Tag Archives: immigration
Their freedom was never ours to give away.
July 20, 2019 Hannah Adair Bonner	1 Comment
On Monday, July 22, at 9:00 am, the Tucson Board of Supervisors will meet to decide whether to approve a plan negotiated between the Catholic Bishop and the Pima County Administrator, a decision made unilaterally and without consulting the greater faith community, to remove families from church buildings and deliver them to the County Juvenile Jail under the care of Catholic Community Services. http://chng.it/7ChGrbsy
Recently processed asylum seeking families are the responsibility of the religious community to welcome, not to contain. It is our responsibility to celebrate their freedom, not to limit it. It is our responsibility to approach them in solidarity, to honor their dignity, intelligence, courage, and self agency – not to pity their vulnerability and take pleasure in trumpeting their gratefulness for our charity.
Their freedom was never ours to control, to contain, to transfer. Bishop Weisenburger, their freedom was never yours to give away.
They have risked their lives in the pursuit of this fragile, precious freedom they pursue. Every inch of it is priceless. Every inch of it was paid for in blood and sweat and tears. Every inch of it demands our respect, summons our acknowledgement, and compels our honoring.
How many inches of it will we choose to compromise to satisfy our pride, to avoid the financial cost and physical toll of welcoming them, while still maintaining the control and the credit?
Something very insidious has crept into the conversation we are having in Tucson about how to best offer hospitality to asylum seekers. A very important nuance: these families are not being transferred to our custody. They have been released and were supposed to be given a ride to the vicinity of a loving space where they would be offered hospitality, if they chose to accept it. They could then choose whether to enter the many sites of hospitality scattered around the city, and receive our offering of “Bienvenidos,” or they could choose not to. As hospitality sites, we were only ever supposed to be an option for courageous families with self-agency. They were ours to embrace, not contain.
This is something different. Driving families to a far part of Tucson, into an institutionalized government building, this feels more like a transfer of custody than an offer of welcome. Whatever the conditions they will find inside, it will not change the reality of where they are. They will be being transferred from one detention center to another, we will have intercepted their confidence that they have reached freedom for a tiny bit longer.
This is not a matter of diminishing the incredible beauty of the sacred work that Casa Alitas has done for the past several years, or questioning its tradition of intentional and compassionate hospitality. We have a responsibility to examine the situation at hand, and how decisions have been made, and what the consequences may be for our community in the short term, and for communities in which this model may be replicated in the long term.
This deal struck between the Catholic Church and the Government, would give the Catholic Church full control, using this deeper level of partnership with Border Patrol to force all other religious communities engaged in hosting to be under the control of Catholic Community Services. No longer would there be spaces independent of them, whose numbers did not count in the numbers they could claim of people hosted through their work.
This impulse, directed in part by the desire of Border Patrol to have a central location where all processing will take place, is also one where government figures will inevitably have easier access than in the local congregations who have been determined to protect the freedom of these families upon their release.
It feels as if we are forgetting that we are not the ones processing these families out of custody. Our intake forms are not their pathway to release. They were only supposed to be a way of gathering information about their travel plans so that we could help them get safely to their destination. They were never supposed to be used to pursue media attention and wrack up numbers about how many we have served in order gain notoriety, control, and funding.
This is not supposed to be about us. Not supposed to be about what “we think is best.” Not supposed to be about the public image we can curate. This work is best done without people knowing the exact location. This work is best done by those directly impacted folxs in our community who understand and can empathize with our guests – exactly the type of people who will be unable to participate anymore if we put this in a detention facility, because they themselves are undocumented, or triggered by incarceration spaces, or vulnerable.
I have been offering hospitality to asylum seekers alongside such leaders since 2014, first in the Greyhound bus station in Houston, Texas, and now through the shelters of Tucson. Yet, that ability to offer empathy is not my expertise but theirs.
Rather, while some people are experts on the inside of jails, I am an expert on the outside of jails. I have likely spent around 1000 hours in the past few years observing the trauma incurred on the human spirit when you deliver them to institutionalized detention areas. Sitting in vigil in front of the Waller County Jail for the first three months after the death of Sandra Bland, I became an expert on the tears of visiting family members, and the dehumanizing way guards changing shifts talked about those inside. Sitting in vigil in front of the Tornillo detention camp for the first couple weeks it was open, I became an expert on the look of terror on children’s faces as they were driven inside.
I know that Pima County & CCS will work to make this look as good as possible at the start. I know how media can be used to selectively paint the picture we want. I know the children and parents who are taken into the Pima County Juvenile Jail will make the most of it. They will still offer up the gratefulness that paternalism thrives upon, because it will be better than the dog cages and the ice boxes and even the street.
But this was never our only option, and they will not believe you if you tell them they are free. This will be a half-way house, a step down unit, a space where those with power have made the choice to slide their freedom back an inch or two. This will be the institutional embodiment of the ankle monitors that it pains us so much to see them wearing – a diminishing of the distance between them and the places and people who caused their trauma. A reminder. A place where servants of the State have more access to knowledge about their whereabouts and movement than in the churches that prioritize guarding their privacy and freedom.
The Church in America – excluding those parts like the AME Church built through the liberation of people of color themselves – has always been good at these negotiations.
Powerful arms of the Christian institution have always been so good at determining what is best for others. We found ways to argue that the way we treated enslaved people was kinder than others and, therefore, “Christian slave-holding.” We found ways to feel fully confident that the kidnapping of Indigenous children to hold in schools was what was best for them because it would help them assimilate. We have always known best how others should be clothed, and housed, and fed, and contained.
I have heard all these arguments before. I have heard all these questions before. That this is better than the other options – that we have strategically been barred from exploring or knowing exist. That we must trust those making the decisions, despite the secretive and problematic way they reach their decisions. We should “just trust them” many of the people of San Antonio said when Baptist Children & Family Services was running Tornillo, while their headquarters were based in the San Antonio community. How easy it was for us to take to the streets and pass judgement – and how difficult it was for them. How easy it is now for them to see the error of our ways – and how difficult for us. We can be so farsighted – it is so easy to see clearly what is true and just from a distance, but it becomes so murky close up when we know the people.
It makes one question whether freedom and self-agency and dignity has been the priority of the institutional culture making this decision. There is a wide divide between charity and solidarity. How much are we resisting our desire for the gratitude of vulnerable people? How much are we fighting the inherent temptations of white supremacist culture to believe that we know best, that we do best, that we are best?
The narrative being offered up by some is that if we do not “contain” these families upon their release then they will take to a life of crime, GOP Board of Supervisors Member Ally Miller even saying that these families would present a threat to our community safety. How is it that this decision satisfies a longing some have to “lock them up”? Where is it that we are sliding towards in the erosion of our ethics and the fatigue of our compassion?
It was never our job to contain them. It was always our responsibility to love them, to treat them as equals, to honor their courage and dignity, and their right to make decisions for themselves.
Cooking sopa de pollo in the kitchen themselves. Walking out to go up the street and get a Dr. Pepper themselves. Kicking a ball in the free and unfettered and unfenced air. Debating about whether to postpone bedtime in order to finish the movie. These are the precious things people start to do when they feel free. These are the precious things we stand to lose. These are the actions that replenish the spirit, that are the food of freedom helping it to grow strong.
Their freedom from our custody may be fresh, even newborn. Yet, it is theirs.
Their freedom was never ours to give away. Never ours to control. Never ours to exchange.
Voice your concern about #nochildjailshelter at http://chng.it/7ChGrbsy
asylum seekersfree the childrenimmigrationpima countyreligiontucson
Featured, Justice
Governmental & Catholic Powers Partner to Force Will on Tucson Community
“So your plan is to do everything through one site, utilizing Catholic Community Services and your location at the jail, and not include any of the other faith communities that have been caring for immigrants because it is easiest for you?” County Administrator Chuck Huckleberry was asked at the Humanitarian Crisis Roundtable that met on Monday, July 15th.
Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckleberry
Bishop Weisenburger of the Tucson Diocese
“Yes,” was his simple answer, confirming that this was not merely a decision to move guests from the Monastery to the Juvenile Jail, but further a decision to seek to end other faith communities hosting guests. It was a decision that had been made by Bishop Weisenburger, and the undisclosed members of his committee, without consulting the greater network of hosting sites. In a letter to the County on July 3rd, Bishop Weisenberger had conveyed the idea that the faith community in Tucson was not able to handle the work of continuing to host guests and needed the government to step in and help.
Engaging in a collegial and collaborative manner by engaging the input of colleagues doing the same work, rather than given the appearance of speaking for the faith community as a whole, would have been a simple thing to do because the mechanisms had already been being put in place.
