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Which monarch was the first Supreme Governor of the Church of England? | Queen's role as head of Church of England 'may no longer be appropriate' - Telegraph
Queen Elizabeth II
Queen's role as head of Church of England 'may no longer be appropriate'
The Queen’s role as head of the Church of England may no longer be “appropriate” following changes to the law of succession, a group of MPs has suggested.
Under current laws, the Queen is required to 'join in communion' with the Church of England and take on the role of Supreme Governor, promoting Anglicanism in Britain Photo: PA
| Elizabeth I of England |
Mock Turtle Soup is traditionally made from the head of a? | How the Church of England became the church of state | World news | The Guardian
Anglicanism
How the Church of England became the church of state
A dispute between Henry VIII and the Pope over the legitimacy over divorce led to a new church under the monarch
King Henry VIII's row with the Pope led to a new church. Photograph: Corbis
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The Church of England's position as the country's established church dates back to the upheavals of the 16th century Reformation.
The disagreement between the English monarch and the Vatican saw the church gradually emerge out of Henry VIII's dispute with the papacy over his right to divorce his first wife, Catherine of Aragon.
The king used the split from the Catholic church to divorce his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, too, having seen his second beheaded, and third die.
The monarch became the supreme governor of the state church and its doctrine was officially defined through the 39 Articles in the reign of Henry's daughter, Elizabeth I.
The church's continuing privileged position gives 26 of its bishops seats as a right in the House of Lords, gives institutional rights on state occasions, including the coronation of the sovereign, and protects it through a complex and ancient web of legislation.
Among the historic legacies are such archaic hangovers as the Act of Settlement, preventing the monarch from being – or marrying – a Catholic: a 300 year-old piece of legislation that some bishops still defend to this day.
As part of the modern constitutional tie-in, the church's synod can create legislation determining its affairs. The resulting legislation then has to be approved, but cannot be amended, by parliament.
In return, the Church of England maintains a presence in every parish in the country, runs a network of state-funded schools, claims to be available to all and insists that it speaks on behalf of faith communities on spiritual and religious matters.
It also maintains the upkeep of many of the country's most historic buildings.
Senior church appointments are still nominally made by the sovereign on the advice of the prime minister based on recommendations by the church.
Nominations can be vetoed or altered at the behest of Downing Street.
Critics allege that the church can no longer claim public influence and authority because only about half the population identify themselves as Anglicans, and very few go to church. Unravelling the church's established status would be complex and time-consuming: it took parliament 70 years to disestablish the much smaller church in Wales.
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If something is 'fluviatile', it is produced or found in a? | 10(z) Fluvial Landforms
(z). Fluvial Landforms
Stream Channel Types
Within a single stream we can often recognize three different channel types. These unique channel types develop in response to changes in stream velocity, sediment texture, and stream grade.
Channels located in the upper reaches of many streams tend to be narrow with flow moving at high velocities (Figure 10z-1). The high flow velocities found in these streams are the result of a steep grade and gravity. Within these stream systems, erosion is a very active process as the channel tries to adjust itself to the topography of the landscape. Deposition occurs primarily during periods of low flow. As a result, floodplain deposits are very limited, and the stream bed is very transient and shallow.
Figure 10z-1: Upper reach of a stream in the Rocky Mountains, Canada.
Streams with high sediment loads that encounter a sudden reduction in flow velocity generally have a braided channel type (Figure 10z-2). This type of stream channel often occurs further down the stream profile where the grade changes from being steep to gently sloping. In a braided stream, the main channel divides into a number of smaller, interlocking or braided channels. Braided channels tend to be wide and shallow because bedload materials are often coarse ( sands and gravels) and non-cohesive.
Figure 10z-2: Braided stream channel.
Meandering channels form where streams are flowing over a relatively flat landscape with a broad floodplain (Figure 10z-3). Technically, a stream is said to be meandering when the ratio of actual channel length to the straight line distance between two points on the stream channel is greater than 1.5. Channels in these streams are characteristically U-shaped and actively migrate over the extensive floodplain .
Figure 10z-3: Meandering stream channel.
Stream Channel Features
Within the stream channel are a variety of sedimentary beds and structures. Many of these features are dependent upon the complex interaction between stream velocity and sediment size.
Streams carrying coarse sediments develop sand and gravel bars . These types of bars seen often in braided streams which are common in elevated areas (Figure 10z-4). Bars develop in braided streams because of reductions in discharge . Two conditions often cause the reduction in discharge: reduction in the gradient of the stream and/or the reduction of flow after a precipitation event or spring melting of snow and ice.
Figure 10z-4: Braided stream channel with gravel bars.
Point bars develop where stream flow is locally reduced because of friction and reduced water depth (Figure 10z-5). In a meandering stream, point bars tend to be common on the inside of a channel bend.
Figure 10z-5: Meandering stream channel as seen from above.
In straight streams, bar-like deposits can form in response to the thalweg (red arrows Figure 10z-6) and helical flow . Figure 10z-6 below shows an overhead view of these deposits and related features.
Figure 10z-6: Overhead view of the depositional features found in a typical straight stream channel.
In this straight channel stream, bars form in the regions of the stream away from the thalweg. Riffles , another type of coarse deposit, develop beneath the thalweg in locations where the faster flow moves vertically up in the channel. Between the riffles are scoured pools where material is excavated when the zone of maximum stream velocity approaches the stream's bed. The absolute spacing of these features varies with the size of the channel. However, the relative distance between one riffle and the next is on average five to seven times the width of the channel (exaggerated in diagram). Both of these features can also occur in sinuous channels.
Dunes and ripples are the primary sedimentary features in streams whose channel is composed mainly of sand and silt. Dunes are about 10 or more centimeters in height and are spaced a meter or more apart. They are common in streams with higher velocities. Ripples are only a few centimeters in height and spacing, and are found in slow moving streams with fine textured beds. Both of these features move over time, migrating down stream. Material on the gently sloping stoss-side of these features rolls and jumps up the slope under the influence of water flow. Particles move up the slope until they reach the crest of the feature and then avalanche down the steeper lee-side to collect at the base of the next dune or ripple. This process is then repeated over and over again until the material reaches a location down stream where it is more permanently deposited.
The Floodplain
Alongside stream channels are relatively flat areas known as floodplains (Figure 10z-7). Floodplains develop when streams over-top their levees spreading discharge and suspended sediments over the land surface during floods . Levees are ridges found along the sides of the stream channel composed of sand or gravel. Levees are approximately one half to four times the channel width in diameter. Upon retreat of the flood waters, stream velocities are reduced causing the deposition of alluvium . Repeated flood cycles over time can result in the deposition of many successive layers of alluvial material. Floodplain deposits can raise the elevation of the stream bed . This process is called aggradation .
Figure 10z-7: The following Landsat 5 image taken in September 1992 shows a section of the Missouri River at Rocheport, Missouri. The oblique perspective of this image is looking westward or upstream. This image has been color enhanced and modified to show an exaggerated topographic relief. Bare soil and plowed land appears red, vegetation appears green, and water is dark blue. A flat river flood plain can be seen in the center of the image. Because of the season, most of the farmland located on the rich and fertile soils of the floodplain is plowed and devoid of vegetation. (Source: NASA Scientific Visualization Studio ).
Floodplains can also contain sediments deposited from the lateral migration of the river channel. This process is common in both braided and meandering channels. Braided channels produce horizontal deposits of sand during times of reduced discharge . In meandering streams, channel migration leads to the vertical deposition of point bar deposits. Both braided and meandering channel deposits are more coarse than the materials laid down by flooding.
A number of other geomorphic features can be found on the floodplain. Intersecting the levees are narrow gaps called crevasses . These features allow for the movement of water to the floodplain and back during floods. Topographical depressions are found scattered about the floodplain. Depressions contain the some of the finest deposits on the floodplain because of their elevation. Oxbow lakes are the abandoned channels created when meanders are cut off from the rest of the channel because of lateral stream erosion .
Alluvial Fans and Deltas
Streams flowing into standing water normally create a delta (Figure 10z-8 and 10z-9). A delta is body of sediment that contains numerous horizontal and vertical layers. Deltas are created when the sediment load carried by a stream is deposited because of a sudden reduction in stream velocity. The surface of most deltas is marked by small shifting channels that carry water and sediments away from the main river channel. These small channels also act to distribute the stream's sediment load over the surface of the delta. Some deltas, like the Nile, have a triangular shape. Streams, like the Mississippi, that have a high sediment content and empty into relatively calm waters cause the formation of a birdfoot shaped delta.
Figure 10z-8: Nile Delta (Source: NASA ).
Figure 10z-9: Mississippi Birdfoot Delta (Source: NASA ).
Most deltas contain three different types of deposits: foreset , topset and bottomset beds. Foreset beds make up the main body of deltas. They are deposited at the outer edge of the delta at an angle of 5 to 25 degrees. Steeper angles develop in finer sediments. On top of the foreset beds are the nearly horizontal topset beds . These beds are of varying grain sizes and are formed from deposits of the small shifting channels found on the delta surface. In front and beneath the foreset beds are the bottomset beds . These beds are composed of fine silt and clay . Bottom set beds are formed when the finest material is carried out to sea by stream flow.
An alluvial fan is a large fan-shaped deposit of sediment on which a braided stream flows over (10z-10). Alluvial fans develop when streams carrying a heavy load reduce their velocity as they emerge from mountainous terrain to a nearly horizontal plain. The fan is created as braided streams shift across the surface of this feature depositing sediment and adjusting their course. The image below shows several alluvial fans that formed because of a sudden change in elevation.
| River |
A deuteragonist is second in importance in a? | Drainage Patterns
Drainage Patterns
Figure 18.4 Aerial photograph illustrating typical dendritic drainage pattern developed in an area underlain by Gila conglomerate. Gila County, Arizona. (Courtesy USGS DDS21) Click image to enlarge
Over time, a stream system achieves a particular drainage pattern to its network of stream channels and tributaries as determined by local geologic factors. Drainage patterns or nets are classified on the basis of their form and texture. Their shape or pattern develops in response to the local topography and subsurface geology. Drainage channels develop where surface runoff is enhanced and earth materials provide the least resistance to erosion. The texture is governed by soil infiltration, and the volume of water available in a given period of time to enter the surface. If the soil has only a moderate infiltration capacity and a small amount of precipitation strikes the surface over a given period of time, the water will likely soak in rather than evaporate away. If a large amount of water strikes the surface then more water will evaporate, soaks into the surface, or ponds on level ground. On sloping surfaces this excess water will runoff. Fewer drainage channels will develop where the surface is flat and the soil infiltration is high because the water will soak into the surface. The fewer number of channels, the coarser will be the drainage pattern.
Figure 18.5 Dendritic drainage pattern
A dendritic drainage pattern is the most common form and looks like the branching pattern of tree roots. It develops in regions underlain by homogeneous material. That is, the subsurface geology has a similar resistance to weathering so there is no apparent control over the direction the tributaries take. Tributaries joining larger streams at acute angle (less than 90 degrees).
Figure 18.6 Parallel drainage pattern
Parallel drainage patterns form where there is a pronounced slope to the surface. A parallel pattern also develops in regions of parallel, elongate landforms like outcropping resistant rock bands. Tributary streams tend to stretch out in a parallel-like fashion following the slope of the surface. A parallel pattern sometimes indicates the presence of a major fault that cuts across an area of steeply folded bedrock. All forms of transitions can occur between parallel, dendritic, and trellis patterns.
Figure 18.7 Trellis Drainage Pattern
Trellis drainage patterns look similar to their namesake, the common garden trellis. Trellis drainage develops in folded topography like that found in the Appalachian Mountains of North America. Down-turned folds called synclines form valleys in which resides the main channel of the stream. Short tributary streams enter the main channel at sharp angles as they run down sides of parallel ridges called anticlines. Tributaries join the main stream at nearly right angles.
Figure 18.8 Rectangular Drainage Pattern
The rectangular drainage pattern is found in regions that have undergone faulting. Streams follow the path of least resistance and thus are concentrated in places were exposed rock is the weakest. Movement of the surface due to faulting off-sets the direction of the stream. As a result, the tributary streams make sharp bends and enter the main stream at high angles.
Figure 18.9 Radial Drainage Pattern
The radial drainage pattern develops around a central elevated point. This pattern is common to such conically shaped features as volcanoes. The tributary streams extend the headward reaches upslope toward the top of the volcano.
Figure 18.10 Centripetal Drainage Pattern
The centripetal drainage pattern is just the opposite of the radial as streams flow toward a central depression. This pattern is typical in the western and southwestern portions of the United States where basins exhibit interior drainage. During wetter portions of the year, these streams feed ephemeral lakes, which evaporate away during dry periods. Salt flats are created in these dry lake beds as salt dissolved in the lake water precipitates out of solution and is left behind when the water evaporates away.
Figure 18.11 Deranged Drainage Pattern
Deranged or contorted patterns develop from the disruption of a pre-existing drainage pattern. Figure 18.11 began as a dendritic pattern but was altered when overrun by glacier. After receding, the glacier left behind fine grain material that form wetlands and deposits that dammed the stream to impound a small lake. The tributary streams appear significantly more contorted than they were prior to glaciation.
The patterns described above are accordant , or correlated with the structure and relief over which they flow. Those streams that are discordant with the rocks over which they flow are either antecedent or superimposed. For instance, antecedent streams flowed across bedrock structures prior to uplift. Slow mountain building permitted stream erosion to keep pace with uplift. Such appears to be the case for the Columbia River that cuts across the Cascade Mountains. Streams in portions of the Appalachian Mountains have formed in weaker rock that through time has eroded away. These streams appear to be superimposed over the rock layers that they presently flow over. The Cumberland Gap is a famous water gap formed in this way as it cuts through the folds of the Appalachians.
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The lempira is the basic monetary unit of which Central American country? | Honduras: Maps, History, Geography, Government, Culture, Facts, Guide & Travel/Holidays/Cities
Juan Orlando Hernández Wins 2013 Presidential Election
Geography
Honduras, in the north-central part of Central America, has a Caribbean as well as a Pacific coastline. Guatemala is to the west, El Salvador to the south, and Nicaragua to the east. The second-largest country in Central America, Honduras is slightly larger than Tennessee. Generally mountainous, the country is marked by fertile plateaus, river valleys, and narrow coastal plains.
Government
Democratic constitutional republic.
History
During the first millennium, Honduras was inhabited by the Maya. Columbus explored the country in 1502. Honduras, with four other Central American nations, declared its independence from Spain in 1821 to form a federation of Central American states. In 1838, Honduras left the federation and became independent. Political unrest rocked Honduras in the early 1900s, resulting in an occupation by U.S. Marines. Dictator Gen. Tiburcio Carias Andino established a strong government in 1932.
In 1969, El Salvador invaded Honduras after Honduran landowners deported several thousand Salvadorans. Five thousand people ultimately died in what is called “the football war” because it broke out during a soccer game between the two countries. By threatening economic sanctions and military intervention, the Organization of American States (OAS) induced El Salvador to withdraw.
| Honduras |
The Odense River is in which European country? | Honduras | U.S. Agency for International Development
U.S. Agency for International Development
Children playing with water during a water system inauguration in La Lima.
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Hugo Contreras — A USAID Community Hero in Honduras
Farmers Learn New Skills and Escape Poverty
Democratic Transition Without Discord
About Honduras
In Honduras, USAID programs strengthen the participation of marginalized groups in local and national governance; increase food security for the poorest sectors of society; support renewable energy and environmental conservation; expand basic education and skills training for at-risk youth and adults; and enhance citizen access to quality public education and health services by improving the performance of local governments, authorities, and civil society.
Efforts also address citizen security through community-based crime prevention activities. USAID projects work to spur economic growth, advance social justice, improve education and health, engage the poorest members of Honduran society in the country’s development, and support public-private efforts to halt corruption and improve transparency.
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Name the mine in Copiapo, Chile, where 33 miners were trapped after a collapse on 5 Aug 2010? | Chile Mining Accident (2010) - The New York Times
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Chile Mining Accident (2010)
News about Chile Mining Accident (2010), including commentary and archival articles published in The New York Times. More
Updated: Oct. 12, 2011
On Oct. 13, 2010, 33 miners who had been trapped underground for more than two months all returned to the surface after a successful rescue operation that inspired Chile and riveted the world. The miners traveled up a narrow, nearly half-mile rescue shaft in a specially designed capsule. The final phase of the long rescue effort took roughly 22 hours. Luis Urzúa, the shift leader who organized the miners’ lives while they were underground, was the last to come up.
Many of the miners came bounding out of their rescue capsule as pictures of energy and health, able not only to walk, but, in one case, to leap around, hug everyone in sight and lead cheers. Their apparent robustness was testimony to the rescue diet threaded down to them through the tiny borehole that reached them on Aug. 22, but also to the way they organized themselves to keep their environment clean, find water and get exercise.
The miners hoped to sell their stories as well as file a lawsuit against the mining company. But one year after their globally televised rescue, after the worldwide spotlight faded and the trips and offers dwindled, the miners said that most of them were unemployed and that many were poorer than before.
The emotional distress has been more lasting than the publicity. In October 2011, nine miners were receiving sick-leave pay for prolonged post-traumatic stress; a handful of others say they are seeing private therapists.
Background
On Aug. 5, 2010, a gold and copper mine near the northern city of Copiapó, Chile caved in, trapping 33 miners in a chamber about 2,300 feet below the surface. For 17 days, there was no word on their fate. As the days passed, Chileans grew increasingly skeptical that any of the miners had survived — let alone all of them. But when a small bore hole reached the miners’ refuge, they sent up a message telling rescuers they were still alive.
A video camera threaded deep underground captured the first images of the miners, all apparently in good health. The discovery sparked jubilant celebrations nationwide as rescue efforts energized the country, which owes its prosperity to the rich copper mines in its northern region.
The miners later used a modified telephone to sing Chile’s national anthem to the hundreds of teary-eyed relatives celebrating above. In Santiago, the capital, motorists honked their car horns and people cheered wildly on subway platforms.
News reports suggested that ventilation shafts had survived the mine’s collapse, allowing enough fresh air to reach the chamber where the miners were trapped. The miners were able to use heavy equipment to provide light and charge the batteries of their head lamps, and they drank water from storage tanks to survive. They stripped off their shirts to endure the stifling heat but did not appear to be threatened by toxic gases such as methane, which can poison miners after cave-ins.
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Food was in short supply, and rescue crews used the tiny bore hole to thread down tubes containing sugars, water and liquid nutrients to help sustain the miners, while continuing the painstaking work of drilling another tunnel without causing another collapse. The thin shaft became an umbilical cord to keep the miners alive, from which they could receive information about the rescue efforts and communications from family members.
On Oct. 9, 2010, two excruciating months later, a more sizable drill finally broke through to the miners. It created space for a rescue shaft through which the miners were raised, one by one, in a capsule especially designed to contain a human being. As the vast team of rescue workers, medical personnel, technicians and mining experts entered the final phase a few days later, the colorful scene reflected the huge scale of the operation that captured the attention of the world: more than 1,400 journalists, together with anxious and elated family members of the miners, gathered to witness the rescue.
The mine, known as San José, has had a history of accidents and was forced to shut down briefly to make safety improvements, but its owners did not carry them out, according to some lawmakers and a risk prevention specialist who worked for the company.
On Oct. 12, the first rescue worker descended underground to the miners who greeted him with enthusiastic handshakes. Late that evening, Florencio Ávalos, 31, was the first miner to ascend to the surface.
Upon emerging from the capsule, miners were greeted by family and rescue workers before being led away for medical treatment.
Back to Normality
While the world has begun to move on, the miners are beginning to grapple with the enormousness of what happened to them. The men have resisted breaking a pact they made to keep the most gripping details of their two months in captivity to themselves in the hopes that together they can secure book or movie deals, as well as build their best case for a lawsuit against the mine. They have held especially close what happened in the first 17 days after the gold and copper mine collapsed, the time before they knew rescuers were still searching for them.
Four miners who agreed to speak without pay offered a view into the intense emotional struggles they faced underground, and now above. Omar Reygadas, a great-grandfather, had survived two previous collapses at the San José Mine and narrowly escaped a third that killed another miner. But in the first days after the latest cave-in in August, he said, he cried, from feelings of sheer helplessness.
Mr. Reygadas, who at 56 was one of the oldest to have been trapped and the 17th miner to be rescued, said after the explosion the men searched for others, finding that no one had died. But whatever relief they felt was short-lived. Within hours, the men were faced with a fateful choice. There was a way out, through a ventilation shaft. But after discovering that the ladder there was too short, they knew all they could do was wait. Two days later, a boulder rolled into the shaft, sealing it for good.
The miners have refused to go into great detail over what happened in the next two weeks, as men wilted in the heat and shrank, their tiny rations of tuna and crackers too meager to do much more than keep them alive.
The story picks up again on Day 17, when the rescuers’ drill bit pierced the roof of their refuge, starting the clock for their eventual freeing.
One thing the men were ready for was the lust for their story. They learned that lesson firsthand, from a group of Uruguayans who had survived a 1972 airplane accident in the Andes, depicted in the 1993 movie “Alive.” The group paid the miners a visit and chatted with them via the modified telephone, Mr. Reygadas said. He said they counseled the miners to “not give away too much,” as they felt they had.
Since the rescue, some men have been drinking heavily, according to a psychologist and some of the miners. And several have shown signs of emotional distress.
| San José |
In 1760, Belgian inventor Joseph Merlin patented which item of footwear? | Chile's rescued miners case dropped
Chile's rescued miners case dropped
Luis Andres Henao, Associated Press
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FILE - In this Oct. 13, 2010 file photo of a screen grab taken from video, rescuers inside the San Jose Mine near Copiapo, Chile, hold a sign that reads "Mission Complete" after all 33 trapped miners were rescued. A Chilean prosecutor has ended a probe of possible responsibility for the mine collapse that trapped the 33 men for more than two months in 2010, and the rescued miners expressed anger at the decision on Thursday, Aug. 1, 2013. (AP Photo, File)
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SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) -- The inquiry into the mine collapse that trapped 33 men for more than two months in 2010 has ended with no charges filed, a result that drew angry responses Thursday from the rescued miners.
The cave-in at the San Jose mine in the Atacama desert brought the mine's safety record into focus and put mining, Chile's top industry, under close scrutiny.
The decision by a prosecutor in the northern region of Atacama to bring no charges against mine owners Alejandro Bohn and Marcelo Kemmeny, or Chile's Mining Ministry's regulatory unit, was announced late Wednesday after a three-year investigation.
"This is a disgrace to Chile's justice system," Mario Sepulveda, who became the public face of the miners, told The Associated Press.
"It's impossible that in an accident of this magnitude no one is held responsible," Sepulveda said. "Today, I want to dig a deep hole and bury myself again; only this time, I don't want anybody to find me."
The miners said it felt like an earthquake when the shaft caved in above them on Aug. 5, 2010, filling the lower parts of the copper and gold mine with dust. Hours passed before they could even begin to see a few steps in front of them. Tons of rock shifted constantly above, threatening to bury them forever.
People on the surface didn't know for more than two weeks that the men had survived, and the 33 miners stretched a meager 48-hour store of emergency food for 17 days, eating tiny capsules of tuna and sips of expired milk. A narrow shaft finally was drilled into their haven and the world learned they were alive.
That shaft allowed food and water to reach the men while rescuers drilled a bigger escape hole. Finally, in an operation that ended in the early hours of Oct. 13, the miners were hauled up one by one in a cage through 2,000 feet (600 meters) of rock.
Renato Prenafeta, a lawyer for 31 of the 33 miners, said his legal team will review the background that led to the prosecutor's decision and present its own arguments. Prenafeta has also filed a civil suit asking for compensation for the harm and damage suffered by the miners over the past three years.
"Most of the people I represent are still suffering from serious psychological consequences," Prenafeta said. "Many can't even work. It's a very dramatic situation."
The miners received a hero's welcome after their globally televised rescue. They received paid trips to the Greek Islands, visited the Real Madrid stadium in Spain and paraded at Magic Kingdom in Disney World.
But their fantasy began to crumble on their return home.
Many ran out of money and had to scratch out a living in the dusty working class neighborhoods of the desert city of Copiapo. Some began suffering from health and psychological problems. Others took to alcohol and drugs.
"I'm upset by this decision," said Omar Reygadas, one of the rescued miners who is now unemployed.
"Most mine owners are afraid to hire us because they think that if there's ever a problem everyone will immediately find out about it since we get a lot press. We're well known."
President Sebastian Pinera supervised the 22-hour rescue of the miners and their survival story sent his popularity ratings soaring. Minutes after all the miners were safe on the surface, he vowed that those responsible would be held accountable.
A Chilean congressional commission in 2011 found the owners of the 125-year-old mine responsible for the cave-in.
"Because we're part of the government, we can't give our opinion on these decisions, but we obviously hope the civil suit stays on the right track so they can get compensation," Mining Minister Hernan de Solminihac, told state TV. "Most importantly, we continue to stand behind the 33."
Mining-related deaths in Chile fell 36 percent in 2011 to 27, compared to 41 in 2010, the year of the cave-in, according to a report by the Mining Ministry. The report says that thanks to increased oversight by inspectors, accidents at the country's 8,500 mines also fell by 40 percent in 2011, the lowest level in 21 years.
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The resort of St Tropez is in which department of France? | Saint Tropez Property Information, Var, France
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Saint Tropez Property Insight
Saint-Tropez is a 5,600-inhabitant town located in the south west of the Var department (Provence Alpes Cote d’Azur region). It is built on Saint Tropez’ peninsula which ends the eponymous gulf. The town is leant to a small hill. Along its 12km of coasts, the commune has six beaches: Bouillabaisse, La Ponche La Fontanette, Graniers, Canebiers La Moutte and Salins beaches.
As regards transport links, Saint Tropez is accessible by car: the A8 motorway leads to Le Muy, 37km from the town and A57 motorway to Cannet-des-Maures, 57km. By train, Saint-Raphael (39km from St Tropez) railway station is served by a high-speed line and regional trains . The town’s coach station provides buses to Fréjus , Hyères , Toulon and Saint Raphael amongst others. The largest international airport is Nice, 91km. Companies operate flights to Istanbul, London, Lyon, Paris, Munich, Amsterdam and Bordeaux. National and international destinations may be reached from Toulon-Hyeres airport: London and Paris. Maritime shuttles connect Saint Tropez to Grimaud, Sainte-Maxime , Fréjus, Saint-Raphaël, Cannes and Nice .
Overview
Saint Tropez is a dream destination for many holidaymakers. It is an unmissable location for stars, sea, history and art heritage lovers. For all its glamour, Saint-Tropez actually represents an authentic village with a charming harbour, infinite charms and numerous facets. Stroll in the alleyways, the Provencal street market and visit the 16th century stronghold and Annonciade Museum. The latter houses paintings from different movements. Saint Tropez stronghold has been protecting the town since the 17th century. It has been the most important defence monument between Antibes and Toulon for many centuries.
On August 15, 1944, the allied fleet landed on close beaches and Saint Tropez was the first liberated town of Provence. During the 20th century, it was a fisher commune. In the 1950’s it became an international holiday resort renowned due to artists’ infatuation and a holiday location either for European and American jet-set. Besides, it is not rare seeing famous people playing petanque in the town centre.
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Saint Tropez Immobilier & Property Market Trends
Properties in Saint Tropez have been dedicated to well-to-do people for a long time. Indeed, the average price for a property in 2009 is €6,286/ square meter. It is twice as much as the national average (€3,197/ square meter). If your budget is high and you can afford to invest there, a good placement could be a buy-to-let, as 41.8% of residents are tenants. Like selling prices, rental prices are high and it should be fast profitable to you. Furthermore, the town being a touristy location, it also offers great rental opportunities during summer. Although prices in the area are high, Saint Tropez has much on offer: it is a dream holiday resort where you can see many stars and enjoy wonderful sceneries and an excellent weather.
To get updated info about the property prices in Provence Alpes Cote d’Azur, please browse our French Property Market Reports published in the News Section every month.
Click here to have an overview of <a href="http://www.french-property.com/regions/provence_alpes_cote_dazur/property-prices/" title="Property Prices and Value in PACA"><b>PACA Property Prices</b></a>.
4 Reasons to Buy a Property in Saint Tropez
Culture, art and historical Heritage: Saint Tropez’ Bravade is a local custom which has been taking place each year on the 16th and 17th of May since 449. As the chapel was located outside the ramparts, the locals always kept their weapons within reach. This custom is the result of a safety need: the area was not protected by militaries, that’s why the stronghold was built. The so-called Cepoun (tradition keeper patron) manages the celebration. Shotgun salvos are shot by sailors, a priest blesses the weapons - music accompanying the festival. Butterfly House displays numerous French diurnal and exotic butterflies. Around 15 chapels were built at the beginning of the 16th century and are part of the town historical heritage.
Gourmet food: the most renowned speciality of Saint Tropez is certainly the Tropézienne . The local slogan is ‘always imitated, never equalled’. This delicious cake is composed of a light-consistency cream between two sponge cakes, the whole covered by coarse grained sugar. Sénequier nougat is a typical sweet made with pistachio. Finally, the calin de Saint Tropez is a mix of marzipan and honey with a drop of mint.
Tourism - Economy: Saint Tropez is located in the most touristy department of France. Since 1950, the town has become a popular holiday resort where the jet-set and artists often spend holidays. The commune holds thus 2 luxury hostels amongst which the famous Byblos Hotel, 8 four-star hostels and 11 three-star hostels. The area is a great location for a buy-to-let investment as the touristy place offers good rental opportunities. Wine-growing has been one of the main economic resource of the town for a long time. Besides, maritime trade was linked to the wine production since wine barrels where shipped by sea.
Climate & cosmopolitan life: the town benefits from the southern weather i.e. dry and hot summers and mild and humid winters. It does not suffer from wind as it is protected by the Maures Massif. In summer, Saint Tropez is a very dynamic town offering many possibilities to spend great holidays: nightclubs, beaches, street markets…
Property Styles and Architecture in Saint Tropez
In the town centre, especially along the harbour, houses have tall front facades coloured in ochre, yellow or orange. These properties make partially the charm of Saint Tropez.
Villas: they are luxury and modern properties holding a large number of rooms. They almost always come with a swimming pool, land planted with trees, automatic gate, terrace. Villas offer an amazing view both over the countryside and the sea. Some of them also have a private beach and pillars around the terrace.
Bastides: they are heavy properties with a symmetrical shape. Bastides are luminous (many windows and picture windows) and luxury houses offering a great view over the sea and countryside. The front façade is almost always painted. They come with a large land, swimming pool, parking, terrace and sometimes vineyards. Inside, rooms have a large size and modern furniture.
Click here for more info about Provence Alps Cote d'Azur Architecture .
Take a closer look at the Var property market:
| Var |
American mathematician Norbert Wiener, 1894-1964, coined what scientific term concerning complex systems, and helped define its modern understanding? | Saint Tropez Property Information, Var, France
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Saint Tropez Property Insight
Saint-Tropez is a 5,600-inhabitant town located in the south west of the Var department (Provence Alpes Cote d’Azur region). It is built on Saint Tropez’ peninsula which ends the eponymous gulf. The town is leant to a small hill. Along its 12km of coasts, the commune has six beaches: Bouillabaisse, La Ponche La Fontanette, Graniers, Canebiers La Moutte and Salins beaches.
As regards transport links, Saint Tropez is accessible by car: the A8 motorway leads to Le Muy, 37km from the town and A57 motorway to Cannet-des-Maures, 57km. By train, Saint-Raphael (39km from St Tropez) railway station is served by a high-speed line and regional trains . The town’s coach station provides buses to Fréjus , Hyères , Toulon and Saint Raphael amongst others. The largest international airport is Nice, 91km. Companies operate flights to Istanbul, London, Lyon, Paris, Munich, Amsterdam and Bordeaux. National and international destinations may be reached from Toulon-Hyeres airport: London and Paris. Maritime shuttles connect Saint Tropez to Grimaud, Sainte-Maxime , Fréjus, Saint-Raphaël, Cannes and Nice .
Overview
Saint Tropez is a dream destination for many holidaymakers. It is an unmissable location for stars, sea, history and art heritage lovers. For all its glamour, Saint-Tropez actually represents an authentic village with a charming harbour, infinite charms and numerous facets. Stroll in the alleyways, the Provencal street market and visit the 16th century stronghold and Annonciade Museum. The latter houses paintings from different movements. Saint Tropez stronghold has been protecting the town since the 17th century. It has been the most important defence monument between Antibes and Toulon for many centuries.
On August 15, 1944, the allied fleet landed on close beaches and Saint Tropez was the first liberated town of Provence. During the 20th century, it was a fisher commune. In the 1950’s it became an international holiday resort renowned due to artists’ infatuation and a holiday location either for European and American jet-set. Besides, it is not rare seeing famous people playing petanque in the town centre.
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Saint Tropez Immobilier & Property Market Trends
Properties in Saint Tropez have been dedicated to well-to-do people for a long time. Indeed, the average price for a property in 2009 is €6,286/ square meter. It is twice as much as the national average (€3,197/ square meter). If your budget is high and you can afford to invest there, a good placement could be a buy-to-let, as 41.8% of residents are tenants. Like selling prices, rental prices are high and it should be fast profitable to you. Furthermore, the town being a touristy location, it also offers great rental opportunities during summer. Although prices in the area are high, Saint Tropez has much on offer: it is a dream holiday resort where you can see many stars and enjoy wonderful sceneries and an excellent weather.
To get updated info about the property prices in Provence Alpes Cote d’Azur, please browse our French Property Market Reports published in the News Section every month.
Click here to have an overview of <a href="http://www.french-property.com/regions/provence_alpes_cote_dazur/property-prices/" title="Property Prices and Value in PACA"><b>PACA Property Prices</b></a>.
4 Reasons to Buy a Property in Saint Tropez
Culture, art and historical Heritage: Saint Tropez’ Bravade is a local custom which has been taking place each year on the 16th and 17th of May since 449. As the chapel was located outside the ramparts, the locals always kept their weapons within reach. This custom is the result of a safety need: the area was not protected by militaries, that’s why the stronghold was built. The so-called Cepoun (tradition keeper patron) manages the celebration. Shotgun salvos are shot by sailors, a priest blesses the weapons - music accompanying the festival. Butterfly House displays numerous French diurnal and exotic butterflies. Around 15 chapels were built at the beginning of the 16th century and are part of the town historical heritage.
Gourmet food: the most renowned speciality of Saint Tropez is certainly the Tropézienne . The local slogan is ‘always imitated, never equalled’. This delicious cake is composed of a light-consistency cream between two sponge cakes, the whole covered by coarse grained sugar. Sénequier nougat is a typical sweet made with pistachio. Finally, the calin de Saint Tropez is a mix of marzipan and honey with a drop of mint.
Tourism - Economy: Saint Tropez is located in the most touristy department of France. Since 1950, the town has become a popular holiday resort where the jet-set and artists often spend holidays. The commune holds thus 2 luxury hostels amongst which the famous Byblos Hotel, 8 four-star hostels and 11 three-star hostels. The area is a great location for a buy-to-let investment as the touristy place offers good rental opportunities. Wine-growing has been one of the main economic resource of the town for a long time. Besides, maritime trade was linked to the wine production since wine barrels where shipped by sea.
Climate & cosmopolitan life: the town benefits from the southern weather i.e. dry and hot summers and mild and humid winters. It does not suffer from wind as it is protected by the Maures Massif. In summer, Saint Tropez is a very dynamic town offering many possibilities to spend great holidays: nightclubs, beaches, street markets…
Property Styles and Architecture in Saint Tropez
In the town centre, especially along the harbour, houses have tall front facades coloured in ochre, yellow or orange. These properties make partially the charm of Saint Tropez.
Villas: they are luxury and modern properties holding a large number of rooms. They almost always come with a swimming pool, land planted with trees, automatic gate, terrace. Villas offer an amazing view both over the countryside and the sea. Some of them also have a private beach and pillars around the terrace.
Bastides: they are heavy properties with a symmetrical shape. Bastides are luminous (many windows and picture windows) and luxury houses offering a great view over the sea and countryside. The front façade is almost always painted. They come with a large land, swimming pool, parking, terrace and sometimes vineyards. Inside, rooms have a large size and modern furniture.
Click here for more info about Provence Alps Cote d'Azur Architecture .
Take a closer look at the Var property market:
| i don't know |
When steel is galvanized it is most commonly coated by what? | Coated Metals - Galvanized Steel & Anodized Aluminum | American Steel
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Coated Steel
Coated products are just as they sound a carbon steel product that is dipped, quenched, annealed, or even electrically charged to coat the surface. One of the most common coated Products is galvanized.
Galvanized usually goes through a hot dip process called a zinc bath that coats the steel and can be covered in a desirable coating of your choice by weight. These are commonly revered to with the following designation G40, G60, G90 etc. As the number increases so does the coating of zinc and its corrosion resistance. Galvanized coatings as high as G240 have been produced.
Galvannealed is a zinc coating that is goes through the annealing process after zinc coating. This annealing gives a very even greyish finish to the steel that will not flake when bent, stamped, or formed.It offers excellent paintablity and corrosion resistance. Like Galvanized a coating thickness is referred by the letter “A” and a numeric number. Typical coatings are A40, A60, A90.
Galvalume is carbon steel coated with aluminum and zinc by hot dipping. The coating mix is usually in the 50/50 range of 50% aluminum and 50% zinc. Recent variations of this mixture have been given trade names by different mills. A major benefit to galvalume is the cut edge is protected from rust by the makeup of the coating. For sheared and slit edges the exposed side should have minimal to no rust. With the aluminum and zinc coating the surface appearance is bright. Galvalume is an excellent choice for exposed projects such as metal roofing. Coating thickness is usually noted with an AZ and then the thickness for oz per sq/ft. Example: AZ50.
Aluminized is a carbon steel most commonly Type 1( hot dipped and coated with aluminum and silicon) for adhesion.It was mainly intended for heat resisting applications but have been used for where heat and corrosion resistance have been needed.Type 1 is also followed by the coating thickness which is commonly 25 standing for the coating of .25 oz per sq/ft. Most quotes look as follows(ex Aluminized T125, or T1-25)
| Zinc |
What element, with zirconium, forms the compound zirconia, which is used to make synthetic diamonds? | Galvanized Steel Pipes/Galvanized Steel Tubes-Chinese Seamless steel pipes suppliers-LSAW/ERW welded steel pipes made in China-Chinese spiral steel pipe manufacturer-Cangzhou Steel Pipes Group Co. Ltd.
Home >> Products >> Galvanized Steel PipesGalvanized Steel Pipes
Galvanized Steel Pipes/Galvanized Steel Tubes
Galvanized steel pipe is a steel pipe that has been coated with zinc. It is most commonly used for outdoor construction. It is highly resistant to corrosion, which makes it a perfect choice for goods or materials that will be exposed to the elements on a regular basis. We are among the leading manufacturers and suppliers of galvanized steel pipes and tubes in China, welcomed by customers in many countries of the world. Galvanized steel pipes manufactured by CSSPG primarily satisfy American and British standards with diameters ranging from 18 to 1500mm and wall thickness between 2 and 80mm. Non-standard products of special material can also be made according to individual requirements of the customers.
Steel Grade:
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What characterised the Neolithic age? | Neolithic - definition of Neolithic by The Free Dictionary
Neolithic - definition of Neolithic by The Free Dictionary
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Neolithic
(nē′ə-lĭth′ĭk)
adj.
Of or relating to the cultural period of the Stone Age beginning around 8,000 bc in the Middle East and later elsewhere, characterized by the development of agriculture and the making of polished stone implements.
n.
The Neolithic Period. Also called New Stone Age. See Usage Note at Three Age system .
Neolithic
(ˌniːəʊˈlɪθɪk)
n
1. (Anthropology & Ethnology) the cultural period that lasted in SW Asia from about 9000 to 6000 bc and in Europe from about 4000 to 2400 bc and was characterized by primitive crop growing and stock rearing and the use of polished stone and flint tools and weapons
2. (Archaeology) the cultural period that lasted in SW Asia from about 9000 to 6000 bc and in Europe from about 4000 to 2400 bc and was characterized by primitive crop growing and stock rearing and the use of polished stone and flint tools and weapons
adj
3. (Anthropology & Ethnology) relating to this period
4. (Archaeology) relating to this period
Ne•o•lith•ic
(ˌni əˈlɪθ ɪk)
adj.
1. (sometimes l.c.) of, designating, or characteristic of the last phase of the Stone Age, commonly thought to have begun c9000–8000 B.C. in the Middle East. Compare Mesolithic, Paleolithic.
2. (usu. l.c.) belonging to or remaining from an earlier era; outdated; passé.
[1860–65]
Ne·o·lith·ic
(nē′ə-lĭth′ĭk)
The period of human culture that began around 10,000 years ago in the Middle East and later in other parts of the world. It is characterized by the beginning of farming, the domestication of animals, the development of crafts such as pottery and weaving, and the making of polished stone tools. Compare Mesolithic , Paleolithic .
Neolithic
Belonging to the latest period of the Stone Age, during which polished stone tools were made and people began to grow crops and keep animals.
ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:
| Stone tool |
What name (in English) was given to the capsule which brought the 33 Chilean miners to the surface in the San Jose rescue on 13 October 2010? | Summary History of Ireland: Ice Age to Neolithic Age
Ice Age to Neolithic Age
.
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The Ice Age in Ireland lasted from 30,000 years ago to approximately 14,000 years ago. During that time sea levels dropped and Ireland was joined to Britain and mainland Europe. The ice sheet came from the north-east and covered most of Ireland. When the ice finally melted it left a scoured landscape of rounded mountains with deep rounded valleys and lowlands covered with drift material. Vegetation and animals came across the land bridge and began to colonise Ireland. As the ice across the rest of Europe and the world continued to melt, sea levels rose by up to 50 metres, to the level that they are now, turning Ireland back into an island again. The land itself, depressed by the weight of the ice, also began to rise and this rise is continuing to this day, albeit at a slow rate of roughly 2mm per year.
Mesolithic Ireland
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The first humans in Ireland crossed in wooden boats from Scotland to what is now county Antrim around 8000BC. This made it one of the last places in Europe to be settled by humans. These Mesolithic settlers were hunter/gatherers and dwelt mainly on the shores of lakes, rivers or the sea. They lived in skin huts which they packed up and moved with them. Using flint tools mined in north-east Ireland, the Mesolithic settlers hunted animals, birds and fish with spears, harpoons and bows-and-arrows. The population of Ireland was low at this time, and the interior of the island remained forested with practically no human influence.
Neolithic Ireland
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The Neolithic age was characterised by the invention of farming, as well as the use of porcellanite - a more effective cutting stone than flint. The Mesolithic residents of Ireland did not invent this Neolithic technology. Instead, they were assimilated by new Neolithic settlers who arrived from Britain bringing these new technologies. This process began to happen around 4000BC and took several hundred years. They set about clearing upland forest (which was easier to fell) to set out their farms. They also introduced grain crops, cattle, sheep and goats to Ireland. Because they were living on permanent farms, the Neolithic farmers were able to build larger houses, made from wood and thatched with reeds. They also made simple coiled-clay pots which they fired in kilns.
These Neolithic farmers are most famous for the megaliths (large stone and earthen tombs) that they constructed across Ireland. These are not unique to Ireland, being found also in Spain, Portugal, France, Denmark and Britain. Most megaliths are found in the north of Ireland, and there are three distinct types. Court tombs consist of a stone chamber covered in earth with a courtyard in front of it. Portal tombs, or dolmens, consist of three or more vertical stones with a large capstone on top. Passage tombs consist of a stone passage into the centre of a large earthen mound. The most famous passage tombs in Ireland are Newgrange and Knowth. While definitely used for burials, there is evidence that the megaliths also had other uses, eg religious or political functions. The Neolithic era ended around 2000BC.
This series of SUMMARY pages will be extended to cover all the history pages.
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According to Forbes magazine's 2010 listings, who was the highest earning dead celebrity? | Forbes names highest-earning dead celebs | Toronto Star
Forbes names highest-earning dead celebs
According to Forbes magazine, the richest dead celebrity isn't Michael Jackson.
Fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent, centre, acknowledges applause after his farewell show in Paris on Jan. 22, 2002. According to Forbes magazine, Saint Laurent, who died in 2008, earned $350 million in the past year. (REMY DE LA MAUVINIERE / AP FILE PHOTO)
Wed., Oct. 28, 2009
NEW YORK–According to Forbes magazine, the richest dead celebrity isn't Michael Jackson.
Although the King of Pop's estate has been big news since his death in June, the top-earning dead celebrity is French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent. Forbes released its ninth annual poll Wednesday.
According to the magazine, Laurent earned $350 million (U.S.) in the past year. Much of his estate was auctioned off at Christie's in February. Laurent died of brain cancer in June 2008.
Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein rank second with combined earnings of $235 million, followed by Jackson with $90 million, Elvis Presley with $55 million and J.R.R. Tolkien with $50 million. Charles Schulz, John Lennon, Theodor Geisel, Albert Einstein and Michael Crichton round out the top 10 list.
| Yves Saint Laurent |
Meaning literally 'make like' what is the full Latin word from which 'fax' derives (as in fax machine)? | Richest dead celebrity? It's not Michael Jackson or Elvis -- Daily Herald
Richest dead celebrity? It's not Michael Jackson or Elvis
Associated Press
The top-earning dead celebrity is French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent, Forbes said Wednesday.
Comments:
NEW YORK -- According to Forbes magazine, the richest dead celebrity isn't Michael Jackson.
Although the King of Pop's estate has been big news since his death in June, the top-earning dead celebrity is French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent. Forbes released its ninth annual poll Wednesday.
According to the magazine, Laurent earned $350 million in the past year. Much of his estate was auctioned off at Christie's in February. Laurent died of brain cancer in June 2008.
Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein rank second with combined earnings of $235 million, followed by Jackson with $90 million, Elvis Presley with $55 million and J.R.R. Tolkien with $50 million. Charles Schulz, John Lennon, Theodor Geisel, Albert Einstein and Michael Crichton round out the top 10 list.
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According to Greek legend, the labyrinth built by architect Daedalus housed which monster? | Daedalus, the great inventor Daedalus
Daedalus the greatest inventor of Ancient Greece
Daedalus, a great invetor,
with a tragic fate
Daedalus (or Daidalos in Greek, Δαίδαλος) was the greatest inventor of Ancient Greece, a man of many skills and arts, as indicated by his name, which comes from the Ancient Greek verb “daedalo”, meaning “to work cunningly”.
The Labyrinth in Minoan Crete, Ariadne’s Clue, Pasiphae’s Wooden Cow, Ariadne’s Dancing-Floor, the prow of contemporary ships and flying with wings of wax and feathers were all, according to mythology, Daedalus’ inventions.
Daedalus’ lineage
There are several legends concerning Daedalus, written down for the first time by Athenian mythographers of the 6th c. BC, under Peisistratus. Most of the myths on Daedalus’s life are set on Crete, so the myths concerning Daedalus must be Cretan in origin.
The legend of Daedalus tells us that he was born in Athens and was the descendant of Erectheus, the legendary hero and King of Athens, the founder of the Panathenian Games. Daedalus’ mother Alcippe (or Phrasmide or Iphinoe) was also of noble lineage, being descended from Cecrops, the mythical founder of the city of Athens.
According to a different version, Daedalus was descended from the god Hephaestus and inherited his ability to make almost anything.
Daedalus the architect and sculptor
Daedalus soon became the greatest architect and sculptor of Athens. It was even said that the statues which came from his workshop looked alive - so alive that when Hercules saw the statue of a man in fighting stance, he though he was being attacked and instinctively smashed it with his club. When he realised he had destroyed an elaborate statue, which was actually of himself, he was extremely embarrassed and apologised to Daedalus.
Daedalus was the first to give the limbs free movement, freeing the arms from the body and setting the legs apart. He also made the face more expressive by adding the details of the eye (eyeball, pupil and iris).
How Daedalus came to Crete
Talos or Calos (not to be confused with the giant Talos , guardian of Crete) was the son of Daedalus' sister (Perdicas or Polycastes) and he was a apprentice in Daedalus' workshop. It seems that the family as a whole was talented, and Talos was growing into an exceptionally skilled craftsman.
Rumour in Athens had it that the nephew would outstrip his uncle. Daedalus, blinded by jealousy, threw Talos off the Acropolis. The crime was soon out and Daedalus was banished from the city. His sister killed herself for grief at losing her beloved son, and Daedalus eventually ended up in Crete.
Daedalus was immediately made welcome in Crete, as his fame as a great artisan had gone before him. He became the confidant of Minos, the mythical King of Knossos. Minos put Daedalus in charge of all technical works in the Palace, and so legend has it that Daedalus was the inventor of almost every technological innovation of the time
In Crete Daedalus met Naucratis, who worked in the service of Minos, and had a son by her: Icarus .
Daedalus’ works on Crete
Pasiphae’s Wooden Cow
Ariadne’s Dancing-Floor
Daedalus was the one who built the first “dancefloor” in history for the Princess Ariadne. It was admired even by the gods.
The “daedalia”
Another invention of Daedalus was supposedly the ship’s prow, which is why prows were also known as “daedalia” in Ancient Greece.
Pasiphae’s Wooden Cow
Minos had asked his uncle Poseidon, the god of the sea, to send a sign in order to prove that he was greater than his brothers.
Poseidon sent Minos a beautiful bull from the sea, which Minos was supposed to sacrifice in his honour. But Minos was reluctant to kill such a wonderful animal, and cunningly sacrificed a different bull in its place. Poseidon was furious and punished Minos for his impiety in an unusual way: he made Minos’ wife, Queen Pasiphae, fall in love with the bull.
Mad with passion for the bull, Pasiphae asked Daedalus to find her a way to lie with it without endangering her life. So Daedalus made a hollow wooden cow, covered it with the hide of a real cow, and left it in a field with the queen inside. The bull was deceived and mounted the false cow, and from this unnatural union was born the Minotaur, a monster with the head of a bull and the body of a man.
Daedalus’ Labyrinth
After the birth of the Minotaur, Daedalus was called upon to hide Minos’ guilt for this heavy punishment, by finding a way to imprison the Minotaur.
Daedalus built the Labyrinth, a maze-like building of winding corridors and complicated twists and turns, which confused anyone who entered it so much that he could not find the way out.
We have no idea where the Labyrinth was, although many people identify it with the Palace of Knossos itself. It is true that the Palace of Knossos consists of many rooms connected by narrow corridors. In any case, according to legend, Knossos itself was built by the architect Daedalus.
Ariadne’s Clue
Theseus killing Minotaur
Every nine years, the Athenians sent seven youths and seven maidens to Crete, as a blood tax for the unjust murder of Androgeos, the son of Minos. The youths and maidens were cast into the Labyrinth to be devoured by the Minotaur.
One year, one of the seven youths was Theseus, the son of the King of Athens. Brave and handsome, he fell in love with Minos’ daughter Ariadne, who would on no account let her beloved become food for the Minotaur. Daedalus’ aid was requested once more, and he gave Ariadne a clue or ball of strong thread. Theseus, following Daedalus’ advice, tied one end of the string to the Labyrinth entrance, and walked through the maze unwinding it until he found the Minotaur. Once he had killed the monster, he followed the thread back out.
Minos imprisons Daedalus
Daedalus meant no harm when he helped Pasiphae and Ariadne, but he fell out with Minos as a result. Obviously the king hadn’t wanted his wife to mate with the bull or Theseus to find his way out of the Labyrinth. Furious, he imprisoned Daedalus and his son Icarus in the Labyrinth.
| Minotaur |
What 'z' is the activity where person is rolled down a hill inside a large plastic transparent ball? | greek - What did the Labyrinth look like? - Mythology Stack Exchange
What did the Labyrinth look like?
up vote 13 down vote favorite
2
Did the Labyrinth have concentric circular walls with passages blocked by radials or it did it have rectangular lines? Or do we simply not know?
The Labyrinth has been described as :
... a maze-like building of winding corridors and complicated twists and turns, which confused anyone who entered it so much that he could not find the way out.
Which could be considered an apt description of the palace.
The Palace of Knossos
Knossos itself was built by the architect Daedalus
The Minoan building complex at Knossos, from the excavations of Arthur Evans (1851 – 1941)
Regarding this answer, it's important to note that the case for the palace comes from the origin of the word labyrinth. It derives from a pre-Greek word " labrys ", referring to a type of sacred, double-edged axe . Thus "labyrinth" may have meant something like "palace of the sacred axe". – DukeZhou Dec 20 at 16:55
up vote 13 down vote
The settlement of Knossos is associated with the palace of king Minos who housed the Minotaur, as Wikipedia tells us. There are, however, as far as I know, no actual remains discovered of the labyrinth itself. A common interpretation is that the Laybyrinth is actually the palace.
However, Wikipedia also shows us a coin that supposedly is from Knossos, around 400BC, that looks like this:
Whether the coin represents the actual labyrinth (if that ever existed) or an artist impression of what they thought the labyrinth would have looked like is of course hard to tell.
Doesn't look look like mutch of a maze to me, that is at least if the lighter color is the path. So I doubt that it is to represent the maze. – maam27 Apr 30 '15 at 11:24
2
I assume the darker colour is the path. Also, don;t forget the original labyrinth was meant to keep the Minotaur inside, it wasn't build as a pass-time for people to go and find the centre (on the contrary!). Thirdly, this is a 2.5KA old coin. Artistic license, technical limits and sheer size of the coin may play a role in slightly simplifying the actual layout as well... – oerkelens Apr 30 '15 at 11:29
That is true but if it was to keep someone in or some beast, one wouldn't go for a straight path but I do get where you are comming from with the arguments. – maam27 Apr 30 '15 at 11:31
Actually, two of the three paths that connect in the centre are only connected to each other and form a small closed loop, which would keep the monster in quite nicely. – oerkelens Apr 30 '15 at 11:34
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Sir Thomas Sopwith designed what famous British biplane fighter aircraft, whose name combined his own name with an animal? | 2006 SAM Hall of Fame Biographies
Back to About SAM
The Society of Antique Modelers owes its roots and continued existence to a group of talented individuals who, over time, have been dedicated to designing, building and flying model airplanes, and those who have supported the SAM movement, dedicated to keeping the art alive. To this end SAM maintains a HOF (Hall of Fame) wherein these individuals are honored and remembered.
Each year, current SAM members propose candidates to the SAM HOF Comittee, who select the inductees for that year. The induction takes place during the Awards Banquet at the conclusion of the SAM Champs.
Help SAM complete the HOF historical records by contributing missing HOF Biographies and Pictures to your web master at Contact us
Sal TAIBI - Inducted 1989
Born Brooklyn, New York April 5, 1920 --- Died Lakewood, California December 14, 2012
There are a lot of reasons why Sal Taibi was in the first group of people elected to the SAM Hall of Fame. Sal had been President of SAM from 1985 to 1988. He’d been Secretary Treasurer of SAM for 2 years. Sal started modeling at the age of 14 in Brooklyn, and was soon designing his own models. His Powerhouse was designed in 1937 when he was 17. The Brooklyn Dodger, the Pacer and others came later. He kept on designing models into the Nostalgia ear and beyond—with the Spacer and the Starduster series. His last design, the Perris Special, is a favorite among old time sport modelers today.
Sal admitted that it took him a while to get this competition thing down right. He didn’t start winning model airplane contests until he was 18---and then he kept on winning and winning. He was proud that he was the FF Power Champion at the 1995 SAM Champs—when he was 75 years old! Sal attended and competed in every one of the AMA Nationals starting in 1937—and in every one of the SAM Champs starting in 1966 until ill health slowed him down around 2004 or so.
After WW II Sal’s day job was as a machinist for the Navy Bureau of Ordinance and for Jet Propulsion Laboratories in Pasadena California. He helped his son Mike run Superior Balsa—a premier cottage industry supplier of balsa wood to the FF community. Sal helped many small free flight kit companies set up the dies and cutting tools needed to make kits; Superior Balsa cut a lot of wood for different kit makers. Sal also used his machining skills to do tanks and tank mounts for a variety of SAM legal engines.
Sal was also a great raconteur, and nearly every modeler who ever met Sal came away with at least one (in not many) “Sal stories” that they will cherish.
1989
Gordon S LIGHT - Inducted 1989
Born July 7, 1915 --- Died September 20, 1999
Gordon Light’s interest in model airplanes was stirred by Charles Lindbergh’s flight to Paris in 1927. Gordon started to build models. His first big contest was the 1931 National. In 1932, he entered the National Meet at Atlantic City and qualified for the US Wakefield Team with a flight of 25 minutes and 53 seconds—which was a new world record. His plane landed 8 miles from the takeoff spot. Charles Hampson Grant, another SAM HOF member, was his timer on the flight and rode along in a motorcycle sidecar. The actual Wakefield contest was held that afternoon, and Gordon Light won that with an 8 minute flight. Those were the days of proxy flying, and the Wakefield committee disallowed the 1932 win because the proxy models had been stored in boxes for too long (the contest had been postponed). So there was no Wakefield winner in 1932. However, Gordon Light was awarded the Wakefield trophy in the 1935 contest. His model had been sent to England and was proxy flown on what is now Heathrow Airport (but was then Fairey’s Aerodrome). His winning flight landed two hours after takeoff. In 1936 the Wakefield contest was held in conjunction with the Detroit Nationals at Selfridge Field. Gordon placed third in that contest, losing to Albert Judge of England. Gordon Light’s Wakefield design remains a potent contender in the Four Ounce Wakefield class. Light graduated from engineering school in 1936. He went on to an engineering career, working for the Budd Company, for the Glenn L. Martin Company and at the Applied Physics Laboratory. He worked for a period of time as an editor at Air Trails magazine, and also wrote articles for the American Modeler magazine.
1989
John POND - Inducted 1989
Born March 20, 1917 --- Died June 11, 2001
If anybody deserves to be called the “Father of The Society of Antique Modelers”, then John Pond does. John was quite properly inducted in the SAM Hall of Fame in the first year of its existence. . John spent a lifetime being involved with “old timer models”. John was a founding member of the “San Francisco Vultures” in the 1930’s. The Vultures ultimately morphed into SAM Chapter 21. He wrote model aviation columns for the Hearst newspapers in San Francisco in the 1930’s and was an instructor for San Francisco area youth model airplane groups. John’s articles and columns about model airplanes were published in many magazines over a period of more than 60 years. In the early 1960’s he and Lee Freeman, another SAM HOF member, discussed their desire to have contests just for “old time model airplanes” like the ones they flew in the 1930’s. John set out to organize old timer contests, and got Tim Dannels (another HOF member) to promote the idea in the Model Engine Collectors magazine that Tim edited. John was also a founding member of MECA. He got the AMA to run “old timer” events at the AMA National Championships, and ran the “old timer” section of the AMA Nats for 25 years. John was an organizer of the first true SAM Championships held in Denver in 1967. He was one of the seven original incorporators of the Society of Antique Modelers when it obtained its New Jersey corporate charter in the mid 1970’s. He was President of SAM from 1978 to 1982.
John was an avid collector of old time model airplane plans, having kept the plans from every airplane he ever built—starting in the early 1930’s. John’s “day job” for most of his life was as a civilian draftsman for the U.S. Navy. He drew up old timer plans from magazine photos and article. He also had other draftsmen draw up other old time model designs for him. That led to a business, the John Pond Model Plan Service, which ultimately had several thousand vintage and antique model airplane plans. Those plans were in turn used by SAM members to build old time model airplanes. On John’s death, the inventory of the plan service was sold to the AMA.
John was an enthusiastic and tireless promoter of the SAM movement. He’d travel almost anywhere to promote SAM. He wrote the “Plug Sparks” column in Model Builder magazine which appeared monthly for over 20 years. In each column he’d have news about old time model airplane contests, and pictures of SAM planes and SAM members. Each column also included a story about and a plan or design for an old time model. The column was one of the best long running “recruiting poster” for SAM that ever existed.
John was a frequent contest director having been the CD of more than 100 contests or meets during his life. He was also an enthusiastic competitor in those contests. He travelled to England and Australia to help promote the SAM movement there. He was elected to the NFFS Hall of Fame in 1983 and to the AMA Hall of Fame in 1987.
1989
Dr. Walter A GOOD - Inducted 1989
Born April 25, 1916 --- Died July 19, 2002
Walt Good and his twin brother, Bill Good (inducted into the SAM Hall of Fame in 1996) are the one set of just two sets of brothers in the SAM Hall of Fame. Walt Good, along with fellow HOF’er Frank Zaic were two of the just five modelers inducted into the AMA Hall of Fame in its first class of 1969.
The Good brothers were born in Hillsdale Michigan and grew up in Kalamazoo Michigan. Their father was a high school science teacher. He encouraged their interest in physics as did their professors at Kalamazoo College. Both boys had started building model airplanes in 1927. Walt had the stronger passion for building model airplanes, and Bill focused on developing radios. Their shared interests and efforts led to the development of the first successful RC controlled model airplane. The airplane was the “Guff”. And of course the Guff was guided by the first successful model aircraft RC system. The Guff was first flown at a Nats in 1937. The Good brothers won the 1938, 1939, and 1940 Nats flying the Guff, and competed successfully with it as late as the 1947 Nats also won by the Good brothers. In 1952, Walt Good set up a new world’s RC duration record of just over 40 minutes flying his own design Rudder Bug. His own design Multibug set a new world’s altitude record in 1963. The Good brothers’ “Big Guff” is on permanent display at the Smithsonian.
Walt Good earned a PhD in Physics from the University of Iowa in 1941 and immediately started work at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory near Washington D.C. He spent his work life there retiring in 1977. His early work there included developing a vital component of the proximity fuse. This was a major invention that made US antiaircraft fire more effective. It helped defend against both kamikaze attacks in the Pacific and V-1 attacks in England. Much of Walt’s later work at the Applied Physics Laboratory related to guidance systems for military applications. He was the winner of several Naval Ordnance Division awards for his work.
Walt continued his interest in model airplanes through most of his adult life. He began volunteer work for the AMA in 1946. He was President of the AMA from 1958 to 1960. He served on the Contest Board, the Radio Control Rules Committee, and the AMA Frequency Committee. Walt worked very effectively to secure the use of radio control frequencies for model aircraft, helping create our hobby of today.
As noted Walt was in both the first class to go into the AMA Hall of Fame in 1969, and the first class to go into the SAM Hall of Fame in 1989. He was inducted into the Vintage Radio Control Society Hall of Fame in 1975. The FAI awarded him its Tissiender Award in 1960 for his pioneering work in model aviation.
1989
Bertram Phillips (Bert) POND - Inducted 1989
Born May 31, 1901 --- Died June 30, 1999
Bert Pond was born in Chicago and graduated from the University of Illinois with a degree in mechanical engineering. He’d been a modeler from the age of twelve and had been invited to join the Illinois Model Aero Club in Chicago. He designed and built rubber models of all types. He was a very competitive flyer winning contests and holding national records. He also wrote articles for magazines. In 1926 Bert was teaching high school shop classes in Peru Indiana. He designed a three cylinder compressed air motor named The Hoosier Whirlwind as project for his high school students. He also wrote an article about the design along with plans for the motor, and published it in Popular Science Monthly. The article appeared just a few weeks before Charles Lindbergh made his famous solo transatlantic flight. Most of life is luck and timing, and within a few days after Lindbergh landed in Paris, Pond was inundated with orders for The Hoosier Whirlwind. Small spark ignition engines for model airplanes were still a few years in the future and the compressed air motor had a heyday of several years. Bert continued working as a professional engineer, doing work at Wright Patterson in the World War II era, then working on materials and equipment for the space program at Hamilton Standard. In the early 1980’s, Bert produced a 180 page treatise on “Expansion Engine Powered Model Aircraft” with plans, photos and historical material on both compressed air and CO2 powered aircraft. Bert is in the SAM Hall of Fame as the “father of the compressed air engine”. Bert was also inducted into the Model Aviation Hall of Fame (1977) and the National Free Flight Society Hall of Fame (1978).
1989
Chester LANZO - Inducted 1989 - 1914-1989
Born June 11, 1914, Cleveland, Ohio --- Died August 13, 1989
He was a lifelong resident of Cleveland, Ihio. Lanzo was one of he earliest members elected to the Academy of Model aeronautics (AMA) Hall of Fame. Lanzo built indoor and outdoor rubber models and ;Gasoline engine powered mo and was an early pioneer in radio controlled (RC) models and was the first to successfully radio control a gasoline engine powered model plane. Chet was the first to win the national meet in the RC event in 1937. Lanzo was a national champion in outdoor rubber and a record holder in those events. His later years were spent in RC, primarily gliders and scale.
He was an electrical, instrumental, nuclear and laser engineer. He worked at NASA's Lewis Research Center as a nuclear engineer until he retired in 1974. As modelers, we all will remember him for his outstanding model designs and contributions to aeromodeling. Chet's memory will live on in the hearts of all modelers. His gift to us is the pleasure we derive from modeling and flying one of his designs. Chet was a modest, soft-spoken, gentle man. The closest I ever heard Chet come to bragging was his little saying when he saw one of his designs being flown by another modeler - 'a beautifully engineered model'
Chet had literally hundreds of friends and acquaintances who were model enthusiasts. He was easy to meet and made everyone feel at ease.
