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Canada’s new federal government has launched the process of beginning an inquiry into how to conduct an inquiry into the nation’s missing and murdered aboriginal women. This is the throat clearing that precedes the overture to the main show.
[np_storybar title=”Liberals launch first phase of inquiry into missing, murdered indigenous women” link=”http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/liberals-launch-first-phase-of-inquiry-into-missing-murdered-indigenous-women”%5DOTTAWA — The federal Liberal government is kicking off what it calls the first phase of its inquiry into the tragic phenomenon of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls.
Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould says the government will consult the families of victims over the next two months to get their input into how the inquiry should be designed and what it needs to accomplish.
Wilson-Raybould was joined for the announcement by Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett and Status of Women Minister Patty Hajdu.
She says while no inquiry can undo what has happened, it will help find a way forward because Canada “can and must do better.”
Continue reading…
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The inquiry, once eventually launched, is expected to take two years and cost $40 million. That means two more years of government inaction and $40 million going to lawyers, stipends and meeting rooms that could instead be directed to what we already know about the problem(s).
The issue is a glaring tragedy. Between 1980 and 2012, almost 1,200 native women have either vanished or been murdered; mostly both. If more than two white women were missing in southern Ontario police would be setting up command posts and Facebook would be awash in injunctions to wrap trees in pink ribbons and flash porch lights in sympathy. The indifference to the plight of these women and of the native community as a whole is staggering. But that alone does not support the premise that an inquiry is the answer.
Can we admit that we already know a considerable amount about what ails the aboriginal communities? It begins with just how large a portion of the non-native community doesn’t value the lives of aboriginals. There’s a reason why the CBC shut down comments specifically for those of its online articles that discuss native issues; the tenor of the remarks ran the gamut from hysterical ignorance to quasi-white supremacy. In my medium of talk radio, any discussion of native issues immediately prompts calls from people who think natives are lazy freeloaders who need to get over the past and move on.
Combine this overall indifference with generations of institutionalized child abuse, hugely disproportional aboriginal incarceration rates and law enforcement officers who still think it’s funny to dump a native person at the side of the road in the country, and it’s clear any kind of reset to the relationship will be a form of shock therapy.
But let’s be clear: we are not starting an inquiry. It is a truth and reconciliation commission. It will make real the names and faces of the dead and missing. It will allow their loved ones to vent and to mourn. It may even identify some of the perpetrators.
What it won’t do is provide any answers or remedies we don’t already have.
A person who has worked in aboriginal law, and stands to possibly even be tasked to the inquiry, spoke to me, but asked that her name not be used due to her potential involvement in the effort. She suggests consensus amongst stakeholders about the usefulness of the inquiry is not as uniform as many might think. “It’s a pressing human rights issue,” she told me, “but I don’t think the inquiry is the best use of finite resources.”
The factors she identifies will come as a surprise to no one. They are the root cause of most crime and suffering in Western society: poverty, lack of education and opportunity, mobility to cities, community dysfunction exacerbated by racism, patriarchy, and the impression that some lives simply don’t matter. These in turn lead to isolation, substance abuse, involvement in the sex trade and everything bad that tragically follows.
“And don’t even get me started,” she continues, “on outstanding land claims, reverberations of colonialism and resource rights.”
Lastly, she pointed to the 1996 Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples which was one of the most expensive inquiries undertaken by the federal government and has been largely gathering dust for two decades.
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Stephen Harper’s refusal to launch an inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women was just one of many actions and inactions his opponents used to paint him as heartless. In fact it arose out of his wonkish appreciation that there was no new information to be gleaned. Harper’s relationship with the native community was far from fractious and his residential schools apology was arguably his finest hour. That he did not follow up these words with concrete action is lamentable. But it doesn’t mean the new government is charting any better a course.
We know what the problem is. We know the very long and complicated path that lies ahead to bring about real social change.
So let the healing ritual begin. But please, let’s not pretend we don’t already have the pieces to the puzzle and a pretty good impression of how they all come together.
National Post
John Moore is host of Moore in the Morning on NewsTalk 1010 in Toronto. |
Yvonne is a brown-white cow who in 2011 escaped from her farmer in Mühldorf, Germany, attracting media attention as she hid in the woods for many weeks. Farmers, police, and animal-rights activists were unable to find or capture her.
History [ edit ]
Yvonne, born in 2005, lived as a dairy cow for a mountain farmer in the Liesertal valley in the Austrian Alps. In March 2011 she was sold to a farmer in Aschau am Inn, Bavaria, who planned to fatten and slaughter her. On 24 May 2011 Yvonne escaped from her electric-fenced pasture and hid in woods near the villages of Zangberg and Stefanskirchen[not in citation given (See discussion.)].[1] After her escape, Yvonne was bought by animal-rights activist Michael Aufhauser, who intended to capture her and transport her to his animal sanctuary, Gut Aiderbichl, a former farm in Deggendorf, Bavaria.
Multiple techniques were used to find her and draw her out of hiding. Searchers used infrared cameras, a helicopter, and used other cows as lures, which consequentially also escaped and are being lured with additional cattle.[2]
As all attempts to capture Yvonne failed, the cow received increasing attention from the mass media in Germany and Austria and later all over the world. Bild tabloid offered a reward of ten thousand euros for her recovery.[2]
Yvonne could be located but not captured because animal-rights activists and police[who?] feared that any approach could drive her out of the area and onto streets. Yvonne's first owner reports that Yvonne has a very nervous character.[citation needed]
The campaign to save Yvonne from the hunter's bullet was successful when the order to shoot on sight was rescinded permanently on 28 August 2011. It was decided to ask all helpers to leave the area, with a single hunter remaining to try to tranquilize Yvonne if possible. She would then be moved to the animal sanctuary owned by Michael Aufhauser. Concern grew, however, that with the approach of winter she might find it difficult to find proper food and shelter. Calls were made for food, water, and shelter to be provided in the forest for Yvonne.[citation needed]
On 1 September 2011 Yvonne was captured in Unteralmsham, near Stefanskirchen, and taken to the Gut Aiderbichl animal sanctuary, where it is presumed that she will spend the rest of her days safely grazing at pasture.[3]
Media [ edit ]
U.S. producer Max Howard and Munich-based Papa Löwe Filmproduktion partnered with Torsten Poeck and UK-based writer/producer Kirsty Peart on development of the partly-animated family feature film, "Cow On the Run."[4][5] |
Trump's alleged racism: who may cast the first stone?
We need to forgive repentant historical figures like Gen. Lee
August 22, 2017
Then came Peter to him, and said, "Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Until seven times?" Jesus says unto him, "I say not unto you, Until seven times, but until seventy time seven." (Matthew 18: 21-22)
And the Scribes and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, "Who is this which speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins, but God alone?" But Jesus, perceiving their thoughts, he answered and said unto them, "What reason have you in your hearts? Which is easier, to say Your sins are forgiven you; or to say, Rise up and walk? But that you may know that the Son of man has power on earth to forgive sins (he said unto him that was palsied:) I say unto you, Arise, and take up your couch, and go into your house." (Luke 5:21-24)
And when he was alone, they that were about him with the twelve asked of him the parable. And he said unto them: To you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables: That seeing they may see, and not perceive, and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them. (Mark 4:10-12)
Take heed to yourselves: If your brother sin against you, reprove him: and if he do penance, forgive him. And if he sin against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day be converted unto thee, saying: I repent: forgive him. And the apostles said to the Lord: Increase our faith. (Luke 17:3-5)
The demand also has something to do with the elitist faction's desire to suppress all thought of the venerable American view that "resistance to tyranny is obedience to God." This view led many Southerners who rejected slavery to object to interference with what they (mistakenly) believed to be the North's interference with their right of self-determination. It's a view understandably repugnant to the snarling demagogues presently intent on establishing elitist, totalitarian government in the United States.
In the context of what actually happened to the Confederacy, and the people and states of which it was composed, the battle flag of the Confederacy no longer stands for the specious assertion of some right to do what is fundamentally wrong. It does, however, stand for the inevitable freedom to be wrong even if, more often than not, we have to endure the consequences of our wrongdoing before we will admit we were wrong.
Which of us can claim to be exempt from this folly? Which of us can pretend that we would escape rebuke in a world where someone meted out to us all the punishment we are due? In the New Testament account, God's standard of perfection cowed the crowd that was all poised to stone the adulteress. So, the likely wickedness of actions like abortion – which even Hillary Clinton once said is not a good thing but which we are now indulging, promoting or tolerating – ought to warn us against seeking to erase all reminders of the fact that people often do evil for the sake of something they mistake for good, at the time.
To see more articles by Dr. Keyes, visit his blog at LoyalToLiberty.com and his commentary at WND.com and BarbWire.com.
By Alan Keyes Not long ago, in the context of a furor over the Confederate flag, I wrote two articles, comprising an essay about the deceitful nature of the demand that Americans cleanse our public consciousness of anything that honors Americans who practiced and/or advocated racism, the enslavement of blacks, or the law-enforced regime of racial segregation, discrimination, and bigotry our nation once tolerated. In the first part of the essay , I anticipated the crisis that is now being exploited to tar President Trump with opprobrium for his alleged reluctance to set racist violence apart for special condemnation. In the second part , I asked people to ponder the subversive anti- American agenda this demand for anti-racist purity actually serves:It surprises me that people who profess to be followers of Christ seem willing to accept the unforgiving demand for historical cleansing that puts human beings in the place of God when it comes to judging sinners after death.Gen. Sherman said that "War is hell." There are many who would say that – during his infamous "scorched earth" campaign through Georgia during the late fall of 1864 – he did his best to act the part of Satan's lieutenant, as his forces torched and tormented both infrastructure and people along the way. In his Second Inaugural, Lincoln literally accepts the premise that the Civil War was punishment God inflicted on the people of the United State for the sin of practicing, or by law protecting, racist slavery.Why is it not enough for the present generation of self-righteous sinners in the United States that God exacted this terrible price for our nation's sins? Why is it not enough that, on account of the scourge of war, Americans repented of the sin our nation knowingly inflicted on my enslaved ancestors? They let my people go, even as Pharaoh let go the Israelites, on account of the plagues God visited upon his kingdom. The nation repented of its sin.Despite the strong resentment of many of his fellow southerners, Robert E. Lee did not refuse to surrender, at Appomattox, to God's will. He did not refuse to urge his fellow Confederates to accept God's judgment against the sin of slavery, and get on with building the nation that had finally reconciled itself to the law of liberty God prescribed for His Creation. To be sure, he did not instantly purge himself of the views and preferences America's long-established culture of racial bigotry inevitably inculcated. There were doubtless many times when those habits betrayed him into unjust attitudes, remarks, and actions.But for all that, like many of his compatriots in the States of the Confederacy, he appears to have resisted the temptation to foreswear the terms of its surrender. How many times should we forgive them for sliding back into the furrows of racist bigotry and pride? How often should we forgive them the credit they are due, for deciding, nonetheless, to uphold the discipline of God's justice required by the premises of our national existence?Shall we tear down the statues of President Lyndon Johnson for the evidence of racist bigotry in his political life? Or should we honor the leadership he gave to complete the passage of the Civil Rights Act? Should we forbid the people of Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia to honor the memories of the ancestors who labored, for all their faults, to build a future of decent liberty for their posterity? Or should we leave them to honor people like Thomas Jefferson, James F. Byrnes (Truman's secretary of state), and Jimmy Carter for the service they gave to establish the right foundations of our nation, preserve it in service to human decency from totalitarian tyranny, or upraise throughout the world its standard for human rights and dignity?By the standard of true moral perfection, all humanity falls short. Some of the same people who spit on Lee's statue angrily rejected the notion that Margaret Sanger's statue should be removed from an exhibit at the Smithsonian. When the standard of perfect right and justice is applied, which of us will escape the judgment our unpaid debt to truth and righteousness deserves? We shall all require forgiveness no human being is equipped to give us. Why then is it right that any of us should demand leave to inflict implacable judgment on others, even though they have largely repented of their sins?As a Christian, praying each day the publican's prayer, I have struggled to heed Christ's warnings. I reject those who think that it is loving to let people risk the ultimate judgment of God. So, I refuse to lie about what He says is required to avoid perdition. But I also reject the hubris that purports to punish people, after death, with annihilation. That power belongs to God and God alone. He will remember those He will remember, according to the perfect standard onlytruly understands.Let history be. Leave those who will not be converted by the Gospel of truth to the judgment of God. But if they repent, surrendering, however imperfectly, to the standard of God's truth and justice, forgive them unceasingly, as we must unceasingly pray that God will forgive us. Such forgiveness is the only way to endure in the fight against evil, without becoming evil – the only way to learn and remember what we need to know of evil in order to defeat it – and to do it all without forgetting what is good and right and true and just. Which is to say, without forgetting that, and we are© Alan Keyes |
A majority of Michigan voters in a new poll worry about President Trump having access to the nuclear launch codes.
An EPIC-MRA poll finds 53 percent of those surveyed are either "very" or "somewhat" worried about Trump having access to the codes, the Detroit Free Press reported.
Just 38 percent of respondents said they aren't worried at all.
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Voters are divided about whether they think Trump is mentally stable.
Forty-five percent of respondents think the president is mentally stable, compared with 43 percent who disagree.
Another 12 percent of respondents are undecided.
The poll also found that 62 percent of Michigan voters surveyed have a negative view of Trump's job performance.
The poll was conducted from Aug. 27 to Sept. 1 among 600 likely and active voters in Michigan. The margin of error is 4 percent.
The poll comes after North Korea said it successfully tested a miniaturized hydrogen bomb capable of fitting on an intercontinental ballistic missile this weekend. Trump last month intensified his rhetoric against North Korea. |
Virginia Governor-elect Ralph Northam, a Democrat. Win McNamee/Getty Images
Democrats have lost their one-vote lead in a state election that will determine control over the Virginia House of Delegates. The race is now a tie, and the State Board of Elections will determine a winner by drawing lots. If Democrat Shelly Simonds wins, Democrats will break the GOP’s 20-year chokehold on power in the House. If Republican David Yancey wins, the GOP will retain unified control of the state legislature.
Simonds appeared to have triumphed on Tuesday afternoon after a recount determined that she had received 11,608 to Yancey’s 11,607.
(Before the recount, Yancey led by 10 votes.) But the result remained unofficial until it was certified by a three-judge panel. On Tuesday night, a Republican recount official appointed by Yancey’s side submitted a letter asserting that an additional ambiguous ballot that should have been counted for Yancey. On the ballot in question, a voter had filled in the bubbles next to both candidates, but placed a strike through the bubble next to Simonds’ name.
#VPBreaking: This is the actual disputed ballot that has now tied the #Virginia 94th House District race. pic.twitter.com/v9BLGFAdki — The Virginian-Pilot (@virginianpilot) December 20, 2017
Initially, the ballot was not counted for either candidate. But the recount official wrote that, upon further consideration—and after consultation with GOP lawyer Trevor Stanley—he decided that the ballot expressed an intent to vote for Yancey.
The three-judge panel examined the ballot and agreed to count the vote for Yancey. Their decision made the race a tie, 11,608–11,608. Under Virginia law, if a race is tied, the election board draws lots to determine the winner. There’s no set procedure for drawing lots, but the State Board of Elections has suggested it will place both names in a small canister, put the canisters in a glass bowl, shake it up, and pull one name out. That candidate will be declared the winner. (In the past, the board has also broken ties by asking a blindfolded person to draw a name from a large cup.)
Virginia Republican leadership has already claimed that the loser of this process may request a second recount, apparently because the statute governing ties states that “any person who loses the determination by lot may petition for a recount.” However, this provision seems to pertain only to ties following the initial vote tally. A separate statute states: “There shall be only one redetermination of the vote in each precinct.” It also notes that “the recount proceeding shall be final and not subject to appeal.” This law would seem to control a situation, like this one, in which a recount results in a tie. Thus, whoever loses the drawing of lots should be legally barred from demanding a second recount and would probably see an appeal tossed out. Nevertheless, a race this close that’s decided by chance is almost certain to spawn litigation.
If Simonds is ultimately victorious, the Virginia House will be divided 50–50 between Republicans and Democrats. This split will force the parties to enter into a power-sharing agreement, giving Democrats an opportunity to push for Medicaid expansion, as well as more influence over judicial selection. (The General Assembly elects the state’s judges.)
If Simonds loses, incoming Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam will have to govern with both houses of the assembly controlled by slim Republican majorities. This divided government will not reflect the will of the voters. In November, Democratic candidates won the state’s total House vote by nine points. Thanks to gerrymandering, their ability to break Republicans’ grasp on the House has come down to pure chance. In a democracy, the outcome of a wave election should not depend upon names drawn from a fishbowl. |
Steven Seagal is now under siege for allegedly acting above the law -- and we're not just throwing around his movie titles.
The 59-year-old action movie star was slapped with a lawsuit this week after using a tank to knock down an Arizona man's wall and arrest him, while starring as a deputy for a reality TV show.
When the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office suspected that Jesus Llovera was raising roosters for cockfighting, deputies sent in a SWAT team, a bomb robot and a tank.
Llovera, on probation for a previous cockfighting charge, was surprised when he woke up to a tank demolishing his wall, and even more surprised to see that the driver was Seagal, the Arizona Republic reported.
"I looked up and saw his face," Llovera, 43, told the paper. "It was strange."
Seagal's camp was filming the melee and Llovera's arrest for "Steven Seagal: Lawman." Now Llovera is trying to get some lethal justice (sorry for all the movie references) by suing both the sheriff and the actor for unspecified damages.
Llovera says his 11-month-old hound was shot to death in the arrest, which he claims was made just to boost the show's ratings.
"At the end of it, I realized it was a show," Llovera told the paper. "What they showed up for was to make a show, and they made one."
See Steven Seagal on set at Llovera's home in the video below.
The sheriff's office maintains that the arrest would have been made with or without the camouflage-clad Seagal.
Robert Campos, Llovera's attorney says it was "still overkill, and that's the whole point" of the lawsuit. |
It's actually the second time O'Sullivan has helped prepare the Americans to play Ireland in a World Cup - back in 1999 he was an assistant coach with the Eagles, concentrating mainly on conditioning and the backs before the offer came to join Ireland under Warren Gatland.
It will be a strange day for O'Sullivan on an already emotional evening as the American squad look to mark the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre.
"I wouldn't say I have mixed emotions, playing against Ireland is not an emtoional thing for me," insists O'Sullivan. "It feels a bit strange all right because I know many of those lads pretty well. But Saturday's not about me, it's about the American team. These lads have put in huge effort to make it here to the World Cup .
"In particular, the guys who are not professional have made huge sacrifices to come to the World Cup. It's about them.The fact we're playing Ireland in the group stage is just the way it panned out. I have a job to do. It's a bit of help knowing what I do about the Irish players and I've been passing that on but we can't get hung up on Ireland, we need to focus on our own performance.
"We are realistic, winning the Russia game next week is the big one for us. We feel like it's within our ability to beat them. Historically for us to win a pool match is pretty is very good. We've only had two group victories in the World Cup up to now.
"We won't roll over dead in the other games though, especially in the first one because it is a special day for all our American team and we want to give of our best on that day. When you play a tier-one nation, you try to stay in the game as long as you can. That's the realistic approach."
As O'Sullivan casts his eye over the Ireland team that he did so much to help build although the name Conor Murray might take him by surprise, the young Munster scrum-half having been selected to make his first start at this level.
"Elsewhere, Gordon D'Arcy has been declared fit to take his place alongside Brian O'Driscoll at centre but coach Declan Kidney has decided to give first choice full-back Rob Kearney and flanker Sean O'Brien another week's rest.
Geordan Murphy will play full-back and Shane Jennings has been selected at open-side flanker.
"Sean is fit to play. Medically he has been given the okay," said Kidney. "But I've seen injuries like that before and he'll benefit from getting absolute fitness back. I believe in the squad, too.
"Shane Jennings has been going well in training and had a bit of match time under his belt last month. Rob is up and training but I want him to get up to full speed a bit more often. Once he does that he'll be fine. The fact he's not playing on Sunday doesn't rule him out against Australia by any means."
USA v Ireland (Taranaki Stadium, New Plymouth 6pm local time)
USA: Blaine Scully (University of California); Takudzwa Ngwenya (Biarritz), Paul Emerick (Life University), Andrew Suniula (Chicago Griffins); James Paterson (Otago Highlanders); Roland Suniula (Boston), Mike Petri (Newport Gwent Dragons); Mike MacDonald (Leeds Carnegie), Phil Thiel (Life University), Shawn Pittman (London Welsh), John van der Giessen (Utah Warriors), Hayden Smith (Saracens), Louis Stanfill (Mogliano), Todd Clever (Suntory, capt), Nic Johnson (unattached). Replacements: Chris Biller (San Francisco Golden Gate), Matekitonga Moeakiola (Bobigny), Scott LaValla (Stade Francais), Pat Danahy (Life University), Tim Usasz (Nottingham), Nese Malifa (Glendale), Colin Hawley (Olympic Club)
Ireland: G Murphy (Leicester); T Bowe (Ospreys), B O'Driscoll (Leinster, capt), G D'Arcy (Leinster), K Earls (Munster); J Sexton (Leinster), C Murray (Munster); T Court (Ulster), R Best (Ulster), M Ross (Leinster), D O'Callaghan (Munster), P O'Connell (Munster), S Ferris (Ulster), S Jennings (Leinster), J Heaslip (Leinster). Replacements: J Flannery (Munster), T Buckley (Sale), D Ryan (Munster), D Leamy (Munster), E Reddan (Leinster), R O'Gara (Munster), A Trimble (Ulster).
Referee: Craig Joubert (South Africa)
Referee's assistants: Nigel Owens, Carki Damasco
TMO: Graham Hughes (England)
Form guide: USA: LWLLL Ireland WLLLL
Last three games:
2009 USA 10 Ireland 29(San Francisco)
2004 Ireland 55 USA 6 (Dublin)
2000 USA 3 Ireland 83 (New Hampshire)
USA Average age: 26yr 1 month. Average caps: 18. Pack weight: 907kg.
Ireland Average age: 28yrs 8 months. Average caps: 42.1. Pack weight: 885kg.
Key clashes
Open-side flanker: The USA have not got that many international-class players but Todd Clever is one, a great athlete and a dog of a forward who will take the battle to the Ireland back row and, in particular, Shane Jennings.
Wing: If USA can get any ball, they have two classy operators on the wings, Biarritz speed merchant Takudzwa Ngwenya, the man who left Bryan Habana for dead four years ago, and Otago Highlander James Paterson. |
Truth in Packaging time…
School systems consume huge amounts of tax revenue, and spend much of that money, via the time and resources it pays-for, forcing boys to act like girls. They waste the time of bright children, especially of bright boys, by forcing them to sit still and wait for duller pupils to learn lessons they have already “got”.
Kleinfeld (2009) reported:
middle class parents … were worried that so many of their sons had been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and prescribed drugs such as Ritalin which might damage their developing brains. They suspected that teachers’ intolerance for active, boisterous boys, not their sons’ presumed deficits, was responsible.
Middle class parents—all or mostly respectable citizens—were worried about schools abusing their children—if the children were boys. Sax (2007) considered over-prescription of stimulants so serious as to make it one of five main factors in the de-motivation of boys and young men.
Girls didn’t seem to need worrying-about, Kleinfeld wrote later in the same paper: “ While the educational problems of girls have led to numerous policy efforts to increase their achievement in areas where they are behind, such as achievement in mathematics and science at the top, the problems of boys have been largely ignored by federal agencies, foundations, and school districts. ” Schools, over the past two generations of time, have changed to be more girl-friendly, but have demanded the boys change rather than the schools, even to the point of forcing the boys to change by drugging them (Kleinfeld, 2009; Sax, 2007, Anonymous, 2011.)
Drugging children to force them to adapt to inappropriate circumstances is abuse and may constitute torture. If this were done to children of one race, rather than of one gender, it would be criminal. The only reason it is not criminal—if indeed it is not—is that laws have been written to privilege female and disempower male citizens. Imaginably, men rank lower in civil standing today than Afro-Americans have ranked since Brown v. Board of Education.
Not being a lawyer nor a policeman, i don’t know whether criminal prosecution of school agents for drugging boys is possible. I would encourage it if it is—if street pushers go to prison, why not school pushers?* With the street pushers, acceptance is at least somewhat
voluntary, so school drugging is worse on the face of it.
If drugging stopped tomorrow, schools would still be prim, sit-still environments that down-grade pupils who—frankly, who act like
boys (Anonymous, 2011, Sexton, 19??). Few schools have taken notice of recent research showing that not only are boys naturally more
active and boisterous—boys learn better when active. School teaching techniques are more suited to girls than to boys. To repeat “in other words” for emphasis: Schools are failing boys more than boys are failing in school.
Whether or not school “drug-pushers” can be prosecuted, and this may vary from state to state, some truth in labelling is “long overdue”: Schools should be pinked. Pink school doors and school buses would be a warning few could misunderstand. They would also be a “bur under the saddle” on school boards and officials until the implied remedy of boy-friendly education is in operation.
Petitioning School Boards had damn well better be lawful, and in a real democracy it should be encouraged whenever the petition has some merit. That’s the kind of effort i’ll sketch here. The many good activists who read this site should be able to improve the petition and add other ways of getting after school systems to stop drugging boys and start educating them in boy-appropriate ways.
… and meanwhile, pink school buses and pink school doors will at least be some kind of fair warning what schools are like.
Here’s a rough draft petition [which does not mention drugging, because that abuse should be more aggressively attacked] for the lawyers and
politicians among you to refine:
To the [name of local “School Board”]:
Whereas, the structure of today’s conventional classrooms and the behavioural demands made by today’s conventional schoolteachers therein, are inconsistent with and inimical to the natural psychology of healthy boys; and
Whereas, the natural psychology of girls is more adapted to such classrooms and demands than that of boys; and
Whereas, the present school bus practices constitute “babying” of most school children, which children need to know how to deal with the traffic on the roads next their homes anyway:
Therefore,
we the [undersigned, presenting] petitioners, hereby demand with all due respect (which may not be very much respect if our efforts should be scorned) that the [name of local “School Board”] forthwith:
Cause all School Buses operated by the Board to be painted a bright pink colour, which colour be as easily visible as the presently used shade of yellow, and which colour additionally designates the school buses and schools to be more suitable for girls than for boys Cause the entry doors of all schools operated by the Board to be painted pink, further designating the schools to be more suitable for girls than for boys; Form a committee including at least 50% skilled trades men (which category can include cooks, farmers, airline pilots, physicians, engineers, etc.; but not bureaucrats) to design a school system, as to both architecture and teaching practices, adapted to the psychology of normal healthy boys; Until there are boy-friendly schools available, cease to tax parents of boys; Form a committee of rural residents to review the possibility of replacing the present School Bus system with rural buses which may
carry persons who are not school children, thus increasing the mobility of rural non-drivers and the efficiency of rural life; and Retain the pink colouring of both school doors and school buses except, unless, and until: in the case of school buses, a rural-bus system replaces the school-only bus system; there are boy-and-man approved, boy-friendly schools in operation, which schools may have doors of some other appropriate colour.
Presented this ___ day of __________ 201_, by the undersigned.
_______________________________________________ ____________________ _______________________________
_______________________________________________ ____________________ _______________________________
…and further signature lines…
Note:
As the State of Texas has demonstrated well enough for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to take notice and report nationally, punishments and corrections other than caging [wo]men up in prisons, may be preferable. The topic is too large to be included in this “blog”.
References:
Anonymous, 2011. Reports of school practices in New Brunswick and Anglophone Quebec. November 6. Anonymous, a substitute teacher and church
pastor, reports that schools still require pupils to sit quietly in neat rows and listen to Teacher, time-wasting [esp of ablest pupils] is if anyting worse than when he was a schoolboy, many boys are
“tuning out”. Drugging does occur; he could not state the extent.
Kleinfeld, Judith. 2009. “The State of American Boyhood”. Gender Issues.26, 113-120.
Sax, Leonard (2007). Boys Adrift. New York: Basic Books. Note also review by Steven Svoboda,
Sexton, Patricia Cayo. 19??. The Feminized Male. |
Opal is composed of small beads of silica – alpha-cristobalite – low temperature, but tightly closed in a waterproof casing. Between these “beads” have cavities that contain a small amount of water. Reflection of light on the surface of the opal crystallization gives reflections that differ from each stone depending on the “form” created by all the elements described above. There are many types of opal. Opal can be dull and have no value, in which case such opals called “common opal” because only the large stones of bright colors are “semi-precious opals”.
Type of opal found together with Opal, wearing a certain value, called the Australian “treats”. It has no value as a gemstone; It is used as a basis for simulating a gemstone (ie “synthetic opal”) doublets (based) or triplets (based on coated). Opal “treats” can be white, gray, black, honey, amber or water colors. flickr/David Abercrombie
Opal is one of the most beautiful stones in the world, and, of course, one of the most expensive. Famous contemporary designers often use it in their work. Also, this stone is very rare: some of his views may cost 40 000 euros, and even higher.
flickr/Mike Fitzpatrick
flickr/Igor Schwartzmann
flickr/Jeffrey Hunt
flickr/Oona
flickr/Stan Celestian
flickr/Luis Alves
flickr/Stan Celestian
Source – Wikipedia |
David Nickle, the longtime president of the City Hall Press Gallery and reporter for Metroland Media, has a side career as a respected author of genre fiction. The title story in his latest collection, Knife Fight And Other Struggles, starts: “Not many outside the confines of the political wing at City Hall would guess it, but our new mayor is an expert with a knife.”
One day toward the end of Rob Ford’s mayhem, perhaps in summer 2014, I spitballed with Nickle about how one would go about shaping Ford’s saga into a story: a movie, TV series, whatever. I’d imagined telling it from the perspective of the mayor himself, the most fascinating and compelling character in the world, but Nickle – whose City Hall office is next to mine – had a better idea. The Ford story, he observed, would be better told from the point of view of someone like Mark Towhey: the ex-military man who was by Ford’s side from day one of the 2010 campaign, worked in his office as director of policy and strategy, and eventually became his third of five chiefs of staff.
It was an excellent idea – a narrative from Towhey’s perspective could chart the arc of an ambitious crisis manager who would gradually find himself in far over his head, as layers of absurdity and darkness inexorably pile on. What would begin as a comedy about helping a buffoonish populist realize his goals would eventually transform into a dead-serious Sisyphean parable about managing the unmanageable.
Just over a year later, we now have such a work: Towhey’s tell-all, Mayor Rob Ford: Uncontrollable, co-authored with Johanna Schneller and published by NYC-based Skyhorse, came out today (October 27). In most respects, it fulfills the promise of the premise, explaining how the experience of working for Ford turned bit by bit from exhilarating to traumatic.
But it misses an element crucial for such a yarn – an outside vantage point. Towhey would be a superb vehicle for a narrative so long as someone else was telling the story and holding him up as a flawed protagonist whose questionable choices and malleable ethics implicate him in everything that happens.
The book’s subtitle is How I Tried To Help The World’s Most Notorious Mayor, but it could just as easily have been Why I’m Not To Blame.
I've never read Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, but my understanding is that it's an unreliable narrator offering a longwinded rationalization for his own amorality. It's helpful to view Towhey's tome in a similar light.
Early in the book, and repeatedly throughout, Towhey outlines a code of ethics for his conduct: do the right thing; do nothing illegal; don’t help anyone do anything illegal; don’t lie.
Remarkably, by the end, he says the staff in the mayor’s office adhered to all of those principles, and suggests that he did as well – despite having just authored over three hundred pages explaining in detail his complicity in covering for Ford and doing everything to keep the man’s re-election viable.
It’s an astonishing feat of obliviousness.
But Towhey’s entire moral framework is skewed in the first place. For instance, in writing about how he and campaign manager Nick Kouvalis handled accusations of Ford’s homophobia during the 2010 election, Towhey explains there was no point in trying to change the candidate because they didn’t want to turn off a socially conservative base who “didn’t want to think of [Ford] as gay-friendly.”
There’s no indication that Towhey himself is homophobic (he briefly mentions the office’s efforts to convince Ford to participate in the annual International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia flag-raising), but leveraging others' bigotry for political gain is arguably even worse than bigotry itself.
Rather than interrogate the ethics of the situation, Towhey views it, like everything else thrown his way, as a puzzle to be solved or an enemy to be outmanoeuvred. In his mind, the human cost frequently seems secondary to the political calculus. In setting the scene for election day 2014, for example, he describes the the Jian Ghomeshi story that was dominating the headlines and makes a deeply uncomfortable joke: asking where that kind of news had been when he was trying to keep Ford's "misdemeanours" off the front pages.
This past summer, in considering Earl Cowan – the loudly irascible Conservative supporter who called reporters "lying piece[s] of shit" for daring to inquire about the Mike Duffy scandal – Maclean's Paul Wells made a valuable observation.
"Angry Yelling Guy’s point," he wrote, "is that any system organized to keep Stephen Harper in power protects the Canadian taxpayer, because Stephen Harper runs a government that does less and costs less than whatever the Liberals and New Democrats would come up with.…[Conservatives' electoral dominance serves] a higher goal: the protection of a limited federal state against the would-be architects of a bloated and overreaching federal state."
There are people for whom the ends of conservatism sometimes justify extraordinary means, because few things could be less moral than a government that's bigger than it needs to be. And while I don’t think Towhey is a libertarian fanatic to quite that degree, he does let his concurrence with Ford’s broad politics colour his thinking all the way. Only when he receives a tip from then-staffer David Price that Anthony Smith’s murder may have been tied to the crack video (it wasn't), does Towhey believe things have crossed a line.
Up to that point, he has already witnessed or been reliably informed of all manner of mayoral dangers, from Ford habitually driving drunk to violently threatening his wife, possibly with a gun.
He found out almost right away that Ford had been a drunken, violent mess on St. Patrick’s Day 2012, but when reporters asked about Ford's state that night, he would only say their information was incorrect – choosing to zero in on the claim that Ford had snorted cocaine, the one piece of the story not corroborated by accounts of the staff who were there.
With regard to 2013’s Garrison Ball incident, Towhey has consistently maintained that no one asked the mayor to leave the event – a formulation that conveniently excludes Towhey himself, who begged the fucked-up mayor not to arrive, attempted to physically bar him from entering, and then tried to drag him out as soon as possible.
Towhey maintains that these weren’t lies, as though a narrow truth uttered through the clenched teeth of deceitful contortions is somehow more morally sanctionable. It’s the same warped view of honesty that let Rob Ford claim in November 2013 that he hadn’t previously admitted to smoking crack only because reporters hadn’t asked him the right question.
In its worst moments, the book reads like the memoirs of a psychopath totally divorced from conventional morality and the consequences of his actions.
At its best, however, it reveals the emotional and physical toll that came with trying to keep the mayor’s office running at all costs. In a particularly moving passage, Towhey confesses that he was secretly hoping that Ford would lose his conflict-of-interest appeal and be booted from the job, giving him and the other staff an opportunity to finally escape from the thumb of a “megalomaniacal addict.”
But then a couple chapters later, he reiterates that he was still trying to set up the mayor for re-election.
You can look at it as an abusive relationship, and Towhey certainly frames it that way. For the junior staffers in Ford's office, it most probably was. But Towhey’s drive to succeed as a master crisis manager, and his active roles in shaping policy and strategy, make it very hard for us to feel as sorry for him as he’d like.
He was a key player in everything that happened from the beginning of the 2010 campaign through to his firing in May 2013, and it’s valuable to have his account on the record.
But he also wants the book to serve as a cathartic, even therapeutic, release for himself. Absent self-awareness and contrition, however, he can’t possibly have an honest reckoning.
Towhey wants us to pat him on the head and assure him he did everything that he could to make a bad situation better. But instead, you kind of want to break it to him that, no, a lot of what happened is very much his fault, too.
No matter. Earl Provost, Ford’s subsequent chief of staff, stuck around in the mayor’s office even longer than Towhey and is now the executive director of the Ontario Liberal Party. There’s a market for this approach to politics; just don’t ask us to pity you for it.
[email protected] | @goldsbie
Correction (10/29/15, 6:20 pm): This piece originally referred to Thomas Allen & Son as the book's Canadian publisher. In fact, Thomas Allen is the book's Canadian distributor. Both in the U.S. and Canada, the book is published by New York City-based Skyhorse Publishing. |
Everything else about this administration is now out in the open, so why not start issuing official campaign statements that link to right–wing conspiracy promoter InfoWars.com?
Following a pro-Trump, climate-change-denying rally in Washington D.C.’s Lafayette Park, the Trump-Pence campaign apparently blasted out an email thanking “supporters” who showed “their support.” The statement linked to an InfoWars post whose feature image is a sign some kid is holding that calls CNN “ISIS,” according to several accounts on Twitter from people who received the email.
“Thanks to President Trump, the American taxpayer will no longer be captive to the burdensome Paris Accord,” the statement said. “By the action the President took this week, the American people and the world will see once again that our President is choosing to put American jobs and American workers first.”
Saturday’s “Pittsburgh, not Paris” rally was organized by the Republican Party of Fairfax County, Virginia, which the Trump campaign thanked in the statement.
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InfoWars claimed a yuge turnout:
The Trump supporters dwarfed the climate change activists at the time of this writing, which of course highlights how the decision to leave the Paris accord wasn’t actually Trump’s, but rather the American people who propelled Trump to the White House.
The thousands of people who turned out for Saturday’s 135 #MarchForTruth rallies across the country might dispute that claim. |
An Afghan policeman stands at the site of a blast in Kabul, Afghanistan September 13, 2017. REUTERS/Mohammad Ismail
KABUL (Reuters) - A suicide attack claimed by Islamic State near a cricket match in the Afghan capital Kabul on Wednesday killed three people and wounded five.
Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Danesh said two of the dead were police officers and the other a civilian.
The blast outside Kabul International Cricket Stadium took place during a match in Afghanistan’s Shpageeza Cricket League, a T20 franchise tournament on the lines of the Indian Premier League and similar 20-over tournaments.
A statement on Islamic State’s Amaq news agency claimed responsibility for the incident, the latest in a string of suicide attacks in Kabul mounted by the group.
The Shpageeza tournament, now in its fifth season, is one of a small number of Western-style sports competitions along with Afghan Premier League football that have grown up since a U.S.-led campaign toppled the Taliban in 2001.
A small number of foreign players from countries including South Africa, Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka as well as the West Indies, are taking part. Local Tolo News Television quoted the Afghan Cricket Board as saying all players were safe.
“Sad to hear about the bomb blast during our game outside the stadium. Thank God we are all safe,” Cameron Delport, a South African batsman playing for the Boost Defenders team, tweeted after the match.
Cricket, which spread from refugee camps in Pakistan, has become one of Afghanistan’s most popular sports and the national team has become increasingly successful, raising the profile of the game. |
John Druce leads the Pedal for Hope fundraising bicycle team. (Courtesy Pedal for Hope)
John Druce knows something about being in the right place at the right time. The best run of his NHL career — the stretch that turned his last name into a magic word in Washington — was kick-started by happenstance: Dino Ciccarelli was injured early in the 1990 playoffs, Druce moved up through the Capitals’ lineup, and suddenly the young forward was the best goal scorer in the world. Druce scored nine times in a five-game playoff series against the Rangers, ended the spring with four game-winners, and finished that postseason with 14 goals in 15 games, an offensive explosion still mentioned in hockey circles every spring.
So Druce’s new job as a first-time head coach with the Cobourg Cougars, marking his return to hockey after more than a decade away? His team’s 16-2 start in the Ontario Junior Hockey League? His arrival before a season that will end with Cobourg hosting Canada’s Junior A championship?
“Things like this happen,” Druce said this week, referring to his past. “Right place, right time.”
If anyone deserved another happy coincidence, it was Druce, 12 years after heartbreaking news had led him to leave the sport. The former winger had been working as a hockey analyst in Canada when his then-15-year-old daughter Courtney — just a toddler waking up in the middle of the night during his famous Caps streak — was diagnosed with leukemia. With Courtney and her family members in and out of hospitals, Druce could no longer maintain a hockey lifestyle, so he left the game and became a financial adviser in his native Peterborough, Ontario.
Over the next decade, his daughter turned into a public figure in Peterborough as she fought off an avalanche of medical problems — what Druce calls “a battle that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemies.” She went through chemotherapy four times and radiation twice. She had two bone marrow transplants. After beating leukemia for a third time, she was in remission for almost five years and getting on with her life when she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. She beat that, too, but then the cancer came back a year ago. She died in April, eight days before her 28th birthday.
“She’s my hero,” Druce said. “She would still walk into a room and would still light up that room when she walked in, even after going through all of that. She didn’t take one day for granted. She always had goals and always had dreams, and was still pursuing them as she was going through this. It was unbelievable.”
John and Courtney Druce in 2010. (Courtesy John Druce)
Druce’s own goals, meanwhile, underwent a change. Instead of pursuing a post-playing career in hockey, he would raise money and awareness for other Canadian families going through similar struggles. And he was in the right place at the right time for that, too.
Around the time Courtney was diagnosed, a dozen Peterborough police officers had decided to launch a three-week annual bike ride, visiting schools to talk about pediatric cancer while riding hundreds of miles around Ontario. The Canadian Cancer Society knew that Druce was looking for an outlet, and they gave his name to his hometown cops, who knew Druce only as a hockey player with a famous hot streak on his résumé.
“I said I’d really be interested in being a part of that if they’d welcome me,” Druce said. “And they did, with open arms.”
“He was just a normal, regular guy on our team,” said Marc Habgood, a staff sergeant in the Peterborough Police Service and one of the founders of Pedal for Hope. “It was 12 police officers and one NHL hockey player, and we all did the same thing.”
So the 13 men became big brothers to kids with cancer. They saved up their vacation time so they could disappear for three weeks each year. They set a Guinness World Record for simultaneous head-shaving, visited with the Canadian prime minister and raised more than $4 million.
The Peterborough Police Service made Druce an honorary member, his bike partners became among his closest friends, and Courtney became an ambassador and public face for the team. When they needed someone to film a promotional video, they asked her. When they needed an emcee for the final day of the ride, they turned to her. When they needed someone to greet families, she volunteered. So when Druce bowed out of last year’s charity ride as Courtney entered hospice care, and then called early one morning with the news, he wound up consoling the distraught policemen.
“I was a mess a couple times, just a mess,” Habgood said. “It’s just so hard to believe. That kid was so sick for so long, and she kept battling, and John was along for the fight. I guess we all were along for the fight.”
John Druce, far left, and other members of the Pedal for Hope team. (Courtesy Pedal for Hope)
Druce hasn’t given up that fight. He traveled to the Caps’ FanFest last spring and played in the alumni game; his fellow players then auctioned off their jerseys, with the proceeds going to Pedal for Hope and the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s local chapter. Druce will be back in town Saturday night, dropping the ceremonial puck as part of the Caps’ Hockey Fights Cancer campaign, which raises money for several cancer charities. It was easy for him to get onto the Pedal for Hope team, he said, “but you may not be able to get out — not that anybody wants to.”
“People need to hear about it; they need to know what people are going through,” Druce said, explaining why he remains involved with the group. “It tears families apart. It’s like going through hell.”
His new coaching gig, at least, is another distraction. Druce already had been helping out with the Cougars last fall, before Courtney’s final relapse, but he never had the free time to dive full-time into hockey. Courtney’s death changed that. The Cougars were looking for a head coach, and Druce said he would consider it if they were interested. A week later, he had the job.
“I kind of looked at it — and I still do — as Courtney’s way of saying ‘Here, Dad, you go do this now,’ you know?” Druce said. “I stopped broadcasting when she got sick, and she knew. She knew how much I loved being around the game. And I just look at it as my little angel watching over me and saying, ‘Now you go coach. Now you go do this.’ ”
Druce has a 40-minute drive to the rink now, and he thinks about Courtney every day on that ride: the painful memories and the happy ones, too. He also has a perspective that might be hard to replicate. I talked to him a few days into my own paternity leave, which he brought up during our conversation.
“Every day — whether it be changing diapers or a baby crying — every day is to be cherished,” he told me. “And it’s hard. Life gets busy; life gets in the way; life takes you away. But when you look back in 15 years, you’ll remember all those little times she made you laugh. You’ll remember that. The hardest thing to do in the moment is to appreciate things.”
I also asked him whether he’s tried to sort out why all of these things happened to his daughter and his family. How can you answer that question? He tried.
“There is no sense. There are no answers. There’s no ‘Why did this happen?’ ” he said. “Life goes on. Life is constant change. You can’t control it. I don’t look for answers. Reality is reality. I just miss her.”
The Capitals’ Hockey Fights Cancer Awareness night will include an auction featuring Hockey Fights Cancer jerseys, sticks, pucks and hats. Proceeds benefit Flashes of Hope, Hope for Henry, Make-A-Wish Mid-Atlantic and the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network. |
Needles District of Canyonlands National Park, with continuous biocrust in the foreground. (Courtesy Bill Bowman, University of Colorado.)
Virtually every ecosystem of the world — from forests to the oceans — raises concern about the toll that a warming climate will take. There’s one type of landscape, though, that doesn’t get talked about very much in this context — so-called “drylands,” a grouping that includes arid and semi-arid regions ranging from many deserts to grasslands.
Drylands are one of the more important ecosystems in the world, comprising fully 40 percent of the Earth’s land surface. And now, an alarming new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says the impact of a warming climate on these ecosystems could be much worse than expected — comparable to humans trampling the landscapes underfoot or driving off-road vehicles across them.
“Contrary to our expectations, experimental climate change and physical disturbance had strikingly similar impacts,” wrote the researchers, led by Scott Ferrenberg of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Southwest Biological Science Center in Moab, Utah. Ferrenberg conducted the work with two Geological Survey colleagues.
Ferrenberg and his colleagues ran a long term experiment at Utah’s Upper Colorado Plateau, a “cool desert” region that receives less than 10 inches of rain per year. Here, the ground is covered by a complex group of organisms collectively called “biocrust” — a combination of mosses and lichens that are in effect glued together by photosynthetic microorganisms called cyanobacteria, which provide structure to the landscape through the carbohydrate molecules they secrete.
This structure, in turn, allows the more complex organisms like mosses and lichens to grow — and when it’s all assembled, the biocrust then holds the soil in place and prevents dust storms and erosion. “Things would blow away without biocrust,” says Ferrenberg.
“There’s sort of this expression the crust community uses: ‘Got dust? You need crust,’” he continues. “It’s sort of a nerd joke in this community.”
At the same time, the growth of mosses and lichen, supported by the cyanobacteria, allows these landscapes to store a considerable amount of carbon which might otherwise wind up in the atmosphere. Overall, drylands store 25 percent of the carbon found in the planet’s soils.
A desert landscape like the Upper Colorado Plateau, however, is highly vulnerable to destruction if humans or livestock tread across it or especially if vehicles tear it up. And if that happens enough, then not only are dust storms more likely to blow up the loose sand, but there will be less storing of carbon and the ecosystem may be set up for what researchers call “succession” — transition into a more extreme desertified state, without as many lichens or mosses and with only cyanobacteria hanging on.
So what does climate change add to this dynamic? To find out, the researchers conducted a long term experiment in which plots of Colorado Plateau biocrust were subjected to either 10 years of warmer temperatures or more rainfall, or 15 years of literal human trampling.
In the climate change scenario, plots of ground were continually warmed by infrared heaters several degrees Celsius above the temperature surrounding them. In the stomping scenario, by contrast, a team of volunteers walked heel to toe, twice, across a plot of land — once per year for 15 years.
The researchers found that in all cases, the effect was more or less the same — a severe blow to the lichens and mosses of the community, leaving behind only the algae or “cyanobacteria,” which proceeded to show an increase that the researchers called “dramatic.”
For instance, while algae made up 81 percent of the biocrust community prior to human trampling, afterward it made up 99 percent. Warmer temperatures had a similar effect.
“We were really surprised,” said Ferrenberg. “We know that walking on them or driving on them kills them. We were really surprised that giving them a bit of extra heat would kill them, and it did.”
The researchers proceeded to observe that while you can protect drylands from humans, vehicles, or livestock — at least to an extent — you can’t switch off global warming. “The effects of warming described here are a great cause for concern, as increasing annual temperatures are a near certainty across dryland ecosystems,” they wrote.
The experiment only looked at one dryland ecosystem, but according to the researchers, biocrust is prevalent in drylands across the globe. “We think this heralds pretty bad news for biocrusts on a global scale,” Ferrenberg said.
And if that’s right, then it doesn’t just mean drylands may not hold in as much carbon any more (which means more of it goes to the atmosphere). It also means they may produce worse dust storms in the future.
So, no, drylands and biocrusts don’t get a lot of attention. But maybe now you can see why, in their paper, the researchers use words like “disconcerting” and “alarmingly” to describe what could happen to them. |
It’s looking like Winnipeg is going to miss another spring snow storm. Snowfall warnings are in place for the extreme southeast corner of the province with Winnipeg more on the cusp, likely limiting the snowfall amounts to 2 to 5 cm instead of the potential 25 cm some places could see by the end of the day.
READ MORE: Snow storm rolls across Manitoba, leaving behind up to 25 cm of snow
Sunday when I was at the office, it was looking like this system, while focused on the southeast corner of the province, would leave a broader area of more significant snow. Now, the snow looks more focused on the extreme southeast corner.
WATCH: Timelapse of storm moving into Winnipeg Monday
Most of the snow we’ll see this week will be during the day, starting to ease up at night.
RELATED: Looking back at the Winnipeg blizzard that led to the Flood of the Century
Heavier snow staying in the SE corner of MB. Snow is #Winnipeg should get lighter this afternoon. 2-5cm by the evening. pic.twitter.com/WcdZxZpj4R — Mike Koncan (@MikeKoncan) April 24, 2017
The rest of the week will likely stay cool. Mornings will be below 0° and daytime highs will stay in single digits. It probably won’t be until the weekend at the earliest before we get back into double digit daytime highs. The cooler temperatures is where the weather models agree. The differences are whether there will be some more rain or snow later in the week.
The GEM model is our Canadian model and the primary one used for most local forecast. It’s looking like a standout with the potential for rain and/or snow later in the week. Not just a little snow too, close to 20 cm. Other models aren’t seeing the same thing and have no precipitation later this week.
The chance of seeing more snow looks slim but it’s worth mentioning that there’s the chance of some rain or snow showing up. Because it’s just one weather model predicting this weather event, it would also be unlikely we would get the full 20 cm if any precipitation did show up. |
At 75, Kollock-Wallace has the posture and muscle tone of a person half her age. She credits a lifetime of physical activity that began when she was a girl in South Carolina. “I have been an athletically inclined person from birth,” she says. “I think I came out kicking.”
All the more reason, says longtime Brownsville resident Bettie Kollock-Wallace, to provide better infrastructure for the many area residents who ride bicycles for transportation and exercise, and for the many more who want to but are scared to try.
The physical distance between a famously contested Prospect Park West bike lane in Brooklyn's upscale Park Slope neighborhood and the city's newest lane, on Brownsville’s Mother Gaston Boulevard, is only about three and a half miles. But the economic gap is huge. Brownsville remains one of the poorest neighborhoods in New York City, with a stubbornly high crime rate .
A new stretch of bike lanes debuted in Brooklyn this week, but this time they're not being met with outrage or protests.
After retiring as an educator, Kollock-Wallace threw herself into a variety of fitness pursuits – becoming a certified physical trainer, learning how to swim and teaching others to do the same as a volunteer at the local recreation center, and riding her trusty 20-year-old Royce Union bicycle.
But the attitude she got from drivers on the street bothered her. “People do not respect bikers,” she says. “They have a tendency to resent them.” Friends and neighbors who might have been interested in riding with her were put off by the hostile environment. “A lot of people have fear of the traffic,” she says.
Bettie Kollock-Wallace worked for two years to bring bike lanes to Brownsville. (Sarah Goodyear)
So she set out to do something about it. Kollock-Wallace serves as the chair of the local community board, a position that has allowed her to advocate for improvements in the neighborhood she's called home for 40 years. One of the improvements she wanted to see was bike lanes. So, back in 2011, she started pushing.
“You see, some of us bloom when we’re old,” she says with a mischievous smile, referring to her role as a community advocate. “You have to either have to have a lot of energy or be a little bit crazy, and I’m some of both.”
The new bike lanes are just one of many efforts by neighborhood partners to increase opportunities for healthier living in Brownsville, including walking groups for seniors and a program that brings fresh produce to the neighborhood.
The Brownsville Partnership worked together with the city’s departments of health and transportation to get community support for the bike lanes, an effort that took two years. A host of other partners, including the advocacy group Transportation Alternatives and the local business improvement district, were also part of the effort.
“It took two years of love, perseverance, and collaboration,” said Rasmia Kirmani-Frye, director of the Brownsville Partnership, as she stood outside the Brownsville Bike Shop on Mother Gaston Boulevard. “Now Brownsville is no longer disconnected.”
Several speakers at the ribbon-cutting emphasized that the lanes would provide a link between the long-isolated streets of Brownsville and the rest of Brooklyn.
In her speech to the modest crowd that assembled for the ribbon-cutting, Kollock-Wallace issued a challenge.
“It is a pleasure to be a model for all of you who are younger than I am,” she said to cheers. “And if you have not yet chosen to be a model, let’s do so today. Everybody’s watching you – everybody’s watching you. So let’s do something that will make people a better people.” |
Last Friday, against the vehement and public urging of his own Attorney General and nearly one hundred of the nation’s most respected legal experts, Governor Bobby Jindal signed Senate Bill 469 into law. Quoting his press release (bold mine):
Governor Jindal said, “This bill will help stop frivolous lawsuits and create a more fair and predictable legal environment, and I am proud to sign it into law. It further improves Louisiana’s legal environment by reducing unnecessary claims that burden businesses so that we can bring even more jobs to our state. The bill will also send future recovered dollars from CZMA litigation to coastal projects, allowing us to ensure Louisiana coastal lands are preserved and that our communities are protected.”
If you’re wondering who, exactly, the law benefits, all you need to do is keep reading Jindal’s press release, which contains this amazing confession. Quoting (again, bold and italics mine):
LOGA President Don Briggs said, “The signing of SB 469 is a huge victory for the oil and gas industry as well as the economy for the state of Louisiana. We commend Governor Jindal for his leadership and support of this bill as it made its way through the process….”
As I mentioned in a previous post, SB 469 was, ostensibly, about stopping a controversial, landmark lawsuit filed by the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East (SLFPA-E) against 97 oil and gas companies for their role in illegally damaging and depredating the state’s coastal environment and ecosystem. But as we now know, the law is about much more than merely ending a single lawsuit by a single governmental authority.
SB 469 appears to have been written and deliberately designed by lawyers who represent the oil and gas industry in order to shield, reduce, or eliminate their clients’ exposure to civil damages on a wide range of pending and future claims, including, most notably, BP’s liability for billions of dollars in outstanding claims related to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon catastrophe. Indeed, according to people intimately involved in the legislative process, no one lobbied harder for the passage of SB 469 than those associated with BP.
With the stroke of the pen, Governor Bobby Jindal likely saved the oil and gas industry billions of dollars in damages for which they otherwise would have been legally responsible, damages that are legitimately owed to hundreds, if not thousands, of hardworking families, businesses, and coastal communities who were devastated by and continue to suffer from the lingering effects of the worst environmental disaster in American history. Governor Jindal may claim this was about ending “frivolous lawsuits” and creating a “more fair and predictable legal environment,” but unfortunately for him, the geniuses on his communications team allowed Don Briggs, the President of the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association, to tell it like it is, “a huge victory for the oil and gas industry.” To be sure, that may actually be an understatement.
This wasn’t about ending frivolous lawsuits or better ensuring a fair and predictable legal environment; it was about rigging the law in favor of the biggest, wealthiest, and most powerful industry in Louisiana (and arguably, the world).
*****
Thomas Enright, the Governor’s Executive Counsel, argues that claims for damages against BP would not be affected by SB 469, because the federal Oil Pollution Act preempts the new Louisiana state law. Notwithstanding the irony and the hypocrisy of Governor Jindal, seemingly for the very first time in his entire career, invoking and championing the preemption doctrine, Enright may very well be correct in his analysis.
But the simple fact is: BP’s lawyers can and will argue otherwise; it’s an issue of first impression that will ultimately be determined by the courts, not by Jindal’s attorney. SB 469 provides a new and novel line of defense. Indeed, Louisiana’s Attorney General and nearly 100 legal experts from the nation’s top law schools all agree. The oil and gas industry’s lawyers know it’s true, too; after all, by Governor Jindal’s own admission, they helped write the law.
