme Court. He changed the judicial appointment process, making it partisan and closed.
The Liberal Party has a plan for real change, to make the Supreme Court appointment process inclusive, representative and transparent again, a process that will ensure that judges are bilingual.
Why does the Prime Minister refuse to acknowledge the importance of having judges who understand our two official languages?
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to see the Liberal Party leader's 32 number one recommendations.
He has 32 number one recommendations, number one policies, none of which, of course, correspond to anything here his party has ever done in the past on this or any other issue.
Our institutions are bilingual. The Parliament of Canada is bilingual. The Supreme Court of Canada is bilingual. Other institutions are. We do not require every single member of them to be bilingual.
Mr. Speaker, Nigel Wright told the RCMP that he briefed the Prime Minister on the media lines for the Duffy deal. Wright said in an email that he had the "good to go from the PM".
Why did the Prime Minister claim that he had never given Wright any instructions regarding the Duffy scandal? "Good to go" seems like a pretty clear instruction.
Mr. Speaker, as the leader of the NDP knows very well, he is quoting from an RCMP report that thoroughly examined this matter. It was given access to all documents and was very clear that I knew nothing of this particular matter, unlike him, who signed all of the papers, that took the money, inappropriately and fraudulently, out of the House of Commons, for which he will have to answer.
Mr. Speaker, the question—
Order. The hon. Leader of the Opposition has the floor.
Thomas Mulcair NDP Outremont, QC
Mr. Speaker, the question is just that: Is the Prime Minister good to go?
Is he good to go to swear to these statements under oath on a witness stand? If the Prime Minister is called to testify in the Mike Duffy trial, will he appear, or will he hide?
Mr. Speaker, once again, as those who have investigated this have said that I am neither a participant nor a witness to any of these events, there is absolutely no reason why I would be before the court.
However, I would invite him to have the RCMP look at his files on the $400,000 he personally took and the $3 million his party took out of the House of Commons.
Mr. Speaker, now that we have heard the Prime Minister talk about the Liberal-Conservative kangaroo court, why do we not look at what real courts have had to say about the Conservative record.
In 2006, convicted in court of cheating in the in-and-out scandal; 2008, convicted of cheating in the Dean Del Mastro affair; 2011, convicted in court for cheating in the robocalls scandal.
The Prime Minister's team has been convicted of cheating in every single election he has won. What safeguards has he put in place to try to ensure that his team does not cheat this time around?
Mr. Speaker, here is a party that itself has been found guilty of inappropriate robocalls and has been forced to return union funds that it illegally raised, and knowingly did so, and of course, still, $2.7 million was taken out of the House of Commons by the NDP, not for any parliamentary purpose, for the use of its own party offices across the country.
This is exactly the kind of thing that happened in the sponsorship scandal, and the NDP will be held accountable.
Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is using Bill C-51 to attack our rights and freedoms while offering no proof that this law will actually protect Canadians.
If the Prime Minister is so confident of the legality of Bill C-51, why does he not simply refer it to the Supreme Court prior to royal assent?
Mr. Speaker, Bill C-51 gives our law enforcement and security agencies all of the powers they typically have across major western governments to deal with very real security threats, things like sharing information between departments and having the ability to use peace bonds in case of imminent threat. I could go through those.
Of course, the NDP is always against these things, always against this kind of thing, votes against every single piece of security legislation ever put forward because of its extreme and ideological positions. What would we expect from leader who thinks Osama bin Laden is still alive and there is no such thing | |
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Front. Physiol., 11 February 2015 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2015.00030
A method for a categorized and probabilistic analysis of the surface electromyogram in dynamic contractions
Sylvie C. F. A. Von Werder1*, Tim Kleiber1,2 and Catherine Disselhorst-Klug1
1Department of Rehabilitation & Prevention Engineering, Institute of Applied Medical Engineering, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
2German Research School for Simulation Sciences, Joint Graduate School of RWTH Aachen University and Forschungszentrum Jülich, Jülich, Germany
The human motor system permits a wide variety of complex movements. Thereby, the inter-individual variability as well as the biomechanical aspects of the performed movement itself contribute to the challenge of the interpretation of sEMG signals in dynamic contractions. A procedure for the systematic analysis of sEMG recordings during dynamic contraction was introduced, which includes categorization of the data in combination with the analysis of frequency distributions of the sEMG with a probabilistic approach. Using the example of elbow flexion and extension the procedure was evaluated with 10 healthy subjects. The recorded sEMG signals of brachioradialis were categorized into a combination of constant and variable movement factors, which originate from the performed movement. Subsequently, for each combination of movement factors cumulative frequency distributions were computed for each subject separately. Finally, the probability of the difference of muscular activation in varying movement conditions was assessed. The probabilistic approach was compared to a deterministic analysis of the same data. Both approaches observed a significant change of muscular activation of brachioradialis during concentric and eccentric contractions exclusively for flexion and extension angles exceeding 30°. However, with the probabilistic approach additional information on the likelihood that the tested effect occurs can be provided. Especially for movements under uncontrollable boundary conditions, this information to assess the confidence of the detected results is of high relevance. Thus, the procedure provides new insights into the quantification and interpretation of muscular activity.
Muscles move us and many scientists move the research on the interpretation of muscular activation. Thus, muscular activation is investigated and described in a wealth of literature to increase the knowledge of physiological movement patterns or pathological movement disorders. But, the human motor system permits a wide variety of complex movements. To meet the challenge of controlling all possible movements, the human motor system exhibits redundant muscular activation strategies ranging from strategies on how to activate one muscle to strategies on activating a consortium of contributing muscles. The study of muscular activation with surface Electromyography (sEMG) provides insights into the contribution of single muscles to the overall performed movement. Like the human motor system itself, the interpretation of muscular activation is complex. There are controversial results from examination of sEMG as well as reviews on the limitation of sEMG. The interpretation of sEMG recordings requires caution (Rau et al., 2004) especially in dynamic tasks (Farina, 2006). The sEMG is dependent on several factors, which impact on the relation between the recorded sEMG and the underlying physiological process. Farina et al. divided the factors that influence the sEMG in two groups, "non-physiological" and "physiological" factors (Farina et al., 2004). Amongst others, they noted the shape and thickness of the investigated muscle and surrounding tissue, the electrode position and inter-electrode distance, crosstalk of nearby muscles, as well as fiber membrane and motor unit properties, which can affect the recording and consequently the interpretation of the sEMG. Furthermore, individual differences due to the muscular condition or habitual motion patterns might affect the sEMG and contribute to the challenge of interpreting dynamic sEMG recordings.
But, especially dynamic tasks are of high importance for considerations on pathological movement disorders. At this point, daily living activities which involve free movements of the limbs are restricted. On the one hand, analyzing free movements further challenges the interpretation of the dynamically recorded sEMG. On the other hand, possible sEMG findings under highly controlled movement conditions in a physiological reference cannot be easily transferred to the pathological situation of patients. Sometimes the patients are not able to move their limbs under the same highly controlled conditions, e.g., patients with spasticity after stroke. Thus, the balance between investigating freely performed movements on the one hand and the possibility to interpret the dynamic recorded sEMG on the other hand is intended. Considering the example of spasticity, the muscular activation can be exclusively recorded in the range of the patients' movement capability, leading to uncontrollable boundary conditions of the investigated movement. Consequently, the performed movement is more complex just as the interpretation of the sEMG. However, the interplay of the mechanisms, which contribute to the human motion, is to the same extent of physiological relevance as the controllable single physiological mechanisms themselves. Especially if pathologies are involved, the interplay of several factors is of high relevance.
If less restricted and uncontrollable movement conditions are inevitable, specific analyzing techniques are needed to assess the confidence of the detected results. In this context is it possible to provide additional information on the likelihood of the occurrence or absence of an investigated physiological or pathological effect?
In this manuscript two aspects on the analysis of dynamic sEMG recordings are considered: the impact of the performed movement and the procedure of the performed analysis of dynamic sEMG recordings.
Regarding the impact of the performed movement itself, several factors have been described which influence the muscular activation and originate from the way in which the performed movement was conducted. Considering the elbow flexion and extension movement, the effect of muscular contraction type on the activation of contributing elbow muscles was evaluated. In that context, a decreased activation during eccentric contraction depending on the joint angle and pre-activation mode was observed (Komi et al., 2000; Linnamo et al., 2006). Additionally, differences of angle dependent variations of the synergistic activation of biceps brachii and brachioradialis during eccentric contractions were found, which were not observed during concentric contractions (Nakazawa et al., 1993). Besides the performed movement itself, there is an inter-individual variability of sEMG profiles (Guidetti et al., 1996; Hug, 2011).
Regarding the procedure of the performed analysis, the way of the interpretation of the processed data is crucial. Once the data is processed it can be assessed with a deterministic approach or with a probabilistic approach. For a deterministic approach the data is successively examined for each time point, to compute mean values for the performed movement cycles as it was performed for the muscular activation patterns of the gait analysis (Perry, 1992). For a deterministic approach, the processed sEMG is utilized as input to compute for a fix output, e.g., the mean ± standard deviation. In contrast, for a probabilistic approach, probabilities are assigned to the occurrence of specific events. Instead of comparing sEMG means ± standard deviation, a probabilistic approach assesses frequency distributions of the sEMG recordings to compute probabilities that the analyzed sEMG recording takes a specific value. In that way the examined signal, with an uncertain nature of the sEMG recording itself is assessed with a fuzzy approach instead of crisp deterministic values. A probabilistic method was described to estimate the levels of muscular activation for the functional electrical stimulation (Anderson and Fuglevand, 2008) and the control of neuroprosthetics (Johnson and Fuglevand, 2009).
Taking the example of flexion and extensions of the elbow, this report describes a procedure to analyze sEMG recordings of dynamic contractions with a systematic categorization of the recorded data combined with a probabilistic approach. In that way the described procedure aims to account for the impact of the performed movement on the one hand and moreover aims to add an uncertain component to the interpretation of the recorded sEMG on | |
less so at the level of groups. Because of this, Pinker takes pains to point out that no finding in genetic science in any way suggests that inequality of rights and opportunities is naturally justified – indeed, without a commitment to equality of opportunity as a society, we risk fostering injustice in eyes of many (treating others as we would not want to be treated and thus contrary to principled life), leading to strong negative moral emotions and their tendency to undermine society over time. The implication of the emerging science of our innate differences is instead that we must allow all comers to pursue their natural talents and opportunities in society, knowing that some will be more facile in different vocations than others and that great facility in certain vocations will be disproportionately rewarded by society. This last fact then requires a curbing of greatly unequal rewards in the interests of the social cohesion that is a precondition to all progression of talent and that makes great rewards possible in the first place. In this way, society delivers justice to the talented, to those that luckily benefit directly from talent, and to those that do not have special talent or reap its immediate benefits.
6. There is a natural human morality and clear moral imperatives – our discussion has already touched on the idea that a functional set of moral standards and enabling natural emotions can be reliably expected to evolve in social animals like humans, and that they can be especially strong where a species has evolved extensive child-rearing investments and high levels of cooperation for sustenance and defense from threats (whether from other species or other groups of its own species). Pinker highlights that evolutionary theorists postulate and scientists now find compelling cross-cultural evidence for four categories of natural moral emotions in humans, all essential to preserving "reciprocal altruism" and their enabling genes: a) condemnation of anti-social behavior, b) elevation of pro-social behaviors and encouragement of magnanimity, c) empathy for the circumstances of others, and d) self-conscious feelings of moral correctness and failure. These natural human emotions combine in our evolved social state to form three natural moral spheres – i) those we engage morally and reciprocally, ii) those we treat amorally and instrumentally, and iii) those we treat as immoral and threatening. When I call the three spheres natural, this suggests that the categories are universal and unchanging, even as there is of course permeability and people and things may move between them based on circumstance and cognitive framing. These ideas of course run entirely contrary to at least a century of increasing movement toward moral and cultural "relativism," the idea that human morals and standards in any time or place are arbitrary and changeable. Though some values and ideals in any group or setting no doubt are less than universal, this line of reasoning is sometimes used to delegitimize functioning societies and legitimize utopian schemes (for example, in the case of Maoist thinking) or to rationalize individual conduct that would undermine society if it became widespread (such as the use of narcotics, a behavior which presupposes a largely drug-free and working society). In place of this relativistic thinking, the new science of our nature points to a new "moral realism" that sees many human social standards as innate and essential to the healthy functioning of human and even primate society. In its full expression, this new empirically-grounded realism also brings a new appreciation of how moral and social systems can lose their way and naturally degrade as well. This includes understanding how our natural human morality can become adorned with superfluous and even detrimental content though cultural evolution. It also includes recognition of our earlier discussion of the ways our natural moral sense can exclude others and lead to violence and suboptimal conditions – via unchecked moral prejudices, uncultivated and overly narrow moral circles, or a failure to understand and attend to the universal principles embedded in our moral sentiments, principles essential for fairness and the sustainable functioning of society.
7. Our natural differences extend to moral emotions and strength of conscience – while on the subject of our natural moral emotions and resulting imperatives for social order and progress, it is worth considering intuitive suspicions and now scientific findings that moral feeling or conscience is not evenly distributed among people, even after accounting for cultural and situational differences in people's lives (including the relative lawfulness and fairness of one's society). To better understand the reasons for this evolved natural phenomenon of varying individual morality, we need only consider what intensities, distributions, and patterns of moral emotions would foster human reproductive success and the transmission of their enabling genes in both wild nature and settled society. The short answer is the generally cooperative, moderately opportunistic, and socially scrupulous emotions that dominate our nature and its cross-cultural expression, which we have discussed already and are readily observed around us. But if we consider a succession of many thousands of generations of "generally cooperative, modestly opportunistic, and socially scrupulous" people living in differing natural and social situations over time, we can see that genes favoring other moral and emotional stances might find their way into our gene pool. One alternative is the case of genes that result in extremely principled and moral people. Some of us seem to have this as an innate predisposition and many an ability to become this way with cultivation. While this does seem an easier outcome for some and may even be an evolutionary handicap in many settings (since such people may fail to protect their interests or otherwise reproduce as prodigiously as they might), it can be shown that highly moral personalities and lifestyles are likely to be a successful human strategy in many settings and thus can be expected to be a reliable and reasonably broad genetic variation. At the other extreme, a naturally limited moral strategy (a "frequency dependent" strategy that can be an exception but not the rule for a group) involves selection of genes that result in a minimal or absent moral sense. In this case, people are born without genes associated with a robust natural conscience, predisposing them to live highly opportunistically and even antisocially (again, often depending on situational variables and incentives). Social animals with low conscience are thereby inclined to live to a greater or lesser degree as parasites within their society – reproducing by taking advantage of a dominant condition of goodwill and the resulting social vulnerabilities this condition presents, or by having high utility to society during times of aggression from other groups or species. Still, the extent of this genetic strategy is naturally constrained, since too great a number of people exercising it (and genes encouraging it) would lead to social degradation and lower overall reproduction (lower inclusive fitness). The idea that natural human reproduction in generally cooperative settings can be expected to produce some number of morally deficient people may seem incredulous, but studies of this hypothesis have largely confirmed the theoretically-expected result and have done so cross-culturally, revealing approximately 3-4% of males to be sociopathic, either situationally (i.e. when under stress or in conditions of low costs) or absolutely (without regard to external conditions). They are, in other words, largely or wholly unconstrained by moral emotions. Based on new research, this last sub-class of people is increasingly believed to be generally immune to rehabilitation and may require permanent separation from society (whether via imprisonment or other forms of segregation), which of course raises concerns about predictive accuracy and important moral and social policy issues – especially involving decisions to segregate suspected strong sociopaths before they have significantly harmed others (for example, | |
Five Diamond Experience In The Caribbean
Grand Velas Riviera Maya
By George Coyle
Grand Velas Riviera Maya is truly a must-visit destination if you want to experience ultra-luxury Five Diamond service and food.
When it's time for sun and sand, I want a luxurious tropical vacation with amenities and services that are second to none. After all, time away is at a premium so the experience should be spectacular. As I discovered earlier this year, Grand Velas Riviera Maya delivers impressively on all fronts. Set on 206 acres in Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula, this sumptuous white-sand beach resort is just minutes from Playa del Carmen, but it's a world apart from the customary all-inclusive Caribbean choices.
I was hesitant to go to an all-inclusive spot, as I don't typically find they are five-star quality, but Grand Velas proved me wrong. This resort was five-star from start to finish. I was also hesitant to go to such a large resort, as sometimes you feel like a number in the crowd and receive perfunctory service to match. Wrong again. The opposite was true at this upscale oasis on Mexico's Caribbean coast.
While Grand Velas does offer all the comforts and indulgences you can imagine—such as gourmet dini ng at five signature restaurants and deluxe pampering at a spa that has been named "Best Spa in the World"—there's nothing impersonal about the approach to hospitality. You can relax and enjoy the VIP treatment, from a 24-hour personal concierge and 24-hour gourmet suite service to personal greetings from beach and poolside waiters who are always ready to assist you.
Set on 206 acres in Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula, this sumptuous white-sand beach resort is just minutes from Playa del Carmen.
Five Diamond food and service
In fact one of the reasons this resort regularly collects prestigious international awards for excellence is that it flawlessly combines the exclusive ambiance of a small, intimate locale with the lavish, comprehensive offerings of an expansive, world-class holiday place. Grand Velas does so by offering three separate and distinctive vacation experiences.
The Ambassador is dedicated to family enjoyment. Situated close to the Kids' Club, Teens' Club and fitness center, this all-ages realm features 195 spacious suites, plus attractions and activities to please both youngsters and grownups. There's even a baby concierge, so parents can unwind and have some fun. The Zen Grand is all about relaxation. A lush jungle sanctuary that's a brief shuttle ride from the main resort, this verdant tropical refuge includes 254 suites, two gourmet restaurants, an inviting pool and koi pond.
Finally, The Grand Class offers an amazing, ultra-luxurious beachfront experience, and we embraced its advantages and many pleasures. Mere steps from the sand and the scenic waterfront, this enclave is home to just 90 elegant suites. All over 1300 square feet, they feature ocean views, large private terraces, private plunge pools, and well-appointed bathrooms with Jacuzzi tubs and rain showers. From the fully stocked mini bar and artisanal mezcal to the plasma TV and Nespresso coffee machine, we appreciated all the creature comforts. But the service was even more spectacular. This was one of the best service experiences I have ever had at a resort. A personal concierge was available around the clock. Anything we needed they got for us with a smile, and they knew our names everywhere we went.
As we all know, however, while the linens may be fine and the pools inviting, if the food at a resort isn't excellent, the whole holiday is a letdown. Lucky us. Superb cuisine is an integral part of the Grand Velas experience.
Destination for Foodies
Again, one of the reasons I was hesitant to consider an all-inclusive resort was that I questioned the likelihood of it having five-star quality food. Having dined incredibly well, I know better now.
In fact, this resort is considered a destination for foodies. Its AAA Five Diamond restaurant, Cocina de Autor, is the first all-inclusive restaurant in the world to win the prestigious distinction, and three of its other gourmet specialty restaurants, Frida, Piaf and Sen Lin, have earned Four Diamond merit for excellence. Even the simple ordering of lunch on the beach was a noteworthy treat. Refreshing gourmet fare was artfully presented in a wood box and delivered directly. We were very impressed and surprised.
Grand Velas Riviera Maya's abundant dining offerings allow guests to explore and savour a worldly fusion of flavors without leaving the comfort of the resort.
At Grand Velas, there are dining options to suit all tastes and preferences, including French, Italian, Asian, Mexican and international fare, along with settings geared to families and those reserved for guests aged 16 and older. The Five Diamond restaurant, Cocina de Autor, presents fresh, imaginative fusion cuisine that genuinely dazzles. The ambiance is tasteful and the dress code is "elegant-casual," so we reserved a table, discarded our beachwear—however briefly—and sat down to savour a 10-course tasting menu with dishes that rivalled some of the best I have sampled in North America. It was an unforgettable occasion.
Named after iconic Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, Frida is a family-friendly eatery that offers classic Mexican cuisine with a contemporary twist. You can decide to dine inside or outdoors on a terrace with ocean views. A dining destination to please the senses, Piaf offers an evening in Paris. Named in honour of beloved French chanteuse Edith Piaf, this romantic setting serves up inspired French fare accompanied by great wines, live music and consummate service. Considered one of the finest restaurants of its kind in Riviera Maya, Sen Lin offers diners a taste of Riviera Maya mysticism along with Asian culinary traditions. Combined, the exotic jungle setting and the striking flavours of China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand deliver a feast for the senses.
At Lucca, guests tuck into Italian-Mediterranean offerings, from linguini and risotto to tiramisu and semifreddo, and at Chaká, a casual, open-air restaurant sounded by the jungle, the menu features fresh, natural, healthy choices, and flavours that celebrate the landscape. If there are picky eaters in your group, there's something to please everybody at Azul, a casual beachfront restaurant. Sushi and tempura, tacos and quesadillas, teppanyaki and satay, pizza and pasta, chicken wings and burgers, steaks, fish—it's all available. The Bistro is another casual oceanfront dining spot with breakfast, lunch and dinner menus. It's reserved for the 16+ crowd.
There are several different lounges too. From swim-up cocktails at the Aqua Bar and sunset drinks at the rooftop Sky Bar to live music at the Sen Lin Bar and on-screen sports action at the Koi Bar, there's a setting for every mood and inclination.
Offering innovative libations and sensory ambiances for every mood, the resort features diverse bars, including Koi shown here. Highlights of the casually elegant space include a dramatic marble bar, state of the art sound and video equipment and comfortable seating groups.
Named Best Spa in the World
It's the spa, though, that will blow your mind. Virtuoso, a network of top luxury travel agencies, has named it "Best Spa in the World" and I'm not at all surprised. I have been to many spas at international destinations, and this one was definitely the best. The space is huge and extraordinary, with 40 treatment rooms, including some for couples. And in keeping with the rest of the resort, service here is superb. Naturally, there's a dedicated spa concierge.
We arrived two hours before our treatment to experience the signature water ceremony. I'm glad we did. Called the Grand Velas Riviera Maya Water Journey, it's a tour through eight different water experiences that offer the healing properties of hydrotherapy. These specially designed features include a clay room, a colour therapy steam room, an ice room with a floor-to-ceiling window, sensation showers, a hot tub and cold plunge, a Jacuzzi, and a | |
urn.
40
The joys of wine, immortal as my theme,
To days of bliss the aspiring soul invite;
Life, void of this, a punishment I deem,
A Greenland winter, without heat or light.
41
Count all the trees that crown Jamaica's hills,
Count all the stars that through the heavens you see.
Count every drop that the wide ocean fills;
Then count the pleasures Bacchus yields to me.
42
The aids of wine for toiling man were meant;
I prize the smiling Caribbean bowl--
Enjoy those gifts that bounteous nature lent,
Death to thy cares, refreshing to the soul.
43
Here fixt to-day in plenty's smiling vales,
Just as the month revolves we laugh or groan,
September comes, seas swell with horrid gales,
And old Port Royal's fate may be our own.
44
A few short years, at best, will bound our span,
Wretched and few, the Hebrew exile said;
Live while you may, be jovial while you can,
Death as a debt to nature must be paid.
45
When nature fails, the man exists no more,
And death is nothing but an empty name,
Spleen's genuine offspring at the midnight hour,
The coward's tyrant, and the bad man's dream.
46
You ask me where these mighty hosts have fled,
That once existed on this changeful ball?--
If aught remains, when mortal man is dead,
Where, ere their birth they were, they now are all.[A]
[A] "_Quaeris, quo jaceas post obitum loco?--
Quo non nata jacent._"--Senec. Troas.--_Freneau's note._
47
Like insects busy, in a summer's day,
We toil and squabble, to increase our pain,
Night comes at last, and, weary of the fray,
To dust and darkness all return again.
48
Then envy not, ye sages too precise,
The drop from life's gay tree, that damps our woe,
Noah himself, the wary and the wise,
A vineyard planted, and the vines did grow:
49
Of social soul was he--the grape he press'd,
And drank the juice oblivious to his care;
Sorrow he banish'd from his place of rest,
And sighs and sobbing had no entrance there.
50
Such bliss be ours through every changing scene;
The glowing face bespeaks the glowing heart;
If heaven be joy, wine is to heaven a-kin,
Since wine, on earth, can heavenly joys impart.
51
Mere glow-worms are we all, a moment shine;
I, like the rest, in giddy circles run,
And Grief shall say, when I this life resign,
"His glass is empty, and his frolics done!"
52
He said, and ceas'd--the funeral anthem then
From the deep choir and hoarse-ton'd organ came;
Such are the honours paid to wealthy men,
But who for Irus would attempt the same?
53
Now from the church returning, as they went,
Again they reach'd Alcander's painted hall,
Their sighs concluded, and their sorrows spent,
They to oblivion gave the Funeral.
54
The holy man, by bishops holy made,
Tun'd up to harmony his trembling strings,
To various songs in various notes he play'd,
And, as he plays, as gallantly he sings.
55
The widow'd dame, less pensive than before,
To sprightly tunes as sprightly did advance,
Her lost Alcander scarce remember'd more;
And thus the funeral ended in a dance.
[157] As far as I can discover, this poem occurs only in the edition
of 1786. Freneau seems deliberately to have abandoned it after this
edition. A few stanzas from this poem are scattered through the poem
entitled "The Sexton's Sermon," _q.v._ Stanza 43 was inserted after
stanza 15 of the later versions of "Santa Cruz."
THE BEAUTIES OF SANTA CRUZ[A][158]
1776
Sweet orange grove, the fairest of the isle,
In thy soft shade luxuriously reclin'd,
Where, round my fragrant bed, the flowrets smile,
In sweet delusions I deceive my mind.
But Melancholy's glooms assail my breast,
For potent nature reigns despotic here;--
A nation ruin'd, and a world oppress'd,
Might rob the boldest Stoic of a tear.
[A] Or St. Croix, a Danish island (in the American Archipelago),
commonly, tho' erroneously included in the cluster of the
Virgin Islands; belonging to the crown of
Denmark.--_Freneau's note_ [_Ed. 1809_].
1
Sick of thy northern glooms, come, shepherd, seek
More equal climes, and a serener sky:
Why shouldst thou toil amid thy frozen ground,
Where half year's snows, a barren prospect lie,
2
When thou mayst go where never frost was seen,
Or north-west winds with cutting fury blow,
Where never ice congeal'd the limpid stream,
Where never mountain tipt its head with snow?
3
Twice seven days prosperous gales thy barque shall bear
To isles that flourish in perpetual green,
Where richest herbage glads each shady vale,
And ever verdant plants on every hill are seen.
4
Nor dread the dangers of the billowy deep,
Autumnal winds shall safely waft thee o'er;
Put off the timid heart, or, man unblest,
Ne'er shalt thou reach this gay enchanting shore.
5
Thus Judah's tribes beheld the promis'd land,
While Jordan's angry waters swell'd between;
Thus trembling on the brink I see them stand,
Heav'n's type in view, the Canaanitish green.
6
Thus, some mean souls, in spite of age and care,
Are so united to this globe below,
They never wish to cross death's dusky main,
That parting them and happiness doth flow.
7
Though reason's voice might whisper to the soul
That nobler climes for man the gods design--
Come, shepherd, haste--the northern breezes blow,
No more the slumbering winds thy barque confine.
8
From the vast caverns of old ocean's bed,
Fair Santa Cruz, arising, laves her waist,
The threat'ning waters roar on every side,
For every side by ocean is embrac'd.
9
Sharp, craggy rocks repel the surging brine,
Whose cavern'd sides by restless billows wore,
Resemblance claim to that remoter isle [_Eolia_
Where once the winds' proud lord the sceptre bore.
10
Betwixt old Cancer and the mid-way line,
In happiest climate lies this envied isle,
Trees bloom throughout the year, streams ever flow,
And fragrant Flora wears a lasting smile.
11
Cool, woodland streams from shaded clifts descend,
The dripping rock no want of moisture knows,
Supply'd by springs that on the skies depend,
That fountain feeding as the current flows.
12
Such were the isles which happy Flaccus sung,
Where one tree blossoms while another bears,
Where spring forever gay, and ever young,
Walks her gay round through her unwearied years.
13
Such were the climes which youthful Eden saw
Ere crossing fates destroy'd her golden reign--
Reflect upon thy loss, unhappy man,
And seek the vales of Paradise again.
14
No lowering skies are here--the neighbouring sun
Clear and unveil'd, his brilliant journey goes,
Each morn emerging from the ambient main,
And sinking there each evening to repose.
15
In June's fair month the spangled traveller gains
The utmost limits of his northern way,
And blesses with his beams cold lands remote,
Sad Greenland's coast, and Hudson's frozen bay.
16
The shivering swains of those unhappy climes
Behold the side-way monarch through the trees,
We feel his fiercer heat, his vertic beams,
Temper'd with cooling winds and trade-wind breeze.
17
Yet, though so near heav'n's blazing lamp doth run,
We court the beam that sheds the golden day,
And hence are called the children of the sun,
Who, without fainting, bear his downward ray.
18
No threatening tides upon our island rise,
Gay Cynthia scarce disturbs the ocean here,
No waves approach her orb, and she, as kind,
Attracts no water to her silver sphere.
19
The happy waters boast, of various kinds,
Unnumber'd myriads of the scaly race,
Sportive they glide above the delug'd sand,
Gay as their clime, in ocean's ample vase.
20
Some streak'd with burnish'd gold, resplendent glare,
Some cleave the limpid deep, all silver'd | |
Couple robbed at gunpoint in Delhi's Connaught Place
WeForNews Desk
New Delhi, Sep 20 : A couple was robbed at gunpoint by two unidentified men on Delhi's Janpath Road in Connaught Place on Friday morning, police said.
The victims were identified as Vinod Singh and his wife Amrita Bohra, residents of Neb Sarai in Delhi. A police officer said the incident took place around 5:30 a.m. when the couple was going to New Delhi Railway Station on a two-wheeler.
"When they were near Connaught Place outer circle, two unidentified men appeared on a bike and aimed a gun at the couple and snatched a gold chain from them. During the commotion, the vehicle fell on the woman fracturing her shoulder," said the police officer.
"Amrita works in a multi-national company in Gurugram. She is now receiving treatment at Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital in Delhi," said the police officer.
"An FIR has been registered and the police have launched an investigation.
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Delhi schools to reopen today after 10 months , parents still hesitant
Schools have also been directed not to hold assemblies and physical outdoor activities.
New Delhi, Jan 18: After being closed for nearly 10 months due to the Covid-19 pandemic, schools in Delhi are set to reopen from Monday for students of Classes 10 and 12. However, parents are still in a quandary whether to allow their wards to attend.
The Delhi government has decided to reopen schools, shut since the first 21 day nationwide lockdown was imposed in March, 2020, in the view of the upcoming CBSE board exams.
Schools that reopen will have to follow the standard operating procedures (SOP) issued in view of the Covid-19 pandemic, including social distancing, compulsory mask wearing and sanitisation and others.
Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, in a tweet on Sunday, said: "Had a review meeting with senior Education Dept officials. Everyone is excited and a little nervous at having Class 10& 12 students back in schools from tmrw for practical/counselling. All preparations-sanitizers, masks, social distancing measures- are in place. Good luck to all!"
The Directorate of Education has made it clear that students can come to school only if their parents allow it, and the school administration cannot compel physical attendance of their students.
However, parents spoke to IANS were not sure if they would send their children to schools from Monday onwards.
"It's not only me but most parents have made a unanimous consent not to send their children to school in this situation. As we all are aware that Covid-19 is still with us and our children can get affected. I can't say all parents have the same thought but, yes, all are concerned about safety of their children," said the mother of a Class 12 student in the Andhra Education Society School, ITO.
Sources told IANS that the schools administrations in Delhi have sought parents' consent through an 'NOC for offline classes'.
A letter issued by Preet Public School in Preet Vihar read: "As per the order of Delhi government, the school may start the offline classes for practical, doubt session, assignment activities related to CBSE examination 2021. The school will follow the SOP guidelines in respect of Covid-19 issued by MHA, Govt. of India."
In the letter, parents have been asked to submit their consent in writing. Parents have to ensure that their children will wear face masks, carry hand sanitiser and maintain social distancing. Parents also have to ensure that there is no history of Covid-19 infection in their families.
"It has been over a week since we (parents) have been debating whether to send our children to school or not. See, practical classes are very important in view of exams preparation. If I talk about my own daughter, who is in Class 10, she has completed almost all the syllabus but practical classes are also important. I know, it is about the future of my daughter but, I would wait at least one week to see if school is fully safe from Covid-19," said a mother of a Preet Public School student.