I was privileged to attend the 50th Anniversary Wakefield at Taft, California with Chet and he literally spent half his time meeting new people and posing for pictures with different modelers - a great memory for him and all of us.
Chet had built a new 4-ounce Duplex and was test flying it with just a few turns. An unidentified modeler, who didn't know him, was giving him advice on trimming the model. Chet was very courteous and said, Well, I may try your idea. Thanks for your help. I thought at the time, 'What a gentle man'.
(Ed. note: From Tom McCoy's cover letter - 'As you know, Chet and I were flying buddies and this has been a tough job for me. I guess we all lost a good friend.') Tom McCoy. (ref SS#90)
1989
Irwin OHLSSON - Inducted 1989
Born 1913 --- Died April 20, 1996
Irwin Ohlsson started model building at the age of 7 in 1920. By the early 30’s he was a successful rubber model contest flyer in California. By 1933 and 34 Maxwell Bassett and Bill Brown were having good success in the east with Miss Philadelphia models powered by Brown Jr. engines. Irwin’s first gas model had an 8 foot wingspan and was powered by a modified boat engine. Irwin travelled to Akron Ohio to try his luck against the Easterners. In the hot weather, his engine wouldn’t start. Later that year Irwin went to the California State Contest in Sacramento. This time his engine ran, and Irwin became the California State Champion with a flight of an hour and six minutes, a record that stood for a long time.
Ohlsson made his first own design model engine in 1934. It was quite small with a displacement of 0.12 cubic inches. He’d designed the engine in response to a Los Angeles Herald Examiner plan to use small model airplanes as an incentive for their delivery boys to boost circulation! The Herald Examiner changed editors and both Irwin and the newspaper lost interest in the engine.
Irwin’s next design was for a .56 sized engine which became known as the “Gold Seal”. In the spring of 1935 Ohlsson and machinist Harry Rice started production of the Gold Seal engine. They eventually became partners in Ohlsson & Rice. The partnership had produced more than half a million spark ignition engines by the time WW II started, and coupled with production after the end of war, ultimately produced and sold more than 800,000 model airplane engines.
The Brown Junior was the first successful spark ignition model airplane engine, and it had arrived on the market in late 1933 or early 1934. The Junior Motor Company had made and sold some 50,000 plus Brown Jr. motors by the start of WW II, but was focused almost exclusively on their .60 size motor. They did not resume production after WW II.
By contrast, Ohlsson produced several different sizes of motors, including its .19 and .23, as well as well as the .60 sized engines. Ultimately they manufactured 78 different models of their engines. Because so many Ohlsson engines were produced, and because Ohlsson engines have a reputation for being easy to start, the engines are very popular among SAM modelers. Ohlsson engines will continue to power old time models well into the 21st Century.
Ohlsson left the engine manufacturing business in the early 1950’s. He continued in the hobby business producing model airplane fuel and flow plugs.
Ohlsson was the fourth President of the Academy of Model Aeronautics, serving in that capacity from 1943 to 1946. His efforts to prepare the AMA for the influx of veterans returning from WW II were both successful and significant. Ohlsson was elected to the Model Aviation Hall of Fame in 1975. He was elected to the National Free Flight Society Hall of Fame in 1978.
1989
Dick KORDA - Inducted 1989
Born February 15, 1915 --- Died October 12, 2001
Dick Korda was an outstanding contest modeler in the 1930’s. He won the Wakefield Cup with a record breaking 43 minute 39 second flight OOS in 1939. He made the flight at the golf course at Bendix, New Jersey. Second place that year went to Canadian Fred Bowers who had a flight of just over 12 minutes.
That 1939 Korda Wakefield design has been and remains one of the most popular Wakefield designs among SAM modelers. Korda was honored at the 1994 SAM Champs. He built a replica of his 1939 model and placed 10th among the 76 entrants in the 8 Ounce Wakefield Class.
But Wakefield was not the only class in which Korda had exceptional contest success during the 1930’s. He’d started building models in 1929 when he was 15. He won the Mulvihill Trophy at the Nationals in St. Louis in 1935 with a world record of 24 minutes 30 seconds. He was extremely successful in indoor rubber model competition. He designed Class C and Class D rubber models. One of his successful rubber designs was the 1941 Korda Dethermalizer. After the war he designed the Korda Powerhouse, and branched into control line speed competition. While he did not win the Wakefield Cup again after 1939, he was a member of the US Wakefield Teams after the war.
Korda had a career as a machinist and skilled toolmaker in the Cleveland area. He stopped competing in model airplane contests in 1952, opting to go into full scale aviation with gliders and light aircraft.
He was inducted into the Model Aviation Hall of Fame in 1970; into the National Free Flight Society Hall of Fame in 1978, and was in the first class to enter the SAM Hall of Fame in 1989.
1989
Frank ZAIC - Inducted 1989
Born August 1, 1912 --- Died May 27, 2005
Frank Zaic’s “orange books” are the single most important chronicle of the original SAM era of modeling. The modeling books were published from 1934 up through at least 1965. They had technical articles and three views of all sorts of models. Those three views were a significant contribution to drawing up the approved design list of SAM models, and of course inspired many modelers to replicate the models in the drawings.
He was born in Slovenia. His parents and older siblings moved to New York shortly after Frank was born. He stayed with his grandparents until 1922 when he came to the United States. He couldn’t speak English, but his younger brother John helped in school, and Frank graduated from 8th grade in 1926. He trained to be a patent draftsman, a skill that was useful for the creation of his orange books. He maintained an extensive correspondence with other modelers worldwide throughout his life, and the information and drawings he received made their way into his orange books. A young modeler trying to learn to fly, or even a first year aeronautical engineering student could do worse than study those orange books closely.
Frank’s life was full of “firsts”. He was a naturalized U.S. citizen, and was the first American citizen to receive the FAI’s Paul Tissiender Diploma. He was in the first class to enter both the AMA Hall of Fame (1969) and the SAM Hall of Fame (1989). He was also in the NFFS and Kits and Planes Collectors Halls of Fame.
Zaic was a competitive modeler in the 1930s, being on the US Wakefield Team in 1934, 1935 and 1937. He set a rubber Class D Open Outdoor Cabin record of 17 minutes and six seconds at the 1938 Nationals.
Zaic was a founding member of the AMA in 1936; he was on the AMA’s first executive committee. Along with Lt. H.W. Alden he started Model Aviation, the AMA magazine. He designed the AMA logo, and that logo is still in use today.
In the 1930’s, Frank and his brother John founded JASCO. Jasco t offered building supplies and kits for indoor and outdoor free flight. Zaic designed several model airplanes, particularly gliders and small rubber models.
Zaic served as an enlisted man in a B-24 unit in WW II performing administrative duties on the ground for his squadron. He married Carmen after the war. They moved to the Los Angeles suburbs in 1962. In the late 90’s, with Frank’s health failing, they moved to Guatemala to be near Carmen’s extended family. Frank died in Guatemala in 2005.
Shortly before Carmen and Frank moved to Guatemala, Frank spoke at a free flight awards banquet in Southern California. He said that the one thing he’d learned in his life, and his extensive correspondence and exchange of information with other modelers in the United States and overseas was that we were all bound tightly together. He said that was because we and our model airplanes all faced a common enemy, “Gravity.” Frank understood us.
1989
Born July 7, 1914 --- Died April 4, 2005
Honors:-
-1981: National Free Flight Society Hall of Fame
-1983: Model Aviation Hall of Fame
-1989: Society of Antique Modelers Hall of Fame
Maxwell Bassett, and Bill Brown were the first successful flyers of spark ignition powered model aircraft. They were first to design both the plane and the engine. As boyhood neighbors in Philadelphia they belonged to the Philadelphia Model Aeroplane Association (PHHA) building and flying contest rubber models. Maxwell was disappointed with the relatively short flights with the rubber models.
In 1929 Bassett and Brown discussed building a useful small engine for airplanes. Brown worked on the engine in his father’s workshop, making everything including a crude sparkplug. A photo of Bill’s .27 displacement prototype engine and airplane appeared in the Philadelphia Bulletin on Memorial Day 1931. Bassett designed a small V-shaped twin-stick-fuselage test model. The airplane was not a great success because the engine and the airframe were too small. They then started planning a new engine/airframe combination that would “clean up against the rubber powered competition”.
With help from a local machinist, Walter Hurleman, Brown designed a new .60 cubic inch engine. By mid-summer 1932 he had one of his first new Brown Jr. engines. Bassett’s newly designed cabin ship called the Fleetwing, powered by the new Brown Jr engine was entered in the Nationals flown at Atlantic City, on September 1932. The rules required a fuselage design, but did not specify power. Bassett’s model put a 13-minute flight, the longest flight time in the International Wakefield event. At that time rubber and gas models flew together equally.
At the 1933 Nats, Bassett entered his new Miss Philadelphia II with a Brown Jr. and won all of the rubber events and trophies, including Mulvihill, Stout and Moffet. Shortly afterwards the NAA Competition Committee declared that henceforth gas powered airplanes would be flown in separate classes from the rubber events.
In 1934, Bassett appeared at the Nats again, flying a new Miss Philadelphia IV, a cabin model, and won the Texaco Trophy with a flight of 21 minutes. For three years planes flown by the team of Max Basset and his mechanic Bill Brown, swept all competitors before them.
By 1935 Maxwell’s interests were becoming more focused on his future career, and modeling was fading from his life’s plans. In 1935 he designed an all-new Miss Philadelphia V (and identical VI). No longer a cabin model the V & VI sported a built up box section fuselage with considerable flat side area. The wing was mounted on a wire parasol framework. The new 8’ wing had a flat center section approximately half as long as the total span, with the outer quarter panels turned up in what might be called trihedral. By this time he was enrolled in college. In 1937 Bassett flew his last contest event at the Detroit Nats, scoring an astounding 70-minute flight with Miss Philadelphia IV and a Baby Cyclone engine. Soon thereafter the Scientific Model Airplane Company in New Jersey kitted his Miss Philadelphia IV and V models and later his new 6’ wingspan, Streamliner. In 1938 Megow Model Company offered Bassett’s 48” wingspan Cardinal. After that, Bassett left aeromodelling.
Bassett graduated with an aeronautical engineering degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1939 and went to work for Martin Aircraft Company. He worked on the B-26, the Mars flying boat, and the B-57. He also worked on the Titan missile project. He retired in 1970 and became enthusiastic about sailing. Perhaps this may be attributed to the close relationship between the principles of sailing and flying. (compiled by Charlie Reich)
1989
Mike GRANIERI - Inducted 1990 top of this page
Born November 20, 1919 --- Died April 12, 2000
Mike Granieri grew up in the New Jersey area, and was a successful contest modeler in the 1930’s. He designed a series of airplanes named MG1, MG2 and MG3. They were all designed circa 1935. The MG2 is a nicely streamlined job with a 108 inch wing mounted on a wire cabane. It remains a popular FF Texaco model and, scaled down, is also flown as a ½ RC Texaco model.
Mike was President of SAM from 1982 to 1984, and served as East Coast Vice President of SAM for several years afterwards.
1990
Born November 22, 1911 --- Died January 27, 1995
Honors:-
-Hobby Industry Association of Americas HOF 1965
-Model Aviation Hall of Fame 1974
-NFFS Hall of Fame 1978
Nathan (Nat) POLK - Inducted 1990
Born 1913 --- Died August 6, 1996
Honors:-
-AMA Hall of Fame 1974
-NFFS Hall of Fame 1978
Irwin S. Polk, and his younger brother, Nathan S. Polk are one of two sets of brothers in the SAM HOF. (The other set are the twin brothers Walt Good and Bill Good.) Irwin got his start in the model industry in 1925. He wrote a column for the Newark Evening News. He formed a model aviation club. The members had trouble getting supplies, so in 1926 Irwin approached Bamberger’s Department Store and suggested it set up a model airplane section. Bamberger’s management agreed if Irwin would run the section. Irwin agreed. That put the Polk family in the hobby business. Irwin and Nat, and their sons and grandsons would spend nearly 90 years in the trade. (Polk’s Hobbies recently announced it would be closing its New Jersey hobby shop at the end of 2013.)
Both brothers had a philosophy of promoting the hobby, and their business, by teaching people how to fly, and by promoting and managing contests and leagues. While working at Bamberger’s, Irwin taught more than 4,000 modelers how to build and fly successful models. Irwin left Bamberger to work with William Randolph Hearst’s Junior Birdmen of America organization. Nat then went to Bamberger. Irwin was the Contest Director for the 1932 Nationals where Messrs. Basset and Brown made their first gas powered flights. Both brothers were contest directors for many major East Coast and national contests. In the mid 1930’s Irwin and Nat set up hobby shops in downtown Manhattan and in New Jersey. The New York shop closed in1980. In addition to running the shops, Irwin and Nat acted as manufacturer’s representatives and wholesale distributors for hobby companies. By the late 1930’s the Polk brothers would be selling model supplies to more than 350 department stores from the East Coast to the Mississippi river.
Irwin worked for a while as editor of Model Aircraft Builder magazine. Both Nat and Irwin were involved with a committee setting up a junior section of the NAA. That junior section ultimately became the Academy of Model Aeronautics.
Irwin formed a trade association for hobby dealers and manufacturers. “Hobby Industry Association of Americas” or HIAA. Both brothers were officers or directors of HIAA at one time or another, as were some of their sons and grandsons.
The Polk’s were successful businessmen constantly looking for new toys and hobbies to import or to manufacture. Shortly after WWII they brought Jetex to the United States. At the same time, they established a relationship with Ken Mabuchi, a young man in Tokyo. At the time Mabuchi had 8 employees. Mabuchi Motors grew to more than 40,000 employees and the Polk brothers directed Mabuchi’s American sales. When tether car racing became a big thing on the West Coast, the Polks introduced it on the East Coast with demonstrations at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. In the late 1950’s the Polks were active in inventing and promoting slot car racing. The Polk Model Craft Hobby Company was active in the radio control area for decades. As late as the mid 1990s the Polk’s were trying to establish an interference proof "tracker" radio system, ultimately losing out to the 2.4 GHz radios.
Aside from importing and selling toys and hobbies, the Polk brothers were also manufacturers. Their Aristo Craft Company was and is a major manufacturer of model trains and related materials. Irwin Polk formed a company called Leisure Dynamics which owned and manufactured Cox, K&B and Veco engines during the period 1970-1980.
1990
Herbert GREENBERG - Inducted 1990
Born October 10, 1915 ---
Herb Greenberg was born in 1915 in New Jersey and became an avid modeler in his youth. At age 19 he showed up at a 1934 meet in New Jersey and was photographed starting a motor on a model he designed that appeared to be a forerunner of the Red Zephyr. Herb, with his shock of curly red hair must have been a trademark at the old Junior Birdman meets.
Herb Greenberg was 21 years old when he finished 11th at the 1936 NATS with his "Red Zephyr". The plane had not been test-flown prior to that flight as Herb finished it up in time to leave New Jersey for the Detroit Nat’s. I let that thing go and it corkscrewed straight up," said Herb Monday, while watching the Brown Junior events at the 1993 SAM Champs at Taft, California. "I never had a chance to decorate the Zephyr, it was finished in lightweight white Japanese tissue just in time to leave for the NATS."
The (all white) Red Zephyr showed tremendous stability and looked like a real plane, properties that attracted the attention of John D. Frisoli, President of Scientific Model Airplane Company. John inquired if Herb would be interested in letting Scientific kit his design. He offered $25 and Herb let him borrow his plane. The Scientific people measured every part of the plane and produced a kit that sold in the multi-thousands in quantity over the years. Herb, of course, only received $25 for that design. Interestingly enough, Herb reports that the famous "sunburst" finish depicted on Scientific's plans was a creation of Scientific's, as his aircraft was plain white. The Frisoli family still resides near Herb in New Jersey, and the Scientific Model Airplane Company has evolved into a mail order tool firm run by the son of the founder, that company is called Micro-Mark.
Herb had belonged to the Bamberger Aero Club since 1931. The club met on an upper floor of Bamberger's Department Store in Newark, NJ later purchased by Macy's and operated today under the same name. Irv Polk ran the model hobby section of the department store and was the first president of the club 1931-32. You may remember Irv as he later left Bamberger's and started his own emporium, Polk's Models and produced products under the Aristocraft label. Later, Mike Granieri was president of the club. Speakers at club meetings included Jimmy Doolittle, Clarence Chamberlin, and Sir Fredrick Ives, famous aviators of the period. Herb has an Doolittle-autographed Shell Oil memento from that visit.
Herb attended the SAM Champs in Taft, CA in 1993 and was invited to fly an electric powered Red Zephyr. He got in several training flights and soloed the Zephyr for an additional five flights, the last of which was very special as the Zephyr took off in lift and eventually put in over 12 minutes. Herb was enthralled with the plane and the flying.
Conversations with the 78-years-young Herb (he celebrated that birthday on Monday, October 10, 1993) were an interesting mixture of old and new. Herb would be talking about engineering problems he worked on as a Navy pilot in WWII, and in the next second, remark that the twin tails on a contestant's model reminded him of another design that he sold to the Scientific kit company in 1939, the Miss World's Fair. (This time, Herb received $50 for his design!) If a listener isn't prepared for Herb's wide-ranging interests, he or she can suffer from a severe case of verbal whiplash as he careens from subject to subject.
He has a 486/33MHz PC at home and works with Computer Aided Design (CAD) programs from his work. He still works full-time and flies full-scale gliders and airplanes out of the busy Newark/NY corridor. After the SAM Champs at Taft, Herb is on his way to Lyon, France for a "total immersion" seminar in French. Herb is a prolific writer and has had stories published in soaring magazines of his exploits soaring in Germany a few years ago. He is currently working on a patentable idea for ice warning devices for aircraft and is in line for a defense department development grant to develop the idea. If you get the idea that Herb doesn't let his age have anything to do with how he pursues life, you're right! Herb doesn't endure, pass or put up with life. He attacks, relishes and pursues it with gusto. (by Ned Nevels-1993)
1990
Earl Fred STAHL - Inducted 1990
Born 1918 --- Died Octabe 16, 2012
Honors:-
- 1985: National Free Flight Society Hall of Fame
- 1989: Model Aviation Hall of Fame
- 1990: Society of Antique Modelers Hall of Fame
- 1995: Kits and Plans Antiquitous Hall of Fame
- 1996: Flying Aces Club Hall of Fame
Earl Stahl was a prolific scale model plan creator who started modeling around the age of nine, building the elementary Baby Rise off Ground (R.O.G.) model. That success was followed by a three-foot wingspan Twin Pusher that flew well. Earl attended all the local area and national fly-offs whenever possible. In the process, much was learned about design, construction and, particularly, trimming and flying models in varying venues and atmospheric conditions.
With persistent interest in full-scale aircraft, flying scale models increasingly became the focus of Earl’s design and construction efforts. Earl acquired drawings for a Rearwin Speedster model, it had ideal proportions for a model with racy lines of exceptional eye-appeal but like most early-day scale pans they didn’t fly well. Earl re-designed the Rearwin Speedster applying some of the knowledge acquired from contest type models. It was a superb flyer. A picture of Earl’s model was sent to Model Airplane News. This brought an invitation for a construction article from editor, Charles Grant. That is his how the long list of different scale design magazine articles, in five different magazines commenced. Earl received modeler’s questions regarding the scale accuracy of his designs. His response was, “Except for the widely acceptable practice of increasing dihedral and, sometimes, enlarging tail surfaces to help create a stable, free flight model, the designs are as accurate as the sparse information available permitted”.
New plane awareness came from full-scale aircraft publications such as Aero Digest and Aviation that provided three view drawings of new crafts. Aero Digest annually published a thick edition with more than 100 tiny three-views of civilian and military aircraft plus a small photo and various specifications. In the absence of data direct from a manufacturer, those editions were absolute treasures, but the tiny plans with less than two-inch wingspreads were a challenge for Earl as this was before enlarging copy machines (or computers). Increasing the outline shapes to desired model size had to be done manually which occasionally compromised the goal of exact accuracy, but it was the best he had to work with.
In England a chapter of the Society of Antique Modelers sponsors annual events for two classes of Earl Stahl scale designs, low-wing and high-wing models.
In 2006 the SAM Champs sponsored two honorary Earl Stahl Commemorative Events with the Free-Flight event flying his 1940 designed Hurricane low-wing rubber model with 15 entries. The R/C group flew Earl’s 1941 designed WW-I Fokker D-VIII with 15 entries. A very proud, pleased and humble Earl Stahl graced this special SAM Champs honorary event with his attendance.
Earl’s career at NACA / NASA spanned 41 years. After seven years of model making he participated in operation of large supersonic wind tunnels engaged in aeronautical and space research. During his final 12 years, he was chief of operations support for the entire research center. Their responsibility was for technical support to prepare test objects (models, actual vehicles) and participate in tests, operate and maintain wind tunnels, laboratories, and simulators for the vast range of aero / space research continually in progress.
1990
Frank V. EHLING - Inducted 1990
Born August 23, 1912 --- Died August 21, 2001
Frank Ehling saw his first real model airplane in 1924 when his family moved to Jersey City. His shop teacher offered to help Frank build a model airplane if Frank would maintain an 85 average in all his subjects. Frank met the challenge. His first successful model airplane was a twin pusher, which was good for about 50 seconds. The Jersey City Recreation Department sponsored an annual model contest, including boats, planes and cars. The airplane part of the contest would be won by the longest single flight. Frank showed up with a one inch long balsa model tied to a string which went into a shoebox. As the contest was about to end, Frank asked the judges if he could fly his model. They said, “Where is your model?” Frank walked to the table, opened his shoebox, and a pigeon flew out of the box with the model attached. The judges started their watches and Frank (and the pigeon) won first prize. His fellow contestants were not amused but rules are rules, and Frank had read them closely. That attention to detail in the rules is one reason why Frank served for many years as Technical Director of the AMA.
Frank was a very competitive modeler and designer in the 1930’s. He started to make his living by selling his model designs and articles to model magazines. Many of his designs appeared in Zaic’s orange yearbooks. There are more than 25 Ehling designs on the SAM Approved Design lists both power and rubber. His most popular gas designs are the Elf Biplane and the 8 foot wingspan Contest Model. The model of his which has been built perhaps three million times is the AMA Cub, sometimes also known as the Delta Dart. Frank donated that design royalty free to the AMA. The AMA has used the Delta Dart ever since as a way to get young boys and girls interested in model aviation.
Frank was a lifelong bachelor. He designed, wrote and built at a fast pace. He sold his designs and articles to different magazines under at least half a dozen pen names. He designed planes, work tables, barbeques, boats, tool boxes, cars, seaplanes, kits, space helmets, clocks, wall decorations and such. He also designed and built two houses, including the one he lived in at the time he retired.
In 1960 Frank joined the staff of the AMA. The AMA suffered a membership slump in the early 1960’s and John Worth as Executive Director and Frank Ehling as Technical Director revitalized the AMA’s membership base.
Frank was repeatedly recognized for his service to the modeling hobby. He was named an AMA Fellow in both 1966 and again in 1995. The FAI awarded him its Paul Tissandier Diploma, and also gave him the FAI Outstanding Service Award in 1969. He went in the Model Aviation Hall of Fame in 1976, the NFFS Hall of Fame in 1978 and the SAM Hall of Fame in 1990.
1990
Ben SHERESHAW - Inducted 1990
Born March 13, 1913 --- Died Spring 2009
Ben Shereshaw was a prolific designer of model airplanes during model aviation’s “golden age of the late 1930’s. He got his start in model airplane competition designing and flying rubber power twin pusher. He was educated as an aeronautical engineer at the Guggenheim Institute, but times were hard in the early 1930s. He became an educator, teaching mechanical drawing at Central High School in Newark New Jersey. In 1934 Ben acquired a Loutrel engine and designed his first gas model. He called it The Speedster. The Loutrel Specialty Company in Brooklyn purchased the design and kitted it. Ben had designed the first gas model to be sold as a kit in the USA. In 1939 Ben added movable control surfaces to his XP3 design—which was produced as the first RC kit to hit the market.
Depending upon who’s counting, Shereshaw designed between 20 and 25 different models between 1927 and 1941. The plans appeared in Flying Aces and Model Aviation—and of course on the SAM Approved Design List for Gas Models. Most of his designs were cabin or shoulder wing jobs with straight dihedral—his only pylon design was the Scientific Ensign. The designs were legend—Nimbus, Cumulus, Cavalier, Commodore, Mercury—all wonderful models. Several were kitted by Scientific—others were kitted by Berkeley. The Scientific Mercury was honored as Model of the Year at the 2001 SAM Champs and Ben was able to come to Nevada to see many of his Mercury designs in the air at the Champs that year.
Aside from his numerous model airplane designs, Ben was first to market with a successful design of a small Class A spark ignition engines. He developed the Bantam .16 in his basement workshop in 1937. By 1939 Ben had his Bantam .19 on the market (beating the subsequent introduction of the Ohlsson .19 and the Arden .19) and sold 70,000 Bantams in 1939. At the 1940 Nationals, Bantam .19s took six out of the first ten places in the newly formed Class A event.
After the war both Ed Chamberlin, the developer of a fuel called “Liquid Dynamite”, and Ben Shereshaw noticed that a Bantam would “run on” after the ignition was shut off. Along with Ray Arden, Ed and Ben helped develop the glow plug, and the glow fuel era had begun. Ben produced millions of glow plugs in his Miniature Motors factory selling them under the XL brand name for the OK Herkimer Company.
Ben has also been inducted into both the Model Aviation Hall of Fame and the National Free Flight Society Hall of Fame.
1990
Born September 14, 1914 --- Died March 4, 2009
Honors:-
- 1998: Model Aviation Hall of Fame
- 1990 Society of Antique Modelers Hall of Fame
I started to build model airplanes at age 13 right after Lindbergh's flight to Paris in 1927. I built several rubber models and finally was able to win a major event in 1932 at the Nats winning first place in the Stout Indoor Event with a flight of 13 minutes, 3 seconds. I thereafter received a post card from Model Airplane News notifying me that a medal I had won at a recent contest was available for me to pick up at their office where I was invited in to meet the editor, Mr. Charles Grant. During our conversation he inquired, “If I were to furnish you with a gasoline engine, would you be willing to build a model airplane for it?” I hesitated for an instant while the impact of Charlie's question hit me. How could I say no?
I soon received Charlie’s rough plans on heavy brown wrapping paper. Its wingspan was eight feet mounted on a fuselage a little over six feet long. I couldn’t start the “Gill” engine that Charlie had provided and several others also tried with no success. The model and I went by train to Mr. Grant's home in Peru Vermont, and the engine Charlie had ordered from Bill Brown had arrived. Charlie designed an engine mount that accommodated the engine and all ignition components, a power pod. It could be quickly installed into or removed from the fuselage. I modified the fuselage to nest the power module in place. Bill Brown arrived at Charlie’s home on Labor Day weekend of 1933 to help with the first flights of the model in a large field nearby. Bill Brown started the engine and Charlie Grant hand launched the model. It went up to the height of perhaps 50 feet with an inherent tendency to make hallow bank to the left and slowly spiral to the ground, breaking a prop. After three more similar attempts it was back to the shop and the drawing board. Charlie did some heavy thinking and decided the wing should be raised three inches above the fuselage to raise both the center of gravity and the center of lateral area of the model. I built the wing mount as per Charlie's specs. With Charlie’s first launch away it went in a beautiful climbing turn and the flight was timed for 14 minutes. Charlie then chased the model on foot and finally discovered it sitting on the ground, undamaged, in the middle of the forest. We had lots to talk about at dinner that night. And that is when the model was named the KG-1, designating Kovel (the builder), Grant (the designer), and 1 (our first model). A number of flights were made and observed in 1933 and we came up with a few ideas for improvement. These suggestions - to increase the wingspan to 10 feet; to increase the stabilizer span to 45 inches; and add 8% to the fin area - were incorporated into what became the KG-2. I completed the model in mid-1934, made several flights with it, and on May 25, 1935, entered it in the Eastern States Meet held at Hadley Field, New Jersey. The KG-2 made a record flight of 64 minutes 40 seconds, out-of-sight overhead at an elevation of about 4,000 feet. I went on to write several Model Airplane News’ articles. Joined the Navy during WW II, and in 1960 achieved a Bachelors Degree in Mechanical Engineering. I spent most of my career in the aviation industry as a Design Engineer. (Joe Kovel Autobiography)
1990
David BAKER - Inducted 1990
Born July 15, 1928 --- Died February 1,1009
David Baker was the “John Pond of England”. From the mid 1960’s on David was a very active promoter of old time modeling in England. Although David was born in London, he and his family spent a few years living in New Jersey in the early 1960’s. He had a chance to meet some of the US modelers who were starting to develop the “old time model movement” in the USA
David was a founding member of the original English SAM Chapter—SAM 35. When there was a split between the RC and FF elements in SAM 35, David founded SAM 1066 devoted just to free flight models. David was the editor and publisher of the SAM 1066 Clarion newsletter which had a circulation of more than 1,000 subscribers, not only in England, but around the world. He built up a vast collection of plans, magazines and books related to old time modeling which he shared freely. After his death in 2009, SAM 1066 carried on the tradition by setting up the David Baker Heritage Library.
David was the first SAM HOF inductee from outside the USA, and remains just one of three non US HOF members. In the early 1980’s David started promoting 50th Anniversary Wakefield contests. Those contests brought American modelers to England. In alternate years, the contests were held in Southern California bringing English modelers to the USA. Many lasting trans-Atlantic modeling friendships were born in those contests which went on for more than 10 years.
A free flight modeler needs a field to fly on, and David was very active in securing permission to hold contests on various sites including Old Warden and Pinkham Field. His biggest achievement in this regard was in securing permission to hold model airplane contests at Middle Wallop. It’s still an active airport and is the home of British Army Aviation. It’s also the longest grass runway in Europe. Once the right to use Middle Wallop was secured, David and SAM 1066 started to hold the annual SAM European Free Flight Championships at Middle Wallop. During the mid-1990s that contest frequently had more than 400 entrants, and many, many more spectators. Contests at Middle Wallop continue to this day (2013 at the time of writing).
David’s beloved wife Hilda died in late 1999. After that David traveled frequently visiting modeling friends in the United States, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Eastern Europe. He was a roving good will ambassador for the SAM movement wherever he went. (mm to rewrite)
1990
Born March 2, 1920 --- Died March 22, 2002
Honors:-
-1982: National Free Flight Society Hall of Fame
-1990: Society of Antique Modelers Hall of Fame
-1998: AMA Pioneer Award
-1999 Honored at the Society of Antique Modelers Championship
-2000 Model Aviation Hall of Fame
I started working for the Cleveland Model company in Ohio at age 18 in the fall of 1939. My first plans drawn were of the 7’ Condor and the smaller 4’ Eaglet towline gliders, then the 32” & 42” gassie Fleetsters’, followed by the Playboy Jr. The Playboy Sr. was next, followed by a 33-inch span Baby Playboy created for Class A using the Atom engine. There were also provisions to power the Baby Playboy with rubber by extending the nose slightly. My Itsy Bitsy was another 33-inch span for the Atom. Both 33” kits were advertised as the first $1.00 kits on the market. Later I designed the Baby ROG and two Hand Launched Gliders, the Dart and the Javelin. The Playboy Jr., the original was a 56" span under 300 sq. in, slab-sided. In 1941 it was altered to 54" span and the chord was increased to 7" and additional longerons were added as in the Playboy Sr. This I believe was an improvement. It is the version that is most commonly seen. The Playboy Sr. was quite successful, winning many local contests and Nats events. The Playboy was named by Ed Packard, as were most of the planes. At the last minute, just before the drawings went to the printer he suggested that we should let the builder have a chance to make a cabin version if the builder chose to. I hurriedly added a few lines to the plan to indicate the cabin version of the Playboy Sr. that left a lot to the builders’ imagination. It was an excellent idea, as it also became a good competitor for the OT Cabin events. Ed Packard would not allow anyone to put a name on all the ads for any of the Cleveland products. I would have been pleased if only the drawing said drawn by Joe Elgin. I toyed with the idea of putting a J.E. somewhere. My brother-in-law Dick Korda has had name all over-the place with his Wakefield design and Megow kit ads. I was an avid indoor and outdoor rubber flyer and as a result the Wakefield Gull and the Thermalier were added to the free flight program. The Thermalier is a Class C outdoor stick at just over 100 sq. in. and was a good beginning plane. It didn't take much rubber and flew quite well. The 1940 Viking cabin model was my last design before departing Cleveland Model and starting as a lithographer apprentice. I spent WWII in the Air Force as a B-17 navigator flying nineteen missions over Germany. I was shot down by an FW-190 and spent sixteen months in a P.O.W. camp. While in camp, I was able to build some simple rubber powered planes using elastic from suspenders. Even had a few fly over the fence and returned by the prison guards. After the war I went back to active modeling successfully flying in several events Internationally. Presently I’m involved in RC soaring and SAM events flying these models: 1/2A Texaco Playboy Sr., Playboy Sr., scaled up Baby Playboy, Goldberg Interceptor, Korda's 1938 Diamond Zipper, Wakefield Gull and Thermalier. (This article originally was published in the January 1989 issue of the SAM 1 newsletter)
1990
William L. "Bill" BROWN - Inducted 1990 - 1912-2003
Born May 30, 1911 --- Died January 8, 2003
Honors:-
-AMA Hall of Fame 1974
-NFFS Hall of Fame 1978
-AMA Fellow Award in both 1982 and 1990
Bill Brown and Maxwell Bassett (SAM Hall of Fame 1990) were the first successful flyers of spark ignition powered model aircraft. They were the first to design both the planes and the engines. As boyhood neighbors in Philadelphia they belonged to the Philadelphia Model Aeroplane Association (PHHA) building and flying contest rubber models. Maxwell was disappointed with the relatively short flights with the rubber models.
In 1929 Bassett and Brown discussed building a useful small engine for airplanes. Brown would focus on engines. Bassett would focus on airframes. Brown worked on the engine in his father’s workshop, making everything including a crude sparkplug. A photo of Bill’s .27 displacement prototype engine and airplane appeared in the Philadelphia Bulletin on Memorial Day 1931. The first engine was too small. With help from a local machinist, Walter Hurleman, Brown designed a new .60 cubic inch engine. By mid-summer 1932 he had one of his first new Brown Jr. engines. Bassett’s had a new cabin ship called the Fleetwing, powered by the new Brown Jr. engine. They entered the Fleetwing in the 1932 Nationals flown at Atlantic City, the 1932 Wakefield contest had been delayed and was flown in conjunction with the Nationals. The rules required a fuselage design, but did not specify power. Bassett’s model put a 13-minute flight, the longest flight time in the International Wakefield event. At that time rubber and gas models flew together equally.
Brown and Bassett would fly together for the next several years, generally sweeping the competition before them. After 1933 their success with gas powered models resulted in rules being drawn to have separate power and rubber classes of competition.
Brown’s father had been a successful and prosperous mechanical engineer in Philadelphia, but fell on hard times at the start of the Great Depression. While he’d originally pooh poohed the idea of a small engine for models, Brown and Bassett’s contest success and resultant publicity said that there was a business opportunity here. Brown’s father was able to obtain capital and organize a company for mass production. The Brown Junior Motors Corporation was set up. During the 1930’s, they would make several hundred thousand Brown Jr. Motors in various models. Bill worked part time at Brown Junior Motors, but also went to Penn State College for three terms until the money ran out. Ultimately the “adults” and the “kid” at Junior Motors had a falling out over the direction of the company. Bill Brown was a talented machinist, and wanted to build a smaller motor. Management didn’t agree, and Bill was given a much reduced role in the company. Brown Jr. Motors didn’t try to make a smaller motor until the Brown Jr. Midget of 1939 and by then it was too late. Competition from other manufacturers simply overwhelmed them.
Bill Brown had a second career in model airplane motors, in this case CO2 motors. He designed his first successful CO2 motor in 1940, the A 100. He continued to design CO2 motors of various types through the early 1990s. He was “Mr. CO2” in the United States. But Bill is in the SAM Hall of Fame for designing that first successful spark ignition engine for model airplanes, and for setting the .60 cubic inch displacement as the initial standard for model gas engines.
1990
Joeph J. "Joe" BESHAR - Inducted 1990
Born July 21, 1923 ---
Joe Beshar was one of the first Presidents of the Society of Antique Modelers serving in that office from 1975 to 1978. Joe was one of a small group that pressed to get SAM incorporated as a nonprofit corporation, in 1977. Joe was also involved in creating some of the early sets of rules for RC and FF SAM competition. Joe was an active modeler from the age of 13, and won Brooklyn Skyscraper and National competition events in 1939 and 1940. Joe was a B-17 pilot in WW II. As the “old time model” movement got started in the early and mid-1960’s, Joe was an active promoter of “old timer model contest events” in the New Jersey, New York /City area. Joe has been a prolific article writer (more than 70 articles published) and model airplane designer. He’s been President of four model airplane clubs; has served as an AM District Vice President, and has been very active in the AMA flying field program. Joe has maintained his avid interest in all things model aviation into his late 80’s as he continues to write, design, and serve. Joe is also a member of the AMA and the Vintage Radio Control Society Halls of Fame.
1990
Charles Hampson GRANT - Inducted 1990
Born November 20, 1894 --- Died 1987
Charles Hampson Grant has been called the “Father of Model Aeronautics in America”. He built his first model airplane in 1908. He studied Civil Engineering at Princeton University between 1913 and 1918. He became an officer of the Princeton Flying Club. After a period of military service at the end of WWI he found a company that mass produced ready to fly model airplanes and operated that for three years. In order to make those model airplanes ready to fly in novice hands, he worked out what he called his Grant’s Law of Spiral Stability and designed used those principles. He then set up a boy’s camp in Vermont to teach boys how to build model airplanes and ran that for 7 years. From 1932 to 1943, he was editor of Model Airplane News. He wrote 300 articles on model aviation during that time and also published his book “Model Airplane Design and Theory of Flight”. His articles and the book were widely read by the young modelers of the day, and his theories influenced many of the original designs that now appear on the SAM approved design list. Under his editorship, Model Airplane News grew from 21,000 readers to more than 300,000. Grant helped popularize model aviation.
In 1933 Grant designed—and Joe Kovel (another SAM HOF member) built the KG 1 gas model. The model was powered by an engine designed and built by Bill Brown (yet another SAM HOF member). At the time these early gas models were designed, the national meets were set up for rubber powered models only. Some members of the Junior Birdmen of America were strongly opposed to gas powered models, saying they were “dangerous”. Grant formed an organization called the International Gas Model Airplane Association (IGMAA) which quickly grew to 6,000 members. By 1936 the squabble between competing organizations was solved when the IGMAA and other organizations merged in a single body controlled by the National Aeronautics Association, and the Academy of Model Aeronautics (the AMA was we know it) was formed.
Grant also had some early patents on the idea of multiple flaps on full scale aircraft, an idea which is still in use on modern jetliners.
Grant was inducted into the Model Aviation Hall of Fame in 1969, where he was referred to as a “founding father of AMA”. He was inducted into the National Free Flight Society Hall of Fame in 1979. He was inducted into the SAM Hall of Fame in 1990.
1990
Born September 11, 1916 --- Died March 11, 2002
Honors:-
- 1976: Model Aviation Hall of Fame
- 1978: National Free Flight Society Hall of Fame
- 1985: AMA Distinguished Service Award
- 1990: Society of Antique Modelers Hall of Fame
- 1998: AMA Fellow
Henry Struck was born and lived in New York during his early design, building and flying years He knew Louis Garami and worked as a draftsman at Berkeley Models for a time.
He was a nationally renowned as one of the most prolific and innovative model airplane designers in the old-timer era of model airplane design and research. His passion for aviation began in his youth in the 1930’s when he began his model design and competitive flying of model airplanes. Over his 60 years modeling career Henry published over fifty designs, forty-five of which were produced as kits.
Henry was also a very successful contest flyer. He was the Grand Champion of the 1941 Chicago Nationals, placing in events in both indoor and outdoor rubber, gas and flying scale.
He started the vogue of building flying scale models of real old-timers like the Curtiss Pusher and the Caudron, which won the 1938 Nationals. Later he designed the kit model of the Buhl Bull Pup
One of his most popular and widely built models in 1940 was the New Ruler. The Class C, Brown engine powered, pylon plane had a six-foot span, one-foot chord. A cowled engine and an open cockpit with headrest aft of wing pylon were features giving semi-scale realism to a contest duration model. The American Ace, a smaller four and a half-foot, Class B version New Ruler won three of the first 10 places at the Chicago Nationals. The plane could be flown in A or C with engine changes. A three-foot span American Ace used an Atom or Madewell engine. Berkeley Model Company of Brooklyn, New York, kitted all of them.
His best-known rubber design was the 1940 Flying Cloud. The Class D outdoor rubber cabin qualified as a Moffett and a Wakefield under the prewar rules. A kit sold by Berkeley was priced at $1.Struck’s 1940 “Sinbad the Sailor,” was a very popular towline glider. His 1940 KGS design, a sixty-six inch span pylon model, was an updated, streamlined design using the same planform and moments based on the 1934-KG-II. The KG-II was built and flown by Joe Kovel. The 1935 record holder KG design was by Charles Grant editor of Model Airplane News. Henry gave recognition to all three modelers in his new KGS~ Kovel, Grant Struck.
Henry’s pod and boom, gull wing Class B gas, Ohlsson 23, “Boomer Bus” appeared in the February 1941 Air Trails.
Struck’s 1941 National Flying Scale Champion, a rubber powered, three-foot span scale Interstate Cadet averaged over two and a half minutes a flight. The model a neat tandem light plane, was featured in the January 1942 issue of Model Airplane News Berkeley produced the kit.
Hank Struck was a very humble model flyer, never the Prima Donna type. He is always a quiet, nervous flyer who could not believe that he was really a master. Struck remained an active model flyer until very late in life.
1990
Elbert (Joe) WEATHERS - Inducted 1990
Born
-1988 Model Aviation Hall of Fame
-1988 National Free Flight Hall of Fame
-1990: Society of Antique Modelers Hall of Fame
-1999: Kits and Plans Antiquitous Hall of Fame
Elbert J. (Joe) Weathers, for many years a flyer, designer, club leader, writer and manufacturer, left us in 1984. His legacy of creativity, energy, success, and friendships will keep him with us for generations. Joe was a teenager in the early 1930s when aeromodeling really took off. Growing up in San Diego, California, he loved model aviation right from the start and seemed to prefer his own designs to anything that was available through magazines or stores.
The earliest extant drawing, his #W-5G, is dated October 5, 1931. Later that year his towline glider #W-8G was published. This same model is included in Vic Smeed’s book, “Model Flying – The First Fifty Years”. Joe followed these early aircraft with more than 90 originals. These ranged in scope from racers to scale models, from camera-carrying airplanes to endurance models. In the National Model Aviation Museum, there is a beautiful example of his 1937 Winged Victory, built to the original drawings. There is also Joe’s original Pacificoaster that was restored by Jim McNeill. Thus did Joe Weathers fulfill a prediction made by Charles Hampson Grant in 1932 that “Mr. E.J. Weathers shows promise of being one of our future well-known airplane designers.”
Flying Aces, Model Airplane News and Air Trails magazines all published Weather’s designs. Model Builder magazine republished the Winged Victory details. Joe had a reputation for excellence, and many hundreds of his own designs were built and flown.
In 1935, Weathers co-founded the San Diego Aeroneers. This club is still an active AMA club. Joe served as corresponding secretary for five years until 1940.
When World War II began, Joe worked for North American Aviation in engineering. In 1945, he again found time for model design, and then in 1946 he started Rite-Flite Specialties. He manufactured a line of modeling accessories of his own design, including engine mounts, tank mounts, and tailskid assemblies.
Gas Model Designs by Elbert (Joe) Weathers
???? 60” w/s Pacificoaster
1935 36" w/s First Gas Design
1936 52” w/s Tubby
1937 60” w/s Winged Victory
1939 48” w/s Miss San Diego aka Four Foot Westerner
1938 78” w/s Mystery Man
1937 96” w/s Westerner (Wea) aka Camera Model
1940 53" w/s Go Getter
1941 60" w/s Kayoe
1942 42" w/s Low Wing
(This piece about Elbert J. Weathers ran in the December 1988 issue of Model Aviation magazine after he was inducted posthumously into the Model Aviation Hall of Fame.)
1990
Tim DANNELS - Inducted 1991 top of this page
Born
Tim Dannels played a key role in the early days of the SAM movement. Tim lives and works in Denver. In 1960 he began to collect old time model engines. He put one of them in a Buzzard Bombshell and went out to the local contest. Other modelers saw it and started to build their own OT airplanes. Tim was corresponding with John Pond at the time, and John was starting to build and to share his collection of OT plans. In 1962 Tim organized the Model Museum Flying Club, which became SAM Chapter #1. That SAM chapter held its first regular annual Old Timers Meet in Denver on May 5, 1963. In October 1963, Tim started to publish a small magazine called The Engine Collectors Journal, which ultimately became the house organ of the Model Engine Collectors Association.
Pond started to write a “Gas-n-Oil” column in the Engine Collectors Journal in March 1964. Pond’s June 1964 column made mention of an “Old Timers League” and said that Lee Freeman would be drafting a set of rules. Space was given to Freeman in the September 1964 issue of the Journal to write about the proposed new “Antique Modelers Association”. Later, because of the AMA’s concern about name confusion, the organization was renamed The Society of Antique Modelers.
In 1965 the AMA had its first official “Old Timers Events” at the Willow Grove NATS.
Denver remained a hotbed of old timer activity. SAM Chapter 1 continued to hold its annual old timer contests each year. Plans were made for the first national SAM Old Timer Championships. That first SAM Champs was flown in Denver over the Memorial Day Weekend in 1967. A second national SAM Champs was held in Denver on July 29, 30, and 32 in 1968.
The early years in the formation of SAM and of the old timer movement involved a lot of discussion and debate about what the rules should be, both as to the types of events flown, and the eligibility of various model designs. Since there was then no national organization, local clubs made their own rules. Because of the varying sets of rules, there were some hard feelings after those 1967 SAM Old Timer Championships. Bud McNorgan, then the national director of SAM attempted to restate and amplify the rules. In the spring of 1968, the Engine Collectors Journal published an article by McNorgan with a more complete listing of rules, including engine eligibility.
Tim Dannels was a moving force in the early organization of SAM. When SAM was incorporated in 1976, Tim was one of the original 7 signers of the articles of incorporation. His Engine Collectors Journal was a vital platform in communicating information about the movement, performing the role that SAM Speaks would later play. It wasn’t until early 1969 that an official SAM Newsletter was published on a mimeograph machine with Gene Wallock as editor. In 1971 Woody Bartelt took over as editor and the newsletter officially became SAM Speaks.
1991
John W. BRODBECK Sr. - Inducted 1991
Born September 14, 1913 --- Died November 2, 2004
John Brodbeck is the “B” of K&B Manufacturing Company. He started aeromodelling in 1936 using a Brown Jr. engine. He was unhappy with its performance, and made some modifications. John Brodbeck and a friend, Lud Kading –the “K” of K&B worked together as machinists in Southern California during WW II. Towards the end of the war they started their own machine shop, K&B Manufacturing. They purchased the rights to the old Torpedo and Bullet engines from Bill Atwood, an old friend of Brodbeck. In 1946 they began producing Torpedo .29s. But the product that “made” the company was a tiny .020 engine—the Infant Torpedo. They intended an initial production run of 10,000 engines, but within a week of announcing the engine, they had orders for 280,000! K&B then introduced .035 and .049 glow engines. Their Greenhead glow engines in a range of sizes were successful in both AMA and FAI competition during the 1950’s. K&B engines were popular and powerful through the early 1980s, competing at the end against foreign manufacturers. John Brodbeck was active in the national and Southern California hobby industry associations. K&B was a sponsor of the Nationals and many regional contests and for a time offered free engine repair services at major contests. He was inducted into the AMA Hall of Fame in 1977 and into the SAM Hall of Fame in 1991.
1991
Jerry STOLOFF - Inducted 1991
Born December 21, 1920 --- Died May 6, 2007
Jerry Stoloff was born in 1920 in Brooklyn and started modeling at the age of 8. After hand-launched gliders and rubber models he started designing gas models at age 14. He became a charter member of the TAMBE model airplane club at the age of 15, and also a charter member of the fameous Brooklyn Skyscrapers. In 1937 Jerry introduced the Diamond Demon and it was soon kitted by Bay Ridge Company, In 1938 the control-line model called the Presto Liner, Next was the 1939 Yehudi. The 1940 Invader was kitted by the Continental Model Airplan Company. The 1942 Spearhead Jr. and Spearhead Senior and Yogi. In the 1950's Jerry moved into the radio-control phase and designed the RC Spirit. Jerry joined the Army Air Force in 1942 and worked in the design and testing labs during his tour. The 1944 Bulldozer was designed with beginning gas modelers in mind. The low wing RC Houdini was the last Stoloff model. (by Charlie Reich)
1991
Born May 16,1922 --- Died January 30, 2008
Honors:-
- SAM Hall of Fame 1991
- Model Aviation Hall of Fame 1979
- AMA President 1957
Claude was born on a farm in Iowa. He started competing in model airplane contests in 1935. He attended his first National Championships in 1941. When the first Nats was held after the war in 1946, Claude was there, and he attended most of the Nats thereafter until his death.
Claude was a prolific designer of model airplanes. Seven of his designs are SAM approved old timers. He designed a number of Nostalgia gas ships as well. His design talents were put to good use when he went to work for Sig Model Aircraft in 1971. He designed a number of their modern RC models, including each of the Kadet series of trainers.
If Claude was not competing at the AMA Nats, he was volunteering. He performed volunteer work for the AMA for 59 years, and held either elected or appointed offices in the AMA for 52 years. He was President of the AMA for one year in 1957—when he was only 35 years old.
Claude was also very active as a writer of model airplane articles. He had columns in several different model magazines for many years. His camera was busy as well. More than two dozen of his photos were published as model magazine covers.
Claude’s particular passion in models in his later life was RC scale. From 1965 through the late 1990’s Claude won many major RC scale contests. As his flying skills diminished with age, Claude started to fly “team scale” events where he was the builder and a younger flyer was the pilot. He was successful in those events as well.
1991
Emilio "Mickey" DE-ANGELIS - Inducted 1991
Born January 9, 1916 ---
Mickey was born in Trenton, New Jersey. He started model building in the late 20's. His neighbour, Frank McInar, was also a model builder. Mickey built numerous indoor and outdoor rubber ships in the early 30's. He designed 25-cent rubber-powered models which he sold to various companies, including a twin tail design for Reginald Denny.
Then along came the Brown engines and Mickey was seriously into gas-power ships. His first experimental sip was the “Misfortune X” in 1935 which had numerous variations, but was never kitted.
Then “Miss Trenton Times” and “Miss Trenton” - neither was ever kitted. Then the “Kloud King” designed for 30-second engine run and kitted by “The Hobby Shop” which was owned and operated by Mickey in Trenton in the late 30's.
Next came the “Kloud Queen” for 15-second engine run, a beautiful twin rudder design with optional single rudder. Finally came his namesake, the “Trenton Terror”, a scaled down version of the earlier “Miss Trenton”.
The “Trenton Terror” was published in the April 1938 issue of “Flying Aces” and was designed specifically for the following reason: At $21.50, the Brown motor was more expensive than most people could afford in the 30's, so Mickey designed a ship that you could build and fly even tough you didn't own a Brown. The motor mounts were designed in such a way that one screw would lock a borrowed or community-owner Brown into your “Trenton Terror” and you were ready to fly. The Trenton Model Airplane Club had jointly purchased several Brown engines and most everyone had a “Trenton Terror”. It was a beautiful idea, and gave everyone a chance to fly a gas-powered ship and fostered a 'camaraderie' within the club that was the envy of other groups.
After the Second World War, to about 1955, Mickey was away from building and flying. He did some sporadic modelling from 1955 through to about 1984.
He retired from work at G.E. Aerospace in 1978 and started a small lawn mower sales and repair shop 'to keep myself busy'. Mickey is an example to us all that, at age 73, you can still be active and excited and involved, and having fun.
Mickey's good friend, Carl Hatrak, has been very instrumental in getting Mickey back into serious building and flying again. Carl was the person who got his hands on Mickey's original plans for “Misfortune X” (drawn on wallpaper). He and Ken Sykora got the ship approved by the SAM committee. (source material John Delagrange)
1991
James J. "Jim" BOHASH - Inducted 1991
Born
Jim Bohash was a very competitive rubber modeler in both the prewar and postwar years. He flew his original design “U.S. Standard Wakefield” on the U.S. Wakefield team in both Paris France (1938) and Bendix New Jersey (1939). He was from Michigan. He won the Canadian National Championship in 1940 and the Michigan State Championships in 1939 and again in 1952. While the U.S. Standard Wakefield design was never kitted or published, SAM did approve the design as an authentic old time rubber model in the late 1980’s. Thereafter Jim sold plans for the design from his home in Michigan.
1991
Dick McCOY - Inducted 1991
Born June 9, 1907 ---- Died December 30, 2005
Dick McCoy was born in Indiana, but came to Southern California when he was 11. As a young man he found work as a drill press and lathe operator, ultimately working for a company that made tooling for the Southern California aircraft industry. Dick’s first, and only, foray into old time model airplanes occurred in 1939 when he built, and crashed an O&R .23 powered Miss Tiny. His real interest was engines and model race cars. Not impressed with the engines available, he built his own. At the end of World War Two, Dick teamed up with Fred Schott of Duro-Matic Engines located in Hollywood. The partnership lasted 35 years and produced tens of thousands of McCoy engines. The business was eventually sold to Testors, which continued to produce McCoy engines. Dick remained active to the end of his life making parts for engines and producing The Real McCoy glow plugs. Dick designed more than 100 engines, and was awarded 16 patents on his engines. The McCoy Series 20 silver case .60 spark ignition engine is the power plant of choice tor SAM RC Class C Ignition flyers. The smaller ignition McCoys are also very competitive engines. Dick’s McCoy .35 control line engine is used in the Foxacoy class event. Dick was also inducted into the Model Aviation Hall of Fame in 1983.
1991
Geoge PERRYMAN - Inducted 1991 - 1924-2003
Born August 30, 1924 --- Died February 22, 2003
George was born the son of a Methodist minister in Irvington, Kentucky. At age 12, George and his family moved from Irvington, Kentucky to Griffin, Georgia. This small town had quite a number of boys who built and flew models and a 20-second flight was a time for cheering and revelry. George attended his first Nationals (Nats) in Chicago in 1941. From 1946 through 1949, he attended the Plymouth Internationals held in Detroit, at 26, he was U.S. team captain for the 1951 World Wakefield Champs held in Finland, and captained the Nordic team in Yugoslavia in 1953, and Denmark in 1954. In 1951George was awarded honorary membership into the Society of Model Aeronautical Engineers of Great Britain.
George’s designs are distinctive. Featuring gull wings, polyhedral stabilizer, sweep-back and curved wings and stabs. He uses pointy tips on everything, even props. His models are immediately recognized as Perryman designs and have all been published in leading model magazines such as his record winning Swami towline glider in 1959, and later his Asteroid and Superasteroid, the Black Mamba and Stephanie’s Streaker and Solidifier. One of his most successful designs, his Little Daddy won the famed Mulvihill Trophy in 1969, 1974 and 1976. It was National Free Flight Society’s 1975 Rubber Model of the Year. George’s Great Speckled Bird won the Mulvihill trophy at the Nats in 1977, 1980 and 1982. It won the Canada Cup in 1976 and was (NFFS) Rubber Model of the Year in 1978. He is proud that three of his models are enshrined in the AMA museum – Great Speckled Bird, Helicopter, Speckled Bird and Giant Speckled Bird. George has won over 700 trophies and awards in his 47 competition years. He can remember winning in 56 different categories and has probably forgotten some others. He concentrated on rubber events and managed to compete in 17 events at the 1984 Reno Nats. He flies SAM rubber and AMA events and many NFFS unofficial events, which he thinks are the most fun of all. Over 150 of his wins have been at the Nats and King Orange Internationals. George is a charter member of Thermal Thumbers of Metropolitan Atlanta and Kamikaze Squadron SAM Chapter 47. He proudly sports AMA license number 514 (CD).
Lockheed hired Mr. Perryman in 1951, with a ninth-grade mechanical drawing class as his only engineering training. George advises, “Most of my 35 year career with Lockheed was designing wind tunnel models, which I’d almost paid them to be able to do. I was privileged to help design some of the world’s greatest airplanes – the C-130, C-141, C-5A and F-117 stealth fighter. I am a full believer that God bestows special blessings to modelers. Adding together all disciplines of modeling we have to do things that the average citizen is not required to do. We modelers should consider ourselves part of a brotherhood. Few, if any, organizations are as blessed as modelers, having as many fine people as we have. Most of what we know we learned from someone else, beginning with our parents, then teachers, fellow workers, family members and modelers. The things we have learned should be passed along, which might be a help to many. I’m thankful every day for my modeling friends.”
1991
Vic CUNNYNGHAM Sr. - Inducted 1991
Born June 27, 1917 --- Death September 11, 2001
Vic Cunnyngham Sr. holder of nine National Records and designer of the Space-Rod (holder of 15 National Records), has been named to the AMA Hall of Fame. Vic is one of a small handful of people who have been so honored by all three major aeromodelling organizations: AMA, NFFS, and SAM. In addition, Vic was the first recipient of the Blacksheep Squadron Spirit Award in 1994. He is perhaps best known for his many years of successful free flight campaigning with Al Vela's Mexi Boy design.
Vic started building models in 1927 at age 10 and the first club he belonged to was the Stix, Baer and Fuller M.A.C. of St. Louis which had over 500 members. Vic has had a lifelong fascination with twin pushers, and has spent countless hours authenticating and building many of the twin pusher models of his youth.
Vic moved to California in 1952, and along with his son, Vic Jr. (designer of the Geodetic Galaxy) became active in the west coast modeling scene.
He and Howard Johnson, a former AMA president, organized the Cal-Western Model Meets in Los Angeles, which later became the US Free Flight Champs, the west's largest contest now held at Lost Hills on Labor Day. Vic also was an AMA contest coordinator, and in an effort to better organize activities in California, he created the Free Flight Model Airplane Association of California, an organization composed of virtually all free flight clubs in California. The group has had several names, and is now known as the California Unified Free Flight Model Airplane Clubs (CUFFMAC), and is the sponsor of the USFF Champs.
Vic was also a charter member of the National Free Flight Society (NFFS), an AMA Nats Event and Overall Director, a Contest Coordinator for ten years, and member of the AMA Free Flight Rules Committee and Contest Board. At 78 years old, Vic may still be seen at free flight contests nationwide with his twin pushers. He is a deserving member of AMA's Hall of Fame. Ref SS#125
1991
Bud McNORGAN - Inducted 1991
Born October 12, 1993 --- Died October 12, 1993
J.G."Bud" McNorgan passed away October 12 1993. Private services were held for him and he was buried in the military cementery at Riverside, CA. Bud was born in Tennesse, but to hear him talk you would believe that he was a native of Canada. His early years in modeling were spent in Windsor and he loved to talk about his experiences there.
Bud was the first Director of SAM and he was responsible for the Society in it's early formative years. He formed the SCAMPS, Chapter 13, in 1964. He loved modeling and he enjoyed passing on this interest to others. He liked teaching young people about the joys of modeling and he conducted classes in model building when he was a member of the Optimist club. Bud's proudest moment in modeling was when he was introduced into the SAM Hall of Fane at Las Vegas. Ref SS#116
1991
Leon SHULMAN - Inducted 1992 top of this page
Born November 29, 1920 ---
Leon was first bitten by the aviation bug one day while walking home from grade school and the famous Graf Zeppelin flew overhead, casting it's giant shadow over him. Leon started building gas models in 1937 when he built a 'T-D Coupe' from magazine plans. From this he began designing and building his own. In the Depression years he worked in the C.C.C. to earn money to buy his first engine, a Brown Junior. From this he developed his first published design, the 'Sky-Scraper', the first one wheel model that was published by Charles Grant in Model Airplane News.
He became well known for his aggressive style models in the 1940's and had many published by the model magazines. He is well known for his 'Wedgy', 'Banshee', 'Zomby', and 'Zoomer'. These models were kitted by several manufacturers and were very popular. His fame spread overseas when his Banshee became the most popular design on the English competition scene after the War.
Leon served as leader in model aviation when he worked as the contest manager and CD for meets like the Eastern States Champs, The new York Daily Mirror Meet and the post war Plymouth Meets. He also served on the early rules committees for the AMA. In 1946 he manufactured the Drone diesel and also produced a folding gas model prop. After several other successful manufacturing operations he decided to expand into the hobby and he became a manufacturers representative for a long line of other products. Leon has made his life's work in the hobby that he loves.
He has been recognized as a leader by the following awards: The Gas model Pioneers, life membership, A.M.A. Hall of Fame, I.M.A.A. life membership, NFFS National Free flight Society Hall of Fame.
Leon served in the U.S. Air Force as a pilot and was qualified to fly 20 different airplanes. He also was rated as a check pilot and still holds an active rating as a commercial multi-engine pilot. (SS#106)
1992
John WORTH - Inducted 1992
Born Febuary 20, 1924 --- Died October 23, 2011
John began modeling in 1932 at the age of 8. Later at the age of 12 (1936) he became more successful flying gliders and rubber powered models. He got his first gas engine (a Bantam) joined AMA in 1938 (number 6554) and started high school. Entered meets run by Haaren Hign School, and contests at Van Cortland park, Holmes Airport, Canarsie or Creedmore. Flew against members of the Brooklyn Skyscrapers club. Was a young spectator at the 1939 Wakefield International contest in Teterboro when Dick Korda made his famous 39 minute flight.
His first published design was the Li'l Misery tailess that appeared in the 1942 Air Trails. He and his high school buddy, Dick Coen collaborated on this design. Upon graduation from school went directly to Langley Field, Virginia to work for NACA. Became a member of the NACAnuts that later became the Brainbusters. Joined the Airforce in 1943 and and flew models at Alamagordo, tion by the National Aeronautic Assoc.New Mexico, while in B29 training. After the war was active modeler in F/F and R /C. Takes a deal of pride in the fact that he designs what he flys and claims to only have built two kits in his life.
His very distinguished career in modeling reads as follows:
Joined AMA in 1938
Free Flight Contest Board member 1948,1954
R/C Contest Board Chairman 1962
Elected AMA President 1963,
since Feb.1991 Was an advisor and helped organize the National Free Flight Society
In 1966.He is the recipient of the following awards:
1964 - Awarded AMA Fellowship
1978 - Inducted into AMA Hall of FAME
1981 - Received FAI Tissandier Diploma for Intl. Aeromodeling Leadership
1986 - Named Elder Statesman of Avia 1990 - Inducted into the NFFS Free flight Hall of fame.
1967 - 1992 Twenty five years as FAICIAM Secretary
(SS#106)
Carl GOLDBERG - Inducted 1992
Born October 27, 1912 --- Died January 28, 1985
Probably the most famous modeler in history, the stories about Carl are legendary. His first model at age 15 , flew about 65 feet. He won a certificate at the 1928 National Airplane Championships, flying a twin-pusher. He won first place in the indoor event at the 1934 National Meet with a flight of 23 minutes, and 29 seconds and held many model flying records during his career. His design concepts for gas models revolutionized the flying scene at competitions in 1939 and the following years. His designs such as the "Zipper"," Sailplane", "Interceptor" and "Mercury" were the first to demonstrate to the world how to handle the high power of model engines and gave his models stability in the climb. The "Pylon", on model airplanes will forever be associated with Carl Goldberg's name. He opened a hobby shop in Chicago in 1935, then became chief designer of Comet Model Airplane Company, producing kits of his many great designs. He started his own company, Carl Goldberg Models in 1955, which has survived and now produces fine R/C model airplane kits. Until his untimely death, he was famous for having participated in every National Model Airplane Championship since 1928. by Hardy Broderson (SS#106)
1992
Wally SIMMERS - Inducted 1992
Born 25 February, 1918 --- Died 1999
Twice Wally was the Chicago Champion in the Junior Birdmen program, sponsored by the Hearst newspapers. As a result he traveled to the East Coast and to Texas to compete in the finals. He also held the senior and Open Indoor hand launched glider National record.
During his younger days of competition, one could always see Wally as the mainstay of any contest in and around the Chicago area and surrounding states. He has been a leader in the South Chicago area when it came to helping any new modelers join the fraternity. Wally always had an eye for what was needed in the modeling game. He learned early that if you can't get what you need, develop it yourself. And so he did - first came the hobby shop in Chicago. This was the spot on the south side of Chicago to get really quality balsa and other competition products. As a result he soon branched out and started to produce indoor glider kits that were truly competitive.