Even if Enright is, in fact, right and even if the courts eventually rule against BP, because these issues will take months, if not years, to fully resolve, Jindal’s decision to sign and enact SB 469 almost certainly reduced substantially the anticipated settlement values for thousands of Louisiana citizens. And that‘s why BP stands to gain billions of dollars. Remember, BP has enormously deep pockets; if they wanted to, they could afford to litigate these claims for the next century without ever affecting or even touching their bottom line. The average citizen, however, cannot afford and would never be inclined to wage a war of attrition against BP about the preemption doctrine as it relates to state law conflicting with the Oil Pollution Act.
Remember too, the longer the legal process, the less those who were affected and damaged by BP’s negligence can expect. In a complex case involving billions of dollars, a broadly and vaguely worded new law can have an enormous economic value.
Make no mistake: Governor Jindal understood this. As reported by Patrick Flanagan of The Independent Monthly, Nikesh Jindal, Bobby Jindal’s younger brother, “is an attorney with Gibson Dunn, one of the law firms representing BP against the damage claims… assigned to the division handling BP’s case,” a critical detail and potentially a massive conflict of interest that has never been fully explained or even properly disclosed. If Governor Jindal’s brother Nikesh didn’t explain the stakes to him, Jimmy Faircloth, Jindal’s former executive counsel and longtime confidant, should have. Quoting from The Times-Picayune (bold mine):
Also, the claim that SB 469 got a full public airing isn’t true. The bill was cobbled together late in the session by the governor’s former executive counsel, Jimmy Faircloth, and switched to a different Senate committee hours before a hearing on it. That limited public input. Mr. Verchick pointed out in a response to Mr. Enright Wednesday that the chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee also curtailed debate on the bill.
It’s worth noting that Representative Gordon Dove, the chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, didn’t just shut off debate on the bill; he also refused to read into the record, as is customary, the names of citizens who showed up to support or oppose the bill. If he had, he would have revealed that ten times as many people, almost all of whom were either coastal activists or environmental professionals with no personal financial interest whatsoever, showed up to oppose the bill than those who showed up to support the bill, almost all of whom were being paid by organizations, agencies, and companies with a direct financial interest. (I am in receipt of this documentation and can send it upon request; I’m not posting it out of an abundance of caution, because it contains the home addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses of private citizens).
*****
If it weren’t already obvious that SB 469 had little to do with ending the SLFPA-E’s lawsuit and almost everything to do with broadly immunizing the oil and gas industry from a wide range of otherwise legitimate claims, Governor Bobby Jindal made it abundantly clear only a few hours after he signed the bill into law. Later on Friday, Jindal announced he was replacing Tim Doody, the Chairman and founding member of the SLFPA-E, with a former oil and gas industry insider who openly admitted his biases and ignorance. Quoting from The Advocate (bold mine):
In a second blow to the flood protection authority Friday, Jindal announced that Tim Doody, a St. Bernard Parish resident who has served on the authority since it was created, will be replaced by Tyrone Ben, a fellow St. Bernard resident who works for the Guidance Center, an outpatient behavioral health and counseling center. Doody is the fourth member of the authority who supported the suit to be replaced since the case was filed. With Doody’s replacement, only five of the nine members of the board are on record in favor of continuing the suit. Two more members, one who supports the suit and one who opposes it, are expected to be up for renomination later this year. Ben, who was urged to apply for a seat on the board by former St. Bernard Parish President Craig Taffaro, currently an official in Jindal’s administration, said he did not have a “political agenda” in applying for the seat. Based on his experience working for oil and gas companies, Ben said, he is inclined to believe that because energy companies needed to receive permits for their work, they were already being regulated and the lawsuit was not necessary. However, he said he was willing to listen to those who disagree. “I don’t know anything on the other side of the argument,” Ben said. “I would be open-minded. I would be willing to listen. Evidently they had something that compelled them to file it in the first place.” Jindal officials have said opposition to the suit would be a “litmus test” for all new appointees to the authority, and Ben said he was asked about the case by Jindal administration officials prior to his appointment. “I said if my selection was predicated on that, I might not be the best person for the job,” he said. Because he was appointed after the session ended, Ben will not have to face Senate confirmation until next year’s session. Jindal’s other three appointees were all confirmed by the Senate this year.
Despite Mr. Ben’s equivocations, he was, very obviously, selected to oppose the authority’s lawsuit, and because Mr. Jindal has the opportunity to replace two more members within the year, including one who supports the lawsuit, the Governor will almost certainly have the five votes he needs for the SLFPA-E to withdraw the case within the year. In other words, SB 469 was not necessary at all for Mr. Jindal to ensure that the SLFPA-E’s lawsuit was dropped. That may have been how the legislation was sold to the public, but again, that’s not what the law actually does. Indeed, several legal experts argue that SB 469, due to its purposely sloppy and overly broad statutory language, won’t affect the SLFPA-E’s lawsuit at all.
*****
Before I ask what I believe to be the single question that could destroy Bobby Jindal’s political future, I think it’s important to focus first on what may be the most astonishing accomplishment of his career. To be sure, the accomplishment doesn’t actually belong, exclusively, to him; it also belongs to his wife Supriya.
Only a few short months after he was elected to his first term, Bobby Jindal’s wife Supriya established The Supriya Jindal Foundation, a tax-exempt and tax-deductive charity that provides schools with high-tech whiteboards, a worthy pet cause that immediately was embraced by some of Louisiana’s most powerful companies. In almost no time at all, the Supriya Jindal Foundation went from an up-start that existed only on paper to a full-fledged organization with millions of dollars in the bank. Its astronomical success at immediately cultivating major donors and raising vast sums of money had never been done before in Louisiana, and it provided the new First Lady of Louisiana with the platform and the resources necessary to embark on annual statewide goodwill tours, doling out hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of much-needed technology to teachers and schools.
Unfortunately for Bobby and Supriya Jindal, eventually, people began asking questions about where all of that money actually came from, and once they started asking questions, it didn’t take long to figure out that the Supriya Jindal Foundation was funded, almost exclusively and entirely, by companies seeking special incentives and preferred treatment from the State of Louisiana. Quoting from a 2011 report in The New York Times (bold mine):
AT&T, which needed Mr. Jindal, a Republican, to sign off on legislation allowing the company to sell cable television services without having to negotiate with individual parishes, has pledged at least $250,000 to the Supriya Jindal Foundation for Louisiana’s Children. Marathon Oil, which last year won approval from the Jindal administration to increase the amount of oil it can refine at its Louisiana plant, also committed to a $250,000 donation. And the military contractor Northrop Grumman, which got state officials to help set up an airplane maintenance facility at a former Air Force base, promised $10,000 to the charity. The foundation has collected nearly $1 million in previously unreported pledges from major oil companies, insurers and other corporations in Louisiana with high-stakes regulatory issues, according to a review by The New York Times. …. Dow Chemical, which has pledged $100,000 to the foundation, is the largest petrochemical company in Louisiana and has had numerous interactions with state officials during the Jindal administration, including an investigation into a July 2009 spill at its St. Charles Parish plant that forced the evacuation of area homes. The state in December 2009 proposed fining the company and its Union Carbide subsidiary for allowing the release of a toxic pollutant and failing to quickly notify state authorities of the leak, but so far no fine has been assessed. …. Alon USA, an Israeli oil company that has pledged $250,000 to the Jindal Foundation, last year sought permit changes that would allow it to discharge more pollutants at its Krotz Springs refinery. In 2009, state environmental officials also eased requirements for the company to check for spills of oil, ammonia or other contaminants in waterways to twice a month, instead of twice a week, records show. Several of the charity’s major donors are large state contractors, like Acadian Ambulance, or D&J Construction, which alone has received $67.6 million in contracts since 2009, mostly for highways, said a separate report on the foundation being issued this week by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Both companies have pledged at least $10,000 to the foundation.
Since The New York Times report, the Supriya Jindal Foundation appears to have dramatically scaled back its activities. Aside from a few minor edits, its website hasn’t changed in years. According to its most recently available 990 report, the organization has no employees and only three officers, all unpaid: Supriya Jindal, Jeff Anger, a former lobbyist who runs a political action committee, and Lynn Moore, the wife of Jeff Moore, a member of the LSU Board of Supervisors and a hotelier who inherited his fortune from his family’s oil and gas company.
Perhaps not surprisingly, at the time of The New York Times report, Governor Jindal’s press secretary Kyle Plotkin (who was recently promoted to Chief of Staff) was not too thrilled. Quoting (bold mine):
“It is a completely nonpolitical, nonpartisan organization created by the first lady, who as an engineer and the mother of three children, has a passion for helping our young people learn science and math,” said Kyle Plotkin, the press secretary. “Anything other than this reality has plainly been dreamed up by partisan hacks living in a fantasy land.”
The inability of Governor Jindal and his staff to recognize the enormous concerns raised by the size, the timing, and the source of corporate donations to his wife’s foundation and the arrogant, bombastic dismissiveness with which they treated those concerns were and continue to be troubling.
But if you care about the corrosive influence of money in our political process, the potentiality of a government defined by closed door quid pro quo agreements between elected leaders and their corporate benefactors, then you should be even more alarmed by the newest Jindal non-profit.
*****
Three months after the SLFPA-E filed its landmark lawsuit against 97 oil and gas companies, Bobby Jindal launched America Next, a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization that many immediately perceived to be a launching pad for a 2016 Jindal Presidential campaign.
If, in fact, America Next is nothing more than about promoting Jindal’s candidacy, through the ruse of promoting his “ideas,” (and all indications, thus far, are that it is), then it, undoubtedly, violates federal tax laws regulating and defining 501(c)(4) social welfare organizations. Donations to Jindal’s new organization aren’t tax-deductible, but the organization is still tax-exempt. And perhaps most importantly, as a 501(c)(4), America Next isn’t required to disclose any of its donors to the public.
When Jindal was first elected Governor of Louisiana in 2007, he promised a new era of transparency in government. He campaigned on implementing the “gold standard” of ethics reform. He lambasted the cronyism and corruption that had defined state politics for decades, depicting his opponents as clowns who were willing to do anything for a bribe.
Seven years later, approaching lame duck status, Bobby Jindal is preparing his exit from the Governor’s Mansion by establishing a tax-exempt organization intended to promote his candidacy for national office, and when asked if he intended to reveal the donors to his new organization, Jindal not only refused, he acted as if disclosure of his donors – the very definition of transparency- was nothing more than a trap set by his political opponents. Quoting from The Times-Picayune (bold mine):
During a breakfast meeting with political reporters Wednesday, in which he unveiled a market-alternative alternative to the Affordable Care Act prepared by America Next, Jindal was asked whether he would reveal the group’s financing. He referred the question to the group’s executive director, Jill Neunaber, a former aide to the 2012 Mitt Romney for President organization. It didn’t take long for Neunaber to respond to an email question: “America Next is a 501(c)(4) that will make all disclosures as required by law,” she said in an email. “Beyond that we do not see any reason to give the Obama Administration opportunity to unjustly target conservative donors.”
The glaring truth is: America Next isn’t a social welfare organization, and it shouldn’t be tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(4). It’s an organization of political consultants, led by a woman who most recently worked for Mitt Romney’s campaign, in order to support Jindal’s candidacy, and they’re all hoping that everyone else is too dumb, too lazy, or too scared to call them out for openly breaking the law. If Bobby Jindal wants to build an infrastructure for a 2016 campaign, he should have formed a Political Action Committee; that would have also provided him with certain tax exemptions. But there’s one major difference: Unlike a PAC, 501(c)(4)s aren’t required to disclose their donors.
So, for the next year or two, Jindal hopes we all ignore his blatant disregard of laws that are designed to ensure transparency and the public’s right to know who is paying their elected officials on the side, how much they’re paying, and when those payments are made. Jindal hopes we’ll consider America Next to be his quaint little think tank, and he’s banking on the belief that Louisiana citizens won’t group the donations to his new non-profit with his actions as Governor. But as his wife’s foundation proves, it would be foolish not to look into who is bankrolling his organization.
That’s the single question that could destroy Bobby Jindal’s political future: Who? |
Posted on September 11, 2011 in Articles
The President ordered from Costco for the Osama Bin Laden watch party. Turkey pita sandwiches, cold shrimp, potato chips. The White House’s comfort food of choice to witness the end of the world’s most wanted man.
“Now entering Pakistan,” CIA director Leon Panetta narrated over the big screen. Joe Biden kneaded rosary beads. Hillary Clinton covered her face in shock. But President Obama looked on. Stone-faced.
“GERONIMO. EKIA.”
Geronimo. The code name for Osama Bin Laden.
EKIA. Enemy Killed In Action. Osama Bin Laden had been shot in the head.
A hushed silence. “We got him,” President Obama said finally, quietly. A pause. Then the backslapping, the high-fiving all around. “We got him.”
With that Obama grabbed a sandwich to go and marched upstairs to tell the nation.
****************************************
Osama Bin Laden was irrelevant by 2011. Al Qaeda, decimated by Drone attacks from above, infighting from within, and reviled across most of the Muslim world. But the visceral joy was still there. That sneering, bearded mug of barbarity was shot in the head. By an American bullet.
The mystique died next. Turns out, Osama Bin Laden was not a hardened ascetic denouncing the West from a snow-capped mountain pass. Instead, he reclined on the third floor of a million dollar compound forty miles from Pakistan’s capital. He was a vainglorious media junkie who dyed his beard for his next video. He spent his time looking at a) himself on TV and b) porn.
Osama Bin Laden was protected not by legions of hardened Mujahideen fighters but two well-to-do Pakistanis and their children. A private family that kept to itself with no phone-lines. They burned their trash indoors lest anyone riffle through the refuse.
He spent his final days listening to the pitter patter of children’s feet. Buffalo crowning a yard over. And that cloudless night the incoming roar of four U.S. helicopters and then gunfire. He was shot once in the head, once in the back, before his body was unceremoniously dumped somewhere in the Indian Ocean.
A decade after September 11, Osama Bin Laden was not the savior of the Muslim world but its scourge. His name sneered, not chanted. A decade later, Osama Bin Laden was no longer the bearded totem of resistance to American imperialism. He was the crutch of Hosni Mubarak, Muammar Gaddafi and the region’s other loathed strongman who argued they alone could safeguard against him.
A decade after 911, America rebuilt the World Trade Center taller than ever. It is the façade of Arab strongmen that tumbled. The rusted rebar and rubble expose depraved men clinging to fists full of petro-dollars. Their towering walls of brick and mortar no match for the pixellated Facebook walls of ones and zeroes. Social media did not topple Mubarack. The audacity of Tahrir Square did. But social media helped the rage go viral. Skyping, tweeting its way from Tunis to Hama. They were felled by students, lawyers, and bloggers who knew simply there must be another way.
In the end, Osama Bin Laden felled two skyscrapers in New York but no governments. He is survived by three wives, a moribund al Qaeda network, and an Arab world freer in spite—not because—of his cruelty.
****************************************
You know where you where when you first heard the news.
Blackberry-faced New Yorkers peered up from their smart-phones and asked strangers simply, “Did you hear?” Mets and Phillies fans cast aside their divisional rivalry and chanted “U-S-A! U-S-A!” NBC pulled away from Donald Trump’s “Celebrity Apprentice”.
Ten years after 911, we have not had our The Naked and the Dead. Or our Apocalypse Now, though The Hurt Locker comes the closest. The pain is still too visceral. The timing, still too soon.
Instead, Hollywood churns out a lineup of souped-up but ultimately forgettable war flicks. Jarhead, The Green Zone, The Kingdom, Body of Lies, etc.—box office disappointments rich in sparkling CGI explosions but light in historicity. Again and again, they depict testosterone junkies defusing IEDs, battling terrorists and themselves. Troops enduring ephemeral moments of action in between months of endless wait.
We placate ourselves with 23 minute episodes of mindless voyeurism. Guys fantasize living like Vince. Girls keep up with the Kardashians. Vicarious living remains our flash-bulbed escape of choice from years of interminable war and unemployment.
Satire became our coping mechanism of choice. The Onion and Comedy Central spoofed every hue of the color-coded alarm system. Only fake news could make sense of the jangled last decade of ours. When Walter Cronkite passed away in 2009, Time Magazine polled who was this generation’s equivalent. Answer: Jon Stewart (44%) throttling the Big 3’s real newscasters Brian Williams (29%), Charlie Gibson (19%), and Katie Couric (7%).
Trey Parker and Matt Stone skewered bombastic American jingoism with puppets and a rock ’em sock ’em soundtrack to match:
****************************************
President George W. Bush didn’t feel like eating. He was in a booth in a Dallas restaurant when the Secret Service agent whispered in his ear. He felt no joy. His steak lost its flavor.
He thought back to that impromptu U-S-A rally on the Ground Zero rubble. He remembered his crackling fastball right down the pike at Yankee Stadium. Most of all, he remembered that Oval Office speech to the nation.
His Texan twang became the voice of certainty to a superpower that saw red. He ordered the world to pick sides with a “You’re either with us or against us” Manichaeism. And the world did not pick terrorism, but the world did not pick President Bush either. The War on Terror polarized into us vs. them, black vs. white absolutes.
But what followed was a slippery slope decent into the murky underworld of secret CIA prisons and the grayish nether reaches of legality and morality. Water-boarding, suspending habeas corpus, Abu Ghraib, torture—the lasting buzz words of the War on Terror smacked more of a Medieval Inquisition than that of the world’s lone super power in the early 21st century.
Everything Iraq was supposed to be—an Islamic threat to regional stability, hell-bent on nuclear power—Iran was. The CIA learned Saddam Hussein fabricated his WMD bluster out of fear towards Iran. But Bush was chastened. His political capital spent. He listened to Condoleezza. He fired Rummy and talked Israel down from a bombing run. And the centrifuges in Nawaz kept on spinning…
And the WMDs finally did go off in New York City. But they were the ones Warren Buffett warned us about. They were the ones concocted, not in bunkers outside Baghdad, but in AIG and Citi boardrooms throughout midtown Manhattan. Built not out of yellow cake but of the mortgages on yellow houses, unbridled derivatives, and money our homes weren’t worth.
Now President Bush resigns himself to a lifetime of swatting away knowing-what-you-know-now hypotheticals. Of warding off regret. And clinging to that Churchillian argument: I kept us safe.
President Bush had enough. He pushed his plate aside, settled up, and went home to reflect. Alone. |
Players who surprised us in October
This time categories were inspired by music and are devoted to the in-game events. First two players took part in the “Still waters” event:
All the heroes in this compilation will receive the in-game title “Five minutes of fame”.
Don’t be afraid to experiment and maybe you will be among our heroes in the future!
“Comin' in on a Wing and a Prayer”
It’s hard to say whether Elephant777 has something personal against FW-189 or he just enjoys the mission. Anyway he managed to complete the goal 60 times! Congratulations!
“Stronger Than All”
Husarz44 proved his skill in the Simulator mode of this event. Almost every mission he took part in was victorius. A true ace!
Next two categories are connected with Halloween events:
“Night witches”
We can’t say that we are surprised with the winner in this category. Meet the mighty Po-2 races master - Fins_FinsT! He is virtually the best racer in War Thunder!
“Highway to hell”
Hellcat on a spooky ride - korban_mihail proved to be the best in these tank competition leaving everyone else behind.
“Through the fire and flames”
Some people complain that it’s incredibly difficult to reach a destroyer whilst flying an aircraft. Vlad44644 thinks otherwise - he is the most efficient bomber pilot in War Thunder when it comes to fighting destroyers.
The War Thunder Team |
When Rogers Communications began promoting its Rogers@Home high-speed Internet service nearly a decade ago, the company branded it "the Internet on Cable." Years later, their service, as well as those of their competitors, is gradually morphing into "the Internet as Cable" as broadcasters, Internet service providers, and cultural groups steadily move toward the delivery of content online that bears a striking resemblance to the conventional cable model.
Announcements, Events & more from Tyee and select partners ‘Punch to the Gut’ Musical on Residential Schools Returns to Vancouver Children of God has been shaped by intense audience reactions, says director Corey Payette.
While cable television has its virtues -- some consumer choice, the ability to time shift programs by recording them with a VCR or PVR, and video on-demand offerings -- it is largely premised on limited consumer control. Cable distributors determine channel choices, geographic distribution, and commercial substitution (with input from the broadcast regulator), offer only limited interactivity, and quietly even possess the ability to stop consumers from recording some programs.
Until recently, the Internet was precisely the opposite, offering unlimited user choice, continuous interactivity and technological capabilities to copy and remix content. That is gradually changing as broadcasters seek to re-assert greater geographic control over their content, ISPs experiment with cable-like models for prioritized content delivery, and some creator groups lobby the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission to adapt Canadian content regulations to the Internet.
Broadcasters find the Net
The re-emergence of geographic borders on the Internet coincides with broadcasters finally jumping on the Internet bandwagon, as they race to make their content freely available online. Some U.S. broadcasters are selling downloads through services such as Apple iTunes or Amazon.com, yet the unmistakable trend is toward free, ad-supported streaming of content mere hours after it first appears on commercial television.
Each major U.S. broadcaster already offers a handful of shows in this manner with ambitious plans to expand their services in the months ahead. NBC and Fox recently unveiled Hulu.com to some critical acclaim, while Comedy Central created a new site for the popular Daily Show that features a complete archive of eight years of programming.
Canadians, alas, are generally locked out of these sites due to licensing restrictions. Canadian broadcasters have been scrambling to buy the Internet rights to U.S. programming, both to protect their local broadcasts and to beef up their online presence. U.S. broadcasters may eventually decide it is more profitable to stream their content on a worldwide basis and to remove longstanding geographic restrictions; however, for the moment they are parceling up the Internet as they would a broadcast destined for multiple cable markets.
No 'Daily Show' site for you!
This geographic bordering extends beyond just blocking streamed content. The new Daily Show site is off-limits for Canadians since the U.S.-based Comedy Central recently took the unprecedented step of redirecting Canadian visitors to the CTV-owned Comedy Network site.
Broadcasters are not alone in working to bring the cable model of control to the Internet. Large ISPs are engaged in similar activities, with a history of blocking access to contentious content (Telus), limiting bandwidth for alternative content delivery channels (Rogers), and raising the prospect of levying fees for priority content delivery (Bell).
There have been similar developments in other countries. For example, when earlier this year the BBC launched its Internet-based iPlayer, which allows United Kingdom residents to access BBC content online, several broadband providers floated the prospect of charging the BBC for delivering its content on their networks.
Going for control
Several Canadian cultural groups apparently see a parallel opportunity to institute greater control and regulation on the Internet. Last week, ADISQ, which represents the Quebec recording industry, joined forces with 17 other groups to argue that if ISPs can prioritize content for commercial gain, they can be required to do something similar to advance Canadian culture.
Those claims conveniently ignore the multitude of Canadian online success stories, including Têtes à claques, Glacticast, thousands of bloggers, hundreds of podcasters, and video streams from everyone from political parties to the Toronto Maple Leafs. Creators ought to be pushing for guaranteed equal treatment online, yet together with the CRTC, some are now actively discussing adapting Canadian content requirements to the Internet, a move that only a few years ago seemed politically improbable and technically impossible.
These issues may ultimately sort themselves out.
Users have many easily-obtainable tools to defeat geographic blocking, ISPs may find themselves subject to net neutrality legislation if they continue to abuse the public's trust by failing to maintain their networks in a transparent, neutral fashion, and cultural groups may come to the realization that regulatory approaches that mandate content requirements are doomed to failure in a world of unlimited content choice.
Yet as the Canadian broadcasting community gathers in Ottawa this week for an annual meeting called Broadcasting Redefined, it appears that the redefinition of the Internet as Cable has begun.
Related Tyee stories: |
Sound isn’t usually the first thing that comes to mind when you’re playing a mobile game. But that could change if RJDJ co-founder, Michael Breidenbruecker, gets his way.
In an interview, Breidenbruecker described the company’s latest app, Dimensions and the potential of sonic augmented reality applications, a genre so bleeding edge that his company’s apps may be the first entries to it.
Breidenbruecker is a co-founder of last.fm, the web music service that tracks, or scrobbles, the music its users listen to across a variety of environments, devices, and software applications. He is also the founder of RJDJ, the mobile app company that created Inception – The App, which is based on the movie of the same name. Inception- The App takes gamers through a multi-level dream space, allowing them to move through and experience dream state to dream state, collecting ephemera and unlocking new dreams in the process.
Dimensions has a similar concept, moving between dimensions, but is based on sound – that of the environment the user is in. Breidenbruecker calls the back-end technology here King Kong Context Detection Technology, a title which he says was created “because it sounds more fun than the technical terms.” The app is a trippy sonic experience, creating an almost hallucinogenic trip through one’s own life activities.
Inspired by games like Shadow Cities and Epic Win, RJDJ wanted to create a game that connects to the things we do in our real life. Contextual cues form the kernel from which the game experience can create a sonic environment. In Dimensions, there’s also a GPS/Google Maps component, with players seeking out glowing “Quantum Cells,” a kind of currency that players use power a beam used to gather artifacts and repel enemies.
Ultimately, though, Breidenbruecker is interested in the bigger ideas, like Will Wright’s HiveMind ideas, which he read about right here on VentureBeat. The app developers at RJDJ wanted to create a game where players didn’t need to focus on the game at all times – to make a game that could be played in real life, rather than only on the touchscreen. He says, “When we started to talk about that, and we read what Will Wright is up to at the moment, we realized that the whole genre is starting to happen here, which was super interesting and new.”
He’s also aware that being the first to a new genre isn’t always a guarantee of success. Being a little too far ahead of the curve could alienate users who don’t quite grasp the concepts of a game like Dimensions. “This has never been done before,” said Breidenbruecker. “Usually it’s never the first one that makes it happen, but it’s too good of an idea not to do it!”
While the company continues to work on the technology behind an app like this, they aren’t willing to rest on their laurels. He spent a couple of minutes teasing the idea of a future project involving the contextual engine behind the Dimensions app. “Your phone is always with you – there’s lots of talk recently about carrier IQ – in the end, we can actually create so many more services out of the personal connection between phone and human,” says Breidenbruecker. Collecting data is a neutral activity – we all do it. However, he says, “it’s more about what you do with the data. Last.fm is, ultimately, spyware. Collect the data openly and honestly – neighbor radio, personal charts, etc. It’s about “context” data.”
Sounds like a man with a plan, doesn’t it? While we can’t speculate on what’s next for such a groundbreaking concept and talented team of individuals like RJDJ, we’re sincerely planning on keeping an eye on whatever comes out of the London-based studio in the coming months. |
I just set up a friend's PC. I haven't done that in a while.
Wow.
Apparently, a computer is now not a computer, it's an opportunity to upsell you.
First, the setup insisted (for my own safety) that I sign up for an eternal subscription to Norton. Then it defaulted (opt out) to sending me promotional emails. Then there were the dozens (at least it felt like dozens) of buttons and searches I had to endure to switch the search box from Bing to Google. And the icons on the desktop that had been paid for by various partners and the this-comes-with-that of just about everything.
The digital world, even the high end brands, has become a sleazy carnival, complete with hawkers, barkers and a bearded lady. By the time someone actually gets to your site, they've been conned, popped up, popped under and upsold so many times they really have no choice but to be skeptical.
Basically, it's a race to the bottom, with so many people spamming trackbacks, planning popups and scheming to trick the surfer with this or that that we've bullied people into a corner of believing no one.
You can play along, or you can be so clean and so straightforward that people are stunned into loyalty. You know, as in, "do it for the user," and "offer stuff that just works" and "this is what you get and that's all you get and you won't have to wonder about the fine print."
Rare and refreshing. An opportunity, in fact. |
Vice President Joe Biden is known for his speeches. But there is one particular speech Biden gave that I've never forgotten. I remember seeing it on TV, half-listening, and then, all at once, realizing Biden was saying something I had never heard him say before, something I had never heard any politician say before.
On May 25, 2012, Biden spoke to families of fallen soldiers and described the appeal of suicide.
"I probably shouldn’t say this with the press here," Biden said, "but no, but it’s more important, you’re more important. For the first time in my life, I understood how someone could consciously decide to commit suicide. Not because they were deranged, not because they were nuts, because they had been to the top of the mountain, and they just knew in their heart they would never get there again."
It's a startling speech — and it's particularly startling to hear Biden give it. Biden is America's most happy-go-lucky politician. The internet delights in pictures of him eating ice cream cones, flattering grandmothers, smiling that big smile. The Onion has created an alternative-universe Biden, a guy who loves crushing beers while washing his Trans-Am shirtless.
But the real Joe Biden doesn't drink. There's too much alcoholism in his background. And the real Biden isn't as carefree as his public persona suggests. The real Biden buried his wife and one of his children before he turned 30. But somehow, he keeps smiling.
When you think of what Joe Biden's endured and what he's like, he seems to get something right about life that most of us don't. — Michael Grunwald (@MikeGrunwald) May 31, 2015
In 1972, a week after Biden was elected to the Senate at the age of 29, his wife and daughter were killed in a car crash. They had been out Christmas shopping, and they were hit by a tractor trailer. His sons were also hospitalized. It wasn't clear that they would survive. If they did survive, there might be brain damage.
In his book What It Takes, the late Richard Ben Cramer described the scene that confronted Biden at the hospital:
The doctors came out to find him: "We lost Neilia and the baby." The boys were still being worked on— broken hips, legs, arms. Beau was all cut up, and Hunter— concussion. Doctors weren’t sure ... brain damage possible. They’d have to transfer Hunt— another hospital, top pediatrics ... they had to get Beau into traction [...] They moved the boys to a private room. The boys’ legs were going into spasms. Shots, IVs, traction. Joe wouldn’t leave. He focused. The boys. This boy. His leg. Raise the bed. That lever. That cloth. Wet the cloth. ... His boys were all that was left. [...] Sometimes he thought it would be easier ... if he were the only one left ... then he could kill himself. It was the boys, kept him alive.
Biden's political career almost ended before it began. He almost resigned his seat before he took it. But he ended up taking the oath of office. He took it at the side of Beau's hospital bed.
Biden took his 1973 Senate oath at the bedside of his children who were injured in crash that killed his wife. pic.twitter.com/DDqwcucsD9 — Andrew Kaczynski (@BuzzFeedAndrew) May 31, 2015
In the decades after, Biden would commute to and from Washington on the train, trying to get home each night to see his children. In a recent speech at Yale, he said that bond with his sons was his "redemption":
I began to commute thinking I was only going to stay a little while — four hours a day, every day — from Washington to Wilmington, which I’ve done for over 37 years. I did it because I wanted to be able to kiss them goodnight and kiss them in the morning the next day. No, "Ozzie and Harriet" breakfast or great familial thing, just climb in bed with them. Because I came to realize that a child can hold an important thought, something they want to say to their mom and dad, maybe for 12 or 24 hours, and then it’s gone. And when it’s gone, it’s gone. And it all adds up. But looking back on it, the truth be told, the real reason I went home every night was that I needed my children more than they needed me.
Biden's son Beau was diagnosed with brain cancer in August 2013. In November of 2013, after treatment, the cancer seemed beaten. It returned in May 2015. And now Joe Biden will have to bury another child.
In that 2012 speech, Biden talks about the constant weight of grief. "Just when you think, ‘Maybe I’m going to make it,’ you’re riding down the road and you pass a field and you see a flower, and it reminds you. Or you hear a tune on the radio. Or you just look up in the night. You know, you think, ‘Maybe I’m not going to make it, man.' Because you feel at that moment the way you felt the day you got the news."
Biden doesn't end the speech easy. He doesn't say the grief ever goes away. He just says, eventually, it makes room for other things, too.
"There will come a day – I promise you, and your parents as well – when the thought of your son or daughter, or your husband or wife, brings a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eye," Biden says. "It will happen." |
Crime is down in Louisiana, but the state still holds the ignominious title of “the world’s prison capital.”
An exposé by the New Orleans Times-Picayune found that Louisiana incarcerates more people per capita than any other state or country in the world. One out of every 86 adults is behind bars, which is nearly double the U.S. average.
This means Louisiana’s prison rate is nearly three times higher than Iran ’s, seven times more than China ’s, and 10 times that of Germany
For African-Americans from New Orleans, one in 14 is in prison, and one out of seven is either in prison, on parole, or on probation.
Overall, Louisiana’s prison population has doubled over the past 20 years.
“The hidden engine behind the state’s well-oiled prison machine is cold, hard cash,” wrote Cindy Chang at the Times-Picayune. “A majority of Louisiana inmates are housed in for-profit facilities, which must be supplied with a constant influx of human beings or a $182 million industry will go bankrupt.”
For-profit prison operators include several “homegrown” companies, as well as many of the state’s rural sheriffs, especially those in remote parishes like Madison, Avoyelles, East Carroll, and Concordia.
“A good portion of Louisiana law enforcement is financed with dollars legally skimmed off the top of prison operations,” Chang reported.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
To Learn More:
Wanted: Criminals to Fill Empty Prisons (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov) (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov) |
How did people figure out that the distant "father" of 1 in 200 males alive today lived 800-1200 years ago? Or that the father of all humans ("Adam") was alive 40-50,000 years ago? These estimates come from looking at differences in the Y chromosome over time. But wait a minute you might be saying. You just said that we can use the Y chromosome for historical studies because it can't recombine and so stays constant. Notice I said earlier that the Y chromosome passes from generation to generation virtually unchanged. It does change a little over time because of random mutations (nothing is perfect including copying DNA). It is these rare mutations that let scientists date when things have happened in the past. Scientists use DNA to estimate when things have happened in the past by assuming a certain rate of mutations over time. Let's say that the Y chromosome gets 1 new mutation/generation (much higher than the actual rate). If this is the case, then if two people have 10 differences between them, then they are 10 generations apart. The mutation rate scientists have used in the past was based on circumstantial evidence because there was just too much DNA to sequence. Until now. For the first time, groups in Indiana and New Hampshire have figured out a mutation rate based on sequencing huge amounts of DNA from lots of the roundworm, C. elegans. How much DNA? An astonishing 4 million base pairs -- an impossible number just a few years ago. What the researchers found was that the mutation rate was 10 times higher than previously believed or around 2 mutations/generation for C. elegans. There are possible reasons that given the way the experiment was done, the mutation rate might have been artificially high. But, if the new number is true, it calls into question all sorts of things. For example, partly based on DNA evidence, scientists believed that chimps and humans separated about 5 million years ago. Was it actually 500,000 years ago? Humans began their migration out of Africa 100,000 years ago. Or was it 10,000? Did "Adam" live 50,000 or 5000 years ago? Some of these new numbers are obviously wrong. From archeological digs, we know there were people in Europe, Asia, and even the Americas more than 10,000 years ago. From fossil evidence we know that chimps and humans separated more than 500,000 years ago. Obviously, then, more work needs to be done to get at this critical number. And if the mutation rate isn't constant over time, we may never be able to get a good number. In the meantime, the work done here will need to be repeated lots more times before we begin rewriting history. With the advent of new sequencing technologies, we are now able to do experiments undreamed of just a few years ago. |
Supporters of the public option want it to remove the profit motive as an obstacle to medical care, and also to menace the private insurance companies that they generally view as greedy and mean. At times, some lawmakers seemed to favor the public plan simply because private insurers hate the idea.
In Congress, opponents view the public plan as a dangerous expansion of government, creating a new entitlement program that would ultimately drive the country further into debt. Even though the Congressional Budget Office said the plan would have little impact on insurance premiums, the opponents fought it as a grave threat.
The preliminary agreement hailed by Mr. Reid was hatched in a series of meetings among 10 senators, 5 of them liberals and 5 centrists. It seeks to address all of these concerns and, more than anything, to vault Senate Democrats over the biggest obstacle to locking down 60 votes for their larger health care bill.
To satisfy the centrists, including Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, who flatly threatened to vote against the health care bill if it included a public plan, Mr. Reid’s agreement would remove the public option as an immediate offering for people who gain insurance coverage.
To satisfy the liberal Democrats, including Sherrod Brown of Ohio and John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, the agreement calls for the creation of a new menu of national insurance plans, modeled after those offered to more than eight million federal workers, including members of Congress, and their dependents.
The new insurance plans would be overseen by a federal agency, the Office of Personnel Management, which now runs the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program and directly negotiates prices and benefits packages with private insurance companies. The private firms eagerly participate because of the large customer base.
The deal also keeps the public option as a fallback, to be “triggered” if private insurers do not step up to offer the new national plans. Such a fallback was included in the Republicans’ Medicare drug bill; it was never needed.
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It is unclear whether Mr. Lieberman would ultimately accept a bill with the public plan on a trigger; he reiterated on Wednesday that he opposes the idea. But it could appeal to Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, the only Republican senator to support any version of the health care legislation (she backed it on the Finance Committee). Her support is still being courted aggressively by the White House.
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Designing the new national plans to resemble the insurance coverage offered to members of Congress also holds enormous political appeal. It would provide additional choices to consumers, and it gives the entire program an aura of a government plan even though the policies would be issued by private firms like Blue Cross or Aetna.
In recent days, many Senate liberals angrily warned that they were done making concessions, saying they had already moved from a public plan tied to Medicare rates, or 5 to 10 percent above Medicare, to a much weaker plan that would negotiate rates with providers.
Mr. Reid’s version of the bill would also let states opt out of the program.
“We have compromised four times on the public option,” Mr. Brown had said. “There is no more movement on the public option.”
“Many people wanted to do Medicare for all, but that was never in the cards here,” he added. “We have moved three or four or five times on this, and those days are over.”
In the end, the liberals had no choice, and they moved again. But not without winning concessions in return, including an expansion of the ultimate public plan, Medicare. The agreement announced by Mr. Reid calls for allowing people from age 55 to 64 to buy coverage through Medicare beginning in 2011.
While it is not Medicare for all, it is Medicare for more than under current law, and the liberals view it as a major improvement for people nearing retirement, who face some of the biggest obstacles to obtaining insurance and pay some of the highest prices if they get coverage.
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At first, those who want to buy in to Medicare coverage will have to pay full cost. But once provisions of the bill take effect that will provide subsidies to moderate-income Americans, those subsidies could be used to buy either private insurance or coverage through Medicare.
That liberal senators in the negotiations were bargaining from a position of strength was largely due to the strategic efforts of Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, who ranks third in the Democratic leadership, and who pressed Mr. Reid to include a public option in the bill.
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Mr. Reid, Mr. Schumer and many others realized that further negotiation on a public option was inevitable if they were to have any hope of enacting the health care bill as a whole. The question that arose, as Mr. Reid combined rival versions of the legislation that were developed by two Senate committees, was whether a public option would be in or out of the bill at the start.
By including the public option in his blended bill, Mr. Reid, who faces a tough re-election campaign in Nevada next year, briefly transformed himself into a huge champion of the party’s leftward base. He held a big news conference to announce that he would defy centrist opponents and include the public option in the bill.
But the force behind the scenes was Mr. Schumer, who pressed for the public option on the more right-leaning Finance Committee, and began working closely with liberals. As a result, northern liberals in the Senate may have more clout at the moment that at any point since the days of Hubert Humphrey.
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Mr. Reid also continued his own strategic maneuvering. When a compromise on the public plan did not bubble up from conversations between a handful of lawmakers, Mr. Reid designated the Team of 10 that ultimately negotiated the agreement.
He tapped Senator Mark Pryor, Democrat of Arkansas, as the leader of the centrists — a move to help bolster the resolve of Mr. Pryor’s fellow Arkansan, Blanche Lincoln, who is up for re-election next year and had expressed deep reservations about voting for a bill that included the public plan.
And to show liberals that he was not trying to sell them out, Mr. Reid also invited Senator Russ Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, to join the group, knowing that Mr. Feingold’s pasts willingness to be a lone voice for the left would make clear that supporters of the public plan were not being set up.
Still, the liberals did not get everything they wanted. There were discussions of broadening the Medicaid expansion in the bill by raising the income eligibility threshold to 150 percent of the federal poverty level from 133 percent. That proposal was deemed too expensive, and risked angering governors and was dropped.
And another demand, to finance the Children’s Health Insurance Program through 2015, which would otherwise expire in 2013, now depends on further cost analysis by the Congressional Budget Office.
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The preliminary deal may not hold. If any part of the cost analysis shows that the price tag of the bill is climbing too far, the agreement may have to be reworked.
Already some senators on the Team of 10 have refused to commit themselves to supporting the overall bill until they see how things shake out.
Senator Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska and a centrist who has expressed deep skepticism about the legislation, was part of the group. He went along with the agreement reluctantly, some Democrats said, and only because the need for cost analysis meant nothing was really decided just yet.
And even if Senate Democrats reach consensus, the wrangling over the public plan is not finished. The health care bill approved by the House includes a government-run plan, and convincing the more liberal House Democratic caucus to drop it will not be easy.
Compromise in some ways, however, seems inevitable.
The fight over the public plan has never been about its short-term impact. Opponents fear it will lead down a slippery slope to a fully government-run, single-payer health system like those in many European countries.
Many of the most ardent supporters hope that it will lead down a slippery slope to a fully government-run, single-payer health system like those in many European countries. But that was not about to happen anytime soon.
For now, the Senate Democratic leadership and the White House are hailing the tentative deal as a breakthrough — even though most Democrats in the Senate have not even been briefed on the details.
Mr. Schumer, however, expressed confidence. “The feeling is if the 10 people in the room come to an agreement,” he said before the deal was announced, “it doesn’t guarantee everybody, but it’s a pretty broad reach into the caucus.” |
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Jan. 25, 2017, 4:08 AM GMT / Updated Jan. 25, 2017, 4:25 AM GMT By Kristen Welker and Alex Johnson
President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order Wednesday to begin paying for a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border, a senior administration official told NBC News on Tuesday night, taking the first step toward fulfilling his marquee campaign promise.
The official, who asked not to be identified, said Trump would likely sign the order — which would shift money from other federal programs to the wall project — during an appearance Wednesday at the Department of Homeland Security, the parent agency of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
The official said Trump still intends for Mexico to end up paying for the wall eventually.
The president signaled the move on Twitter on Tuesday night.
The specific effect of the order remains unclear, as Congress would have to approve any extra appropriations.
Trump's promise to build a wall and to "make Mexico pay for it" were keynotes of his presidential campaign. He said in an interview on CBS's "60 Minutes" on Nov. 13, five days after he was elected, that he would accept building a fence instead of a wall "in certain areas."
The senior administration official said many more immigration-related executive orders are expected this week. |
Is tomorrow’s tech giant today’s microcap beverage company?
Investors apparently think so, as shares of an extremely small beverage company soared on the news that it would be changing its focus to blockchain, the decentralized ledger technology that is best known as the underpinning to cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.
Long Island Iced Tea Corp. US:LTEA on Thursday said it was rebranding to become Long Blockchain Corp., and that it was “shifting its primary corporate focus towards the exploration of and investment in opportunities that leverage the benefits of blockchain technology.”
The stock nearly quadruped at its peak of the session. After closing at $2.44 on Wednesday, it jumped as high as $9.49, its highest level since June 2016. It closed at $6.91, up 183% on the day. Nearly 15 million shares exchanged hands, significantly higher than its 30-day average, which is below 275,000.
Before the day’s move, the stock had been down more than 40% in 2017, and as of Thursday’s close, it had a market capitalization of about $24 million. The below chart shows the company’s stock performance over the past two years.
Courtesy FactSet
The company did not immediately return a request for a comment. In a press release, it wrote it is “dedicated to becoming a significant participant in the evolution of blockchain technology that creates long term value for its shareholders and the global community by investing in and developing businesses that are ‘on-chain’.”
It added that “blockchain technology is fundamentally changing the way people and businesses transact, and the company will strive to be at the forefront of this dynamic industry, actively pursuing opportunities.”
The press release also linked to a corporate website, where the company wrote it was “already in the preliminary stages of evaluating specific opportunities involving blockchain technology,” including potential partnership, investments, or acquisitions. One of these “opportunities” involves “a London-based FCA regulated, institutional provider of FX services that is building multiple blockchain and digital crypto currency technology solutions for global financial markets.”
The company added that it “does not have an agreement with any of these entities for a transaction and there is no assurance that a definitive agreement with these, or any other entity, will be entered into or ultimately consummated.”
Long Island Iced Tea’s most recent investor presentation, released on Oct. 5, made no mention of blockchain or any upcoming change in focus. A five-point section on “company direction” referenced international expansion, “market execution,” and “distribution transformation,” among other attributes. In a section on 2017 “brand history,” the company noted a new bottle design and partnerships with venues like the Barclays Center sports arena.
A description of the company’s product line said it was “disrupting lemonade category with premium liquid attributes.”
Courtesy Long Island Iced Tea Corp.
The company is not the first stock to see a boost from this kind of announcement. Earlier this month, the former On-Line PLC. surged nearly 200% after it said it would change its name to On-Line Blockchain PLC. UK:ONL Separately, the stock of LongFin Corp. LFIN, +2.56% went from under $5 to more than $140 in less than a week after it said it would buy blockchain technology provider Ziddu.com. Many analysts have said these moves are reminiscent of how companies in the 1990s tech boom saw short-term boosts after adding “.com” to their company name.
Blockchain has been one of the hottest areas on Wall Street this year, because it is seen as a way to indirectly play digital currencies like bitcoin, many of which have themselves seen massive price appreciation in 2017. Bitcoin BTCUSD, +0.26% has gone from under $1,000 at the start of the year to nearly $20,000; it last traded at $15,281.29, down 7.1% on the day. Ether, the second-largest digital currency, has risen by a factor of nearly 100 thus far this year.
Read: Here’s what bitcoin’s monster 2017 gain looks like in one humongous chart
Some have called blockchain the most transformative technology since the internet, and the potential use cases are seen as vast. In October, UBS wrote that blockchain was “akin to investing in the internet in the mid-nineties,” estimating the technology could add as much as $300 billion to $400 billion of annual economic value globally by 2027. Blockchain “is likely to have a significant impact in industries ranging from finance to manufacturing, health care and utilities,” among other market sectors, the bank wrote.
Don’t miss: Why a dot-com-style collapse in bitcoin won’t kill blockchain |
Man Threatens To Smash Actor James Woods Over the Head with a 2×4 — Quickly Learns He Made a HUGE MISTAKE!
On Saturday evening, Hollywood star James Woods was threatened by Matthew E. Jacob of Huntington, Long Island, according to the firebrand conservative’s Twitter page. Jacob foolishly threatened Woods, not once, but twice. HUGE mistake!
“if I see you in the street I will hit you over the head with a 2 x 4,” threatened Jacob.
Woods quickly took a screen shot of the threat and tweeted it to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, pondering if “Twitter will actually do anything if a conservative is threatened.”
So I've been directly threatened with violence. Let's see if @Jack and @Twitter will actually do anything if a conservative is threatened. pic.twitter.com/1XaWhbrU1R — James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) August 20, 2017
Jacob also warned Woods that he was “the first person” he’s coming for when the next Civil War breaks out.
For the record this is one of his other threats before his account was suspended. #MatthewEJacob pic.twitter.com/iWoPjG6yBs — James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) August 20, 2017
Woods then mentioned the threat of violence was made “across a state line and in response to a political statement.”
“That would be a violation of my civil rights.”
Forgot to mention it was across a state line and in response to a political statement. That would be a violation of my civil rights. @FBI pic.twitter.com/odRvpqQPvV — James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) August 20, 2017
How did Woods figure out the identidy of the man who threatened him? The bozo linked his Instagram account to his Twitter account. Doesn’t take a MENSA member (which James Woods is a proud member of with an IQ of 180) to hide your personal information if you’re going to make threats of any kind.
“The guy threatens to bash my head in on @ Twitter and then links to his @ Instagram account with his bike with his license plates. # Idiot“
It appears Jacob then deleted his Instagram account.
The guy threatens to bash my head in on @Twitter and then links to his @Instagram account with his bike with his license plates. #Idiot https://t.co/3RFSgQYLGr — James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) August 20, 2017
Twitter promptly suspended Matthew Jacob’s account following Woods’ complaint. Note Jacob’s threat is no longer visible.
“You are not going to have wait to see me in the street. Your life just changed forever,” warned Woods.
You are not going to have wait to see me in the street. Your life just changed forever. https://t.co/C3xO6fpCww — James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) August 20, 2017
Woods then confirmed Jacob’s account was suspended.
“His account was suspended. For the record he is Matthew E. Jacob of Manhasset, Long Island. Further info I can give to police would help.”
His account was suspended. For the record he is Matthew E. Jacob of Manhasset, Long Island. Further info I can give to police would help. — James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) August 20, 2017
I want to thank @TwitterSupport for the prompt and decisive response to the violent threats made by #MatthewEJacob while he stalked me. pic.twitter.com/bqBQJ7b8ht — James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) August 20, 2017
Like a true badass, Woods reveals to one of his followers that he has a security guy who can “vet anybody in thirty minutes.”
“Not my first threat. But it will be his last.”
You mean the bike from Bozeman? I have a security guy who can vet anybody in thirty minutes. Not my first threat. But it will be his last. https://t.co/3RFSgQYLGr — James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) August 20, 2017
If things weren’t already bad for Jacob at this point, Woods then tweets a photo of the man.
“And by the way he is not a kid,” says Woods.
And by the way he is not a kid. He closed his account, but… pic.twitter.com/8ZmENbZ2uy — James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) August 20, 2017
But the Hollywood star didn’t stop there. Instead, Woods launched a hashtag with the man’s name.
“#MatthewEJacob”
Amazing!
Fans then joined in on the hashtag.
It's time to hold people like #MatthewEJacob accountable and force them to deal with the consequences for their actions. #LawAndOrder — Jeri (@RealJeriVerzijl) August 20, 2017
Wrong move #MatthewEJacob ! Hopefully at some point you will learn not to threaten people. #Coward #Vigilante #Loser — Monica Jualz (@Monica_Jualz) August 20, 2017
https://twitter.com/WeronikaKuzniar/status/899139862309158912
#MatthewEJacob is threatening to hit @RealJamesWoods in the head. You must be mad, James Woods is an MIT grad, his mind is irreplaceable. https://t.co/nBrD1VFCmb — BrainyOlivia (@brainyolivia) August 20, 2017
#MatthewEJacob is having the worst Summer ever right now..! — Dan P'asta (@topdnyc) August 20, 2017
https://twitter.com/cannabossleaf/status/899139920169709568
I Reported #MatthewEJacob . Everyone else should do the same. — 🇮🇹 JohnnyHorror 🥶 (@RedRumINSIDI0US) August 20, 2017
#matthewejacob is going to learn a very big lesson soon! — CheriLeigh (@ThisisSherri) August 20, 2017
Woods told his 790,000 Twitter followers he was filing a report the next morning.
I'm filing charges with the police in the morning for making terrorist threats and stalking. #MatthewEJacob https://t.co/6RrRbwZKxZ — James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) August 20, 2017
Woods then told his followers to stand up to people making threats.
“I urge all those harassed with violent threats to document the crimes promptly with @ TwitterSupport. It helps police, FBI and attorneys.”
I urge all those harassed with violent threats to document the crimes promptly with @TwitterSupport. It helps police, FBI and attorneys. — James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) August 20, 2017
Huntington, not Manhasset. Bad cut and paste. Sorry. Huntington https://t.co/PeU9cnYqyG — James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) August 20, 2017
It’s safe to say Matthew E. Jacob learned a very valuable lesson. Never threaten anyone on Twitter. And for the love of G-d, whatever you do, DO NOT mess with James Woods! |
Police are investigating a report of a man being assaulted by a group of people protesting President-elect Donald Trump in St. Paul on Wednesday night.
Police were called to Regions Hospital about 10:30 p.m. after a man checked in with facial injuries.
The 42-year-old man told police he had just gotten off the Green Line light rail’s Dale Street stop and was walking on the University Avenue sidewalk near Marion Avenue when he was approached by four people, whom he estimated to be in their late teens.
The man said the four accused him of voting for Trump, and the man replied that he did not, according to a police report.
The group — including three young black men and a young white woman — continued to badger him, noting he was white, so he must have voted for Trump, police said.
They then accused him of sympathizing with police, and the man said he didn’t have a problem with police, had never been arrested, and had no reason to dislike them.
He told the group that he was gay, so he made a habit of not judging others because he didn’t want to be judged.
Two of the men then hurled slurs about the man’s sexuality and punched him in the face repeatedly, he told police.
Police observed that the man’s face was badly bruised and swollen under one eye, and the man noted that he recently had eye surgery, and was in great pain.
The man asked police not to release his name as he feared for his safety.
When the man did not fight back, the group veered away to join the protesters, and the man fled.
Police have made no arrests in the incident.
On Wednesday evening, hundreds marched down University Avenue from the state Capitol in St. Paul. Similar protests erupted across the country in response to the Republican Trump’s upset victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton in the presidential election. |
The history of Nexus
Nexus started as a vision of improving the Bitcoin protocol and at the same time cleaning the cryptosphere from scam coins.
Lead Developer Colin Cantrell (Viz) studied the foundations of the Bitcoin Core code, understanding how Satoshi structured Bitcoin and identifying opportunities for improvement. At this time, the altcoin market was being flooded with scams and pump and dump schemes where coins pushing promises, buzz words, and the allure of quick profits were used to swindle BTC from communities. Fom Vizs vision, Coinshield (CSD) was born.
The first CSD block was mined on September 23, 2014 at 16:20 UTC-7, and the project soon-to-be named Nexus was live. At that point, the project had one channel of mining: a Prime Mining channel (CPU). On October 23, 2014, the Hashing (GPU) channel was launched as the second proof channel. The blocks included a first-ever subsidy, where a portion from each mined block would be sent to one of 13 developer accounts and another portion would be sent to one of 13 exchange accounts. On January 24, 2015, CSD was listed on Bittrex Exchange.
Shortly afterwards, Viz drafted the first whitepaper that outlined how the network would work to recycle and merge the economies and communities of these scam coins. The goal was to help the people in those communities, bring them into the CSD community, and at the same time help clean up the cryptosphere. The exchange accounts would be used to merge these economies by exchanging the coins for a portion of CSD.
On April 11, 2015, Viz announced the intention to rebrand to Nexus. Discussion pursued about the ticker symbol, and NIRO was chosen to represent Nexus. On July 24, 2015, Nexus version 2.0 was released with Nexus Proof of State (nPOS) and the introduction of the Trust Network. This laid the foundation for the broader scope of Nexus.
At the beginning of September 2015, Videlicet revealed his identity as Colin Cantrell. In October 2015, a more formal team was formed to promote development, build the community, and market Nexus. The ticker symbol was revised to NXS. Discussions on Nexuss direction led to the decision to abandon the recycling and merging that was part of the Coinshield project. The technical work required to implement the merging was done, but with the explosion in the number of new cryptos, the process would have had little impact. Therefore, Nexus began to develop into something much more expansive. The project had a whole new direction.
Nexus still seeks to help carry on Satoshis dream of decentralization, and as such continues to work on improving the Blockchain protocol. Some of how it works, its goals, specifications, and features are described further in this post. For a more complete explanation, please read the Nexus whitepaper.
Nexus: Under the hood
Decentralized Decentralization
Consensus
Trust-based Proof-of-Holding
Security
Scalability
Spaced-Based Blockchain
Specifications
Nexus improves upon the Bitcoin protocol:
Current features:
3 consensus channels: Every channel reinforces the others to prevent 51% attacks on one channel, forcing attacker across multiple channels.
Hashing: Nexus uses a combination of different hashes, including Keccak-1600, Skein-1024, SK-576, SK-512, and SK-256.
SK-1024: Using Skein-1024 and Keccak-1600 for GPU PoW to produce a 1024 bit output hash used for the block hash providing the highest security.
Prime: Searching for Dense Prime Clusters as CPU PoW, finding these clusters of numbers that are ~308 digits to verify prime density in large numbers.
Keys: 571 Bit Private Keys compared to 256 bit in other currencies. Using NID_sect571r1 as the algorithm.
Difficulty: Calculated with time overlaps and true % over bounds, using weighted block average over past 5 blocks.
LLP: Lower Level Protocol as a template protocol to allow any protocol to be created with ease without need for repeated network programming.
Core LLP: Protocol responsible for time keeping as an advancement to NTP, keeping clocks on the network synchronized within a few seconds of one another. Maximum clock drift for Nexus is 10 seconds.
Mining LLP: Dedicated Mining Protocol outside of JSON-RPC Server to allow the greatest performance for mining. Protocol can handle 5k + connections allowing solo mining of any magnitude.
No Reward Halving: Rewards are calculated along an exponential decay curve to slowly reduce the value of each block rather than shock both miners and the market with block reward halving which acts as a rudimentary decay model.
Released Reserves: Decayed amounts are deposited into the Reserves for each channel, preventing a miner from being able to mint more than the projected amount while difficulty is compensating to their amount of computing power.
