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Editor’s Note: This article is excerpted from an article that first appeared in the pages of The Burning Spear 28 years ago under the title, “The History and Role of the Proletarian Party of the Black Working Class.”
At the time, evidence of the crisis of imperialism that defines today’s reality was coming into sharp focus. The U.S. presidency of Ronald Wilson Reagan was the white ruling class’s war-mongering repressive response to that crisis.
The response of the African People’s Socialist Party was to help the African working class recognize its historical mission as the primary agent of revolutionary transformation and to help the class achieve its full capacity to carry out its mission.
Today we are faced with the same task. It more important now than ever to mobilize the African working class in its own selfish interests and to equip the class to lead the international struggle for the liberation and unification of Africa and African people under its leadership as the new ruling class.
The U.S. presidency of Barack Hussein Obama and the success of the white ruling class in removing most evidence of the Black Revolution of the Sixties make it incumbent upon our Party to help African people and especially the working class, to become engaged in independent, self-serving political life.
We are printing this excerpt as one of the steps we will be taking to win African people and workers to independent revolutionary organization that is guided by advanced revolutionary theory.
An error in this piece is the reference of our philosophy as Pan Africanism developed to its higher stage. As the referenced quote in this piece clearly shows, we have never been Pan Africanists. The reader should be aware that it was the lingering ideological influence of the African petty bourgeoisie that made that error possible.
Political parties are organizations of the most advanced representatives of a particular class. The tasks of political parties are directly tied to the material interests of the classes they represent.
Sometimes elements of a particular class are not aware of their own class interests. There are people from the white ruling class, for example, who are drunks or drug addicts, or even insane. Sometimes elements of the ruling class are wife beaters, bed wetters, or lazy ignoramuses who are unconcerned and disdainful of the overall interests of the capitalist-colonialist ruling class.
Nevertheless, some members and representatives of the white ruling class take it upon themselves to organize into political parties, which represent and look out for the interests of the entire class, including the drunks, wife beaters, etc. We call these people the advanced or activist elements of their class.
What are the interests of the U.S. capitalist-colonialist class? The most fundamental interest of the capitalist-colonialist ruling class is the perpetuation of the capitalist system and itself as the ruling class. This fundamental interest gives rise to other interests:
Economically, there is the interest to eliminate all economic competition, both domestically and internationally. The interest of the capitalist-colonialist ruling class is in dominating the natural resources and markets of the entire world.
Politically, there is the interest in restricting the political liberties of the peoples of the entire world. This is an interest in crushing any political liberties that do not facilitate the economic domination of the U.S. capitalists. It is an interest in restricting the development of any independent political expression that would challenge the hegemony of U.S. capitalism.
Ideologically, the interests of the white ruling class are served by idealism and obscurantism, which covers over reality. This keeps the oppressed and exploited peoples, especially the African working class, separated from an understanding of their own material interests. It keeps oppressed and exploited peoples ignorant of science and a scientific approach to an examination of the nature of class exploitation and national oppression. Ideologically, the interests of the white ruling class give rise to ideological imperialism, the imperialist imposition of its worldview, aims and ideology onto oppressed peoples. Imperialist domination of ideology is consistent with the economic domination of the capitalist system.
During the sixties, black political parties began to emerge from within the colonized African population in the U.S. as a result of the internal pressures of class contradictions. As these contradictions began to crystallize, they revealed a colonial society that was much more complex than before.
Before the movement won our legal democratic rights, it was all of “us” (blacks) against “them” (whites). The U.S. government was not generally recognized as an agent of a particular class and social system. Our movement, under the leadership of the black petty bourgeoisie, courted the various U.S. presidents assiduously, hoping to find a “good” president who was sympathetic to the general democratic aims and demands of the movement.
By 1965, after a decade of most intense struggle, our movement won the vote and our legal democratic rights. In the process, the black petty bourgeoisie was growing as a result of the effectiveness of the movement and the intervention of the liberal white bourgeoisie. With the vote and legal rights, the basic aspirations of the black middle class were, in effect, realized. For them the movement had reached its goal.
For the new generation of fully mobilized African workers that was thrust onto the scene as the main social factor in the U.S. political life, its aspirations were far from being met by gaining legal democratic rights. The attempts by the petty bourgeoisie to moderate the Black Liberation Movement, to decelerate it and direct it toward liberal bourgeois democratic sops, were met with the cries of “Burn, baby burn,” in Los Angeles and “Black Power” in Mississippi.
At this point the independent aspirations of the African working class became clear. This new clarity fueled efforts to build independent political parties by and for the colonially oppressed African population. Nevertheless, our inexperience frustrated our efforts at party-building. More often than not, we were unable to build parties that clearly identified the class interests they served. Generally we were not able to show that the African working class had an interest in overthrowing the colonial oppression of our whole people.
The party-building movement was successful, however, in creating party formations that raised principles of unity going beyond the limitations of the liberal black petty bourgeoisie. Those who could unite with militant anti-colonial principles that clearly distinguished African workers from the black petty bourgeoisie joined the party and were able to characterize themselves ambiguously as revolutionaries and black nationalists. Such parties began to characterize sectors of the movement that were trapped inside the limitations of reform as Uncle Toms and sometimes as the black bourgeoisie.
None of these parties was capable of raising up the interests of the black working class as the hegemonic interests of the party. Although it was the pressure of the black working class resistance and struggle that pushed this party-building process forward, it was essentially petty bourgeois nationalists—often revolutionary—who were leading this effort. The black working class was yet to seize leadership of its own revolutionary movement, even as history was pushing events in that direction with growing urgency.
Black Panthers, first black worker’s party
The Black Panther Party, which emerged in 1966–67, came closest to being the party of the African working class. 6 For the first time in the history of our movement, an independent black political party had identified itself as a socialist or communist organization, with socialist or communist revolutionary objectives. 7
Inherent in this identification was the assumption of a worldview with the interests of the African working class at its center. Certainly the vast bulk of the membership of the Black Panther Party was working class, and its Ten Point Program and Platform raised fundamentally working class demands.
The Black Panther Party (BPP) gave the colonially oppressed African working class more experience in leading its own struggle than any organization before it. Nevertheless, it muddled its own effectiveness with an ideology that mystified the character of the black working class under colonialism. Instead of elevating its membership to the highest stance of the African working class, the Black Panther Party idealized the traits of the lumpen proletariat, a non-working class element of unstable and unemployable people, as the leadership of the Revolution. In this process, the BPP mistakenly identified colonized unemployed black workers, who sometimes have lumpen tendencies, as the lumpen proletariat. 8
Nevertheless, the Black Panther Party provided the closest thing to a revolutionary center that our movement had ever experienced. Although incorrect on some essentials, the BPP introduced the question of class struggle to our movement, a question that was briefly taken up within a large sector of the African working class itself.
Bourgeois democracy and the parties of the white ruling class
The parties of the white ruling class inside the U.S. are the Democratic and Republican parties. The objective of the Democratic and Republican parties is the perpetuation of the capitalist social system, which rests on the foundation of African oppression. Although both of these parties are capable of prattle about democracy, the democracy they talk about is only a description of the form of the U.S. State, which exercises capitalist rule with its organs of coercion such as the police, army, the courts, etc. Besides being “democratic,” the capitalist State can take the form of dictatorship or monarchy, among others.
Neither the Democratic or Republican party is capable of talking about overthrowing the capitalist social system. Neither party will ever be able to bring about democratic self-determination for the broad mass of African people. This is because the capitalist social system within the boundaries of the U.S., perhaps more than any place else, rests on the foundation of African oppression going back to the days of what is called slavery.
The Democratic and Republican parties have been excellent tools of the white ruling class precisely because they appear to give African workers, oppressed peoples and even the general white population a choice in the U.S. They give the illusion of providing alternatives and freedom of democratic participation in American political life.
The Republican and Democratic parties make it possible for the white ruling class to monopolize political, economic and ideological power while obscuring the class interests that they represent. Since oppressed peoples, like sectors of the bourgeoisie, are often ignorant of their class interests, African workers generally attempt to pursue their class interests within the parties of the white ruling class, especially the Democratic party in this period.
Within the U.S. and most capitalist countries there is generally, but not always, more than one capitalist party. This allows the bourgeoisie to wear two hats, a kind of “good cop, bad cop” routine. In this way, the bourgeois social system protects itself by passing political power to one bourgeois party when the other has come into disrepute with the people.
The fact that the people can vote for one or the other bourgeois party gives the impression of political free will by the masses and acts as a social pressure release valve, blunting the development of class struggle. This is what is called bourgeois democracy.
Actually the people have not exercised free will, which presupposes information and science. Freedom is the recognition of necessity, which is prerequisite to exercising free will. Within the U.S. and other places where more than one capitalist party dominates political life, elections are means of nonviolent struggle by different sectors of the ruling class for control of the State.
The various social forces are not organized into their own independent class parties and engaged in conscious class struggle, one against the other. Instead, the American two-party system mobilizes African and other oppressed workers into the service of a sector of the white ruling class as it engages in intra-class struggle with another sector. The two-party system obscures the class interests of the exploited workers and oppressed peoples, reducing them to reserve forces for one sector of the bourgeoisie or another.
The question of class struggle within the U.S. has always been difficult enough even without the two-party duplicity of the bourgeoisie. This has to do with the parasitic nature of the capitalist system. Within the U.S., this parasitism stems from a social system built on stolen land, the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Native people and the enslavement of African people.