Who will ever forget the famous Class C rubber models with the unusual names of the Jabberwock, the Gollywock and the Dyna-moe. These kits contained good quality contest balsa and were the first production kits featuring folding propellors. Wally was always looking to produce the best products that were needed by model builders.
He was the organizer of Midwest Products and Midwest supply and K&B Engineering - all very notable as suppliers to the hobbyist. Would you believe Wally is still active as a builder and competitor - well at least in indoor hand launched gliders?
by Otto Curth (SS#106)
1992
George ARMISTEAD Jr. - Inducted 1992
Born
George started modeling in 1936 and entered his first contest in 1938. He progressed to gas models with his first successful Buzzard Bombshell in 1940. He founded the Glastonbury Aero Modelers in 1970 an AMA chartered club with 80 members. He joined SAM and F.A.C. in 1968 and became a contest director in 1973. He has run a large number of contests including the SAM CHAMPS in 1982, 1986, and 1990 and has been a leader in the SAM movement in the North East. He is has been very active in Boy Scouts and enjoys getting scouts involved in model airplanes. He ran the Glastonbury Recreation Department model classes from 1969 through 1975. George is corporate secretary and in charge of Product Development at the Merrow Machine Company and has a long list of accomplishments in community service. by Jim Adams (ss#106)
1992
Herb WAHL - Inducted 1992
Born
Herb was born near Penn State where he later went to school. In 1936 he started modeling. A little while later he heard the neighbor boy running a gas engine and he was really hooked. He quit modeling while he attended college and served in the service.
In 1965 he attended the NATS at Willow Grove where he ran into John Pond, Tim Dannels, and Jack DuFond. His interest was revived in models and he soon had got a plan for the Scientific Mercury from John and started looking for a Brown Junior. That search was the beginning of another very important part of his life. After finding a few parts of engines he started making what he couldn't find. He showed up at the 1966 NATs in Glenview with two Hurleman engines that he had built, and of course when people saw them he was deluged with requests to make more parts and engines. He contacted Bill Brown about 1970 and made an agreement with him that allowed him to produce the Anniversary Brown junior
Supplying Hurlemans and Brown Juniors and later Ohlssons and Bunch Tigers to the SAM crowd has become a full time job. Herb built 400 Anniversary Browns and then when fellows didn't want to fly the engines because they were too pretty, he built about 1200 of the other different models of the Brown. His production of the replica Ohlsson Gold Seal and the Bunch Tiger has been a tremendous lift to the SAM movement. Without his support in furnishing engines and spare parts and his repair service for these old engines the SAM movement would have been very handicapped.
by ? (SS#106)
Donald (Don) LOCKWOOD - Inducted 1992
Born January 1,1912 ---
Donald set his first national record in 1923 flying a rubber powered speed model. The national records compiled by Joseph Lucas , editor of Aeronautical News , show that Donald Lockwood held three national records between 1924 and 1928. He flew twin pusher speed, Single propellor pusher/tractor and hand launched glider.
He was a contestant at the Mulvhill Trophy contest held at Mitchell field, New York on October 3, 1925. He placed in tenth place along with many other I.M.A.C. members. The man who placed in first place that day was SAM's Bert Pond.
The Model Aircraft Yearbook, which recorded the results of the N.A.A. National Airplane Tournament, show that Donald was third place with 14 minutes in the Indoor tractor event. Notable at this same meet, Carl Goldberg placed in first place with 22 mins and 59.4 seconds.
Bert Pond's book on compressed air models records the fact that Mr. Lockwood was a pioneer in the flying of compressed air models. In 1987, at the Nationals in Lincoln, Nebraska, Donald entered a replica of the model, flown by Walter L. Brock in 1919. This same design was flown in 1923 by William Schweitzer, winner of the 1923 Power Model championship. Donald estimates that he has directed almost 150 model contests during his 70 years of modeling. He is a leader member of AMA, his number is 4776.
Mr. Lockwood joined the Illinois Model Aero club in 1922 at the age of ten. Later he graduated from the Illinois Institute of Technology (originally Armour Technical College). He worked for E M Laird at the Ashburn Field factory from 1929 through 1931. He has also been active in building and driving dirt track racing cars.
by Jim Adams (SS#106)
1992
Bob T SOMMERS Inducted 1992
Born
In 1923 Bob and Christy Magrath were the first model builders in the St. Louis , Missouri area. His first competition was a Mulvihill contest in Bridgeton, Missouri. In 1926 while in high school he started his own model airplane company.
In 1927 he won the Charles Lindberg trophies for single and twin propellor models at meets held in conjuction with Lindberg's transatlantic flights. The trophies were presented by Charles Lindberg in person. In 1929 Bob and Joe Earhardt represented the Jr. Aero Club in the second national model meet in Detroit, sponsored by the A.M.L.A. In 1930 he flew in the first national indoor meet sponsored by the International Aircraft Exposition in St. Louis. In 1930 he started the Stix Baer & Fuller model airplane club while running their model shop. He held saturday morning classes in model building. The club at one time had 1200 members. The instructors were the senior and more advanced members of the club.
In 1931 Bob started and was the CD for the Mississippi Valley Model (tournaments) that ran annually for ten years. There were 500 contestanta at these meets, flying in both indoor and outdoor events. Along with Paul Garber of the Smithsonian he helped create the "History of Model Aviation Display" that toured the United States. In 1933 he planned and ran the first "All Boy Scout Model Airplane contest" In 1934 he set up and ran the eliminations in St. Louis for both the Akron Nationals and the 3rd Annual Air Races held at the Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago.
In 1935-36 he was the organizer and CD of the N.A.A. Nationals held at Lambert field, St. Louis. This was the first national meet where rubber and gas models were flown separately. Later that year he was on the committee that formed the model section of the N.A.A. that later became the A.M.A. In 1937 was on the executive board of the A.M.A. along with Carl Goldberg, Charles Grant, Al Lewis, Paul Garber and others. In 1940 developed the "Air Youth of America" program involving the public schools, Boy Scouts, and model airplane organizations.
In 1941 he started the Sommers Aircraft Co. Inc., a flying school for full size aircraft based at Lambert Field in St. Louis. In 1942 Bob Sommers entered the service as an aviation instructor. Bob reached the rank of Lt. Commander in the U.S. Navy
by Vic Cunnynham Sr. (SS#106)
1992
Edward LIDGARD - Inducted 1992
Born
Ed began building and flying models in 1928. He has been a member of A.M.A. since it was formed. His rubber design 'Sparky' has been produced by Comet Model Airplane for over 50 years. He drew over 80 plans for Comet through the years. Among them the Comet Gull, the Whizzer, and the Sparky.
Ed was involved in the development of the folding rubber model prop. He designed the first commercial hinge produced by Wally Simmers for Midwest Products about 1938.
He managed the U.S. Wakefield team program for 1950 and 1951. He was the co-manager in 1953. In 1952 he almost single handedly raised the funds to send the US Wakefield team to Europe.
He was a member of three Wakefiel teams. He went to England in 1949 an went to Sweden in 1952. He qualified fc the team to go to Finland in 1953, bi. was unable to attend. He was a member of the Moffet team in 1935 chosen in selections that were flown at Wayn County Airport.
Ed held indoor helicopter an ornithopter records in 1941 establishe in the Chicago armory. He has had mangy many plans and articles published i model magazines and Frank Zaic'c yea books. Some of his most well know designs were Eugene, Hi-Ho, Spark and his 1937 and 1953 Wakefields.
Ed is probably best known for hi knowledge of rubber model props and winding rubber motors.
by Jim Scarborough (SS#106)
1992
John DROBSHOFF - Inducted 1992
Born --- Died 1991
John was an active model flyer from 1936 up untill his death in 1991. In 1934 he was a member of the Junior Birdmen chapter 153 that later became the San Francisco Vultures.
He flew his first gas model in 1935 and won many first places at contests during 1938-1940. In 1939 he placed 2nd place in Class A at the Chicago Nationals with his famous 'Advanced Challenger'. In 1940 he won Class A at the nationals and received a life certificate in the Gas Model Pioneers from C.H. Grant. He loved free flight ROW still holds a number of national AMArecords in ROW events.
In 1939-1940 he worked for Advanced Model Engineering at Fresno and produced The 'Vanguard' and 'Challenger' gas models. In 1947 he left the S.F. Vultures and joined the Elmhurst Prop Busters in San Leandro. He came into old timer flying in 1975.
In 1941 in conjunction with his brother Al, he designed the 'Little Diamond'. He had been President, Vice-president. Newsletter Editor, and Secretary/Treasurer in several clubs.
His memberships were as follows; 1935-39; S.F. Vultures, 1939-41 Fresno Gas model Associatrion, 1946-55 Elmhurst Prop Busters, 1960-70, SAM 1978-90, SAM 27.
by John Pond (SS#106)
1992
Peter SOTICH - Inducted 1992
Born May 13, 1922 --- Died November 5, 1996
Pete began building models while in high school in the late '30s. He started with gliders and rubber models, but moved on to gas models and joined the Illinois Model Aero Club. After WWII, and over a year in a German POW camp, he came home and went back to gas and rubber models and became a member of the Gas Model Aeronauts.
He joined the Chicago Aeronuts in 1954 and served several terms as president and several decades as secretary. He began helping to run local contests and before long was on the NATs Planning Committee and directed several NATs and was free flight Director at many others. He also was active in the FAI free flight program serving as Program Administraor several times. He also served as Team manager. Pete was the contest coordinator for district VI. He also served two terms as A.M.A. President in the early '60s. Pete probably has directed more free flight contests than anyone in the U.S.A. and maybe the world. His hand lettered contest notices and results will be remembered by all who attended any of his contests. He is still active and is now serving as the publicity chairman of the EAA Chapter 15. He still takes lots of photos and works for Wally Simmers at K & S Engineering.
by Charlie Sotich (SS#106)
1992
Jim ADAMS - Inducted 1993 - top of this page
Born March 12, 1921 --- Died April 23, 2003
Jim began modeling in 1932, and soon became a 'Junior Birdman' flying in rubber-powered competition. He joined the AMA in 1939 and attended his first 'Nats' in '41. He first flew 'gas' in 1937, and R/C in '39 while in Santa Ana High School. He was one of the many modelers competing at the famous 'Rosecrans and Western' flying site in Los Angeles. Jim flew with the Orange County Thunderbugs control line club in the fifties.
He joined the Scamps 0/T FF club (now SAM-13) in 1964, and has worked as their Secretary/Treasurer for 27 years! He became an AMA Contest Director in 1966, and has actively conducted many 0/T contests locally and nation-wide for SAM. Jim is a charter member of SAM, and attended the first SAM Champs in Denver in 1966. Jim is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Lost Hills Free Flight Model Airfield Association.
Jim's other SAM related activities include: Two years served as West Coast Vice President, SAM Speaks editor for nine years, and Publisher/Manager for 14 years. Served under, and provided technical assistance to three Presidents: John Pond, Mike Granieri and Sal Taibi. Served on SAM's Engine Rules Committee, and also on the Flying Rules Committee. Became SAM President in 1988, and is currently serving in his third term. As SAM President, Jim initiated the following:-
Established the SAM concours event and sponsored the first trophy. Established the SAM historical magazine library. Started the SAM plans service. Initiated the SAM Hall of Fame. > Introduced the SAM approved design list of gas models. Strengthened the operation of SAM by charging the Board of Directors with active functional management of the Corporation. Was instrumental in encouraging the establishment of overseas SAM chapters. Established SAM North America, including Canadian Chapters in the parent organization. While serving as SAM Speaks Editor, he established the two year rules cycle, and the SAM Champs F/F and R/C Grand Champions. (Ref ss#114)
1993
Jack BOLTON - Inducted 1993
Born
Jack started modeling in 1939, carving out small four-for-a-nickel WWI solid models. In 1942, he obtained a second hand Sky Chief engine, and after a year of hand cranking was finally rewarded with two "pops" from the exhaust. In 1943 he obtained a Phantom P-30 weighing 3/4 pound due to a steel crankcase. He eventually got a 50' flight from the Phantom in a Megow Piper Cub before it crashed. Things finally improved, and Jack flew free flight and some control line with the Steubenville Ohio Skyhawks M.A.C. up through 1949, when he encountered the U.S. Navy, college and marriage.
Jack got back into modeling in 1962 with a couple of free flights,
then on to R/C with an escapement-rudder only modification to his free flight Sterling Cub. He continued upgrading the Cub with reed receivers and more channels. Numerous other R/C models followed, and finally proportional control arrived. He was a member of the Tidewater R/C Club in Virginia Beach, VA. 1967-1968 were spent in Vietnam with a Navy Huey helicopter gunship squadron, HAL-3. This was followed by a sea tour as Huey squadron maintenance officer and, pilot. Home port was Norfolk, so modeling affiliation was resumed with Tidewater R/C. Next tour was in Washington with Naval Air Systems Command, and the Chief of Naval operations. Modeling was dormant during this period. In 1972-73, Jack commissioned and served the First Commanding Officer of the Navy's Advanced Helicopter Training Squadron (HT-18) in Pensacola, and became active with the Northwest Florida R/C Club.
Transferred to NATF, Lakehurst, he came right back to modeling again, and in 1973 was introduced to SAM by Woody Woodman and Joe Beshar, and became an active competitor in SAM R/C events, flying with the Old Time Eagles Club.
While at Lakehurst, he functioned as the USN-Modeller liaison and coordinator for the 1974 SAM Champs and the AirOlympics. This was a really big bash, with the SAM Champs being followed by 5 days of FAI world championships modeling events.
Jack became a civilian again, and organized a SAM Chapter in association with the Pensacola Free Flighters, and initiated their annual old timer meet held in October. He served as SAM Speaks Editor in 1975-76. During 1976-78, he originated and wrote a regular R/C old timer column in Model Aviation.
During the 1980's, Jack served as SAM's East Coast Vice President, and organized SAM Chapter # 10, the Capitol Area Antique Modeler's Association in the Washington, D.C. area. He He served as SAM 10's first president, and CD'd their first O/T meet. Jack was quite happy when he won second place in the Spirit of SAM Concours at the 1992 Champs. Ref SS#114
1993
Bob CAHILL - Inducted 1993
Born
Bob is a top model designer, with an inventive mind, whose ideas were often recognized and used by many other modelers. Some of his designs appear in Zaic yearbooks. His first modeling interests came from American Boy magazine in 1927. He won his first contest in 1929 with a baby ROG flight of 47 seconds and attended his first Nats in Detroit in 1930. No wins there, but he was inspired by it all. Bob feels much of his interest and inspiration came from meeting Carl Goldberg, Frank Zaic, and other enthusiastic modelers at those early meets. At the '35 Nats in St. Louis, he set a national FF Class C record which stood for many years. Bob considers his greatest contribution to be what he believes to be the first use of folding props on rubber models. His younger brother, Jim Cahill helped refine this development and incorporated it into his "Clodhopper II" design, which won the Moffett Trophy, and Wakefield. Bob also developed an indoor stick model with a balsa tube fuselage, which converted from stick to cabin by sliding a small fuselage over the stick. Again, brother Jim used the basic design to place 2nd in 1938 and 3rd in 1939 in indoor cabin at the Nationals.
When he started building "gas jobs" in 1939, he pioneered the use of alcohol-based fuels. He also developed and built an electronic tachometer for engine testing.
Bob retired from model building in 1949. After retiring from the Chrysler Corporation in 1975, while head of their competition and racing department, he lived in the U.S. Virgin Islands for seven years. Since moving to California in 1982, he has constructed and flown a full-size home built plane. He says he may now be ready to return to his first love...model airplanes. Ref SS #114
1993
Larry JENNO - Inducted 1993
Born 1922
Larry began building models in 1931 at age 9. He joined the AMA in 1939, and won a spot to the Jr. Birdmen N.Y. State Finals, which started his contest flying. After attending trade school, he built his first engine, a .14 size. He flew that engine in control liners on board ship during WW-II. After the war, he built 5 "Jenno-60" engines and distributed some to his control line club members. He became President of that club, and later was the only three term President of the well-known B.I.R.D. Radio Control Club in the Los Angeles area.
Larry became an accomplished machinist and tool & die maker, doing R&D work for several major manufacturers. He built several more engines, and helped John Targos build the repro Elfin diesel, and made dies for the Super Cyclone reproduction project in Arizona. In his most ambitious project, he produced 500 of the Jenno reproduction Torpedo 29's and 32's. More recently, he produced 100 of the first production run of the historically interesting Irwin Ohlsson .12 sized engines.
Larry was also a partner in the Zinger propellor company, and designed and built their original prop-building machinery. He is very active in his local clubs. Probably his best known contribution to SAM was as Contest Manager for the highly successful 1989 SAM Champs at Jean, Nevada, and his assistance to the Denver chapter in staging the 1991 SAM Champs at the same location. The photo shows Larry in one of his favorite spots, his workshop at his home in Las Vegas. Ref SS #114
1993
Robert (Bob) DODDS - Inducted 1993
Born
Bob's interest in aviation was kindled when his father held him up to look into the cockpit of Lindberg's Spirit of St. Louis in about 1929. From then on, Bob says he dragged his father to every air show, and made him stay until the last act, and hold him up to look into every cockpit. Bob's first "model" was a cockpit mock-up he built in his basement, complete with an electric fan blowing over the nose to give the impression of flying.
Bob soon built a number of models from plans, including finally, a 10' Nimbus at age 17. But his Baby Cyclone-powered Miss America was the highlight. His first flights were in the street, with a 50' fishing line attached to the tail. Bob would let it take off while running
after it, and after a 6-foot gain in altitude, pull it back down to the ground.
Along the way, Bob served as Editor for the NFFS Symposium for 4 years running, and in the '60's presented his own paper on weight, C.G., and neutral point at the Lake Charles Nationals.
Although Bob's modeling escapades and skills are as interesting as any, his nomination to The Sam Hall of Fame is based primarily upon his personal service to SAM. Bob has given freely of that most precious commodity, many hours of his own time. Before Bob's term as Secretary/Treasurer, SAM had trouble retaining anyone in this critical job for very long. Due to the man-hours and dedication required, the work fell hopelessly behind, and our records at times got to be a mess. This was cleaned up when Bob took office, and has stayed current ever since.
We must also recognize Bob's wife Nan as a contributor in this official biography, because she has helped greatly, and donated much of her own time, especially when Bob had some health problems in recent years.
Bob is a graduate of M.I.T. and holds a degree in Aeronautical Engineering. He is a WW II Navy veteran, and worked for many years as a Sales Engineer at Vickers Hydraulics, and as a Weights Engineer for Grumman Aircraft. Ref SS#114
1993
Carl V. CARLSON - Inducted 1993
Born
In 1928, he set a world indoor record of 4 mins,. 19 sec. He also placed high enough in outdoor in the Chicago Tribune Contest to win a free trip to the 1928 Nationals, where he won 1st place in Outdoor Junior. He also had a number of wins and places in several other Nats and large contests of the era. As an Aeronautics student, he designed and built a wind tunnel in 1928, receiving recognition by the press, and boosting model aviation.
In 1930, he developed his 'Big Crate I' a Wall, Jr. powered eleven
foot biplane, which was the first gas powered model flown in a national contest, at the 1931 Nats in Dayton, Ohio. It was followed by Big Crates II and III. The Big Crate III won 1st, Open FF at the 1934 Akron Nationals.
He operated the Carlson Model Airplane Co, a kit manufacturing business for a couple of years. In 1932, he worked on the "Knight" engine with Gilbert Nelson. He used another of Mr. Nelson's engines, the "Gil" in Big Crates II and III. In 1935, he went to work for Joe Ott designing models for kits at The Whitman Publishing Co.
Carl is a Professional Engineer (P.E.). In 1937, he received a BS Aeronautical degree from the University of Michigan. Before and during WWII, he designed armament production machinery, and was Chief Engineer at Howard Aircraft in 1946. He operated a consulting engineering firm and was associated with R&D Construction, Chicago, designing support equipment for the Air Force, airlines, and major aircraft companies. Carl's most recent major project was the design of a patented paint hangar for the Douglas DC-9/MD80 at long Beach, CA.
In 1970„ Carl returned to building model airplanes with his son. At this time Carl, with help from Vic Cunnyngham, Sr. is building replicas of the Big Crate I and III for the AMA Museam in Muncie, Indiana.. Ref SS#114.
1993
Joseph (Joe) KONEFES - Inducted 1994 top of this page
Born
Joe began modeling in 1927 after a Curtis Jenny made a forced landing in a neighboring farmer's field.
In 1933, he went to work for Bill Bishop at Comet, building display models while still in high school. After graduation, he went to work for Comet and worked there 8 years. His job was drawing plans in India ink on tracing cloth for many of Comet's flying and solid scale models.
Comet's first two gas models were Joe's designs. One was the six foot span Curtis Robin in 1937, and the other was the Golden Eagle done in 1938. Both were successful kit designs and have lasted many years.
He built the prototype 'Comet Interceptor' to be flown at the 1941 'Nationals', and commented that it was unsuccessful mostly due to a lack of sleep on his part, and the underpowered ATOM engine used.
He was a member of the Junior Birdmen, Chicago Aeronuts, the Gas Model Aeronuts, and the Chicago area 'Buzzards' club. He designed the 'Buzzard Bombshell' in a club competition to design a durable sport model to be used in mass flight demonstrations. Eighteen were built by members of the club. The model proved to be very capable, winning the Wisconsin State Championship and Class 'C' at the 1940 Nationals. He says that he was embarrassed when the model beat the Zipper and the Comet Sailplane at the 1940 'Nats'. He chased the model downwind on foot for a mile, losing sight of it, and returned to the field to find the timer still watching the model. A thermal had lifted the plane high into the wind and returned it to the field for a flight of 49 minutes.
Joe says that he owes much of his success to friends that he worked with at Comet: Bob Reder, Al Horbak, Carl Goldberg, Fred Schlienz, Sid Axelrod, Ed Lidgard and others, members of the Buzzard Club, and to his brother Ed, who he says, is a better flier than he ever was. Ref SS#120
1994
Bill WINTER - Inducted 1994
Born
The most prolific model airplane designer and writer for the model publications of our time, Bill Winter has been a tremendous contributor to the style of American publications since the thirties. He has been an editor, assistant editor, managing editor, associate editor, production editor and columnist. He has been responsible for much of the great wealth of educational and entertaining information made available to modelers of our time. He raised a family of nine children from the rewards of being a very industrious model writer.
Starting with Model Airplane News in 1935, he served on the staffs of all the popular model magazines, during WW-II and on up to the present. His retirement in 1980 was his official termination date, but the articles and plans have continued to flow from his always fresh supply of ideas. He produced 23 rubber flying scale plans and more than 200 of all types; F/F, CL, R/C and solids in his tour with the model magazines, and hundreds of articles and books. Some of his best known were the 1941 Model Aircraft Handbook and The Basics of R/C Modelling. The latter continued selling for 31 years, being revised by Fred Marks. He was responsible for all the Air Trails Annuals up through 1946.
He worked for all of the well known model magazines of our youth: Bill Barnes, Air Trails, M.A.N., Flying Aces, Open Road for Boys, Flying, Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, Mechanics Illustrated, Airborne, Airworld, Aeromodeller and Flying Models. In 1936, Street and Smith hired him as Assistant Editor on Bill Barnes Air Adventure, and later he became Associate Editor and finally Editor.
He was instrumental in the sale of American Modeler to Potomac Aviation Publications and the addition of the AMA section to American Modeler.
Probably his most popular and best liked column was his 'Just for the Fun of it', that appeared in Model Aviation for several years. This was his last regular column, and drew thousands of monthly followers. His relaxed, easy style of writing and humor was readily accepted by the modelers of our time. Ref SS#120
1994
Edward KONEFES - Inducted 1994
Born
Ed started modeling following his older brother Joe. Ed says he remembers his brother bringing home 25 cent kits to build as display models for the Comet Model Airplane Company.
Ed's first job in the model business was hand-carving the 13 1/2 inch birch props that went into the Curtis Robin kits. He later worked the AIRCRAFT Model Company in Chicago, and designed the 'Cloudsnooper' gas model that has been approved for SAM competition.
His first gas model was a 'California Chief', built in 1936 and powered with a Baby Cyclone. Both of these products were produced by Major Mosely's Cal-Aero Industries, located in Glendale, CA.
He and his brother were early members of the Chicago Buzzards Club, which held a competition for a design that all the members would build to be flown at a club project. The Buzzard Bombshell, brother Joe's design, was the winning model. Gordon Christofer, who owned the AIRCRAFT Model Company, produced kits for the club, and Ed's was the first model completed. He lost the plane at a contest in Indianapolis.
During WW-II, Ed got a job at the local airport because of his building experience, and worked as an aircraft mechanic until retirement in 1987.
He returned to modeling in 1974 with a few R/C models and old time gas models. He started flying old time and modern AMA rubber in 1980, and credits Charlie Sotich with helping him get back into modeling, also with helping him set the current Class III Mulvihill record at the 1991 Nationals.
He has attended all of the SAMCHAMPS since 1980, and is a much-liked and respected competitor in SAM Old Timer events. Ref SS#120
1994
Carl HERMES - Inducted 1994
Born
Carl first jumped into prominence as a model designer and builder when his beautiful elliptical-winged 'Hayseed' won the Ohio State model championship in Cleveland in 1941. This successful Class 'C' design with a 930 sq.in. wing was the forerunner to a number of similar designs, some of which were published.
Carl was a regular contributor to Frank Zaic's yearbooks, with his design emphasis moving toward Wakefield models. Before and during WW-II, he experimented with derivations of the original Hayseed. He produced a Class 'A-B', a larger Class 'B' and a small Class 'A'. He built another version that he called the Tinian Express after the island where he was stationed in the South Pacific. The Model was last seen disappearing in a thermal over the warm waters of the Pacific Ocean.
Carl started his modeling career in Connecticut, and was one of the founders of the Bridgeport Aeronuts MAC. He attended New York University where he earned a degree in aeronautical engineering. After the war, Carl worked for Boeing and Lockheed Aerospace. He owned a full-scale KA-8 glider for many years, and was also a sailboater.. His modeling interest continued with Wakefield rubber models, and he became an active Wakefield competitor using his own designs, and was a member of the 1953 World Championship Team, along with Joe Foster and George Reich. He later was again named to the 1963 U.S. Wakefield Team, and wrote several technical articles on Wakefield designs, experimenting with solid balsa wings with movable trailing edges.
Bill Wargo once wrote: Carl was one of the most unselfish people I have ever known. He was always willing to help anyone at any time, no matter what. He was also one of the most unflappable. I can not recall ever having seen him upset over anything that had gone wrong, and I am very proud to have had Carl as a close friend.
Don Bekins said: Carl Hermes was a quiet, modest, unassuming person with a keen interest and talent in anything aeronautical. When Don converted his Hayseed to R/C, Carl traveled up to the SAM-27 field to see his old free flight rocket up, powered by an Ohlsson 60. Asked if he would like to try his hand at controlling the model, he demurred saying that he was a 'purist', a free flighter at heart! Ref SS#120
1994
Tommy McLAUGHLIN - Inducted 1994
Born
His interest in model aviation started in Baltimore during the late 1920's through the American Boy magazine model section. He built rubber-powered models and competed in indoor competitions sponsored by a Baltimore department store. Tommy became interested in outdoor rubber models, and in 1929 was the Baltimore Twin Pusher Champion, winning a trip to the 1929 Detroit Nationals. During the thirties, he turned to power models and became very competitive, ultimately winning the Mod Kraft trophy in 1941. After the war, he won the trophy in 1946 and again in 1947, thereby gaining permanent possession.
In the early 50's, Tom turned to FAI power, and was a member of the U.S. team at the FAI Internationals in Austria in 1973, and again in 1979. He was very competitive in SAM Old Timer events with his Forster 29 powered Zipper, his .020 Playboy, and his original design 'Big 01' Plane by a fellow free flighter. This design is now approved for SAM as an Old Timer.
In 1931, Tommy started in the aviation industry when he went to work in Baltimore for Berliner-Joyce, building biplanes, and the all-metal Y1-11 pursuit. Berliner-Joyce later became North American Aviation and one of the projects was the T-6/SNJ prototype. He moved to Connecticut to work at Sikorsky, building the S-42 series China Clippers. In 1940, he moved to Pensacola to work with the Naval Aviation Depot until retirement as a production supervisor.
During the genesis of the Fiesta of Five Flags Contest in 1958, Tommy, among others was instrumental in its inception, organization, and set up the contacts, policies and procedures that exist today. Ref SS#120
1994
James NOONAN - Inducted 1994
Born
Jim began modeling in 1927, shortly after Charles Lindberg inspired the youth of America with his solo flight across the Atlantic. His first models were built from any materials he could find, such as wooden boxes and hair pins. He built models from plans in the first issues of Universal Model Airplane News. He also built them from 1911 plans that he resurrected from model clubs that were in existence before he was born.
Jim entered his first competition with the Junior Birdmen in 1934. In November 1935, he left high school and went into the WPA, working with a pick and shovel. In 1936, he went to his first 'Nationals' in Detroit.
In 1937, he attended the 'Nats', also in Detroit, and placed in rubber stick and other events.
In 1938, he built his first successful Wakefield design, the Big Diamond, and his stick model, the Homesick Angel. In 1939, his job with the WPA ended,and he then worked for the Whitman Publishing Company designing models for publication in Air Trails, and for many years made his living as a writer for the model magazines.
In 1941, he was selected to work at Langley Field with 630 other model builders, producing models for wind tunnel research. He left Langley for the Army Signal Corps and ended up in Casablanca.
He is best known as a teacher of model building and the model materials business that he ran for many years. His 1911 replica of Cecil Puoli's model airplane has been on display at the Smithsonian for ten years.
Jim has done so much for the art of building and flying of model airplanes, that it is hard to list all of his accomplishments. Ref SS#120
1994
Carl SPIELMAKER - Inducted 1994
Born 1927
Carl has been interested in model airplane engines all of his life, attempting his first engine while still in high school at age 17. That year was 1944. Using drawings from Popular Mechanics magazine, he tried to make his first model engine.
Carl has been chosen because of his pioneering work in the building of SAM. He started SAM Chapter 4 in the early days, and has been the driving force alone with his friend Bob Pattison in building the SAM legend in the Michigan area. His other claim to fame, and probably the most unheralded support to the SAM movement, is the long list of replica model engines he built to sustain the modelers' need for old time engines. The easiest way to describe Carl's efforts is just to go down the list by the year:
In 1953, he designed and built his own .15 displ., front rotor engine, notable for its copper-plated head.
In 1963, he built his first 'Golden Eagle', a .53 displacement engine. 30 engines were built.
In 1964, Carl built 40 copies of the Dallaire 'Peewee'. Many modelers attending the first 'CHAMPS' at Denver bought this engine for $40.00!
In 1965, Carl made 10 copies of the 'A' Marvin.
Starting in 1965, Carl produced Super Cyke cylinders for Ralph Morock's Remco Replicas. Over 7 years he made 1200 Super Cyke rods.
In 1965, he developed the Spielmaker-60'. Between 1968 and 1981, he made 65 motors.
In 1984, he built the Megow .19 Concept engine, and made 84 engines.
In 1986, he built 8 copies of the Edco Diesel. The last copy sold for 1200 dollars!
In 1987 he produced 35 copies of the 'Bantam-16', and 35 copies were made before production ceased.
His current project is the 'Denny' (round head) race car engine. Production was started in 1970 and is continuing.
In conclusion, let me say that Carl Spielmaker's sense of humor and his friendly smile are reason enougtto induct him into SAM's Hall of Fame. Carl is everybody's friend! Ref SS#120
1994
Donald G. GAROFALOW - Inducted 1994
Born January, 1915 --- Died December 27, 2013
Don started building models in 1927. These were rubber-powered, mostly scale, outdoor stick and twin pushers. His first success in competition was in 1932 and 1933 in local contests and meets sponsored by the Bamberger Aero Club. He graduated from high school in 1933, during the worst part of the great depression. During 1934, he worked for the Queen Anne Novelty Company, which was attempting to manufacture model kits. In 1934 he met John and Dan Frisoli of the Scientific Model Airplane Company.
From 1934 through 1936, he constructed models for these two companies. In all, he estimates that he made 65 model airplanes and 30 model boats. These models were used for photographs that were placed in their catalogs. Among others, he built gas model versions of the Starling, Miss America, Eaglet, Commodore, Red Zephyr, Mercury, Miss Philadelphia, Streamliner and the Flagship. He also made the prototypes of the rubber-powered 50inch Monocoupe and the 60inch Waco Custom.
His first design work for Scientific was the Red Flash. This kit was followed by the Flea, Firefly and the 24inch Valkyrie. He later did the kit designs for Korda's Victory and Goldstar. Later, he designed other rubber-powered kits for Scientific, such as the All American, Olympic, Zephyr, Spartan, Parachute Plane, Clarion, Fleetwing, Bullet, 30inch Miss World's Fair, Scientific ROG. Raven, Windsor, Blue Phantom, Air Raider, Skipper, Sky Scraper and Flying Yankee.
He also designed model plans such as the Bantam 25, Monocoupe 15 and Waco Biplane that were given as premiums for magazine subscriptions. His gas model designs for Scientific were: the Ensign, Varsity and the Larkey.
During 1938-1941, he operated the Best by Test Model Airplane Company and designed the Airflow 40, Hawklet and the ROG Mite.
After the war, he worked in businesses that made wind tunnel models, and in 1961 he began free lance model work under the name: Supercraft Models, and produced models for various aerospace corporations. This business continued operation under his son's guidance. Ref SS#120
1994
Bruce NORMAN - Inducted 1995 top of this page
Born
Bruce contributed significantly to the development of SAM through his participation in both free flight and RC events. Bruce (and wife Leslie) were always tough competitors who relished the friendships that model flying made possible. Bruce's SAM flying began in 1974 when he visited Taft and discovered the OT free flight movement. As you know, Bruce is an accomplished builder who was always striving to be the best.
Among Bruce's major aeromodeling achievements are SAM Champs Free Flight Grand Champion in 1976, 1977 and 1979. He was RC Grand Champion in 1980, 1982, 1984, and 1985. He was the 1987 SAM Champs Contest Director, and served on the SAM Engine committee.
Bruce and Leslie are retired and spend a great deal of their time traveling in their motorhome up and down the west coast visiting with friends they made over the years they were so active in model flying. Ref SS#126
1995
Ralph KUMMER - Inducted 1995
Born
Ralph has been building model airplanes since 1923. From age 12 to 19 he designed, built and flew rubber powered free flights. He held 3 world records in different categories, and won many contests. He was President of model clubs and co-director of USA's largest club (St Louis). Ralph managed his own model shop from 1931 to 1934, and contributed model designs to several model magazines.
Ralph learned to fly full scale aircraft in1941 at St. Louis in a Piper Cub. Tha same year he became a partner in a new Porterfield airplane, which he flew home from the factory in Kansas City.
He was an Army Liason Pilot in WW II and saw more than 300 hours flying combat missions during two years in the Pacific theater. Ralph was promoted to Major and was awarded Air medal, Oak Leaf Cluster.
Ralph was a private airport owner from 1945 to 1948. His ratings include commercial pilot and flight instructor in both lam and seaplanes. He also owned a Fairchild PT-19 trainer and a Taylorcraft seaplane.
From1946 to 1948 Ralph was Aviation Editor of the St Louis Star-Times, and subsequently was a public relations executive at Hiller Aircraft, and a marketing consultant who developed proposals for the FAA.
Memberships have included charter member AMA, NAA, Pacific Wings club, American Helicopter Society and Aviation Writers Assoc. Ralph is listed in Who's Who in Aviation.
In SAM, Ralph has participated in old time rubber events around the world for the past several years. Ref SS#126
1995
Charles Bud WARREN - Inducted 1995
Born
Bud was raised in Fort Collins, CO, and built his first model airplane in 1927 He built his first models from bamboo calendars and the bamboo poles in carpet rolls. Propellers were carved from spruce and walnut. He was definitely hooked by this experience and has never wavered from his hobby.
Bud joined the Jimmy Allen movement and flew in the local contests. He built both rubber and gas models during the thirties.
He spent five years in the National Guard at various duties and locations. The latter part of his tour he commanded a road block just outside of Inst, Austria. On may 5, 1945 when he passed a group wanting to surrender, one of the persons was Werner Von Braun.
Bud was active in control line as well as free flight in 1948, and held the Colorado speed record for class B speed at 139.6 MPH flown at E.F.C. (Cinderella City)
He was active in organizing the Rocky Mountain Modelers club in Fort Collins and the Boulder Aeromodeling Society. Bud has been a member of the Model Museum Club (SAM #1) since 1960 and served as secretary for several years.
His Super Buccaneer (of which he is very fond) has flown in all of the local meets including many SAM Champs and especially the early SAM Champs. He also flies rubber and 1/2A RC. His Super Buccaneer has survived being lost three times in 34 years. Ref SS#126
1995
Woody WOODMAN - Inducted 1995 - top of this page
Born November 20, 1923. Hackensack. NJ. -- Died 1923
Woody lived in Saddle Brook. NJ and then moved to his summer home. Bayviile. in 1980. He worked for Public Service Gas and Electric Company for 32 years. retiring, as a line supervisor. A veteran of the Coast Guard in WW II, he was a past Commander of Flotilla 7-11. Coast Guard Auxiliary and VFW Post 4535. En addition to the Old Time Eagles. he belonged to the Ocean County Modelers and Pine Barren Modelers. He is survived by his wife, Evelyn, a son Michael and his wife Valerie. and three grandsons. Michael and his wife Kim., Steven and Christopher. (by Mike Cook and Joe Beshar)
Woody has been outstanding in his support of the Society as demonstrated by his record. He has been active model builder since 1933, at a member of NAA/AMA since 1936.
Woody joined SAM in 1969, and was Eastern SAM Vice Presidet for 6 years. He was initially interested in RC, and wrote the first RC Old Timer rules. Woody was an RC OT prime mover at all SAM Champs, and organized and ran the first RC events at the 1972 SAM Champs at Bong Field, WI. He encouraged interest in RC Old Timer, resulting in its acceptance as a regular SAM Champs event. He also was RC SAM Champs Contest Director at Denver and La Junta, CO, Wright Paterson AFB, Westover AFB, and Aerolympics, Lakehurst, NJ. He served as Contest Manager at the 1978 Champs at Coyle Field, NJ.
Woody served on the SAM rules committee and became the first RC Rules Coordinator, serving until 1994, and is the present SAM Chapter Coordinator, having held that post for the past 23 years. He has set up and manned the SAM booth at the WRAMS show every year since 1975. Ref SS#126
1995
Ernie LINN - Inducted 1995
Born
Ernie started modeling in1931, when he first built solid models from pictures in the early Battle Aces and Bill Barnes Magazines. He graduated to rubber powered flying models in 1934. He was soon on the contest trail and was vinning prizes and awards locally. In 1938 he went to Eldorado Kansas and won first prize in rubber. He soon began designing his own Wakefields and produced several designs in 1936, 1938, and 1939. His best works were his 1938 and 1939 Wakefields which won the Kansas state championship. About this time he won two first places that netted him two Comet Clipper kits. With the five dollars his dad gave him plus one of the kits, he was able to make a swap for his first gas motor, a Brown Junior.
Ernie went to work for Boeing Wichita for two years before joining the U.S.A.A.F. After the service he returned to Boeing, and except for three months at Beech Aircraft, he worked there 41 years. He retired in 1985.
Ernie was instrumental in creating the SAM approved design handbook of gas models. His initial efforts at cataloging all the designs of the prewar years finally became the SAM bible of gas jobs with the help of Bob Larsh, George Armstead, Jim Adams and others. He has also started the SAM list of approved rubber model designs, which is much more lengthy than the gas model list.
Ernie and Suzie have been married since 1949, and have two children, Earl and Diana. Earl built and flew models for several years and entered the Nationals.
Ernie joined the Boeing Hawks model club after the war and was an officer and the newsletter editor for three years. He served 7 years on the AMA free flight rules committee, from 1975 to 1982.
He is a life member of SAM, having joined in 1979. He was instrumental in the formation of the Kansas Historical Aviation Museum and is a life member. He has been a member of the AMA since the days of NAA. Ref SS#126
1995
Roy WRISTON - Inducted 1996 top of this page
Born
Roy Wriston built his first model airplane, a pusher, in 1928. He competed successfully in numerous contests in the Midwest from Oklahoma to Ohio, flying indoor and outdoor rubber and gas. Several summers in the 1930s, Roy, and a Hudson Terraplane full of Tulsa modelers toured contests in the Midwest on their way to either the Nationals or the Mississippi Valley Meet in St. Louis which rivaled the Nationals at that time. By attending many contests each year in several states, he developed a high standard of flying and established lasting friendships with standouts such as Light, Cahill, Korda, Lanzo, Simmers, Zaic and many others. Zaic's review of the 1936 Nationals at Detroit says, in part, “The Tulsa boys were the outstanding winners in this last Nationals meet." At that contest, Roy placed second, some seven seconds behind Albert Judge, English winner of the Wakefield Cup. Roy was also a frequent winner of Jimmy Allen contests.
Roy was very active in helping other modelers, particularly beginners. He started Tulsa's first model airplane club, the Model Aeronautical Engineers (MAE), which eventually had nearly forty members. He also taught model building to Boy Scouts at summer camps in Tulsa and New Mexico, and was instrumental in organizing annual contests.
Roy Wriston along with Frank Zaic were members of the AMA Executive committee the year it was formed in 1936. The first year the organization was formed it was called American Academy for Model Aeronautics. This was later changed to Academy of Model Aeronautics. Some of his designs were published in model magazines and Zaic Year Books. He was best known for his diamond fuselage configuration. While Roy Wriston has not been an active modeler in recent years, his participation and achievements in the 1930s and early '40s place him in the front rank with other top modelers of that period. (by Allen Chapman)
1996
Born Detroit Michigan, February 20, 1932
Honors:-
-1944 Cooper Brothers Trophy for Indoor Championship
-1996 Society of Antique Modelers Hall of Fame
-1998 Won 50th Anniversary Wakefield Contest ~ Copland Trophy (inducted)
-1998 AMA Pioneer Award
-2004 Model Aviation Hall of Fame
I look fondly back over 62 years of great fun building and flying model planes that began for me as a lad of ten years old witnessing a young adult flying a rubber model. I later attended a summer program that would teach model building. The program required $2.00 for supplies. This model building class really gave me the basics of how it is done and, albeit rudimentary, skills to build models. At age 12 I joined a model club, the Detroit Balsa Bugs. I thereafter won the Junior Indoor Championship and the Cooper Brothers trophy.
At age 19, the Korean War erupted and I enlisted in the Air Force. I spent four years as a flight instructor and also served as a gunnery instructor. After my military service, I attended Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
I married my high school sweetheart Millie in October 1951. In 1952, I became interested in Radio Control models and joined the newly formed Radio Control Club of Detroit. I consider myself a pioneer. With three other club members, we formed the first Radio Control model show, which is now the Toledo Show
In 1972, I discovered the Society of Antique Modelers (SAM). For the last thirty-two years, I have primarily flown antique reproductions.
I was fortunate to win the 50th Wakefield Anniversary contest the Copland trophy at Middle Wallop, England in 1988. I also won the Large Rubber event at the SAM International held in Gorizia, Italy in 1992. I was honored to win the Korda Special Event held at the AMA field (with 65 entries) in 1996. This model is now in the AMA museum. I was the Florida State Rubber Champion in 1994. I am still an active Free Flight rubber flyer and compete on a local and national level. I also fly Old Timer Radio Control SAM models. This is great fun and, as I get older, this is a less physical model activity. I also belong to the Vintage Radio Control Society. This group flies the early Radio Control designs.
I’m primarily involved with SAM models and limiting myself to recreate the old designs, although I have found time to create some of my own. One of my designs was published in Radio Modeler, an English magazine. It was a climb and glide model (Albatross), a low-cal designed indoor model. I also compete with a Mulvihill rubber model I designed called the “Bull Teaser” and I have shipped plans for the model around Europe.
I was president of the Radio Control Club of Detroit for three years in the 1960s. Beginning in 1972 I was active in the management of SAM. I have served on the design-verification committee and rules committee. I worked as an assistant contest manager for three SAM Champs and was elected as President of SAM in 2000 ~ 2004.
I have been very fortunate to win many contests, and my shop walls are full of plaques as reminders of a good time with my friends. I feel very fortunate to have received several honorary awards from AMA and SAM over the years, and honored to be adjoined within the ranks of famous modelers before me. (Tom McCoy Autobiography)
1996
William (Bill) GOOD - Inducted 1996
Born April 25, 1916 --- Died May 18, 2001
Bill Good and his twin brother, Walt Good (inducted into the SAM Hall of Fame in 1989) are the one of just two sets of brothers in the SAM Hall of Fame. The Good brothers were born in Hillsdale Michigan and grew up in Kalamazoo Michigan. Their father was a high school science teacher. He encouraged their interest in physics as did their professors at Kalamazoo College. Both boys had started building model airplanes in 1927. Bill focused on developing radios while Walt had the stronger passion for building model airplanes. Their shared interests and efforts led to the development of the first successful RC controlled model airplane. Bill designed and made the first successful model aircraft RC system. Walt designed the airplane, known as the Guff. The Guff was first flown at a Nats in 1937. A class was opened up for RC models and the Good brothers won the 1938, 1939, and 1940 Nats flying the Guff. The two brothers competed successfully with the Guff as late as the 1947 Nats also won by the Good brothers. One of the Good brother’s original Guff’s is on permanent display at the Smithsonian.
After graduating from Kalamazoo College in 1937, both brothers went on to earn PhD’s in physics. Bill earned his PhD at the University of Pittsburgh. During the war years, Bill worked at Westinghouse on radar issues, and also in the nuclear program. He then worked for General Electric until retirement in 1977. He received 18 patents for his inventions. Much of his work involved development of color television and large scale information screens.
1996
Born October 8, 1908 --- Died June 6, 2000
Honor:-
-1996 Society or Antique Modelers Hall of Fame
In 1937 Elmer traveled to Detroit Michigan to enter into the Tenth National Championship Model Airplane Meet. Roy Marquardt was his assistant. This meet featured the first ever radio control event and Elmer entered his own design of gas powered model airplane and a very complex radio guidance system.
Elmer had an industrial arts degree and was teaching aeronautics at John Gorrie Jr. High School in Jacksonville, Florida at the time. At 28, he was in the middle age group of the entries. There were six radio control entries in this inaugural event.
The following is Walt Good’s description of Elmer Wasman’s radio controlled ship as observed by Walt at that same 1937 event where he was also entered as a contestant:
“Elmer Wasman was the second to fly with a well designed system. It was called the “White Mystery” because it had a wind-driven propeller on the front of the rudder fin. No one knew what it did except Elmer”
The model, named the White Mystery, was 11-foot span and weighed 14 pounds with a wing area of 16 1/2 square feet. His radio was the most complex of the four designs that were entered in the 1937 radio event at the old Detroit airport. His system had five functions, up and down elevator, right and left rudder and engine cutoff. A set of three navigation lights was mounted on the plane and connected so that red was left rudder, green was right and white was down elevator. Thus he had a visual indication of the activated control. A small four-blade propeller near the back furnished the power for the moving controls. It did not have a wind driven dynamo/generator as many people thought. The wingspread was of the rare mid-wing design. A Forster .99 ignition engine provided power.
Elmer admitted, because of a lack of time he had not been able to test fly the plane. On its maiden flight it rose under its own power, stalled and crashed. He was awarded the third place trophy based on his demonstration of the control system on the ground, prior to the flight attempt.
At the 1994 SAM Champs Elmer presented to the AMA museum the third place award that he had won that day at Detroit.
He later earned an Industrial Arts degree and taught mechanical drawing and aeronautics in the public schools of Illinois and Florida.
Prior to W.W.II Elmer served as an Army aircraft engine mechanic at Chanute field. He later transferred to the Navy and taught mechanical drawing.
At 87, Elmer was still an active SAM competitor and usually seen at the SAM Champs.
Walter Good, also a participant at the 1937 RC contest says "I strongly agree with the nomination of Elmer Wasman to the Hall of Fame, as an early RC model pioneer. P.S. I knew him well."
1996
Robert LARSH - Inducted 1996
Born
Bob Larsh served SAM as Midwest Vice President and Chairman of the Design Approval Committee. He has been a tireless worker in the task of researching and approving designs that have been approved for use in SAM competitions and the rules for flying. Bob, in his position as the chairman of the approval process, insisted on the utmost authenticity and reliability in the categorizing and listing of the old-timer and antique designs. He is responsible for the revised format of the 1996-1 m SAM approved designs gas model handbook. In addition to his task of approving designs for SAM. he has been the person primarily responsible for approving designs for use in what has become known as the Nostalgia period, the models flown after 1942 and up to 1970. He was responsible for getting the National Free Flight Society to accept the job of maintaining the list of Nostalgia designs and the publishing of a booklet listing all of the Nostalgia designs, the rules for competition, and the engines acceptable for use in these.
As Midwest VP, Bob did a tremendous job for SAM, providing the leadership needed during the early formative years of our organization. Under his leadership SAM Champs were held at Bong, Wright-Patterson, Lawrenceville, and Muncie. Bob Larsh is truly one of the pioneers in the Society of Antique Modelers. (by Jim Adams)
1996
Harry (John) W ALDEN Lt. - Inducted 1996
Born May 22,1897 --- Died October 25,1951
Perhaps more than anyone person the creation and organization of the Academy of Model Aeronautics is the responsibility of Lt. H. W. Alden, U.S. Navy Ret.
The publication of Model Aviation (magazine) was initiated by Lt. Alden. He timed the first issue so that it would be distributed at the 1936 Nationals. He published both issues No. 1, and No.2, and were prepared in Frank Zaic's 10th street loft. Lt. Alden would come in, sit down in front of Frank’s Underwood portable, and type out the copy. Frank marveled at his ability to type whatever he had in mind with only one try. His first copy was good enough for paste-up. Lt. Alden paid all of the expenses, printing and postage.
Lt. Alden did not originate the Model Aviation title. At one time he mentioned that someone in Brooklyn had used it, but that he obtained permission to use the title. Whatever the origin, he must have recognized it as being just what was needed. It got us away from the "model airplane" term, which tends to have a toy connotation.
He also suggested the name American Academy of Model Aeronautics. He realized that we needed a name, which would not associate us with the juvenile atmosphere, which had been nurtured by the American Boy Airplane Model League of America. The name was long, but it did present us in an adult and dignified manner, and had an aura of the technical and educational aspect of model aviation.
It made it possible for Lt. Alden to invite influential persons to join the AMA. The Board members were outstanding leaders in their field. With their help, many doors would open for AMA to present their cause and needs.
Judging from Lt. Alden's personality and perseverance, and the wide range of friends in aviation and elsewhere, there was no doubt that he helped achieve the aims he and Frank Zaic had set forth in the first two issues of Model Aviation. By 1936, we were all united in the cause and through the magazine we were able to establish the communication among the new AMA organization and it’s members. (by Frank Zaic)
1996
Radoslav (Rado) CIZEK - Inducted 1996
Born May 18, 1924, Kamenne Zehrovice Bohemia --- Died March 7, 2005
Rado Cizek’s reputation as a model designer in the countries behind the Iron Curtain matches that of Sal Taibi, Chet Lanzo and Carl Goldberg in the United States. Cizek designed more than 190 model airplanes, and more than 150 of those designs were published in model magazines. Photos of the designs frequently appeared on the covers of European model magazines. Cizek was born in the village of Kamenne Zehrovice in Bohemia, now part of the Czech Republic. He built his first model airplane at age 12. Under Nazi occupation, clubs and other associations were banned. It was illegal, but Rado organized the Kamenne Zehrovice model club in 1943, and remained chief of the club until his death. Members of the club had great competition success and Rado was frequently the rubber powered model champion of Czechoslovakia. He was a frequent member of Czech teams in international model competitions, particularly in the categories of control line and RC scale. He also served as team coach and judge in these international competitions. But most of his modeling activity was devoted to educating and encouraging young people in modeler clubs.
Rado’s long time “day job” was as a draftsman in a steel plant. He developed a distinctive drafting style, and his designs and plans appeared in many model magazines. He also had a long time correspondence with Frank Zaic. Many of the drawings of Eastern European designs in Zaic’s yearbooks and publications came from Rado Cizek. Rado taught himself to read, write and speak English by studying model magazines.
Rado made his first trip to America in 1992, when the AMA invited him to be a judge at the FAI World Scale Control Line Championships held in Muncie. On that trip he came out to California to participate in the US Free Flight Championships. He was so impressed by the old time free flight activity there that he formed a new SAM chapter in 1993. SAM 95 Bohemia ‘s activities are centered in the area around Prague. Rado became President and newsletter editor of the club. He published a very informative newsletter distributed to some 250 people. Until the end of his life, he was an active promoter for SAM activities in Eastern Europe.
Two of his designs, the Kane old time glider and the XL 56 Nostalgia Wakefield model are short kitted by Bob Holman and are available today. His Kane glider design frequently places well in old time towline glider competitions both at the US SAM Champs, and at the annual national Kane Cup in the Czech Republic.
The FAI awarded Rado Cizek its Aeromodelling Gold Medal in 2000 in recognition of his lifelong activities supporting modeling.
As of 2013, Rado is one of just three Europeans in the SAM Hall of Fame, the other two being David Baker (inducted 1990) and Victor Ernest Smeed (inducted 2001)
1996
Hal (Pappy) DeBOLT - Inducted 1997 top of this page
Born 1919 --- Died 2005
Hal was 86 when he passed away. I believe he built and flew models for over 75 years. His modeling history began at 10 years old and he built and flew models continuously. There was a park flyer-type electric autogiro on his work bench when he died. Hal began designing free flight models in the late 30's and early 40's. Three are approved as SAM Old Timers – Airfoiler, Blitzkreig and Whizzawing.
The war years he was in the Navy and began flying control line. From late 1940 through 1960 Hal designed many great innovative models. He held most of the control line speed records during this period. He went into business during this period producing model kits under the company name "Dmeco Models."
During the early 1950's Hal started tinkering with radio control. In 1952 Dmeco introduced the first Livewire rudder-only, radio model. The company went on to produce over 50 control line and radio control designs. Hal was an outstanding model flyer and keen competitor. He flew RC pattern and was on two of our FAI teams. He flew RC pylon and gliders and was a early RC electric flyer. The last 8 years he tinkered with autogiros, and for over 40 years he wrote a column for Model Airplane News. by Tom McCoy, From SS#183 pp6
1997
James Barney ONOFRI - Inducted 1997
Born 1919
Barney began modeling in 1934. He was active in many pioneer New Jersey model airplane clubs including the Trenton Gas Model Club, the Black Triangles, and the Quaker City Gas Model Club. He was an active designer of competition models in the 1930s. He built and flew the first successful gas model in the Trenton, New Jersey area. Barney and Mickey DeAngelis cooperated to build the Trenton Terror gas model. Barney joined the NAA before WW II and joined its successor, the AMA in 1944. He’s been active in the AMA continuously since then. He was a regular competitor at many SAM Champs winning first place in the .020 FF event (at the age of 77) in 1996. He’s spent a good deal of time and effort establishing model clubs and training programs to teach boys how to build, and compete with, model airplanes.
1997
Fiske HANLEY II - Inducted1997
Born 1920
Fiske Hanley II is a native of Fort Worth Texas. In 1937 he won the Senior Texaco Trophy at the Detroit Nationals with a flight of 50 minutes 29 seconds which was a record at the time. The model had flown OOS and was recovered by people on the Detroit River 20 miles from the launch site. . His “Fiske Hanley” airplane had a wingspan of 113 inches. Fiske graduated from Texas Tech in 1943 with a degree in Aeronautical Engineering. On March 27, 1945 Lt. Hanley was the flight engineer on a 504th Bomb Group B-29 named “Stork Club Boys”. He was on his 7th mission when the B-29 was shot down while laying mines in the Shimoseki Straits. Lt. Hanley and the co-pilot were the only survivors of the crew. They were taken as POWs to Tokyo and endured several months of beating and torture before the end of the war. After returning from the war, Fiske spent 43 years working for General Dynamics. He worked on programs including the B36, B-58, F-111 and F-16. He is the historian of the 504th Bomb Group, and often gives talks on his experiences as POW. In 1997, Fiske released a book he authored entitled “Accused American War Criminal”. He gives lectures on his POW experience even today (2012).
1997
Robert (Bob) ANGEL -Inducted 1997
Born ?
Bob has been a long time modeler and a great servant of SAM. He started early as a control line modeler. In the early days of SAM he attended a free flight contest at Condor Field in Taft and joined SAM. He holds membership #217. He is a member of MECA with an interest in old time model engines and has a sizeable collection. He organized SAM Chapter #26 in Santa Maria California in 1977. He’s been the publisher and editor of the newsletter for that club to this day (2012) a 35 year record. He’s also written the Old Timer Column in Model Aviation Magazine from ~2008 to today. He served as SAM West Coast Vice President for six years. He managed the 1985 SAM Champs. In 1986 he rewrote and clarified the SAM Rule Book. In the early 1990s, again on an emergency basis, Bob took over the editorship of SAM Speaks for one year. He served on the SAM RC Rules Committee for many years, and has performed numerous other “behind the scenes” activities to support the SAM organization. In addition he has been either the CD or principal organizer for the John Pond Commemorative SAM RC Contest which has been held annually since 1976.
1997
Lee FREEMAN - Inducted 1997
Born 1927 --- Died 2010
If John Pond is properly thought of as the “Father of SAM, Lee Freeman was there at the conception. Freeman and Pond were good friends and flying buddies. While traveling to the 3rd Annual Stockton Gas Model OT contest in 1963, Freeman told Pond that there ought to be a regular organized old timer model movement and that Pond should head it up. Pond declined. Two months later Freeman read a column in Model Airplane News that said Freeman was starting a new organization. That item, planted by the Mighty Pondo was news to Freeman. But Lee stepped up to the task, acting as SAM President from 1964 to 1966. The MECA Journal invited Freeman to write a column on old timer activities. Freeman wrote it for two years, outlining organizational structures, proposed rules and so on. Modeler Bob Stalick suggested the name Society of Antique Modelers, and the name stuck. After three years of hard work by many, many people Lee was finally able to assemble a basic set of OT Rules and had them published in the 1966 spring edition of the MECA Journal. SAM then had its first nationally recognized rules. In 1966 the press of business caused Freeman to step down. But by then there were 15 SAM Chapters across the country, a set of rules for categorizing old time models and contest flying with regional and national leadership in place. Lee became an active member of SAM Chapter #3, the Southern California Ignition Flyers and flew until 1987 when health problems forced him to retire from active flying.
1997
Vernon KREHBIEL - Inducted 1999 top of this page
Born 1916 --- Died 1996
Honor:-
-1999: Society of Antique Modelers
Vernon Krehbiel was introduced to building and flying model airplanes in 1927 by articles on how to build and fly model airplanes which appeared weekly in the Scrips-Howard newspapers. In 1936 he built his first gasoline engine powered model, a Flying Quaker powered by a GHQ engine, which he later changed to a Baby Cyclone. It wasn't too long after this that he decided to try designing his own models. Armed with a copy of Charles H. Grant's book, Model Airplane Design and Theory of Flight, he designed the Challenger and the Master with which he competed in the 1937, 1938 and 1939 Nationals. He placed 2nd with the Challenger at the 1939 Nationals and was awarded the George S. White Memorial Trophy and a cash award of $75.00. These two designs were kitted by Vemon and resulted in the establishment in 1938 of the VK Model Airplane and Supply hobby shop in Buffalo, N. Y.
The first designs to carry the VK trademark were radio-controlled models that were scale-like in appearance as compared to what was offered at that time by other manufacturers. Appropriately, his first kit was named Challenger, which was followed, by the Navajo and Cherokee. VK Models soon gained a reputation for excellent quality of materials and drawings. They not only looked like their full-scale counterparts but also flew well.
Following the success of these initial kits Vernon decided to design RC scale models of WWI airplanes. The VK line was expanded to include the Nieuport 17, the Sopwith Camel and a Fokker D8. Vernon became a pioneer in the design and kitting of "museum quality" scale model RC airplanes. His WWI, one-fifth scale models are still in production to this day by Proctor Enterprises.
During his lifetime Vernon received many accolades from the hobby industry and his fellow modelers for his achievements. It is no wonder that he named his first design "Challenger" because he was forever challenging himself to make a notable contribution to this avocation we enjoy so much. In 1998 he was inducted into the AMA Hall of Fame. (Biography from 1999 SAM Hall of Fame Honorees Program)
1999
Edward (Dan) Daniel CALKIN - Inducted 1999
Born 1911 --- Died 1978
Honor:-
-1999 The Society of Antique Modelers Hall of Fame
Dan was born in Prosser, Washington in 1911 and graduated with honors from MIT with a Master Degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1933.
Dan Calkin devoted his life to the advancement of model aviation. He pioneered the development and manufacture of small engines and was famous for his corncob, ELF single, ELF Twins, ELF fours and ELF Six. After his career at ELF, Dan devoted himself to his new career as a rocket scientist at Douglas Missile System in Santa Monica.
He was a pioneer developer of small lightweight 1.5 volt coils in 1935, a pioneer designer and manufacturer of 1/4-32 size spark plugs in 1934, and was a pioneer designer and manufacturer of model airplane propellers.
Daniel Calkin built his first successful engine when he was 17 years old. His first ELF engine was sold in July 1935. He started building engines a short time after Bill Brown, but he built engines one-fourth the size the size of the Brown Jr.
The first production ELF, the so-called corncob, was designed specifically for the Texaco type event. It would run approximately 42 minutes on an ounce of fuel.
As the rules changed Dan Calkin designed an all-new series of engines-the slant plug engines. The new single appeared in 1939, the twin in 1940, the famous "Goose Egg" four in 1941. In 1951 six cylinder engines were produced, a truly great technical and mechanical achievement.
Dan Calkin had his ELF powered airplane featured in Ripley's "Believe it or Not' in December 27, 1936. (Biography from 1999 SAM Hall of Fame Honorees Program)
1999
Born May 28, 1924 --- Died December 24, 2012
Honor:-
-1999: Society of Antique Modelers
Larry was born In Glendale, California. He began modeling in 1930 building solid models. This was followed by a long series of rubber powered models. In 1937 he built and flew his first gas powered model, a Quaker Flash powered by a 'Brown Junior engine.
His lifelong passion for spark ignition powered free flight model airplanes was interrupted for service in the USMC in WW II and Korea.
He returned to flying models in 1965 and built a Miss America, powered by his trusty Brown Jr. During this time he built and flew Ignition free-flight models only.
In 1971 Larry joined the Southern California Ignition Flyers club. SCIFS were chartered as SAM Chapter number three (3) located in the San Fernando Valley and flew out of the famous Sepulveda basin flying field. He was elected President of the SCIFS from 1988 thru 1989. He has served as treasurer of CUFFMAC, the organization of Model Clubs of California, for several years.
Larry was appointed by SAM president, Jim Adams, as the Secretary-Treasurer of SAM. He served from 1992 to 2003. He did a tremendous job and much appreciated by the SAM organization for those five years. When Larry took over the Secretary-Treasurer’s job, SAM was in some financial difficulty. Larry was an insurance company executive in his business life. Being both fiscally conservative and familiar with actuarial principles. Larry helped put SAM’s finances aright. Larry also created SAM’s first computerized membership record keeping system.
Larry does not win every contest he enters, but he is always one of the first on the field, and one of the last to leave. His determination is admired by all on the field. Larry is honored particularly for his dedication to the hobby and to the establishment of SAM as an entity with a solid financial foundation. (Biography from 1999 SAM Hall of Fame Honorees Program)
1999
Harry (Pop) SCHRIBER - Inducted 1999
Born 1891 --- Died 1978
Honor: 1999: Society of Antique Modelers Hall of Fame
From about 1934 through the middle 1960’s, Pop Schriber's model shop, the "Model Aircraft Institute", at 3507 Prospect in Kansas City was the center for all airplane modelers in the Kansas City area. It was where you went to get kits and supplies, information about the pending contests, and to meet your friends. Pop was glad to see everyone and always had a suggestion if you needed help.
He cut his own balsa and usually managed to have some on hand all through WW2. Pop and his wife Ethyl first lived in a nearby house and later moved into the back of the shop.
Pop had many interests and abilities. The model shop was also the center for Erickson Radio Service. Pop also liked to hunt and fish. In 1936, he organized the Winged Motors free flight club. Club members included Winnie Davis, Carl Perkins, Frank Lilly, Dave Kneeland, and Carl Lindsey.
Throughout his active life, Pop directed the important area free flight and control line contests, and encouraged everyone to participate. He organized trips to the early nationals and to contests in nearby states. Transportation was in Pop's 1936 Pierce Arrow. A Comet Sailplane wing fits nicely into the Pierce Arrow by resting one tip on the sun visor and the other tip on the back shelf. The roof curve fit the dihedral nicely. Later trips were in his 1940 Oldsmobile.