Fractional Rewards: When reserves are below given thresholds, the mining reward is then based off of the time it took to create a block preventing a miner from ever being able to deplete the reserves.
Decentralized Checkpoints: Every 60 minutes, the Nexus protocol automatically creates a checkpoint. This prevents blocks from being created or modified dated prior to this checkpoint, thus protecting the chain from malicious attempts to introduce an alternate blockchain.
Trust Keys: The minting rate increases the longer a node secures the blockchain, incentivizing nodes to actively stake. This increases the difficulty for successfully attacking the network, as nodes with greater Trust are more likely to find new blocks.
Nexus Proof of Holding: Nexuss Proof of Holding system is based upon the Peercoin protocol, completely recoded and redesigned from scratch, utilizing an efficiency threshold, trust keys, and logarithmic weights to create the fairest and most stable staking system to date.
Developer Commission: The Developer Fund fuels ongoing development and is sourced by a 1.5% commission per block mined, which will slowly increase to 2.5% after 10 years. This brings all the benefits of development funding without the associated risks and limits the control which can exerted by the developer account.
The Ambassador (renamed from Exchange) keys are funded by a 20% commission per block reward. These keys are mainly used to pay for marketing, and producing and launching the Nexus satellites.
Planned features:
Reversible Transactions: Transaction can be reversed if below expiration time by sending transaction void to the network.
Two-Way Signatures: Receiver of transaction will be required to sign to prove ownership of txout before it will be processed. This will prevent burning coins by accident.
Trust Network: Using Trust Keys and more sophistication in Checkpoints will create a Trust Network in which nodes will be given the opportunity to vote on checkpoints and blocks to agree on set blockchain. This will prevent a rogue node from trying to manipulate the network.
Sync-less Wallets: Using the Trust Network as a backbone and the LLP for the protocol, will allow wallets to remain sync-less by processing transactions in the Trust Network.
HTML5 Wallet: Probably coming sooner rather then later, essentially building up a clean simple HTML5 wallet using qt web server. Will have all the great visuals that HTML5/CSS3 provides. Most likely coming before transaction features to have a cleaner GUI to integrate more functionality into.
Double Spend Protection: Using input locking and checking on reorganizations, can prevent a transaction from ever being able to be overwritten by a longer blockchain after a checkpoint eliminating any threat of 51% attacks.
LLL Integration: Once the Library including Static and Dynamic Databases is finished, next will be integrating LLP, LLD, and LLS with possible LLE for encrypted communications and high efficiencies in protocol responses and data storage. Every channel reinforces the others to prevent 51% attacks on one channel, forcing attacker across multiple channels.Nexus uses a combination of different hashes, including Keccak-1600, Skein-1024, SK-576, SK-512, and SK-256.Using Skein-1024 and Keccak-1600 for GPU PoW to produce a 1024 bit output hash used for the block hash providing the highest security.Searching for Dense Prime Clusters as CPU PoW, finding these clusters of numbers that are ~308 digits to verify prime density in large numbers.571 Bit Private Keys compared to 256 bit in other currencies. Using NID_sect571r1 as the algorithm.Calculated with time overlaps and true % over bounds, using weighted block average over past 5 blocks.Lower Level Protocol as a template protocol to allow any protocol to be created with ease without need for repeated network programming.Protocol responsible for time keeping as an advancement to NTP, keeping clocks on the network synchronized within a few seconds of one another. Maximum clock drift for Nexus is 10 seconds.Dedicated Mining Protocol outside of JSON-RPC Server to allow the greatest performance for mining. Protocol can handle 5k + connections allowing solo mining of any magnitude.Rewards are calculated along an exponential decay curve to slowly reduce the value of each block rather than shock both miners and the market with block reward halving which acts as a rudimentary decay model.Decayed amounts are deposited into the Reserves for each channel, preventing a miner from being able to mint more than the projected amount while difficulty is compensating to their amount of computing power.When reserves are below given thresholds, the mining reward is then based off of the time it took to create a block preventing a miner from ever being able to deplete the reserves.Every 60 minutes, the Nexus protocol automatically creates a checkpoint. This prevents blocks from being created or modified dated prior to this checkpoint, thus protecting the chain from malicious attempts to introduce an alternate blockchain.The minting rate increases the longer a node secures the blockchain, incentivizing nodes to actively stake. This increases the difficulty for successfully attacking the network, as nodes with greater Trust are more likely to find new blocks.Nexuss Proof of Holding system is based upon the Peercoin protocol, completely recoded and redesigned from scratch, utilizing an efficiency threshold, trust keys, and logarithmic weights to create the fairest and most stable staking system to date.The Developer Fund fuels ongoing development and is sourced by a 1.5% commission per block mined, which will slowly increase to 2.5% after 10 years. This brings all the benefits of development funding without the associated risks and limits the control which can exerted by the developer account.The Ambassador (renamed from Exchange) keys are funded by a 20% commission per block reward. These keys are mainly used to pay for marketing, and producing and launching the Nexus satellites.
UPDATES TO BE INCLUDED IN FUTURE RELEASES
Updates Planned for the Full 0.3.0 Release include:
1. LLD database integration.
2. Trust Key Depreciation Update
3. Many new RPC commands for increased utility and Block Explorer performance.
4. LLP Updates.
5. Reworking of the nPOS system for increased difficulty.
Nexus uses 3 consensus channels to maximize decentralization and provide fast, secure transactions. Each channel has an independent difficulty algorithm, amongst other checks and balances, to prevent a single channel from monopolizing block production and compromising the security of the network. Nexus channels include a Prime channel (CPU Mining), a Hashing channel (GPU Mining), and Nexus Proof of Holding (nPOH).Nexus takes the proof-of-stake system developed by Peercoin, and combines it with a Trust-based weighting system to create the Proof-of-Holding consensus mechanism. Nodes receive a Trust rating that is established by their contributions to the network, which increases over time. Nodes with greater Trust are granted an increased minting rate, which increases from 0.5% to 3% within one year, the longer you build Trust on the network.Nexus aims to be one of the most secure blockchains in the world by increasing decentralization, and implementing quantum resistance. Using multiple consensus channels greatly reduces the risk of a 51% attack, as an attacker would need to control all 3 channels. A set of checks and balances prevents an individual channel from being able to compromise the entire network.Nexus uses a combination of SHA3 hashing algorithms combined with 571 bit private keys and 512/1024 bit proof of work, to make Nexus one of the worlds leading quantum-resistant blockchains.Furthermore, Nexus is developing an evolving key signature scheme to keep an accounts public keys obscured even when making transactions. This is made possible by moving away from addresses based on public key hashes, and implementing a new system called Signature Chains.While other blockchains consider larger block sizes or off-chain payment channels in an effort to increase transaction throughput, the Nexus 3DC proposes another solution, allowing Nexus to scale completely on-chain.Transaction processing is distributed across multiple channels working synergistically to increase transaction throughput as resources increase. Individual channels verify transactions, consolidate verified transactions into Merkle trees, and add finished blocks onto the blockchain. The Unified Time protocol enables transaction processing, trust locks, and block locks to be consistent throughout time. The potential of Nexus 3DC is limited only by node count and represents the most energy-efficient consensus system to date.As decentralized as blockchain technology strives to be, it nevertheless remains dependant on traditional infrastructure. By combining the decentralized blockchain software, satellite and ground based mesh networks, and a large team of passionate people, Nexus is focused on gaining a high degree of autonomy from external influences. By placing our own communication infrastructure in space, the network wont be susceptible to government jurisdiction (similar to international waters).Nexus is actively building relationships within the aerospace industry to allow for the hardware infrastructure to be compatible with its transaction system. |
As the backlash against Judge Aaron Persky grows, new details regarding his lenient six-month sentence for convicted rapist Brock Turner continue to emerge. The latest is truly appalling, and finally explains the thinking behind the otherwise inexplicable sentence. A transcript of the Brock Turner sentencing hearing quotes the judge as saying, "I take him at his word." Yes, you heard that right: He believes Turner's version of the events.
Believe it or not, it gets worse when you hear the full context. Turner's lawyer had argued at the June 2 hearing that Turner admitted to "digitally penetrating" the women, but that Turner claims he recalls the victim giving consent. Judge Persky believed him. Here's what he said: "I mean, I take him at his word that, subjectively, that's his version of events. The jury, obviously, found it not to be the sequence of events." In essence, this implies the judge disregarded the jury's conviction and used his own judgment to decide the punishment for the three felony charges.
According to The Washington Post, Judge Persky also remarked that Turner's regret or guilt was real — despite Turner never accepting the charge. Post reporter Susan Svrluga wrote, "He said he believed Turner felt genuine remorse." But then he also acknowledged that the victim didn't think Turner acknowledged what he'd done. "In essence, [Judge Persky] said the defendant doesn’t have to agree with the verdict to feel truly sorry," Svrluga pointed out.
This can only further undermine the judge's decision. Persky was already under fire for saying that a longer prison sentence "would have a severe impact" on Turner. He gave the former Stanford student six months in county jail even though the DA had asked for six years in state prison.
The victim described her experience in a letter which went viral. "I am a human being who has been irreversibly hurt," she wrote, explaining why she thought such a lenient sentence was a mistake. She said that the judge "should not create a culture that suggests we learn that rape is wrong through trial and error."
On Tuesday, a letter was published from a juror which accused the judge of disregarding the jury's convictions in the case. "It seems to me that you really did not accept the jury's findings. We were unanimous in our finding of the defendant's guilt and our verdicts were marginalized based on your own personal opinion," he wrote in a letter to Judge Persky which was published in the Palo Alto Weekly.
Given the the contents of this transcript, it would seem the juror is dead right. More than a million people have signed petitions to recall Judge Persky, but signatures need to be collected in Sara Clara County to do so. |
Walt Disney Studios Japan has announced that Studio Ghibli 's Princess Mononoke and The Cat Returns anime films will ship on Blu-ray Disc in Japan on December 4 for 7,140 yen (about US$72) each.
The Princess Mononoke Blu-ray will include subtitles in Japanese (original script and retranslation of English dub ), English, French, German, Korean, Cantonese, and Mandarin, as well as audio tracks in Japanese, English, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Finnish, Korean, German, Cantonese, and Mandarin. Video extras for the release include original storyboards that can be viewed alongside the film, the recording script, the " Mononoke Hime in USA" video (about 20 minutes long), and a collection of trailers.
The Cat Returns Blu-ray will include subtitles in Japanese, English, French, German, Korean, Cantonese, and Mandarin, as well as audio tracks in Japanese, English, French, German, Korean, Cantonese, and Mandarin. Video extras for the release include the " Ghiblies episode 2" short (in Japanese with Japanese and English subtitles), original storyboards that can be viewed alongside the film, the recording script, the "The Birth of The Cat Returns " documentary (about 34 minutes long), and a collection of trailers.
Studio Ghibli 's official international Twitter account revealed on July 20 that it is "working on Mononoke Blu-ray subtitles."
Thanks to WTK for the news tip |
During Thursday's debate, Republican frontrunner Donald Trump said that the answer to America's gun problem is, well, more guns: "I am a Second Amendment person. If we had guns in California on the other side where the bullets went in the different direction, you wouldn't have 14 or 15 people dead right now. If even in Paris, if they had guns on the other side going in the opposite direction, you wouldn't have 130 people plus dead."
Trump was articulating the "good guy with a gun" myth: the idea that the answer to shootings — like those in San Bernardino, California, and Paris — is having more people with guns to stop violent perpetrators.
But the research clearly shows that Trump is wrong. Time and time again, the empirical research has found that more guns lead to more gun deaths, and that the US's easy access to guns in fact contributes to gun homicides.
More guns mean more gun deaths
The theory behind the mantra of "a good guy with a gun" is that more people should be armed so they can be ready to defend themselves and others from an active shooter.
But the research suggests that's plainly false: When there are more guns and gun owners, there are far more gun deaths. Studies have found this to be true again and again — for homicides, suicides, domestic violence, and violence against police.
Here's one chart, from a 2007 study by Harvard School of Public Health researchers, showing the correlation between statewide firearm homicide victimization rates and household gun ownership after controlling for robbery rates:
A more recent study from 2013, led by a Boston University School of Public Health researcher, reached similar conclusions: After controlling for multiple variables, the study found that a 1 percent increase in gun ownership correlated with a roughly 0.9 percent rise in the firearm homicide rate at the state level.
This holds up around the world. As Vox's Zack Beauchamp explained, a breakthrough analysis in the 1990s by UC Berkeley's Franklin Zimring and Gordon Hawkins found that the US does not, contrary to the old conventional wisdom, have more crime in general than other Western industrial nations. Instead, the US appears to have more lethal violence — and that's driven in large part by the prevalence of guns.
"A series of specific comparisons of the death rates from property crime and assault in New York City and London show how enormous differences in death risk can be explained even while general patterns are similar," Zimring and Hawkins wrote. "A preference for crimes of personal force and the willingness and ability to use guns in robbery make similar levels of property crime 54 times as deadly in New York City as in London."
THE US APPEARS TO HAVE MORE LETHAL VIOLENCE — AND THAT'S DRIVEN IN LARGE PART BY THE PREVALENCE OF GUNS
This is, in many ways, intuitive: The prevalence of guns can cause petty arguments and conflicts to escalate into deadly encounters. People of every country get into arguments and fights with friends, family, and peers. But in the US, it's much more likely that someone will get angry during an argument, pull out a gun, and kill someone.
These three studies aren't the only ones to reach similar conclusions. Multiple reviews of the research, including the Harvard Injury Control Research Center's aggregation of the evidence, have consistently found a correlation between gun ownership and gun deaths after controlling for other factors.
So chances are a good guy with a gun will not stop a bad guy with a gun. In fact, trying to produce more good guys with guns could make gun deaths far, far more frequent.
Watch: America's biggest gun problem is the one we don't talk about |
With the recent completion of the men’s D-1 NCAA basketball tournament, I started thinking about all of the other sports that universities offer and how the championships of those games, outside of football, are not easy to find on TV.
The harsh reality of college sports is that football and men’s basketball are the only two sports that generally cover their own program costs when factoring in scholarships. For some schools, even the men’s basketball program works out to about a break-even status, while at large universities, football can be such a revenue-positive sport that it about makes up the entire budget of athletic departments.
A few years ago, UCLA decided to make the “C” on their basketball jerseys gold to signify 100 NCAA championships across the various sports they offer. At the time, they were the first school to cross that threshold. I decided to see if that was still the case.
UCLA does still hold the title for most championships with 113, but not by much. Stanford is only 4 behind UCLA (not counting 2017 championships) with 109 while USC has 102.
Looking at the chart above, one conference – the Pac12 – does seem to dominate in D-1 athletics. The conference has the top three schools in championships and 5 of the top 16. UCLA absolutely dominated in men’s basketball for years while USC did the same in football. However, winning the BCS championship counts just as much as winning women’s water polo on this list. All three of the top schools have done very well in sports that you can rarely find on TV.
Moving down the list, there really are not a whole lot of surprises, almost every school listed has a major athletics department that focuses on churning out Olympic-caliber athletes.
The surprise of the bunch comes in at #12 – University of Denver – which competes in several different conferences depending on the sport. Even so, the school holds 31 D-1 championships, 7 in men’s hockey, one in men’s lacrosse, and perhaps unsurprisingly, 23 in skiing. Those skiing championships help put it over perennial powerhouse football schools like Florida, Oregon and Ohio State.
More: Unwinding Madness: What Went Wrong with College Sports—and How to Fix It…. |
While losses by the Dallas Cowboys and Houston Texans caused a dip in the market for Super Bowl tickets, demand and prices are still high for the big game in two weeks.
On SeatGeek, the ticketing platform I co-founded, the average ticket to this year’s Super Bowl has resold for an average of $5,101 as of Sunday. If prices hold steady at this level, it will be the most in-demand Super Bowl SeatGeek has seen since it started tracking the market in the 2010 season.
Prices fell quite a bit following the Cowboys defeat last weekend - as seen in SeatGeek’s Super Bowl Ticket Tracker the average price paid for a ticket dropped by about $1,000 in the 24 hours following that game. However, over the past week prices have crept back up.
This has likely been caused by the makeup of the four remaining teams. Three of them are legacy NFL franchises with rich histories along with recent successes, and the fourth has never won a Super Bowl in team history.
Prior to last season SeatGeek studied how much each NFL team impacts ticket prices on the road. It may come as little surprise that the Green Bay Packers, Pittsburgh Steelers and New England Patriots were the top three teams on that list. All of these teams caused prices to basically double when they came to town, a trend that has continued for this season.
In that same study, the Atlanta Falcons were shown to actually cause a decrease in prices. While that may be the case during the regular season - and when the study took place the Falcons were coming off a 6-10 season - the Super Bowl is a totally different story. Outside of Texas, where the game is taking place, Georgia has been the state with the most interested fans looking to buy Super Bowl tickets on SeatGeek in the week leading up to the conference championships.
While those fans may have been getting a bit ahead of themselves at the time, the Falcons 44-21 victory over the Packers on Sunday made sure that there will be plenty of black and red in NRG Stadium come Feb. 5.
All of this has led to an average resale price of more than $5,000. While some tickets can be had for around $3,500, those who want prime seats are going to spend close to $10,000 a ticket.
However, the good news for fans thinking of buying tickets is that in five of the past six years we have seen prices drop between the conference championship games and the Super Bowl. Last year the average resale price of a ticket sold after the conference championship games was 25% less than those tickets sold before the matchup was set. |
Mr Pink has Milan deal?
By Football Italia staff
There are reports that Poe Here Ying Wangsuo, known as Mr Pink, has agreed a deal to take over 75 per cent of Milan.
There has been much speculation in recent months that current President Silvio Berlusconi will sell the Rossoneri, with Thai property tycoon Bee Taechaubol also interested.
However, Tuttosport is this morning carrying reports from Hong-Kong’s Next Magazine that a deal has been agreed with Wangsuo, also known as Mr Pink.
Next Magazine believes that a deal was agreed on March 7 between Berlusconi and Mr Pink which would see the Chinese businessman take over three quarters of the club’s shares over the next three years.
The story echoes reports from earlier this month, which were accompanied by a picture of the former Italian prime minister signing paperwork with Mr Pink.
The entrepreneur’s nickname stems from his range of energy drinks, which are popular in North America. |
Police Detective David Edward Abbott, a member of the Northern Virginia-Washington D.C. Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, committed suicide Tuesday before law enforcement could arrest him on suspicion of sexually abusing minors.
Abbott, you will recall, was the detective in the noteworthy teen sexting case from July 2014, in which the authorities sought a warrant to take the 17-year-old male suspect to the hospital, inject him with a drug that would give him an erection, photograph his genitals, and compare the photo with existing pictures of his genitals the police had confiscated from his 15-year-old girlfriend’s phone.
The teen was eventually sentenced to one year of probation. Here’s the kicker: Abbott sued the teen’s lawyer for defamation. The lawyer, Jessica Foster, remarked to the media that the warrant to take pornographic pictures of her client—to be used as evidence that he was guilty of creating child pornography—was “crazy.”
“Who does this?” Foster had said. “It’s just crazy.”
Abbott said the comments caused him severe emotional distress; he claimed he was threatened and called a pedophile, according to NBC.
Authorities now believe Abbott was a pedophile. He had inappropriate contact with two young boys, ages 11 and 13, according to patch.com. Police attempted to arrest him at his home earlier today, but he refused to surrender and eventually shot himself.
While this outcome is certainly a tragedy for his family, the revelations about Abbott should underscore two things: His treatment of the 17-year-old in the sexting case was unconscionable, and laws criminalizing sexting between teens are intrusive and easily abused. There actually was a truly depraved sexual monster in this case, it just wasn’t the teenager. |
I've always been a huge fan of the sour gummy worms and my secret santa sent me a 5 lb bag!! These may last me like a week knowing me... As far as the book on Greece, I have this beautiful pen pal in Greece that I would really like to meet in person. I would also like to visit Greece one day because it looks so beautiful! Maybe not too soon though, given their socioeconomic conditions. But this book will remind me greatly of my friend there.
This was an awesome gift. I really appreciated the note inside. It was very encouraging and just really nice to read. My Secret Santa told me to go visit while I can! I'm not sure how well we would be able to communicate in person because she is still working on her English skills hahaha.
Loved the gift. Merry Christmas to you, Secret Santa. |
Bill Maurer is an anthropologist at the University of California, Irvine. He is one of a few scientists of the Arts who researched virtual currencies like Bitcoin. In this interview he explains what Bitcoin can tell us about money in the early 21th century – and why he finds it weird to think that money needs to be a commodity.
“ … and from the beginning it was clear that we’d have to research this!”
Hello Bill. You’re an anthropologist researching money and Bitcoin. How does this stick together? What question do the Arts have for Bitcoin?
Yes, I’m an anthropologist. Almost all of my research was about law and economy. I was looking at finance, how the offshore economy was received in local communities in the Caribbean, and that got me interested thinking more deeply about money. How do people understand money? How do they use money to express ideologies or to foster relationships?
In 2007/2008 I researched the interface between money and new technologies. When Bitcoin came along, I was in the middle of a study about mobile phones and money in sub-Saharan Africa. We were thinking about the implications of mobile phones on money. How do digital transactions change the conversations about mobile money, not in terms of security or encryption, but more in terms of cultural effects?
And then came Bitcoin. I remember clearly: I was sitting in a cafe, working on something else with my students. Then someone told us about Bitcoin, we downloaded the original Satoshi whitepaper describing the concept, and from the beginning it was clear that we’d have to research this.
What was the question of your research?
The first questions were: What is it? And why is it so interesting for people? We talked to technologists and scientists and found out that Bitcoin promises a future of nearly real time transactions, but in fact it will never be as fast as credit cards. And yet it is something a lot of people are interested in and invested money in. Why? What can Bitcoin tell us about money in the early 21th century? Why are people talking about money again?
Why in this specific historical moment had money become an issue again? How was Bitcoin capturing so much attention in this moment in the history of money.
“Can we remake money? How can we make it different?”
One of the most disturbing experiences most people make with Bitcoin is that nobody is neutral. Everybody seems to be ideologically and emotionally involved. Did you find an explanation why?
Yes, I feel the same. The high level of emotional investment tells you something about the fact that money right now is being profoundly ungrounded. It is up for question. Since the end of World War II money had been relatively stable in people’s minds. But with the rise of the Internet and mobile and social computing, people are starting to think, if money is just data, just bits and bytes, can we remake money? How can we make it different? How can we think about it and value it?
There have been several different ways of thinking about money, different theories. Bitcoin reflects one of them. For several centuries the state was in the possession of the means of money making, but with the Internet, we can do it ourselves. This is not an idea Bitcoin brought into the world, it has existed for some time. Do you know the LETS movement?
No, what is it?
It stands for Local Exchange Trading System.
Ah, in Germany we call it “Tauschring”, I think.
Yes, wikipedia confirms this. Bitcoin is very similar to them. The LETS usually depend on a central account keeper. Bitcoin is similar in that it depends on accounts-keeping, but it eliminates the need for a central authority keeping track of transactions. So one strand of Bitcoin is very much like LETS, communitarian and mutualistic, but in the same time, and that’s a point of contradiction, Bitcoin is doing this without the need for trust. Community means usually trust, trust in leaders, in the people making up the community, but in Bitcoin it’s just trust in code.
On the other side, what is also interesting with Bitcoin, is that it continues a long history of thinking money as a natural commodity like gold.
What does that mean?
This line of thought thinks that money to be valuable it needs to be a commodity and it needs to be scarce. In the history of money this is a weird decision.
Sorry? What?
It’s weird because money has depended for a long time on credit and debt. In the west we also have over the centuries the imagination of money as a natural commodity.
You think money as a commodity is not a realistic option, but a wish and imagination?
Yes, it goes back to our origin story of money in the west. In our origin story, it begins with bartering, but barter becomes difficult, when I don’t have what you need. So the idea is that we need some kind of standard of value everyone can agree to. Here it gets tricky, for people who believe in money as a natural commodity, that people like something like gold and silver as money, because it’s rare and shiny …
“That money needs to be scarce however is an idea from goldbugs.”
But gold and silver have been used for a long time as money.
It was not used as much as people think. All you need is a system of IOUs [= I Owe U], what means debts. The Babylonians mostly recorded transactions on tablets, without the need for gold and silver. They used a system of receipts, without needing money. They did start valuing this things with silver only because silver was brought to temples and useful for this purpose. Money is really more about accounting than about having a natural commodity to use in exchange.
And Bitcoin? Is it not money in this sense?
What’s really interesting now is that Bitcoin, as a currency, is scarce and follows the same kind of logic than gold, but on the other side, we have the blockchain, that is like an ancient recording system. Like the early Babylonians used. But Bitcoin itself, the currency, the way Satoshi designed it, he designed it as scarce, and that captured people’s imaginations because it reminded them of our origin story about gold.
So Bitcoin the commodity-money is more like a chimera of money?
I don’t know if I would use that word. I think that Bitcoin is really a store of money. That money needs to be scarce however is an idea from goldbugs, you know the term? Bitcoin is money for digital goldbugs. But the blockchain itself is pretty interesting. It’s not a chimera, it’s an interesting contractual technology.
Goldbugs is a term for people that only trust scarce resources like gold but not fiat-money. Mostly they are rooted in libertarian ideologies, which are also strong in Bitcoin communities. Did you research the connection between libertarians and Bitcoin?
Bitcoin started with people imagining money without a state. That is a libertarian idea. Even PayPal was founded by libertarians, by people that thought PayPal will be the start of the end of state’s money. Then it met the idea that the Internet can unleash a world without a state, which is silly, because the Internet is a product of the state.
We are in a historical time where libertarians are on the rise, they gain traction in a generalized discourse about theories of economic crisis.
This may be in the US. In Europe it seems more that some kind of right-wing gain traction, but they are not necessarily bound to libertarian ideas. In Germany the new right-wing are connected to libertarian ideas, while in France the Front National is more socialistic …
Really? Europe is crazy. In the US we have a strong movement for libertarian ideas as a result of explanations of the economic crisis, what is crazy, since it was a result of the free market …
How about other ideologies in Bitcoin communities? Is it only libertarianism, or do you see other strong ideologies?
I guess libertarians are really the dominant strain of participants in the Bitcoin world. But there also are people re-imagining property itself, like Ethereum, and this seems related to but different from the libertarianism of others in the Bitcoin communities. There is also a more communitarian strain. The ideologies are not necessarily restricted to libertarianism, but in general I would say, Bitcoin reflects the imaginations of the Internet: the idea that the Internet allows us to build things ourselves. This ignores the fact that we build things not by ourselves, but through Google and Facebook and internet service providers and the like, and these companies in fact support the state and are supported by it. People know this but they still think and say, yes, we are directly connected to one another through the Internet and we can do it—whatever we want—ourselves. |
The Australian government was aware of the US National Security Agency's top-secret Prism program at least two months before the Guardian revealed its existence to the world.
A freedom of information request by the ABC has confirmed officials in the Attorney General's Department prepared a secret briefing for the minister on Prism in March 2013, more than two months before the first story was published revealing the electronic surveillance and data mining program undertaken covertly by US agencies.
The ABC's FoI request has confirmed that a protected brief was prepared for the Australian attorney general on Prism on 21 March 2013. That document was withheld from release by the Attorney General's Department on national security grounds.
The broadcaster was given access to three other documents related to Prism. Large chunks of the documents were redacted, including sections of talking points prepared for ministers and officials about what effect Prism would have on the privacy of Australians, and an analysis of media reporting on the issue.
Australians remain none the wiser about how data collected under the NSA program is used by intelligence agencies here.
The Greens senator Scott Ludlam and the South Australian senator Nick Xenophon pursued Labor frontbenchers before the election about what the Australian government knew about Prism.
Xenophon was particularly concerned to learn whether Australian parliamentarians were being watched by intelligence agencies. But there were no clear answers.
Ludlam asked questions on notice in the Senate about Prism and Australia's knowledge of the controversial program, which were released again as part of the ABC's FoI request. Senator Joe Ludwig responded to the questions on behalf of the attorney general, Mark Dreyfus.
Ludwig told Ludlam that all communications interception activities in Australia undertaken by agencies were carried out in accordance with Australian law, and the government did not comment on the law enforcement or intelligence capabilities of other governments.
Ludlam said on Tuesday: "The Australian government has tried to be completely opaque about this. And what we find are attorneys general, either of the Labor or the Liberal variety, will just wave their hands and say 'national security', and that's meant to make you stop asking questions."
Ludlam seems to have lost in his bid for re-election to the Senate in the 2013 election. He has sought a recount of the votes in Western Australia and will find out midweek if this request has been successful. |
Four migrants have been charged with rape in Norway after allegedly assaulting their 19-year-old friend, whom they knew before arriving in Europe, local media report. Video of the apparent crime made by the accused has become key evidence in the case.
The incident took place at the Oslofjord Convention Center in Vestfold on December 4, 2015, according to the NRK media outlet.
The four men – three in their 20s and one in his 40s – are accused of raping and beating up their 19-year-old friend, who was then taken to hospital in serious condition.
Read more
The victim and the attackers reportedly knew each other well from before fleeing Syria for Europe.
The three accused, asylum seekers in Vestfold, were remanded in custody after the incident in December. The fourth man was arrested this Friday in Stockholm, as he had Swedish residency and only visited the camp when the crime took place.
“There has been a long interrogation of all the accused men and they will also provide a legal statement,” Lise Dalhaug, a police attorney, told the Dagbladet paper. “We have video of the attacks that the accused themselves recorded.”
The investigators believe the migrant in his 40s was the mastermind behind the alleged rape and the grievous bodily harm caused.
The man is said to have admitted to being present at the scene when the alleged rape occurred, but denied his guilt. The migrant says the footage of the incident obtained by the police was misrepresented and gives only a limited picture of the actual events, according to his lawyers.
Norway has recently launched anti-rape classes for migrants, after more than a 1,000 women were assaulted by groups of men described by some as asylum seekers on New Year's Eve in the German city of Cologne.
READ MORE: Iraqi refugee raped 10yo boy in Austria, says it was ‘sexual emergency’
News of such cases of alleged rape and sexual crimes are common across Europe, which accepted more than a million refugees from war-torn countries in the Middle East. Earlier in February, Austria was shocked by the news of an Iraqi refugee in Vienna raping a 10-year-old boy at a swimming pool in Vienna. |
This report analyzes the U.S. and allied campaign against the al Qa'ida–linked terrorist group al Shabaab in Somalia, examines what steps have been most successful against the group, and identifies potential recommendations. It concludes that, while al Shabaab was weakened between 2011 and 2016, the group could resurge if urgent steps are not taken to address the political, economic, and governance challenges at the heart of the conflict.
This study finds that a tailored engagement strategy — which involved deploying a small number of U.S. special operations forces to conduct targeted strikes, provide intelligence, and build the capacity of local partner forces to conduct ground operations — was key in degrading al Shabaab. Still, progress in Somalia is reversible in the absence of continued and consistent pressure and political, economic, and social reforms.
Today's terrorism and insurgency landscape defies easy solutions, with challenges from the Islamic State, al Qa'ida, and other groups across the Middle East, Europe, Asia, and Africa. While there has been a significant focus on how and why the U.S. and other Western governments have failed to degrade terrorists and insurgents in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Libya, and other countries, there has been far less attention on successful efforts to degrade groups. In Somalia, there has been limited progress. The challenge will be preventing a reversal. |
A Broward sheriff's deputy finds himself suspended without pay and facing a felony charge after being accused of shoplifting everyday household items from two WalMarts in Coral Springs, according to records obtained Friday by the Sun Sentinel.
Surveillance video shows Deputy Dean Korenic, 46, shoplifting on seven occasions, investigators say. He was in uniform one of the times and drove away with his stolen goods in a marked patrol car three other times, records show.
A 14-year veteran of the agency, Korenic was arrested Tuesday and spent a night in jail before posting $3,500 bond on a felony charge of scheme to defraud/obtain property under $20,000, records show.
"In review of the video ... the theft was apparent and intentional," an affidavit said. "The thefts were committed both in and out of BSO uniform." Sheriff's officials would not provide the videos to the Sun Sentinel Friday.
Korenic, of Margate, was suspended without pay Tuesday. He makes $72,735. Korenic was initially suspended with pay when he was first advised of the investigation on June 6.
On the deputy's alleged shopping list: Cool Water cologne, Jergens lotion, papertowels, disposable razors, detergent, syrup, toothpaste, bar soap, a canister of Maxwell House coffee and a carton of eggs.
Broward Sheriff's Office/Courtesy Deputy Dean Korenic. Deputy Dean Korenic. (Broward Sheriff's Office/Courtesy) (Broward Sheriff's Office/Courtesy)
"It's discouraging to see and read and hear about," Sheriff Scott Israel said. "He disgraced the badge, but at this time I choose to focus on the men and women in our public corruption unit whose job it is to investigate deputies who don't do everything the right way. They got right to it, they investigated it thoroughly. We're not going to tolerate police misconduct and deputies committing illegal acts."
Despite four voicemail messages left on Korenic's home and cellphones, he could not be reached for comment. It was unclear if he had an attorney. The police union generally doesn't provide lawyers for law enforcement charged with crimes not associated with their jobs.
It's discouraging to see and read and hear about. He disgraced the badge. — Broward Sheriff Scott Israel
Although each alleged theft was for minor amounts — $34.13 on May 13, $49.54 on May 27 and $7.27 on June 16 — all totaled the scheme adds up to a 3rd-degree felony punishable by up to 5 years in prison.
The deputy had a system, according to an affidavit in support of his arrest warrant.
He would do his shopping, go to a self-checkout and scan some items but not all. Korenic would slip the unscanned items into his shopping bag and leave the store, the affidavit said.
The first alleged theft was committed May 13 at a WalMart located at 6001 Coral Ridge Drive. When Korenic struck there again on May 23 he was wearing "a BSO patrolman's green short sleeve Class B uniform," the affidavit said.
When Korenic returned June 3 he was dressed in "civilian attire" but drove his marked cruiser. His final shoplifting spree at that store was June 18, records show.
Two of the three times Korenic stole from a WalMart at 3801 Turtle Creek Drive he left in his patrol car. He wore street clothes each time — May 27, June 5 and June 16, the affidavit said.
Store security picked up on Korenic on June 3 when he was seen concealing a bottle of cologne in a pair of grey slippers. A loss-prevention officer followed him to the parking lot and saw him get into a patrol car. The officer took down the plate and car numbers, records show.
A loss-prevention manager next performed an audit of the debit card Korenic used and came up with numerous transactions which helped investigators identify Korenic's other alleged thefts.
"Korenic was readily identified via video, his tattoos and by the use of his personal Chase debit card," Detective Joshua Web wrote in the affidavit.
The videos could not be released Friday, a sheriff's spokeswoman said, because the detective working the case had them and would not return to the office until Monday.
Investigators on June 6 picked up Korenic from an off-duty detail at the central terminal for Broward County Transit in downtown Fort Lauderdale and took him to the sheriff's internal affairs office.
While Korenic was advised of the investigation and suspended with pay, detectives searched the trunk of his patrol car. There they found a pair of gray slippers in a WalMart bag. And in the driver's door pocket was 2-ounce bottle of Jergens lotion.
[email protected], 954-356-4542 or Twitter @talanez |
Hollywood's highest profile feminist gets smacked around by film critics for some surprising reasons.
It isn’t easy being a woke celebrity. You try. And you try. Yet it’s never good enough.
Katy Perry attempts to turn her grrrl power shtick into a political movement and gets popped by a withering op-ed in The Daily Beast.
Will Ferrell does everything humanly possible to support progressive causes. What happens next? he gets dubbed a racist for a comedy co-starring a black superstar.
And now there’s Amy Schumer’s “Snatched.”
The new comedy stars the uber-progressive comic and Goldie Hawn in a mother-daughter adventure. Schumer’s influence on the film is palpable. She didn’t just famously nix a gun-laden sequence (she’s for gun control in real life). The screenplay also has her fingerprints all over it.
RELATED: Incurious Media Ignore Amy Schumer’s Toxic Brand
Her character notices, and mocks, how a tribal family in Colombia treats women like second-class citizens. There’s plenty of female empowerment chatter through and through. And it’s the women who must save themselves.
It wasn’t enough, apparently.
Here’s The New York Times “destroying” the film’s lack of insensitivity.
“Snatched” is one of those movies that subscribes to a dubious homeopathic theory of cultural insensitivity by which the acknowledgment of offensiveness is supposed to prevent anyone from taking offense. The idea is that if you use variations on the phrase “That’s racist!” as a punch line a few times, nothing else you say or do could possibly be racist. Including, say, populating your movie with dark-skinned thugs with funny accents and killing a few of them for cheap laughs.
TheWrap.com hints at outrage but doesn’t go the full scold:
The trip is a trap, however, and the women are summarily kidnapped, thrown into a dingy cell, and held for ransom by a ruthless sort named Morgado (Oscar Jaenada), who — if we’re keeping tabs on Hollywood’s representation of foreign lands — is the first native character, and one of the only ones, with more than three lines.
The Hollywood Reporter hits harder:
There’s one extremely bizarre gag involving the manual extraction of a tapeworm, and also some unfortunate cultural stereotyping in the form of gun-toting Colombians with long hair and sinister teeth….
[Director Jonathan] Levine … isn’t a deft enough director to overcome the optics of yet another film about white characters finding themselves thanks to their experience in a problem-plagued developing country.
The Village Voice shares its outrage in the headline: “Snatched” Is Perfect for Mother’s Day if Mom Hates and Fears Other Countries
In a scene that signals the soft racism to follow, Linda mishears the standard English greeting of the Ecuadorian concierge, handing out a complimentary drink, as “whale cum.”
Then, the reviewer goes for the jugular by comparing the film to “Monster in Law.”
That film traded in casual misogyny, Snatched in offhand xenophobia. Happy Mother’s Day.
Sorry, Schumer. All of your liberal virtue signaling isn’t enough. Your new film simply isn’t woke. And today’s film critics, who increasingly resemble Social Justice Warriors, are all too eager to say so. |
Here's a new Giveaway. This time we are giving away a brand new Micromax Canvas Spark in Black color to one lucky winner. We reviewed it as one of the best smartphones you can get under Rs. 5000 and that too running Android Lollipop right out of the box.
Update: Winner Announcement
Here are the key specs of the Micromax Canvas Spark:
Display : 4.7-inch qHD IPS, 540x960 Pixels
Processor : 1.3GHz quad-core, MediaTek MT6582M
GPU : Mali-400 MP2
OS : Android 5.0 Lollipop
Camera : 8MP Rear, 2MP Front-facing, 1080p Recording
Memory : 1GB RAM, 8GB ROM expandable upto 32 GB
Connectivity : 3G, Dual-SIM, Bluetooth 4.0, WiFi b/g/n, FM Radio, GPS
Battery : 2000 mAh
All you need to do is enter the contest Widget below with your email, you can win more entries by sharing it with your friends. Also don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel so that you don't miss out on our giveaways, and follow us on Twitter and Facebook to know who the winners are. There will be one winner chosen at the end of the contest period.
PhoneBunch Giveaway: Micromax Canvas Spark Q380
The contest is open to residents of India only, and before participating make sure you read the Official Rules. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel from below for reviews of the latest smartphones.
The contest starts today, 15th August 2015 and ends at 11:59 PM IST on 25th August 2015. Winner announcement will be made by 30th August 2015. |
After a one-week hiatus, “The Exorcist” returns tonight, November 3!
The second season of “The Exorcist” has taken Marcus and Tomas to a whole new location to battle a whole new demon, which means that Season 1’s Rance family has not in any way been part of the story. But will we see any of those Season 1 characters pop up at all here in Season 2?
Yes, actually!
Taking to Twitter yesterday, creator Jeremy Slater posted a fun video teasing the return of actress Hannah Kasulka, who plays the daughter of Angela Rance aka Regan MacNeil!
After seeing the video, we reached out to FOX, who confirmed to us that it was indeed a teaser that Casey Rance will be back at some point this season.
In which episode, you ask? You’ll have to keep tuning in to find out! |
A fed-up Ohio father decided to air his frustration’s over his kid’s fourth-grade Common Core math curriculum, by writing the school a check they’ll have to figure out before cashing.
Instead of a dollar amount, the father used a cryptic series of “X’s” and “O’s” accompanying eight boxes with more “O’s” to indicate the amount on the check, Buzzfeed reported.
The confusing series of letters is in line with controversial Common Core long-form math curriculum that is implemented in 46 states.
Officials at Melridge Elementary in Painesville, Ohio, will likely have to teach the bank teller how to calculate the cash amount using the Common Core method if they want to cash the check, or find a student to help them figure it out, said CBS-affiliate WTSP 10 News in Tampa Bay.
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission. |
In March 2012, police responded to a call from a Brooklyn public school about a five-year old autistic boy who was having a tantrum. Officers held down the kindergartener, who was then tied to a stretcher and transported to a hospital.
The little boy's mother had been called to the school and witnessed the episode. "He was crying and screaming," she said. "They strapped him to that stretcher."
The episode got local news coverage. And the family eventually filed a lawsuit, which New York settled. But according to the figures that New York files with the federal government, the incident never happened.
Like all school districts across the country, New York is required to record every time a public school kid is held or tied down and report totals each year to the U.S. Department of Education. The number New York gave the government? Zero.
"There's not even a remote possibility that the number zero is correct," said Johanna Miller, the advocacy director for the New York Civil Liberties Union.
New York, the nation's largest school district, wasn't the only one to incorrectly report zero restraints to the federal government. So did Los Angeles and Chicago – the nation's second and third largest school districts.
Indeed, Chicago Public Schools spokeswoman Lauren Huffman acknowledged restraints are allowed in some cases but said Chicago doesn't keep a tally of them. "It's our intention to do a better job tracking them centrally," she said.
Earlier this year, ProPublica detailed how kids are frequently restrained at public schools. As we reported, the government's first attempt at a nationwide count showed 163,000 instances of restraints in the 2012 school year.
Some schools reported hundreds of restraints, which can include anything from pinning uncooperative children face down on the floor to tying them up with straps, handcuffs or even duct tape. Three-quarters of students who were restrained had physical, emotional or intellectual disabilities.
Children have suffered countless injuries from restraints, including broken bones. A government report a few years ago detailed hundreds of instances of abuse and several deaths over two decades.
After that report, the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights made it mandatory for school districts to tell to the government how many times they have used restraints.
The Department of Education declined to say whether they have penalized any districts for failing to report.
But underreporting appears to be rampant. Our analysis found that more than two-thirds of all school systems reported zero instances of restraining a student or isolating them in so-called "seclusion" rooms.
Many districts are not taking the reporting process seriously, said Claudia Center, a senior attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union.
"I think there needs to be a real cultural shift on restraints," Center said. "It has been a really common practice in schools for decades. If [schools] had to write down how many times they actually do it, they would have to change what they're doing."
A spokesman for the federal Department of Education said if school districts fail to collect data on restraints, the government works with them to construct a plan to improve and could ultimately compel them to report by suspending federal aid until they do.
Huffman, the spokeswoman from Chicago's public school system, said federal officials haven't contacted school officials there about their missing data.
Los Angeles Unified School District spokeswoman Gayle Pollard-Terry, said that although the district reported zero instances of restraints, it keeps its own tally of incidents involving disabled children. Advocates say such actions, which are called "behavioral emergency inventions," often come in the form of restraints. The Los Angeles Unified School District reported 103 interventions during the 2012 school year.
As for New York, the city says it doesn't count restraints because only police and emergency medical technicians are allowed to do them — a distinction federal authorities say is irrelevant. The U.S. Department of Education says all restraints at a public school are to be reported, no matter who does them.
Previously released city records show New York public schools called emergency medical services more than 3,600 times in one recent year to handle disruptive children. EMS logged each of those calls. But when were restraints used? The records don't say.
Read more about restraints and seclusions in public schools across the country, who's fighting federal limits on the practices, and whether your state law says it's ok to pin down kids in school.
Journalists: Check out our reporting recipe to learn how to report on school restraint and seclusion in your state and sign up to be matched with potential sources. |
Hillary Clinton unveiled a health care proposal Saturday that incorporates much of what her opponent Bernie Sanders has pushed for, in a second move this week that is apparently aimed at securing an endorsement from Sanders.
In a statement, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president announced her support to expand Medicaid, offer a "public-option" for health insurance and double funding for primary care services at community health centers. The centers, which largely serve communities in rural areas, have long been a priority for the senator from Vermont who fought to include $11 billion in funding for the centers in the Affordable Care Act of 2010.
Clinton said she would support people 55 or older to buy into Medicare while protecting the traditional Medicare program. Clinton first came out in support of giving people the option to buy into Medicare in May during the current election cycle as a result of the effect the Sanders campaign had on Clinton to take more progressive stances.
Her campaign noted that she has supported the "public-option" health insurance plan back to her 2008 presidential campaign and has opted for those below the required age to buy into Medicare as far back as 2001, when she was a senator in New York.
"We have more work to do to finish our long fight to provide universal, quality, affordable health care to everyone in America," Clinton said in a statement. "Already, the Affordable Care Act has expanded coverage to 20 million Americans. As president, I will make sure Republicans never succeed in their attempts to strip away their care and that the remaining uninsured should be able to get the affordable coverage they need to stay healthy."
Sanders revealed his "Medicare-for-all" or single-payer health reform plan in January, which would overhaul the current system in the country and would require the federal government to provide coverage to everyone in the country.
Soon after the plan was unveiled, Sanders praised the steps taken by the Clinton campaign.
"Today's proposal by Hillary Clinton is an important step toward expanding health insurance and health care access to millions of Americans," Sanders said.
In a conference call with reporters, Sanders did not confirm reports that he will endorse Clinton at an event in New Hampshire on Tuesday, the Washington Post reported. Regarding the endorsement, he said he would have more to say in the very near future.
Clinton's announcement comes after a proposal earlier this week for providing free tuition at public colleges and universities to families making up to $125,000 a year. Sanders called the plan a "bold initiative."
Her campaign confirmed details about her visit to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where an "organizing event" is planned at Portsmouth High School at 11 a.m. At the event, Clinton will "discuss her commitment to building an America that is stronger together and an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the top," according to a statement. There was no mention that Sanders would be at the event, but it is where he is expected to officially endorse Clinton.
Sanders and his allies moved to push a long list of policies on the platform of the Democratic National Committee at a meeting in Orlando, Florida, moving the party more to the left. Their biggest push was to oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership in the Democratic Party platform, a fight that Sanders and his allies lost. The amendment brought by the Sanders campaign would have prevented the trade deal from ever coming to a vote in Congress, Bloomberg reported.
Both Clinton and Sanders oppose TPP, but Sanders has been more vocal, saying the deal hurts American workers.
Image Credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr Creative Commons |
Metropolitan News-Enterprise
Thursday, December 15, 2005
Page 11
REMINISCING (Column)
At 10-2 and 4 OClock , It Was Dr. Pepper Time
By ROGER M. GRACE
Ive come across an ad for a Dr Pepper contest. To have a chance at winning $5,000 tax free, the ad says, an entrant simply has to supply the second line for this couplet:
A lift for life at 10, 2 and 4
.
In case youre thinking of rushing to get your submission in, sorry, you muffed the deadline. It was midnight , July 31, 1951.
A more recent Dr Pepper contest had a May 22, 1965 deadline. The first prize was described thusly:
Two fun-filled weeks in scenic Switzerland (TIME capital of the world), a car clock (installed in a 1965 Mustang), His and Her Longine watchesand$10.24 an hour, 24 hours a day for 14 days .
The contest placed an accent on time, an ad explained, because weve clocked 10, 2 and 4 as traditional Dr Pepper times. The sum of $10.24 was arrived at, it was spelled out, was [t]o remind you of 10, 2 and 4what else!
If youre my vintage, or older, or just a bit younger, Dr Peppers tie to the numerals 10, 2 and 4 is no mystery. I strongly suspect, however, that if my daughter were to read the foregoing, it would make absolutely no sense to her.
The significance of the numerals to the popular fruit-based soft drink is explained on the website of the oldest bottler of Dr. Pepper (in Dublin , Texas ) as follows:
It was in the 1920s that Dr. Walter Eddy at Columbia University studied the bodys metabolism. He discovered that a natural drop in energy occurs about 10:30 a.m. , 2:30 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. But he also discovered that if the people in his research study had something to eat or drink at 10, 2 and 4, the energy slump could be avoided.
After Dr. Eddys research findings were released, Dr Pepper challenged its advertising agency to come up with a theme which would suggest that Dr Pepper should be that 10, 2 and 4 drink which would keep the energy level up. The result was one of the most enduring of Dr Peppers advertising themes: Drink a bite to eat at 10, 2 and 4.
Promotions for Dr. Pepper centered on those numbers. For example, an ad in the Dothan ( Ala. ) Eagle on July 26, 1934 announced that on Saturday, the local movie theater would interrupt the film at 10 a.m. , 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. to serve complimentary bottles of Dr. Pepper (which back then, was spelled with a period after Dr.).
There was even a syndicated radio show during World War II called The 10-2-4 Ranch (later, 10-2-4 Time), aired in the South and other areas to which Dr. Peppers distribution had extended. The show featured the Sons of the Pioneers (associated with Roy Rogers) and, for most of its run, Dick Foran. (Foran in 1935 had emerged as the original singing cowboy, beating Gene Autry to the designation by a matter of weeks.)
The Dr. Pepper Company pushed the notion that ingestion of sugar at 10, 2 and 4 was actually something healthful. And, of course, parents would want their children to engage in healthful practices.
In these days when theres a push to rid school cafeterias and vending machines of sugar-based products and those high in carbohydrates (which turn into sugar), its hard to imagine an ad like the one appearing in the Sept. 23, 1930 edition of the Port Arthur (Texas) News. It was headed, One Healthful form of Necessary Nourishment that kids need no coaxing to drink, and said:
Little Human dynamos run out of juice between meals. Thats why they tease for sweets. Sugar is the quickest energy food and Mother Nature knows it. She prompts the appetite. Its as natural as hunger can be.
If your kiddies crave sugar, give them as much as they want...but in a form that cant be abused. Dr. Pepper contains fruit juice for flavor and health pure sugar for quick-energy supply...and sparkling water for bulk and thirst. No tax on digestion. No ingredients that can possibly harm. The small proportions of sugar to water is a safety-valve against excess.
An article appearing July 10, 1977 in the Elyria , Ohio Chronicle Telegram reflected that [a]lthough the use of the 10-2-4 set of numbers was discontinued on company bottles several years ago, old advertising signs and painted barns throughout the South still display those numerals.
The article noted that the intent behind the sloganto encourage a boost in blood sugar level at 10, 2, and 4got lost and thousands of mothers and grandmothers in the South, to this day, believe that the drinking times are meant to achieve regularity.
It quoted the company president as assuring that, contrary to rumor, prune juice was not a Dr Pepper ingredient.
Copyright 2005, Metropolitan News Company |
With the NHL Draft, free agency, and the prospect scrimmage already finished, Islanders fans must be anxiously awaiting the start of the hockey season as the days wind down to the start of the ’14-’15 NHL season. After making some solid selections in the 2014 NHL Entry Draft (Michael Dal Colle, Joshua Ho-Sang, et al.), Garth Snow continued to address his team’s needs as he signed Chad Johnson, Mikhail Grabovski, and Nikolai Kulemin amongst other players.
However, with almost three months of time left before the regular season kicks off, Islanders fans (mainstays & newcomers) might not have as much coverage of their beloved team as they are used to during each hockey season. While news might be hard to come by – unless there is a devastating injury or blockbuster trade – it’s always good to know where one could get reliable news from a trusted source. So, without further ado, The Hockey Writers brings Isles fans some blogs and twitter accounts that could be extremely useful to follow – and if there are some egregious omissions, then please do leave us a comment and let us know if any account or blog was glossed over.
New York Islanders
The New York Islanders’ website brings some of the best, and most easily accessed, team coverage on the net. Cory Wright, Eric Hornick (The Skinny), and Brian Compton (NHL.com) contribute to the articles on the site, and there are a bunch of interactive features for fans as videos of post-game interviews, interviews with prospects, and updates on the Isles’ minor league affiliate – the Bridgeport Sound Tigers – are readily available.
MSG Network
Perhaps the only thing missing from the list below would be a Howie Rose twitter account. With a star-studded cast on the MSG Network, there is a lot of quality reporting that the network has to offer. Individuals such as Stan Fischler, Butch Goring, Jiggs McDonald, Eric Hornick, and Peter Ruttgaizer have given Isles fans some of the best coverage and analysis that they could ask for – be it before, during, or after a game – and their presence in the social media universe is just as big.
#isles love what garth snow has done over the summer, but with the extra forwards look for him to acquire a defenseman.phx or van ?? — Butch Goring (@91Butch) July 3, 2014
Newsday
Since 1940, Newsday has been providing coverage of events in and around Long Island. Of course, the New York Islanders didn’t arrive on the hockey scene until 1972, but their establishment certainly gave the Long Island-based paper a significant area of coverage in the sports arena.
For the last few seasons, Arthur Staple has served as the Islanders’ beat-writer for Newsday – providing in-depth reporting on the team’s progress during the NHL season and the offseason. Not only does Staple produce excellent write-ups on the Islanders, his social media presence is tremendous, and is a must-follow for any person that is either new to the Islanders or the twittersphere.
Ville Pokka now 6-0/194 (was 5-11/200), A. Pelech 6-3/220 (was 6-2/215), R. Pulock now 6-2/212 (was 6-1/218), G. Reinhart up to 217 from 202 — Arthur Staple (@StapeNewsday) July 8, 2014
CBS New York – WFAN
WFAN features some of the best, and most active, personalities that cover the Islanders. With written articles and various audio and video clips regarding the Islanders, WFAN’s site is easy to navigate and gives fans a plethora of digestible content. Seeing as how well developed the CBS network is, there is no shortage of Isles-relevant columns, insight, and opinion that comes from WFAN’s dedicated team of journalists.
New York Post
The New York Post might not be the first newspaper that comes to mind when one thinks of getting Islanders news, but there is certainly reason enough to follow Brett Cyrgalis as he does a fantastic job covering the Islanders and metro-area teams.
The #Isles were in on Vanek at the end, offered “right around the same” that he signed for (3yrs, $6.5m/per) in Minn., according to source. — Brett Cyrgalis (@BrettCyrgalis) July 1, 2014
Bridgeport Sound Tigers
The Islanders have what is considered one of the deepest prospect pools in the NHL, and some of those highly touted youngsters are playing with the Sound Tigers right now. For all information regarding some up and coming prospects in the Isles’ pipeline, following the Sound Tigers is a surefire bet.
Lighthouse Hockey
Lighthouse Hockey covers all angles of Islanders hockey and is consistent with their analysis of the team. From their fearless leader, Dominik, to their master of satire, Dan Saraceni, Lighthouse Hockey is as good a resource for news and opinion on the Isles as any on the web.
Sparse #Isles and NHL bits: The kids go home from camp, Lipbaum doesn't make it. http://t.co/Td2oKHX6Jn — Dominik & LHHFriends (@LHHockey) July 14, 2014
Islanders Insight
Having a ton of hands on deck doesn’t necessarily indicate quality work, but that certainly isn’t the case for Islanders Insight as every member of their team is as dedicated to the Isles as one can possibly be. Andy Graziano, Rich Dias-Rodrigues, Michael Willhoft, and Chris Triantaphilis are just some of the brilliant minds that go into making Islanders Insight the fluidly functioning machine that it is. If you’re looking for quality coverage of the Islanders, then look no further, these guys have you covered.
Excellent amateur video here and fitting heading into last season at NVMC. #isles https://t.co/h0jpYJooYj — Islanders Insight (@IslesInsight) July 13, 2014
Islanders Point Blank
Part of the SNY network, Islanders Point Blank has a solid team of writers which is headlined by Kevin Schultz and Christian Arnold. With some solid coverage from inside of the Isles’ locker-room, Islanders Point Blank is a good resource for game recaps and team analysis.
LIB Magazine
LIB Magazine also covers events in and around Long Island, and Matt Saidman definitely makes sure to keep Isles fans up to date by providing a stream of steady content during the NHL season. Much like the others mentioned on this list, Saidman is also a very active Twitter personality, so Islanders fans will definitely want to give him a follow.
TCL Isles
The Checking Line has a number of writers covering a multitude of NHL teams, and Rob McGowan takes care of the duties for the Islanders Edition of TCL. As a credentialed member of the media, McGowan weaves together an entertaining narrative while sticking to the facts.
Who To Follow?