The entire white population—workers and bourgeoisie alike—and all social forces and classes that benefit from the development of the “New World,” find their happiness and freedom from political oppression and material want at the expense of the life, liberty and development of Indigenous and African peoples.
Hence, there is a material, economic basis for the political unity that exists between the North American bourgeoisie and the general white population. This political unity is directed against the African, Indigenous and other colonized peoples here and around the world, in defense of the capitalist social system.
The parasitic nature of the capitalist system is the basis for the political and ideological leadership of the modern U.S.-based African proletariat. The African working class is the only social force that has the exact combination of qualities which makes it an absolute, volatile opponent of the capitalist social system.
Along with the Indigenous people, the oppression of the African people represents the foundation upon which the capitalist social system rests. The nineteenth century philosopher Karl Marx termed this economic relationship “primitive accumulation…an accumulation not the result of the capitalist mode of production but its starting point.” The African population exists as a domestic colony upon which the U.S. capitalist system was founded.
The African population is a colonial population within the belly of the U.S., a factor with explosive social connotations in and of itself. In addition, the African population is essentially made up of workers, with estimates ranging from eighty-eight to ninety-four percent of U.S.-based African people falling into the working class.
Racism or white nationalism, the ideological foundation of U.S. and world capitalism, has as its basis “primitive accumulation,” the material foundation of the U.S. and world capitalist social system that was born and maintained at the expense of African, Indigenous and other oppressed peoples.
Inside the U.S., the class struggle against the capitalist-colonialist social system is centered in the colonized African population, which constitutes the true proletariat. Through the Black Revolution of the Sixties, the African working class came to understand that the bourgeois parties are opposed to our genuine interests.
When the black working class was organized into its own party in the sixties with the Black Panther Party as its legitimate representative, the African working class became a formidable opponent to the U.S. capitalist system. The threat of organized African workers was so great that the chief of the U.S. secret political police declared the Black Panther Party the greatest threat to the internal security of the U.S. since the Civil War.
The war against the Black Revolution
When the black working class was organized into its own party, with its class and national interests summed up in the form of a political program opposed to colonial rule, the Democratic and Republican parties had to call into force the repressive arms of the State. These parties of the bourgeoisie were incapable of engaging in successful ideological and nonviolent political struggle with the black working class. It took an all out urban war against the black working class in the sixties for a return to imperialist class peace and the reinstatement of the facade of a two-party system supposedly representing the class interests of all the people.
This war saw African workers stand up alone not only against armed police organizations, but even armed military forces usually reserved for foreign U.S. intervention. In Detroit this included the Eighty-second Airborne Division. In urban areas throughout the U.S., military tanks and an assortment of other sophisticated armaments were deployed against the unarmed black working class communities.
The military offensive, directed by the Democratic and Republican parties, was faced with the immediate task of putting down a massive movement with insurrectionary characteristics similar to that presently occurring in Occupied Azania (South Africa). This military offensive, or counterinsurgency, was designed to destroy the will of the entire African working class to struggle by crushing their independent organizations, particularly the Black Panther Party.
The U.S. ruling class used its military power, its state power, to defeat the independent, revolutionary capacity of the African working class, the only internal social force that made it necessary to defend the capitalist social system. The African working class was the only social force inside the U.S. that was capable of challenging the bourgeoisie for power, the fundamental question for any revolution.
For all these years subsequent to the military defeat of the Black Revolution of the Sixties the bourgeoisie has expended a tremendous amount of energy and resources in keeping the African working class politically disoriented, disorganized and unable to come together organizationally in its own class interests.
The methods for this have ranged from open white ruling class bribery of nonproletarian social forces, to naked terror against the African working class itself. Evidence of the African working class in the popular culture has nearly disappeared. Michael Jackson, Jesse Jackson, Prince, and Lionel Ritchie have become the stereotypes of the acceptable African within the U.S. On the occasions when black working class elements are allowed to emerge as acceptable, it is as followers of Jesse Jackson into the Democratic party. Or it is as fictionalized pathetic, poor black working class children who manage to escape colonial poverty through being adopted by well-to-do white petty bourgeois families, as seen on television sit-coms.
A significant sector of the liberal black petty bourgeoisie accepted neocolonial roles in the bourgeois Democratic party. This is payoff in material resources and prestige for administrating the African working class in areas where white direct colonial rule would be unacceptable. The Jesse Jackson presidential campaign was a manifestation of this, along with the bombing of an African working class community in Philadelphia by a black mayor and a black city manager. 9
In the years since the sixties, the white women's and homosexual movements have become virtual scabs on the Black Revolution. These movements are incapable of raising up and supporting the Black Liberation Movement which is the quintessence of the class struggle within the U.S.
The black petty bourgeois neocolonialist puppets and the women's and homosexual movements are conscious opportunist movements. They offer up the battered carcass of the collective African working class to the altar of capitalism as offerings of class peace in exchange for privileges for themselves. They all attempt to mute and obscure class struggle and call on the people to join the Democratic party to achieve their aims.
With the defeat of the Black Revolution of the Sixties, our independent working class organizations were destroyed and the mass of black workers were disorganized and dispersed. A variety of petty bourgeois social forces, mostly tied to the Democratic party, united with the white ruling class in assuring class peace. Such unity means the muting of any class struggle that has the interests of the African working class at its center.
This is the context of the significance of the existence and struggle of the African People's Socialist Party.
Strategy for revolutionary African working class party
Organized in 1972 from surviving black working class organizations of the sixties, the African People's Socialist Party pulled together the best elements of the class subsequent to the defeat of our movement. While we are a revolutionary party, we understand that our task for this period is not to make the Revolution, but to build the capacity of the only consistently revolutionary social force within U.S. borders, the African working class. This means that our primary task is to build the African People's Socialist Party.
We must address our strategy for building a truly revolutionary African working class party. This is necessary because at least one petty bourgeois, U.S.-based African organization claims party-building as its main task. This party does not distinguish its main task from its general aim, hence the “task” of party-building has for all practical purposes, become its general aim. This party uses the slogan of party-building to obscure class struggle, to maintain the class peace which is necessary for successful bourgeois colonialist rule.
For the African People's Socialist Party, fundamental to the task of party-building is the need to smash the class peace. Otherwise, sectors of the black working class might remain ensconced within the Democratic party. Additionally, the millions of African workers who have rejected the false choice of the two white ruling class parties will be unable to see that we must do more than just turn our backs on this pitfall. We must join and support our own independent parties in order to achieve our own separate class interests.
For the African People's Socialist Party, the task of party-building is always a process deeply rooted in solving the concrete, practical problems of the Revolution for the period. A key, fundamental problem today is the reorganization of the black working class into its own independent revolutionary party. We are not, however, talking about party-building for its own sake. For us the task of party-building is for the purpose of solving the most fundamental problems of the Revolution. We are informed of the practical problems of the Revolution by our ability to sum up the period in which we live and assume the task of party-building.
Our summation of this period informs us that objective conditions for revolution are ripe. The U.S. capitalist-colonialist class is engaged in several undeclared wars, a fact which currently divides the ruling class.
The conditions of existence for the black working class are reaching new and greater levels of desperation, and the use of overt police terror against the colonially oppressed African workers is becoming more blatant every day.
These conditions are evidence of the general crisis of imperialism. Although the election of Ronald Wilson Reagan as U.S. president was designed to confront this crisis, it continues unabated, nationally and internationally. Clearly, the objective conditions for the African Revolution are very strong.
However, currently there are key weaknesses that we face in the subjective factors for revolution. These include the general state of disorganization of the African working class. This disorganization is facilitated by opportunism on every level. For example, there are the so-called revolutionary black parties that are fearful of class struggle and black working class hegemony over our own movement.
There are the silver-tongued, bourgeois-sponsored, neocolonialist black petty bourgeois stooges, whose prestige, appearance of power and material resources are dependent upon their ability to speak for the masses of unorganized black workers. There are the “communists,” “socialists” and “leftists” of all stripes, who can wear such appellations only so long as the African working class is voiceless and unable to impress our own version of class truth on the political life of the U.S. There are the women's and homosexual movements and every other social force that faithfully serves the U.S. bourgeoisie, and who remember with fear and trepidation the undiluted power of the Black Revolution of the Sixties.
In practical terms party-building today means, first and foremost, concrete work designed to activate the best of the class into political motion around concrete programs. Our immediate aim is to achieve absolute political hegemony over our movement and class in the process. Party-building means providing leadership for the class even when the party is small and has not yet fully achieved its desired capacity.
For example, although small, the African People's Socialist Party has been able to ignite a social movement in Oakland, California. The Party has successfully mobilized elements of the African working class. With the Party at its center, this movement has been able to mobilize social forces of various nationalities into the service of the African working class and away from absolute unity with the bourgeois colonialists.
Although most of the African workers in Oakland are not Party members, the leadership of the Party in the city has made it possible for African workers as a whole to experience an organized fighting capacity around real, concrete, social needs. The Party-led Uhuru Movement in Oakland has led a campaign to successfully challenge the basic assumptions of bourgeois property relations. For the first time since the sixties, the Party has put the bourgeoisie on the political defensive in a struggle with African workers.