Several months before, the Southern Arizona Border Care Network met for the first time on December 6, 2018, to dream of creating a community of transparency, support, and collaboration. They dreamt of shifting the culture of humanitarian aid to center immigrant voices, knowing how often decisions were made in a way that did not include directly impacted people. Little did they know how soon those dreams of collaboration would be shattered as a display of institutional power would assert itself over the community and decree that the families they aided would be moved to cells within the Juvenile Jail complex.
As people filed into the small chapel off of the sanctuary of St. Mark’s Presbyterian Church that first day, the number kept growing and growing and more and more chairs were pulled into the circle. In a few seats by the door were a cluster of Unitarian Universalists; over on the far side of the room were clergy who were immigrants from Mexico themselves, serving and offering hospitality in Nogales, Tucson, etc. In the room, there were people who knew each other well, and people who were just meeting for the first time.
Rev. Dr. Dottie Escobedo-Frank assists with intake at The Inn in 2017.
Intentionality had been taken in the planning of the meeting, with an awareness of the faith community’s propensity to call upon white clergy to lead and speak. Therefore, a Latina woman who had grown up on the border in Nogales, who had her roots dug deep into the sand of the Sonoran desert, was chosen to lead the conversation. The Rev. Dr. Dottie Escobedo-Frank was deeply familiar with the work of providing hospitality to asylum seeking families after having served as the Chair of the Board of The Inn Project since 2016, during which time over 10,000 courageous people had walked through its doors.
The Rev. Dr. Dottie Escobedo-Frank led the meeting in a gentle, but intentional way, that drew in the voices of immigrant clergy and centered their stories. It felt like something different was happening. It felt like there was a glow in the air. It felt like a family curse had been broken, as the voices of pastors who were immigrants themselves found themselves heard in a new way. People leaned into the warmth of the moment and stood for long minutes chatting afterwards at the door. Women of color – accustomed to being ignored in these kinds of meetings – talked about the confidence and inspiration that Dottie’s leadership and centering of them had awakened. The truth that they mattered and that their voices mattered was unapologetically proclaimed in that space.
In the meetings that followed, stories would be shared, a narrative and invitation of hospitality would be written, and an atmosphere of trust and transparency would be built and assumed.
In March 2019, the group would approve a statement to be released to the community that would detail the militarization we experience in Southern Arizona, the ministry of hospitality on the border, and the need for support from others. Groups signing on as members of the Southern Arizona Border Care Network would include: The Inn, Casa Alitas, Casa Mariposa, El Mesías United Methodist Church, First Christian Church, Justice for Our Neighbors, Keep Tucson Together, Mariposas Sin Fronteras, Menlo Park United Methodist Church, Mountain Vista Unitarian Universalist, Southern Arizona Sanctuary Coalition, Southside Presbyterian Church, St. Mark’s Presbyterian Church, St. Francis in the Foothills United Methodist Church, Unitarian Universalist Justice Arizona Network, Borderlands Unitarian Universalist.
One line from the narrative that they signed was, “An increased number of asylees are being detained in mostly for-profit prison-like facilities. They are not given legal options. They are herded through our legal system without due process. Children are put in detention with parents, as well as unaccompanied minors being detained in prison-like tent facilities. We are treating the immigrant among us as criminals, instead of asylees or refugees or neighbors.”
The group would meet again on May 2nd to discuss how to support one another and reach out further into the community.
A couple days later on May 4th, however, the first cracks in the veneer of transparency would appear when a press conference would be held by the City to begin to frame the narrative in Tucson in a very different way. The new narrative centered the work of only one of the members of the Southern Arizona Border Care Network in a way that erased the work of the others and the community of trust that they were trying to build.
This member, Casa Alitas, had expanded their capacity a few months earlier and were seeking community support in maintaining the numbers they were serving.
In the months that followed, the narrative would be continually strengthened that all other sites providing hospitality in Tucson were small, temporary satellite sites of Casa Alitas, solidifying power, in the perception of the government and the public, in the hands of one group. This appearance of dominance would give the Catholic Community Services that oversaw the work of Casa Alitas, and specifically the Catholic Bishop, sole negotiating power with the County over the fate of asylum seeking families.
Conversations would happen behind the scenes, amongst the stakeholders that Bishop Weisenberger chose to include, about what would happen to the families. By speaking of a “committee of faith leaders” making the decision, it would give the impression that others doing the work were included in making the decision. Yet, despite the fact that Casa Alitas had signed on as a member of the Southern Arizona Border Care Network, key members of that community would not be invited to the table, nor would it be made clear and transparent who was. An agreement would be made privately between the County Government and the Catholic Bishop to relocate asylum seeking families to cells in the Pima County Juvenile Justice Complex, then shared afterwards with the community.
The news was shared with the public in a news article on July 8th, with the acknowledgement that it would create dissension and divisions in the community, “Kozachik concedes that putting the families inside the Pima County Juvenile Justice Complex doesn’t look good at first glance, but said it should not feel like asylum seekers are being kept in custody.”
Immediately there was an outcry from many Women of Color in Tucson, most notably prison policy expert, Tiera Rainey, who was well schooled on the effect that incarceration atmospheres have on individuals. In contrast to how Women of Color were treated at that first Southern Arizona Border Care Network meeting six months before, their voices were dismissed by those forcing the plan forward.
According to the Tucson Sentinal, Councilman Kozachik said, ”Look they’re well-intentioned, but we’re not incarcerating Guatemalans,” he said. “I think people when they see the changes, they’ll be on board,” he said, adding that the county was picking up costs for the facility, including maintenance, food prep and laundry costs.”
And Catholic Community Services Director, Teresa Cavendish said, “Right now we’re having our hands tied, while work that we’ve been doing for five years is being second-guessed by people who don’t do this work.”
The community was told to just trust the government and the Catholic Church, without being given a reason to do so. We were thrust backwards into the atmosphere where the white men with power make the decisions, and the rest of the community “trusts” that they know best. The very definition of paternalism. We remembered those who have not experienced incarceration themselves may have a hard time recognizing it when they see it.
In reality, the community had actually been given a very clear reason not to “just trust” as the Government and Catholic Community Services had partnered with the media in creating a narrative that was inaccurate and that intentionally and strategically erased the work of their partners in order to position the Catholic Bishop as the sole person to make the decision about what to do with asylum seekers, and to position Catholic Community Services as the sole controller of spaces for asylum seekers in Tucson.
The work of the Latina woman who had been laboring to organize the Southern Arizona Border Care Network was erased and strategically undermined.
The voices of Women of Color like Tiera Rainey were demeaned and dismissed, by decision makers, by the media, and by community members that insisted we should “just trust.”
The meeting to approve the plan was moved up from August to July 22 in order to accomplish the power play before the movement resisting it could gain traction, and before community members and faith leaders had a chance to talk.
According to the Tucson Sentinal, Councilman Kozachik threatened, “If this falls off the rails,” because of objections, “(opponents) own the street release option, if we don’t get this facility.”
Intimidation flourished. Institutional authority took precedence over expertise and experience. The community floundered under the sense of manipulative urgency that was being thrust upon them. The desire for power, control and funds were prioritized over the unity and well-being of the Tucson community.
Federal funds could be used to reinvigorate County facilities, with the Catholic Church sharing credit with the government. It was a win for decision makers, but a loss for those they had excluded from the table.
What will it cost our soul to insist that a jail cell is a dorm room? What did it cost those that called a tent city a summer camp just a year ago?
Voice your concern. Sign the petition now: http://chng.it/7ChGrbsy
arizonaasylumasylum seekersbordercatholic community serviceshumanitarian aidimmigrationpima countyreligionRoman Catholic Churchtucson
Justice, Listening
Tents, Kids, Money & God
October 16, 2018 Hannah Adair Bonner	5 Comments
After the weeks I spent sitting at the gate of the tent city for kids in Tornillo, Texas, I realized I was having a hard time seeing the forest for the trees. I texted friends asking them to give me the big picture. Accustomed to trench work, to being close to the ground, I often see the things no one else sees, while at the same time missing the things everyone else is seeing.
One of the biggest things that was weighing on me was that while offering continual observations from the ground, and listening to firsthand accounts from inside, I had done little to look into the faith-based organization that was running the tent city, Baptist Child and Family Services. That is why I was so grateful when University of Arizona professor, Dr. Elizabeth Jaeger, offered to begin the research into BCFS. Using her research as a starting point, I have attempted to reflect upon what is a faithful response to what we are seeing.
My mind has been particularly ill at ease, because time and again we have been given a date that Baptist Children and Family Services planned to end their involvement in Tornillo and shut down the tent city they were running for the United States Government. Yet, whenever the date drew close, it was extended, and it felt that promises were broken. It began to feel familiar; delay tactics in Texas are one thing I know well. Yet, why did BCFS stay involved? They were supposed to be crisis responders, making a temporary response to a momentary crisis created by family separations.