With so many accounts mentioned in this post, not every blog or social media personality might have been mentioned, but that is not to say that they didn’t deserve to be on the list. Of course, fans will be free to choose who they do and do not follow on Twitter, but that is the beauty of the social media universe as people can decide on what level they want to interact with those that cover the New York Islanders. |
The gates of hell are various places on the surface of the world that have acquired a legendary reputation for being entrances to the underworld . Often they are found in regions of unusual geological activity, particularly volcanic areas, or sometimes at lakes, caves or mountains.
This article is about supposed portals to the underworld from the surface of the earth. For other uses, see Gates of Hell (disambiguation)
Legends from both ancient Greece and Rome record stories of mortals who entered or were abducted into the netherworld through such gates. Aeneas visited the underworld, entering through a cave at the edge of Lake Avernus on the Bay of Naples.[1] Hercules entered the Underworld from this same spot.
In the middle of the Roman Forum is another entrance, Lacus Curtius, where according to legend, a Roman soldier, named Curtius, bravely rode his horse into the entrance in a successful effort to close it, although both he and his horse perished in the deed.[2]
Lerna Lake was one of the entrances to the Underworld.[3][4]
Odysseus visited the Underworld, entering through river Acheron in northwest Greece.[5]
Orpheus traveled to the Greek underworld in search of Eurydice by entering a cave at Taenarum or Cape Tenaron on the southern tip of the Peloponnese.[6]
Pluto's Gate, Ploutonion in Greek, Plutonium in Latin, in modern-day Turkey unearthed by Italian archaeologists is said to be the entry gate to the Underworld; it is linked to the Greco-Roman mythology and tradition.[7]
Rivers Cocytus, Lethe, Phlegethon and Styx were also entrances to the Underworld.[8]
The god Hades kidnapped the goddess Persephone from a field in Sicily and led her to the Underworld through a cleft in the earth so he could marry her.[9] |
The Rumpus Interview with Mark Danielewski
At the beginning of the new millennium, I was writing content for a dodgy print-on-demand publisher in Manhattan’s Silicon Alley. In the first week of January, I received a call from Sophie Cottrell, who was then the publicity director of Pantheon, a venerable Random House imprint. Sophie had a debut author who’d written an epic literary novel, part of it created while living a fist-to-mouth decade in Paris. The novel was called House of Leaves and the author was Mark Z. Danielewski.
Sophie asked me if my website might want to do something that had never been done before: Did we want to do a complete online serialization of the 734-page House of Leaves before the publication date?
After our initial surprise, my company agreed. Using semi-primitive web technology, our coders in Nebraska spent hundreds of hours uploading seventy pages of House of Leaves every several days for a five-week period, up to the March 17, 2000 publication date. To prevent mass piracy, the book could only be downloaded one page at a time.
House of Leaves is a literary novel disguised as horror fiction, with an innocuous house in Virginia concealing a labyrinth that eventually consumes a film crew. Danielewski also takes the reader into the turbulent and violent life of Johnny Truant, a hero of the novel.
The online serialization caused a good media stir and some unsettling buzz in the publishing world. The difficult downloading process led to some comical moments. A book reviewer for Seattle’s alt weekly The Stranger read the whole book online and complained of blood on her keyboard.
Danielewski himself was a larger-than-life author, with high cheekbones, broad shoulders, and blue hair. Like a happy warrior, he dove into promotion. When attacked by participants in an online chat, he would give a full-throated laugh of appreciation.
After the serialization, Danielewski undertook a massive national book tour. He paired up with his rock-star sister Poe and toured with Depeche Mode, performing original House of Leaves music onstage from Poe’s album Haunted and doing spoken word from the novel. The book sold an incredible 200,000 copies in hardback.
Danielewski’s golden career continued. Only Revolutions, a fantastical history of the violence and triumph of America told in verse by two runaways driving down America’s highways in souped-up cars, was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2006. His short novel The Fifty-Year Sword hijacked the grisly campfire tale genre, putting a group of orphans in peril.
In his greatest gamble yet, Danielwski has just published The Familiar, Volume 1: One Rainy Day in May, which is the first installment of a projected twenty-seven-volume novel. At the center of the 850-page first volume is Xanther, a twelve-year-old middle school student going with her stepfather in a heavy rainstorm in Los Angeles to buy a dog. Xanther is epileptic and has been repeatedly bullied in the many schools she has attended.
Like short vignettes from a serial TV show, Danielewski cuts between about a dozen seemingly unrelated storylines: A ruthless tattooed gangbanger named Luther takes his crew on a violent mission. A police detective on the cusp of retirement named Ozgur visits several gruesome murder scenes. Cutting to Marfa, Texas, two elderly digital outlaws pursued by government agents try to protect “The Orb,” their eerie machine. An angry Armenian cab driver named Shnorhk experiences a miscarriage of justice in traffic court and then explores his people’s dark history.
Using the work of two extremely gifted artists and designers in the Atelier Z studio, the story in The Familiar and the design of the book are directly linked. A child’s deluge of questions becomes a storm of worlds that match the rainstorm outside the car window. In “The Orb” section, the type forms the shape of the mysterious machine. In a section set in Singapore, characters speak in pigeon English, with fragments of Russian and Chinese are mixed in. When Xanther runs through the rain to answer a cry for help, the words are stripped away down to the essentials, where the reader can feel Xanther’s drive, panic, and sense of purpose. The book is peppered with full-color plates of collages of letters, spacescapes, and a short graphic novel excerpt. Each section gets its own colored tab. Each storyline has its own font, for a total of 22 fonts in the book, from Baskerville to Minion.
In the storylines, Xanther’s rescue of a strange animal propels her to a new level of maturity. Luther commits his atrocious act. Ozgur visits a triple-murder scene. In the next volume, more will be revealed and developed, and more layers will be added.
I spoke with Danielewski by telephone to Los Angeles, where he lives, as the novelist prepared for the publication of The Familiar, Volume 1, and his short book tour. He spoke of why he needs to write twenty-six more volumes of his novel.
***
The Rumpus: When did the idea of a twenty-seven-volume novel come to you?
Mark Danielewski: The story that is focused on the cat, you could find old roots and examples in side projects, failed stories and things that persisted. I began working on it in full in 2005, after finishing up Only Revolutions. It’s been about nine years that I have been working on this. Only Revolutions begat its own form, the structure and the trip that Sam and Hailey were on. It was never clear until it was perfectly clear what the rules and dynamics at work were. That’s true of The Familiar. It began to create its own pacing.
There is a lot of meditation on the media I am interested in. House of Leaves remediated film and Only Revolutions remediated music. The Fifty-Year Sword does campfire stories. Television series began to play a role. It wasn’t a magical insight. You and I watched this cultural presence emerge and become pervasive. People were saying, “We are watching novels for the first time in way that film could never do. Then you have examples like The Wire, where the pacing was about character. It wasn’t about tearing up stories. It wasn’t about creating an entire story in just one episode, which was the old mode for serial books. It may be a long-running detective series, but each book contained its own mystery and its own solution, and maybe there would be an overarching villain. Then The Wire came along and showed a different kind of pace. There was a combination of an appreciation for a series like The Wire or The Sopranos, or Battlestar Galactica. It influenced my view on how this whole thing would unfold. In that sense I became more and more committed, seeing what each character could do, and what that involved with the structure itself. I think I was toying with it, how it was going to work. I think the boldness was in allowing the characters to proceed within the story as they now proceed, as you have experienced them. Certainly, you could tell the whole story in ten pages. You could accelerate it. You could have one of those shows that rapidly eat up plot points. In the devouring, you eat up all the nutrients.
I definitely call The Familiar a novel. In about two weeks, I will only have twenty-five volumes left to write. It is a specific novel. It may end up being my life’s work. As much as it contains my work, it is dominated by the personalities in it.
Rumpus: The central story in this volume is the twelve-year-old Xanther’s trip to get a dog with her stepfather. How did you develop such a heartbreakingly vulnerable character?
Danielewski: I am definitely going to be thinking about how I came up with Xanther over a vast number of volumes. What is wonderful about this novel is that it necessitated me to get out and to talk with people who were in LA gangs and to talk with parents, friends of mine. I have four godchildren, all girls. I have watched them grow up, as they head to school. I have not only heard how they speak, I also hear immediately afterwards how their parents speak about them. There is this correlation between the vast complicated obstacles that some of these children are facing, but they are not all that apparent in the way they were speaking to me. It’s about tapping into the parts of the self.
Rumpus: In an interview long ago, you told how after your parents’ divorce, your mother moved you and your sister from New York to Utah. You had this grim story of your sister dressed in a jacket painted with a Who emblem on the back getting on a school bus full of jocks and prom queens. She was like chum being thrown to the sharks. Did your experiences with bullying and being an outsider shape Xanther’s story?
Danielewski: It all comes from personal experience, but is taken beyond the personal experience to the absolute strange. Those moments gave me keynotes into those experiences. Utah was a very strange place to be a straight white male, basically exorcising me from these social bubbles. I remember the belittling, the bullying, the challenges that it brought up, and the benefits, as well. That was there. It was amazing how vital it was. That’s a question that I don’t have an answer to yet, why those moments do have a certain intensity that can burn away the intervening decades.
I have been in the same relationship for four years. When you are suddenly in a relationship that is nurturing, it is nurturing to this fragile thing that is growing, like this book. It has the potential to grow into the most beautiful thing, but needs to be stewarded through the difficult parts. Those kind of instincts, I might have been closed off to in the past. At the end of Only Revolutions, Sam and Hailey are on a mountaintop, wanting to rain the apocalypse down on everyone. There is also a hint, though, of wanting to return to a spring. I found that spring. There were some rough intervening years for me, but by coming to this place that is fragile, unexpected and open, by being willing to nurture it, this book has been made possible.
The thing about this book is the time that it is going to take to write and that no one’s time of Earth is guaranteed. It may never be more than what you’ve read so far or a little bit further. The book must continue to be fragile for years and years as it grows into being. That’s a terrifying feeling, but the only way to get through that terror is to embrace it and love it in its moment. To try to leap to the end would be to induce a phantamagoric panic that will make writing impossible.
Rumpus: Do you think writing a twenty-seven-volume novel is a dangerous career move?
Danielewski: Sure.
Rumpus: What happens if it doesn’t sell?
Danielewski: If it doesn’t sell, then it dies. This is one of those things that depends on the reader. As much as Michiko Clark [Pantheon’s publicity director] supports me, and as much as I love the people at Pantheon, this requires readers. It is too expensive to finance and takes too many human hours, if the readers don’t show up. By the time we get to Volumes 3 and 4, and there are only a few thousand readers, then it won’t continue. Like Xanther has this cat in her hands at the end of the book, the book is like the cat in people’s hands. Care, trust, love, and a protective spirit is offered. In that sense, I am terrified but also liberated.
I’ve always said that the book would be an open experience. There would be an element of the providential. Even the people in the Atelier Z are providential to a certain degree. I was desperate for an artist. Suddenly someone at a dinner party mentions that they know someone, then the next thing is that someone new is working at the Atelier. The book depends on others, where Only Revolutions didn’t. House of Leaves didn’t. House of Leaves was that self-born Paradise Lost, Satan on the side of the lake, “I will make a heaven out of hell.” This book does require others.
Rumpus. Did Atelier Z exist during The Fifty-Year Sword?
Danielewski: Yes. You could read that book in about an hour.
Rumpus: You’ve really upped your game with design on the new book.
Danielewski: I can’t disagree with you. I’m quite astonished by it.
Rumpus: Xanther has what appears to be an epileptic fit towards the end. The reader follows her as the text speeds up and rips through the pages. How does design integrate with the text?
Danielewski: It’s a big question. Particular to Xanther, over the nine years, the design changed. I was trying to settle on what would be right. The name and the look of the font is important. These changes are constantly going on. I am designing the text as I am writing. It is not like you write the text, then design it. They go hand in hand. When these moments accelerate, there is less text on the page. The meanings have to be more concentrated. You can be more verb heavy in terms of action, or you can be more poetic. There are times when I changed the font and that radically affected the number of words on the page, and that changed everything and suddenly her voice changed. There is a lot of that. She hears this cat through the three pink ellipses. One of the parts that always gets me about Xanther is the thought of writing twenty-seven volumes with her at the center is that this is the greatest privilege that I can imagine. I will be so lucky if I get to do this. All the characters in the book hear the cat, but she’s the one that answers and leaps from the car, and she goes to get it. All of the other characters are chosen, but she’s the one that answers. That’s the heart of the book for the writer and the reader. Do you answer the call?
Rumpus: In multiple books, you seem to have a keen interest in children in peril. There is the horribly abused Johnny Truant in House of Leaves, and the orphans endangered by the storyteller in The Fifty-Year Sword. Now, there is Xanther, who has a bleak future ahead. Do you see a trend in your writing?
Danielewski: Sure. It’s a point, a nexus, where the literal and historic, prophetic and prescriptive and the symbolic combine. Yes, we are talking about a child, but we have these young ideas at all ages, that if nurtured and cared for, can go up to bigger and better things. They may be as significant as a little impulse that a fifty-year-old woman has been holding on to, that she can nurture, and suddenly become this little gleam ten years later, and change her life in a way that is inspiring for everyone. Through a lot of practice of my own, whether it is physical practice like tai chi or yoga, it is this constant place of finding newness and beginnerness. A child is emblematic of that. It is a time when we are formed by powerful ideas and may be prejudiced by these ideas. From an early age, we are prejudicially slotted to a certain viewpoint. We always have an opportunity to engender a different viewpoint, yet it is very easy not to. It is this point when habits that start to reinforce bad things as well as good things have not quite formed or set, and there is an openness. There is such a vitality. At the same time, there is an age in The Familiar… it is very difficult for me to see the book as you see the book, for so much more of it is in place in my head, which I know is not in Volume I.
Rumpus: In terms of your working style, do you already know what happens in V. 22 and V. 27?
Danielewski: Yes. I absolutely know the ending and I am confident that the ending will be entirely different by the time that I get there. It is in place. There are stories that will be developed in much greater detail, like [the Armenian cab driver] Shnorhk and the [hardboiled LAPD detective] Ozgur, so there is this element of age, of older characters, as well, and to their own awakening and changing. Ozgur is coming around… he has a lot of balls in the air.
Rumpus: Each chapter had its own ember of violence, from Luther the gangbanger to Ozgur’s grisly murder scenes, to Xanther’s violent abrupt and dangerous epileptic fits. Did you intend this much violence or did it just happen?
Danielewski: The whole book did happen in one way, the moment of just writing it from nowhere. Then the book didn’t just happen, because there was a revisiting of the different sections. Your concern about the violence is right. There is a fear of violence, there is some experience with violence, the inherited stories of violence in my father having survived World War II. There is the maddening energy of violence. It’s a good point. There is violence and more violence coming.
Violence is a compressed moment that is shocking and abrupt and out of the ordinary in its comprehension, even though it speaks to something inevitable. That’s part of the literary argument, the compression of things, what is always so bewildering about time’s passage, about violence where time is accelerated, that it goes beyond our control.
Rumpus: Did you do extensive research to create Luther and his crew?
Danielewski: A lot of it is providential introductions to people. I’ve ended that cloistered, monastic part of my life as a writer, and I want to be much more open to the variables of change, and that took a lot more doing. I had to change aspects of my personality, further amplified by the examples of Salinger and Pynchon. Suddenly I said, “Let’s open the doors, let’s open the windows here.” That began to take place with The Fifty-Year Sword. I depended on other people and that led to introductions. It required personal openness that was very hard for me. I could be at a barbecue and start talking to someone. For some reason, this guy opened up to me about life in “La Pinta” [the LA Mexican gangs] and in jail. That led into Luther’s world. A lot of the taxi cab drivers in LA are Armenian. Suddenly, I was talking to them and having great conversations. You have this horrendous English, but through it you get these tremendous stories of the Armenian genocide, which was being echoed now. It is also about not getting confused by the small things, but focusing on the larger issues, the blunt subject of each chapter.
Rumpus: Some story threads in The Familiar V. 1 end abruptly. I thought they may be red herrings and dead ends. With twenty-six volumes to go, do you anticipate developing the shorter stories like the cancer-ridden cowboy or the elderly fugitive couple in Marfa, Texas, traveling with a mysterious machine called “The Orb” ?
Danielewski: Yep. The other thing is being open… I can anticipate this happening that for the first time, there will be reader feedback. As readers are drawn in and become more curious about things, these things may become amplified by the suggestions that may come. It will be much more open, but there will be times when I say, “That’s not going to happen.” There is something else that can happen, the introduction of ideas. One person who was helping me with the Armenian section opened up with a series of stories that she didn’t even think were germane to the book. They introduced me to a different set of literatures, which will influence what Shnorhk is dealing with in the novel.
Rumpus: Was it difficult to write the terrifying scene where Xanther bursts out of her stepfather’s car, into a blinding rainstorm?
Danielewski: It was. In some ways, it is the heart of the book. It was the heart of the last nine years of writing. It was the inevitable part that she was going to find something. The incredible velocity when you are finding something or losing something, the sense of elation that gives you purpose, that can drive Xanther through her run. I wonder if what readers are responding to, which is in the book, is the sense of loss that the parents feel they are losing her. They also understand that she is changing, that she is growing up, that there is an underlying tension that their daughter is starting to become who she is in a way they can’t control. This moment is literalized. Anwar experiences not only losing her, but for a moment is unaware of her leaving the car, because he is focused on the rain, the traffic and where they are going. Xanther is not losing Anwar. There is no point where she is thinking of him. Xanther is thinking of the purpose that she can hold on to through everything that will come at her. She’s just ahead of everything that will ask of her to fail. There is the reprieve that she grants to something that is voiceless and unknown. It is very moving. I feel those seizures of information that Xanther has. For me, it is the most effective part of the book. I am gratified by the early response of readers. I was moved writing it.
In this scene, Xanther is not prey to the usual television adversaries. It’s the rain, it’s the distance. It’s the peculiar calling of an unspecified thing that alters the relationship. It has a profound effect on the family in later volumes.
Rumpus: It’s been fifteen years since House of Leaves. For that book you toured extensively through bookstores throughout the country, as well as doing a tour with Depeche Mode and your sister Poe, where you performed onstage. For this book, you are doing a Middle American tour of four cities—Athens, Georgia; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Fort Collins, Colorado, and Portland, Oregon. Why this change of pace?
Danielewski: It is what I want to do. It is the book, like the cat, like Xanther, will survive because of Xanther, the book and the cat. There is not the time to do that extensive tour. It’s about pacing. Talking with my publisher, if we are publishing two or three volumes a year, I don’t have the time to take a month off to tour for each volume. It’s impossible. We settled on one week of touring. We are doing a limited amount of press, six to nine interviews. The idea is not to repeat the same cities. Over twenty-seven volumes, it may end up being the most expansive touring I have ever done, since touring with Depeche Mode and my sister.
We are not going to do New York and LA every single time. Spread it out… a few big cities and a few small cities. If the book does well, it will be more of a big event for the New York bookstores in later volumes. They are going to get a lot more people, which is always better for their business. It will be more of a good time. Ultimately, I want everyone to have a good time.
We did so many cities for House of Leaves, with Depeche Mode, then the Borders Bookstore tour. Then there were tours that Sophie [Cottrell, his old publicist] kept adding. You almost become an act.
The Familiar says everything. It took nine years to write and it probably takes about ten to twelve hours to read. It probably took you twice as long to read the first half of the book as it took you to read the second half. That’s part of the impact of the scene with Xanther in the rain—you know it’s going to speed things up. It’s craft. It’s plotted like her thinking. You’ve learned how to read her. You’ve been taught how to read her with the rising rainstorms, and finally she has the moment when she frees herself from that.
Rumpus: Fifteen years ago, on your extensive book tour, you made a point if inscribing artwork in the audience members’ books, and then stayed out late drinking beer with the bookstore staff. Did this help sell books?
Danielewski: I would interact with both the audience and the staff. That was taught to me by Sophie Cottrell. I read at Elliot Bay Book Company in Seattle and only four people showed up, and two of them were homeless. One of the people walked out during the reading and it wasn’t a homeless person. Sophie told me I was selling a lot of books. I had hung out with all the booksellers, who I loved, and they were selling my books over the week.
Rumpus: Why does every appearance of the word “familiar” show up in the color pink?
Danielewski: That is one question that I am just not going to answer. That’s like asking why “house” in House of Leaves always shows up in blue. The reasoning behind this is all rather extensive. I defer to the moment ahead where you have your “A-ha” moment.
Rumpus: Xanther’s natural father is Dov, a soldier who died a heroic death in Afghanistan. What interested you in giving Xanther a ghost father?
Danielewski: Good question. Lots of reasons, but that is in the category of “Why pink for ‘familiar’?” You are landing on important things.
Rumpus: Why do you frame most of the action in the book as literally taking place during a torrential rainstorm in that drought-stricken city of Los Angeles?
Danielewski: Part of it’s true. We are in the middle of a drought and suddenly the rain just drops from the sky. It feels like there is enough water forever, but there isn’t. The streets are like rivers. You see garbage cans swept away. The book is a love song to Los Angeles, way beyond what people associate with Los Angeles, its media persona.
As you work the material, it begins to give suddenly. “What’s a rainstorm?” There are cinematic instincts. You are looking at Xanther’s seizures and you can take it so far with the language that Xanther incorporates. Ultimately, for Xanther, the rainstorm moves into a visual representation of the sudden crash of many thoughts.
There was this moment in writing when I realized that every character was in the rain. If Kubrick was the patron saint of House of Leaves, Akira Kurasawa was sort of the patron saint of The Familiar.
***
Drawing © Mark Danielewski. |
It sounds like something out of a science fiction movie about making supersoldiers. Scientists have turned shy, low-ranking mice into aggressive fighters who almost always win in dominance competitions. And they did it by stimulating a part of the mouse brain that controls "effortful" behavior.
Mice are social animals, and male mice establish a pecking order amongst themselves by displaying aggressive behavior. Though this aggression can take many forms, neuroscientist Zhou Tingting of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, joined with his colleagues to measure mouse dominance using what's called the "tube test." The tube test creates a scenario in which there's not enough room for the mice to pass each other in the tube. Mice have to shove one another aside to get out. The mouse who shoves the most other mice out of its way will "win" the dominance game.
In a recent article for Science, Zhou and his colleagues write that "winner mice initiated significantly more pushes, and with a longer duration per push, than loser mice." Winners weren't stronger than losers; they were simply more persistently aggressive. The researchers also found that the winner mice showed brain activity in a cluster of neurons called the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC), which is associated with "effortful behavior" and "social dominance." Mice whose dmPFC was quiet during tube tests always lost.
Zhou and his colleagues wondered whether they could create "winner" mice by stimulating the dmPFC. Using a brain stimulation technique called "optogenetics" that triggers neural activity with proteins and light, they stimulated the dmPFC region of a low-ranking mouse's brain. Then the low-ranking mouse took the tube test with a high-ranking mouse. Immediately, the loser mouse began to shove the winner mouse vigorously, winning almost every contest.
There are a lot of interesting implications here for further research. First of all, winning social dominance contests is clearly not just a matter of physical strength. Having an aggressive attitude is key to winning. And second, there is the question of whether this kind of technique would work on other animals and perhaps even humans. Mouse brains are similar to human brains in some ways, but our brains are far more complicated. That makes it unlikely that a shy person could be transformed into RoboCop with just one squirt of photons from a brain implant.
Perhaps more interesting is how researchers found they could permanently transform loser mice into winners, just by stimulating their brains six or more times in tube tests. "We observed that not all the mice returned to their original rank," Zhejiang University neuroscientist Hu Hailan told the Guardian. "Some mice [did], but some of them had this newly dominant position." Hu and the other researchers refer to this as the "winner effect," in which one triumph can lead to more victories, due to a change in outlook.
Put in more scientific terms, the winner effect is the result of "neuroplasticity," or the way neural connections in our brains are constantly changing. Each time the mouse wins due to brain stimulation, the underlying structure of its brain changes a little bit. Over time, the mouse has essentially been rewired to be more aggressive in dominance games. Light stimulation isn't the only way to do this; animals can rewire their brains through new experiences or learning. But brain stimulation works remarkably fast.
For now, this research could only lead to a more aggressive mouse army. But in the future, it could help people overcome social anxiety by giving them a little boost of assertiveness at just the right moment. Or it could create an army of hyper-aggressive supersoldiers. What could go wrong?
Science, 2017. DOI: 10.1126/science.aak9726 (About DOIs). |
To compete in the Best Animated Feature category at the Academy Awards, a film must meet certain requirements. Its running time must exceed 40 minutes. Seventy-five percent of that running time must consist of frame-by-frame animation. And like all Oscar-eligible movies, it must screen theatrically in Los Angeles for at least a seven-day period. The contenders in this category aren’t, however, obligated to cater to audiences under a certain age. But since the Animated Feature race was born in 2001, its nominees and winners have largely been family-friendly releases, the kinds of movies that generate critical acclaim alongside opportunities for Happy Meal tie-ins. If the Academy Awards are a Thanksgiving banquet for the cinematic elite, the Best Animated Feature contenders are perpetually seated at the kids’ table.
This isn’t surprising, since most animated films in America are developed and distributed with wide-eyed children in mind. Adults can appreciate many of those releases, which aren’t necessarily unworthy of Academy recognition. Indeed, it’s hard to argue that many past winners of the Best Animated Feature prize—Spirited Away, Finding Nemo, WALL-E—are anything other than sophisticated, carefully rendered, heartbreaking works of staggering genius. Still, the track record in this category does raise the question of whether an animated film with more adult themes will ever trump the blockbuster eye-poppers that transfix the LeapPad-and-Lego crowd. That’s a question that’s especially relevant given the way this year’s Best Animated Feature race appears to be taking shape.
Earlier this month, the Academy announced that 19 films had submitted for consideration in the Animated Feature category. From that pack, one—Disney’s Frozen, the studio’s forthcoming update of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen—has been dubbed the likely winner in various Oscar-prognosticating corners of the Internet. Hitfix called it the frontrunner in the category. As of this writing, the Gold Derby expert rankings place Frozen in first place. Rope Of Silicon’s Brad Brevet even called the race for Frozen in his Oscar predictions way back in March.
It’s easy to see why this is happening. There are compelling reasons, even at this premature stage, to argue in favor of a Frozen win. Early critical response to the film has been overwhelmingly positive. It contains a lot of the ingredients traditionally expected from a quality Disney animated work: Broadway-esque songs, a sense of adventure, and an endearingly quirky supporting character (in this case, Olaf the summer-loving snowman). Most importantly, if Frozen takes the Oscar, it will mark the first Animated Feature win for a Walt Disney Animation production, providing the Academy with an opportunity to honor the present and past work of the studio that brought animated motion pictures to the mainstream.
Considering that this year has been viewed as a relatively weak one for animation—Pixar’s entry, Monsters University, is pretty meh by the studio’s standards, and much as everyone loves minions, it’s hard to imagine them winning an Oscar for Despicable Me 2—Frozen seems to have a clear, snow-shoveled path to victory. But there’s a potential challenger that could stand in its way.
That would be The Wind Rises, announced as the final movie from one of the most celebrated filmmakers to ever work in the medium, Hayao Miyazaki. Like Frozen, The Wind Rises has already been applauded for the quality of its animation. It’s earned laudatory reviews from critics. And it’s been trumpeted as the swan song of a master craftsman. Miyazaki has won just one Academy Award during his long career, the Best Animated Feature prize for Spirited Away in 2002. Another statuette would be an appropriate way for the Academy to wish the Japanese virtuoso a fond, well-deserved farewell.
But as The New York Times recently pointed out, some voters may find it hard to embrace The Wind Rises because, despite what writer Brooks Barnes describes as its “strong pacifist message,” the movie happens to be inspired by the life of Jiro Horikoshi, the engineer who designed the Zero fighter plane used by Japanese pilots during World War II, including the attack on Pearl Harbor. When the film was released this summer in Japan, it generated strong box-office returns—and criticism from those who disagreed with the anti-war politics Miyazaki expressed in a widely read, controversial essay he penned. He’s said in interviews that he wanted to capture the beauty of Horikoshi’s aeronautical ambitions, as well as the regret caused by the destruction his creations enabled. “What he’s trying to do is portray the fact that there were actually people involved in that war effort, and that people made compromised decisions,” Linda Hoaglund, Miyazaki’s former translator, said in a recent NPR piece. “He’s trying to say we’ve already been down the path of war, and it nearly ruined us. Let’s not go back.”
Suffice it to say, The Wind Rises deals with far more serious and delicate issues than, say, Free Birds. Unlike Miyazaki’s previous works, it also isn’t for young children; the MPAA has given the film a PG-13 rating. And despite all the controversy involving war history and contemporary Japanese politics, that might be the most important hurdle The Wind Rises has to overcome at the Oscars this year: the fact that it’s an animated film for mature audiences in a category that skews pre-adolescent.
The Wind Rises isn’t the first non-family-film aiming for an animated-feature Oscar. Notably, Waltz With Bashir—the 2007 animated Israeli film about one man’s struggle with memories of the 1982 Lebanon War—was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film, but left out entirely in the animated category. Instead, WALL-E, Bolt, and Kung-Fu Panda competed that year for the top animated honor. That said, animated films of a more grown-up nature have been nominated in the past, including The Triplets Of Belleville, Persepolis, The Illusionist, and Chico & Rita. However, all four of them lost—to Finding Nemo, Ratatouille, Toy Story 3, and Rango, respectively—for reasons that may have been justified, but certainly cement the perception that an animated film needs elementary-school appeal to claim victory in this category.
As ridiculous as it may sound to those who study the medium’s hand-drawn, computer-generated, and stop-motion marvels, the fact is that to most Americans, the words “animated movie” still means “cartoon,” which still means “childhood.” For better or worse, the animated sensibilities of American moviegoers have largely been molded by the world’s Disneys and Pixars. Consequently, some of those moviegoers (and Academy voters) may settle in to watch an animated film and subconsciously crave the crimson-lipped princesses or plucky cowboy dolls they encountered during their most formative years as film-watchers. When they encounter, instead, an animated film that deals with complicated, non-child-friendly themes, or visuals that don’t match the playful picture-book aesthetic they associate so strongly with the medium, they may view that as a negative instead of a potentially refreshing, groundbreaking departure. Given recent changes to the Academy’s rules regarding how films in the animated categories are nominated, which may increase the number of people handpicking the nominees, that unintentional bias could become even more of an issue. (Another bias, one toward releases produced by the major Hollywood studios, has often been flagged for the unfair advantages it may afford.)
That doesn’t have to be the case. Thanks to the widening pool of films being submitted in this still-young Oscar category, the definition of “animated movie” should be constantly expanding, both for Academy voters and the moviegoing public at large. As it evolves, the Oscars must actively attempt to embrace worthwhile movies that charm kids, as well as the kind mom and dad can only watch after the kids are tucked in bed, drifting off to sleep with their plush Minions and Nemos in their arms.
No matter what happens in this year’s Best Animated Feature race, Walt Disney Co. will likely come out the winner. Disney created and distributed Frozen, but it’s also distributing Miyazaki’s The Wind Rises in the U.S. next year, during the heart of Academy Awards season. Wait, who reportedly said, “You’re dead if you aim only for kids. Adults are only kids grown-up, anyway”? Oh, that’s right. It was Walt Disney. |
Recovered yet from last night's (June 25) highly emotional Big Brother? Well, today's episode follows the morning after the berserk night before.
The explosive turn of events saw almost everyone in the house kick off, with Lotan Carter later kicked out after he threw a drink over Hannah Agboola's head, which was only the start of a chaotic night in the BB house.
Lotan's actions didn't go down well with Hannah's sister Deborah Agboola, who reacted strongly to the situation and ended up going for Lotan's pal, Ellie Young.
Luckily, Hannah was there to get between the pair, but there was a final twist in store, after Hannah claimed Ellie hit her in the struggle.
Indeed, a video has since been released showing that it was actually Deborah who appeared to 'hit' her instead, leading Deborah to receive a formal warning from Big Brother in the Diary Room during tonight's show (June 26).
Channel 5
It also sees her come face-to-face with Ellie for the first time since the incident.
Yep, we sense there's still some beef there...
Channel 5
Channel 5
Channel 5
Last night's episode was among the most combative in the show's history, with some viewers now calling for the series to be pulled altogether via an online petition.
Is this really the most controversial Big Brother series to date? Only time will tell.
Big Brother continues tonight (June 26) on Channel 5.
Want up-to-the-minute entertainment news and features? Just hit 'Like' on our Digital Spy Facebook page and 'Follow' on our @digitalspy Twitter account and you're all set. |
Share. Death comes in a variety of flavors. Death comes in a variety of flavors.
Imagine watching a horror film. Its atmosphere and violence tug at your gut, inciting unease over the brutal suffering of characters you've grown to love. As you sit, perched on the edge of your chair, the hero stumbles down a hallway running from certain death that claws at his feet. At the last moment, just when he hopes to escape, he dies. A grisly death.
But he wasn't supposed to die at that particular point in the film. So you rewind the movie and re-watch the last 20 minutes leading into his untimely demise hoping that something changes along the way. This is the Corpse Party experience. For all its unique, gory, unsettling moments of horror, sudden "Game Overs" undo some of the tension that this PSP download works so hard to build. And yet even in fits of frustration, the atmosphere of Corpse Party still haunts the mind and demonstrates the power of simple visuals paired with effective text and sound.
Exit Theatre Mode
Corpse Party came into existence in 1996 when a team of independent Japanese developers used the RPG Maker suite to craft a 16-bit horror game. In the many years following, Corpse Party would return in different forms -- notably an upgraded PSP remake that added new visuals, music, and characters to the original. The version of Corpse Party released on the PlayStation Network represents this complete version, localized for the first time for a western audience.
The story of Corpse Party starts late at night in Kisaragi Academy, a normal Japanese high school. While telling ghost stories together, a group of students decide to perform a ritual to ensure their friendship endures over time. Immediately after performing the incantations, an earthquake devastates the school and the friends find themselves in the dilapidated Heavenly Host Elementary School -- a building demolished decades earlier.
Over the next 10 hours (give or take), your job is to keep these friends alive while navigating the cursed halls of Heavenly Host. Blood, hunger, and betrayal threaten the sanity of each character and any action you take could lead right into death's waiting arms.
In keeping with Corpse Party's 16-bit roots, the visuals you'll find here stay with simple 2D sprites and backgrounds, which might seem odd compared to modern horror games. But shortly after its opening sequence Corpse Party reveals its greatest strength: it gives you just enough details to chill you, and leaves the rest up to your imagination.
Corpse Party toys with text and sound in ways that most video games today just don't do. I couldn't imagine playing it without a top-of-the-line pair of headphones. Voices flicker and echo between your ears, black screens and textual cues ignite your senses of smell and touch -- even the music will react to the sight of a dead body. Playing Corpse Party means investing as much time in reading and listening as you do in controlling a character and searching objects.
Exit Theatre Mode
The frustration comes from hitting one of Corpse Party's many dead ends. You might interact with the wrong object, get caught by a ghost, or just do things out of order -- all lead to the actual death of the characters (in gruesome detail) and a reloaded save file. This might set you back 20 minutes, and with no way to skip previously read dialogue and cutscenes, repeated deaths can push even the most peaceful player to bouts of gaming rage.
This issue aggravates further because these deaths come at unexpected points with no warning to help protect players from a slight misstep. Sometimes Corpse Party even tricks you into these dead ends. This might enhance the feeling of suspense during play, but it makes each death a serious time investment -- unusual for a portable platform normally reserved for bite-sized sessions. |
BRADENTON, Fla. — Because players move around so much via trades and free agency, it is not unusual to see a rainbow of different teams’ equipment bags around the clubhouse at the start of spring training.
Ryan Vogelsong spent the past five seasons with the San Francisco Giants. But when the he reported to Pirates camp on Monday, Vogelsong toted a black-and-gold bag — the same one he used when he pitched for the Pirates in 2006.
“I’ve come to realize that you don’t close doors,” Vogelsong said. “Did I ever think I’d ever come back here? Honestly, no. But when the opportunity was there, I was really excited about it and I took it.”
The Pirates logo on Vogelsong’s decade-old bag is faded and outdated. The Giants likely thought Vogelsong’s career — he will be 39 in July and spent part of last season in the bullpen — had reached that same point.
“I kind of knew what direction they were going to be heading in the offseason, and I knew my time there was probably coming to an end,” Vogelsong said. “When you go home for the offseason, you digest and try to start thinking about the future. I tried to pick out some places where I thought I could fit in and help, and (Pittsburgh) was definitely on the list.”
In mid-December, Vogelsong signed a $2 million contract to fill a back-end spot in the rotation. The right-hander can make up to $3 million more through performance bonuses.
As he chose a landing spot, Vogelsong’s priority was finding a team that would put him in the rotation. When A.J. Burnett retired and J.A. Happ signed with Toronto, the Pirates needed a starter.
There is some irony in Vogelsong’s return to claim a rotation spot. During his first five seasons with the Pirates, he made 70 of his 103 outings out of the bullpen.
Although he said he is “receptive” to going to the bullpen this season if necessary, Vogelsong made it clear he wants to start.
“I just feel that at this point in my career and at my age, having a regular routine is better for me,” he said. “My body still feels great, my arm feels great.”
Vogelsong doesn’t have much competition for a job behind the trio of Gerrit Cole, Francisco Liriano and Jon Niese.
General manager Neal Huntington repeatedly has said top pitching prospects Tyler Glasnow and Jameson Taillon will begin the season at Triple-A Indianapolis. Newcomer Juan Nicasio has worked as a starter, but he was successful last season in the Los Angeles Dodgers’ bullpen.
That leaves Vogelsong and left-hander Jeff Locke to fill the final two spots in the rotation, at least until Glasnow and/or Taillon are ready to be called up. Then it will be up to Vogelsong to hold off the rookies.
Vogelsong has resurrected his career once before. The Pirates let him walk as a free agent after a bumpy 2006 season. He then pitched three seasons in Japan.
He returned in 2011 to the Giants, who had drafted him 13 years earlier out of Kutztown University, notched 13 victories and finished 11th in Cy Young Award voting. In 2012, Vogelsong helped the Giants win the World Series.
Can he do it again? Vogelsong has two things in his favor; pitching coach Ray Searage and catcher Francisco Cervelli.
Searage was coaching in the Pirates’ farm system during Vogelsong’s first stint with the team.
“I’ve always enjoyed talking to him and being around him,” Vogelsong said. “We crossed paths many times since then, and I always made it a point to say hi to him. I’m excited to work with him. His track record with turning some guys around is amazing.”
Lacking swing-and- miss stuff, Vogelsong will need to get ground balls to survive. His 44.7 percent ground-ball rate last season was the second-highest of his career. He probably will need to at least match it.
Cervelli’s pitch-framing skills also will be important. He will need to steal Vogelsong a few strikes every game.
“It’s critical for me,” Vogelsong said. “I don’t have the high-90s (mph) fastball anymore, so location and living on the corners is crucial. Living down (in the zone) is crucial. Anything a guy can do back there is a bonus.”
Rob Biertempfel is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at [email protected] or via Twitter @BiertempfelTrib. |
‘“This invention, O king,” said Theuth, “will make the Egyptians wiser and will improve their memories; for it is an elixir of memory and wisdom that I have discovered.” But Thamus replied, “Most ingenious Theuth, one man has the ability to beget arts, but the ability to judge of their usefulness or harmfulness to their users belongs to another; and now you, who are the father of letters, have been led by your affection to ascribe to them a power the opposite of that which they really possess. For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory.’
Plato, Phaedrus
Socrates and the Internet
It’s funny isn’t it? How a text written over two thousand years ago can be so relevant to the problems we face in modern society today. In this particular quote from Plato’s Phaedrus Socrates uses the supposed dialogue between the Egyptian Gods Theuth, the inventor of letters, and Thamus, the king of Egypt, to explain to Phaedrus the dangers of writing, and the worrying effects it could have on human wisdom.
Theuth believes that through his creation of letters he has found a way to preserve and improve the memories of the Egyptians; in other words he thinks that the externalisation of conscious thoughts into the written word will provide the Egyptian people with a wisdom that extends beyond their natural capacities. However, Thamus argues that Theuth is mistaken. His new invention–this revolutionary new technology–will not help the Egyptians to become wise at all. Instead of granting them new powers of memorisation, they will delegate their memory to a technological system, and in turn will lose their natural capacity for internal memory, the foundation stone of knowledge. Their memories, and thus their wisdom, will degrade as knowledge becomes ever increasingly stored in external symbols.
Now let’s fast forward 2500 years or so to 2015. Let’s imagine the invention that Theuth has created is not letters or the written word, but the internet. It’s quite startling how well the above quote still applies. In Socrates’ terms, the internet would perhaps be the single biggest system of collectivised memory loss in the whole of human history. The internet’s capacity to store human memories is limitless, and although books have been shown to improve the capacity of memory (something I will come back to in a later post), the tendency we have to rely on modern technology, in particular the internet, as a vast external memory bank has led us towards a lack of memory.
Modern philosophers in both the Analytic and Continental traditions such as Andy Clark, David Chalmers, Bernard Stiegler, and Catherine Malabou, have all been aware of this in recent years, and have all been keen to look at the effects of these externalisations on our minds and our culture:
Chalmers notes in the introduction to Clark’s Supersizing the Mind that the externalisation of memory through manipulation of outer objects can have a direct impact on how memory, and thus to some extent mind as a whole, can be altered by interactions with the “external scaffolding” around it (an idea that is apparent throughout Clark’s works): ‘A month ago, I bought an iPhone. The iPhone has already taken over some of the central functions of my brain. It has replaced part of my memory, storing phone numbers and addresses that I once would have taxed my brain with.’ Similarly Stiegler writes in his New Critique of Political Economy that technology ’causes our memories to pass into machines, in such a way that, for example, we no longer know the telephone numbers of those close to us’.
The smartphone example is perhaps an obvious one but it’s a perfect modern day explication of how external objects can act as part of our working memory processes. However what is it that actually determines what we remember and what we forget? To understand this question a good place to start is by looking at the work of a man who dedicated his life to the study of memory, Nobel Prize winning neuropsychiatrist Eric Kandel.
Attention and Memory
According to Kandel the key to the formation of memories is attention. The process of storing and retaining explicit memories and building connections between them requires high levels of mental concentration which can be facilitated by a strong intellectual or emotional engagement. In his book, In Search of Memory, Kandel writes that for a memory to persist ‘the incoming information must be thoroughly and deeply processed. This is accomplished by attending to the information and associating it meaningfully and systematically with knowledge already well established in memory’. Without giving true attention to a working memory, the neurons lose their electric charge within a few seconds and the memory is gone, leaving maybe only a small trace in the mind.
This problem of attention has become one of the most pressing problems affecting contemporary western society in recent years. Parents, teachers, university professors, and bosses the world over are becoming aware of the society of distraction that we are currently moving into. Since the development of the internet in the early 90s, and our subsequent leap into a world of easily accessible globalised information, our capacity for sustained attention has dwindled in recent years.
The huge amount of competing messages that we encounter every time we go online not only overloads our working memory; it makes it substantially harder for the frontal lobes of our brain to direct our attention onto one particular task. As Kandel states, the process of proper memory construction can’t even get started. And due to the neuroplasticity of our brains, the more we use the Web, the more our brain gets used to being distracted; to processing information extremely quickly and efficiently without the need for sustained attention.
How many of us have found it increasingly difficult to concentrate for extended periods of time on tasks that required sustained attention, for example reading a book? Or even watching a long film? Even in the process of writing this article I’ve noticed it’s initially difficult to not pop open another tab and check Facebook, or Gmail, or to get distracted by another hyperlink on a website I’m researching from. Through memory delegation our brains have essentially become adapted to forgetting, which causes them to become inept at remembering. And here we become trapped in a vicious cycle: as our use of the web makes it increasingly more difficult for us to keep information stored in our biological memory, we’re forced to rely on the easily searchable, instantly accessible nature of the Web’s external memory banks.
So was Socrates right? Does this mean that as time goes on, and our reliance on technical externalities increases exponentially, that we’re doomed to a future of attention deficit and social dementia? It may seem so. However there is another way.
In the Phaedrus, Thoth describes his invention of writing as pharmakon, a word with the same route as our English word pharmacy, meaning (of course) a place where medications and drugs are purchased. The use of pharmakon is interesting in this context as it can be translated as both poison and remedy (something Derrida discusses in his essay ‘Plato’s Pharmacy’). Modern technology can be looked at in the exact same way; it can, and must, be understood as having both poisonous and curative qualities. From our earliest written records in the Phaedrus, technê has been thought of dualistic, or pharmacological in nature.
To be able to focus on the postive aspect of this drug-like nature of technology we must become aware of it’s ability to damage our attention, whilst utilising it’s capacity for interconnectivity to actually improve our attention. In the next piece of this series I will explore the etymology of ‘attention’, and show how through a more postive utilisation of these external memories we can begin to recapture the attention has been lost in recent years. Stay tuned for pt.2. |
WILLIAM J. BROAD
NY Times
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
The federal government mistakenly made public a 266-page report, its pages marked “highly confidential,” that gives detailed information about hundreds of the nation’s civilian nuclear sites and programs, including maps showing the precise locations of stockpiles of fuel for nuclear weapons.
The publication of the document was revealed Monday in an online newsletter devoted to issues of federal secrecy. That set off a debate among nuclear experts about what dangers, if any, the disclosures posed. It also prompted a flurry of investigations in Washington into why the document had been made public.
On Tuesday evening, after inquiries from The New York Times, the document was withdrawn from a Government Printing Office Web site.
(ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW)
Several nuclear experts argued that any dangers from the disclosure were minimal, given that the general outlines of the most sensitive information were already known publicly.
“These screw-ups happen,” said John M. Deutch, a former director of central intelligence and deputy secretary of defense who is now a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “It’s going further than I would have gone but doesn’t look like a serious breach.”
Full article here |
-- by Mary Bottari and Sean Hoey
Generation Opportunity (Gen Opp), a "nonpartisan" youth group funded by the Koch brothers "Freedom Partners" conduit, is backing one of the Koch's favorite politicians and thanking him for his support for a Koch-approved ALEC model bill.
The Arlington, Virginia, astroturf group recently asked Wisconsinites to sign a petition thanking Governor Scott Walker for signing "The CASE for Jobs Act." The tweets signal that the group is trying to capture names in Wisconsin perhaps for use in the election cycle. As CMD previously reported, the group has been spending big money in federal races for the U.S. Senate.
The tweets from @GenOppWI went viral on Twitter, but not for the reasons the group would have hoped. Rather, Wisconsinites reacted viscerally to the call to thank Wisconsin's governor for making progress on jobs.
"@GenOppWI Is this a joke?" was one of the milder and more common responses pouring into the Gen Opp account, prompting one Walker supporter to lament, "I can't believe the negative replies."
Wisconsinites Aren't Buying Gen Opp Spin on Jobs
Gen Opp signaled its support for Walker by thanking him "for giving our generation an opportunity to build our own future." How are Wisconsin youth building their future? Apparently by "crowdfunding" capital.
Just a few months before the election, Gen Opp has begun peddling a petition to thank Walker for signing the CASE for Jobs Act, which he signed into law eight months ago. The bill in question was co-authored by Wisconsin ALEC members Rep. David Craig, Rep. Chad Weininger, and State Senator Leah Vukmir. Vukmir, an ALEC Board Member, was sued by the Center for Media and Democracy for failure to respond to our open records requests. The state attorney general settled the case with CMD in 2014, paying penalties and fees.
Drafting documents obtained by CMD reveal that the CASE Act was modeled on a North Carolina bill, the "Jump-Start Our Business Start-Ups Act" (JOBS Act). It, too, was introduced by a passel of ALEC politicians, including Kelly Hastings, Tom Murry, and Tim Moffitt. So it's not surprising that the bill then moved to ALEC and became ALEC's Local Investment Made Easy (LIME) Act, which was on the ALEC agenda in Kansas City in April 2014. It was approved as a "model" by ALEC's board, which includes Koch Industries, on July 1, 2014. Under the bill businesses are granted exemptions from state securities law and allowed to raise as much as $1 million from investors without an audited financial statement and up to $2 million with an audit (what could go wrong?). In case that was not worrisome enough, the Wisconsin version lowers the threshold to be an accredited investor. The Milwaukee Business Journal raised concerns that the changes would create risk for unsophisticated investors.
Although the bill passed long ago, Gen Opp is trotting it out again to foster the notion that Walker is busy on the jobs front. In June 2014, CMD did an analysis that showed that the Wisconsin Economic Development Authority, Walker's flagship jobs agency which he chairs, had only created 5,800 jobs in the past three years. During the same period Wisconsin's WARN database indicates that 13,000 jobs were lost to plant closings and mass layoffs. Federal data puts Wisconsin in the 37th spot of all 50 states for new job creation and dead last among its Midwestern neighbors in job creation.
But the facts haven't stopped the Koch spin machine. Koch's American's for Prosperity Group recently spent nearly $900,000 on another round of TV ads sticking to their old mantra regarding the Walker agenda -- "It's Working!" after spending millions on the same message during Walker's 2012 recall election. And, a Koch-controlled foundation helped underwrite ALEC's "Rich States, Poor States" report which pumped up Wisconsin's purported economic grade despite the state's actually dismal economic performance. In 2010, Koch Industries PAC contributed $43,000 to Walker's campaign directly.
Wisconsinites who've had the misfortune of living through Walker's divisive and ineffective economic policies, were quick to respond to the Gen Opp spin with snark, facts and outrage, as can be seen below.
Bankrolled by Billionaires
As PR Watch reported earlier this month, Gen Opp launched a massive, nearly $2.3 million ad buy against Senators Kay Hagan (D-NC), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), and Mark Udall (D-CO) – all vulnerable Democrats in tough reelection fights that could determine the control of the U.S. Senate in the next session. Its support for Walker shows it will now be weighing into state races, too.
Where does Gen Opp get all this cash?
In 2012, Gen Opp received $5 million from Freedom Partners, a key part of the Koch political apparatus which raised some $256 million for the 2012 election cycle from deep pocketed donors many of whom have donated a million dollars or more to the Koch network in response to appeals from the Kochs at their donor retreats. It was almost a year after that election that tax filings first revealed the existence of Freedom Partners, which is stocked with Koch operatives, had bankrolled almost the entirety of the "grassroots" opposition to "Obamacare." Gen Opp also received over $2 million from TC4 Trust another Koch-tied conduit in 2012.
Stay tuned.
It is early days for Gen Opp, and analysts anticipate they are likely to jump into more states where hot races are looming this fall.
For more on the billionaire industrialist Koch brothers and the power and influence of the Koch cadre and Koch cash, see CMD's unique wiki resource KochExposed.org. |
A Controversial Symposium
The International Symposium on Information Theory is not known for its racy content or politically charged presentations, but the session at Cornell University on October 10, 1977, was a special case. In addition to talks with titles like “Distribution-Free Inequalities for the Deleted and Holdout Error Estimates,” the conference featured the work of a group from Stanford that had drawn the ire of the National Security Agency and the attention of the national press. The researchers in question were Martin Hellman, then an associate professor of electrical engineering, and his students Steve Pohlig, MS ’75, PhD ’78, and Ralph Merkle, PhD ’79.
A year earlier, Hellman had published “New Directions in Cryptography” with his student Whitfield Diffie, Gr. ’78. The paper introduced the principles that now form the basis for all modern cryptography, and its publication rightfully caused a stir among electrical engineers and computer scientists. As Hellman recalled in a 2004 oral history, the nonmilitary community’s reaction to the paper was “ecstatic.” In contrast, the “NSA was apoplectic.”
The fact that Hellman and his students were challenging the U.S. government’s longstanding domestic monopoly on cryptography deeply annoyed many in the intelligence community. The NSA acknowledged that Diffie and Hellman had come up with their ideas without access to classified materials. Even so, in the words of an internal NSA history declassified in 2009 and now held in the Stanford Archives, “NSA regarded the [Diffie-Hellman] technique as classified. Now it was out in the open.”
The tension between Hellman and the NSA only worsened in the months leading up to the 1977 symposium. In July, someone named J. A. Meyer sent a shrill letter to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, which had published Hellman’s papers and was holding the conference. It began:
I have noticed in the past months that various IEEE Groups have been publishing and exporting technical articles on encryption and cryptology — a technical field which is covered by Federal Regulations, viz: ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations, 22 CFR 121–128).
Meyer’s letter asserted that the IEEE and the authors of the relevant papers might be subject to prosecution under federal laws prohibiting arms trafficking, communication of atomic secrets and disclosure of classified information.
Without naming Hellman or his co-authors, Meyer specified the issues of IEEE’s Transactions on Information Theory journal and Computer magazine in which Hellman’s articles appeared. Meyer concluded ominously that “these modern weapons technologies, uncontrollably disseminated, could have more than academic effect.”
Meyer’s letter alarmed many in the academic community and drew coverage by Science and the New York Times for two main reasons. First, the letter suggested that merely publishing a scientific paper on cryptography would be the legal equivalent of exporting nuclear weapons to a foreign country. If Meyer’s interpretation of the law was correct, it seemed to place severe restrictions on researchers’ freedom to publish. Second, Deborah Shapley and Gina Kolata of Science magazine discovered that Meyer was an NSA employee.
As soon as Hellman received a copy of the letter, he recognized that continuing to publish might put him and his students in legal jeopardy, so he sought advice from Stanford University counsel John Schwartz.
In his memo to Schwartz, Hellman made a lucid case for the value of public-domain cryptography research. Astutely, Hellman first acknowledged that the U.S. government’s tight control over cryptographic techniques proved enormously useful in World War II: Allied forces used confidential cryptographic discoveries to improve their own encryption systems while denying those same cryptographic benefits to Axis powers. Even so, Hellman argued that circumstances had changed.
[T]here is a commercial need today that did not exist in the 1940’s. The growing use of automated information processing equipment poses a real economic and privacy threat. Although it is a remote possibility, the danger of initially inadvertent police state type surveillance through computerization must be considered. From that point of view, inadequate commercial cryptography (which our publications are trying to avoid) poses an internal national security threat.
In the memo, Hellman described how his earlier attempts to prevent “stepping on [the] toes” of the NSA failed when the agency’s staffers would not even disclose which areas of cryptography research Hellman should avoid.
Responding to Hellman a few days later, Schwartz opined that publishing cryptography research would not in itself violate federal law. His findings had a strong legal basis: Two regulations governed classified information in the United States at the time — an executive order and the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 — and neither seemed to prevent the publication of unclassified research on cryptography.
SHARING THE STEALTH: Merkle, Hellman and Diffie ended government’s monopoly on cryptography. (Photo by Chuck Painter/Stanford News Service)
There was only one other likely legal tool that the federal government could use to prevent the Stanford group from disseminating their work: the Arms Export Control Act of 1976, which regulated the export of military equipment. Under a generous interpretation of the law, giving a public presentation on cryptographic algorithms could constitute “export” of arms. It was not clear, however, that a prosecution under this act would stand up to a legal challenge on First Amendment grounds.
Evaluating these laws together, Schwartz concluded that Hellman and his students could legally continue to publish. At the same time, Schwartz noted wryly, “at least one contrary view [of the law] exists” — that of Joseph A. Meyer. Hellman later recalled Schwartz’s less-than-comforting informal advice: “If you are prosecuted, Stanford will defend you. But if you’re found guilty, we can’t pay your fine and we can’t go to jail for you.”
The Cornell symposium was to begin three days after Schwartz offered his legal opinion; Hellman, Merkle and Pohlig had to quickly decide whether to proceed with their presentations in spite of the threat of prosecution, fines and jail time. Graduate students typically present their own research at academic conferences, but according to Hellman, Schwartz recommended against it in this case. Since the students were not employees of Stanford, it might be more difficult for the university to justify paying their legal bills. Schwartz also reasoned that dealing with a lengthy court case would be harder for a young PhD student than for a tenured faculty member. Hellman left the decision up to the students.
According to Hellman, Merkle and Pohlig at first said, “We need to give the papers, the hell with this.” After speaking with their families, though, the students agreed to let Hellman present on their behalf.
In the end, the symposium took place without incident. Merkle and Pohlig stood on stage while Hellman gave the presentation. The fact that the conference went ahead as planned, Science observed, “left little doubt that the work [in cryptography] has been widely circulated.” That a group of nongovernmental researchers could publicly discuss cutting-edge cryptographic algorithms signaled the end of the U.S. government’s domestic control of information on cryptography. |
CRAIG Conway has signed a new contract with Blackburn Rovers.
The winger has put pen to paper on a two-and-a-half year deal tying him to the club until the summer of 2018.