In 1984, the African People's Socialist Party put an initiative on the electoral ballot in Oakland calling for community control of housing. Known as Measure O, the initiative called for residential rents to be set no higher than twenty-five percent of the average income of a neighborhood. Measure O also called for abandoned houses to be turned over to homeless people. Essentially a land reform measure, the initiative won twenty-five thousand votes, a quarter of the votes cast, despite a half million dollars spent to defeat it by Oakland landlords and realtors. 10
Thus, our small Party, in the process of party-building, was able to provide leadership for African and other working class elements in a fashion greatly disproportionate to our physical size. More than this, the voters who were won to a working class stand in that election stood against the leadership of the bourgeois parties with whom they are registered.
The party-building process must awaken the black working class to practical participation in its own political life. This is why party-building is not an abstract process. Real political struggle must be coupled with real, practical leadership of the class when building the party. The party must be capable of mobilizing and leading the African working class and various social forces of various nationalities if it is to be worthy of the name “party.”
Today we are confronted with a period when the last significant political lesson to be summed up by the black working class is military defeat. Still reeling from the U.S. military assault against our movement of the sixties, the masses of African workers today are restless. They have not yet, however, again concluded that their own interests are summed up in the African working class party, or that joining the party is worth the risk to life and liberty that may be suggested by party membership. Nevertheless, African workers must still have the leadership of the party available to them and be able to claim the party as their own.
For the African People's Socialist Party, the party-building process is an open one. We believe the African working class and our allies should have some idea of what parties are and what their functions are. We think our supporters should have a better grip on what it is they support and whether their support is what it needs to be.
The African People’s Socialist Party is a revolutionary African working class party, the only such party in the U.S. We are organized around a common General Program and policies that were ratified during our First Party Congress, the highest body of the Party, comprised of representatives of the entire membership.
Our General Program and our policies are the practical, concrete manifestations of our revolutionary theory of African Internationalism. African Internationalism is Pan-Africanism developed to its highest stage, Pan-Africanism during the age of imperialism.11 African Internationalism unites the African people of the world in a revolutionary process to liberate Africa under the leadership of African workers and poor peasants.
The theory of African Internationalism is ever-developing with the new experiences of the international working class, African and otherwise. It is based on a scientific method of investigating and analyzing social life. It recognizes that the current oppressive circumstances of African people have their base in the slave trade, the fundamental feature in the development of world capitalism.
The scientific method of investigating social life employed by the African People's Socialist Party is called dialectical and historical materialism.
By dialectical we mean that our approach to the investigation of all phenomena is all-sided, taking into consideration the past and present. Dialectical means that we take into account the relationship of a phenomenon in motion to all other phenomena, even as phenomena come into being and die away.
By materialism we mean that our analysis of phenomena is based on an investigation of a phenomenon itself, not requiring an explanation of phenomena outside of it.
By historical materialism we mean the application of the principles of dialectical materialism to the investigation and interpretation of society and social life.
The opposition of the African People's Socialist Party to the U.S. government and the capitalist social system, which rests on our colonial oppression, is total and absolute. There are no circumstances under which we would ever find the foreign domination of our people or the economic exploitation of our class acceptable. We are convinced that capitalism, the social system, was built off the slave trade and the theft of life, liberty, and resources of African people and the non-European peoples of the world. We understand that the world's stolen resources are concentrated in Europe and the U.S., and are owned and controlled by a tiny minority of the people on the planet. Moreover, we are convinced that this capitalist system is on its deathbed.
We believe that the future belongs to the dispossessed colonized workers of the world. When armed with a revolutionary theory and led by a revolutionary party, African and other oppressed workers represent the conscious, subjective forces of history necessary for the overthrow of capitalism. This is the only way to bring about the advent of a new social system organized under the leadership of the working masses, the real producers of all material wealth.
This new social system will end production for profit and rule by a nonworking minority who maintain private ownership of our resources and control of the means of production.
We believe that the new social system that will follow capitalism is communism, a just social system based on labor according to ability and guaranteeing to each person the material resources of life and its reproduction according to need. Communism is the system that the white ruling class and all its hangers-on are attempting to suppress with the oppression of the African working class
Thus we recognize that the African People's Socialist Party, the advanced, conscious detachment of the African working class, is, like the class itself, locked in a life-and-death battle with the U.S. capitalist system. Hence, the members of our Party represent the advanced sector of the African working class. They must constantly strive for a self-motivated discipline that is steeled by conviction.
As the advanced detachment of the African working class, the African People's Socialist Party assumes the responsibility for advancing the cause of the whole class, which at any given time may be battered by ignorance, drug addiction, alcoholism, demoralization or other contradictions. The members of the African People's Socialist Party must become professional revolutionaries, individuals whose real profession is revolution with the Party as their vehicle.
The African People's Socialist Party recognizes that the colonially oppressed African workers are the most consistently revolutionary social force within the U.S. The African working class will not achieve revolutionary consciousness on its own, however. It is the task of the African People's Socialist Party, even as it is being built to full capacity, to intervene in the day-to-day struggles of the African working class, to forge deep lines in struggle and to lead the class to an ever higher, ever more precise understanding of African Internationalism, the science of black workers' revolution.
The African People's Socialist Party, a revolutionary African Internationalist Party based on a revolutionary African working class theory, is a party of professional revolutionaries. All distinctions between workers and intellectuals, laborers and “professionals,” lose their significance. We are welded into one by the common cause of a proletarian future that is being advanced by the party of the colonially oppressed African working class.
On one side stand the bourgeoisie and all the institutions which serve to preserve its rule. On the other side stands the oppressed African working class, represented by the African People's Socialist Party.
Together, these two social forces represent the great contest of our time. Separately, they represent the past and the future. The conscious representatives of these two great social forces are choosing sides. Every day makes the choice by the African working class and our allies more critical.
For us the question is clear. The future will prevail. It is urgent for all those who are taking a neutral seat as spectators in this contest, to take up the call. Take the Great Leap Forward and grab the future in your hands to help shape and mold it in our lifetime, for this generation.
Those who can, must join the African People's Socialist Party; those who cannot, must support us.
Build the revolutionary Party of the African working class!
Build the African People's Socialist Party!


Permanent Mission of Costa Rica to the United Nations
Mission Activities
Revitalization of the GA
Juan Carlos Mendoza García, Permanent Representative
Co-chairs,
Thank you very much for convening this informal meeting of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the
Revitalization of the work of the General Assembly. This is a great opportunity to exchange views on the
proposal to appoint the next Secretary-General for a single non-renewable term.
In my national capacity my delegation would like to make some additional specific comments on the
election of the first female Secretary General, the presentation of more than one candidate and the
single non-renewable term of seven years.
We firmly believe that it is high time for a female Secretary General. Costa Rica is convinced that after
eight Secretaries-General males and in the light of the commemoration of the seventieth anniversary of
the United Nations, it is time for a woman to occupy that high office. We are convinced that about half
of the world population there is not one but many women with higher capacities and skills to occupy
such a high post. Costa Rica calls upon Member States to present and support female candidates for the
appointment of Secretary General.
Costa Rica wants to see the democratization of the selection process of the Secretary General. Security
Council providing plural number of candidates to the General Assembly for the post increases inclusivity,
transparency and most importantly legitimizes the process through voting. United Nations has
championed the cause of democracy, and it is indeed ironical why the principle has not adopted in the
selection process of the most important position in the organization.
It is clear that the length of term on the appointment of the Secretary General is open to revision and
needs to be debated. The UN Charter does not need any amendment in order to set the single term
We need to reflect on the next selection of the Secretary General having in mind that from now on we
will create a new precedent and a new culture on the topic, it is urgent to set a new practice in which
the General Assembly has an import role to play, in accordance with the UN Charter, the resolution
69/321 and other relevant decisions, as well as drafting the final resolution for the appointment of
Secretary General specifying that the next Secretary General is being appointed for a single non-
renewable term of seven years.
The single term provides the Secretary General with a political space to get his/her commitments and
goals without any distraction of getting reappointed. The world challenges, including the
implementation of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, require a Secretary General without
campaigning for a reappointment following interests of individual Member States neither.
The current arrangement which provides for a five year term with the possibility of getting re-elected for
a second term prevents the Secretary General from focusing entirely on the agenda at hand. The
possibility of holding the office for a second term diverts the attention to campaigning, re-election and
the complications that comes along.
A single terms guarantees the Secretary General independence, strengthen her stance, help in giving the
person in office a stronger voice and it could aid the Secretary General in ensuring that the
appointments made at other levels are strong, thus raising the overall quality.
We believe that the single term contributes to the accountability of the Secretary General and that
accountability should be on a regular basis between the Secretary General, the Security Council and the
Independence in the exercise of a position like Secretary General does not means lack of care and
attention for the relative weight and power different countries exercise in global politics. In a
multipolar world is clear that balances are to be made in different tense situations. Nevertheless,
fidelity is not to be expected from any country from a Secretary General that should be faithful to the
Charter and its principles only.
My delegation appreciates the commitment and important role played by the President of the General
Assembly in implementing the resolution 69/321 and in this regard the letter dated February 25th, 2016
regarding informal dialogues with the six candidates for the position of Secretary General to be held
April 12-14th, 2016.
It is time to act in favor of transparency and democracy.


by Susan Gubar
Was it curiosity, fear, hope, illusion or some other unplanned mixture of expectations that drew me to Susan Gubar’s LATE-LIFE LOVE?
I’m still not sure, but now that I’ve traveled its 337 pages, one of the few certainties I have about this oddly mesmerizing and endearing book is that being unsure is all right in Gubar’s world. In fact, it can even be empowering.