The Directorate of Education had earlier made it clear that physical attendance is not compulsory and students will attend schools only with the consent of parents. It had also said that only schools outside the containment zones will be allowed to reopen and teachers and school staff living in such areas will not be allowed to attend schools.
Meanwhile, the Met officials said that fog reduced visibility early in the morning at most places in the two states.
New Delhi, Jan 17 : Parts of north India remained under the grip of an intense cold wave on Sunday with night temperatures dropping below the 5 degrees Celsius-mark at some places and dense fog enveloping several areas.
The minimum temperature in Delhi dropped to 5.7 degrees Celsius but it is likely to rise over the next two days due to a change in the wind direction, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.
The national capital will see shallow fog on Monday morning and light rain is likely to occur, the IMD said. The city's minimum and maximum temperatures are expected to settle around 8 and 17 degrees Celsius.
An IMD official said easterly winds are blowing in Delhi that are not as cold as northwesterly winds coming in from the snow-clad western Himalayas.
Hence, the minimum temperature is likely to rise by a few notches over the next two days.
Meanwhile, Delhi's air quality index (AQI) improved slightly to the 'very poor' category from 'severe' on Saturday as favourable wind speed helped in dispersion of pollutants.
The city's AQI was 329 at 8.30 pm on Sunday. The 24-hour average AQI was 407 on Saturday, 460 on Friday, 429 on Thursday, and 354 on Wednesday.
An AQI between zero and 50 is considered 'good', 51 and 100 'satisfactory', 101 and 200 'moderate', 201 and 300 'poor', 301 and 400 'very poor', and 401 and 500 'severe'.
Intense cold wave conditions persisted in Kashmir, even as the minimum temperatures increased marginally across the valley.
The meteorological department said a western disturbance is likely to affect Jammu and Kashmir for a few days starting January 22, bringing snowfall and rain to the union territory.
The night temperature in Kashmir improved slightly but remained several notches below the freezing point, a Met department official said.
Srinagar city — the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir — recorded a low of minus 7.6 degrees Celsius, up from minus 8.2 degrees Celsius the previous night, he said.
Pahalgam, which also serves as a base camp for the annual Amarnath Yatra in south Kashmir, recorded a low of minus 8.7 degrees Celsius, up from the previous night's minus 9.4 degrees Celsius.
Qazigund was the coldest place in Jammu and Kashmir with a minimum temperature of minus 9 degrees Celsius, the official said.
The intense cold wave in Kashmir has resulted in the freezing of water supply lines in several areas. A thick layer of ice has covered several roads, making it difficult for motorists to drive.
Several water bodies, including the famous Dal Lake, have also frozen. The State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) and river police are conducting patrolling around the frozen water bodies to ensure the safety of people.
Parts of Uttar Pradesh witnessed dense fog and cold day to severe cold day conditions prevailed at isolated places.
Churk in Sonbhadra district was the coldest place in the | |
systems GS1 and GS2 (see \refTab{tbl:grids} for a description
of all grid systems employed in this study).
According to \refeqt{eq:minres}, the global radial resolution we apply
$\Delta r/a=0.02$ could produce spurious damping in the outer disk for
orbital eccentricities $e \la 3\times 10^{-5}/(k\, q)$, with $k >1$.
In the $1\,\MJup$ case, simulations with $0.01 < e < 0.015$ could undergo
spurious eccentricity damping for the most distant outer resonance $k=2$
only. For $e > 0.015$, there is no spurious damping. In the $3\,\MJup$ case,
simulations with $0.003 < e < 0.005$ could undergo spurious damping for
$k=2$ only. For $e > 0.005$, there is no spurious damping.
\subsection{Mass Accretion Procedure}
\label{sec:accretion_procedure}
Accretion onto the protoplanet was simulated by removing material within
a distance of $\racc=0.3\,\Rhill$. Mass is removed by means of a two-step
procedure according to which the removal timescale, $\tacc$, is $0.03$
orbital periods for $\mdp < \racc/2$ and $0.09$ orbital periods in the
outer part of the accretion region, $\racc/2< \mdp < \racc$. Notice that
$\tacc$ is about equal to the Keplerian period around the protoplanet
(i.e., in the circumplanetary disk) at $\mdp=\racc/2$. Tests were carried
out to evaluate the sensitivity of the procedure to both parameters $\racc$
and $\tacc$. These tests indicate that, if $\racc$ is reduced by a factor
of $1.5$, the average mass accreted during an orbit varies by less than
$10$\%. Increasing the removal timescale by a factor of $5/3$ only affects
the accretion rate by $5$\% \citep[see also][]{tanigawa2002}. We also checked
whether the accretion parameters influence the orbital evolution of the
planet. Using the same tests, we found no significant differences over a
few hundred periods of evolution.
We do not add the removed mass to the planet mass over the course of the
simulations. Doing so would increase the planet mass by $\sim 1\,\MJup$
for the simulations reported here.
\subsection{Boundary Conditions}
\label{sec:boundary_conditions}
Boundary conditions at the radial inner boundary, $r=r_{\mathrm{min}}$,
allow outflow of material, i.e., the accretion flow toward the central
star. The inner boundary conditions exclude inflow away from the star
into the computational domain. Two types of boundary conditions were
used at the outer boundary ($r=r_{\mathrm{max}}$): reflective and
non-reflective. With the first kind, neither inflow nor outflow of material
is permitted at the outer border, which behaves as a rigid wall. Although
$r_{\mathrm{max}}$ is much larger than the apocenter radii of the planets
in the simulations, wave reflection was observed at the outer border in
this case, especially when the planet orbit was eccentric.
In order to lessen the amount of wave reflection at the outer disk edge,
we also applied non-reflective boundary conditions, following the approach
of \citet{godon1996,godon1997}. In these circumstances, boundary conditions
are not directly imposed on the primitive variables (i.e, $\Sigma$ and
$\gvec{u}$), but rather on the characteristic variables (i.e., the Riemann
invariants of one-dimensional flows). The basic idea is to let outflowing
(inflowing) characteristics propagate through the grid boundary. The correct
propagation of the flow characteristics across the border depends on how
accurately the adopted solution exterior to the grid approximates the exact
solution.
At both disk radial boundaries, the flow is assumed to be Keplerian around
the central star. This choice could lead to some small-amplitude wave
excitation at $r=r_{\mathrm{max}}$, since the fluid tends to orbit about
the center-of-mass of the system, rather than around the central star
\citep[see also][]{rnelson2000}.
The effects of such waves were checked to be unimportant as they tend to
dissipate within a short distance from the outer disk boundary
\section{Disk Eccentricity}
\label{sec:disk_eccentricity}
\subsection{Global Density Distribution}
\label{sec:gobal_sigma}
\begin{figure*}
\centering%
\resizebox{0.82\linewidth}{!}{%
\includegraphics{f1a}%
\includegraphics{f1b}}
\resizebox{0.82\linewidth}{!}{%
\includegraphics{f1c}%
\includegraphics{f1d}}
\resizebox{0.82\linewidth}{!}{%
\includegraphics{f1e}%
\includegraphics{f1f}}
\caption{\small%
Surface density in a disk containing a $1\,\MJup$ (left) and a
$3\,\MJup$ (right) planet at $t=1000$ orbits. The axes are in
units of the planet's orbital semi-major axis, $a_{0}$. The grey
scale bars are expressed in units of $3.29\times10^5\,\mbox{$\mathrm{g}\,\mathrm{cm}^{-2}$}$.
From top to bottom, panels refer to the configurations with orbital
eccentricities $e=0$, $0.1$, and $0.3$. In each panel the planet
(smaller circle) is at pericenter and located at $(X,Y)=(e-1,0)$.
}
\label{fig:globalsigma}
\end{figure*}
\begin{figure*}
\centering%
\resizebox{0.95\linewidth}{!}{%
\includegraphics{f2a}%
\includegraphics{f2b}}
\caption{\small%
Azimuthally averaged surface density in a disk containing
a $1\,\MJup$ (left) and $3\,\MJup$ (right) planet for various
values of orbital eccentricity: $e=0$ (solid line), $e=0.1$
(short-dashed line), $e=0.3$ (long-dashed line), and $e=0.4$
(dotted-dashed line). The horizontal axis is in units of the planet's
orbital semi-major axis $a_{0}$. For the vertical axis,
$\langle\Sigma\rangle=10^{-4}$ corresponds to $32.9\,\mbox{$\mathrm{g}\,\mathrm{cm}^{-2}$}$.
The time is about $1000$ orbits and the planet is at pericenter.
}
\label{fig:avsigma}
\end{figure*}
\begin{figure*}[t!]
\centering%
\resizebox{0.9\linewidth}{!}{%
\includegraphics{f3a}%
\includegraphics{f3b}}
\resizebox{0.9\linewidth}{!}{%
\includegraphics{f3c}%
\includegraphics{f3d}}
\caption{\small%
Gap region around the orbit of a $3\,\MJup$ planet with fixed
$e=0.4$ at various orbital phases. The axes are in units of
the planet's orbital semi-major axis $a_{0}$. The grey scale
bars are expressed in units of $3.29\times10^5\,\mbox{$\mathrm{g}\,\mathrm{cm}^{-2}$}$. The
planet's orbit in the inertial frame is represented by a dashed
ellipse. The smaller solid circle indicates the position of the
planet around the star (larger solid circle). The motion of the
planet (and the panel sequence) is counter-clockwise.
}
\label{fig:gapedge_inertial}
\end{figure*}
The global surface density in the disk is plotted in
\refFgt{fig:globalsigma} for different planet's masses and orbital
eccentricities. Left panels refer to configurations with $\Mp=1\,\MJup$,
and right panels refer to configurations with $\Mp=3\,\MJup$. The orbital
eccentricity increases from top ($e=0$) to bottom ($e=0.3$). In all of the
panels, the planet is at pericenter ($\rp/a=1-e$). For sufficiently long
evolutionary times, the inner disk (disk interior to the planet) is
largely depleted because of the tidal gap produced by the planet and
because the grid does not have sufficient dynamic range to cover regions
close to the star where an inner disk would reside. The outer disk is
tidally truncated at a radial distance that depends on both $\Mp$ and $e$.
\refFgt{fig:globalsigma} shows that the size of the truncation radius
increases with planet mass and eccentricity, analogous to the case for
circumbinary disks \citep{pawel1994}. In addition, a wave or wake propagates
in the outer disk. The disk truncation also be seen in \refFgt{fig:avsigma},
which shows the azimuthally averaged surface density for various cases.
The outer gap edge becomes less steep as the orbital eccentricity increases
and does not change significantly over an orbital period, as illustrated in
\refFgt{fig:gapedge_inertial}.
\begin{figure}
\centering%
\resizebox{1.0\linewidth}{!}{%
\includegraphics{f4}}
\caption{\small%
Motion of the center-of-mass of the disk region $r<3\,a_{0}$
relative to the star (located at the origin). The disk
center-of-mass starts at the origin, but is plotted at later times
$t\gtrsim 300$ orbits. The long-dashed and solid lines refer to
the cases with $\Mp=1\,\MJup$ and $\Mp=3\,\MJup$, respectively,
with a fixed circular orbit planet. The short-dashed line is for
the model with $\Mp=3\,\MJup$ and fixed planet eccentricity $e=0.1$.
}
\label{fig:rcmvstime}
\end{figure}
After a few hundred orbits, the disk region near the planet becomes
eccentric, even if the planet is on a circular orbit. This effect can be
seen in \refFgt{fig:rcmvstime}, which illustrates the motion (relative to
the star) of the center-of-mass of the disk interior to $r=3\,a_{0}$ for
different planetary masses and orbital eccentricities.
\subsection{Mode Analysis}
\label{sec:modes_analysis}
We performed a mode decomposition of the surface density distribution of
the disk adopting an approach along the lines of \citet{lubow1991b}.
We defined a mode component at each radial location in the disk as
\begin{equation}
\label{eq:modeMkl}
\mathcal{M}_{(k,l)}^{(f,g)}=\frac{2}{\pi\,T\,\langle\Sigma\rangle\,%
(1+\delta_{l,0})}\!%
\int_{T}\!\int_{0}^{2\pi}\!\!%
\Sigma\,%
f(k\theta)\,g(l\Omega_{\mathrm{p}}t)\,\mathrm{d}\theta\mathrm{d}t\,,
\end{equation}
where $\Omega_{\mathrm{p}}=\sqrt{G\,(\MStar+\Mp)/a^{3}_{0}}$, the angle
$\theta$ is the azimuth relative to an \textit{inertial} reference frame,
and $2\pi\langle{\Sigma}\rangle=\int_{0}^{2\pi}\!\Sigma\,\mathrm{d}\theta$ .
The time interval $T$ is a ten-orbit period interval, beginning at a
pericenter passage of the planet. The time integration is repeated every
interval $T$. The functions $f$ and $g$ are either sine or cosine. This
decomposition corresponds to a Fourier transform in both azimuth and time.
The amplitude (or strength) of the mode is
\begin{eqnarray}
\label{eq:modeSkl}
S_{(k,l)}&=& \left\
\left[\mathcal{M}_{(k,l)}^{(\cos,\cos)}\right]^{2}
\left[\mathcal{M}_{(k,l)}^{(\cos,\sin)}\right]^{2}+\right.%
\nonumber\\%
& & \left.%
\left[\mathcal{M}_{(k,l)}^{(\sin,\cos)}\right]^{2}+%
\left[\mathcal{M}_{(k,l)}^{(\sin,\sin)}\right]^{2}
\right\}^{1/2}.
\end{eqnarray}
In order to obtain the strength of a mode integrated over a radial
interval $[r_{1},r_{2}]$, the mode components $\mathcal{M}_{(k,l)}^{(f,g)}$
are first averaged between $r_{1}$ and $r_{2}$ and then substituted into
\refEqt{eq:modeSkl}. A tidally disturbed non-eccentric disk has modes
present that all have $k=l$. For a | |
From Strategy to Execution.
These days, it seems everyone is trying keep up with the hottest innovations in fast-moving technologies such as mobile, cloud, big data, wearables, and even connected and IoT devices. The pace of change is so relentless that staying abreast can sometimes be overwhelming.
The challenge.
The technology revolution has radically altered expectations. If today's users don't love an app, they're not going to use it. Period. Which, of course, would negate any potential return on investment for the app's developers.
Given that the bar is so high, there's no point just going through the motions. Your team has to aim to knock the ball out of the park every time. Of course, it's one thing to intend that, but to actually do that, your team may need to become highly proficient in a variety of new and unfamiliar disciplines. And there's a real risk of losing some key benefits of traditional approaches as part of that transition.
The solution.
Unfortunately, the problem is often easier to articulate than the solution. And even when an adequate solution has been defined, it will still require high quality execution to achieve successful results.
About Objects has assisted enterprises and small and medium businesses in solving exactly these kinds of problems for years. We've helped our customers succeed at that from the smallest to the largest scales across multiple platforms. We can help your team select the right technology stack, navigate potential pitfalls, and maximize potential benefits.
How we can help.
About Objects can provide a temporary supplement to your team's current skills and knowledge to bridge the gap. We bring to bear extensive experience developing solutions that require the integration of multiple platforms to form a seamless product.
As a company with training in its DNA, we have a strong focus on the transfer of knowledge and skills. So if your organization has a goal of elevating its practices, we can help by both doing and teaching. Here are some of the services we can provide:
A rapid but thorough assessment of your organization's current practices to identify areas of highest risk
Classroom training conducted by our experts
Onsite mentoring from our senior architects and engineers
Co-development, with an emphasis on knowledge transfer
Offsite component or product development, supplemented by training and/or mentoring on the deliverables
Our practitioners are great at mentoring — as well as executing — across the entire spectrum. So while we're happy to build a complete product or platform for you, we'd much prefer to build it with your team. Our goal is not only to help you get your product to the finish line — though obviously that's important. Our overarching goal is to leave your team stronger and more capable than we found it.
The About Objects difference.
Our work on mobile, cloud, and other emerging technology platforms includes years of mobile development experience. So although much of the work we perform is at the macro level — architecture, development process and methodology, enterprise and cloud integration, test strategies, and the like — we're also intimately familiar with the wide array of low-level details that go into the design and engineering of, for example, a truly polished iPad app.
The upshot is that we're well positioned to help your team avoid common engineering, design, and usability mistakes, while showing them how to take best advantage of the capabilities of a given platform. At the same time, we'll also help with the bigger picture items in terms of integration with new and existing enterprise technology solutions.
In sum…
We'd love to talk with you about how we might be able to contribute to your current and future development efforts.
Our Software Engineering Process
Pragmatic, Disciplined, Battle Tested.
We spend a lot of time thinking about why various approaches to software development have their observed effects. Doing so enables us to more easily trace issues that may be hampering an IT organization's effectiveness back to root causes. It also helps us always be awake to opportunities to further optimize our own practices.
As practitioners, we believe in tempering theory with the results of our own first-hand observation. The process and methodology we follow has been synthesized not only from other well-established approaches, but also from the fruit of hands-on experience with the things we've seen work — or not work — in actual practice. Because our approach is pragmatic rather than strictly by the book, it's relatively easy for us to tailor our process and methodology to mesh smoothly with the goals and preferences of each unique customer.
We identify and address high-risk areas early.
We balance agile and traditional approaches to maintain accountability.
We're flexible — we can tailor our process and methodology to meet your needs.
Teaching is in our DNA. Our ultimate goal is to transfer knowledge, skills, and best practices to your team.
Getting the most from agile practices.
Like any other methodology, Agile has its strengths and weaknesses. In a nutshell, here's what we've observed: in migrating to agile practices, IT organizations often unwittingly lose some measure of accountability, particularly with respect to change management. We can walk you through practical steps you can take to manage change as effectively as in the past in a way that's fully consistent with today's methodologies.
The need for speed has led development organizations to migrate away from more traditional, formal process and methodology. Often, though, important things get lost or diminished in the transition. For example, agile teams often struggle managing user expectations because of a lack of clarity about what's to be delivered. To make matters worse, changes to scope and changing interpretations of user requirements are often inadequately communicated.
Unfortunately, software design often tends to get overlooked in favor of quickly working through user stories. Sprints can bog down or under-deliver because areas of technical risk may not be identified until far too late.
Our fully documented software engineering process was designed from the ground up to let development teams move fast without sacrificing control. The key is to limit unpleasant surprises, especially the disruptive ones that arise late in the cycle. Our process is iterative, risk-driven, architecture-centric, and infused with agile concepts. It's a synthesis of the Open Unified Process, Agile, and Scrum, tempered by decades of full life cycle software engineering experience.
Critical thinking, activities, and deliverables to focus the project and provide a roadmap for execution. We make sure that the project's guiding principles are defined and documented, and that comprehensive estimates are produced and validated.
Deliverables provide a roadmap for execution.
The project mission is defined and documented.
Potential use cases are identified; those with significant architectural risk are prioritized so they can be addressed in early sprints.
It's okay at this stage for use cases to be brief outlines — further details will be fleshed out and documented during later sprints. Comprehensive estimates are produced.
elaboration & construction
Agile sprints for requirements, design, architecture, implementation, testing, and continuous integration. In parallel, we gather requirements in the form of use cases to provide traceability and a basis for communicating the impacts of changes. We make sure that all architectural risks are identified and mitigated during the early sprints. At the end of each sprint the application is demonstrated, velocity is assessed, corrections are made, and changes that impact scope, time, and money are reported to management.
High risk items are tackled early.
User stories are mapped to use cases to improve tracking.
Test plans are derived from use cases.
The project manager maintains a project plan to track status for enhanced feedback to users.
The PM ensures that changes to requirements, scope, or schedule are adequately communicated and negotiated with stakeholders.
Known risks are tracked and reviewed with the team weekly.
Preparation for delivery, with DevOps and testing incorporated in each sprint. DevOps scripts are developed and tested in pre-release test environments. Teams external to the development team are included in sprint activities for | |
an unconscious movement towards Aboriginal experience, towards place as an embodied presence – characteristic of Aboriginal culture. (22–3)
The works of Francis Webb, Roland Robinson, David Malouf, and others, echo a fugue of common themes replayed across genres and decades, and which relate to the sacredness of place and embodiment, and the production of aesthetic "presence," both of which are demotic and proximate, which stand in tension with those inherited forms from Europe, and "in which the sacred is glimpsed outside structure of interpretation" (18). Indeed, the authors of this volume (Bill Ashcroft, Frances Devlin-Glass and Lyn McCredden) believe that art and literature have been the "cultural discourses most successful in shedding the European yoke" (4) and have created, in Joseph Addison's words, a "spacious horizon" as liberating as it is terrifying and which intimates distance and "placelessness" (8) that overwhelms the colonial imagination, disrupting the Romantic notion of the sublime and opening up the way to an acuity of the sacred in the broad spaces that characterise the horizontal experience of place. The authors are particularly critical of that literature which "seeks refuge in a melancholic and privileged mythologising of Australian history and white settler responses to it" (258).
Perceptive chapters on Patrick White (who "seemed to promise a new imagining of what is meant to be Australian" (33)), James McAuley (whose poetry speaks in a "haunted, homeless and displaced register" (105)), and Judith Wright (whose "'parabolic' vision … 'runs beside or beyond the world of everyday'" (143)), are complemented with follow-up chapters exploring the "creative collision/encounter of paradigms of bush nationalism … and earthed sacredness" (165), and, drawing upon the work of Xavier Herbert, Kim Scott and Alexis Wright, "versions of the Indigenous sacred" (206) which find voice from the ecological depths of indigenous epistemology.
Chapter Seven, perhaps the most engaging of the chapters, surveys some contemporary Australian poetry which invites us to embrace questions of sacredness – a "theology of the earth" (285) – through "an immersion in the material world of place and time, and the material processes of poetic language" (244). Here we are introduced to poems by Kevin Hart, Robert Adamson, Gwen Harwood, Les Murray, Robert Gray, Lionel Fogarty and Sam Wagan Watson, whose poetry "triggers possibilities for change, even as it keeps the horrors of the colonial past in sight (283). Heirs to Webb and Wright, each of these poets, it is argued, when read within the context of the sacred, can be seen "grappling in new, demotic forms of language with the thisness of place, … with the intricate, lived realities of history in Australia" (245), and that partly by a refusal to be "pale reflections of European forms and ideas" (250). Such particularities, it is suggested, "are never merely backdrops to the poetry; nor does some abstracted 'other' seem to be the desired goal. Rather, in different but related ways, the poets confront this palpable, earthed, proximate place, Australia, through processes that do not cede any simplistic or monolithic access to the sacred" (245). This is evident, our authors observe, in "the drive to find new words" – "earthed, demotic languages of the sacred" – in order to respond to the "tangible realities of this place" (248). One place where this drive is evidenced is when Murray (a Roman Catholic) and Gray (one deeply influenced by Buddhist and Dharmic thought) are brought into conversation: "Gray's Australia is permeated by the moral and spiritual meditativeness of a solitary poet, a cosmopolitan intellectual and sensualist, given to the detailed 'thinginess' of this place, but facing finally towards universalising formulations garnered across the centuries, into his reading and writing. Murray's is a much more embattled, idiosyncratic and restless imagination" (277).
The final chapter considers the ways in which contemporary Australian fiction operates in a continual and heteroglossic dialogue with "earlier voices, a dialogue between different perceptions of the sacred sublime, and increasingly a dialogue between white and Aboriginal, between meaning cultures and presence cultures … [and which] constantly avoids closure" (288). It is one thing to suggest that the apotheosis of language adheres to an "intimation of the horizon of meaning at the edge of language" (321), to treat language as in some sense "sacramental" (232), to avoid monologism and to embrace a "multiplicity of voices" (288); it is another entirely to avoid clarifying the basis upon which such a discourse might take place. It is of little help to the reader to confess (after wading through over 300 pages!) that this book "avoids defining the term ['the sacred'] because the very ground of our discussion – the concept of Presence, of meaning which exceeds final interpretation – makes definitions useless" (325). To be sure, I am not calling here for a kind of "doctrinal statement," what I take the authors to mean by "orthodoxy" (288). Rather, as a Christian theologian, I wish to suggest that the dialogue and quest for new languages that a "metaphorically displaced society" (318) is groping after are literally given to us not in silence (as the authors suggest) but in the noise of divine incarnation, in the enfleshment of the divine in a particular location and story – in the ordinary – which is indeed "realised in the creative imagination" (300). As it stands, the pseudo-mysticism assumed throughout the book is as destructive of discursive knowledge as it is of birthing ethical action, concerns which are, I suspect, not far from some of the writers herein considered.
Those with deep allergies to natural theology – of the grammar of "place that remains the path to the sacred" (32) – will find much herein to baulk at: in its starkness, a borrowed fight which reminds the reader that while escape into cosmic emotions contemplating the grandeurs of antipodean place and space has some draw, any enlargement of the intelligence and calm of the mind is offset by the starvation of the soul groping for what Murray calls "unpurchased lifelong plenishment."
The authors of Intimate Horizons assume much of their readers. They assume knowledge of Australian history, of post-colonial literature, of aboriginal spirituality, of the basic contours of theological grammar, of current discourse around race-relations, of the sense and sacramentality of place, and of antipodean attitudes to sentimentalism and religion. Some grasp of Heidegger's notion of "Being" would be of help too.
The book highlighted again for me the legitimacy of Ian Anderson's claim (in his Introduction to Blacklines: Contemporary Critical Writing by Indigenous Australians, edited by Michele Grossman), that "in the context of settler colonial states, such as Australia, colonial structures have never been dismantled. Colonial ways of knowing are not historical artefacts that simply linger in contemporary discourse. They are actively reproduced within contemporary dynamics of colonial power. Yet this fundamental observation does not really seem to have penetrated mainstream postcolonial theory" (24). Still, this stimulating book invites, and deserves, close reading. It helps one read Australian fiction and poetry – and, indeed, a national mythology – with more informed and sharpened eyes.
[An edited version of this review is to appear in Colloquium in due course]
Posted in Australia, Book Review, Fiction, Poetry and tagged Australia, David Malouf, Indigenous Australians, James McAuley, Judith Wright, Poetry on 6 September, 2010 by Jason Goroncy. Leave a comment
Flannery O'Connor on fiction and grace
'What offends my taste in fiction is when right is held up as wrong, or wrong as right. Fiction is the concrete expression of mystery – mystery that is lived. Catholics believe that all creation is good and that evil is the wrong use of good and that without Grace we use it wrong most of the time. It's almost impossible to write about supernatural Grace in fiction. We almost have to approach it negatively. As to | |
book bag: To sell for beer money.
Magneto helmet to keep professors out of your head: Helmet hair isn't a problem because you'll never want to take it off. Ever.
#2 pencil: To poke your eyes out during the cafeteria's drag show.
A completely new identity for when you first get canceled for telling a politically incorrect joke on social media.
I'm sleeping with the minister's wife. Can you keep him busy in church for an hour after service for me?
Mike doesn't like it, but being a friend, he agrees. After the service, Mike asks the minister all sorts of stupid questions, just to keep him occupied.
Finally the minister gets annoyed and asks Mike what he's really up to. Mike, feeling guilty, finally confesses, "My friend is sleeping with your wife right now, and he asked me to keep you occupied."
The minister thinks for a minute, smiles, puts a fatherly hand on Mike's shoulder and says, "You should hurry home now. My wife died a year ago."
What sits at the bottom of the sea and twitches?
A nervous wreck.
"You know, farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil, and you're a thousand miles from the corn field." – Dwight D. Eisenhower
https://thenationalpulse.com/2022/07/13/top-usps-official-arrested-for-trying-to-meet-teen-boy-for-sex/
There's No Despot So Tyrannical As A Green Politician by I & I Editorial Board
Reports of unrest over environmental policies from the Netherlands and Sri Lanka are much more than novelty news. What is happening in both spots is a lesson that has to be learned quickly. If not, there's deep trouble ahead.
Dutch farmers, whose history of crop yields puts them among the most productive in the world, continue to protest rules that limit their use of nitrogen, a nutrient in commercial fertilizers that converts to nitrous oxide, which is feared as a greenhouse gas. Officials expected them to cut use 50% nationally, which means in some regions, the reductions will be as high as 95%.
The crippled farmers, their survival under attack, are, as they should be, revolting.
"Imagine if you're a fifth-generation farmer, living on your land, making a living, being part of the local community" and suddenly there is "basically no future, no future for farming, but also no future for the economic, social, cultural fabric of the countryside," Wytse Sonnema of the Netherlands Agriculture and Horticulture Organization told the Australian media.
"There's a broad sense of frustration, of anger, even despair amongst farmers at the moment."
But political officials don't care about the effects of their tyranny. They're too dedicated to demonstrating before the world their great green cred.
Don't think that it can't happen here. Canada, which exports tens of billions of dollars of agricultural products to the U.S. every year and is, unfortunately, "led" by boy Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, plans to force nitrogen cuts that will "decimate Canadian farming." And also don't think such a truly rancid idea won't easily make it across the border to Washington and blue state capitals itching to put more restrictions on an ostensibly free people to carry out their eco-madness.
Meanwhile, a year after announcing the country would become the world's first 100% organic nation, Sri Lanka is a "nation wrecked by green agricultural policies." Its agriculture sector is in such ruins that the country is begging Russia and India for fuel, the economy has collapsed, and there's not enough money to buy food. The Sri Lankan president, whose palace was stormed, will leave office Wednesday, and the outgoing prime minister as well as dozens of other politicians have nowhere to live because hungry and desperate protesters have burned down their houses.
Imagine this country had Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal become law. Its fanatical emissions cuts would have caused energy costs to soar, choked economic growth (it would be worse than it is now), and cost from $51 trillion to $93 trillion over its first decade. The Green New Deal was in fact initially conceived not as an environmental protection policy but rather as a "how-do-you-change-the-entire economy thing," according to the New York congresswoman's former chief of staff.
So far, we've avoided Ocasio-Cortez's reign of terror. But in California, the petty environmental tyrannies, centered on the wars on greenhouse gas emissions and plastics, continue to accumulate – and spread. California residents don't even have the freedom to throw away their food scraps as they see fit. They now must conform to the way government says it has to be done.
Of course, petty tyrannies can quickly and easily grow into totalitarianism. The step from "public servant" to green tyrant is shorter than most of us would think.
https://summit.news/2022/07/08/video-greenwald-slams-hunter-biden-laptop-coverup-as-biggest-media-fraud-in-a-decade/
https://justthenews.com/nation/states/center-square/judge-sends-former-hawaii-senate-majority-leader-prison-wire-fraud
https://hotair.com/john-s-2/2022/06/13/intercept-many-progressive-advocacy-groups-are-at-war-internally-over-woke-issues-n476007
https://100percentfedup.com/just-in-ny-state-can-now-send-you-and-your-children-into-forced-quarantine-even-if-youre-not-sick/
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/07/video-naked-hunter-biden-trafficking-crack-cocaine-released-weekend-feds/
https://www.dailywire.com/news/woke-coffee-shop-closes-down-after-insane-demands-from-even-more-woke-employees
https://www.wnd.com/2022/07/youth-community-organizer-drag-queen-charged-25-child-porn-counts/
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/07/06/at-least-64-u-s-businesses-vow-pay-abort-unborn-babies-after-roe-reversal/
https://www.thedailybeast.com/smiling-teens-caught-on-camera-killing-72-year-old-in-philadelphia-cops-say
https://thefederalist.com/2022/07/07/fauci-just-canceled-1-8-million-in-grisly-beagle-experiments-after-fake-fact-checkers-lied-to-save-his-behind/
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/07/biden-family-values-hunter-biden-blasts-stepmom-jill-bidens-teaching-skills-calls-vindictive-moron-entitled-cnt-texts/
https://usafacts.org/articles/state-relationships-marriages-and-living-alone-us/
https://thred.com/tech/drug-that-increases-human-lifespan-to-200-years-is-in-the-works/
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/san-diego-loses-22-its-police-force-due-vax-mandates
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AAlhrNZBhI
Shortages?
R. Kelly has decided to contest his 30 year prison sentence.
He wants it reduced to something below 14 years.
I went to a pub last night and saw a fat chick dancing on a table
I said "Nice legs" the girl giggled and smiled and said "Do you really think so?"
I said "yeah definitely, most tables would've collapsed by now"
A teenage boy and his grandfather go fishing one day. While fishing, the old man starts talking about how times have changed. The young man picks up on this and starts talking about the various problems and diseases going around.
The teen says, "Grandpa, they didn't have a whole lot of problems with all these diseases when you were young did they?"
Grandpa replies, "Nope."
"Well, what did you guys use for safe sex?"
"A wedding ring."
After dinner one evening the host was entertaining their house guest by playing the piano.
At one point he turned to his guest and said, "I understand you love music?"
"Yes," murmured the guest politely. "But never you mind, you keep right on playing..."
What does Joan of Arc avoid at cookouts?
Burning steaks.