It is now four months later and the kids are still there. Permanent structures have been constructed in addition to the tents. The timeline is now dragging on through the end of 2018.
The initial crisis that BCFS was responding to, the zero-tolerance policy and consequent large numbers of children separated from their parents, has been expanded. Rather than working to reunify the families and children and then shut down, the vision of the tent city has grown to include unaccompanied minors of other forms. The facility has constantly expanded rather than contracted, leading up to the event that returned it to the public eye: the mass movement of kids, during the darkness of night, from shelters around the country to Tornillo. Capacity has been expanded to house close to 4,000 kids from the original 200. Bodies will have to be conscripted to fill those spots. An industry is being created.
As projected date of closure after projected date of closure has passed, one begins to wonder whether the situation that Baptist Child and Family Services find themselves in is similar to the quandary that Maria Hinojosa exposed in her two part interview with Juan Sanchez, the CEO of Southwest Key. In their conversation, Hinojosa draws out the economic and financial considerations that Juan Sanchez feels he must consider when lining up what may be best for the kids against the financial survival of an institution he has built.
Sometimes we start out with the best of intentions… but then there are salaries to be paid.
The CEO of Baptist Children and Family Services, Kevin Dunnin, for example, received a salary of $450,000 in 2013 (while the average salary for non-profit CEOs is closer to $285,000).
According to CNN, in June, a week after Tornillo opened, BCFS was expected to receive $127,000,000 from the US Government during the fiscal year. Since that first week, the number appears to have skyrocketed to between $428,569,971 and $441,234,738 (depending on whether you go by Issue Date Fiscal Year or Funding Fiscal Year respectively) according to the US Department of Health and Human Services. That is a lot of money, a lot of salaries. All relying on the continued imprisonment of children. All relying on the Administration’s policy of creating consequences in order to discourage sponsors from claiming children.
Beware the creation of an industry.
(Grants made to BCFS by US Gov. Source: Department of Health and Human Services)
This leads us to some very important questions. First, the question of transparency and accountability. According to a 2014 article, concerns have been raised in the past to the Department of Health and Human Services about the lack of transparency exhibited by BCFS. If you were to look at their website, perhaps as a potential donor, you will not see any mention of the unaccompanied minor facilities, that presumably make up a good percentage of their income. While we can assume that running a tent city has not always been the history of BCFS, which began as an orphanage in Texas, that is the history that it is writing right now.
With each day that passes, and each child that spends another week or month in the desolation of Tornillo, we are normalizing the imprisonment of innocent children. With each person that signs a non-disclosure agreement to enter, and exits carrying the warm impression intentionally created for them and compassion for those that work there, normalization is carried back to the communities they inhabit.
How soon we forget our original horror.
When you open the website for BCFS, it opens with an image of a young blonde woman, and the words “Empowering Youth Through Education.” However, until a new press release was issued this week saying that children at Tornillo would be receiving instruction from teachers, they have only been provided with optional workbooks to work on if they choose. Establishing educational opportunities is surely a necessary and welcome change from the past 4 months. One would presume that the requirements to abide by State regulations, stipulated by the grants BCFS receives, should already have been being respected and that education should already have been being offered. However, Tornillo, being on Federal property, is not subject to State inspections or enforcement.
It has been difficult at times for advocates all along the border in Texas and Arizona to know how to respond. Most of the responses that have taken place have been directed towards the more profitable Southwest Key. Over the past few months, many advocates have restrained themselves from bringing attention to situations, fearing that children will be moved to even worse locations. To many, Tornillo seems like the worst-case scenario, but others fear that moving the kids out of sight to military bases would be even worse. It is hard to know what to do.
One thing I do know: we must fight normalizing this, and we must fight against the creation of one more mass incarceration institution reliant on bodies for income.
Part of me wonders if we are too late… has all of this already been happening, and already been established for years under our very noses? At the same time, looking at the numbers from the Department of Health and Human Services, I can see that income for both Southwest Key and BCFS has skyrocketed, doubling the amount of money they were receiving from the government last year. One can hope, that with the right amount of attention and pressure, we can prevent these and other organizations from being willing accomplices to the administration. One can hope, that we can discourage them from making this a normal part of their expected budget. One can hope, that we can prevent this from becoming business as usual.
Religious Responsibility
I have been struggling with what is our religious responsibility in this from the start. Throughout time when cruelty was enacted upon the vulnerable, there were religious leaders who collaborated and benefitted, and religious leaders who resisted in both public and private ways. When does the time come when we must choose? Where is the line that cannot be crossed? When does the moment come when we must risk it all?
These are questions that many of us have the luxury of asking, because we are not amongst the directly impacted community. Yet, I have heard the voice of a mother who expressed her shock that we were not jumping in our cars and storming the gates of Tornillo.
I have struggled with trying to be professional, trying to be collegial, trying to be respectful. I have held my tongue while watching different religious leaders make different choices.
That mother’s outrage at our complacency strips my soul bare.
Reading representatives from the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention defending BCFS from critique, I know that Baptist Children and Family Services is not merely Baptist in name. They are claimed by the Southern Baptists, connected to the Southern Baptists. I wonder what my Baptists friends can do.
In seeking to examine our own practice, I have discussed with other pastors in Tucson how what we do with shelters here is different, and how to keep it that way. Most importantly, we do not hold children in confinement. We offer hospitality, welcome, food, clothing, and the freedom to leave at any time. There are not armed guards or fences, military helicopters or snipers on the roof as I saw on at least one occasion during my time at Tornillo. We work hard to communicate about consent and let guests know they are free to do as they choose and go where they choose. We are not funded by the government, we are supported by the church and you. We do not sign non-disclosure agreements, and as you see, have no problem using any knowledge we have to publicly critique the system. I believe those are important distinctions to maintain.
We must remain vigilant. The way things begin may not be how they end. You may start out setting up a few tents as a temporary shelter for separated kids, and end up running a tent city for thousands of unaccompanied minors.
How closely can the church cooperate with the government in serving immigrants before we have gone too far and become an accomplice to abuse? Where is the line? How much can we tolerate in order to maintain access to the vulnerable, without becoming desensitized to their suffering?
We must examine ourselves. Constantly. We must fight complacency.
detentionfaithfamily separationimmigrationreligiontent citytornillounaccompanied minors
There Is Something We Can Do
June 22, 2018 Hannah Adair Bonner	2 Comments
They are all I can see when I close my eyes. Little faces pressed up against the grated windows of prison buses. In the silence between us, I feel them plead for help, and there is nothing I can do. I realize where they are going, and I finally feel myself start to crack apart inside.
I watch the bus disappear into the distance, driving away from the tent city where they have been holding kids separated from their parents here at the Tornillo-Guadelupe Port of Entry, and a lump rises in my throat.
What could be worse than Tornillo? What could be worse than this piercing heat that roasts my skin, and this blinding brightness that makes it hard to see? What could be worse than watching preschool age children sit in rows of chairs under an awning waiting to be processed, knowing that it is 110 degrees in the shade?
What could be worse is two words: Indefinite and military.
First, Military because whatever happens there can be hidden. When the children and families are in some sense in our communities, even if behind bars, we have the possibility that visitation and support will some day be open to us. Once they are on military bases, there are different rules than in civilian land. There is less opportunity for transparency and accountability and support.
Second, Indefinite because the executive order that was signed to end family separation included the capacity to hold those reunited families indefinitely. The toll that takes on the psyche is astronomical. The toll that takes on the soul of our nation could be deadly. Indefinite is the kind of word used by dictators, used by tyrannies, used in places where rights have disappeared.
This should concern you greatly, because as my father the lawyer once told me, if any of our rights are violated all of our rights are violated. Rights only exist if they exist for everyone. If they exist selectively, they are privileges not rights. If you allow your neighbors rights to be violated, you have signed the death sentence on your own rights. We stand together, or we fall together. Privilege is not something you want to stake the safety of your family upon.
There is a bigger plan at work than we can see, although we can guess at it. Horrified at the cries of children torn from their mothers’ arms, will we once more permit entire families to be held in militarized internment camps. Will the outrage we felt in one moment tire us out enough that we will be docile and complacent in the next? Is this how they planned it all along?
We must stop crying out that this is not who we are, and face that it is who we have been, so that we can face the future declaring that it is who we will no longer be.
I close my eyes, and they are all I see. Little heads. Little faces. Pleading with me.