Conway, speaking to Rovers Player HD, said: “I’m absolutely delighted. It seems like forever that we’ve been speaking about it, but I’m just delighted to sign and to stay here for another two-and-a-half years.
“I’ve really enjoyed the time that I’ve been here and the minute that we spoke about a new contract I was really keen to get it done.
“With the change of manager, there was obviously a slight delay on it, but luckily for me the new manager was happy for it to go ahead.
“My family is settled here and everything is going well. From the day I signed, it just felt right and luckily on the pitch it’s gone really well for me.
“I’ve grown in confidence and I feel as though I’ve improved as well and the team-mates that I’ve played with as well have obviously helped that.”
Fans’ favourite Conway, 30, has scored 10 goals and contributed 29 assists in 80 appearances since his £100,000 move from Cardiff City in January 2014. |
The work of a driver software programmer is never done. New driver packages are needed for game releases or to lift performance that doesn't match expectations. Nowadays, VR versions of existing titles are another reason for driver devs to put their noses to the grindstone. Nvidia's team has done just that and released the GeForce 388.43 drivers with support for id Software's Doom VFR. The game is exclusively for HTC's Vive headset and lists a GeForce GTX 1070 as part of its minimum system requirements.
The second-biggest piece of news in the updated drivers probably concerns a larger swath of the Nvidia-card-owning population—the NV Tray utility has been added back into the software. The 384.33 release also adds 3D Vision profiles for Escape from Tarkov and Claybook. Some game crashes in Wolfenstein on Optimus laptops have been corrected, as has an issue with the Nvidia control panel crashing when cross-adapter screen clone mode is enabled.
Graphics drivers are complicated and perfection is impossible, so some issues remain. GeForce GTX 780 Ti cards in SLI have no screen output when connecting screens to two DVI and one DisplayPort connector. Kepler-based GeForce GTX Titan cards have OS installation problems with AMD Threadripper motherboards. Flickering may occur on notebook 120 Hz G-Sync panels when the adaptive refresh rate technology is enabled. As for application-specific bugs, Star Wars: Battlefront II hangs on Kepler cards when using the DirectX 12 renderer, and Unigine Heaven can crash when running in windowed mode.
Gerbils who like to read the fine print can check out the driver release notes here. The bold can let Nvidia's GeForce Experience tool install the drivers automagically. Alternatively, head to Nvidia's GeForce driver download page to download them by hand. |
Big Pharma has remade their business models over time to maximize shareholder value. - Joe Raedle/Getty Images
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There’s a new way of doing business for much of Big Pharma.
Instead of relying on their own expensive laboratories, they also buy drugs or their makers and focus on getting treatments through the Food and Drug Administration and onto your TV screens. Then, raise prices every year. Move overseas for tax advantages. And reward shareholders by buying back billions' worth of shares.
It wasn’t always like that.
“George Merck summed it up — one of the original CEOs of Merck back in the '50s — that the mission of Merck and other pharmaceutical companies at the time was to take care of patients and profits would follow,” said Joel Hay, a professor of pharmaceutical economics and policy at the University of Southern California.
At Merck & Co., in the middle of the 20th century, the idea that patients came before profits “was a big part of our culture,” said Scott Lucas, who worked in sales at the company for more than 30 years, starting in the 1970s.
Lucas and other workers describe an era of the highest ethical and moral standards. Drug trials were halted over the most tenuous rumor that a similar drug in development by a competitor was running into issues. Sales staff took pains to educate doctors about the downsides of Merck’s treatments.
In the second half of the 20th century, Merck really was a company where shareholder value was the result, not a prime motivation.
It ran huge, productive research labs full of top-notch scientists. In charge of those labs was Roy Vagelos, who went from chief scientist to become CEO in 1984.
Dan Bobkoff / Business Insider
“My interest was never making money,” Vagelos, 86, said in an interview with Business Insider and Marketplace. “Even as CEO. Especially as CEO.”
By today’s standards of management, it’s as if Vagelos did everything wrong.
'We’re leaving money on the table'
He refused to raise drug prices more than inflation. When he told that to Merck’s marketing team, Vagelos said, “They said, 'We’re leaving money on the table,' of course. And I said, 'Fine, that’s what we’ll do.'”
He bailed out of business school after just a week, which is maybe why he didn’t think much about Wall Street.
“I never worried about stockholders ever. It never crossed my mind. I even refused to meet with stock analysts.”
At one point, he made a last-minute decision to donate a massive quantity of a drug that cured river blindness in patients in Africa. It cost the company a lot of money.
“One of the people — when I was reporting it — at the next board meeting said, ‘You never called us!’ And I said it was going so fast, it never crossed my mind. I forgot about it.”
You could be cynical about this. You could argue holding down drug prices helped stave off regulations, and there were a lot of public relations benefits to that donation in Africa.
But by not focusing on maximizing shareholder value, Merck did really well. During Vagelos' era, it came out with lots of new drugs, which led Merck’s stock price to increase an average of 22 percent per year. In the years since, it has been just 5 percent a year.
But these days, it’s just about impossible to run a company the way Vagelos ran Merck.
“You have to provide a little bit of something for everybody,” said Brent Saunders, the CEO of Allergan. You might know it as the maker of Botox. Allergan is highly respected by Wall Street and its competitors, but Saunders can’t ignore investors.
“You need to have good short-term performance," he said in an interview with Business Insider and Marketplace. "You have to have sound midterm strategy and performance, and ultimately, because of the product cycle and the way we innovate over the long term, really have conviction around your long-term strategy. I try to do it all.”
Here are some of the ways Allergan is a model of a modern pharmaceutical company, with its research, price and tax strategies:
Allergan more often acquires drugs or companies rather than go through the risky process of discovering and developing drugs from scratch, as companies like Merck did in their heyday.
A good portion of its R&D pipeline is dedicated to finding new purposes for existing drugs like Botox, which currently has 11 approved uses and more on the way. So far it can be used for wrinkles, migraines, overactive bladders and more.
'It’s like milking a cow'
“Their success is really based on a drug that seems to be just like the market opportunities are endless,” said Oner Tulum, a researcher at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. “It’s like milking a cow.”
Saunders calls Botox “a pipeline in a product.”
And Saunders can’t ignore his share price, especially now that he has one of the most famous activist investors taking a big stake in Allergan: Carl Icahn.
“I view Carl as just one of many important shareholders,” Saunders said. “We listen to all of our shareholders, activist and passive, and long term and short term.”
Icahn is leaving Saunders alone for now, but that could change. He has a history of pressuring companies to make moves and then getting out of the stock.
To save on taxes, Allergan is technically an Irish company, even though Saunders mostly works in New Jersey. It caused a little tension between Saunders and his father when Pfizer tried to buy Allergan to take advantage of the tax deal.
“I was arguing that taxes aren’t a question of patriotism,” Saunders said. “He kept insisting, and ultimately I said he had moved to Florida because it had zero state income tax and zero estate tax, and I said, 'Look, you did a personal inversion.'”
Saunders said that being based in Ireland allows Allergan to use the savings to invest more in the U.S.
Then, there’s price: Allergan said it raises prices roughly 8 percent a year — far greater than inflation, but also nothing like a Valeant.
But for all the ways Allergan is an example of the new way pharmaceutical companies operate today, Saunders sometimes sounds a bit like Vagelos.
“When we do well for patients, when we come up with innovation for an unmet need, when we can improve a patient’s life by one of our treatments, our shareholders benefit,” he said.
Today, Merck and other Big Pharma companies look more like Allergan. Their own research teams haven’t been so productive lately, so they increasingly buy up drugs and their makers.
The old established companies are spending billions buying back their own shares.
After Vagelos retired from Merck, he made a fortune as chairman of the biotech firm Regeneron. What does he think of newer firms and their business models?
“Well, I don’t think much of them,” he said. “The bio/pharmaceutical business is different from selling buttons and bicycles.”
Wall Street, though, might not agree.
"The Price of Profits," our series with Business Insider, looks at what happens when profits become a company’s product. For more, visit priceofprofits.org. |
Bowl appears to be a promotional item for ousted former prime ministers and political enemies of the junta
A Thai woman could be jailed for seven years on charges of sedition after she posted a photo of herself holding a red bowl that had a Thai New Year greeting from siblings and ousted prime ministers Thaksin and Yingluck Shinawatra.
Police ordered Theerawan Charoensuk, 57 and from Chiang Mai in Thailand’s north, to report to a military court on Tuesday to hear a charge for the photos she posted on Facebook, human rights lawyer Anond Nampa told the local Khaosod news website.
Top Thai Buddhist monk investigated over vintage Mercedes-Benz Read more
Thai New Year, or the Songkran festival, is celebrated every April with major road closures as giant water fights take over the streets. The bowl in the photo, in which Theerawan gives a thumbs up, appears to be a water scoop used during the festival.
Thaksin was ousted in a 2006 coup and his sister, Yingluck, was also removed by the military in 2014. Vitriol between Shinawatra supporters, or red shirts, and the army generals in power, or yellow shirts, has dominated Thai politics for years and at times led to bloodshed in the streets.
That the plastic bowl— which appears to be a promotional item used by supporters of the Shinawatras — is red is significant in Thailand’s colour-coded politics. Another photo posted by the woman shows her holding a 2010 calendar with the Shinawatras on it.
The full message on the bowl is not visible in the photo. Local media said it was signed by Thaksin.
Thaksin has been in self-imposed exile since 2008 to avoid being jailed for corruption on charges he denies. Yingluck is also facing charges that she ignored corruption surrounding a multibillion-dollar rice farming subsidy, although she too denies any wrongdoing.
Junta leader Prayuth Chan-ocha said on Tuesday that Theerawan had threatened national security.
“You have to see: the photo is about a man who broke the law,” Prayuth said, referring to Thaksin, who still has a strong support base in the north among the rural poor. “Isn’t support for a person who broke the laws and ran away from the criminal case a wrong thing to do?”
Deputy prime minister, General Prawit Wongsuwan, also defended the charges: “Tell me if you think what she did was not provocative or led to division in the society. We don’t want to arrest anyone. But those people should listen to our warning not to undertake political activities.”
The military has cracked down hard on any public displays of support for the ousted opposition, arresting activists, politicians and journalists. The junta has warned against any expressions of dissent.
On Tuesday, a military court released Theerawan on 100,000 baht (nearly £2,000) bail pending trial.
New York-based Human Rights Watch said the “draconian” charges showed an utter disregard for peaceful dissent.
“The Thai junta’s fears of a red plastic bowl show its intolerance of dissent has reached the point of absolute absurdity,” said Brad Adams, Asia director. “When military courts try people for sedition for posting photos with holiday gifts from deposed leaders, it’s clear that the end of repression is nowhere in sight.”
The advocacy body said that at least 38 people have been charged with sedition since the coup in May 2014, including former education minister Chaturon Chaisaeng for a speech at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand in which he criticised military rule. |
Chair's comments
Stephen Metcalfe MP, Chair of the Science and Technology Committee, said:
"We agreed our committee report on the same day that the Prime Minister triggered Article 50. Brexit will present opportunities and risks for our economy and for the science and innovation that supports it. A regulatory regime that is well-crafted and tuned to our post-Brexit international research and trading relationships—both with Europe and globally—will be essential. The Government has an opportunity to do more to strengthen the links between the industrial strategy and Brexit as the Exit negotiations now get under way. That will be vitally important for keeping the Government's industrial strategy relevant and hooked-up to the opportunities presented by the evolving Brexit negotiations."
EU researchers working and studying in the UK
The Committee also repeat their call for the Government to give a firm commitment to EU researchers working and studying in the UK that they will continue to have a secure position here post-Brexit.
The Government told the Committee previously that it could not give such a unilateral commitment but that a reciprocal deal on this was a high priority, and the Prime Minister repeated that position in her Article 50 statement on 29 March.
Government's Autumn Statement pledge
The Committee welcomes the Government's Autumn Statement pledge of an additional £2 billion a year of science and research funding which, the Committee says, will be a valuable contribution to maintaining the country's world-leading science status and help maintain the UK as an attractive location for research.
Stephen Metcalfe MP, Chair of the Science and Technology Committee, said:
"The Government has significantly increased science funding, which will put us in a better position post-Brexit to attract skilled researchers and collaborative science projects. I want the Government to see that as an initial investment towards meeting a target—for the UK to be spending 3% of GDP on R&D—that our Committee has repeatedly pushed for."
"While it is too soon to know whether Brexit will end up bringing less or more inward science investment to the UK in the long-term, the Government should be ready to make good any net shortfall in the short-term with further funding for science."
STEM skills
The Committee also calls for the Government to complement its raft of initiatives to increase STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) skills, including the new further education T' level, by scaling-up existing local STEM-promoting initiatives.
Further education reforms aimed at raising STEM skills should also reflect not just what employers need but also evidence on what initiatives are most effective in increasing and sustaining young people's interest in science and what really influences their study subject choices.
Further information
Image: iStockphoto |
× ‘I couldn’t move’ New study documents what happens to patients who wake up during surgery
(CNN) — “I was awake but paralyzed,” says Carol Weihrer as she recalls undergoing eye surgery in 1998.
“I could hear the surgeon telling his trainee to ‘cut deeper into the eye,'” she says. “I was screaming, but no one could hear me. I felt no pain, just a tugging sensation. I tried to move my toes or even push myself off the operating table, but I couldn’t move. I thought I was dying.”
The Reston, Virginia, resident inadvertently woke up during surgery, an infrequent phenomenon called “accidental awareness during general anesthesia.” She’s been struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder ever since.
“I’ve had to sleep in a recliner for the last 16 years,” Weihrer says. “If I lie flat, I get flashbacks of the operating table and I start violently thrashing.”
Fortunately, anesthetic awareness is rare. But new research is shedding light onto risk factors and the devastating psychological effects the phenomenon can have on patients who experience it, especially those who are awake and paralyzed.
The numbers
According to the largest study of its kind recently published in the journal Anaesthesia — in which researchers surveyed more than 3 million patients who received general anesthesia in the United Kingdom and Ireland — roughly one in 19,600 patients “accidentally” wakes up during surgery.
Previous studies in the United States reported a far higher rate of one in 1,000 surgical patients. However, cases of anesthetic awareness in the new study were reported voluntarily by patients, which could misrepresent the true number. Researchers did find that certain surgeries requiring “lighter” anesthesia, like emergency C-sections, carried a higher risk — a rate of one in 670.
Most incidents of anesthetic awareness occurred among patients who had received paralytics as part of their anesthetic cocktail — presumably since they couldn’t move to alert doctors to the fact they were regaining consciousness.
Contrary to folklore, awareness was most likely to occur when patients were being put to sleep before surgery started or after the surgery had ended — not when the surgeon was actually operating.
Patients described a range of sensations, including choking, paralysis, pain, hallucinations, and near-death experiences. Most episodes were short-lived, with 75% of them lasting under five minutes.
Despite this, nearly half of all patients who were conscious during surgery had long-term psychological consequences such as PTSD and depression.
Among the symptoms experienced during the event, paralysis was the most distressing to patients — more so than pain, says professor Jaideep Pandit, consultant anesthetist at Oxford University Hospitals and lead author of the study.
“Paralysis is terrifying and has never been experienced by most people,” Pandit says.
In the United States, more than 21 million patients receive general anesthesia. Experts estimate that roughly 26,000 of these patients experience anesthetic awareness. Even if we applied the relatively low rate found in this new study, at least 1,000 Americans each year would still wake up during surgery.
And “even one is too many,” says Dr. Daniel Cole, vice president of the American Society of Anesthesiologists.
Anesthetic awareness
General anesthesia involves a drug concoction that renders you unconscious, takes away your pain, and induces amnesia. A paralytic is often added to ease the insertion of a breathing tube, prevent patients from moving, and allow surgeons to operate in areas that are inaccessible when muscles are tense.
Anesthetic awareness occurs when the amount of anesthesia is insufficient to suppress human consciousness, Cole says. And certain surgeries — where lower doses of anesthesia are required — carry a higher risk.
Emergency C-sections, for instance, necessitate lower doses of anesthetic to prevent harm to the baby. Lower doses are required, also, during cardiac and emergency trauma surgeries, since large doses could push these medically fragile patients over the edge, Cole says.
But anesthetic awareness really becomes an issue when paralytics are used, Pandit says, since patients can’t move to let doctors know they’re regaining consciousness. Doctors must instead rely on subtle, often unreliable, methods of monitoring consciousness.
For instance, increases in heart rate and blood pressure may signal to doctors that a patient is stressed and possibly awake. But drugs given before or during the operation could block the body’s stress response. Also, though doctors continuously measure the level of anesthetic gas in patient’s lungs to ensure appropriate dosage, the gas may affect each person differently, Pandit says.
Brain monitors, which track electrical activity in the brain, have been touted as a potential solution to the problem. Doctors can use the monitors to keep brain activity below a certain threshold during surgery. But some studies have shown a benefit, while others have shown no reduction in the rate of anesthetic awareness when brain monitors are used, Pandit says.
This uncertainty has prevented the widespread implementation of brain monitors across the United States and has led the ASA to recommend that the monitors only be used on a case-by-case basis in high-risk patients.
Without foolproof methods of assessing consciousness in paralyzed patients, it’s inevitable that some cases of anesthetic awareness are only recognized after surgery — once the patient can communicate what happened.
Still, more can be done to prevent anesthetic awareness, says Pandit.
Nerve stimulators, which measure the extent of paralysis, should be used throughout surgery to ensure that doctors only use the minimum amount of paralytic required, Pandit says. This would still give patients the ability to move if they started to wake up.
Also, educating patients about anesthetic awareness prior to surgery is crucial, says Pandit.
“Patients who were told about awareness before surgery were prepared and not distressed when they experienced it,” he says.
Cole recommends that doctors discuss the possibility of awareness only with patients who are at high risk or when patients themselves raise questions about the topic.
There’s a concerted effort to educate doctors as well. Education about anesthetic awareness is a mandatory part of residency training, board certification, and annual meetings, Cole says. The ASA also maintains a database of all awareness cases to allow doctors to better understand what went wrong.
The aftermath
When anesthetic awareness does occur, doctors need to be more proactive in supporting patients, Pandit says.
“We can’t dismiss the concerns of these patients. We need to offer immediate treatment to avoid long-term psychological harm.”
Parents like Kristen — whose 6-year-old son experienced anesthetic awareness when he underwent tonsil surgery four years ago — couldn’t agree more. Kristen lives in New York but didn’t want to disclose the family’s last name to protect her son’s privacy.
“The surgery went as planned,” Kristen says. But after leaving hospital it became clear that something was wrong. “Our son’s behavior was very odd. He had severe separation anxiety.”
Kristen took her son to multiple therapists, all of who attributed her son’s behavior to being a “difficult child.” It was a year later when Kristen and her husband, a neurosurgeon, got to the bottom of what had happened.
“Our son began to speak about his experience of being awake during surgery. He remembered what the surgeon looked like and the sensation of the surgery itself,” Kristen says.
Her son was particularly distressed by the memory of being unable to move.
Therapists were bewildered that Kristen’s son, who now suffers from PTSD, had such vivid memories of the surgery. He has nightmares, flashbacks, and extreme anxiety from triggers in everyday life, Kristen says. “This has been a life-altering event for us.”
Anesthetic awareness isn’t a myth, Kristen says. “If it weren’t for the fact that my husband was a doctor, I’m not sure we’d have realized what happened to our son or received the support that we did,” she says.
For Weihrer, the eye surgery patient, early support could have made all the difference.
“None of the doctors thought it was a big deal. My anesthetist told me, ‘At least you weren’t hurt, don’t worry,'” she says.
“We place so much emphasis on PTSD among our veterans, who witness death on the battle field. But many patients with anesthetic awareness have near-death experiences and feel like they died over and over again. Where’s their support?” |
Trimethylaminuria ('fish odour syndrome')
Trimethylaminuria (TMAU) is an uncommon condition that causes an unpleasant, fishy smell. It's also called "fish odour syndrome". Sometimes it's caused by faulty genes that a person inherits from their parents, but this isn't always the case. There's currently no cure, but there are things that can help.
Symptoms of trimethylaminuria Trimethylaminuria symptoms can be present from birth, but they may not start until later in life, often around puberty. The only symptom is an unpleasant smell, typically of rotting fish – although it can be described as smelling like other things – that can affect the: breath
sweat
pee
vaginal fluids The smell may be constant or may come and go. Things that can make it worse include: sweating
stress
certain foods – such as fish, eggs and beans
periods
When to see a GP See a GP if you notice a strong, unpleasant smell that doesn't go away. They can check for more common causes, such as body odour, gum disease, a urinary tract infection or bacterial vaginosis. Tell your GP if you think it might be trimethylaminuria. It's an uncommon condition and they may not have heard of it. They may refer you to a specialist for tests to check for the condition.
Causes of trimethylaminuria In trimethylaminuria, the body is unable to turn a strong-smelling chemical called trimethylamine – produced in the gut when bacteria break down certain foods – into a different chemical that doesn't smell. This means trimethylamine builds up in the body and gets into bodily fluids like sweat. In some cases, this is caused by a faulty gene a person has inherited from their parents.
How trimethylaminuria is inherited Many people with trimethylaminuria inherit a faulty version of a gene called FMO3 from both their parents. This means they have 2 copies of the faulty gene. The parents themselves might only have 1 copy of the faulty gene. This is known as being a "carrier". They usually won't have symptoms, although some may have mild or temporary ones. If you have trimethylaminuria, any children you have will be carriers of the faulty gene so are unlikely to have problems. There's only a risk they could be born with the condition if your partner is a carrier. Genetic counselling may help you understand the risks of passing trimethylaminuria on to any children you have.
Treatments for trimethylaminuria There's currently no cure for trimethylaminuria, but some things might help with the smell. Foods to avoid It can help to avoid certain foods that make the smell worse, such as: cows' milk
seafood and shellfish – freshwater fish is fine
eggs
beans
peanuts
liver and kidney
supplements containing lecithin It's not a good idea to make any big changes to your diet on your own, particularly if you're pregnant or planning a pregnancy, or are breastfeeding. Your specialist can refer you to a dietitian for advice. They'll help you make sure your diet still contains all the nutrients you need. Other things you can do It can also be helpful to: avoid strenuous exercise – try gentle exercises that don't make you sweat as much
try to find ways to relax – stress can make your symptoms worse
wash your skin with slightly acidic soap or shampoo – look for products with a pH of 5.5 to 6.5
use anti-perspirant
wash your clothes frequently Treatments from a doctor Your doctor may recommend: short courses of antibiotics – this can help reduce the amount of trimethylamine produced in your gut
taking certain supplements – such as charcoal or riboflavin (vitamin B2) |
When Sept. 11, 2001, dawned, the Northeast Air Defense Sector in Rome, N.Y., went on full alert — to prepare for a training exercise that envisioned a sneak attack by Russian planes flying over the North Pole to bomb the United States, a prospect that Defense Secretary Robert McNamara had dismissed as outdated in 1966. Later that morning, after American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 had hit the World Trade Center and American Airlines Flight 77 the Pentagon, three F-16 fighter jets were scrambled from Langley Air Force Base to form a combat air patrol over Washington. But degraded radio transmission quality meant that the pilots were left clueless about the nature of their mission. On seeing the Pentagon in flames, the lead fighter pilot later explained, “I reverted to the Russian threat. . . . I’m thinking cruise missile threat from the sea. You know, you look down and see the Pentagon burning, and I thought the bastards snuck one by us. . . . You couldn’t see any airplanes, and no one told us anything.”
For all the trillions of dollars lavished on it, for all the talk about confronting new security threats, for all the exhortations to reinvent government, America’s defense establishment, as John Farmer reminds us in “The Ground Truth,” continued to fight the cold war more than a decade after it had ended. Preoccupied with building a costly missile defense system to counter a spurious menace from Russia and with maintaining “full spectrum dominance” over the rest of the globe, most Bush administration officials blithely ignored the danger emanating from the caves of Afghanistan, where Osama bin Laden and his acolytes plotted against America. Confronted by a small group of mostly Saudi nationals armed with box cutters, the central nervous system of the country’s defense agencies went into a state of cataleptic shock. The only decisive action taken on 9/11 came not from the military, but from the courageous passengers who stormed the cockpit of United Airlines Flight 93, leading the hijackers to crash the plane over Pennsylvania farmland before it could reach its intended target in Washington.
As senior counsel to the 9/11 Commission, Farmer, who was the attorney general of New Jersey and is the dean of the Rutgers School of Law, investigated the derelict conduct of the national security apparatus. He was well prepared to do so. In their valuable account of the commission’s activities, “Without Precedent,” the commission chairman, Thomas Kean, and the vice chairman, Lee Hamilton, noted that shortly after the attacks, Farmer — “one of our most important hires” — established a victims’ assistance center in New Jersey and helped the F.B.I. uncover important evidence in garbage at Newark International Airport. But the commission’s efforts to reconstruct the tragedy itself were, at best, resented and, at worst, impeded by the sprawling defense bureaucracy and the Bush administration, both of which had much to hide. Even two reports by the inspectors general of the Defense and Transportation Departments, released in 2006, whitewashed government failures. Now that numerous transcripts and tapes have been declassified, however, Farmer draws on them to assail the government’s official depiction of 9/11 as so much public relations flimflam.
Perhaps nothing perturbs Farmer more than the contention that high-ranking officials responded quickly and effectively to the revelation that Qaeda attacks were taking place. Nothing, Farmer indicates, could be further from the truth: President George W. Bush and other officials were mostly irrelevant during the hijackings; instead, it was the ground-level commanders who made operational decisions in an ad hoc fashion. The memoirs of the White House terrorism expert Richard Clarke, which Farmer credits with good faith, make it sound as though a dramatic videoconference that Clarke led played a crucial role in organizing a response to the hijackings, but Farmer says that “this account does not square in any significant respect with what occurred that morning.”
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To bolster such contentions, Farmer focuses minutely on newly available transcripts from the Federal Aviation Administration and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (Norad). He shows that, perversely enough, the one defense agency that had suffered draconian budget cuts was Norad, which had seen its alert sites reduced from about two dozen to a pitiful seven and, in any case, was unable to view large areas of the continental United States owing to its antiquated radar system.
Photo
In addition, local commanders bypassed established protocols for reporting and requesting assistance for a hijacking, in part because they had so little time in which to act. Farmer superbly renders the knuckle-biting tension and confusion engendered by the hijackings, and says the leadership of the F.A.A. and the Defense Department “would remain largely irrelevant to the critical decision making and unaware of the evolving situation ‘on the ground’ until the attacks were completed” — thereby making it close to impossible for the military to intercept any aircraft. |
Excerpt from an original document located at Jackson County, MO Election Board
The Pro's and Con's of the Electoral College System
Arguments Against the Electoral College
the possibility of electing a minority president
the risk of so-called "faithless" Electors,
the possible role of the Electoral College in depressing voter turnout, and
its failure to accurately reflect the national popular will.
There have, in its 200 year history, been a number of critics and proposed reforms to the Electoral College system - most of them trying to eliminate it. But there are also staunch defenders of the Electoral College who, though perhaps less vocal than its critics, offer very powerful arguments in its favor.Those who object to the Electoral College system and favor a direct popular election of the president generally do so on four grounds:
Opponents of the Electoral College are disturbed by the possibility of electing a minority president (one without the absolute majority of popular votes). Nor is this concern entirely unfounded since there are three ways in which that could happen.
One way in which a minority president could be elected is if the country were so deeply divided politically that three or more presidential candidates split the electoral votes among them such that no one obtained the necessary majority. This occurred, as noted above, in 1824 and was unsuccessfully attempted in 1948 and again in 1968. Should that happen today, there are two possible resolutions: either one candidate could throw his electoral votes to the support of another (before the meeting of the Electors) or else, absent an absolute majority in the Electoral College, the U.S. House of Representatives would select the president in accordance with the 12th Amendment. Either way, though, the person taking office would not have obtained the absolute majority of the popular vote. Yet it is unclear how a direct election of the president could resolve such a deep national conflict without introducing a presidential run-off election -- a procedure which would add substantially to the time, cost, and effort already devoted to selecting a president and which might well deepen the political divisions while trying to resolve them.
A second way in which a minority president could take office is if, as in 1888, one candidate's popular support were heavily concentrated in a few States while the other candidate maintained a slim popular lead in enough States to win the needed majority of the Electoral College. While the country has occasionally come close to this sort of outcome, the question here is whether the distribution of a candidate's popular support should be taken into account alongside the relative size of it. This issue was mentioned above and is discussed at greater length below.
A third way of electing a minority president is if a third party or candidate, however small, drew enough votes from the top two that no one received over 50% of the national popular total. Far from being unusual, this sort of thing has, in fact, happened 15 times including (in this century) Wilson in both 1912 and 1916, Truman in 1948, Kennedy in 1960, and Nixon in 1968. The only remarkable thing about those outcomes is that few people noticed and even fewer cared. Nor would a direct election have changed those outcomes without a run-off requiring over 50% of the popular vote (an idea which not even proponents of a direct election seem to advocate).
Opponents of the Electoral College system also point to the risk of so-called "faithless" Electors. A "faithless Elector" is one who is pledged to vote for his party's candidate for president but nevertheless votes of another candidate. There have been 7 such Electors in this century and as recently as 1988 when a Democrat Elector in the State of West Virginia cast his votes for Lloyd Bensen for president and Michael Dukakis for vice president instead of the other way around. Faithless Electors have never changed the outcome of an election, though, simply because most often their purpose is to make a statement rather than make a difference. That is to say, when the electoral vote outcome is so obviously going to be for one candidate or the other, an occasional Elector casts a vote for some personal favorite knowing full well that it will not make a difference in the result. Still, if the prospect of a faithless Elector is so fearsome as to warrant a Constitutional amendment, then it is possible to solve the problem without abolishing the Electoral College merely by eliminating the individual Electors in favor of a purely mathematical process (since the individual Electors are no longer essential to its operation).
Opponents of the Electoral College are further concerned about its possible role in depressing voter turnout. Their argument is that, since each State is entitled to the same number of electoral votes regardless of its voter turnout, there is no incentive in the States to encourage voter participation. Indeed, there may even be an incentive to discourage participation (and they often cite the South here) so as to enable a minority of citizens to decide the electoral vote for the whole State. While this argument has a certain surface plausibility, it fails to account for the fact that presidential elections do not occur in a vacuum. States also conduct other elections (for U.S. Senators, U.S. Representatives, State Governors, State legislators, and a host of local officials) in which these same incentives and disincentives are likely to operate, if at all, with an even greater force. It is hard to imagine what counter-incentive would be created by eliminating the Electoral College.
Finally, some opponents of the Electoral College point out, quite correctly, its failure to accurately reflect the national popular will in at least two respects.
First, the distribution of Electoral votes in the College tends to over-represent people in rural States. This is because the number of Electors for each State is determined by the number of members it has in the House (which more or less reflects the State's population size) plus the number of members it has in the Senate (which is always two regardless of the State's population). The result is that in 1988, for example, the combined voting age population (3,119,000) of the seven least populous jurisdiction of Alaska, Delaware, the District of Columbia, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming carried the same voting strength in the Electoral College (21 Electoral votes) as the 9,614,000 persons of voting age in the State of Florida. Each Floridian's potential vote, then, carried about one third the weight of a potential vote in the other States listed.
A second way in which the Electoral College fails to accurately reflect the national popular will stems primarily from the winner-take-all mechanism whereby the presidential candidate who wins the most popular votes in the State wins all the Electoral votes of that State. One effect of this mechanism is to make it extremely difficult for third party or independent candidates ever to make much of a showing in the Electoral College. If, for example, a third party or independent candidate were to win the support of even as many as 25% of the voters nationwide, he might still end up with no Electoral College votes at all unless he won a plurality of votes in at least one State. And even if he managed to win a few States, his support elsewhere would not be reflected. By thus failing to accurately reflect the national popular will, the argument goes, the Electoral College reinforces a two party system, discourages third party or independent candidates, and thereby tends to restrict choices available to the electorate.
In response to these arguments, proponents of the Electoral College point out that is was never intended to reflect the national popular will. As for the first issue, that the Electoral College over-represents rural populations, proponents respond that the United State Senate - with two seats per State regardless of its population - over-represents rural populations far more dramatically. But since there have been no serious proposals to abolish the United States Senate on these grounds, why should such an argument be used to abolish the lesser case of the Electoral College? Because the presidency represents the whole country? But so, as an institution, does the United States Senate.
As for the second issue of the Electoral College's role in reinforcing a two party system, proponents, as we shall see, find this to be a positive virtue.
Arguments for the Electoral College
contributes to the cohesiveness of the country by requiring a distribution of popular support to be elected president
enhances the status of minority interests,
contributes to the political stability of the nation by encouraging a two-party system, and
maintains a federal system of government and representation.
Proponents of the Electoral College system normally defend it on the philosophical grounds that it:
Recognizing the strong regional interests and loyalties which have played so great a role in American history, proponents argue that the Electoral College system contributes to the cohesiveness of the country be requiring a distribution of popular support to be elected president, without such a mechanism, they point out, president would be selected either through the domination of one populous region over the others or through the domination of large metropolitan areas over the rural ones. Indeed, it is principally because of the Electoral College that presidential nominees are inclined to select vice presidential running mates from a region other than their own. For as things stand now, no one region contains the absolute majority (270) of electoral votes required to elect a president. Thus, there is an incentive for presidential candidates to pull together coalitions of States and regions rather than to exacerbate regional differences. Such a unifying mechanism seems especially prudent in view of the severe regional problems that have typically plagued geographically large nations such as China, India, the Soviet Union, and even, in its time, the Roman Empire.
This unifying mechanism does not, however, come without a small price. And the price is that in very close popular elections, it is possible that the candidate who wins a slight majority of popular votes may not be the one elected president - depending (as in 1888) on whether his popularity is concentrated in a few States or whether it is more evenly distributed across the States. Yet this is less of a problem than it seems since, as a practical matter, the popular difference between the two candidates would likely be so small that either candidate could govern effectively.
Proponents thus believe that the practical value of requiring a distribution of popular support outweighs whatever sentimental value may attach to obtaining a bare majority of popular support. Indeed, they point out that the Electoral College system is designed to work in a rational series of defaults: if, in the first instance, a candidate receives a substantial majority of the popular vote, then that candidate is virtually certain to win enough electoral votes to be elected president; in the event that the popular vote is extremely close, then the election defaults to that candidate with the best distribution of popular votes (as evidenced by obtaining the absolute majority of electoral votes); in the event the country is so divided that no one obtains an absolute majority of electoral votes, then the choice of president defaults to the States in the U.S. House of Representatives. One way or another, then, the winning candidate must demonstrate both a sufficient popular support to govern as well as a sufficient distribution of that support to govern.
Proponents also point out that, far from diminishing minority interests by depressing voter participation, the Electoral College actually enhances the status of minority groups. This is so because the voters of even small minorities in a State may make the difference between winning all of that State's electoral votes or none of that State's electoral votes. And since ethnic minority groups in the United States happen to concentrate in those State with the most electoral votes, they assume an importance to presidential candidates well out of proportion to their number. The same principle applies to other special interest groups such as labor unions, farmers, environmentalists, and so forth.
It is because of this "leverage effect" that the presidency, as an institution, tends to be more sensitive to ethnic minority and other special interest groups than does the Congress as an institution. Changing to a direct election of the president would therefore actually damage minority interests since their votes would be overwhelmed by a national popular majority.
Proponents further argue that the Electoral College contributes to the political stability of the nation by encouraging a two party system. There can be no doubt that the Electoral College has encouraged and helps to maintain a two party system in the United States. This is true simply because it is extremely difficult for a new or minor party to win enough popular votes in enough States to have a chance of winning the presidency. Even if they won enough electoral votes to force the decision into the U.S. House of Representatives, they would still have to have a majority of over half the State delegations in order to elect their candidate - and in that case, they would hardly be considered a minor party.
In addition to protecting the presidency from impassioned but transitory third party movements, the practical effect of the Electoral College (along with the single-member district system of representation in the Congress) is to virtually force third party movements into one of the two major political parties. Conversely, the major parties have every incentive to absorb minor party movements in their continual attempt to win popular majorities in the States. In this process of assimilation, third party movements are obliged to compromise their more radical views if they hope to attain any of their more generally acceptable objectives. Thus we end up with two large, pragmatic political parties which tend to the center of public opinion rather than dozens of smaller political parties catering to divergent and sometimes extremist views. In other words, such a system forces political coalitions to occur within the political parties rather than within the government.
A direct popular election of the president would likely have the opposite effect. For in a direct popular election, there would be every incentive for a multitude of minor parties to form in an attempt to prevent whatever popular majority might be necessary to elect a president. The surviving candidates would thus be drawn to the regionalist or extremist views represented by these parties in hopes of winning the run-off election.
The result of a direct popular election for president, then, would likely be frayed and unstable political system characterized by a multitude of political parties and by more radical changes in policies from one administration to the next. The Electoral College system, in contrast, encourages political parties to coalesce divergent interests into two sets of coherent alternatives. Such an organization of social conflict and political debate contributes to the political stability of the nation.
Finally, its proponents argue quite correctly that the Electoral College maintains a federal system of government and representation. Their reasoning is that in a formal federal structure, important political powers are reserved to the component States. In the United States, for example, the House of Representatives was designed to represent the States according to the size of their population. The States are even responsible for drawing the district lines for their House seats. The Senate was designed to represent each State equally regardless of its population. And the Electoral College was designed to represent each State's choice for the presidency (with the number of each State's electoral votes being the number of its Senators plus the number of its Representatives). To abolish the Electoral College in favor of a nationwide popular election for president would strike at the very heart of the federal structure laid out in our Constitution and would lead to the nationalization of our central government - to the detriment of the States.
Indeed, if we become obsessed with government by popular majority as the only consideration, should we not then abolish the Senate which represents States regardless of population? Should we not correct the minor distortions in the House (caused by districting and by guaranteeing each State at least one Representative) by changing it to a system of proportional representation? This would accomplish "government by popular majority" and guarantee the representation of minority parties, but it would also demolish our federal system of government. If there are reasons to maintain State representation in the Senate and House as they exist today, then surely these same reasons apply to the choice of president. Why, then, apply a sentimental attachment to popular majorities only to the Electoral College?
The fact is, they argue, that the original design of our federal system of government was thoroughly and wisely debated by the Founding Fathers. State viewpoints, they decided, are more important than political minority viewpoints. And the collective opinion of the individual State populations is more important than the opinion of the national population taken as a whole. Nor should we tamper with the careful balance of power between the national and State governments which the Founding Fathers intended and which is reflected in the Electoral college. To do so would fundamentally alter the nature of our government and might well bring about consequences that even the reformers would come to regret.
Conclusion
The Electoral College has performed its function for over 200 years (and in over 50 presidential elections) by ensuring that the President of the United States has both sufficient popular support to govern and that his popular support is sufficiently distributed throughout the country to enable him to govern effectively.Although there were a few anomalies in its early history, none have occurred in the past century. Proposals to abolish the Electoral College, though frequently put forward, have failed largely because the alternatives to it appear more problematic than is the College itself.The fact that the Electoral College was originally designed to solve one set of problems but today serves to solve an entirely different set of problems is a tribute to the genius of the Founding Fathers.
by William C. Kimberling, Deputy Director
FEC National Clearinghouse on Election Administration
The views expressed here are solely those of the author and are not necessarily shared by the Federal Election Commission or any division thereof or the Jackson County Board of Election Commissioners.
A Selected Bibliography On the Electoral College
Highly Recommended
Berns, Walter (ed.) After the People Vote: Steps in Choosing the President. Washington: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1983.
Bickel, Alexander M. Reform and Continuity. New York: Harper & Row, 1971.
Congressional Quarterly's Guide to U.S. Elections (2nd ed). Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly, 1985.
Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr. (Ed.) History of Presidential Elections 1789-1968. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1971.
Other Sources
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. Proposals for Revision of the Electoral College System. Washington: 1969.
Best, Judith. The Case Against the Direct Election of the President. Ithica: Cornell University Press, 1975.
Longley, Lawrence D. The Politics of Electoral College Reform. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972.
Pierce, Neal R. and Longley, Lawrence D. The People's President: The Electoral College in American History and the Direct-Vote Alternative. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981.
Sayre, Wallace Stanley, Voting for President. Washington: Brookings Institution, c1970.
Zeidenstein, Harvey G. Direct Election of the President. Lexington, Mass: Lexington Books, 1973.
For more on the Electoral College
http://www.archives.gov/federal_register/electoral_college/electoral_college.html |
Read here and here. Climate "scientists" across the world have been blatantly fabricating temperatures in hopes of convincing the public and politicians that modern global warming is unprecedented and accelerating.
The scientists doing the fabrication are usually employed by the government agencies or universities, which thrive and exist on taxpayer research dollars dedicated to global warming research. A classic example of this is the New Zealand climate agency, which is now admitting their scientists produced bogus "warming" temperatures for New Zealand.
"NIWA makes the huge admission that New Zealand has experienced hardly any warming during the last half-century. For all their talk about warming, for all their rushed invention of the “Eleven-Station Series” to prove warming, this new series shows that no warming has occurred here since about 1960. Almost all the warming took place from 1940-60, when the IPCC says that the effect of CO2 concentrations was trivial. Indeed, global temperatures were falling during that period.....Almost all of the 34 adjustments made by Dr Jim Salinger to the 7SS have been abandoned, along with his version of the comparative station methodology."
A collection of temperature-fabrication charts. |
In a media availability on Thursday, Texas Longhorns defensive coordinator Todd Orlando detailed the specifics of several position changes on defense that are having a big impact on the depth chart:
Here are the position changes Texas defensive coordinator Todd Orlando made after watching last year's film pic.twitter.com/ymIklTpMoS — Anwar Richardson (@AnwarRichardson) March 24, 2017
And so while Orlando’s multiple 3-4 defense will typically employ a similar 3-3-5 look against spread teams as the defense run by former head coach Charlie Strong, he clearly sees different things on film and has different requirements than the previous staff.
After a largely disappointing two-year experiment with Malik Jefferson in the middle, the junior will cede the role of most important defender to fellow junior Breckyn Hager.
Jefferson was the top player in the state in 2015 and the crown jewel of Strong’s recruiting class, while Hager was one of the lowest-rated players in the entire group and originally committed to Baylor.
Now the roles are rather reversed — it’s Hager who will take on the role of calling the defense and utilize his trademark maniacal play back at linebacker, where he played as a freshman before switching to the hybrid Buck position last year.
In discussing the role of linebacker’s in his defense, Orlando made his expectations clear for the position. He also happened to send a thinly-veiled message to Jefferson, who was benched last season for his effort level.
“We're not going to go into the season with a soft middle linebacker, it's just not going to happen,” Orlando said. “So whoever ends up being the toughest kid, the kid who's going to be the most physical, play in and play out, is going to wind up there when we eventually play Maryland. That's the approach, that what always goes into what part this is. That position should be the quarterback of the defense, he should be the toughest guy, everybody should respect him, he should go extremely hard all the time and be vocal. So that's kind of the prerequisite that you look for when you're trying to fill in that spot.”
In 2016, Jefferson’s play improved at the end of the season before it ended due to a concussion, but Orlando made it clear that if it flags again for whatever reason, Jefferson will find himself on the bench much more quickly than he did in the past.
“It’s not going to be, 'Malik Jefferson is not playing well, Malik’s going to stay in there.’ No, Malik is going to be on the bench, and we’re going to put somebody in there specifically who for that day is going to play. It’s creating competition and stressing it every day (when) you go out on that field. Ourselves included as coaches. You’re being evaluated every day.”
Sophomore Malcolm Roach is making a different transition than Hager in moving closer to the football. After playing at the Fox position last year, Roach is now at 270 pounds and playing as a 3-4 defensive end that will require him to play lined up over or inside the offensive tackle.
So far, it sounds like the change suits him.
“We watch him in inside run, he’s a strong kid,” Orlando said. “He’s got some grit to him. Just polishing him. He’s still a young guy. Just continue on I’d like to see him get a little bit bigger, a little bit stronger. He’s had a nice couple of four days right now.”
The other defensive line change is the switch of junior Chris Nelson and senior Poona Ford. While Ford often played the 3-4 defensive end position last season, he’s moved inside and Nelson is playing further outside, where he won’t have to deal with as many double teams.
And the movement among the linebackers continued, with sophomore Erick Fowler back in the middle where he started last season before playing what may be his more natural position on the edge. Now the question is whether he can display enough technique at the position to make an impact.
However, Orlando’s description of Hager and why he’s at the position also fits for Fowler, who has some of the same attributes in terms of his physicality, toughness, and overall motor.
Indeed, Orlando mentioned Fowler specifically in the early part of his response about the middle linebacker position.
Meanwhile, McCulloch is already the back up to senior Naashon Hughes at B-backer thanks to the sudden lack of depth at that position with Roach, Hager, and Fowler no longer playing there. Like Fowler, McCulloch played on the edge in high school and showed an aptitude for pressuring the quarterback and generally being a nuisance around the line of scrimmage.
In the secondary, Bonney, a junior, is making the change from cornerback to boundary safety after Orlando watched him struggled at cornerback last season. He thinks that Bonney’s intelligence and physicality will serve him well at safety, where he won’t have to cover as much ground on the short side of the field.
The position changes provide a compelling look at the changes that Orlando is making to the Texas defense as he rebuilds it in his own image.
Whether or not those changes put players in a better position to succeed will play a significant role in the upside of the 2017 Longhorns defense. |
MYRIAD May 22-24, 2018
Details
Musician, composer, and Mercury Prize nominated-producer Oneohtrix Point Never‘s world-building approach to creating works spans across the mediums of film, poetry, and visual art. Having just won the best Soundtrack Award at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival for the film Good Time, Oneohtrix Point Never comes to the Armory with a project of unprecedented scope: a hyperstitial “concertscape” imagined from the perspective of an alien intelligence. MYRIAD is Oneohtrix Point Never’s most ambitious project to date, and builds on a practice of site-specific concertscapes presented at the Museum of Modern Art (2011), Tate Britain and MoMA PS1 (2013), and Edinburgh International Festival (2015), amongst many others.
Pulling from long-standing fascinations with film and television tropes, abstract sculpture, game ephemera, poetry, apocryphic histories, internet esoterica, and philosophies of being, MYRIAD generates a conceptual spectrum that is as much a speculation on the unthinkable future as it is an allegory for the current disquiet of a civilization out of balance with its environment. Oriented around behaviorally choreographed set pieces and lighting, the theatrical installation takes a directly formal approach to themes latent in his work by placing the audience inside the architecture of the music itself. Using the scale of the Wade Thompson Drill Hall to explore disorienting relationships between space and sound, MYRIAD mutates forms of live musical performance. The world premiere of MYRIAD is presented as a four-part epochal song cycle by the Park Avenue Armory and the Red Bull Music Festival New York City.
Music performed at MYRIAD will be released as a new album—“Age Of”—on June 1st on Warp Records. The release is his most cohesive and richly composed work to date, weaving a tapestry of disparate musical histories—early music, country and folk balladry, melodic pop, computer music, and much more—that demonstrate both the complexity and range of the artist’s repertoire. With sounds that are unsettlingly familiar and uniquely his own, “Age Of” guides us through an unclassifiable new world.
#PAAMYRIAD
World Premiere
Presented by Park Avenue Armory and The Red Bull Music Festival New York City
MYRIAD is supported in part by a gift from Daniel Clay Houghton.
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May 22–24, 2018
Tuesday, May 22
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Thursday, May 24
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Wade Thompson Drill Hall
Running time is approximately 75 minutes.
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Rick Ross’s ankle monitor went off while he was at the White House this weekend.
The 40-year-old rapper — whose real name is William Leonard Roberts II — was in Washington, D.C. to support the administration’s My Brother’s Keeper initiative, which aims to keep young black people out of jail.
Barack Obama had just finished speaking when Ross’s ankle monitor began beeping loudly, TMZ reported Monday. (RELATED: Obama Assures Hollywood: Donald Trump Will Not Be President)
Ross has worn an ankle monitor since he was released from jail after posting a $2 million bond in July 2015. He was arrested after he allegedly kidnapped and assaulted his groundskeeper.
“My Brother’s Keeper” has six milestones for its followers — getting a healthy start, reading at grade level by the third grade, graduating from high school ready for college or career, completing postsecondary training, entering the workforce and keeping young adults on track and giving them second chances.
“That’s what ‘My Brother’s Keeper’ is all about,” Obama said in 2014.
“Helping more of our young people stay on track. Providing the support they need to think more broadly about their future. Building on what works – when it works, in those critical life-changing moments.” (RELATED: Hillary Clinton Tells Black Radio Host She Carries Hot Sauce In Her Purse) |
Canada's government may soon require cable and satellite providers to unbundle TV packages, letting customers choose each channel they want individually.
"We don't think it's right for Canadians to have to pay for bundled television channels that they don't watch. We want to unbundle television channels and allow Canadians to pick and pay the specific television channels that they want," Canada Industry Minister James Moore said in a TV appearance, according to Reuters.
Moore is a member of Canada's Parliament and was appointed Minister of Industry in July of this year. In the next parliamentary session, he said the government will consider additional pro-consumer moves such as preventing airline overbooking and lowering the roaming rates charged by cellular providers.
Reuters noted that "[s]ome Canadian cable and satellite television providers have already begun to offer so-called 'a la carte' pricing."
Channel unbundling would be welcome in the US, too, of course. US Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has been advocating this for years, most recently with the proposed Television Consumer Freedom Act. The bill would not require unbundling, but it would provide incentives that encourage providers to offer channels individually. For now, bundling is what's available to US consumers because it's the system that is most lucrative for TV providers. |
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
The context of Ventura’s warning was a discussion about new evidence concerning the assassination of Robert Kennedy, after it emerged that there were additional shooters to accused assassin Sirhan Sirhan.
Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura caused shockwaves during a national radio interview today when he warned Barack Obama to be wary of a potential assassination attempt, saying that the government would target any independent politician who got close to the White House.
The last chapter of Ventura’s new book, Don’t Start The Revolution Without Me, is a fictional tale about an assassination attempt on his life following a run for President.
The context of Ventura’s warning was a discussion about new evidence concerning the assassination of Robert Kennedy, after it emerged that there were additional shooters to accused assassin Sirhan Sirhan.
"I believe very strongly that if an independent candidate like myself – a rogue – were to get into the President’s race legitimately, if the polls looked like he had a chance to win, I believe that candidate would either be physically assassinated or would be assassinated credibility-wise or in some manner by our government because I do not believe they would ever allow a true independent or a citizen to become President of the United States," Ventura told The Alex Jones Show.
"I say this in all seriousness – watch out Barack Obama," he added.
Ventura is not the first to warn of a potential future assassination attempt on Obama – British Nobel Prize winner Doris Lessing said Obama would be taken out if he became President in February.
"He would probably not last long, a black man in the position of president. They would kill him," Lessing told a Swedish newspaper.
Princeton University political science professor-Melissa Harris-Lacewell echoed the same sentiment a month before, saying: "For many black supporters, there is a lot of anxiety that he will be killed. It is on people’s minds."
"You can’t make a prediction like this – like he has a 50 per cent chance of getting shot."
"But the greater his visibility and the greater his access to people, there is a danger."
Some speculated that Obama had been set up for an assassination attempt during a February 20 rally in Dallas, after it emerged that Secret Service gave the order to stop screening for weapons a full hour before the event began.
Click here to listen to the full interview with Ventura.
PART ONE
PART TWO |
It's the discussion that won't die. Mainly because some of those interested in having it choose to be so ignorant of the history of what "white pride" means culturally versus any other type of "racial pride."
But Cain Velasquez's "Brown Pride" tattoo continues to stir emotion from fans and fellow fighters alike.
The latest to step into the PR disaster is Team Quest's Michelle Ould:
How offended would ppl be if I wore a sports bra that said 'white pride' during on of my fights - or even a tattoo? — Michelle Ould (@MichelleOuldMMA) October 29, 2013
@stormlandbrand seriously? Not only is it a rhetorical ? But it's a free country-ppl tend to forget. Only weak cowards are afraid to ask — Michelle Ould (@MichelleOuldMMA) October 29, 2013
@stormlandbrand and if things such as these were never asked or challenged we would never grow as a species or civilization — Michelle Ould (@MichelleOuldMMA) October 29, 2013
The Voting Rights Act hasn't even been on the books 50 years. There are still many, many people alive who lived through the ungodly struggles of the civil rights movement. Phrases such as "white pride" and "white power" are tied inseparably and unarguably to the ugliest aspects of racism in this country. Asking why you can't have flaunt "white pride" like Cain Velasquez wears his "brown pride" tattoo ignores these very basic realities.
That anyone would attempt to tie "why can't I do it too?" and pretend that it's about "growing as a species and civilization" when basic aspects of equality still need massive amounts of addressing in a country still not that far distanced from segregation being written law...it all just speaks to a kind of ignorance that I can't wrap my head around.
As a white man, I'll throw out the idea that the more important aspect to growing as a civilization is more about how to deal with aspects of lingering social inequality that have long needed addressing. Not why you can't flaunt a term almost exclusively associated with the white supremacy movement. |
TOKYO (Reuters) - The yen rocketed to a seven-week high against the dollar in early Asian trading on Monday, driven by fears of a continued flight from emerging markets as tighter credit conditions in China threatened to put the brakes on the world’s second-biggest economy.
A man looks at at an electronic stock quotation board outside a brokerage in Tokyo January 14, 2014. REUTERS/Issei Kato
After Japan's Nikkei share average .N225 dropped 1.9 percent to a one-month low on Friday, investors braced for more losses, with Nikkei futures down 3.2 percent. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS was down 0.1 percent in early trade after losing more than 1.0 percent on Friday.
The dollar slipped as low as 101.77 yen early on Monday, its weakest level since December 6, and was last trading at 102.07 yen, down 0.3 percent. The yen has strengthened more than 2 yen over the past three sessions, as Japanese stocks withered in line with their global counterparts.
The euro also fell to a seven-week low of 139.25 yen and last bought 139.60 yen, down about 0.3 percent on the day.
“The combination of the drop in U.S. and Japanese equities, and the sharp decline in U.S. bond yields, helped accelerate the short squeeze, which was already helping the yen recover,” strategists at Brown Brothers Harriman said in a note to clients.
“Renewed yen weakness would seem to require a move back up in U.S. yields and/or recovery in the equity markets,” they added.
On Wall Street on Friday, all three major stock indexes dropped for a second consecutive session, with the Standard & Poor's 500 index .SPX shedding 2.0 percent.
The yield on benchmark 10-year Treasuries notes fell as low as 2.706 percent on Friday, its lowest intraday level since November 26. It stood at 2.722 percent in early Asian trade.
Tightening credit conditions in China as the government seeks to curb growth in high-risk lending heightened fears about a possible slowdown in Asia’s economic powerhouse.
Argentina, meanwhile, abandoned support of its peso on the open market last week, sending the currency skidding to its biggest drop since the 2002 financial crisis.
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Detailed Response Book of Mormon
Elder Christofferson Quote
The absence of evidence is not proof. Here’s one small example: Matthew Roper in a FairMormon Blog on June 17, 2013, writes about a criticism repeated many times over the years about the mention of steel in the Book of Mormon. In 1884, one critic wrote, “Laban’s sword was steel, when it is a notorious fact that the Israelites knew nothing of steel for hundreds of years afterwards. Who but as ignorant a person as Rigdon would have perpetuated all these blunders.” More recently, Thomas O’Dea in 1957 stated, “Every commentator on the Book of Mormon has pointed out the many cultural and historical anachronisms, such as the steel sword of Laban in 600 B.C.” We had no answer to these critics at the time, but as often happens in these matters, new discoveries in later years shed new light. Roper reports, “It is increasingly apparent that the practice of hardening iron through deliberate carburization, quenching and tempering was well known to the ancient world from which Nephi came. ‘It seems evident,’ notes one recent authority, ‘that by the beginning of the tenth century B.C. blacksmiths were intentionally steeling iron.’” In 1987, the Ensign reported that archeologists had unearthed a long steel sword near Jericho dating back to the late seventh century B.C., probably to the reign of King Josiah who died shortly before Lehi began to prophesy. This sword is now on display at Jerusalem’s Israel Museum. The museum’s explanatory sign reads in part, “The sword is made of iron hardened into steel, attesting to substantial metallurgical know-how.” —Elder D. Todd Christofferson, "The Prophet Joseph Smith",
Brigham Young University-Idaho Devotional, September 24, 2013.
Jeremy's Response
Elder Christofferson creates the following strawman: "There was steel in the Middle East around the time of Lehi, so maybe there was steel in America at the same time."