It's nothing new for politicians and public health authorities to be hypocritical. But their ability to blatantly disregard the principles of bodily autonomy and personal control over health decisions just a few months ago means it's impossible to take them seriously now. - Ian Miller
https://igorchudov.substack.com/p/taiwan-birth-rate-cratered-2766-in
Today's America: An Economy Of Shortages by Robert Genetski
For the first time in over 40 years, the U.S. economy is dealing with widespread shortages. Parts are unavailable for manufacturers when they need them. Airlines abruptly cancel flights. Railroads and trucks are cutting shipments. Food shelves in some areas are depleted with some areas reporting a lack of meat supplies, milk, or other essential food items.
Shortages and empty shelves are characteristic of economies where governments control and allocate resources. They are not characteristic of America's free-market economy. The only other times America has faced shortages were during World Wars or during the 1970s.
Government-imposed price controls were directly responsible for shortages in the early 1970s. When businesses were unable to raise prices to sell their goods at a profit, they stopped producing, which created the shortages. Once the price controls were removed, the shortages ended.
Also in the 1970s, government price controls on oil and gas led to severe shortages on both. By the end of the decade, there were long lines of cars waiting at gas stations and purchases were rationed to ten gallons of gas. As soon as President Reagan removed price controls, the shortages of oil and gasoline ended and prices declined.
Free-market economies seldom experience shortages. This isn't because everything is always plentiful. Bad weather can destroy crops. Disease can kill herds creating a shortfall in meat. Labor disputes or international shocks also disrupt markets. While shortfalls in some items are inevitable, a free-market economy adjusts and corrects for such events.
In free-market economies, shortages are rare because the market is remarkably efficient at raising prices of items that are in short supply. Sharply higher prices for scarce items, limit their use to the most efficient uses of the items and encourages the use of substitute items. Doing so enables the economy to adjust to potential shortages and shocks | |
This is one of the most difficult of all of the passages you will ever read in the Bible. But it has in it—in study, in context, in the revealed truth of God throughout the Book—it has in it a marvelous and precious and beautiful message. And you must listen this morning, not only with your heart, but you must listen with your mind, and ask God for the spirit of understanding as we expound the Word of the Lord.
The story briefly is this: in the persecution of the church in Jerusalem that arose around the martyrdom of Stephen, Saul made havoc of the church. And they that were scattered abroad—those Greek-speaking, Hellenistic Jews harried out of Jerusalem and Judea—they went everywhere, and wherever they went, they witnessed to the grace of God in Christ Jesus [Acts 8:1-4]. They preached the Word. Then one of those deacon-laymen by the name of Philip went down to Samaria and there in a city of Samaria began to preach Christ unto those half-breed Jews. And with one accord they turned to the Lord, and they accepted Him as their Savior, and they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus [Acts 8:5-12].
When tidings of that came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, they were astonished and amazed. Those despised and outcast Samaritans believed the gospel; received the word of truth preached by that deacon-layman, Philip. Even John, had said to the Lord, when a city in Samaria had not received him, John said, "Lord, let me call fire down from heaven and consume them, even as Elijah did in the years gone by" [Luke 9:54; 2 Kings 1:10, 12]. It was an astonishing thing that had happened, for these Samaritans had received the word of God and been baptized [Acts 8:5-6, 12-13]. So they sent Simon Peter and John down to that place in Samaria to see what had happened. And they rejoiced in the open heart of those despised, outcast Samaritans, in that they had turned and received Jesus as their Savior. Only they had not received the Holy Spirit; He had come upon none of them. They had just believed in the gospel and been baptized [Acts 8:14-16]. So Peter and John prayed and laid their hands upon the heads of those Samaritans; and when they did so, the Holy Spirit of refreshment, and wisdom, and power, and grace, and presence was poured out upon them [Acts 8:17]. What an amazing thing! And how do you interpret it and explain it?
Out of a multitude of interpretations, I choose five just briefly to summarize. One will be the interpretation of the Roman Church. They take the passage and they say that it teaches the superiority of the bishops over the pastors, and especially the primacy of Peter. The Anglican Church, the Church of England, says that this passage illustrates the validity of ordination. Only in the laying on of hands of the apostles and their successors is there validity of ordinations; all other ordinations, all other consecrations, laying on of hands, are of men. The only valid ordination is that of the apostles and their successors. The interpretation of the passage by practically all of the liturgical churches is this: this is the beginning of what they call "confirmation." In those churches, a baby is sprinkled, baptized, christened, and then later on, when the child is say twelve or thirteen years of age, it is confirmed in the faith; confirmation. And the basis of that doctrine is found in this passage.
The Holiness, the fourth group that I have chosen to speak of, look upon this passage as an illustration of the second work of grace. The first work would be our regeneration, our salvation. But they say there is a second work of grace, and that is our sanctification; what they call "the second blessing." And they use this passage as a definite confirmation of that theological persuasion. A fifth group of people would be the charismatics who would say that in the sign of the speaking in tongues the Holy Spirit enters into the individual life. Now, there is no speaking of tongues here, but they say there must have been just the same. And that sign of the speaking in tongues—which is not here at all, but they say it must have been—that sign of speaking in tongues is the sign of the descent of the Holy Spirit into the individual's life. And so, on and on it goes. Men study that, look at that, and have the so divergent interpretations of it.
Well, what has happened here? What is this thing that these Samaritans believed, "received the word of God"? [Acts 8:14]. They were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus [Acts 8:12], but they did not receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, and only in the coming of Peter and John did they receive this promised Paraclete from heaven [Acts 8:14-17]. What is this and what is its meaning? Now, of course the message that is presented this day is one from your pastor. This is how he believes it; but he believes it with all of his soul, and heart, and mind, and understanding. And the message that I deliver is one from the Word of God. And as such, I think it is the truth of the Lord. So, using your mind now, think along with me, and we are going to see what God has done in this unusual thing that is come to pass in Samaria.
One of the observations that we make of the way God works is He always does His work according to purpose and to plan. There is never disorder or chaos in God. Everything that God does, He does according to a set plan. It is always pre-announced, it is always pre-delivered. It is written down in the Book, God reveals it beforehand. And He works exactly according to that pre-announced, foreordained plan. All of God's work is done like that, in order and in plan. God never does any work aside from a purpose and a plan.
Whatever He does, He follows an order in it, follows a plan in it. If there is a flower, God will make it according to a plan. If there is a butterfly, He will make that butterfly according to a very definite plan. If there is a snowflake, and think of the billions and uncounted billions of snowflakes that have fallen in the earth; every one of them is made according to a meticulous and beautiful plan of the Lord. If there is a sparkling diamond, its molecular structure is always made identically according to a set plan. If there are planets that swing in their orbits through this universe, every one of them moves according to a definite plan of God. Whenever you read the book of God in nature, or read the Book of God in the revelation, He will be just the same. What He does, He does according to a set plan. Now this is one of those brilliant instances of the working of God according to a foreordained and pre-announced and pre-revealed plan [Acts 8:5-17].
Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: But rather go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
Now that ought to be very plain. "Do not go to the Gentiles, and do not go into any city of the Samaritans, but go only to the Jew, to Israel." Now that ought to be plain, isn't it? "Do not go to any city of the Samaritans; do not go | |
From Schinkel to Foster. Germany's amazing architecture
Modified by: September 7, 2022 Category: Life hacks
Karl Friedrich Schinkel, the star architect of Berlin's Mitte
The Prussian architect and painter Karl Friedrich Schinkel, whose buildings are considered the pinnacle of European classicism, was a romantic and idealist – he dreamed of changing the world with beauty and believed that architects build not buildings but "symbols of life."
One of Schinkel's masterpieces is the Concert House on the Gendarmenmarkt © picture alliance / blickwinkel / McPHOTO
Schinkel lived and worked most of his life in Berlin, and his legacy defines the face of the German capital to this day. See Germania-Online for an overview of his most famous works.
Schinkel, who admired the idealism of Fichte, developed his own system of ideal aesthetics: he combined classicism, romanticism and historicism, was inspired by Greek and Italian beauty, but appreciated functionality, and architecture in general considered "an extension of the constructive activity of nature.
"Schinkel's pentagon" is the name of the route through Berlin's central Mitte district, covering the most famous buildings of the 19th century's most famous German architect, Karl Friedrich Schinkel: The Old Museum, the Palace Bridge, the New Guardhouse, the Friedrichwerder Church and the Concert House on the Gendarmenmarkt. There we can walk through them. Let's go!
The Old Museum (Altes Museum)
Once in Berlin, it is impossible not to visit the Museum Island. And there you can't help but notice the building of the Old Museum, Schinkel's masterpiece. It is located directly behind the park Lustgarten, next to the Berlin Cathedral and with its ancient grandeur deprives all tourists in Berlin of the gift of speech. Schinkel was commissioned to build the museum in 1822. Shortly before that he had become acquainted with the German classic Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who was still under the impression of his trip to Italy. Apparently he glorified Italy not only in his poems ("Do you know the country where lemons bloom?", the poet wrote).
Schinkel went there in search of inspiration, and on his return he built a pompous building in the Classical style with a rotunda reminiscent of the Roman Pantheon, an idea designed to emphasize the idea of the museum as a temple of art. The building's façade is decorated with 18 Ionic columns and a grand staircase.
This architectural sweep was used by the National Socialists – during the Third Reich Nazi marches were held in the Lustgarten Park, the museum's columns were decorated with swastika flags, and party events were held in the building itself. During the Second World War, the building was badly damaged by bombing and was reopened to the public only in 1966. Today, there are collections of ancient art – Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece, and since 1999 the building of the Old Museum, together with the entire Museum Island is included in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Lyon - the city of France, the historical part of which is included in the list of UNESCO
Palace Bridge (Schloßbrücke)
After continuing along Unter den Linden toward the Brandenburg Gate, we arrive at the Palace Bridge, which connects the two neighborhoods of Spreeinsel and Friedrichswerder in the historic center of Berlin. The stone bridge was built by Schinkel in 1824, which finally made it possible to expand traffic on Berlin's main street. Prior to that, it had been possible to cross from one side of the Spree to the other over a wooden bridge, the Hundebruke, which Napoleon Bonaparte did in 1806.
The main elements of the architectural decor are eight statues of the goddesses of Greek mythology standing on a marble pedestal. They are united by a single storyline – the formation of a young warrior. So, for example, the goddess Athena teaches him to handle a weapon, and the goddess Nika honors the winner. Incidentally, the railings of the Palace Bridge are identical to the grids of the Anichkov Bridge in St Petersburg, where Schinkel also left his architectural footprint.
The New Guardhouse (Neue Wache)
Leaving the German Historical Museum behind, one finds the Neue Wache, built according to a design by Schinkel in 1818. The Classicist work was intended as a memorial to fallen soldiers from the Napoleonic wars, but since the Berlin City Palace was across the street, it was also used as the guardhouse for the Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm III. In 1931 the building was turned into a memorial to the victims of World War I. In the 1960s the GDR authorities decided to build an eternal flame there to commemorate the victims of fascism.
Today the New Guardroom is the main German memorial to the victims of war and tyranny, and in the center of the room is an enlarged copy of the Käthe Kollwitz's sculpture "Mother and Perished Son".
Friedrichswerder Church (Friedrichswerdersche Kirche)
We cross Unter den Linden and Bebelplatz, take a little left and get to the German Foreign Ministry building. Opposite it is another masterpiece by a Prussian architect – Friedrichwerder Church. The red brick building in medieval style was built in 1831 and was the first neo-Gothic church in Berlin – at the same time it housed the United Evangelical Protestant Church and the French Reformed congregation.
Interesting places in Sri Lanka: Induruwa, Kalpitiya Beach, Koggala, Maravila, Ratgama
For decades after World War II, the church stood in ruins and in the last few years it has been at the center of a major scandal: A luxury residential complex is being built next to it, which has had the worst effect on the historic building. Because of this in 2012, the church had to close, but, as noted by experts, the construction work has already caused irreversible damage to the masterpiece Shinkel.
Konzerthaus am Gendarmenmarkt
Our walk ends with a trip to one of the most beautiful squares in Berlin, the Gendarmenmarkt. There are three architectural masterpieces, but only one of them is by Schinkel – the Konzerthaus, located between the French and German Cathedrals. Built in 1821, the neoclassical building served as the Royal Dramatic Theater for almost a century, and in 1921, during the Weimar Republic, it was renamed the Prussian State Theater. Like other buildings by Schinkel, the building was badly damaged during World War II and only reopened in 1984.
After the reunification of Germany, it was renamed the Concert House and assigned to the Berlin Symphony Orchestra. For more than 20 years, a classical music festival has been held here every year in mid-summer. Watching twinkling fireworks explode into the starry night sky to the tune of Mozart's symphony, it seems that Schinkel was probably right about the "symbols of life" after all.
From baroque to modernity: Germany – the land of architecture. Here prominent figures of construction and reconstruction have left their mark, the Bauhaus was founded , you can choose from a wide variety of great and small icons.
Take to the skies in the fastest elevator in Europe. A sign at the entrance of the elevator has all the basic facts: rises to a height of 90.15 meters at a speed of 8.5 meters per second . The entire procedure takes only 20 seconds . From the Panoramapunkt in the Kollhoff Tower on Potsdamer Platz, which was completed in 1999, you can enjoy a breathtaking view of the German capital from the top. From the roof terrace you can see the Brandenburg Gate, the Victory Column, and Bellevue, the official residence of the German President.
Postcard from Amsterdam, Netherlands
Berlin – City of Architecture
The city itself is an architecture museum in itself: there are many sights to see during your stay in the capital, such as the French Cathedral in Gendarmenmarkt, one of the most beautiful squares in the city, which also has the German Cathedral and the Konzerthaus . Or the ruins of | |
The WWE Universe jam packed a sold out Allstate Arena in Chicago, Illinois this evening for Survivor Series. This year's theme, as it has been several times, was the battle for brand supremacy. For this year's 33rd installment, however, WWE decided to shake things up a bit and incorporated (in my opinion) the superior brand - NXT. With this dynamic, more superstars had the ability to take center stage but at the cost of several champions being tied up in non-title bouts hence lowering the stakes. Nonetheless, the seven match card still featured three title matches where the marquee championship from each brand was defended.
Women's Survivor Series Elimination Match
Team RAW (Charlotte Flair, Asuka, Natalya, Sarah Logan, & Kairi Sane) vs. Team NXT (Rhea Ripley, Bianca Belair, Io Shirai, Candice LeRae, & Toni Storm) vs. Team Smackdown (Sasha Banks, Lacey Evans, Nikki Cross, Carmella, & Dana Brooke)
Sole Survivior: Rhea Ripley (Team NXT) via pinfall
Survivor Series wasted no time diving right into a 5 on 5 on 5 triple threat elimination match. Surprisingly we witnessed NXT with an advantage late as Ripley, Storm, and Belair remained from NXT, Banks from Smackdown, and Natalyz from RAW (after dissention in their ranks saw Asuka spray the green mist in the face of Flair leading the Queen to get pinned by Lacey Evans). After Banks quickly turned on Natalya and rolled her up for a pinfall, she was left to go toe to toe with the towering Australian, Rhea Ripley. With Ripley seemingly moments from tapping out to the Bank Statement, Lerae and Shirai returned to ringside causing enough of a distraction for Ripley to land the Riptide allowing her to pin Banks for the victory.
Shinsuke Nakamura w/ Sami Zayn vs. AJ Styles vs. Roderick Strong
Winner: Roderick Strong via pinfall
This match pitted champion versus champion versus champion as Nakamura - WWE Intercontinental Champion, AJ Styles - WWE United States Champion, and Roderick Strong - NXT North American Champion did battle. This match ended in an arguably epic upset as AJ Styles took out Nakamura with the Phenomenal Forearm only to be unceremoniously dumped out of the ring by Strong who capitalized on the opportunity and pinned The Artist.
NXT Championship
Adam Cole (c) vs. Pete Dunne
Winner: Adam Cole via pinfall
Pete Dunne earned his shot at Adam Cole after he defeated Killian Dain and Damian Priest in a triple threat match last night at NXT Wargames. In the closing moments, Dunne was able to withstand the Panama Sunrise allowing him to attempt the Bitter End for a third time. This time Cole spectacularly reversed it driving Dunne's skull into the canvas. The Undisputed Era leader quickly followed up with the Last Shot setting up the pinfall victory.
Universal Championship
"The Fiend" Bray Wyatt (c) vs. Daniel Bryan
Winner: "The Fiend" Bray Wyatt via pinfall
After defeating Seth Rollins for the Universal Championship at Crown Jewel, Wyatt attempted to defend his title for the first time against Daniel Bryan. While I'm personally a fan of both of these competitors, all this match did was give me eyestrain thanks to the exclusive red lighting for the duration of the match. Daniel Bryan did put up a good showing late in the bout as he delivered several missile dropkicks and Yes Kicks. Unfortunately for Bryan, these weren't enough as Bray trapped him in the Mandible Claw leaving him subdued enough to earn the pinfall.
Men's Survivor Series Elimination Match
Team RAW (Seth Rollins, Kevin Owens, Randy Orton, Drew McIntyre, & Ricochet) vs. Team Smackdown (Roman Reigns, Mustafa Ali, Shorty G, King Corbin, & Braun Strowman) vs. Team NXT (Tomasso Ciampa, Keith Lee, Walter, Damian Priest, & Matt Riddle)
Sole Survivor: Roman Reigns
Dissention among the ranks reigned supreme again in this contest as Corbin and Reigns were at each other's throats for the majority of the bout. Reigns finally hit his tipping point as he speared Corbin allowing Ciampa to eliminate him. This left us with Rollins from Team RAW, Reigns from Team Smackdown, and Ciampa and Lee from NXT remaining. Ciampa was the first eliminated after receiving the Curb Stomp from Rollins. Lee then shocked Rollins with a Jackhammer to eliminate him. Lee appeared poised to pull off the unthinkable as he thwarted Reigns spear attempt with a power bomb. Lee then attempted to execute a second rope moonsault but Reigns rolled out of the way and countered with a spear for the win.
WWE Championship No Holds Barred Match
Brock Lesnar (c) vs. Rey Mysterio
Winner: Brock Lesnar via pinfall
This match had been a couple months in the works. First, Brock laid waste to Rey and his son leading Mysterio to bring in Cain Velasquez for backup. Next, Cain Velasquez challenged Lesnar at Crown Jewel for the title only to lose via submission. This evening we reached the culmination of these recent acts as Mysterio challenged Lesnar for the WWE Championship in a No Holds Barred Match. As Brock brutally beat down Rey, his son Dominic came to ringside. The two of them proceeded to get the upper hand, albeit briefly, after a low blow from Mysterio, however, Brock withstood a pinfall attempt only to suplex Dominic across the ring and subsequently F5 Rey to retain his title.
Becky Lynch vs. Shayna Baszler vs. Bayley
Winner: Shayna Baszler via submission
The RAW Women's Champion Becky Lynch, the NXT Women's Champion Shayna Baszler, and the Smackdown Women's Champion Bayley took center stage in the main event of the evening. After disposing of The Man at ringside, Baszler was able to finish of Bayley with the Kirifuda Clutch. Baszler then proceeded to celebrate at ringside on top of the announce table. Becky got a small measure of revenge as she took Baszler down and with her strewn across the table, Lynch stood on the ringside barrier and delivered a leg drop that put The Queen of Spades through the table.
Labels: Adam Cole, Bray Wyatt, Brock Lesnar, Chicago, Rey Mysterio, Rhea Ripley, Roderick Strong, Roman Reigns, Shayna Baszler, Survivor Series, WWE, WWE Universe
Wilder vs. Ortiz Preview
The time is fast approaching again where one may need to make the crucial decision, "Do I want to give my local cable/satellite provider $74.99 to watch Wilder vs. Ortiz II?" Before we delve into this conundrum, we must explore why you are in this predicament in the first place. Perhaps your favorite bar/pub/brewery/Hooters/imbibement palace is not showing the fight. Perhaps you don't have any friends (I know this is harsh but, hey, it's possible). Maybe you've been ostracized by your peers for following in the footsteps of my esteemed colleague Justin Dohnson and have indulged in one too many Tecates at party after party until things have gotten weird one too many times. Or maybe being the "Party Man" is just too much for people to handle – especially since this fight falls on the original Party Man's (Matt Ward's) birthday. Whatever your dilemma may be, the bottom line is you've arrived at a crucial decision to make.
Let's look at the main event first. The undefeated Bronze Bomber (41-0-1, 40 KOs) heads into this fight with his nearly untarnished record – we won't talk about the Fury fight right now – against a man who many believe was seconds away from defeating him in their first encounter back in March 2018. One could make the argument that his opponent, Luis Ortiz (31-1-0, 26 KOs) had a potential victory thwarted by the bell in conjunction with the long leash afforded to the champ by the referee because, let's be honest, the champ didn't know what zip code he was in when Ortiz was bringing the fight to him in round seven of their first encounter. Unfortunately for Ortiz, he fell victim (as so many have) to "the big one" – a | |
Center For Produce Safety Established:
An Act Of Faith In The Future
Jim Prevor's Perishable Pundit, April 12, 2007
When so much happens in a very short time as it has with the spinach/E. coli 0157:H7 situation and its aftermath, it is sometimes hard to distinguish between what is ephemeral and what carries true significance.
A thousand generations hence, when the spinach crisis of 2006 is not even a memory, one institution is likely to stand, in silent tribute to those who died and as a living memorial to the spirit of the men and women who lived in our age, who worked in our industry and who rose to the occasion by, in a moment of uncertainty and despair, refusing to give in and refusing to accept that there was no solution.
Mark Roh, Acting Regional Food and Drug Director for the Pacific Region, United States Food and Drug Administration; Dr. Kevin Reilly, Deputy Director of the Prevention Services Division for the California Department of Health Services; A.G. Kawamura, Secretary, California Department of Food and Agriculture; Bryan Silbermann, President, PMA; Jeff Farrar, Chief of the Food and Drug Branch of the California Department of Health Services
That institution is the Center for Produce Safety at the University of California, Davis campus. The Center is headquartered within the Western Institute for Food Safety and Security at UC Davis. It was launched with all kinds of luminaries from industry, government and academia present and was made possible by initial pledges of $2 million from the Produce Marketing Association. Taylor Farms contributed $2 million in cash and another million in research already planned by the company. The State of California contributed half a million dollars, UC Davis $150,000 and more money is expected soon.
Drew McDonald, VP Quality Systems, Taylor Farms; Bryan Silbermann, President, PMA; A.G. Kawamura, Secretary, California Department of Food and Agriculture; Bennie Osborn, Dean, UCDavis School of Veterinary Medicine
The establishment of such an institution is of no small import. For it represents a life view that we as an industry, that humans as species, are not condemned to merely endure the trials of life but that by harnessing the human intellect with disciplined work we can, in fact, prevail against the obstacles before us.
In this sense this Institute is not so much about E. coli or spinach, it is about the attributes that make us distinctively human.
Bruce Taylor, Chairman and CEO of Taylor Farms, Chairman-elect of the Produce Marketing Association, has during this crisis been thrust the mantle of leadership. So many fresh-cut processors were either implicated in the problems or were not Salinas-based companies, so this son of the Salinas valley, this scion of a family whose name looms large in the heritage of our industry, has been asked to carry water for a whole valley, for a whole industry.
And now, after he did all that was asked, he rallies his company, he risks his treasure, and inspires his fellow PMA board members to do even more.
Drew McDonald, VP Quality Systems, Taylor Farms; Tim York, Chief Executive Officer, Markon Group and former Chairman of the PMA Board of Directors; Bryan Silbermann, President, PMA
Bryan Silbermann, President of the Produce Marketing Association, an immigrant to America, an adopted son of this land, somehow knows that the time for small concerns is past. The ratios and balances taught to Certified Association Executives must be put aside. For months, graciously, he has let others take the lead. Yet somehow, some way, this is the moment, and this son of Africa, scion of those who walked in Solomon's Temple, is a part of building in his adopted homeland an institution that will stand forever.
Each board member of PMA must be saluted, as each put aside parochial concerns, for the common good of the trade:
Name Company Position
Peter Goulet Pinnacle Sales & Marketing, Inc. Chairman of Board
Janet Erickson Del Taco LLC Chairman of Executive Committee
Bruce Taylor Taylor Farms, Inc. Chairman Elect
David Corsi Wegmans Food & Pharmacy, Inc. Secretary/Treasurer
John Anderson The Oppenheimer Group
Anthony Barbieri Acme Markets,Inc.
Leonard Batti NewStar Fresh Foods, LLC
Pablo Borquez Campo Pablo Borquez, SA de CV.
Craig Carlson Pathmark Stores, Inc.
Mike Cavallero Dole Fresh Fruit Co.
Daniel Crimmins University of Notre Dame
Margaret D'Arrigo-Martin D'Arrigo Brothers of California
David Gill Gills Onions
Don Harris Wild Oats Markets, Inc.
Michael Maxwell Procacci Brothers Sales Corp.
John McGuigan Sunkist Growers, Inc.
Lisa M. McNeece Grimmway Farms
Terrence M. Murphy Paganini Foods, LLC
Michael O'Brien Schnuck Markets, Inc.
Jeff Patterson BJ's Wholesale Club, Inc.
Chris Puentes Interfresh, Inc.
Timothy Riley Giumarra Companies
Rob Robson OneHarvest
Andrew Sharp Mack Multiples
Michael Spinazzola Diversified Restaurant Systems
Stephen Tursi Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
Mikel R. Weber Golden Corral Corporation
This triumph, though, belongs not to any one man or one association or one company, it belongs to an industry that, separated by different products, different geographies and different segments, came together when the chips were down to find a new path to success.
Rob Atwill, Interim Director, Western Institute for Food Safety and Security; Bryan Silbermann, President, PMA; Linda Harris, Associate Director of Research, Western Institute for Food Safety and Security
The race is not run, success may not be certain, E.coli may long be a problem, but let the record show that in Davis, California, on the 11th of April, 2007, the produce industry expressed its faith in the human intellect and imagination as the root from which solutions to our problems can spring.
And as the members of this industry know better than most, great oaks really do grow from little acorns.
Here is the way PMA described the event:
PRODUCE INDUSTRY LEADERS LAUNCH
CENTER FOR PRODUCE SAFETY AT UC DAVIS
produce Marketing Association Pledges $2 Million to Establish Center and Fund Scientific Studies Designed to Improve Food Safety; Taylor Farms Matches Cash Donation
DAVIS, Calif. (April 11, 2007) — Representatives from the country's leading produce trade associations and Calif. Dept. of Food and Agriculture Secretary A.G. Kawamura today announced plans to create a Center for Produce Safety at the University of California, Davis. The Center will be housed at UC Davis' Western Institute for Food Safety and Security (WIFSS), whose mission is to conduct research that enhances the safety and security of the nation's food supply. The Produce Marketing Association (PMA) is contributing $2 million to establish the Center. Taylor Farms of Salinas, Calif. has also pledged to contribute an additional $2 million in cash as well another $1 million of research already planned by the company. PMA will work with the State of Calif., which also is contributing $500,000, and other leading industry association to secure additional funding for research and training initiatives.
"I commend the produce industry and the Western Institute for Food Safety and Security for collaborating with government to launch the new Center for Produce Safety at the University of California at Davis," said California Secretary of Agriculture A.G. Kawamura. "The Center for Produce Safety will lose no time putting together an aggressive research, training, and outreach agenda into how and where food borne illnesses arise in produce, and actions that can be taken to reduce these risks. The industry's actions will help restore consumer confidence and demonstrate that the health and safety of consumers is their ultimate priority."
"The success of the produce industry depends on our collective commitment to public health," said PMA President Bryan Silbermann. "Our members, who represent every link of the nation's produce supply chain, are committed to supporting robust food safety programs based on the best science available. The Center for Produce Safety will significantly advance the entire industry's collective knowledge about food safety and help ensure consumers continue to enjoy safe, wholesome and healthy produce, every bite, every time."
Bruce Taylor, Chairman and CEO of Taylor Farms agreed, noting, "I consider the contribution Taylor Farms is making today as an investment in the future of our company and the produce industry. I encourage my | |
resources in the NCC require a unique, comprehensive approach to resource enhancement with input from multiple regulatory agencies and stakeholders. These factors make it necessary to maintain flexibility when considering the most appropriate mitigation opportunity.
The REMP is the framework used to describe the available resource enhancement opportunities on a corridor-wide level based on these evolving factors. The REMP framework provides for supplementing the mitigation opportunities package when new opportunities arise, which could be authorized pursuant to future project-specific NOIDs for PWP projects, coastal development permits, or federal consistency review, as applicable (see also REMP Implementation Framework section in Chapter 6B).
Accounting of REMP project implementation, credit establishment, and release, maintenance and monitoring will be tracked and reported pursuant to NOID submittals, future federal consistency review submittals, or coastal development permit submittals for all PWP/TREP projects to ensure the overall program implementation is consistent with approved impacts and meets required mitigation and resource benefits identified in the PWP/TREP Phasing Plan. Each mitigation site will have its own funding and mitigation and monitoring plan with remedial measures in the event the site is not attaining its goals. If a site develops a fatal flaw that cannot be corrected onsite, SANDAG/Caltrans will identify and implement mitigation at another location. In most cases, problems on a mitigation site can be corrected onsite through additional grading, planting, weeding, or soil amendment. An advanced credit release program will be established for the NCC and will be drafted to mirror the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Advance Permittee Responsible Compensatory Mitigation standards where appropriate. This bank will follow the REMP's phasing and establish restoration milestones and credits. In addition, funding could be shifted between projects if a project proposed now is not carried forward for some reason. In addition, the PWP/TREP Implementation Framework ensures that all REMP projects are reviewed and monitored as part of the development review process for all other projects included in the PWP/TREP, regardless of the specific Coastal Commission approval process required for each REMP project. Wetland mitigation opportunities and other water quality improvements proposed within each waterbody potentially affected by the proposed improvements are described below. Several additional mitigation opportunities are included within the REMP for offsetting impacts to upland habitat; see Chapter 6B for details regarding those opportunities.
Caltrans and SANDAG would implement the following policies to ensure that proposed improvements are designed, implemented, and maintained to provide for maximum protection of marine resources.
Policy 5.4.1: NCC transportation facility and community enhancement projects shall be sited and designed so that marine resources are maintained, enhanced, and, where feasible, restored. Special protection shall be given to areas and species of special biological or economic significance.
Policy 5.4.2: Uses of the marine environment shall be carried out in a manner that will sustain the biological productivity of coastal waters and healthy populations of all species of marine organisms adequate for long-term commercial, recreational, scientific, and educational purposes.
Policy 5.4.3: Coastal water quality shall be restored by minimizing wastewater discharges, controlling runoff, preventing depletion of groundwater supplies and substantial interference with surface water flow, encouraging wastewater reclamation, maintaining natural vegetation buffer areas that protect riparian habitats, and minimizing alteration of natural watercourses.
The following design and development strategies provide guidance for designing and implementing specific PWP/TREP rail projects, and Caltrans/SANDAG shall utilize the following design and development strategies for all projects subject to NOID procedures, consistent with the marine resources protection policies of PWP/TREP Policies 5.4.1, 5.4.2, and 5.4.3, amended LCPs, and the Coastal Act.
The development shall be sited and designed to protect and, where feasible, restore natural hydrologic features such as groundwater recharge areas, natural stream corridors, floodplains, and wetlands. Key areas near lagoons shall be designed with minimum lane and shoulder widths to avoid impacts to natural hydrologic components of the watershed.
The development shall be designed and managed to maintain or enhance the on-site infiltration of runoff where appropriate.
Runoff management shall be incorporated early in site design planning integrating existing site characteristics that affect runoff (such as topography, drainage, vegetation, soil conditions, and infiltration properties) with strategies that minimize post-project runoff, control pollutant sources, and, where necessary, remove pollutants. Project-level analysis for potential water quality and marine habitat impacts of improvements shall be conducted and subject to review during subsequent project-specific federal consistency review, NOID, or coastal development permit review, as specified in Chapter 6A, to assess and identify all potential permanent or temporary impacts to water quality and marine habitats and appropriate mitigation measures to ensure project consistency with Coastal Act policies 30230, 30231 and 30233. The project-level analysis shall include the following technical studies and shall be documented in the WQMP or expanded-format SWDR:
Field surveys of potential surface water impacts to further analyze potential impacts on water quality and to seek required permits from the appropriate agencies.
Identification of potentially substantial alteration in water-flow and drainage patterns, including increased stormwater runoff, increased groundwater discharge or reduction of groundwater recharge. Project-specific studies shall determine acceptable designs and construction techniques to minimize adverse impacts of increased sedimentation that would occur during in-water work in the lagoons and elsewhere. Potential minimization measures and timing windows shall be developed in consultation with resource agencies and lagoon planning.