I want to be with someone who understands. I find myself sitting with Mary, at the feet of la Virgen, at Saint Mark’s Catholic Church in El Paso. I know she understands. We took her son away as well. I sit there all night in silence with her, until total darkness covers us like a blanket. I know it’s time to go. I get up and walk closer to her and raise my face so that the water from her fountain can splash on my dirty, sunbu rnt face. I leave the water there as I walk away, a welcome respite from the tears.
“Remember your baptism, and be thankful.” As the water drips down my face, I remember the words so often spoken in the church.
We remember the grace that we do not deserve and cannot earn. We remember the tenets of our faith, and the covenant we have made. We remember the commitment we have made to love and support one another.
This is what we have committed to:
On behalf of the whole Church, I ask you:
Do you renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness,
reject the evil powers of this world,
and repent of your sin?
Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you
to resist evil, injustice, and oppression
in whatever forms they present themselves?
Do you confess Jesus Christ as your Savior,
put your whole trust in his grace,
and promise to serve him as your Lord,
in union with the Church which Christ has opened
to people of all ages, nations, and races?
I reject the evil powers of this world. I commit to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves. I promise to serve in the company of people of all ages, nations, and races.
I close my eyes, and they are all I see. Little faces. Little heads. Pleading for help.
And there is most certainly something that we can do.
There are many things that we can do.
Please read my friend Melanie’s suggestions for action, and add your own in the comments. I will be moderating comments.
To support folks here in El Paso:
Give to the Detained Immigrant Solidarity Committee here in El Paso, to bond people out so that they can fight for their families on the outside: https://www.fianzafund.org/donate.html
Help fund legal assistance locally to these families by donating to: https://www.facebook.com/lasamericasIAC/
Add your suggestions in the comments below!
baptismchildrenel pasoimmigrationtornillo
Kids Are Still Arriving To Internment Camp
June 21, 2018 Hannah Adair Bonner	Leave a comment
Far in the distance, on the other end of my camera lens, sat a little figure in pink pants and a pink shirt. A little girl. Four, maybe five years old. She reminded me of another child that it would be impossible to forget: little Omran Daqneesh, cove red in dust and blood, sitting motionless in the back of an ambulance in Aleppo, Syria in the summer of 2016. Like him, she seemed to sit motionless, straight up in her chair. Silent perhaps. Stunned. This is trauma. This is what hell looks like, I thought.
Cheers were erupting throughout the nation as Trump signed an executive order supposedly ending the most current form of child separationthat our nation and administration has manifested. Squinting my eyes in the sun, I could barely see on my phone screen that people were celebrating victory. Just then my attention was distracted as another bus full of children came rumbling past. It looked like a prison bus, bringing little kids to baby jail. A little kid with tousled hair pressed their face against the glass, trying to see out through the dirty, tinted windows. A barrier separated the kids from the officers driving the bus. It reminded me of the prison bus, whose crash released Dr. Richard Kimball in Harrison Ford’s 1993 film, The Fugitive. Only on this bus, there would be no escape.
As a wave of relief washed over the nation, we were coming up dry in Tornillo.
Turning my attention back to the little girl, I spotted an even younger child sitting near her. A toddler. Sitting outside. Waiting to be processed. The reporter from NBC remarked that if it was 110 in the shade, it must be 120 in the heat of the sun. At least they were in the shade.
While people were celebrating that this journey of suffering was over, these children had only just arrived.
Prison buses carrying little kids into a tent city that brought to mind housing for captured enemy combatants. Tan tents, surfaces rippling in the wind. I did not know how sturdy they were or how well they would protect the kids from the heat. I longed to see instead those classic thick, sturdy canvas army tents that we have used to protect our own forces.
Were these children alone or with people they knew? Why were there little kids out in this heat, when they had clearly tried to create the impression that only teenage boys would be kept at Tornillo? Was this the next step? Was our outrage over family separation only a precursor so that we would accept it if they begin to house whole families in places like this?
“So scary are the consequences of the collapse of white privilege that many Americans have flocked to a political platform that supports and translates violence against the defenseless as strength. These people are not so much angry as terrified, with the kind of terror that makes knees tremble.” –Toni Morrison
We cannot let this become our normal. It is not too late for us yet.
family separationimmigrationtent citytornillo
Tornillo: The Turning of the Screw
June 19, 2018 Hannah Adair Bonner	1 Comment
Tornillo. In Spanish it means screw – as in turning the screw – as in taking something bad and making it worse. That is exactly what has happened in this place.
Tonight I stood before the closed gate to the Tornillo-Guadelupe Port of Entry, beyond which sits the newly populated “tent cities” for children separated from their parents. I took it all in and struggled to find words. My colleague from University of Arizona, Juan Ortiz, had brought me there, weaving through the pitch blackness and utter isolation that lies east of El Paso, Texas. We drove as far as they would allow, and then I got out and walked the rest of the way while Juan kept watch. I’m a white woman in a clergy collar: my risk is infinitely less.
It was so dark. It was so isolated. I imagined that must be how the children held beyond this gate must feel. I imagined the tears that wet some of their pillows, like the Rio Grande winding through El Paso.
We are horrified. Finally. Why did it take us so long? Separating children from their parents is not new, but here it is – in Tornillo – that we find the turning of the screw. The point beyond which we cannot tolerate the pain. Dear God, I plead, let us not tolerate the pain. Let us not get used to it. Let us not rationalize and find comfort once again, while others are tortured. Torment us.
Throughout our history, this is what we have done when we have wanted to break the spirit of a people. What are we trying to do now, if not that? We seek to break the Spirit. To break apart families, to break hearts, perhaps in ways that can never be repaired.
Let me take a moment to be clear about what I mean when I say “we.” I mean the powers that be, and all of us that are not on the receiving end of their abuse but are merely mentally tortured by their constantly escalating atrocities. We who will not be the ones whose children are taken. We who cannot imagine a cause for our arrest, rather than dreading it’s arrival constantly. We who do nothing. Let us not be that we.
Let us step away from that “we” and into another. Let us resist. Let us embrace discomfort. Let us refuse to be silent.
The thing that I want us to remember is that while these conditions are horrible for children, there are no conditions into which we can place them that will diminish the horror, trauma, abuse and damage that you inflict upon a child when you separate them from a parent who loves them and is willing to risk their lives for that child. The separation itself is the horror.
Yet, that separation already happens when a family arrives together to seek asylum – a human right – and one parent is taken and held. That separation happens when a parent is deported away from their children.
That separation happens in our mind when we create a narrative where the child is a victim and the parent is a criminal, when in reality their parent is all too often their savior. We have already separated parent from child mentally, before we separated them physically. We have already placed them in separate categories, before we placed them in separate cages.
To end this, it will not be sufficient to end their physical separation. We must also tear down the walls that we have constructed between parent and child in our minds. Until we do that, we will remain complicit. It is our mental divide that has led to their physical one.
Let us bring them back together in our minds, so that we can bring them back together in the flesh.
Below is a portion of the El Paso mural by Francisco Delgado and Juan Ortiz.
childrenfamily separationimmigrationtexastornillo
Featured, Global, Justice
At least there was a baby to clothe…
Searching through the racks of baby clothes at Factory 2 U, only one thought was running through my mind: thank God they are together. The thought of the alternative made my stomach contort itself into knots. Five days earlier, I had knelt on the ground on the Mexico side of the Deconcini Port of Entry, pushing a small red car back and forth between this baby’s brother and I, while she laughed and built up the courage to crawl closer. They were halfway through what would be 11 days of waiting outside in the summer heat, with temperatures well over 100 degrees, hoping that their name would be called one morning and they would have a chance to go through that doorway into the United States and begin their plea. Next to them, five sick children – siblings – slept with limbs entwined on the ground in the heat and dust.
I had driven down that morning with my friends Gretchen and Kat, wanting to see for ourselves where the people were who usually filled the cots in our refugios. Hundreds of people stretched out from the doorway into the United States, all the way back to the small tables of wares and men offering taxis that welcome newcomers to Nogales, Sonora, Mexico.
A man with a stethoscope slung over his shoulders, Panchito, walked the line, checking on the needs of those seeking asylum. Volunteers from Kino Border Initiative fed them, while Voices From the Border carried in water and clothes. Each day, only 5-12 people were being permitted through that doorway into the United States, the same one that I could walk through with such ease.
When we did walk back through that doorway, only one of us with a passport but all of us with blonde hair, I spoke to the mother in the best Spanish I could manage. I tried to tell her that we would be waiting and praying on the other side; that we would have a place for them; that we wanted them; that they were welcome. I tried to hide the fear behind my eyes, knowing what our government had given itself the right to do. Knowing that some families do not make it to us; that some families are torn apart and sent to separate facilities, just as families throughout history’s cruelest moments have been sorted left and right.