More importantly, Pop was a positive influence on the lives of many young men as he encouraged each of them to develop their skills at model building and flying. (Biography from 1999 SAM Hall of Fame Honorees Program)
1999
-1999: Society of Antique Modelers Hall of Fame
-2006: Model Aviation Hall of Fame
As A teenager I discovered modelers flying model airplanes not too far from where I lived in Hicksville, Long Island, NY.
I met and watched many old-time modelers there. I also watched and helped chase some early radio control models that Norm Rosenstock had built and was flying. Norm was one of the pioneers in R/C and this was a great experience for me.
The first model I built was a Jasco Baby Phoenix powered by an OK Cub .049. Later I bought an Ohlsson .23 front rotor ignition motor, which I still have today, in the box. I built my models in the basement and flew many control line planes, including a Jim Walker Firebaby, Baby-Di-Doe and Some Testor U-control planes.
I won my first trophy at a contest in Connecticut held in1951, it was a second place trophy, flying a Mini Hogan 34 with a K&B .049 Torpedo. I continued to enter many east coast free-flight contests using many popular designs and engines of the time. Later I started flying radio control,
I started a retail hobby business in 1968 that I ran out of my basement. A few months later I opened a retail shop in 1969 called “Larry’s Hobby Supplies” in East Northport, Long Island, New York and later opened up another store in East Meadow, Long Island. In 1970 I opened my 3rd business, a hobby distributorship called D&D Hobby Distributors.
In August 1986 I sold my businesses and retired at the age of 51 and moved to Moneta, Virginia. I have now started a mail order hobby supply business out of my home, supplying specialized old-timer items such as spark plugs for ignition engines, solid-state ignition units, coils, covering materials, glass-fueling syringes, a video tape on “Covering with Polyspan” and other items. I realized there was a need for an adapter to reduce the thread size for the spark plugs that were on some early ignition engines from 3/8 X 24” to 1/4 X 32”. The original 3/8 (V) style spark plugs are very rare and hard to find; the 1/4 V-2 Spark plugs are still plentiful so I designed and manufactured the adapters and have sold hundreds of these around the world
I joined the Society of Antique Modelers in 1986 and became a life member. My first SAM contest was the SAM Champs in Lawrenceville, Illinois in 1987. I entered a Playboy Junior with a Cox .049 and won my first trophy by winning the 1/2A Texaco event.
Later I started building Old Timer planes for the SAM Radio Control events. In 1990, at the SAM Champs in Chicopee, Mass., I was awarded the Radio Control Grand Championship; I won that event again in 1991, 1992 and 1993.
In 1994 I went back to flying my first love, free flight, again. At that contest I built a Korda Wakefield Rubber model for that Dick Korda special FF event. I was once again hooked on free flight! I have since won the SAM free flight Grand Championship three times and won the NFFS Nostalgia Gas Championship in Muncie, Indiana, August 1999.
Now in my retirement I continue to pursue my real love of building and flying model airplanes of all types and assisting the SAM movement in any way that I can.
1999
Born May 14, 1921 -- Died May 14, 2003
Honors:-
-MECA Robert Reuter Award
-1999: Society of Antique Modelers Hall of Fame
Carl was born in Trenton, NJ and raised by his grandparents on a farm not far from Charles Lindbergh's home in Hopewell, NJ. He started building solid model airplanes in 1929. These were followed by the usual R.O.G.'s and hand launched gliders. His first model contest was the New Jersey State fair Scale Aeroplane Exhibition In 1935. He won a third place ribbon in the solid scale event.
In 1935, after he had moved into town, he became president of the model airplane club at his junior high school. In 1936 he joined the Trenton gas model
club, IGMAA Unit #20. He was involved with club members and senior NAA members in staging a full size aircraft show. This was held at Mercer airport, NJ, in 1938. Money from this show enabled the club to buy a 1928 school bus for $90 dollars. He and 13 other club members then made their first trip to the 1938 Nationals in Detroit, Michigan. A photo of the bus and the club members is on display at the A.M.A. museum in Muncie, Indiana.
Carl held the office of secretary/treasurer and was president in 1940 of the Trenton Model Aircraft Engineers, prior to WWII. He joined the Navy in 1942 as an aircraft metal smith 3rd class.
He was a charter member of the Patuxent Model Engineers club started by Hal DeBolt and Matt Kania. It's been said the top Navy brass got the idea to sponsor the NAT's from this club.
At the end of the war he enrolled in the Northrop Institute in Califomia to get
his A&E ticket. He joined the Inglewood Flightmasters and became a charter member of the S.C.I.F.S old-timer club which became SAM chapter number three.
While he was with the Flightmasters he introduced the event for 48" Jumbo rubber scale models. Later while in the Northrop club he started the Flying Wing contest in1966. Carl has run this event for several years. About this same time he helped John Pond run the first Old Timer events at the US Nat’s.
He was involved with the introduction of Peanut scale models and was asked to CD the first International Postal Peanut Proxy Contest, sponsored by Model Builder Magazine. Carl was a vintage aeromodeling supporter since the beginning of the old time movement, well before SAM. When SAM came into being, he worked for every SAM president and has been the recipient of many plaques of appreciation. He has sponsored and managed the annual
Flying Wing Contest at Taft since 1966. Carl was the initiator of the resolution, adopted by SAM, to honor those SAM members and other old time modelers, at our yearly meetings, that have passed on during the previous year. Carl was appointed by president Jim Adams to be our honorary Master at Arms. He is a member of the SCIF, SAM 3, of Southern California.
Carl’s aviation and aerospace industries career included work for Luscombe, Brewster, Fleetwing, Bellanca, and Northrop. He retired from TWA after approximately 38 years. He still holds NAA/AMA/SAM license #1301.
(Biography from 1999 SAM Hall of Fame Honorees Program)
1999
Edward (Ed) SCHLOSSER - Inducted 1999
Born 1921 --- Died June 8, 2009
Honor:-
-1999: The Society of Antique Modelers Hall of Fame Award
Ed Schlosser, was born and raised in New Jersey where he pursued his aviation interests somewhat in reverse of the normal progression from flying models to full-scale aircraft. As member of the American Model Airplane Society, his interest and talent were apparent when he designed built a 30-foot training glider when in 8th grade, and later flew a 32·foot open framework spruce and cloth monoplane powered by a three-cylinder "Anzani" air cooled engine.
He taught himself to fly at Teterboro Airport in the days before rules and regulations took over. His interest in models came along after watching the performance of various free-flight birds of that era. He quickly turned that interest into a business.
Mr. Schlosser earned a mechanical engineering degree and a degree in chemistry from Columbia University. He was a member Mensa International.
Ed co-founded the Best-By-Test Model Company with Don Garofalow. In the late 1930's, designing and marketing a line of rubber-powered free-flight models that included such successes as the Enduro, Altimeter, Stratometer, Sensatherm, and the Airflow "40". Although Don left Best-By-Test at the end of 1938, the company continued on until 1941, when the WW II and other Interests carried it all away. The American Society of Model Aero Engineers (ASMAE), that Ed helped found, came to an end and some of Ed's co-founder friends (Herb Fenster and Maxwell Seltzman) lost their lives in the war. An Interesting note Is that In 1936, before the war broke out in Europe, Ed accompanied his father on the German lighter-than-alr ship "Hindenburg" on a round-robin flight from Lakehurst, NJ, to Boston, MA, Albany, NY, and return.
Continuing to build his life on dreams and ambition after the war, Ed earned a mechanical engineering degree and later, a Ph.D. in chemistry from Columbia
University. In 1956 he incorporated Edward Schlosser Associates, Inc., dealing internationally in industrial products. While pursuing his business career in
Ridgefield, New Jersey, he also played piano with some big-name bands playing coast to coast. As with so many of us, however, the spirit of free flight was to return with gusto.
In 1956 he incorporated Edward Schlosser Associates, Inc., an international broker for industrial products.
In 1991, Ed saw a low-wing version of his Sensatherm hanging In the Munich Science Museum in Germany (Some 15O Sensatherm kits made it to Europe during the late 1930's). That experience rekindled his interest and led to the discovery of Best-By-Test "Aero-Model” items (props, front-end assemblies, plans, rubber, dope brushes, etc.) contained in barrels stored and forgotten for many years in his Ridgefield company warehouse.
It also led to the design in 1992 of his first new model in 52 years a 50-inch span super light cabin bird called the Ultra/Lite Duplex. All these items, including plans for the Duplex, are still available from Ed. He still flies his Best-By-Test aircraft, only now with the added thrust of modem rubber.
Ed’s other interest is as a pianist for the Vic Fraysee Orchestra and playing in a jazz trio in Greenwich Village. (Biography from 1999 SAM Hall of Fame Honorees Program)
1999
Honor: 1999:-
-Society of Antique Modelers Hall of Fame
At the ripe old age of four and one half, his Father's gift of a Japanese wire and silk wind up model airplane ignited an Interest in model airplanes that has lasted a lifetime. Eut received a Fairchild 24 kit for his ninth birthday, and immediately fabricated it. It didn't last too long, as the fuselage collapsed when he wound It up! Eut’s father, an understanding man, decided that this young man had a strong Interest in airplanes. At the depths of the Great Depression he invested the exorbitant sum of $1.00 for a complete model building course consisting of kits for four eighteen inch all balsa planes.
This was a great success, and started Eut on his outstanding modeling career.
In 1938, while attending public schools in Denver a rich uncle from the Philippines gave Eut and his twin brother, Gordon, the princely sum of $10.00 each as a gift. The two young men wisely invested in a Flying Quaker and a Brown Junior (this Is the same Brown Jr that powered his beautiful V-tail Swallow while winning both the Brown Jr LER and Brown Texaco at the 1992 SAM Champs. Eut and Gordon successfully flew the Quaker-Brown Jr. combination many times, and Eut was a modeler forever!
He joined the Denver Exchange Gas Model Club and continued to build and fly, designing his own Bunch powered 1940 Sylph (looks like a modernized more streamlined version of a cross between the original 1936 Waterman Arrowplane and the 1937 Aerobile) during this period of his life. Later in 1970 he designed a full size homebuilt Osprey 1 seaplane, a pilot only (no passenger) pusher design that was quite popular.
Eut has been a consistent winner with his models. One of his favorite, winning designs is his 1/2A Scale 1937 (pusher) Waterman Aerobile. He has been the RC Champion at the SAM Champs on two occasions. He was instrumental in the organization of SAM Chapter 51, a charter member of the chapter, and its past President. He introduced the SAM membership to the Spirit of SAM Electric event, which is rapidly gaining popularity. He has competed in foreign nations and has always conducted himself in a dignified and gentlemanly manner as a representative of SAM. He is one of our most famous members, having been written up in many foreign and domestic publications for his RC accomplishments. (Biography from 1999 SAM Hall of Fame Honorees Program) Article (enhanced by CR) also a link to "Eut Tileston’s Story" by Tandy Walker, Christmas 2001
1999
Bob JUNK - Inducted 2000 top of this page
Born May 22, 1939 ---
Bob is an AMA leader member, Contest Director. He was AMA District Five Free Flight Contest Coordinator, and was President of the Pensacola Free Flight Team, AMA charter 203 and SAM 17. Bob began building and flying models at age nine with rubber-powered models and hand-launched gliders. At the conclusion of WWII he was working and was able to purchase his first model engine, an Atwood 60. About this time he saw his first U-control model fly. He designed and built a bi-plane, which he flew for some time in Control-line flying. About this time he became interested in Free Flight modeling. In the fifties he was married and started a family.
He kept his interest alive in control line flying by participating in the U.S Navy carrier program. He arrived in Pensacola in the mid-sixties and once again began modeling Control-line and Free Flight In mid-1980 he applied for an AMA CD license and ran the October "Gathering of Turkeys" until the death of Tommy McLaughlan, when he assumed the responsibility for both the "Gathering of Turkeys and the ~'Five Flags" meets. Bob was a major factor in promoting SAM and Old Time Free Flight activities in the Florida area during the 80’s and 90’s. Bob is best recognized as a power flyer, but he enjoys all free flight activities, including indoor modeling. As of 2013, Bob is living in Arkansas.
2000
Ron SHARPTON - Inducted 2000
Born 14 September, 1934
Sixty-six years of modeling will be hard to put on a few pages. I am sure that I will leave out a lot. I have been modeling from the age of two, as my Uncle was a modeler and had me flying HL6 and RO6 rubber models in 1936. He helped me until he went into the Navy in 1940. I was then lucky to meet Mr. W. T. Thomas who was the president of the Daytona Beach Model Airplane Club. By the way, Mr. Thomas was the designer and builder of the World War I Thomas Movies Scout. Mr. Thomas started taking me to contests in Florida and Georgia from 1942 through 1950. During this time, he flew Free Flight and U-control. I was very lucky to have him as a friend.
My first AMA number was 1454, from about 1943 up until I became a life member. Thomas took me to the 1947 Nats and the first Plymouth Internationals, all the way from Daytona Beach, Florida to Detroit and then on to Minneapolis, Minnesota.
At the age of 12, I was at a high point competition at the 1946 Georgia State Free Flight Championships. They decided on Saturday night that you had to be from the state of Georgia to win the high point because they knew no one could beat my score. Mr. Thomas protested to the AMA, but nothing ever came of it. At that age, I could not see what the big deal was. My good friend, George Perryman, was awarded high point. George said that when he met me I was just a snot-nosed kid. The only difference now is that I am older.
I flew through the 1950s and 1960s and won many high point contests during that time. In the late 1960s, I became involved with the Florida Modeler Association (FMA.) I have held all the office positions in the FMA. I have served as president most of that time and am still president currently.
I was one of the main pushers to take on the task of clearing the Palm Bay flying site. It has taken thousands of hours of donated labor and time by so many that I cannot begin to list all the names. I usually pull the sanction for about 10 to 12 contests a year at Palm Bay. We have about 20 Free Flight contest sanctions a year. I have been the Southeastern Nostalgia representative from the start of Nostalgia in the early 1980s. I have been on their “Modelers of the Year” list many times. I am now a District V Contest Board member, a Society of Antique Modelers (SAM) Hall of Fame member and am on the SAM Hall of Fame nominating committee. I have won the Power Nostalgia National Cup High Point from 2000 through 2002. I also won the KOI High Point for five different years I was the Nostalgia Power Grand Champion at the 2002 Nats. I have served as a contest director for SAM, the AMA, and worked with the FAI team finals at Palm Bay in 1994, 1998, and 2002. I am a life member of SAM, the National Free Flight Society (NFFS,) AMA (#L541), and the Model Engine Collectors Association (MECA.)
In closing, I must say if it were not for money Tom McLaughlan left to the FMA, the Palm Bay flying site would not exist as a Free Flight flying field. I believe we have more Free Flight contests a year than any other site in the United States. To you, Tom, all us modelers would like to say thanks. Although I do not have money to leave to modeling when I go, I want to do all I can to promote modeling while I am here.
Ron Sharpton, District V Contest Board Member.
2000
Lee F. WEBSTER - Inducted 2000
Born Febuary 2, 1924 --- Died 2010
Lee Webster started modeling at the age of 10 with Jimmie Allen models. He was interested in gas powered models from around 1935. He started a model club in high school, which competed in the Minnesota/Wisconsin area. He worked for Boeing early in WWII then entered the Army Air Corps where he was a flight engineer trainer for B-26s and B-29s. He graduated from University of Minnesota with a BS degree in Aeronautical Engineering in 1954. He was second in his class.
He has been a continuous member of AMA since the late ‘30’s and also a member of SAM since its beginning. He became a contest director in 1960 and thereafter CD’ed at least one contest a year for 40 plus years.
In 1956 Lee started work at the Arnold Engineering Development Center in Tennessee as a project engineer in wind tunnel and engine test facilities. Lee had organized several model clubs prior to that in high school, while working at Boeing, and again in university. He was perhaps a charter member of the Coffee AirFoilers Model Airplane Club in Tennessee & has served in almost all of its officer positions. Lee now serves as president of the local SAM Chapter 43.
Lee has been quite successful in model aviation, winning many awards in free flight & SAM events. At the 1970 Nats, he was the Grand Champ for the SAM events. His daughter, Tricia, was honored as Miss SAM Champs at the SAM CHAMPS held in Las Vegas.
Lee served a term as District V Vice President from 1986-1990 and is currently serving as an Associate V.P. for District V. One of Lee's designs was what he called "Droop Snoot”. This was a successful but little known free flight design. His first model was the Jimmy Allen ‘‘Thunderbolt’’. His present interest is confined to RC that doesn't require chasing, mainly 1/2A Texaco, 1/2A Texaco Scale, LER, & RC Assist in the SAM events & also RC Soaring events.
2000
Bill BOOTH Sr - Inducted 2000
Born December 3, 1930 --- Died January 8, 2013
Bill Booth was born in Fresno. He started modeling at an early age and was a lifelong member of the Fresno Model Club. He was President of SAM from 1996 to 2000. He was newsletter editor of the Fresno Model Club for more than 40 years. He was contest manager for several West Coast SAM Champs, and a long time contest director and promoter of SAM and other model airplane contests in California’s Central Valley. He was a meticulous builder and was proud of having won the SAM Champs Concours event with a Comet Clipper. Trained as a teacher and school administrator he ultimately became Deputy Superintendent of the Fresno California school system.
2000
-1985: National Free Flight Society Hall of Fame
-1990: AMA Outstanding Award, World Champs
-2000: Model Aviation Hall of Fame
-2000: Society of Antique Modelers Hall of Fame
Bob has been a modeler for over fifty years and has made his mark in the history of model airplanes. He also exemplifies the type of friendly people that we find in the modeling fraternity. Early on he realized that we must interest the young people in modeling and to this end he has devoted a great deal of effort bringing young men into our hobby and teaching them the fundamentals of building and flying model airplanes. In 1956 he put together an indoor flying team from the Detroit Balsa Bugs Model Club to teach model building and flying in the Detroit Public Schools, Boy Scouts and Windsor Canada Air Scouts.
In the late 60's Bob formed a company, Craft Air Model Co., to manufacture small entry level models produced by Midwest as a no-profit way to promote Model Aviation.
Bob was instrumental in holding the Detroit Balsa Bugs Club together for fifty years. Over the years, as a CD, he has truly provided us with the fun that contest flying can bring. He has been an AMA member since 1940 (AMA#268), and leader member since 1960, a member of NFFS and SAM. He was inducted into the National Free Flight Hall of Fame in 1985. Bob's love affair with aviation is not limited to models; He holds a private single engine and glider rating for full size planes. He is well known as a full size glider pilot.
Bob is a consistent and effective competitor His major accomplishments:-
- AMA National Sr. Champion in 1947 and AMA National Open Champion in1951.
- First place Nationals wins include: Indoor Stick -1947; Indoor Cabin -1947-1954-1960; Indoor Hand Launch Glider -1947;-Wakefield Rubber -1954; Flying Scale -1951; Outdoor Stick Rubber-1947-19481949-1993; 1/2 Gas F/F -1960; Outdoor HIL Glider, 1960
- 1947 State Sr. Champion; 1949 State Open Champion;1985~1989 Indoor State Champion Perpetual Trophies Bob has won include: Mulvihill (six times)1947, 49, 93, 96, 97, 99; Wakefield Aero Cup 1954; Stout Indoor 1947,54 and 60 ; Moffett (3 times) 1992,93,96.
Bob's winning models have been highlighted in the various model magazines.
Air Trails Annual 1952: Challenger Outdoor Stick plans and article (Two time Mulvihill Winner; Senior Stick record; is still very popular in English SAM Events)
Air Trails Annual 1952: Hi Climber Rubber Cabin plans and article (Held Sr. Cabin record and is still flown in old time rubber) Model Airplane News August 1961: Low Down Indoor "C" Cabin, Set a trend for this event -Many nationals wins and three national records. Model Builder September 1984: Boston Beany Bostonian plans and article; also published in NFFS Digest 1985. Won 1985 NFFS Indoor Champs and Michigan State Champ. Model Aviation, November, 1993: Bandit Outdoor Rubber plans and article: won Moffet two years in a row 1992-1993: NFFS Rubber Model of the Year, 1993 NFFS Digest Equalizer Mulvihill: Won Mulvihill 1996-1997-1999-1998 : NFFS Model of the Year
In 1987 Bob Retired from his position as Senior Engineer at Chrysler. He started as a chassis designer, transferred into styling in 1962 until his retirement.
2000
Bruce CHANDLER - Inducted 2000
Born April 25, 1930 --- Died February 3, 2010
Bruce grew up in the Paso Robles California area where his father was an executive for Pacific Telephone. He went to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and got an engineering degree. He worked for Marquardt Aviation (owned by Roy Marquardt) in the San Fernando Valley. Bruce was an ardent and successful SAM power FF competitor from the early 1960’s until almost his death. His SAM membership number is 59L. He was an early member of the Southern California Ignition Fliers (SAM Chapter 3). Bruce had a collection of more than 600 rare and original spark ignition engines displayed in built in cases in the home he built for retirement in Templeton California. Many of the rare ignition engines had been given to him in the early 1960’s by modelers who were “converting to glow”. Because the old spark ignition engines were fairly hard to come by in the early days of SAM (the old sparkies had been put away in the attic and collectors hadn’t found them yet; the replica engine makers hadn’t geared up) some people started to convert glow engines to spark ignition for sale to other modelers. Bruce Chandler did so with OS glow engines in the early and mid-1970. He called his engines “Black Knight Engines” and coated them with a black crackle finish.
2000
- 1990: National Free Flight Society Hall of Fame
- 1993: Model Aviation Hall of Fame
- 2000: Society of Antique Modelers Hall of Fame
Life began in 1938 when I built my first model airplane, I was 10 and the rubber model kit cost 10 cents. From that moment on I have lived with and loved modeling. It was at the start of junior high school that I began to build hand-launch gliders, rubber models and gas jobs. My idols at that time were Carl Goldberg, Stu Bennett, Manny Andrade, Don Foote and many of the Oakland Cloud Dusters. I can remember how I was always looking in from the outside and admiring the models and fliers of the Oakland Cloud Dusters. I could not join that Club at that time of my life because they had high qualifications in order to become a member. It took me 8 years before I could become a member. It was 1958 and all I needed was five bucks. After being discharged in 1949 from my three-year hitch with the 82nd Airborne, I went back to college, got married in 1950, produced four sons (two of whom are now running Romak Iron Works), became a grandfather for the first time in November of 1989 (I now have five and expecting a sixth next year), all the while keeping my sanity with model building outdoor, indoor, and back to outdoor. I started indoor flying in 1961 thanks to Joe Bilgri, my mentor. My first model flew two minutes plus, but I was hungry and of course, I pursued indoor modeling for several years. It has been my pleasure to have met fliers from all over the world during the past 30 years or so. My first indoor team participation was in 1966. Joe Bilgri, Frank Cummings and I were the USA Team, Team Manager was Bud Tenny. We went to Debrecen, Hungary, for the World Champs. To my surprise, I found that the Eastern Europe teams had no indoor supplies like we had in the USA. The Hungarian/Romanian teams had motor sticks and tail booms made from straw. After the World Champs were over, I gave my models and model boxes to the Hungarian and Romanian teams. Since that time up to now, I still issue care packages of balsa and other indoor supplies to them. Since the sixties, Joe Bilgri, Lew Gitlow, and I have supplied them with balsa. Without our help, I'm sure they would still be lagging behind the rest of the world as far as indoor flying goes. I have, since my first experience on the team in 1966, also participated as a team member in the 1972, 1976, and 1984 Indoor World Championship contests. I was team manager in 1968, 1982, 1986, 1992, 1994, 1996, and 1998. I was Indoor World Champion in 1976 at Cardington, England. What teams and years of flying FlD !. Truly great experiences. Some personal achievements during the years for me have been:
- World's Record in 1941 - ROW Rubber C Fuselage; - World's Record in 1942-ROW Class C Gas (Foote's Westerner); - 1st Place at 1959 Nats - Class C Gas; - FlD 1976 World Champion - Cardington, England; - 1st Place at 1987 World Cup Contest 14Rounder, Taft Wakefield; - 1st Place four times, Taft -Free Flight Champs, Unlimited Rubber; - 1997 SAM Power Champion; - Flying with and helping fellow modelers’; - Receiving the NFFS Hall of Fame Award; - Receiving the AMA Hall of Fame Award. I now devote my entire time to building and flying SAM Old Time Models. It is such fun and enjoyment. (Bud Romak autobiography)
2000
Richard E. LYONS - Inducted 2001 top of this page
Born in 1923 in Illinois --- Died in California 2001
Dick was born in 1923 and Started modeling at age 10 with 10 cent kits from Woolworth's 5 & 10 store. His first model to fly was a Joe Ott stick ROG-what a thrill!.
He bought his first engine direct from Forester Brothers in Maywood, Illinois in1937. His first gas model was a Megow Flying Quaker. His second engine was a Baby Cyclone, which he put in a Denny plane. His third engine was an Ohlsson 23 in a Comet Mercury. When Dick was a teenager, his father was Treasurer for the State of Illinois, and pictures of the State Treasurer’s “modeling son” appeared in many Illinois news papers.
Dick's first contests were in Chicago sponsored by Chicago Park District in 1938. His first really big contest was the first Nationals in Detroit in 1939 where he got to fly and watch with the "greats" like Lanzo, Korda, Goldberg,
Taibi, and Simmers.
He Spent WW II in USAF and then college on the GI. Bill. After the war he started modeling again in a big way until he got married and called back to active duty in USAF for the Korean War. After Korea he concentrated on his career and raising a family.
When his sons got old enough he taught them modeling and the family went to many contests including the Navy Nats series. He joined AMA (NAA) in 1940 and became a Contest Director and Leader member. Dick is a charter member of NFFS and joined SAM as soon as he heard of it (SAM member #77). In the 70's he became serious about FAI events and was active in team selection program for AMA. In 1975 he made the US team in FIC power and flew in the World Champs in Bulgaria.
In 1979 he moved to California and retired in 1982. At that time joined the Southern California Ignition Flyers (SAM #3) and served SCIF as treasurer and CD for more than ? years. After joining the SCIFS Dick built only OT models, 28 different OT gas models before he passed away in 2001.
2001
Eugene (Gene) P WALLOCK - Inducted 2001
Born January 26, 1934
Gene Wallock was born in Rochester, New York and started building models at age 5 when his mother handled the razor blades for cutting. His family moved to Southern California in 1946. Gene became an avid and successful FF model airplane competitor and a member of the Thermal Thumbers, Hi-Tailers, San Valeers and SCAMPS. He joined SAM in 1967 and is Life Member 22L. Gene became Chair of SAM’s Design Review Committee and wrote a column in SAM Speaks for many years. He also maintains the SAM library of early model airplane magazines and is a source for information on old time model designs. Gene compiled SAM’s Approved Design List for Rubber and Tow Line Glider designs. From 1973 to 1985 Gene owned and ran P&W Model Service which supplied excellent kits and plans for many different SAM legal designs. Gene still maintains both the SAM Approved Gas Model List and the Rubber/Glider List making new entries as old designs and plans are discovered.
2001
Victor Ernest SMEED - Inducted 2001
Born October 1, 1923 --- Died January 4, 2011
Vic Smeed is one of aeromodeling's truly great achievers and proselytizers. He's been a writer, an editor, a model designer of planes, boats and cars, a successful free flight contestant, and a full-scale Spitfire pilot.
Victor Ernest Smeed was born at Heme Bay, Kent, United Kingdom. He started making models at age six, but did not make his first "serious attempt" at model aircraft until obtaining the ripe old age of eight. He won many club and regional contests in the late 40's and early 50's as part of the Queen's Cup and Bowden Trophy contests in England.
Vic joined the RAF at age 18, and was trained as pilot and flew Spitfires. At the end of the war, he became the British Air Ministry's staff glider training officer, and also helped set up Reserve Command. He also started, a model shop in Canterbury, Kent in 1946, and founded the Canterbury Pilgrims Model Flying Club.
Vic was a major force in sport free flight after WWII as the British returned from the war. He's published more than 100 free flight model designs, including the Tomboy, Madcap, Coquette, Debutante, Sea Nymph, Pushie Cat, Pageboy, Ballerina, Poppett, Golden Wings, Junior Miss, Hell's Belle, Tom Thumb, Cracker, Electra, Victoria Parker, Mamsell, Popsie and Chubby. The Tomboy, powered by a Mills .75 was the model that dominated sport FF in England in the late 40s and early 50s. Its enduring popularity among British Vintage enthusiasts is such that 119 Tomboys were entered in the Hilda Baker Commemorative Event at the 2000 European SAM Champs at Middle Wallop. That's probably a record for the greatest number of planes entered in a one-design event ever. There’s been a Tomboy event at the US SAM Champs since 2005, and some 15 Tomboys were flown at the 2013 Champs. There are ongoing RC Tomboy competitions in the United Kingdom. Vic also had published designs for CL and RC airplanes. He also had many published model boat and model car designs.
Vic spent nearly 40 years as an editor and writer on various English model magazines. He also wrote and published more than 20 books related to model airplanes, model boats and model cars. Many of those books were focused on models of the SAM era. His books and articles have been translated in German, Italian, Japanese, Hungarian and other languages: He has made four television series on model making.
Vic helped reorganize and promote the annual Model Engineer Exhibition, England’s biggest annual model show. Vic and his wife Margaret were enthusiastic and active promoters of SAM 35, SAM 1066 and SAM 1066’s annual European SAM Free Flight Model Championships at Middle Wallop.
2001
Stuart "Stu" BENNETT - Inducted 2001
Born 1923 --- Died 2005 (dates uncertain)
Stu Bennett was the founding member and chief spark plug of the Oakland Cloud Dusters, which he formed in 1937. The Cloud Dusters remained a very active free flight club until well past 2005. Stu was old enough to fly in WW II and spent his time in the Army Air Corps as a flight engineer on transport aircraft flying over the “Hump” from Burma to China. After the war Stu joined the faculty at the University of San Francisco, teaching dramatics to college students.
Fellow SAM Hall of Famer Bud Romak got Stu interested in models again in the early 1970s and Stu rejoined the Oakland Cloud Dusters. Stu was articulate and his modeling tales kept his fellow Dusters entertained and informed through the years after he returned to the club. Stu was a master craftsman when it came to building models. His airplanes were always immaculate and flew well.
Stu’s SAM legal designs include the “BG Special” rubber model. Stu flew the model in rubber cabin with a folding propeller, and with a free wheeler in the Commercial Rubber class. (The BG stands for Blue and Gold, the colors of the University of California at Berkeley). Stu also designed the pylon old time gas ships Hedy and Norcal Special. Stu was interested in rubber models of all types. His mid 1990’s design “Little Miss Moffett” won the Moffett class at the 1998 AMA Nationals.
2001
Fred MULHOLLAND - Inducted 2001
Born July 30, 1929 ---
Fred was born July 30, 1929. Ford Trimotor mail planes flying over his home piqued his interest. His first efforts at modeling were sticks fashioned together with nails and flown in and around the house. Age 12 brought Comet kits of the Puss moth and Curtis Robin, the paper covering tightened with glue. Small VECO free flight kits and others developed his modeling and flying skills. Fred started Radio Control Flying in the early 1950's and may have had the first Veco Dakota Bipe controlled with single channel RIC. As a competitor in the 50's and 60's he won numerous controline scale and RIC escapement only contests. Fred was active in organizing the Tampa Trim Tabs, FF and RIC club in 1956 and was confirmed an AMA contest director in 1958 by Dr. Walter Good.
Fred's non-modeling career entailed joining the Army National Guard in 1948 as a private and retiring in1969 as Major. He worked for GTE, now Verizon, for 38 years and retired in 1985 as Florida Project Manager. Fred, an outdoors person all his life led the development, as a volunteer, of the hiking trail system throughout Florida and is also an avid gardener. For these efforts he has received-many accolades and awards both from Florida State Governors and President Ronald Reagan.
Fred was out of modeling for several decades and after retirement in 1985, was drawn into Old Timer SAM RIC competition by his good friend Chet Lanzo. 1988 was Fred's first SAM Champs, flying the 1/2A Texaco event. Since then he has done himself proud and is a threat at any contest. With contest wins too numerous to list he has been Glow and Ignition Grand champion simultaneously and separately at a number SAM Champs.
Fred is well known for his willingness to lend a helping hand to fellow modelers; he has been heard' more than once say "Hey, come on over to the house and we'll fix that problem". Building and fixing things is a habit as Fred has constructed a replica of Walt Good's Big Guff and restored Elmer Wasman's White Mystery model, which flew in the first RIC contest, held at the Detroit Nationals in 1937. Both models are in the AMA museum in Muncie, Indiana.
Fred continues to participate in the SAM Champs annual events and volunteers as the SAM R/C Contest Director. (By Ms. Barbara Mulholland)
2001
Don BEKINS - Inducted 2002 top of this page
Born June 21, 1931
After high school, Don enrolled at Stanford University to study aeronautical engineering combined with courses in business. The program at Stanford was long and arduous, dealing little with aeronautics and Don moved on to Colorado University (CU) where he could obtain aeronautical engineering and business degrees in five years. After some time at Stanford, he transferred to Colorado University, which had courses more in line with his career goals. He established a lifetime career in Investment Banking and Venture Capital.
Don started his modeling at age 8 with a rubber model and built his first gas model at age 12. In 1974, Don met John Pond who rekindled his interest in models, especially OTs like the ones he built and flew as a 12-year-old. His first new/old model was a Playboy Sr. finished in the same colors as its predecessor and that model, now over 25 years old is still flying in contests and winning trophies. Don’s enthusiasm grew and he joined SAM 21 – John Pond’s club. Although it was a 120-mile round trip to club meetings in San Jose, Don was an active member, serving in succession as treasurer, newsletter editor, and president. Subsequently, Don helped to form a new chapter, SAM 27, in Marin County, serving as newsletter editor, president, and contest director. During this time, he became involved with the SAM national organization and was appointed by John Pond to form a committee to rewrite the SAM flying rules. Don was appointed by John Pond to form a committee and rewrite the SAM Flying Rules. Later he learned desktop publishing and became the editor of SAM Speaks in 1991/92, the 24-page newsletter for SAM, a worldwide organization with 2,700 domestic members and another 4,000 foreign chapter members. AMA awarded Don their top newsletter editor certificate in 1993.
In 1994, he was elected president of SAM and during his two-year tenure initiated a number of changes including the formation of a SAM Web page on the Internet.
Don’s passion is OT Radio Control Assist and, in addition to competing in many local contests, has flown in most of the SAM Champs meets around the U.S. He is a five-time winner of the Radio Control National Championship, as well as four times runner-up. In 1989, he was contest director of the SAM Champs in Jean, Nevada. Don’s lovely wife Joanie, a professional arts photographer, is usually present at these meets and can always be found contributing to their efficient operation.
Don is always generous with his time and patience when it comes to helping newcomers to OT flying or assisting other flyers with trimming or “bugs.” SAM 27 and SAM are very fortunate to have had the benefit of Don’s many contributions. (cr-item 5 draft)
2002
Dick HUANG - Inducted 2002
Born Febuary 28, 1932 --- Died July 31, 2004
Dick Huang. Born Peking China 1932, emigrated to USA 1946 and began aeromodeling. BSME degree Duke University 1955, employed at Chance Vought Aircraft 38 years, retired 1933 as Director of Advanced Programs.
The year 2000 Pensacola SAM Champs had a very special meaning to us by the presence of Dick Huang on the flight line, transmitter in his hands and his oxygen bottle on wheels next to him. The determination and persistence to be with us, his SAM brothers, is the Dick Huang that I have known and respected for many years.
SAM has honored most of our childhood heroes, the great designers of the past. I know that Dick does not qualify as a great designer but his can-do spirit surely makes him a spe-cial SAM brother to me. I am sure that the rest of the SAM members feel the same as do.
Many of us are going through serious medical problems but manage to recover and attend local contests as well as the SAM Champs. But I feel Dick's presence was very special and I am sure he truly became an inspiration and role model for other competitors. I hope we can all emulate
Dick's zeal and determination to be with the brotherhood that he has devoted his life to.
Dick has served SAM as Rocky Mountain VP, President of the Engine Committee, and resident engineer for SAM-related technical issues. By John A. Sullivan.
2002
Robert (Bob) OSLAN - Inducted 2002
Born August 18, 1929
Bob built his first solid model in1936 as a seven year-old, in1938 he built a10¢ Comet Curtiss Wright Coupe. Bob built his first successful free flight in 1941, a Sparky. Built display models for Joe Ott and occasionally packed kits for Comet. In 1943 he acquired his first engine, an Ohlsson 60 Custom, in a New Ruler. Bob lived in Valparaiso, Indiana at the time with no modelers around. A So Long followed the New Ruler and then a semi-original. With the advent of Pencil Bombers Bob switched to control line.
He joined the Purdue Aeromodelers in 1947, specializing in Speed. Left school in '48 and went to work for his father. Joined the Air Force in 1950 for four years as a radar mechanic and continued to build models. After the AF, back to Purdue and received his B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering in1958. He then worked for fifteen months with International Harvester before switching to the printing industry for 35 years and retired in 1995.
"I was flying U-control Scale in Mile Square Park in Fountain Valley, California in 1968 when I spotted a group of free flighters flying old timers. I was instantly hooked. I acquired a used Cyclone for $25, then built a Gladiator and have been flying old timers ever since."
Bob got involved with SAM in 1969 through Bud McNorgan and wound up promoting old time free flight in model publications ~ Articles for Model Aviation, Model Airplane News, and Model Builder, plus construction articles for .020 FF, RC old-timer, and Rubber Scale. Bob was the old-timer columnist for NFFS during Bob Meuser's tenure as editor.
He started Cal Aero Models in the Seventies and produced four .020 kits and two RC Old Timers, a 50" Powerhouse and an Air Trails Sportster. The .020s were So Long, Strato Streak, Brooklyn Dodger, and Playboy, still being produced by Aerodyne. Bob was a member of the SAM engine committee, and created the alcohol fuel rule for FF. He also originated the .020 Replica rules, and a major promoter of the Old Ruler event in SAM Free Flight. His Old Ruler designs include the Commodore and the Cloud Cruiser. Bob is also an extremely accomplished rubber scale modeler. Bob is the Scale Editor for SAM Speaks and a member of the VAMPS and SCAMPS. (latest from cr)
2002
Art HILLIS - Inducted 2002
Born - July 13, 1928 --- Died November 24, 2008
Born in Colorado Springs, raised on a small farm. In the early 1930s, the Alexander Aircraft Co. was still building airplanes, including the Eaglerock and Bullet. Art saw those airplanes and was hooked for life. A young boy during the Depression, saved pennies to buy 1O cent Comet kits. Lived on a great flying site, so FF still is his true love.
First engine, a kit Synchro B-30. Often popped but never ran. He still has it. Next engine was a used Brown E, and he could make it run, so began some success with gas models.
1945, first flying lesson in a Rearwin Sportster. Mother and father were not happy and told him to forget about flying. Dad said, "If you don't quit messing around with those damned airplanes, you will be nothing but an airport bum." In spite of their wishes, Art continued with model airplanes and flying lessons. Enlisted as Aviation Cadet and became a pilot in the USAF. After the Korean War, Frontier Airlines hired him and after three years as a co-pilot, became Captain. Retired February 1st, 1981 after 25 years.
May 1967 flew in the first SAM Champs at East Colfax Airport. Joined SAM 1 in 1982. President, 1992 for five years. FF CD at the 1991 SAM Champs at Jean NY. 1994, SAM Rocky Mountain VP. While president of SAM 1, club voted to host the 1995 SAM Champs. Intends going to the SAM Champs every year as long as he is able.
2002
Allen (Al) HEINRICH - Inducted 2002
Born 1946 --
An avid fan of the free-flight Old Timers. I really enjoy finding a design that no one else is using, then making it fly well starting with a Veco Dakota at age of five and about age seven with control line models, and a few free flights, but was not successful in getting them to fly during this time”.
He discovered the Old Timer movement in Boulder CO, while an A&E student, constantly pestering instructors for the reasons that our models did what they did. Al found out how far outside of the full size aircraft envelope our models were flying. He joined the Model Museum Flying Club in Denver, which met in Tim Dannels' basement. This is the same group that started the first two Old Timer Championships in 1963 and 1964, prior to SAM's existence.
The seed for a national organization was planted at the first Old Timer Champs. During the second, most of the organizational items were hashed out in Tim's basement. SAM came into existence later in December when The Model Museum Flying Club received the first SAM charter and became SAM Chapter 1 in December 1964. Al participated with Tim Dannels and others to work out the flying rules and bylaws, as he came in with a different perspective being the youngest member and had not been around when these models originally flew. During this time Al also began competing in FAI power.
In 1973 Al moved to San Diego and joined the SCAMPS, and currently Vice President. In the early Nineties Al was chairman of the SAM Engine Committee, and now on the Design Review Committee. Al is a contest director, and current Secretary/Treasurer for the Lost Hills Free Flight Model Field Association.
Al is the owner of Aerodyne, a model supply business that started part-time in 1967. It became a full-time endeavor in 1991 and caters mostly to the Old Timer and Nostalgia market.
Al's dream is to start a free flight museum to preserve our past and to show people what free flight was and is about. (cr-oct 2013)
2002
Joseph (Joe) DALLAIRE - Inducted 2002
Born June 15,1919 -- Died 2000
As Joe Dallaire locked the door of Dallaire Models for the last time in 1990 one wonders what thoughts went through his mind. He may have remembered the day in 1927 when as a lad of eight he joined Bill Stout's Airplane Model League of America headed by Detroit manual training teacher, Merrill Hamburg.
Under Mr. Hamburg's supervision, a group of 20 to 25 youngsters met once a week in a church basement and learned to build model airplanes. Perhaps he thought about the family business that was started to supply young Joe and the neighborhood kids with balsa and other model supplies. Little did Joe realize that his interest in model airplanes would lead to the creation of Dallaire Model Aircraft Company. The only source of model airplane supplies at the time was Downtown Model supply, a long trip from the Dallaire's northwest Detroit neighborhood. Young Joe's father, Joseph, and Joe's older brother, Frank had been in the mill business, Joseph Dallaire Millwork. When they closed the mill business they ended up with a garage full of woodworking equipment. They then started a family business; father Joseph, mother Margarete, and sons Frank and Joe. Their first store was in the basement of their home basement store. They started cutting balsa wood for the neighborhood kids and Dallaire Model Aircraft made its modest beginning.
In 1938, at their new Dallaire's Detroit Model Shop they made their own glue, cut their own wood and kits. If they didn't have it in stock, they would get it or make it. Everyone in models around Detroit knew the Dallaire’s.
The early success of Dallaire Model Aircraft was assured by the manufacture of machine cut propeller blanks, using a fixture Frank designed for a band saw, and balsa wheels which they used in their kits and sold to other kit manufacturers. Dallaire cut all of the balsa they sold. A scratch builder could have wood cut to custom sizes. They also sold and distributed Berryloid airplane dope and a full line of model airplane supplies and engines. In addition to selling model supplies they produced their own print wood and assembled kits. They produced over 60 kits, flying and solid models, from about 1935 to 1948. Dallaire Model Aircraft is best known for their nine-foot Dallaire Sportster. Frank designed the Sportster in 1935 and flew it to second place at the Stix Baer Fuller National Contest in St. Louis. The Sportster kit was essentially sold locally in limited numbers. Joe estimates they only sold about 100 kits.
As war rolled over Europe, America mobilized for the inevitable. In 1941 Joe enlisted in the Navy and trained at Navy Pier in Chicago. He went to Aviation Machinists School and upon graduation shipped to San Diego to acquire practical experience on PBY-5 flying boats patrolling the West Coast. After two months, he was transferred to Pearl Harbor.
Joe achieved the rank of Chief Petty Officer as an airplane. propeller specialist while attached to FAW 14. He later served with Fleet Air Wing 2 as crew chief in Test Flight Group in the Pacific servicing PBNs, PBYs, 2Y3s, B-24s, PB4Ys, and PB5Ys. At wars end, after 50 months of service Joe returned to civilian life and Dallaire Model Aircraft. While Frank and Joe were in the Navy, their father, Joseph, kept the business going with the help of neighborhood kids.
After the war, trade association requirements forced Frank and Joe to divide the business into two separate companies. Frank moved the wholesale operation to a shop on Joy Road in Detroit and retained the Dallaire name as Dallaire Models. Joe stayed at the old Wyoming Avenue location and changed the name to Joe's. A decade later Joe sold the business and Joe Dallaire rejoined Frank at Dallaire Models. They continued producing rubber and solid kits until they ran out of plans and kit boxes.
The brothers operated the wholesale business, handling a full line of model supplies, until Frank's death in 1970. Joe and his wife, Anita and some of their children continued Dallaire Models until early 1990 when Joe retired.(By Bud Manning Source SAM Speaks #164 Mar/April 2002)
2002
George TALLENT - Inducted 2002
Born January 21, 1923 --- Died June 10, 2011
George was Born 1923 in Los Angeles, Ca. He competed with rubber models during high school from 1937 to 1940. Placed second in the El Paso contest of 1939 flying a Guinn Aero powered Miss America. After two years of college, worked for Consolidated Aircraft Co. in Roswell, NM as a tool and die maker.
Drafted in 1943, George was assigned to the Navy Construction Battalion (Sea Bees). He served in the Alaskan Aleutian campaign of 1942-1943, rebuilding the Japanese runways on the island of Attu. Found some crated Reginald Denny Radioplane drones. The radio equipment was missing so George flew the giants by control line. After the war, a machinist all over the world, including Mexico, Greenland, Jamaica, Alaska, New Mexico and Nevada. 1961 served as foreman of a team building a siphon under the Colorado River in Mexico.
He performed Nuclear testing at Indian Springs NV for twelve years. Built and drove full sized racing cars. With AI and Bobby Unser, produced many winning racecars. Known for his ability to convert a V-8 to either a V-6 or V-4 for racing.
George rode rodeo until the accumulation of injuries resulted in Lucille, his wife of 60 years, telling him to get off. His electronic timing devices are widely used at rodeo events. He is currently experimenting with Lithium cells for RC transmitters and receivers.
Probably the accomplishment for which he is most noted is his ability to dismantle the welded-together O&R engines, replace parts and weld them back together. He made new Ohlsson 60 pistons by turning them on a lathe from Ford 430 cu. in. V8 camshafts. He still makes castings, chromes pistons and cylinders, and refits engines of several types. (from cr oct-2013)
2002
Harry KLARICH - Inducted 2003 top of this page
Born Taft, CA. 1926
Honors:-
-2003: Society of Antique Modelers Hall of Fame
Harry was born in Taft, California in 1926. His parents bought a dairy in Bakersfield about a mile from the Kern county airport and sold milk to the U.S. Army Air Corp during the depression. Harry saw his first scale model at the airport restaurant and was hooked; building models after his everyday chores on the dairy farm were done. He acquired his first gas engine about 1939 and joined the AMA. Modelers in the Bakersfield area he flew with included, John Werts Sr., Dick Wood and Vern Oldershaw. Harry flew both Free Flight and U-Control.
Harry joined the Navy at age 18 and served in the South Pacific. He was wounded and spent five months recovering, in a hospital, in "beautiful downtown" Yosemite.
After the war and in college Harry met his wife Marilyn. They had five children, later moving to Sacramento where they operated several photographic studios. After retiring from these businesses, he thought he would stay home and build and fly models full time.
Retirement did not last long. Harry took over Old Timer and Giant Scale kit manufacturing business from Loren Schmidt about 1985. Harry continues to expand the line of models available. The short kits are hand cut and sanded to high quality. They include plans, all curved sheet parts and formers, a plywood firewall, and a pre-formed wire landing gear. The plans came from John Pond plan service. Harry and John were very good friends exchanging ideas and encouragement.
Harry and his wife Marilyn always bring a pickup truck full of a couple hundred or so old-timer kits to the SAM Champs and usually head home empty ready to start building their inventory for next years trip. They leave behind a bunch of happy SAM guys ready to start building their newly purchased Klarich kit(s) for next years Champs.
Harry belongs to SAM 30 and has served as president and newsletter editor several times. Harry continues to promote model aviation and SAM through his kit business and we are all the better for it.
2003
Honor:-
-2003: Society of Antique Modelers
Ed was born in 1938 in Henderson, Kentucky. Ed calls Georgia his home because that's where he grew up and graduated from Georgia Tech. His interesting engineering and management career has taken him on assignments through Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia with the Coca-Cola Company and the Chattanooga Glass Company. He and his SAM Sweetheart wife, Mary, moved to California in 1980 when Ed became president of Taylor California Cellars. He retired in 1997 after twelve years as Operations Vice-President for Domaine Chandon in the Napa Valley.
At three years of age Ed wandered into a neighbor's backyard, enthralled by the sight, sound, and smell of a running model engine! Around the end of WWII, Ed started to glue and paint small solid pine scale models. His first attempt with a built-up model came at the age of nine or ten when he was given a scale rubber powered kit of a Fokker Triplane! It was almost a disaster. Ed remembers that with his Dad's help it was completely framed, but since they had glued everything together, it was impossible to cover. This became his first "bare bones· display.
With his sons and friends over the past 50 years Ed has built and flown rubber, gas, Jetex , towline glider, control line stunt, combat, and rat race models. With W4AD as his mentor in 1954 Ed built his first amateur radio station, K4EJK, and that same year built his first radio controlled model. Engine vibration made radio operation erratic but the project was a partial success flying as a glider down steep slopes in Georgia. Years were spent with free flight and control line models before acquiring a decent radio outfit in 1984. It was installed in a full size Megow Quaker so that Ed could relearn his rusty RC flying skills. He's been hooked on Old Timers ever since and joined SAM after attending the SAM 27 Crash & Bash contest In 1987.
Ed is a keen competitor and can be found among the winners at regional, national, and international SAM RC contests. He is now building "suitcase" models that can be carried on airlines and, with engine changes, entered in multiple events. His first model of this type, a scaled Lanzo RC-1, was entered in nine separate RC events at the 1997 through 2001 SAM Champs. His latest model, the Lanzo Airborne, garnered medals at the 2002 Muncie Champs and the recent Euro SAM RC Champs in Italy.
Since 1989 Ed Hamler has organized and served as CD of the annual SAM 27 Crash & Bash, arguably the premier Old Timer RC contest of Northern California. He has also served three times as SAM Champs RC CD, two terms as SAM 27 President, and three terms as SAM Western VP. Since 1991 he has maintained an arrangement with Domaine Chandon for the SAM 27 flying site on Lakeville Road in Sonoma County. Ed is an extremely valuable asset to SAM and we look forward to many more years of his continuing contributions.
2003
George Albert REICH - Inducted 2003
Born January 18, 1921 --- Died June 19, 2008
Honors:-
-1941: Awarded AMA Scientific Membership
-1965: Awarded by Cleveland Balsa Butchers club, Championship Certificate
-1964: AMA Fellow
-1983: National Free Flight Hall of Fame
-1998 AMA Pioneer Award
-2000: Model Aviation Hall of Fame
-2003: Society of Antique Modelers Hall of Fame
My model airplane career began when I was about 9-years-old when my older brother, Bob, and I built two Cleveland Model kits that we won for delivering Cleveland newspapers. We soon became so interested and involved in models that we opened a model supply shop in our parents’ basement as a way to defray our model expenses.
In high school I studied drafting and mechanical drawing, which provided the training to create my own plans. In my senior year I attended the Tech Class that offered an Aeronautical course and gave me the desire to continue a career in aeronautics.
My very early years of model building were spent building scale models, microfilm and U--control models. However, after building and flying twin pushers, single pushers and single tractors, my interest turned mainly to the wonders of Free Flight.
The Cleveland Balsa Butchers model club came into being in 1937, and I was elected as the first treasurer. The club sponsored outdoor Free Flight events for rubber and gas engine powered models.
A list of my most noteworthy model events follows:-
1937:- At age 16, I entered my first national contest – the Scripps Howard Junior National Races in Akron, Ohio, winning the Senior Commercial Rubber Event with a time of 13 minutes, 2.5 seconds.
My first original designed gas model, called the Cloud Hopper, was built and flown in 1939, and has been approved for flying in SAM Old Timer events.
1939:- At the 12th National Model Airplane Championships held in Detroit, Michigan, I established a national record of 22.51 minutes in the Senior Outdoor Cabin Event. This earned me a berth on the American team to compete in the Moffett International Competition, and was the runner-up in the finals. The plans were published in Air Trails, April 1940, and called the Double Feature, and is an approved design for SAM Old-Timer events.
1941:- The plans for a Class C gas model called the Albatross were published in Air Trails magazine, April 1941. In September 1944, this model established a national record of 11 minutes, 51.4 seconds (average) in Akron, Ohio. This is an approved design for SAM Old-Timer events.
In 1948, I married Doris Korda, sister of Dick Korda, the 1939 Wakefield champion.
1948:- My new Wakefield design, the 1948 Wakefield, was published in Flying Models, April 1948.
Without a doubt, winning the coveted and most famous trophy in model aviation, the Wakefield Cup in 1961, was the highlight of my model career. The 1961 Wakefield winner, my Max Maker, was named one of the top 10 models in the 1962 Model Airplane News magazine annual edition.
I went on to win many prestigious awards throughout my modeling career, my complete biography can be found on file in the AMA’s website biographies.
The skills I developed in model building proved to be extremely helpful during my employment at NASA as an experimental metal model maker. I am now retired after 37 years of fulfilling and rewarding work at NASA. (Autobiography by George Reich)
2003
Don BLACKBURN - Inducted 2004 top of this page
Born February 5,1932 --- Died April 24, 2009
Whilst Don had no schooling beyond high school, nor any war service (he was too young for Korea and too old for Viet Nam! LOL) he was self-taught (and brilliant!)
Model airplanes and bass fishing were his two main passions. he was involved with all areas of model aviation (which often bled over into his career choices) - he designed and drafted model airplane kits for DeBoldt Manufacturing in Buffalo, New York during the late 1950's early 1960's (not sure of the dates), and then later when he retired from his insurance agency.
He continued his own side-line business of restoration of antique model engines. He won countless trophies and awards in national and local competitions, but probably was prouder of helping fellow flyers improve their running times by tweaking their engines.
Dad had NEVER flown in a commercial or private airplane - he said it was because of WHAT he knew about flying that kept him on the ground ("it ought not to work"! isn't that a hoot?)
As a fisherman, he followed the competitive circuit for several years and won countless trophies and awards. He even fished professionally one season with Bill Dance, then decided it wasn't for him. He was pure catch-and-release (unless it was big enough to justify mounting and it had to be really really big).
Dad was an avid reader, loved war and mobster movies, and treasured his friends. I don't think he ever met a stranger, and would do anything for anyone if possible. He could fix or build anything, and he loved animals and had a tender heart for them. (Bio by his daughter Mo Wassell)
2004
James "Jim" ROBINSON - Inducted 2004
Born 1925 --- Died December 7, 2011
Jim Robinson was born and grew up in Ohio. He was a model airplane builder and flyer from an early age. When he graduated from Lakewood High in Ohio in 1943, he worked as an apprentice mechanic at NA.C.A. He’d finished his first year at Ohio State University when he was drafted in the Army shortly after WW II ended. After completing his service he went back to Ohio State and earned an engineering degree in 1950. He then went to work for Standard of Ohio as a fuel and oil development engineer. His work took him to Central California, and he retired in Paso Robles in 1986.
Jim was president of modeling clubs in the Cleveland area. He helped form the Northern Ohio Free Flight Association in 1964. Jim’s modeling efforts were focused on F1C power in the 1960’s, and he earned a spot on the US team in 1965, flying in the world championships in Finland.
Upon retirement in California, Jim turned to old time gas models. He was a frequent and successful competitor in SAM FF contests in Southern California, and flew in many SAM Champs. His particular love was the Gas Scale event and his SE-5 and Fokker D-VIII made many a “dawn patrol” flight in the early mornings at SAM contests.
Jim was a member of the AMA, the National Free Flight Society and of the Southern California Ignition Flyers—SAM Chapter #3.
2004
Bruce AUGUSTUS - Inducted 2005 top of this page
Born 1936
Bruce Augustus served as editor of SAM Speaks from 1995 to 2006. That’s still the longest period of time that anyone has served as Speaks editor. During his editorship he brought the magazine from a 20 page or less black and white newsletter to a highly professional 32 (or more) magazine with lots of color photographs. My first models were Strombecker, Comet and Berkeley kits. I built my first gas model in about 1946 at age 10. I can't recall exactly which airplane was my first. But I do recall trying unsuccessfully to fly a Bill Winter Wog. At the base of a telephone pole I found a soldering iron and some solder abandoned by the linemen, and used it to wire my ignition systems. It was the outdoor kind that had to be heated over the gas flame of the kitchen stove. You can imagine the quality of my connections, and this experience led to my lifelong fascination with diesels. My first diesel was a fixed compression Mite which was difficult to manage because I lacked the ability to vary the fuel mix.
My Korda Powerhouse was a fine performer, and when it finally hit the ground, I used the wing and tail on a huge cross section fuselage for my first RC airplane. It was powered by a Mills 1.3 diesel and controlled by a 2 tube radio built from plans published by Ed Lorenz in Air Trails. Had big striped Burgess Batteries and a rubber powered escapement. The transmitter sat on the ground in a massive olive drab army surplus steel box with an 8 foot antenna and a power cord attached to the car battery. You remember the sequence - push the button once for each movement of the rudder. We flew free flight, RC, and control line on weekends off the runways at Curtiss Field on Long Island. The Great Contest was sponsored by the New York Daily Mirror, with its huge attendance and carnival atmosphere, complete with cotton candy vendors. I flew controline with a Super Zilch that had a Super Cyclone in it; the same one that's now in my Rambler. Couple of D cells, lots of whacked fingers and I learned to do loops, eights, and even managed a few laps inverted. The thing flew so well and lasted so long .I finally removed the wing and tail from the oil soaked fuselage and crafted a graceful octagonal open cockpit fuselage complete with pilot and white scarf. Even put flaps on the wing. Then came the Drone and the deBolt Bipe. What a prescription for sheer fun.
I flew models through high school along with band, football, riflery and track. Then in 1954, it was off to Cornell and Aero engineering, Business at San Diego State, five years in aerospace science on the Atlas/Centaur and Apollo projects. Raced sports cars, motorcycles, skis and sailboats. Retired to sail full time. Sailed from Los Angeles to Honolulu in the 1966 TransPac race. Bartending and teaching sailing paid for Doctor of Laws at UCLA. Twelve years private law practice in So Cal. and retired again to ski Idaho. In 1977 started Augustus Airlines, commercial pilot until 1997. Retired still again to ski, run and build model airplanes full time. Wife, two daughters, switched to snow boarding; haven’t skied since.
Finally, back up to1983, my friend of 10 years Stewart Emery, revealed to me that he was an RC modeler and had, among other things, a Quaker with a spark ignition engine. With his encouragement, I again began building airplanes and attending contests. Joined AMA, SCAMPS, MMM, WMC and SAM. I learned to fly SAM RC at the feet of Otto Bernhardt, free flight at the feet of Sal Taibi, two giants. Designed two NFFS Models of the Year, CUFFMAC Champion, FAI Americas Cup winner, construction articles published in Model Aviation and Flying Models, honorary life member of SCAT and The Really Great SAM 8. In 1995 SAM President, Don Bekins, inquired if I’d like to be editor of a newsletter. It was SAM Speaks. You know the rest.
All of the plans continue to be available through the Northrop Plans Service of Henderson, Nevada. Bill was inducted into the AMA Hall of Fame in 1988.
2005
Hank COLE - Inducted 2005
Born
My long fascination for flying models began in the mid-thirties when I built a cabin model by Frank Zaic from plans in Popular Mechanics. I flew the model in a vacant lot and was soon known as that Crazy kid down the block whose plane was landing on the top of houses and in back yards. I got my Materials from a jewelry store that carried model supplies but I didn't know any other modelers in town until 1938 when the Tacoma Public Schools and News Tribune sponsored a contest at Meuller Harkins airport. There I met Chuck Hollinger and other members of the Tacoma Gas Wings and saw gas models and hand launched gliders for the first time. My scaled down cabin won 2nd place in junior cabin and I was hooked. Chuck ran a model shop and got me started in gas models and hand launched gliders. I also got a copy of Frank Zaic's 1938 model aeronautics yearbook and it opened up the whole world of model flying.
The club was very competitive. We flew hand launch gliders almost every day after school. On weekends we would pile into Chuck's Model A and fly rubber jobs and gas models at Harts Lake Prairie. We attended contests in Seattle and Yakima and flew all kinds of models. Also, I spent a lot of time at the library reading NACA reports which led me to design a hand launch glider which had sweptback tips which was unusual at the time. At the 1939 Tacoma News Tribune contest the glider won with a time as high as the winning times in the gas and rubber events. The sponsors didn't believe that a glider could fly that long so they held up the award until the times were confirmed. The model won many contests before WW2, and afterwards won open class at the 1955 Nat's.
In 1940 our dreams came true and 5 of us drove 2000 miles to attend the Chicago Nationals. Chuck took some pictures along the way and I wrote an article "National or Bust" which was published in Air Trails. I flew my C-cabin, "Stratosphere". The model had an unusually large prop, which with a large motor gave a very high climb. The feedback has been positive and some builders have come up with ingenious ways to pop up the stab mounted on the rudder. At the 1941 Nat’s Bill Winter asked me for an article on the "Smoothie." The plans drawn by Douglas Rolfe were a work of art. This has been my best-known model and quite a few have been built around the world. Mine was last seen heading west at the 1946 Nat’s where I placed second in outdoor cabin.
In 1942 I was studying aeronautical engineering at the U of W and working part time in the wind tunnel. The Davis airfoil (used on the Liberator in WW2) came in for a test. I found that the airfoil was generated by a set of equations and by changing the constants I could generate all kinds of airfoils, some of them pretty weird. I selected 5 airfoils suitable for models and they were published in Air Trails. The Davis 5 has been popular on gas models and long rubber jobs. The Davis 3 has been very successful on Wakefields and Nordics. At the same time I was experimenting with flying wings and generated an airfoil called the Albatross section and it worked very well on my flying wing high-start models. After WW2 I used the thickness distribution of the Albatross section to generate the CH407 and it was widely used on Nordics and Wakefields in the sixties and seventies.
In 1942 I was flying an Ohlsson "23"-powered gas model with floats on Lake Washington. I called it the "Dry Duck" because the engine was used as a pusher and could not be dunked even when it flipped upside down. At the time we had hopes of going to a 1942 Nat’s, and I worked hard to develop a small cabin called the "Cirrus Cruiser" which was a test model for a Wakefield. In my tests I tried various angles of incidence for the wing and found that the glide was improved with an incidence of 8 to 10 degrees. The Nat’s were cancelled but I sent information on the models to Air Trails. The Navy called me to active duty on July 1, 1943 and that ended my free flight activities. However, some details of the models were published and I had enough photos and plans to qualify the "Cirrus Cruiser" as an old time model. After the war, the Wakefield version was flown to 3rd place at the 1947 Nat’s.
2005
Gil MORRIS - Inducted 2005
Born August 8, 1925
Gil’s uncle taught him to whittle solid models at an early age. A poor student, his grades improved dramatically when his father awarded him a solid model kit for each A or B he received at school. He built his first “stick” model at age 8 and was hooked on flying models ever since. When he was 14 and making a little money working at a hardware store, he bought a kit of a Scientific Eaglet and a Brat engine. With the experience gained flying the Eaglet, Gil decided to try designs of his own which he flew in the 1941 Nationals held in Chicago. During the following winter he built three Kerswaps all of which were lost out-of-sight (OOS) during the 1942 contest season.
Gil graduated from high school in 1943 and immediately went off to college and soon into the Army Air Corps. After World War II, he entered Ohio State University graduating in 1949 with B.S.M.E. and B.S.E.E. degrees. Raising a family of five children with his wife Irene and working as an engineer occupied the next several years with little time for model airplanes. As his children grew up he began teaching them about models and his own interest was rekindled with new vigor. Getting back into the swing of things, he built a couple of gas model kits but decided again to design his own. It didn’t take long for his design genius to reemerge. Notably among his successful designs are: Toothpicks, ABC Toothpicks, Matchsticks and Two Timer F1C Flapper. In recognition for these creations the National Free Flight Society (NFFS) presented Gil with five model-of-the year awards. Gil is not only a noted designer but also a serious Free Flight competitor. Gil has supported model aviation as an AMA Contest Director, club officer and chairman of the FAI Free Flight Team Selection Committee.
Through his creative genius, we are able to fly his KERSWAP model design in every conceivable size in both free flight and R/C. The design has been especially popular as a SAM ½ A Texaco model.