Analysis of how the different alignment and design options would contribute to the total additional impervious surface and the subsequent potential additional impacts on surface runoff. This analysis shall also identify potential mitigation measures, including onsite retention facilities.
Analysis and provision, to the extent feasible, of future requirements for load reductions of project generated contaminants for coastal waters within the improvement area.
Delineation of waters and wetlands to determine the extent of U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, California Coastal Commission and CDFW jurisdiction, and consultation conducted with these agencies regarding appropriate mitigation.
Analysis of future sea-level rise scenarios, and any design options for new bridge structures to reduce the potential for flooding.
Permit requirements as part of the project-level review would include Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plans (SWPPP) and NPDES permits, other applicable jurisdictional requirements, and ultimately, the provisions and protocols set by the PWP/TREP. Under the requirements of the NPDES California Department of Transportation Statewide Storm Water Permit and the Construction General Permit, an SWPPP would be developed during construction and implemented to reduce pollutants in stormwater discharges and the potential for erosion and sedimentation. The SWPPP would include BMPs to minimize potential short-term increases in sediment transport caused by construction, including erosion control requirements, stormwater management, and channel dewatering for all stream and lake/lagoon crossings. BMPs may include the following:
Practices to minimize the contact of construction materials, equipment, and maintenance supplies with stormwater.
Practices to reduce erosion of exposed soil including soil stabilization, watering for dust control, perimeter silt fences, placement of rice straw bales, and sediment basins. All SWPPP shall utilize BMPs that incorporate the best available science and technology in order to ensure that runoff is treated to the maximum extent feasible.
Applicable NPDES permit requirements, supplemented by the provisions and protocols set by the PWP/TREP, shall be followed, and maximized-capacity BMPs and enhanced infiltration through the natural environment shall be implemented. These may include measures to provide permeable surfaces where feasible and to retain and treat runoff onsite using catch basins and treatment (filtering) wetlands, especially in areas around existing stations where feasible and at new stations where parking is provided.
Practices to maintain water quality including filtration, detention, and retention systems, constructed wetland systems, biofiltration / bio-retention systems, grass buffer strips, ponding areas, organic mulch layers, planting soil beds, sand beds, or vegetated systems (biofilters) such as vegetated swales and grass strips designed to convey and treat either shallow flow (swales) or sheet flow (filter strips) runoff.
Spill prevention and emergency response plan shall be implemented to handle potential fuel or other spills for all construction.
Impacts on | |
A very long entry that I will have to read the rest of at a latyer time, because I am excited to tell you (Shamim is aware also) That because the Oprah Winfrey show is ending in 2011 and because she is presenting a rare opportunity for her viewers to write in a tell Oprah who we want to see her interview.
I have posted om my website: http://sapphisdezire.t35.com (Which is now a one page Lisa Rani Ray Tribute Page) Instructions and links to complete the form to let Oprah know we want to see you Sheetal and Shamim interviewed. The manner in which you are facing your challenge, with: Openess, Honesty and Candor.
The Charisma that you shared with Shamim portraying empathy and dignity and Shamim for dismantling assumptions surrounding religion, sexual identity and East Asian women influenced by Western ideation.
Hopefully the readers on this Blog will join me, Shamim, and Fans of Enlightenmnt Productions and indulge Oprah with many many messages to bring you onto the show.
MOVING ON Go to: myotherdrive.com and create an account so you can back up your important files online. I use it and you get 2 gigs for free. If you need more space it's $4.85 per month.
Okay well that's about it. Do you suffer from sinus problems? I have had the worst sinus headache all weekend.
Oops I meant to write: The Charisma you share with Sheetal (not Shamim, although I'm sure that existed also).
this is love: to fly toward a secret sky, to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment. first to let go. finally, take a step without feet.
RIP old laptop. and old before.
mozart once challenged his friend haydn to play a harpsichord piece he'd written. haydn tried, but stopped partway through when the musical score called for him to play a note in the middle of the keyboard even though his right hand was fully occupied at the high end and his left hand at the low end. "nobody can play this," protested haydn. "i can," said mozart, who proceeded to perform the piece flawlessly, dipping down to play the problematic note with his nose. in the coming week, aries, be inspired by mozart as you not only cover the extremes but also take care of the center.
Sometimes it seems that there is always a purpose behind everything that happens around us — meeting someone, being somewhere, and even suffering physically and emotionally. But then, at times, I do wonder whose purpose is that? We identify purposes only in the context and against the backgrounds of our lives. Therefore, there is always a possibility of there being other purposes that are beyond our comprehension at a certain point of time and we may realize them much later. May be, the time to understand the 'real' or the 'most significant' purpose is yet to arrive.
It was good to read the entry, and your reflections about the 'purpose' behind meeting someone invoked a minor chain of thought, which I felt compelled to share with you, for it was your thought that made me think. Thanks.
WOW! This entry is amazing!!! Still processing it, as my brain is already asleep from mucking up formulas. Babe, I am sure your hard drive can/will be salvaged. And you know, I am looking at BobCat with newfound respect — he paid your medical bills, that is simply kind kind hearted and speaks of his love to you. Hold on to him and enjoy every moment you have with him. (I had to do that with my RobMouse and boo-hoo its been over ).
P/S: You look gorgoeus in that mag cover and i <3 that smile as always.
back from Maa Vaishno Devi. Maa's Benevolence is overwhelming. Jai Mata Di.
(cont) mOn a whole new level. I am therefore particularly honored when I see Toronto Canada on my website (How do I know it's you?) Just a vibe I get.
I don't know what it is about you, but you give me hope in my own life. I battle depression almost on a daily basis sometimes to the point where I can't get out of bed or leave my house, or worst just feeling like death is the only option to feel better. I know you are cured from your cancer but now there are side effects. And that is your new obstacle. From what I read in your blog, that no matter how bad it gets you can handle it. And it give me strength knowing that we all have battles and we need to be strong. You have so many people who are tightly circled around you, whether its bobcat a thousand miles away from you or inches from you, he, your family, and friends will always be there no matter what. I work in surgery and in vascular I get to help the surgeon put in portacaths, some patients come in so sick, while others are crying and just can't believe what is going on. I wish I could take their pain away but I can't. And it depresses me because I just to be the person who makes everything better for everyone. And I learned I can't, but I did learn to smile with my eyes through my mask. Some patients lock eyes with me and I feel they forget for a few seconds what is going on. And it makes me feel amazing. Lisa by you being by your friend's side, Sindi Hawkins during her battle with leukemia, you are doing a wonderful thing. The little things Lisa, are what make life feel so good. I put your photo on my cell phone, and even though my boss gets so mad for me having my phone in the surgery suite. Just seeing your smile gives me a boost of happiness. I dont know what it is. It's like randomly walking down the street and someone out of nowhere smiles at you, and for me it makes me feel better. Like in their own way they were meant to be there at that given time to give me that boost of "it will get better soon" power.
I hope you get back in the entertainment business soon. Will you make a series for I Can't Think Straight? Every weekend I have been trying to find your movies, because they all share so many sides of you. One thing though I wish you could do a reality series, I love your movies, but I would like to see who Lisa Ray really is. I loved the audiobook taping that was so funny. You are just an all around amazing person who is so full of life. I know you are going through changes, but little by little, like a a rose bud blooming in the sun, you will be completely opened back up to who you used to be. It wont happen over night, but over time, you will feel completely better.
My family went nuts when I told them I wanted to cut my hair like yours. I wanted to shave my head so we could grow back our hair together, but most of them would stop talking to me. My family is not open to too many things. One me being a lesbian, they would go nuts if I looked like butch lesbian. I think I am just me being me, who loves women. I am a normal human who gets depressed lol. Speaking of being a lesbian, I only liked hispanic women, because I myself is half Salvadorean and half italian. I have never been interested in middle eastern or indian women. But looking at you and Sheetal out of no where, this doctor (from Iran) I work | |
Tag Archives: occult christmas
A Very Esoteric Christmas [Part 2]
24 Dec 2019 By jonathandinsmore in Freemasons, Universal Co-Masonry Tags: as above so below, book of john, christmas, christmas stories, christmas symbolism, Co-Masonry, comason, comasonic, comasonry, divine light, esoteric christmas, esoteric freemasonry, esoteric nativity, Esotericism, Freemason, freemasonic, Freemasonry, Freemasons, light in the darkness, light of christmas, light of love, love and light, love light, Mason, masonic, Masonry, Masons, max heindel, meaning of christmas, midwinter, mystical interpretation of christmas, nativity scene, nativity symbolism, occult christmas, solar deities, sun of god, winter solstice Leave a comment
Today, on the Eve of this great holiday of Christmas, we celebrate the beginning of our current age of history, the beginning of a new year, the return of the solar light, and the birth of the most influential figure in modern history, Jesus of Nazareth. In Part 1 of A Very Esoteric Christmas, we examined the roots and archetypal origins of the Christmas story, as well as other various pre-Christmas traditions in paganism and ancient mythology. We have seen that Christmas in its entirety is a patchwork of ancient and mythical ideas and celebrations.
The dissolution of our beliefs and assumptions about Christmas may be disconcerting to some, but like the caterpillar which must liquify within its cocoon in order to become a butterfly, it is a necessary component of initiation into new knowledge to leave inaccurate ideas behind. So, now, while our conception of Christmas is likewise in its liquid state, let's see what colorful wings our cherished holiday may yet don, and what sweet flowers of spiritual life they may carry us to.
Dawn of the Midnight Sun
In the first chapter of John, the most mystical chapter of the most mystical gospel, it is said that that Word which became Jesus of Nazareth is also that Word of God which shone in the darkness at the dawn of Creation and made all things, and which is also the Light and Life of humanity. In the original Greek, this Word is actually Logos, a concept borrowed from Greek Stoic and Neoplatonist philosophers which describes the creative force which gives order to the dark chaos of the universe. So, this Light of Logos shone in the darkness, and the darkness knew it not; it was the Light of humanity, and became flesh that humanity might know it better.
If there were a single motif that could be attributed to the aesthetic and mythical theme of Christmas, it would be that of light shining in the darkness. From the illuminated Christ child at the center of our nativities to the Christmas lights with which we decorate our trees and homes, to the light of the quintessential hearth upon which stockings are hung, Christmas is archetypally a light in the darkness, a warmth in the cold, even order in the chaos. It is salvation by Divine Light, at the darkest hour.
The birth of the Sun Gods throughout ancient mythology, many of whom share common elements with the story of Jesus and his birth, were often celebrated at the time of the Winter Solstice because this is the point at which the sun begins it's slow return after reaching it's darkest point, ultimately culminating in Spring and Summer. Midwinter, therefore, marks the birth of a new solar cycle, which has always governed the activities of mankind, and to a large extent still does. It is the point at which the Sun of God "dies," and is born anew, what in Rome was known as the "Birthday of the Unconquered Sun."
While some may scoff at the ancient sun-worship, as the giver of light and life, what better symbol for God or the Divine might there be than that without which all we know would perish? Much like the Logos of John 1, the Light of the sun shines into matter, and turns the darkness of mud and stone into the beautiful complexities of Life. Since most people need the incomprehensibility of God to be represented by some tangible figure, both the sun and it's idealized representatives in their various anthropomorphized forms, Father and Sun, can serve to embody and inform humanity about the nature of the spiritual Light which gives true Life.
As Above, So Below, So Within
In The Mystical Interpretation of Christmas, Rosicrucian Max Heindel describes the times at which the physical and spiritual energies received from the sun as being reversed, so that the time of greatest physical energy correlates to the weakest spiritual energy, and vice versa. Interestingly enough, this also corresponds to the times at which the sun's light is striking the Earth at a more right angle, during Summer Solstice, representative of the square of physical existence, as opposed to when it is striking the Earth at a more perpendicular angle at Winter Solstice, roughly corresponding to the triangle, representing spiritual existence.
This also means that this Winter Solstice, day of spiritual maximum, is the day at which the physical minimum turns, and begins to grow towards the physical robustness of Summer, and so represents the beginning of the descent of spirit into matter. This descent, too often depicted as a "fall", is fundamentally an act of giving, sacrifice, service, and creation, for the Light's descent into darkness is that by which all new forms are created, maintained, and the grace by which they may someday ascend and evolve to a higher state. Without the selfless pouring of light from the sun into the darkness of the Earth, and the divine birth of crop and creature, where might we be?
So it is that at the time where the physical light is at its weakest, the spiritual Light of Love and generosity reaches its peak. Throughout history, as the darkness of Winter set in, the necessity for giving and sharing also reached its highest, and were it not for the reminder of Love and generosity of these Winter celebrations, how many may have perished in the bitter cold of Winter, and the frigid self-concern of their neighbors? Here, we likewise find the importance of giving, being both symbolic of the fundamental gift of Light and Life from God and the sun, as well as being a practical aspect of our survival and thriving as a people. We are reminded to become sun-like in our generosity when the sun itself is the least present.
Perverted and commercialized though it may now be, our ability at our darkest hour to allow the inner sun of our Love to shine and provide for one another is the origin of our gift-giving traditions of Christmas, and the dominant theme of many Christmas stories, from the willingness of a wealthy miser to give to those in need in A Christmas Carol, to the willingness of a poor community to support a family in need, in It's a Wonderful Life. Even the original Christmas story of a desperate refugee family, mother heavy with child, finding shelter in the generosity of others resonates with this theme. All of these are outer reflections of our Light shining in the darkness of ignorance, fear, hatred, and greed.
Love in the Cosmic Manger
"The Angel Appearing to the Shepherds" by Thomas Cole.
Like the Christ child in the story of Jesus, the Christ which is the inner Light of all people, of every atom, and which shines in our sun and every star beyond is a divine gift born of grace, whose destiny is written into the fabric of Creation itself. Into the deepest depths of darkness, born into a galactic stable and a planetary manger made of water, dust, and gases, the physical light of the sun shines down, and the divine Light of consciousness miraculously emerges and ascends towards its source in every form of Life. | |
10 Reasons A Business Must Blog!
Why is Blogging So Important for Business?
New challenges arise and business owners solve them every single day. And as problems occur the people who need answers and support are going to be searching. By blogging about how a product or a service solves problems a business increases its' probability for discovery. Why? It's because each post generates subject specific keyword indexing for 'search engine result pages' (i.e. SERPs). The more subjects, answers and keywords covered the more potential visibility there is among the MOST QUALIFIED POTENTIAL new leads. They are QUALIFIED by the INTENT of their searches! And by writing to educate and also answer these new questions a business can present itself as 'trustworthy' versus competitors who may not ever bother.
10 Reasons Business Blogging is a Top Marketing Opportunity!
1. Search: All consumers search and they research. Search engines reward those businesses willing to publish or blog good content with visibility in their indexes. Of note here is a search engine needs to remain relevant to its searching consumer and so organic search results should not, in theory, ever be influenced by advertising dollars.
2. Organic Search Results: Approximately 90% of all searches result in an organic search results click through and NOT a Pay Per Click Ad click.
3. Unlimited Visibility: A business can become visible in organic search result pages for an unlimited number of keywords surrounding its products and/ or services! The 'Long Tail of Search' rewards a business with visibility among qualified searchers.
4. Advertising Longevity: With search and blogs, a business is never limited by time or space. Unlike traditional advertising, where it pays for limited circulation, advertorial content or blogs may remain available online forever. Think 'Advertising Disintermediation' and the breaking of barriers between a businesses knowledge and those who want it.
5. Qualified Leads: The search engine interface is a natural lead filtration system. Because consumers can search the topic keywords of their choosing, they are the most qualified leads imaginable to an advertiser.
6. Simple Content Publishing: Business blogs make it very easy to compete for the attention of qualified searchers. The publishing interface makes blogging as easy as crafting an email.
7. Builds Trust: Business blogging affords a chance to present a business in a much more human way than traditional advertising ever will. A business blog helps to keep the attention of current and future clientele.
8. Direct Subscription: A blog offers a business the unlimited potential for direct and voluntary subscribers. Blogs may offer email subscription and once a consumer is subscribed they will automatically receive a message every time the business blogs. It means staying on radar screens until a consumer is ready to buy … or buy again.
9. Cheap Technology: Blog solutions are cheap easy to manage content publishing tools and almost routinely a feature of a website.
10. Reduced Overall Marketing & Advertising Cost: Versus other forms of advertising a good Business Blog can dramatically reduce overall marketing & advertising costs, while simultaneously raising visibility!
Get yourself a good Business Blog ( see Copywriting | Blogging Services ), of find out about different types of SEO Services by contacting Kinetic Knowledge!
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Common Sense: When Targeting New Leads Do You Consider Your Own Behavior Online?
As a business person looking for new customers, have you considered your own behavior online? Or better yet, do you think your prospective client or customer behaves that much differently than you? Folks, your future leads are searching [and social networking] for answers & information just like you do it.
In this day and age, we search and social network because it's so easy, reliable and it's so free! Because of Google, for instance, we can do our research really quick. To a degree, we interview businesses and research their services prior to ever actually talking to them. We're all human, we want to gauge what's online about the most valuable service available for our dollar so why wouldn't we look around before talking to a provider?
Considering people can get virtually all the information they'll ever need, we must accept the playing field we're forced to market in. With the consumer (just like you) in control, including an almost immediate ability to compare product & service information PLUS reviews, what are you doing to show them the value you have to offer? As a consumer, what would you expect… of yourself?
Times have most definitely changed; regardless of old school relationships or methods, if you're not sharing your knowledge- base of information transparently you're already losing the long term competitive battle for attention and trust. All business owners should publish useful timely information and seek out good reviews in order to be visible & worthy of public's trust.
This is about performing, just like you would want others too when you are the consumer seeking service. It's about making a commitment to be transparent, to share knowledge and to demonstrate you are a value added product and/ or service provider.
Life is a two way street folks: have we considered our own online behavior?!
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What Is Your Plan For Business Reviews?
For today's digital marketer, online business reviews are unavoidable. In fact, they have become an essential part of branding and marketing. Reputation can build trust in a way that sets a business apart from its competition. For this reason asking customers & clients for their good reviews must become a marketing priority!
Consumers are looking for every product & service imaginable online and when they do they also look for feedback. The immediate benefit is to make future customers feel confident AND (IMPORTANT) the more positive reviews the less any negative review will influence any consumer confidence.
80% of consumers say they research a business online before they commit to purchase. 90% say they are influenced by online reviews when making purchasing decisions. With this information, it is very clear that you need good online reviews. Marketers cannot afford NOT to participate! It's time to embrace online reviews and to make a plan for how you are going to get them.
Google Listing Reviews May Be The Most Important!
Although there are several online review sites, Google is the leading resource for VISIBLE consumer reviews all tied directly to a local business listing account. Many believe that positive business reviews left on a Google based listing are not only the most influential for what search results get clicked, but also for actual buying decisions. Reviews can also help increase visibility online via any unique keywords used by the reviewer (that search engines index) AND also from when they share their reviews into social networks. This makes a positive Google listing review as potentially valuable as any signal!!
All that consumers need, in order to leave a review, is their own Gmail account. Think about this: more than 1.5 million Android mobile devices are activated a day (source: Larry Page, CEO, Google) and each come loaded with a Google/Gmail account. And while a business listing likely exists, a business must consider claiming it and carefully crafting the most detailed page possible. That detail should include a clearly laid path to the business website where a brand is best presented & detailed.
The tsunami of influential consumer driven reviews is growing. It's time to get serious about tapping into the digital marketing power of happy customers. It's time to identify and to ask customers to post a good review today! And when possible, try and know about all reviews when they happen, for instance via review alerts so that you can genuinely thank those that share | |
and change it rather than sponge off the efforts of 200+ years of American struggle and determination."
Again, go to the website of the National Center for Policy Analysis http://www.ncpa.org/avo/ and click the 9/25/07 presentation by Linda Chavez. She addresses those concerns. [Hint: immigrants cannot just come here and get welfare. It is illegal and has been for years. In any cases libertarians would repeal welfare so that is a non-issue.]
Eugene you're an immigration attorney-you have a financial interest in promoting immigration. I don't begrudge you that, it's a legitimate legal field, , but every poll I've ever read shows you on the wrong side of the argument. Even the folks in California are tired of paying the freight.
You say people are here illegally because there are jobs available; you mean like publc school teaching jobs? Remember when DISD got caught importing illegals to teach, and provided them with false SS numbers? Hope no one in your firm had their ID stolen. Americans won't teach school? Don't tell my wife that.
Do you really have such contempt for the American worker that you think they won't perform manual labor at a competitive wage? I can take you to St Louis, Chicago, Indianapolis where American citizens are working road crews, roofing houses and doing paint and body work. The influx of illegal labor shut those Americans out of the workplace here. Billy Bob can hire his illegals and have them roofing houses while he pockets the extra profit-if Billy Bob's illegals get hurt on the job, they'll go to PMH and Keith and Eugene will pick up the tab.
If Billy Bob's illegals bring their familys, they'll get educations on Keith and Eugene's dime. If one of Billy Bob's illegals has a kid while in the country illegally, well Keith and Eugene will pick up the tab for that.
Do you really believe there's only 10 million illegals here? It kind of makes them hard to count, seeing as they're here illegally and all. If the government says 10 million, instinct tells me to double that figure. Back in '86 about twice the illegals received amnesty that what was projected.
You say immigration laws do not reflect reality-whose reality? Immigration laws seem pretty straight forward to me; don't come into the country or (in a perfect world) you'll get deported.
I don't need Linda Chavez to tell me to believe her or my lyin' eyes; are you saying that an illegal that comes here and has a kid in this country doesn't quailfy for welfare for that child?
I read recently that the United States allows more legal immigration per year than all of the western democracies combined. What other country in the history of the world would offer driver's licenses, sanctuary cities, and in state tution to college for those that willfully and wantonly broke that country's immigration laws?
The illegals sure appreciate it, every May Day for the last few years they've marched in the streets demanding more "rights."
I think we're just gonna have disagree on this topic.
". [Hint: immigrants cannot just come here and get welfare. It is illegal and has been for years. In any cases libertarians would repeal welfare so that is a non-issue.]" Eugene
So Eugene, since illegals can't come here and get welfare, is it untrue that illegal alien Zeituni Onyango, aunt to Barack Obama, is living in public housing and receiving welfare?
"Eugene you're an immigration attorney-you have a financial interest in promoting immigration."
Immigration lawyers laugh when people make that statement. It is so obviously untrue yet people keep saying it. That is why I made a preemptive statement earlier that: "Although much of my work is fitting square pegs into the round holes of our immigration law…." In other words, Immigration lawyers make money when the laws are complicated and it is difficult to navigate the pitfalls, not when they are simplified. In 1976 there was one member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association in North Texas. The area membership is pushing 200 now.
"I don't begrudge you that, it's a legitimate legal field, , but every poll I've ever read shows you on the wrong side of the argument."
Poll? As in what people believe despite the facts?
"You say people are here illegally because there are jobs available; you mean like public school teaching jobs?"
That is currently one.
"Remember when DISD got caught importing illegals to teach,"
False. Those people were here legally.
"and provided them with false SS numbers?"
Yep. The aliens should sue DISD for doing that. The aliens did nothing wrong. DISD is the one that broke the law as to the SS numbers.
"Americans won't teach school? Don't tell my wife that."
It is not that Americans won't take this job or that job. It is that not ENOUGH Americans are willing to fill jobs in certain fields. As a percentage of the workforce immigrants are just a drop in the bucket. (See numerous studies by the Cato Institute.)
"Do you really have such contempt for the American worker that you think they won't perform manual labor at a competitive wage?"
It is not just manual labor. Like people around the world Americans like to stay where their extended family resides rather than pick up and move to another part of the country. Some do, but most don't.
"I can take you to St Louis, Chicago, Indianapolis where American citizens are working road crews, roofing houses and doing paint and body work. The influx of illegal labor shut those Americans out of the workplace here. Billy Bob can hire his illegals and have them roofing houses while he pockets the extra profit-if Billy Bob's illegals get hurt on the job, they'll go to PMH and Keith and Eugene will pick up the tab."
You assume that Americans that want to work in construction here cannot do so. Not true. The crews that worked on my roofs after the July hail storm were all legal.
"If Billy Bob's illegals bring their familys, they'll get educations on Keith and Eugene's dime. If one of Billy Bob's illegals has a kid while in the country illegally, well Keith and Eugene will pick up the tab for that."
Illegals who only wanted to stay here a short time to work only started to try to bring their families (if they had any, most are young and did not) after the 1996 Act made it more difficult to go back and forth.
"Do you really believe there's only 10 million illegals here?"
No, far less, but that is the DHS estimate for 2009.
"It kind of makes them hard to count, seeing as they're here illegally and all."
"If the government says 10 million, instinct tells me to double that figure."
Instinct tells me to cut the figure in half as it is in the interest of the enforcement agencies to inflate the number here in order to request more resources from Congress.
"Back in '86 about twice the illegals received amnesty that what was projected."
Correct. There was widespread fraud in that program. Many people got legalized who were not in the U.S. on the dates required. That is another reason why I do not support a new program to give all illegals "green cards" which many do not want.
"You say immigration laws do not reflect reality-whose reality?"
That of the market economy and how people react to it.
"Immigration laws seem pretty straight forward to me; don't come into the country or (in a perfect world) you'll get deported."
Very funny. We hear this all the time: "Just go to the border and apply." The statement would be laughable if wasn't so sad. "We have had occasion to note the striking resemblance between some of the laws we are called upon to interpret and King Minos's labyrinth in ancient Crete. The Tax Laws and | |
all $v\in \ensuremath{\mathfrak{h}} \rtimes \ensuremath{\mathfrak{g}}$ and $x\in \Gamma$.}
group action of $H \rtimes G$ on $\Gamma$:
\begin{equation*}
\boxed{\Phi \colon (H \rtimes G) \times \Gamma \rightarrow \Gamma.}
\end{equation*}
The vector fields $X_{-\bt^*{J_0}^*w}^{\Gamma}$ on $\Gamma$ appearing in the infinitesimal action $\phi$ are not multiplicative vector fields. Hence the group action $\Phi$ does \emph{not} act by groupoid automorphisms of $\Gamma$, i.e.,
$kx \circ ky$ will usually not agree with $k(x \circ y)$ for all $k\in H \rtimes G$, where $\circ$ denotes the groupoid multiplication on $\Gamma$.
The compatibility condition between the action $\Phi$ and the multiplication $\circ$ on $\Gamma$ involves the group structure on $H \rtimes G$, as well as the group morphism
$\partial \colon H \rightarrow G$ obtained integrating $\delta \colon \ensuremath{\mathfrak{h}} \rightarrow \ensuremath{\mathfrak{g}}$. It is the following (see Thm. \ref{catgroupoact} for a categorical interpretation).
\begin{prop}\label{kxky} Assume that the $G$-action on $M$ is free.
Let $x,y\in \Gamma$ be composable elements (i.e., $x \circ y$ exists) and let $k_1=(h_1,g_1),k_2=(h_2,g_2)$ be elements of $H \rtimes G$.
The elements $k_1x$ and $k_2y$ are composable if{f} $g_1=(\partial h_2) g_2$.
In that case $$k_1x \circ k_2y= (h_1h_2,g_2)(x \circ y).$$
\end{prop}
\subsection{Proof of proposition \ref{kxky}}\label{proofkxky}
We start considering the two special cases in which either $k_1$ or $k_2$ is the identity element of $H \rtimes G$.
\begin{lemma}\label{kxy}
Let $x,y\in \Gamma$ be composable and let $k\in H \rtimes G$ so that
$kx$ and $y$ are composable. Then
$kx \circ y= k(x \circ y)$.
\end{lemma}
\begin{proof} Let $k=(h,g)$.
We claim that the composability assumptions on the pairs $(x,y)$
and $(kx,y)$ imply that $k$ is of the form $(h,e)$.
Indeed
\begin{equation}\label{source}
\bs(kx)=\bs[(h,e)(e,g)x]=\bs[(e,g)x]=g\bs(x),
\end{equation}
where in the second equality we used the fact that the vector fields $X_{-\bt^*{J_0}^*w}$ are tangent to the $\bs$-fibers,
and in the last equality that $G$ acts by groupoid automorphisms of $\Gamma$. Since $\bs(kx)=\bt(y)=\bs(x)$, from the freeness of the $G$-action on $M$ at $\bs(x)$ we conclude that $g=e$, proving our claim.
Assume first that $h=exp(w)$ for some $w\in \ensuremath{\mathfrak{h}}$. The diffeomorphism of $\Gamma$ induced by the action of $k=(h,e)$ is the time-$1$ flow of $X_{\bt^*{J_0}^*w}^{\Gamma}$.
Writing $z:=(h,e)(\bt(x))\in \Gamma$ we have
\begin{equation}\label{zx}
z\circ x=(h,e)x,
\end{equation}
since the groupoid action of $\Gamma$ on itself by \emph{left} multiplication is generated by \emph{right} invariant vector fields (such as $X_{\bt^*{J_0}^*w}^{\Gamma}$).
Hence
\begin{equation}\label{case1}
kx\circ y=(z\circ x)\circ y=z\circ (x\circ y)=k(x\circ y),
\end{equation}
where the first equality uses \eqref{zx} and the last one uses \eqref{zx} applied to $x\circ y$.
To conclude we consider the case $k=(h,e)$ for $h$ a general element of $H$. Write $h=h_1\cdots h_n$ where the $h_i$ are in the image of the exponential map of $\ensuremath{\mathfrak{h}}$. The conclusion follows from $$kx \circ y=k_1x^{\prime}\circ y= k_1(x^{\prime}\circ y)=\cdots=k(x\circ y)$$
where $k_i:=(h_i,e)$ and $x^{\prime}:=k_2\cdots k_n x$. In the second equality we used $\eqref{case1}$ (notice that $x^{\prime}$ and $y$ are composable).
\end{proof}
\begin{lemma}\label{xky}
Let $x,y\in \Gamma$ be composable and $k=(h,g)\in H \rtimes G$. Then
$x$ and $ky$ are composable if{f} $k$ is of the form $(h,\partial h^{-1})$. In this case
$x \circ ky= k(x \circ y)$.
\end{lemma}
\begin{proof}
We start claiming that the target map $\bt \colon \Gamma \rightarrow M$ intertwines the action of $h\in H$ on $\Gamma$ and the action of $\partial h\in G$ on $M$.
Assume first that $h$ lies in the image of the exponential map of $\ensuremath{\mathfrak{h}}$, i.e., that $h=\exp(w)$ for some $w\in \ensuremath{\mathfrak{h}}$.
The action of $h$ on $\Gamma$ is obtained taking the time-$1$ flow of the vector field $X_{\bt^*{J_0}^*w}^{\Gamma}$.
We have $\bt_*(X_{\bt^*{J_0}^*w}^{\Gamma})=- X^{M}_{{J_0}^*w}=-J_1^*(\delta w)$ since $\bt$ is an anti-Poisson map and by Lemma \ref{differ} 1). Further
$\exp(\delta w)=\partial h$ since $\partial$ is the Lie group morphism integrating $\delta$, so the time-$1$ flow of $-J_1^*(\delta w)$ is given by the element $\partial h\in G$ under the action of $G$ on $M$, proving the claim for $h$ in the image of the exponential map. If $h$ is a general
element of $H$, write $h=h_1\cdots h_n$ where the $h_i$ are in the image of the exponential map of $\ensuremath{\mathfrak{h}}$, and apply the above reasoning inductively starting from $h_1$.
Therefore
\begin{equation}\label{target}
\bt(ky)=\bt((h,e)(e,g)y)= (\partial h) \bt((e,g)y)=(\partial h )g\bt(y)
\end{equation}
where in the last equality we used that $G$ acts by groupoid automorphisms. The elements $x$ and $ky$ are composable if $\bt(ky)$ agrees with $\bs(x)=\bt(y)$. Since the $G$-action on $M$ is free we conclude that this is equivalent to $(\partial h )g=e$, proving the first part of the lemma.
To show the second part of the lemma, assume first that $h=\exp(w)$ for some $w\in \ensuremath{\mathfrak{h}}$.
On the Lie group $H \rtimes G$ we have $(h,\partial h^{-1})=(h,e)(e,\partial h^{-1})=\exp (w)\exp(-\delta w)=\exp(w - \delta w)$, where in the last equality we used the Baker-Campell-Hausdorff formula and the fact that $[(w,0),(0,\delta w)]_{\ensuremath{\mathfrak{h}} \rtimes \ensuremath{\mathfrak{g}}}=0$.