A cancer survivor who was supposed to meet her expiry date a decade ago, Gubar had the good fortune to receive a successful experimental drug that extended her remission. So what has she done with that extraordinary gift of quality time? As a cancer survivor myself, I want as little to do with this horrible disease as possible, for as long as possible, but not Gubar.
She delved even deeper into that scary world to write MEMOIR OF A DEBULKED WOMAN (2012), about her battle with ovarian cancer --- the one that took my own mother far before her time---and READING AND WRITING CANCER (2016), whose gestation and birth slightly overlapped that of LATE-LIFE LOVE.
This latest work from Gubar, a retired university English professor best known for her brilliant and heartfelt New York Times essays on the challenges of aging, is a welcome addition to that rare list of books that truly straddles two genres --- that of memoir and literary criticism.
"[O]ne of the few certainties I have about this oddly mesmerizing and endearing book is that being unsure is all right in Gubar’s world. In fact, it can even be empowering."
Gubar easily could have filled LATE-LIFE LOVE with anecdotes and reflections on the hopes and realities of conjugal life begun at an age when many seniors have lost their spouses, are single again and often terminally lonely. She could have examined how life unfolds for couples whose age differences span a decade or more, as in her own marriage…and mine.
Or she could have focused on how youthfully entered long marriages change and adapt over many decades to face the inevitable and often painful losses that come with advancing age. Any of these themes would have produced a memorable book, because that’s the only kind Gubar writes.
But LATE-LIFE LOVE is about all of them, and more, which makes it not only uniquely personal but universal, in the best consciousness-raising sense of the word. In the midst of coping with her own health issues and simultaneously supporting her much older husband through a difficult and prolonged recovery from major knee surgery, Gubar called upon her vast literary experience to explore how other writers and their characters over the centuries have dealt with love in the so-called twilight years.
What she comes up with is a surprisingly mixed bag that includes dreamy nostalgia, passive acceptance of failing minds and bodies, defiant zeal for every last drop of ecstasy, fear of decay and death, faith in the unquantifiable strength of mutual devotion, dry humor about the dry years, practical insights for 21st-century relationships, and a renewed appreciation for mature compassion.
And that’s where Gubar’s keen and unflinching critical powers are at their best. Far from escaping blindly into literature while waiting for medical appointments, or riding out bad days (of which she and her husband had more than their fair share), Gubar meticulously probed the intent, integrity and authenticity of an astonishing gallery of authors, from the familiar to the almost unknown.
A partial list of contributors to LATE-LIFE LOVE includes Ovid, Shakespeare, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Donald Hall, Samuel Beckett, Gabriel García Márquez, Toni Morrison, Marilynne Robinson, Philip Roth, John Updike, John Donne and Colette. Each of them, in some way --- not always transparent or easily detectable --- contributes to a mosaic of understanding that our society has generally ignored or denied.
Throughout the book, Gubar and her husband Don are repeatedly grateful for their large and willing network of supportive friends and relatives who prove indispensable in overcoming some of the critical logistics of aging, such as downsizing and transportation. The unspoken but clear teaching here is to build and care for your supporters before you need them!
Another issue that affects Americans more than we “spoiled” Canadians, with our more accessible national health care system, is that of getting the right medical help when you need it, and being able to afford it. High costs, red tape, long delays and even surgical incompetence all eroded this couple’s life more than they should have.
LATE-LIFE LOVE is not for the faint-hearted, but neither is it a gloomy or fatalistic anthology of decline. Far from it! In fact, I would highly recommend it to couples decades younger who should know that there is not only “life” in one’s senior years, but beauty and pleasure as well. Like Susan Gubar, you just have to know where to find it.
Reviewed by Pauline Finch on January 4, 2019
Publication Date: November 13, 2018
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company


Full NASCAR TV schedule for Chicago
NASCAR Chase for the Sprint Cup starts this weekend
LAT PHOTOGRAPHIC
Check out the TV schedule for this weekend's NASCAR action.
The NASCAR Chase for the Sprint Cup will start this weekend at Chicagoland Speedway. The 16 drivers competing for the championship will begin the 10-race quest for the title on Sunday. Check of out the TV schedule below. Friday, Sept. 16 -12:30-1:25 p.m.: NASCAR Xfinity practice, NBCSN-1:30-2:55 p.m.: NASCAR Sprint Cup practice, NBC Sports App-3-4:25 p.m.: NASCAR Xfinity practice, NBC Sports App-4:45 p.m.: NASCAR Camping World Truck Series qualifying, FS1-6:45 p.m.: NASCAR Sprint Cup qualifying, NBCSN-8:30 p.m.: NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race, FS1 Saturday, Sept. 17 -10:30-11:25 a.m.: NASCAR Sprint Cup practice, CNBC-11:45 a.m.: NASCAR Xfinity qualifying, NBCSN-1:30-2:20 p.m.: NASCAR Sprint Cup practice, NBCSN-3 p.m.: NASCAR Xfinity race, NBC Sunday, Sept. 18 -2:30 p.m.: NASCAR Sprint Cup race, NBCSN


The Crash of Philip J. Imbrogno
By Kevin Randle
It has happened again in the world of the UFO. Another researcher, who talked of advanced degrees and of military service in the Special Forces has been found to have invented his background. Philip J. Imbrogno, who claimed a Ph. D. and service with the Army’s Green Berets had neither degree nor Special Forces training.
Lance Moody, who has appeared here in the past, wrote that he recently became interested in Imbrogno’s background and began a somewhat routine search to verify his credentials. Lance, on his web site penned the following exposé:
Saucers, Lies and Audio Tape
he writes,
“Recently, I became interested in the claims of ‘respected’ UFO and paranormal author, Philip J. Imbrogno. Imbrogno has written many paranormal books. Perhaps his best known was the account of the Hudson Valley UFO sightings he co-authored with J. Allen Hynek.”
The information provided by Imbrogo on his web site claimed, “"Imbrogno holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in physics, astronomy and chemistry from the University of Texas and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2010 he was awarded a Ph.D. in theoretical chemistry from MIT. He is a staff member of the McCarthy Observatory in New Milford, Connecticut, and is a founder and former director of the Astronomical Society Of Greenwich, and former director of the Bowman Observatory."
As Moody noted, this suggested the Imbrogno, unlike so many others in the field, had a fine education and was a “real” scientist working in the paranormal arena. Radio show hosts often recited the information without bothering to check the validity of it (though I don’t really blame those hosts... they take the information supplied by the guest and because there are so many guests that it would be nearly impossible to check everything... besides, who would lie about something so easy to verify?).
Moody wrote, “A telephone conversation with the [MIT] office further determined that there has never been a student with the last name ‘Imbrogno’ attending classes at MIT. Wow. Can it really be that easy?”
The answer was, “Yes, it can be that easy.”
But Moody also received a written reply, which he published on his web site. No one by the name of Imbrogno had attended classes there. The registrar even checked on various spellings. Nothing.
Moody contacted Don Ecker of “Dark Matters” radio fame. Ecker said that he’d had Imbrogno on his radio show several times and when he and his wife, Vicki Ecker had been leading UFO, they’d published articles written by Imbrogno.
Ecker was somewhat skeptical of what Moody had found and cautioned that Moody had better be sure of his facts. I suggested the same thing. Be sure you’re right because you could cause yourself some real trouble.
But Moody had the goods. It made Ecker suspicious of Imbrogno. He wrote, “Then something else hit me. On the last two shows with Imbrogno he made a point of mentioning his ‘Viet Nam military service’ while a member of the U.S. Army’s elite Special Forces.”
This sent Ecker off in another direction. He began to investigate Imbrogno’s military claims. As with those from the academic world, Ecker was unable to verify that Imbrogno had ever served with the Army’s Special Forces.
Ecker sent a note to Imbrogno and a posted reply that sounded like Imbrogno that said, “One last thing Don, you are a great guy if you want my military record DD214. It will show I was a medic in the USAF and did a tour in indochina It might show I was attached to the army for a while I don't know when and where it was all pretty disorganized. I was part of a specialy trained group of medics (the first in line of what today is called a PA in medicine) Much more that a coreman [sic], more than a nurse, but less than a doctor. I was primarily stationed in Thailand, but was attached to a number of army units over the tour. I believe I was in every country in that area The hope was to increase the survival rate of the wounded getting aerovacted out. Get my DD214 it will show 90250 training... # I got punished and article 15 and had to run the VD clinic for a week.”
This answer is pretty disorganized and I’m not sure what to make of it. He is now suggesting he was a Air Force medic and was attached to the Army. While the Marines always use Navy “Corpsmen” (and wouldn’t he know how to spell it if he was a corpsman?) for their medics, the Army has had it’s own medics. It has no need to “borrow” them from the Air Force. And note that he has covered that by suggesting this service attached to the Army might not be reflected on his DD 214.
I’m not sure why Imbrogno doesn’t know what is on his DD 214. He should have received a copy when he left the service, and he would have been told that it was an important document. It is needed to apply for veteran’s benefits, some states use it to determine property tax reductions for veterans, and it is proof of military service.
Here’s where we are today. Imbrogno has dropped out of paranormal research, at least for the moment. One of his co-authors has severed her relation with him. He does not hold the academic honors he claimed and his military service was not with the Army’s Special Forces. He may or may not have served in Vietnam as a medic with the Air Force.