I did not know if I’d ever see her again. I prayed I would. The only families they send to our refugio are the ones where at least one parent has been permitted to stay with the children.
Five days later, when I unexpectedly saw her face, holding her baby and calling to me, I was overjoyed. With all the hundreds of families that we see each week, this week has felt different. For the first time, we were taking joy in something as small as no one having arbitrarily decided to tear this woman’s baby from her arms. This was a level of cruelty that I had not imagined we would have to face. This was a relief that I did not think I would ever have the necessity to feel.
I carried that relief with me as we dug through bins of clothes, searching for a clean shirt for her 18 month old, and came up with nothing. At least there was a baby here to clothe, I told myself.
Ten minutes later, standing alone in front of racks of baby clothes at Factory 2 U, I sorted through tshirts trying to find even a single one without Minnie Mouse or a white Disney Princess on it. At least there was a baby to put in that Minnie Mouse t-shirt, I told myself.
As an aunt of five with a sixth due any day, I am well versed in the skills of playing back-up and indulgent aunt. I am well versed in what it means to be family. I am well versed in trying my best when I am not sure what to do… There are so many moments now when I am not sure what to do.
Pulling down a fuzzy baby blanket from the wall, I thought of the two children who had spent the past month living under my roof, leaving drawings on my fridge, taking naps with my dog, watching telenovelas on my television, falling asleep in my arms. Once again, a spasm rocked my gut at the thought that they too could have been separated from both their parents instead of just their father. Just their father. As if a gaping hole in your heart that keeps you awake all night crying, and in bed all day sleeping could be captured by the word “Just.” Is this what we have come to? That we must give thanks that only one parent has been taken?
I am so tired of giving thanks for small mercies, with the knowledge ever pressing on my mind of the great cruelties that have been escaped, that hang ever threatening over our heads from my own government. I can do these little things. I can lessen the pain for those that cross my path. I can put warm socks on the cold feet of babies, and smiles on the faces of children too young to understand the truths that are causing their parents to despair. Yet, these are such small things, and this cruelty, this complacency, this occupation of our community is so vast.
At least there is a baby to clothe, I tell myself. At least the baby wasn’t strapped into a car seat with dozens of other children in a converted prison bus, screaming as they are transported away from their parents.
At least there was a baby to clothe.
Has it really come to this?
Somewhere, a Christian man or woman sits behind a computer, typing comments onto every post they can find. Not even understanding the laws themselves,* they are saying that these desperate families, these children, these mothers, should not have broken the law and deserve what they get.
Whose law?
While these parents and children stand accused by us of breaking the law of man, we stand guilty of breaking the law of God. We sort them left and right, mothers to one side, children to the other; yet, God has sorting to do as well.
“Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” (Matthew 25:41-46)
Somewhere, a five year old child is crying out for their mother. They are tired. They are traumatized. They live their lives in fear 24 hours a day. They do not understand what the people around them are saying. Perhaps they are being held in an institution like Southwest Key where the staff speaks Spanish or English, but not Portuguese or K’iche’ or Q’eqchi’ or Kaqchikel or whichever language their mother uses to soothe them. Perhaps they have a video translation device that talks to them and translates the staff’s orders. Let go of your siblings. Be quiet. Behave. Every day that passes, every tear that falls, was the choice of our government, and was a part of a system financially dependent upon keeping its beds full of children who are kept from getting tucked in by their papa with a good night kiss.
Here we stand, where the rest of the nation makes our decisions for us, and a Federal force occupies our streets, and we are relieved simply to see a baby still in her mother’s arms.
You can organize. You can talk to your neighbors. You can petition. You can donate. You can call. You can write. You can refuse to let our elected officials rest until these children are resting back in their parents arms.
Stop. Family. Separation. Now.
*For more information on how the United States Government is breaking it’s own laws read about American Baptist Churches v. Thornburgh and the screening process that we are bound to apply for credible fear and reasonable fear.
family separationimmigrationnogalestucson
"There's a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in." (Leonard Cohen)


Places where life is possible in our galaxy
by Nikola | Mar 7, 2019 | Space | 1 comment
Our galaxy is not so much welcome for life as it used to be. Cosmic radiation, supernova explosions, collisions between solar systems, and everything else makes our galaxy (Milky Way) a hell of a place for any biology. However, a detailed computer simulation locates several good places for life in our neighborhood.
To support life as we know it, these planets should have liquid water and orbit at the right place of the solar system, not too close, not too far from its star. Similarly, life will not appear or survive long in the vicinity of the center of the galaxy. Here, in the center of the galaxy, there is a high density of stars that over time can explode and “spark” the possible ozone shells of the planets, and then they are exposed to huge radiation.
In this new study, researchers led by physicist Duncan Fordan of the University of St. Andrews in Britain focused on regions far from the center of the galaxy. They used a computer simulation to model the entire Milky Way, as well as nearby galaxies like Andromeda and Triangulum galaxies. They simulated the distribution of gas, stars, and planetary systems in that huge nebula from planetary bodies. They calculated the evolution of the galaxies for billions of years while mapping the zones where life is suitable.
“We are the first to see how history affects galaxies and their ability to develop life.”
says Fogan”
For each type of star in the simulation, Forgan and his colleagues calculated the possibilities to develop rocky planets that would be similar to Earth or would be impossible for lifelike
Mercury. They also calculated the chance to form giant planets that are as large as Neptune that would form near a star and which would “help” to develop a life on the nearby planet, as on Earth.
Simulation, not surprisingly, has shown that potential life-pleasing planets can form away from zones that are in conglomerates of stars, where the likelihood of supernova is greater. This means the formation of planets suitable for life in places where there is no high density of stars.
Observations from NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope show that many stars have planets that are at the “right” distance of their stars. But it is not only crucial for a planet to be suitable for life. The simulation shows that much of the planets located closer to the center of the galaxy are less likely to develop life, those who are on the brink of the galaxy are more likely to develop planets that are suitable for life, says the paper published in International Journal of Astrobiology.
Modeling has shown that not only the stars but the evolution of galaxies have an impact on the whole process.
Sam	on March 8, 2019 at 6:28 pm
Is life depending on water the only kind of life in our system or the only kind of life in galaxy?!
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The famous theoretical physicist, Michio Kaku, forecasting digital immortality and perfect capitalism
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2019 Information Guide
2019 Season Stats (.pdf)
2019 Game Notes / Depth Charts
Gameday Central
High School Coaches Ticket Request
#TGW: Scoring Record Likely to Fall
Matt Winkeljohn | The Good Word
Harrison Butker didn’t show up on The Flats to be in this conversation, but now that he’ll have a chance in his last game to become Georgia Tech’s all-time leading scorer — so long as he gets at least one chance to aim between the uprights Saturday against Kentucky in the TaxSlayer Bowl — you bet he’s thinking about it.
His last PAT in Athens last month closed the scoring in the Yellow Jackets’ stirring 28-27 come-from-behind win at Georgia and gave Tech’s kicker 322 career points — the same number that kicker Luke Manget compiled from 1999-2002.
Head coach Paul Johnson is well aware. He’s not especially fond of field goals, often choosing to go for it on fourth down in favor of scoring touchdowns. “I was joking with [Butker], and told him we’re going for two every time,” he said.
It doesn’t take much to make Butker smile. Sometimes, maybe it’s a nervous grin for Tech’s tri-captain. “He said that at the banquet,” he said when asked about Johnson’s suggestion. “But I think he’s joking . . . hopefully.”
One way or another, the 6-foot-3, 210-pound senior Decatur who has been Georgia Tech’s kicker in every game of his career is likely to get a shot. The Jackets score touchdowns frequently and Johnson typically opts for the kick rather than two. That’s how Butker’s become the school’s all-time leading PAT kicker with 205.
With just one more, or a field goal, he’ll be alone atop the scoring list, too.
“It’ll mean a lot,” Butker said. “That record shows that somebody did their job and kept their head down and was there for however long they were. Personally, I wasn’t focused on accolades so the fact that I’m going to get this award was pretty crazy to me. I didn’t come into Tech thinking about breaking records.
“I wasn’t thinking about breaking the career scoring record. It was a surprise to me but I’d like to think that I just kept my head down and kicked the ball and you all tell me about the records.”
Butker didn’t play football until he was a sophomore at the Westminster School. An outstanding soccer player and a fine basketball player for the Wildcats, he was a quick study, yet not to the point where he would go to college with records in mind.
“I went to a camp at the end of my sophomore year. It was pretty amazing to see that there were more kickers in Georgia than just five or six or 10,” he recalled. “I did it my junior year just to be on the team because it was fun, and then I had a good year and I realized I was pretty decent.
“It was weird to see that there were so many kickers because I thought it was not a real position.”