Further
\begin{equation}\label{xgxsxt}
-(\phi(w- \delta w)=
X_{\bt^*{J_0}^*w}^{\Gamma}+({J_1}^*\delta w)^{\Gamma}=
X_{\bt^*{J_0}^*w}^{\Gamma}+(X^{M}_{{J_0}^*w})^{\Gamma}=
X_{\bs^*{J_0}^*w}^{\Gamma}
\end{equation}
where we used 1) of Lemma \ref{differ} in the first equality and Lemma \ref{camille} below in the second.
Consider the path $h(t):=\exp(tw)$ in $H$ from $e$ to $h$, inducing the path
$k(t):= (h(t), \partial h^{-1}(t))$ in $H \rtimes G$ and
\emph{two} paths in $\Gamma$: one is
$\tau(t):=k(t)(x\circ y)$, the other $\gamma(t):=x\circ k(t)y$.
Using \eqref{xgxsxt} we see that their velocity at time $t$ is
\begin{eqnarray}
\dot{\tau}(t)&=&(X_{\bs^*{J_0}^*w}^{\Gamma})|_{\tau(t)}\\
\dot{\gamma}(t)= (L_x)_*[(X_{\bs^*{J_0}^*w}^{\Gamma})|_{k(t)y}]&=&(X_{\bs^*{J_0}^*w}^{\Gamma})|_{\gamma(t)},
\end{eqnarray}
where the last equality follows from the fact that $X_{\bs^*{J_0}^*w}^{\Gamma}$ is a left invariant vector field.
Hence $\gamma$ and $\tau$ are integral curves of the same vector field, and since they both start at $(x\circ y)$ we conclude that
\begin{equation}\label{case2}
x \circ ky=\gamma(1)=\tau(1)= k(x \circ y).
\end{equation}
Now assume that $k=(h,\partial h^{-1})$ for an arbitrary $h\in H$, and as above
we write $h=h_1\cdots h_n$ for elements $h_i$ in the image of the exponential map.
We have $$(h,\partial h^{-1})=(h_n,\partial h_n^{-1})\cdots(h_1,\partial h_1^{-1})$$
using \eqref{xmgr},
hence the lemma is proven applying recursively\footnote{
Notice that the composability assumptions are satisfied since the inverse of
$(h_i,\partial h_i^{-1})$ is $(h_i^{-1},\partial h_i)$.} eq. \eqref{case2}.
\end{proof}
The following is a special case (with $G=\ensuremath{\mathbb R}$) of Thm. 3.3 (ii) of \cite{FOR}.
\begin{lemma}\label{camille}
Given any function $f$ on a symplectic groupoid $\Gamma$ we have
\begin{equation}
(X^{M}_{f})^{\Gamma}=X_{\bs^*f}^{\Gamma}-X_{\bt^*f}^{\Gamma}.
\end{equation}
\end{lemma}
\begin{proof}[Proof of Prop. \ref{kxky}]
Recall from \eqref{semdirgr2} that any element of $H \rtimes G$ can be written as
$(h,g)=(e,g)(\tilde{h},e)$ where $\tilde{h}:=\varphi(g^{-1})h$ (and $e$ denotes the identity of $H$ or $G$). Assume first that $k_1x$ and $k_2 y$ are composable. We have
\begin{eqnarray}
k_1x &\circ& k_2 y=\\
\label{secline2}
(e,g_1)(\tilde{h}_1,e)x &\circ& (e,g_2)(\tilde{h}_2,e)y=\\
\label{secline3}(e,g_1)\Big[(\tilde{h}_1,e)x &\circ& \underline{(e,g_1^{-1}g_2)(\tilde{h}_2,e)}y\Big]=\\
\label{secline4}(e,g_1) \underline{(e,g_1^{-1}g_2)(\tilde{h}_2,e)}\Big[(\tilde{h}_1,e)x &\circ& y\Big]=\\
\label{secline5} (e,g_1) \underline{(e,g_1^{-1}g_2)(\tilde{h}_2,e)}(\tilde{h}_1,e)\Big[x &\circ& y\Big]
\end{eqnarray}
where in the second equality we used that the $G$ action on $\Gamma$ is by groupoid automorphisms, in the third equality we applied the second part of Lemma \ref{xky} to the underlined term $k:=(e,g_1^{-1}g_2)(\tilde{h}_2,e)$ (notice that $(\tilde{h}_1,e)x$ and $y$ are composable),
and in the fourth equality we applied Lemma \ref{kxy} to $k':=(\tilde{h}_1,e)$.
The composability assumption on $k_1x$ and $k_2 y$ is clearly equivalent to the composability of $(\tilde{h}_1,e)x$ and $ky$ (see \eqref{secline3}).
By the first part of Lemma \ref{xky} applied to \eqref{secline3}, this is equivalent to $k$ being of the form $(h,\partial h^{-1})$ for some $h\in H$. Now $k=
(e,g_1^{-1}g_2)(\tilde{h}_2,e)=(\varphi(g_1^{-1})h_2,g_1^{-1}g_2)$, so it follows that
$\partial [\varphi(g_1^{-1})h_2]=g_2^{-1}g_1$, which using Def. \ref{xmgr}
means $\partial h_2^{-1}g_1=g_2$.
We conclude that $k_1x$ and $k_2 y$ are composable if{f} $g_1=(\partial h_2) g_2$,
proving the first part of the proposition.
Since $g_1=(\partial h_2) g_2$ we have $$\tilde{h}_1=\varphi(g_1^{-1})h_1=
\varphi(g_2^{-1})\varphi(\partial h_2^{-1})h_1= \varphi(g_2^{-1})(h_2^{-1}h_1h_2)$$
(the last equality using Def. \ref{xmgr}). Using this and
$\tilde{h}_2=\varphi(g_2^{-1})h_2$
we get $\tilde{h}_2 \tilde{h}_1=\varphi(g_2^{-1})(h_1h_2)$, and
we can simplify the four terms before the square bracket in \eqref{secline5} to
$$ (e,g_2)(\tilde{h}_2\tilde{h}_1,e)=
(e,g_2)\cdot(\varphi(g_2^{-1})(h_1h_2),e)=(h_1h_2,g_2),
$$
finishing the proof of Prop. \ref{kxky}.
\end{proof}
\section{The global quotient of $\Gamma$}\label{sec:glq}
We assume the set-up of Section \ref{sec:groupGamma}.
The action $\Phi$ of $H \rtimes G$ on $\Gamma$ (see
Subsection \ref{defPhi}) is \emph{not} by Lie groupoid automorphisms.
In this Section we show that, in spite of this, the quotient space has an induced Lie groupoid structure. Further we show that it is a \emph{Poisson groupoid}, i.e., a Lie groupoid endowed with a Poisson structure for which the graph of the multiplication is coisotropic \cite{alancoiso}.
\begin{prop}\label{groidgl} Suppose that the $H \rtimes G$-action on $\Gamma$ is free and proper. Then
there is a Poisson groupoid structure on
\[
\xymatrix{\Gamma/(H \rtimes G) \ar[d]\ar[d]\ar@<-1ex>[d]\\ M/G}
\]
for which the natural projection $p \colon \Gamma \rightarrow \Gamma/(H \rtimes G)$ is a groupoid morphism and a Poisson map.
\end{prop}
\begin{proof} We first show that there is an induced groupoid structure on the quotient
$\Gamma/(H \rtimes G)$. We have
$\bs[(H \rtimes G)x]\subset G\bs(x)$ | |
it will be chilly right into the weekend because that low will be settling in the northern part of the state. so an unusually cool pool of air over california. so mostly sunny and cooler and then increasing clouds towards sunset. showers will spread south tomorrow. travel weather forecast for today not bad but more clouds in...
triple digits in the tri- valley. we are talking 104 degrees pleasanton, livermore, san ramon, dublin, blackhawk, tassajara, danville. 106 at the delta. antioch 105. carquinez strait into the 90s. north bay numbers 67 degrees in bodega bay along the coast where you will find the relief. 102 santa rosa. and 107 in ukiah. cloverdale 106. michelle, hotter weather still to come. we'll talk about that still coming up at 18 minutes after the hour. >>> a "flex alert" is in effect today because of the heat wave. officials are trying to prevent more power outages. kpix 5's jessica flores is live in livermore to tell us how people can cool down. >> reporter: right now, it's really cool in livermore so if you are going to be exercising or doing any yardwork, you want to get out right now and actually a little chilly if you can believe it. but as roberta just mentioned we are going to be around the triple digits. livermore has extended hours to take a glass of water or watch tv or just cool down at the senior center to escape the heat. there are other areas around the tri-valley where you
triple digits in the tri- valley. we are talking 104 degrees pleasanton, livermore, san ramon, dublin, blackhawk, tassajara, danville. 106 at the delta. antioch 105. carquinez strait into the 90s. north bay numbers 67 degrees in bodega bay along the coast where you will find the relief. 102 santa rosa. and 107 in ukiah. cloverdale 106. michelle, hotter weather still to come. we'll talk about that still coming up at 18 minutes after the hour. >>> a "flex alert" is in effect...
northbound 680 to eastbound 580 just a heads up there at the dublin-pleasanton interchange. no major delays to tell you about heading across the golden gate bridge. we are tracking a pretty smooth ride along 101 near sfo. speeds moving right at the limit there. that's a check of your traffic. back to you guys. >> thank you. >>> another obstacle for the republican healthcare bill in the senate yesterday. the nonpartisan cbo released a report showing that spending on medicaid would be 35% lower after two decades under the plan. they say they are crafting the bill to delay harmful effects to avoid political backlash. it's unclear when they will release the revised version of the bill. >>> the anchors of morning joe are responding to president trump on twitter calling the president's tweets really sad for our country. kpix 5's jackie ward joins us now. they were supposed to be on vacation and they canceled it just to respond to the president. >> they missed a red sox game. msnbc's cohosts mika brzezinski and joe scarborough have been on the air for more than an hour and a half now responding to
northbound 680 to eastbound 580 just a heads up there at the dublin-pleasanton interchange. no major delays to tell you about heading across the golden gate bridge. we are tracking a pretty smooth ride along 101 near sfo. speeds moving right at the limit there. that's a check of your traffic. back to you guys. >> thank you. >>> another obstacle for the republican healthcare bill in the senate yesterday. the nonpartisan cbo released a report showing that spending on medicaid...
KPIX 5 Noon News : KPIX : June 2, 2017 12:00pm-12:31pm PDT
. >> wahoo. >> pretty weekend? fist bump? >> we have the pleasanton car show going on thousands of people in town. art & wine festival in sunnyvale. ♪[ music ] ,, >> eric: everybody have what they need? >> quinn: uh, yeah. i'm gonna get you a drink. >> eric: thank you. thank you, darling. well, i love this. all my favorite people in my favorite room. >> quinn: i can't believe he invited her over here. [ sighs ] dinner was hell. now she's camped out for after-dinner drinks? [ scoffs ] she's watching us. she's always watching us. >> ridge: well, don't give her anything to see, and we're gonna be fine. >> quinn: [ sighs ] >> ridge: we didn't. >> quinn: we almost did. >> ridge: okay, just calm down. this isn't easy for me, either. >> eric: oh, wait. quinn, ridge, we were just talking, and i-i realized, uh, this is something everyone needs to hear. i didn't want to spoil dinner with it, but it's important, and it affects everybody in the family. thomas is gonna start working at spectra fashions. >> sy:
. >> wahoo. >> pretty weekend? fist bump? >> we have the pleasanton car show going on thousands of people in town. art & wine festival in sunnyvale. ♪[ music ] ,, >> eric: everybody have what they need? >> quinn: uh, yeah. i'm gonna get you a drink. >> eric: thank you. thank you, darling. well, i love this. all my favorite people in my favorite room. >> quinn: i can't believe he invited her over here. [ sighs ] dinner was hell. now she's camped...
. the dublin-pleasanton interchange. things pick up and it's crowded. your "diamonds & rubies" along 580. heading over to the south bay, we are starting to see a few slowdowns along 280 in that northbound direction. we'll check with chp and find out -- we haven't seen any accidents reported along that stretch. over at the bay bridge toll plaza in the green, no delays, no metering lights. but those are set to come on here any moment. we'll see the backup developing at the maze. roberta has the forecast. >> good morning. 5:17. let's get down to business. we have a subtle change in your forecast beginning with right now overcast skies towards the transamerica pyramid. you can see the tip-top of it so the visibility is not being obscured but check this out. oh!! boy. our camera view changed. you know what? i want to change it myself. let's go ahead and go to that. isn't that better? [ laughter ] >> ha ha! let there be light. i didn't know i had so much control. all right. we have lots of blue skies inland. we do have the intrusion of the marine layer. it has marched inland about 60 miles
. the dublin-pleasanton interchange. things pick up and it's crowded. your "diamonds & rubies" along 580. heading over to the south bay, we are starting to see a few slowdowns along 280 in that northbound direction. we'll check with chp and find out -- we haven't seen any accidents reported along that stretch. over at the bay bridge toll plaza in the green, no delays, no metering lights. but those are set to come on here any moment. we'll see the backup developing at the maze....
KPIX 5 News Sat Morn Edition : KPIX : June 17, 2017 7:00am-8:01am PDT
stampede. more than 150 head of main street in pleasanton into the wild wild west. the cattle drive was a part of yesterday's kickoff to the alameda county fair. cowboys and cowgirls and the sheriff. >> no, this is the best day and fantastic. we want to be cowboys, you know, it shows a fun day for us. >> it was cool, but stinky. >> officials want to remind you to bring some water with them and to check out their station. because it is going to | |
a suspicion something was about to befall us. I anticipated 'something' and was always like a watchman on guard to prevent it. But I was unsuccessful because I did not know what was threatening us. I did not know the nature of the danger. The taking of the sick from the hospitals caught me completely by surprise. And I give you the best proof there is of this: I had my own nearest and dearest among them, and I could do nothing for them.
I thought that that would be the end of it, that after that they'd leave us in peace, the peace for which I long so much, for which I've always worked, which has been my goal. But something else, it turned out, was destined for us. Such is the fate of the Jews: always more suffering and always worse suffering, especially in times of war.
Yesterday afternoon, they gave me the order to send more than 20,000 Jews out of the ghetto, and if not – 'We will do it!' So, the question became: 'Should we take it upon ourselves, do it ourselves, or leave it for others to do?' Well, we – that is, I and my closest associates – thought first not about 'How many will perish?' but 'How many is it possible to save?' And we reached the conclusion that, however hard it would be for us, we should take the implementation of this order into our own hands.
I must perform this difficult and bloody operation – I must cut off limbs in order to save the body itself! – I must take children because, if not, others may be taken as well, God forbid.
( _Horrible wailing_.)
I have no thought of consoling you today. Nor do I wish to calm you. I must lay bare your full anguish and pain. I come to you like a bandit, to take from you what you treasure most in your hearts! I have tried, using every possible means, to get the order revoked. I tried – when that proved to be impossible – to soften the order. Just yesterday I ordered a list of children aged nine – I wanted, at least, to save this one age group, the nine- to ten-year-olds. But I was not granted this concession. On only one point did I succeed, in saving the ten-year-olds and up. Let this be a consolation in our profound grief.
There are, in the ghetto, many patients who can expect to live only a few days more, maybe a few weeks. I don't know if the idea is diabolical or not, but I must say it: 'Give me the sick. In their place, we can save the healthy.' I know how dear the sick are to any family, and particularly to Jews. However, when cruel demands are made, one has to weigh and measure: who shall, can and may be saved? And common sense dictates that the saved must be those who can be saved and those who have a chance of being rescued, not those who cannot be saved in any case.
We live in the ghetto, mind you. We live with so much restriction that we do not have enough even for the healthy, let alone for the sick. Each of us feeds the sick at the expense of our own health: we give our bread to the sick. We give them our meagre ration of sugar, our little piece of meat. And what's the result? Not enough to cure the sick, and we ourselves become ill. Of course, such sacrifices are the most beautiful and noble. But there are times when one has to choose: sacrifice the sick, who haven't the slightest chance of recovery and who also may make others ill, or rescue the healthy.
I could not deliberate over this problem for long; I had to resolve it in favour of the healthy. In this spirit, I gave the appropriate instructions to the doctors, and they will be expected to deliver all incurable patients, so that the healthy, who want and are able to live, will be saved in their place.
( _Horrible weeping_.)
I understand you, mothers; I see your tears, all right. I also feel what you feel in your hearts, you fathers who will have to go to work the morning after your children have been taken from you, when just yesterday you were playing with your dear little ones. I know and feel all this. Since four o'clock yesterday, when I first found out about the order, I have been utterly broken. I share your pain. I suffer because of your anguish, and I don't know how I'll survive this – where I'll find the strength.
I must tell you a secret: they requested 24,000 victims, 3,000 a day for eight days. I succeeded in reducing the number to 20,000, but only on the condition that these would be children below the age of ten. Children ten and older are safe. Since the children and the aged together equal only some 13,000 souls, the gap will have to be filled with the sick.
I can barely speak. I am exhausted; I only want to tell you what I am asking of you: Help me carry out this action! I am trembling. I am afraid that others, God forbid, will do it themselves...
A broken Jew stands before you. Do not envy me. This is the most difficult of all the orders I've ever had to carry out at any time. I reach out to you with my broken, trembling hands and I beg: Give into my hands the victims, so that we can avoid having further victims, and a population of a hundred thousand Jews can be preserved. So they promised me: if we deliver our victims by ourselves, there will be peace...
( _Shouts: 'We all will go!' 'Mr Chairman, an only child should not be taken; children should be taken from families with several children!'_ )
These are empty phrases! I don't have the strength to argue with you! If the authorities were to arrive, none of you would shout.
I understand what it means to tear off a part of the body. Yesterday I begged on my knees, but it didn't work. From small villages with Jewish populations of seven to eight thousand, barely a thousand arrived here. So which is better? What do you want: that eighty to ninety thousand Jews remain, or, God forbid, that the whole population be annihilated?
You may judge as you please; my duty is to preserve the Jews who remain. I do not speak to hotheads. I speak to your reason and conscience. I have done and will continue doing everything possible to keep arms from appearing in the streets and blood from being shed. The order could not be undone; it could only be reduced.
One needs the heart of a bandit to ask from you what I am asking. But put yourself in my place, think logically, and you'll reach the conclusion that I cannot proceed any other way. The part that can be saved is much larger than the part that must be given away.
> _By 1 September 1944, nearly all the Jews of Łódz´ had been murdered. Rumkowski was told he could remain in the ghetto. He declined the offer and joined the last transport for Auschwitz where he too was murdered. Soviet troops liberated the ghetto on 19 January 1945. Of the 160,000 original inhabitants, there remained 870 starving human beings_.
•
## Éamon De Valera
Dublin, 17 March 1943
#### 'The vision of such an Ireland'
> _Guerrilla commander, political prisoner, successful revolutionary, a partisan in civil war, Éamon de Valera (1882–1975) was prime minister of Ireland for more | |
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Culture Art + Architecture Trip Planning Florence, Italy
Maggie Zhang
While Florence is recognized as a place where you can appreciate the work of great artists like Da Vinci and Michelangelo, it's also home to other masters of their craft: artisans.
Along the cobblestone streets of this Tuscan city, there is a variety of local makers, from bookbinders to leather tailors. In most cases, their skills have been passed down through decades of family traditions, and their work is a labor of love.
If you're interested in discovering more than what you'll find in museums and churches, and buying souvenirs that go beyond fridge magnets and snow globes, here are the best seven artisan shops in Florence that we'd recommend you visit.
1. La Casa Della Stampa Di Sarubbi Lorenzo
This antique print workshop is located on a tiny pedestrian street right off Pitti Palace. The walls are covered with handmade maps and landscapes of Florence, which look like they belong right in the hands of an old-world explorer. There are also prints of anatomical drawings of animals and sea life, which are based on 17th- and 18th-century documents.
If you want to bring a piece of this time capsule home with you, it's easy — the pieces aren't framed, so you can simply roll them up to bring back home or send them to your house by mail via poster tubes.
The artist, Sarubbi Lorenzo, usually restores old prints or paints new ones in the back of the room. He practices an art form called lithography, which involves hand-printing images from a stone or metal plate onto paper with black ink, and then painting the rest of the colors on with watercolor. You can watch him work and even ask him questions as you browse through his art.
Where: Sdrucciolo de' Pitti, 11, 50125 Firenze FI, Italy
2. Alberto Cozzi
If you're lucky, you'll walk into this stationery store while the artist, Riccardo Luci, is working on a new piece. He specializes in hand-marbling paper, which results in beautiful, intricate patterns.
The technique starts with preparing a mixture of thickened algae-water. The mixture sits for a few days in a tray, and when it's ready, Riccardo dips a paintbrush into oil paint and splashes a variety of colors into the liquid. Then, he drags a tool of his choice (like a small comb or straw) through the dotted pigments to create arch-like, feathered, or swirling patterns. Once satisfied with the design, he carefully dips a piece of paper into the liquid to transfer the image onto it. The paper dries on a wooden board for hours before it's ready to be used.
After watching this process, you'll look at this store's paper products, like journals and paper boxes, in a whole new light.
Founded by Alberto Cozzi in 1908, this store is now run by Cozzi's four great-grandchildren: Riccardo, Massimo, Francesca, and Letizia. The techniques they use have been passed down for generations. In addition to hand-marbling paper, they also practice book-binding and use their great-grandfather's original tools for stamping their leather books with gold-leaf foil.
Where: Via del Parione, 35, 50123 Firenze FI, Italy
3. Officina Profumo — Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella Firenze
Photo: Officina Profumo – Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella/Facebook
One of the world's oldest pharmacies, the 400-year Officina Profumo is designed more like a museum than a shop. Though its roots are in herbal medicine and healing, the store's focus today is on perfumes, cosmetics, and soap, and the word pharmacy in its name has become merely symbolic.
The store displays its wares alongside art pieces, 16th- and 17th-century pottery, and beneath intricately designed vaulted ceilings. Individual stations are spaced throughout the grand Sales Hall, which used to be a monastery chapel, with attendants behind them to help find the right scent for you.
Interestingly, there's no advertising for this store. It's hard to just walk by and discover it from the streets since it's located down a long, inconspicuous hallway. Most people hear about this store from word of mouth, which has been effective enough to bring customers from all over the world.
Where: Via della Scala, 16, 50123 Firenze FI, Italy
4. AquaFlor
AquaFlor is a perfumery located in a Renaissance palace on a narrow street just around the corner from Florence's famous cathedral, The Duomo. It's a place that engages all your senses, with soaps displayed beautifully among the natural materials the scents are made from, and over 1,500 bottles of essences sitting in glass bottles on the wooden shelves.
If you want to do more than just shop, you can sign up for Aquaflor Experiences. You can make your own fragrance in a three-hour session with a professional perfumer for 1,500 euros ($1,684) or take a one-hour tour of the scent laboratory inside the store starting at 750 euros ($842). The store is typically open from 10:00 AM to 8:00 PM.
Where: Borgo Santa Croce, 6, 50122 Firenze FI, Italy
5. Osteria All'Antico Vinaio
You might not think of sandwich making as an artisanal craft, but you'll be convinced once you've tried the paninis at Osteria All' Antico Vinaio. Started by the Mazzanti family in the '90s, this small store combines the simple meats and cheeses of Tuscan cuisine with ingredients like truffle cream and spicy eggplant to make delicious and affordable sandwiches.
There are three shops on the same street, but there always seems to be a crowd outside each of them. The ambiance is lively, and you'll often find the sandwich makers cracking jokes with each other and the customers as they slap a spread of cream onto bread.
The store is typically open from 10:00 AM to 10:30 PM, which means it's ready to satisfy your sandwich cravings whether it's for breakfast or a late-night snack.
Where: Via dei Neri, 74 R, 50122 Firenze FI, Italy
6. Alessandro Dari Gioielli
Alessandro Dari Gioielli's workshop is found on a small cobblestone street, just after you cross the Ponte alle Grazie bridge leading from the city center into the Oltrarno neighborhood. Though the artist works inside the space, it was officially recognized by Italy's Ministry of Cultural Heritage as a museum, and it's open daily to the public from 10:30 AM to 7:30 PM.
When you step inside, the first thing you'll notice is all the sounds: chimes and bells, an organ playing music, or the twinkle of a music box. Sometimes, you might even hear welding and firing — the sounds of Alessandro himself creating his next work of art.
With a background in sculpture, jewelry, and music, Alessandro creates decorative objects from gold. But you won't find your typical earrings or necklaces here — the pieces all feel like the result of a mad scientist meeting a medieval alchemist. One of the pieces, an 18-karat gold sculptural necklace called Unicorn of the Abyss, looks like a unicorn trying to fight its way through an intricate tangle of coral.
Alessandro's work has been displayed at the Pitti Palace and Fiesole Cathedral, and in 2006, he was nominated as an official artist of the Vatican, making ceremonial chalices for the church. His current collection features themed pieces around space and time and lights and shadows.
Where: Via di S. Niccolò, 115R, 50125 Firenze FI, Italy
7. Benheart
Of all the leather stores in Florence, Benheart stands out because of the way it combines traditional Italian craftsmanship with cooler, modern styles. Although it was opened quite recently, it has quickly made its mark throughout Italy (and Japan, as well, with its new store opening in Tokyo).
Benheart's hand-made jackets, shoes, and bags reflect a deep attention to detail, with a richness in color that results from the technique of dying garments after they are assembled.
The story behind the store is | |
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006), a writer called "worthy of the Nobel Prize" by the New York Times, was an internationally renowned author of novels, short stories, literary criticism, and philosophical essays. His books have been translated into forty-four languages and have sold more than thirty million copies.
Stanisław Lem 2021
The first English translation of a nonfiction work by Stanisław Lem, which was "conceived under the spell of cybernetics" in 1957 and updated in 1971.
In 1957, Stanisław Lem published Dialogues, a book "conceived under the spell of cybernetics," as he wrote in the preface to the second edition. Mimicking the form of Berkeley's Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, Lem's original dialogue was an attempt to unravel the then-novel field of cybernetics. It was a testimony, Lem wrote later, to "the almost limitless cognitive optimism" he felt upon his discovery of cybernetics. This is the first English translation of Lem's Dialogues, including the text of the first edition and the later essays added to the second edition in 1971. For the second edition, Lem chose not to revise the original. Recognizing the naivete of his hopes for cybernetics, he constructed a supplement to the first dialogue, which consists of two critical essays, the first a summary of the evolution of cybernetics, the second a contribution to the cybernetic theory of the "sociopathology of governing," amending the first edition's discussion of the pathology of social regulation; and two previously published articles on related topics. From the vantage point of 1971, Lem observes that original book, begun as a search for methods "that would increase our understanding of both the human and nonhuman worlds," was in the end "an expression of the cognitive curiosity and anxiety of modern thought."
The Truth and Other Stories
Twelve stories by science fiction master Stanisław Lem, nine of them never before published in English.
Of these twelve short stories by science fiction master Stanisław Lem, only three have previously appeared in English, making this the first "new" book of fiction by Lem since the late 1980s. The stories display the full range of Lem's intense curiosity about scientific ideas as well as his sardonic approach to human nature, presenting as multifarious a collection of mad scientists as any reader could wish for. Many of these stories feature artificial intelligences or artificial life forms, long a Lem preoccupation; some feature quite insane theories of cosmology or evolution. All are thought provoking and scathingly funny.
Written from 1956 to 1993, the stories are arranged in chronological order. In the title story, "The Truth," a scientist in an insane asylum theorizes that the sun is alive; "The Journal" appears to be an account by an omnipotent being describing the creation of infinite universes—until, in a classic Lem twist, it turns out to be no such thing; in "An Enigma," beings debate whether offspring can be created without advanced degrees and design templates. Other stories feature a computer that can predict the future by 137 seconds, matter-destroying spores, a hunt in which the prey is a robot, and an electronic brain eager to go on the lam. These stories are peak Lem, exploring ideas and themes that resonate throughout his writing.
Highcastle
A Remembrance
A playful, witty, reflective memoir of childhood by the science fiction master Stanisław Lem.
With Highcastle, Stanisław Lem offers a memoir of his childhood and youth in prewar Lvov. Reflective, artful, witty, playful—"I was a monster," he observes ruefully—this lively and charming book describes a youth spent reading voraciously (he was especially interested in medical texts and French novels), smashing toys, eating pastries, and being terrorized by insects. Often lonely, the young Lem believed that he could communicate with household objects—perhaps anticipating the sentient machines in the adult Lem's novels. Lem reveals his younger self to be a dreamer, driven by an unbridled imagination and boundless curiosity.
In the course of his reminiscing, Lem also ponders the nature of memory, innocence, and the imagination. Highcastle (the title refers to a nearby ruin) offers the portrait of a writer in his formative years.
The Invincible
A space cruiser, in search of its sister ship, encounters beings descended from self-replicating machines.
In the grand tradition of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, Stanisław Lem's The Invincible tells the story of a space cruiser sent to an obscure planet to determine the fate of a sister spaceship whose communication with Earth has abruptly ceased. Landing on the planet Regis III, navigator Rohan and his crew discover a form of life that has apparently evolved from autonomous, self-replicating machines—perhaps the survivors of a "robot war." Rohan and his men are forced to confront the classic quandary: what course of action can humanity take once it has reached the limits of its knowledge? In The Invincible, Lem has his characters confront the inexplicable and the bizarre: the problem that lies just beyond analytical reach.
Return from the Stars
An astronaut returns to Earth after a ten-year mission and finds a society that he barely recognizes.
Stanisław Lem's Return from the Stars recounts the experiences of Hal Bregg, an astronaut who returns from an exploratory mission that lasted ten years—although because of time dilation, 127 years have passed on Earth. Bregg finds a society that he hardly recognizes, in which danger has been eradicated. Children are "betrizated" to remove all aggression and violence—a process that also removes all impulse to take risks and explore. The people of Earth view Bregg and his crew as "resuscitated Neanderthals," and pressure them to undergo betrization. Bregg has serious difficulty in navigating the new social mores.
While Lem's depiction of a risk-free society is bleak, he does not portray Bregg and his fellow astronauts as heroes. Indeed, faced with no opposition to his aggression, Bregg behaves abominably. He is faced with a choice: leave Earth again and hope to return to a different society in several hundred years, or stay on Earth and learn to be content. With Return from the Stars, Lem shows the shifting boundaries between utopia and dystopia.
Hospital of the Transfiguration
An early realist novel by Stanisław Lem, taking place in a Polish psychiatric hospital during World War II.
Taking place within the confines of a psychiatric hospital, Stanisław Lem's The Hospital of the Transfiguration tells the story of a young doctor working in a Polish asylum during World War II. At first the asylum seems like a bucolic refuge, but a series of sinister encounters and incidents reveal an underlying brutality. The doctor begins to seek relief in the strange conversation of the poet Sekulowski, who is posing as a patient in a bid for safety from the occupying German forces. Meanwhile, Resistance fighters stockpile weapons in the surrounding woods.
A very early work by Lem, The Hospital of the Transfiguration is partly autobiographical, drawing on the author's experiences as a medical student. Written in 1948, it was suppressed by Polish censors and not published until 1955. The censorship of this realist novel is partly what led Lem to focus on science fiction and nonfiction for the rest of his career.
Memoirs of a Space Traveler
Further Reminiscences of Ijon Tichy
The travels of Ijon Tichy, a Gulliver of the space age, who encounters faulty time machines, intelligent washing machines, suicidal potatoes, and other puzzling phenomena.
Memoirs of a Space Traveler follows the adventures of Ijon Tichy, a Gulliver of the space age, who leads readers through strange experiments involving, among other puzzling phenomena, faulty time machines, intelligent washing machines, and suicidal potatoes. The scientists Tichy encounters make plans that are grandiose, and strike bargains that are Faustian. They pursue humanity's greatest and most ancient obsessions: immortality, artificial intelligence, and top-of-the-line consumer items.
By turns satirical, philosophical, and absurd, these stories express the most starkly original and prescient notions of a master of speculative fiction.
His Master's Voice
Scientists attempt to | |
Observer > 2013 > October > Brain Development and Neuroplasticity
Brain Development and Neuroplasticity
Andrew Merluzzi
APS 25th Annual Convention (2013)
APS Awards
Recent advances in neuroscience have effectively put an end to the "nature or nurture" debate. Instead, the focus of discussion has switched to mechanisms and brain-based interventions — in what ways are neural circuits changed by experience? When is the brain most receptive to education and learning? And what effects does high versus low socioeconomic status (SES) have on the development of neurocognition?
Perhaps no one is more intrigued or committed to answering these questions than 2013 APS William James Fellow Helen Neville, director of the Brain Development Lab at the University of Oregon. In her Award Address at the 25th APS Annual Convention in Washington, DC, Neville discussed how experience and genetics interact to influence neurocognitive development.
A vehement supporter of evidence-based policy, she began by stressing the importance of basic research in understanding how environmental influences can shape neural circuitry.