Don Ecker wrote, “As I was in the process of completing this report, no verification of Imbrogno serving in the U. S. Army’s Special Forces, much less MACV-SOG was found by the SF Association. Imbrogno offered no copies of his DD-214. (Military Separation documents.) Since this scandal broke he has with-drawn from paranormal research, changed his telephone number and gotten a new and covert email address. His former working partner, Ms. Rosemary E. Guiley has broken her working relationship from Imbrogno. The paranormal field has once again been given a huge black eye from another person that felt the need to lie … for whatever reason. Okay, this has happened in the past and will undoubtedly happen in the future. But there is more here than meets the eye if you stop to think about it.”
As Ecker suggested, this is just another black eye for the field. We have had a large number of these problems in the last few years and I suspect we’ll have more in the future. What we need to do is be sure that the people who have come forward to tell their tales and those who investigate them are who they claim to be. In today’s world it is very easy to verify claims and we should be doing so. It won’t stop this endless parade of fakers and phonies but it will limit the damage they cause. It will also mean that we can stop wasting our time and get on with the work that needs to be done.
. . . More
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Labels: By Kevin Randle , Embellishment , Fraud , Lance Moody , Philip J. Imbrogno
Michael Morain 4:37 AM
As usual things are not all ways what they appear to be.Little wonder why the real truth is so hard to find. This is the reason why I am so reluctant to come forward with my evidence. The current belief about extraterrestrials is so far from the truth it is laughable. Hilarious ridiculous assuming!!! They're our creators our saviors our friends. Villainy squared bull shot to the nth degree.The truth will set you free and I have it.
Sad, if true about Imbrogno. Veracity is everthing when adderssing ET or related exotic tech, UFO history and lore. That said, THERE ARE some other, so-called "respected" speakers out there that demand proper vetting, and one other colorful personality is David Adair. I checked him out 1996-7, and I definitely found his background and authenticity more than lacking. He may pull some interestng facts out during his talks, but they are dressing on a wholly manufactured profile base. Go to his roots, to his high school in Centerville, OH. You'll find during his tenure thete his "rocket" was only a science fair novelty. No fusion power going on there. And the snowball grows from there. Many other items of hyperbole flow. Again, I feel bad having to say this, but then he could damage the legitimacy of others who deserve to be recognized, and PAID for speaking.


Securing and Managing Your Cloud Data
Business I.D. Theft
Theft Methods
Prevention Practices
Identity Theft Business I.D. Theft
Is the cloud secure?
Nipitpon Singad / EyeEm/Getty Images
By Robert Siciliano
Do you have data in a cloud? No, not a white, fluffy pillow, but on a technological cloud. This term, "cloud," refers to servers that are operated remotely and owned by corporations or individuals. Though clouds can be quite convenient, many ask ourselves, "Is the cloud secure?"
For years now, there have been billions of dollars invested by major corporations to store and back up their data in a cloud, and it’s proven to be worth it.
When storing data on a computer, it is all kept ‘together in one place. Data on a cloud, however, is spread out across the world, often redundantly. So, what is more secure? A PC that's on your desk or a random cloud server in Miami?
The truth is, all data on both a cloud and a PC is vulnerable to theft and damage if not protected. Data based on the cloud is also vulnerable based on where is it stored and through the transmission of the data.
Most service providers that provide clouds do not give a lot of information about how they protect their data, as this could inform hackers about how to get into their networks.
Some providers offer a two-factor authentication, which is a good way to protect the data and makes it difficult for hackers to access. With two-factor authentication, there are two different things required to prove identity. For instance, if you have online banking then you must enter your account number, then a password, and upon entering the password you may receive a text message to enter in another one-time password (OTP) to get account access. With your mobile phone in hand, that second factor OTP gets you in.
How Clouds Are Changing Technology
You may have realized that over the past 10 years or so, computers have grown more powerful and faster than ever before. They have larger hard drives, more RAM, and better processors. All of this has been made possible by cheaper and better technology and as a response to developers of software, who are making programs more complex and demanding.
The cloud, when it came along, allowed programs of all kinds, as well as data storage, to go virtual, and people understood that they don't necessarily require a local computer with speed or space. This allows a slower PC to find a new life and devices such as mobile phones, tablets, and e-readers do not require as much space, as data can be stored in a cloud.
One of the biggest impacts of the cloud has been with multi-streaming media such as music and movies. Since video and songs have become digitized, there have been dramatic changes in the hardware and devices used for the consumption of content, as well as how it is distributed.
Furthermore, the cloud encourages the development of ID technology that is designed to authenticate people online and through mobile and card technologies. The advantages to this will eventually lead to more security and ease in our digital lives.
The Public Cloud
The public cloud is a term that describes the traditional way of using cloud computing, where resources are given to the general public on a self-service basis. It is available through the Internet, web services and applications or from third-party, off-site providers.
The Community Cloud
A community cloud is one that shares its infrastructure between several organizations from a specific community. These communities have a common concern, such as compliance or security, and may be managed or hosted internally or externally, or through a third party. With this cloud, the costs are spread over fewer users, so only some of the benefits of using a cloud are available.
The Hybrid Cloud
A hybrid cloud is one that has two or more clouds, either community, private or public, that remain unique parts, yet are bound, which offers the benefits of multiple models.
The Private Cloud
A private cloud is a cloud that is used by only one person or organization. This cloud is either managed by a third-party or internally, and it may be hosted either externally or internally.
These clouds have attracted some criticism since users still have to build, buy and manage them, and there are no benefits such as low up-front costs.
Is it Safe to Store Passwords in the Cloud?
How to Create a Secure Password
Learn How a VPN Protects Your Computer, Identity, and Privacy
How Safe Is the Personal Information You Store in the Cloud?
Best Security Practices for Mobile Banking
The 8 Best Cloud Backup Services of 2019
Here Are Tips on Keeping Your Mobile Devices Safe From Cyber Threats
Protect Your Company's Data With These Cybersecurity Best Practices
Public Wi-Fi Is Handy, But Is It Too Risky for Online Banking?
ATM Skimming: It’s About To Get Worse
How to Protect Your Privacy When Your ISP Sells Your Data
How to Protect Your Data From Identity Theft Rings
Who Is Stealing Identities and How?
Which Tax Software Is Best: Online or Installed on Your Computer?
How to Prevent Your Mobile Number From Being Ported
Petya Malware Exposes Vulnerabilities in Computer Software


Outdoor Sportsman Group Networks Pack Adventure in Top Shows, Movies and Talent in Q1 Programming Schedule
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Outdoor Channel Acquires Syndicated Cable Air Rights to Duck Dynasty
DENVER (December 21, 2015) – Outdoor Sportsman Group Networks are responding to the diverse interests of today’s sportsmen and women by packing their first quarter (Q1) programming lineups for all three networks – Outdoor Channel, Sportsman Channel and World Fishing Network – with adventure, exceptional lifestyle experts and top talent, such as Ivan Carter, Steven Rinella, Lee and Tiffany Lakosky, Louie Tuminaro and Ted Nugent, to name a few; proven shows -syndicated cable airs of Duck Dynasty; and iconic movies with Joe Kidd and more. With original premieres and more than 1,300 new episodes from returning series across all three networks, viewers can expect the most original outdoor programming focused on their passions beginning on Monday, December 28.
“The new quarter and beginning of 2016 promises to be the start of a programming bonanza for the three networks of the Outdoor Sportsman Group,” said Outdoor Sportsman Group Networks CEO and President Jim Liberatore. “We have been committed and have successfully increased ratings, brought new viewers to the network over the past two years and will continue building on that trend with the premiere of original series Carter’s W.A.R., as well as the newly acquired cable air rights to the first six seasons of Duck Dynasty. Other shows on Sportsman Channel and World Fishing Network continue to solidify our position as the world’s largest aggregator and content provider of outdoor lifestyle programming.”
Outdoor Channel – with programming focused on outdoor adventure featuring rugged, dangerous and exciting shows – is unveiling a new compelling original series, Carter’s W.A.R. and has acquired exclusive syndicated cable air rights to the popular Duck Dynasty. These programs join a roster of several returning TV series, including: The Gunfather presented by Brownells, Flying Wild Alaska and Wardens presented by Streamlight as tentpole programming for Q1.
Carter’s W.A.R. (Wildlife Animal Response) presented by Nosler (Mondays at 9 p.m. ET/PT): This Outdoor Channel original series tells the untold story of wildlife detective, conservationist and professional hunting guide Ivan Carter, and his quest to save his homeland – Africa. From heavily armed poachers butchering elephants for their tusks to the slaughter of rhinos for their horns, Africa’s most precious resource is in peril. Can one man expose the truth and make a difference?
Duck Dynasty (Mondays at 7 p.m. ET/PT): Duck Dynasty follows the Robertsons, a Louisiana bayou family living the American dream as they operate a thriving business – Duck Commander – while staying true to their core values and outdoor lifestyle. They may look like your typical family – except for the beards – but with the antics of patriarch Phil, business-savvy Willie and the rest of the Duck Commander crew, including Willie’s wife, Korie, his brother Jase and Uncle Si, a Vietnam vet, the group is certainly anything but ordinary. Outdoor Channel will air the first six seasons of the series beginning January 18.
