rajnath singh warns pakistan against interfering in india s internal matters

New Delhi: Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh today said that Pakistan should stop interfering in India's internal matters and rather worry about their own selves.

"Pakistan should worry about themselves and should not interfere in the internal matters of India. We won't tolerate any nation's interference between India's internal matters," Singh said.

Singh's remark came in the wake of Pakistan's inference that any creation of 'dedicated' townships in Kashmir Valley for displaced Kashmiri Pandits would change the demography of the state and be in violation of UN resolutions.

"Any effort to establish dedicated townships or special zones to change the demographic makeup of the territory will be in violation of UN resolutions," Pakistan's Foreign Office spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam had said.

Union Financethe private sector's accountability for women's, children's and adolescents' well-being, and for public health'. This plea is particularly relevant for South Asia, which is widely known for the strong role played by the private sector in providing health services. According to a recent review, 'healthcare services in South Asia are characterised by low public investment, dependence on services provided by the private sector, and very high rates of out of pocket expenses as the principal source of health financing'.[@R10] The same authors found that most people in South Asia depend on private providers for healthcare and that public investment in health has stagnated. As shown in WHO and World Bank's report in 2018, domestic private health expenditure in 2015 was very high in some South Asian countries, corresponding


to 78% of total health expenditure in Afghanistan, 74% in Bangladesh, 71% in India and in Nepal and 69% in Pakistan. Furthermore, among domestic private health expenditure, more than 90% are out-of-pocket expenditure which has exposed individuals to financial hardship.[@R11] Although private health expenditure by households is a only a proxy for the size of the private sector, these figures support the major role of the private sector in the region.

The public and private sectors differ in terms of geographic distribution, out-of-pocket costs to families and therefore economic accessibility and likely on quality of care. It is therefore likely that reliance on private or public sector will vary according to wealth and place of residence. Given South Asia's need to accelerate progress on key MNCH indicators, as wellmost frequent source of care in both areas, but particularly for urban women and children. In Bhutan, the private sector is virtually absent. India shows a complex pattern: for careseeking, the private sector predominates in both urban and rural areas; for antenatal and postnatal care, urban areas had similar reliance on both sectors, but rural areas had greater use of public sector; for delivery care and early initiation of breast feeding, the public sector preference was mostly marked in rural than urban areas. In the Maldives, the public sector led for most indicators, particularly in the rural areas, and it also predominated in Nepal, except for the two careseeking indicators in urban areas. Lastly, in Pakistan both urban and rural areas showed substantially higher use of the private


as marked. Family wealth is a driver of inequalities, and use of the private sector may be seen as a strategy used by the wealthy to achieve higher coverage in light of the limited availability or perceived lack of quality of public services. Yet, success in meeting UHC and the SDG goals for maternal, newborn and child mortality will be largely driven by the ability to reach the poorest women and children with high-quality interventions.

The public--private mix varies markedly by intervention, from country to country, and according to family wealth and residence. Effective programme and policies must be supported by regular monitoring of coverage with an equity lens. It is also likely that for large countries such as India and Pakistan, subnational patterns may vary, requiring efforts toBringing music to the table in La Mesa

When I moved from La Mesa to Normal Heights four years ago, I thought I was going to reside in a hotbed for live music, as I’d be walk-ably close to Adams Avenue and North Park with their plentiful venues and numerous street fairs.

Little did I know La Mesa was going to experience a live-music renaissance of its own, with an up-and-coming culinary scene to boot.

What started with a handful of music venues in the area, has blossomed into a saturated scene where one can find live performers in the usual locales like coffee shops and dive bars, but also in offbeat spots like ramen shops and sports bars.

For fans of rock ‘n’ roll and alternative music, the Riviera Supper Club


around La Mesa regularly. “The performances are often geared toward being a part of a dining or drinking experience where you can still hear conversations, but also get up and dance.”

While La Mesa venues do have a more mature audience to appeal to, there are some making a concerted effort to bring out a younger set.

Local radio station 91X DJ Tim Pyles, who champions local music in all its forms, has set his sights on engaging underage music lovers in the area.

Pyles is bringing his keen ear and immense passion to La Mesa with a “Locally Grown” series at Public Square Coffee in the Village area.

The first outing earlier this month was a seeming success with wall-to-wall people and even some spilling out onto the sidewalk to enjoythree local bands that played as loud as they would in a rock club.

As all these venues flourish with music in their lineup, it will be interesting to see the directions in which the scene grows.

La Mesa Village garners large crowds with their car shows, antique events and annual Oktoberfest; it seems the area could become an epicenter for live music with a street fair to rival established events like Adams Avenue Street Fair and North Park Festival of the Arts.

And I’m not the only one who thinks so.

“The charm of the Village is fantastic,” said Blinn. “[I] can definitely see it becoming a hot spot like Adams Avenue. La Mesa Boulevard and its side streets would be ideal for hosting a new Street Scene — one that


impression: someone admires them, someone does not understand them. But be that as it may, his name is inscribed in gold letters in the history of American art photography.

William Eggleston was born in 1939 in Tennessee, USA. Like many of his other famous colleagues, William did not receive a professional education in the field of photography – he turned out to be a talented self-taught person.

Photographer William Eggleston

William Eggleston began to take an active interest in photography in the 60s, and his debut exhibition was held in 1976. The first pancake turned out to be lumpy – many critics were skeptical of the newcomer, who shot in color. In an era of unquestioning dominance of black and white photos, this approach seemed frivolous and even amateurish. However, withof his career, William Eggleston was unhappy with the lack of suitable subjects for shooting in his surroundings. Once he complained to a friend that he did not know what to shoot, since all the things around were ugly. “So take pictures of ugly things,” a friend advised William. That is exactly what Eggleston decided to do, improving his skills and non-trivial vision of the world around him over the years.

William Eggleston notes that we do not even notice many familiar objects in the daily rush. His task as a photographer is to discover the beauty and deep essence of the simplest things. The correct composition, play of colors and a good angle open up the world around us in a completely different light – meaningful and sometimes


in the refrigerator, walks along the streets of the suburbs. The lack of pathos makes William Eggleston’s photographic works so lively, full of deep meaning, sincere in their simplicity.

Photo by William Eggleston

“William Eggleston in the Real World”

Eggleston continues to take pictures today as always. A recent documentary entitled “William Eggleston in the Real World” conveys the viewer a unique personality, conveys his view of work and life. The documentary was released in 2005. The director, scriptwriter and performer of one of the main roles in the film was Michael Almereida.

A longtime admirer of Eggleston’s work, Almereida in his movie tried to show the roots of the genius of the photo artist, as well as the imprint the work leaves on the personal life of William himself.

TEXTURE IN NATURE.Arizona Prisons Lift Ban On Book About Mass Incarceration

Enlarge this image toggle caption Courtesy of The New Press /The New Press Courtesy of The New Press /The New Press

Corrections officials in Arizona are now allowing inmates to read a book criticizing the U.S. criminal justice system after initially pulling it from prisons over "unauthorized content," a state corrections official tells NPR.

An uproar over the ban of Chokehold: Policing Black Men, including threats of a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union, prompted Arizona prison officials to review a publication blacklist and reverse suspending the book.

The book's author, Georgetown University Professor Paul Butler, said he never understood why his book was considered contraband, but he is grateful the pressure campaign caused Arizona corrections officials to rethink their position.

It did


if the text is considered dangerous, it is unconstitutional to censor a book that explores how prisons have shaped the lives of black men and "poses no threat to the safety and security of the facility."

Emerson Sykes, one of the ACLU attorneys who wrote the letter, says he is pleased that corrections officials removed the ban on the book, though he said the long fight over what books prisoners can access is far from over.

"These bans are taking place in prisons and jails around the country," Sykes said, speaking to NPR.

When New Jersey prisons had banned Michelle Alexander's book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, the ACLU fought back, and secured a swift reversal of the ban.

In Illinois, more than 200 books, mostlyHong Kong is bracing for more demonstrations this weekend, with protesters threatening to disrupt transport links to the airport as embattled leader Carrie Lam's withdrawal of a controversial extradition bill fails to appease some activists.

Protesters plan to block traffic to the city's international airport on Saturday, a week after thousands of demonstrators disrupted transport links, which saw some of the worst violence since the unrest escalated three months ago.

The Airport Authority, in an advert in the South China Morning Post newspaper on Friday, urged protesters "not to disrupt the journey of tens of thousands of travelers who use the airport every day."

Other rallies are planned on Friday evening across the city, at sites such as subway stations and near government headquarters.

In a pre-recorded televised address on Wednesday, Lam


said the extradition bill had been withdrawn, conceding to one of the protesters' five demands, although many said the move was too little, too late.

The extradition bill, which would have allowed people to be sent to mainland China for trial in courts controlled by the Communist Party, triggered mass protests that have now evolved into a broader backlash against the Hong Kong government and its political masters in Beijing.

Hong Kong's Chief Executive Carrie Lam addresses a news conference on Thursday. (Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters)

The massive and some times violent protests present Chinese President Xi Jinping with his greatest popular challenge since he came to power in 2012.

Many protesters remain angry over Lam's refusal to grant an independent inquiry into perceived police brutality against protesters. Police have fired tear gasand bean bag rounds at protesters, who in turn have thrown petrol bombs and bricks at police in running battles across the Asian financial hub.

The protesters' three other demands are:

Retraction of the word "riot" to describe rallies.

Release of all demonstrators arrested.

The right for Hong Kong people to choose their own leaders.

Many Hong Kong residents fear Beijing is eroding the autonomy granted to the former British colony when it was handed back to China in 1997.

China denies the charge of meddling and says Hong Kong is an internal affair. It has denounced the protests and warned of the damage to the economy and the possible use of force to quell the unrest. Hong Kong is facing its first recession in a decade.