"Neuroplasticity is a double-edged sword," Neville observed, referring to how experience-dependent changes in the structure and function of the brain can confer benefits but may also leave systems vulnerable.
Presenting studies of people born blind or deaf, she explained the brain's ability to rewire circuits and alter cognition. By default, people who are born blind don't receive visual signals to the occipital cortex, the region of the brain normally responsible for organizing information from the eye. By combining the temporal resolution of event-related potentials (ERPs) with the spatial resolution of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), Neville and her colleagues revealed that the occipital lobes in a blind individual's brain are functionally "recycled" to organize auditory and tactile inputs. These changes help explain why blind individuals demonstrate more acute hearing to ambiguous sounds in the peripheral auditory field and more acute touch.
And Neville found analogous results in congenitally deaf individuals. For these people, visual and tactile nerves rewire to innervate the primary auditory cortex, conferring an increased ability to detect small changes in the peripheral visual field and also peripheral tactile inputs. Overall, results from these studies suggest that neuroplastic changes in response to experience can produce beneficial effects on cognition. For those who are unable to see, the brain becomes more adept at focusing attention to auditory and tactile stimuli. For those who cannot hear, on the other hand, the brain shifts resources and attention to detecting tactile and visual information.
Neville also studied attention in adults and children of high SES. These individuals are able to selectively focus attention and suppress distractions during a laboratory experiment involving competing auditory stimuli. Essentially, they can hear a particular stimulus more clearly by centering their cognitive resources on that specific target.
But as Neville pointed out, brain plasticity doesn't always bestow advantages. Just as attention is enhanceable in deaf and blind individuals and in high SES communities, it is also vulnerable in low SES environments. This important finding was a direct result of Neville's desire to obtain veridical and representative results — only possible by gathering larger and more diverse population samples.
"We stepped beyond the university community," Neville explained. "We studied neurologically normal, psychologically normal, right-handed, monolingual people — normal children living below the poverty line."
The findings were as Neville predicted: These children don't exhibit the same ability to use attention to enhance auditory stimuli. Because the necessary experiences aren't present throughout early development, many of these children are not able to suppress distractions as effectively, a phenomenon that appears to have great bearing on literacy, numeracy, and intelligence later on in life.
After attempting to use this evidence to revamp early childhood education, Neville was disappointed with the reaction from policymakers. As she described, many dismissed the differences drawn along socioeconomic status as fixed, forever tethered in the genes. For Neville, this tepid response was a major motivation to gather genetic data for subsequent studies. In doing so, she and her colleagues effectively ruled out the "nature" argument — genetic differences between high and low SES groups did not account for the differences in attention abilities.
Instead, she argues that disparities in the home environment, which is typically more stressful and less stimulating, and also in education — specifically with respect to attention — account for the significant disparities in language, literacy, and intelligence between high and low SES children. But, according to Neville, these disparities are not indissoluble. Given that the brain is able to restructure itself through experience, Neville has shown — and has the data to support it — that relatively simple and inexpensive training is effective at reducing discrepancies between high and low SES children (Neville et al 2013).
In conjunction with Head Start, a federally funded program that provides education, health, nutrition, and parent involvement services to low-income children and their families, Neville and her colleagues developed their own training program — one that is focused on teaching the importance of attention skills. Designed for three- to five-year-olds and their parents, this program entails eight, 40-minute training sessions where children play games designed to hone attentional skills. Meanwhile, parents are taught about parenting, the importance of attention, and how to play these games with their children.
After comparing this training with regular Head Start and another hybrid program, the results were clear. Not only did Neville's program garner the largest improvements in children's language ability, nonverbal IQ, social skills, and problematic behavior — it also restructured their brains. The initial auditory task measured with ERPs provided further evidence that the intervention program was a success.
"They have a beautiful attention effect, which is indistinguishable in microvolts from the effect that we see in higher SES kids," Neville explained.
And the kids weren't the only ones who benefited from this training. Parents demonstrated an increased ability to have productive conversations with their children, and also showed a significant reduction in stress levels after the eight-week program.
According to Neville, the evidence for action is clear: At a nominal price — it would increase Head Start's budget by only 10 percent — she predicts that this training would improve cognitive skills, self-esteem, graduation rates, employment, and potential for economic gains in the future. But in the face of such convincing evidence, Neville is disappointed with how resources are being allocated. Preschool education is vastly underfunded when compared with secondary or college education, even though a solid early education predicts numerous beneficial outcomes throughout life.
"For the sake of the economy and the sake of the children, let's take this evidence-based approach to reducing inequality," Neville said. "Our biggest job will be to convince the public and policymakers to demand evidence and to evaluate evidence."
For their part, Neville and her colleagues have produced a film for non-scientists called Changing Brains, highlighting the importance of early education and offering practical, empirically verified advice for parents and educators seeking to understand the developing brain. Neville closed her address with a tip of the hat to her team of researchers and the creators of Changing Brains (changingbrains.org).
"They're all very proud of what they do. Young people want to feel like they're making a difference, and they are. They're changing the world one family at a time."
Neville, H. J., Stevens, C., Pakulak, E., Bell, T. A., Fanning, J., Klein, S., & Isbella, E. (2013). Family-based training program improves brain function, cognition, and behavior in lower socioeconomic status preschoolers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 110, 12138–12143.
Niels Peter Rygaard December 2, 2013
Neville is in line with many orphanage studies: social-emotional relations quality is the single most important factor in child brain structural development. Which is why I created http://www.fairstartglobal.com (see info video at site). You can improve child development for deprived children considerably even when increased budgets or manpower in unavailable.
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New guide sets standards of care for critically ill newborns and their families
Provincewide team of health-care professionals and parents determine best practices for neonatal palliative care.
February 04, 2020 By Gillian Rutherford
Kevin and Kim George with sons Maxx (left) and Mason. Kevin was involved in developing new clinical guidelines aimed at helping health professionals support families with babies in palliative care. (Photo: Supplied)
When Kevin George's two-month old daughter, Maddie, was dying from a rare form of meningitis in 2012, staff helped the family find a room in the hospital where they could spend her last hours together in private.
That wasn't standard practice at the time, but it is now, thanks to a new Neonatal Palliative Care Guide for Neonatal Intensive Care Units from Alberta Health Services.
"We were afforded that privacy given our circumstance, but now it's going to be ingrained," said George. "The guide is structured to help the medical team focus on the needs of children and their families, to try and make the best of a really bad situation."
Nearly 60 doctors, nurses, chaplains, social workers and family members from across Alberta, including George, worked to create the guidelines by consensus, led by University of Alberta assistant clinical professor Kumar Kumaran and associate professor Michael van Manen, both neonatologists at the Stollery Children's Hospital. The guidelines were co-written by Kumaran and van Manen, along with the University of Calgary's Amelie Stritzke, a neonatologist at Foothills Medical Centre, and the U of C's Deborah Clark, a neonatologist at Rockyview General Hospital.
Kumaran estimated that up to 10 per cent of infants admitted to neonatal intensive care units each year might benefit from palliative care at some point during their stay. They may have been born very early, with genetic disorders, heart defects or other life-limiting issues.
The guide provides detailed practice standards and practical steps for medical staff to take while providing palliative care in a neonatal unit. It suggests techniques for having difficult conversations when establishing goals of care, including phrases to use or avoid, and questions to ask families about their values and wishes for their babies.
"Palliative care is not merely a process of providing comfort for babies who are dying," said Kumaran. "It is caring for newborns who are going through critical, life-threatening illness for which one outcome could be death."
"We must weigh all the options and determine what is the right goal-is it comfort-only care, is it curative care or is it comfort and curative care? They can go hand in hand," he said.
"At the same time, we need to support families across clinical, psychological and spiritual dimensions. We must talk about the possibility of death, while not taking hope away."
Establishing realistic goals of care
George shared his experiences with Maddie and with another daughter, Everly, who died just one day after her birth in 2015.
For Maddie, the goals of care changed over time. She was born healthy, then had surgery to remove a tumour. She got meningitis while recovering and had to be resuscitated. Then her condition worsened steadily.
"Our mental space and ability to deal with the evolving goals of care lagged sometimes," George said. "There were all these things happening at a crazy pace."
George and his wife knew that baby Everly would not live for long after birth, as she had been diagnosed in the womb with a heart problem and genetic problems. Their goal of care for Everly was to allow the family, which includes two healthy boys, to do some of the usual things that families do to celebrate a birth.
"We had a photographer on standby and my mom with our kids, to rush over quickly to do family pictures," George said. "The hospital staff were supportive and aware and very respectful of the situation."
George said above all he appreciated when medical staff were open and transparent about his children's conditions.
"You can't smoke-and-mirrors the reality of the situation-you have to be respectfully honest," said George, who is now a member of the Stollery Patient and Family Centred Care Council and serves on the board of the Stollery Children's Hospital Foundation.
"You cannot execute a palliative strategy if you don't have the ability to communicate what's going on."
Tough conversations
The guide acknowledges that discussing palliative care options can be hard for health-care professionals who are used to focusing on life-saving care, but emphasizes that it's imperative they share decision-making with parents and are sensitive to parents' cultural, religious and personal beliefs and needs.
"Palliative care is not giving up care-it is reframing the goals of care," Kumaran said. "As physicians and nurses, we come into medicine to help babies. Now we have to realize, while we may not be able to impact the length of life in some babies, we're clearly impacting the comfort they can live with in whatever length of life they may have. That's the reframing we must do."
Kumaran acknowledged that using the right language is essential. For example, rather than using terms such as "withholding" or "withdrawal" of treatment in end-of-life situations, the guide suggests health-care providers discuss protecting the infant from unhelpful or painful interventions.
The guide encourages health-care providers to ask about the family's values, hopes and fears. It suggests using phrases such as, "I'm sorry for your loss" and, "I don't know what to say, but I am here for you," rather than things like, "It's best this way" and, "You can have more children."
Health-care providers are encouraged to be honest about their own emotions, without making value judgments for or about the families.
Marcia Ergezinger, a neonatal nurse practitioner in Edmonton with more than 30 years of experience who was also part of the guideline team, said the guide will be helpful for trainee doctors and nurses, or any staff member who is uncomfortable approaching palliative conversations.
"It allows them to not be so scared to talk to parents about bereavement," Ergezinger said.
The guide includes instructions to support pharmacological and non-pharmacological methods of alleviating symptoms right before death, including doses for easy reference.
Taking memories home
Ergezinger said another concrete action the guide suggests is providing the family with a memory box as they leave the hospital, including a teddy bear or blanket the baby used, plaster moulds of the baby's hands and feet, a lock of hair, or hand and foot prints. Photographs of the baby should be taken and offered to the family, and stored in case they change their mind later.
"Never let the families leave empty-handed," Ergezinger said. "You're trying to create positive memories for them of a life that was shortened."
Ergezinger likened the guide to a recipe book that will be followed by staff across the province.
"You don't get a do-over," she said. "You want to make it the least traumatic that you can for the families.
"With this guide, parents can know they are getting consistent care that has been shown to be helpful to other families."
Kevin George is confident neonatal staff and other families will now benefit from his own family's difficult experiences.
"Even if you know absolutely nothing about anything medical or science isn't your thing, you still have the right to chime in on what's going on with your child, but not all parents necessarily feel comfortable doing that," George said.
"If this guide can alleviate anxiety or lack of understanding for people who are in the throes of it, that to me would be a win."
The guide was published and funded by the Maternal Newborn Child and Youth Strategic Clinical Network of Alberta Health Services. Initial funding for research into the attitudes of medical staff toward palliative care was supported by the U of A's Department of Pediatrics, and additional expertise in research methodology was provided by the | |
Sunlight streamed in the kitchen window as Shir idly flipped through a newspaper while sipping a cup of coffee. It was nearly midday, but the young socialite was still in her fluffy yellow bathrobe and picking at her breakfast. Usually, she had no interest in current events, but after the night she'd had, her day was off to a slow, lazy start.
Due to the slight throbbing in her head, Shir was barely even reading the headlines, but an especially large one caught her eye. JACE PATTERSON TO JOIN PIATA'S POLICE FORCE UNDER THE COMMAND OF HIS FATHER . She snorted at the mention of the cadet's name; as he was also from a wealthy family, her parents had encouraged her to date him, but she had found him to be an absolute bore. She could only pretend to be interested in his stories about hunting with his father for so long and she usually wound up making excuses to cut their dates short.
Twirling a lock of short green hair around her finger, Shir skimmed through the first few paragraphs of the article. Unfortunately, not even the most talented reporter could make Jace sound interesting. Shir spotted some pictures at the bottom and opted to skip over the rest of the text.
The portrait of Jace standing proudly with his parents made her yawn. An old school picture of him almost caused her to completely lose interest and turn the page, but then she saw the third photograph. It was a close-up shot of an ornate dagger, the hilt of which was covered in sparkling gemstones. According to the caption, it had belonged to Jace's grandfather.
Shir turned her attention back to the article, now yawning slightly less. In a week's time, on the evening of Jace's induction ceremony, the Pattersons were hosting a cocktail party in the garden of their large manor. The most affluent families in Piata would gather to celebrate and during the affair, Sergeant Patterson would present his son with the valuable heirloom. Shir knew that she and her parents would be invited; normally, she'd dread being dragged along to what would inevitably be a dull event, but the sight of the bejeweled weapon had caused a familiar tingling sensation in her fingers.
The pretty heiress couldn't remember when she had first started stealing things. At first, it had just been monomates and dimates from the small tool shop in town, usually on a dare from friends. It hadn't taken long before she graduated to taking larger and more expensive items. Her parents would have bought her anything she wanted, but shoplifting from the stores provided her with some excitement and gave her something to do during the day as she waited to partake in Piata's nightlife.
Eventually, however, stealing from the stores began to lose its appeal. After some practice, Shir didn't find it very difficult to distract a clerk and make off with some merchandise. As she traveled around with her parents making social calls, she would frequently find herself itching to steal something, to see if she could get away with taking little trinkets from the homes of her parents' friends. Others may have worried about such an affliction, but Shir didn't care that she was almost physically driven to steal things. Besides, so far, she had never been caught.
The beautiful dagger called to her from the pages of the newspaper. She had never attempted to steal something so valuable, with so many people present. Could she get away with it?
As expected, the Gold family's invitation to the garden party soon appeared in the mailbox. If Shir's parents noticed that she was actually excited to be attending, rather than plotting to get out of it, they said nothing. Shir herself couldn't remember the last time she had actually wanted to go to one of these events.
The day of the banquet arrived and Shir spent most of it getting ready in her bedroom. She didn't think she had to worry too much about capturing Jace's attention, but she wanted to be sure he'd notice her as soon as she walked in. Her makeup expertly applied, hair elaborately pinned atop her head, it was now time to choose what to wear.
Shir finally emerged from her room wearing a silver, skin-tight, backless mini-dress. She'd chosen a silver clutch purse and silver stiletto sandals to complete the ensemble. Her father looked her over from head to toe and summed up his opinion in a single word: No.
After rifling through her massive closet and changing into something new, she reappeared in a bright pink knee-length satin dress with thin straps. As she refused to blend into the crowd, the neckline of the dress scooped dangerously low and the skirt was slit up to mid-thigh on one side. She'd opted to keep the same accessories.
Her father raised an eyebrow, but her mother knew when to choose her battles. Let's go, she sighed. I don't want to be late.
The usual crowd of Mota's wealthiest citizens was present at the Pattersons' expansive garden. Shir kissed the cheeks of her parents' closest acquaintances and waved to others from afar as she looked around. Thousands of tiny white lights were strung up around the grounds, casting a pleasant glow. A string quartet sat atop a small platform at one end of the designated space, while a well-equipped bar and several waiters stood at the opposite end. Tables of various sizes and heights were scattered throughout the grass.
Shir waited with her parents to be presented to the hosts and the guest of honor. As they approached the family, she smugly noted that Jace's eyes seemed to bug out of his head just slightly as he saw her standing in the line. Maybe pink really was her color.
As they approached the Patterson family, even Shir had to admit that Jace didn't look too bad that night. His new uniform flattered his tall, muscular frame, and his jet-black hair was now cropped close to his head. When she was finally standing in front of him, he took her hand in his and brought it up to his lips. Normally, she would have scoffed at the old-fashioned gesture, but this time, she gave his hand a little squeeze and winked at him before moving on.
Shir mingled with the crowd, never approaching Jace directly, but she made sure he caught her looking at him several times. Approximately an hour after all the guests had arrived, Sergeant Patterson pulled his son into the center of the garden and commanded everyone's attention. Shir couldn't be bothered to listen to him speak, but she slithered through the crowd until she was standing right at the front.
At the conclusion of his speech, the decorated officer presented his son with the exquisite dagger. As the rest of the guests applauded, Shir casually dropped her purse in front of her. Her hand flew up to her lips as she pretended to look embarrassed and, moving slowly, she bent down to pick it up. Lingering in her crouched position, she peeked up through her wispy green bangs and saw that her little ploy had worked, as Jace was staring directly down the front of her dress. This is going to be too easy, she thought.
The crowd dispersed and Shir decided to wait just a little longer before attacking her prey. When she saw a trio of girls, barely old enough to be out of school, giggling foolishly around the uniformed man, she made her move. Throwing her shoulders back and lifting her chin just slightly, she confidently strode over to where they were standing.
Excuse me, she said with a fake smile as she inserted herself between him and the other | |
not allow preemption during this call,
// or else the m might be different in this function than in the caller.
//go:nosplit
func dolockOSThread() {
_g_ := getg()
_g_.m.lockedg = _g_
_g_.lockedm = _g_.m
}
//go:nosplit
// LockOSThread wires the calling goroutine to its current operating system thread.
// Until the calling goroutine exits or calls UnlockOSThread, it will always
// execute in that thread, and no other goroutine can.
func LockOSThread() {
getg().m.locked |= _LockExternal
dolockOSThread()
}
//go:nosplit
func lockOSThread() {
getg().m.locked += _LockInternal
dolockOSThread()
}
// dounlockOSThread is called by UnlockOSThread and unlockOSThread below
// after they update m->locked. Do not allow preemption during this call,
// or else the m might be in different in this function than in the caller.
//go:nosplit
func dounlockOSThread() {
_g_ := getg()
if _g_.m.locked != 0 {
return
}
_g_.m.lockedg = nil
_g_.lockedm = nil
}
//go:nosplit
// UnlockOSThread unwires the calling goroutine from its fixed operating system thread.
// If the calling goroutine has not called LockOSThread, UnlockOSThread is a no-op.
func UnlockOSThread() {
getg().m.locked &^= _LockExternal
dounlockOSThread()
}
//go:nosplit
func unlockOSThread() {
_g_ := getg()
if _g_.m.locked < _LockInternal {
systemstack(badunlockosthread)
}
_g_.m.locked -= _LockInternal
dounlockOSThread()
}
func badunlockosthread() {
throw("runtime: internal error: misuse of lockOSThread/unlockOSThread")
}
func gcount() int32 {
n := int32(allglen) - sched.ngfree
for i := 0; ; i++ {
_p_ := allp[i]
if _p_ == nil {
break
}
n -= _p_.gfreecnt
}
// All these variables can be changed concurrently, so the result can be inconsistent.
// But at least the current goroutine is running.
if n < 1 {
n = 1
}
return n
}
func mcount() int32 {
return sched.mcount
}
var prof struct {
lock uint32
hz int32
}
func _System() { _System() }
func _ExternalCode() { _ExternalCode() }
func _GC() { _GC() }
var etext struct{}
// Called if we receive a SIGPROF signal.
func sigprof(pc *uint8, sp *uint8, lr *uint8, gp *g, mp *m) {
var n int32
var traceback bool
var stk [100]uintptr
if prof.hz == 0 {
return
}
// Profiling runs concurrently with GC, so it must not allocate.
mp.mallocing++
// Define that a "user g" is a user-created goroutine, and a "system g"
// is one that is m->g0 or m->gsignal. We've only made sure that we
// can unwind user g's, so exclude the system g's.
//
// It is not quite as easy as testing gp == m->curg (the current user g)
// because we might be interrupted for profiling halfway through a
// goroutine switch. The switch involves updating three (or four) values:
// g, PC, SP, and (on arm) LR. The PC must be the last to be updated,
// because once it gets updated the new g is running.
//
// When switching from a user g to a system g, LR is not considered live,
// so the update only affects g, SP, and PC. Since PC must be last, there
// the possible partial transitions in ordinary execution are (1) g alone is updated,
// (2) both g and SP are updated, and (3) SP alone is updated.
// If g is updated, we'll see a system g and not look closer.
// If SP alone is updated, we can detect the partial transition by checking
// whether the SP is within g's stack bounds. (We could also require that SP
// be changed only after g, but the stack bounds check is needed by other
// cases, so there is no need to impose an additional requirement.)
//
// There is one exceptional transition to a system g, not in ordinary execution.
// When a signal arrives, the operating system starts the signal handler running
// with an updated PC and SP. The g is updated last, at the beginning of the
// handler. There are two reasons this is okay. First, until g is updated the
// g and SP do not match, so the stack bounds check detects the partial transition.
// Second, signal handlers currently run with signals disabled, so a profiling
// signal cannot arrive during the handler.
//
// When switching from a system g to a user g, there are three possibilities.
//
// First, it may be that the g switch has no PC update, because the SP
// either corresponds to a user g throughout (as in asmcgocall)
// or because it has been arranged to look like a user g frame
// (as in cgocallback_gofunc). In this case, since the entire
// transition is a g+SP update, a partial transition updating just one of
// those will be detected by the stack bounds check.
//
// Second, when returning from a signal handler, the PC and SP updates
// are performed by the operating system in an atomic update, so the g
// update must be done before them. The stack bounds check detects
// the partial transition here, and (again) signal handlers run with signals
// disabled, so a profiling signal cannot arrive then anyway.
//
// Third, the common case: it may be that the switch updates g, SP, and PC
// separately, as in gogo.
//
// Because gogo is the only instance, we check whether the PC lies
// within that function, and if so, not ask for a traceback. This approach
// requires knowing the size of the gogo function, which we
// record in arch_*.h and check in runtime_test.go.
//
// There is another apparently viable approach, recorded here in case
// the "PC within gogo" check turns out not to be usable.
// It would be possible to delay the update of either g or SP until immediately
// before the PC update instruction. Then, because of the stack bounds check,
// the only problematic interrupt point is just before that PC update instruction,
// and the sigprof handler can detect that instruction and simulate stepping past
// it in order to reach a consistent state. On ARM, the update of g must be made
// in two places (in R10 and also in a TLS slot), so the delayed update would
// need to be the SP update. The sigprof handler must read the instruction at
// the current PC and if it was the known instruction (for example, JMP BX or
// MOV R2, PC), use that other register in place of the PC value.
// The biggest drawback to this solution is that it requires that we can tell
// whether it's safe to read from the memory pointed at by PC.
// In a correct program, we can test PC == nil and otherwise read,
// but if a profiling signal happens at the instant that a program executes
// a bad jump (before the program manages to handle the resulting fault)
// the profiling handler could fault trying to read nonexistent memory.
//
// To recap, there are no constraints on the assembly being used for the
// transition. We simply require that g and SP match and that the PC is not
// in gogo.
traceback = true
usp := uintptr(unsafe.Pointer(sp))
gogo := funcPC(gogo)
if gp == nil || gp != mp.curg ||
usp < gp.stack.lo || gp.stack.hi < usp ||
(gogo <= uintptr(unsafe.Pointer(pc)) && uintptr(unsafe.Pointer(pc)) < gogo+_RuntimeGogoBytes) {
traceback = false
}
n = 0
if traceback {
n = int32(gentraceback(uintptr(unsafe.Pointer(pc)), uintptr(unsafe.Pointer(sp)), uintptr(unsafe.Pointer(lr)), gp, 0, &stk[0], len(stk), nil, nil, _TraceTrap))
}
if !traceback || n <= 0 {
// Normal traceback is impossible or has failed.
// See if it falls into several common cases.
n = 0
if mp.ncgo > 0 && mp.curg != nil && mp.curg.syscallpc != 0 && mp.curg.syscallsp != 0 {
// Cgo, we can't unwind and symbolize arbitrary C code,
// so instead collect Go stack that leads to the cgo call.
// This is especially important on windows, since all syscalls are cgo calls.
n = int32(gentraceback(mp.curg.syscallpc, mp.curg.syscallsp, 0, mp.curg, 0, &stk[0], len(stk), nil, nil, 0))
}
if GOOS == "windows" && n == 0 && mp.libcallg != nil && mp.libcallpc != 0 && mp.libcallsp != 0 {
// Libcall, i.e. runtime syscall on windows.
// Collect Go stack that leads to the call.
n = int32(gentraceback(mp.libcallpc, mp.libcallsp, 0, mp.libcallg, 0, &stk[0], len(stk), nil, nil, 0))
}
if n == 0 {
// If all of the above has failed, account it against abstract "System" or "GC".
n = 2
// "ExternalCode" is better than "etext".
if uintptr(unsafe.Pointer(pc)) > uintptr(unsafe.Pointer(&etext)) {
pc = (*uint8)(unsafe.Pointer(uintptr(funcPC(_ExternalCode) + _PCQuantum)))
}
stk[0] = uintptr(unsafe.Pointer(pc))
if mp.gcing != 0 || mp.helpgc != 0 {
stk[1] = funcPC(_GC) + _PCQuantum
} else {
stk[1] = funcPC(_System) + _PCQuantum
}
}
}
if prof.hz != 0 {
// Simple cas-lock to coordinate with setcpuprofilerate.
for !cas(&prof.lock, 0, 1) {
osyield()
}
if prof.hz != 0 {
cpuproftick(&stk[0], n)
}
atomicstore(&prof.lock, 0)
}
mp.mallocing--
}
// Arrange to call fn with a traceback hz times a second.
func setcpuprofilerate_m(hz int32) {
// | |
How could Janeway have used Holodecks as a child when they were new to Picard?
How could Janeway use Holodecks as a child when Picard and the rest of the Enterprise-D crew make it clear in TNG: Encounter at Farpoint that holo-technology is very new? For many of them it's the first time they have interacted with it and most of them are excited to use it. Data even demonstrates how it works in the confinement of the room by throwing a rock at the closest wall, which pixelates. He wouldn't do that if everyone was familiar with it.
12 years later, in VOY: Once Upon a Time with Naomi Wildman, Janeway relates a story where she flooded the whole forest while running the same program that Naomi now enjoys (Flotter and Trevis). Now, Janeway's exact age is hard to pin down but she must have been an adult 20 years before the start of the Enterprise-D's mission.
So how can she have used Holodecks as a child when it was brand new technology over 20 years later?
I already know the out-of-universe reason; it was ret-conned. What's the in-universe reason?
star-trek star-trek-tng star-trek-voyager timeline holodeck
CJ DennisCJ Dennis
"Janeway's exact age is hard to pin down" — quite right! A lady never tells! Having read your question, in my head-canon, holodecks were new to starships at the start of TNG, having been extensively tested with civilians to ensure that they couldn't do anything that would harm starships, like accidentally creating strong AI. Was Janeway's story about a ship-based holodeck? – Paul D. Waite Feb 10 '16 at 9:08
@PaulD.Waite That's kind of like saying "The Enterprise-D is the first starship to have... wait for it... the internet! Wow!" and then Data having to explain how the internet works. I don't see how the technology would be so different just because it's on a starship that it would have to be explained to them if they've been familiar with it for over 20 years. More like "Finally! I can't believe we didn't have this on starships ten years ago!" About Moriarty, if they'd thought about it in advance and put safeguards in place, how did it end up happening anyway? – CJ Dennis Feb 10 '16 at 9:18
@CJDennis: well, maybe. It's a big galaxy out there, and holodecks might just not be widespread. Plus if the Enterprise is the first time they're deployed in Starfleet, the people we see in the show, who live and work in Starfleet, might not yet have seen them. And to your specific example of the internet, for most of the 90s in England it was an everyday, taken-for-granted, well-understood thing for people who used it, and an utterly confusing mystery for people who hadn't. The future was here, but not evenly distributed. – Paul D. Waite Feb 10 '16 at 12:02
holodeck technology may be new to the enterprise and the crew, but that doesn't necessarily mean its new to earth, or new to the federation. This tech was first encountered in "Enterprise" some 100 is years earlier. Risa, uses holosuite tech, as well as the ferangi with no discernible time table to when the tech was common, so Janeway could have had access to holodeck type apparatus far before it became the standard for federation ships. – Himarm Feb 10 '16 at 13:07
I dunno, these seem to be an awful lot of convoluted explanations, but I remember The crew's astonishment the first time they saw the holodeck and had its function explained. – Broklynite Feb 10 '16 at 21:46
In "Enterprise" we encounter holodeck technology some 200 years before the Enterprise D, and other federation ships come equip with it as a standard. It is not a new technology, simply new for Federation ships.
Enterprise episode Unexpected is the first encounter of holographic technology in 2151.
We see many races employ this kind of tech, the Ferangi for one have holo-suite tech, as well as the pleasure planet Risa, which is a favorite spot for vacations by humans.
It is not unreasonable that Janeway visited a planet side holo-deck apparatus prior to the introduction of this tech into federation ships. From what we learn in Voyager Holodecks are fairly integrated into ships systems, it could have been a massive undertaking to implement this tech into a starship.
HimarmHimarm
I think that's a good example. Trip Tucker and Will Riker have very similar on-screen reactions. It's clear that they have never personally interacted with holograms before. – CJ Dennis Feb 10 '16 at 21:00
we also know that they have some form of hologram tech in TOS, though nothing like the holodeck – Himarm Feb 10 '16 at 21:01
I think Riker's reaction suggests it's not only new for Federation ships, but for Federation worlds in general, or at least the ones Riker would have been likely to take shore leave on once in a while (like Earth). As I said in a comment on Memory Alpha Librarian's answer, the Holodeck Trip saw on that Enterprise episode belonged to an alien civilization, there's no evidence they shared the technology with the Federation. – Hypnosifl Feb 10 '16 at 22:49
@Hypnosifl though we know the klingons at least have had this tech for 200 years, since they got the tech in this episode. – Himarm Feb 10 '16 at 22:53
@Himarm - The Klingons got some actual holodecks, not the technical specifications, so we don't know for sure if they reverse-engineered them to be able to produce their own. Maybe the Klingon captain would have just considered them a status symbol that depended on their uniqueness in the Klingon fleet, or maybe they would have tried to reverse-engineer them but found the technology too advanced. – Hypnosifl Feb 10 '16 at 23:11
The episode you're talking about is "Once Upon a Time"--from the transcript here:
JANEWAY: Just checking on my future Captain's Assistant.
NEELIX: Right now, she's off to conquer a giant beetle.
JANEWAY: Oh, sounds like a dangerous mission.
NEELIX: She can handle it.
JANEWAY: She's a courageous girl. Did I ever tell you about the time I flooded this entire forest? I was six years old. Flotter claimed we were in for a dry spell so I came up with the obvious solution. Why not just divert the river? This entire forest was a swamp by the time we were done. At which point, Stinger was born.
NEELIX: Stinger?
JANEWAY: The biggest mosquito.
Although the writers probably did intend to suggest Janeway had been playing the game on a holodeck at six years old (I'm guessing they just forgot about holodecks being portrayed as new at the start of TNG), this isn't stated explicitly, so if we want to reconcile it with the apparent novelty of holodecks in "Encounter at Farpoint", we could imagine the game had simply been ported over to Holodecks from some earlier, less advanced form of interactive game technology. It could have been played on a tabletop holographic projector like the one seen in this shot from "Loud as a Whisper":
Or for a more immersive option, in the Voyager episode "Equinox, Part II" the captain of another lost Federation ship was seen using a technology called a synaptic stimulator that seems like it was feeding sensory information directly into the nervous system, you can see it starting at 0:33 in this clip:
However, the synaptic stimulator article seems to indicate that everyone on Voyager who was seen using one had acquired the technology in the Delta Quadrant, and in Equinox Chakotay seemed unfamiliar with them, so maybe this isn't likely...from the transcript:
GILMORE: Could you use a synaptic stimulator?
CHAKOTAY: Depends. What is it?
GILMORE: It's a neural interface you wear behind your ear. It taps into your visual cortex and shows you different alien vistas. Just think of it as | |
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I want to consider the Typhoon—the Eurofighter. The first tranche is due now—I believe that there are 55 aircraft, but I stand to be corrected if that is not the case. However, they were procured during the cold war
22 Jun 2006 : Column 1559
and they are air-to-air combat aircraft. I do not know with how many nations we shall have dogfights. Again, the technology has moved on, as has the enemy. We need to be ready for any scenario—for any development or future threat—but to devise an aircraft that has only air-to-air capability limits our ability to defend our nation.