Other writers have also published articles about Gil’s design:
Kerswap ½ A Texaco Old-Timer by Bob Isaacks, Model Builder November1985
Kerswap by Bob Aberle, Flying Models November1986
Kerswap.020 Replica Old-Timer by Dick Lyons, Model Builder July 1992
His current winnings are too numerous to list here but just to mention a few:
Set 5 AMA National Records In Free Flight , 1978, 1980, 1982 & 1985(2)
America’s Cup Winner in F1C 1997
Won individual F1C Bronze Medal, World Championships in Hungary, 1995
Won team F1C Gold Medal, World Championships in Hungary, 1995
Won team F1C Gold Medal, World Championships in Hungary, 2003
His modeling articles have appeared in several publications:
NFFS Symposium Reports:
1981 “Some Thoughts on Designing and Trimming”
1984 “Getting a Handle on CG (Center of Gravity)”
2001 “Solutions to an Erratic Vertical Climb”
Model Aviation:
Charlie W REICH - Inducted 2006 top of this page
Born December 11, 1934
Charles Wm. Reich was born in Mishawaka, Indiana on December 11, 1934. Shortly thereafter his family moved to a small farm in Granger Indiana. The aviation bug bit hard because there was a small airport nearby where young men got primary training prior to enlistment in the Army Air Corps. The farm was also under the flyway from the Detroit aircraft factories to the West Coast, and new bombers and fighters passed overhead each day. At age 8, Charlie started building solid aircraft models; at age 10 he saw a silk covered Playboy with an Ohlsson .60 and the die was cast. He saved for a year to buy his first model kit, a Playboy Jr., and the only engine he could afford, a Thor. Fortunately Santa realized that the Thor just didn't cut it, and a new Ohlsson .23 showed up in the Christmas stocking, so the Playboy saw the air for the first time shortly after Christmas.
Charlie's career was in the parts divisions of various automotive companies; he wound up as the National Vice President for parts for Mazda North America. The Japanese connection led to frequent travel to Japan where he visited the local hobby shops for motors, models and radios. Mazda North America was headquartered in Orange County, and Curt Steven's wife was the realtor who sold Charlie his house---and Curt then introduced Charlie to SAM. Charlie took early retirement in 1989 and moved to Oregon; in 1993 Curt called him and said 'come on down' to the 1993 SAM Champs at Taft.
At Taft, Charlie saw the Playboys and Comet Clippers of his youth, met John Pond and Don Bekins, and bought a trunk load of Klarich kits. The hook was firmly set. Charlie is a consummate public relations and publicity guy; his new friend Don Bekins became SAM President in 1994. Bekins, and all subsequent SAM Presidents, have called on Charlie to take photos, write articles, work trade shows, develop promotional materials to build SAM membership and assist in maintaining contacts with SAM chapters. The Editor of SAM Speaks has relied on Charlie for a stream of small 'Ol Charlie' articles and photographs of SAM contests. Charlie has written articles for national model magazines for three different SAM Champs each such article has spurred a small burst of new SAM members.
From 2003 to 2006, Charlie was Secretary of SAM. In that role Charlie worked on implementation of a new and updated computerized membership system. He also wrote a History of SAM booklet. He's worked on updating and publishing the Approved Designs List-Gas Models. He's published several SAM Member Roster booklets.
Charlie also played a leading role in the editing, drafting and publishing of the new 2006 SAM Rule book. As Secretary, Charlie has been the 'go to guy' for members whose Speaks subscriptions have gone awry in the mail. He's also been the first SAM officer to have contact with new SAM members. For the last dozen years, Charlie has been one of the key guys who make SAM work for all of us.
2006
Al LIDBERG - Inducted 2006
Born December 7, 1936
Alfred A. Al Lidberg was born December 7, 1936 in Chicago, Illinois. His family lived near what is now O'Hare Airport. At the age of 7 Al started to build wartime kits made with cardboard formers and hardwood sticks. He kept building the Comet P-51 kit which cost 25 cents, but he had to build several before he could get one to fly. When he was 12, his parents gave him an America's Hobby Center 'deal'-a WOG kit with an ignition Merlin .23
The family moved to Phoenix when Al was 15, and he started his long association with the Phoenix Model Club and the Southwest Regional FF contests. His first serious gas FF ship was a Fubar 36 with a Torpedo .049-he placed 1 st in Jr. 12 A gas with it at the second ever Southwest Regional FF contest. Al has been a contestant, an official, or organizer at virtually every Southwest Regionals since then. In high school Al started to design his own planes; one of them, the Fleebo, is now qualified as a Nostalgia legal ship.
After high school and college, Al took a nine year modeling break for service in the Navy and starting a family. His three sons and a daughter helped him fill the family workshop with many gas, rubber, and Jetex free flight models. Al and his three sons each set several AMA records in various classes.
Starting in the 1970's Al drew plans and wrote construction articles which appeared in many national model magazines. His plans for .020 Replica designs of the Rocketeer A, the Eastern States Champion and the Wahoo. He had a particular interest in small electric and CO2 powered versions of OT or Nostalgia FF ships, and plans and construction articles for the Taibi Powerhouse, the Civy Boy, the deBolt Airfoiler, and the Ray Heit Scrappy all appeared.(along with perhaps two dozen other plans and articles). In 1990 Al started his own model plans mail order business. Shortly afterwards, he reasoned that he might as well sell the print wood for the plans, and his model kits business was born. Many of his plans and kits are reduced size versions of OT models, and they help keep the OT idea alive by being able to fly on small fields and in city parks. Along the way Al added CAD to his skills and now offers some of his kits with laser cut parts.
About 1990, the Southwest Regional Model Airplane Championships (SWR) was in danger because of lack of funds and support from the local model airplane clubs. Al, along with fellow Hall of Fame inductee Bob Angus, and others, stepped in and formed a non-profit corporation to keep the SWR going. Al is now President of the SWR Association and in his 'major domo' role, serves as Contest Manager, AMA FF Contest Director and is in charge of publicity and the SWR website.
Al became involved as a SAM competitor after attending the 1995 Colorado Springs SAM Champs.
2006
Jim O’REILLY - Inducted 2006
Born on August 7, 1932
Jim O'Reilly was born on August 7, 1932 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. His love for model aircraft began when he was six years old. He went on to get a BSME degree from Oklahoma State University in 1957. He married Marty in May of that year. After graduation and marriage he went to work in the aircraft industry. Jim returned to model aircraft competition after a change from engineering to a sales engineering job, where he had more control of his schedule. He had worked as a mechanical systems and propulsion engineer at Aero
He began competing in 1974 with Coupes, 1/2A Gas, F1H towliners and Unlimited Rubber. He won Wakefield at the Nats in 1986, 1987 and 1994, and P-30 in 2002. Jim also designed a number of rubber and power FF ships along the way and has his designs and plans published, including the 'Tubesteak' rubber ship and 'Sudden Sam', a hot AMA gassie.
Jim joined the Society of Antique Modelers in 1981 and has competed in most of the rubber-powered events and in gas free flight. Successes included a win in Class A Gas Cabin with a Cabin Ruler at Bong in 1983 and Rubber Cabin at Madera in 1985 with an Altimeter and a Eugene.
After years of sales calls in various engineering departments where computer aided design (CAD) was being used, CAD looked like enormous fun to Jim. He started his model plans business in 1993, initially as a means of drawing his own plans. Shortly before the 1998 Champs, Charlie Reich spoke with Bob Holman and suggested that he should find someone who did CAD who could draw a plan of that year's one design model, the Ernie Linn Kansas Wakefield for use with Bob's laser cutting business. This was a happy relationship all the way around; Ernie Linn and Jim O'Reilly had been longtime friends and competitors in Wichita, and the O'Reilly Cad plan/Holman laser cutting business has produced numerous short kits for OT models. While it was and is a 'labour of love' on O'Reilly and Holman's part, the kit list grows. O'Reilly's plan catalog now is in excess of 240 plans. The number will grow in the future.
Jim's goals include the highest quality and accuracy of airplane model plans he can produce. He draws plans incorporating current practice by competition builders, as opposed to 'museum quality' plans. For example, dethermalizers, tubular rear motor nchors, injection molded engine mounts are routinely shown on plans as being legal deviations from actual 1940-era models.
One of Jim’s goals is to produce model airplane plans for all 'one-design' events possible, with sufficient lead time for a builder to show up at the Champs or other contest with a complete and tested model.
2006
Bob ANGUS - Inducted 2006
Born 1928 ---
Bob Angus was born in 1928 in Tarrytown, New York. During his early school years, he was active in Boy Scouts as well as beginning to show interest in model airplanes by building the 25 cent stick and paper models.With money earned on a paper route, he acquired a Phantom P-30, and built a Scientific Coronet, followed by a Buccaneer B Special. In 1945, he became an Eagle Scout, and in 1946 he successfully flew a GE Cabinette with a Super Atom. In the late 1940's and the early 1950's Bob was busy with college. In 1950, he received a BS from Cornell University. In 1954, he acquired a MS from Pennsylvania State University. Also in 1954, Bob married his wife, Mary and was called to active duty in the U.S. Air Force. His service in the Air Force was from 1954 to 1957. As a first lieutenant he was assigned to the Operations Squadron at Torbay, Newfoundland, Canada.In 1959 Bob began his career at the University of Arizona as an Assistant Professor of Agricultural Economics. In 1960, he received a PhD from Pennsylvania State University. His teaching assignments included basic economics, price theory and basic statistical methods at the upper division and graduate levels, and his research was published in professional journals. His family expanded to three children, Jean, Walter, and Jay. He retired as a full professor in 1994.Model airplanes became a part of his life again in 1958 with a DEMCO payload model powered by a used Atwood .049. It was RC with a Citizenship radio and escapement. He then designed a rudder only model with which he placed fifth at the NATS in 1964. During the early 60's he competed in the U. S. free flight team trials for A-2 towline gliders. In those years, he competed in the Southwest in Pattern contests, and for the last three years, he has competed in the Gunsmoke Scale Qualifier in Phoenix. He also CD'ed several of the Winter National contests that were held at Marana Air Park during the 1970's.In 1984, Bob began flying with SAM at the Southwest Regionals in Buckeye, AZ. He won the Robert's Cup and placed 1 st in B ignition LER at the 1987 Champs at Seguin, TX. Since then, he has competed in fourteen SAM Champs.Bob Angus has given much back to the modeling community. He was a founding member of the Tucson Radio Control Club in the mid 60's. He served two terms as president of that club, and was on the board of directors for several years. He is currently on the board of directors for the Tucson Modelplex Corporation. He has served as the secretary of the Southwest Regionals Corporation. Along with fellow HOF entrant Al Lidberg, Bob has been a major factor in the continuation and expansion of the annual Southwest Regional Contest now held at Eloy each January.For fifteen years, Bob Angus has been the CD for the RC Assist side of the Southwest Regionals at Eloy AZ, assisted many times by his oldest son, Walter. Bob Angus was also the RC Contest Director for the 2005 SAM Champs held in Las Vegas. He is an accomplished organizer of, and competitor in SAM contests.
2006
Bob HOLMAN - Inducted 2006
Born November 10, 1931 ---
Bob Holman was born November 10, 1931 in San Bernardino California. His interest in model airplanes was kindled by a visit to his cousins in Indiana in 1943. They were flying rubber scale models. Bob's first modeling effort was an attempt to build a Stahl Blackburn Skua; Bob can't remember if he ever finished it. He then built a rubber scale Ryan Fireball (in 1945) which crashed on its first flight. By now Bob was 12, and he started to build kit after kit. His first motors were an OK CO2 motor, and an Ohlsson .23, followed by a McCoy Redhead .19. In high school, Bob saw a fellow flying a Zeek-and that led to the building of many Zeeks in all sizes. After service in the United States Marine Corps from 1951 to 1954, Bob moved to Florida, where he continued to fly Zeeks. In 1956, Bob came home to San Bernardino and joined the local FF club. Bob has run a plans business since 1960 when he set it up as an 'after work garage business'. It started shortly after Bob came home and found that his nephew had sold Bob's extensive collection of model magazines to a local resident-the sale was unauthorized and Bob went to the buyer and got his magazines back. But the buyer got Bob interested in drawing up model plans, so Bob took a drafting class at the local college. For Bob's final exam, he was supposed to turn in a drawing-Bob turned in a Fokker DVII. Most of his classmates turned in drawings of a house! Bob drew more plans and they started to sell well. As he did that, he got in contact with other fellows who were drawing plans including renowned scale designers Brian Taylor and Dennis Bryant of England. Bob started selling their plans in the United States. He also started cutting kits on a bandsaw for the various plans he had in stock, and learned how to make fiberglass parts from Bob Palmer, one of the first modelers to start building planes from fiberglass. Bob added more plans from more sources. Through the late 1980's many of Bob's plans and kits were for .60 sized scale ships.
In 1993, Bob decided to retire the old band saw and got a laser cutter, followed by a second, more powerful laser cutter in 1996. Bob realized that usin g a laser cutter made it possible for him to easily cut kits for the OT and Nostalgia era rubber and power ships. Bob started to redraw the plans for many of the popular OT designs, and then enlisted the aid of a fellow modeler, Bill Kaminsky, who is a CAD expert, for assistance in turning them into CAD designs to drive the laser cutters. In 1998, Bob met Jim O'Reilly, and started the relationship which has led to so many OT 'model of the year' plans and kits for the SAM Champs. Bob continues to sell the scale plans and kits, but OT plans and kits are half of his business today. You can find Bob at the many trade shows he attends, in each case manning a booth stocked with a large selection of Old Timer partial kits and plans. He's also an active competitor at SAM Champs and SAM contests in the West.
2006
Bill NORTHROP - Inducted 2007 top of this page
Born 1922 ---
Bill Northrop was born in 1922. His first contact with “Old Timer” models was when they were “New Timer” models. At age 14 he built and flew a Henry Struck diamond-fuselage rubber powered model published full size on several pages in the July 1936 issue of Model Aircraft Builder. A little over a year later, Northrop built and flew a Scientific Maxwell Bassett “Miss Philadelphia” soon after it was first advertised in the July 1937 issue of Model Airplane News. Northrop had had three years experience in building solid models and ten and twenty five cent stick and tissue Megow models before tackling the Miss Philadelphia. Northrop powered Miss Philadelphia with a Baby Cyclone with the stamped metal engine mount, including the gas tank. Northrop did this with no more help than he could obtain by reading the current model magazines available at the time (Flying Aces, Model Airplane News and Bill Barnes Air Trails). Things became more understandable when Northrop met Steve Kowalik, who had opened a hobby shop located in the young men’s department of Mullins Clothing Store, in Wilmington Delaware, fifteen miles from Bill’s home.
Northrop’s first flyaway of a model involved a Jim Walker folding wing catapult glider in about 1935. In early 1940, Northrop built Korda’s famous Wakefield from a $1 Megow kit and experienced his second flyaway. It happened at a contest in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Although it was the longest flight of the contest (18 and one half minutes), it was unofficial. The flight occurred on a “test flight” with only 100 turns on the rubber. The prop folded, and the model caught a thermal and bounced around until it went out of sight. Northrop recovered the model when he received a post card a week later from a small town 25 miles northeast of Lancaster where the model had been found.
During the 1950’s and the early 1960’s, Northrop was an architectural engineer for Hercules Chemical—and also an active RC modeler. He was a regular contributor of articles for Model Airplane News and Air Trails, including contest reports and construction articles. He had also opened a small advertising business in the model airplane trade. His customers included Swanson (glow plugs) Pettit Paint (Hobbypoxy) and DB Engineering (Don Brown’s Quadruplex R/C systems). He had a heart attack in April, 1964, which caused him to rethink what he wanted to do. He decided he wanted to focus on the model airplane hobby. At that time Walt Schroder, the Editor of Model Airplane News, was beginning to look for a new R/C Editor for the magazine—and the job was offered to Northrop. His first column as RC Editor was in the January, 1965 issue. He stayed there until August of 1969. After Northrop left Model Airplane News, he came out to Southern California to work as a sales representative for Bob Dunham’s Orbit Electronics.
During the 1960’s Northrop remained active in the R/C field. He placed 3rd in the R/C Scale event at the 1965 Willow Grove AMA Nats flying his 3 inch to the foot scale model of the Gipsy Moth (this was in the days before “Quarter Scale”). He not only took 3rd place in the event, he earned the first Best R/C Scale Achievement award, donated by Sterling Models. In September, 1965, Northrop entered the World R/C Record Trials at The Dahlgren Naval Weapons Laboratory in Virginia. Northrop set a new “absolute” world record for all model aircraft of 16, 610 feet. The previous record of 14,000 feet had been set by a Russian FF aircraft.
Northrop first met John Pond at the 1962 Chicago Nationals, where their discussion came around to OT model activity. They renewed their acquaintance at the Los Alamitos Nationals in 1963. While Northrop was R/C editor at Model Airplane News, he’d occasionally make a reference to OT FF in his R/C column.
Out in Southern California in 1969 and 1970, Northrop still had the itch to get back into model aviation publications—but wanted to do something different than the existing magazines. Model Builder Magazine was born from that itch—with the first three issues published in 1971. Model Builder magazine started coverage of OT modeling activity in a column that Northrop named “Plug Sparks”. Plug Sparks first appeared in the January, 1973 issue. Jack Transue wrote the first six Plug Sparks columns. John Pond swung into the Plug Sparks saddle in August of 1973, and made Plug Sparks a “bully pulpit” for the promotion of SAM and of OT modeling in general. Pond ran with it through 274 columns with the last one published in September of 1996 when the then owners of Model Builder “threw in the towel”. Over that period of time, Model Builder magazine published 194 Old Timer model plans.
Northrop is proudest of a plan and fairly long Model Builder article concerning Joe Raspante’s famous model “Snow White”, a winner of the Berryloid event. There had been quite a bit of confusion and incorrect claims about the origin of the design. The article settled it for good. The author and creator of the new plan, Al Holmes, was able to contact Raspante. After getting Raspante’s permission, Holmes dismantled the original Snow White and made new drawings (right from the parts!) to replace the long gone original drawings, which were actually done on taped-together brown paper bags. Those original drawings had been trashed after the original ship was completed.
Northrop was one of the modelers responsible for separation of RC OT from FF OT events. In March of 1974, Northrop wrote and published a Model Builder article recommending ways to modify FF Old Timers for R/C using his Taibi Powerhouse as an example. Shortly afterwards, Northrop won the Winter Nats Texaco Event at Taft, flying his R/C modified Powerhouse for a total of 54 minutes and 22 seconds. Later that day Northrop buzzed the field with the Powerhouse (powered by a Brown Jr.) flying inverted at 25 feet for two complete circles around the field before landing—much to the shouted amusement of Sal Taibi.
For two years prior to 1974, the FF Texaco models had beaten the RC Texaco models. Immediately following the 1974 Winter Nats Texaco contest (or maybe even immediately following the two inverted “buzz jobs” with the Powerhouse) the event was separated into two categories—F/F and R/C.
In 1978 Bill Northrop and his wife Anita founded the International Modeler Show (now the AMA Ontario Convention). From the earliest days of the show, Northrop gave SAM and FF modelers a free booth at the IMS show. Jim Adams, Sal Taibi, Mike Myers, Larry Clark, Carl Hatrak, Bill Booth, Ron Boots and other SAM stalwarts manned that IMS booth over the years soliciting new converts to the SAM movement. When Bill and Anita Northrop sold the IMS show to the AMA in 1998, one of the stipulations was that the AMA would continue to provide booth space to SAM at either free or reduced cost each year and that has continued to this day.
After the discontinuance of Model Builder by its new owners, Northrop was able to rescue all of the Model Builder original plans from the bankruptcy court. He started a new plan book, titled “Scratch Builder’s Almanac”, which includes 37 more OT plans, in addition to the 194 OT plans published by Model Builder.
2007
Bob LAYBORNE - Inducted 2007
Born June 22, 1929 ---
Bob Laybourne was born in Springfield, Ohio on June 22, 1929. His first model airplanes were the Strombecker solid models. After cutting his teeth on the Strombecker models, he moved on to the Joe Ott and Guillow rubber powered scale models. After several efforts, Bob finally got a Guillow’s Staggerwing Beech to fly all the way across the living room. It was a great flight, but ended in a fatal crash landing on the sofa.
At age 9, Bob joined the Howie Wing Flying Club, sponsored by Kellogg Cereals. Bob ate a lot of corn flakes. He saved all the box tops. The corn flakes and the box tops allowed Bob to send off for a Quaker Flash kit, which, he’s sorry to say, he never completed. The first gas model that Bob completed and flew was an Ohlsson .23 powered Cleveland Korda Champion. This was followed by a Scientific Flagship, powered by a Brown “D” which was Bob’s first truly successful gas model. Bob’s first big contest “win” occurred at the 1948 AMA Nationals at Olathe, Kansas where he won 7th place with a Comet Sailplane, powered by a McCoy .49.
Bob married his wife, June, in 1950. June is a Sweetheart of SAM and continues to be his strongest cheering section as well as a strong supporter of SAM. Marriage meant that Bob followed different pursuits for a few years, but he eventually got back into free flight, building and flying contest rubber models.
While Bob was still working for IBM, he started a hobby shop, the Hobby Hangar, in 1976 in Donnelsville, Ohio. He said he started it in his house, in an addition he’d built on to his basement. It took a while to gain credibility with his suppliers, but Bob built the business up. He only stocked model airplanes, both FF and RC. While most of his trade was R/C, he made a special effort to stock everything he could for FF, and especially rubber FF, including good wood and hardware. The shop drew FF modelers from great distances who took the time and trouble to find out just where Donnelsville, Ohio was. Bob ran the shop for 22 years and cherishes the friendships he made among his customers and his SAM rubber competitors.
Bob was Midwest SAM Vice President from 1998 to 2002, neatly bridging the presidencies of Bill Booth and Tom McCoy. Bob was the Contest Manager for the 2002 SAM Champs at Muncie and was Co-Manager, with Bob Bienenstein, for the 2006 Champs. He was instrumental in getting the SAM perpetual trophies put on permanent display in the AMA Model Museum at Muncie, Indiana. Bob continues to see to the upkeep and annual engraving of those perpetual SAM trophies. In recent years, Bob has been chairman of the SAM Booth at the Toledo R/C Show, an important recruiting venue for SAM.
2007
Joseph Henry EHRHARDT - Inducted 2008 top of this page
Born 193 --- Died 1978
Joe Ehrhardt is the sole inductee into the Hall of Fame for 2008. Joe started the Ehrhardt Model Airplane & Supply Company in Saint Louis with his two brothers in 1927. He was an active competitor and model designer. He was also a leader and instructor in model airplane techniques. He toured in the 1930’s teaching others how to build and fly models.
He was the only American to win the Wakefield International Cup two years in a row. He won the Cup in 1930 and 1931. He also was won the National Outdoor Champion award for both 1930 and 1931 in the Airplane Model League of America (AMLA) national meets.
Ehrhardt won the Mulvihill Trophy at the 1930 AMLA contest using an A-frame or twin pusher model. In the same year, he won the Stout Trophy flying his Wakefield Cabin.
Ehrhardt was an innovator as well as a competitor. One of the prizes for being AMLA Outdoor Champion in 1930 was a steamship trip to England to fly in the Wakefield International Cup contest to be held at Halton Aerodrome outside London. English Wakefield models of the time were heavy, made of hard wood, wire and doped muslin. Ehrhardt, like the other two members of the US team was flying a balsa and tissue covered model. The models had problems with the wind gusts, rain and “beastly weather”. The other two members of the US team had their models destroyed in crashes. Ehrhardt prevailed to win the contest with a flight of 155 seconds.
That win brought the Wakefield International Cup contest to Dayton Ohio for 1931. Ehrhardt beat two other future SAM Hall of Famers, Gordon Light and Carl Carlson. Ehrhardt won the Wakefield Cup with a flight of some 264 seconds. His model had one of the first free wheeling propellers in Wakefield Cup competition. He also led the way in use of balsa and tissue for Wakefield models, and stretch winding the motor outside of the fuselage.
2008
Mike MYERS - Inducted 2009 top of this page
Born 1943 -
Mike was born in Mesa, Arizona in 1943 and did a bit of FF and controline as a teenager. That all stopped for high school, college, a family and a career. He jumped back into modeling in the early 1980s. Tony and Addie Naccarato introduced him to OT free flight. Ken Sykora introduced him to David Baker on a business trip to England, and he developed strong friendships with David and with many English OT models. He has a fondness for ugly and unusual models such as Col. C. E. Bowden's.
Mike has flown or participated in 12 SAM Champs from 1991 to 2009, many of those in a management capacity.
He has been the legal counsel for SAM under presidents Bekins, Booth, McCoy and O'Reilly and continues to this day.
Mike has been the Contest Manager or Co-Manager for the US Free Flight Championship (USFFC) at Taft and Lost Hills on five separate years from the late '80s to the mid-90s. The USFFC has OT, FAI and AMA FF events and is the largest FF contest in the western USA. At that time, the usual number of USFFC contestants was in the 200-225 area.
He was president of the Southern California Ignition Fliers (SCIF) for the two years, 1988 and 1989. He was contest manager at least once a year for SCIF including the Los Angeles portion of the Charles Hampson Grant Memorial Mass Launch of Cloud Tramps.
Mike received the Radford Trophy at Middle Wallop in 2004. This is the European SAM Champs organized by SAM 1066. It was presented for Mike's efforts in promoting Tomboys and the Tomboy event world wide. He received the "Contributor of the Year" award at Middle Wallop in 1999.
As SAM President, Mike originated the "Miss Seldom Seen" concourse event for rare and unusual old tome models. The event is intended to encourage the building of such models.
Mike edited the SCIF "The Flight Plug" from 1996 to 2008. He currently writes the "Old Timer Topics" column in Flying Models magazine. His column started with the January 2008 issue and appears 6 times a year. It promotes SAM.
Mike has attended and flown in multiple contests in England, including the Anglo American Wakefield Recreations, the European FF SAM Championships at Middle Wallop and the contests at Old Warden. Through a combination of frequent business and family travel to England, attendance at contests and correspondence with various SAM leaders in England,
he has served as a roving ambassador of good will between SAM USA and members of SAM 35 and SAM 1066 in England since 1984.
2009
Ron BOOTS - Inducted 2009
Born July 2, 1931 ---
I was born on July 2, 1931 at New Richmond, Ohio, a small riverfront town near Cincinnati. A vivid early childhood memory occurred during the great Ohio River Flood of 1937. The river rose from 13 feet pool stage to 79.9 feet flood stage. My father lifted me over a second floor window sill to put me into a rescue boat.
My modeling career began around 1939 with a Cub-type model. I promptly glued everything down onto the plan with the result that the wing, rudder, stab and one side of the fuselage was paper plan covered. Profile model anyone?
During the Great Depression years, I financed modeling by scrounging around the "Bloody Bucket Saloon", looking for empty quart beer bottles which were worth a nickel deposit. (Glue was a nickel a tube!) Straight pins came from Mr. Lutsky, a Polish, Jewish immigrant who owned a men's clothing store. He saved the pins from the shirts he sold and gave them to me!
Around 1943, we moved to Cincinnati when Dad got a job at the Crosley Corporation making wartime radio equipment. (Also of Shelvidor refrigerator and Crosley car fame.)
My modeling experience was greatly enhanced when 25-cent kits replaced the cheaper ones and seemed easier to build. Soon I bought my first engine, a Phantom P-30 for $9.95, so U-Control joined my rubber powered fleet and I don't recall ever making a solid scale model again.
The next major happening was Korea! I served as a weapons instructor, followed by a 9-month combat tour in Korea and finished my 4-year hitch loading nukes into RB-36s.
After discharge I went back to Ohio to go to college in the evening, while pursuing a career in retail merchandising and raising a family. The college degree was via the G.I. Bill, so thank you Korea. During the 'family raising years' I made and flew lots of gliders and small rubber models. Fast forwarding to the late 70's, I was single and really plunged into heavy duty modeling. Best of all I could now afford all the straight pins I wanted!
It was the exposure of flying at Taft that did it. I joined S.C.I.F., the Southern California Ignition Fliers, (SAM 3) and S.A.M. And I was on my way.
I served seven years in SCIF's, first as Treasurer, then as President for over five years, the longest of any president. I also served four years as Treasurer and later as president of C.U.F.F.M.A.C., an organization dedicated to organizing yearly competition calendars and facilitating the running of the U.S. FF Champs.
I became SAM Treasurer in 2004 and plan to continue serving in this capacity as long as I am needed.
I had the great pleasure of organizing and facilitating the SAM Matching Funds Drive which resulted in raising almost $52,000 for the treasury.
I have organized three Engine Raffles for SAM Champs, all of which have been successful.
My favorite flying events in Rubber are: Jimmie Allen, Commercial Rubber, Scale and Twin Pusher. In Power they are Gas Scale, 1/2A Texaco and Fuel allotment.
I am an avid collector of model engines and just about everything related to model or full scale aviation. (My 8 room house needs two outdoor storage areas to ALMOST hold everything.)
S.A.M. Has rewarded me with almost 25 years of happy flying and many fine friends.
2009
Loren SCHMIDT - Inducted 2009
Born June 1, 1939 ---
Loren was born in Elk Grove, California on June 1, 1939 and died there on Feb. 27, 2005. He trained as an aircraft airframe and mechanic (A & E) and worked at that trade until retiring in 1999.
Loren obviously loved airplanes and soon devoted his spare time to model airplanes and later to "old timer" models. Since he lived on a ranch with a "big backyard," (63 acres in grass or alfalfa) he had a great place to fly his models. In 1968, in the early days of the Society of Antique Modelers, Loren got the idea to build "short kits" of all the popular old timer designs such as Bombers, Sailplanes, Zippers, Clippers, Playboys, etc. and sell them to his friends and other OT enthusiasts. Response was good but there was a downside: After spending a full day at work, he had to come home, eat dinner and get out to the shop and start cutting balsa to fill orders. Often, Loren didn't make it to bed before midnight. Then, in 1987, he sold the kit business to Harry Klarich. Harry has carried on the short kit business ever since, but it was started back in 1968 by Loren Schmidt.
Another project that Loren had for a time was the production of Y&O props, an old timer favorite.
If for no other reason, Loren will be remembered for using his own property as a venue for OT contests. Along with providing a great place to fly, Loren saw to it that the contestants had breakfast, lunch and sometimes even dinner available. Car parking and eating were all done under a stand of shade trees. How good can it get! At one time, three OT clubs (SAM 21, 27 and 30) all held their annual contests at Schmidt's Ranch. Per Loren's wishes, Schmidt's Ranch continues to be the number one venue for OT contests in California and will continue to do so, according to Miriam Schmidt.
For many years, Loren was the Contest Director for the OT events at the Northern California Free Flight Council contests at Waegell Field near Sacramento. This even included hauling his grass mower from home to cut the grass for both the Free Flight and Old Timer take-off areas at Waegell Field.
Loren was the SAM Master-at-Arms for a couple of years but had to give up the position after he became ill. He had been appointed to this position because he seldom if ever missed a SAM Champs. Loren had a ten-foot homemade trailer (filled with several dozen models) which he towed to Muncie and most other SAM Champs sites. Were it not for Loren and his trailer, several people would have been unable to attend several SAM Champs.
Loren Schmidt accomplished many things in his life which ended much too early. He was a maker of OT short kits, an avid contest flier, a prop manufacturer, a SAM officer, a Contest Director and the provider for many years of an OT contest site. But, mainly, Loren was a good friend to everyone who ever met him. When Loren died, not only did SAM lose a great member but we all lost a good and helpful friend.
2009
Ken SYKORA - Inducted 2009 top of this page
Born 1928 --- died 1995
Ken Sykora was born in Waco, Texas in 1928. He became a modeler when he was 5 years old and continued to be a modeler until his death in 1995. A graduate of Baylor University he decided to leave Texas and come to California because "the modeling was better." Ken was a life long modeler from his early days until his death in 1995. Ken was an all around free flight modeler flying both gas and rubber models. Ken's distinctive contest attire included a drill sergeant's campaign hat, and he was a strong OT FF competitor in Southern California for many years. Ken arrived in California just in time to meet and work with John Pond in the early 60's. Ken's wife reports that Ken kept every model magazine he ever bought .Ken and John Pond were avid plan collectors, and they exchanged letters and plans to build up what became the Pond Plan Service. Ken joined the Southern California Ignition Flyers, SAM Chapter Number 3 in the mid`60s. Ken was the newsletter editor of the SCIF Flightplug from 1974 until his death in 1995. The Flightplug was widely distributed and quoted, with a new old timer plan published every month. SAM HOF member David Baker "borrowed" liberally from the Flightplug articles in those years for use in the newsletters that helped to get SAM 35 and SAM 1066 off the ground in England. That connection led to a series of Anglo American 50th Anniversary recreations of the Wakefield Cup from 1983 until the late 1980s. In alternate years Americans would travel to England to fly, or English modelers would come to Southern California to fly. Many trans-Atlantic friendships ensued.
In his "day job", Ken was a technical writer for a major engineering company. Upon retirement in 1982, Ken bought the Old Timer Model Supply Company, which was started by fellow SAM HOF member Jim Noonan. Old Timer Model Supply Company was a mail order "cottage industry" business. Ken ran the business out of his home. He supplied old time model plans, prop blanks, wheels, rubber prop shafts, silk, tissue, nitrate dope, and "bits and bobs" associated with OT rubber modeling. Each day he'd gather the materials to fill the orders he received and go to the post office to mail them. Fittingly, for a native born Texan and a guy who loved his campaign hat, Ken "died in the saddle". He was in his workroom, filling orders when he collapsed and died. Ken belongs in the Hall of Fame both as one who publicized and promoted the OT model movement, and as a vital cottage industry supplier.
2009
Jim COFFIN - Inducted 2009
Born
I started building in the 1930's in Colorado and saw my first gas model in a hardware store window. It was a Zipper with an Ohlsson 23. It was a beautiful model in my youthful mind. I later learned it flew away and was lost. But I was impressed and set my mind on having one of my own.
Our family moved to Long Beach, California in 1943 to follow the WWII aircraft industry. I wanted an engine and saved my allowance to buy the only one available, a GHQ. Fortunately, my Uncle Smitty had a Bunch Tiger that my father bought for a Christmas present, saving me the disappointment of fussing with a known loser.
I continued model building through the late 40's and into the 50's under the tutelage of our Long Beach Thunderbugs mentor, Frank Swaney. During this period I flew a Sailplane with a McCoy 55 with some success until I lost it in 1949 at the SW Regionals in Phoenix, AZ. Also, an Arden .099 powered Accord Champion that I lost at Bakersfield. Among my mementos from this period is a second place ribbon in A gas from the Taft Condors, dated 1949.
Later I designed a series of models that Swaney named "Crazy Checks" for the red and black checked silk I used for covering. The first of these set an AMA Class C ROW record at the 1952 "Earthquake" Nats at Los Alamitos NAS. This design continued into 1953 where it set AMA records in Class C ROG and Class A ROW. It was approved as a Nostalgia design in 1998. I still fly it in these events, but with less than competitive results.
I was introduced to SAM at the AMA Nats at the Olathe NAS in 1968. I was trying to fly a Midwest Dyna Moe. A gust of wind knocked it down and it hit John Pond's long bill ball cap. John picked up the model and handed it to me. He said, "If you want to compete with that thing you gotta join SAM," which on the spot I did as member 63.
As a new member of SAM, I finally had a reason to build that Zipper but powered it with an Orwick 32 converted to ignition that I put together when I worked briefly for Henry Orwick in early 1952. It flew in several contests, winning some and doing poorly in others, especially when I used other engines to save the Orwick. It met its demise at the Chicopee, MA SAM Champs in 1988, striking the concrete runway smartly but with little damage to the Orwick.
Also, in about 1988, Jack Bolton, Ernie Green, Marty Schindler and Hurst Bowers invited me to become a founding member of the Capital Area Antique Modelers Association that became SAM Chapter 10. In this club I have served as contest director, secretary, president and newsletter editor. We have sponsored several free flight events until our available flying sites dwindled, but we have some possibilities we are working on.
Later, I became Life Member 63, was Eastern VP of SAM from 1996 to 2001, was involved in the1996 and 2000 Champs (though Jack Bolton did all the work), managed SAM Champs 2004 at Muncie, was registrar for the 2006 SAM Champs and was Co-manager (with Tom McCoy) of the 2008 Muncie Champs. In addition, I served as AMA District IV FF and CL Contest Coordinator for 1 bout 15 years.
Other interests have included racing sports cars, flying our Piper Cherokee and a fifty-plus year career as a professional engineer specializing in cargo and weapons handling systems on U.S. Navy ships.
2009
Charlie BRUCE - Inducted 2009
Born 1928
I was born in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1928, just after Lindberg's flight, and have no memory of not being interested in aircraft. My first memory of model airplanes is watching my uncles fly twin pushers in 1933.
I started with solid models and after several attempts at flying models, completed a Curtiss Robin about 1935, in Sedona, Arizona.
In 1942 I bought my first gas motor, a " Perky" which never ran beyond a few seconds at a time. I later bought a "Super Atom" from AHC, N. Y., trading-in a useless GHQ. It was an instant success, starting on the second flip and running out the tank. My first power model was a Capitol Cub Coupe powered by the Atom. It flew free flight quite well and later as a control liner with a very tired Ohlsson 19. I converted the Cub when my first attempt at control line, Stanzel's Baby Shark, would taxi madly but not take off in the thin air of Albuquerque.
My first organized club was the Duke City Modeleers in Albuquerque in the mid-1940's. In High School shop, we made recognition solids for the Air Corps and FF and C/L models. I dabbled in early R/C with a buddy who was a radio "Ham", building our own barely successful radio system. During World War II one of our star club members was Frank Hoover, an R/C pioneer and AMA Hall of Fame member. Frank was an Air Corps instructor at Kirtland Field and a great model instructor. We spent hours in Frank's garage learning to build model planes. I began competition flying and later became club president.
In 1947 my best friend Don Yearout and I won the trip from New Mexico to the Plymouth International model meet in Detroit MI. We got to see famous modelers we'd only read about. Jim Walker was there with his Three-At-Once Fireball flying show.
I had the first jet model in New Mexico. I was first in the state to break 100 MPH with a C/L model.
I joined the New Mexico Air Guard so I could work on and fly in real aircraft. My 188th Fighter Squadron was activated for the Korean War in 1951. We were sent to California to guard the West Coast. There I met two modeling greats, Duke Fox and George Aldrich.
The modeling hiatus continued as we returned to New Mexico University to complete a degree in Chemical Engineering. In 1963, we were transferred to Los Angeles for a major project. I met Sal Taibi in person and renewed contact with Bob White, from the 1947 days in New Mexico.
Returning to Texas, I continued to dabble in model flying since my two boys were now old enough to build and fly. In 1966 I became a charter member of the National Free Flight Society.
I retired from Celanese as Director of Major Projects, in 1985, and returned to active modeling. I joined the Tri-City Model Club.
In the late 1980s my interest was in FAI free flight. I built the models, attended and officiated at the USA team trials and became FAI regional coordinator . At this time I attended several free flight world champs as a U.S. team supporter and was able to assist Bob White as he won the Wakefield Cup in France in 1987.
In 1992 I volunteered to write an antique engine analysis column for "SAM Speaks", the SAM news magazine. This ongoing column, popular with SAM members, will be incorporated into a book on the subject at some time in the future. I have been for several years a member of the SAM Engine Review Committee. I have awakened a desire to build and fly the antique models of my youth. My major interest in modeling is the construction and flying of those old-time designs that I remember but for one reason or another was not able to build in my early days.
I have tried many hobbies but I keep coming back to aeromodeling. I met the best people there.
2009
Addie Mae NACCARATO - Inducted 2009
Born October 29, 1926 --- Died March 4, 2007
Addie Mae Naccarato was born in New Orleans. Her first connection with model airplanes involved completing model airplane kits that her older brothers had started, but not finished. Addie's family moved to Los Angeles when she was a teenager. She was still interested in model airplanes. She saw a hobby shop; she went in and asked for a job. The owner of the hobby shop was Tony Naccarato Sr.. She got the job and a few years later they were married.. Los Angeles was a hotbed of model aviation and model airplane engine manufacturers in the 40's and 50's. Tony Sr. and Addie were friends with, or worked with Duke Fox, Jim Walker, Howard Bonner and Bob Dunham among others. Young Mrs. Naccarato proved to be a very competitive pilot in a number of disciplines including control line, RC pylon racing and electric free flight. She was also a master builder, both of flying scale model airplanes and of corporate display models.
The Naccarato family hobby shop was "T&A Hobby Lobby" in Burbank, California.. The "T" in T&A was originally Tony Sr. but upon his death the "T' became Tony Jr. Addie, along with both her husband and then her son, spent tens of thousands of hours over nearly 60 years from the mid 1940's on teaching other people how to build and fly model airplanes of all types. It started with teaching people how to fly control line in Griffith Park in the early 1950's and continued through the formation of the Black Sheep Squadron which teaches young kids how to build and fly model airplanes to this day.
T & A Hobby Lobby was a mecca for OT model flyers, rubber and electric flyers and FF flyers. English and Australian OT modelers had "T&A" on their "must visit" list when they came to the States. Good wood, paint, silk and tissue were always available as were kits. A modeler could fmd all of the little bits and pieces in the shop that would make a model fly, whether it was a winding hook for a rubber model or a gasket for a 35 year old glow engine. Models of all types hung from the walls and the ceilings, and there was always at least one model under construction by Addie. Addie worked behind the shop counter until she was in her 70s, and after that stayed in the shop building models and dispensing building advice until a few months before her death. Many of the SAM modelers in Southern California got their start in the hobby as a result of walking into T& A Hobby Lobby. As someone who owned and ran an "old time model shop" for almost 60 years Addie Mae Naccarato rightly belongs in the SAM Hall of Fame.
2009
Louis GARAMI - Inducted 2010 top of this page
Born
Louis Garami was born in 1898 in Budapest, Hungary and died in the 1950s in this country. His older brother Joe introduced him to modeling in 1908 at age 10 and he built model airplanes until he died. He migrated to the United States in 1922. He is known in modeling as the very prolific designer of small free flight gas and rubber-powered models, and also as the long time salesman and technical adviser at Polk’s Model Craft and Hobbies in New York City. He did everything from designing kits to overhauling old engines to promoting the “Mighty Atom.”
During the 1930s, he and Henry Struck banded together for a mass-production blitz of all-balsa fuselage models. Their products were sold at Macy’s. Their line became obsolete when Ideal came out with a molded fuselage model.
At this late day (2010) Louis’ best known design is the Strato Streak small pylon gas model. The Strato Streak came in two sizes, a 52 in. wingspan model for Class A and a 40 in. wingspan model for the Atom .09. Both sizes are in the forefront of SAM Gas Model competition. In fact, many Garami designs were small gas models for the Atom .09 because of his friendship Ray Arden, the designer of the Atom. The Atom was promoted by Polk’s and Louis was the chief proponent.
Louis’ design tastes were truly omnivorous. They ranged from the Strato Streaks mentioned above, to the Skylark, Molecule, Garami’s Gyro and Colibri, all gas jobs, to a whole assortment of small rubber-powered types. Spunky was a small monocoque fuselage rubber job and his Duck was a scale-like amphibian resembling a single-engine Grummen Widgeon. Louis was a truly innovative designer and flier.
His designs and his contributions to old time modeling have been overlooked for these many years because he died before SAM was founded and he had been dead some 40 to 50 years when the SAM Hall of Fame was established in 1989.
The models and work of Louis Garami
1. Garami's Gull Wing. A small rubber-powered all balsa beginner's model AT 3-1939.
2. Phone Booth Special. A small indoor-type rubber model. FA 4-1938.
3. The Duck. A small rubber powered anphibian. AT 8-1939.
4. The Cabineer. Sm. Rubber. Powered cabin job with monocoque construction. AT 11-1938.
5. Garami's background. Flyoff, Rd. 42, Winter 2001.
6. Colibri: Sm. Fuselage gas model, MAN 9-1939.
7. Model Motor Manual: A collaberation with Howard McEntee.
8. Molecule: Sm. Gas model. AT 12-1939.
9. Garami Bipe: Sm. Rubr powered bipe. AT 3-1948.
10. Strato Streak: Cl. A pylon gas model. AT 12-1941.
11. Skylark: Class A/B gull winged beauty.
12. Garami's Gyro: Sm. Rubber-powered true autogyro. AT 2-1946.
13. Spunky: SM. Rubber model with monocoque fuselage. AT 9-1945
14. Half Pint OT(wm)
Ernie SHAILOR - Inducted 2010
Born July 18, 1923 --- Died 1966
Born in Greenfield (Dearborn) on July 18, 1923, son of Ernest Shailor, sign maker. One of three children, Dorothy, the oldest, Ernie, and Bill. When World War II broke out, he avoided the draft since he was blind in his right eye. This occurred earlier when, experimenting with a single-bladed propeller, it flew off, striking him in the eye. His brother, Bill, was not so fortunate. Bill was killed in Germany in 1944. This devastated Ernest, Sr. Ernie left school and opened up a sign making shop in their garage, “Shailor & Son Sign Company.” He also worked testing top turrets for B-25’s.
Early on, Ernie was an avid modeler, starting first with rubber-powered models and then gas. His first engine was a Phantom and he eventually preferred Foresters.
Ernie’s favorite class was B Gas and he, like most young men in the Detroit area during that time, spent his “movie” money and time at Joe’s Hobby Shop, owned by Frank Dallaire. He competed at early National model airplane championships all across the country and competed and placed at the legendary Plymouth Internats in the late 40’s and early 50’s.
Noted for tip dihedral, one of his first successful designs was the “Happy Medium”, a “B” ship that won a number of contests including the Texas Nationals. It was originally called the “Wombat”, but the editor at Airtrails suggested something different.
Ernie made the 1955 World Championship Power Team. This was the first to have all three events held at the same meet.
The World Championships held in Weisbaden, Germany saw such notable US Team members as Hank Cole, Bob Champine, Harry Gould and Bill Hartill. Ernie lost his number 1 model and was not able to make it back for the next round, getting a zero. He had made the team, and wanted to do it again.
The following program, his chances for a repeat membership ended with an overrun. Then, with kids and work, the FAI program seemed to lose its importance.
I remember his last NATS in Chicago in 1966. By that time, he was fully involved in flying old timer models and winning contests with his “American Ace”. He was one of the early members of Michigan’s Sam Chapter and became an avid ignition engine collector. One of the highlights of his collection was when he acquired an in-the-original-box Hurleman Aristocrat, which I still have. Old Timer events brought my dad fully back into model flying and my brother and I still enjoyed chasing for him and socializing with folks like Karl Spielmaker and others who enjoyed flying Old Timer models.
Ernie Shailor passed away on November 15, 1966. He had suffered a heart attack while working a night job fixing the sign atop the Gilewski Funeral Home not far from Lasky recreation and my grandmother’s house.
After he passed away, several modelers sponsored the “Shailor Memorial Trophy” which was presented by my brother, Paul, at the first Sam Champs held in Colorado in 1967.
I will always remember his easy style and sense of humor. By Bill Shailor
2010
Bill (William) HALE - Inducted 2010
Born
Bill Hale was born and raised in the south end of Columbus, Ohio. He became interested in model airplanes at an early age with the small Megow rubber powered planes as so many kids did. In 1939 he acquired a Phantom 27 engine and ordered a Phantom Flash model kit from California. This was just the first of hundreds of gas models Bill was to build over the next 70 years. Bill’s father started a hobby shop beside their home while Bill was still in his teens, and Bill managed the shop through his school years. During World War 2, Bill was a proud member of the Marines, serving as an aircraft mechanic in the South Pacific. Returning to his beloved hobby, in 1949 he attended his first Nats at Olathe, Kansas and also the Plymouth International at Detroit. This was the start of a steady stream of Nats where, always competitive, he won many awards. A member of the Columbus Model Flyers, Bill helped to start the Central Ohio Free Flight Club and today is still the backbone of the club. In 1965, the club applied for a SAM Chapter, formed the COOTS (Central Ohio Old Timer Society) and became Chapter 6. While Bill has built and competed with all types of free flights, his first love has always been old timers. His planes have always had a distinctive color scheme, all yellow with black stripes on the wing. This has earned him the nickname, “Old Yellow.” He has designed many airplanes, the most popular being his Basic Yellow, a PeeWee 30 design. A prolific engine collector, Bill was a longtime member of MECA and for years could be seen manning their booth at the Toledo Show. An engine expert, Bill could be counted upon to always help any modeler with engine problems. Many modelers owe their flying success to Bill’s trimming tips. With increasing health problems, he has been forced to liquidate his huge engine collection and curtail his flying activities. The 2008 Nats was his finale and one of his most enjoyable as his three sons traveled to Muncie to be with their dad on his final flights. Bill Hale is well known and loved by free flighters all over the country.
2010
Carl REDLIN - Inducted 2011 top of this page
Born
Carl Redlin was born January 28, 1931, in Detroit, Michigan. He became interested in model airplanes during his grade school years building stick-and tissue, rubber-powered models, and Hand-Launch gliders.
Carl was a Junior member of the Detroit Balsa Bugs. When Carl won his first contest, he was hooked on model airplanes. During his junior and senior years of high school, Carl went on to win numerous events in Indoor, Outdoor Rubber, and even CL Speed, holding one record briefly in Class A Speed and one of the first seniors to break 100 mph officially.
Carl received his engineering degree from the University of Detroit in 1954. After working in Detroit for a few years, he joined the US Coast Guard as a reserve officer for a three-year tour of duty. In 1961, he was offered a job in Southern California working for McDonnell Douglas in the aerospace division.
In 1960 and 1961, Carl was a member of the US Indoor Team competing at Cardington, England. In 1960, the US won the team championship. In 1961, Carl won the bronze medal, posting a single flight high time of 45 minutes and 17 seconds. From 1966-1971, Carl campaigned his original design A1 Nordic glider, called High Drifter, on the West Coast, winning first place seven times, including the 1967 Nats.
After a hiatus from modeling, in 1992, Carl traveled through Vegas and stopped to observe a Society of Antique Modelers (SAM) championship. Carl soon thereafter joined AMA and SAM, and began building models again flying in mainly Mulvihill and Moffett events. At the 2004 Nats in Muncie, Indiana, Carl shared in winning the Mulvihill trophy with Bob Perkins and Bud Romak. Then, at the 2006 Nats, he was on the Moffett event winning team. His interest them turned to the AMA Dawn Mulvihill event. To date, he has won the event five times with a high of 14 minutes, 58 seconds, achieved in 2007 with a lightweight version of his Mulvihill winner called Day Break. It was also nominated Model of the Year in 2008.
Carl’s annual attendance since 1993 at the SAM Champs has won him many top places in rubber events. As an example in 1998 Carl won the Grand Champion Award by winning 1st
in Small Rubber Fuselage flying a Double Feature, 2nd in Large Rubber Fuselage flying a Dethermalizer, 4th in Large Rubber Stick flying a Smith-Mulvihill and 1st in Small Rubber Stick flying a Korda Class C. He continues to be a top SAM competitor in all the rubber flying categories.
2011
Born July 22, 1910 --- Died April 28, 1978
Honors:-
- 1979: National Free Flight Society Hall of Fame
- 1982: Model Aviation Hall of Fame
- 2011 Society of Antique Modelers Hall of Fame
Bill Atwood was one of the most prolific model engine designers of all time. He was a fierce competitor, a holder of model aviation state championships and holder of many world records. At age 15, he built his first aircraft, a 20-foot Wright Brothers' hang glider, to fly with the Riverside California Glider Club. Developing his flying skills, by 1930 he had earned some flight instruction in Curtiss Jennies and completed (in 16 months) a winning sailplane with a 60-foot wing. In 1928 bill became interested in model boat racing and designed a 15cc water-cooled boat engine was made with parts cast by Atwood in his backyard while still in high school. In 1932, Bill built a nine-foot span model of spruce covered with butcher paper and used his newly designed Baby Cyclone .36 engine. His model flew for a 26-minute flight, even before Maxwell Basset gained notoriety with his gas model. Unpublicized was the fact that Atwood's plane made the flight carrying his neighbor's cat as cargo. 1935 was the year Bill Atwood won the California State Championship using his newly designed Baby Cyclone engine. In1938 Bill went to work for Phantom Motors Division. Here and made significant design innovations and improvements to the Phantom engine. In 1939, he built a 10 cc model racecar engine, the Crown Champion, which he installed in a Bunch car and amazed the car buffs. Bill continued development and production until World War II intervened when he became a glider pilot instructor for the Army Air Corps. In mid-1945, Bill established Atwood Motors where he produced magnesium casting Champions Model H and Model J. Soon thereafter many different engines were designed and produced at Atwood motors and other companies.
The following lengthy listing is a record of his achievements:-
1934, Baby Cyclone, 1938 Phantom and Hi-Speed, 1938 Silver Crown 15 c.c. marine racing engine casting kits, 1939 Hi-Speed, Bullet and Torpedo, 1939 Atwood Wasp and Wasp Special Race Car, 1940 Silver Crown engine kits, Blue, Green, Red and Purple Crown engines and Champion racecars, 1941 Champion Engines, 1941 Phantom, Torpedo, Bullet and P-30 engines, 1942 Champion, Phantom, Bullet, and Torpedo, 1945 Champion and Bullet engines, Atwood Bullet, Atwood Torpedo, Champion Model H and J, 1946 Phantom P-30, 1946~1947 Champion Model H, J, Super Champ JH and Champion Model I, 1948 Super Champion, Glo-Devil, Super Champion DR, Glo Devil DR, Triumph 49 and Triumph 51, 1949 Triumph 49 & 51 and Holland Wasp .049, 1952 Wen-Mac .049, 1953 Triumph 49 & 51, Atwood .049 & .051, OS 29, 1954 Cadet, Signature .049, outboard and inboard 1955 Signature .051, 1956 Atwood Shriek .049 & .051, 1958 Jungle Queen Steam Boat, 1958 Atwood Shriek .049 1959 Atwood Shriek .051 & Super Cadet; Pagco XF-9 (redesigned by Atwood from Pogo .09) 1959 Bill joined L. M. Cox Mfg. Co. and designed; Olympic and Sportsman .15, TD .010, .020, .049, 051, .09 and .15, MK II .15, Concept .35 & .40 and Conquest .15 & .40.
Bill Atwood worked for Cox until his death on April 28, 1978.
Atwood invented, discovered, designed or however you want to class it, the rotary valve intake for these miniature engines. He was constantly working on the engines of the future and managed to stay one jump ahead of many of his competitors. He was always trying something different. It did not always work, but the many different designs proved he was not afraid to try. (Model Airplane News article January 1979 & Dr. T. C. O’Mears (condensed version))
2011
- 2011: The Society of Antique Modelers Hall of Fame
- 2012 AMA Hall of Fame
Hal’s first contest was in 1948 at age 11 with a Pacific Ace rubber model, with which he won 2nd place. At the '52 Nats he set a national record in Al/B Payload. In 1954 his Submarine Sparrow was his first published magazine article.
By the late '60s, Hal had become firmly entrenched in the Old-Timer movement. He still flies his 4O-year-old Taibi Powerhouse with which he won the SAM Champs Grand Championship title at Taft in1970. Hal expanded into Nostalgia era models as well. In recent years, Hal has mostly flown old timer and nostalgia gas and in rubber events.
In rubber Wakefield events he has flown a '39 Korda Wakefield, a Goodrich 1941 Trophy Winner, a Zaic's New Yorker and a Wakefield 1936 4 oz. Judge winner. Hal is proud of having won the prestigious "Bob White" Gollywock contest in 2007 through 2011.
Hal has published several articles on his beautiful Chet Lanzo 1939 designed Puss Moth rubber model with Edo floats. He also has published more than 20 articles in model magazines including Model Airplane News, Flying Models, Model Aviation, American Aircraft Modeler, and Model Builder.
In 1949 he entered the Southern Ca. Plymouth Internationals in A/B Gas and won 3rd. Hal's first SAM old timer was a Buzzard Bombshell with a Madewell .49 Ignition engine. In SAM’s gas events he currently flies his Powerhouse, the Foote Westerner, a Miss Tillie, an "A" Ranger and a Brooklyn Dodger. His current glider of choice is a Thermic 100. In Nostalgia Free Flight Hal flies a 108” w/s Gool powered by a Fox .59 glow engine. He won 1st place at the 1949 Nat’s flying this model. Hal has been a member of the SCAMPS, Thermal Thumbers and Flightmasters. He has served as president or director of seven clubs or organizations, including the Lost Hills Free Flight Model Airfield Association.
Hal has shown a deep and sincere involvement in model aviation, particularly SAM and the NFFS Nostalgia era oriented activities.
Hal has many lifetime achievements both personal and professional including receiving two commendations from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for work on the Centaur Launch Team, and for his work on a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) weather satellite program. (Biography from 2011 SAM Hall of Fame Program directory)
2011
Barbara MULHOLLAND - Inducted 2012 top of this page
Born 1942 ---
Barbara began her building and flying career in 1999. She showed unusual talent in the flying of SAM Old-timers. She was soon recognized as a challenging competitor. To support her increasing participation in SAM contests she studied for and received not only her FCC am license but her AMA Contest Director certificate in 2001. The final Championship Trophy of SAM 93, Tulsa, OK was awarded to Barbara in 2007. Barbara has a fondness for flying ignition old-timer models and at the 2006 Muncie SAM Champs she tied for the R/C Ignition Championship. Then, at the 2008 Champs, she on the R/C Ignition Championship outright. She is the first woman competitor to have done so. At this same SAM Champs she was awarded the Carolyn Persson Sweetheart of SAM award.
Barbara has served as the secretary of the Florida Flyers Club for seven years. She has served as the Assistant R/C CD at the 2002 SAM Champs. For the last six ears she has served as the Assistant R/C CD for the Florida Winter-Fly SAM R/C Contest. She has appeared on the cover of SAM peaks in the July/August 2002 and the January/February issues.
Barbara is the distributor of the SAM Speaks magazine around the world to all who occasionally miss an issue. She has served in this capacity for eight years and continues to do so. A side light to this work is corresponding with man SAM members who have over the years become her friends.
2012
Tommy GRAY - Inducted 2012
Born 1947 ---
Tommy was born in 1947 and started modeling at age 6. He started out flying in competition in about 1955 when he joined the AMA. When he would attend contests he had a keen interest in Hand Launch gliders and power Free Flight, as well as control line. Today he adds R/C as an interest to those and competes on both sides of SAM regularly. Tommy has been a regular competitor in meets all across the nation, since he began modeling and has won numerous awards.
The first Nats he competed in were in 1960. Due to the support of a strong local club with a competitive spirit, he became an avid competitor and designer, never flying kit planes, but almost always his own scratch built designs.
Tommy went on to be an officer in several clubs and national modeling organizations. He served as Webmaster, Secretary, and
President of several clubs. He is currently President of SAM 15. He has served as Executive Committee member (VP) for the VR/CS covering the entire 7 state South Central region.
He took over the position of Secretary for SAM in 2007 and has since that time, rewritten the SAM software system to improve it and make it more functional. He is currently in the process of migrating the entire SAM membership and Event system to a new online system that will give SAM great flexibility in handling renewals, new members, Bookstore and Champs registration.
Tommy is a staunch competitor having won numerous awards at the SAM Champs and has sponsored SAM events as well. He has a passion for modeling and SAM in general.
2012
Woody BARTELT - Inducted 2012
Born 1929 ---
Elwood "Woody" Bartelt was born in 1929 in Hartford, WI and has built models since 1938, He has been an AMA member since 1938. He and Gloria were married in 1950. He served in the US Army in Korea and resumed modeling in 1958. Woody sold cars until 1965 when he went to work for Cessna as multi-engine district manager. In 1969 he went to work for Cal Aero. In 1976 he started and worked his fixed-base operation, Bartelt Aviation until his retirement in 1995. His son now runs Bartelt Aviation.
Woody has owned Bartelt Travel Co since 1982.
Woody started Micro Model Engineering Co. in 19XX and sold it in 1988 when he started his present company, Aero Electric. He is a cottage industry supplier of reproduction antique ignition model engines and parts.
He was SAM President in 1972 and 1973 and has been Secretary/Treasurer and Midwest VP.
As President, Woody was instrumental in getting radio control into SAM. He is still an active builder and flier of antique free flight models and has successfully competed all over the US. He has missed only two SAM Champs.
Woody was President of the Model Engine Collectors Association for 10 years. He is a member of the National Free Flight Society. He has hosted many old timer meets in Michigan. Woody founded the bi-annual Midwest Champs.
A partial list of Woody's engines available today includes the following:
Two Atoms, a Fox .60, a Bungay 60, a Circle .30, four Doolings, an Elf Corncob, two Hornet .60s, a Lykens Brown .12, four McCoys, a Ranger B .29 and a Yellow Jacket. These are in addition to many, many engine and system parts.
Woody Bartelt is overdue as a member of the SAM Hall of Fame.
2012
Dr. George SHACKLETT - Inducted 2012
Born August 29, 1926 ---
Dr. George Shacklett, SAM 3774L, was born in 1926. He began modeling in 1936 with a 50-cent Comet Curtiss Robin kit. Thus began a love of model aviation which has lasted a lifetime. After the Robin he built many models until WWII intervened. George was drafted into the US Navy and became a Pharmacist Mate Third Class. In 1946 he entered pre-med at the University of Tennessee. He managed to build and campaign an Ohlsson 60 Comet Sailplane during his college years. Upon completing his medical training he returned to Rockwood, TN to practice Family Medicine. He was later offered a faculty position at the University of Tennessee. He started and directed the Family Medicine post graduate program. In the late 1960s he discovered that old time free flight models could be flown with R/C and began competing in SAM contests. George had been an AMA CD for several years and began to organize SAM contests in Tennessee. He is recognized as the CD who keeps SAM alive in Tennessee. George's full size Goldberg Valkyrie is a familiar sight at the Champs and is flown with both gas and electric power. His may have been the first electric Valkyrie.
George has published extensively in Model Airplane news, Model Builder, RCM & E (England), SAM Speaks, Model Aviation and many, many club newsletters.
Dr. Shacklett was President of the Knox County R/C Society and procured their site in 1972. It continues to the present. He has given numerous SAM-related seminars to the KCRC and the TN Eagles. In 2010 he reactivated SAM Chapter 43 which was dormant. It now has 15 members and a slate of officers.
2012
John "Trevor" BOUNDY - Inducted 2013 top of this page
Born Melbourne, November 11, 1939 ---
Honor:- - 2013: The Society of Antique Modelers Hall of Fame
I was introduced to control line flying in1952 while attending Oakleigh Technical College, Victoria, Australia.
I joined Elsternwick-Caulfield MAC in about 1956 and flew control line under the guidance of the late Monty Tyrrell.
I competed in the MAAA 1958 Australian Nationals at Eagle Farm in Queensland and won Junior Champ of Champs flying control line B Class Speed and B Class Team Race. I was introduced to the wonders of SAM RC flying by Grahame McDonald in 1983.
The highlight in my model flying career would probably be winning the Australian SAM Eastern States Gas Champs Grand Champion in 1998 and 1999.
I created the developed the web based FlyNet (the SAM Model Recognition Program) from Allan Laycock's paper system. I was editor for SAM 600 Thermaleer Newsletter from 1995 to 1998 and then Webmaster for SAM 600, from 1998 to 2011. I took over being Webmaster from Dave Harding for SAM in 2007.
I created the data base for the SAM Approved Design List for Rubber, Gas Models and Hand Launch and Towline Glider for Gene Wallock from sources compiled by authors like John Pond, Danny Shields, Vic Smeed, previous paper SAM approved lists, including Allan Laycock's lists and lots of aircraft magazines.
Graduated as a Professional Mechanical Engineer and have worked mainly in design and manufacture fields, my employment career includes working for the Aeronautical Research Laboratories in design of aircraft testing machines and in manufacturing workshops. (Biography from 2013 SAM Hall of Fame Program directory)
2013
Honor:-
- 2013: The Society of Antique Modelers Hall of Fame
Tandy is a private pilot and has a master's degree in aeronautical engineering from the University of Oklahoma, and a registered professional engineer. Tandy is married, has two children, and retired from the LTV Aerospace & Defense Company in 1993, after a successful 34 year engineering career.
Tandy started trying to build stick and tissue models around the age of eight and soon began flying gas powered control line models in elementary school. He was introduced to the free flight designer Ray Matthews of Oklahoma City. This launched Tandy into free flight with the building and flying of several sizes of Ray's Fubar design. However, Tandy never developed into a successful free flight modeler.
After college graduation, he moved to Fort Worth, Texas, where he began flying radio control models. It was during this time that he met Richard (Dick) Huang who introduced Tandy to the SAM movement. Tandy attended his first SAM Champs with Dick in 1994. He has competed and placed in most of the SAM Champs Ignition LER events as well as the Pure Antique and Texaco events starting back in 1994 up to the present time, winning first C-Ignition LER event in 1998 and winning the 2010 RIC Concours event with his McCoy 60 powered Comet Sailplane. Tandy has served on the SAM Design Review Committee for over 12 years.