Earning all-state honors as a junior and a senior, Butker left Westminster with school records for longest field goal (53 yards) and most made in a season (16-of-17 as a junior).
After earning All-America honors as a senior, his college choice was easy.
“I was a big Georgia Tech basketball fan, especially in 2004 when they were playing UConn in the national championship game,” he said. “Everybody in my school was a Georgia fan. There were a couple Georgia Tech fans and I figured I might as well be a Georgia Tech fan just to be a little different.
“Obviously, beating Georgia two out of four years has been a lot of fun.”
In fact, choosing Butker’s biggest field goal is easy, too.
He snuck a 53-yarder over the crossbar as time expired in Athens in 2014 to force overtime, where Tech beat the Bulldogs.
There have been others, like his 24-yard game winner as time expired at Virginia Tech earlier that season. He scored 98 points in `14, second-most in school history, as the Jackets went to the ACC championship game and beat Mississippi State in the Orange Bowl.
Tying his career high this season with 11 field goals in 13 tries, Butker doesn’t try as many as a lot of kickers because of Johnson’s gusto. For his career at Tech, he’s made 39-of-56. He doesn’t seem to mind.
“It’s a lot of extra points and a lot of kickoffs,” he said. “In the Orange Bowl year, I didn’t have a lot of field goal attempts (11-of-18), but we were winning. I love Georgia Tech . . . Tech’s got so much other stuff that you shouldn’t worry about how many attempts you’re going to get as a kicker.
“I’d rather be a part of the team, a team that’s winning that has good chemistry than just focusing on how many attempts I can get.”
Johnson appreciates Butker’s approach and he sure doesn’t mind that 47 of his 64 traditional kickoffs this season have been touchbacks (and only five of those returned have come out past the 25-yard line). Not bad for an industrial engineering major.
“He’s a very talented young man and he comes from a really stable family,” the coach said. “He’s probably done about what I thought he’d have done. Now, if you asked me if he’d be the all-time leading scorer, I wouldn’t have known, but historically . . . our guys have scored a lot of points. This year’s been way more consistent for him.”
It would have been great to be selected for a postseason all-star game, yet Butker — who was named honorable mention all-ACC — won’t need that to take a shot at the next level.
“I like being kind of an underdog. I think a lot of the guys, a lot of the analysts and scouts and stuff are looking at the field goal attempts,” he said. “A lot of people are getting 25-30 attempts per season. I can just do my best for the amount of attempts I get.
“I’ll definitely try for the NFL,” he explained. “Anything that I’ve done, I’ve tried to be the best at.”
First, he’ll play one last time for the Jackets and go for a win and a record.
“I’ll enjoy it,” Butker said. “Obviously, it’s the last game wearing the white and gold, last game for Georgia Tech, and we’re playing another SEC team, so that will be fun. We’re definitely looking forward to it. These are my last practices coming up. It went by fast and I’ll try to soak it all up.”
January 15, 2020 Tech Announces Football Series with Alabama, Georgia State
Jackets to play home-and-home against Tide in 2030 and ‘31, against nearby GSU in ’24 and ‘26
Tech Announces Football Series with Alabama, Georgia State
January 15, 2020 2020 Football Season Tickets On Sale Now
Home slate includes Clemson, Miami, Virginia, UCF and Mayhem at MBS vs. Notre Dame
2020 Football Season Tickets On Sale Now


colonel g.D. Dailley, mbe, cd
Colonel Gordon Debenham Dailley was born July 24th, 1911 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He attended St. John’s College and the University of Manitoba and began his military career in 1940. In 1943 he attended the Canadian War Staff College and then served in England. He held a number of executive positions at Army Headquarters in Ottawa and on the United Nations Armistice Commission in Korea. In 1940, he married Miss Virginia Johnston a ballet dancer from Texas and they had four children, Don, Susan, James and Virginia. He was promoted to the rank of Colonel in 1955 when he was assigned to Belgrade, Yugoslavia, as Canadian Military Attaché. Colonel retired from his military career in 1964 and became the Co-Director of the New Brunswick Centennial Administration.
Before joining the army, Colonel was active in sporting circles in Canada and England. He was a “playing-Captain” of England’s Olympic Hockey Team, which won the Olympic title and gold medal in 1936.
In mid 1968 Colonel Dailley began pursuing his dream of creating an exciting new attraction in Canada — a drive-through wildlife park dedicated to the conservation of declining wildlife species. He selected a 700-acre parcel of land in Rockton, Ontario and African Lion Safari & Game Farm Ltd. was founded. On Friday August 22, 1969 the safari opened its doors to its first visitors and today 50 years later, Colonel’s dream continues. Colonel Dailley was an active member of many associations and a founding member of two organizations that still exist today; Canada’s Accredited Zoos and Aquariums (CAZA) and Attractions Ontario.
Colonel Dailley passed away in the spring of 1989 at the age of 77. Attractions Ontario created a scholarship (The Colonel Don Dailley/Attractions Ontario Scholarship) in his memory. Two scholarships are awarded yearly to second or third year students of a post-secondary tourism program in Ontario. The students must be interested in pursuing a career in the attractions sector of the tourism industry. The scholarship commemorates Colonel’s outstanding contributions and commitment to attractions and Ontario tourism.


Balderton Capital Invests In Web Backup Startup Archify
Anthony Ha	@anthonyha / 8 years
One of the most frustrating online experiences for me is trying to track down a web page or tweet that I saw a few days ago. If I’m lucky, I bookmarked the page or favorited the tweet, but most of the time I haven’t, and so I can only sit there and fume.
So basically, a startup called Archify is the answer to my prayers. It’s a browser plugin that tracks every website you visit (excluding https pages and websites you visit in Incognito mode), and also allows you to connect your Facebook and Twitter accounts for archiving. Then, when you’re trying to find something later, you just search the archives like you’d search the Web.
Archify, which was founded in Vienna and is moving its headquarters to Berlin, just announced that it has raised a seed round of undisclosed size from Balderton Capital.
The service is still in closed beta testing. The founders invited me in, but I haven’t played with it enough to write much of a review. I will say that the figuring out all the knobs and dials is a little confusing, but hey, that’s what private betas are for, and I like the concept enough that I’m willing to persevere.


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Microsoft intros Azure confidential computing
Thursday, September 14, 2017 Cloud, Encry, Microsoft Azure, Security
Microsoft Azure is introducing a new data security capability called Azure confidential computing that provides encryption for data that is in use.
Microsoft said it has been working on this capability with Intel for over four years.
Confidential computing protects data in use from the following threats:
Malicious insiders with administrative privilege or direct access to hardware on which it is being processed
Hackers and malware that exploit bugs in the operating system, application, or hypervisor
Third parties accessing it without their consent
Microsoft said that when data is “in the clear” it is protected inside a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE - also known as an enclave), which ensures there is no way to view data or the operations inside from the outside, even with a debugger.
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/introducing-azure-confidential-computing/
Vertical Systems: Mid-Year 2017 Global Provider Ethernet LEADERBOARD
Thursday, September 14, 2017 Ethernet, Research, Vertical Systems
Orange Business Services (France), Colt (U.K.), AT&T (U.S.), Level 3 (U.S.), BT Global Services (U.K.), Verizon (U.S.) and NTT (Japan) hold the top spots (in rank order based on retail port share) in Vertical Systems Group’s Mid-Year 2017 Global Provider Ethernet LEADERBOARD, which ranks companies that hold a 4% or higher share of billable retail ports at sites outside of their respective home countries.
Based on mid-year 2017 port share results, Orange, Colt and AT&T continue to rank as the top three companies on the Global Provider Ethernet LEADERBOARD, respectively. Level 3 moves up to fourth from fifth position, displacing BT Global Services.
The Challenge Tier of Global Providers includes companies with share between 2% and 4% of this defined market. Six companies qualify for the mid-2017 Challenge Tier (in alphabetical order): Cogent (U.S.), SingTel (Singapore), T-Systems (Germany), Tata Communications (India), Telefonica Worldwide (Spain) and Vodafone (U.K.).
“Demand for global Ethernet networking continues to expand. As retail Ethernet providers extend their network footprints through partners worldwide, the growth outlook for wholesale services is increasing,” said Rick Malone, principal at Vertical Systems Group. “Orchestration across multiple provider networks is the top challenge constraining new service deployments, according to our research. This obstacle is being addressed through collaboration among industry players and standards organizations, including efforts to standardize on open APIs and service specifications.”
https://www.verticalsystems.com/vsglb/mid-year-2017-global-provider-ethernet-leaderboard/
Mobile World Congress Americas attracts 21,000
The 2017 Mobile World Congress Americas, held September 12-14 in San Francisco, attracted more than 21,000 attendees, according to GSMA.