The Gunfather presented by Brownells (Mondays at 8 p.m. ET/PT): The Tuminaro family is back for Season Two. The Gunfather revolves around the life of Louie Tuminaro, a tough-talking New Yorker who moved his family from the Big Apple to the small town of Hamilton, Montana in pursuit of his lifelong dream: opening the greatest gun shop in the West. That dream is now a reality called the Custom Shop, a firearms sales and restoration business.
Flying Wild Alaska (Saturdays at 10 p.m. ET): Also back for a second season on Outdoor Channel is Flying Wild Alaska. The show follows the unconventional Tweto family, who rule Alaska’s most dangerous skies through the operation of their family-run airline, Era Alaska. Watch as they battle unforgiving Alaska weather and terrain to transport life’s necessities – champion snow dogs and medicine for sick children – to the isolated rural inhabitants of the Bering Sea coastline.
Wardens presented by Streamlight (Mondays at 11:30 p.m. ET): When your job is protecting our most precious natural resources in some of the nation’s most remote areas, there is rarely a dull moment. The sixth season of Wardens chronicles the lives of Conservation Officers in Montana and highlights the men and women who protect
public lands.
Sportsman Channel’s lineup – highlighting programming that appeals to the hardcore hunter and angler – features outdoor lifestyle, adventure, travel, food and survival. With fishing returning to the minds of outdoorsmen, Sportsman Channel is responding with new fishing adventure television series, Wild Billz and Lake Commandos, among numerous other fishing shows already on the docket. Plus, the New Year means the highly-anticipated return of MeatEater and the new adventures of Steven Rinella and crew. Plus, don’t miss the new series Made for the Outdoors to get the inside scoop on how the most popular outdoor brands are made.
Wild Billz (Saturdays at 11 a.m. ET): What kind of person does it take to battle rough oceans, elite competitors, the fastest fish in the ocean and achieve success on the world’s largest stage in billfishing? Wildbillz follows three teams – 4 Aces, Liquid and Vitamin Sea Too – as they compete in the “Quest for the Crest,” a high stakes sailfish series off the Florida coast. Pride, ego and a cash purse in excess of $2 million will drive these teams to unimaginable limits.
MeatEater (Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT): Host Steven Rinella continues to explore, hunt, and cook in some of North America’s most pristine landscapes. He shares his experience and insight about living off the land as he continues two life-long journeys – the pursuit of a huge public land mule deer and the hunt for his first and only grizzly bear. Other highlights include an impassioned defense of the American pronghorn, a deep dive into a traditional Virginia dove hunt and a return to the big woods of Wisconsin for deer camp on
opening day.
Lake Commandos (Saturdays at 8:30 a.m. ET): Each week on Lake Commandos, host Steve Pennaz and an expert guest break down new water while trying to out-fish one another.
Made for the Outdoors (Sundays at 7 p.m. ET): Made for the Outdoors throws open the factory doors to show how the most popular brands of outdoor gear are made. Americans are passionate about their outdoor gear – each year spending billions of dollars on the products they use most. Hosts Bill Sherck and Lindsey Hayes dig into the production process, starting with the raw materials and ending with a finished product at work in the field.
Whether saltwater or freshwater, a local honey hole or abroad, World Fishing Network has what fishermen and women want with all new episodes of fresh fishing content, including Major League Fishing All Angles and World Fishing Journal.
Major League Fishing All Angles (Saturdays at 4 p.m. ET): This new series tells the story of Major League Fishing from a whole new perspective. Viewers have seen the game from the boat – now they’ll see all the intensity and winning techniques. It’s an exclusive look at the game that can only be told by the MLF family.
World Fishing Journal (Sundays at 11:30 a.m. ET) World Fishing Journal chronicles current stories in the fishing world. This month we follow the California Water Crisis. California’s water drought threatened to dry up the state’s rivers. With the impending El Nino set to strike, higher than normal water levels and possible flooding would lead to a crisis of epic proportions. Tune in to find out if El Nino will affect fisheries on the West Coast.
Other Q1 Highlights include:
A number of movies will air throughout the quarter on Fridays at 9 p.m. ET, including: Winchester ’73 starring James Stewart and Shelly Winters; Joe Kidd featuring Clint Eastwood and Robert Duvall; and The Edge with Alec Baldwin and Anthony Hopkins.
Additional notable series returning with new episodes are: Jim Shockey’s Hunting Adventures (Sundays at 8 p.m. ET), starring Jim and Eva Shockey; Dream Season: The Journey (Sundays at 7 p.m. ET), featuring Mark and Terry Drury; Michael Waddell’s Bone Collector (Sundays at 10:30 p.m. ET) with Michael Waddell, Nick Mundt and Travis “T-Bone” Turner; Crush with Lee & Tiffany (Sundays at 7:30 p.m. ET), starring Lee and Tiffany Lakosky; Ted Nugent Spirit of the Wild (Tuesdays at 8:30 p.m. ET) with Ted Nugent; Go Wild Camo’s Gridiron Outdoors with Mike Pawlawski (Sundays at 6 p.m. ET), starring former NFL quarterback Mike Pawlawski; and RMEF Team Elk with Brandon and Kristy Titus (Thursdays
at 10:30 p.m. ET).
Follow master hunter, guide and host Steve West through the untamed wilds of North America in The Adventure Series (Saturdays at 9 p.m. ET).
Make a note of Outdoor Channel’s refreshed fishing programming, including new episodes of Major League Fishing GEICO Selects (Saturdays at 2 p.m. ET) and, beginning on February 8, new episodes of Jack Link’s Major League Fishing (Saturdays at 2 p.m. ET). Additional angling-focused series making a return are Buccaneers & Bones (Saturdays at 5 p.m. ET) with Yvon Chouinard, Tom Brokaw, Huey Lewis and Lefty Kreh; The Bass Pros (Sundays at 3:30 p.m. ET); and Modern Fishing with Jared Jeffries (Sundays at 3 p.m. ET), featuring former NBA player Jared Jeffries.
Explore the passion of archery through the eyes of PRIME Pros presented by PRIME bows (Saturdays at 7 p.m. ET).
Produced by the creators of Pigman: The Series, Just Junie can harvest it, drag it, skin it, gut it and cook it up all with a heavy dose of country-girl attitude (Sundays at Noon ET).
Several series are moving over to Sportsman from Outdoor Channel including: Jay Gregory’s PSE’s Wild Outdoors (Fridays at 9:30 p.m. ET), Chris Bracket’s Arrow Affliction (Fridays at 10:30 p.m. ET), King of the Spring (Fridays at 7 p.m. ET), Steve West’s Hunting Adventures (Wednesdays at 10:30 p.m. ET), Larry Dahlberg’s The Hunt for Big Fish (Saturdays at 11:30 a.m. ET) and Jackie Bushman’s Classics (Thursdays at 8:30 p.m. ET).
World Fishing Network will highlight several shows including: Timmy Horton Outdoors (premieres Monday, January 4 at 8 p.m. ET); Robson Green Extreme Fisherman (premieres Saturday, January 9 at Noon ET) and South Bend’s Lunkerville (premieres Monday, January 11 at 9 p.m. ET).
About Outdoor Sportsman Group: Outdoor Sportsman Group is comprised of the world’s foremost media and entertainment brands for outdoor adventure enthusiasts. It includes three leading multichannel networks: Outdoor Channel, Sportsman Channel and World Fishing Network. The Group also consists of a number of established integrated media assets: 15 outdoor magazines, such as Guns & Ammo, Petersen’s Bowhunting and Florida Sportsman, and 17 top websites, including BassFan.com. Additionally, Outdoor Sportsman Group includes television production operations, Winnercomm, as well as aerial camera businesses, SkyCam and CableCam.
About Outdoor Sportsman Group – Integrated Media: As a premier destination for the most avid outdoors enthusiasts, Outdoor Sportsman Group’s Integrated Media division is widely recognized for its strong special-interest multichannel brands, including Petersen’s Hunting, Guns & Ammo, In-Fisherman, North American Whitetail, Game & Fish and 10 other leading magazines that reach more than 26 million readers. Its network of 17 websites, including BassFan.com, attract more than 38 million annual unique visitors, and hundreds of TV episodes of original branded hunting, sport shooting and fishing programming that airs on Outdoor Sportsman Group’s broadcast entities. Visit http://outdoorsg.com for more information.
Tom Caraccioli | Outdoor Sportsman Group | 212.852.6646 | tcaraccioli@thesportsmanchannel.com
Shareese Thompson | Outdoor Sportsman Group | 212.852.6639 | sthompson@thesportsmanchannel.com
Skylar Isdale | Outdoor Sportsman Group | 303.615.8838| sisdale@thesportsmanchannel.com
Sportsman Channel’s Mike Schoby Retraces Epic Lewis and Clark Expedition in Annual Petersen’s “Border to Border” Mini Series
World Fishing Network’s “World Fishing Journal” Features Sisters on the Fly and Heated Debates in Nova Scotia on Sunday, January 3 at 11:30 a.m. ET


CUProdigy hires and promotes executives
LAYTON, UT (February 12, 2019) — CUProdigy has announced three new hires and three internal promotions. Two of the three new hires are filling new positions at the technology CUSO, which is led by CEO Bret Weekes who took over in November 2018.
Amber Harsin was promoted to Executive Vice President of Market Engagement, a newly created position. She has 16 years of experience in the credit union industry and has worked at Prodigy for five years. In her new role, Amber will oversee engagement with new and existing clients, network partners, and peer group technology firms to identify market needs and trends. She will also serve as an ambassador for the cooperative business model and an expert in credit union core software technology and practices. She has a BS degree in Technical Sales from Western Governors University and is a Certified Scrum Master and SCRUM Product Owner from the Scrum Alliance.