Over a period of some 14 years Tandy has written and documented over 1,150 step-by-step detailed construction reports for building many SAM Old Timer and Nostalgia models, which he has shared with the SAM membership and the SAM web site. He has contributed a number of "How To” articles to the SAM official web site. He developed and documented a 16 page instruction booklet on the restoration of Ray Arden's .099 and.199 model engines including how to disassemble, clean, and reassemble these delicate vintage engines.
Tandy wrote and published A Review of Ray Matthews' Free Flight Designs in 2001. The book deals with Ray Matthews life and presents extensive detail about his many design contributions to the nostalgia free flight period. Tandy was able to get all of Ray's 19 free flight designs approved for NFFS Nostalgia competition.
Tandy has recently developed and implemented his web site "Tandy's Model Aircraft" which is located at http:// tandysmodelpIanes.com/. This web site makes available all of the construction reports for all of his SAM Old Timer model projects. (Biography from 2013 SAM Hall of Fame Program directory)
2013
- 1981: AMA Distinguished Service Award
- 1982: AMA Fellow
- 1982: Vintage Radio Control Hall of Fame
- 1982: Howard McEntee Award
- 1998: Model Aviation Hall of Fame
- 2013: Society of Antique Modelers Hall of Fame
I started in this wonderful hobby of model aircraft back in 1950 (63years ago). My efforts in supporting our hobby has blessed me with some wonderful awards, such as the AMA Hall of Fame, AMA Fellow and the Vintage RC Society Hall of Fame. And now I'm able to complete the "triple crown" of modeling, the SAM Hall of Fame.
Over my 63 years in the hobby I have designed and published over 100 aircraft. Many were revivals of old timer and antique designs. In addition to that I've published probably over ten thousand pages of articles concerning every aspect of our hobby. I've often felt of myself as an "educator” I always tried to explain the "technical tricks" of our hobby to make it easier for others.
Back in the late eighties, my long time friend and fellow Long Island Gas Monkeys club member, Larry Davidson, convinced me to get into SAM competition flying. For the next ten years I built literally dozens of old timer and antique aircraft, with glow, ignition, diesel and electric power. That was only ten of my sixty three years in our hobby. I have to tell you that ten year period was my very best in our hobby. It is why I respect SAM flyers so very much. Today I'm surrounded with a load of trophies that I won while flying in SAM competitions. That is something that I am very proud of.
In more recent times I began a series of reduced size old timer models. All were around 200 square inches of wing area, weighing approx. 7 to 10 ounces and always with electric power. These designs have all appeared since 2006 in the pages of RC Micro World, which is edited by our own Roland Friestad. At this writing the number of reduced size old timer aircraft that I published totals 13. It was always my hope that a modern day SAM competition could be developed around this size of aircraft. I'm hopeful that that will happen. I thank everyone in the SAM organization for presenting me with this wonderful award. (Biography from 2013 SAM Hall of Fame Program directory)
2013
Born ---
Honor:- - 2013: The Society of Antique Modelers Hall of Fame
Before his involvement with SAM, Van was a dedicated free flight modeler. Decades ago he competed using his own designs in local, regional and national contests. Many of his models were derivatives of Ramrods and he corresponded with Ron St. Jean about design and trim factors. Van entered his vintage years with a solid foundation in modeling via free flight design and flying.
Van became a force in the early 1990's in model contests in Texas and Louisiana. His major interest then was in SAM radio control and other radio control events using .049 and .15 engines. He was hard to beat using his own
Shadow design in both sizes. From the start he was a worthy competitor in these events and frequently placed in the top five. As he grew more involved in national SAM competition, Van became a trusted source for unusual and competent RC 1I2A Scale designs.
When the interest in his design work grew, he explored the process of publication. Preparing drawings and developing coherent construction articles worthy of publication in a major model magazine is not a trivial undertaking.
He has accomplished this feat at least twenty times. His published works are a mixture of competition models, chiefly RC Scale, and a variety of sport models. The sport designs include both rubber powered and small engine powered FF and RC models. Many entailed contacts across Europe and the United States to acquire background information.
Van Hereford's Published Design and Construction Articles
- AM Annual 1962 Ed, IS" Handlaunch Glider FM 3/00. Klemm.133 - RC 1/2A Scale
- Frank Zaic Year Book. Handlaunch Glider FM 6101. Habicht - RC 1/2A Scale
- MAN 3/63, Ladybug - Cox.02O Profile Bipe FF FM 3102, Erla 6A - RC 1/2A Scale
- MAN 11/63, Corky-Cox .020 Semi Scale Bipe FM PM 1/03. Dewoitine D1 RC 1/2A Scale
- MAN -4/64. Poncelet Vivette-Cox .020 SS. FF FM 1/03. Jack’s Plane - Rubber ROG
- MAN 8/92, Shadow-Cox .049, RC Duration FM 2/04 Lindsay’s Racer 17” Rubber FF
- MAN 4/93, Big Shadow - Fox.l5 RC Duration FM 8/05, Stahlwerk Mk lll b - RC 1/2AScale
- MAN 6194. Messerschmitt M.17 RC 1/2A Scale FM 2/06. B.R. Sportster- 17” Rubber FF
- FM 8/98, Erla 5A - RC 1/2A Scale FM 4/07 Lindsay's Racer 430 - Electric
- FM 6/99, Trey Boy- I7'" Rubber FF FM9/08 Poncelet Vivette RC 1/2A Scale
- FM 6/99. Trey Boy-47" OS Max .10 Sport RC
At the SAM Champs from 1995 through 2010, Van's published designs scored in the top five 19 times and in the top three places 12 times. Five different designs achieved top places.
Through his excellent design work, and his eagerness to share it, Van
Hereford has helped create many special moments for a lot of SAM flyers.
(Biography from 2013 SAM Hall of Fame Program directory)
2013
Born November 1, 1919 --- Died November 6, 1998
Honor:- - 2013: The Society of Antique Modelers Hall of Fame
Otto Theodore Bernhardt was born of European immigrant parents. From early childhood, he was both exposed to and trained in basic machine shop procedures in his father's home machine shop. Drafted into the army in 1944, he served with the U.S. Army of Engineers on the island of Tinian. After the war he readily found skilled machinists work with a number of southern California major industrial complexes.
Otto's father was heavily involved with model boats-high-performance tethered racing boats powered by his own homemade flash steam engines. Otto also became involved with boats, but he found model airplanes more to his liking.
Otto's first gas-free flight model was a Dennyplane Jr, powered by-what else…a Dennymite engine. This was Otto's first and possibly the only kit he built. Instead, he later scratch built from printed plans, or he often built his own designs.
Otto's modeling career was put aside during his army stint, then the time and effort to raise a family (plus Otto had been building a 32-foot boat in his backyard). His oldest son's interest in model airplanes helped him to become re-interested in modeling. He was especially enthralled that people were building
and flying the old-time designs of his youth, with equally old-time spark ignition engines.
Otto joined the Southern California Ignition Flyers (SCIFS), the second
SAM chartered club. He flew in his first SAM Champs in Denver in 1967 with his Lanzo Record Breaker that later became a cover model for Model Builder Magazine.
During the late 1970s the allure of radio control flying took over and Otto and a group of fellow RJC flyers formed SAM Chapter 49. Otto recognized the severe shortage of spark ignition engines during those early days of SAM flying and began to experiment with adding ignition points to glow engines, much like Bruce Chandler of the SCIFS and Jimmy Dean of the SCAMPS were doing.
Ultimately, he developed a custom-built breaker point design that could be sized and adapted to a wide variety of engines. The polished brass timer body became his trademark and is still widely used today.
Otto then began a cottage industry that became known as 77 Products. He offered ready-to-run converted OS engines and then it expanded into coils,
condensers, timers and various items that were listed in his published catalog. 77 Products was a small company that had a significant effect on helping SAM grow by providing much-needed products and machine shop work. (Biography from 2013 SAM Hall of Fame Program directory)
2013
Born July 29, 1920 ---
Honor:- - 2013: Society of Antique Modelers Hall of Fame
Ray Heit was modeling from the age of 8. He got a Brown Jr. engine at the age of 14. He competed at Hadley Field in New Jersey, and at Creedmore, Long Island, Van Courtlandt Park in the Bronx, and Prospect Park in Brooklyn. He's modest about his contest success record - mostly second and third places. But, then he was flying against, and knew Ben Shereshaw, Sal Taibi, Maxwell Bassett, Joe Kovel, Frank Zaic and Frank Ehling. He flew in early nationals at Akron, Detroit and Saint Louis. On one of those nationals’ trips, he was partially sponsored by Irwin and Nat Polk. He was an early member of the Brooklyn Skyscrapers.
Back in those days kit manufacturers would approach successful modelers and ask to buy their designs. which then would be kitted. By the time Ray was 16 he was selling designs to the Bay Ridge Model Company. He was dating his future wife Shirley - who was 14 years old. He wanted some money so he could take Shirley out to nice places - and designed and sold the Thermal Magnet to get money to do that. It must have worked because he married the lady and they spent almost 60 years together before she passed away.
Ray designed and built the original Scram for Flying Aces magazine. It was published in the July 1938 issue. In addition Ray designed Scrappy, Bay Ridge Mike, Thermal Magnet and Bullet, all excellent designs and still being built and flown in SAM contests. John Pond was involved with Tyro Models and he selected the Bay Ridge Mike as one of their first 1/2A Texaco kits back in the late 70's. In addition to his gas model designs, Ray designed several rubber scale models for the Capital Model Company of Brooklyn.
After the war, Ray came out to California and got involved as a banker in real estate finances. He owned and flew several private planes and held instrument and commercial pilots ratings. His involvement with model aviation tapered off. When Ray retired they moved to Bear Valley Springs in the Tehachapi Mountains. After Shirley passed away Ray became depressed. At the 2007 SAM Champs at which Ray was honored, his daughter commented "that model airplanes saved her dad's life' ~ She let him be depressed for a while, and then told him to buckle down and start building model airplanes again. He did that. He still misses Shirley, but building and flying old time model airplanes helps Ray make it through the day. (Biography from 2013 SAM Hall of Fame Program directory)
2013
Born 1926 ---
Honor:- - 2013: The Society of Antique Modelers Hall of Fame
Richard Tanis was born in Hawthorne. NJ, and has lived in that area all his life. His father introduced him to aviation at age 2 with a ride in a Curtiss OX-5 powered biplane, and taught him to make paper airplanes at age 5.
Megow kits became his first source of built-up models. and he soon began to design, build and fly his own simple ROG models. Time brought forth more advanced kits and designs in both rubber and glider types. Capitol, Cleveland, and Dennyplanes all became part of Richard's modeling world.
Richard's father had taught naval cadets to fly, so it was only natural that later he would teach Richard to fly. He flew L-4s, PF 19s and later a Bonanza. Later, Richard entered the air force as an aviation cadet-and took his model activities to Texas with him. He took first place in both a glider and a rubber event in a base-sponsored contest.
After the air force, Richard became a teacher and formed model clubs while in college and at the various schools where he taught industrial arts. Radio control modeling was in its infancy and Richard took to it with enthusiasm. His first endeavor was a five-foot wingspan Berkeley Sinbad. Later he built six- and eight-foot wingspan models.
His friendship with John Pond was cemented by their interest in this early RIC movement. John Pond gave a lot of credit to Richard as being an early pioneer of RIC old-timer competition on the east coast. The WRAMS Static Old-Timers' Display was built by Richard in 1970 and is in constant use today.
Richard ran the 1971, 1972 and 1973 RIC contests at Lakehurst Naval Air Station. In 1974 he had been rated in the top ten sailplane flyers in America and was selected to be on the USA. Soaring Team. Richard went on to win many honors for his flying and innovative work in the RIC field.
Mostly unknown by RIC flyers today, the basic format used was the result of Richard offering 3 formats for competition. After the contests, polls were taken to decide which format was favored. The format as used today in RIC flying originated from those early 1970s contests.
Among Richard's other old-timer accomplishments was his SAM approved 1937 antique fuselage model design, the Yankee Clipper. He has been a constant promoter and provider of time and materials for many decades to the old timer movement. (Biography from 2013 SAM Hall of Fame Program directory)
2013
Born 1966 ---
Honor:- 2014: The Society of Antique Modelers Hall of Fame
Unlike most of us in SAM, Kevin Sherman wasn’t raised in the Golden Age of Aviation. You see, he’s only 48 years old but an outstanding modeler enthusiast. It seems the stimulus came from his father, Gary Sherman, an accomplished modeler, and Sal Taibi and a host of modeling friends. His free flight interests are broad covering designs from SAM, Nostalgia, AMA and Vintage FAI; particularly gas models but includes rubber.
Kevin has a BA degree from California State University and a private pilot’s license, but because of a medical condition he no longer flys full scale airplanes. He has won the FF Grand Championships at SAM Champs in 2001 and 2005, and was US Free Flight Grand Champion and Old-Timer Champion at the 2011 USFFC. He won the first SCAT Black Cup contest, and has won the SAM Concourse de Elegance for best built model. He is CD each year for the Taibi Annual memorial contest, Sec/Treas for SCAMPS club as well as its Past President and past news editor, and Chairman of the SAM Engine Committee in addition to having written numerous articles for magazines. He particularly enjoys machining, repairing and souping-up model engines. He has recently designed an AMA gas model called Mavstar and Dawn Mulvihill called Morning Glory. But, above all, he counts his many friendships as most important.
2014
Born 1929 --- Died 1999
Honor:- 2014: The Society of Antique Modelers Hall of Fame
Harry was the prime mover of free flight in the Midwest with a decided leaning toward Old-Timer and Nostalgia. As one of the founders of the Central Indiana Aeromodelers in the 1970’s, he and others originated a regional annual award points program that covered Indiana and surrounding states. The National Cup System of reward points is based on that format. He was a prolific writer and was editor of the Duration column of Model Aviation on an alternate basis with Bob Meuser and later Louis Joyner from 1985 to 1995. He was also editor of the CIA Informer for about 15 years that covered the Midwest. His most memorable series of articles was “The Zeek Chronicles” which he researched and was published in the 2002 NFFS Symposium report, after Harry’s death.
Bob Larsh related that he and Harry both qualified for and together attended the 1949 Plymouth Internationals in Detroit. Both finished in the top 10 in Class A in a field of several hundred. Harry attended as many contests as possible, not only to compete but to also give support to the organizers. He began designing his own models, culminating in winning a first place in Class B at the 1961 Nationals with his Sun Buster design, a 3-view of which was published in the Feb. 1962 American Modeler. Soon he came out with his Sun Liner, Lunar-Tic, Max-A-Million, Pay-Triot with which Gene Bowers won several National Payload championships and Nit Wit designs. Harry was instrumental in the formulation of the Nostalgia movement in the Midwest and the hammering out of the new NFFS rules with other clubs.
Bill Hale related that Harry flew at most of the AMA Nats and SAM Champs around the country as far back as he knew. Bill and wife Doris first meet Harry and Phyllis at the 1969 Denver SAM Champs (then known as Old-Timer Championship). He CD many of CIA’s contests with one each year being exclusively OT’ers and Nostalgia. They were held at various sites in Indiana until Wright Patterson AFB, Dayton, Ohio became available on a long term basis and that included the 1976 Dayton SAM Champs. Harry won Hi-Point Champion at one Champs.
Jim Haught related that Harry’s principal interest was in the Old-Timer and Nostalgia Gas classes. His Comet Zipper was a constant winner and he believed he had built or created every size Zeek known to man. Jim said Harry had no greater joy than when he spent time in his work shop with grandson Bryan, teaching him all the good things Free Flight had to offer.
Despite all of his involvement, Harry was a good family man and with his devoted wife, Phyllis, raised daughter Susan and son Dan. Harry was elected to NFFS HOF in 1993. He died in 1999 at the age of 70.
2014
Herb KOTHE - Inducted 2015
Born ---
Herb Kothe’s modeling career covers almost 70 years. Herb’s beginnings were in the Omaha, Nebraska area in the mid-1940s, and covered both gas- and rubber-powered modeling events.
In the late 1940s Herb qualified for three expense-paid trips to the famous Plymouth International Competitions held in Detroit, Michigan. He won several rubber-powered events. In 1948, Herb entered his first AMA Nationals and flew his own designed model in the Pan American Airways sponsored Pay Load event. Herb won first place and his model was featured in an Air Trails magazine article. He continued his highly successful 1/2A Pay Load activities into the early 1950s.
Also during the 1950s, Herb devoted his time and efforts to winning a place on the USA Wakefield team. From 1955 to 1969 he qualified for six Wakefield teams. His personal best place was second, in Sweden in 1956.
In 1959, the American Wakefield team was comprised of Joe Bilgri, Bob Hatschek and Herb. This team won the Team World Championship in Brienne Le Chateau, France.
In 1961, Herb was team manager for the American team when George Reich won the World Wakefield Championship in Leukrich, Germany.
In 1969, Herb retired from modeling to devote full time to his job career and to raise a family. He returned to modeling in 1989. After reviewing the many changes that had taken place during his hiatus, he became a devout Flying Aces fan, and a trip to the F.A.C. Nationals at Genesee, NY, launched Herb into a new aspect of his modeling career.
In the early 1990s, Herb expanded his flying into SAM rubber events and won nine Rubber Championships at the SAM Champs. Currently, Herb flies various AMA, FAC and SAM rubber events.
For his outstanding contributions to our great hobby, Herb has been honored with Hall of Fame awards by the Academy of Model Aeronautics, the National Free Flight Society, and now the Society of Antique Modelers.
Herb continues his active career in rubber events and is easily recognized on the flying field wearing his colorful Hawaiian-style sports shirts.
2015
Giovanni “Ninetto” RIDENTI - Inducted 2015
Born 1930 ---
Giovanni “Ninetto” Ridenti was born in Rome, Italy in 1930 and lived his entire life there. He died shortly after participating in the SAM Euro Champs held in Slovakia in 2012. Ed Hamler relates he first met Ninetto along with sixteen other Italians and their wives at the Pensacola SAM Champs in 2000. Ninetto’s Duchessa won best in show in the Concours d’Elegance that year. He also brought a second model, his Movo M-18, which was equally beautiful. He placed well in the five RC events in which his models qualified. Don Bekins met Ninetto several years earlier when he competed at many local Italian SAM contests before the Euro Champs were inaugurated in 2003.
For 70 years Ninetto participated broadly in FF rubber, gas, and gliders, Controline scale and speed, RC gliders, pattern and scale, before returning to the historical and vintage designs of SAM later in life. He was a top contender on the Italian aeromodeling scene for at least 50 of those years. Ed Hamler relates “I last stood on the awards podium with him in June 2012. In my opinion, Ninetto’s record at the annual SAM Euro Champs 2003 – 2012 qualifies him for the SAM HoF by itself. He was always one of the top competitors, a grand champ in 2010, and along with Luigi Binelli practically dominated the Texaco category for six years”.
Several models were of his original design. His craftsmanship was legendary. A signature touch on many of his models was an inlay of dark hardwood along the trailing edge as protection against dings. He had a collection of over 400 model engines and sometimes traveled to give clinics on engines including demonstration of his Morton M-5.
Ninetto raced motorcycles as a professional factory rider in his younger years. His profession as telecommunication engineer/technician took him on many travels around the world. In this capacity he consulted for a time with NATO.
In 2001 he was among the promoters of the foundation of the Chapter “SAM 2001 – L’Aquilone” of which he was, until the day of his death, the President. Even before taking office as president, Ninetto always tried to bring modelers to join the SAM movement. His two daughters, Giovanna and Gina, along with Paolo Montesi, his good friend and fellow founder of SAM 2001 and successor to Ninetto as President, and nominator Gabriele Montebelli along with many the world over support Ninetto Ridenti in this tribute.
2015
Allan LAYCOCK - Inducted 2015
Born December 8, 1943 ---
Born Newcastle Australia December 8, 1943, Allan is a 7th generation Australian. His original Australian ancestor arrived as Quartermaster for the British Army unit that accompanied the Second Fleet that brought convicts to Australia in 1791. Shortly after Allan was born, his family moved to Canberra, the Australian capital, and Allan has been there ever since except for a six year stint in the Australian Air Force.
He is an international SAM competitor. The 2015 SAM Champs will be the 14th US SAM Champs he has flown in. He’s proudest of his 2011 Champs win in the A Texaco class. He’s flown several times in European SAM Champs at both Middle Wallop, England, and in Italy.
He has a knack for making friends and has served as a goodwill ambassador for SAM both in Australia, the US, and Europe. He’s brought fellow Australians along to several US SAM Champs, and his international network of friends and correspondents help spread the word about the SAM movement. He’s used that network to help locate and retrieve plans for previously undiscovered Old Time models.
Allan is of course a frequent competitor in SAM competition in Australia. He’s competed in Australia for 50 years. Allan also wrote (and has since rewritten) the Australian SAM Old Timer Rules and Antique Rules. Allan is a fast builder and over the course of the years, he’s built and flown some 60 different OT model aircraft.
In addition to writing the Australian SAM Rules, Allan promoted the growth of Australian SAM by collecting Old Timer plans and making them available to his fellow Australian. He first started by buying plans from John Pond, solely on the basis of the model’s name. When he had 100 full size plans, he started to collect them in three ring A4 sized binders (the size of plan that used to accompany John Pond’s Plug Sparks column in Model Builder magazine). Allan ultimately collected some 400 Antique and Old Timer plans, some 600 Nostalgia plans, and 300 Rubber Scale plans, all in A4 format. Allan put these plans in binders and made them available to all 6 SAM Chapters in Australia. This service to his fellow Australians was a big factor in promoting the spread of the SAM movement in Australia.
And that service also helped USA SAM. One set of Allan’s notebooks went to SAM 600 and Trevor Boundy. Allan had prepared an index or list of the hundreds of plans in his notebooks using an old data base program. Trevor worked with that list, and with the plans in the notebooks to create what we now know as the Old Timer Model Recognition Page posted on the SAM Website. Now someone who is new to the old timer movement, and doesn’t know what a particular design looked like, can go to the website and see a three view or a photo. That work, consisting of Allan’s beginning, and Trevor’s polishing, benefits SAM modelers all over the world. Allan is both a prolific and a speedy builder, and has a preference for unusual or seldom seen models. He’s brought many a rare model to the “light of day” for others to see
2015
Bill VANDERBEEK - Inducted 2015
Born 1947 ---
Bill Vanderbeek was born in 1947 and mechanically inclined from the start. He was introduced to modeling at age 8 and by 11 he was flying control-line followed by free flight. Bill’s first FF contest was at the 1963 Nats at Los Alamitos NAS in Southern California when he was 15. He flew junior indoor HLG placing 2nd and A1 Nordic placing 3rd. Bill’s first Old Timer competition was at the 1968 Nats at Olathe, KS. This was before SAM started, and John Pond was promoting the concept. He placed 3rd in Pylon with an Aerbo powered by a TD .049. He didn’t fly Old Timer again until 1986 when he then did some 1/2A Texaco and Electric LMR R/C competition. He had good success, but he preferred FF. His first SAM Champs was in 1996 in Colorado Springs. The next year Bill and Bud Romak started attending the SAM Champs together and since then he has attended as many as possible. Bill has done well in competition, winning many of the special One Design events, both Ignition and Rubber. Bill has been FF Gas Champ, and was Overall Concours winner several times. Bill’s “My Coupe” design was selected in 1972 by The National Free Flight Society for “Model of the Year”.
Bill sponsors and directs the 2 day Oakland Cloud Duster contest in Sacramento. This is the 25th year that it has been held. He instituted the “One Design” concept, which later became a NFFS institution. He has been a leader in sponsorship and CD of many free flight contests and the Champs and helpful with the Junior FAI Power Free Flight Team. One supporter noted “I have known Bill for some 30 years, most of my modeling career. During that time he has been a leader on the free fight side of old timer modeling as a competitor, builder, designer, trophy creator and maker, contest director and promoter of OT modeling”. Bill is a long time member of the Oakland Cloud Dusters (SAM 27) and Black Jack Club (SAM 21).
The 80’s was significant as Bill came down with a very severe bout of Valley Fever, contracted on a journey to Taft. The result was that he had to ban himself from competing anywhere south of the Bay Area, including Nevada and Arizona.
Bill is an entrepreneur. Immediately following high school graduation in 1965 he was hired by NASA Ames Research as an apprentice, sheet metal maker: ducting, wind tunnel repair, animal centrifuge, aircraft repair, space flight equipment. Four years of training then Journeyman, 16 years at Ames. During the last two years he also started doing precision sheet metal production in his garage, nights and weekends. This turned into full time business and he left Ames and Vanderbeek-Bend Manufacturing was born in 1981. It has grown to 500 employees and a new 200,000 sq. ft. manufacturing facility. He and his wife Jo have been married 40 years and have two sons and four grandsons.
2015
Peter M BOWERS - Inducted 2016
Born May 15, 1918 --- Died April 27, 2003
Peter grew up in the “Lindberg Era” of aeronautics and began building rubber-powered scale models, mostly from the great Cleveland Models line in late 1932. The advent of gas-powered models had begun, and Peter got his first engine—a Baby Cyclone. This was quickly installed in a Modelcraft Corben Super Ace, and was followed by a California Chief. By 1936, Peter began designing and building his own gas-powered designs such as The “Airmail” was his first endeavor. This model was so named because it was entered in a contest to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the U.S. Airmail Service
Peter’s first published design was the now well-known Pursuiteer, appearing in August 1939 Flying Aces magazine. Following were “Duck” (Zaic yearbook and Flying Aces Aug. 1939), “Fly Away” (Air Trails Oct. 1943), “Fly Baby” (MAN April 1945), “Udets Flamingo” Zaic reprint), and his crowning achievement, the “Rebel” (Zaic and Flying Aces Sept. 1940).
The “Rebel” was Peter’s ninth power model. It is unique for its very clean, streamlined design. It featured advanced construction techniques. It would ultimately be revised seven times—including one on floats! Mind you—all of this was accomplished while Peter was in high school!
In 1940 he enrolled in the Boeing School of Aeronautics in Oakland, CA. Peter completed this four-year course in just two years. He was commissioned in 1943 into the U.S. Army Air Corps. He served in the China-Burma-India theater as a maintenance and intelligence officer.
After discharge, Peter joined Boeing as an engineer. He enjoyed a long career at Boeing, where his talents for photography and writing were put to good use. Peter wrote and supplied photos not only for the Boeing Co.’s newsletter, but also for many outside sources such as Wings and Airpower magazines, and for over 50 years his work is included in Janes’ All the World Aircraft.
Peter built full-size replica historical airplanes like the Fokker Triplane, Wright Model EX911 (the first aircraft to cross the continental U.S.), and a Detroit G-1 primary glider; he helped with the building of several others.
Peter’s crowning achievement came from his own designed “Fly Baby.” This is possibly the most homebuilt airplane ever built, and it won the Experimental Aircraft Association’s design contest of 1962. Peter was elected to the EAA Homebuilder Hall of Fame in 2004.
SAM Hall of Fame Nominations
Nominations for the SAM Hall of Fame are open until April 30. Please consider the following criteria when nominating candidates:-
1) The candidate is well known as a model airplane designer, engine producer, competitive flier, or otherwise significant contributor to aeromodeling during the Golden Age years of 1925 through 1942.
2) The candidate made significant contributions to the formation of SAM and to the revival of Old Timer aeromodeling.
3) The candidate has been remarkably successful in SAM competitions, regionally, nationally and/or internationally.
4) The candidate has made significant contributions to the Society at the local, regional, or national level to include service as a SAM officer or as a SAM Champs manager.
5) The candidate has made significant contributions to the SAM movement as a writer, publisher, or promoter of Old Timer aeromodeling, or as a cottage industry supplier to Old Timer aeromodelers.
Three letters of recommendation are requested.
Nominations must be received by April 30 of the nominated year.
Please send nominations to "SAM Hall of Fame Committee Chairman"
| Sopwith Camel |
What type of wartime field gun took its name originally from the old Czech word (loosely 'houfnice') meaning catapault? | january2
1
A guid New Year to ane an' a' and mony may ye see" Which translates to English from Scots as A good New Year to one and all, and many may you see.
New Year’s Day - The world’s most widely celebrated holiday. The celebration of the new year is the oldest of all holidays. It was first observed in ancient
Babylon
about 4000 years ago, during Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin Eve. In the years around 2000 BC, the Babylonian New Year began with the first New Moon after the first day of spring, the Vernal Equinox . The Babylonian new year celebration lasted for eleven days! That’s a long time to stand in
Times Square
! The Romans continued to observe the new year in late March, but their calendar was continually tampered with by various emperors so that the calendar soon became out of synchronization with the path of the sun. A calendar correction by the Roman senate, in 153 BC, declared January 1 to be the beginning of the new year. But egotistical Roman leaders couldn’t leave well enough alone so tampering continued until Julius Caesar, in 46 BC, established what has come to be known as the Julian Calendar. It again established January 1 as the new year. But in order to synchronize the calendar with the sun, Caesar had to let the previous year last for 445 days. A few hundred years later, as Christianity became more widespread, the early church began having its own religious observances concurrently with many of the pagan celebrations, and New Year’s Day “joined the party” so to speak. So who celebrates first? Since the Earth is divided into twenty four time zones, the new year moves progressively around the globe which is why we always found it amusing to see people in Hollywood celebrating New Year’s on television shows when the ball descended in New York City. The first time zone to usher in the New Year is just west of the International Date Line. (the international date line is “Hi, what’s your sign”) At that time the time zone to the east of the Date Line is 23 hours behind, still in the previous day. The central Pacific Ocean island nation of
Kiribati
– the same
Kiribati
that switched time zones and lost a a day in 1994 – see December 31- claims that its easternmost landmass, uninhabited
Caroline
Island
, is the first to bring in the New Year.
1431 –Saturday- Happy Birthday, Pope Alexander VI, the “Borgia Pope” – 1492 – 1503. Alexander (Rodrigo Borgia of Spain) was the father of Cesare Borgia and Lucretia Borgia (he had four children in all) and is remembered more for his sordid personal life than his support of Rennaissance art and attempts to restore order to the anarchic city of Rome.
1449 –Monday- Happy Birthday, Lorenzo di Medici, Italian banker, statesman and polititian. Called “Il Magnifico”, Lorenzo was de facto ruler of
Florence
America
.
1660 –Thursday “This morning (we living lately in the garret,) I rose, put on my suit with great skirts, having not lately worn any other, clothes but them. Went to Mr. Gunning's chapel…………..” - Samuel Pepys started his diary. Pepys (rhymes with “peeps”) was twenty seven when he started the diary which ran through 1669. The diary has proven to be an unparalleled insight into the lives, trends and thoughts of seventeenth century
London
including the great fire of
London
in 1666, the plague, and the restoration of King Charles II.
1735 –Saturday- Revere ware (yes he was a silversmith too). Happy Birthday, Paul Revere member of Sons of Liberty and participant in Boston Tea Party and famous for his”1 if by land, 2 if by sea” ride - at 10 pm on the night of April 18, 1775, Revere received instructions from Dr. Joseph Warren to ride to Lexington to warn John Hancock and Samuel Adams of the British approach to arrest them - . What did Revere wear?
Revere
was immortalized by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere.
“Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere…” Also riding that night was William Dawes but somehow Longfellow failed to write The Riding Clause of William Dawes.
1797 –Sunday- Albany, situated on the west bank of the Hudson River, about 225 km/140 mi north of New York City, became the capital of New York state, replacing New York City. The State legislature had first met in
Albany
in 1780. Surprisingly, considering the miserable weather,
Albany
is the fourth oldest city (behind
Santa Fe
), and the second oldest state capital (behind
Santa Fe
United States
.
1801-Thursday- The first asteroid, Ceres, was discovered by Italian astronomer and Theatine monk, Guiseppe Piazzi of
Palermo
. He found Ceres, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Piazzi named it Ceres Ferdinandea, in honor of
Sicily
’s patron Roman goddess (of agriculture), and his patron, the king. It revolves around the Sun in 4.6 years and has a diameter of about 960 km (600 miles). The discovery of Ceres followed that of the planet Uranus, made in 1781 by the British astronomer William Herschel (1783-1822). Piazzi's discovery confirmed the so-called "Titius-Bode's law", which assumed the existence of a "fifth planet" between the orbit of Mars and Jupiter. Of course the “fifth planet” is in thousands of pieces called asteroids but that would be quibbling. Now with the demotion of Pluto to dwarf planet, Ceres has been promoted from asteroid to dwarf planet. Stay tuned….when we hit seven dwarf planets, we will have a Snow White comet.
1808 –Friday- The importation of slaves into the
United States
was banned. As part of a compromise during it’s creation, the U.S Constitution had prevented Congress from banning the trade until 1808. Although the Constitution prohibited Congress from abolishing the slave trade individual states were free to take that initiative whenever they pleased.
New Jersey
. The novel appeared in three volumes and was published by the
London
publishing house of Harding, Mavor & Jones. It was issued anonymously, with a preface written for Mary by husband Percy. It was published in an edition of just 500 copies. The novel had been previously rejected by Percy Bysshe Shelley's publisher, Charles Ollier and by Byron's publisher John Murray.
1859-Saturday- Happy Birthday, Michael J. Owens, American glass manufacturer who invented the automatic glass bottle making machine. In
Toledo
,
Ohio
, his mechanization of the glass-blowing process eliminated child labor from glass-bottle factories. In 1904 he had a machine capable of producing four bottles per second. Owens’ machines could be built with from six to twenty arms, each blowing a bottle. We, of course know many famous bottles; The Bottle of
Waterloo
Gettysburg
, the Bottle of the Bulge………
1863 –Thursday- Fifty five years after the importation of slaves was banned, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation freeing all slaves the rebelling southern states.
1864 –Friday- Happy Birthday, Alfred Stieglitz, American photographer who was instrumental over his fifty-year career in making photography an acceptable art form alongside painting and sculpture, and husband of the artist Georgia O’Keefe. Stieglitz’ photographs of the flatiron building in
New York City
are Professor Sy Yentz favorite photos.
1876-Saturday- Happy Birthday, Harriet Brooks, Canadian nuclear physicist who while working with Ernest Rutherford a man who was ahead of his time in his support for women working in science. In 1903 in
England
, she became the first woman to study at the famous Cavendish Laboratory in
Cambridge
. She spent 1906 and 1907 in
Paris
working with the Marie Curie, before returning to
Canada
and working with
Rutherford
once again. Radiation of course would result in giant mutant animals including lizards, caterpillars, and a scary looking Madonnalike creature, who would attack the city of
Tokyo
. Brooks studied the 'emanations' from the radioactive element radium. She concluded that the emanation was a gas, and decided that its atoms were a little smaller than those of its radium 'parent'. The gas eventually came to be called radon. She was also first person to realize that one element can change into another. Like her contemporary, Marie Curie, she died of leukemia caused by working with radioactive materials.
1892 -Friday Ellis Island opened to begin processing immigrants into the
United States
. Ellis Island, a small three acre island just off southern
Manhattan
, had been known in the 1600s as
Gull
Island
by the Mohegan tribe. After being discovered for its rich oyster beds in 1628, Dutch settlers renamed it
Oyster
. Following the hanging of one “
Anderson
the Pirate” in 1765, the island was again renamed, this time known as
Gibbet
Island
after the instrument used to hang him. Finally on January 20, 1785, Samuel Ellis purchased the property and gave it his name, which remains the name of the island till today. The island was purchased by the federal government in 1808. The island was increased to 14 acres using landfill in preparation for its use as an immigration center. Oh yes, the first immigrant to be processed was fifteen year old Annie Moore of
County
became the city of
New York
this day. It was called ‘the consolidation’ and the five boroughs were fused into The Big Apple. To this day residents of
Manhattan
consider themselves superior to those of the “outer boroughs”. Everyone else looks down on the Bronx and believes that they milk cows and take in the harvest in
Staten Island
. Whenever natives from the other boroughs go to
Manhattan
, they announce they are “going to the City”. (
Richmond
). Queens, of course is impossible to navigate – they have 67 Road next to 67 Street next to 67 Place, next to 67 Avenue and none of the road/place/avenue/streets are straight and no one snow plows them in the winter anyway. Most of the residents of
Queens
are people who got lost trying to travel through it. Brooklyn (
Kings
County
) was a separate city before the consolidation, was dragged kicking and screaming (barely 50% of Brooklynites voted for consolidation) into the
new city
, and has never recovered from the loss of the Dodgers. The Bronx was originally part of
Manhattan
and the first message was telegraphed to President Theodore Roosevelt in
Washington
. The message was “Wow, it’s warm and sunny here. Not many tourists. Beach-front condos available. We should make this a state”. The cable ship Silvertown had laid 2,620 miles of cable since leaving
San Francisco
California
, on December 14, 1902.
1907 –Tuesday- William Howard Taft’s “New Year’s Rockin Eve”…..no, no, no Professor Sy Yentz has his Auld Lang Synish sense of humor… For the first time, a ball was dropped in
New York City
's
Times Square
to signify the start of the New Year at midnight. Celebrations had originally begun in 1904 to celebrate the opening of the New York Times tower …and the New Year…. but the City had banned fireworks displays so in 1907, the ball was …well it wasn’t dropped…it was lowered by hand. The original ball, constructed of iron and wood and adorned with 100 25-watt light bulbs, was 5 feet in diameter and weighed 700 pounds
1909 –Friday- London astronomers, based on the work of American Percival Lowell( the same Percival Lowell who believed the lines on Mars were “canals”) hinted of sightings of a planet beyond Neptune. Of course now we know they are wrong. There used to be a planet beyond
Neptune
, it was called Pluto, but now it is not a planet. It was voted out of the Planet Club by just 424 astronomers who remained for the last day of a meeting of the International Astronomical Union in
Prague
in 2006.
1915 –Friday Aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid), invented by Felix Hoffman in 1897, searching for something to relieve his father's arthritis, was sold for the first time without the need of a prescription. It had been available since 1900 in tablet form. The pills were manufactured by Bayer pharmaceuticals in
Germany
. The medicine had previously been used in powder.
1919 –Wednesday- Happy Birthday, J. D. Salinger, hermitish American novelist. Author of Catcher in the
Rye
,
Texas
. All 21 stories of it became the first high-rise office building, in the world with air-conditioning installed during construction. The air conditioning system, built by Carrier, had a central refrigeration plant in the basement that supplied cold water to small air-handling units on every other floor. Professor Sy Yentz believes that like many offices he has worked in during his career, the air conditioning only worked during the winter.
1934 –Monday- In what should be recognized as a sacred holy day for the movie industry, Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay,due to rising operational costs, the Military decided to close its prison in 1934, and ownership shifted to the Department of Justice and Alcatraz became a United States federal prison. This made it the source for many motion pictures. Some include: Alcatraz: The Whole Shocking Story (1980), Birdman of Alcatraz (1962), Escape From Alcatraz (1979), The Rock (1996), Terror at Alcatraz (1982) and lots of Al Capone movies. The island received its name in 1775 when Spanish explorer Juan Manuel de Ayala charted the San Francisco Bay, and named the rocky piece of land La Isla de los Alcatraces, which translated to "Island of the Pelicans." The small uninhabited island had little to offer, with its swift currents, minimal vegetation, and barren ground and ubiquitous film crews. In 1934 the cellhouse contained a total of nearly 600 cells, with no one cell adjoining any perimeter wall. If an inmate managed to tunnel their way through the cell wall, they would still need to find a way to escape from the cellhouse itself just like Clint Eastwood. The inmates would only be assigned to B, C, and D blocks, since the primary prison population would not exceed 300 inmates and as many tourists as the tourist boats could carry.
1935 –Tuesday- Bucknell University (the Bisons) , of Lewisburg, Pa. – in its only Orange Bowl appearance won the first Orange Bowl 26–0 over the University of Miami (Hurricanes). Note, the Orange Bowl had been called the Palm Festival for the previous two years. Bucknell brought 280 gallons of their own water supply from
Pennsylvania
to combat the heat. Another famous sidelight from the game was the transmission of the first wire photo across the
United States
occurred as The Buffalo Sabres hosted the NHL Winter Classic against the Pittsburgh Penguins,
Pittsburgh
won 2-1 in a shootout.
Pittsburgh
won on a goal by “wunderkind” Sidney Crosby. The game, attended by 76,000 maniacs, was played in a snow storm.
Buffalo
? January? Lake effect snow? What were they thinking?!. Surprisingly, this was better than an exhibition hockey game played in
Las Vegas
(what were they thinking? !!) in September 1991 in 85˚ temperatures. During the game, the crowd and players were attacked by swarms of flying insects. Really! We don’t make these things up.
2.
1492 –Saturday- The Moorish Muslims surrendered the city of
Grenada
to the forces of Christian King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. The Muslims had conquered parts of
Spain
, during some of their continuous attacks on
Europe
1788 –Wednesday- Georgia, became the 4th state to enter the
United States of America
. Georgia, named after King George II (one of the “German Georges”, the first George – there were four in all- didn’t speak English and was imported from Hanover) was established under a charter to James Oglethorpe under the condition that it be named after George.
Georgia
was to be inhabited by the "worthy poor" of
London
. The "worthy poor" included debtors and other homeless people. As it happened, however, this plan was never fully realized. When the ship Anne sailed for the new colony on November 16, 1732, not one of the 114 colonists aboard had been released from debtors' prison to make the voyage.
Georgia
would become the only state completely controlled by the English during the American Revolution. State stuff; flower Cherokee rose (1916)
tree live oak (1937), bird brown thrasher (1935 – that’s why the NHL team has been named the Atlanta Thrashers), song “
Georgia
1813-Saturday- In York,
England
66 people went on trial for offenses connected with Luddism. Within days, seventeen of them had been executed. Luddites, who took their name from Ned Ludd (who may or may not have existed) had launched a campaign to destroy the factory machinery (usually sewing) they blamed for their unemployment. Nowadays “luddite” has evolved to mean someone opposing new technologies or technological progress and many of us who are thisclose to destroying a computer or TV, or car, or any other machinery are potential luddites. Luddites of the world unite!
1839-Wednesday- French pioneering photographer Louis Daguerre took the first photograph of the moon. Yes……and you knew this was coming…… a city worker objecting to Daguerre’s taking his picture, pulled down his pants and poof! The first picture of a moon. Oh, Daguerre also took the first picture of Earth’s natural satellite, the Moon. Exposure time for the photographs was about twenty minutes. In 1837 Daguerre fixed photographs permanently with sodium chloride, and after 1839, using J. F. W. Herschel's discovery, sodium thiosulfate . The process produced a shiny, inverted, but very clear image.
1842 –Sunday- Charles Ellet’s (see his birthday, January 1, 1810 above) first wire suspension bridge - A bridge having the roadway suspended from cables that are anchored at either end and usually supported at intervals by towers- was opened to pedestrian traffic over the Schuylkill River in Fairmount, Pennsylvania.
1859 –Sunday- Erastus Beadle (he was a member of the Beadles before George joined Paul and John in the Beadles) Dime Book of Practical Etiquette was published It was 72 pages and was Beadle's contribution to the then current enthusiasm for instruction on best behavior
1890-Thursday- President Benjamin Harrison appointed Alice Sanger as the first female White House staffer. Sanger, the first woman to work at the White House not as a maid, was hired as a stenographer.
1905 –Monday- The turning point in the Russo -Japanese War, came as Port Arthur, the Russian naval base in China, surrendered to Japanese naval forces under Admiral Heihachiro Togo, Japan’s greatest naval hero. Ah the lessons of history……thank you George Santayana……. in February 1904
Japan
had launched a surprise naval attack on
Port Arthur
, decimating the Russian fleet. Thirty seven years later the same thing happened to the U.S Pacific fleet at
Pearl Harbor
.
1920-Friday- Happy Birthday, (No accurate records exist of his date of birth. He celebrated January 2, 1920, which was the latest possible date, but it might have been as early as 4 October 1919.) Isaac Asimov, scientist, educator, and incredibly prolific writer (approximately 500 books including works on Shakespeare, the Foundation Trilogy, I Robot and Caves of Steel) who was born in Petrovichi, Russia. It was Asimov who coined the word “robotics”.
1941-Thursday- The Andrews Sisters recorded the song, Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy on Decca Records. The song, which became a classic World War II hit, gained popularity and recognition in Buck Privates, one of Abbott and Costello’s better movies……before they met Frankenstein of course.
1941 –Thursday- And on the same day, Happy Birthday, Donald P. Keck,
American research physicist, who with his colleagues at Corning Glass, Dr. Robert Maurer and Dr. Peter Schultz, invented fused silica optical waveguide. We know it as optical fiber. Optical fiber (fiber optics) refers to the medium and the technology associated with the transmission of information as light pulses along a really really really thin glass or plastic wire or fiber. Optical fiber carries much more information than conventional copper wire and is in general not subject to electromagnetic interference and the need to retransmit signals. Most telephone company long-distance lines are now of optical fiber.
1953 –Friday- The Life of Riley debuted on NBC-TV. William Bendix portrayed Riley in the second version and the series was much more successful, among the top twenty-five most watched programs from 1953-55. Jackie Gleason starred in the original version which ran from October 4, 1949 to :March 28, 1950.
1959 –Friday- Luna 1, the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of the Moon and to orbit the Sun, was launched by the U.S.S.R. Actually, it was an “oops” as a malfunction in the ground-based control system caused an error in the rocket's burntime, and the spacecraft ended up flying by the Moon. Approaching it at 5,900 km at the closest point, Luna 1 became the first object launched by mankind to reach heliocentric orbit (orbit around the Sun) . It was then dubbed a "new planet" and renamed Mechta. Later, following the Pluto demotion, it too was demoted to dwarf satellite. Its orbit lies between those of Earth and Mars.
1960-Saturday- British astronomer, John Reynolds set the age of solar system at 4,950,000,000 years.............and we thought it didn’t look a day over 4,9490,000,000 year old! No, he didn’t count the candles on a birthday cake…. he detected the xenon isotope (note- isotopes are different forms of atoms of the same element. They have the same number of protons in their nuclei but a different number of neutrons )of mass 129 trapped in meteorites, and from that discovery inferred that the extinct radioactive isotope iodine-129 (half-life 16 million years and probably generated in a pre-solar supernova) was present when the meteorites formed. This indicated that the meteorites appeared in the early history of the solar system.
1974 –Wednesday- Tex Ritter kaput. The singing cowboy (he sang the title song in the great western High Noon) died of a heart attack at the age of 67. Sadly, his son, John, who became a significant television star in Three’s Company, also died of a heart attack in 2003.
1974-Wednesday- With the energy crisis in crisis mode, soon to be ex-President Richard Nixon, signed legislation requiring states to limit highway speeds to 55 mph….of course everyone really paid attention to that one
1975-Thursday- Kenneth C. Brugger discovered the long-unknown winter destination of the monarch butterfly in the mountains of
Mexico
. They were driven to the mountains by high prices and loud tourists in
Acapulco
and
Cancun
. Each fall, monarch butterflies, driven by a circadian (internal) clock, head point south and flutter up to 2,000 miles to
Mexico
.
1981 – Friday- Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, was finally captured by the police. Sutcliffe had murdered at least thirteen women since October 1975. Like his namesake, Jack the Ripper, he murdered prostitutes but later college students. On this day, Police surveillance of prostitutes and their clients paid off. Sergeant Robert Ring and PC Robert Hydes recognized 24-year-old Olive Reivers, a pro, while on patrol. She and Sutcliffe were in a parked car. The police checked the plates on the car which proved to be stolen. Lesson one – never let the suspect urinate. Sutcliffe asked if he could get out to urinate and was given permission. He was then taken back to the police station for questioning, Sutcliffe again asked to go to the lavatory and was again given permission. When the police searched him they found a length of clothesline on him. The following day, a sergeant learned about Sutcliffe’s brief absence from the car to relieve himself, and went to look near the oil storage tank. In the leaves, he found a ball-headed hammer and a knife. Then he recalled Sutcliffe’s trip to the lavatory at the police station. In the cistern he found a second knife. When Sutcliffe was told that he was in serious trouble, he suddenly admitted that he was the Ripper, and confessed to the murders. No death penalty in
Britain
so this creature is serving a life sentence.
1994 -Sunday The Chrysler Corporation, possibly under the influence of hallucinogens, introduced the incredibly ugly Neon, a compact car. Add this mutant machine to the long list of reasons that American auto manufacturing is falling behind in the world market. In fact, five years later Chrysler, now Daimler-Chrysler, discontinued the entire
Plymouth
line (Professor Sy Yentz’ first car was a 1958
Plymouth
convertible with push button transmission) and Neon became the Dodge Neon. The Dodge Neon, no more successful than the Plymouth Neon, went to that big junkyard in the sky in 2005.
1995 -Monday The most distant galaxy yet discovered was found by scientists using the Keck telescope in
Hawaii
. It is estimated to be 15 billion light years away and was cleverly named 8C 1435+63. That’s so we don’t mix it up with 8C 1435+62. We, on Earth have been visited by residents of that galaxy. They supply the seemingly bottomless pool of bizarre humanlike beings used to populate reality TV shows.
2004 –Friday- Stardust successfully flew past Comet Wild 2 (pronounced "Vilt-2"), collecting samples that it would return to Earth two years later. Paul Wild (Astronomical Institute of Berne,
Switzerland
) had discovered the comet on January 6 and 8, 1978. The Stardust flew within 240 kilometers (149 miles) of the comet and caught sample of comet particles while taking detailed pictures of Wild 2's pockmarked surface and comet resident Barbara Walters.
Back
3. 106 B.C – Happy Birthday, Cicero, Roman statesman, orator, philosopher and author. Marcus Tullius Cicero began public life as a lawyer, became a politician – elected as Consul in 63 B.C and then lost out in the power struggle following the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 B.C. He was killed in 43 B.C when the triumvirate of Marc Antony, Octavian, and Lepidus assumed power.
1521- Pope Leo X (Giovanni Di Medici, son of Lorenzo -Il Magnifico- Di Medici of
Florence
), issued the papal bull Decet Romanum Pontificem, which excommunicated Martin Luther from the Catholic Church and contributed mightily to the start of Protestantism. Note; papal bulls received more attention than previously attempted papal chickens, papal goats and papal donkeys.
1777- The Battle of Princeton, the mother of Chauncy Poofcakes bopped the chief admissions officer in the head with her teacup in a rage over the level of acceptable SAT scores. No no no no, Professor Sy Yentz has his academic sense of humor. It was really a stroke of strategic genius by General George Washington (who had a lengthening record of losing battles) as he managed to evade a general battle with General Charles Cornwallis while winning several encounters with the British rear guard, as it departed Princeton for
Trenton
New Jersey
.
1823 – Happy Birthday, Robert Whitehead, British engineer who invented the modern torpedo while working for the Austrian Navy in 1864. He designed a projectile that was driven by compressed air and was designed to strike a ship's unprotected hull below the waterline
1861 –
rejected a proposal to secede from the
U.S.
This was just two weeks after
South Carolina
became the first state to secede from the
Union
. Among the reasons for not seceding: it was so small no one would notice it was gone……no, no, no Professor Sy Yentz has his separate sense of humor. Actually, the legislature was controlled by Unionists.
1871 – Henry Bradley received the American patent for oleomargarine (margarine). Margarine was created in 1870 by Frenchman, Hippolyte M�ge-Mouriez . M�ge-Mouriez used margaric acid, a fatty acid component isolated in 1813 by Michael Chevreul and named because of the pearly drops that reminded him of the Greek word for pearl -- margarites…..how appetizing!
1888- Grasping at straws. Marvin Chester Stone (brother of Blarney Stone, Rosetta Stone and Kidney Stone) made his contribution to western civilization by inventing the artificial drinking straw. Pre Stone – drinkers used natural rye grass straws. Post Stone, the artificial drinking straw made of manila paper and covered with paraffin. Stone was already a manufacturer of paper cigarette holders so he liked figuring out new things to do with paper.
1892 – Happy Birthday, J.R.R Tolkien, English author, born in
Bloemfontein
, of The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
1919-
New Zealand
born physicist, Ernest Rutherford succeeded in splitting the atom. Well, he didn’t actually split the atom. In 1911,
Rutherford
had developed the theory of atomic nuclei, that all the positive charge and most of the mass of an atom must be contained in a tiny nucleus at the atom's centre. In 1919 he discovered that the nuclei of certain light elements, such as nitrogen, could be "disintegrated" by the impact of energetic alpha particles coming from some radioactive source, and that during this process fast protons were emitted. Patrick Blackett later proved, with the cloud chamber, that the nitrogen in this process was actually transformed into an oxygen isotope, so that
Rutherford
was the first to deliberately transmute one element into another. Another major step towards atomic energy and another outcome of Einstein’s E=MC2 equation of 1905.
1920- The Boston Red Sox officially announced the sale of pitcher/outfielder Babe Ruth to the
New York
Yankees……the deal had been secretly agreed to on December 26…….
Boston
owner, Broadway show producer, Harry Frazee was trying to raise money for his production of a show, No, No Nanette. While he did produce the show he also produced the key piece to the greatest sports franchise of all time….the New York Yankees.
1924 - Two years after British archaeologist Howard Carter and his workmen discovered the tomb of the Pharaoh Tutankhamen near Luxor, Egypt, they found the greatest treasure of the tomb—a stone sarcophagus containing a solid gold coffin that held the mummy (but not the daddy) of the boy-king Tutankhamen. (Tut to his friends.)
1929- The
New York
Yankees announced that they would put numbers on the back of the team uniforms (to help with player identification from the stands). Babe Ruth - #3, Lou Gehrig, # 4, …………The initial numbers indicated batting order. Gehrig batted third, Ruth, fourth. Earl Coombs was the lead of batter and had #1, Bob Meusel followed Ruth in the batting order and wore # 5.
1952 – “Just the facts ma’am”. Dragnet, starring the scintillating effervescent Jack Webb as Sgt. Joe Friday, made its debut. The documentary style police drama ran from 1952 – 1959 and then reincarnated from 1967-70.
1953 - Frances Bolton and her son, Oliver, both from
Ohio
, became the first mother-son combination to serve at the same time in the United States Congress.
Frances
, elected as a Republican by special election, in 1940, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of her husband, Chester C. Bolton, was reelected to the fourteen succeeding Congresses and served from February 27, 1940, to January 3, 1969. Oliver served the 11 Congressional District in
Ohio
from 1953 – 1957 at which time incurred the wrath of his mother for “staying out past 11 p.m” and was sent home.
1957 -The world’s first electric watch was introduced in
Lancaster
,
PA
by the Hamilton Watch Company. The watch, which came with a really long cord…no, no no it didn’t…..it was battery powered. It was also obsolete by 1969, having been replaced by quartz watches.
1959 -
. The territory had been purchased on March 30, 1867 by William Seward from
Russia
for $7.2 million dollars, about two cents an acre. A check for $7,200,000.00 was issued on August 1, 1868 and made payable to Edouard de Stoeckl, the Russian Minister to the
United States
. Suggested state nickname, “The 372 people, lots of moose, many bears and salmon, with entire state covered with snow State”.
1967- Jack Ruby, usually described as the
Dallas
nightclub owner (but a pimp and small-time crook with mob connections) who killed Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin of President John F. Kennedy, died of cancer in a
Dallas
hospital. The Texas Court of Appeals had recently overturned his death sentence for the murder of Oswald and was scheduled to grant him a new trial.
1980- Conservationist Joy Adamson, author of Born Free, featuring “Elsa the Lioness” was killed in
Kenya
by a servant who had been fired by Adamson claiming she owed him money. Initially, the death was blamed on mauling by a lion. However, Adamson's body had been found on a road near her camp by her assistant, Pieter Mawson, and her injuries were caused by stabs from a sword like weapon and head injuries, not by a lion's fangs and claws. The “lion” had also opened her tent and stolen the contents of a trunk.
1999- The
U.S.
Mars Polar Lander was launched for its trip to Mars. On December 3, 1999, the Mars Polar Lander was in the final minutes of slowing itself down, ready to make a self-controlled touch down. Kaput! It was never heard from again. Nobody knows for sure exactly what happened. Attached to the Mars Polar Lander was a pair of small hitchhiking devices, the Deep Space 2 Mars Microprobes—Scott and Amundsen—which were to be ejected at high altitude to fall and penetrate beneath the Martian surface. They too failed and went kaput. Lately suspicion for the disappearance has fallen on Martian immigrant, Rosie O’Donnell.
2000 – The last daily Peanuts comic strip was published. Creator, Charles Schultz retired and died shortly afterwards on Feb. 12, the day before his last Sunday comic strip was published.
2004 – The first of the two Mars Rover landers, Spirit, landed on Mars. Rover would follow on January 24. They had been launched in June and July 2003 and landed on opposite sides of the Red Planet. They returned to Earth in 2005 and attacked Tom Cruise’s house in
Staten Island
launching the War of the Worlds. No, actually, they are still active and sending geological information about Mars.
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4.
-Look for the Quadrantid meteor shower tonight. For those of you who wish to be outside on a Januay night, the source of the Quadrantid meteor shower was unknown until Dec. 2003 when Peter Jenniskens of the NASA Ames Research Center found evidence that Quadrantid meteoroids come from 2003 EH1, an "asteroid" that is probably a piece of a comet that broke apart some 500 years ago.
46 BC - In one of the vary rare defeats of his military career, Julius Caesar was defeated by Titus Labienus in the Battle of Ruspina. Following his victory over Pompey at
Pharsalus
(during the Civil War) Caesar moved his army to Africa to secure
Rome
’s “breadbasket”. However, he lost most of his supplies during a storm at sea and the army was forced to forage for replacements. While they were foraging, Labienus, a former general for Caesar, attacked. Caesar's own account of the battle describes Ruspina as a fighting retreat conducted in good order. Other accounts are less generous and estimate that the Romans may have lost as much as one third of their army in the action.
1066 – Edward the Confessor kaput. The death of King Edward the Confessor, set off the chain of events that culminated in the Battle of Hastings (October 14, 1066) after which Duke William the “Bastard” of
Normandy
became King William the “Conqueror” of
England
. During the battle, King Harold Gowsinson (Edwards successor) was killed and William, who claimed that the Confessor had named him Successor, became King, altering the course of history.
1643 - Happy Birthday Isaac Newton, English physicist and greatest brain of the last millennium. Wait! Wasn’t
Newton
born on Christmas Day? Yes he was, but it was the Julian Calendar (Old Style, OS) developed by Julius Caesar. In 1782, a newer, more accurate calendar, the Gregorian (Pope Gregory XII) Calendar (New Style, NS) was adopted – 10 days were added and
Newton
’s birthday moved up. We note this because sources will list
Newton
’s birthday and Christmas Day and other sources as January 4. Of course this opens a can of worms for all pre 1582 days so we’ll note Isaac’s discrepancy because of his greatness and just go with consensus sources for everyone else. He invented calculus (but didn’t tell anyone about it for 27 years. He also laid the foundation for the science of spectroscopy but kept that a secret for 30 years. Yes, in addition to being a genius he was a bit odd. His master work, the Principia, explained mathematically, the orbits of heavenly objects and identified gravity as the moving force of the universe. His three laws of motion were in the book. It is a great book from the greatest of minds and it is so obtuse as to be virtually unreadable. We’re waiting for the illustrated version
1785 - Jakob Grimm librarian; fairy tale author, along with brother, Wilhelm.he wrote such popular fairy tales as Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, and Star Wars, the Revenge of the Sith.(actually they didn’t really write that last one).
1777- Happy Birthday, German banker and amateur astronomer, Wilhelm Beer (brother of…..no, it’s too easy…). Beer built a private observatory with a 9.5 cm refractor telescope, along with Johann Heinrick Madler he made the first exact map of the moon in 1836. The map, called the Mappa Selenographic al was the first lunar map to be divided into quadrants.
1809 - Happy Birthday, Louis Braille, French educator who developed a tactile form of printing and writing, known as braille, since widely adopted by the blind. Braille himself was blinded at age 4 when an injury to one eye resulted in an infection that spread to the other eye. When Braille was fifteen, he developed his ingenious system of reading and writing by means of raised dots.
1813- And speaking of systems of writing (see Louis Braille 1809 above), Happy Birthday, Sir Issac Pitman, English inventor of the Phonetic Shorthand System that we all know and love….even though voice recorders have moved to the office “fore”. Piman’s system, published in 1837, is phonetic: it records the sounds of speech rather than the spelling. For example, the sound [f] in form, elephant and rough is written in the same way for each word.
1846- Happy Birthday, Edward Hibberd Johnson American electrical engineer ,inventor, and associate of Thomas Edison. Johnson created the first electric lights on a Christmas tree on Dec, 22, 1882….he spent lots of time trying figure out which bulb was no “out” thereby causing the entire string to malfunction …..wait…that wasn’t Johnson, that was Professor Sy Yentz on many a December night during the 1950’s and 60’s.
1847- Samuel Colt, who had invented and patented the repeating revolver pistol in 1836, won a contract to provide the
U.S.
government with 1,000 of his .44 caliber revolvers. Caliber relates to the bore of a gun (or its ammunition) that measures forty-four hundredths of an inch in diameter; "a .44 caliber pistol"…the bigger the number, the bigger the bullet. Colt began mass-producing his popular revolvers in 1847 and handguns hence forth would play a significant role in the history of either the American West and the nation as a whole. Unfortunately, they still do.
1863- As the Civil War raged, four-wheeled roller skates were patented by James Plimpton of
New York
. Plimpton’s improvement was a major breakthough in skating – without which the 1980 skating movie Xanadu starring Olivia Newton-John and an ancient Gene Kelly (possibly looking for puddles to dance in) would never have been possible- had two parallel sets of wheels, one pair under the ball of the foot and the other pair under the heel. The four wheels were made of boxwood and worked on rubber springs. Ball bearing wheels came along in 1884. However, the best innovative skating debut came early in the process in 1760 as inventor, Joseph Merlin, attended a masquerade party in
London
wearing one of his new inventions, metal-wheeled boots. Joseph wished to make a grand and memorable entrance so he added the unique feature of rolling in while playing the violin. Lining the huge ballroom was a very expensive wall-length mirror. The fiddling skating Merlin was unable to break (hadn’t thought of that part) and the mirror was doomed as Merlin crashed solidly into it.
1885 - Dr. William Grant of
Davenport
,
Iowa
performed the first successful appendectomy on this day. The operation was performed on Mary Gartside. Yes, Mary Gartside lost her appendix but she still had her table of contents. An appendectomy is the removal by surgery of the appendix, the small worm-like appendage of the colon (the large bowel). An appendectomy is performed because of probable appendicitis, inflammation of the wall of the appendix generally associated with infection.
1896 –
” entered the
Union
. The state gets its name from the native American tribe, the Utes, and the territory was called the land of the Utes,
Utah
. Originally settled by Indians, explored by the Spanish and used by “mountain men” hunters, the territory boomed in 1847, with the Mormons, seeking a religious sanctuary in the remote West. They immigrated in large numbers and laid out communities, built homes and churches, established farms supported by an irrigation system.
Utah
achieved territorial status in 1850, and by the time of statehood in 1896, the total population approached a quarter of a million people, assorted buffalo, rattlesnakes, and mountain goats.
1904- Thomas Edison’s movie crew filmed the electrocution of an elephant. The ill-fated Topsy, was being destroyed by its owners after she killed three men in as many years. The third man was a cretin who fed her a lit cigarette. The event took place in front of an audience of 1500 people at
Coney Island
, NYC. They had first attempted to execute the elephant with cyanide filled carrots. When that didn’t work,
Edison
was the consultant chosen to arrange the electrocution death. The elephant’s final words were either “Mother of mercy, is this the end of Rico?” or “I made it Ma. Top of the World!”.
1935 - Billboard magazine published its first pop-music chart based on national sales figures.The song, Stop! Look! Listen! by jazz violinist Joe Venuti was #1 on the first chart. Joe Venuti was one of the first jazz violinists, and would continue playing up until his death in 1978……which, after all, would be a hindrance on playing……. He was also a major influence on guitarist Django Reinhardt and violinist St�phane Grappelli in
France
.
1940 – Happy Birthday, Brian Josephson, and a great day to eponymous science laws as Josephson was the British physicist who discovered the Josephson effect in1962. The Josephson effect is a flow of electric current as electron pairs, called Cooper Pairs, (see? Eponymous again, Leon Cooper) - between two superconducting materials that are separated by an extremely thin insulator. This arrangement is called a Josephson Junction 1941 - “Waskily Wabbit”….The animated short Elmer's (Elmer being Elmer Fudd) Pet Rabbit was released. This was the second appearance of Bugs Bunny but the first to have his name on a title card. Bugs's debut as a star was the short A Wild Hare, where he first uttered his trademark line, "What's up, Doc?" The voice of Bugs was provided by the great Mel Blanc.
1958- Sputnik 1, launched 10/4/57, was burned up on re-entry to the atmosphere. Also see Explorer, Jan. 31, 1958 .The orbit was observed to decay 92 days after launch after having completed about 1400 orbits of the Earth. The orbital apogee (highest point) had declined from 947 km after launch to 600 km by December 9. The circle kept getting smaller. Gravity wins again.