Legislation addressing China's actions in Hong Kong will


be among the top priorities pushed by U.S. Senate Democrats when Congress returns to work after a recess next week, their leader said on Thursday.

Meanwhile, Global credit rating agency Fitch Ratings downgraded Hong Kong's long-term foreign currency issuer default rating to AA from AA-plus on Friday after months of unrest and protests in the region.

Hong Kong's rating outlook is negative, Fitch Ratings said.

The move would make it more difficult for both the government and companies based there to borrow money. The last time Finch downgraded Hong Kong's rating was in 1995.

Increasingly violent protests have roiled the Asian financial hub as thousands chafe at a perceived erosion of freedoms and autonomy under Chinese rule.1969: Volkswagen introduces the first on-board computer system with scanning capability, in their fuel-injected Type 3 models.
 1975: Datsun 280Z On-board computers begin appearing on consumer vehicles, largely motivated by their need for real-time tuning of fuel injection systems.  Simple OBD implementations appear, though there is no standardization in what is monitored or how it is reported.
 1980: General Motors implements a proprietary interface and protocol for testing of the Engine Control Module (ECM) on the vehicle assembly line. The 'assembly line diagnostic link' (ALDL) protocol communicates at 160 baud with Pulse-width modulation (PWM) signaling and monitors very few vehicle systems.  Implemented on California vehicles for the 1980 model year, and the rest of the United States in 1981, the ALDL was not intended for use


storage capacity for data logging and other functions
 Higher resolution screen than handheld tools
 The ability to use multiple software programs adding flexibility

The extent that a PC tool may access manufacturer or vehicle-specific ECU diagnostics varies between software products as it does between hand-held scanners.

Data loggers

Data loggers are designed to capture vehicle data while the vehicle is in normal operation, for later analysis.

Data logging uses include:
 Engine and vehicle monitoring under normal operation, for the purpose of diagnosis or tuning.
 Some US auto insurance companies offer reduced premiums if OBD-II vehicle data loggers or cameras are installed - and if the driver's behaviour meets requirements. This is a form of auto insurance risk selection
 Monitoring of driver behaviour by fleet vehicle operators.

Analysis of vehicle black box datasimilar to the other scan tools.

Vehicle telematics

OBD II information is commonly used by vehicle telematics devices that perform fleet tracking, monitor fuel efficiency, prevent unsafe driving, as well as for remote diagnostics and by Pay-As-You-Drive insurance.

Although originally not intended for the above purposes, commonly supported OBD II data such as vehicle speed, RPM, and fuel level allow GPS-based fleet tracking devices to monitor vehicle idling times, speeding, and over-revving. By monitoring OBD II DTCs a company can know immediately if one of its vehicles has an engine problem and by interpreting the code the nature of the problem. OBD II is also monitored to block mobile phones when driving and to record trip data for insurance purposes.

OBD-II Diagnostic Trouble Codes

OBD-II diagnostic trouble codes (DTC's) contain 1


Bingo is about a group of die-hard bingo players who stop at nothing to miss their weekly game. In between the number calling, strange rituals and fierce competitions, love blossoms and long lost friends reunite.

Explore Academics

William Woods University stands among Missouri's best colleges, known for top programs in Equestrian Studies, American Sign Language, a growing number of graduate offerings in education and business, and adult degree completion.Five years ago, auteur director Guillermo del Toro (Cronos, Hellboy, Pan's Labyrinth) set out to create a bold, new vampire series for television — and had every door slammed in his face. But the writer/director was convinced his take on the classic monster would speak to an audience that had grown weary of sparkly fangs and doomed romances. So, along with novelist Chuck Hogan (Prince of Thieves, which became the Ben Affleck-led The Town), del Toro committed his tale to paper and, in June 2009, The Strain hit bookshelves.

However, copies didn't stay there very long, as del Toro's hunch proved correct and his story of an uncontrollable vampiric virus and the five people determined to stop its spread, caught fire, racing up the New York Times' best-seller chart.


That's when, in the ultimate irony, dozens of networks attempted to buy the TV rights.

"As soon as the first novel hit the top 10 on the New York Times list, we got calls about the rights," del Toro told BuzzFeed at The ATX Television Festival, with a laugh. "But I wouldn't sell the rights until the trilogy was published because I didn't want to be thinking about the movie or TV show during the writing process." After two equally popular sequels — 2010's The Fall and 2011's The Night Eternal — del Toro quickly partnered with cable channel FX and executive producer Carlton Cuse (Lost) to bring the gory saga to screen.

And while del Toro makes it very clear that he defers to Cuse when it comes torunning the show, his fingerprints are all over every episode. "I supervise every single shot in the show," said del Toro, who co-wrote and directed the pilot episode, which airs July 13. "Every piece of FX you see in the first season is guided by me, I do the final color correction on every episode, I go to Saturday unit when they're shooting the monsters when I can and assist the guys shooting. I discuss my suggestions with Carlton; now and then I fiddle with the scripts, but I know in my heart of hearts that Carlton is king and I follow his lead — but I do want to be part of the whole thing."


but appears to have met its ultimate failure.

What is the Ukraine?

The Ukraine is a post-Soviet republic, which became independent after the collapse of the USSR in 1991. This is a quite familiar story. But the historical path which led to the creation of the Ukrainian state is more complicated. The territory of today’s Ukraine was part of the Czarist Empire until 1918 for most of its area, excluding the extreme West (Lviv and other areas), which formed the province of Galicia under Habsburg sovereignty. Historically, Kiev has been the birthplace of the first statehood form for the East Slavic tribes (Kievan Rus’), progenitors of the Russians, the Belarusians and the Ukrainians. After the Mongol occupation, while the East Slavic centre of gravity shifted to Novgorod and then Moscow,the region of Kiev came under Polish-Lithuanian sovereignty. However, it must be noticed that historical Ukraine did not encompass most of today’s Eastern Ukraine, of the South and of Crimea, as all these territories were under Ottoman control. The situation changed in the eighteenth century: the Czarist push for West- and Southward expansion led on the one hand to the incorporation of much of today’s central Ukraine into Russia, after the successive partitions of Poland between Prussia, the Habsburg Monarchy and the Russian Empire; on the other, it led to the liquidation of the Ottoman presence in the East and the South, including Crimea. Because of the severe depopulation of these territories, the Czars called for successive waves of colonists from all parts of the empire to settle


in the newly acquired territory (parts of which historically bore the name Novorossiya, i.e. New Russia), and even German settlers.

While the region remained under Czarist sovereignty, the idea of a Ukrainian nation as an ethnographic and political entity separated from the Russian people gradually became the subject of strategic considerations since the latter part of the nineteenth century, challenging the policy of unity of all East Slavic populations under the Orthodox faith, which constituted the pillar of the Czarist political project. It is not surprising therefore that the first time the Ukraine re-materialised as a geopolical entity, with much more extended borders than any previous historical Ukraine, occurred as the consequence of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, whereby the German Reich and Austria-Hungary, after defeating Russia on the EasterFront in WWI, carved out the Ukraine as their prize for victory. This first attempt at establishing a Ukrainian state was short-lived and it soon collapsed after the defeat of the Central Powers in 1918. Ukrainian territory became a contended land between various movements, but it will in the end be captured by the Red Army, with the ex-Habsburg portion and other Western areas being annexed to the newly constituted Poland of Marshal Jzef Pisudski. The Bolsheviks created a Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic as part of the Soviet Union, with Kharkov as capital. The Ukrainian SSR saw all the extreme aspects of the Stalinist regime: the agrarian policy of the 1930s caused widespread famine, as in other region of southern Russia and Kazakhstan, and the devastation of the


pre-existing social forms of organisation in the countryside, but also massive investments for rapid industrialisation and urbanisation.

The event of WWII radically changed the political geography of the Ukraine. With the German-Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939, Stalin expanded its borders by incorporating Galicia and later Bukovina (from Romania). But the entire Ukraine was later conquered by National-Socialist Germany during operation Barbarossa in 1941, remaining under German occupation until 1943-1944. The Germans established an administrative region called Reichskommissariat Ukraine encompassing the regions to the West of Kiev, of Dnepropetrovsk, and Nikolaev. The SS and other paramilitary formations, together with local collaborators, exterminated the Jewish population, which constituted a large share of the urban demography. When the Red Army re-conquered the region and after the end of the war,German and Polish minorities were expelled westwards, while the re-established Ukrainian SSR was enlarged with the permanent annexation of Galicia, Bukovina, and also a region lying beyond the Carpathian mountains, hence the name Transcarpathia, which was traditionally part of Hungary. This latter annexation gave to the USSR immediate access to the Pannonian basin in Central Europe and a direct border with Hungary itself and Czechoslovakia.

Post-WWII Ukraine saw the struggle of anti-Soviet partisans in the West until the early 1950s, but also a large scale economic reconstruction. Like the rest of the Soviet (planned) economy, the pace of economic development started to slow significantly in the late 1960s, and the by the mid-1970s the USSR found itself in a stagnation. Even so, it is arguable that the Ukraine was


probably one of the regions of the USSR with the highest living standards, certainly above the average of Russia. The Ukrainian SSR economy, like most of the other Soviet republics, was never designed to function independently from the rest. As a major industrial centre, it relied on energy supplies sourced from other parts of the Soviet territory, on a common transport system, and on industrial integration with other regions. The Ukraine also became a major area for the deployment of military forces in Europe, as its territory hosted the strategic reserves the Red Army in the event of a war against NATO, with an immense amount of equipment, more than 1,200 strategic nuclear warheads, and 2,500 tactical nuclear missiles at the end of the Cold War.