Tom Kealamakia has filled the Vice President of Research Development position, a new position at CUProdigy. In this role, he will lead Prodigy’s engineers and project managers in the development of core processing and supporting software systems. Tom joins Prodigy having most recently worked at Overstock.com, where he held leadership positions in the retailer’s software engineering division and gained extensive experience in strategic team leadership, application development, software platforms, APIs and system architecture. He has a BS degree in Informational Systems & Technologies from Weber State University.
Gary McMullin has taken the position of Vice President of Client Development at CUProdigy, a new position leading the Client Development division responsible for customer success, conversion services and quality control. Gary comes to CUProdigy from the $700 million Deseret First FCU, where he was VP of Technology for nearly 20 years. He was responsible for defining and executing the credit union’s strategic direction during that time. He has a BS in Accounting from Arizona State University.
A new Controller, Bryant Solomon, comes to Prodigy from Tesla, where he managed a team of accountants responsible for overseeing the financial reporting of the tech firm’s energy investments and partnerships. Bryant previously worked at Goldman Sachs. He has a Masters in Finance from the University of Utah.
Amanda Garabedian was promoted to another new position, Assistant Vice President of Conversion Services. She has 10 years of credit union experience and for the last four years, has led Prodigy’s conversions and other technology projects for new and existing client credit unions. She has a BA degree in Finance and a Masters in Business Administration from Grand Valley State University.
Derrick Pope was promoted to Assistant Vice President of Software Development, a new position. He will work with Kealamakia to assist in the design and development of CUProdigy’s core processing product and manage the development team’s quality standards. He has worked at CUProdigy for five years and has 25 years experience in credit union core software technology. He has a AS in Computer Science and a BS in Informational Systems & Technologies from Weber State University.
“These new hires and promotions position Prodigy to provide superior execution of our core and cloud-based technology to the credit union community,” said President/CEO Bret Weekes. “This is a great leadership team, who share a passion for credit unions, and value the cooperative business model and all that it means for the member owner. I am very pleased to have each of them as part of our team at Prodigy.”
Amanda Garabedian
Amber Harsin
Bryant Solomon
Derrick Pope
Gary McMullin
About CUProdigy
Based in Layton, Utah, CUProdigy is a technology-focused credit union service organization created to make its member credit unions more efficient and cost-effective through superior, cloud-based solutions. The CUSO offers its own modern, cloud-based core processing platform, as well as coreagnostic cloud-based IT infrastructure services that include a very robust virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) solution. Additional information is available at www.cuprodigy.com.
EVP Market Engagement
John San Filippo
OmniChannel Communications, Inc.
(619) 467-0431 (o)
(619) 274-1131 (m)
john@omnichannelcommunications.com


Asia's Sellout Season
Last weekend your editor attended an Italian opera at the National Theater here in Taiwan. The actors were all petite locals, but that didn’t stop them from belting out arias in a sonorous enough fashion to make the fattest Italian leading lady blush. The audience consisted of well-to-do academic types and business people. Men came in dapper suits and the women wore silks and fine coral jewelry. It was a far cry from what you might expect from a society that, only a few generations ago, was largely agrarian-based.
As the orchestra’s notes filled the plush, cavernous hall, we wondered, “Could this be the new Asia? The Asia of the future?” Those who dream of a great global economic recovery certainly hope so. Now that the American consumer is all but tapped out, they look to Asian producers to fill the demand gap. But one opening night does not make a season, as those in the industry might say.
Taiwan is not all Lucia di Lammermoor’s and lorgnettes, of course. Far from it. Indeed, few places we’ve visited in Asia more abundantly furnish the senses with the rich/poor, old/new dichotomies so prevalent around this region. Just outside the concert hall, for instance, looms a giant bronze statue of Chiang Kai-shek, a stark and foreboding reminder of the not-so-distant past when the tiny South China Sea island was plunged into chaos and routine class purges.
Ever since Kuomintang (KMT) Chairman Chiang, the one-time friend and later arch nemesis of Chairman Mao Tse-Tung, fled to Taiwan (or Formosa, the Portuguese name meaning “beautiful [island]”) in 1949, the place has been a hotbed of political friction. Naturally, not all locals welcomed Chiang’s heavy-handed, authoritarian rule. There was plenty of bloodshed in the streets under Chiang’s “White Terror” and masses of dispossessed citizens rebelled against his iron fist. But Chiang did have a few things going for him. When the KMT party arrived in Taiwan, they brought with them a huge portion of the mainland’s gold and foreign currency reserves. Much of the intellectual and business elite also followed in order to avoid the communist crush of Mao’s “Reds” back home. And, vitally and with the help of aid from the US, the KMT also instituted an import-substitution policy, whereby the country began to manufacture previously imported goods domestically. This policy was to prove an invaluable part of the small island’s economic growth in subsequent years.
After Chiang, the increasingly capitalistic, export-driven Taiwan grew its foreign reserves exponentially. Today it has the fourth largest stash in the world, behind only China, Japan and Russia. (As a point of interest, the US comes in 21st on the rankings, right between Poland and Libya.)
It’s not difficult to imagine a place like Taiwan, one of Asia’s four “Tiger Economies” (alongside Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea), leading some kind of regional renaissance. But the plot here is just as much tragedy as it is comedy.
For one thing, a not-insignificant portion of the island’s 23 million people still lives hand to mouth. Your editor buys his fresh fruit and vegetables from a local night market right next to his building, where vendors shuttle their produce in from farms in the surrounding mountains on the back of smoke-spluttering mopeds. These people work long, hard hours and are by no means equipped to pick up the conspicuously lagging consumption duties abandoned by their cash-strapped American cousins. The lines on their smiling faces run deep with the stresses and pains of the recent past and of a life spent laboring for little in return.
Not two stops away on the world’s most advanced underground metro system, Taiwan’s tallest building, Taipei 101 (the world’s highest until the Burj Dubai opened earlier this month), towers as the centerpiece of the high-end retail area surrounding the City Hall. Streets there are lined with luxury items form Paris, Milan and Seoul. Vacationing shoppers gorge themselves on Hermès handbags and Prada pumps, the price tags of which would have been unimaginable here a few years ago.
To be sure, the island has come a long, long way over the past five or six decades. Where agriculture once made up more than one third of the GDP here, it now contributes less than 2%. The lion’s share of economic activity today belongs to the booming information technology and biotech industries. Semiconductors sales are a source of national university pride and cutting edge companies like Acer (TSE: 2353), Asus (TSE: 2357) and HTC Corporation (TSE: 2498) churn out $300 laptops and smartphones by the ton, which they then pump into hungry foreign markets.
But it is important to remember, especially when considering export driven/reliant economies, that not all demand is created equal. There is the kind forged in the crucible of the free market, rooted in sound money and underpinned by the desires of real people. Then there is the phantom, government-sponsored kind, masquerading behind a cloak of public stimulus boondoggles and debased currencies. Administrations from DC to Beijing and beyond are guilty of exactly this act of economic sleight of hand.
It is impossible to know exactly how much of the world’s current demand is real and how much is simply manufactured by make-work governments looking to pad their GDP figures with public works programs and easy money handouts. We’ve written in this space before about how liquidity inflows from the West, coupled with loose monetary policies locally, have pushed property prices and stock markets in China to bubble-like valuations.
Dan Denning, our mate who heads up the Aussie chapter of The Daily Reckoning, spent the week there warning his readers of China’s overly ambitious capital outlays.
“Now it would be presumptuous to say that all Chinese capital spending was somehow derivative of American consumer demand,” observes Dan. “China has other trading partners and markets, although without America things might not be so flash. But it is without doubt true that Chinese capital spending is a direct consequence of the global credit bubble.”
The faux demand plot is yet to fully reveal itself on the world economic stage, but it would be foolish to assume export dependent economies have not grown somewhat accustomed to bloated order books. Taiwan’s generational gains are hard fought and the people here are among the most intelligent, driven individuals we’ve ever met. It is hard to ignore, however, that on both sides of the Pacific an over-consuming, publicly-funded “Chi-merican” fat lady may already be singing her swansong.
GDP: The New “Slow” Normal
Economic growth requires dramatic increases productivity… The economy would be how much richer without the financial sector?…


Welsh state trumpeter promises world-class fanfare at royal wedding
Credit: Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire/PA Images
A senior state trumpeter, from Wales, taking part in the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle has promised his team will perform like they are the best in the world.
The gold-jacketed brass players from the Band of the Household Cavalry are regulars at major state occasions where the Queen is present, as well as at national events and anniversaries.
Trumpet Major Matthew Screen told the Press Association he will be playing along with five others in the organ loft during the ceremony at St George's Chapel in Windsor on May 19.
The 44-year-old, from Blackwood, near Newport, South Wales has completed a tour of Afghanistan and been deployed to Bosnia.
Unable to reveal what the melodic blasts played at the wedding will be, Trumpet Major Screen, who has been in the military for 27 years, said all he can say is that they will be fanfares.
This will include the Royal Salute for the entrance of the Queen and another for the arrival of the bride, Ms Markle.
For me it is all about instilling enough confidence in the guys, and training and preparing that well that we are prepared until we can't get it wrong.