1960 - French existentialist author Albert Camus died in an automobile accident at age 46 near
Sens
,
France
. Among his best-known novels are The Stranger, 1942 and The Plague ,1947. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957.
1962- The first unmanned, automated subway train ran in
New York City
. This was the 42nd Street Shuttle running from Grand Central Station to Pennsylvania Station on
34th street
via the IRT line. The experiment came to an end with a fire on the tracks in 1964. For anyone who has ridden on a NYC subway, automated trains is a very scary thought
5. 1477 – The Battle of Nancy, the final and decisive battle of the Burgundian Wars.
Burgundy
would now be part of
France
. The Duke of Burgundy, Charles the Bold, was conducting a siege of Nancy (Nancy insisted she had meant to offend anyone when she mistakenly called him Charles the Bald…….no, no, no Professor Sy Yentz has his follicular sense of humor), the capitol of Lorraine. Rene, the Duke of Lorraine, with 10,000 of his own troops and 10,000 Swiss mercenaries, attacked the outnumbered Burgundians. Charles was killed, his mutilated body was found three days later, and
Burgundy
(and its delicious wine) would become the eastern part of
France
.
1643 – On a social note, we have the first record of a legal divorce in the colonies. Anne Clarke of the Massachusetts Bay Colony was granted a divorce from her adulterous husband , Denis Clarke, by the Quarter Court of Boston, Massachusetts. Denis Clarke, a “himbo” admitted to abandoning his wife, with whom he had two children, for another woman, with whom he had another two children. He also refused to return to his original wife, thus giving the Puritan court no option but grant a divorce to his wife, Anne. Didn’t we see this on Days of Our Lives ? No word about a pre-nuptial agreement
1759 – Still another social note (see 1643 above) George Washington married Martha Dandridge Custis, the twenty eight year old widow of wealthy Daniel Parke Custis. After George Washington died in 1799, Martha assured a final privacy by burning their letters; she died of "severe fever" on May 22, 1802. George and Martha are buried at
Mount Vernon
, where Washington himself had planned an unpretentious tomb for them.
1779 – Happy Birthday, Zebulon Pike, American explorer who discovered, tried to climb, but failed, what is now known as Pike’s Peak in Coloradao. Pike’s Peak is he most visited mountain in North America and the second most visited mountain in the world behind
Japan
's
Mount Fuji
. As for Zebulon Pike? He was killed in 1813 leading American troops on a successful attack on
York
Canada
during the War of 1812.
1781 – The man who’s name has become synonymous with treason, former American and now British Brigadier General Benedict Arnold captured the virtually undefended capital city of
Richmond
. Virginia Governor, Thomas Jefferson did not act speedily on George Washington’s warning that the British would attack
Virginia
. He called out the militia too late and
Arnold
’s British troops captured the city without a shot being fired.
1855- Happy Birthday, King C. Gillette, American inventor and manufacturer of the safety razor. Gillette originally had the idea to put a sharp edge on a small square of sheet steel. He could then market a safety razor blade that could be thrown away when it grew dull, and readily replaced. Great idea! However, it took six years (1895-1901) for Gillette to find an engineer, William Emery Nickerson (an MIT-trained inventor), who could produce the blade Gillette envisioned. In 1901, Gillette and Nickerson formed the American Safety Razor Company (soon thereafter renamed for Gillette himself). For the first time, razor blades would be sold in multiple packages, with the razor handle a one-time purchase. Production began in 1903; Gillette won a patent for his product the next year.
1882- Lizzie Sturgeon played the piano with her toes for a NY audience. Obviously this feet feat made her the “toes of the town”. Contemporary singer, Madonna, paid tribute to Lizzie with her hit song, “Like a Sturgeon”.
1885- Happy Birthday, Jeannette Piccard, the only woman to reach the stratosphere in a hot air balloon…..presumably she was traveling with television talk show hosts. The historic flight, which also included husband Jean and their pet turtle took place on October 22, 1934.
1940- First public use of an FM radio. See Jan. 28. NBC began regular FM transmission from
Empire
State
Building
on W2XDG, 42.6 and on this day also began experimental FM relay broadcasts: W2XCR Yonkers to W2XMN Alpine, NJ to
W1XPW Meriden CT
to W1XOJ Paxton MA to W1XOY at
Mt.
to
Boston
AM station. The first show was Casey Casem’s America’s Top Forty Songs of Artists Who’s Dogs/Grandmothers/Beloved Uncles/Best Friends Died in the Arms and the Wrote Songs About It. FM is the encoding of a carrier wave by variation of its frequency in accordance with an input signal –frequency modulation. And, in case you were wondering……… AM is amplitude modulation.
1889- Take note MacDonalds, Wendy’s, Burger King and backyard grillers everywhere.The word “hamburger” first appeared in print in a Walla Walla, Washington, newspaper……yup!
Walla Walla
…. The Walla Walla Union in fact. This is according to the date given in the Oxford English Dictionary. The hamburger was named after a German food called
hamburg
steak, not because it contains ham, but meaning of “from
Hamburg
” which is, of course, in
Germany
. In the 19th century, German immigrants migrated to North America bringing along the recipe for the
hamburg
steak, a form of ground beef (which in turn may go back to the Mongols and later the Tartars) . American people adopted the
hamburg
steak but used the adjective form “hamburger” without “steak” at the end. By 1902, the first description of a
hamburg
steak – we believe it was presented on either the Food Channel Iron Chef competition or Rachel Ray’s 30 Minute Meals, - came close to the American conception of the hamburger. It gave a recipe calling for ground beef mixed with onion and pepper
1895 - French officer Alfred Dreyfus, condemned for passing military secrets to the Germans, was stripped of his rank in a humiliating public ceremony, with the crowd yelling anti-semitic epithets, at
Paris
’ Ecole Militaire. The Jewish artillery captain, convicted on flimsy evidence in a highly irregular trial, began his life sentence on the notorious
Devil’s Island
Prison in French Guyana four months later. There was a tremendous public outcry at the anti-Semitic injustice of the shabby procedure culminating in journalist/author Emile Zola’s J’Accuse letter on the front page of the newspaper, L 'Aurore The public pressure resulted in Dreyfus’ eventual freedom but not before another trial, another conviction, then a 1906 the court of appeal pronounced his complete innocence. Dreyfus was reinstated as a major, re-enlisted in World War I, and was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel.
1914- Happy Birthday, Aaron (Bunny) Lapin, American in inventor of whipped cream in a spray can in 1948. He called it Reddi-Wip . It was first sold in
St. Louis
by milkmen, but its popularity and distribution expanded quickly across the country and Lapin was soon dubbed the “Whipped Cream King”. Not wishing to rest on his laurels, Alpin Lapin experimented with other aerosol products such as cinnamon margarine & pancake batter, but, strangely …..doesn’t the thought of spray on cinnamon margarine make your mouth water? None of them caught on. In 1998 Time Magazine listed Reddi-wip as one of the century's 100 great consumer items…..but then they also included Spam on the list too.
1914 – And on the same day that “Bunny Lapin” was born so he could invent whipped cream in a can, (see above)Henry Ford, head of the Ford Motor Company, gave birth to a minimum wage scale of $5 per day.
.1933 - Construction began on the
Golden Gate
Bridge
. It would take just over four years to complete as the bridge was open to vehicular traffic on May 28, 1937. It is named the Golden Gate for spanning the
Golden Gate
, which is the entrance to the
San Francisco
County
.
1943- George Washington Carver Day honors the African-American scientist on the anniversary of his death in 1943. One of the 20th century's greatest scientists, George Washington Carver's influence is still being felt today. Born in 1864 during the era of slavery he became one of the world's most respected and honored men, he devoted his life to understanding nature and the many uses for the simplest of plant life. He is best known for developing crop-rotation methods for conserving nutrients in soil and discovering hundreds of new uses for crops such as the peanut. The uses for the peanut being a necessity when while farmers were ecstatic with the tremendous quality of cotton and tobacco they grew later (due to crop rotation with the peanut) they grew angry because the amount of peanuts they harvested was too plentiful and began to rot in overflowing warehouses. Within a week, Carver had experimented with and devised dozens of uses for the peanut, including milk and cheese. In later years he would produce more than 300 products that could be developed from the lowly peanut, including ink, facial cream, shampoo, soap and peanut butter (a favorite food of Professor Sy Yentz). Carver didn’t patent peanut butter – it had probably been developed by the Inca when they started using peanuts in 950 BC.
1945 – “O.k, so here’s your ticket”…the pilot looks at the ticket and says “But this is one way! …. So On this day Japanese pilots received the first order to become kamikaze, meaning "divine wind" in Japanese. There job was to crash their planes into allied ships. At
Okinawa
, they sank 30 ships and killed almost 5,000 Americans.
1959- Coral Records released It Doesn't Matter Anymore by Buddy Holly. Coral Records released Holly’s solo efforts, his work with the Crickets was on Brunswick Records. The record was Holly's last before his tragic death in a plane crash that also killed singers Ritchie Valens and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson on February 3, just under a month later. Interestingly, the tour, having lost Holly, Valens and Richardson, continued with Bobby Vee, Jimmy Clanton and Frankie Avalon filling in.
1972- NASA announced the start of the space shuttle program. President Richard M. Nixon announced that NASA would proceed with the development of a reusable low cost space shuttle system.
Columbia
made the first shuttle flight on April 12, 1981
2005 - Eris, the largest known dwarf planet in the solar system, was discovered by the team of Michael E. Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David L. Rabinowitz using photos taken almost two years earlier, on October 21, 2003, at the Palomar Observatory. So poor Pluto, demoted from planetary status, is now not even the largest dwarf planet. Like Pluto, Eris (named after the Greek goddess of strife and discord – according to mythology, Eris is the one who started the quarrel among the goddess that resulted in the Trojan War) is in the Kuiper Belt, the large group of objects orbiting the Sun beyond Neptune. Eris was originally given the temporary name of Xena (after the TV “warrior princess”) – Xena became quite popular and many folks were disappointed when it was renamed Eris….. Eris even has a moon! But then so does Pluto. Eris’ moon has been named Dysomnia (who was the goddess daughter). Eris measures about 70 miles wider than Pluto, is the farthest known object in the solar system at 9 billion miles away from sun.
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6. 1066 - With the death of Edward the Confessor (who continued confessing up until his death…he even confessed to being a Britney Spears fan and watching Dr. Phil), Harold Godwineson, was crowned King Harold II. On his deathbed, Edward supposedly designated Harold the royal heir. This claim was disputed by William (the Bastard), duke of
Normandy
and cousin of the late king. On October 14, 1066, Harold met William at the Battle of Hastings. William won and the course of history was changed.
1714- During the reign of Queen Anne, the typewriter was patented by English inventor Henry Mill. He never succeeded in perfecting his invention, in fact no record of it survives, so credit, fame and money would go to others. Over three hundred years later, in 1866, Americans Christopher Latham Sholes and his colleagues, Carlos Glidden and Samuel Soul�, invented the first practical typewriting machine. It took five years, dozens of experiments, and two patents later, Sholes and his associates produced an improved model similar to today's typewriters. The first "Sholes & Glidden Type Writer" was offered for sale in 1874
1759 – A social note: On this day in 1759 and 1945 respectively, future presidents George Washington and George H.W Bush got married. Yes! To each other in a sordid ……no, no, no…Professor Sy Yentz has his marital sense of humor. They married Martha and Barbara.
1822- Happy Birthday Heinrich Schliemann, German archaeologist who excavated sites at
Troy
, and
Tiryns
that he had connected to Homer’s Iliad and Vergil’s Aeneid. He was supposed to share treasures found with the Turkish government. He spent a lot of time an effort trying to share as little as possible….some archeological treasures ended up in his garden……He excavated Hissarlik on the Asia Minor coast of Turkey, and found ruins of nine consecutive cities buried on top of each other. He incorrectly identified second oldest Troy II, as Homer’s city. The city Homer called
Troy
has never been found. Some have even claimed it was in
England
……really.
1838- Samuel Morse gave the first public demonstration of his telegraph. Luckily, he didn’t have Marconi’s CQD (see 1904) to try it out. It was not until five years later that Congress funded $30,000 to construct an experimental telegraph line from
Washington
to
Baltimore
, a distance of 40 miles. The famous first message "What hath God wrought?" sent by "Morse Code" from the old Supreme Court chamber in the United States Capitol to his partner in
Baltimore
, officially opened the completed line of May 24, 1844.
1857 – Throwing in everything, including the kitchen zinc, a patent, which was the country’s first patent related to zinc ore was issued to Samuel Wetherill,
Bethlehem
as the 47th state, just beating out
Arizona
which came in on February 14.
1919- The great Theodore Roosevelt, 20th President of the
United States
, author, conservationist and explorer, died at age 60. He had never really recovered from the illnesses he suffered during his exploration of the
River
of
Doubt
, an Amazon tributary in 1914. The Gnus highly recommends, in fact, The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey by Candice Millard, a superb history that incorporates great science and reads like a novel.
1929 –The ever lactating, Sheffield Farms of New York began using wax paper cartons instead of glass bottles for milk delivery
1936 – Porky Pig made his cartoon debut in a Warner Brothers cartoon, “Gold Diggers of ‘49.” Note, Mel Blanc, who supplied the voices of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Sylvester, Tweety, Dan Rather, Jay Leno, Gwenyth Paltrow, Rosie O’Donnell, the entire cast of The View, Britney Spears ex-husband and Porky, did not join the company till the following year.
1949- The first photograph of genes was taken at the
University
Southern
California
by Dr. Daniel Chapin Pease and Dr. Richard Freligh Baker. The photo, a 5 x 7” color portrait of a pair of
Levis
was framed and hung in their office.
1971-
in 1347 and King Henry V had marched to
Calais
after his victory at
Agincourt
in 1415. In the intervening years, English possessions ebbed and flowed until Henry VIII’s daughter, Mary I, a very unpopular Queen lost
Calais
during an ill conceived, badly fought war with
France
1598- Boris Godunov became Czar of Russia. Boris was the brother-in-law of Fyodor, the son of Ivan “The Terrible” who had become Tsar when Ivan’s kaputskied in 1584. Unfortunately, Fyodor was, how shall we put it, dumb and weak. Ivan, knew this and appointed a council to assist (smirk smirk) Fyodor in his rule. Within a few years Boris Gudunov was the sole remaining member of the council. He ruled as Regent and defacto Czar until Fyodor gave up the ghost in 1598. Gudunov only ruled until 1605.
Russia
suffered a horrible famine and Gudunov was blamed as rumors spread that he was a usurper and
Russia
was being punished for his sins. He was also faced with pretenders to the throne claiming to be Ivan’s other son Dimitri. All in all a nice soap opera but a better opera, see Massorgsky’s Boris Gudunov based on the drama by Alexander Pushkin.
1608-
, the first colony, just eight months old, had a fire destroy many buildings within the
Jamestown
fort, among them the colony's first church. Most of the colony's provisions were destroyed
1610- Galileo discovered the first 4 of Jupiter‘s moons. Can you name them? That’s right! The four Galilean Moons are; Ganymede, Callisto, Europa, and Io (which we fondly call the “Internal Revenue Moon as in I owe money in taxes). Actually, he saw three of the moons on this day. He thought they were stars until he looked (through his telescope) the next evening and saw they had appeared to move the wrong way. On January 13th, he found a fourth “star” that moved in the same direction as the previous three. He realized they were orbiting Jupiter. Tada! Also remember that Galileo was born in 1564, the same year as Shakespeare and also the same year that Michelangelo died.
1745- Happy Birthday, Johann Fabricius, Danish entomologist who was one of the great entomologists of the 18th century (which was a century aflutter with entomology). Fabricius studied with Swedish naturalist Carolus Linnaeus, named and classified some 10,000 species of insects. Among the classifications were: Insects that Bite, Insects that Got in My Underwear, Insects that Gave Me a Rash, Insects That Made My Wife Scream, Insects That Splatter When You Step on Them, and Insects That Taste Good in Covered With Chocolate
1782- The Bank of Philadelphia, the first commercial bank in the U.S, opened for business. This was one week after the Continental Congress had granted a perpetual charter to the Bank of North America. This bank was intended to be a foundation of American credit that would play a significant role in the financial management of the republic. This was also still fairly optimistic since the British had surrendered at
Yorktown
in 1781 but the treaty ending the war would not be signed until 1783. All members of the Continental Congress received low interest Debit Cards from VISA with bonus points towards a Caribbean Cruise on Disney Lines.
1789- The first
U.S.
presidential election was held. Americans voted for electors who, a month later (it also took that long to count the “hanging chads” in
Florida
in 2000 and the
Ohio
re-count in 2004), chose George Washington to be the nation’s first President with John Adams as the Vice-President. Others receiving votes were John Jay, John Rutledge, John Handcock, and, bookending nicely with the George at the beginning and four Johns in the middle, George Clinton ( yes, the same George Clinton who would go on to be the lead singer of Parliament/Funkadelic 200 years later) last.
1785 -Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries flew from
Dover
,
France
, in a gas balloon, becoming the first to cross the English Channel by air (and avoiding the long wait at passport control at
Calais
). Cleverly preparing for any difficulties, their balloon was weighed down by extraneous supplies such as anchors, a nonfunctional hand-operated propeller, and silk-covered oars with which they hoped they could row their way through the air. Just before reaching the French coast, the two intrepid flyers threw nearly everything out of the balloon, including Blanchard’s trousers and other undeclared items over the side as they attempted to lighten the ship.
1800- Happy Birthday, Millard Fillmore, born in the Finger Lakes country of New York, 13th president of the U.S. Fillmore was Zachery Taylor’s Vice President but when “Old Rough and Ready” bit the dust in 1850, he succeeded to the Presidency. Fillmore was denied the Whig Party nomination in 1852 largely because he had signed the “Fugitive Slave Act”
1827- Happy Birthday, Sir Sandford Fleming, Scottish surveyor and leading railway engineer who developed the idea of dividing the world into time zones. He was instrumental in convening the 1884 International Prime Meridian Conference in
Washington
, at which the system of international standard time - still in use today - was adopted. Obviously, this man is solely responsible for “jet lag”.
1834- Happy Birthday, Johann P. Reis, German physicist whose invention of an early telephone – one of several early “telelphones” preceded the work of Alexander Graham Bell. Reis actually coined the word “telephone” for his invention. He was plagued by busy signals for the rest of his life.
1896 - Fannie Farmer published her first and now famous, “Boston Cooking School Cookbook. She included very specific and accurate measurements. Before that cookbook, ingredient lists were estimates….just like some of the contemporary “cooks” on television ….just use a “pinch of salt” and then they grab a handful and heave it all over the food and….Professor Sy Yentz is venting here….ah, yes, Fanny Farmer and her cookbook, she also discussed food composition, caloric calculations and the body's need for nutrients. She formed a systematic view of cooking that influenced cooking instruction for decades to come.
1900- First boat went through the
Panama Canal
. It was a test run and the boat was the Alexandre La Valley. The first official trip through was the S.S. Ancon, carrying a cargo of ……..spice? no…….precious stones? No…..furs? No…..money? No….how about cement? Yes, on August 15, 1914.
1901- Fittingly, on the same day that Fannie Farmer published her cook book, convicted cannibal, Alfred Packer was paroled. Packer, who made several confessions, evidently killed and ate his fellow travelers as they made their way through
Colorado
during severe winter weather. He claimed one of the others was responsible and he killed him (and ate him) in self-defense. Packer came under suspicion when he arrived in
California
looking remarkably healthy and carrying the valuables of his “lunches”.
1925- Happy Birthday, Gerald Durell, British conservation biologist and prolific author, born in Jamshedpur, India, whose life work was the preservation of endangered animal species. Take a look at Birds, Beasts and Relatives and Zoo in My Luggage.
1927- On the same day that Johann P. Reis (of telephone fame see 1834 above) was born, long distance telephone service was opened between NY and
London
. The first caller had to wait until a “customer assistance technician” was available. He waited because “your call is very important to us”. He listened to 20 minutes of Al Jolson singing Mammy.
1946- Happy Birthday, R. Margaret Kearney, Irish/American pioneer in computer shorthand, office management and low-fat cooking.
1953 - President Harry Truman announced that the
United States
had developed a hydrogen bomb. In case you were wondering, The atomic bomb uses nuclear fission, in which big atoms (uranium or plutonium) were split into smaller ones during a chain reaction, that releases vast amounts of energy. The hydrogen bomb is not fission but fusion in which atoms (various forms of hydrogen) fuse together to make larger atoms (helium), essentially the same process that occurs in the sun. Fusion bombs are a thousand times more powerful than fission bombs, which are a million times more powerful than chemical ones. Meanwhile, in Communist Russia, espionage on
America
’s Manhattan Project had helped speed up the development of atomic weapons and the Russians would have their own hydrogen bomb within a few months.
2003 – British police announced they had found traces of the deadly poison ricin in a north
London
Back
8.
1642 – Galileo kaput. Born in 1564, the same year as Shakespeare was born and the same year that Michelangelo died…..1642 was also the year that Isaac Newton was born (OS). Galileo pioneered "experimental scientific method", built the first high-powered astronomical telescope; invented a horse-powered pump to raise water; demonstrated that the velocities of falling bodies are not proportional to their weights; described the true parabolic paths of cannonballs and other projectiles; developed the the ideas behind Newton's laws of motion; and confirmed the Copernican theory of the solar system. Oh, yes he discovered the first four moons of Jupiter too.
1746 - Bonnie Prince Charlie occupied Stirling in
Scotland
. Charlie, actually, Charles Stuart, was the Jacobite pretender to the British Throne. He was the son of James III, who was the son of James II who was driven into exile by William and Mary in 1688. Charlie, like Mary, Queen of Scots, is more glamorous in legend than in real life. Although brave and honorable, he was ineffectual and continually suffered from bad luck, in fact another of his nicknames was “Old Mr. Misfortune”. Charlie’s base of support was
Scotland
and
Stirling
(site of William Wallace’s great victory) was the high water mark of his attempt to take the throne. He should have stopped there but foolishly moved towards
London
, lost his nerve, retreated and was cornered and defeated at the disastrous Battle of Culloden.
1815- The Battle of New Orleans, the most decisive battle of the War of 1812 occurred. Unfortunately, the War of 1812 had ended almost 2 weeks before with the Treaty of Ghent (
Belgium
). Word had not reached the U.S and the British attacked
New Orleans
which was defended by General Andrew Jackson. Pirate Jean Lafitte had assisted by warning him of the impending attack. The actual battle lasted about 30 minutes as
Jackson
’s sharpshooters killed or wounded over 2,000 British troops including the commanding general, Sir Edward Peckenham.
1821- Happy Birthday, Confederate General James Longstreet. Longstreet who became one of the most successful generals in the Confederate Army. Robert E. Lee called him his “Old War Horse”. The soldiers called him “Old Pete”. He came under severe criticism from Southern loyalists after the war when he questioned Lee’s strategy at
Gettysburg
. It should be noted that his own delays in preparation and hours late attack on the Union flank played a major role in the Union’s successful defense of that area which included the “Devil’s Den”, and the failure to take Little Round Top. He also, gasp! Became a Republican!
1838 – “A patient waiter is no loser” – that’s the first telegraph message in the
U.S.
in which letters were represented by dots and dashes was transmitted. The communications system had been invented by Alfred Vail of
Morristown
,
N.J.
, in Sep 1837. It then took weeks to figure out what they were talking about…..who ever heard of a patient waiter?
1856 - Borax (hydrated sodium borate) was discovered by Dr. John Veatch near Red Bluff,
California
. It was found next to the dirty laundry of Johnny Jim Custerpoof, itinerant prospector and Cartesian philosopher….no, no, no Professor Sy Yentz has his cleansing sense of humor.
1872 - Definitely a gentleman with a unique mind as a patent was issued to Black American inventor Thomas Elkins for furniture he called a "Chamber Commode" It provided a combination of "a bureau, mirror, book-rack, washstand, table, easy-chair, and earth-closet or chamber-stool," – so while relieving one’s self one might fold one’s clothes, in the bureau, comb one’s hair in the mirror, select a book, wash, eat dinner at the table, but just look at the easy chair – one wouldn’t want to use it until one was finished with the commode…… Previously Elkins had patented a "Dining, Ironing Table and Quilting Frame Combined". Elkins was clearly into multitasking. Still another patent was issued for a "Refrigerating Apparatus" for "food or corpses," which provides a convenient container and method of chilling using the evaporation of water. Definitely an interesting fellow.
1877- About 6 months after he and Sitting Bull had defeated George Custer’s 7th cavalry at Little Big Horn, the great Sioux chief, Crazy Horse was defeated by the troops of General Nelson Miles. Sadly, Crazy Horse was killed about 5 months later “resisting” arrest. Sitting Bull met a similar end in 1890
1905- Happy Birthday, Carl Gustav Hempel, German-born U.S. philosopher who emigrated to the U.S in 1937 to escape the Nazis, and was one of the leaders of the philosophy of logical positivism which is the assertion the primacy of observation in assessing the truth of statements of fact and holding that metaphysical and subjective arguments not based on observable data are meaningless. It’s also called logical empiricism, Hempel was positive about that! The group viewed the task of science as that of showing phenomena to be the consequence of unbroken laws.
1905- And on the same day! Happy Birthday, Walter Diemer (who also died on his birthday in 1995), American businessman who invented bubble gum in 1928. Since the first batch, the pink color is still standard. Diemer worked as an accountant for the Fleer Chewing Gum Company in
Philadelphia
, now famous for their collectible sports cards. He was chewing over the idea of a less sticky gum and bubbled over with enthusiasm at his discovery. The company marketed the gum as Double Bubble. So there you have it. Logical Positivism and bubble gum on the same day. A Science Gnus exclusive. Professor Sy Yentz makes these connections. He really needs to get out more.
1918- The disastrous military initiative and battle that almost resulted in the end of Winston Churchill’s career – Gallipoli- ended as the Allies withdrew from the Turkish peninsula.Over 250,000 casualties resulted from the ill-advised attempt to relieve pressure on the Russians fighting the Turks on the eastern front by attacking the Gallipoli peninsula
1926 – Happy Birthday, Soupy Sales, (Milton Supman), one of Professor Sy Yentz favorite comedians (we’re very high brow here) and star, along with White Fang and Black Tooth of Lunch with Soupy Sales and The Soupy Sales Show.
1935- Arthur Hardy (brother of Laurelen Hardy) received a patent for his spectrophotometer. In addition to being a great word for a spelling bee or Scrabble, the instrument measures light in the visible spectrum. It could detect two million different shades of color (or about as many as a really large box of crayola crayons) and make a permanent record chart of the results.
1935 – Happy Birthday, Elvis Presley, cultural icon and originally a pretty good Rock n Roll singer. Elvis went kaput in 1977 but is continuously seen in super markets, convenience stores, rocks, clouds, blood stains and
Las Vegas
.
1942- Happy Birthday, Stephen Hawking, English theoretical physicist. His principal areas of research are theoretical cosmology and quantum gravity. Hawking is the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at
Cambridge
University
, the chair formerly held by Sir Isaac Newton. The author of the best seller A Brief History of Time. he has Lou Gehrig’s disease (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; ALS), and is confined to a wheelchair and is unable to speak without the aid of a computer voice synthesizer. However, despite his challenges, he has made remarkable contributions to the field of cosmology, which as all cosmologists (and even cosmetologists) know is not the art of applying make-up but the study of the universe as a whole). So……. Soupy Sales -1926, Elvis -1935, and Stephen Hawking …all born on the same day. It must mean something…..
1953- A severe ice storm left over 4 inches of the slippery stuff on eastern
Pennsylvania
and 3” of ice on southeastern N.Y. Over 70,000 homes were left without power.
1966- On a sad note, this was the last episode of Shindig, one of the great cultural highlights of the 60’s. Shindig was a rock and roll variety show that debut on September 16, 1964. The show was hosted by Jimmy Neil. The house band included Glen Campbell, Leon Russell, and Billy Preston. The house back girl group, the Blossoms, featured the great Darlene Love. Guests ran the gamut from the Everly Brothers and Righteous Brothers on the first show to The Who and the The Kinks on the final Thursday night show.
1973 - Soviet space mission Luna 21 was launched. The spacecraft landed on the Moon and deployed the second Soviet lunar rover (Lunokhod 2). The primary objectives of the mission were to collect images of the lunar surface, and find the birthplace of Barry Bonds.
1992- President George H.W Bush, suffering from “stomach flu”, tossed his cookies all over the lap of the Japanese Prime Minister. Hoowee! That sushi will get you every time.
1993 - Elvis Presley became the first rock musician featured on a postage stamp. The stamp, which featured a young, slim Elvis when purchased, but the stamp grew duller, repetitive, fatter and paunchier with age and ultimately could only be used in
Las Vegas
was issued on what would have been his 58th birthday.
1994 - Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov on Soyuz TM-18 (“I Soyuz Standing There”) left for the space station Mir (the Mir the Merrier). He would stay on the space station until March 22, 1995, for a record 437 days in space. He refused to come back to Earth until someone would tell him the surprise ending to Xena, Warrior Princess.
1998- Scientists identified a chemical compound which explains how nicotine becomes addictive. Like many drugs, the addictive elements of nicotine are connected with the release of the neurotransmitter, dopamine, in the brain. People get addicted because of the rapid activation that leads to the dopamine release. This is why smokers are dopes. The discovery was made when scientists found the first of 11 sub-units, or molecules, of the nicotine receptor in the brain of mice. The mice had been enjoying a relaxing post-coital cigarette when suddenly their brains were ripped out and…………..
2002 - President George W. Bush signed into law the No Child Left Behind Act. No Child Left Behind (NCLB or “Nickleby” as it is known) covers all states, school districts, and schools that accept Title 1 federal grants. Title 1 grants provide funding for remedial education programs for poor and disadvantaged children in public schools, and in some private programs. NCLB applies differently to Title 1 schools than to schools that do not receive Title 1 grants. However, one way or another, this law covers all public schools in all states. NCLB emphasizes accountability and teaching methods that work. Naturally, it is controversial. Accountability in education? …..Can you imagine?
2004 - RMS Queen Mary 2, the largest passenger ship ever built, was christened by Queen Elizabeth II, the granddaughter of Queen Mary, wife of King George V. The Queen Mary 2 is still the largest ocean liner. A cruise ship, the Freedom of the Seas surpassed her in size in 2006.
9. 1007- Approximate birthday of Snorro (possibly named after the sound his father made while sleeping), another of the seemingly endless list of children who are identified at one time or another as “the first Caucasian child in
North America
”. Snorro Thorfinnson was the son of Thorfinn and Gudrid Karlsefni and born in
Vinland
colony. This according to The Encyclopedia of American Facts & dates - Gorton Carruth
1493- Christopher Columbus reported seeing “ 3 mermaids” near what is now the
Dominican Republic
. As described, “he saw three mermaids, which rose well out of the sea; but they are not so beautiful as they are painted, though to some extent they have the form of a human face.” Now, there were and are some extraordinarily ugly women visiting the
Caribbean
during the winter/cruise season but these “mermaids” were probably manatees. Obviously, Admiral Columbus had been at sea a long time.
1788-
Connecticut
became the 5th state as it ratified the U.S Constitution. Dutch explorer Adriaen Block discovered the Connecticut River in 1614 however, the first permanent settlements were made by English Puritans from
Massachusetts
, starting in 1633 Geographically, it is the third smallest state, even though its original charter, granted in 1662, extended the land grant west to the
Pacific Ocean
, soared to 5,800 feet and eventually landed 15 miles away, in
Woodbury
,
New Jersey
. While in the air he provided traffic reports on the conditions on the New Jersey Turnpike and
Garden State Parkway
. It was Blanchard’s 45th flight in all. Technically, Blanchard carried the first piece of airmail with him, a "passport" presented by President Washington that directed "all citizens of the United States, and others, that…they oppose no hindrance…to the said Mr. Blanchard" and help in his efforts to "establish and advance an art, in order to make it useful to mankind in general."
1861- Mississippi – on the seventy third anniversary of Connecticut joining the Union……became the second state, after South Carolina, to secede from the Union
1868- Happy Birthday, Soren Sorenson, Danish scientist and inventor of the pH scale. Sorensen invented the scale, in 1909. S�renson reportedly was involved in work testing the acidity of beer and the pH symbol rooted in the French "pouvoir hydrogene" (power of hydrogen).The scale is a measure of the degree of the acidity or the alkalinity of a solution as measured on a scale (pH scale) of 0 to 14. The midpoint of 7.0 on the pH scale represents neutrality, i.e., a "neutral" solution is neither acid nor alkaline. Numbers below 7.0 indicate acidity; numbers greater than 7.0 indicate alkalinity.
Battery
Acid
1878- Happy Birthday, John B. Watson, American psychologist whose ideas initiated behaviorism as a branch of psychology. He was inspired by the work of Ivan Pavlov, (he of the dog drooling on stimulus experiments) and he studied the biology, physiology, and behavior of animals. He continued with studies of the behavior of children, his conclusion was that humans, while more complicated than animals, operated on the same principles. Watson strongly rejected any belief in instincts and indicated that it was for early experiences. He believed that differences in ability and talent originate in early experience in contrast to being innately determined. Watson’s behaviorism dominated psychology in the
U.S.
in the 1920s and ‘30s but that was many swings of the “psychology belief” pendulum ago and if you try to follow them all you’ll end up meshugena.
1894- William Kennedy Laurie Dickson copyrighted the first motion picture. The movie, filmed in February 1893 at the Edison studio in West Orange, New Jersey, featured 47 images of a man sneezing….”God Bless You”. Who nose what came next?
1913- Happy Birthday, Richard Nixon, 37th president of the U.S. Nixon’s Vice President, Spiro T. Agnew resigned in 1973. Nixon nominated, and Congress approved, House Minority Leader Gerald R. Ford as Vice President. After the Watergate scandal surfaced in 1972 and festered for two years and faced with what seemed almost certain impeachment, Nixon announced on August 8, 1974, that he would resign the next day to begin "that process of healing which is so desperately needed in
America
1929- The first seeing eye dog was trained in
Morristown
,
N.J.
This proved more successful than earlier attempts to train a seeing nose dog. The first school for training such dogs was established by the German government after World War I for the benefit of blinded veterans. This school, States, Seeing Eye, Inc., was founded by Dorothy Harrison Eustis. Eustis had visited the German school in
Potsdam
, wrote an article about it and received a letter from a blind man, Morris Frank, asking her to train a dog for him.
1958 - The
and Datsun (later Nissan) brand name cars made their first appearances in the
United States
at the Imported Motor Car Show in
Los Angeles
California
.
1950 – Happy Birthday, Sir Alec Jeffrey, English geneticist who discovered the technique of DNA fingerprinting, used for unique identification of humans, animals and other organisms from their DNA material on Sept. 10 1984. Without Sir Alec there would be no CSI TV series.
1968 – The last American unmanned craft to land on the Moon before the Apollo program, the Surveyor 7 space probe made a soft landing. Surveyor 7 was the fifth and final spacecraft of the Surveyor series to achieve a lunar soft landing. The primary objectives of the Surveyor program, a series of seven robotic lunar softlanding flights, were to support the coming crewed Apollo landings by developing and validating the technology for landing softly on the Moon, providing data on the compatibility of the Apollo design with conditions encountered on the lunar surface, adding to the scientific knowledge of the Moon and finding good restaurants, hotels with reasonable rates and making sure that Al Sharpton didn’t live there anymore.
1972 – At one time the Queen Elizabeth1 was the largest passenger liner in the world (this was before the incredibly ugly floating people factories known as cruise ships appeared on the scene) and on this day it caught fire and burned to unsalvageable wreckage in
Hong Kong
Harbor
. The Queen Elizabeth 1 had been built as an ocean liner, but pressed into service as a troop ship during WW II. In 1946 it was completed as a passenger liner. In 1970 it was purchased by a Hong Kong businessman, who (obscenely) decided to rename it
Seawise
Back
10. 1573- Happy Birthday, Simon Marius (Also known as Simon Mayr, Simon the Moon Observer, Simple Simon, and Simon the Says) German astronomer, pupil of silver nosed Tycho Brahe, and one of the earliest users of the telescope. He studied and named the four largest moons of Jupiter- Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto in 1609 after mythological figures closely involved in love with Jupiter (remember, Ganymede was a guy so…..). In one of many scientific disputes over credit for discoveries, although he may have made his discovery independently of Galileo, when Marius claimed to have discovered these satellites of Jupiter in the resulting dispute over priority, it was Galileo who was credited by other astronomers.
1776- Thomas Paine published the pamphlet “Common Sense.” This was followed several months later by the hip hop sequel, ”Fifty Sense”.
1843 – Happy Birthday, Frank James, lesser known brother of outlaw, Jesse James. While Jesse bit the dust in 1882, shot in the back “by the dirty little coward who shot Mr. Howard”, Frank lived until 1915. He had surrendered to the police a few months after Jesse’s murder and, incredibly, prosecutors were unable to convince juries that Frank was a criminal, and he was declared a free man after avoiding conviction at three separate trials in
Missouri
1863-London’s Metropolitan, the world’s first underground (we in
America
call it a subway) passenger railway, opened to fare-paying passengers at 6 am. The four mile, 33-min route had seven stations.
1874- Happy Birthday, Gail Borden (brother of Diving Borden), inventor of condensed milk.
1877- If anybody ever asks you who invented the industrial electrostatic precipitator in 1907, tell them it was Frederick G. Cottrell (Happy Birthday). If anybody ever asks you what it does, change the subject.
1887- Happy Birthday, Aldo Leopold, writer, ecologist, and conservationist
1911 - The first photograph to be taken in the
U.S.
from an airplane was taken. The photographer was Major H.A. Erickson who was flying in a Curtiss biplane piloted by Charles Hamilton over
San Diego
,
California
. The photo was of Babette LaBop, exotic dancer practicing her famous “Romance of the Turnips” routine.
1935- Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly solo across the Pacific Ocean as she began her flight from
Honolulu
Oakland
.
1936 – Happy Birthday, Robert W. Wilson, American radio astronomer who shared, with his coworker Arno Penzias, the 1978 Nobel Prize for Physics for their discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation in 1964. This turned out to be the remnant radiation from the “big bang” model for the creation of the universe several billion years ago. Or, possibly, it was a remnant of the first Rocky movie.
1946- The first radar signal to the moon was beamed by the Army Signal Corps. No aliens were caught speeding. But one was riding a gnu
1946 – Same day, exactly 40 years to the day, in fact, after the founding of the ill-fated League of Nations, the first General Assembly of the United Nations, comprising 51 nations, met at Westminster Central Hall in
London
,
England
. One week later, the U.N. Security Council met for the first time and established its rules of procedure.
1949- RCA introduced the “single”, the 7-inch diameter 45 rpm record (remember them?) .A singles could play eight minutes of sound per side. This format, with the long-playing records introduced a year earlier, soon replaced 78 rpm records.
1861 –
, citing “hanging chads” and 2nd hand voting machines, seceded from the
Union
1964- The Surgeon General of the
U.S.
reported cigarettes to be dangerous to the health.
1978- The
Soviet Union
launched two cosmonauts aboard a Soyuz capsule for a rendezvous with the Salyut VI space laboratory. The rendezvous would have to be in space, not on the moon. As we know, the moon has no “atmosphere.”
11. 1757 – Happy Birthday, Alexander Hamilton, American patriot and the first Secretary of the Treasury.
Hamilton
fought in the American Revolution, wrote a number of the Federalist Papers, and as a key member of George Washington’s first cabinet, was instrumental in shaping
America
’s early fiscal course.
1770 – Benjamin Franklin’s accomplishments are too numerous to mention but on this day he sent the first shipment of rhubarb from London to the United States He sent it to his friend, John Bartram in Philadelphia.
1787 - William Herschel discovered the first two moons of Uranus, six years after he had discovered the planet. Titania’s diameter is 998.2 miles (1610 km) and its distance from Uranus is 271,104 miles (436,300 km). Oberon, is the outermost of the major moons of Uranus and has a diameter of 1523 km and a distance from Uranus of 583,500 km. These names were suggested by Herschel’s son John Herschel in 1852 at the request of William Lassell, who had discovered two more moons of Uranus the year before which became known as Ariel and Umbriel. Why named the moons for characters in Shakespeare? Well, not all are from Shakespeare, Umbriel is from Alexander Pope’s poem the Rape of the Lock. Ariel appears in both. Lassel selected these names as the characters were “bright and dark spirits”. The tradition has continued and the Uranian moon count is now at 27 with all named after Shakespearean characters.* Gnus pronunciation note. The planet is pronounced yure-ernus - with the emphasis on the first syllable. It is NOT pronounced Your Anus! That would indicate that “Your anus has a ring around it. Your anus contains methane gas. Your anus was visited by a space probe. Your anus is blue. Your anus has 21 named moons and 6 unnamed moons.” All of these are incorrect......except for the methane
1814- Happy Birthday, Sir James Paget, British surgeon and physiologist who is considered (with Rudolf Virchow) to be a founder of the science of pathology. During his busy career, Paget discovered in a human muscle the parasitic worm that causes trichinosis in 1834. He also described an early indication of breast cancer known as Paget’s disease in 1874. Paget was one of the first to recommend surgical removal of bone-marrow tumors instead of amputation of the limb. He also has the somewhat dubious (in the opinion of Professor Sy Yentz) honor of having an abscess named after him. The Paget’s abscess is one that recurs around the remains of a former abscess. Yes, abscess makes the heart grow fonder…….
1861-
Union
, presumably because people could no longer leave with a banjo on their knee.
1878 - For the first time, milk was delivered in glass bottles. The idea came from Alexander Campbell, of
New York
. Previously, the cow was brought into the home and milked….no, no, no Professor Sy Yentz has his lactating sense of humor, actually people cupped their hands and……….no, no, no again. It really had been ladled out of a container by the milkman, right into the customer’s own container.
1895- Happy Birthday, Laurens Hammond, American businessman and inventor of the electronic keyboard instrument known as the
Hammond
organ.....of course his kidneys, heart, liver, brain, etc were
Hammond
1908-President Theodore Roosevelt declared the
Grand Canyon
to be a national monument.
1930 - The element Fr (francium) was discoveredium. It was discovered by Marguerite Catherine Perey, a French chemist, in 1939 while analyzing actinium’s decay sequence. Although considered a natural element, scientists estimate that there is no more than one ounce of francium in the earth’s crust at one time. Since there is so little naturally occurring francium on earth, scientists must produce francium in order to study it.
1935 - American aviator Amelia Earhart left Wheeler Field in
Honolulu
,
California
. The luggage was lost but she did enjoy the in-flight movie on the mating habits of the Sumatran Slug.
1964- On this day, the U.S. Surgeon General’s (long awaited) Report on smoking was the subject of a press conference at which Surgeon General Luther Terry, announced America’s first widely publicized official recognition of the dangers of smoking. The report stated Cigarette smoking is a health hazard of sufficient importance in the
United States
to warrant appropriate remedial action. It had been ordered by President Kennedy back in 1962 and was the product of reviews of over 7,000 articles in medical journals. The report concluded that cigarette smoking was a cause of lung and larynx cancer and of chronic bronchitis. Male cigarette smokers were 1,000 times more likely to die from lung cancer than non-smokers. In 1965, the U.S. Congress required printed health warnings on cigarette packages. Today, despite warnings on cigarette packages that tell you smoking will kill you, people still smoke!
Back
12. 1577 – Happy Birthday, Jan Baptist van Helmont, Flemish (speaking of Belgians –see Etienne Lenoir, 1822 below) chemist, physiologist and physician. Heattempted to construct a natural philosophical system based on chemical concepts. He also developed the concept of gas……probably after a meal of extra hot picante tacos…. a word he coined from the Greek chaos
1716 – Happy Birthday Antonio de Ulloa, Spanish scientist and naval officer and, first Spanish Governor of
Louisiana
born at
Seville
, Spain.who discovered the element platinum (atomic number 78) in 1735. The Spanish called this metal Platina, a diminutive of Plata, the Spanish word for silver. Actually, the first European reference to a platinum-like substance was in 1557 as Italian scientist, Julius Caesar Scaliger described a metal, found in
Colombia
, that was “impossible to melt.
1737 - Happy Birthday, John Hancock, he of the huge signature on the Declaration of Independence, American statesman born in
Braintree
,
S.C.
as the Charleston Library Society of South Carolina announced its intention of forming a museum. Its purpose was to promote the better understanding of agriculture and herbal medicine in the area. Prior to this time museums were designed for the exclusive use of collectors…….not the public. Anyone who has been in a museum as parents and/or teachers let children/teenagers run amok might think the public use ideas has some weaknesses.
1792 - Johan August Arfwedson, the Swedish chemist who discovered lithium in in the mineral petalite in 1817. Follow this closely now, the pelalite was discovered on an island outside of
Stockholm
,
Sweden
by Brazilian explorer, Jose Bonaficio Entrada y Silva. Lithium is a soft, silvery, highly reactive metallic element that is used as a heat transfer medium, in thermonuclear weapons, and in various alloys, ceramics, and optical forms of glass. Its atomic number 3.
1822 – Happy Birthday, Jean-Joseph-�tienne Lenoir , Belgian inventor who devised the world’s first commercially successful internal-combustion engine,a double-acting, electric spark-ignition internal combustion engine which was fueled by coal gas in 1860. A favorite parlor game is “name famous Belgians”. So, go ahead……………
1856 - John Singer Sargent, Italian born, American painter/portraitist noted for his coloring and use of light. Among is works are; Girl in a Pink Dress, Lady Agnew (no relation to former Vice President Spiro Agnew) of Lochnaw, and Mrs. Fiske Warren and Her Daughter
1866 - The Royal Aeronautical Society was formed in
London
. Initially, there were sixty five members.
1876- Happy Birthday, Jack London , oyster pirate, deep-sea sailor, hobo, Alaskan prospector, and one of America’s great novelists who wrote The Call of the Wild, The Sea Wolf, and White Fang.
1893 - Hermann G�ring, 2nd in command to Adolf Hitler, Nazi head of the Luftwaffe, anti semite, mass murderer and art thief born on the same day and almost died on the same day as ….see below
1893 – Happy Birthday Alfred Rosenberg, muddled Nazi philosopher.Goering was scheduled for execution on the same day as
Rosenberg
but cheated the hangman bu commiting suicide using cyanide smuggled into his cell.
Rosenberg
was executed the next day, October 16, 1946.
1896- X-rays for humans were discovered by Dr. Henry Louis Smite. He obtained the hand of a corpse and fired a bullet into it. He took a picture that showed the exact location of the bullet. Dr. Smite undertook the experiment in the belief that he smite as well give it a try. This was the plot for a never-produced episode of CSI in which Gil Grissom shoots all the whiny co-characters…….which is, basically, all of them.
1899- Happy Birthday, Paul Mueller, Swiss chemist and Nobel Prize winner in 1948. He discovered DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane – try saying it fast three times..) in 1939. which was used as a pesticide for insects (mosquitoes, louse,
Colorado
beetle) which carried diseases such a malaria and yellow fever, until it was found to be harmful to birds and other wildlife. See Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring.
1932-Ophelia Wyatt (Hattie) Caraway, a Democrat from
Arkansas
, became the first woman to be elected to the U.S. Senate. She replaced her husband, who had died in October 1932. Yes, her children were “Caraway Seed”.
1935 – Happy Birthday, The Amazing Kreskin, mentalist. Nothing more to say, just concentrate on his name and he’ll send you his bio telepathically.
1946 – Happy Birthday, Cynthia Robinson American musician – trumpet- (Sly & the Family Stone). Listen to Dance to the Music and you’ll hear “You might like to hear the horns blowin',Cynthia on the throne, yeah!Cynthia & Jerry got a message they're sayin' – Cynthia then sings “All the squares, go home!”
1965 - Scientists conducted what they called a “controlled excursion”. This was the burning up a nuclear rocket in
Nevada
. The rocket took off from aptly named considering the idea and the results, Jackass Flats at the Nevada Test Site in Death Valley Prevailing winds pushed the resulting cloud of radioactive debris over "the
Los Angeles
area," Unexpectedly, the “controlled excursion” produced a radioactive cloud over
Los Angeles
and
San Diego
observed "increased radioactivity" on the two days following the test, according to a 1968 report prepared by the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Obviously, many genes were mutated and this explains everything about
Hollywood
from Tom Cruise to the epidemic of cosmetic surgery, to the lack of brains and taste, and lastly, the sub- thirty (age and I.Q) crop of new film stars and “celebutards”.
1966- “Holy premier Batman” Batman the TV series made its debut on ABC starring Adam West as Batman and Burt Ward as Robin. The show was thirty minutes but since most episodes were two-parters, breathless fans were kept on the edge of their seats as the first part ended with Batman in dire straits. The first episode’s villain was The Riddler, played by Frank Gorshin. Other popular villains were Caesar Romero as the Joker, Burgess Meredith as The Penguin and three, yes three Catwomen - # 1 was Julie Newmar, # - Eartha Kitt, and # 3, Lee Meriweather – through the years.
1967 – No, Walt Disney wasn’t cryonically frozen pending a cure for cancer but Dr. James Bedford became the first person to be cryonically preserved with intent of future resuscitation.
Bedford
was/is(?) a 73-year-old psychologist. His body is reportedly still in good condition at Alcor Life Extension Foundation. You’ll find him right behind the frozen yogurt and the frozen lamb chops in the company refridgerator……no,no,no Professor Sy Yentz has his rigid sense of humor….
1969- A note on the expansion of sports and football in particular, The New York Jets defeated the Baltimore Colts 16-7 in Super Bowl III at the Orange Bowl in
Miami
. Note, that the Super Bowl…in early January ….as opposed to the early February extravaganza in which the half time show takes longer than some games.
1971 – Five years to the day after the debut of Batman came the debut of All in the Family. All in the Family, starring Carroll O’Connor, Jean Stapleton, Rob Reiner, and Sally Struthers, changed the face of TV, not necessarily for the better, by introducing loud, obnoxious bigoted characters so that the American people could be taught lessons about tolerance by
Hollywood
1984- Restorers working on the pyramids outside
Cairo
,
Egypt
, stopped using mortar and adopted the original construction system of interlocking blocks practiced by the mysterious ancient Egyptian pyramid builders. An international panel overseeing the restoration of the Great Pyramids in
Egypt
found that modern construction techniques were destructive rather than restorative since the water in modern cement caused adjacent limestone stones to split. After trying alternatives such as paper mach�, crazy glue, and melted marshmallows, they opted for the original Egyptian technique.
1986 - Dr. Franklin R. Chang-Diaz, the first Hispanic-American (born in Costa Rica) in space was on the shuttle Columbia as it blasted off with a crew that also included U.S. Rep. Bill Nelson, D-Fla (obviously on board to supply hot air). It was the 24th space shuttle mission. Chang Diaz also flew on Atlantis, October 18-23, 1989, Atlantis (again) in July 31-August 8, 1992, Discovery in 1994,
Columbia
, February 22 to March 9, 1996), Discovery (June 2-12, 1998), and Endeavour (June 5-19, 2002). So he flew on
Columbia
twice, Atlantis twice, Discovery twice and Endeavour, once. With this kind of experience, anyone looking to buy a used shuttle would have Chang Diaz as their “personal shopper”.
1998- “Send in the Clones”….not, so fast…. Nineteen European nations signed a treaty in
Paris
opposing human cloning. However, they did make lots of copies of the treaty.
2005 - Deep Impact launched from
Cape Canaveral
on a Delta 2 rocket. Deep Impact, a 2-part craft, sent a 350-kilogram (770-pound) copper projectile into comet 9P/Tempel 1, on July 4, 2005 creating a crater as big as a football field and as deep as a seven-story building. A camera and infrared spectrometer on the spacecraft, along with ground-based observatories, studied the resulting icy debris blasted off the comet, as well as the pristine interior material exposed by the impact. The other part of Deep Impact is still up there and still working. Deep Impact flew by Earth on December 31, 2007 at 19:29 UTC, taking photos of the Moon. It used and use Earth's gravity to change course to encounter another comet, Jupiter-family comet 103P/Hartley 2, on October 11, 2010. Note; initially it was supposed to rendezvous in 2008 with comet Boethin but that idea was abandoned since Boethin could not be found.
2007 -Comet McNaught reached perihelion –closest point to the Sun- becoming the brightest comet in more than 40 years. The solar light turned it so bright that for a few days it was actually visible in broad daylight! Unfortunately for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, McNaught was only visible in the Southern Hemisphere. When McNaught emerged from the sun's glare into the skies of the Southern Hemisphere, the tail alone stopped traffic and was mistaken for a brush fire, an explosion, a mysterious cloud and probably many other things never reported. Now Comet NcNaught is receding into the outer solar system, possibly carrying a message from Tom Cruise to the Kuiper Belt, never to return
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13. 1128 – In what would be a banner day for contemporary Da Vinci Code type novelists who love to use them in their treasure/conspiracy/secrets of the Catholic Church novels, Pope Honorius II granted a papal sanction to the military order known as the Knights Templar, declaring it to be an army of God. The Knights were led by the Frenchman Hughes de Payens, and had been founded in 1118. Their mission was to protect Christian pilgrims on their way to the
Holy Land
during the Crusades. The Knights thrived until 1307 when King Philip IV of
France
, in need of money, and his puppet, Pope Clement V combined to eliminate the knights on charges of heresy, sacrilege, Satanism and watching too much Judge Judy on TV. Philip (surprise) ended up with most of their money and treasures.
1610-Galileo Galilei discovered Callisto, the fourth moon of Jupiter. Galileo originally referred to the individual moons numerically as I, II, III and IV. Galileo’s naming system would be used for a couple of centuries. It wouldn’t be until the mid-1800’s that the names of the Galilean moons, Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, would be officially adopted, and only after it became apparent that naming moons by number would be very confusing as new additional moons were being discovered. Note: there have been so many planetary moons discovered over the past 20 years that they have reverted to numbers for many of the smaller ones. It is now more confusing than ever. Best answer to the question, “How many moons does Jupiter have?”
Answer - “ A lot”. Callisto was a nymph loved by Zeus and hated by Hera. Hera changed her into a bear and Zeus then placed her in the sky as the constellation Ursa Major.
It is now known that Callisto is larger/smaller (take your choice – although it has considerably less mass….probably due to the Protestant Reformation….) than the planet Mercury, and is composed mostly of water and water ice with large quantities of ice exposed on the surface.
1733 - James Oglethorpe and 130 English colonists arrived in
Charleston
on their way to colonize the last of the original thirteen colonies,
Georgia
. Oglethorpe would actually like until after the American Revolution – 1785.
Georgia
was the only colony of the thirteen that received financial aid by a vote of Parliament -- the only one in the planting of which the British government, as such, took a part. The colony differed from all others also in prohibiting slavery and the importation of intoxicating liquors
1842 - Dr. William Brydon, a surgeon in the British Army during the First Anglo-Afghan War, (a proxy war between England and Russia with India and Persia and Afghanistan all involved) becomes famous for being the sole survivor of an army of 16,00 when he reached the safety of a garrison in Jalalabad. On January 6, the English garrison of
Kabul
, under siege, was forced to withdraw back to
India
. On this day, a single horseman arrived at the garrison in Jellalabad. Dr William Brydon was the lone survivor of 16,000, who were killed on the road from
Kabul
, at the hands of the Afghan tribesmen. The 13th Light Infantry manned the fortifications of Jellalabad had sounded a bugle every hour for 3 days in an attempt to guide any further survivors to the Garrison. No one came.
1854- A memorable day in music history as the first
U.S.
patent for an accordion was issued to Anthony Faas of Philadephia.
Pa.
This laid the foundation for Lawrence Welk and hundreds of bad polka bands. Accordions had been around for a while, in fact An instrument called accordion was first patented in 1829 by Cyrill Demian in
Vienna
. Faas claimed his accordion had two improvements on the Demian model, he added two more scales to the diatonic scale that could produce intermediate notes, and he added a sound-board, for the purpose of producing more strength, fullness and resonance of tone with the instrument. “Roll Out the Barrel……”
1864- A bad day for the arts, the first of three famous “artists” to die on this day, Stephen Foster - kaput,
America
’s first professional songwriter, Foster died at the age of 37 in the charity ward of
New York
Bellevue
Hospital
. His first hit as a professional songwriter was Oh! Susanna, which he sold to a publisher for $100 in 1848. Between 1850 and 1860, Foster wrote many of his most famous songs, including Camptown Races and My Old Kentucky Home. Despite his success, copyright laws were rarely enforced in music at the time, and he did not make much money from the widespread performance and publication of his songs. By 1857, he was in such dire economic straits that he had to sell all rights to his future songs for just under $2,000.
1888- The National Geographic Society was founded. This, of course, is much better than having the National Geographic Society losted. Thirty three explorers geographers, teachers, lawyers, cartographers, military officers, and financiers met in
Washington
D.C.
The adopted a resolution that the Society be organized “on as broad and liberal a basis in regard to qualifications for membership as is consistent with its own well-being and the dignity of the science it represents.” (And put pictures of naked women on the covers of their magazine….no, no, no Professor Sy Yentz has his aboriginal sense of humor…) Over the next two weeks a constitution and plan of organization were prepared, and on January 27, 1888, the National Geographic Society was officially incorporated.
1908- Henry Farman, an English-born Frenchman, flew the first one-kilometer circuit. In doing so he won the Grand Prix de Aviation and its 50,000 franc purse (a very expensive purse…we can’t imagine how much the entire pocketbook would have cost) . Reaching heights of over 100 ft., the entire flight lasted 28-sec, but covered the prescribed kilometer. The flight was, of course delayed as he was number 23 in line to take off from
Kennedy
Airport
. His luggage was lost. The in-flight snack of peanuts gave him hives, and the person in the next seat hadn’t bathed in months.
1920- The New York Times published an editorial saying that rockets would never fly. They stated that "Professor (Robert) Goddard does not know the relation between action and reaction and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react. He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily in high schools."
Also, to give them credit, the day after Neil Armstrong walked on the moon in 1969, the New YorkTimes printed a short boxed item on page 2. It read in full:
"Errata: It has now been conclusively demonstrated that a rocket ship can
travel through the vacuum of space. The Times sincerely regrets the error.")
1929- Wyatt Earp kaput. Nearly 50 years after the famous gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Wyatt Earp died quietly in
Los Angeles
at the age of 80. He was not really an artist (unless gun fighting was an art), but where would Westerns be without Wyatt Earp?
1939 – Doc Barker kaput. Doc, son of the infamous “Ma” Barker and member of the Barker/Karpis Gang of bank robbers, kidnappers and murderers was killed while trying to escape from Alcatraz Prison in
San Francisco
Bay
. Barker, having climbed over a wall, was spotted on the shore of the island tying pieces of wood together into a makeshift raft. As he waded into the water, the guards shot and killed him. Of the Barker-Karpis (
Alvin
“Creepy” Karpis) gang/associates 18 arrested; 3 killed by lawmen; 2 killed by gangsters. Mother “Ma” and brother Fred were killed in January 1935 (eight days after Doc’s arrest). Brother Lloyd was killed by his (found to be insane) wife in 1949.
1941- James Joyce kaput. The third famous artist to pass away on January 13, James Joyce, Ireland’s greatest writer, (who did much of his writing in Zurich, Switzerland) author of Ulysses, Finnegan’s Wake, and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, died at the age of 58.
1942 - Henry Ford patented a plastic automobile. The plastic car was 30% lighter than a regular car. The car was 70% of cellulose fibers from wheat straw, better known as hemp and sisal plus 30% resin binder. The only steel in the car was its tubular welded frame. The plastic was reported to withstand a blow 10 times as great as steel without denting. Even the windows were made of plastic. Ultimately, the car failed to capture the public’s fancy because it ran on ethanol rather than gasoline. By that time, huge new oil fields were being discovered and petroleum had become much more cost-effective than plant-based ethanol. Nowadays it doesn’t seem like such a bad idea.
1957 The Wham-O Company developed the first frisbee. The name frisbie had originated in 1870 in
Bridgeport
,
Ct.
where a pie maker, William Frisbie's, packed his pies in circular tin pans bearing the family name. They were all the rage for students at nearby
Yale
University
who came to consider them a “two-fer”: not only did they enjoy eating the pies, but they seemed to gain equal pleasure from tossing around the empty pie pan. When throwing it, they would call out “frisbie” in imitation of the call of “fore” for golfers. Flash forward to the 1950s where, Californian Walter
Frederick
's interest in the UFO craze made him think of designing his own toy flying saucer. The Wham-O company of
San Gabriel
, bought
Frederick
's idea and in 1957 set out to turn the rest of country on to the "Flyin' Saucers" craze. However, when Wham-O president Richard Knerr traveled east he discovered college students tossing Frisbie pie pans for fun. Knerr decided to call his toy -- the Frisbee – and voila! Wham-O went on to market the Hula-Hoop, the Super Ball, the Water Wiggle, and other toys, but Frisbee remained its most profitable product
1962 -Chubby Checker’s (his name was a “twist” on that of singer Fats Domino) hit “The Twist” became the first song to reach the No. 1 spot twice in two years. “The Twist”, considered one of the most successful singles (45 rpm) of all time, had hit the top of the charts in September 1960. The Chubster (born Earnest Evans, had taken the name Chubby Checker at the suggestion of TV host Dick Clark’s wife of all people) continued with a dance themed records including Pony Time, (featuring the immortal lyrics, “boogety boogety boogety shoo”..) The Fly, and the Hucklebuck (which actually sounds a lot like the Twist)
1976- Raymond Kurzweil demonstrated how to use a machine that helped blind people read- first omni-font optical character recognition, the first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind
1978- NASA selected its first female astronauts. The Six women chosen as astronaut candidates were Rhea Seddon, Kathryn Sullivan – three shuttle missions, Judith Resnik - died on January 28, 1986 on her second mission, during the launch of Challenger STS-51-L., Sally Ride – who would fly two shuttle missions and become the first American woman in space, Anna Fisher – one shuttle mission – the second was cancelled after the Challenger disaster, and Shannon Lucid- four shuttle missions.
1999- Michael Jordan, the greatest player to ever play the game of basketball, announced the second of his three retirements from the game. An earlier retirement for a baseball career but really due to potential gambling charges, had ended and he led his team, the Chicago Bulls to six world championships in all. This retirement ended a year later as he assumed control of the Washington Wizards basketball team and eventually played for them (he should have stayed retired). He retired for good in 2003.
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14. 1741- Happy Birthday, Benedict Arnold, American traitor. Arnold went from being a hero of the American Revolution to having a hissy fit over a perceived insult regarding a promotion, and attempting to turn West Point over to the British and then joining the British Army.
1794-Ouch! Elizabeth Hog Bennett became the first woman in the
U.S.
to successfully give birth to a child by a Cesarean section. Her husband, Dr. Jessee Bennett of
Edom
,
Va.
, performed the operation, though he had no anesthetic to give her. Although this was the first in the U.S, the Cesarean operation has been traced as far back as ancient Chinese etchings that depict the procedure on apparently living women. The procedure gets it name from the Roman law under Julius Caesar decreed that all women who were dead or dying must be cut open to save the child.
1861- Happy Birthday, David Wesson, American chemist who created – you guessed it - Wesson Oil in 1926.
1875- Happy Birthday, Albert Schweitzer, Alsacian/German philosopher, organist, scientist, humanitarian. Schweitzer has been called the greatest Christian of his time. He based his personal philosophy on a “reverence for life” and on a deep commitment to serve humanity through thought and action. For his many years of humanitarian efforts Schweitzer was awarded the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize.
1878 – Two years after its invention the first demonstration of Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone was given for Queen
Victoria
. When the Queen saw his telephone, she was very impressed, and ordered a private line to be laid between Osborne House, on the Isle of Wight, and
Buckingham
Palace
where she placed weekly orders for Chinese Take-out, Pizza and spent many happy hours gossiping with the girls.
1890- Happy Birthday, Rolla N. Harger, American toxicologist and biochemist who was at Indiana University when he invented the first successful machine for testing human blood alcohol content, called the Drunkometer in 1931. (see Dec. 31). The Drunkometer was the first breathalyzer test.
1914- Henry Ford started the assembly line. Prior to this it took 12 and ahalf hours to put a car together. As of this date it took 93 minutes.........just in time for the “President’s Day Sales Event”.
1943 - Happy Birthday, Shannon Lucid, a member of the 1978 female astronaut selection class, (see Jan. 13) American biochemist and astronaut who culminated her “astronomical” career by staying aboard the Russian space station Mir in 1996 for a record-breaking 188 days. Her first shuttle flight was in Jun 1985 on the Discovery, followed by the Atlantis in Oct 1989 and again in Aug 1991, where she conducted a variety of biomedical experiments. In Oct 1993, she became the first woman to travel into space on four separate occasions on the ill-fated
Columbia
, setting a record for the most total flight time accumulated by a female astronaut on the shuttle (838 hours, 54 minutes).