At the timebe precariously grounded either in the sheer opposition to Russia, or in a rather unproductive victimisation (like all forms of victimisation), or perhaps simply in an insufficiently thick historical background.

In the midst of this cataclysmic change, the post-1991 Ukrainian state precariously achieved a partial consolidation only by means of a complex system of balances: between the Eastern (Party of Regions) and the Western parts of the country, between the oligarchs and the masses, between the centre (Kiev) and the regions, between the president and the parliament, between the West (US and EU) and Russia. Despite being often represented as belonging to the Russian sphere of influence, Kiev held in reality a rather ambiguous stance vis--vis Moscow, notwithstanding its heavy energy dependence from Russian gas. The Ukraine never joined


the CSTO (the security alliance between Russia and several other ex-Soviet republics), while it joined GUUAM in the late 1990s, a coalition of West-leaning ex-Soviet republics. The lack of cooperation between Kiev and Moscow can arguably be identified as the main reason why the Commonwealth of Independent States never functioned as the envisioned (in 1991) federal form among ex-USSR states.

In the 23 years of its independence, the Ukraine has not succeeded in developing a viable economic model, and it failed to promote a higher standard of living for the almost totality of its inhabitants. The large industrial sector inherited by the Soviet Union has been rapidly losing its value in the face of global competition, chronic lack of investments, and above all the inability to ease the structuraldependence from energy sources located in Russia at a time of rising international energy prices. The agricultural sector, which has a large growth potential due to the quality of the soil, remains severely underdeveloped. Against this background of economic failure, it is therefore not surprising that the Ukrainians have been emigrating in large numbers, both towards Europe and towards Russia. The country finds itself indeed in the middle of a quite dramatic demographic implosion, also considering the very low birth rates.

The Current Crisis

Economic bankruptcy, demographic implosion, ubiquitous corruption, internal and external political polarisation, great power influence if not outright intervention: the Ukraine has been walking on extremely thin ice for quite some time. The weakness of the Ukrainian experimental state has generated a number of dangerous feedback mechanisms:


the weaker Kiev became, the more intense grew international pressure around it, and even inside it. The more intense these international pressures, the weaker Kiev became. The 2004 Orange Revolution marked the beginning of the end: the contestation of results in a presidential election and the ensuing political unrest, coupled with the chronic inability to pay the energy bill, led to a severe crisis with Russia, including the interruption of gas deliveries to Kiev, which eventually resorted to syphoning gas transiting through the country from Russia to Europe.

The 2004 crisis was in many ways a lost occasion for the pro-Western camp. Yushenko and Tymoshenko failed to impress a new direction to the country, and did not pursue the large scale economic reforms Ukraine badly needed. They instead reliedlargely on the short lived boom in global steel prices in the middle of the last decade, postponing any structural adjustment. The West, both the EU and the US, despite the strong backing for the Orange revolution in rhetorical terms coming from Western media, did not possess any strategy for the reconstruction of the Ukrainian state and economy, which could have led to its organic integration within the European economy, including some degree of energy diversification. Instead, according to WTO data, the Russian Federation remains the largest trading partner of the Ukraine, absorbing 25.7% of its export (against 24.9% for the whole EU), and making up 32.4% of its import (the EU share is 30.9%) in 2012. The US does not figure amongst the Ukraine’s major trading partners:


it represents the destination of only 3% of Ukrainian exports, and the origin of less 3.4% of Kiev’s imports. Interestingly the inability of the US to offer any meaningful industrial reconstruction to its prospective allies, as in the case of the former Soviet republic of Georgia, is emerging as one the most serious limits of US foreign policy in recent decades, in contrast to the historical successful strategy of industrial reconstruction of Western Europe and Japan after the Second World War.

The current crisis has been triggered by the convergence of a series of factors. First, the Ukrainian state is again on the verge of bankruptcy. This has offered the chance for external forces to assert again their influence, even to the point as witnessed in recent months ofof the country). Paradoxically then, Yanukovich, despite the corruption of the political elite whereof he was an expression, and his inadequate political skills, far from being a Russian “puppet”, as often portrayed by the Western press, was indeed one of the few leaders acting for the preservation of the Ukrainian statehood.
The westward pull which triggered the crisis came in the form of an Association Agreement with the EU. This kind of treaty does not per se mean that the signatory country will certainly become EU member in the near future (Turkey signed such a treaty in 1963 and it is still far from becoming EU member), but clearly represented, in the context of the Ukraine’s particular international context, a preference for a future of integration with the EU


from both sides. A provisional government has been put in place but, as it immediately emerged, cannot speak on behalf of the whole country, as entire regions immediately started to look towards Moscow. It is highly probable that the scenario of a Ukrainian disintegration has been contemplated by the Russian government for many years, and that consequently the current events somehow are part of contingency plans relying on a vast network of pre-arranged intelligence and military structures. The smooth takeover of Crimea in a matter of two weeks, arguably one of the most successful intelligence operations in recorded history, could not conceivably occur by improvisation. Events in Crimea, where, according to some reports, over 90% of the Ukrainian military personnel has defected to the Russian side, are alsowith the speech delivered at the State Duma on the occasion of Crimea’s annexation to Russia. That speech represents a remarkable historical document for the comprehensive narrative thereby articulated and for offering a direct insight into the rationale underpinning the Kremlin’s decisions.
For anybody who possesses even a very limited experience of Russian things, the idea that Russians, Belarusians, and Ukrainians are sister nations, or somehow three declinations of the same people, would certainly not sound particularly new, as it is rather widespread, and not only in Russia.
The Russian president has insisted on this very narrative exposing the high degree of intermingling between Russian and Ukrainian people. More importantly, he has insisted on a historical reconstruction about the end of the USSR, which highlighted the betrayal of the popular


will, expressed in a 1991 referendum on the future of the Union, to remain within some sort of federation. Putin has indeed recalled how the original idea of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) was that of a federal super-state with a common currency, a common economic space, a common foreign policy, and armed forces. Instead, the CIS never functioned, and administrative borders which were never intended to be international ones cut through the lives of tens of millions people. Putin has hence articulated the view that the Russians are perhaps the ethnic group in the world which has to endure its fragmentation in the highest number of states.
In his speech, the Russian president has appeared careful in not revealing too much of the options he is considering.the core of Russian patriotism and to the anger accumulated in the last two decades of perceived national humiliations. The establishment of such a narrative represents somehow a crossing of the Rubicon with the Russian public opinion, and certainly with many members of the Russian elite, especially in the armed forces and security apparatuses. It makes clear that the president is irreversibly committed to a large scale project of national reconstruction entailing some sort of revisionism of the post-Soviet geopolitical settlement, and that those who identify themselves with such political project, and such a vision of twenty-first century Russia (visibly explained in the choreography of the Sochi Olympic Games Opening Ceremony), shall not be abandoned. The corollary of this position is of course that the Russian leadership, as


already clearly shown with the annexation of Crimea, does not see any way to put the Ukrainian state back on its feet, and considers the “Ukrainian experiment” as over for good.

The US Position

US interest in Kiev has a long history: on the one hand the Ukraine, and more in general the former territories of the Czarist Empire, is the region where a large number of Americans trace their origin. On the other, since the end of the Cold War American strategists have formulated the view according to which “Russia without the Ukraine is just Russia; Russia together with the Ukraine is an empire”. This view has been thoroughly articulated in the 1998 book The Great Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives by Zbignew Brzeziski, which advocated anactive US policy for the continuous weakening of the residual Russian state aimed at its further fragmentation into smaller, and consequently essentially meaningless, political units.
Against this background, there is little doubt that the State Department has been closely watching the political situation in the Ukraine since the very start. There are however a number of shortcomings to the US policy in that country. As mentioned above, despite the stated goal of bringing it closer to the “Western camp”, the US did not offer any substantial economic aid in terms of a large scale, long-term industrial reconstruction, which is what Kiev has been needing since 1991. The Ukraine was supposed to join NATO already in 2008 under an initiative by President G.W. Bush, which was however abandoned in the


face of French and German opposition, not to mention the strong anti-NATO sentiment in many parts of the Ukraine itself.
This is a more general feeling that, while Moscow has been working on contingency plans in case of Ukrainian disintegration at least since 2004, Washington may not have possessed a correct assessment of the likely consequences of decisively pulling the Ukraine westwards, even by means of backing the overthrow of Yanukovich, despite the fact that his election was accepted as regular and valid by Washington (and the EU). Strategists in the US may not have foreseen that, because of the very delicate domestic equilibrium of so many difference forces and actors, the Ukrainian state may have simply disintegrated in the face of a drastic geopolitical turn, as it isentail vast grey areas not only concerning large scale intelligence operations, something that very few international politics experts would doubt, but particularly in the relation between entire sectors of the State Department and the higher echelons of the US government. The disconnection between elements of the foreign service and other governmental agencies in charge of American interests in Kiev becomes apparent when considering that, while the State Department has admittedly used very large resources for its Ukrainian strategy, to the point of accepting the risk of constitutional breakdown, both Secretary of State Kerry and President Obama appeared surprised by these events, fairly unprepared to assess the situation and to take consequent diplomatic steps. President Obama agreeing on a totally unnecessary meeting with the provisional Ukrainian PM Yatsenyuk, from


which the latter emerged absolutely empty-handed (excluding the offer to send food instead of weapons), stands as an ominous sign of Washington’s tactical confusion.