The problem, however, doesn’t lie with the ability or knowledge to produce steel at the time Lehi lived. The problem lies in the fact that no ancient American steel tools or weapons (or traces or evidence of them or their manufacture) have ever been found. Elder Christofferson is using a strawman by sidestepping the actual argument (that no steel has ever been found in ancient America) and refuting a weaker argument (that steel was not capable of being manufactured at the time of Lehi).
The Book of Mormon describes vast battles, with military forces dwarfing those of the Roman Empire (the Roman military maxed out around 350,000 soldiers) involving the heavy use of metallurgy. Contrary to the accounts in the Book of Mormon, not a single steel sword, helmet, armor, chariot, spear, etc. has been found.
There is zero evidence for the argument Elder Christofferson failed to address. No steel has ever been found in ancient America. That steel was manufactured in the seventh century BC in the Middle East has no bearing on whether steel was manufactured or used on a massive scale in ancient America, as depicted in the Book of Mormon. Christofferson's argument is like saying, “The Chinese could make fireworks a long time ago, so maybe the Europeans could likewise make fireworks at the same time.” Sure, they maybe could have, but there is no evidence that they did.
While it is true that the absense of evidence does not necessarily prove (with 100% certainty) that something never existed, the absence of evidence does decrease the likelihood that something existed. The notion that the absence of evidence is evidence of absence is not just a rule of thumb – it is a law of Probability Theory. If there is some hypothesis H and some event E such that P(E|H) > P(E), we know that P(H|E) > P(H), or “E is evidence in favor of H.” If this is the case, it is also true that P(~E|H) <P(~E), so we can conclude that P(H|~E) <P(H), or “not observing E lowers the probability of H.” This video demonstrates mathematical proof that absence of evidence is evidence of absence.
Mormon apologists and now the Church (since one of its apostles just used it) often commit the fallacy of equivocation with the “absence of evidence” phrase, which can have multiple implied definitions:
The most useful definition of “absence of evidence” is “lack of data.”
There is another definition: “Lack of presence.”
These are not the same things. If you check some area for steel artifacts and do not find any, you don’t have “lack of data.” You have data. You know that there are no steel artifacts in that area. You get a ‘0’ instead of a ‘1’ in your grid for that ground. In the case of steel in North America, we can have checked a sufficient % of the ground for evidence of steel, find nothing, and actually have lots of data, not just an ‘absence of evidence’ (lack of presence).
Here is an analogy to further illustrate this point:
Banana-ist: There’s a banana FairMormony that leaves everyone in the world bananas on their pillow in the morning.
A-Banana-ist: I’ve never had a banana on my pillow in the morning so therefore the thing you describe doesn’t exist.
Banana-ist: AHA! But absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence!
A-banana-ist: I’m not talking about ‘absence of evidence,’ the ‘lack of bananas’ in this case is actually evidence that disproves your assertion, because your Banana FairMormony has the testable property of “leaving bananas on everyone’s pillow in the morning.” There may be other FairMormonies with other properties, but I have evidence of a lack of bananas, and that is evidence of the absence of a Banana FairMormony.
And here's an even more obvious analogy:
Someone claims that they keep an elephant in their garage. A perfectly normal and visible large gray elephant. You go to look and you cannot see any elephant. You enter the garage, which is quite small, and look around. There is no elephant smell or any elephant droppings. In fact, there is a total lack of evidence of any sort which would indicate or suggest there is an elephant in the garage. You would quite reasonably assume that the absence of elephantine evidence indicated the absence of the elephant.
The Book of Mormon is an elephant in a garage. Like the elephant, it makes enough claims that it’s virtually certain we’d find evidence after almost 200 years of searching. So, not finding any evidence is evidence against the book and its claims.
FairMormon should know better than to make a claim without evidence only to turn around and ask for it in return from the critics.
“What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.”
– Christopher Hitchens –
What are 1769 King James Version edition errors
doing in the Book of Mormon?
CES Letter says...
"What are 1769 King James Version edition errors doing in the Book of Mormon? An ancient text? Errors which are unique to the 1769 edition that Joseph Smith owned?" FairMormon Agrees FairMormon agrees that there are 1769 King James Version errors present in the Book of Mormon.
FairMormon says...
It is known that Oliver Cowdery purchased a Bible from E.B. Grandin on 8 October 1829. The Book of Mormon copyright was registered on 11 June 1829, and the translation was completed in late June. Prior to that time, the only Bible Joseph is known to have had access to was the Smith family Bible, which was not in his possession after he married and moved out of the Smith home. FairMormon revised/deleted/corrected many of their original responses after the release of
Debunking FAIR's Debunking. The above original FairMormon response can be found here.
Jeremy's Response to FairMormon
This is just misdirection. Here are the facts:
There are 17th century KJV additions (denoted by italics in the KJV) in the Book of Mormon.
There are 1769 KJV Bible edition errors unique to only that edition present in the Book of Mormon.
FairMormon concedes below that while there are no reports from witnesses that Joseph used an open Bible, “ it is entirely possible that Joseph had access to a Bible during the period of translation .”
FairMormon awkwardly points to the Mormon god Himself as a possible source for putting unique 1769 KJV edition errors and 17th century italics in the “most correct book on earth” Book of Mormon: “ ...we do not claim to know why the Lord chose to reveal the Biblical passages in that manner. ”
The presence of 17th century KJV italics and 1769 KJV errors – word for word – in the Book of Mormon is its own damning evidence. These errors totally undermine the claim that Joseph “translated” the Book of Mormon and the claim that the Book of Mormon is the most correct book on earth.
Like a crime scene, we do not need a video recording or an affidavit from the suspect or a witness to show whether or not the suspect murdered with a gun. The body riddled with 9mm bullets and the presence of 9mm shell casings on the floor is sufficient evidence to establish the fact that the suspect used a 9mm pistol in the murder.
In the case of 17th century KJV italics and 1769 KJV edition errors in an ancient text such as the Book of Mormon? Whether or not we have direct evidence that Joseph Smith had a 1769 KJV edition Bible or access to it during translation is irrelevant and diversionary to the real question asked in a different way: Why are there “9mm bullets” in a body that existed only between 2200 BC – 421 AD? Thousands of years before “9mm bullets” even existed?
FairMormon says...
Joseph dictated the text of most of the Book of Mormon in the open in front of witnesses using the stone and the hat, a point clearly acknowledged by critics of the Church. These witnesses never reported that a Bible or any other book was present during the translation. FairMormon revised/deleted/corrected many of their original responses after the release of
Debunking FAIR's Debunking. The above original FairMormon response can be found here.
Jeremy's Response to FairMormon
FairMormon acknowledges the evidence of 1769 KJV errors and 17th century KJV italics in the Book of Mormon and the weakness of relying on the argument that the “ witnesses never reported that a Bible or any other book was present during the translation, ” by conceding below that “ it is entirely possible that Joseph had access to a Bible during the period of translation. ”
That the witnesses never reported Joseph looking at a 1769 KJV Bible during the translation process actually enhances the likelihood that the Book of Mormon is a fraud. Ignoring the possibility that God himself revealed the errors, at best Joseph was reciting from memory passages from the 1769 KJV Bible, rather than “dictating,” as FairMormon phrases it. At worst, Joseph waited until the witnesses weren’t around to consult and copy from the 1769 KJV Bible.
In any event, the inclusion of errors unique to the 1769 KJV Bible edition and 17th century KJV translator’s italics in the Book of Mormon – word for word – is its own utterly damning evidence.
FairMormon says...
Church answer:
The September 1977 Ensign suggests that Joseph may have adopted the Isaiah passage wording from the King James Bible:
In fact, the language in the sections of the Book of Mormon that correspond to parts of the Bible is quite regularly selected by Joseph Smith, rather than obtained through independent translation. For instance, there are over 400 verses in which the Nephite prophets quote from Isaiah, and half of these appear precisely as the King James version renders them. Summarizing the view taken by Latter-day Saint scholars on this point, Daniel H. Ludlow emphasizes the inherent variety of independent translation and concludes: “There appears to be only one answer to explain the word-for-word similarities between the verses of Isaiah in the Bible and the same verses in the Book of Mormon.” That is simply that Joseph Smith must have opened Isaiah and tested each mentioned verse by the Spirit: “If his translation was essentially the same as that of the King James version, he apparently quoted the verse from the Bible.” Thus the Old Testament passages from Isaiah display a particular choice of phraseology that suggests Joseph Smith’s general freedom throughout the Book of Mormon for optional wording.
—Richard Lloyd Anderson, "By the Gift and Power of God," Ensign (September 1977) (emphasis added) FairMormon revised/deleted/corrected many of their original responses after the release of
Debunking FAIR's Debunking. The above original FairMormon response can be found here.
Jeremy's Response to FairMormon
This claim contradicts many accounts of how the translation actually happened. As Book of Mormon witness David Whitmer described the rock-in-the-hat translation method:
“Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness the spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and on that appeared the writing. One character at a time would appear, and under it was the interpretation in English. Brother Joseph would read off the English to Oliver Cowdery, who was his principal scribe, and when it was written down and repeated to Brother Joseph to see if it was correct, then it would disappear, and another character with the interpretation would appear.”
– Quoted in Elder Russell M. Nelson’s “A Treasured Testament”
FairMormon’s claim likewise contradicts several other witness accounts, including those of Martin Harris, and the Church’s recent Gospel Topics article on the translation process, which states that “Joseph placed either the interpreters or the seer stone in a hat, pressed his face into the hat to block out extraneous light, and read aloud the English words that appeared on the instrument.”
Joseph did not have, according to these accounts, " general freedom " for “ optional wording ” in the Book of Mormon. The exact words came off the stone in the hat.
FairMormon says...
Therefore, given that historical sources (and the critics) confirm that Joseph dictated in the open in front of witnesses without consulting a Bible, one possible conclusion that a believing member can reach to explain the presence of Bible passages which match the King James Version is that the Lord revealed them to Joseph in that manner. Another possible conclusion is that when Joseph encountered Biblical passages, that he consulted a Bible and simply used the text, although this does not explain how he managed to dictate it from memory. In either case, we do not claim to know why the Lord chose to reveal the Biblical passages in that manner. FairMormon revised/deleted/corrected many of their original responses after the release of
Debunking FAIR's Debunking. The above original FairMormon response can be found here.
Jeremy's Response to FairMormon
Note: FairMormon deleted the following FairMormon response on 10.6.13:
“ The only description of the translation process that Joseph Smith ever gave was that it was performed by the ‘gift and power of God,’ and that the translation was performed using the ‘Urim and Thummim.’ Since Joseph translated in the open using the stone and the hat, and witnesses never reported that a Bible or any other book was present during the translation, the only conclusion that we can reach to explain the presence of Bible passages which match the King James Version is that the Lord revealed them to Joseph in that manner. We do not know the reason for this. ”
We don’t know why but we know that God gave Joseph Smith 1769 King James edition errors – unique to only the 1769 edition – to put into the Book of Mormon? This is the best FairMormon can do?
Again, there is no legitimate reason for God to have revealed errors to Joseph. The errors undermine the claims that the Book of Mormon is a translation and that it is the most correct book.
Perhaps the reason why FairMormon can only come to the conclusion that God gave Joseph Smith 1769 KJV edition errors to put into the Book of Mormon is because FairMormon refuses to acknowledge the possibility that God wasn’t involved with the creation of the Book of Mormon at all.
FairMormon says...
Quotes to consider
Joseph Smith stated the following in July 1838:
Question 4th. How, and where did you obtain the book of Mormon? Answer. Moroni, the person who deposited the plates, from whence the book of Mormon was translated, in a hill in Manchester, Ontario County, New York, being dead, and raised again therefrom, appeared unto me, and told me where they were; and gave me directions how to obtain them. I obtained them and the Urim and Thummim with them; by the means of which I translated the plates and thus came the book of Mormon. (Joseph Smith, (July 1838) Elders Journal 1:42-43.) FairMormon revised/deleted/corrected many of their original responses after the release of
Debunking FAIR's Debunking. The above original FairMormon response can be found here.
Jeremy's Response to FairMormon
The problem with Joseph’s 1838 claim is that it’s untrue. Joseph did not translate the Book of Mormon we have today with the Urim and Thummim or the physical plates. He used a rock in a hat. A rock he found on his neighbor’s property in 1822. This is the exact same method that Joseph used to con people out of their money in his family’s treasure hunting business. FairMormon concedes that Joseph used a rock in a hat for translating the Book of Mormon here.
FairMormon says...
The author copied his information from the anti-Mormon site “Mormon Handbook” FairMormon revised/deleted/corrected many of their original responses after the release of
Debunking FAIR's Debunking. The above original FairMormon response can be found here.
Jeremy's Response to FairMormon
I am glad that FairMormon brings this up as this is an excellent Case Study of how the Church and Mormon apologists use the Orwellian “anti-Mormon” card as a scary boogeyman in intimidating and discouraging Latter-day Saints from actually engaging in balanced research about the Church and its history.
The following graphics and information are what I borrowed from the so-called “anti-Mormon” Mormon Handbook website:
The above example, 2 Nephi 19:1, dated in the Book of Mormon to be around 550 BC, quotes nearly verbatim from the 1611 AD translation of Isaiah 9:1 KJV – including the translators’ italicized words. Additionally, Joseph qualified the sea as the Red Sea. The problem with this is that (a) Christ quoted Isaiah in Matt. 4:14-15 and did not mention the Red Sea, (b) “Red” sea is not found in any source manuscripts, and (c) the Red Sea is 250 miles away.
In the above example, the KJV translators added 7 italicized words not found in the source Hebrew manuscripts to its English translation. Why does the Book of Mormon, completed 1,200 years prior, contain the exact identical seven italicized words of 17th century translators?
Notice that FairMormon does not say that this is false, that it’s a lie, or that it’s incorrect.
The following hypothetical conversation between FairMormon and an informed Latter-day Saint illustrates the weakness in FairMormon’s criticism:
FairMormon: “This information is copied from an ‘anti-Mormon’ website!” Informed Latter-day Saint: “So? Is it true or is it false that the Book of Mormon contains 1769 KJV errors and 17th century translator’s italics?” FairMormon: “Well, yes, there are 1769 KJV errors and 17th century translator’s italics present in the Book of Mormon…but God may have given them to Joseph to put in there!” Informed Latter-day Saint: “…so…the critic’s claim that 1769 KJV errors and 17th century italics in the Book of Mormon is indeed valid and true? Why did you pull out the ‘anti-Mormon’ card then? What purpose did you hope to accomplish by bringing up the loaded ‘anti-Mormon’ label to begin with? To scare and intimidate me from looking further into the evidence? To make me dismiss the entire claim altogether as soon as I heard the trigger words? To keep me from seeing that the critics – at least in this case – are correct?”
The above graphics from this so-called “anti-Mormon” website simply list scriptures that every Latter-day Saint has access to. All you have to do is pull out the scriptures and compare the Book of Mormon verses to the KJV Bible verses to see that the 17th century italics are indeed present in the supposed ancient Book of Mormon text.
FairMormon is just attempting to intimidate their Latter-day Saint readers from looking at the evidence by labeling it “anti-Mormon,” while ironically conceding that the evidence is true and factual.
Matt shares the problems and absurdities of the Church’s and Mormon apologetic use of the "anti-Mormon" card and how it does not serve Latter-day Saints in their quest for truth:
What are these 17th century italicized words doing in the Book of Mormon?
CES Letter says...
The document asks why italicized words from the King James Bible are present in the Book of Mormon? FairMormon Agrees FairMormon agrees that there are 17th century King James Version translator’s italicized words present in the Book of Mormon.
FairMormon says...
There was no Bible in evidence during the dictation, which was performed in the open in from of witnesses, as Joseph looked into the stone in the hat.
It is entirely possible that Joseph had access to a Bible during the period of translation, despite the fact that no witnesses ever reported this. In this case, Joseph may have simply selected the wording of these passages to represent what was revealed to him. FairMormon revised/deleted/corrected many of their original responses after the release of
Debunking FAIR's Debunking. The above original FairMormon response can be found here.
Jeremy's Response to FairMormon
“ In this case, Joseph may have simply selected the wording of these passages to represent what was revealed to him. ”
There are major problems with this assertion. First, no witness account of the translation process confirms that Joseph consulted the Bible during the process. Second, the official 2013 Church article on the translation process, as well as contemporary eyewitness accounts, contradict this assertion. As stated above, the Church’s recent Gospel Topics article states that “Joseph placed either the interpreters or the seer stone in a hat, pressed his face into the hat to block out extraneous light, and read aloud the English words that appeared on the instrument.”
Next, Book of Mormon witness David Whitmer (as well as other witnesses) debunks FairMormon’s “loose translation” theory:
“Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness the spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and on that appeared the writing. One character at a time would appear, and under it was the interpretation in English. Brother Joseph would read off the English to Oliver Cowdery, who was his principal scribe, and when it was written down and repeated to Brother Joseph to see if it was correct, then it would disappear, and another character with the interpretation would appear.”
– Quoted in Elder Russell M. Nelson’s “A Treasured Testament”
The key concession made by FairMormon here is their acknowledgment that it is indeed possible that Joseph consulted the KJV Bible for writing the Book of Mormon. This is supported by the damning evidence of 1769 KJV errors and 17th century italics – word for word – in the Book of Mormon.
The Book of Mormon includes mistranslated biblical passages
that were later changed in Joseph Smith’s translation of the bible.
CES Letter says...
The Book of Mormon includes mistranslated biblical passages
that were later changed in Joseph Smith’s translation of the bible. FairMormon Agrees FairMormon agrees that the Book of Mormon contains passages that were later changed in Joseph’s translation of the Bible.
FairMormon says...
If Joseph copied Biblical passages during the Book of Mormon translation to represent ideas expresses by Isaiah (as suggested in the September 1977 Ensign), then it is understandable that he changed or corrected some of these instances during his work on the “Joseph Smith Translation” of the Bible. Joseph did not claim to be mechanically preserving some hypothetically ‘perfect’ Biblical text. Rather, Joseph used the extant King James text as a basis for commentary, expansion, and clarification based upon revelation, with particular attention to issues of doctrinal importance for the modern reader. Modern readers are accustomed to thinking of a ‘translation’ as only the conversion of text in one language to another. But, Joseph used the term in a broader and more inclusive sense, which included explanation, commentary, and harmonization. The JST is probably best understood in this light. FairMormon revised/deleted/corrected many of their original responses after the release of
Debunking FAIR's Debunking. The above original FairMormon response can be found here.
Jeremy's Response to FairMormon
Contrary to FairMormon’s assertion above that God himself revealed the 1769 KJV errors to Joseph, FairMormon is conceding here that Joseph copied KJV text over to the Book of Mormon.
According to the above-referenced September 1977 Ensign, Joseph Smith was sitting there translating the Book of Nephi when he recognized the text as Isaiah, stopped the translation, put down his hat and magical rock, picked up his 1769 KJV Bible, and copied over the Isaiah verses including its unique 1769 KJV errors and italics into the “most correct book” Book of Mormon.
Am I really supposed to take this seriously?
Why would Joseph need to do this? How does it make any sense that Joseph stops translation coming direct from God to grab errors and italics from a book that has been corrupted over the centuries through numerous translations? A Bible that Joseph later pointed to as needing correction and which he “corrected” in his “inspired” translation of the Bible?
In any event, this scenario is contradicted by eyewitness accounts of the translation process, as well as the process described by the Church’s December 2013 Gospel Topics article.
“ Modern readers are accustomed to thinking of a 'translation' as only the conversion of text in one language to another. ”
This make sense, given the multitude of sources (including the Church-sanctioned Gospel Topics article) supporting a “tight” translation method, including the following account from David Whitmer:
“Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness the spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and on that appeared the writing. One character at a time would appear, and under it was the interpretation in English. Brother Joseph would read off the English to Oliver Cowdery, who was his principal scribe, and when it was written down and repeated to Brother Joseph to see if it was correct, then it would disappear, and another character with the interpretation would appear.”
– Quoted in Elder Russell M. Nelson’s “A Treasured Testament”
If the Bible verses were good enough for the "most correct book," there is no reason to change them in the JST of the Bible (other than to obfuscate the plagiarism). If Joseph was trying to make the Bible more correct, he would not change something that was correct according to Isaiah.
As I have stated in the CES Letter:
Joseph Smith corrected the Bible. In doing so, he also corrected the same identical passage in the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon is “the most correct book” and was translated a mere decade before the JST. The Book of Mormon was not corrupted over time and did not need correcting. How is it that the Book of Mormon still has the incorrect passage and does not match the JST in the first place?
DNA analysis has concluded that Native American
Indians do not originate from the Middle East
CES Letter says...
“DNA analysis has concluded that Native American Indians do not originate from the Middle East or from Israelites but rather from Asia.” The author then asks why the Church changed the introduction to the Book of Mormon from “…the Lamanites, and they are the principal ancestors of the American Indians” to “…the Lamanites, and they are among the ancestors of the American Indians”. FairMormon Agrees FairMormon agrees that DNA evidence do not show Middle Eastern or Israelite DNA in Native American Indians but attempt to diminish this with their unsupported integration theory.
FairMormon agrees that Church changed Book of Mormon introduction in 2006.
FairMormon says...
The Church made the change to remove the assumption, inserted into the Book of Mormon introduction in the 1920's, that all of the inhabitants of the Americas were descendants of Lehi. This had been the generally held belief from the time that the Church was restored. FairMormon revised/deleted/corrected many of their original responses after the release of
Debunking FAIR's Debunking. The above original FairMormon response can be found here.
Jeremy's Response to FairMormon
Important Note: The LDS Church made FairMormon's opinions and theories obsolete by releasing its official essay on the Book of Mormon and DNA Studies.
The Church's official January 2014 essay can be read here.
A critic's response to the Church's official Book of Mormon and DNA Studies essay can be read here.
I like how FairMormon calls a 170+ year Mormon teaching believed and taught by “prophets, seers, and revelators” an “assumption.” It was not an “assumption.” It was a teaching accepted and taught by these “prophets, seers, and revelators,” including Joseph Smith himself, for most of the Church’s entire existence until the Church quietly and unofficially made the change in the Book of Mormon in 2006, after the DNA evidence started pouring in.
The Prophet Joseph Smith disagrees with FairMormon’s “integration” and “Limited Geography” theories. This is what Joseph stated in the March 1, 1842 Wentworth Letter:
“In this important and interesting book the history of ancient America is unfolded, from its first settlement by a colony that came from the Tower of Babel at the confusion of languages to the beginning of the fifth century of the Christian era. We are informed by these records that America in ancient times has been inhabited by two distinct races of people. The first were called Jaredites and came directly from the Tower of Babel. The second race came directly from the city of Jerusalem about six hundred years before Christ. They were principally Israelites of the descendants of Joseph. The Jaredites were destroyed about the time that the Israelites came from Jerusalem, who succeeded them in the inheritance of the country. The principal nation of the second race fell in battle towards the close of the fourth century.” (Emphasis added).
Thus, the Prophet Joseph Smith claimed that America was uninhabited prior to the arrival of the Jaredites around 2,200 BC, which we now know is incorrect. Joseph also claims that Jaredites came from the Tower of Babel, an event that respectable biblical scholars, linguistics, and scientists all concur as not being a literal event.
Perhaps it’s for this very reason that the Church omitted this very paragraph from its Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith on LDS.org. Notice that the entire Wentworth Letter is there word for word except for the above paragraph.
What’s hilarious about this is that Joseph Smith gave explicit instructions that “all that I shall ask at his hands is that he publish the account entire, ungarnished, and without misrepresentation” in the header of the letter and here his own Church in the 21st century is not following the Prophet’s own instructions by editing the letter and omitting and hiding the above paragraph of the letter from members of the Church in its Joseph Smith manual.
Perhaps even more important than what Joseph himself believed is how Joseph claimed to have received this knowledge regarding the ancient American inhabitants. Specifically, Joseph claimed to have received this knowledge from Moroni and other angels. Joseph described the teachings he received from Moroni in the Wentworth letter:
"I was also informed concerning the aboriginal inhabitants of this country [America] and shown who they were, and from whence they came; a brief sketch of their origin, progress, civilization, laws, governments, of their righteousness and iniquity, and the blessings of God being finally withdrawn from them as a people, was [also] made known unto me; I was also told where were deposited some plates on which were engraven an abridgment of the records of the ancient prophets that had existed on this continent. The angel appeared to me three times the same night and unfolded the same things. After having received many visits from the angels of God, unfolding the majesty and glory of the events that should transpire in the last days, on the morning of the 22nd of September, A.D. 1827, the angel of the Lord delivered the records into my hands." (Emphasis added).
Indeed, Moroni visited Joseph at least 22 times over the course of Joseph’s life. In addition, Elder John Taylor taught that Joseph Smith was visited by Nephi, who would have had first-hand knowledge of the accuracy of the “integration” theory.
Joseph’s mother, Lucy Mack Smith, described Joseph’s knowledge of the ancient Americans, which Joseph relayed after Moroni’s initial visit:
"During our evening conversations, Joseph would occasionally give us some of the most amusing recitals [reports] that could be imagined. He would describe the ancient inhabitants of this continent, their dress, mode of traveling, and the animals upon which they rode; their cities, their buildings, with every particular; their mode of warfare; and also their religious worship. This he would do with as much ease, seemingly, as if he had spent his whole life with them."
In short, Joseph did not merely believe that the people described in the Book of Mormon were the original inhabitants, he claimed to have been informed as much by angelic visitors. Thus, in order to believe in an “integration” or “limited geography” theory, one must believe not only that Joseph was mistaken in his beliefs, but also that angelic ministers (some of whom were ancient inhabitants themselves) deliberately misled Joseph when teaching him about the origins of America’s ancient inhabitants. I seriously doubt that Chapel Mormons are prepared to believe in lying angels.
Another example of this teaching being accepted and taught by a latter-day prophet was Spencer W. Kimball’s “Of Royal Blood” talk in the July 1971 Ensign, which is quoted below.
FairMormon says...
This change makes the Book of Mormon introduction compatible with current DNA evidence and acknowledges the fact that Lehi's group likely intermingled with the native inhabitants of the American continents based upon current knowledge of the DNA composition of the inhabitants of the New World. There is substantial scientific evidence of habitation in the Americas for thousands of years prior to Lehi's arrival.” FairMormon revised/deleted/corrected many of their original responses after the release of
Debunking FAIR's Debunking. The above original FairMormon response can be found here.
Jeremy's Response to FairMormon
The notion that Lehi & Co. “likely intermingled with existing natives” only ever came after DNA sequencing in the 1990s and 2000s proved that Lehi and his offspring were not the only inhabitants of the Americas after all. There is a reason why the belief that the inhabitants of the Americas were descendants of Lehi “had been the generally held belief from the time that the Church was restored.” Joseph Smith believed in a hemispheric model, and he claimed to have been taught as much by angelic beings, at least one of which lived among the ancient civilizations himself. He believed that all of the Native American Indians were direct descendants of Lehi. He sent missionaries to the “Lamanites” to preach this teaching. So did the “prophets, seers, and revelators” after him. President Spencer W. Kimball was a major believer and proponent of the Church teaching that the Indians are the principal descendants or ancestors of Lehi. This is what Kimball said regarding the Indians:
“With pride I tell those who come to my office that a Lamanite is a descendant of one Lehi who left Jerusalem six hundred years before Christ and with his family crossed the mighty deep and landed in America. And Lehi and his family became the ancestors of all of the Indian and Mestizo tribes in North and South and Central America and in the islands of the sea, for in the middle of their history there were those who left America in ships of their making and went to the islands of the sea. Not until the revelations of Joseph Smith, bringing forth the Book of Mormon, did anyone know of these migrants. It was not known before, but now the question is fully answered. Now the Lamanites number about sixty million; they are in all of the states of America from Tierra del Fuego all the way up to Point Barrows, and they are in nearly all the islands of the sea from Hawaii South to New Zealand … The descendants of this mighty people were called Indians by Columbus in 1492 when he found them here. The term Lamanite includes all Indians and Indian mixtures, such as Polynesians, the Guatemalans, the Peruvians, as well as the Sioux, the Apache, the Mohawk, the Navajo, and others. It is a large group of great people.” – Spencer W. Kimball, “Of Royal Blood,” Ensign July 1971. (Emphasis added)
The Church does not officially acknowledge that “Lehi’s group likely intermingled with the native inhabitants.” The Church just quietly replaced “principal” to “among the” in the Book of Mormon title page in 2006 after the DNA verdicts came in. The Church has been especially silent on the issue since the DNA evidence surfaced. FairMormon is attempting to put words into the Church’s mouth.
There is substantial scientific evidence of habitation in the Americas for thousands of years prior to the claimed Lehi and yes, Jaradite arrivals. There is no evidence, on the other hand, that Lehi and his family “intermingled with the native inhabitants of the American continents.”
There is no DNA evidence of any Hebrew or Middle Eastern markers in the DNA composition of the natives of the Americas.
It is a scientific fact that even if Lehi’s group had integrated, instead of being the sole occupants of the Americas, as everyone in the Church – including its prophets, seers, and revelators – have long believed until DNA came along, there would still be DNA markers referencing a Hebrew or Middle Eastern origin. The idea that it can be ‘filtered out’ through integration is almost as ridiculous as the idea that Anubis is a human headed idolatrous priest known as "Elkenah".
FairMormon quotes Dr. Simon Southerton’s comment made 5 years ago in 2008:
“In case anyone from FairMormon is unclear I will repeat what I wrote four years ago…“IF A SMALL GROUP OF ISRAELITES ENTERED SUCH A MASSIVE NATIVE POPULATION (SEVERAL MILLIONS) IT WOULD BE VERY, VERY HARD TO DETECT THEIR GENES.” Now that FairMormon has finally conceded that American Indian DNA is essentially all derived from Asia, I also agree with them that the debate should be about the theology.” - Dr. Simon Southerton
Dr. Southerton, a former Mormon Bishop and the author of “Losing a Lost Tribe: Native Americans, DNA, and the Mormon Church,” has graciously provided me a personal rebuttal to the above hit-and-run quote that FairMormon is quoting him on. The following is Dr. Southerton’s email response to FairMormon:
“I made the original statement at a time when whole genome sequence analysis was a long way off. It's true that if a small group (say 10 people) entered a massive population (say 1 million), that it would be hard to detect their mitochondrial or Y chromosome DNA. Your odds would be roughly 1 in 100,000 (10 in 1 Million). But technology has moved very rapidly and whole genome studies are now almost routine. So, my original statement is no longer true. I discuss these recent developments in the following blog post: Could Generations of Lamanite DNA Just Disappear? My statement was intended to provoke the disappearing Lamanite apologists to defend their theological position. They write a lot of nonsense about the science but they have been reluctant to put down into plain English the reinterpretations of the Book of Mormon that are required. They don't because they know that it’s dangerous territory to fiddle too much with scripture.”
The entire “Could Generations of Lamanite DNA Just Disappear?” article is a must read. Some of the following paragraphs from the article illustrate some of the several fascinating recent developments on DNA and the Book of Mormon:
“The research on Neanderthals and Denisovans clearly illustrates that if ancestors of other ethnic backgrounds are hiding unnoticed in our family trees, traces of their DNA can be found in our genomes. Even after tens of thousands of years. It is no longer reasonable to claim that Lamanite DNA cannot be found. The recent advances in whole genome sequencing and analysis have changed the research landscape. Genetic tests are now so sensitive, that it is possible to detect a tiny fraction of a percent of mixed ancestry in a person’s DNA.” “Let's suspend disbelief for a moment and consider that the apologists are on to something, and all the prophets have been misguided. Lehi and his small band colonize a restricted region of the Americas. The Book of Mormon records that Lehi's descendants multiplied exceedingly and spread upon the face of the land. Their Middle Eastern nuclear DNA would have spread, over the last 3,000 years, throughout adjacent populations like a drop of ink in a bucket of water. At the very least their genes would have spread over many hundreds of kilometres. It would be exceedingly unlikely that their genomic DNA would go extinct and scientists exploring the genomes of Native Americans would stumble on it if it was there. But apparently the Lamanite generation, along with their genes, are nowhere to be found beyond the pages of the Book of Mormon."
Dr. Southerton’s claim that technology has now advanced in the DNA field is confirmed in a very recent astounding and groundbreaking study led by a team of U.S. and Canadian anthropologists who have traced a direct DNA link between the 5,500 year old remains of an aboriginal woman found on a British Columbia island as well as a 2,500 year old female also found nearby to a living Tsimshian woman from the Metlakatla First Nation. Dr. Ripan Malhi of University of Illinois stated the following in a July 2013 research summary:
“This is the beginning of the golden era for ancient DNA research because we can do so much now that we couldn’t do a few years ago because of advances in sequencing technologies. We’re just starting to get an idea of the mitogenomic diversity in the Americas, in the living individuals as well as the ancient individuals.” (Emphasis added)
Thus, either FairMormon is deliberately misleading its readers on the realities of today’s DNA capabilities and conclusions or FairMormon’s understanding of DNA and its damning evidence against the Book of Mormon is out of sync with the latest DNA science, technologies, and scholarship.
In any event, DNA evidence has definitively established that Native American Indians do not originate from the Middle East or from Israelites but rather from Asia. FairMormon’s attempts to reconcile this fact with the narratives of the Book of Mormon by, for example, arguing for “integration” or “limited geography” theories are likewise undermined by DNA evidence, and by Joseph Smith’s own claims (which in turn are based upon the teachings of native American resurrected angelic beings who visited him).
Anachronisms
CES Letter says...
The document claims that "Horses, cattle, oxen, sheep, swine, goats, elephants, wheels, chariots, wheat, silk, steel, and iron did not exist in pre-Columbus America during Book of Mormon times." FairMormon Agrees FairMormon agrees that there are Book of Mormon anachronisms. However, FairMormon attempts to obfuscate and mask the anachronistic Book of Mormon problems through word games and charts unsupported by any non-Mormon sources, evidence, or peer reviewed data.
FairMormon says...
The number of items considered to be anachronisms in the Book of Mormon has been steadily being reduced over time. For example, in 1842 the idea that steel swords existed in ancient Jerusalem at the time of Lehi was laughable. Now, such a sword is on display at Jerusalem’s Israel Museum. John Clark has prepared charts which demonstrate the trend, over time, to confirmation of the Book of Mormon account. Note: FairMormon deleted the following FairMormon response on November 28, 2013: It is important to note that as knowledge expands, what was once an anachronism turns out to be a legitimate feature of the ancient world. John Clark has prepared charts which demonstrate the trend, over time, to confirmation of the Book of Mormon account. FairMormon revised/deleted/corrected many of their original responses after the release of
Debunking FAIR's Debunking. The above original FairMormon response can be found here.
Jeremy's Response to FairMormon
Contrary to FairMormon's 2005 chart, which is unsupported by sources, below is a corrected 2014 chart, supported by credible sources:
To access live hyperlink sources for the above chart, click here.
Aside from the specific anachronisms (which I discuss in detail below), the reality is that as " knowledge expands ," it in fact provides more solid evidence against the Church's truth claims rather than for them.
Among the more significant examples are the DNA evidence described above, Egyptology and and the Book of Abraham, and the recently discovered similarities between the Late War and the Book of Mormon. Other examples include: the evidence against the existence of any global flood, Noah's Ark, or the Tower of Babel; the evidence of life, including Hominids, existing (and dying) before the alleged existence of Adam and Eve; and the evidence that the Earth has existed for billions of years (rather than the 7,000 stated in D&C 77). These events and claims are included in the Book of Mormon, other scriptures, and have been espoused by current and past "prophets, seers, and revelators" who have literally believed in the above scientifically disproven events.
Returning to Book of Mormon anachronisms, I find FairMormon’s response, “ what was once an anachronism turns out to be a legitimate feature of the ancient world ” to be disingenuous. Notice that FairMormon does not say “turns out to be a legitimate feature of ‘pre-Columbian Americas’ or ‘ancient Americas’ or ‘America during Book of Mormon times'.” “ Ancient world ” allows FairMormon to expand to anywhere in the world in any vague time period (“ancient” is not clearly defined) while leaving their Latter-day Saint readers to interpret “ancient world” to also mean pre-Columbian Americas.
Further, FairMormon makes these astounding claims without providing any sources in their response. FairMormon's claims and findings would shock and surprise non-Mormon archaeologists, anthropologists, linguists, and scientists.
Zoology, Metallurgy, Archaeology, Anthropology, Linguistics, and Biology are all branches of science domains which expand well beyond BYU. Where are FairMormon’s non-LDS sources? Peer-reviewed sources from respected people and organizations not tainted or clouded by religious confirmation bias? Sources from individuals whose careers, values, and contributions are not measured and valued by their ability to find any evidence – stretched or not – to confirm their own religion’s truth claims? After all, “it is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” In other words, never underestimate what the mind can rationalize when a career is at stake.
Looking at FairMormon’s 2005 charts, serious problems become apparent, such as:
Steel swords have been discovered in pre-Columbus America? Where is FairMormon’s source? Such an extraordinary discovery would be of significant importance and interest to non-Mormon archaeologists, anthropologists, metallurgists, and other scientists.
It strikes me as strange that FairMormon’s latest chart is dated 2005. Eight years ago. A lot can happen in 8 years - new discoveries and new evidences. Perhaps one reason why FairMormon continues to rely on the 2005 chart is due to an article published in the same year entitled "Out of Dust: Ancient Steel Sword Unearthed," in which the article made the false and incorrect claim that an ancient steel sword has been discovered. The Maxwell Institute had to release a new article in 2006 entitled "Out of the Dust: All That Glitters Is Not...Steel" admitting that no steel was found and thus retracting its claim.
FairMormon’s original 1842 chart includes some items that required no investigation and ratification, such as “wild beasts,” “large cities,” and “fortifications,” because those items were widely known to have existed in ancient America when the Book of Mormon was produced. Similarly, “East and west seas” were never in question as the Church has taught the hemispheric model. This is just padding to add to the charts in order to boost up percentages. FairMormon likely included these items to increase the number of “Green” boxes. This strategy is very telling.
The charts include many items which FairMormon knew to have been recently “discovered” or at least could be considered (by FairMormon) to be “undetermined” in order to reduce the number of "Red" boxes.
Some of these “discoveries” relate only to civilizations in different times and places to the Book of Mormon and are not evidence for the Book of Mormon and its claims.
evidence for the Book of Mormon and its claims. Notably, wheat is still not “red” despite Book of Mormon claims that it was a Nephite staple used to feed millions of people. As explained by Dr. Michael Coe on this Mormon Stories podcast episode, had wheat existed in the Americas during Book of Mormon times, wheat pollen soil core samples would certainly be found by archaeologists. FairMormon offers no explanation as to why no soil core sample has ever resulted in any evidence of wheat.
of people. As explained by Dr. Michael Coe on this Mormon Stories podcast episode, had wheat existed in the Americas during Book of Mormon times, wheat pollen soil core samples would certainly be found by archaeologists. FairMormon offers no explanation as to why no soil core sample has ever resulted in any evidence of wheat. With respect to barley, a few obscure grains of a wild barley in Arizona does not equate to the domesticated variety supposedly taken from the Holy Land to the Americas and used to feed millions of people in the Book of Mormon setting. Such a pollen producing crop would have been evidenced long ago had it been a real aspect of early native American life anywhere . Nevertheless, this doesn’t stop Mormon apologists from coloring in the box green.
equate to the domesticated variety supposedly taken from the Holy Land to the Americas and used to feed of people in the Book of Mormon setting. Such a pollen producing crop would have been evidenced long ago had it been a real aspect of early native American life . Nevertheless, this doesn’t stop Mormon apologists from coloring in the box green. The animals in FairMormon’s charts that were changed from “red” to “yellow” (the horse, goat, wild goat, and sheep) did not exist in the Americas during the Book of Mormon era. FairMormon does not provide any specific evidence or peer- reviewed data whatsoever to justify turning the red boxes into yellow for animals which respectable scientists and institutions agree did not exist in the Americas during Book of Mormon times.
None of the metallurgy identified in FairMormon’s charts, such as steel, iron, brass, etc., existed in the pre-Columbian Americas. FairMormon does not provide any specific evidence or peer reviewed sources whatsoever to justify turning the red boxes for “steel sword” and “brass plates” into green.
The charts show a couple of items—“human sacrifice” and “slings”—that have been discovered during the period between 1842 and 2005. Such discoveries are indeed evidence that archaeology has come a long way. However, these items do not support FairMormon’s argument, because the archaeological evidence suggests that these items existed outside the time period of the Book of Mormon.
A major omission from FairMormon’s charts is the wheel. The Book of Mormon described chariots, which obviously required the use of a wheel. There were no wheels used for travel or transportation in pre-Columbian America.
It’s unclear why FairMormon changed the “horse” item from red to yellow, but, to the extent FairMormon considers a tapir to satisfy this requirement, I’m sorry but that just won’t work. Tapirs do not pull chariots. Especially chariots without wheels. You may change that box back to red.
Elephants? Not on the list? Elephants are an anachronism.
Chariots? Not on the list? Anachronism.
Silk? Not on the list? Anachronism.
It’s a joke for FairMormon to not include all of the anachronisms in the list. But then again, when the sole purpose of your charts is to do all you can to boost and prop up green boxes and percentages? I’d be tempted to leave stuff out too.
FairMormon does not provide any evidence to back up its claim that anachronisms expire as “ knowledge expands .” These charts are misleading. No peer reviewed sources or evidences or references or explanations on how each of the anachronisms went from red to green or from red to yellow. We’re just expected to trust the data of a Mormon archaeologist/anthropologist and part-time apologist who gives talks at FairMormon and writes reviews for the Neal A. Maxwell Institute?
The best evidence that FairMormon can give us is data from a Mormon archaeologist / anthropologist / apologist? But nothing from non-Mormon sources or institutions. No peer review by non-Mormon professors and respected scientific and archaeological institutions?
FairMormon might as well give us the following chart to support the Book of Mormon since FairMormon thinks providing evidences, sources, and non-LDS apologetic peer-reviewed data is overrated:
Above Chart/Image Credit: Reddit /u/bewilderedbear
Archaeology
CES Letter says...
"There is absolutely no archaeological evidence to directly support the Book of Mormon or the Nephites/Lamanites who numbered in the millions." FairMormon Neutral
FairMormon says...
It is a common claim by critics that there is “absolutely no archaeological evidence” to support the Book of Mormon. FairMormon revised/deleted/corrected many of their original responses after the release of
Debunking FAIR's Debunking. The above original FairMormon response can be found here.
Jeremy's Response to FairMormon
Yes, critics like the Smithsonian Institute and the National Geographic Society. Two of some of the world’s most renowned, reputable, and respected scientific research and education institutions.
Here’s what the National Geographic Society has to say about the Book of Mormon, including claims that there’s archaeological support for the book:
National Geographic Statement on the Book of Mormon
Key National Geographic points from the letter:
“Archaeologists and other scholars have long probed the hemisphere’s past, and the Society does not know of anything found so far that has substantiated the Book of Mormon.”
“I have enclosed a statement issued by the Smithsonian Institution in 1982.”
Not only does National Geographic make it clear that there is no evidence to substantiate the Book of Mormon, it also gives its endorsement of the following Smithsonian Institute letter:
Smithsonian Institute Statement on the Book of Mormon
National Museum of Natural History Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. 20560 Statement Regarding the Book of Mormon The Smithsonian Institution has never used the Book of Mormon in any way as a scientific guide. Smithsonian archaeologists see no direct connection between the archaeology of the New World and the subject matter of the book.
The physical type of the American Indian is basically Mongoloid, being most closely related to that of the peoples of eastern, central, and northeastern Asia. Archaeological evidence indicates that the ancestors of the present Indians came into the New World -- probably over a land bridge known to have existed in the Bering Strait region during the last Ice Age -- in a continuing series of small migrations beginning from about 25,000 to 30,000 years ago.
Present evidence indicates that the first people to reach this continent from the East were the Norsemen who briefly visited the northeastern part of North America around A.D. 1000 and then settled in Greenland. There is nothing to show that they reached Mexico or Central America.
One of the main lines of evidence supporting the scientific finding that contacts with Old World civilizations, if indeed they occurred at all, were of very little significance for the development of American Indian civilizations, is the fact that none of the principal Old World domesticated food plants or animals (except the dog) occurred in the New World in pre-Columbian times. American Indians had no wheat, barley, oats, millet, rice, cattle, pigs, chickens, horses, donkeys, camels before 1492. (Camels and horses were in the Americas, along with the bison, mammoth, and mastodon, but all these animals became extinct around 10,000 B.C. at the time the early big game (sic) hunters spread across the Americas.)
Iron, steel, glass, and silk were not used in the New World before 1492 (except for occasional use of unsmelted meteoric iron). Native copper was worked used (sic) in various locations in pre-Columbian times, but true metallurgy was limited to southern Mexico and the Andean region, where its occurrence in late prehistoric times involved gold, silver, copper, and their alloys, but not iron.
There is a possibility that the spread of cultural traits across the Pacific to Mesoamerica and the northwestern coast of South America began several hundred years before the Christian era. However, any such inter-hemispheric contacts appear to have been the results of accidental voyages originating in eastern and southern Asia. It is by means certain that even such contacts occurred; certainly there were no contacts with the ancient Egyptians, Hebrews, or other peoples of Western Asia and the Near East.
No reputable Egyptologist or other specialist on Old World archaeology, and no expert on New World prehistory, has discovered or confirmed any relationship between archaeological remains in Mexico and archaeological remains in Egypt.
Reports of findings of ancient Egyptian, Hebrew, and other Old World writings in the New World in pre-Columbian contexts have frequently appeared in newspapers, magazines, and sensational books. None of these claims has stood up to examination by reputable scholars. No inscriptions using Old World forms of writing have been shown to have occurred in any part of the Americas before 1492 except for a few Norse rune stones which have been found in Greenland. Scanned copy of the Smithsonian Institute letter can be found here.
In August 2013, a 17-year-old by the name of Zachary decided to email sixty college professors whose expertise was in one of the following fields: Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica Archaeology, Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica Anthropology, and Egyptology. Zachary sought their professional opinion on the historicity of the Book of Mormon and the Book of Abraham.
Out of the sixty college professors that Zachary emailed, 25 responded. Out of the 25 who responded, 14 gave permission to Zachary to publish their names and comments. The responses that Zachary received from these experts are fascinating. The overwhelming consensus from these unbiased experts in pre-Columbian America archaeology/anthropology and Egyptology is that neither the Book of Mormon nor the Book of Abraham is historical, factual, or congruent to the current and existing data and evidence.
The responses from these professors and experts can be read here.
In addition to the statements made by those professors, here are some more statements made by both LDS and non-LDS archaeologist and anthropologist individuals and organizations:
“So far as is known to the writer, no non-Mormon archaeologist at the present time is using the Book of Mormon as a guide in archaeological research. Nor does he know of any non-Mormon archaeologist who holds that the American Indians are descendants of the Jews, or that Christianity was known in America in the first century of our era...”
– Ulster Archaeological Society Newsletter, no. 64, Jan. 30, 1960, p. 3 "With the exception of Latter-day Saint archaeologists, members of the archaeological profession do not, and never have, espoused the Book of Mormon in any sense of which I am aware. Non-Mormon archaeologists do not allow the Book of Mormon any place whatever in their reconstruction of the early history of the New World.”
– Ulster Archaeological Society Newsletter, no. 64, Jan. 30, 1960, p.3 “Let me know state categorically that as far as I know there is not one professionally trained archaeologist, who is not a Mormon, who sees any scientific justification for believing the foregoing to be true, ... nothing, absolutely nothing, has ever shown up in any New World excavation which would suggest to a dispassionate observer that the Book of Mormon... is a historical document relating to the history of early migrants to our hemisphere.”
– Michael Coe, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Summer 1973, pp. 42, 46 "The first myth we need to eliminate is that Book of Mormon archaeology exists…. If one is to study Book of Mormon archaeology, then one must have a corpus of data with which to deal. We do not. The Book of Mormon is really there so one can have Book of Mormon studies, and archaeology is really there so one can study archaeology, but the two are not wed. At least they are not wed in reality since no Book of Mormon location is known with reference to modern topography. Biblical archaeology can be studied because we do know where Jerusalem and Jericho were and are, but we do not know where Zarahemla and Bountiful (nor any other location for that matter) were or are. It would seem then that a concentration on geography should be the first order of business, but we have already seen that twenty years of such an approach has left us empty-handed."
– Dee F. Green, Mormon archaeologist, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Summer 1969, pp. 77-78 “I’m afraid that up to this point, I must agree with Dee Green, who has told us that to date there is no Book of Mormon geography.... you can’t set Book of Mormon geography down anywhere – because it is fictional and will never meet the requirements of the dirt-archaeology.”
– Thomas S. Ferguson, Mormon archaeologist, “Letter to Mr. and Mrs. H.W. Lawrence,” dated Feb. 20, 1976 “While some people chose to make claims for the Book of Mormon through archaeological evidences, to me they are made prematurely, and without sufficient knowledge. I do not support the books written on this subject including The Messiah in Ancient America, or any other. I believe that the authors are making cases out of too little evidences and do not adequately address the problems that archaeology and the Book of Mormon present. I would feel terribly embarrassed if anyone sent a copy of any book written on the subject to the National Museum of Natural History – Smithsonian Institution, or other authority, making claims that cannot as yet be substantiated.... there are very severe problems in this field in trying to make correlations with the scriptures. Speculation, such as practiced so far by Mormon authors has not given church members credibility.”
– Ray T. Matheny, Mormon scholar and BYU professor of anthropology, letter dated Dec. 17, 1987 “In my recent reading of the Book of Mormon, I find that iron and steel are mentioned in sufficient context to suggest that there was a ferrous industry here.... You can’t refine ore without leaving a bloom of some kind or impurities that blossom out and float to the top of the ore... and also the flux of limestone or whatever is used to flux the material.... [This] blooms off into silicas and indestructible new rock forms. In other words, when you have a ferroused metallurgical industry, you have these evidences of the detritus that is left over. You also have the fuels, you have the furnaces, you have whatever technologies that were there performing these tasks; they leave solid evidences. And they are indestructible things.... No evidence has been found in the new world for a ferrous metallurgical industry dating to pre-Columbian times. And so this is a king-size kind of problem, it seems to me, for the so-called Book of Mormon archaeology. This evidence is absent.”
– Ray T. Matheny, Speech at Sunstone Symposium 6, "Book of Mormon Archaeology," August 25, 1984 “I haven’t changed my views about the Book of Mormon since my 1973 article. I have seen no archaeological evidence before or since that date which would convince me that it is anything but a fanciful creation by an unusually gifted individual living in upstate New York in the early nineteenth century.”
– Dr. Michael Coe, correspondence between Bill McKeever and Michael Coe
Dr. Michael Coe, archaeologist and expert on the Maya and Central American archaeology, gave an outstanding interview recently regarding the problems and challenges that Limited Geography Model apologists such as FairMormon face in light of archaeological evidence in Central and South America, where the Limited Geography Model setting is claimed to be.
To objective archaeologists and scientists outside of Mormonism, the Book of Mormon has as much historic validity and utility as The Hobbit.
Where are all the bones, swords, armor, shields, helmets, and spears from these epic battles claimed in the Book of Mormon? Epic battles that took place at the Hill Cumorah (Rama to Jaredites)? The Jaredite nation supposedly ended there with 2,000,000 men slain. The Nephites and Lamanites also had a battle there in 421 AD where 230,000 warriors with weapons of steel were killed.
Why has not a single sword, helmet, shield, spear, armor and yes, bone, been found from one of these great ancient battle sites?
Contrast this remarkable lack of evidence for the Book of Mormon with the 1974 discovery of the Terracotta Warriors and Horses near Xian, China. This amazing army of some 8,000 Terracotta figures was buried in 210 BC, some 600 years before the purported final battle in the Book of Mormon. Surely, if there was battle at Cumorah in 421 AD which involved 230,000 men, there would be something to be found, but there isn’t. The year 421 AD, in archaeological and anthropological terms, is simply not that long ago.
FairMormon says...
When they say “directly” support, they typically mean that they are looking for a direct corroboration, such as the presence of the name “Nephi” or “Zarahemla” in association with ancient American archaeological data. FairMormon revised/deleted/corrected many of their original responses after the release of
Debunking FAIR's Debunking. The above original FairMormon response can be found here.
Jeremy's Response to FairMormon
FairMormon is putting words in the mouths of critics. When critics state that there is absolutely no evidence to directly support the Book of Mormon or the Nephites/Lamanites who numbered in the millions, they’re saying:
“There is no location that matches multiple items/technology/animals that the Book of Mormon states should be found in the time period specified. Examples of these items/technology/animals would be gold, steel, swords, horses, wheat, elephants, etc. Scientists are not necessarily just looking for names of people or places that are similar to ones in the Book of Mormon – just evidence of a culture that matches Book of Mormon claims.”
If the Book of Mormon is historical and the geography, for example, is real, then it is not unreasonable for Mormon scholars to put together – based on the data – of a potential location of one single Book of Mormon land. It is not unreasonable to then publish for peer-review this data in a non-Mormon journal that is not BYU-controlled. It is not unreasonable to have other archaeologists, anthropologists, and other experts to peer review the data. This is the scientific process which was used to find the lost city of Troy. This is the same scientific process that can lead to the discovery of Zarahemla. Unfortunately for the Church and its apologists, decades of vigorous archaeological and anthropological research has yielded nothing. This is also the same scientific process that was used to find the thousand-year-old Viking outpost in Canada. Quite frankly, it is beyond ridiculous that we can find a tiny Viking outpost in Canada which consisted of people who landed a thousand years ago in a very remote part of the Americas but we cannot find a trace of a massive Nephite/Lamanite civilization which numbered in the millions. It’s insane that a civilization roughly the size of the Roman Empire, spanning a time frame of 1,000 years, just completely vanished into thin air without a trace. The Romans left roads, aqueducts, coins, buildings, independent historical accounts, etc. all over Europe and the Mediterranean.
Where is the evidence for the Nephite and Lamanite civilizations?
FairMormon says...
There is plenty of supporting evidence that anthropologically ties the Book of Mormon to ancient America. FairMormon revised/deleted/corrected many of their original responses after the release of
Debunking FAIR's Debunking. The above original FairMormon response can be found here.
Jeremy's Response to FairMormon
This is a false claim. There is not “ plenty of supporting evidence that anthropologically ties the Book of Mormon to ancient America. ” Notice that FairMormon does not offer any sources to this “ plenty of supporting evidence. ”
If there was really “ plenty of supporting evidence ,” there wouldn’t be letters from reputable institutions such as the Smithsonian Institute and National Geographic Society dismissing the Book of Mormon as an unhistorical record.
This goes back to the charts that FairMormon used in the Anachronism section: zero evidence, zero sources, and zero non-Mormon/non-BYU peer-reviewed data.
“Critical questions. Faithful answers.” Indeed.
A detailed list of the Book of Mormon archaeology problems can be found here and here.
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Book of Mormon Geography
CES Letter says...
The document claims "Many Book of Mormon names and places are strikingly similar to many local names and places of the region Joseph Smith lived." FairMormon Disagrees
FairMormon says...
Incorrect:
Out of 345 Book of Mormon names, the list of 28 presented by the author is seriously reduced when one eliminates the Biblical names and those which did not exist on any map at the time that the Book of Mormon was published. FairMormon revised/deleted/corrected many of their original responses after the release of
Debunking FAIR's Debunking. The above original FairMormon response can be found here.
Jeremy's Response to FairMormon
I address FairMormon's attack on the 28 geographical names below.
Before I get to those, however, I’d like to discuss additional evidence of similarities between the “ 345 Book of Mormon names ” and a contemporaneous book available in Joseph’s time and backyard. Aside from FairMormon not sharing that many, if not most, of the “ 345 Book of Mormon names ” are also biblical names, many of the names unique to the Book of Mormon are…well, not so unique.
There was a book published in 1791 by John Walker entitled, A Key to the Classical Pronunciation of Greek, Latin, and Scripture Proper Names. In this book are a number of future Book of Mormon names, which appeared within alphabetized lists. This book was a common household reference in young Joseph Smith’s time and place. According to Larry Porter, “Walker’s Dictionary” was suggested for the curriculum in the Colesville, New York schools by the local commissioners in the fall of 1826.
This link does a side by side comparison between Book of Mormon names and Walker's Key Dictionary.
FairMormon says...