We have already got it right, we are a very, very experienced team, we have played at all sorts of major occasions for many years.
This (the wedding) is massive, isn't it? Eighty billion people might be watching live on television - it is a lot of pressure. But at the end of the day when it comes to being in that chapel, we are the best in the world at what we do - and we will perform like we are.
– Trumpet Major Matthew Screen
Trumpet Major Screen said over his time with the state trumpeters since joining them in 1995, he has played for prominent individuals on state visits, as well as Tina Turner and Nelson Mandela.
He has also played at events including Euro 1996, the London 2012 Olympics, the Eurovision Song Contest and appeared on Britain's Got Talent.
Since he was a child Trumpet Major Screen said he can remember seeing the state trumpeters on television and deciding then that he wanted to join their ranks
Last updated Thu 10 May 2018
Geraint Thomas moves to second place in Tour de France


To Africanize, Decolonize Or Both?
Brenda Wambui
6 December ,2016
This conversation on what it means to be African has been happening since the days of the independence struggles in many African countries, and has been a major part of African post-colonial discourse. The conversation has mostly focused on knowledge, since knowledge is the beginning of identity formation, with some commentators saying that we need to Africanize, others saying that we need to decolonize, and many saying that we need to do both.
In the words of Tebello Letsekha:
[Africanization] is a learning process and a way of life for Africans. It involves incorporating, adapting and integrating other cultures into and through African visions to provide the dynamism, evolution and flexibility so essential in the global village. Africanization is the process of defining or interpreting African identity and culture. It is formed by the experiences of the African Diaspora and has endured and matured over time from the narrow nationalistic intolerance to an accommodating, realistic and global form.
The Sankofa Youth Movement says:
By “Africanization”, we mean the embracing of our African heritage, and developing a sense of loyalty towards the Motherland – Africa. This involves adopting and promoting African culture, putting it on the pedestal currently occupied by the west.’ These reflections seem to suggest conflict between the idea of being African and the need to adopt aspects of Western culture. It is a situation that might impact negatively on the development of appropriate African curricula in education in general, and in higher education in particular. In fact, Le Grange (2007, 581) warns educators to be aware of this interaction between cultures, because it could complicate the learning process: ‘For non-Western learners, interaction between two worldviews characterizes much of their school experience, complicating the learning process and potentially resulting in cognitive conflict.’
Africanization, then, is an exercise in offering context. In learning our history. In changing our lenses. Much of the history of our continent is written by white men from Europe and North America, and this no doubt affects how the world sees us, but more importantly, how we see ourselves. For our children, it has meant a very narrow view of our continent. In many school books, the history of our continent is written in three broad categories: pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial. In doing so, we single out colonization as the single most important thing that has happened to Africa, and centre it.
However, there is great, uncharted territory when it comes to re-writing our history from our own perspective. To begin with, our experience as Africans should form the foundation of this revisionist history. It should capture both the unique histories of our countries/peoples, and the common history we share by virtue of coming from the same continent, being othered by the rest of the world, and experiencing many other similar challenges. We have great stories of our peoples that do not begin and end with colonization, we must capture those.
We have been taught that we have no knowledge. That we do not like to read. This is not only false, but extremely damaging, and is as a result of seeing Africa through a Western lens. Our histories must be revised and expanded, and taught to our children. They must also be inclusive.
Chimamanda Adichie says this in her talk, The Danger of a Single Story:
The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.
If the African story has traditionally been told through the white, male lens, then the revisionist history must be inclusive. I am reminded of the constant retort I receive whenever I speak of feminism, or the LGBTQI community. I am told that they “are unAfrican.” Which then begs the question, what qualifies as “African”? Who sets the standard? Because I would argue what many consider “African” is in fact 1800s Victorian England’s intolerance, prudishness and small mindedness.
Our revisionist history must include the voices of women, of the queer community, of all other minorities on the continent. Africanization is a process in memory, both past and present. Thus even as we live our lives in the present, we are creating our history, and it is important that we tell our stories. From our perspective, and that these stories be inclusive, capturing the beauties and vagaries of every day African life, and resisting the two simplistic, prevailing narratives of our continent. Africa is not Schroedinger’s cat, that it could only ever be dead or alive; that we must endlessly speculate and bloviate on whether it is “the dark continent” or “rising.” Africa is many things to many people. It always has been, and will continue to be so.
If Africanization is a process in memory, decolonization is the removal of shackles – mental, economic, social and political. Decolonization was narrowly viewed by the West as the process in which African countries attained independence from their colonial rule, but the exit of the colonialists did not mean that the African had been fully decolonized.
In the words of Frantz Fanon:
Decolonization, which sets out to change the order of the world, is, obviously, a program of complete disorder. But it cannot come as a result of magical practices, nor of a natural shock, nor of a friendly understanding. Decolonization, as we know, is a historical process: that is to say that it cannot be understood, it cannot become intelligible nor clear to itself except in the exact measure that we can discern the movements which give it historical form and content. Decolonization is the meeting of two forces, opposed to each other by their very nature, which in fact owe their originality to that sort of substantification which results from and is nourished by the situation in the colonies.
Their first encounter was marked by violence and their existence together–that is to say the exploitation of the native by the settler–was carried on by dint of a great array of bayonets and cannons. The settler and the native are old acquaintances. In fact, the settler is right when he speaks of knowing “them” well. For it is the settler who has brought the native into existence and who perpetuates his existence. The settler owes the fact of his very existence, that is to say, his property, to the colonial system.
Decolonization never takes place unnoticed, for it influences individuals and modifies them fundamentally. It transforms spectators crushed with their inessentiality into privileged actors, with the grandiose glare of history’s floodlights upon them. It brings a natural rhythm into existence, introduced by new men, and with it a new language and a new humanity. Decolonization is the veritable creation of new men. But this creation owes nothing of its legitimacy to any supernatural power; the “thing” which has been colonized becomes man during the same process by which it frees itself.
If decolonization is the removal of shackles, what does that mean for the trauma of colonization? I believe that this is the first point at which the paths of decolonization and Africanization cross. The memory of colonization should remain alive, just not centred as the main memory. We should think about the trauma, and everything that can possibly be done to alleviate it should be done.
It is important that reparations be made by colonial powers to the people they harmed. These amends should be direct, except when doing so would lead to more harm. The most vivid example I can think of in Kenya is when some members of the Mau Mau won a settlement of 20 million pounds against the British government for their crimes during colonialism. If we are to truly have justice, all the colonial powers must atone in a similar way to the peoples they colonized, because many of these countries remain shackled years later, relegated to the “third world” due to the pillaging of their economies and the presence of extractive, oppressive institutions that have their roots in colonial times.
It is also important that we address our new colonizers, the elites in African countries that continue the oppression that stemmed from colonialism. Many African countries merely switched colonizers. One only needs to read the 2013 Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission report to see the violence that our very own have occasioned on us. They too must pay reparations, and be held accountable for their crimes if we are to truly decolonize.
Decolonization involves the removal of power structures and symbols that serve to keep us subjugated, disempowered, and forever at a disadvantage. Much of this includes denial of access to the public of what should be theirs.
Access to education, for example. The mere fact that only about 1% of the children in Kenya who start primary school go on to complete university is evidence of colonization. Especially because we place high importance on university education. We are denied access to public spaces, which we have already paid for using our tax money. The Nairobi Arboretum, for example, now charges KES 50 for access. We are denied access to land, which many of the rich and politicians grab from the public and privatize, when it does not belong to them in the first place.
It becomes apparent that it is necessary for us to both Africanize and decolonize. It is important that we remove others from the centre and place ourselves there instead. That we assert that blackness is not a backdrop against which white lives play out. We are living in an age when identity politics have gained new importance, and it is important that we claim our identity and our narratives. In this endeavor, we must prioritize freedom, and human dignity. We must accord everyone their rights, and avoid creating new strata which will only serve to oppress us. If all oppression is connected, then our freedom is intersectional, and it begins at the crossroads of Africanization and decolonization.


Dayton Director, Professor of Liberal Arts
iberry@skidmore.edu
The Dayton Director is responsible for the overall direction of the museum. This includes the curatorial, publishing, and educational programming. As the primary spokesperson for the museum, the Dayton Director represents the museum on campus, across the country, and around the world.
Ian Berry is Dayton Director of The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College. Berry has organized over ninety museum exhibitions including interdisciplinary collaborations on subjects from the Hudson River to Shaker furniture, and monographic exhibitions with artists such as Terry Adkins, Nicole Eisenman, Nancy Grossman, Jim Hodges, Nina Katchadourian, Corita Kent, Nicholas Krushenick, Shahzia Sikander, Amy Sillman, Fred Tomaselli, and Kara Walker.
Berry received his MA from the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College in 1998 and served as Assistant Curator at the Williams College Museum of Art before coming to Skidmore in 2000. In his role as Professor of Liberal Arts at Skidmore he teaches the Art History seminar Inside the Museum and is a frequent guest speaker for a wide variety of academic departments. Berry is also the author and editor of many volumes devoted to contemporary art practice.
From 2006-2012 Berry served as Consulting Director of the Emerson Gallery at Hamilton College and in 2009-10 was the Roy Acuff Chair of Excellence in the Creative Arts at Austin Peay University. He serves on the Saratoga Springs Arts Commission, has chaired the Visual Arts Panel of the New York State Council on the Arts and serves on several advisory committees for regional and national arts organizations.