The EU and German Position

The EU emerges so far as the clumsiest actor, with a rather severe image loss in the Eastern part of the continent. Blatantly discharged by US diplomat Victoria Nuland with unprintable words, the European Union has operated as the trigger of a crisis in which it cannot play any positive part, by offering to Yanukovich the signing of an association treaty at very unfavourable conditions, to such an extent that only a Ukrainian president able to completely disregard vital economic interests of most Ukrainians, including of most oligarchs, could have signed. The plan called for a wave of structural adjustments whichLithuanian EU presidency), with all other members being little alerted on the possible consequences of this move, discovering all too late that a very dangerous crisis was in the making in the relations with Russia and for the stability of the Ukrainian state.
Within the EU, the role of Germany has been very peculiar. Historically, the German government has sought collaboration with Russia on a long list of strategic issues. The personal friendship between Gerhard Schrder and Vladimir Putin yielded the international deal for the construction of the Northern Stream gas pipeline, transporting natural gas under the Baltic Sea from the Russian Vyborg directly to the German gas hub in Greifswald, thus effectively bypassing the Ukraine and its possible geopolitical instability (which has materialised with great punctuality). The Germans


have kept a certain degree of proximity with Russia during the opposition to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, and in the occasion of the Libyan campaign in 2011, in which Berlin carefully avoided any direct involvement. In the current crisis the German attitude has shifted towards a severely confrontational tone, with Angela Merkel even undiplomatically hinting at a possible mental health condition affecting Putin’s political judgment. However, the German panic over the crisis of the Ukrainian state should be read in the broader context in which Berlin has to operate. Germany is a country which still retains a large amount of economic and human capital, but appears nevertheless to be in decline. In the generalised race to the bottom characterising the European trajectory, although its economicgrowth outpaces that of its Western and Southern neighbours (whose decline is even steeper), Germany is in a demographic recession since 1972 (!), and posed to shrink significantly amidst severe ageing of the population and an increasing ethnic and religious fragmentation as a consequence of mass immigration.
The collapse of the socialist bloc in 1989-1991 has opened the way for a reunified Germany to re-assess its influence in its traditional Central European backyard, but at the price of sponsoring a huge economic reconstruction and paying for the related financial and industrial effort. Interestingly, in the absence of a flow of US direct investments in the Ukraine, only Germany may have represented a valid alternative to Russia as a source of capital for its reconstruction. However, on the one hand,


the Ukraine especially the more industrialised and economically relevant Eastern and Southern provinces, does not belong to the traditional German sphere of interest. On the other, Germany is already overstretched by the effort of rebuilding other central European economies, being even unable at the moment to back a stronger reconstruction thrust in Romania and Bulgaria (EU members since 2007), which remain indeed severely underdeveloped. The German overstretch has significantly worsened after 2009-10, with the onset of the Euro crisis and the severe economic recession in the whole of Southern Europe, an area with over 120 million inhabitants.
Germany’s panic over the Ukrainian crisis has therefore to be read in the context of the numerous difficulties in which Germany finds itself, because of its long-term domestic decline, and of itson the European continent (arguably the place of more intense confrontation, certainly so considering the sheer deployment of military forces), in both camps, were contained within national borders, with the agreement of non-intervention from the other superpower. So the civil war in Greece (1946-49), the East German (1953) and Hungarian (1956) uprisings, the Czechoslovakian crisis (1968), and others. The presence of large armies and readily deployable military instruments, not to mention the awareness that nuclear weapons could be used at any time, were all external constraints to the diffusion of the crises, as the choice of escalation was unviable to both superpowers. Cold War crises also saw a low number of players, which were normally tightly controlled by Washington or Moscow, or were essentially isolated. Besides, in every


different economic and trade areas, to different military alliances, and security blocs. Because of the fundamental political and economic differences between the Eastern and Western regions of the country, giving more power to the local authorities would represent just another way in which the country will eventually disintegrate.
Some commentators, including prestigious names such as Henry Kissinger, have expressed the view that the Ukraine should remain a neutral state between the two blocs, and a “bridge” between East and West. This opinion is however very problematic. Arguably, the Ukraine is disintegrating precisely because it cannot function as a bridge. This “staying in the middle”, while it has to a certain degree preserved the Ukrainian statehood as far as it was possible, it is also destroying the Ukraine (economically, demographically)state should be. While the world hosts a long list of quasi-states, failing states, and failed states, because of its sheer geopolitical location the Ukraine cannot survive intact in the face of mounting international tensions. The crisis is also a product of an accumulation and stratification of rivalry and grievances between the US and Russia, as it appear connected to a series of other flashpoints in the Middle East, in the Caucasus, and in Central Asia.
The situation could have evolved differently, especially with a different economic policy towards the Ukraine from the US and the EU starting from the early 1990s, i.e. immediately after the collapse of the USSR, at the time of maximum Russian weakness. The absence of any long term economic strategy for the area and


to be seen.

In January 2015, the well-known billionaire investor George Soros said in an interview with TheWall Street Journal that "the ability of the West to provide financial support to Ukraine will be a crucial test of strength of "disintegrating Europe" opposing a "growing Russia". Twenty five years ago the Soviet Union collapsed while Europe united, but today the situation is quite the opposite. Consequently, Europe has failed to pass the "test of strength" referred to by George Soros.

Irrespective of how one rates the personality of Soros, there is no doubt that he is a great financier and that it is worth heeding to his point of view. Appealing to Europe, Soros was evidently panicked, knowing that things in the West were going bad.

Shortly before his statement, Sorosvisited Kiev. Being an ace at his job, he has easily assessed the situation in the Ukrainian economy. The adventurer Soros, the famous investor in all post-Soviet regimes, who welcomed the coup in the Ukraine, recognized that the investment to this country is a pointless undertaking. No sooner he said so and financial tranches to Kiev were seriously curtailed.

President Petro Poroshenko and other Ukrainian politicians often reiterate that their country needs the assistance from abroad because they “are waging a war for Europe”. Evidently Poroshenko engaged in self-importance overrating the role of Ukraine: war is waged not by them, but via them. The West has used the country for its own purposes: to tear Ukraine away from Russia and to move NATO eastward. Major players on the global


chessboard are least interested in the fate of the Ukrainian people. Kiev politicians instead of restoring cooperation with Russia and joining the process of Eurasian integration, in other words doing what is beneficial to their national economy, fall for the temptation of odious "European choice".

No doubt according to Western plans, the Ukrainians had to fight hard with their eastern compatriots turning the conflict into a protracted one. Funding for this bloody project, of course, was also expected. The US did not hide the fact that only for preparation and execution of the "Maidan" mass demonstration they spent more than five billion dollars, not to mention contributions to the ensuing war. The West could not imagine that a significant portion of the channeled funds would dissolve in Ukraine anda passing ship picks them up. There, everyone, including Margaret, is treated for pneumonia and put to rest. Though she expresses hope for Robert's survival, it is later revealed in the book that he, in fact, did go down with the ship.

Though deeply distraught over Robert's death, Margaret decides to continue living for Robert, and later after arriving safely in America, Margaret is finally reunited with William, who heard of the Titanics sinking and Margaret's survival, but he wanted to see her for himself before believing it.

Later while going with William to their new home, Margaret asks William if they could get a cat, and William agrees, adding that they can get two cats.

In the epilogue, Margaret continued to live with William, but dropped out of college when


105 U.S. 696 (____)
EX PARTE MASON.
Supreme Court of United States.

Mr. James M. Lyddy for the petitioner.
Mr. Asa Bird Gardner, contra.
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WAITE delivered the opinion of the court.
This is a petition for a writ of habeas corpus to release John *697 A. Mason, the petitioner, from confinement in the Albany penitentiary under a sentence by a general court-martial. The facts are these: Mason was a sergeant in Battery B of the Second Regiment of Artillery, in the army of the United States. He was tried by a general court-martial on the charge of violating the sixty-second Article of War, in that "having been ordered with his battery from Washington Barracks for guard duty at the United States jail, in the city of Washington, D.C., and having arrivedat said jail for said duty," he "did thereupon, with intent to kill Charles J. Guiteau, a prisoner then confined under the authority of the United States in said jail, wilfully and maliciously discharge his musket, loaded with ball-cartridge, at said Guiteau, through a window of said jail, into a cell then occupied by the said Guiteau." Upon a trial duly had he was found guilty of the charge according to the specification, and sentenced "to be dishonorably discharged from the service of the United States, with the loss of all pay and allowances ... due and to become due to him, and then to be confined at hard labor in such penitentiary as the proper authorities may direct for eight years." The Albany penitentiary was designated in


is as follows:
"All crimes not capital, and all disorders and neglects, which officers and soldiers may be guilty of, to the prejudice of good order and military discipline, though not mentioned in the foregoing Articles of War, are to be taken cognizance of by a general, *698 or a regimental, garrison, or field officers' court-martial, according to the nature and degree of the offence, and punished at the discretion of the court."
The offence charged in this case was clearly one to the prejudice of good order and military discipline.
The offender was a soldier in the army of the United States. As such, according to the specifications of the charge made against him, he was ordered on guard duty at the United States jail, in Washington, and whileon duty he wilfully and maliciously discharged his musket, with intent to kill a prisoner confined in the jail under the authority of the United States. The gravamen of the military offence is that, while standing guard as a soldier over a jail in which a prisoner was confined, the accused wilfully and maliciously attempted to kill the prisoner. Shooting with intent to kill is a civil crime, but shooting by a soldier of the army standing guard over a prison, with intent to kill a prisoner confined therein, is not only a crime against society, but an atrocious breach of military discipline. While the prisoner who was shot at was not himself connected with the military service, the soldier who fired the shot was on military duty