Mutually exclusive claims:
The author, in the next section, presumes that the name “Moroni” was derived from the capital city of the Comoros Islands, or from “treasure stories” about Captain Kidd. In this section, he asserts that the name “Moroni” is derived from the town “Monroe, New York,” which was founded in 1818. FairMormon revised/deleted/corrected many of their original responses after the release of
Debunking FAIR's Debunking. The above original FairMormon response can be found here.
Jeremy's Response to FairMormon
I agree with FairMormon. It was an oversight on my part to include Holley’s “Monroe = Moroni” claim, which I do not agree with. I removed Holley’s “Monroe = Moroni” claim.
I stand by my assertion that Joseph Smith derived “Camorah” and “Moroni” from Captain Kidd stories, which included adventures on what is now known as the Comoros Islands, as I detailed in the CES Letter and which I expand further below in the Hill Cumorah section.
Of course, FairMormon never engages in mutually-exclusive claim-making. For example, there is no conflict with Joseph translating the Book of Mormon by putting his face to a darkened hat and reading the words, as they appear in English on the seer stone, and spelling out names he could not pronounce...while simultaneously claiming that the KJV Bible errors in the Book of Mormon is easily explained by Joseph simply using the Bible to help with the translation.
FairMormon says...
The Book of Mormon contains 345 names. The theory that the author is relying on, proposed by Vernal Holley and posted by Mazeministries, is that 28 of these names were derived by Joseph Smith by looking at the names of places in the surrounding region, then altering the names slightly to create a map of Book of Mormon lands. The original map of which the author obtained this information included names of places which didn’t even exist in Joseph Smith’s time. The map used in “Letter to a CES Director” is a derivative of the Holley map which no longer includes those names, however, the list of names used by the author still includes quite a few of these.
The author lists the following correspondences. In order to obtain this list of parallels, a huge geographical area must be scanned. Five states and two Canadian provinces yield this list of parallels, and it gets even smaller when one actually tries to locate many of these places on a map. In the list below.
Names in red indicate places which either did not have that name until after 1830, or cannot be found on a map or in the Book of Mormon.
Names in blue indicate names that are found in the Bible.
Names in green indicate names that could potentially be a valid match. FairMormon revised/deleted/corrected many of their original responses after the release of
Debunking FAIR's Debunking. The above original FairMormon response can be found here.
Jeremy's Response to FairMormon
Before we go over each one of the towns/cities, I want to illustrate an important concept:
In the 1980s, I lived in Diamond Bar, California. In the early 20th century, it was known as “Diamond Bar Ranch,” and it was at the time one of the largest working cattle ranches in the western United States. In the 1950s, it was acquired by Transamerica Corporation for the purpose of developing one of the nation’s first master-planned communities. It was after Transamerica’s acquisition that it gave the “Diamond Bar” name to its new master-planned community.
So what does this mean for this discussion? Fast forward into the distant future, 150 years from now. The only information that you have about Diamond Bar is that it was a city in California and that it was incorporated as a city on April 18, 1989. Your first natural assumption would be that prior to 1989, Diamond Bar didn’t exist, at least not under the name “Diamond Bar.” However, this assumption would be false, as the name goes back to the early 20th century, as I explained above.
One of FairMormon’s strategies and arguments for many of the names was to pull in the dates from Wikipedia and other sources of when the towns were incorporated so as to say, “See?! This town wasn’t incorporated until so-and-so, which is so-and-so years after the publication of the Book of Mormon!” The problem with this strategy and approach is that the date of incorporation does not always mean that the town and its name did not exist for decades before its incorporation, as was the case of Diamond Bar.
Here are more examples of Date Settled vs. Incorporated as a Town/City, this one focused on towns in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Notice the gap between settlement and incorporation dates of some of the towns are 100+ years.
Another important note I want to make here is that Vernal Holley is dead. We can’t contact him to find out exactly where he got his sources. FairMormon’s strawman that these towns/cities were discovered only through maps may not be FairMormon as to how Holley found some of the towns. He may have used letters, newspapers, post office records, obituaries, local city/county library records, etc. in which records and books are not accessible online. We do not know.
This is evident in the "Jerusalem" claim. FairMormon claims that Jerusalem, Ohio does not show up on a 1822 map. If one searches on the internet for when Jerusalem was first settled, they won't find any information. So, the logical conclusion would be to assume that Jerusalem wasn't established before the publication of the Book of Mormon. However, this would be incorrect as there is evidence that the first house in Jerusalem, Ohio was built in 1825. I was able to locate a resident who volunteered to go to the Monroe County Public Library in Woodsfield, Ohio and search for the information. She found it an offline book entitled Monroe County, Ohio: A History. Simply doing a Google search may not show the whole picture. There are still numerous local books and records that are hidden offline awaiting digitization.
Below I list each town, provide FairMormon's criticism, and then offer a response to FairMormon's criticism.
Alma = Alma, Valley of
FairMormon: Alma . In the area indicated on the Holley map, modern maps show that there is a small, unincorporated community called Centerville, also known as Alma, in Tyler County, West Virginia, United States. Coordinates: 39°25′55″N 80°50′24″W. However, when we view the 1822 map of Virginia, we cannot find the name “Alma” anywhere.
Response: I agree with FairMormon that the Holley map incorrectly depicts Alma as being in West Virginia. Upon further research, I discovered Alma, New York, which was first settled “around 1833.” As mentioned above, names of towns and cities were often known to locals before the area was first or completely settled and incorporated. Many times as early as several decades. I corrected the map I included in the CES Letter to reflect the location of Alma, New York. It’s interesting to note that the folks at FairMormon never bothered to mention Alma, New York, which I presume they came across in their research (I found it quickly and easily in a Google search), but FairMormon fails to bring this fact to the attention of their readers.
Antrim = Antum
FairMormon: Antrim = Antum. “Antrim Township” is located in Franklin County, Pennsylvania. It was named after County Antrim in Northern Ireland. The township was organized in 1741.
Response: This is correct.
Antioch = Anti-Anti
FairMormon: Antioch = Anti-Anti . The name “Anti-Anti” doesn’t even appear in the Book of Mormon, nor does the biblical name “Antioch.”
Response: Anti-Anti is a misspelling of “Ani-Anti,” which is found in Alma 21:11. And, yes, the name “Antioch” is in the Bible, but that’s beside the point. The fact that it also existed as a geographical place in Joseph’s time and place and in a setting that Joseph taught early on to be the geographical site of the Book of Mormon is the point.
Boaz = Boaz
FairMormon: Boaz = Boaz. The name “Boaz” is from the Bible. Joseph would not have needed to look at a map for this one, unless one accepts Holley’s assertion that the Holley map is supposed to show the geographical locations of Book of Mormon places.
Response: Unlike the use of the name “Boaz” in the Bible, Joseph used the name “Boaz” as a geographical location in the Book of Mormon. The name “Boaz” in the Bible refers to the name of a character in the Book of Ruth.
Conner = Comner
FairMormon: Connor = Comner . The name “Comner” doesn’t appear in the Book of Mormon. The name “Comnor” does, in Ether 14:28. Of course, “Comnor” doesn’t match “Conner” quite as closely in spelling. We cannot find “Connor” in either New York or Pennsylvania.
Response: I agree with FairMormon that this similarity is relatively weak, and I have therefore removed this name from the list.
Ephrem, Saint = Ephraim, Hill
FairMormon: Ephrem, Saint = Ephraim , Hill. The actual name is "Saint-Éphrem-de-Beauce, Quebec." Wikipedia shows the town being established with that name in 1866. This is 36 years after the publication of the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon name "Ephraim," of course, is easily found in the Bible.
Response: I agree with FairMormon that this similarity is relatively weak, and I have therefore removed this name from the list and map.
Hellam = Helam
FairMormon: Hellam = Helam. According to the town’s website, Hellam Township, Pennsylvania, was established in 1739.
Response: This is correct.
Jacobsburg = Jacobugath
FairMormon: Jacobsburg = Jacobugath. Jacobsburg, Belmont Co., Ohio does not even show up on a 1822 map of Ohio.
Response: Here is what Wikipedia states about Jacobsburg, Ohio: “In 1833, Jacobsburg contained one tavern, two stores, a physician, sundry mechanics, and about 120 inhabitants.” I find it interesting that FairMormon chose to ignore this evidence. Instead, FairMormon points to a map as early as 1822 claiming that the city must not have existed as it’s not on an 1822 map. Never mind that the city could have been built after 1822 but before the publication of the Book of Mormon. The fact that the city was already well up and running with two stores, a tavern, sundry mechanics, a physician, and 120 inhabitants by 1833 shows that it likely existed before 1830.
Jerusalem = Jerusalem
FairMormon: Jerusalem = Jerusalem. Jerusalem, Monroe Co., Ohio does not even show up on a 1822 map of Ohio. Even today the village of Jerusalem occupies only 0.2 square miles. Besides, the name "Jerusalem" is from the Bible. Joseph would not have needed to look at a map for this one, unless one accepts Holley's assertion that the Holley map is supposed to show the geographical locations of Book of Mormon places.
Response: The first house in Jerusalem, Ohio was built in 1825, which explains why it wouldn’t appear on an 1822 map of Ohio. And yes, it was in the Bible, but that's beside the point. The fact that it also existed as a geographical place in Joseph’s time and place and in a setting that Joseph taught early on to be the geographical site of the Book of Mormon is the point.
Jordan = Jordan
FairMormon: Jordan = Jordan. The name "Jordan" is from the Bible. Joseph would not have needed to look at a map for this one, unless one accepts Holley's assertion that the Holley map is supposed to show the geographical locations of Book of Mormon places.
Response: Again, yes it was in the Bible. That’s beside the point. The fact that it also existed as a geographical place in Joseph’s time and place and in a setting that Joseph taught early on to be the geographical site of the Book of Mormon is the point.
Kishkiminetas = Kishkumen
FairMormon: Kishkiminetas = Kishkumen. Kishkiminetas Township, Armstrong County, Pennsylvania was given that name in 1832, two years after the Book of Mormon was published. From History of Armstrong County Pennsylvania, written in 1883 by Robert Walter Smith, "The petition of sundry inhabitants of Allegheny township was presented December 22, 1831, to the court of quarter sessions of this county, asking that a new township be formed out of the upper end of Allegheny township, to be called Kiskiminetas. Philip Klingensmith, John Lafferty and John McKissen were appointed viewers, who, after one continuance of their order, presented their report recommending the organization of the new township, which was approved by the court June 19, 1832." Kiskiminetas River in Pennsylvania does exist prior to the town, and one would assume that it would show up on a map. The Holley map, however, does not indicate that Kishkiminetas is a river, but rather a place.
Response: The point that matters is that the name “Kishkiminetas” existed and was known in Joseph’s time and backyard before the publication of the Book of Mormon. It was and is the name of a 27-mile river.
Lehigh = Lehi
FairMormon: Lehigh = Lehi. There is indeed a “Lehigh Valley” located in Pennsylvania.
Response: This is correct.
Mantua = Manti
FairMormon: Mantua = Manti. According to the town’s website, Mantua Village, Ohio was incorporated in 1898. This is 68 years after the publication of the Book of Mormon.
Response: FairMormon is being deceptive here. Here is what Mantua Village’s website says exactly (most of which FairMormon omits from their readers): “A Little History: Mantua Village (pronounced, "MAN-a-way") is located along the Cuyahoga River (known by native inhabitants as the "Crooked River") in Portage County. From its humble beginnings in the early 1800s, with its railroad station, 13 saloons, house of "ill repute" and a shipping point for area farmers, Mantua Village was formed and quickly began to grow. A Post Office was established in 1860 and the Village was incorporated in 1898.” FairMormon is misleading their readers into thinking that the town and its name did not exist before 1898, which is false. The town and its name existed, as mentioned on the town’s own website, in the “early 1800s.” As I’ve demonstrated previously, a town and its name can exist for many decades before its official incorporation. Mantua is another example of this.
Monroe = Moroni
FairMormon: Monroe = Moroni. The author, in the next section, presumes that the name "Moroni" was derived from the capital city of the Comoros Islands, or from "treasure stories" about Captain Kidd. There is a town "Monroe, New York" which was founded in 1818.
Response: FairMormon is correct. As mentioned previously, this was an honest oversight on my part. I do not believe that Moroni came from Monroe. As I mentioned in the Hill Cumorah section, I believe "Moroni" and “Camorah” are derived from Captain Kidd stories. I removed “Monroe = Moroni.”
Minoa = Minon
FairMormon: Minoa = Minon. According to the Minoa town website, the town of Minoa, New York received that name in 1895. That is 60 years after the Book of Mormon was published.
Response: I agree with FairMormon. The town’s website specifically states that the name changed in 1895. I have removed Holley’s error from the list.
Moraviantown = Morianton
FairMormon: Moraviantown = Morianton. Moravian Indian Reserve No. 47, Ontario, appears to have been established in 1782.
Response: Correct.
Morin = Moron
FairMormon: Morin = Moron. According to Wikipedia, Morin Township, Quebec, was formed in 1852. This would be 22 years after the Book of Mormon was published.
Response: I agree with FairMormon. Wikipedia is specific that Morin was first settled in 1850. I removed Holley’s error from the list and map.
Noah Lakes = Noah, Land of
FairMormon: Noah Lakes = Noah, Land of. The name "Noah" is from the Bible. Joseph would not have needed to look at a map for this one, unless one accepts Holley's assertion that the Holley map is supposed to show the geographical locations of Book of Mormon places.
Response: Yes, it was in the Bible but that’s beside the point. The fact that it also existed as a geographical place in Joseph’s time and place and in a setting that Joseph taught early on to be the geographical site of the Book of Mormon is the point.
Oneida = Onidah
FairMormon: Oneida = Onidah. See “Oneida Castle” below.
Oneida Castle = Onidah Hill
FairMormon: Oneida Castle = Onidah, Hill. Oneida Castle, New York is located at 43°4′42″N 75°38′0″W. The Town has existed since the 18th century.
Response: This is correct.
Omer = Omner
FairMormon: Omer = Omner. We cannot find "Omer" on any modern map of Pennsylvania, New York or Canada.
Response: I agree with FairMormon and have removed Holley's claim from the list.
Rama = Ramah
FairMormon: Rama = Ramah. Rama Township, Ontario, was "first surveyed in 1834."[1] This is four years after the publication of the Book of Mormon.
Response: This is a great case study of FairMormon disingenuity. First of all, notice how FairMormon provides their source for this. They put a footnote “1” that links to their “Endnotes” section on the bottom as opposed to just directly linking to the website as FairMormon has for other sources, such as town websites, Wikipedia, and the maps. Also notice that FairMormon does not put a page number in their source at the bottom in the “Endnotes.” There is a reason for this. Here is what it actually says in the source: “The fact that Rama Township grew in fits and starts is reflected in the piecemeal fashion it was surveyed into settlement lots. One third of the township – the west side, bordering Lake Couchiching – was surveyed in 1834 by William Keating.” (Emphasis added) Isn’t that interesting? This is quite different from FairMormon’s “first surveyed in 1834” claim, isn’t it? There’s a difference between “one third of the township – the west side” being surveyed in 1834 versus the entire town “first” being surveyed in 1834. Further, here’s the most important part from page 8 that FairMormon decided to omit from their readers: “The name Rama was already used for the area in 1826, when the Black River was first surveyed.” So, FairMormon is incorrect in their claim about Rama. The name was already being used for the area in 1826; several years before the publication of the Book of Mormon. FairMormon has lost significant credibility here. If FairMormon were a witness on the stand, any lawyer worth his/her salt would have had a heyday impeaching FairMormon over this deception.
Ripple Lake = Ripliancum, Waters of
FairMormon: Ripple Lake = Ripliancum, Waters of. Ripple Lake is so small that it is difficult to locate on modern day maps, and it is one of more than 250,000 lakes in Ontario. Are we to assume that Joseph selected this one location amongst many, and then converted the name “Ripple Lake” to “Ripliancum”.
Response: As with the Hill Cumorah section below, FairMormon creates a strawman, contending that Joseph used only maps. FairMormon completely ignores that Joseph didn’t grow up in a vacuum and that he lived in a transient area in which many people come and went from all over. By FairMormon’s logic, it’s impossible for Joseph to have derived “Moroni” and “Camorah” because the Comoros Islands is difficult to find on maps and is remote. Therefore, Joseph couldn’t have learned of the names from the Comoros Islands. Never mind that Joseph was a fan and a reader of Captain Kidd stories, which included adventures on the Comoros Islands. FairMormon sets up a strawman by focusing only on maps while ignoring the fact that Joseph & Co. very well could have learned about the names from non-map sources. I’ll leave to the reader to form their own opinion as to whether the name “Waters of Ripliancum” may have been derived from “Ripple Lake.”
Sodom = Sidom
FairMormon: Sodom = Sidom. The name "Sodom," of course, is well known from the Bible. Joseph would not have needed to look at a map for this one, unless one accepts Holley's assertion that the Holley map is supposed to show the geographical locations of Book of Mormon places.
Response: Of course it was in the Bible. That’s beside the point. The fact that it also existed as a geographical place in Joseph’s time and place and in a setting that Joseph taught early on to be the geographical site of the Book of Mormon is the point.
Shiloh = Shilom
FairMormon: Shiloh = Shilom. The name "Shiloh” is a biblical name. There is a Shiloh, Pennsylvania on modern maps.
Response: Again, the fact that the name “Shiloh” is in the Bible is beside the point. The fact that it also existed as a geographical place in Joseph’s time and place and in a setting that Joseph taught early on to be the geographical site of the Book of Mormon is the point.
Land of Midian = Land of Midian
FairMormon: Land of Midian = Land of Midian . The name "Land of Midian" is from the Bible and it is located in Egypt. Joseph would not have needed to look at a map for this one, unless one accepts Holley's assertion that the Holley map is supposed to show the geographical locations of Book of Mormon places. We are unable to locate a "Midian" or "Land of Midian" on any modern map of Pennsylvania.
Response: I agree with FairMormon and have removed Holley's claim.
CES Letter says...
The author claims "Many Book of Mormon names and places are strikingly similar to many local names and places of the region Joseph Smith lived," and "We read in the Book of Mormon of the Land of Desolation named for a warrior named Teancum who helped General Moroni fight in the Land of Desolation. In Smith’s era, an Indian Chief named Tecumseh fought and died near the narrow neck of land helping the British in the War of 1812. Today, the city Tecumseh (near the narrow neck of land) is named after him." FairMormon Disagrees
FairMormon says...
The author is not only stating that the names are similar to those in the Book of Mormon, but also that the location of those names is similar (the references the author makes to the "narrow neck," for example). He does, after all, title this section "Book of Mormon Geography." In addition, since some of these names could have easily been taken from the Bible instead of the surrounding region, one must assume that their inclusion on the map also implies that their geographical locations relative to one another are important.
are similar to those in the Book of Mormon, but also that the is similar (the references the author makes to the "narrow neck," for example). He does, after all, title this section "Book of Mormon Geography." In addition, since some of these names could have easily been taken from the Bible instead of the surrounding region, one must assume that their inclusion on the map also implies that their geographical locations relative to one another are important. Incorrect:
Looking at the geography, it is clear from Holley’s map that a number of locations have been selected to make the names match the existing geography. Some examples: The map places Jacobugath, site of “King Jacob’s” dissenters far in the land southward, when the Book of Mormon has it far in the land northward (3 Nephi 7:9-12; see also 3 Nephi 9:9).
The map places the land of first inheritance [land of Lehi-Nephi] is on the eastern coast of the United States, while the Book of Mormon is clear that Lehi and his group landed on the western coast.
The city of Morianton should be by the eastern seashore, near the city of Lehi (Alma 50:25).
"Ramah” is the Jaredite name for the Hill Cumorah (Ether 15:11). The Hill Cumorah is not in Canada. FairMormon revised/deleted/corrected many of their original responses after the release of
Debunking FAIR's Debunking. The above original FairMormon response can be found here.
Jeremy's Response to FairMormon
“ The map places Jacobugath, site of "King Jacob's" dissenters far in the land southward, when the Book of Mormon has it far in the land northward (3 Nephi 7:9-12; see also 3 Nephi 9:9). ”
FairMormon is adding words to Book of Mormon that don’t exist. The only geographical reference to “Jacobugath” is that it is in the: “northernmost part of the land.” It does not say what land, and there is no universally acknowledged “land.” For FairMormon to assume that “northernmost” must mean that it’s the most north on this map in my letter is really reaching for something.
If I were in St. George, Utah, and I said I was going to the “northernmost part of the land,” you would not know whether I was going to the “northernmost” part of St. George or if I was going all the way up to the Utah/Idaho border or if I was going all the way to the United States/Canadian border. It depends on what “land” means. We do not know what “land” in this scripture refers to.
“ The map places the land of first inheritance [land of Lehi-Nephi] is on the eastern coast of the United States, while the Book of Mormon is clear that Lehi and his group landed on the western coast. ”
Actually, the Book of Mormon isn’t clear on this point. Notice that FairMormon fails to offer any source for their claim that Lehi and his group “ landed on the western coast. ” The reason why FairMormon fails to offer any source, as they did for “Jacobugath” and “Morianton,” is because FairMormon knows that the Book of Mormon does not say which coast Lehi & Co. landed. Further, FairMormon fails to tell their readers that there’s actually controversy within LDS apologetic circles as to which coast Lehi & Co. landed. I find it disingenuous, to say the least, that FairMormon tries to present this as factual to their readers when they know it is not factual.
FairMormon makes this claim on the assumption that LDS apologist Hugh B. Nibley was right in his premise that the “land of Bountiful” was on the coast in the Middle East and that Lehi & Co. didn’t sail around Africa but rather through the Pacific. This is just opinion as the Book of Mormon is silent on which coast Lehi & Co. landed.
Here is an LDS apologist making the argument that Lehi & Co. went the Atlantic ocean route.
And here's the pro-LDS Meridian magazine also making the case that Lehi & Co. sailed across the Atlantic ocean.
So, there is no consensus, evidence, or support for FairMormon’s assumption that Lehi & Co. landed on the Pacific coast.
Therefore, FairMormon’s claim that Lehi-Nephi is inaccurately placed on the map is unsupported.
“ The City of Morianton should be by the eastern seashore, near the city of Lehi (Alma 50:25). ”
Neither is Hill Cumorah in New York, according to the “Limited Geography Model” espoused by both FairMormon and the Neal Maxwell Institute. Never mind that Joseph Smith and “prophets, seers, and revelators” have taught it’s in New York. Never mind that Joseph Smith was, in turn, taught about the Book of Mormon civilizations by an angelic Moroni who himself deposited the plates in Hill Cumorah. Never mind that the Church still holds Hill Cumorah pageants there today.
Unofficial apologists have to invent another Cumorah to try to make the dots line up. Yet, the dots aren’t lining up. As long as this is the standard required, then having Ramah sh |
If you’re a fan of Flight of the Conchords or the vampire mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows then you already know Taika Waititi is aces. As a director, he’s got an impeccable ability to balance painful earnestness with biting humor. And as a comedy writer and actor, he produces jokes that land every time—even if they’re so subtle you don’t notice it at first.
This has never been more true than in Hunt for the Wilderpeople, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and stars Sam Neill as a woodsy tough guy who ends up on the lam in the New Zealand bush with a gangster-wannabe foster kid (Ricky, played by newcomer Julian Dennison). It’s Waititi’s best movie yet, and it bodes well for his next project: Thor: Ragnarok.
Yes, after a career of making small, subtle movies like the stellar Eagle vs. Shark, Waititi’s next gig is directing the third Marvel movie about the Asgardian god. And while his skillset may not at first glance seem suited to an interstellar superhero epic, the way Waititi does it, they are. (Really, aren’t all of the Avengers movies just family misadventures?) Here’s why we should be very excited to see what Waititi does in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
He’s No Stranger to Punching Up Dark Source Material
Despite the fact that it’s very much a comedy, Hunt for the Wilderpeople is actually based on a serious novel: Barry Crump’s Wild Pork and Watercress. “Nothing in the book is funny,” Waititi told WIRED at Sundance. “I brought in all that kind of stuff. The main thing taken from the book is the heart and soul of it: It’s about a young boy growing up, and having the craziest of experiences.”
He’s Quick With a Pop Culture Reference
One of the ways Waititi enlivened Wilderpeople was with an infusion of well-placed pop culture references. Ricky, for example, names his dog Tupac, after his favorite rapper. While hiding in the bush, the boy notes his plight is like Lord of the Rings. When Ricky tells the woman from children’s services that he is the Terminator, she replies that he’s actually Sarah Connor—from the first movie, before she could do pull-ups. And that’s just one of a few barbs the welfare agent gets in, and they didn’t all make the final cut. “I saw her character as Tommy Lee Jones from The Fugitive. She lives in a movie fantasy,” Waititi says. “There’s one outtake we did with her where she did the entire Last of the Mohicans speech.” (She also has a catchphrase: “No child left behind.” However, Waititi hadn’t realized he lifted that from George W. Bush until someone pointed it out at Sundance.)
He’s as Excited About Loki as We Are
One of the great things about Thor: Ragnarok is the return of fan favorite Loki, who was absent from Avengers: Age of Ultron. No one is more aware of this than Waititi—not that he knows how he’s going to use actor Tom Hiddleston. “At the moment, everyone’s trying to figure it out, like ‘What’s he going to do?’” Witty says. “Everyone loves that character.”
He’s Also—Like 99.9 Percent for Sure—Going to Work With Cate Blanchett
Rumors have been circulating for a while now that Cate Blanchett will be joining the MCU in Ragnarok. Ask Waititi, and you’ll get a long pause...then a “Yes.” Really? “Look, it’s so early I’m not sure exactly what the extent of it is, but it’s looking good,” he says, “which would make me very happy.” Push further and ask if about the rumor that she’ll be playing Thor nemesis Hela, and you won't even get shot down. “Yeah, the rumor … Here’s the thing,” Waititi says. “I can’t say anything. I’ve probably said way too much.”
He Loves Event Horizon
When introducing Neill at Sundance, he presented him by saying “…from Event Horizon, the great Sam Neill.” It’s one of Waititi’s favorite films. So much so that he bugged the actor to explain the movie to him on set. “He says he can’t remember anything,” Waititi says. “He remembers it being really weird. I keep asking him to do the pin through the paper thing, but he doesn’t remember how to do it. I’m like ‘It’s two points, point A and point B, then you put a hole through it.’” OK, so maybe this doesn’t have anything to do with how well he’ll make a superhero movie, but good taste in genre movies looks good on any director’s CV.
He’ll Never Abandon His Roots
Waititi got where he is doing small indie projects in New Zealand with his friends—specifically Conchords star Jemaine Clement. Even though he’ll be spending the next year or more making a Marvel movie, that doesn’t mean he’ll stay in Asgard forever. He’d still like to make Jojo Rabbit, a World War II dramedy, as well as a movie about one of the recurring jokes in What We Do in the Shadows. “Jemaine and I are writing a spin-off film that's going to follow the werewolves," he says. "It follows Stu's journey into becoming a werewolf and fitting in with the pack. We’ve got a bunch of TV ideas we’re working on as well. I love the idea of doing these big things but I also very much like the films that I make. So I’ll always want to go back to doing that.” |
Keep arriving and departing airplanes safe from collisions, while avoiding unnecessary delays. In this game you will work at the world’s most complex airports. Human pilot voices, a radar screen, 12 different real-world airports, plus an awesome soundtrack make this game a must-have for anyone who likes aviation. Sound complicated? Airport Madness is for everyone, and it is very easy to learn. Do you have what it takes to be an air traffic controller at a busy international airport?
You are paid the big bucks for your visualization skills and guts. Just like the real job of an air traffic controller, you must pay attention and keep your eyes moving. There is always something that you should be doing. You must give takeoff clearances, landing clearances and taxi clearances in a strategic effort to maintain safety and efficiency where there would otherwise be total chaos. This is not a spectator’s sport! Can you hack it? |
As television network and cable reporting on the collapsing economy diminished last week, John McCain gained an inch or two on Barack Obama. Three cable news shows I watched on MSNBC on Friday – Hardball, Countdown, and Rachel Maddow – devoted substantial coverage to the dirty tricks and voter suppression efforts of McCain’s campaign. The reporting is critically important. But, in the end, it probably helped McCain simply by dropping the economy as THE STORY.
FOXnews, of course, last week devoted a good deal of its daily reporting to ACORN. "Anything But the Economy" should be the phony news outlet’s new motto. You want to know the McCain message strategy? Watch FOX. They execute campaign orders with the scary discipline of practiced propagandists.
But even smart, open-minded or progressive media have difficulty focusing on more than one thing at one time. They want THE STORY. And post-debate last week, THE STORY was, in some order or other, McCain campaign dirty tricks (racist robocalls), Republican efforts to keep American citizens from voting, McCain’s poor debate performance, electoral college predictions, etc.
The stock market was up slightly by the end of the week, and the outrages of the McCain campaign stole the shows. They were enough to make it less than THE STORY. And that’s helped McCain, if only by a small amount. Which means there’s no incentive for the McCain camp to reign in their extremist messaging.
This presents the Obama campaign with a dilemma. Take the focus off the economy, and McCain will gain. Leave the anti-democratic and racist tactics of the McCain campaign unaddressed, and McCain will gain.
This time, though, the Obama campaign has something no Democratic campaign has had in recent presidential cycles: a late lead with a cushion. Its state-by-state advantage in the contest for electoral votes means it can concede a brief, short-term advantage to McCain by doing some things that diminish the reporting of economic news. Very, very important things. Like demanding that a special prosecutor investigate the Department of Justice’s raw, illegal and undemocratic investigation-by-press-leak of ACORN.
I’m going to take advantage of the cushion to make a simple point about the authoritarian and democracy-threatening voter suppression efforts of the Right.
I’m aware that when McCain made his preposterous "destroying the fabric of democracy" claim against ACORN in last week’s debate, he knew what he was doing. He was distracting voters from the economic distress. And he was stealing the language of condemnation aimed by Obama and others at McCain’s voter suppression schemes. As bad as the McCain campaign has been, it’s not always stupid. The "fabric of democracy" remark was used tactically to diminish the impact of any coverage the voter suppression efforts might receive. Voters will be confused about just who is ripping said fabric.
I’m aware of McCain’s little play, but I don’t care. McCain’s tactical prophylactic is thin. So here’s my simple point:
In a democracy, voter suppression should be made a high crime on a level with treason.
In fact, I don’t think a system can even be called a democracy unless it treats as a great and terrible crime the suppression, intimidation or exclusion of citizens from elections. When voter exclusion is tolerated, voting can become little more than a pretty curtain drawn across the muscled efforts of authority to have its way no matter what the citizenry might prefer.
But in America, exclusion has a cultural and political advantage over inclusion. It took 140-plus years for women to earn the franchise. It was 1965 before formal and legal barriers to African-American participation in elections were removed by the Voting Rights Act. Demonizing a group by color, religion, geography or even political preference and then taking steps to keep the demonized group from voting – where’s the news? It’s been done since the founding of the nation.
How people of the Right manage to square their avowed love of democracy with actions that subvert it isn’t really that big a mystery. In the conservative worldview, only certain people – Calvinists knew them as the Elect – should be regarded as full citizens. The non-Elect aren’t full citizens because they are less favored by God or the town fathers. In authoritarian minds, suppressing the voting rights of their neighbors becomes essential to protecting legitimate authority within a democracy. The successful disenfranchising of the non-Elect is then taken as a sign that God or more earthly authority looks down upon the victims of suppression. It’s a neat little self-justifying merry-go-round of logic.
To all you conservatives busy caging votes, passing along voter purge lists, contributing money to pay for racist robocalls, hiring private-duty cops to patrol the polls to intimidate would-be voters, rigging voting machines and on and one, I say this: you belong in prison. |
Whites are continually put into the position of forever having to prove the negative, that they’re not racists. This is impossible. And that’s the point.
Now that South Carolina has taken down the Confederate flag flying on statehouse grounds, MSNBC is drumming the five whose state flags incorporate “Confederate themes.”
They continue to prove liberals are never satisfied. We fought the Civil War. We ratified the Fourteenth Amendment. We have the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The civil-rights movement was a success. Now, we have South Carolina pulling down the Confederate flag. But it’s still not enough. And Hillary Clinton agrees.
“Removing this symbol of our nation’s racist past is an important step towards equality and civil rights in America,” Clinton said in a written statement after the South Carolina legislature voted to remove the flag. “The flag may soon no longer fly at the State Capitol, but there is still unfinished business in confronting and acting on the inequalities that still exist in our country. We can’t hide from the hard truths about race and justice. We must do everything in our power to have the courage to name them and change them” (emphasis mine).
In saying this is a “step toward equality and civil rights,” Clinton is acting as if the civil-rights movement never happened. She is painting our nation with the brush of racism as if it were still 1950—or even 1860.
Whites Must Stop Being Racists, But They Can’t
Shelby Steele, author of “White Guilt,” calls this “manipulating stigma.” With the victory of the civil-rights movement, whites lost their moral authority—something that inevitably happens when you admit you’ve done something wrong. As a nation, we confessed our racist past, and we righted that wrong. That should have been the end of it, but with the loss of that moral authority came an increase in the moral authority of minorities—power they and the Democratic Party have twisted and used to advance one social-justice agenda after another. Steele says this happens because of white guilt, and the stigma of racism reinforces white guilt.
‘If they don’t prove the negative, then the stigma sticks.’
Clinton says we can’t hide “from the hard truths about race and justice.” Which hard truths is she talking about except that we must overcome our inherent racism? President Obama said it is “in our DNA” to be racist. With this statement, he stigmatizes our nation. Clinton’s call to do everything in our power to have the courage to name those truths and change them is another way of saying that whites are racists, so we must “stigmatize them” and force them to change—to comply. A lot of effort won’t even be needed, as we’ve seen with the Confederate flag. Just point the accusatory finger, and those who don’t want to be delegitimized by stigma will dissociate from any hint of racism. They will obey.
Since the civil-rights movement, which community organizers and Democratic elites capitalized on to increase their power, “whites, and particularly, institutions, have lived under threat of stigmatization,” says Steele. He explains that through this manipulation of white guilt, whites are continually put into the position of forever having to prove the negative, that they’re not racist. This is an impossible task, which is why we’ll never really be free of it. “If they don’t prove the negative, then the stigma sticks,” he writes.
The Left Incites Racial Controversy to Secure More Power
The Confederate flag controversy has never been about being sensitive to minorities in the aftermath of the dreadful mass murder in South Carolina. It has been about stigma and the Democratic Party using it to delegitimize anyone who doesn’t bend to its will. Steele explains that if an individual or institution in America is stigmatized as racist, then they are delegitimized. They lose all power and authority and influence. They are marginalized and ostracized. When that happens, they can be easily defeated or manipulated.
Clinton, in true totalitarian form, isn’t concerned about inequality.
When this occurs at an institutional level, that institution can no longer really function effectively. The institution wants to function, to be legitimate, so it disassociates from any appearance of racism by showing how inclusive and tolerant it is, bowing to the will of the totalitarians who want to exert their power and have complete allegiance. This is what the Great Society was built on. It’s not about compassion or equality; it’s about wanting to be able to function, to be valued, and to be legitimate.
When Clinton says inequalities still exist in our country, this is a play at white guilt. Blacks and whites are both equal before the law, so her statement is a glaring falsehood. But Clinton, in true totalitarian form, isn’t concerned about inequality. She’s concerned about power.
The Only Thing We Have to Fear
As Tom Nichols writes at The Federalist about totalitarians like Clinton, “They are not really trying to capture something as pedestrian as political equality, nor are they satisfied if they get it. They are not really seeking a win in the courts, or a legal solution, or a negotiated settlement. Those are all just merit badges to be collected along the way to a more important goal: what they really want, and what they in fact demand, is that you agree with them. They want you to believe.”
The Silent Majority has now become the Silenced Majority.
While Nichols calls these people the “new totalitarians,” they’re not all that new. They’ve been with us for decades. The difference is they have now accumulated a significant amount of power, and the Silent Majority has now become the Silenced Majority. They don’t want to be stigmatized. They don’t want to lose their legitimacy in society. So they remain silent and they conform.
“White guilt is a powerful, powerful force,” Steele says. “Not because people feel guilty, but because people are stigmatized, and again have to prove the negative all the time, and living forever under threat of being stigmatized.”
Stigma is a club in the hand of the totalitarian to increase power. Clinton, Obama, Loretta Lynch, and others will use it over and over again, as long as people allow the stigma to stick. As long as individuals and institutions fear delegitimization because of stigma and refuse to pay the high price of dissent, the power of the totalitarians will grow. |
But before the MH17 crash, security concerns closed Ukrainian airspace. An airliner flies under smoke left by a Ukrainian military plane a few kilometres from the Russian border on July 16. Credit:AFP The US Federal Aviation Administration issued a "special notice" regarding Ukrainian airspace advising airlines to "exercise extreme caution due to the continuing potential for instability" and Eurocontrol warned pilots and airlines to avoid Ukrainian airspace due to serious risks. Aviation experts last night said operators continued to fly across the zone because it was the quickest and cheapest route for some flights. Brian Flynn, a spokesman for Eurocontrol, which directs air traffic across Europe, said Ukrainian aviation authorities had closed the airspace below 32,000 feet on Monday after having earlier restricted the airspace below 26,000 feet, on July 1. In both cases, the closures came as a result of security concerns after rebels shot down Ukrainian military aircraft.
Mr Flynn said it is up to the Ukrainian government to decide whether and how to restrict airspace, with Eurocontrol responsible for helping to implement those decisions. The plane crash site near the settlement of Grabovo. Credit:Reuters Before the crash, 300 commercial aircraft a day were flying through eastern Ukrainian airspace, with most serving as long-haul flights between Europe and Southeast Asia. Mr Flynn said such flights typically cruise at between 33,000 and 37,000 feet. Qantas said on Friday it had shifted the flight path for its London to Dubai route over Ukraine some 400 nautical miles to the south several months ago. A Qantas spokesman declined to comment on the reasons for the shift, which came amid heightened tensions between Kiev and pro-Moscow rebels.
Mr Flynn said airlines can elect to avoid an area even if it’s not closed, but that he did not believe any had chosen to do so in eastern Ukraine. “I’m not aware of any airlines that were specifically avoiding that area,” he said. Norman Shanks, a former head of group security at airports group BAA, said: "Malaysia Airlines, like a number of other carriers, has been continuing to use it because it is a shorter route, which means less fuel and therefore less money. Attacks on aircraft in the area have been rife. In the past week alone two Ukrainian military aircraft were shot down and a third was damaged by a missile." Immediately after the crash yesterday, several other airliners followed the same path and did not re-route, including Singapore Airlines and Kazakhstan Airlines. Etihad and Emirates were also originally reported as taking the same route, but both airlines later confirmed they did not operate in Ukrainian airspace. On Thursday night a British Department for Transport spokesman confirmed that flights, including those already airborne, were being routed around the region.
Virgin Atlantic said it had diverted a small number of flights, believed to include routes from Heathrow to Dubai and one on the Mumbai to Heathrow route. Turkish Airlines said all of its flights would now avoid Ukrainian airspace. British Airways said only one flight a day used that airspace, the Heathrow to Kiev service. A spokesman said: "The safety and security of our customers is always our top priority. "We are keeping those services under review, but Kiev is several hundred kilometres from the incident site." Other operators that were diverting flights over Ukraine on Thursday night were Italy's Alitalia, Lufthansa, Air France and the Russian carriers Aeroflot, and Transaero. It is understood airliners continued to cross volatile regions because operators believed they were at a sufficient altitude not to be at risk of attack. It was for this reason that commercial airliners continued to fly over Iraq and Afghanistan during prior conflicts, although it has been reported that the US Federal Aviation Administration has recently told carriers to avoid the Crimea.
The Malaysian Airlines flight was reportedly travelling at an altitude of about 33,000 feet - an altitude considered by those within the industry to be completely safe. Military jets typically fly at much lower altitudes, meaning it would be hard to misinterpret an airliner at such height as a threat, and many ground-based weapons would not reach such an altitude. On Monday a Ukrainian military transport plane carrying eight people was hit by a missile fired from Russian territory killing two of those on board. On Wednesday a Ukrainian Air Force Su-25 fighter was also hit by a missile, forcing the pilot to eject. Earlier that day another Su-25 was hit by a rebel missile but the pilot landed the plane successfully with relatively slight damage. An industry source said: "The belief was that a plane could not be shot down at that altitude, which is why aircraft continue to fly over zones that have wars going on."
Loading David Kaminski-Morrow, the air transport editor of Flightglobal magazine, added: "Any decision about the opening or closing of Ukrainian airspace will be a matter for the Ukrainians. It could well be that all of that airspace will now be closed." The Daily Telegraph, London, with Washington Post and Reuters |
Antimatter Now and Later
Now
PET Scans:
Positron Emission Tomography uses positrons to look at the brain. Radioactive nuclei in a fluid are injected into the subject. The radioactive nuclei then emit positrons at low velocities and these then annihilate with nearby electrons. The positrons and electrons are moving slowly and don't have the energy required to create a new pair of particle and antiparticle. Instead, 2 gamma rays are emitted and these are used to actively scan the brain. Creating Antimatter:
At present, antimatter costs $62.5 trillion per gram. Projected improvements could bring this cost down to $5 billion per gram and the production level up ten times from 1.5*10^-9 to 1.5*10^-8 grams (from 1.5 to 15 nanograms).
Later
Rocket Engines:
Antimatter could be the perfect fuel for a classic Newtonian rocket. Rather than those bulky hydrogen tanks what that the shuttle uses for launches, it would require a mere gram of antimatter to put the shuttle into orbit. The energy from matter-antimatter annihilation is 10,000,000,000 times as powerful as a conventional chemical combustion. More over, it is 10-100 times more efficient than nuclear fission and up to 10 times more efficient that nuclear fussion. However, as related above, the technology does not yet exist to produce antimatter in an efficient, economical, and timely manner. Cancer Treatment:
When matter and antimatter annihilate, they give off radiation. Future techniques may use this and avoid blasting large parts of the patient's body with radiation and chemicals.
...and these are just some of its potential uses. Antimatter is here, its uses and production are comming, and it will revolutionize the world and the way that the world works.
Title Page - What is Antimatter? - The History of Antimatter - The Big Bang - The Imbalance - Antimatter: Now and Later - Bibliography |
The National Park Service is still reviewing the group’s proposal, Russell Newell, a spokesman for the Department of the Interior, said in an email.
Robert Haferd, who is leading Catharsis’s efforts to gain a permit, said his group was providing the government with additional details.
“Since they’ve reviewed our plans and the preparation is going well, we’re confident,” he said.
Catharsis on the Mall is scheduled for Veterans Day weekend, Nov. 10-12, but the sculpture would remain in place for up to four months to raise awareness about the Equal Rights Amendment, organizers said. The first anniversary of the Women’s March is Jan. 21, 2018.
One of the permit conditions would require Catharsis to provide enough volunteers to keep watch over the sculpture around the clock for four months. That will be one of the biggest challenges, Sanam Emami, a spokeswoman for Catharsis on the Mall, said in an interview.
This year’s theme is “Nurturing the Heart,” Ms. Emami said, a nod to “the intense political and social divisions that we’re experiencing individually and as a community.”
Ms. Emami said that when she looked at the sculpture she saw a strong woman who was “making no excuses and making no apologies, but just taking ownership of the space that is rightfully hers.”
Mr. Cochrane, who has been creating sculptures for 25 years, said he was driven to focus on the female form after being haunted by stories he heard as a 7-year-old about the abduction and rape of a childhood friend who was 9.
“It’s not a priority in our culture to protect and support women,” he said. “To make sculptures of women who are just being people seemed to me to be a way to humanize this form, which is so sexualized.” |
If there's one thing fans of HBO's "True Blood" know, it's that quick-witted vampire Pam (Kristin Bauer) has been dealt a few harsh blows this past season. First, her one true confidant -- and blood-sucking badass partner-in-crime -- Eric Northman (Alexander Skarsgard) turns into Mr. Nice Guy, and then that evil witch (literally) Marnie (Fiona Shaw) casts a spell that starts to rot Pam's flesh. And if there's anything that Pam loves more than Eric, it's her pretty little face.
In Sunday (Sept. 11) night's season four finale, the tension between Pam and her maker Eric reached a humorous boiling point when Pam, ever the dramatic, throws a bona fide vamp temper tantrum at Fangtasia, exclaiming, "I am so over Sookie and her precious fairy vagina and her stupid name." And while Pam's less-than-pleasant sentiments may have echoed the thoughts of millions of viewers, it didn't do much to detour Eric from Sookie's, well, "precious fairy vagina."
"He really is the one rock in her life -- the one person she really loves and would do anything for," Bauer told The Huffington Post. "She would die for Eric. That's it for her. He's her maker. He really is her best friend, her daddy, and they just have such a complicated relationship. And she loves being his lieutenant. She doesn't want to be first-in-command, so when he's not there to be her rock, she doesn't like it. That will definitely come into play when we go into Pam and Eric's pasts next season."
But as an actress, Bauer points out, fans are just starting to understand Pam and all of her intricacies as a character -- "part vulnerable, part badass" -- and season five promises to explore Pam's origins even further.
"I loved seeing a vulnerable side to Pam this season, " said Bauer. "As an actor, you want to do something new every year and do something deeper, so it was incredibly fun for me to get to see who she was without Eric because he wasn’t really there for her this season. And then you take away her looks -- her vanity -- and I had no idea how she would react. It’s the same in real life too. When the sh-t hits the fan, you really discover yourself, and the fact that she becomes a warrior made me love her even more. She could have sat there and cried and felt sorry for herself, but that’s not Pam."
Although Pam isn't one to cry and breakdown, there were a few vulnerable scenes for Bauer this past season. In "Burning Down the House," Sookie finally helped Eric break the spell that erased his memory. While Pam was initially overjoyed at the thought of Eric returning to his normal self, she suddenly realized that she was no longer Eric's number one girl -- and although she would never admit it, for the first time, Pam looked really hurt.
"In that scene, she realizes that she'll never have the same relationship with Eric that she once had," said Bauer. "There's this incredibly touching scene between Eric and Sookie and then this incredibly touching moment between Eric and Pam, and then you realize that this is a huge issue for both women. Pam has always been number one."
Since season one, Eric and Pam have always shared a strong bond -- one that transcends behind the camera as well.
"Speaking for myself, I have total faith and trust and love of Alex [Skarsgard]," said Bauer. "He's a great guy. I've been sitting next to him for four years now and after all of the long nights, the tough scenes and even the easier scenes, we always laugh a lot. He's really funny. That's one thing you don't always see in Eric, but Alex is so funny. I just have a great relationship for the whole group -- Anna [Paquin], Stephen [Moyer] and Alex. I feel so comfortable with them. They're talented and funny, so I couldn't ask for more."
And while Bauer couldn't choose one favorite behind-the-scenes moment (although the badass slow motion walk in episode 10 was pretty cool), she does believe that the chemistry between the cast is what ultimately makes "True Blood" so enjoyable -- for both the cast and the fans.
"It's like lightning striking," said Bauer. "I've been on a lot of sets, and this doesn't happen everyday."
"We have such a big family. Seventy percent of the show, I'm not in, so I like to see everyone's storylines. I don't know anything about the werewolf world or Sam's world. Every week, I'm just fascinated. One of my favorite moments all season was that great scene in episode 10 between Chris Bauer and Todd Lowe, the Bellefleurs. I couldn't wait to see that. Chis [Bauer] is definitely one of the main girl-crushes on set -- we all love him. He's got some sort of x-factor [laughs]."
She may have a crush on Chris Bauer -- and let's face it, who doesn't? -- but she does have some trouble getting one cast-member's name right.
"I'm watching the show and reading the scripts every week, and after what seems like years, I have a scene with Ryan [Kwanten], and halfway through the day, Anna [Paquin] says to me, 'Do you realize you're calling him Jason?' And Ryan is so sweet, that he never even said a word. He was just responding to Jason all day."
As for Bauer, she admits that she often gets called Pam -- on and off screen. However, Kristin Bauer couldn't be more different than Pam Swynford De Beaufort. For example, Bauer likes to cry -- a lot.
"I'm one of those people that has to cry at least 30 times a day," said Bauer. "Alex [Skarsgard] makes fun of me all of the time for crying on set."
Perhaps next season, Bauer's tendency to tear-up will prove handy.
"True Blood" has always been the type of show that mixes raw, tender moments with delightfully comedic ones. One of the standout scenes from season four was the ultimate show-down between evil witch Marnie and a very angry Pam. In the end, Pam's tendency of irrationally acting before thinking caused the flesh to literally rot off her body. Once again, the viewers were exposed to a very different Pam -- one that couldn't hide behind her beauty. And for Bauer, that was a challenge in multiple ways. It looks like it's not so easy to show emotions through prosthetics.
“It was a lot of everything,” said Bauer, laughing, “It was sort of like ‘Volume 11’ and Spinal Tap.” |
Update at 9:30 pm: With more firefighters on the ground overnight battling the 65,000-acre Butte Fire. Cal Fire spokesperson Nancy Longmore outlines the overnight fire suppression efforts saying, “I don’t know the specific targets, but they are just continuing to build line and as best as possible get a line around this monster.”
Update at 7:35pm: CAL Fire has released the latest numbers on the Butte Fire. While some details are encouraging, others show the devastation the flames have brought. Firefighters have been able to hold the acreage at 65,000 and the containment has increased to 15%. However, Cal Fire damage crews spent the day on the burn scar and report unfortunately, 86 homes and 51 outbuilding have been destroyed. The number of firefighters battling the blaze has hiked to 3,852 with 452 engines and 94 dozers on scene.
Update at 6:35pm: Following today’s town hall meeting at Calaveras High School, CAO Shirley Ryan had a message for residents in the mandatory evacuation zones. Click here to view the video.
To view the speech at the town hall meeting by Calaveras County Board of Supervisors Board Chairman Cliff Edson, click here.
Update at 4:15pm: The Calaveras County Sheriff’s Office has issued a mandatory evacuation order for parts of San Andreas. It includes Pope Street, West Murray, Lewis Avenue, Miller Street, Wimbledon Drive, Forest Hill, Turner Ct., and along Mountain Ranch Road near Windmill, and the Gold Hunter Subdivision.
Update at 3:20pm: Reporter Tori James was on hand at today’s Town Hall meeting at Calaveras High School. Some of the featured speakers included Josh White, CAL Fire Tuolumne-Calaveras Chief, Paul Young, Fire Chief for the San Andreas Fire Department, Cliff Edson, Calaveras County Board of Supervisors Chairman, and Kim Zagaris, State Fire and Rescue Chief for the State of California.
It was noted that five major wildfires are currently burning in California, but the Butte Fire is the number one priority. There are 350 engines from all over the state. The fire has been, at times, moving 60-70 ft. a minute. There are an estimated 13,000 evacuations. The main priority is protecting lives over property. Once an individual receives a mandatory evacuation, and has left, they are not allowed to go back to their property.
The Red Cross considers the Butte Fire a national disaster and wants everyone who evacuates to register at one of the shelters so that they can prove the numbers, and keep track of the displaced for their planning for relief and recovery efforts. The Red Cross info line is 925-588-6678.
Calaveras County Public Health has a plan in place for the senior population. Red Cross says they can help folks get meds. Seniors who are frail can get three days shelter, air purifiers and transportation. Call Common Ground Senior Services for more information, at 209-498-2246.
The Calaveras County Sheriff’s Office is getting complaints about looters. Law enforcement is being brought in from outside the area, through mutual aid agreements, to help provide additional patrol.
The Jail and Sheriff’s Office have not been evacuated. The convalescent home is also currently ok, with fire lines around it.
There will be no school, Monday, countywide in Calaveras County.
If the road is closed, mail will not be delivered. Those postal customers impacted should contact the post office.
The video in the upper left hand box shows an interview conducted by Tori James with Kim Zagaris, State Fire Rescue Chief with the State of California.
Update at 1:20pm: The first of two town hall meetings kicked off at 1pm at the Calaveras High School gymnasium. As you can see in the photos, a strong crowd is on hand. A second town hall meeting will run from 4-6pm at Bret Harte High School. The fire officials noted toward the start of the first meeting that the cause of the Butte Fire is still under investigation, and it likely will be for a bit. It was also noted that fire and emergency officials are arriving from all across the state, and there are currently 350 engines. We have a reporter on hand and will bring you additional details.
Update at 12pm: At least one case of looting has been reported in relation to the Butte Fire. The Placer CHP division reports that a suspect was taken into custody at a home in San Andreas this morning, after there were signs of forced entry. Agencies assisting the investigation included the San Andreas CHP, Angels Camp PD, Calaveras County Sheriff’s Office and Yolo County Sheriff’s Office. No further information is immediately available.
Update at 11:20am: The American Red Cross reports that evacuation centers are now open in Calaveras County at the Good Samaritan Church in Valley Springs, at 4684 Baldwin Street, and at the Jenny Lind Veterans Hall at 189 Pine Street. In Amador County, an evacuation center remains open at the Jackson Rancheria Hotel. Red Cross Gold Country Spokesperson Lilly Wyatt says the Calaveras County Fairgrounds location was closed because it is now being used as a firefighting base camp, and the San Andreas Town Hall location was closed because it is under an evacuation advisory.
An estimated 230 people passed through the Calaveras County fairgrounds yesterday afternoon. Last night, 220 stayed at the Jackson Rancheria site, 28 at the Good Samaritan Church and 17 at the Jenny Lind Veterans Hall.
Update at 8:15am: CAL Fire has updated its information regarding what areas are under evacuation orders and advisories. CAL Fire’s official information is listed below:
Mandatory Evacuation Orders:
(Calaveras County) Town of Mokelumne Hill, East of Hwy 49 from the Amador/Calaveras County line South to Goldstrike Road. South on Goldstrike Road to the Community of San Andreas. Rural areas East of San Andreas to Mountain Ranch Road. Mountain Ranch Road to Calaveritas Road to Fourth Crossing. Fourth Crossing to Hwy 49. East side of Hwy 49 South to North side of Hwy 4 (Angels Camp). North side of Hwy 4 East to Town of Arnold. All of SR 26 from Mokelumne Hill North to the Amador/Calaveras County line. To include the communities of Glencoe, Westpoint, and Wilseyville.
(Amador County) Canyon View, Fig Tree Lane, and Ponderosa Way; the Town of Pine Grove to include all areas South of Hwy 88 from West Clinton Road, East to Ranch Drive. Inclusive of the Communities of Ranch House Estates, Pine Acres, Jackson Pines, Pine Drove Ranchettes and Lake Tabeau
Evacuations Advisories:
(Calaveras County) City of Angels Camp, Hwy 49 South to Hwy 4 South at the city limits of Angels Camp. Town of Arnold, Northwest of Hwy 4 includes sub-divisions of Lakemont, Mill Woods and Meadowmont. Hwy 4 North to Sheep Ranch Road/Blue Lake Springs sub-division, Big Trees State Park, Town of Dorrington, Town of Murphys and Forest Meadows. Town of San Andreas. Poole Station Road, Carroll Kennedy Road, Cement Plant Road, Demearest Mine Road, Oak Valley Road, Gelding Road, Stallion Road, Deer Creek Road, Copello Road.
(Amador County) Hwy 88 from Ranch Road East to Tiger Creek Road (Red Corral and Buckhorn Areas).
Update at 7:40am: CAL Fire reports that containment on Butte Fire was increased to 10% over night. This morning the fire is estimated to be 64,728 acres. CAL Fire says at 15 structures have been destroyed. 3,299 firefighters are now assigned to the incident.
Original story at 6:25am: The Butte Fire burning in Calaveras and Amador Counties has scorched at least 64,700 acres and it is only five percent contained.
2,409 firefighters are assigned to the incident. CAL Fire reports this morning that evacuation orders remain in effect for the town of Mokelumne Hill, rural areas east of San Andreas, the stretch of Highway 4 from Murphys Grade Road to Avery, in Glencoe, West Point and Wilseyville. In Angels Camp, the order is in place feeor Murphys Grade Road, Gardner Lane, Holly Street, Casey Street, Easy Street, Kirby Street, Avey Place, Broglio Court, Country Lane, Elderberry Lane, Dog town Road, Clifton Road and Brunner Hill. In Amador County, the order includes communities like Ranch House Estates, Pine Acres, Jackson Pines, Pine Drove Ranchettes and Lake Tabeau. CAL Fire officials say that if you are unclear if your home is in the evacuation area, it is better to just be on the safe side and leave. There are also areas under a less severe evacuation advisory. This includes the rest of the city of Angels Camp, the town of Arnold, Dorrington, Big Trees State Park, Murphys and San Andreas.