Over 55 percent of Mobile World Congress Americas attendees held senior-level positions, including more than 2,400 CEOs, and 20 per cent of all attendees were female. Over 300 members of the media and industry analysts attended to report on the event.
“We are very pleased with the success of our first Mobile World Congress Americas event,” said John Hoffman, CEO, GSMA Ltd. “The strong level of engagement at the show, particularly among senior-level attendees, underscores the integral role that mobile plays across the entire Americas region. I would like to thank our partner CTIA and also extend our gratitude to all attendees, exhibitors, sponsors and partners who were a part of the 2017 Mobile World Congress Americas.”
http://www.mwcamericas.com
VeriSign: Internet domain name registrations growing at 2.1% annually
Thursday, September 14, 2017 Verisign
Approximately 1.3 million domain name registrations were added to the Internet in the second quarter of 2017, bringing the total number of domain name registrations to approximately 331.9 million across all top-level domains (TLDs) as of June 30, 2017, according to the newly-updated Verisign Domain Name Industry Brief.
The increase of approximately 1.3 million domain name registrations globally equates to a growth rate of 0.4 percent over the first quarter of 2017.1
Compared to last year, domain name registrations increased by 6.7 million, or 2.1 percent.
As of June 30, 2017, the .com domain name base totaled 129.2 million domain name registrations, while the .net domain name base totaled 15.1 million domain name registrations.
http://www.Verisign.com/DNIB
DISH Network picks Amdocs CES 10 for business services
Thursday, September 14, 2017 Amdocs
DISH Network has selected Amdocs CES 10 for its DISH Business customers, including private offices, hotels and apartments.
Under the contract, Amdocs will provide an advanced business and operational support system (BSS/OSS) that integrates all the elements that define the DISH Business experience. This includes delivering the best possible entertainment experience in a wide range of properties with innovative services powered by DISH’s SMARTBOX and EVOLVE set-back box for hotels, and supported by Amdocs CES 10.
“With Amdocs CES 10 as our next generation platform for the business sector, we’ll be able to launch new services and further enhance the customer experience,” said John Swieringa, executive vice president of operations at DISH.
http://www.amdocs.com
Spirent launches Transport Layer Security (TLS 1.3) testing
Thursday, September 14, 2017 Spirent, Testing
Spirent Communications has updated its flagship security testing solution, CyberFlood, to support Transport Layer Security (TLS 1.3), a new encryption protocol.
Specifically, this newCyberFlood Advanced Fuzzing update provides support for TLS 1.3 draft-19, draft-20, and draft-21.
Transport Layer Security (TLS) is the underlying technology that enables secure communication between web browsers and servers on the Internet.
“As the first to market with fuzz testing for TLS 1.3, Spirent is extending its leadership in security testing and validating the way the world communicates,” said David DeSanto, director of products and threat research at Spirent Communications. “The industry is ripe for an encryption protocol update, and our customers are relying on Spirent to provide them with the realistic preemptive intelligence that ensures their TLS 1.3 implementations are stable, reliable and secure before they go to market.”
http://www.spirent.com/security


Trump complains he can no longer call his daughter 'beautiful'
By Josephine Parsons| 1 year ago
At a rally in Cleveland, Ohio, President Trump lamented that he could no longer compliment his daughter Ivanka, blaming the "politically correct" nature of modern society.
The rally was held in support of Republican candidate for Ohio Mike DeWine ahead of the midterm elections.
While introducing Ivanka Trump, his daughter and senior White House advisor, to the crowd, the President began to disparage the "politically correct" climate.
Trump and daughter Ivanka at the Cleveland rally. (AAP)
"I know they’ll say this is nepotism, but the truth is, she’s a very, very — you’re not allowed to use the word beautiful anymore when you talk about women, no-no, you’re not allowed, it’s politically incorrect," he said.
Then, Mr Trump asked the males in the crowd to raise their hands if they agreed they'd never call a woman "beautiful" again.
"Every man here raise your hand, you will never ever say your wife, your girlfriend, anybody is beautiful, so I’m not allowed to say because it’s my daughter Ivanka, but she’s really smart," the 72-year-old said.
Trump has commented on his daughter's appearance before. Once, during an interview with radio personality Howard Stern, Trump was asked to list the world's "great beauties".
"You know who’s a great beauty?" he reportedly responded. "My daughter Ivanka. Now she’s a 10."
However, many have pointed out that the President's comments at the rally were a thinly-veiled criticism of the #MeToo movement.
More than 20 women have made sexual assault accusations against President Trump, according to Business Insider. He has repeatedly called these "false charges".
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17 New Laws That Take Effect This Year
By MarkCMS
Here is a sampling of other new laws that Californians woke up to in January:
Assault weapons: The new gun-control regulations broaden the definition of illegal assault weapons, require background checks for the first time for ammunition purchases and limit the lending of guns to family members. California bars purchasing, semi-automatic, centerfire rifles or semi-automatic pistols that lack a fixed magazine and have one of a number of features that include a protruding pistol grip or a folding or telescoping stock. If you already own one of these weapons you’ll have to register it.
Gender-neutral bathrooms: While North Carolina waged a proxy war in its restrooms over gender identity, California quietly went in the opposite direction. Assembly Bill 1732 requires all single-toilet bathrooms in businesses and public agencies to be gender neutral.
Minimum wage, equal pay and paid parental leave: The statewide minimum wage goes from $10 to $10.50 an hour for businesses with 26 or more employees — a rate that will rise to $15 by 2022. Under another law, Assembly Bill 1676, an employer can’t pay a woman less than her male colleagues because of her prior salary. Assembly Bill 2393 gives up to 12 weeks of paid parental leave to all K-12 and community college employees, including classified workers and community college faculty.
Motorcycles: Current law does not change; lane splitting by a motorcyclist remains legal if done safely. This bill defines lane splitting as driving a motorcycle, which has two wheels in contact with the ground, between rows of stopped or moving vehicles in the same lane. The bill permits the CHP to develop lane splitting educational safety guidelines in consultation with other state traffic safety agencies and at least one organization focused on motorcycle safety.
Child safety seats: Although this law was passed during the 2015 legislative session, it takes effect Jan. 1. Children under two years of age must ride rear-facing in an appropriate child passenger safety seat. Children weighing 40 or more pounds, or standing 40 or more inches tall, are exempt. California law continues to require that all children under the age of eight be properly restrained in an appropriate child safety seat in the back seat of a vehicle.
Use of Wireless Electronic Devices: Motorists are no longer permitted to hold a wireless telephone or electronic wireless communications device while driving a motor vehicle. Rather than holding the device, it must be mounted in the 7-inch square in the lower corner of the windshield farthest removed from the driver or in a 5-inch square in the lower corner of the windshield nearest to the driver. Another option is to affix the device to the dashboard in a place that does not obstruct the driver’s clear view of the road and does not interfere with the deployment of an airbag.
The law does allow a driver to operate one of these devices with the motion of a single swipe or tap of the finger, but not while holding it.
Driving under the influence - Ignition Interlock Device: Starting in 2019, a driving under the influence offender will be required to install an ignition interlock device on their vehicle for a specified period of time in order to get a restricted driver license or to reinstate their license. The law also removes the required suspension time before a person can get a restricted license, provided that the offender installs an IID on their vehicle. The law extends the current four-county (Sacramento, Los Angeles, Alameda, Tulare) DUI IID pilot program until Jan.1, 2019, at which time all DUI offenders statewide will be required to install an IID to have their license reinstated.
School bus safety: This law requires all school buses, school pupil activity buses, youth buses, and child care motor vehicles used to transport school-age children to be equipped with a “child safety alert system.” Every school is required to have a transportation safety plan with procedures to ensure that a pupil is not left unattended in a vehicle.
Tour bus inspections: This new law requires the CHP to develop protocols for entering into a memorandum of understanding with local governments to increase the number of inspections for tour buses operated within their jurisdictions.
Hunger and homelessness: Assembly Bill 1995 requires community colleges with shower facilities to make them available to homeless students, while Assembly Bill 1747 requires public and private colleges that offer food service to apply to participate in a state-funded program that provides meals to the homeless. Advocates for homeless students note that those without permanent housing often don’t have a reliable way to store or prepare food.
Docs and prescription drugs: Inspired by the Bay Area News Group’s Drugging Our Kids investigation, which revealed the state’s dependence on psychotropic medications to control troubled children, lawmakers passed legislation to hold physicians accountable. Senate Bill 1174 puts doctors who recklessly prescribe psychiatric drugs at risk of losing their medical license. Senate Bill 1291 will require more transparency and tracking of mental health services for foster kids.