at the time, and the shooting was in direct violation of the orders under which he was acting. It follows that the crime charged, and for which the trial was had, was not simply an assault with intent to kill, but an assault by a soldier on duty with intent to kill a prisoner confined in a jail over which he was standing guard.
In our opinion the fifty-eighth and fifty-ninth Articles of War have no application to the case. The fifty-eighth is as follows:
"In time of war, insurrection, or rebellion, larceny, robbery, burglary, arson, mayhem, manslaughter, murder, assault and battery with an intent to kill, wounding, by shooting or stabbing, with intent to commit murder, rape, or assault and battery with an intent to commit rape, shallof any citizen of the United States, which is punishable by the laws of the land, the commanding officer, and the officers of the regiment, troop, battery, company, or detachment, to which the person so accused belongs, are required, except in time of war, upon application duly made by or on behalf of the party injured, to use their utmost endeavors to deliver him over to the civil magistrate, and to aid the officers of justice in apprehending and securing him, in order to bring him to trial. If, upon such application, any officer refuses or wilfully neglects, except in time of war, to deliver over such accused person to the civil magistrates, or to aid the officers of justice in apprehending him, he shall be dismissed from


the service."
It is not pretended that any application was ever made under this article for the surrender of Mason to the civil authorities for trial. So far as appears, the person injured by the offence committed was satisfied to have the offender dealt with by the military tribunals. The choice of the tribunal by which he is to be tried has not been given to the offender. He has offended both against the civil and the military law. As the proper steps were not taken to have him proceeded against by the civil authorities, it was the clear duty of the military to bring him to trial under that jurisdiction. Whether, after trial by the court-martial, he can be again tried in the civil courts is a questionwe need not now consider. It is enough if the court-martial had jurisdiction to proceed, and what has been done is within the powers of that jurisdiction.
It is objected that the sentence is in excess of what the law allows. The ninety-seventh Article of War is as follows:
"No person in the military service shall, under the sentence of a court-martial, be punished by confinement in a penitentiary, unless the offence of which he may be convicted would, by some statute of the United States or by some statute of the State, Territory, or *700 District in which such offence may be committed, or by the common law, as the same exists in such State, Territory, or District, subject such convict to such imprisonment."
Under this article, when the


according to the laws of the land, but prejudicial to the good order and discipline of the army to which he belonged. The sixty-second article provides that the offender, when convicted, shall be punished at the discretion of the court, and the ninety-seventh article does no more than prohibit the court from sentencing him to imprisonment in a penitentiary in a case where, if he were tried for the same act in the civil courts, such imprisonment could not be inflicted.
It is also claimed that the sentence is in excess of the jurisdiction of the court, because in addition to imprisonment in the penitentiary for the full term allowed by the laws of the District of Columbia for the offence of an assault with intent to kill, itnonfiction collection, A Solemn Pleasure: To Imagine, Witness, and Write (public library). The piece — a sort of open letter to writers and, by extension, all artists — bears that cynicism-disarming quality of a commencement address and enchants the psyche like an incantation.

Great writers are witnesses to the spirit of their age. They need not be accepted by their times; they rarely are. Speaking the truth, they may go unheard, be misunderstood or criticized. Later, posthumously, it is said they were ahead of their time.

This she illustrates with a supreme example of the posthumously anointed literary genius: Walt Whitman, whose exquisite serenade to the soul, Leaves of Grass, fell on deaf ears — the same unfeeling audience that had been wholly nonplussed by Thoreau’s wholly plussingWalden and had


course with conventional literature. He had assaulted the institution of literature, had torn apart language and invented his own. In fact, Whitman laid the groundwork for much modernist writing from Kafka and Beckett to Borges.

Why write? Why add to the tumult of the world? Your competition is fierce … from television, film, video, all social media, from the books of other writers living and dead. There currently exists in America an insidious numbness to literature. It is increasingly difficult to publish what is called “literary fiction”; even the best-seller market is not what it was. Stacks of books are returned to warehouses every day, even those blockbuster books publishing houses rely upon to finance more serious, less lucrative books. And how have we, as writers of that literature,Tabs

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

I recently went to Brazil for a few shows with Streetlight Manifesto, the crowds there are crazy! Beautiful country, beautiful people. WARNING: This YouTube clip is LOUD and lo-fi, but it shows the amazing energy that night.

I'm happy to announce that MINI recently licensed a tune from Ikebe Shakedown's recent LP for their new commercial campaign. "Sakonsa" was written by Jason Colby, our trumpet player. The full version is up on YouTube, check it out!


the channel spacing between adjacent odd or even channels. The first filter couples with the linear polarizer for splitting and cording odd and even channel sets depending on a propagation direction. The first filter operates as a full waveplate to a selected one of an odd channel set and an even channel set and as a half-waveplate to a remaining one of the odd set and the even set. The second filter optically couples with the first filter and the second and third ports. The second filter has a second free spectral range substantially corresponding with the channel spacing between adjacent odd or even cells. The second filter couples with the first filter for optical processing of odd and even channels therewith. The second filter operates as asets to a second set of phase retardations corresponding with integer multiples of a full wavelength retardation for each center wavelength associated with the selected one of the odd set and the even set and corresponding with odd integer multiples of a half wavelength retardation for each center wavelength associated with the remaining one of the odd set and the even set
Associated means are also disclosed


priority in US hospitals until the concept of antibiotic stewardship emerged in the last decade. Second, the position paper could have been intended for hospital managements, in order to provide the resources necessary to make appropriate antibiotic use an attainable goal, in particular: allocation of highly skilled manpower (physicians, clinical microbiologists, pharmacists) and development of relevant computer applications. Third, the position paper could have been intended as a response to the initiatives by Ministry of Health National Center for Infection Control and Antibiotic Use. The latter was set up more than a decade ago to deal with emerging multi-drug resistant pathogens and to provide professional leadership. Unfortunately, a professional conflict has emerged between the ISID and the National Center, when the latter was trying to impose professional guidelinesfinal calendar year, IBM via the cloud system IBM Quantum Know-how opened obtain to its quantum personal computer, which is situated in the laboratory in Yorktown heights. In the mean time, about forty thousand end users have performed much more than 275 thousand experiments implementing IBM Quantum Encounter. The computer processor consists of five qubits, as well as in the longer term IBM hopes to increase the power to 50 qubits. On March 6, the organization introduced the development of the new division of IBM Q, which can cultivate a professional model of the quantum laptop. Along with IBM, this 12 months several companies-Google, Inte, Microsoft – plus the research Institute within the Netherlands and therefore the Delft Technological Institute assure to existing functional developments from the subject


2018 feature article titled "Twilight of the Hipsters", the French edition of Rolling Stone introduced Aaker as an "actor, concert booker, chauffeur for rock stars, and distributor of the Lucky Egg vending machines that he installs in bars."

Portlandia
Portlandia first entered the global consciousness after satirical music video "Dream of the '90s" premiered online in December 2010 and thrust Saturday Night Live star Fred Armisen between a motley assemblage of circus folk, exotic dancers, and idiosyncratically-styled local luminaries. Standing directly to the right of Armisen throughout the video while wearing only star-spangled swim briefs, black leather, and a sizable beard, Aaker stood out as the swiftly-trending clip sparked interest worldwide in the forthcoming sketch comedy series. In the process, Aaker soon became widely known as, in the words ofis aware, the State Department recently received seven discs of material from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Department has now completed its search of the material contained on six of those seven discs. No records responsive to Plaintiff’s FOIA request were found.

State Department Operations Center Watch Logs show that President Obama was “patched” to Secretary Clinton at 10:27 PM Eastern Time (4:27 AM local Benghazi time), on the night of September 11, 2012, as the attack in Benghazi was unfolding. It took Obama more than six hours to appear in the Watch Log after the White House convened an emergency conference call of top officials.


On May 13, on the 96th anniversary of the first apparition of Our Lady of Fatima, the bishops of Portugal will perform a solemn act of consecration requested by our Holy Father. Within days of his election, Pope Francis himself asked Cardinal Policarpo of Lisbon to consecrate his papacy to Our Lady of Fatima. His Eminence asked the bishops to participate. Now, for the first time in history, a Pope is placing his pontificate under the protection of Our Lady of Fatima!

What does this mean? It means we have a Pope who realizes the crucial role of the Message of Fatima for the Church today! It means we have a Pope who has completely and irrevocably repudiated all the decades-long attempts made by key members of the hierarchyFriday, September 25, 2009

BRUNSWICK MONUMENT, GENEVA

The English nobleman Charles II d’Este-Guelph, also known as Duke of Brunswick (1804-1873), was a distinguished linguist, outstanding horseman, musician and talented investor. At the same time, he was also an eccentric and paranoiac man.

He was troubled but also troubling. Paranoid, with an acute persecution complex, he reinforced his bedroom and equipped his palace in Paris with secret passageways.It seems that Brunswick once said that, «were not for his enormous wealth, he would already be in an insane asylum».Due to his escapades he was dethroned and chased from his country in 1830 and lived for a while in Paris.

Three years before his death he came to live in Geneva and stayed in one of the hotels. When he died, he gave all his


money to the city of Geneva in exchange for the construction of this mausoleum, built in 1879 (on Quai du Mont-Blanc) by architect Franel on the model of one in Verona, Italy. The city used the money to build the golden gates of Parc des Bastions and the city's opera, the Grand Theatre.IndiGo Airlines yesterday dropped out of the race to acquire the beleaguered Air India, just a week after the civil aviation ministry came out with the preliminary information memorandum for inviting Expression of Interest from interested bidders. That's pretty bad news for the government hoping to maximise the bidding competition, as civil aviation secretary RN Choubey had previously put it.

"From day one, IndiGo has expressed its interest primarily in the acquisition of Air India's international operation and Air India Express. However, that option is not available under the government's current disinvestment plan for Air India," said Aditya Ghosh, president and whole time director of the airline, in a statement.

Indeed, IndiGo, a market leader in the Indian skies with close to 40 per cent share, was one of the


first players to show interest in the ailing airline soon after the government gave its in-principal approval in June 2017 for the disinvestment of the national carrier. It had written to the civil aviation ministry expressing its interest.