The Typhoon has great missile capability: ASRAAM and AMRAAM are medium-range and short-range missiles but, again, they are air-to-air. We need them, especially to deal with threats such as 9/11, but we also need the capability to support our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, where there is a ground threat. We therefore need to be able to take out ground targets.
The armoury of the missiles in our portfolio is not compatible with all our aircraft. Storm Shadow, Maverick, Brimstone and Paveway are our ground attack missiles, but none of them can be used on the Eurofighter. I wrote to the Secretary of State to ask what air-to-ground missile system the Eurofighter would employ. The reply was:
"Integration of air to ground missile systems onto RAF Typhoon, including the Storm Shadow cruise missile and the Brimstone air-launched anti-armour weapon, is being considered as part of the Typhoon Future Capability Programme."—[ Official Report, 17 May 2006; Vol. 446, c. 954W.]
That is not good enough. We simply cannot spend millions of pounds on 230 aircraft that are unable to share the array of missiles that we need because the technology and the way in which we conduct warfare have changed. Our Jaguars are disappearing, our Harriers are being sold off and our Tornadoes are coming to the end of their shelf life, but there is no sign of the joint strike fighter coming on line. Our ground attack capability is therefore questionable, yet that is the very capability that we need in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Afghanistan has been the focus of many hon. Members' contributions today. I had the honour to visit Afghanistan last week, and it was quite an eye-opening experience. The openness of the country was the first thing that struck me. Of course, there is a handful of major cities, but beyond them much of the mountain and desert terrain is inhospitable. Every so often, there is a river basin—such as that of the Helmand river—that is heavily concentrated with villages and towns. Such places are widely spread apart. A tiny village in Helmand province, for example, is extremely remote from what is happening in Kandahar or Kabul. That means that the people there do not hear the advice, the directions or the words of support that are coming from the Afghan Government. They are very much looking after themselves. These villages consist of tribal communities, and their loyalties are to the families and to the tribes of which they are part, rather than to the country of Afghanistan as a whole. Indeed, the word "country" should perhaps be used advisedly in that location. It is clear that, in that atmosphere, the Taliban and al-Qaeda are able to dominate and to work almost without feeling a threat from the NATO or ISAF forces.
While I was in Afghanistan, I had the opportunity to visit the ISAF headquarters and see the co-ordination between the Department for International Development and other international organisations. I am pleased to
say that our operations are working very closely together. There is no doubt about that. However, we are now spending about £45 million a year from the DFID budget and about £50 million from the military budget. Where is the accountability? Where is the co-ordination? I called for more than just one Minister to come to the debate today to explain what is happening in that regard.
I also had the opportunity to meet General Jones, the NATO commander, and Sir David Richards, the general in charge of ISAF. Both expressed concern that mission creep was taking place in Afghanistan. On page 25 of its report, the Defence Committee states:
"We remain uncertain of the exact role which UK forces will be asked to play in support of the counter-narcotics strategy and call on MoD to provide clarification."
That call has been echoed by other hon. Members today, and I hope that the Minister will be able to clarify where the line is to be drawn and what our involvement with that strategy will be. Will he explain how the division of labour is to be determined and who will take responsibility for these matters? If we do not solve these problems now, the move from stage 3, which involves taking over three quarters of NATO's responsibilities, will be threatened when we move into the final stage to take over all responsibility for co-ordination in Afghanistan.
Caveats have been mentioned, in which the Governments of countries providing NATO troops say that their troops cannot go into combat, for example. Too many countries are doing that and, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) said, many countries are limiting themselves simply to providing troops in non-combat roles. That is not good enough if we want Afghanistan to work as a nation.
I was impressed by what ISAF is doing. Unfortunately, the footprint that it is creating is extremely limited. It cannot cover the entire country. We have spent a lot of time focusing on Helmand, but it is only one of 30 provinces. The neighbouring province of Nimroz does not contain one international soldier. Where does a member of the Taliban go if things start to get hot in one province? Obviously, he moves next door to the other. Unless there is a larger commitment on the part of other NATO countries, we shall not be able to fulfil our mission.
The mission is likely to come under more question—not because of what we are doing with NATO but because of what is being done under the umbrella of security that we are creating in the reconstruction and development programmes. As I told the Minister during our debate in Westminster Hall yesterday or the day before, there is clearly no co-ordination between the myriad international organisations—the United Nations, the European Union, the non-governmental organisations, and all the counter-narcotics agencies that have gone into Afghanistan. Their hearts are in the right place, but unfortunately the money is being spent as those agencies compete with their overlapping projects, and the lack of co-ordination means that a great deal of money is wasted. Although more than $400 million has been spent on challenging the narcotics trade, last year saw the biggest bumper crop ever: 400,000 tonnes of poppies were produced. That shows that our international effort is failing, and unless
we do something about it our mission in Afghanistan will be brought into question.
Our debate has been far reaching and useful, but there are many questions that I should like the Minister to answer. We have not really talked about the Sea Harriers, and the gap that will be created in air cover. We have not talked about the F-35 and the limitations imposed by the United States Government—or, to be fair, a corner of Capitol Hill—on the repair and upgrade of that project, which threatens our purchase of the joint strike fighter in the long term. We have not really touched on what will happen to the aircraft carriers, although there seems to be delay after delay with the announcements. We have not discussed the future rapid effect system. We have not even discussed the A400M, | |
Сант-Аполлина́ре-ин-Кла́ссе () — базилика в районе Классе (бывший порт Классис) Равенны (Италия), памятник ранневизантийского искусства. Построена во второй четверти VI века над могилой первого равеннского епископа святого Аполлинария (отсюда название). Храм украшен мозаиками юстиниановского периода (то есть самыми поздними из равеннских мозаик), сохранившимися в конхе апсиды. В 1996 году базилика в составе раннехристианских памятников Равенны была включена в число объектов Всемирного наследия.
История базилики
Базилика была заложена епископом Урсицином во второй четверти VI века на месте захоронения св. Аполлинария. Строительство велось на средства греческого ростовщика Юлиана Аргентария (который финансировал также строительство других храмов Равенны — базилики Сан-Витале и ). Церковь была освящена 9 мая 549 года епископом Максимианом. Главной реликвией церкви являются мощи святого Аполлинария, обнаруженные в ходе строительства. В 856 году из-за угроз вражеских набегов их перенесли внутрь городских стен в базилику Сант-Аполлинаре-Нуово. В 1748 году мощи вернулись в базилику, их поместили в главном алтаре храма, а не в крипте где они изначально находились.
В течение VI—IX веков было создано мозаичное убранство базилики. В X веке к ней были пристроены придел, нартекс и ротонда-колокольня. После разграбления Равенны венецианцами в 1449 году первоначальные мозаики сохранились только в апсиде.
В марте 1001 года в монастыре, находившемся при базилике, провёл Великий пост император Оттон III. Для императора, изгнанного из Рима и глубоко переживавшего крушение своего замысла о восстановлении прежней Римской империи, Великий пост, проведённый в Сант-Аполлинаре-ин-Классе, стал временем духовного перелома. Наставником императора стал отшельник Ромуальд Равеннский, убеждавший императора уйти из мира в монастырь (сохранились его пророческие слова: «Если пойдёшь на Рим, то не увидишь более Равенны»), и Оттон III всерьёз стал раздумывать об этом. Затем, под влиянием своих советников, Оттон III вернулся к политической жизни и стал готовить поход на Рим, но умер уже в следующем 1002 году. В левом нефе базилики можно видеть мемориальную доску, напоминающую об этих событиях.
Архитектурные особенности
Построена из тонкого обожжённого кирпича (48 х 4 см.), скреплённого раствором, белые полосы которого достигают в толщину 4-х см. Фасад декорирован лангобардской аркатурой: между плоскими пилястрами расположены небольшие двойные арки. Свет в здание проникает через высокие полукруглые окна фасада и многочисленные окна центрального и боковых нефов. Центральный неф завершает пятигранная апсида с пятью окнами, снаружи к ней примыкают прямоугольные пастофории (вспомогательные богослужебные помещения). Апсида приподнята над уровнем пола центрального нефа, к ней ведёт широкая лестница, построенная в 1723 году (отреставрирована в 1909 году).
Размеры базилики составляют 55,58 на 30,3 метра. Внутренне пространство разделено на три нефа. Центральный неф обрамляет колоннада из 12 колонн в каждом ряду. Они установлены на квадратные базы и увенчаны композитными капителями византийской работы с развевающимися ажурными листьями в форме бабочек. Серый мрамор с белыми прожилками для колонн был привезён из каменоломен горного массива Гиметт (Греция) или острова Проконнессос (Мраморное море). Все колонны сходны и по исходному материалу, и по стилю обработки, что позволяет предположить, что они были заказаны для украшения именно данной базилики, а не изъяты из других, более ранних строений. Колоннада поддерживает аркаду над которой в медальонах в хронологическом порядке помещены фресковые изображения равеннских епископов, сделанные в XVIII веке. Нижний уровень стен базилики был изначально облицован мрамором, который был снят в XV веке по указанию Сиджизмондо Малатеста и использован при строительстве кафедрального собора в Римини. На полу базилики, в её северо-восточном и юго-западном углах, сохранились фрагменты оригинального наборного мозаичного пола. Мозаика в юго-западном углу сохранила имена заказчиков данной работы: Гауденции и Феликса.
К базилике пристроена цилиндрическая колокольня высотой 37,5 метров и диаметром 6,17 метров. Она является типичной равеннской кампанилой: оконные проёмы имеют прогрессию створок — от одной до трёх.
Внутреннее убранство
Базилика украшена самыми поздними из равеннских мозаик юстиниановского периода (середина VI века), сохранившимися в её апсиде (534—549). Прочие мозаики были созданы во второй половине VII и IX веках. Академик В. Н. Лазарев отмечает:
Мастера, работавшие в Сант Аполлинаре ин Классе, близки тем мастерам, которые исполнили мозаики пресбитерия в Сан Витале. И у них мы наблюдаем тягу к упрощенным формам и к излишне ярким цветовым сочетаниям. Этому сопутствует снижение качества рисунка и вялая трактовка карнации, в которой заметно уменьшается количество тональных оттенков.
Как отмечают исследователи, мозаики Сант-Аполлинаре-ин-Классе отражают появившуюся в послеюстиниановскую эпоху тенденцию фронтального изображения фигур при которой происходит отказ от передачи каких-либо движений и поворотов. Мозаики Сант-Аполлинаре-ин-Классе, как и базилики Сан-Витале не представляют события священной истории в их исторической последовательности, они имеют своей целью иллюстрацию догматического учения церкви, раскрываемого через символизм Священного Писания. Несмотря на использование в мозаиках цветного стекла, смальты, золота и полудрагоценных камней, для лиц и светлых одежд использован мрамор, что привело к появлению более плоских форм. Это особенно заметно в мозаиках с изображением равеннских епископов между окнами апсиды.
Искусствовед Павел Муратов в 1911 году писал о базилике:
Эта церковь во многом напоминает базилику Сан Аполлинаре Нуово. В ней также имеются мозаики, но только не на стенах главного нефа, а в алтарной апсиде. Эти мозаики исполнены позднее, чем все в Равенне, и здесь это искусство не стоит на такой высоте, как в Мавзолее Галлы Плацидии или даже в Сан Витале. Кроме того, здешних мозаик сильно коснулась реставрация, сделавшая сомнительными многие их части.
В центральном нефе базилики на возвышении расположен большой алтарь, посвященный Деве Марии, он был создан в XI веке с использованием материалов алтаря VI века. На стороне данного алтаря, обращённой к пресбитерию, указано, что на этом месте святой Ромуальд Равеннский удостоился двух видений Богородицы (сведения об этом почерпнуты у Петра Дамиани). Перед этим же алтарём находится мемориальная плита XVIII века, сообщающая без каких-либо исторических подробностей, что мощи святого Аполлинария были обнаружены именно на этом месте. На стене правого нефа имеется мемориальная доска в память о посещении базилики папой Иоанном Павлом II 11 мая 1986 года.
Мозаики апсиды
Конха
В конхе апсиды помещена мозаика с необычной для византийского искусства сценой Преображения Господня. В ней Иисус Христос аллегорически олицетворён крестом, украшенным драгоценными камнями, и заключённым в тёмно-синюю мандорлу, усыпанную золотыми шестиконечными звёздами. Лишь в пересечении ветвей креста помещён небольшой медальон с образом Христа. Над крестом помещён акроним ΙΧΘΥC, по сторонам поперечной ветви креста греческие буквы Α и Ω, а у подножья креста латинская надпись SALUS MUNDI — «Спаситель мира».
Присутствовавшие, согласно евангельскому описанию, при этом событии апостолы Пётр, Иоанн и Иаков изображены в образе агнцев, предстоящих кресту (Пётр символически представлен одной овцой слева от креста (если смотреть от входа), братья Зеведеевы — двумя овцами справа от креста). Выше в облаках помещена благословляющая десница Бога Отца и полуфигуры пророков Моисея и Илии, протягивающих свои руки к кресту.
Сцена Преображения помещена в центре райского сада, полного деревьев и цветов. В его центре помещена фигура святого Аполлинария в позе оранта с воздетыми к небу руками. По сторонам от фигуры святого находятся 12 белоснежных овец (по шесть с каждой стороны от фигуры святого), отделённых друг от друга кустами белых лилий. Ряд исследователей считают овец символическим изображением двенадцати апостолов, а другие — образом паствы Аполлинария, бывшего епископом Равенны.
Академик В. Н. Лазарев отмечает, что данная композиция символически намекает на вечную жизнь священномученика Аполлинарий, чей образ под крестом должен показать, что триумф Аполлинария перекликается с триумфом самого Христа. Источником подобной композиции он считает палестинские мартирии.
Стены
Между окнами апсиды помещены мозаичные портреты епископов Равенны, бывших преемниками святого Аполлинария: Экклесия, Севера, Урсуса и Урсицина. Они изображены в одинаковых одеждах, держащими в руках Евангелие. Каждая фигура помещена в небольшую арку с белоснежными занавесями. На боковых стенах помещены две крупные мозаики:
Ветхозаветные жертвоприношения
Изображены три сюжета из библейской истории: «Жертвоприношение Авраама», «Жертвоприношение Авеля» и «Жертвоприношение Мельхиседека», которые являются символическим намёком на крестную смерть Христа. Все персонажи помещены вокруг одного алтаря к которому они принесли свои жертвы, из облаков видна благословляющая десница Бога. Объединение трёх жертвоприношений в одной сцене иллюстрирует молитву евхаристического канона римской литургии:
Supra quae propitio ac sereno vultu respicere digneris: et accepta habere, sicuti accepta habere dignatus es munera pueri tui iusti Abel, et sacrificium Patriarcha nostri Abrahae: et quod tibi obtulit summus sacerdos tuus Melchisedech, sanctum sacrificium, immaculatam hostiam.
Вся композиция окружена триумфальной аркой, увенчанной двумя орлами, на заднем плане помещена полураскрытая порфировая занавесь.
Дарование привилегий равеннской церкви
Император Константин IV в окружении вельмож и священнослужителей вручает диакону равеннской церкви Репарату, представляемому ему | |
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Thanks to you...
As 2020 comes to an end, we look back at the ways you've supported children and young people through an unimaginable year.
Girls rights
uk girls rights
Rose Caldwell
Rose Caldwell is the Chief Executive Officer at Plan International UK
2020 has changed all our lives. Looking back, it's hard to reconcile the world we were living in before March to the one we find ourselves in now. The challenges have been immense – but throughout it all, our amazing supporters have been behind us every step of the way.
Whether you've made a donation, supported a campaign, joined our (virtual) events team, been part of our sponsor community or worked with us as a partner: thank you.
Over the last 12 months, you've shown your unwavering commitment to children and young people and continued to stand with girls globally as they fight for equal rights, despite even greater obstacles caused by the pandemic.
To say thank you, I have this video message to share with you:
We'd love you to share your thanks too. Just download, copy or recreate our star graphic, tag the person you want to thank and share it on social media. Don't forget to tag Plan International UK too!
Or simply share the gif on Twitter and tag the person you want to thank this year!
Download your star
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You've been the best supporters this year and have shone like stars
Your commitment to stand with children & girls has been inspiring and we want to say THANK YOU! Download our star via the link or share this gif and tag the person you want to thank too https://t.co/era6ULWFeJ pic.twitter.com/ClRfuDB9vI
— Plan International UK (@PlanUK) December 17, 2020
In Indonesia, we distributed hygiene kits to families like Mada's. "There is a lot of information about hygiene for the community. This will help me and my friends in protecting ourselves and our children," she says.
An unfolding global crisis
As the coronavirus pandemic unfolded, your support for our work was overwhelming. Many of you gave to our Coronavirus: Children's Emergency Appeal as well as the response led by the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC), who we work with alongside 13 other charities. You also showed your support for our Beirut Emergency Appeal in response to the devastating explosion that took place in August.
We've also seen amazing individuals find new and creative ways to fundraise for us from home, while our network of sponsors have continued to support their sponsored children, investing in their futures at a time when that support is needed more than ever. And while letter writing has been on pause during the current crisis, we're looking forward to creating connections in the new year, as more countries slowly start delivering post again.
Our delivery of solar powered radios means Jeneba, 15, pictured here with her little brother, will be able to take part in Sierra Leone's remote learning programme. "My radio is now my best friend," she says. "I will not miss out again."
New threats to girls' equality
As with other health crises, we've seen coronavirus put girls' lives – and their futures – in even greater jeopardy, placing them at heightened risk of sexual violence and child marriage, of missing out on their education and not going back to school.
You've already helped us respond to these challenges, from delivering essential education supplies so girls can keep learning at home to emailing your MP, asking them to make sure the newly created Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) puts equality for girls at the heart of its vision.
This summer alone, 51% of girls and young women in the UK experienced public sexual harassment. "You'll face street harassment, you know it happens to everyone and nobody has really done anything to combat that," says Eliza, 17, from Liverpool.
A spotlight on girls' rights in the UK
We began the year talking about the state of girls' rights in the UK and the lack of progress on gender equality. We had no idea that, in April, we'd also be publishing research on the impact of a global pandemic on their lives and asking why girls' experiences weren't being listened to.
Fast forward to November and our #CrimeNotCompliment campaign with Our Streets Now was being talked about across the media and social media, prompting thousands of you to join our call to make public sexual harassment a crime.
The longer schools stay closed the more girls will drop out, as they become responsible for more household chores or find work to help their families. "Girls do most of the chores because they say 'that is woman's work'", says Yenifer, 13, in Paraguay.
Not going back to normal
As we look ahead to 2021, we know there are more challenges ahead. Children and their families will still need support as the pandemic continues – especially those living in crowded refugee camps, facing food shortages and in countries with fragile health systems. Meanwhile, the proposed cut to the UK's overseas aid commitment could put the education of over 900,000 children at risk and undermine efforts to safeguard girls' futures around the world.
We also know that going 'back to normal' after the pandemic isn't an option: it didn't work for girls before the crisis and it won't work afterwards. But if this year has shown us anything it's that, with your incredible support, we can take these challenges on together – and make 2021 the year we do even more to give every child, every chance and stand with girls to secure a better future.
2020: a year in photos
Thank you for standing with children and young people everywhere
Bangladesh: with your support, we were able to distribute lifesaving hygiene kits to refugee children in Cox's Bazar, with items including soap, a reusable face mask and a child-friendly story book on preventing the spread of coronavirus.
Bolivia: as the pandemic spread worldwide, our staff in Bolivia delivered essential food and hygiene kits to 800 families in Tarija, reaching more than 2,000 children.
Mozambique: when her school closed, Castarina, 12, no longer had access to our food programme. We extended our response, providing families with soybean flour for cooking. "The flour will help us have breakfast in the morning," she says.
Indonesia: for primary school teacher Vince, who was sponsored as a child, setting up a study group was the best solution for her students. "The village where I live has no internet network or even electricity," she explains.
UK: we reported on the extent of gender inequality in the UK and the impact of the pandemic on girls' lives. "A lot of boys in my year talk about girls like an object," says Tayibah, from Birmingham.
Nigeria: Fatima holds items from her hygiene kit, which includes soap, sanitary pads, a toothbrush and toothpaste, face masks and hand sanitiser. "Some of us here, our parents don't have the money to provide most of the items," she says.
Colombia: Alan and Alanyelith read the coronavirus awareness leaflet included in their hygiene kit. Support from our partners, including People's Postcode Lottery players, has enabled us to deliver life-saving public health information globally.
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mean after all," Seresana added before recalling Sylvan's reluctance and disfavor for larger crowds of people. To alleviate that though, Seresana took up Sylvan's hand to offer some reassurance before saying, "we'll go together, so it'll be okay." Seresana then started leading Sylvan gently over towards the new girl until they were standing right near her.
"Heya, my name's Seresana Hatasuko," Seresana started off, but then paused again as she got a better look at the new girl's outfit and became distracted by the way it hugged her form and the way it acted. "Uh, oh umm, we were going to be using this training field, or well the lake at least," Seresana stammered slightly as she recovered herself and stopped the borderline invasive starring. "I was going to try and teach my friend here a new jutsu, and you're free to watch or even join in, just thought it'd be best to warn you because there might be some splashing," Seresana added as her usual cheerful grin finally resurfaced in full force as she smiled happily up to Kisayuri.
Watching the bug fly off into the distance, she kept her vision upon it until she could no longer see it. Once it was out of site she would smile and sigh in relief and bring her head back down and raise her hands to her chest. "I hope they find peace in the time they have left. May Mother bless your wings and provide you ample feed." she said in a low whisper to herself as she would then turn so her back would be to the two new people that were arriving to the lake area. She glanced out towards the lake and she smiled, the water looked so nice and rather refreshing. She closed her eyes and took a moment to feel the area around her, and just relish in the nice breeze that was there. Her petals would very lightly flutter in the breeze and she would give a "Mmmmmm....." sound indicating that was she was rather pleased by the feeling of it.
Then in the midst of her enjoying the scenery and the area around her there was something disturbing her peace. Her eyes would open and she heard an introduction. It took her a moment to realize it was directed at her as she actually looked once to the left and once to the right to see if there was anyone else. But alas there was no one else around, so she then turned around to see if there was someone else and lo and behold! There were two people there. Kisayuri would blink and stare at them. She didn't respond, not just yet as she would look between the two contemplating, pondering.
Then the one who had introduced themselves as Serasana would continue to speak, apparently, according to her, they were going to use this lake for training. She at this point would look to the lake a moment and tilt her head. How were they going to use the lake for training? Gaidoku told her nothing about using lakes for training. She would look back toward's Serasana as she would nod her head. "Okay." was her only response, though the thoughts in her head was Why are they talking to me? Why do I need to know she is teaching her friend? Human's are peculiar. There was a short pause as Kisayuri looked them both up and down, her gaze quite gentle. "Just don't hurt the area." and shortly after she said that she would turn around and look at the water of the lake, and then she squatted down and reaches out for it. Her fingers grazing the surface of the lake. She had a light shiver run through her body at the feeling of the lake water touching her skin.
Sylvan would at this point realize that Sena was pulling her towards social interaction. Normally she would be resisting, but she had planned to speak with this girl anyways. Thus, she let herself be pulled along, quietly amused at the situation. "Certainly Sena." Sylvan says quietly.
As they approach the plant person, Sylvan chooses to let Sena handle most of the interaction while The Dark Thing formulated a conversation opener.
Seresana nodded with a smile back to the still nameless person sitting by the water's edge. "We'll try to be careful," she said before looking towards the nearby trees until she found one that was leaning over the water a good ways with a few strong and thicker branches. With a point at the tree, Seresana looked back over to Sylvan and said "we'll use that one there Syl, that way just in case you fall you won't be hurt."
Then Seresana walked over to the tree and started to climb it, making her way up the branches with practiced ease until she was standing on a thicker branch that hung out a good ways over the water. Despite her rather light weight, the tree's branch barely even registered her presence with any movement. Once up there, Seresana bid Sylvan up as well, knowing that the other girl would have as little or even less trouble than she did thanks to her height and even greater amount of time spent in trees. There she would wait for Sylvan to do her introductions and maybe even talk to the nameless girl and then eventually join her in the tree above.
Her ocean like eyes would stare at Serasana a moment longer watching her as she smiled and then Kisayuri would nod her head when she stated they will try to be careful. In her mind she mulled at the possibilities of damages they could cause. She'd had to make sure to stick around and be absolutely certain she didn't need to do any clean up after they did whatever it was they were planning to do. She eyed Serasana as she headed for a tree and began to climb it. Kisayuri watching her would cringe a moment, though she knew very well that, that didn't really hurt the tree, but still...it bothered her whenever she saw the human children climbing trees. Why can they be like momma and jump into them? Or walk up alongside them... She kept silent and it was a moment before she had realized there was the other person there, one who only stared and spoke not a word. Her gaze returned only to look at the quiet girl.
This gaze went on longer than she had wanted, and without a single other utter of a word from her, she would turn away and walk away from Sylvan, keeping to the edge of the lake. She didn't go off to far, her gaze going from the lake surface and then up to the sky, she was trying to find a good spot to settle herself down at. She hadn't eaten, correction, she hasn't absorbed her needed energy for the day. So she had to feel it out, where the sun hit her petals the best along the lake.
Kisayuri kept to herself while the other two were there, not bothering them, though her time there didn't last for too long before someone, or something else showed up, a rather short, humanoid reptile of feminine beauty had appeared. "Kiss, I'm going to need your help with something." Kisayuri would lift her gaze to the woman that suddenly appeared next to her and smiled big. "Oh, Momma! Of course. Did something happen?" She gave a light shrug and responded. "There is a flytrap incident in the forest and it would be easier if you helped out." Kisayuri would nod her head lifting her arms rather eager. "Of course, I'll help | |
Archives for posts with tag: suicide squad
Michel Foucault and the Suicide Squad
Dragon Con was a blast and I felt like the DC Comics and Cultural Studies panel went well. I've had a few requests so I've posted my paper "Discipline & Punish: Michel Foucault & the Suicide Squad" here. Hopefully I'll get around to posting my paper from last year some time soon, but until then, enjoy this one.
Tags 1984, absolutism, Abu Gharib, Ales Kot, Amanda Waller, architecture, ARGUS, Arkham Asylum, arrow, Atlanta, Batman, BDSM, Belle Reve, Big Brother, Bill of Rights, Black Adm, Blackgate, Blockbuster, Bondage, Brave and the Bold, Bronze Tiger, Captain Boomerang, catwoman, chain gang, Checkmate, civil rights, Comics and Popular Arts Conference 2015, Copwatch, Count Vertigo, crime, daily planet, Daredevil, Dark Knight Rises, darkseid, DC Comics, Deadshot, Debord, Discipline, Dragon Con, drones, El Diablo, Elvis Presley, Enchantress, Enlightenement, Eric Garner, exercise, fascism, Flash, Fox News, Foxconn, French Revolution, gender, globalization, green arrow, Green Lantern, Harley Quinn, History, Illuminati, Infinite Crisis, Iron Heights, Jacobins, Jeremy Bentham, Jimmy Olsen, John Ostrander, Joker, Justice League, Killer Frost, King Shark, law, law and order, Legends, lex luthor, Lois Lane, Manhunter, marvel comics, masochism, Maxwell Lord, Mumia abu Jamal, Orange is the New Black, panopticon, Partridge Family, Patty Spivot, Perry White, Phantom Zone, pillory, police brutality, pornography, Power, prison, Prison Industrial Complex, Private Prisons, protest, Punishment, puppets, Rick Flagg, Riddler, Rodney King, sadism, Sean Hannity, Shallow Hal, She Hulk, Sinestro, Smallville, spectacle, stocks, suicide squad, Superman, surveillance, time, Torture, Two-Face, Vicki Vale, War on Drugs, watchmen, Wonder Woman, Yo Yo
Categories comics, DC Comics
Dragon Con 2015: Comics and Popular Arts Conference schedule
With Dragon Con less than two weeks away, the schedule for Dragon Con's academic side-con has been released and I thought I'd share it with you here. While some events certainly appeal to me more than others, I'll likely attend as much of the comics programming as my volunteer schedule allows. Quick observations: The schedule is pretty dominated by gender studies stuff. There seem to be a lot more television based panels than last year and most of the comic book stuff is on Monday. Sunday has almost nothing.
Anyway, here's the schedule:
11:30 AM Comics, Trauma, and Psychiatric Disorders (Hanover F Hyatt)
Austin Hendricks (Georgia Regents University), "Waiting for Heroes: An Examination of Psychological Disorders, Existentialism, and General Strain Theory in Superhero Films"
Kari Storla (University of Southern California), "Superheroes, super trauma: Is trauma in superhero comics a human or superhuman experience?"
2:30 PM – Game of Thrones: The Dark Time – (M301-M302 – Marriott)
CPAC Panelist: Matthew J. Brown (UT Dallas)
4:00 PM – The Wayfaring Gater and Other Traveling Metaphors (Westin, Chastain FGH)
CPAC Panelist: Richard Scott Nokes (Troy University)
7:00 PM – Of Monsters and (Super)Men (Hanover F – Hyatt)
Corey Goergen (Emory University), "'It's [Not] Alive!': Disability, Eugenics, Zombies, and Frankenstein's Creature"
Shanna Early (Emory University), "Are Superheroes Monsters: Of Monsters, Superheroes, and the Law"
Stephanie Larson (Emory University), "Dial Meow for Murder: The Figure of the Feline in Horror Literature, Film, and Comics"
8:30 PM – Roundtable: History of Gender and Race in Comics (Hanover F – Hyatt)
Comics Scholars: Daniel Amrhein (Independent Scholar), Matthew J. Brown (UT Dallas), Kari Storla (University of Southern California)
8:30 PM – Anime, Manga, and Japanese History (Location)
Yasemin Davarcı (Ankara University), "1904 – 1905 Russo Japanese War in Historical Japanese Manga"
8:30 PM – Hannibal Fannibals– Horror Track (Peachtree 1-2 – Westin)
CPAC Panelist: Damien Williams (Kennesaw State University
10:00 AM – Wonder Woman and Greek Mythology (Hanover F – Hyatt)
Daniel Amrhein (Independent Scholar), "Wonder Woman and the Reappropriation of Women Warriors of Greek Myth"
Matthew J. Brown (University of Texas at Dallas), "Love and Strife, Aphrodite and Ares – Marston's Manichean Reconfiguration of Greek Mythology and Philosophy in the Wonder Woman Comics."
11:30 AM – Hannibal: Brunch (Peachtree 1-2 – Westin)
Aaron Abrams and Scott Thompson dissect Hannibal's elegant take on the horror genre
CPAC Panelist: Damien Williams (Kennesaw State University)
5:30 PM – Virtual Reality in Japanese Anime
Panelists: Damien Williams, Michael Bugajski, Carl Dull
8:30 PM – Roundtable: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Contemporary Comics – (Hanover F – Hyatt)
Professional Participants: Kelly Sue DeConnick, Amanda Conner, Laurenn McCubbin
Comics Scholars: Kari Storla, John Flowers, Tini Howard (Cape Fear Community College), Daniel Amrhein (Independent Scholar)
8:30 PM – Sense8 – Is this just another Cluster? (M301-M302 – Marriott)
Panelists: Matthew J. Brown
11:00 AM – CPAC Scholars Forum
Topic: Incorporating Comics and Pop Culture in the Classroom.
7:00 PM – Philosophical Perspectives on Japanese Anime
Scholars Carl Dull and Michael Bugajski discuss the philosophical themes in Madoka Magica and Cowboy Bebop.