CAL Fire says the topography and terrain is causing notable challenges. Yesterday afternoon Governor Jerry Brown signed off on a state of emergency declaration, clearing the way for additional state resources and aid. The California National Guard is also now engaged. CAL Fire spokesperson Nancy Longmore notes that the Calaveras County Fairgrounds is being transitioned into a base camp, and the evacuation center there is moving to the Valley Springs Veterans Hall. There are also evacuation centers at the San Andreas Town Hall and the Jackson Rancheria Hotel. At this point, evacuated animals are still being housed at the Calaveras County Fairgrounds. Calaveras County Animal Services in San Andreas is also assisting with pets and animals. The number to call is 209-754-6509.
The Calaveras County Administrator’s Office reports that two Butte Fire town hall meetings are planned for this afternoon. The first will run from 1-3pm at the Calaveras High School Gymnasium, and the second from 4-6pm in the Bret Harte High School multi-purpose room.
The following road closures are in effect, according to CAL Fire:
(Amador County) Clinton Road at Butte Mountain Road (Both Ends) Butte Mountain Road Cutoff at Clinton Road. Amador Lane at Clinton Road, Electra at SR 49, Ponderosa Road at Tabeaud, Access to Lake Tabeaud is closed; Hwy 88 at W. Clinton Road, Hwy 88 at Irish Town Road, Hwy 88 at Tabeaud Road, Hwy 88 at Aqueduct Circle, Highway 88 at Mount Zion, SR 26 South of Hwy 88.
(Calaveras County) SR 26 from Mokelumne Hill to Ridge Road; Ridge Road closed to Railroad Flat Road; Railroad Flat Road closed to Mountain Ranch Road; Mountain Ranch Road closed to Hwy 49; Michel Road is closed.
A special thanks to our community news partners for sending in photos. Pictures can be e-mailed to [email protected].
Click here to read what happened the next day on September 13th.
Click here to read a rundown of yesterday’s Butte fire information.
Butte Fire General Facts
Red Cross Safe and Well website is here to register your current status and check for registrants.
Cal Fire spokesperson Nancy Longmore advises residents “if they feel threatened or unsafe, to just go ahead and leave — because the fewer people that we have in the fire area, the fewer chances there are of panic-driven vehicle accidents or heart attacks or those kinds of things.”
Roads in the area are needed for emergency workers to get to where they need be. Residents and visitors should avoid the area.
Evacuation procedure and preparation information under community Tab under Fire Info here
Eight homes have been destroyed and 6,400 structures are threatened by the Butte Fire
started Wednesday, Sep 9 at 2:36PM 160 acres initially 2,600 overnight reported at 6am Thursday, 4,000 acres reported at 7am 14,000 acres reported at 9am Friday morning the acreage went from 31,974 acres to 64,728 acres.
The Butte Fire is managed by a CAL Fire Type 1 incident management team, (the highest priority incident level) Cooperating agencies include CAL OES, the Forest Service, BLM, PG&E, Calaveras County Sheriff’s Office, Amador County Sheriff’s Office, Red Cross, Caltrans, CA State Parks and the Amador Fire Protection District.
CAL Fire is awaiting a damage assessment team to arrive today to update the number of structures burned.
Click here to read a story about concerns related to the smoke.
Tuolumne County Health Officer Liza Ortiz: Elderly, very young children and those with health conditions including asthma or COPD should limit their outdoor activities when local air quality is “unhealthy for sensitive groups” (visibility less than 5 miles). Calaveras County Supervisors declared a local state of emergency due to the Butte Fire at 1:40 Thursday September 10th Details here Governor Jerry Brown declared the Butte Fire a statewide emergency reported at 3:50pm Friday PG&E reports that around 14,000 customers were without electricity on The 10th and by the afternoon 11,128 remained with out power. Columbia College in Tuolumne closed at 1pm Friday due to smoke. No Tuolumne schools were closed. Calaveras Unified School District was closed Thursday and Friday. Bret Harte School District released students early Friday due to mandatory evacuations. Football games: Hilmar hosted Sonora due to smoke. Sonora won 36-35. Calaveras High played at Modesto Christian as scheduled winning 38-25 Summerville High played at Bradshaw Christian as scheduled losing in double overtime 57-56. The Bret Harte game was moved to Monday in Escalon.
Written by BJ Hansen. Report breaking news, traffic or weather to our News Hotline 532-6397. Send Mother Lode News Story photos to [email protected]. Sign up for our FREE myMotherLode.com Daily Newsletters by clicking here. Fire information is located under the “Community” tab or keyword: fire
Local Burn Day information is here. If you see breaking news send us a photo at [email protected]. |
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National Library of India, Kolkata
“The only thing that you absolutely have to know is the location of the library.” ― Albert Einstein
They have been called “raucous clubhouses for free speech”. They have been called “delivery rooms for the birth of ideas”. Without them, societies have been warned, that they have “no past and no future”. With them, societies have been assured, there is no better protection against tyranny, xenophobia and ignorance.
With such widespread and deep intellectual backing across the world, India was no stranger to the great benefits of public libraries.
Sayyaji Rao Gaekwad III, the Maharaja of Baroda, who kick-started the public-library system in 1910, wanted his people to be “pupils in the people’s university”. The kingdom of Kolhapur, in what is now Maharashtra, passed India’s first Public Library Act in 1945. Since then, 19 Indian states–the latest being Arunachal Pradesh in 2009–have passed laws enabling the establishment of libraries open to the public.
Yet, India with its 1.2 billion people and after seven decades of independence, does not know how many public libraries it has.
Using a conservative estimate of 35,000 libraries, based on calculations by Raja Rammohun Roy Library Foundation (RRRLF), a trust which funds public libraries and comes under the aegis of the Ministry of Culture, there is only one library per 36,000 people.
Compare that with China with a 2013 population of 1.36 billion and 51,311 libraries i.e. one public library per roughly 26,000 people. The United States with a population of 315 million and 16,500 public libraries has one library for every 19,000 people.
An effort to correct the anomaly was the launch of National Mission on Libraries (NML) in February 2014 by President Pranab Mukherjee. Acknowledging the critical role of libraries–and apparently paraphrasing the Maharaja of Baroda–Mukherjee said: “A public library is often called the “people’s university” because it is available to all sections of the society regardless of age, gender, or skill levels.”
The Government of India has allocated Rs 400 crore for the National Mission on Libraries (NML) over the next three years, including the creation of a national virtual library, model libraries and staff training. (Read our previous report on how the NML could revitalise the public library system here.)
But India’s largest, most-populous states don’t really care.
As the graph below indicates, large states such as Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Jharkhand have not bothered to even apply for the money available. Only 2% of the total 12,000+ libraries that received assistance were in Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state in the country.
Source: RRRLF, Census
The Foundation helps states customise libraries, but no more than 12,000 libraries are formally registered and, according to this 2012-2013 report, the national average for funds used stood at 27%. Delhi used all the funds available, followed by Chandigarh at 81%. Many states hovered around the 40% mark, but states like Bihar, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, and Haryana did not use any of the funds available.
Source: RRRLF
Not surprisingly, states without proper public-library systems have low literacy rates. States with higher literacy rates consistently utilised a bigger portion of state funds earmarked for library improvement programs as compared to states with lower literacy.
Source: RRRLF, Census
When the system does work
There are some common traits among states that have a vibrant public-library system, such as Kerala, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Gujarat to name a few.
One, they have fully functional websites, with details and membership forms, online catalogs, details of manuscripts and journalsand other essential information.
Two, most of them have adopted the library legislation, which gives them benchmarks to monitor and improve on.
Three, they regularly tap into RRRLF resources to scale up infrastructure, buy more books, digitise existing books and train staff. The table below gives you a snapshot of states that are serious about public libraries:
The National Mission on Libraries makes sense, but the basic problem remains: How will it help libraries if the RRRLF–the implementing agency–does not know that they exist, apart from the 12,000 officially registered?
A central online repository of all public libraries in the country might help.
There are many benefits to a vastly improved public-library system across India, with suggestions to link them to, among others, literacy programmes and community services.
As this paper said: “India is in a position to redefine what a public library means, especially with regard to the delivery of community information services and the preservation of local cultural traditions. These are exciting and important times, as a vast number of India’s citizens can serve to benefit from improved public library services……(We need) to continue building this new vision, and…(engage in) sustained and creative action. Millions are waiting.”
(Subadra Ramakrishnan is a freelance writer and licensed pilot who lives in New Delhi. You can reach her at: [email protected])
Image Credit: Wikimedia
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QUEEN ANNE, Md. -- Maryland's Route 404 sees an average of 20,000 cars daily but there are also a high number of deaths seen on the highway.
That's why the state's department of transportation is working on widening the road as part of a new $1.97 billion infrastructure project.
Travelers can expect heavy traffic in the coming months as construction continues to widen Maryland's Route 404 between Starr Rd. and Route 50.
The two lane road will turn into a four lane highway from west of Route 309 to east of Tuckahoe Creek.
State lawmakers have pressed to make widening Route 404 a priority since it's notorious for bad accidents and fatalities.
Jill Kinnamon works at Hot Off the Coals BBQ right off the highway and says traffic can be terrible when there's an accident.
"People get a lot of rear ends and we just had a tractor trailer accident down the road not too long ago with a fatality," the diner manager said.
Philip Smith grew up in Denton and now lives in Baltimore. He says now that he travels back and forth to the beach, a four-lane highway is necessary.
"I know growing up before this was just two lanes all the way to Bridgeville so it was kind of annoying to us when I lived here," said Smith.
"Of course I'm for it because the faster we can get to the beach and to my family's house the easier it is."
Widening the 404 highway should hopefully improve safety and streamline traffic, but at what cost?
The diner where Kinnamon works is also a family-owned Shell gas station where the owners have had to sell much of their land to the state.
Kinnamon says all of their roadside advertisements are gone.
Most of their parking lot is gone and soon most of the station's entry points will be gone as well.
"They want to take our access from 404 away from us and have our new entry point at the back of the building," said Kinnamon.
That's a problem for the 15-year old business since the owners say this new access road may not be easily seen from such a busy highway.
"Consumers aren't going to notice or want to get off of the highway to try to find out how to get back in here," the manager said.
It's just one of many problems businesses and homeowners face as their property and livelihood are threatened along Route 404.
Part of the funding Hogan announced also includes plans to widen Route 113 from Five Mile Branch road to north of Public Landing Road in Worcester County.
Both highways would go from two lanes to four lanes and a center median will be added.
There is also a stretch of Route 404 in Delaware but the state's department of transportation says they do not have any plans for expansion as of yet. However, the department says it will be looking into improving the intersection where Route 404 meets Route 113 in Sussex County. |
The National Association of Theater Owners made news on Wednesday with a series of 'requests' in regards to the ways in which studios advertise their product within the theater walls. The move was intended to give theater owners more flexibility in terms of how films are marketed inside the theaters. The two big suggestions are of course getting the most news. NATO is advising that studios refrain from marketing upcoming movies more than four months in advance of their domestic release, which would put the kibosh on teaser posters and glorified black screen teaser trailers that pop up a year prior to release. Also of note, NATO is recommending a two-minute limit on the length of previews, responding to consumer complaints of new films featuring a solid 20 minutes of coming attractions prior to the feature.
The above recommendations are a step in the right direction. Sure we all loved the July 2007 teaser for The Dark Knight and the Marlon Brando-narrated teaser for Superman Returns, there is no reason those clips wouldn't have been just as exciting as the first look at the respective films just a few months prior to release. And the length of trailers is indeed an issue, with marketers often randomly filling up the 2.5 trailers with arbitrary spoilers purely to meet the time limit. While it's likely that the studios will protest and all of this will come to naught, there are other sensible ways to make the modern film trailer a more pleasurable experience. In short, here are six ways to fix the modern movie trailer.
1. No more divulging the climactic 'money shot'.
This is not a new problem. I remember being thrilled by the climactic shot in the Mission: Impossible trailers which all ended with Tom Cruise leaping from an exploding helicopter onto a speeding train. I was less thrilled when I realized during the movie that I already knew how the main villain was going to die and how the climax was going to end. Ditto the third trailer for Spider-Man which literally showed Spider-Man catching Mary Jane in mid-air following her being tossed off a bridge.
I'm thinking of course of the shot of the Hulk catching Tony Stark in mid-air in The Avengers, the very last shot of Quarantine being used both in the trailer, and the poster to the current campaign for Furious 6 (which gives away every major action beat). Trailers have a habit of not just giving away plot twists, but tossing in incredibly spoiler-y climactic footage that you don't realize has ruined the ending until you see the film. We don't need to see the villain's climactic death plunge, nor the hero's final nail-biting escape, in the bloody trailer.
2. Don't release a trailer until you're well-and-ready.
Say what you will about the final product that is Green Lantern, but the marketing campaign never really recovered from the too-early release of the first teaser back in November 2010. The special effects weren't remotely ready and the clip was filled with unfinished FX and shots of people running away from nothing. It was a terrible and cheap-looking initial preview for a very expensive film, and later better trailers did little to stem the tide of negative buzz. Yes, Warner Bros. wanted something to attach to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part I, but the the truly terrible trailer was too much too soon.
While the film's box office didn't suffer, there was no good reason to cut a glorified fan-made trailer from what little footage existed of The Dark Knight Rises just to have a teaser to attach to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part II. If you don't have the goods, wait until you do. We can be patient. You don't get a second chance to make a first impression.
3. Cut it out with the closing montages.
Not every trailer needs a final montage of random spoilers. And really, that's what a number of these montages are. The trailer for This Means War perfectly sets up its spy vs. spy plot within the first minute. But instead of quitting and letting the audience discover what jokes and thrills (theoretically) await them, Fox chose to add on an additional 80 seconds of nothing but spoilers (joke set-ups, action beats, etc.). Even the third trailer for The Dark Knight had a closing montage which, while exciting, contained a key shot that spoiled the fate of a major supporting character.
Ditto the trailer for Ben Affleck's Argo. The first act has a solid 45 seconds setting up the historical situation while the middle 45 seconds playfully establishes the film's "make a fake movie to save the hostages" gimmick. The trailer goes on for another 45 seconds, set to "Dream On" which sells the drama while also spoiling a huge number of third act story beats for no particular reason. A good trailer should establish its premise, teaser a few dramatic beats or an action sequence or two, and then get out while the getting's good. We don't need a climactic montage that exists purely to explicitly or implicitly spoil the film.
4. Let trailers premiere in theaters first.
Yes, I am a film marketing blogger and as such discussing trailers is both useful and a good way to get traffic. But the era of online-first trailer releases has cost us something very special. No longer can we go to a theater and be thrilled by the unexpected first look at an anticipated film or a new preview to a film we knew nothing about. With a few exceptions (such as Chris Nolan's Batman sequels), the once common art of actually premiering your trailer in theaters first, attached to a film from the same studio usually, is now an endangered practice.
I'm aware that I'm a hypocrite here, as I once thrilled to trailer debuts on Entertainment Tonight, with the VHS tape set up to record should the new Batman trailer drop. The now casual online release of trailers, far more likely to be viewed first on a small computer screen or smart phone than on a giant theater screen, has robbed us of a token amount of majesty once associated with film previews. These trailers are meant for audiences in a movie theater. How about we let those paying customers be the first to see them in a theater?
5. Don't just tell the whole story in chronological order.
Robert Zemeckis isn't the only offender here, but he is a prime repeat example. The full trailer for Cast Away told the entire film in chronological order, climaxing with the very last shot of the film. His trailer for What Lies Beneath withheld a single major climactic plot twist, but otherwise revealed the entire narrative up to the last reels. Actually, it was worse than that, as it didn't reveal a first/second act Rear Window-esque subplot that turned out to be a giant red herring, but since audiences already knew the big reveals, much of the first 90 minutes of the film was a giant waiting game as we watched Michelle Pfeiffer track down one false lead after another.
Zemeckis has been quoted as saying that audiences treat films like McDonalds, in that they want to know exactly what they're getting before buying a ticket. And that may be true, as Zemeckis's films tend to make quite a bit of money. But there surely is a better way to let the audiences know what they are getting without giving away every major beat of the film, like the full trailer for Drive. If we see the whole film in the trailer, what's the motivation to see the whole film in a theater?
6. Less Is More and Later Is Better.
This applies in any number of ways. NATO's suggestion that trailers be under two minutes and should be reserved for films coming out no later than four months in the future are both worthwhile. We don't need an endless supply of trailers and teasers, which often end up spoiling the movie by virtue of their volume and having to find new footage to offer for the third, fourth, or fifth trailer. There were so many television spots for The Dark Knight Rises that one of them dropped a big spoiler (the death of a minor supporting character) almost by virtue of needing new footage to show. Sony released so much footage from The Amazing Spider-Man last summer that a fan actually cut together a 'complete', coherent, and mostly accurate 25-minute version of the film with just the officially released clips.
A teaser, running no more than one minute, followed by a trailer that preferably runs 90 seconds but arguably as long as two minutes, should be more than enough to sell the film to general audiences, the sort that don't go to the movies enough to see all thirty-six different trailers of The Lone Ranger thus offered (ironically, the one that just went online two weeks ago was the best yet, but it should have merely been the first). Use that footage to cut your TV spots and put a moratorium on online clips. With the four-months-out rule, you no longer have to worry about not having enough decent footage to cut a trailer and you don't have to spend the money marketing a film three years in advance for a general populace that is only going to start caring maybe two months prior to release. Because the current overkill is frankly targeted at the kind of film fans who already pre-ordered their midnight tickets.
I'm sure there are other fixes that I'm missing, and I'm sure you have your own thoughts. But that's what the comments section is for. Please share your thoughts on the current NATO suggestions and your thoughts on modern trailers in general. What trailers effectively tease and what trailers either failed to sell the film or were overtly spoilery in their construction? Sound off below. |
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Please read this post carefully: if you post wrongly your post will be removed, if you repeatedly post wrongly you may be permanently barred from posting in this thread.
This thread is for Psychedelic Veterans to post their personal advice to Novice Trippers. It is not a thread where you ask advice, or debate things, this is a thread containing just advice from trippers who've been around the block and want to help beginners avoid pitfalls and seize golden opportunities that might not be obvious to them.
Quote:
POSTING RULES:
1) Only post in this thread when you have more than 5 years tripping experience AND have had more than 10 trips in that time period.
2) Start the post by stating the approximate number of years you trip and how many trips you estimate to have had. If you don't do this, your post may be removed immediately as we do not want speculation but actual veteran advice from actual veterans.
3) Proceed to give your advice. You may make multiple posts throughout the thread if you have more advice to share, but start it off by stating your 2) experience level every time.
4) DO NOT reply to posts, do not ask questions, simply state your experience level and advice - or stick to reading the thread only. Reply and question posts will generally be removed.
5) These rules are simple; repeat offenders may be barred from posting again in this thread, this will be permanent.
Veterans, lets help out some newbie trippers
--------------------
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SEARCH ENGINE SUPPORT TICKETS STORE SPONSORS/VENDORS AMANI
PSYCHOSIS, SYNCHRONICITIES, SHAMANISM & THE SUPERNATURAL WA&F
Unite, Shroomerite! Agree and Disagree both would benefit from a better Shroomery.
Post Extras:
1. Relax
2. Never forget that what is happening is temporary
3. Relax
4. It is normal for your face to be sore from smiling insanely for 8 hours
5. Relax
6. Although there is tremendous uproar behind your eyes most people can't tell. Trippers can tell when somebody is tripping but most people cannot.
7. Relax
Experience level: over 40 years and well over a hundred trips
--------------------
Edited by zappaisgod (05/17/14 06:29 PM)
Post Extras:
EXPERIENCE LEVEL: I have tripped since 1993 until now, during which time I had probably a couple hundred psychedelic sessions and several hundred doses.
ADVICE: First and foremost, "Fools Go Rushing In". Psychedelics, even in small doses, can have an overwhelming effect on you for good or bad, and the next time be completely boring in the same dosage.
Don't be cavalier about your doses, not at first. Start real small and work your way up slowly. Many beginning trippers take too high doses too early in their usage, are suddenly overwhelmed by intensity they have not yet learned to handle or appreciate, and this often ends theior experimentation, with a shocking unpleasant experience. Don't let that be you.
Do proper research of the drugs of your interest before purchasing and ingesting them. Great sites to inform you are The Shroomery (duh) Erowid and Bluelight.
For shrooms, I would recommend to start out with 0.5-1.5 grams of Cubies (Psilocybe cubensis), the most common mushroom, and if you'd like some more an hour and a half later then adding the same amount again. A simple rule of thumb is that doubling any dose of psychedelic will result in not just an intensification of effects, but the appearance of completely new effects in addition to that. If you tripped on 1.5 gram, 3 grams is almost like a different drug.
I strongly recommend users of cubies to keep their first 10 trips below 3.5gr = 1/8 oz of mushrooms. An eighth is for most people an extremely strong dosage.
For LSD, start out with a quarter to a whole blotter or geltab and decide if you want to take a booster of the same size 2 hours after dosing.
A quirk of psychedelics is that if you start out and take the same dose every time, the drug will tend to become more intense, more complex and more interesting each time. This is because you learn to trip, and as you learn, more becomes possible or noticable. This can also mean that a given dose becomes TOO MUCH. In that case, back it down. "Too Much" psychedelic is a very bad feeling for almost all people.
How often to use? I recommend once every 1-3 months. Less often is fine, but more often will lead to you losing the magic. Me I used about 6-8x a year for 21 years on average, and its more beautiful and complex than ever. The magic is all still there. If you abuse it heavily though, the magic can be lost over a single summer holiday. What a pity.
The best place to use psychedelics is either at home or in nature, where you won't be disturbed. For beginning trippers with less than 10 experiences I recommend to have a nontripping friend present to talk you and your tripping friend(s) down. Stoners are ideal for this, they tend to be calm and are not easily bored. The best number of people to have present in the session is 2-4.
I recommend you to grow your own mushrooms, grow your own San Pedro cactus and to get active in creating a supply of psychedelics for yourself and friends. There are psychedelics that are still legal. If you create a stash, I recommend to stash a minimum of 100 doses combined of varied psychedelics. This will give you peace of mind for years to come and keeps you away from dealers and the law.
Thats it for now. Trip carefully!
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SEARCH ENGINE SUPPORT TICKETS STORE SPONSORS/VENDORS AMANI
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Unite, Shroomerite! Agree and Disagree both would benefit from a better Shroomery.
Post Extras:
What a good idea!
My first trip is 10 years ago. It's hard for me to recall how many times i did something but i'll try to be as correct as possible.
It took Mdma(xtc) 15x
Amfetamine(speed) 20x
lsd 30x
shrooms 5x
dmt 25x
mescaline 1x
ketamine 10x
2c-b 3x
2c-e 2x
2c-c 1x
4 ho math 1x
4 aco dmt 2x
cocaine 2x
GHB 4x
Hashish every day
I have allot experience trying different chemicals and what happend to me was that I ended in a psychoses. My advice is don't trip to much. ones every now and then is fun but if it's becomming a habbit then watch out. Take care after yourself you have only one brain and please don't destroy it. especially when your young (under 18) Your brain ,especially your prefrontal cortex, is still developing and you better stay away from hallucinogens until your 22.
Iff your going to trip anyway then there are a few simple rules you can take in account.
Never trip allone if you're unexperienced.
do it in a safe inviremont.
prepare well so your set and setting are perfect.
invite the right friends you don't want to trip with somebody you don't really like.
Iff you're not shure on what's going to happen invite a friend who stays sober so you always have sombody who looks over the situation an can tell when something is wrong or not.
Make shure that everybody has taken the same substance because when one party for example takes lsd and the other party takes xtc you will get different vibes and that can be negativly on the outcome off your trip.
If it's a new substance for you always take half first do you feel good take the other half later.
And my last tip make shure you know what your ingesting!!! There are blotters with 50ug but also with 400ug same for xtc.
Don't forget to bring candles burn incense and to bring your blankets!
have a safe flight!
Peace
P-P
Edited by plant-paradise (05/17/14 03:01 PM)
Post Extras:
I had my first trip 6 years ago and in that time I have lost track of the number of times I have taken psychedelics, over 50 times would be a safe estimate.
The main piece of advice I can give to newbie trippers is to be respectful of the substances you are going to ingest, the way you would respect a wild animal. Don't try to out do other people, don't try to take the highest dose, do not take them to have a good time at a party. I believe that these are the main ways to have a bad trip, and even if you don't you have not gained as much as you could from the experience. It irks me to no end to hear people bragging about what level trip they reached or telling people about the ridiculous amount they ingested. Some will disagree with me, and this is just my opinion but I think the lower, more reasonable doses are more beneficial than getting fucked out of your mind on a ten strip of acid. Your sober self can't relate to your super super super high out of your mind self at all, so anything you learned feels out of reach once you sober up again (this is my experience)
Though this is psychedelics 101, your mindset and the actual place you are when tripping have a huge impact on your experience. I think you should plan in advance and mentally prepare yourself for your first trip.
Bad trips are sometimes inevitable, but they are not really so bad. Don't be afraid of them. You are just uncomfortable tripping for a certain amount of time, and it will eventually end. You can make it end sooner by not making things worse for yourself, staying chill, changing the environment etc. Always remember that you are on drugs, you did this to yourself, and no matter what things will be OK and back to normal in a few hours. Bad trips are extremely beneficial, as learning the most important things about yourself and facing the cold hard truth can be unpleasant and it can make you feel shitty, but the things you learn are priceless. Sometimes you can let go of some trauma or pain and it sucks going through but afterward your life can be so much better.
Be responsible with drugs. Be careful who you get them from, be careful who you give them to, be careful what you put in your body, be careful how much you put in your body. Do not make a bad name for psychedelics. They are not regulated by anybody, and there are never any guarantees, and no one is going to save you if you don't think things through and make a stupid decision. Err on the side of caution.
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Remember: You are going to die, but not from the drugs, except if you are taking large amounts of some RC's.
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I usually give pretty good advise so I'll just copy myself from this thread
The one piece of advise I have to give is don't try to resist the trip. You have to surrender yourself and trust the mushrooms. Its when people get to taking the dose you're talking about that the bad trip can happen, and that is almost universally caused by resisting it or trying to make it stop, which is not an option.
To do creative writing you want a low dose not a psychedelic dose, similar to your truffel experience. If you eat an 8th or 5 grams you are into the psychedelic range. You might be able to record some thoughts with a tape recorder or mp3 recorder, but you won't be writing with a utensil.
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"If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do."-King Solomon
And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,
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http://howtousepsychedelics.org/
Tripping for 10 years, saw the light and ever since it's been a part of my life. My experience includes lsd, mushroom, cactus, dmt, ketamine, 2c's, lsa, a variety of others as well.
If you need to break it down:
LSD 6
mush 15
cactus 6
dmt 20
ketamine 30
2c's 8
lsa 4
Understand why you are here. What has brought you to this forum? You're life is guiding you here for a reason. Whether you're curious, a party-goer, on a spiritual path or drug abuser you're here for a reason.
Psychedelics are powerful tools with incredible strength. They can take you down to your bare bones in a matter of minutes and when you're there you sure as hell can expect those deep-rooted issues to come up. Using drugs like this can objectify your life and show you what you need to fix to create balance in your life. Having this happen for the first time in a party setting can cause a lot of chaos and anxiety.
As a participant in psychedelic drugs you are setting an example for everyone else. You need to be respectful of the drugs and of all people because these drugs are meant for everyone to enjoy. Have your trips, good and bad, and learn your lessons.
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Edited by Black_Sunset (07/08/14 06:16 PM)
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My first trip was 5 years ago and I have easily taken 175+ trips since then, and most of those were in the year directly after the year when I first tried psychedelics.
My biggest piece of advice is this:
Do not trip too often. All too many people read about how it is possible to "lose the magic" but they don't head other peoples warnings. I can tell you first hand it is most definitely true. For a while I was tripping two times a week, for nearly a year and by the time I stopped I truly felt that I did not enjoy psychedelics. After about a year hiatus I slowly came back, but this time respected rather than abused the substance and Ive been tripping 5-7 times per year since I started again. Since using psychs with respect I find that I am truly enjoying them again
Another piece of advice I have is this:
Try do develop your own rituals and coping mechanisms for the times you do trip. Tripping can be quite intimidating at times and it can help to be able to identify what fears are rational and what aren't. Also being able to decide whether you want to change or accept the thing you are fearing is a good skill to use.
For example, say you are afraid that a cop is going to pull the corner of the street you're standing on and arrest you. Well decide whether that is a rational fear or just in your mind. If you decide that it is rational, the next logical step is to decide whether you want to change it or accept it. You can change it by moving to a new location, or you can accept it as a possibility you can live with and continue standing there.
Those two things have been the most important in my experience
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Weed sucks; eat shrooms.
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Well, let's see... this is going to be a fun "trip" down memory lane! Pun intended.
Psychedelic Credentials
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Marijuana (12+ years on and off)
LSD (10+ times)
LSA from Hawaiian Baby Woodrose (4+ times)
San Pedro extraction (mescaline half a dozen times)
Psilocybin Mushrooms, Cubensis strains (couple dozen times)
DMT in Ayahuasca form (only once, that was PLENTY)
2CB (twice)
2C-T-7 (3 times)
Pure MDMA, AKA Molly (3 times)
Ketamine, powder (half a dozen times)
Salvia Divinorum (leaf to 20x standardized extract, dozen+ times)
Non-Psychedelic Adventures
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Nitrous Oxide (half a dozen times or so)
Cocaine (pharmaceutical grade, a couple dozen times or so)
Opiates (hundreds of times using Vicodin to Oxycontin and beyond)
Benzodiazapines (few dozen times, especially Valium, Xanax, Klonopin)
Ambien (try and fight the sleep and weirdness ensues, twice)
Quaaludes (half a dozen times, from a trusted European source)
Amphetamine, Methamphetamine (from Adderal to Crank, 3-5 times)
Now that we've established my Bona Fides, some advice for newbies to the drug scene.
CactusDude's Psychedelic Ten Commandments
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1. As curanderos say about Ayahuasca, a little psychedelics warms the heart, too much burns the soul. I advise people not to trip more than once every 3-4 months, or you may be in danger of not adequately respecting the power of these incredible chemicals.
2. If you have depression, bi-polar spectrum disorders, or any serious mental health issues, this is not the stuff for you, my friend. Human mental chemistry is fragile, and these chemicals can make an unstable chemical balance tip into dangerous areas. I have seen bi-polar friends become unhinged because of a psychedelic experience, one friend, a former 'cutter," began to cut herself again after ten years of being relatively stable. I have also known people who had managed their depression well for 2,3, 5+ years, but after they took mushrooms, LSD, Ecstasy, etc, they fell into a deep depressive episode. JUST BECAUSE YOU HAVE BEEN STABLE LATELY DOESN'T MEAN IT IS SAFE TO ALTER YOUR BRAIN CHEMISTRY. Why ruin a good thing?
3. If you are going to take a trip, always be in a good mood, in a good place physically, and a good place mentally. THIS IS OF UTMOST IMPORTANCE. Even experienced psychonauts can crash and burn if they aren't in a good head space. BAD MOOD=BAD TRIP
4. Always have a sober friend present. Not on the phone, not down the street. PRESENT, IN THE HOUSE WITH YOU.
5. Don't go to public places until you have a few trips under your belt with the particular substance you will be taking.
6. ALWAYS err on the side of caution. I would rather under-dose myself or a friend 100 times than give someone too much even just once. Under dosing can be fixed, and can even still be fun and enlightening. Too big a dose can "crack your pavement" so to speak, and turn you off psychedelics for life.
7. Don't watch sad or violent movies, that should be a no brainer.
8.Don't drive. You will be fine, but you will inevitably hit a 4 year-old on a tricycle and kill HIM. That's always how inebriated drivers work.
9. Be EXTRA careful about dosing. Read about dosing levels for your sex and weight, no matter how much experience you have with that or other neuro-chemicals. Dose on the LOW END of the recommended spectrum. You never "REALLY" know how if that Mushroom is extra strong, or that LSD was diluted improperly, or how pure that MDMA is.
10. Use the Psychedelic scale to predetermine how "hard" you want to trip. This scale us super useful for describing trips to others in the know, and can help keep you form making dosing mistakes. It ranges from 1-5, and each substance has its own flavors of what each level entails.
Level 1 is a threshold dose, mild stoning.
is a threshold dose, mild stoning. Level 2 is a light dose, colors, vibrant wavy patterns, the beginning of closed eye visuals.
is a light dose, colors, vibrant wavy patterns, the beginning of closed eye visuals. Level 3 is the standard psychedelic trip, full on waves, colors open eye visuals, inability to perform everyday tasks.
is the standard psychedelic trip, full on waves, colors open eye visuals, inability to perform everyday tasks. Level 4 is a heavy dose, the kind where you lie on the floor and see things that aren't there.
[*]Level 5 is where god makes you a grilled cheese sandwich, you lose your ego, and become one with the Universe.
A more detailed and helpful write-up on the Psychedelic Scale can be found here on the Shroomery, or at Erowid.org
My Cautionary LSD Tale
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In 2004 I took 3 hits of LSD one night. An hour after consuming them, a friend called and said "Don't take the LSD, it was super strong!" That 3 hits turned out to be 12 hits of LSD, (roughly 2500 micro-grams for those into numbers). I couldn't see the real world for all the geometry and kaleidoscopic magic going on. People's irises disappeared and all I saw was blackness in their eyes. I derailed my brain and was effectively "Gone, baby gone" for 36 hours. I lived a lifetime in Wonderland that weekend, and couldn't touch a psychedelic substance for 3 years, or watch any violent TV or movies for a good 18 months without having problems. I would not wish that trip on anyone. Except George W Bush. yes, I'm still holding a grudge, Bush.
My Final word of Advice
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Human beings have been taking these substances for 10,000+ years. It is because there is something to be learned from them. Keep an open mind, an open heart, and listen to what becomes unlocked in your own head. Don't just trip to see pretty colors, or to "get fucked up". That is an irresponsible and short-sighted way of using these substances. That is not to say you can't or shouldn't try to do fun things with psychedelics, but while you are enjoying yourself, try to listen to your own subconscious, you rarely get a chance to.
Now, my padowan, go ignore all this hard-earned wisdom and party like you were going to anyway!!!! Now that we've established my Bona Fides, some advice for newbies to the drug scene.--------------------------------
Edited by Cactusdude (05/17/14 05:30 PM)
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been tripping since 2005-2006, shortly after graduating from high school. Back then, dankity LSD was plentiful in Houston area. Had an acid wave lasting over a year or so. In that time i was doing acid almost every weekend. I loved it soo much, it quickly became my favorite drug. Before that, shrooms were my drugs of choice. Cant tell ya how many times ive tripped or how many hits of acid ive taken (as it still goes on today from time to time), but the number is in the hundreds or early thousands. I find psychedelics are easy to handle. You just gotta be calm and have a positive outlook. 'Bad trips' dont normally happen, rather you might be in a bad mood and not enjoying your trip. For me, LSD led to experimenting with DMT and Mescaline. LSD is my drug of choice, but you'll never experience anything like DMT. Best advise i can give is keep calm and dont worry when taking psychedelics. It'll open your mind and change your outlook on life and the way you view things. If you havent tried psychedelics, you dont know what your missing. I really love going to raves, bars and concerts while tripping. Often, ill carry some hits in my pocket waiting for the right moment to trip. Nothing like taking a hit, drinking some beer, smoking some weed, taking another hit and drinking more beer. Psychedelics are just an all round good time, especially LSD. Honesty, i dont know where i would be without them. Psychedelics made me who i am today
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Quit reading my mind!
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Tripped over 10 years, several hundred trips
) Set and Setting
) Set and Setting
) Set and Setting
) Set and Setting
) Set and Setting
Don't stress getting things perfect, just don't trip if you're not sure about your surroundings or your state of mind.
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I have been tripping for 18 years. I couldn't begin to estimate the number of times I have tripped. When I was in my teens I abused almost every drug imaginable. Now that I'm in my thirties I have cleaned up my life and the only drug I use is mushrooms.
I think the most important thing to remember when tripping is that set and setting are extremely important. Make sure you are somewhere you feel safe and at ease. DON'T TRIP AROUND DRUNK PEOPLE. Psychedelics are powerful and should be respected but don't be afraid of them. Remember you are just high, the things you are seeing are all in your head and it's temporary.
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A BAD TRIP. Trips can be unpleasant and challenging but in my experience more difficult trips are the most rewarding ones in the end. If you can learn to just let go and let the drugs show you what you need to see psychedelics can be life changing. I take solo trips on high doses up to 30 grams of very potent mushrooms almost every week and it can be overwhelming at times but it has really helped me get to know myself and sort out my thoughts and emotions.
Don't look at psychedelics as a way to get fucked up at parties but rather as powerful spiritual medicine. If you can do so safely I also strongly recommend tripping in nature.
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AMU
Bottle Tek
Liquid Inoculant Tek
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1.
It is worth noting that in life we have only one mind to mold. It would be wise research exactly what you are putting in your body and also note the adverse effects. Note the physical effects, the psychological effects. Ask questions. Could psychedelics help me? Is there any possibility for long term damage?
Psychedelics, and drugs in general, have the potential to capture our curiosity and even perhaps ameliorate our lives, but it is indeed a fact that psychedelics can have adverse effects. Keep in mind what you are doing with your one body.
2.
Do your drugs in a safe place and consider having a "trip sitter." That is, be sure to do your drugs somewhere comfortable and safe to ensure good times, and perhaps bring along a friend who can watch TV while you "feels weird man."
3.
Again, drugs are fun, but so is life. I was once swept up in too many drugs and I forgot about living for a moment. If you find yourself irritated because you are too broke to afford a ten sack of marijuana then you may want to ask yourself: why am I irritated? Be aware of habits. Be aware of what impact habits can have on your overall health and daily functioning.
It is sad to see people flunk out of college because of drugs. I witnessed many of my friends do exactly that. It is sad because their bad habits led them to fail at something they wanted in life. Now it's years later and they tell me about all their regret. Don't forget about your overall quality of life.
4.
Some of the laws in this country seem a bit backwards sometimes, but that doesn't change the fact that the police will crack down on you for breaking the law. Keep in mind that when you do certain drugs you are risking something - your record. Even if the risk is small, it is a risk. Be careful to take precautions and be safe out there. Don't get arrested for smoking weed in the park when you could have done it at home in the garage.
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Edited by XUL (05/18/14 09:38 AM)
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As someone who's dabbled in psychedelics for 12 years or so, I'll offer my shortlist;
1. It will end! (regardless of how overwhelmed you may get, take comfort in the light at the end of the tunnel)
2. Music music music! (try and keep it upbeat, things you like)
3. Never take anything for sole sake of having it. (spontaneity may be beneficial in other aspects of life, psychedelics deserve more respect than dropping by unannounced)
4. As hokey as it sounds, practice basic meditation, clearing your mind is an invaluable skill, as well as a great precurser to actively listening to your subconcious (which will become roused prepared or no)
5. Start small! No dick measuring what so ever, the experience is what is important.
6. Just go with it. Resistance is indeed futile, as mentioned by others this is usually where negative thoughts start, again see number 1!
7. If at home, come up with some deep questions, and put them on sticky notes around the house, as you wander, you'll see them and it helps keep the questions in mind.
8. Finally really think about who you trip with, if any negative or off vibes are felt, just don't do it.
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cronicr said:
And there ya have it folks, a how to tame that p%$$y tek!
And after you inoculate be sure to consolidate for nine months and birth but dont dunk n roll this causes aborts with this species....mist directly in the face when needed
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I meet the criteria, but argue it only takes one profound psychedelic moment to appropriately advise others.
The potential is profound to the point that you cannot truly ever be prepared. Many/most will have fun or pleasant experience that does not saturate every part of life. If the the door flies open, however, you are talking about a state of being and reflection that could last your entire existence. It's not all rainbows and teddybears.
To comprehend the behind the scenes shit may not 'fit' into the life you currently lead.... It is potentially curative for the traumatized, addicted or end of lifers, who need to face the facts. For a young person say preparing for higher education, getting too many boners and wondering about 'life' it may not be at all what you expected.
Don't get all fucked...
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Multiplied
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I find the quality of my trips is greatly enhanced by doing meditation on a daily basis for at least a few days prior to the session. I also like to do some meditation on the comeup.
Take a deep breath and just submit. There's no need to fight the experience.
If you are an unexperienced tripper, it is best to confine your trips to small circles of people who you are comfortable around in safe, warm, dry places. Once you become a little familiar with a substance, then you can experiment with other possibilities.
Don't take psychedelics if you are already intoxicated by alcohol. I'm not saying fun times can't be had, I'm just saying I've seen a pattern of fun times often not being had.
Have some easy to eat snacks and tasty beverages available.
Experiment with different lighting and music.
And most of all, DON'T TAKE ANYTHING TOO SERIOUSLY!
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"Cosmic Love is absolutelely ruthless and highly indifferent:
it teaches its lessons whether you like/dislike them or not."
John C. Lily
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Post deleted by Asante<p>Reason for deletion: pointless post
Edited by Asante (05/18/14 03:11 PM)
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Post deleted by Asante Reason for deletion: pointless post
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"What did you do to my legs, you Nazi walrus bastard"
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“Jessica Jones” Season 2 has cast Leah Gibson as a series regular, Variety has learned from sources.
Gibson will play Ingrid, who is described as street-wise but who also has an education as a nurse. After the description of the character was originally leaked back in April, fans began speculating that Ingrid was a codename for Marvel Comics character Typhoid Mary, an enemy of Daredevil who suffers from dissociative identity disorder. She has three distinct personalities, with “Bloody Mary” and “Typhoid Mary” being the more violent personalities. She also has a range of psionic powers, like telekinesis and pyrokinesis.
Netflix declined to comment.
Gibson appeared in 2010’s “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse” as the vampire Nettie. She has also appeared in the films “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” and “Watchmen.” On the television side, she recently appeared in the Hulu drama “Shut Eye,” The CW’s “The 100,” the A&E series “The Returned,” and Bravo’s “Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce.”
She is repped Industry Entertainment Partners and Play Management.
“Jessica Jones” Season 1 debuted on Netflix in November 2015 with Krysten Ritter playing the lead role of the superstrong, hard-drinking private eye. It was the second Netflix-Marvel series release after “Daredevil,” preceding both “Luke Cage” and “Iron Fist.” All four lead characters from the respective series will join forces in the event series “The Defenders,” which will launch on Netflix on August 18. Season 2 of “Jessica Jones” is expected to debut in 2018. |
At Monument Mountain Regional High School in Massachusetts, educators responded when students came forward with an idea for an entirely student-led approach to school. In one independent-study-type course, students set their own learning goals, work collaboratively and seek help from mentors when it’s needed. They study math, science, social science and literature topics that interest them through a driving question each week, presenting their findings to a group. Their teachers were impressed with the rigor of their work and the motivation students displayed when they drove the agenda.
Saying students should drive their own learning is much easier than helping them do it. Former teacher-turned-lecturer Alan November has done some deep thinking about how teachers can help students gain the skills they’ll need to be independent learners. He emphasizes that teachers should help students ask the right questions and use the technology tools available to them to find credible information. He recommends teachers give students the ability to work on long-term projects that meaningfully contribute to the world, helping to provide the motivation for independent learning.
While some schools are finding ways to let students take up the reins of their education, many are still beholden to the regimented public system that includes lots of standardized testing for assessment and accountability purposes. The increasing focus on testing has driven some families away from the education system entirely, and the number of home-schooled students has grown.
One particular strain of home schooling, known as unschooling, has caught the imagination of many MindShift readers. Unschoolers follow no set curriculum, but rather let their children explore the world on their own terms and at their own speed. The focus is on curiosity, inquiry and projects, with the belief that kids will ask for help and learn in all disciplines when acquiring the necessary knowledge to achieve something with which they are absorbed.
Readers continue to debate whether students can really learn what they’ll need to be functioning adults without the intervention of a teacher or parent, but several people who have been unschooled themselves say they’re doing well in the world. Dr. Peter Gray has studied what unschoolers go on to do, and whether they face discrimination or other obstacles as they apply to colleges and enter the workforce.
SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Much of the disaffection with the school system stems from a pervasive feeling that the intense focus on formal academics has inadvertently neglected the rest of a child’s personality and humanity. While employers, psychologists and other researchers have repeatedly noted that social and emotional skills like empathy are some of the most important ones for success, many schools still lag in developing effective programs to nurture those soft skills.
Societal norms posit girls as being more emotionally intelligent than boys, but the subtle ways that teachers and parents reinforce that gender stereotype can harm boys, who need to learn empathy as an important life skill for connecting with others, problem-solving and developing moral courage. Many of these interpersonal skills develop naturally when children have the opportunity to play together in unstructured environments, but free play is on the decline both in schools and at home. Researchers are now even questioning if lack of free play in students’ lives could be partly responsible for rising rates of depression among youth.
One way to help students develop social and emotional skills is by helping them develop the part of their brain that governs self-regulation -- the prefrontal cortex. A few schools working with some of the most traumatized and disadvantaged students are finding that practicing mindfulness -- centering activities like focused breathing that keep the mind in the here and now -- can help students build the focus, decision-making and ability to think ahead that many students lack. One elementary school in Richmond, California, with a mindfulness program found behavior problems diminished and academic achievement increased with just a few minutes of mindfulness every week.
BRAIN-BASED STRATEGIES
There’s a lot of research about how people learn best, but not all of that information has made it into mainstream classrooms. While many educators spend their free time brushing up on the new (and sometimes not so new) research, others are content to continue doing what has been done before. And students are just as susceptible to the inertia as the adults around them.
'We know how kids learn. We know what classes should look like. And yet our classes look almost the opposite.'
Students who have grown up in the current school system are used to being told exactly what they need to do in order to succeed. But the emphasis on grades and college can sometimes have the unintended consequence of making learning all about achieving an external goal and not about the learning itself.
Increasingly, teachers are working to change that dynamic by moving to standards-based grading, allowing students to receive credit for demonstrating understanding even if that realization comes after the class has moved onto a new topic. Removing the stress of grades can help focus students back on learning together, especially if the teacher makes a special emphasis to build a culture of trust in the classroom.
“We know how kids learn. We know what classes should look like. And yet our classes look almost the opposite,” said Adam Holman, a Texas educator who worked hard to “deprogram” his kids from the traditional way of learning by teaching them about how their brains work and why the dominant teaching style is incompatible. When Holman treated his students like adults who could understand the system in which they played, he earned their trust and their hard work.
Sometimes the teaching and studying strategies thought to work best actively contradict brain-based learning. New York Times writer Benedict Carey devoted an entire book to describing counter-intuitive study strategies based in cognitive science about memory and learning. For example, students tend to spend hours cramming for a test the next day, only to promptly forget everything they learned. They’d be better served to chunk study time over several days, taking breaks, sleeping more and quizzing themselves along the way. Many students don’t know any strategies to improve their own study skills and end up wasting a lot of time and effort.
BEST TECH TOOLS
Educators are always interested in peer-recommended tech products proven to be simple and effective in the classroom. When New Canaan High School (Connecticut) librarian Michelle Luhtala invited several of her colleagues to combine their favorite apps and share a list with the world, educators loved it. And it can be particularly helpful to find a great tool for subjects that don’t get a lot of attention, like physics. |
WARNING: Disturbing images are contained in this story
Last week, the Ontario SPCA (OSPCA) announced charges against the owner of Hidden Meadow Farm, the kennel that provides dog sledding and trail rides at Deerhurst Resort.
In the release, they said, “On June 8, 2016, the Ontario SPCA received calls concerning care of animals in a kennel. Ontario SPCA officers attended and found 42 Alaskan Husky and Malamute-type sled dogs at the location. A veterinarian examination revealed large, open wounds that had been left untreated for days; numerous older, healed, partially healed and infected wounds; limping with an obviously swollen, painful leg; fever; and broken, infected teeth.”
The subsequent charges were:
Permitting an animal to be in distress
Failing to provide adequate and appropriate medical attention
Failing to provide the care necessary for an animal’s general welfare
Failing to confine an animal to a pen or other enclosed structure or area that must not contain one or more other animals that may pose a danger to the animal
Prior to the incident, there had allegedly been a fight between four dogs resulting in injuries to two and the death of a third. The kennel’s owner, Shani Ride, says the injured dogs “were in isolated kennels, they were on penicillin and they were getting their wounds cleaned twice a day. I have nothing against the SPCA. They were doing their job. When they come out to a call, they have to check everything. They walked around and looked at the rest of the dogs and found two more.”
The OSPCA told Ride that the four dogs had to have veterinary care, but she refused. “I said, ‘I’m not going to do that, I’m already treating them and I feel my treatment was fine. I’ve dealt with these injuries before. Taking all four of those dogs to the vet was going to cost me in the thousands of dollars. Unfortunately, I love these animals but this is a business. I said if you feel my care isn’t proper for them, I will have them euthanized. Businesswise, it doesn’t make sense for me to put thousands of dollars into these dogs when the unfortunate reality is that a new sled dog would cost me $200.”
OSPCA officers gave Ride the option of surrendering the dogs instead, which she did. Of the two injured dogs, one, Teddy, was taken immediately and had a four-hour surgery. The other, Thistle, they returned for a week and a half later, says Ride, and was almost healed, but “they took him and did surgery which in my opinion delayed the healing process.”
Of the other two dogs, only one ended up being surrendered – Elvis, who had a lump bigger than a golf ball under his knee, but Ride says he had it when she bought him and he’d never shown lameness because of it. The fourth dog, Frost, had an infected ear that had healed by the time officers returned.
The charges came later, says Ride. “They came back and charged me with animal cruelty, which really upsets me because I feel I was trapped. I won’t surrender my dogs again.” She invited this writer to stop by and see the dogs. The photos below show the dogs as they were at that time: most in kennels by twos, and two dogs chained outside the kennel area, one nearby and one just up the hill in a forested area where there were also other single shelters and chains. There were no kennel staff present.
Dogs in the kennel owned by Hidden Meadow Farm are paired by twos One dog was chained up in a forested area Other shelters with chains were in the forested area The kennels surround a central play yard This dog was chained near the kennels
Matt Todd, the former owner of the kennel who sold the operation eight years ago to Ride, said that he filed a complaint about treatment of the animals in May of 2014. After he received a tip from a friend who was concerned about the animals, he says he went to the kennel and, based on what he saw, called police. He also lodged a complaint with Deerhurst.
“(The OPP) said they would contact the SPCA. We left it up to them,” says Todd. “There was neglect over time. I’d heard some stories… rumours go around and you take them with a grain of salt. But once I observed it, I said, ‘this isn’t cool.’”
He took photos of the dogs, some who were emaciated, some who were chained to stakes, and one of a deceased dog in a wheelbarrow.
This photo is from 2014 and shows the former kennels owned by Hidden Meadow Farm (Photo: Matt Todd) The emaciated state of the dog in the background concerned Todd (Photo: Matt Todd) Several dogs were chained in the forest (Photo: Matt Todd) Several dogs were chained in the forest (Photo: Matt Todd) In this 2014 photo, a deceased dog was at the edge of the woods in a wheelbarrow and covered with a kennel door (Photo: Matt Todd)
Ride says she remembers the day as being busy. “(The dead dog) was Swift – it was pretty much the same situation, which makes it sound like it happens all the time. This was in the old kennels. They were in pretty bad shape. Dogs got out, she got killed. It was in the middle of a busy day so they took her out of the kennel and they wheeled her into the bushes where they couldn’t see her and then we went over in the evening and took her and buried her.”
But Todd disagrees with those actions. “(They) just put the dog in a wheelbarrow with an old door on top and stuffed it at the side of the woods. That’s someone saying, ‘oh, well, I’ll just deal with it later.’ It hadn’t just passed away. I’ve lost a few dogs… and the first thing I did was bury it behind a tree. You do the dog the decency, you don’t put it in a barrow and leave it for later.”
Ride, who says she hasn’t seen the photos, also said that it’s normal for sled dogs to be skinny after a sledding season. “My vet has been involved with my dogs for years and there have been times when she has said the dogs are looking a little skinny, let’s look at some different feeding options.”
But Todd disagrees with that, too. “Just like any human, if you were training for a race that’s true to some extent. But there’s a difference. I’ll agree that the Alaskan husky is basically a cross between a greyhound and a husky. Sure my dogs would lose weight over the winter, but there’s a difference between seeing a few ribs and seeing ribs, hips, and joints. When I was there, some dogs looked healthy and some didn’t. I took a picture of the one that looked the worst.”
Todd also said that while he’s had dogs fight, they’ve never come away with more than a few puncture wounds and none have fought to the death. He currently owns four sled dogs, two of which he took back from Ride’s kennel – one seven years ago that was in good health and one last winter that was in rougher shape and had a tooth hanging by a piece of skin.
Today, Deerhurst Resort general manager Jesse Hamilton said in a written statement that the resort has “suspended the Dog Sled Program run through Hidden Meadow Farm. As part of our ongoing commitment to the care of all animals on our property, we have also proactively decided to temporarily close the stable operations today, which are also operated by Hidden Meadow Farm, so we can conduct a review and are requesting added guidance from the OSPCA – even though no issues have been raised regarding that operation.”
Ride says she understands their business situation. “Deerhurst has done the right thing. I have no concerns, the SPCA was at the farm two or three days ago and had no concerns. And if Deerhurst wants them to come back in, that’s fine.
I am not the only person this has happened to,” she added. “It happens. If you had two dogs and you came home from work and they had fought and one of them had died, everybody would be going, ‘oh, that’s so terrible, I’m so sorry.’ But this happened at a kennel so I’m a monster – that’s what upsets me.”
Ride says she doesn’t agree with the charges against her and will be hiring a lawyer. She will answer to her charges August 23 in Bracebridge court.
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Breion Thomas (Photo: Photo provided)
MUNCIE — Muncie police say a dispute over a woman’s preference for waffles over pancakes turned violent, leading to her boyfriend’s arrest.
Breion Donte Thomas, 24, of the 4500 block of West Bethel Avenue, was arrested Monday on preliminary charges of strangulation, interference with the reporting of a crime, battery resulting in injury and criminal confinement.
According to a police report, Thomas’ alleged victim said he “made her some pancakes for breakfast” on Saturday and “became angry” when she said she wanted waffles instead.
The woman told officers Thomas shoved her several times, punched her in the back of the head, threw her onto a bed and held her down, and “strangled me with my shirt.” He also allegedly took his accuser’s cellphone to prevent her from calling for help.
The Muncie man — with no prior convictions, according to local court records — was released from the Delaware County jail after posting a $15,000 bond.
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The NHL finals between the Nashville Predators and the Pittsburgh Penguins is all tied up 2-2 as the action heads north again. We’ve got your live stream details for the crucial game five on June 8 at 8pm EST.
This has been one of the most explosive NHL finals in years, with the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Nashville Predators completely dominating their home games while losing badly on the road. The Pens went up 2-0 while playing at PPG Paints Arena, then headed to Nashville where they were absolutely destroyed by the Preds. The defending Stanley Cup champs now get home ice once again and hope to bounce back in game five, as whoever wins this game will be one victory away from achieveing league dominance. Both teams have so much to fight for, as Pittsburgh wants to keep the iconic trophy for another year, while the Predators are chasing their first NHL title in franchise history.
The series has been all about the power of goaltending, as Nashville’s Pekka Rinne, 34, has proved. He gave up eight goals on just 36 shots in his two games in Pittsburgh, but saved 23 of 24 shots in game four alone. He now owns a 13-1 record in his past 14 home games, and is guaranteed at least one more game in Bridgestone Arena in game six.
“He was incredible today. He made some great saves [on shots] that you thought was going in but he battled back and kept it out of the net,” forward Viktor Arvidsson, 24, said after the Predators 4-1 victory in game four on June 5. “We never doubt Peks. He’s an unbelievable player. He steps up for us every night. He’s the key to our game.”
“I don’t want to look back. We have work to be done. I’m sure at the end of the day when you look back, it’s a roller coaster and an emotional ride,” Pekka said after his incredible performance. “The first two games we did a lot of good things. Personally I wasn’t very happy with my game. But obviously these two [last] games have been huge for us, and personally too. It’s a game of confidence, being a goalie.” He had one of the most epic moments of the finals with his huge double save on two Sidney Crosby back to back shots, then threw his body across the crease to block an open-net shot by Jake Guentzel. It was THE moment of the series and completely energized the Predators.
The Pittsburgh Penguins host the Nashville Predators in game five of the Stanley Cup finals on June 8 at 8pm EST. Hockey fans can watch this game online via NBC Sports official coverage (after entering in the appropriate login information.) CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE PREDATORS VS. PENGUINS GAME 5 LIVE STREAM
HollywoodLifers, who are you rooting for to win the Stanley Cup, the Penguins or the Predators? |
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