The government had previously said that the flag carrier and its various subsidiaries would be hived off into multiple units and sold separately. The core airline business - Air India and Air India Express, it low cost arm - was expected to be offered as one company. But in the recently-released memorandum, the government revealed that the deal on the table also includes Air India SATS Airport Services Pvt Ltd, an equal joint venture between the national airline and Singapore-based SATS Ltd.

"As we have communicated before, we do not believe weUS-based Delta Airlines has expressed interest. Then, at a press conference in January, Vistara CEO Leslie Thng had said that the airline's promoters - Tata Sons Limited and Singapore Airlines - were keeping "an open mind" about it. David Lim, the head of the Singapore Airlines' India business, too, used the same words earlier this month about throwing its hat in the ring.

The government hopes to announce the winning bid by May 28, so expect more buzz in this space in the days ahead.

With agency inputs


against Stanford when the Trojans face California, a team sure to be fiery after a last-second loss at UCLA on Thursday.

If the USC players can handle the success of their Stanford win, that is.

"It's imperative we play with the same focus and intensity," O'Neill said, adding, "If we don't play defense, we don't win."

Crabbe comes from the Los Angeles Price, a small, kindergarten-through-12th-grade school in the sprawling Crenshaw Christian Center, but his play this season has been beyond big.

The 6-foot-6, 205-pound guard is averaging 11.4 points — and he's improved his play in six conference games, in which he's averaging 17.3.

Etc.

There were reports Friday that former USC freshman guard Bryce Jones had decided to transfer to San Diego State, but his high school coach, Woodland Hills Taft's DerrickTaylor, said he spoke with Jones and said that's incorrect. "A decision will be made Sunday night," Taylor said. … USC's win over Stanford was the Trojans' third victory by 20 or more points this season. The Trojans have had 24 such wins in the past five seasons.


Etc. - 09/31/09

Fort Walla Walla Museum earned national attention with a grant from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services Museums for America program.The $52,165 award will enable the Museum to more fully tell the story of regional development, said Paul Franzmann, museum communications director.

With the exhibit "Through War and Peace: American Military and the People of the Homeland Tribes," visitors can gain an appreciation of the interaction between local Indian peoples, volunteer militias, U.S military and various individuals in the Walla Walla region. The exhibit will span an era from the Lewis & Clark expedition's first contact with the Homeland tribes through the Treaties of the 1850s until the closure of the fort in 1910. The exhibit will be installed in the new Entrance Building, currentlyunder construction. The Museum's match within the grant's requirements is $53,501, approximately $22,000 of which has been identified. Fundraising will continue in pursuit of the remainder, as well as for unfunded aspects of Phase 1 as the work proceeds.IMLS grant procurements will include life-like mannequins, replica uniforms to portray various periods of activity, a children's 'hands-on' exhibit and other accoutrements of a modern museum related to the display.

The Museum will install objects from its collection, including Indian artifacts and regalia, military items from Fort Walla Walla and other items to bring the story to life for visitors. IMLS funding will also support research, design and production of Through War and Peace: American Military and the People of the Homeland Tribes. Through this exhibit and its accompanying guide, earlier


interactions among Indian people, the military and Walla Walla regional communities will be stressed. The guide book is planned to include stories about the area's participation in World War II, and aspects that continue into current times."Even after the 2004-2006 bicentennial of the Lewis & Clark's Corps of Northwest Discovery, many people do not realize the expedition was a military expedition," said Museum Collections Manager Laura Schulz. "That first contact blazed the trail for much of what was to follow. The exhibit will help showcase the critical relationships over time between regional Indians, Euro-American settlers and the military. Examining each component separately would give an incomplete, potentially false, representation of the area's history." The Museum will use funding from other sources for its new Lewis & Clark dioramaBy David Alton - Iranian dissidents stranded in Camp Ashraf are faced with forcible displacement in Iraq.What choice but resisting is the world offering them? Sitting back and watching is not an option. What you are about to read might sound farfetched or unbelievable, but it totally factual. A community of 3,400 defenceless men and women is facing annihilation by brute force in about five weeks, with all the residents being slaughtered. And as the clock ticks towards the ominous deadline of December 31, the whole international community is simply watching.

The place is Camp Ashraf, for 25 years the home in Iraq of members of the main Iranian opposition movement.

The belligerent party is the government of Iraq (yes, the very same government that the U.S. and the UK


helped to create at a huge human and material cost) that is functioning at the behest of the Iranian regime.

The 3,400 men and women residents in Camp Ashraf were there when the U.S.-led Coalition forces invaded Iraq in 2003. They stayed completely neutral. After the downfall of the Saddam Hussein government, they were protected by the U.S. forces in return for voluntarily accepting complete disarmament. The US designated them as protected persons under the Geneva Conventions. Every one of the residents received written assurance by a U.S. official that they would be protected until their final disposition. The U.S. gave them its word.

But in 2009, the U.S. handed over security of the camp to Iraqis as part of the SOFA agreement. Given the influence of the Iranian governmentUNHCR’s endeavour and allow the interviews of Ashraf residents to begin immediately.

Slaughtering a community is not a matter that can be kept within the borders of a sovereign state. It is a serious concern for the international community, as it was evident in Libya and is currently evident in Syria.

Silence is more than tacit approval. It is being accomplice to the slaughter of thousands of decent people, whose only crime is to stand up to Tehran tyrants.

The terrifying truth is out. Now, our elected officials and international players cannot pretend that they do not know. The world should be haunted by the memory of Srebrenica. Camp Ashraf is a Srebrenica in the making and the world has a duty to act.


Meet Halsey, Pop Music's New Beauty Icon

Meet Halsey, Pop Music's New Beauty Icon

In an era when wigs have lost their taboo and neon hair colour is worn by even the most unexpected stars, there's no denying that it's tough to stand out. However, this rainbow of options makes the journey to "find your look" a captivating one, especially when the person happens to work in pop music.

Enter Halsey, the 21-year-old American pop singer-songwriter who has arrived on the scene just in time to throw the industry a (beauty) curveball. In her short career, she's tried more hair colours and lengths than most of us could dream of, only to shave her head for reasons you may not expect (but more on that later).

Not that she needed the attention:from asteroids obtained by U.S. firms.

Geologists believe asteroids are packed with iron ore, nickel and precious metals at much higher concentrations than those found on Earth, making up a market valued in the trillions of dollars.

Shortly after, Luxembourg launched an official initiative to promote the mining of asteroids for minerals. The tiny European country, which has been studying possible involvement in the sector since 2013, aims to become Europe’s centre for space mining.

Related: Wall Street Loses Faith In Shale

Canada is also eying the moon. Last year, Northern Ontario-based Deltion Innovations partnered with Moon Express, the first American private space exploration firm to have been granted government permission to travel beyond Earth's orbit, on future opportunities in outer space.

Some of the space ventures in the works include plans to


Description:A flotilla belonging to China's East China Sea fleet patrolled waters near islands in the East China Sea also claimed by Japan on Monday (December 10) after a 15-day routine military training session in the West Pacific Ocean. The fleet mainly consisted of guided missile destroyers such as the Ningbo, Hangzhou, Ma'anshan and Zhoushan.(0:22)Derbyshire has signed South African batsman Leus du Plooy on a two-year deal, committing him to the club until the end of 2020.

A promising middle-order batsman, the 24-year-old joins Derbyshire on a Kolpak deal and will be available for all formats, subject to final approvals.

He has enjoyed recent success in South Africa, where he was the leading run-scorer in the CSA Provincial One-Day Challenge with 595 at an average of 74.12, including three centuries and two half-centuries.

Du Plooy’s career-best score in List A cricket came for Northerns in the competition’s semi-finals, as he hit 155 off 122 balls to carry his side to the final.

The left-hander went on to hit an unbeaten 85 in the final, whilst his slow left-arm bowling claimed six wickets throughout the tournament, with


Trump won't back down from saying 'Mission Accomplished' in Syria

Gregory Korte | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Pentagon: 'It was mission accomplished' The Pentagon is backing President Donald Trump's assertion that the missile strikes on Syria were "Mission Accomplished!" (April 14)

WASHINGTON — It was a phrase that haunted George W. Bush for the last six years of his presidency, and became a shorthand for a premature declaration of victory.

But President Trump says he wants to bring "Mission Accomplished" back.

Trump used those two words Saturday following what he said was a successful airstrike against targets related to Syria's chemical weapons program.

And he used it again on Sunday, saying it's a "great military term" that should be brought back into common usage.

They were the same two words made infamous bya 2003 speech and photo opportunity aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, in which Bush said "major combat operations in Iraq have ended."

Bush never actually said "mission accomplished" that day. In fact, he said, "Our mission continues. Al-Qaeda is wounded, not destroyed."

But as the Iraq war dragged on for years afterward, people remembered the banner, not the speech. And the phrase took on an ironic meaning: Mission not accomplished.

Trump said he wants to strip that historical baggage.

"The Syrian raid was so perfectly carried out, with such precision, that the only way the Fake News Media could demean was by my use of the term 'Mission Accomplished,'" he tweeted Sunday. "I knew they would seize on this but felt it is such a great Military term, it should be brought


back. Use often!"

That followed a Saturday tweet in which Trump said the Syrian operation was "perfectly executed" and "could not have had a better result. Mission Accomplished!"

Bush's press secretary at the time, Ari Fleischer, responded on Twitter that "I would have recommended ending this tweet with not those two words."

But Fleischer also said the backstory to the 2003 incident has been largely forgotten: The aircraft carrier was concluding its deployment, and the banner was meant to refer only to the carrier group — not the overall mission.