8:30 PM – Diversity and Sexuality in Comics (Hanover F – Hyatt)
CPAC Panelists: Johnathan Flowers (SIU Carbondale), Daniel Amrhein (Independent Scholar)
10:00 PM – Con Culture and the changing face of Fandom (Hanover F – Hyatt)
CPAC Panelists: Molly Dilts (Pennsylvania State University), Kari Storla (University of Southern California)
10:00 AM – Comics and Feminism (Hanover F – Hyatt)
Molly Dilts (Pennsylvania State University), "The "Fake Geek Girl": Female-Occupied Space and Masculinity in Geek Culture"
Tini Howard (Cape Fear Community College), "Thinking Outside the Fridge – Changing Comics with the Subject/Object Problem"
11:30 AM – Kelly Sue DeConnick in Focus
Ahmed Younis (Chapman University), "Comic Feminism: Re-Imagining Traditional Perceptions of Heroism"
John Flowers (SIU Carbondale), "Captain Marvel and John Dewey's Theory of Imagination"
Response: Kelly Sue DeConnick
1:00 PM – Comics in the Classroom Hanover F – Hyatt)
Elizabeth Perkins (Morehead State University), "Teaching Critical Thinking Skills to College Freshman Utilizing the Portrayal of Crime & Justice in Superhero Movies and Comics"
2:30 PM – DC Comics and Cultural Studies (Hanover F – Hyatt)
Durf Humphries (Independent Scholar), "Discipline and Punish: Foucault and the Suicide Squad"
Jessica Dambruch (Old Dominion University), "Rev Up Your Harley: Cultural Constructions of Gender In The Batman Universe"
Tags Amanda Conner, anime, Atlanta, Batman, bitch planet, books, Captain Marvel, cats, comics, Comics and Popular Arts Conference 2015, Cosplay, Cowboy Bebop, DC Comics, diversity, Drago Con, foucault, Frankenstein, Game of Thrones, gender, Hannibal, Harley Quinn, History, hotels, john dewey, Kelly Sue Deconnick, Laurenn McCubbin, law, Madoka Magica, manga, MARTA, Marvel, masculinity, meow, ms. marvel, murder, object, Pretty Deadly, psychology, race, russo-japanese war, science fiction, Scott Thompson, Sense8, sexuality, Space, stargate, subject, suicide squad, Supergirl, The Wayfaring Gater, time travel, trauma, virtual reality, zombies
Categories comics
Suicide Squad Fun Facts
The Suicide Squad have been in the news a lot lately, especially since the release of the trailer for the 2016 film. As I put together my presentation for this year's Comics and Popular Arts Conference, I'm becoming more and more entrenched in the lives of Task Force X as my presentation tries to place the Suicide Squad within the timeline of modern discipline and punishment as put forth in Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. As I go through the source material, I'm also reading a lot of what people are writing online about the upcoming movie and I notice a dearth of articles written about the movie by people who have much experience with the actual comics. In an attempt to bring comic books back into the discussion of comic book movies, I thought I'd put together a few interesting tidbits about the Suicide Squad as they appeared in the comics.
1. The Suicide Squad is older than the Justice League…sort of.
When the Suicide Squad first appeared in DC Comics The Brave and The Bold #25, they weren't a chain gang of super-villains, but rather of a state-sponsored group of everyday heroes having not-so-everyday adventures. None of them had any superpowers and none of them had criminal notoriety. In many ways, they barely resemble the Suicide Squad in the comics today or the Suicide Squad as its been portrayed in popular media (Smallville; Batman: Assault on Arkham; the upcoming Suicide Squad film). What connects the original Squad to the contemporary Squad are the memberships of Rick Flag- a character | |
Get a working demo to explore authentication methods
What Is MFA and Why Is It Important?
Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is a security measure that protects individuals and organizations by requiring users to provide two or more authentication factors to access an application, account, or virtual private network (VPN). This adds extra layers of security to combat more sophisticated cyberattacks, since credentials can be stolen, exposed, or sold by third parties.
Much like an organization might employ various layers of physical security, such as a fence with a gate, a guard station, an ID scanner, and locks on the doors, an organization can also use MFA to provide multiple layers of virtual security to make sure anyone accessing the system, whether onsite or remotely, is both authorized and authenticated.
How Does MFA Work?
A user is first prompted for their username and password, standard credentials used to log in, but then they are required to verify their identity by some other means. The most common is to enter a code sent by email, Short Message Service (SMS), via a mobile authentication app, or to a secondary device, but other forms may be hardware that scans biometrics or prearranged security questions.
This second or even third factor in the authentication process serves to verify the user request is genuine and has not been compromised.
Examples of Authentication Factors
MFA uses three common authentication methods to verify a user's identity.
Knowledge: This is the factor users are most familiar with. The user is prompted to supply information they know, such as a password, personal identification number (PIN), security key, or the answer to a security question.
Possession: This factor verifies the user's identity using something they possess. For example, by sending a code to a mobile phone.
Inherence: This factor verifies the person by some unique personal attribute, such as biometric authentication or voice recognition.
In addition to the foregoing, a location factor and/or a time factor can provide further layers of protection in specific environments.
MFA and Two-factor Authentication (2FA)
Two-factor authentication (2FA) is a subset of MFA, both increasingly being employed to increase security beyond the level provided by passwords alone. 2FA, as its name implies, requires users to authenticate their identity using two steps that serve to validate their access. Most often, 2FA uses the "possession" factor as the second level of security.
After a user enters their credentials, which the system recognizes as valid for network access or for logging in to an application, the server would then request an additional credential, such as a temporary code or password sent to a mobile device. Since a cyber criminal would most likely not have the user's mobile device in their possession, this makes it difficult for them to steal a user's identity or account.
Additionally, 2FA protects the organization, even in situations where a user's primary credentials have been stolen, since the second layer is still inaccessible to the thief. Each additional security layer added beyond 2FA protects the user and the organization even further, demonstrating the value of MFA.
MFA and Single Sign-on (SSO)
SSO, also called a unified login, is a method of identification allowing users to sign in to multiple websites and applications with a single set of unique credentials. While MFA may be included in the first login experience, SSO then authorizes the user to access all sites and applications to which they have been granted permission.
This provides a better user experience since the user would not have to submit to the MFA process each time they need to access something within the system. The fact that MFA provides layered security at the outset, authenticating the original login, helps to protect the organization from having the SSO exploited by malicious third parties.
Benefits of Multi-factor Authentication
MFA provides protection for both the organization and individual users. For the organization, security benefits may be:
Increased protection: Security breaches result in loss of resources, especially data, time, and money. MFA helps to protect these valuable assets.
Safe remote work environment: Employees with fluid access to all the systems and data they need for the job are more productive. Companies employing MFA help keep the remote work environment flexible and agile.
Defense in depth: Multiple layers of security are employed so that if one layer of defense is intentionally or accidentally compromised, secondary and tertiary layers (and so on) provide a backup, making sure that an organization is protected to the degree possible.
For users, the security benefits may include:
Identity protection: Even if some user data is compromised, either accidentally or intentionally, the overall identity of the user is still protected from access.
Remote work environment safety: The flexibility of access and agility of processes increase productivity and provide a user-friendly environment.
Data protection: Users who access an organization for work or business are assured any of their personal data stored or processed is secure from cyber threats.
There are multiple security risks if MFA is not implemented. The cyber threats from malicious third parties are continuously evolving to become more complex and destructive, so organizations must provide extra layers of security to protect themselves and others.
Compromise of credentials due to employees falling for phishing scams or social engineering
Vulnerability to keylogging malware
Poor security due to employees sharing or duplicating passwords
Challenges of Multi-factor Authentication
In spite of the overwhelming benefits of MFA, there are challenges to implementing it and mitigating threats when a layer is compromised.
Implementation costs: Costs include purchasing and replacing tokens, purchasing and renewing software, etc.
Options when a token/smartphone is lost: The loss of a "hardware" layer of MFA means an alternate option needs to be in place. In 2FA, there often is no backup other than replacing the hardware.
Usability issues: When different types of MFA are used across different systems, there may be a loss of agility for end-users. Loss of productivity is a consequence unless SSO solutions complement the implementation of MFA.
However, even acknowledging such challenges, if organizations want to protect their network, users, and employees, the benefits of implementing an MFA solution as part of an access management strategy clearly outweigh the challenges.
MFA strengthens security, providing layers of protection against cyber threats and peace of mind regarding data protection.
Marrying MFA and SSO solutions simplify the login process, increasing both security and productivity.
MFA helps organizations meet compliance standards, assuring the right environment for users and adequate protection of personal data.
Why Enterprises Need Multi-Factor Authentication
What is multi-factor authentication? The hazards security teams have to manage are increasing as businesses digitize their operations and assume increased responsibility for the storage of client data. Because attackers typically use stolen login information to access sensitive systems, carefully verifying user identity is crucial.
Users often use the same usernames and passwords across several accounts and create passwords that are not strong enough. Therefore, authentication based just on a username-password combination alone is unreliable.
Multi-factor authentication benefits can include:
Ensures user identity
More layers of security compared to two-factor authentication (2FA)
Meets regulatory standards, such as PCI DSS
Easy to implement
Technology Needed To Support MFA
Certain technologies must be adopted and implemented to support MFA, including:
Biometrics: Fingerprint readers, retinal scanners, facial recognition software, etc.
Security tokens: Hardware distributed to users, including portable Universal Serial Bus (USB) authenticators, keychain tokens, and embedded ID cards.
Soft tokens: Examples are software tokens, push tokens, and QR tokens.
SMS tokens: Temporary codes sent by SMS to a mobile device.
How Fortinet Can Help?
Malware, ransomware, and phishing attacks are increasingly used by hackers to compromise user credentials and gain access to organizations' networks. Enhancing network security with MFA solutions helps increase data-center security, boost cloud security for a safer remote working environment, and minimize cybersecurity threats.
Fortinet identity and access management (IAM) solutions—including FortiAuthenticator, FortiToken, and FortiToken Cloud—provide the solution organizations and their users need. Fortinet IAM provides authentication policies, technologies, and processes designed to confirm the identity and access privileges of individual users. This is done | |
Know Your Ghosts
The Walking Dead Season 7 Premier
by admin | Oct 24, 2016
The Walking Dead Season 7 premier starts off where season 6 ended. Negan has captured Rick and several others. Negan has promised to kill on of Rick's group in the season 7 premier we sadly discover who was chosen.
Director: Greg Nicotero
Writers: Greg Nicotero, Tony Moore, Charlie Adlard
Cast: Andrew Lincoln, Norman Reedus, Steven Yeun, Lauren Cohan, Chandler Riggs, Dana Gurira, Michael Cuditz, Sonequa Martin-Green, Josh McDermitt, Christian Serratos, Ross Marquand, Jeffrey Dean Morgan
Last night AMC aired The Walking Dead season 7 premier and this review/opinion is going to have some spoilers so if you continue reading, it's on you. I also want to say that my review of this episode starts off expressing my disappointment in last season's finale. Then I dive into my mixed emotions on this episode of The Walking Dead. One hand, I am truly disappointed in it for cheating me out of the emotional punch it could have had. On the other hand, there were so many things I truly enjoyed about the episode. I start with the bad things before I get to the good, is what I am saying.
I wrote another review/opinion on the season 6 finale way back when it aired and it wasn't very positive. I am still fucking pissed off at the way they handled the cliffhanger. I hate cliffhangers, they are designed for stupid people. Cliffhangers are a shows way of saying, "We don't trust and respect you enough to come back and watch next season so we're going to leave you hanging until then." It's this kind of bullshittery that usually keeps me from watching any TV live. Normally, I wait until the season is over and the next season has begun. This way I avoid cliffhangers altogether.
Unfortunately, I work online. Social media is a big part of my work. The Walking Dead is too big a show. Each week the shows title is trending and it's guaranteed that some asshole will tweet a spoiler. Beth's death for example, AMC tweeted that shit out before the fucking show even aired in my goddam time zone. I learned then, I have to watch this show week to week like everyone else.
Anyways, to get back on topic here. I was fucking furious at the way they handled the season 6 finale and their ridiculous excuses for why they did it. Their excuses made no sense at all. Part of me lost interest in the show. I was almost okay with never watching the show again. If I never watched the show again, all the characters I love would never die. Everyone would be safe. I seriously considered that. However, social media would fuck that up. Someone would spill the beans and ruin the happy little bubble I would have created. Knowing this, I decided to watch season 7 of The Walking Dead last night.
It was odd watching it because I had a detached myself from the show. It had been several months without the gang in my life. I wasn't as emotionally distraught over the tragic deaths of two beloved characters. Had those deaths occurred in the finale last season, as promised, I would have been devastated. All season leading up to a powerful finale with the death of Abraham and Glenn. I would have been in tears. Watching last night, it just didn't have the emotional impact for me.
I think maybe it's because I had done my morning all summer long. I've had months and months to come to terms with the fact that someone is going to die. I even sort of expected more than one person would die in the episode because there was no way everyone in Rick's group would sit still and let a friend die. As I reflect on it, I don't know if the writers did me a favor or not. In some ways I am thankful. In others, I am still very angry about it and maybe even a little more so now. I feel as though I was cheated yet again. I missed out on that epic emotional outcome because of that detachment.
Don't get me wrong, it was still devastating and heartbreaking but it could have been more powerful. In stead, what last night's episode did for me was drag on. It spent half the episode still teasing us with who may have died. It took me out of the moment because I felt I was being manipulated again. I understand that's the point of every show, I really do. It's just that the best shows manipulate you in ways that flow. The Walking Dead just seems to have given up on that. Instead if letting the stories flow, they are resorting to cheap manipulations.
Getting all of the above out of the way, I have to say that it was a strong episode. The acting was perfection. Greg Nicotero's direction was impeccable and his special makeup effects were incredible. Glenn's death makeup was so haunting and disturbing, it will stick with me forever. Not only was it so incredibly real looking, having dabbled in effects makeup in my youth, it was an inspired and brilliant piece of work. If that doesn't win Greg Nicotero an Emmy, then I will lose all respect for them.
I chose not to show the makeup for Glenn. I don't want to ruin it on the rare chance anyone hasn't seen it yet. So, Maggie's reaction will have to suffice.
Though it is regrettable that the deaths last night didn't have the full emotional impact on me that they should have, maybe that's a good thing? I'd probably be walking around today completely depressed over the loss of Glenn and Abraham. Having no life, I take my movies and TV very seriously.
In conclusion, I am still pissed off at the way the producers and writers chose to handle the finale last season. Though I wasn't thrilled with the way they continued on with obvious manipulation in the season 7 premier of The Walking Dead. It was, otherwise a well made and well thought out episode. I got where there were going with it. I understand why they did what they did in this episode.
Though I have mixed emotions about this episode. I am trying to separate what I wanted to see with what I did see. What I wanted to see I believe would have made for a better and more emotional episode. What I did see was still a strong show with plenty of emotion and gore on a level that was simply heartbreaking and tragically gruesome.
I highly recommend watching it to anyone that has night seen it.
Special Note, you can watch the full episode on AMC's site right now. No need to login or sign up for anything. Watch the Season 7 Premier of The Walking Dead here.
One last thing. I'd like to make note of Talking Dead hosted by Chris Hardwick. I truly believe the man is my spirit animal. I always watch Talking Dead. It's like a much needed therapy session after the sometimes emotionally difficult episodes. It sounds silly but it's so true. It's obvious he is a true fan of the show and cares about the characters as much as we do. It helps knowing that no matter what transpires on The Walking Dead we will all be able to get through it together during Talking Dead. He hosts the show with compassion while still managing to make us smile and even laugh. It's like a pallet cleansing we need so desperately.
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President is not very happy at all but Silveira just dismisses it all as "stupid propaganda". We find out a little about Carrasco now as well – his father is one of the richest men in the country, who gave everything up to fight for the people. I don't know what to make of that nugget. Silveira lights a huge cigar and tells the President if he is given more fuel and men that the rebels can be crushed. There are obvious tensions between Silveira and the President; maybe I'm going all precog on you now, but something tells me that this is not a very happy partnership.
If Silveira is dismissive of Carrasco (and he is – he tells the President that Carrasco is "like all the others; he wants your place"), he is equally dismissive of the President (whose place Silveira undoubtedly wants for himself). When the President is shown on TV making a speech to the people, Silveira turns the volume down because he's just not interested in what the President has to say.
Meantime Maria had been taking some behavioural lessons from the ever-charming Smithy – she's arrived at the hospital, which has seen better days, and is demanding beds, antibiotics and surgical instruments at gunpoint. When she is told that there are only 2 beds free she starts dragging sick people out of their beds to make way for the wounded rebels. One of the Fathers who are working at the hospital tells Maria in no uncertain terms that she can't be doing that and that as far as he's concerned the rebels are just like the militia. Maybe this makes Maria think about her actions because there is a quick about-turn with Maria revealing that she was a medical student and diagnosing one of the hospitalised men as needing operating on immediately.
Whilst Maria springs into action in the hospital, the militia have heard news of where Carrasco's gang are holed up, so it will only be a matter of time before another attack takes place. But Carrasco and Smithy are trying to put an end to the dictatorship by retrieving some explosives that were sunk during the dam explosion. They plan to do this by setting up a bomb with what looks like a bedside alarm clock and some putty. As they swim around underwater, you know it's going to go wrong and indeed it does – the timing is out and Smithy suffers some injuries when one of the bombs goes off. Carrasco manages to get away with the help of some of his men but he has to leave Smithy behind as dead – remember, the rebels can't let the wounded slow them down.
Another oblique insight into Carrasco's back story – one of his men says to him, "If your father was here to see that…", to which Carrasco responds, "He'd probably shoot me." He also says that he was brought up believing that the rich came before the poor. I'm not quite sure what point he is making here as he seems to be behaving in such a way that says that the rebels come before the civilians who are not fighting; there's not a lot of difference. These little snippets of information about Carrasco's father do not help with the narrative development at all really.
Back at the hospital Maria is pulling a blinder in her role as Florence Nightingale. She is so distracted with her medical work that she doesn't even notice that the militia have arrived. The Capitan is there with his men and they want to know where the rebels are; Hans Leutenegger tries to act as mean as possible but you just know he's a pussycat underneath it all. The Father tells Maria to stay inside but she insists on fighting for her beliefs – whatever they are – and goes outside only to get shot immediately. The Father runs out and they share one of those magic moments; a bit like "the look" she shared with Carrasco earlier. She's a one, that Maria.
Then the chopper arrives with Silveira onboard – now we know some real damage will be done, yay! Silveira does the rounds at the hospital, although he's not so hot on the bedside manner – when one of the injured men shouts out to him, "Colonel! I'm one of yours!", Silveira shows no sympathy and just mutters, "You let yourself be captured, uh?", as he walks away. Same rules apply as with the rebels, I guess – "Don't let the wounded slow you down."
Silveira heads over to José, one of the injured rebels, and asks him if he was one of the technicians at the dam and if he knows who was in charge. Instead of acting dumb, José tells Silveira, "Find them yourself, you son of a bitch!" His last words, alas, as he is immediately shot to pieces by the militia. The Father tells Silveira to stop and gets a gun smacked around his face for his trouble – Silveira wants to take Maria and the Father but he also wants the hospital set on fire and all the equipment shot to pieces. He leaves the injured militia behind to perish in the fire as well.
As Carrasco and his men arrive armed with guns, the Casio pan pipes kick in again. That's enough to send Silveira and the Capitan back to their chopper in which they escape. Carrasco blows up a chopper, but it's not Silveira's. Maria and the Father have inadvertently been left behind and Carrasco goes over to see them. The Father asks Carrasco what he will do with the people now that the hospital has been attacked. Carrasco avoids answering and simply tells the Father that he should get his face wound looked at before it gets infected. The Father is right though, if the militia come back they will be massacred but all Carrasco says he can do is give them trucks to get away. When the Father says he will take the people with him instead, Carrasco is dismissive – "Where to? The Promised Land?" Got any better ideas yourself, Carrasco? No, thought not.
It's now one week since the film started – I mean, since the action started; it just feels like the film's been on a long time, that's all. Nothing much has happened really but we now discover that Smithy survived the underwater blast after all and has been captured by the militia. He's currently sitting naked on a chair and Silveira is looking at him through a barred window. Kinky!
Carrasco has dressed up in civvies and gone into town to see a man about a dog – or something. A strange little man follows him around but Carrasco knows all about it and in the film's (unfunny) comedy moment, Carrasco surprises the man by sticking a gun in his mouth which makes his eyes go all googly, look:
Carrasco wants to know where Pépé is – maybe I'm right after all and he is going to see a man about a dog, Pépé sounds like a dog's name, right? But, no, Pépé is in fact a chap who thinks he can get Smithy and the others out of prison. It seems that Smithy is a famous mercenary brought back from Europe by Carrasco to join the rebels. The next day Smithy and his fellow inmates are broken out of the prison, one of them dies on the way out, but Smithy gets out intact.
Smithy has to pass Carrasco a message to say that President Homoza is planning a fact finding tour of the province on Thursday. This is the only bit of the film that makes me | |
Township. Capt. Ralph (c.1748-1813) married on Sept 12, 1799, Sarah Emley (c.1748-1803), daughter of William Emley and Rebecca Wright, and granddaughter of John Emley, Esq. and Sarah Lawrence, who settled in Kingwood Township in the late 1720s after acquiring a huge acreage in the vicinity of Pittstown.
William Emley was the brother of Nancy Emley, mother of John E. Forman who was one of those who signed Peter Vankirk's 1801 tavern license petition. William Emley wrote his will on March 28th, 1751, naming his daughter Sarah who was underage. (His wife Rebecca had previously died.) He named his father John Sr. and brothers Elisha & John his executors and died not long afterward.
John Emley, brother of William Emley, and thus an uncle of Sarah Guild, died unmarried in 1795 owning a very large estate, some land inherited from Sarah's grandfather John, but even more purchased on his own. Emley's property was adjacent on the southwest to the Hoff tract, and known as Whitehall Farm. (Also, nearly 600 acres well to the south of Pittstown as well as other locations.) Emley died intestate. Benjamin Guild was among those who inventoried his property. In 1796, Gershom Mott petitioned for a division of the Emley land to benefit Emley's 'heirs-at-law.' This included his niece Sarah Guild.
On June 1st 1804, while he was still possessed of a tavern license for the Moore Furman tavern, Peter Vankirk purchased a tract of 101.34 acres, which Sarah Emley Guild had inherited from John Emley, and which Sarah and Ralph sold to Ralph's brother Benjamin in Dec. 1799, who sold it back to them in Feb. 1800. Sarah died on Sept. 4, 1803, and her widowed husband Ralph then sold the property to Peter Vankirk.15
Then in 1807, while still living in Bethlehem twp., Peter & Esther Vankirk sold part of their Bethlehem Township property to John E. Forman and the rest of it back to Ralph Guild.16 It was between 1806 and 1807 that Peter Vankirk gave up tavern-keeping, and removed to Tompkins County, New York, where he died on March 10, 1824. His wife Esther Drake then moved to Northampton County, Pennsylvania to live with daughter Elizabeth and son-in-law Garret Pittenger, where she died in 1847, age 82.
Next Tavernkeeper: Isaac Bennet
By April of 1807, a new Pittstown tavernkeeper was licensed. That was Isaac Bennet (1777-1840), whose parents I have not identified. One source gives his middle name as 'Ryck,' which suggests a German ancestry, despite his surname which is decidedly English.
Ten years before taking up the Pittstown Inn, on March 5th, 1797, Isaac Bennet married Catrin Tinsman in Sussex County. Catrin's family was much more fun to study. She was the granddaughter of the founder of the Tinsmans in New Jersey, Johannes Petrus Tinsman (1717-1806) who settled in Knowlton, Sussex County. Why Isaac and Catrin moved to Hunterdon County, or when they did that, I cannot say. I do know that they had nine children, from c.1798 through 1820, which means they had young children while Isaac was working the Pittstown Inn, during the years 1807 through 1809.
He differed from Vankirk for his short time at the tavern, and also because it was many years before he acquired property of his own, and that was simply a lot of 24+ acres in Alexandria Township, which he bought in 1837 from James & Hannah Smith.17
Having been abstracting decades of tavern license petitions, I've been noticing that some tavern patrons are regulars, and some are not. Since Mr. Bennet only had three petitions, it was fairly easy to identify the repeats. They were John B. Allen, Jesse, Joseph & Thomas Dalrymple, John Eckel, & Nicholas Pickel. Peter Vankirk signed Bennet's first petition in 1807 but did not return.
Isaac Bennet died in 1840, only 3 years after purchasing his Alexandria property. He was 62 years old, having survived his wife Catrin Tinsman by many years. She had died in 1826 age 49.18
On March 29, 1842, Bennet's heirs sold his 24.75 acres to Christopher Tinsman of Alexandria Township. One would expect Christopher Tinsman to be a relation of Catrin Tinsman Bennet's, but I have not been able to prove that. Beside the similar name, a reason for my suspicion is that the heirs lost $1040 on the sale, suggesting it was between relatives. I suspect he was the Christopher Tinsman (1800-1845) who was running the tavern in Milford known as the Spring Garden Hotel from 1842 through 1844. Much to my surprise I could not find his sale of the property purchased from Bennet.
The Pittstown tavernkeepers who followed Isaac Bennet were Philip Case, from 1810 through 1812; Peter Stryker, 1813 through 1816 (Stryker's 1815 petition noted that he had been tavernkeeper the past two years); Isaac Pittenger, 1817 through 1820 (1821 is missing), and then Amos Thatcher Maxwell (1822 and 1823).
I am skipping over these gentlemen to get to the last tavernkeeper in this series: Larason Stryker. But in order to write about him, I do have to consider the identity of the Peter Stryker who got licensed for Pittstown from 1813 through 1816. That turned out to be very frustrating.
Larason Stryker was one of the ten children of a Peter A. Stryker (1762-1827) and Keziah Davis (1768-1828), both born in Raritan Township, Somerset County. Peter and Keziah moved to Hunterdon County, settling first in Alexandria Township. In 1795, Peter Stryker purchased a tract of 280 acres in Bethlehem Township from Jacob Race, Sr.19 In 1806, that Peter Stryker was named executor of the estate of Samuel Davis, father of Keziah Davis Stryker and grandfather of Larason Stryker.
It seems very unlikely that he was keeping the tavern in 1813, not someone owning such a large tract of land. There was another Peter Stryker (1765-1837) who married Sarah Lowe in Readington Township about 1787, and later on moved to Ohio. Deeds show a third Peter Stryker who lived in Lebanon Twp from 1804-1809, and was married to Hannah and/or Christiannea, but I know nothing else about him.
In the interests of finishing this article, I will abstain from further research into all these Peter Strykers and move on to Larason Stryker.
Larason Stryker
Larason Stryker was first employed as a tavernkeeper in 1823, when he kept the tavern in Baptistown. But that was only for one year. The next year he was hired by agents of the Pittstown tavern's owner, the heirs of Moore Furman.
As mentioned above, Larason Stryker was born June 27, 1797 in Bethlehem Township, one of the 10 children of Peter A. Stryker & Keziah Davis. On Feb. 12, 1820, at the age of 23, he married his wife Theodosia Reading (1800-1875), daughter of Joseph Reading, Jr. and Lucy Emley of Amwell Township. She was also one of ten children. And to top it off, Larason and Theodosia had ten children of their own, from 1821 through 1842, all of whom reached adulthood.
Among Larason Stryker's brothers-in-law were Moses Abbott Taylor and George Opdycke, Jr., mayor of New York City and member of the NY Assembly.
Stryker's first license petition for the tavern in Pittstown was dated April 19, 1824, being "the tavern lately occupied by George Maxwell Esq." Signers were Peter Sigler, John Wall, William Taylor, Christopher Snyder, Robeson Rockhill, Joseph Opdycke, Jno C. Rockhill, Hugh H. Potts, Henry Stiers, John Marlow, George Case, Chas Thompson, and Joseph Ely. (I've listed them in the order they appeared on the petition, as it might suggest companionship if not relationships.) Of those men, only five of them had signed the petition of the previous tavernkeeper, Amos T. Maxwell.
I was puzzled by the reference to Geo. Maxwell, Esq. who happened to be the County Surrogate in 1823, the year that his son Amos got the tavern license | |
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naïve realism of _Faces_ with respect, if not quite affection. When his _Shadows_ came out, almost a decade ago, it was generally thought of as a group improvisation rather than as a first film by John Cassavetes. But from bits of his two intervening, commercially produced films ( _Too Late Blues_ and _A Child Is Waiting_ ), and now from _Faces_ , in which he apparently had full control, it is clear that either he made _Shadows_ or working on _Shadows_ made his style. Cassavetes' method is peculiar in that its triumphs and its failures are not merely inseparable from the method but often truly hard to separate from each other. The acting that is so bad it's embarrassing sometimes seems also to have revealed something, so we're forced to reconsider our notions of good and bad acting. In 1961, I commented on _Shadows_ , "As the creative effort of a group, it has the rawness and insistence of a form of psychodrama, but it has a special fascination—it reveals a good deal about what actors think is the content of drama (and what they think life is)." In _Faces_ , the people are older and richer, and the milieu is southern California rather than New York, yet not only is the method the same (though the technique is infinitely smoother and the _cinéma-vérité_ -style photography is generally handsome and effective) but the attitudes are the same. The heroine, after a night of extramarital sex, experiences the very same pathos and guilt and disgust that the virgin in _Shadows_ experienced when she was seduced. In fact, nobody seems to have got very far, except downhill. _Faces_ is going to be a big success and it doesn't need critical generosity, so, still awarding Cassavetes high marks for doing something "interesting," I would like to point out some of the limitations and implications of the method.
Cassavetes' approach to making a film is not unlike Andy Warhol's in _The Chelsea Girls_ and Norman Mailer's in _Wild 90_ and _Beyond the Law_ ; by depending on the inspiration of the amateurs and professionals in their casts, they attempt to get at something more truthful than ordinary movies do. And the actors act away. The movie equivalent of primitive painters may be movie-makers like these, who expect the movie to happen when the camera is on. Their movies become the games actors play (and this can be true even when there is a conventional script, as in _Rachel, Rachel_ ). They are likely to go for material that they feel is being left out of commercial films, but they make their movies in terms of what impressed them in their childhood—the stars—and ignore the other elements of movies. In Warhol and in Mailer, the best moments may be when the actors have a good time performing for the camera. Cassavetes has a good, clear sense of structure; he uses a script and allows improvisation only within strict limits, and, as a result, _Faces_ —which is like an upper-middle-class, straight version of _The Chelsea Girls_ —has the unified style of an agonizing honesty. Many professional and non-professional actors have something they're particularly good at, and in this kind of movie they may get a chance to show it: in _Shadows_ , the heroine's flirtatiousness, the quarrelling of the two men in the train station; in _Faces_ , Lynn Carlin's comic rapport with John Marley in her first scene. And there are nuances and inventions we get from such scenes which in context seem remarkable—seem to be unlike what we get in ordinary movies. But these actors may be inadequate or awful in the rest of the film, because, working out of themselves this way, they can't create a character. Their performances don't have enough range, so one tends to tire of them before the movie is finished. It's my feeling that nothing makes one so aware of acting as this self-conscious kind of willed realism, and I think we may overreact to the occasional small victories because we sit there waiting for the actors to think up something to say and do. The actors dominate, as they do on a stage, and they can bring something like the tedium of dull people on the stage to the screen. But what actors think is true to life, and what, given the impetus to be sincere and the opportunity to improvise, they come up with, is very much like what the public thinks is true to life.
Glowering with integrity, determined not to pander to commercial tastes, Cassavetes has stumbled on a very commercial idea. His great commercial asset is that he thinks not like a director but like an actor. His deliberately raw material about affluence and apathy, loneliness and middle age, the importance of sex and the miseries of marriage may not say any more about the subject than glossy movies on the same themes, and the faces with blemishes may not be much more revealing than faces with a little makeup, but the unrelieved effort at honesty is, for some people, intensely convincing. When it's done as psychodrama rather than as entertainment, they seem to accept all this bruising-searing stuff, the sad whore and the tender hustler, and the false-laughter bit, and the-lies-people-live-by, etc. Watching the kind of drunken salesmen one would have sense enough to avoid in life can, I suppose, seem an illumination. Watching a fat, drunken old woman fall on top of a man she has just begged for a kiss can seem an epiphany. There are scenes in _Faces_ so dumb, so crudely conceived, and so badly performed that the audience practically burns incense. I think embarrassment is not a quality of art but our reaction to failed art, yet many members of the audience apparently feel that embarrassment is a sign of flinching before the painful truth, and hence they accept what is going on as deeper and truer because they have been embarrassed by it. Cassavetes' people are empty, lecherous middle-aged failures, like Benjamin's parents and their friends in _The Graduate_ , seen not in terms of comedy but in terms of bitterness and despair—a confirmation of the audience's anxieties. The theme of _Faces_ is exactly the same theme as that of many now fashionable films—sex as the last quest for meaning in this meaningless, godless, etc., life, or "We who are about to die want to try everything." But the aging people and the Los Angeles setting (which, of course, makes it all seem suburban) have the ghastliness and monotonousness of the commonplace. The heroine is the most banal of all statistical entities—"housewife." And no matter how much is written on aesthetics people think something is good because "I've known people just like that. It's so true to life."
Artists use their technique in order to express themselves more fully; the actors in _Faces_ strip away technique as if it were a falsehood that stood between them and "reality." This idea has great popular appeal; it's like the theory of character in _The Boys in the Band_ —that when you peel away the protective layers of personality you get to the real person inside. _Faces_ has the kind of seriousness that a serious artist couldn't take seriously—the kind of seriousness that rejects art as lies and superficiality. And this lumpen-artists' anti-intellectualism, this actors' unformulated attack on art may be what much of the public also believes—that there is a real thing that "art" hides. The audience comes out shaken and in no mood for levity—as I discovered when I attempted to cheer someone up by remarking that if people's lives were so empty, wasn't it lucky that they had a |