Booze: Powdered alcohol — yes, that is a thing — is now illegal to possess, sell or make. But beauty salons and barber shops can serve small amounts of wine and beer as long as it’s free and it’s before 10 p.m. — a privilege previously enjoyed by patrons of hot air balloon rides and limos.
Earthquake warnings: California advances its goal of creating a statewide early warning system — which Mexico, China and Japan have — by establishing the California Earthquake Early Warning Program in the governor’s Office of Emergency Services. This year, the governor directed $10 million to the expansion of the existing prototype, ShakeAlert.
Consumer protection: Landlords will be prohibited from showing, renting or leasing a vacant unit that they know has a bedbug infestation. Rental car companies won’t be able to rent out cars subject to a manufacturer’s recall until the vehicle has been fixed.
Sex crimes: Assembly Bill 701 broadens the definition of rape to include “all forms of nonconsensual sexual assault.” And after the worldwide outcry over the six-month jail sentence given to former Stanford swimmer Brock Turner, Assembly Bill 2888 makes sexually assaulting an unconscious person a crime with a mandatory prison sentence. Rape, sexual assault and other sex offenses committed in 2017 will no longer be subject to a statute of limitations, under Senate Bill 813.
Children’s safety: Schools already have strict rules for athletes who may have suffered head injuries — such as removing the athlete for the rest of the day and keeping them sidelined until they have been cleared by a licensed health care provider. Assembly Bill 2007 extends those rules to youth sports organizations, along with training for coaches on concussions.
Mascot names: Passed back in 2015, Assembly Bill 30 gave public schools until 2017 to ditch a mascot, “Redskins,” now widely denounced as racist and insensitive to Native Americans. There were four high schools in California that needed to comply. Two of those schools now cheer for the “Tribe,” one roots on the “Reds” and one has ditched a mascot altogether.
For a complete list of laws, bill information and California Legislature information go to: leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/
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You are here: Home / Newsroom / Joe Levin / President Joseph Kabila “Legalized Corruption”
President Joseph Kabila “Legalized Corruption”
July 25, 2017 /0 Comments/in Joe Levin /by Joe Levin
More than US$ 750 million in mining revenues disappeared from the coffers of the Democratic Republic of the Congo over a three-year period, according to a report released Friday.
“Regime Cash Machine,” published by the not-for-profit Global Witness, details how “legalized corruption” is diverting a fifth of the country’s vital mining revenues from the state budget, and thus siphoning funds that should be used for public services.
“There is no clarity on what this money was spent on or where it ended up,” the report reads, but Global Witness’ investigation found that some of the funds were disbursed through corrupt networks with ties to President Joseph Kabila.
Congo is one of the poorest countries in the world, with a GDP per capita of about US$ 445 just slightly ahead of Somalia and a handful of other Sub-Saharan African nations, according to the World Bank.
But the country is extremely rich in natural resources. In 2016, it provided more than half of the world’s cobalt – an in-demand metal used in smartphones and batteries for electric cars – and came in #6 in global copper production.
Lucrative mining companies are required to contribute a portion of their profits to Congo’s state budget through a combination of taxes, royalties, signature bonuses and dividends.
However, Global Witness found that between 2012 and 2015, more than US$ 750 million of those funds were lost to corrupt state-owned companies and national tax agencies.
The figure rises to US$ 1.3 billion when company payments to other government bodies and a now-dissolved provincial tax agency are included.
The biggest offender in the siphoning scheme is the main state-owned mining company, Gécamines, which is “hemorrhaging” money even though it used to be the country’s most profitable mining venture.
Gécamines hardly does any of its own mining today, but rather holds shares in about 20 third-party mining projects, according to the report.
It receives more than US$ 100 million annually from those investments but contributes only a “tiny percentage” to the state.
At the same time, Gécamines found the funds to repay a large loan from Dan Gertler, a close friend of President Kabila, while its own staff and other loans went unpaid.
The other main culprits are Congo’s tax agencies, which are responsible for collecting taxes on industrial mining, highly secretive, and often run by individuals with close personal or professional relationships with Kabila.
Global Witness found that the tax agencies withhold a portion of the mining proceeds each year for their “own funds” – so not only are some major mining companies not paying their fair share to the state, but tax agencies are also drawing from the pot.
These most recent corruption allegations come as Kabila clings to power after refusing to step down at the end of his second term in office last December.
Kabila then promised to hold new elections by the end of this year, but that timeline continues to be pushed back amidst a severe economic crisis and ongoing civil war between government troops and Kabila’s opponents, The New York Times reports.
Kabila’s government has not commented on the new Global Witness report, according to the BBC, but has previously denied allegations of corruption in Congo’s mining sector.
Tags: Congo, Dan Gertler, Joe Levin, President Joseph Kabila
http://www.totpi.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/0202121-29.jpg 1152 1920 Joe Levin http://www.totpi.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/lolo-300x136.png Joe Levin2017-07-25 08:26:342017-07-25 08:26:34President Joseph Kabila "Legalized Corruption"
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23-Year-Old Israeli Surfer Has Gone Missing in Bali
Dylan Heyden
Israeli surfer Aviv Meshil, 23, has been missing since Monday. He was last seen going surfing off the coast of Nusa Lembongan. Photo: Facebook
Search and rescue efforts are currently underway to locate a 23-year-old Israeli surfer who went missing in Bali. Aviv Meshil was last seen Monday when he went surfing off Nusa Lembongan, a tiny island off of the southeast coast of Bali.
According to the Times of Israel, the situation has become infinitely complicated due to the lack of diplomatic ties between Israel and Indonesia. What’s more, Meshil reportedly traveled on a U.S. passport, which delayed Israeli officials being notified of the situation until Meshil had already been missing for several days.
The Tel Aviv-based MAGNUS professional search and rescue team is currently working with local authorities, consular officials, and the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs to find Meshil, according to Walla News.
In an interview with Israeli outlet YNet, Meshil’s sister Sivan explained that their father had also flown to Bali to aid rescue efforts and that she couldn’t believe her brother had gone missing.
“I am in a nightmare,” she said. “I’m hoping he’s found alive, and as of now we do not know too much, except that there are many locals who are trying to help.”
Sivan also explained that due to their family’s U.S. citizenship, American officials have also been involved but have been little help.
If you have any information regarding Meshil’s whereabouts, contact MAGNUS here.


NoiseMap models and calculates noise from all types of ‘tracked transit systems’ i.e. ordinary railways, high-speed railways, metros and tram systems using a procedure called ‘Calculation of Railway Noise’ (CRN) which was published in 1995. Its basic concept is similar to Calculation of Road Traffic Noise, with various modifications to account for the different nature of railways. Since the original publication of CRN, various enhancements have been published and these are incorporated in the NoiseMap implementation.
High-speed railways
NoiseMap also implements the ‘Train Noise Prediction Model’ or TNPM, developed for the Channel Tunnel Rail Link high-speed railway (often now called HS1). TNPM is a very flexible prediction system, allowing users to choose their own noise source locations and speed co-efficients. It also permits the calculation of LAmax. NoiseMap’s TNPM option was used in the preparation of the Environmental Statement for the London to West Midlands section of the HS2 railway*.
General approach to modelling a railway
The railway track is modelled by dividing it into straight segments such that there are uniform traffic and propagation conditions for each segment. The surrounding topography is modelled in the same way as for roads.
Rail vehicles themselves are modelled differently from road vehicles, however. With roads, it is assumed that the mix of vehicles will be large enough that typical noise emissions can be used for light and heavy vehicles. For Railways, the mix of vehicles is generally small and dependent on the particular railway line. Therefore, it is necessary to obtain noise data for the particular vehicles in use. CRN provides a table of noise emissions for typical vehicles in use prior to 1995, but this list is now rather out of date and although updates have been published, it is quite likely that noise measurements will be needed to determine the source levels appropriate for the line to be modelled.
Railway noise emissions also depend on the rail and wheel roughness, which means that there can be large differences in noise between trains on a single section of track, and also large differences in noise output from the same train on different sections of track. In fact, other factors mean that the noise from the same train on the same section of track can vary from one pass-by to the next. These factors present a particular difficulty in predicting railway noise, which add to the uncertainty.
CRN provides correction factors for different types of track and track support system (eg ballasted track, rigid track base, jointed track, continuous rail). Experience shows that used carefully, it gives acceptable predictions, particularly for long-term averages, although there can be large discrepancies for individual rail vehicles.
If you wish to use TNPM, you will need to obtain source terms and speed correction factors appropriate to the railway vehicles under evaluation.
*http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20140613014254/http://assets.dft.gov.uk/hs2-environmental-statement/volume-5/sound/Vol5_Appendix_SV-001-000.pdf