That's the same point Bush made when questioned about it six months later.

"The 'Mission Accomplished' sign, of course, was put up by the members of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, saying that their mission was accomplished," Bush said at a press conference. "IThis work, along with Tassaert's Painting and Sculpture, was one of four representations of the arts and sciences commissioned by Louis XV's finance minister, Abbé Terray.

It was Clodion who arranged for the expensive Carrara marble used for
all of Terray's statues, urging his source not to divulge the name of his
unpopular client. Clodion had lived in Italy for nine years after winning
the Prix de Rome. A vision of antiquity he acquired while in Italy — a
wooded Arcadia where young satyrs and nymphs cavort — continued to be his
greatest inspiration. After his return to Paris, these subjects delighted
the aristocratic and wealthy bourgeois clients who flooded him with
commissions to decorate their homes.

Clodion prepared a terracotta model for Poetry and Music, which
is in the National Gallery and frequently on view in the


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MANILA, Philippines – The Duterte administration's narco list is already 6,000 names long and more will be added in the coming months.

This was first announced by Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) chief Aaron Aquino on Monday, December 11.

"Every month may bagong listahan kami. Nagsimula nang 3,000 ngayon 6,000 plus na (Every month we have a new list. We started with 3,000, now we have 6,000 plus already)," Aquino said at the sidelines of a press conference.

Pressed to confirm his pronouncement, he said the figures he mentioned refer to the list used by President Rodrigo Duterte himself.Judge criticises lack of legal aid for rape claim mother Published duration 2 May 2018

image caption The case was heard at a family court sitting in Middlesbrough

A judge has criticised the legal aid system after a woman was forced to appear in the same court as a former partner she had accused of raping her because she could not afford a lawyer.

The family court in Middlesbrough was deciding what contact the woman's young daughter should have with her father.

The woman walked out as questions reached allegations of sexual abuse.

District Judge Simon Read said the situation created a "likelihood" of a miscarriage of justice.

Judge Read said both parties had appeared "in person" because neither could afford a lawyer or were eligible for legal aid so had to represent themselves.

The


judge said he had asked questions rather than having the pair cross-examine each other.

But he said the woman became distressed and walked out of court when questions moved to allegations of a "sexual nature".

image caption The government has defended changes to the legal aid system

Judge Read said he feared any abuse suffered by the woman might have been prolonged.

He outlined his worries in a written ruling into the case, which was heard in March but has just been published.

In it he said no criminal court would have allowed proceedings to continue without representation for both parties.

"Neither parent could afford a lawyer, and neither was eligible for legal aid," said the judge.

"I found this surprising in the mother's case in particular, given that I was told that she wasquestions of either parent's evidence, but especially the father's."

The judge added he believed there was a "very strong likelihood that the outcome of the fact finding would have been different, and most probably a truer reflection of what really happened" if both parents had been represented by lawyers.

"It would surely have concluded sooner, more fairly, and at far less expense to the public purse than ultimately was the case, with two wasted days at Court," he added.

"It may also have been less painful for the participants."

Changes introduced under the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 removed most legal aid in the family courts except in cases of domestic violence.

But to secure free legal support, victims have to provide evidence of the abuse, as well as


fault, really. The human heart is a fickle thing; its wishes and whims wax and wane with the tides. The way of the world dictates that all fires eventually burn out, just as it dictates all young romance eventually gives way to the drudgery of routine, of taking turns driving the kids to school, of once a week designated date night at the Olive Garden.

Still, memories of other people carve homes out of your heart, and Harold had no interest in reliving painful memories, and he agreed his children deserved the stability of remaining in their childhood home, and so he moved out into an apartment as the divorce continued.

I can not stress enough, this divorce is as amicable as such affairs get. There’s a little cold draftbetween them, but no more than in their loveless marriage, and he keeps the children at his new apartment during his 3 day weekend. He agrees to pay for any child rearing related expenses the mother has, and the mother never lowers herself to spending any of this money on personal pleasures. She, like most people, lives on Universal Basic Income, which provides enough to care for children and for herself, and to have a little bit of spending money left over, but Harold– having a job– makes quite a bit more than that, and extends to his family an appropriately enjoyable lifestyle. Additionally, he has to work the other four days at his job, and so he cares for the children the three days he has off,


and cherishes them greatly.

Still, on the days he does work, he comes home to the vacant echoes of a room empty of life. He comes home to darkness, without the soft glow of screens illuminating the soft faces of his children. Without even the cordiality of his wife, cold as it may have been during the later years of his marriage. He comes home, eats a lukewarm meal he picked up on the way, and falls asleep by himself.

This amicable arrangement continues in an easy equilibrium for a little over a year. After the courts have finally completed all the necessary paperwork, he stands outside the court staring at the little paper in his hand telling him his marriage is over. He stares at it for a longmerely compound his feelings of guilt. He comes to hate being there, hate the files, the desks, his co-workers, and even how looming and monolithic the structure itself was. It just sits there, larger than the largest skyscrapers. You could see it from anywhere in the city. As you get closer, the air gets cleaner, and you can even take off your mask. He began to hate that too. He started wanting to keep his face covered, so no one could look at him and he could sneak in and out as quick as he could. Then, as he’s entering the building, he notices another poster; two eyes, looking directly at him. He banishes his selfish thoughts, takes his mask off, and offers the lady at the front


PDT, as well as the areas which employ these time practices.

What is PST?

Pacific Time Zone is observed in the North America and is generally called Pacific Time or PT. It is also known as North American Pacific Standard Time (NAPST). This time zone is called Pacific Standard Time (PST) in winters, when standard time is observed, and Pacific Daylight Time (PDT) in summers, when daylight saving time is observed. The states in the US where PST is used include California, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington. Canadian provinces in which PST is used are British Columbia and Yukon and the Mexican state, Baja California Norte also uses PST.

Standard time is the regular time which is either ahead or back of GMT. Since this Pacific Time zone is based onof March at 2 AM local time and continues till November when it is again pegged back by an hour to revert back to Standard Time.

• States that observe PST and PDT are as follows. The US states that follow PST and PDT are California, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington. Canadian provinces where PDT is used during summers and PST the rest of the time are British Columbia and Yukon. Then, the Mexican state, Baja California Norte also uses PST and PDT.


Friday, 25 November 2016

This Old House (Part 3)

The third and final part in a series of short AP reports for the game of Blood & Water played as part of the Gauntlet Hangouts' Story Games Sunday.

Act Five:Brokering Bad

Three montages open this episode: Charlie going about his business with the weeping woman always standing at his shoulder, unseen by others; Manfred rehearsing with the band and cooking, as more and more of the band's followers succumb to necroherpes; and James murdering three more of the people on his revenge list, by the end of which his spiritual form is wreathed in coiling smoke and drifting sparks.

Due to staff shake-ups at Channel 5, Charlie is sent with Geoff the cameraman to film some local colour for the weather report andends up at a new age ceremony intended to re-align the world's chakras after the bout of freak weather that has been experienced. He meets a woman there who can see the weeping woman, but he gets caught up in the ritual before he can speak to her further and we later see a viral video of him dancing naked around a bonfire.

Manfred concentrates on his real ambition, to run his own food-van business and finds a second-hand vehicle on Craig's list; the seller puts him under pressure to buy though, so Manfred turns to James for the cash. James gives him the money in exchange for Manfred flushing away the protective amulet that Charlie had acquired, which makes him uncomfortable whenever he is near it.

James has his


own business to attend to, when Olivia's boss, the Bald Man, summons him to a meeting to discuss his situation and offers him a full partnership in his old firm if he will call off his vendetta against the surviving three conspirators; he gives James 24 hours to think about it. After a little spying & subterfuge, James establishes that the Bald Man is working for the conspirators, for reasons that are as yet unclear.

Charlie tracks down the woman from the new age event at a small museum/gallery/head-shop and she offers to intercede with the weeping woman for him; the spirit possesses the woman and demands that he right the imbalance he created when he dumped Brandi by text message. When he shows reluctance, the spirit changes tackand talks of gaining life instead; he agrees to this and the spirit leaves the woman's body, but the strain has been too much for her and she dies! Charlie calls 911 and ends up being interviewed by Detective Worth, the same one who had been investigating the murder of Skip Jackson! She knows there is something weird going on with the residents of the boarding house and presses Charlie for answers: he accepts her card and says he will call her if he has anything to tell her.

With his 24 hours up, James turns down the offer made by the Bald Man, but on a call to him, he finds that one of the conspirators has got a new proposal and has abducted Brandi and Madeleine as


a desperate last resort to leverage him into calling off his vendetta. As James hunts them down, Charlie calls Detective Worth and all three housemates converge at the offices where the women are being held captive in a vault. As Detective Worth learns more than she wants to about the supernatural world and basically forces Charlie to agree to leave the city, James draws deep upon his supernatural powers, bursting open the vault in an orgy of destruction that rains debris onto his friends in the street and only just saves the lives of Brandi and Madeleine as he marks off yet another target on his list...

Final Act: Scratching That Itch

Things move quickly as James nears the completion of his goal whilst the NYPD move to protect thefinal two victims on his list, Ms. Brent and music investor Mr. Chalker: the latter was last seen heading into a VIP room at a gig attended by Manfred, Mr. Gorman the music promoter and Anyanka the mummy, who has helped seal the deal for Manfred's band. Charlie gets a call from Geoff at Channel 5 telling him to get into the studio and help cover the hot breaking story, while Manfred calls Mr. Gorman, who seems to be stuck inside a sarcophagus at the Museum of Natural History.

Acting on a tip-off/call for help by James, Charlie takes Geoff to the home of Ms. Brent, which is eerily quiet and dark; as James spies inside, Charlie knocks on the front door and rouses a child from bed who


of Chalchiuhtotlin, the God of Disease, to a kneeling congregation of band followers infected by necroherpes! As Charlie and James head up towards the museum, they see a crowd of a hundred more heading in, their skins covered in disfiguring sores, all chanting the name of Chalchiuhtotlin! They bust through a police cordon and enter the museum, where Mr. Brent is revealed as the avatar of Chalchiutotolin, who recognises James as the avatar of Xiuhtecuhtli, god of fire, and invites him to join him in bringing the True Faith to New York! Nothing will sway James from taking his revenge though and he slays Mr. Brent, just as Detective Worth enters; her attempt to perform an arrest is derailed when the spirit of the weeping woman returns, havingfound a wronged woman with a strong enough will to act! A possessed Detective Worth is fought by Charlie but James deals the final blow: having completed his business on Earth, a door to the afterlife opens for him and he draws the weeping woman's spirit through with him! Charlie also gets drawn into the doorway, but is saved at the last moment by Steve, his coyote spirit guide, who bounds through the door and closes it after him!

In some short epilogues taking place three months later, we see that Charlie has kept his promise to Detective Worth and left New York; now him and Manfred are touring the USA in Manfred's refurbished food van, bringing excellent street cuisine to the supernatural corners of the nation. Finally, in


would have to give it to him.

He came with the reputation of being King of the Assist, and created 12 goals for others – but he also bagged 16 goals, a brilliant effort in his debut season.

On top of all that, De Bruyne has been entertaining, scoring some gorgeous goals, not least the winner against Paris St Germain, possibly the most important strike of the season.

James Robson

Kevin de Bruyne

The worrying thing for the rest of the Premier League is that De Bruyne is only going to get better.

He arrived with an enormous price tag - but no one is questioning City's wisdom in making him the most expensive player in their history.

The £55m fee it took to lure him from Wolfsburg looks an absolute snip.

And had it notbeen for the ankle and knee injury that ruled him out for two months from January, perhaps City would have a mounted a serious title challenge.

A threat from either flank or through the middle, the 24-year-old is a top class match-winner.

His volley against Newcastle in October, still defies belief, no matter how many times you watch it back again.

He will play as Belgium's No10 at the Euros - which is a measure of how he's overshadowed Eden Hazard over the past 12 months.

And at City, too, he's now ahead of David Silva as the club's most effective playmaker.

Simon Bajkowski

Bacary Sagna

Perhaps not City's best player but one of the most significant contributions.

It was a welcome surprise to see the Frenchman take hold of his position with Pablo Zabaleta injured,


and had he not been up for the challenge that right flank would have been a serious problem in the XI given the lack of any other options

At 33, he may not have too many more years left at the top but showed little sign of flagging in a lengthy campaign and, with the European Championships with France coming up, has more opportunity to show the new boss his appetite for the game.

Rob Pollard

Fernandinho

I don't think there's a player in the City squad who can match Fernandinho for consistency this season.

He scored six and assisted five across all competitions and the energy and dynamism he brings to the midfield has been key, both domestically and in the Champions League.

Every week he's one of City's top three performers -a true box-to-box player, contributing brilliantly to both attack and defence.

There were questions about after a difficult second season - but has well and truly dismissed any doubts about his value to the club.

He has to be up there with the best signings City have made during the Manuel Pellegrini era.


or indifferent air, but he is aware of his hypocrisy.  By the novel's end, the reader has felt what is like to be X, and reads a kind of wild dream of his future as boyfriend of Queta and student leader, and of his past as a tiny baby in his mother's arms.

Plot summary

The novel opens with the phrase "Behind the rock is the world I live in" and the reader finds him smoking cigarettes in his home's garden, hiding from his parents behind a big rock. (In Mexico it is common but not compulsory to live with one's parents until marriage, even if one has the means to support oneself).

The son of a psychiatrist and a housewife, he has a younger brother he can not standMichigan Gov. Rick Snyder announced the creation of a new Great Lakes Basin Partnership to Block Asian Carp that will commit strategic and financial resources to support the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Tentatively Selected Plan (TSP). The partnership
will offer a combination of solutions to reduce the risk of invasive carp from entering the Great Lakes at the Brandon Road Lock & Dam in Joliet, Illinois. Michigan, Ontario, Ohio and Wisconsin are the founding members of this partnership. Together, these
jurisdictions represent more than 90% of Great Lakes surface area.

"Michigan is stepping up to take a leadership role due to the urgency of this situation and the efforts necessary to prevent the entry of Asian carp into the Great Lakes," Snyder said. "Invasive carp pose a huge risk to


$275 million federally funded invasive carp barrier improvement project in 2022 at the Brandon Road Lock and Dam with the system becoming operational by 2025. The plan incorporates a suite of
technologies, including an engineered approach channel that could serve as a national test model for invasive species monitoring and control, water jets to sweep out fish caught between barges, a flushing lock to eliminate fish eggs, larvae or floaters from going
upstream toward the Great Lakes Basin, complex noise systems to keep fish out of the channel, and state-of-the-art electric barriers at the lock's entrances.

Gov. Snyder said he is directing the Michigan Department of Natural Resources to review potential opportunities to meet the nonfederal requirements for supporting the first five years of operating and maintenance costs with each ofthe eight Great Lakes states
(Michigan, Wisconsin, New York, Ohio, Minnesota, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Indiana) and two Canadian provinces (Ontario and Quebec). The goal also will include identifying opportunities to secure more long-term and sustainable sources of funding for
continued operation. Additionally, Michigan has worked with the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago to make federal advanced funds available for the construction of this project.

"Asian carp pose a very real and serious threat to our waterways. Partnering with Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin on the Brandon Road Lock and Dam project will build on our long-standing efforts to protect the Great Lakes against aquatic invasions, and I look
forward to continuing to work together to ensure our shared waterways and their ecosystems remain healthy and resilient," Premier of Ontario Kathleen Wynne


said.

In June 2017, a 28-inch-long silver carp was caught approximately 9 miles from Lake Michigan, beyond the electric barrier system meant to keep invasive carp out of the Great Lakes. An autopsy and analysis by Southern Illinois University indicated the fish
spent from a few weeks to a few months in the section of river where it was caught. There was no indication of how the fish ended up beyond the electric barriers.

The discovery of a second invasive carp found beyond the barrier -- a bighead carp was captured in 2010 -- underscores the need for action and innovation, said Michigan Department of Natural Resources Deputy Director Bill O'Neill, who spoke at the news
conference today with Gov. Snyder.

"We recognize the significant efforts many agencies have taken to date --Belle Vue bowed out of their Premiership play off semi-final after a dramatic encounter with reigning champions Wolverhampton in which the visitors triumphed by just 1 point on aggregate.

It was always going to be a tough margin to overcome, despite the Rentruck Aces’ quiet confidence, and it was a heartbreaking Heat 14 moment when their fate was finally decided.

Only 5 points stood between them and a third-straight shot at the league title with just two races to go before a nasty crash involving Freddie Lindgren and Kenneth Bjerre silenced the stadium.

The latter was far from impressed at being excluded, maintaining Lindgren pulled an aggressive locker in front of him, but it was soon apparent that the Wolverhampton captain was suffering.

He took no further part in the meeting and


be swept away by its magic.

I first learned about James and the Giant Peach after seeing a production at last week’s venue, the Chromolume Theatre (FB). They had played a song from the song cycle Edges during a pre-show, which set me off in search of a song. There I discovered a number of additional works by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul beyond the shows I knew: Dogfight (which I’d seen first at the Chance) and last year’s Tony winner, Dear Evan Hansen (coming to the 2018-2019 season of the Ahmanson Theatre (FB). There I discovered that, in addition to Edges and some Emmy-winning and nominated movies, they had also done a musicalization of James and the Giant Peach, (with a book by Timothy Allen McDonald (FB)), andmy performance).

The first performer we see — he of the magical face — is Tyler Marshall (FB) as Ladahlord. This character is not in the book. Ladahlord serves as a master of ceremonies or narrator, moving the story along, and portraying various minor characters throughout the story. He also has the responsibility of handling the main song of the show, which keeps reappearing: “Right Before Your Eyes”. Marshall has a wonderful singing voice, a remarkably expressive face, and just draws your eye to him whenever he was on stage.

We next meet our main character, James, portrayed by Christopher Diem (FB). DIem captures James’ boyish spirit, energy, and fear quite well. He has a good singing voice, and is believable as James in his interactions.

The villains of the piece


as Ladybug in her interactions with both James, Centipede, and Grasshopper. Strong singing, strong performance. On the male side, Comeau was outstanding as Grasshopper, exuding a warm personality and having a really really warm and nice singing voice. The remaining two folks were Cardenas’ Centipede and Allen’s Earthworm. Cardenas plays Centipede as what the other insects describe as a pest; however, his performance shines later during the rescue scenes. Similarly, Allen gets to portray Earthworm as someone living in fear; he comes into his own in the seagull scene (where he as a great performance).

It is at this point where I would normally introduce the band, under the music direction of James Liebson. But there is no band credited, and the music is seemingly pre-recorded. If there wasLearn about this topic in these articles:

establishment of University Settlement

…the West London Ethical Society, Stanton Coit, an early visitor to Toynbee Hall, established Neighborhood Guild, now University Settlement, on the Lower East Side of New York City, in 1886. In Chicago, in 1889, Jane Addams bought a residence on the West Side that came to be known as Hull…

…movement into the United States—Stanton Coit, who founded Neighborhood Guild (later University Settlement) on the Lower East Side of New York City in 1886, and Jane Addams, who with Ellen Gates Starr founded Hull House on the Near West Side of Chicago in 1889. From these prototypes the movement spread…