1943 – Continuing the aeronautical theme of this day, Franklin Roosevelt landed in
Casablanca
,
North Africa
for a meeting with Winston Churchill and became the first president to travel on official business by airplane. The plane had taken off on January 11 but made 4 stops to allow the 60 year-old
Roosevelt
some rest.
1955 – The first Rock n Roll dance concert in NYC took place as Alan Freed, disc jockey of the popular radio show Rock ‘n’ Roll Party, produced his concert featuring the Drifters, Fats Domino, and Big Joe Turner, who had done the original version of Shake Rattle & Roll (covered by Bill Haley & His Comets in 1955) in 1952.
1989- Great moments in Western Civilization --The premiere of animated television series The Simpsons The Simpsons, created by cartoonist Matt Groening (and named for the members of his immediate family except for Bart, which is an anagram for Brat), first appeared in 1987 as a series of -secospots produced for the Emmy Award-winning variety series The Tracey Ullman Show. sons premiered as a half-hour comedy series January 14, 1990.
1997 - The discovery in
of the lyceum where the philosopher Aristotle taught 2,500 years ago was confirmed by
Greece
’s Minister of Culture. In 335 BC, Aristotle opened a lyceum to rival the academy.
2005- The Huygens space probe landed on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. It had been released from the Cassini spacecraft when its orbit around Saturn converged with the path of Titan on 24 Dec 2004.
15. 1559- Two months after the death of her half-sister, Queen Mary I (known to history as “Bloody Mary”) of
England
, Elizabeth Tudor, the 25-year-old daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, was crowned Queen Elizabeth I at Westminster Abbey in
London
.
1622 – Happy Birthday, Jean Moliere, French playwright; author of the Misanthrope, Tartuffe, and others. One of the most famous moments in Moli�re’s life is his last, which became legend. He collapsed on stage, while performing Le Malade Imaginaire. He died a few hours later at his house. It is said that he was wearing green, and because of that, there is a superstition that green brings bad luck to actors
1777- Then known as New Connecticut, the area that would become the state of Vermont, declared its independence not only from Great Britain but also New York.
1797-The top hat was first worn in
England
London
haberdasher.
1861 -The safety elevator was patented as a “Hoisting Apparatus” by the American inventor, Elisha G. Otis, of
Yonkers
,
New York
. His invention was designed to arrest a fall in case of the lifting rope breaking. The process, however, did have its ups and downs.
1863- Wood pulp paper was first used in the
U.S.
for a printed newspaper by the Boston Morning Herald of
Boston
,
Mass.
It was a four-page eight column newspaper that sold for 3 cents per copy. The first front page featured Sen. Ted Kennedy with his foot stuck in his mouth.
1908 -Happy Birthday, Edward Teller (brother of Bank Teller),Hungarian-born American nuclear physicist who participated in the production of the first atomic bomb (1945) and who led the development of the world’s first thermonuclear weapon, the hydrogen bomb.
1929- Happy Birthday, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
1936- The first, all glass, windowless building in the
U.S.
started its system. Cost was about $4,000.
1970- The first evidence was uncovered of the razing by fire of
Jerusalem
set by Roman troops led by General Titus in 70 A.D. upon orders from his father, the Emperor, Vespasian. Titus went on to become emperor briefly enough to begin work on the Colosseum. He was succeeded by his brother Domitian.
2004 – Having landed 2 weeks earlier, the NASA Spirit rover rolled onto the surface of Mars for the first time. It quickly discovered that in the previous 2 weeks, 2 MacDonalds, a Walmart, and a Sabrett Hot Dog stand with umbrella had been built.
16. 929 –Long before the Crusades, Muslims had been attacking Europe, on this day Emir Abd-ar-Rahman III of
Cordoba
declares himself caliph, thereby establishing the Caliphate of Cordoba, most of the Iberian Peninsula of Spain and
Portugal
1493 - Christopher Columbus departed the
New World
On December 24, the
Santa Maria
ran aground on a coral reef two miles off the Haitian coast, where it quickly capsized, filled with water and went kaput. He sailed back on the Ni�a, After a difficult voyage they made a safer return to
Spain
on March 15, 1493… where he invented the “Columbus Day Sales”.
1547 - Ivan the Terrible (Ivan IV) became Czar of Russia. He wasn’t completely terrible. Despite a terrible childhood during which he was horribly mistreated by the governing regents, the first part of his reign was far sighted and benevolent. Unfortunately, the second part, wasn’t so good. He became mentally unbalanced and violent against both his people and his family. In a dispute with the wealthy city of
Novgorod
, Ivan ordered the murder of the inhabitants of the city. His followers burned and pillaged the city and villages. As many as 60,000 might have been killed during the infamous Massacre of Novgorod in 1570. In 1581, Ivan beat his pregnant daughter-in-law for wearing what he felt was immodest clothing. This may have caused a miscarriage. His son, also named Ivan, upon learning of this beating, got into a violent argument with his father, which resulted in Ivan striking his son in the head with his pointed staff, causing his son's (accidental) death. Ivan died while playing chess with an aid Bogdan Belsky. in 1584. Large amounts of mercury were discovered in his body when it was exhumed during the 1960’s. He was probably poisoned by his advisors Belsky and Boris Godunov….who became tsar in 1598.
1556 - Philip II became King of Spain. Philip, of course sent the Spanish Armada to invade
England
in 1588, one of history’s greatest military disasters.
1605 - The first edition of El ingenioso
hidalgo
Don Quijote de la Mancha (Book One of Don Quixote) by Miguel de Cervantes was published in
Madrid
. Part 2 was published in 1615, just one year before Cervantes died.
1767- Happy Birthday, Anders Gustav Ekeberg,Swedish chemist who in 1802 discovered the element tantalum. Yes whenever things didn’t go well he would stamp his feet and pull his hair and throw a tantalum. Actually, tantalum is an ore and is used to make components for chemical plants, nuclear power plants, airplanes and missiles.
1777 -
declared its independence from
New York
. Everyone else in the U.S – post independence-ignored it. Delegates first named the independent state New Connecticut but in June 1777, finally settled on the name
Vermont
which presumably means “lots of snow and long cold winters but the skiing is good”. In fact,
Vermont
remained an independent nation even two years after George Washington became president of the
United States of America
under the new U.S. Constitution. However, as the politics of slavery grew in importance,
Vermont
was admitted as the 14th state in 1791, thus serving as a free counterbalance to slaveholding
Kentucky
Union
in 1792.
1853- Happy Birthday, Andre Michelin, French industrialist who took over his grandfather’s rubber and agricultural goods company in 1896 and, with his younger brother �douard, founded Michelin Tire Co. in 1888. The Michelins made the first pneumatic tires that could be easily removed for repair for bicycles in 1891 –they were demonstrated At the
Paris
-
Paris
bicycle race and for automobiles in 1895. They also developed tire tread patterns, low-pressure balloon tires, and steel-cord tires. They did not invent the “Michelin Man”.
1864 – As the American Civil War raged, King Christian IX of Denmark declared war on the German Confederation in order to occupy Schleswig thus igniting the Danish-Prussian War (Second war of Schleswig)….which the Danish lost.
1866 -Everett Hosmer Barney, a Civil War arms producer, patented the all-metal screw clamp roller skates, which attached to normal shoes and were tightened with a key…….yes, the famous skate key that thousands of youngsters lost over the years. Clamp skates dropped out of popularity with the advent of modern “sneakers” which lack a hard edge where the roller skates could be clamped resulting in a squshed foot.
1896 – The game invented by Dr. James Naismith in 1891, basketball, had its first five-player on a side college basketball game. It was played at
Iowa City
of
Iowa
by the score of 15-12. Iron hoops and a “net” had been introduced in 1893 so it was no longer necessary to retrieve the ball from the basket. We believe none of the players in the game had tattoos covering their bodies nor did they preen, pose or make faces after every successful shot.
1901 – Happy Birthday, Frank Zamboni, born in
Eureka
,
Utah
, American inventor of the ice resurfacer….better known as the Zamboni in 1949. Prior to this several workers had to scrape the ice surface with tractors, shovel away the scraped ice, hose the rink with water, and then wait for the fresh water to freeze which took time. This could be especially painful to spectators at an outdoor hockey game. Zamboni built a machine that did it all. He modified a tractor adding a blade that shaved the ice smooth, added a device that swept up the shavings into a tank,and also added an apparatus that rinsed the ice and left a very thin top layer of water that would freeze within a minute.
1909-British explorer Ernest Shackleton, born in
County Kildare
,
Ireland
found the magnetic south pole. We guess he was attracted to it. Shackleton had been a member of Robert Scott’s failed 1902 Discovery expedition to the South Pole. On this, the Nimrod expedition, Shackleton reached the magnetic pole on their furthest south point of 88�23'S, just 97 miles from the physical pole. A flag was planted and photographs taken, they turned around and began to head for home. Remember, this was summer in
Antarctica
but the expedition was still beset by blizzards. Shackleton later wrote to his wife “ I thought, dear, that you would rather have a live ass than a dead lion”.
1919- One of the great social engineering failures in American history, the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, prohibiting the “manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes,” achieved the necessary two-thirds majority of state ratification, and thus became the law of the land………until 1933 when it was repealed.
1932-Happy Birthday, Dian Fossey American zoologist who for years made a daily study of the mountain forest gorillas of
Rwanda
, central
Africa
. She wrote Gorillas in the Mist (1983) to acquaint the public with the threats to the gorillas from poachers and loss of habitat. In 1985, Fossey’s mutilated body, hacked by machete, was found near the center. Poachers, whose devastating attacks on the gorillas she had tried to stop, were suspected for her murder although there were no arrests and the crime remains unsolved.
1936- The first photo finish camera was installed at a
U.S.
racetrack. The electric eye was used for races at
Hialeah
,
Florida
. A photo finish occurs in a race, when two (or more) competitors cross the finish (as opposed to the Swedish) line at near the same time. The naked eye may not be able to discriminate between which of the competitors crossed the line first so a strip photo, a series of rapidly triggered photographs taken at the finish line may be used for a more accurate check. Horses and riders were requested to say “cheese” as they crossed the finish line.
1945 - With his “1000 Year Reich” collapsing and his country in ruins, Adolf Hitler, key aides ( Josef Goebbels), and their families, moved into his underground bunker, the so-called F�hrerbunker in
Berlin
. He would remain there until his suicide on April 30.
1964 – Composer Jerry Herman’s award winning musical "Hello, Dolly!" starring Carol Channing opened on Broadway, beginning a run of 2,844 performances. Bombastic singer, Ethel Merman (also born on this day in 1908 was the first choice to play Dolly Levi. Following Channing in the role on Broadway were, Pearl Bailey, Ginger Rogers, Martha Raye, Betty Grable, Phyllis Diller (really!) and original choice Ethel Merman and then Channing returned. While all this was going on they made a movie of the play starring the hopelessly mis-cast Barbra Streisand in the title role.
1969- The first docking of two manned spacecraft took place between the Soviet Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5.The Soyuz was named after the Beatles hit recording of I Soyuz Standing There….no, no, no Professor Sy Yentz has his “mod” sense of humor…actually it means “union”. The spacecraft formed what was could be called “the world’s first space station” with a crew of four aboard. They remained docked for four and a half hours - three orbits of the Earth. The cosmonauts went back and forth between the two space craft enjoying a game of “Got You Last”.
1991- Operation Desert Storm began when an F-117 stealth fighter destroyed Iraq’s telecommunication center………..interrupting the broadcast of the #1 rated Iraqi television show, Mahmoud in the Middle.
2003- The space shuttle
Columbia
and its crew of seven including Rick D. Husband Commander, William C. McCool , Pilot, Mission Specialist, , Flight Engineer, Payload Commander, Mission Specialist and Ilan Ramon Payload Specialist – a res. col. Israeli Air Force , blasted off from Cape Canaveral. The shuttle would break apart during its return descent on Feb. 1, killing everyone on board. The cause of the accident was a piece of foam that broke off during launch and damaged the thermal protection system components (reinforced carbon-carbon panels and thermal protection tiles) on the leading edge of the left wing of the
Columbia
, causing an extensive heat build-up. During re-entry the damaged wing slowly overheated and came apart, eventually leading to loss of control and total disintegration of the vehicle.
2005 - Adriana Iliescu became the oldest woman in the world to give birth, at age 66. The child, a bouncing 37 year old girl……no, no, no Professor Sy Yentz has his maternal sense of humor…….was one of twin girls delivered by Caesarean Section – the second was stillborn. She became pregnant through in vitro fertilization using sperm and egg from anonymous donors.
2006- The first successful mission to study a comet, the Stardust capsule successfully returned to Earth, carrying dust from Comet Wild 2. It ended its six-year mission with the first successful collection of cometary and interstellar material, as well as the first rock samples taken from space since the Apollo missions. The Stardust spacecraft used a strange material called aerogel to capture dust particles from the comet. The dust was moving at about 21,960 kilometers (13,650 miles) per hour - as it zoomed by Stardust. Aerogel is so light and fluffy that it was able to stop and capture dust grains without destroying them. It also leaves your hair soft and manageable.
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17. 1706- Happy Birthday, Benjamin Franklin, American inventor, scientist and statesman. He invented a type of stove, the Franklin Stove, still being manufactured, to give more warmth than open fireplaces; the lightning rod and bifocal eyeglasses. He also helped establish institutions people now take for granted: a fire company in 1736), a library in 1731, an academy in 1751, and an insurance company in 1752.
Franklin
wanted a deeper shade of red in the American flag. George Washington reportedly said “
Franklin
! scarlet, I don’t give a damn”. Yeesh.
1861- The flush toilet was patented by Thomas Crapper of
England
who was immediately flushed with success.
1871 - Andrew S. Hallidie of
San Francisco
,
California
received a patent for a cable car system. The public transportation system was put into operation in the city by the bay 2 years later in 1873. Although it had its ups and downs, it provided a fast, safe way to travel up and down
San Francisco
1893- On the
Hawaiian Islands
, a group of American sugar planters under Sanford Ballard Dole overthrow Queen Liliuokalani, the Hawaiian monarch, and establish a new provincial government with Dole as president. President Grover Cleveland sent a new
U.S.
minister to
Hawaii
to restore Queen Liliuokalani to the throne under the 1887 constitution, but Dole refused to step aside and instead proclaimed the independent
Republic
in 1897. The Spanish-American War of 1898 cemented
Hawaii
’s strategic value to the U.S and President McKinley made it a protectorate.
1899 - Happy Birthday, Brooklyn born,
Chicago
based, Al Capone, gangster and mainstay of gangster movies.
1905 - Wouldn’t it hurt your knuckles? Punchboards were patented by Charles A. Brewer & C.G. Scannell of
Chicago
,
Illinois
1945-Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, credited with saving tens of thousands of Jews, during WW II, disappeared in
Hungary
while in Soviet custody. He was never seen again.
1949- These days, “sitcoms” on TV are as ubiquitous as adolescent acne but on this day, The Goldbergs debuted as television’s first situation comedy. The show ran until 1954.The show, which evolved from a nearly 20-year-old popular radio program of the same name, followed the adventures of a middle-class Jewish family in the
Bronx
. Gertrude Berg played gossipy housewife Molly Goldberg, and Philip Loeb played her husband, Jake, who worked in the clothing business. They had two teenagers, Sammy and Rosalie.
1966 – “Are you sure it’s not here?” “No, we already looked there”. Maybe it’s over there………” A hydrogen bomb was lost as a B-52 bomber carrying four H-bombs had a mid-air collision with a re-fueling tanker jet. Three of the bombs were recovered. They were not armed but there was radiation damage on the ground. The 4th was never found.
1994-A magnitude 6.7 earthquake struck Southern California, killing at least 61 people and causing $20 billion worth of damage. The quake destroyed the home of Charles Richter’s (inventor of the Richter Scale) nephew. Most of Charles Richter’s papers were in the home.
1995- Same day, a year later, magnitude 7.2 earthquake devastated the city of
Kobe
. Two days later, he landed at Waimea on the
island
of
Kauai
. He named the island group the Sandwich Islands, in honor of John Montague, who was the earl of
Sandwich
and one his patrons. After landing a Waimea, they spent the afternoon surfing and then attended a luau hosted by Don Ho in the evening. Note the events of January 17th 1893 above
1779- Happy Birthday, Peter Roget, English physician (synonyms - MD *, bones *, doc *, doctor , general practitioner , healer , medic , medical practitioner , medico , pill pusher , quack *, sawbones *, specialist , surgeon ) born in London. After retiring from medicine, Roget spent the rest of his life on the project that has made his name, his thesaurus (synonyms - glossary , language reference book , lexicon , onomasticon , reference book , sourcebook , storehouse of words , terminology , treasury of words , vocabulary , word list ), Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases, which was a dictionary of synonyms. His thesaurus was published in 1852 and has never been out of print. He was also the inventor (synonyms - architect , author , builder , coiner , creator , designer , experimenter , father , founder , innovator , maker , originator , pioneer ) of the slide rule – 1814- and the pocket chessboard.
1782- Happy Birthday, lawyer, politician - a Representative from
New Hampshire
and a Representative and a Senator from
Massachusetts
and statesman, Daniel Webster of
Salisbury
,
NH
1788-The first 736 convicts exiled from England to Australia landed in Botany Bay – discovered by Captain James Cook (see 1778 above) in 1770. Cook had two botanists, Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander aboard the Endeavour. When they landed, they intended to call it Stingray Bay-guess why?- but the name was changed to
Botany Bay
because of the flourishing plant life. Over the next 60 years, approximately 50,000 criminals were transported from
Great Britain
to the “land down under.” Nowadays, many criminals find their way into sports, Wall Street, and congress.
1799- Happy Birthday, Joseph Dixon, American inventor and manufacturer who pioneered the industrial use of graphite. In fact,
Dixon
produced the first pencil made in the
United States
and was responsible for the development of the graphite industry in the
United States
. Think of him the next time you use a pencil. Yep, that’s graphite in there. Even though
Dixon
produced the first graphite pencil in 1829, people still wrote with quill pens and ink up until the Civil War when the demand for a dry, clean, portable writing instrument became popular and led to the mass production of pencils. Dixon was the first to develop pencil automation. In 1872, his company was making 86,000 pencils a day. So the logical question now is “who invented the pencil sharpener?” - Bernard Lassimone, a French mathematician, applied for the first patent on pencil sharpeners in 1828. In 1847, Therry des Estwaux invented the manual pencil sharpener and John Lee Love invented the portable sharpener originally made for artists in 1897. .
1813 -Happy Birthday, Joseph F. Glidden of
New Hampshire
, inventor of barbed wire. That’s a simple statement but, as usual in science, it’s not that simple. In 1868, Michael Kelly invented a practical wire with points which was used in quantity until 1874. Then Joseph F. Glidden, then living in
Dekalb
,
Illinois
attended a county fair where he observed a demonstration of a wooden rail with sharp nails protruding along its sides, hanging inside a smooth wire fence. This inspired him to invent and patent a successful barbed wire in the form we recognize today. After Glidden’s success, a creative frenzy began that eventually produced over 570 barbed wire patents. It also set the stage for a three-year legal battle over the rights to these patents. Glidden won so he is the “inventor of barbed wire”.
1854- Happy Birthday, Thomas A. Watson, American telephone pioneer and shipbuilder, one of the original organizers of the Bell Telephone Company. Watson was the “Mr. Watson, --come here—I want to see you”, the first words spoken by Alexander Graham Bell on his invention, the telephone. (Of course the rest of the statement after “Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you” was “Why do we have all the 900 number charges for phone calles and why have you been calling Babette LaTour and getting a lap dance and …………………….”
1856- Happy Birthday, Daniel Hale Williams, African American physician who made history by performing the first successful open heart surgery operation in 1893 on one, James Cornish who was rushed to the Hospital with a stab wound to the chest.
1882- O.K Winnie the Pooh fans, Happy Birthday to the author, A. A Milne
1888- Happy Birthday, Sir Thomas Sopwith, English aircraft pioneer whose company was famous for British WWI military aircraft most notably, the Sopwith Camel – produced for use in WW I in 1916- which go its name from the camel-like hump in the middle of its fuselage.
1904- Happy Birthday, Archibald Leach – better known as actor, Cary Grant. Grant starred in many films including, To Catch a Thief and Alfred Hitchcock’s North By Northwest. Famous for his urbane characters, Grant was told by an interviewer “Everybody would like to be Cary Grant”, Grant is said to have replied, “So would I.”
1908- Happy Birthday, Jacob Bronowski, Polish-born British mathematician He is remembered as writer and presenter of the BBC television series, The Ascent of Man.
1911- The first landing of an aircraft on a ship took place as pilot Lt. Eugene B. Ely brought his Curtiss pusher biplane in for a safe landing on a 119-ft wooden platform attached the deck of the U.S.S. Pennsylvania in
San Francisco
was one of the battleships destroyed at
Pearl Harbor
.
1912- Talk about your disappointments…..After a two-month ordeal, the expedition of British explorer Robert Falcon Scott arrived at the South Pole only to find that Roald Amundsen, the Norwegian explorer, had preceded them by just over a month. Scott never returned. He died in March on the return trip.
1933 - Happy Birthday, Ray Dolby, American Physicist, engineer, and inventor of the Dolby Noise Reduction Systems, the audio-processing system that eliminates hiss and other background noise. Dolby sound technology is the industry standard for movies (used in more than 17,000 films), stereo equipment. Needless to say, Mr. Dolby got very wealthy!
1969- Pulsars were first identified by
University
Arizona
astronomers
1978- Johnny Paycheck’s immortal paean to workplace frustrations, Take This Job and Shove It, hit number 1 on the Billboard record sales charts.
1997 - And then he got engaged to a penguin - Norwegian Borge Ousland completed the first solo crossing of
Antarctica
via the South Pole. Ousland traveled 1,675 miles and was the first to traverse the continent alone
Back
19. 1736- Happy Birthday, James Watt (brother of Kumq Watt…a bit of a fruit), Scottish engineer famous for his improvements to the steam engine in1769 and 1784 which converted it from a machine of limited use, to one of efficiency and many applications. It was the foremost energy source in the emerging Industrial Revolution, and greatly multiplied its productive capacity. Watt was also the inventor of the pressure gauge. The electrical unit, the watt, was named in his honor. As to who actually invented the steam engine? It was Thomas Savery, an English military engineer and inventor who in 1698, patented the first crude steam engine.
1747- Things boded well for planetary science when…..Happy Birthday, Johann E. Bode, German astronomer best known for his development of Bode’s law. In 1766, he and his colleague Johann Titius had discovered a mathematical relationship in the distances of the planets from the sun. If 4 is added to each number in the series 0, 3, 6, 12, 24,... and the answers divided by 10, the resulting sequence gives the distances of the planets in astronomical units (earth = 1 so one astronomical unit is 93 million miles – Earth’s distance from the Sun). Things did not bode well for Bode’s Law as it went kaput in 1846 with the discovery of
Neptune
and also with the discovery of the former Planet Pluto. Neither conforms with the law.
1807 -Happy Birthday, Robert E. Lee, commander of the Army of Northern Virginia during the Civil War. Arguably, one of the great leaders in military history, Lee was slightly wounded at
Chapultepec
during the Mexican War ( 1846-1848. In 1859 he lead a force of marines, and end to John Brown's Harper's Ferry Raid. In 1861 Winfield Scott who tried to retain Lee in the
U. S.
Army but the Virginian rejected the command of the Union's field forces on the day after
Virginia
seceded. His loyalty to his state was greater than that he felt for his country. Lee’s major successes included the Battles of Chancellorsville and Fredericksberg.
Gettysburg
, of course, was his fatal failure.
1809- Happy Birthday, Edgar Allen Poe, American poet and writer, born in
Boston
,
Massachusetts
. Poe’s short stories, particularly his horror stories such as The Tell-tale Heart, The Cask of Amantillado, The Murders in the Rue Morgue,(possibly the first detective story) and poems such as The Raven and Annabel Lee. Poe’s demise contained a bit of mystery too. He suffered from depression and alcoholism much of his adult life and he began drinking at a party in
Baltimore
and disappeared, only to be found incoherent in a street three days later. He was taken to the hospital but he died on October 7, 1849, at age 40.
1813- Happy Birthday, Sir Henry Bessemer, English inventor and engineer who developed the first process for the inexpensive manufacturing of steel in 1856. He developed the Bessember furnace in 1855 as a process of refining molten iron with blasts of air. An American, William Kelly, had held a patent for "a system of air blowing the carbon out of pig iron" a method of steel production known as the pneumatic process of steelmaking. Kelly went bankrupt and sold his patent to Bessemer who had been working on a similar process for making steel. Modern steel is made using technology based on
Bessemer
's process. Of course he is also remembered for the Mexican song,
Bessemer
Mucho.
1825- The first patent for food storage in cans - to “preserve animal substances in tin” - was issued to Ezra Daggett and his nephew Thomas Kensett of
New York City
. They stored salmon, oysters, lobsters and rehabbing
Hollywood
celebutards in their cans.
1837-Happy Birthday, William E. Keen, American physician who was the first brain surgeon in the U.S - at St. Mary’s Hospital in
Philadelphia
. He was one of the first to successfully remove a brain tumor in1888 and he assisted in the removal of President Grover Cleveland’s left upper jaw (ending
Cleveland
’s budding career in opera and yodeling) in 1893, which contained a malignant tumor.
1839- Happy Birthday, Paul Cezanne, born in Aix En Provence, France, one of the greatest of the Postimpressionists, whose works and ideas were influential in the aesthetic development of many 20th-century artists and art movements, especially Cubism. C�zanne's art grew out of Impressionism. He has been called the father of modern painting. Postimpressionism describes the changes in Impressionism from about 1886, the date of last Impressionist group show in
Paris
. It is best confined to the four major figures who developed and extended Impressionism in distinctly different directions. C�zanne , Seurat , Gauguin , and Van Gogh . Regrettably, pictures of Elvis, clowns, animals and half naked women warriors on velvet are not postimpressionist.
1840- A busy month for
Antarctica
. 72 years before Scott’s belated arrival at the South Pole, see 1912 above, Captain Charles Wilkes, leading the United States Exploring Expedition, better known as the Wilkes Expedition, which included naturalists, botanists, a mineralogist, taxidermists, artists and a philologist (a humanist who specializes in classical scholarship), sighted the actual land mass which constitutes Antarctica, though it took later explorations to vindicate his assertions that the continent existed. Wilkes claimed Antarctica for the
United States
1861- On Robert E. Lee’s birthday,
Georgia
became the fifth state, following
South Carolina
. Note: he had a public display for his discovery in December 1910 in
Paris
. The word neon comes from the Greek "neos," meaning "the new gas." Neon gas was discovered by William Ramsey and M. W. Travers in 1898 in
London
. This day should and must become a civic holiday in
Las Vegas
.
1904- Thomas A. Edison was issued a patent for an” Electrical Automobile”. It was designed with a driving motor that could be conveniently and effectively utilized for the purpose of charging the batteries which made the car go. Thomas Parker built his first electric vehicle in
England
in 1884. Electric cars lost out to gas powered cars in this formative auto age primarily because the gas powered cars were less expensive and easier to maintain
1937- Millionaire industrialist, Howard Hughes set a transcontinental air record by flying his monoplane from
Los Angeles
,
N.J.
, in 7 hours, 28 minutes and 25 seconds. He then had to go into a four hour holding pattern over Newark due to “air traffic controller computer difficulties”…..no, no, no Professor Sy Yentz has his delayed sense of humor…it is only nowadays that everyone has a holding pattern over Newark.
1939- Happy Birthday, Phil Everly (the one on the right when you watch them on TV) of the Everly Brothers, famous for songs such as Wake up a Little Susie, All I Have to do is Dream, and Bye Bye Love. Please note that the entomologist version of this song is Bye Bye Larvae.
1943 - Happy Birthday, Janis Joplin, rock/blues singer born in Port Arthur, Texas, initially with the instrumentally challenged Big Brother and The Holding Company, and later a soloist famous for, among others, songs such as Piece of My Heart…. which was dedicated to her left ventricle……. Kozmic Blues, Me And Bobby McGee, and Try (Just A Little Bit Harder. The last recording
Joplin
completed was Mercedes Benz. She is a member of the “27” club – rock singers who died at the age of 27. Other club members are Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, and Kurt Kobain.
1944 – Attention CSI fans, here’s the real deal – Happy Birthday, M. Lee Goff
American forensic entomologist who applied a knowledge of the anatomy, physiology, stages of development, and behavior of insects to legal matters, most often to murder. Just like on TV (except, of course they learned it from him) he analysed the insects, insect eggs and larvae, or evidence of the past presence of insects from decomposing corpses. Knowing the time of year when a particular insect species reproduces, for example, can indicate a victim’s time of death. And he did it without whining to other characters, preaching the script writer’s political views, or hyper-acting.
1955 -Dwight D. Eisenhower became the first president to hold a news conference that would be be filmed by TV and newsreels. One of the dullest speakers ever to be President, Eisenhower gave a 33-minute conference in the treaty room at the State Department. It was recorded by NBC and shared with CBS, ABC, and the now kaput DuMont Network.
1974 –
Dame
University
ended the three year, 88 basketball game winning streak of the UCLA Bruins. The streak was longer than the life spans of the mouse, opossum, bee, and some salamanders. UCLA, coached by the great John Wooden had featured such great players as Bill Walton, Henry Bibby, and Jamal Wilkes during the streak, but lost 71-70 in
South Bend
Indiana
.
2006 – Launch of New Horizons Pluto. At this time Pluto was still a planet. The mission will conduct a five-month-long study of the Pluto system, as it approaches, flies past (closest approach on July 14, 1015), and recedes from the, now, dwarf planet. It will study the global geology and geomorphology of Pluto and Charon, map their surface compositions and temperatures, and examine Pluto's atmospheric composition and structure. Then its off into the Kuiper Belt to investigate one or more of the icy mini-worlds in this vast region, at least a billion miles beyond
Neptune
Back
20. 1775 – Happy Birthday (note: some sources give his birthday as Jan. 22) Andr�-Marie Amp�re, French physicist, natural philosopher, and mathematician best known for defining a way to measure the flow of current, which was named after him, the ampere. He also laid the foundation for the science of electrodynamics. Amp�re argued that magnetism could be explained by electric currents in molecules, and invented the solenoid, which behaved as a bar magnet. He called the study of currents electrodynamics. Obviously, he had an electrifying personality and was up to speed on “current affairs”.
1801 - Supreme Court. President John Adams appointed the then Secretary of State, John Marshall as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
Marshall
served until 1835 and “The Marshall court” established the principle of judicial review, in which the court ruled that the Supreme Court had the power to declare invalid any act of Congress that was in conflict with the U.S. Constitution. John Jay was the first Chief Justice – 1789- followed by John Rutledge, William Cushing, Oliver Ellsworth, Judge Judy, Judge Joe Brown…..no, no, no Professor Sy Yentz has his “People’s Court” sense of humor……Marshall was number five after Jay, Rutledge, Cushing and Ellsworth.
1817 - An army of 5,423 soldiers, led by General Jos� de San Mart�n, crossed the Andes, some of which rose to a height of 21,000 feet, from Argentina to liberate Chile (in February of the same year) and then, with Simon Bolivar, Peru. Bol�var also liberated New Granada (now
Colombia
loses hold on South American countries; named president of
Colombia
1840- Yes, a busy month indeed for
Antarctica
as the surrounding seas got crowed with explorers (see Charles Wilkes January 19, 1840 above). On the same day, the expedition sighted land the same afternoon As Dumont D'Urville of France discovered
Ad�lie
,
Antarctica
. In the following days the expedition followed what was presumed to be the coast. They sighted the American schooner Porpoise of the United States Exploring Expedition commanded by Charles Wilkes
1841 - During the First Opium War – there was a 2nd Opium War in 1856- China ceded the then sparsely inhabited island of Hong Kong to the British with the signing of the Chuenpi Convention that ended the conflict. A naval landing party hoisted the British flag at Possession Point (in the vicinity of present-day
Hollywood
patent for a roller coasting structure was issued to La Marcus Thompson of
Coney Island
,
NY
. The ride, with the catchy name of the “Gravity Pleasure Switchback Railway”, cost five-cents, passengers sat sideways in cars that were pulled by gravity down the very low, gentle waves of a 600-foot wooden mini-railway. They actually reached the incredible top speed of six miles per hour. No word on whether they raised their arms as it started going down the first steep dip. Roller coasters can be dated back to the 1600s in Russia where the forerunners of present-day roller coasters were huge blocks of ice that were fashioned into sleds, with straw or fur on the icy seat for passenger comfort (??????). Sand was used to help slow down the sled at the end of the ride to keep it from crashing…..or going all the way to Finland………., a technique based on friction. Later, more elaborate wooden sleds were built with iron runners to increase the speed and intensity of the ride. In fact, Thompson’s was shaped like the early Russian slides- two hills parallel to each other. Thompson added those undulating hills and the cars slowly (6 mph) rolled down a track six hundred feet long and fifty feet high.
1887- Continuing
Hawaii
’s eventful month….it was discovered by Captain James Cook…, The U.S. Senate approved an agreement to lease Pearl Harbor in
Hawaii
1896- Happy Birthday, comedian George Burns, born Nathan Birnbaum in
New York City
. During a long career that continued up till his death in 1996, Burns starred in Vaudeville, radio, television (Burns and Allen), and the movies (Oh God!) mostly as the straight man for his wife, Gracie Allen.
1917 –Oops! German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmermann sent the Zimmermann Telegram to
Mexico
, proposing a German-Mexican alliance against the
United States
. Unfortunately, for Zimmerman, British cryptographers deciphered the telegram to the German Minister to
Mexico
in return for joining the German cause. This message helped draw the
United States
into the war and thus changed the course of history.
1918 – In the Finnish Civil War – yes there was a Finnish Civil War and it was a fight to the “Finnish”…..actually May 1918. Socio-economic reasons played a large part in the outbreak of war. As all other European countries, Finnish society had been shaken by the impacts of industrialization and Russian dominance. The first serious battles between the Red Guards and the White Guard took place.The Whites, whose troops were mostly farmers, controlled the northern and more rural part of the country. The Reds, who drew most of their support from the urban working class, controlled the southern part of the country, as well as the major cities and industrial centers and about one- half of the population.
Germany
was offering support to the Whites and
Russia
to the Reds with the Whites victorious. Here is the text of what we just wrote in Finnish, Kotona Finnish Kansalais- Lji – jaa-��ni paikalla Finnish Kansalais- Lji ja se kahakoida jotta “Finnish”…. itse asiassa Toukokuu 1918. Socio - ekonominen ajatella j�rkev�sti pelaaja avara erit� kotona puhkeaminen -lta lji. Koska aivan toinen Eurooppalainen kreivikunta Finnish hienosto had horjuttaa luona painaa sis��n -lta industrialization ja Neuvostoliittolainen herruus. edell� arveluttava taistelulaiva kesken Puna Kaarti ja Munanvalkuainen Junailija ajaa place.The Valkoihoiset , joiden joukot toivoisin olevani enimm�kseen farmi , valvottu pohjoinen ja enemm�n maalainen erit� -lta kreivikunta. Reds , joka asettaa enimm�t -lta heid�n apu polveutua kaupunki- ty�skentely arvoluokka , valvottu etel�inen erit� -lta kreivikunta , koska kummuta koska aikuinen mainitseva ja teollinen keskitty� ja jokseenkin silm�puoli puoli -lta asujaimisto. Saksa uhri apu jotta Valkoihoiset ja Ven�j� jotta Reds avulla Valkoihoiset voitokas.
1920- Happy Birthday, Joy Adamson (born Friederike Viktoria Gessner in
Austria
), naturalist, expert on lions and author of Born Free (the story of socialized medicine?). She had acquired Elsa, a tame lion cub, in 1956, after her husband, George had killed a lioness in self-defense. For two years Elsa and George trained the animal for a return to the wild, and the subsequent book about Elsa, Born Free (1960), was an international success. Adamson followed the book with Living Free (1961) and Forever Free (1962).
1920- Born on the same day as Joy Adamson, Happy Birthday, Federico Fellini , the Italian, born in Rimini, film director of films such as 8 1/2, Fellini Satyricon, and La Strada.
1929- The first full-length motion picture in the
U.S.
, was In Old
Arizona
. The star, Warner Baxter, received an Academy Award Nomination. The part of the horse was played by Margaret Thatcher.
1930- Happy Birthday, Edwin C. (Buzz) Aldrin, American astronaut who set a record for extra vehicular activity and was the second man to set foot on the Moon. Aldrin (who legally changed his name to Buzz) was one of the third group of astronauts named by NASA in October 1963. On November 11, 1966, he and command pilot James Lovell were launched into space in the Gemini 12 spacecraft on a 4-day flight, which brought the Gemini program to a successful close. Aldrin established a new record for extravehicular activity (EVA), spending 5-1/2 hours outside the spacecraft……mostly because Lovell wouldn’t let him back in the spacecraft until he promised to give him his Mickey Mantle rookie year baseball card….He served as lunar module pilot for Apollo 11, July 16-24, 1969, the first manned lunar landing mission. Aldrin followed Neil Armstrong onto the lunar surface on July 20, 1969, thus completing a 2-hour and 15 minute lunar EVA (walk on the Moon). Trivia to dazzle your friends and acquaintances, Buzz Aldrin’s mother’s maiden name was Moon, Marion Moon......Really!
1930- And, on the same day…….The first professional bullfight by a woman as Conchita Cintron of
Chile
began her bullfighting career in
Mexico
. And for you bullfighting aficionados, the first female professional bullfighter from the
United States
was Patricia McCormick. She made her debut in the ring on January 20, 1952, in
Juarez
, Christina Sanchez became the first woman to achieve the rank of matador in
Europe
. We remind you that bullfighting is different from throwing the bull. Men and women have been throwing the bull for time immemorial. Ole�.
1932 – Happy Birthday, Lou Fontinato, Canadian ice hockey player for the New York Rangers. Dubbed the “Ranger Policeman” (he was supposed to fight and defend his team mates) in the late 1950’s, he was pounded into mush by Detroit Red Wings Hall of Famer, Gordie Howe in a famous fight on February 1, 1959. And… as Professor Sy Yentz says, “saying you don’t watch hockey for the fights is like saying you read Playboy for the articles”.
1942- The infamous Wannsee Conference as Nazi officials arrived at a “final solution” that called for exterminating Europe’s Jews, during a conference at
Lake
in
Berlin
. The conference was organized by Heinrich Himmler’s chief aide, Reinhard Heydrich. The conference report was written by Adolf Eichmann…..who, after the war was captured in
Argentina
in 1960, brought back to
Israel
, tried, and executed. Heydrich was killed four months later on May 27, 1942, as his car slowed to round a sharp turn in the roadway it came under attack from Free Czech agents who had been trained in England and brought to Czechoslovakia to assassinate him. They shot at Heydrich then threw a bomb which exploded, wounding him. He died four days later of blood poisoning.
1945-Franklin
Delano
Roosevelt (the 32nd president) , the only president to be elected to three terms in office, was inaugurated to his fourth term. FDR, by then in very poor health, lasted until April 12 of the same year.
1958 - The rock ’n’ roll classic, Get a Job, by The Silhouettes, was released. The Silhouettes took their name from a song, Silhouettes, by the Rays. Get a Job, with its bouncing base chorus “sha na na na sha na na na” and its “yip yip yips” (lyrics were positively Shakespearean) would be the Silhouettes only #1 record.
1961 – John F. Kennedy was inaugurated as the 35th president. His inaugural speech “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country” is regarded as one of the better inaugural speeches. Also, 87-year-old Robert Frost recited his poem The Gift Outright. Although Frost had written a new poem for the occasion, titled Dedication, faint ink in his typewriter and the glare of a bright January sun made the words difficult to read, so he recited The Gift Outright from memory.
1969- John Fairfax left the
Canary Islands
on the first transatlantic solo trip in a rowboat. Some people will do anything to escape rising air fares! In 1896, two Norwegians, George Harbo and Frank Samuelsen, had become the first to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a tiny boat with only oars for propulsion. Fairfax’ feat was acknowledged by the Apollo astronauts from space – on their way to the Moon- (see Buzz Aldrin 1930 above) as he arrived at Hollywood, Florida (he missed Spring Break) on July 19.
of
Arizona
established the first optical identification of a pulsar. This identification of the Crab nebula pulsar proved that the Pacini-God model was correct (so you can sleep easily now). The Pacini Gold model proposed a rapidly rotating neutron stars as pulsars. Simply put, pulsars are rotating neutron stars a and pulsars pulse because they rotate! Pulsars were first discovered in late 1967 by graduate student Jocelyn Bell Burnell as radio sources that blink on and off at a constant frequency.
1980- On the fifty second anniversary of Conchita Cintron’s debut as the first female bull fighter, (see 1930 above) the bleachers at a bullring in
Sincelejo
, collapsed, resulting in the deaths of 222 people.
1981 – The great Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as the 40th president of the
United States
.
1998- American researchers announced they had cloned calves that could produce medicinal milk. In something that seemed better suited to H.G Wells’
Island
of
Dr. Moreau
(which featured half human/half beasts and other combinations) they were first to clone cows from fetal cells in which human genes were spliced into cattle DNA. A research assistant who tasted the milk turned into Sylvester Stallone.
21. 1790 - Lets not lose our heads over this but on this day Dr Joseph-Ignace Guillotin proposed the guillotine to the newly formed National Assembly of Paris as a “humane” method of execution.
1793- on the same day King Louis XVI of
France
was executed by guillotine, for treason.
1789- The first novel by an American writer to be published in
America
, The Power of Sympathy or the Triumph of Nature Founded in Truth was printed in
Boston
,
Massachusetts
. The first editions of the book did not carry the author’s name, but a later printing carried the name of Sarah Wentworth Apthorp Morton. However, some scholars attribute the book’s authorship to William Hill Brown.
1799- Edward Jenner’s smallpox vaccination was introduced. His invention of vaccination against smallpox was the medical breakthrough which saved most lives before the era of antibiotics. He had started his experiments with cowpox in 1796.
1813- Happy Birthday, John C. Fremont, explorer (nicknamed “the Pathfinder”), politician – he was one of the first senators from
California
and the first Republican candidate for president in 1856 when he lost to the immortal James Buchanan. He was also the first to run on an anti-slavery platform. He was also a Union general during the Civil War and as a footnote to Stonewall Jackson also born on this day, he endured several crushing losses against
Jackson
during the Confederate general’s brilliantly successful Shenandoah Valley Campaign.
1824 – Happy Birthday, Thomas “Stonewall”
Jackson
, after Robert E. Lee, the most revered of the Confederate generals.
Jackson
was killed by shots from his own troops as he rode the battlefield perimeter after his triumph at the
Battle
of Chancellorsville……just a few weeks before
Gettysburg
in 1863. He was 39 years old.
1840- Happy Birthday, Sophia Louisa Jex-Blake a British physician and the first woman doctor in
Scotland
. She led the effort to have Parliament pass legislation to give women the right to have access to a medical education. She had spent years in her own attempt to enroll in a Scottish medical school. Eventually, she obtained her license at age 37 and opened a private practice in
Scotland
began construction of the first independent municipal sewage system in the
U.S.
Civic pride, like Thomas Crapper above, was “flushed with success.”
1912- Happy Birthday, Konrad Bloch, German-born American biochemist who shared the 1964 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Feodor Lynen for their discoveries concerning the natural synthesis of cholesterol and of fatty acids. Bloch identified the chemical process by which the body turns acetic acid into cholesterol. All us Lipitor users now consider Konrad a “chip off the old bloch”…..
1924 - Vladimir Lenin, the architect of the Bolshevik Revolution and the first leader of the Communist government of the
Soviet Union
, source of the deprivation of freedom and death for millions of people, died of a brain hemorrhage at the age of 54.
1954- The first atomic submarine, the U.S.S. Nautilus, (named for the submarine in Jules Verne’s book, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea) was launched at
Groton
,
Connecticut
. Attention claustrophobics, because of the nuclear power plant, the Nautilus could stay submerged for months at a time
1957 - NBC taped and broadcast President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s second inauguration ceremonies. Inventor Ray Dolby (see Jan.18)had designed the videotape recorder in 1956, and taped broadcast was quickly becoming the normal method in broadcasting.
1970 - The first jumbo jet was put into service as the Pan American Airways Boeing 747 flew its first flight between from
New York
,
England
. It could carry up to 400 passengers. What a wonderful opportunity for crowded backed up aisles as people blocked them while putting away their carry-on luggage. Speaking of luggage the wait time for checked baggage and the potential for lost baggage made significant contributions to the joy that travel is today
1979- Neptune became the outer most planet as Pluto (at that time it was a planet but according to the IAS, it isn’t any more) moved on its highly elliptical orbit closer to the sun than
Neptune
’s orbit. No need to lose sleep over it. They switched back again in 1999
1988- Retin-A got a new wrinkle when a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association said the anti-acne drug could also reduce wrinkles caused by exposure to the sun.
22. 1521 - Emperor Charles V began the Diet of
Worms
…. And the worms weren’t even fried!!! They had to eat them raw but most people would lose up to fifty pounds over a few months and be proud to be seen on the beach in a bathing suit and…..no, no, no Professor Sy Yentz has his nematodic sense of humor…. actually Worms is a city in southwest Germany and Charles as Holy Roman Emperor had the diet (which is a general assembly of states) take up the question of the behavior of German priest, Martin Luther . Luther was summoned to Worms under a safe-conduct on Apr. 16. At the diet Luther was asked if he would retract his teachings condemned by the pope. After a day's meditation he refused. For a week various theologians argued with him, but he would not back down. According to tradition Luther ended his defense on Apr. 18 with the words, "Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen." Finally, on Apr. 26, the emperor, seeing that the dispute was fruitless, ordered Luther to leave the city. He was formally declared an outlaw in the Edict of Worms (May 25)
1561- Happy Birthday Francis Bacon (brother of Eggsan Bacon) English philosopher. Bacon believed that the human mind is fitted for knowledge of nature and must derive it from observation, emphasizing empirical methods, not from abstract reasoning. He recognized mathematics as an auxiliary to natural science. Now famous for his The Advancement of Learning, Novum Organum Scientiarum, Bacon proposed the Novum Organum, as a “new tool” for the rational mind - inductive reasoning - known as the scientific method…..beloved by scientists, science teachers and science classes everywhere which he described in Nova Atlantis.
1788 - Happy Birthday, Lord (George) Byron, English poet. His most famous works are the narrative poems, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage and Don Juan. He created the concept of the 'Byronic hero' - a defiant, melancholy young man, brooding on some mysterious, unforgivable event in his past……….sort of like the contemporary Homer Simpson. Byron's influence on European poetry, music, novel, opera, and painting has been immense, although the poet was widely condemned on moral grounds by his contemporaries. After leaving
England
and an unhappy marriage, he settled in
Geneva
with Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and Claire Clairmont who would become his mistress. Eventually believing that action was more important than poetry, in February, 1824, he fell ill while getting ready to lead a band of Greek rebels to attack the Turkish-held fortress of Lepanto, at the mouth of the
Gulf
Corinth.
, and he died on April 19.
1840- Under the leadership of British statesman Edward Gibbon Wakefield and the New Zealand Company., the first British colonists to New Zealand arrived at Port Nicholson on Auckland Island where they formed the All Blacks” the great rugby team that……no, no, no Professor Sy Yentz has his scrummish sense of humor….Wakefield himself arrived in New Zealand in 1852 but lasted only two years, going kaput in 1854. The first settlers of
New Zealand
were Maori people, thought to have originally migrated from
Eastern Polynesia
.. Dutch navigator Abel Tasman had been the first European to discover the South Pacific island group that later became known as
New Zealand
in 1642.
1855 – Happy Birthday, Albert Neisser, German physician who specialized in dermatology and venereal diseases……quite a combo – bad skin and the “gift that keeps on giving”…He discovered the causative agent (pathogen) of gonorrhea, a strain of bacteria that was named in his honor. In
Norway
, he examined patients afflicted with leprosy and demonstrated the existence of the bacillus causing the disease. He was the first to make the connection clear between bacteria (of course we know that “bacteria” is the rear of the lunchroom) and the disease.
1869 - Happy Birthday, Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin, Russian mystic who influenced the later days of the weak minded Russian Czar Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra, and their only son the Alexei- who Rasputin claimed to have cured of hemophilia by “laying his hands” on him. Rasputin had often been called the "Mad Monk. His womanizing and drinking were the stuff of legends but his death was truly remarkable. He was finally killed in 1916 by a cabal of aristocrats who feared Rasputin's influence had grown too great. The assassins fed him poisoned cakes and wine. That didn’t work. So they shot him and beat him. That didn’t work. Finally they tied him up and heaved him into the
Neva
River
, where he drowned.
1874 – Happy Birthday, Leonard E. Dickson, American mathematician who made important contributions to the theory of numbers and the theory of groups. Dickson's mathematical output was vast and his list of published works contains 275 items. He worked on finite fields and extended the theory of linear associative algebras initiated by Wedderburn and Cartan. He proved many interesting results in number theory, using results of Vinogradov to deduce the ideal Waring theorem in his investigations of additive number theory. That all adds up for us. His books included Linear groups with an exposition of the Galois field theory. He also wrote a 3-volume History of the Theory of Numbers published in 1923. Which reminds us to ask: How many mathematicians does it take to screw in a light bulb? Ans. 10 – one to screw in the bulb and 8 to watch.
1879 -The 24th Regiment at Isandhlwana and Rorke's Drift - In 1872,
Great Britain
recognized Cetewayo as King of the Zulu nation and acknowledged his rule in southeast
Africa
. Within seven years, however, Cetewayo had built a formidable army, and a British regiment of about 1,800 men, the 24th Foot, was sent to disarm the warriors. The regiment, except for a company of about 140 men left to defend a small hospital-outpost at Rorke's Drift, was surrounded and destroyed by 20,000 Zulu's at the great rock of Isandhlwana on January 22, 1879. Well over 2,000 Zulus were killed in the attack, but only fifty-five British soldiers survived the massacre.
1879 – Obviously, he had difficulties making up his mind….James Shields, who had previously served
Illinois
, began a term as a U.S. Senator from
Missouri
. He was the first Senator to serve three states. The fickle Mr. Shields was a senator from
Illinois
from 1849 to 1855, from
Minnesota
from May 11, 1858 to March 3, 1859, and from
Missouri
from January 22, 1879 to March 3, 1879 in the 45th congress.
1890 - Happy Birthday, Vinko Zganec, Croatian, born in Vratišinec in Međimurje, ethnomusicologist whom we honor in these pages mainly so that we can use the word ethnomusicologist for possibly the only time (unless we honor Bela Bartok) which is, as we all know, the study of music in its cultural context.
1901- Queen Victoria kaput. She had ascended to the throne of
Great Britain
in 1937 and presided over the growth of the greatest empire in history. Her reign lasted 63 years and seven months, longer than that of any other British monarch. She was the daughter of King George III – of American Revolution fame-and grandmother of
Germany
’s Kaiser Wilhelm II – of World War I infamy.
1939 - The uranium atom was split for the first time using the cyclotron at
Columbia
in
New York City
. Thus began the Manhattan Project which led to the construction of the atom bomb. Uranium is a common metal found in rocks all over the world. However, nuclear power plants and weapons use a certain kind of uranium, U-235, as fuel because its atoms are easily split apart. Though uranium is quite common, about 100 times more common than silver, U-235 is relatively rare.
1968- “Sock it to Me” - Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In made its debut. This unique and now classic TV comedy-variety show with short sketches and one-liners was an instant smash that ran for five years on NBC. Comedian’s Dan Rowan (the straight man) and Dick Martin hosted the show that features guests ranging from Richard Nixon to Sammy Davis Jr. and Tiny Tim. Among the “regulars” who appeared during the show’s five year run were: Gary Owens , Ruth Buzzi , Judy Carne , Eileen Brennan , Flip Wilson , Goldie Hawn , Arte Johnson , Henry Gibson , Alan Sues , Jo Anne Worley , Lily Tomlin , and Richard Dawson ,
1970 The first “jumbo jet”, the Boeing 747 went into operation for Pan American World Airways. It carried 362 passengers from
New York
London
.
1973- In the famous Roe vs. Wade decision, the Supreme Court legalized abortions, using a trimester approach. The Court in a 7-2 decision (Justices White and Rehnquist dissenting) that women, as part of their constitutional right to privacy, can terminate a pregnancy during its first two trimesters. Only during the last trimester, when the fetus can survive outside the womb, would states be permitted to regulate abortion of a healthy pregnancy.
1973 – On the same day as the Roe v Wade decision (see above) form President Lyndon Johnson went kaput. LBJ who became President after the assassination of John Kennedy and was elected in his own right in 1964, increased the American presence in South Vietnam to war level, increased government spending for the “welfare state” through his “war on poverty” and who seems to have been a genuinely unpleasant human being, had suffered from heart problems for a number of years.
1980- In another glowing example of freedom of expression in the “worker’s paradise” of Communisum, Soviet dissident physicist Dr. Andrei Sakharov was arrested, stripped of his honors and exiled to Gorky from Moscow.
1987 - Pennsylvania State Treasurer, R. Budd Dwyer committed suicide by shooting himself at a press conference on live national television. Dwyer was facing bribary charges in addition to five accounts of mail fraud, four counts of inter-state transportation in aiding racketeering and one of conspiracy to commit bribery. If convicted, Dwyer was facing up to 55 years in prison. The very graphic suicide can still be seen on U-tube. At the time it lead to debates on boundaries in journalism.
1987- On the same day that Budd Dwyer was blowing his brains out on TV (see above), Phil Donahue became the first talk show host to tape a show from inside the Soviet Union. Donahue appeared in
Leningrad
and
Moscow
. The shows were seen by Russian TV audiences later in the year. After editing by the Communist state censors, the show was 4 minutes and 37 seconds long
1988- Continuing a tradition of widows running for their husband’s congressional seats, Mary Bono, widow of singer/politician Sonny Bono – who had gone kaput after crashing into a tree while skiing - (Sonny was the former husband of Cher with whom he was “Sonny and Cher”), announced that she would run for the congressional seat held by her late husband -- to represent the 44th Congressional District in California, which includes Palm Springs.
1992 - STS- the Discovery blasted off. - Dr. Roberta Bondar became the first Canadian woman in space. The main goal of the mission was to study the effects of microgravity on a variety of organisms including contestants of Dancing With the Stars.
1997- Some people are just lucky. American Lottie Williams was reportedly the first human to be struck by a remnant of a space vehicle after re-entering the earth’s atmosphere. At 3 a.m., while walking in a park in
Tulsa
,
Oklahoma
, (what in the world was she doing walking in a park at 3 a.m???) she saw a light pass over her head. “It looked like a meteor,” she said. Minutes later, she was hit on the shoulder by a six-inch piece of blackened metallic material. Note that for some reason, debris that struck Ms. Williams has not been examined to confirm its origin, but, a used Delta II rocket, launched nine months earlier, had crashed into the Earth’s atmosphere half an hour earlier. NASA scientists believe that Williams may have been conked by a part of it, giving her the dubious honor of being the only person in the world known to have been hit by man-made space debris.
2003 – Au revoir Pioneer 10 as the last successful contact with the spacecraft Pioneer 10 was to this most distant man-made objects. The very weak message from the craft was “Wait! I have to come back! I forgot my wallet”. Pioneer 10 was launched March 2, 1972, on a three-stage Atlas-Centaur rocket.
23. 1533 – Whoops! Anne Boleyn, soon to be second wife (there would be six) of Henry VIII of
England
discovered herself pregnant (the pregnancy test-o-meter turned blue). Of course at that time Henry was busy running around trying to get a divorce from wife number 1, Catherine of Aragon so when Anne pronounced herself pregnant, Henry married her within days (exact date unknown) and announced the marriage at Easter. The baby, Elizabeth, became Queen in 1558 and ruled until 1603.
1556- An earthquake in
, in
Central China
, killed an estimated 830,000 people. Counting casualties is often imprecise after large-scale disasters, especially prior to the 20th century, but this disaster is still considered the deadliest of all time. A 520 mile-wide area was destroyed and in some counties, sixty percent of the population was killed. Magnitude is estimated at 8.
1719 - The Principality of Liechtenstein – in central Europe between
Austria
Poland
.
1796-Happy Birthday, Karl K. Klaus (brother of Santa Klaus) Russian chemist and biologist (of German origin) credited with the discovery of ruthenium in 1844. Ruthenium, named after Babe Ruth……no, no , no it wasn’t, was the last dense, inert, platinum-like metal to be found. Wow, dense and inert – sounds like the U.S congress. Ruthenium is primarily used as an alloying agent. Adding 0.1% ruthenium to titanium makes titanium 100 times more resistant to corrosion. Small amounts of ruthenium are added to platinum and palladium to strengthen them. These alloys are used in jewelry and in electrical contacts that must resist wear.
1899 – Happy Birthday, Humphrey Bogart, noted movie “tough guy” and Academy Award-winning actor. He starred in; The African Queen, The Maltese Falcon,
Casablanca
, The Caine Mutiny, Treasure of Sierra Madre (“badges? Badges? We don’t need no stinking badges…) ,
Key Largo
, and High Sierra among many others. He died in 1957 at the age of 58.
1832 – Happy Birthday, Edouard Manet French artist and possibly the first impressionist painter. Manet’s innovations included choosing subjects contemporary events and appearances. His Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe (Luncheon on the Grass) – currently at the Muse� D’Orsay in Paris - featuring the two clothed men and the unclothed woman, exhibited in 1863 at the Salon des Refus�s, may have been the first impressionist painting as it aroused the hostility of the critics but aroused the enthusiasm of a group of young painters who later formed the nucleus of the Impressionists.
1845- Congress voted that all national elections would be held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Why November? In 1845 most Americans made their living from agriculture and Congress felt that November was the most convenient month for farmers and citizens living in rural areas to get to the polls since the harvest would have been completed. From 1792 – 1845, with the agricultural culture still in mind, Congress permitted the states to conduct their presidential elections (or otherwise to choose their Electors) anytime in a 34 day period before the first Wednesday of December. As for Tuesday? Transportation wasn’t so quick in those days and most elections were held at the county seat meaning an overnight trek to vote. They didn’t want Monday because that would have meant traveling on a Sunday…..a day of rest.
1849 - Elizabeth Blackwell was granted a medical degree, having graduated first in her class, from
Geneva
, thus becoming the first female to be officially recognized as a physician in
U.S.
history. Blackwell claimed that she turned to medicine after a close friend who was dying suggested she would have been spared her worst suffering if her physician had been a woman. In 1857, after several years of private practice, she founded the New York Infirmary for Women and Children with her sister, Emily Blackwell, also a doctor. In 1868, the Infirmary was expanded to include a women’s college for the training of nurses and doctors. This was the first of its kind in
America
. The following year, Blackwell returned to
England
, where she had been born, and in 1875 she became professor of gynecology at the London School of Medicine for Women.
1857- Happy Birthday, Andrija Mohorovicic, Croatian meteorologist and geophysicist. Quick, what is the name of the boundary between the Earth’s crust and upper mantle? No, it’s not the “Mickey Mantle”. Right on the tip of your tongue?..... Yes! It’s the Mohorovicic Discontinuity, named after Andrija Mohorovicic, who discovered said boundary.
1862- Happy Birthday, David Hilbert, German mathematician who reduced geometry to a series of axioms and contributed substantially to the establishment of the formalistic foundations of mathematics. In his book, Foundations of Geometry, he presented the first complete set of axioms since
Euclid
(a Greek mathematician –circa 300 B.C- best known for his treatise on geometry: The Elements . This influenced the development of Western mathematics for more than 2000 years. Which reminds us…There are 10 kinds of mathematicians. Those who can think binarily and those who can’t ….bada bing!, In 1899, Hilbert's famous 23
Paris
problems challenged (and still today challenge) mathematicians to solve fundamental questions. His famous speech The Problems of Mathematics was delivered to the Second International Congress of Mathematicians in
Paris
. It was a speech full of optimism for mathematics in the coming century and he felt that open problems were the sign of vitality in the subject. And speaking of math: There are three types of mathematicians: those who can add and those who can’t.
1888 – Happy Birthday, Huddie Ledbetter, better known to the world as “Lead Belly,” or “Leadbelly”, American blues and folk musician . He was known as the “the King of the Twelve-String Guitar ”and Lead Belly recorded for a variety of labels, including Folkways, and performed until his death in 1949 of Lou Gehrig’s disease. He wrote and performed, Goodnight Irene, Cottonfields, House of the Rising Sun, and Midnight Special.
1907 – The first American Indian to become a U.S Senator, Republican Charles Curtis of
Kansas
began serving his term. He resigned in March of 1929 to become President Herbert Hoover’s Vice President.
1911 - Marie Curie’s nomination to the
French
Academy
of Sciences was voted down by the Academy’s all-male membership. After heated debate, (bunsen burners blazing at 10 paces…) the Academy turned her down by only two votes. That was so close that the members voted again -- this time to decide whether women should ever be admitted. Women in general fared worse than Madame Curie in particular. She'd barely lost, but the Academy voted -- 90 to 52 -- to bar women completely! Marie Curie won her second Nobel prize a year later, but the
French
Academy
stuck to its guns. It didn't admit a woman until 1979. The English record is not much better. Before 1945, the only woman in the British Royal Society was a skeleton in its anatomical display.
1920--On this day the Dutch government refused demands by the Allies for the extradition of Wilhelm II, the former Kaiser of Germany, on charges of being a war criminal. The Kaiser, who looked just like Nicholas Romanov, who looked just like Queen
Victoria
’s son Edward VII, had been living in exile in the
Netherlands
since November 1918. The Germans showed their gratitude for the Dutch hospitality by invading the
Netherlands
in May of 1940. The Kaiser, in turn, showed his gratitude by going kaput in 1941.
1930- Clyde Tombaugh photographed his discovery, the (former) planet, now Dwarf Planet Pluto. The planet, photographed in clothed in
Victoria
’s Secret apparel was the centerfold of the month in the ultra hot Astronomy magazine, Planets Gone Wild.
1960 –A specially constructed bathyscaphe,( a submarine vessel designed to operate at great depths. The first such vessel, invented in 1947 by the Swiss physicist Auguste Piccard), the
Trieste
, descended 35,810 feet in the
Pacific Ocean
into Challenger Deep. This, the deepest point known to exist on earth, is in the Marianas Trench near the
island
. The
Trieste
cabin was a six-foot diameter steel capsule weighing 14 tons engineered by Swiss scientist Auguste Piccard . Jacques Piccard, (Auguste’s son) and Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh made the five-hour descent, setting a deep-diving record. Through their window, they saw a foot-long fish, and thus answered the question of biologists who long wondered whether life could exist at such depths of the ocean. They saw mermaids, talking fish, Captain Nemo…..yes, they were in “Disney Depths”……no, no, no Professor Sy Yentz has his diving sense of humor…. Unbelievably, they did not take any pictures! Interest in the depths of the ocean has faded and the record has stood unchallenged for 40 years since their historic dive.
1964- The first animal to human heart transplant was made. Dr. James Hardy at the
University
of
Mississippi
transplanted the heart of a chimpanzee (named Bino) into the chest of Boyd Rush (age 68) in a last-ditch effort to save the man’s life because no human was heart available. The patient only survived 90 minutes but had an insatiable craving for bananas and picking fleas out of the hair of his nurses.
1964 - The 24th amendment to the Constitution, eliminating the poll tax in federal elections, was ratified. Polls would no longer be taxed. This meant that anyone could have their own private telephone pole in their living room…..or barber pole, or guys named Wadislaw. Payment of the tax – in order to vote- had stood as a prerequisite, and sometimes barrier, to voting in national elections.
1968- Although 16 miles outside of North Korean territorial waters, The U.S. intelligence-gathering (yes, it was a spy ship) ship Pueblo was attacked and seized by North Korean naval vessels and charged with spying and violating North Korean territorial waters. Negotiations to free the 83-man crew of the
U.S.
ship dragged on for nearly a year, damaging the credibility of and confidence in the foreign policy in the final dismal year of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration
1971 The lowest temperature ever recorded in the U.S put the kibosh on the “Fun in the Sun Picnic,Barbeque and Tanning Contest”, scheduled for that day in Prospect Creek Camp, Alaska. The mercury fell to a minus 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Of course that’s only -62 Celsius in case you want to feel warmer. Meanwhile in
Canada
Canada
, on February 3, 1947 recorded a temperature of 81 degrees below zero Fahrenheit.
1986 - The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted its first members: Chuck Berry, James Brown, Ray Charles, Fats Domino, the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis,Elvis Presley, Robert Johnson and Jimmy Yancy. While they kept merrily inducting new members every year, there actual building for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame until 1995.
Cleveland
had been selected as the site because a.- D.J Alan Freed from
Cleveland
coined the phrase “Rock and Roll” and b. – there was nothing else in
Cleveland
to see. The building was designed by architect, I. M. Pei, the Rock Hall as it is known locally, honors performers, producers, and songwriters from throughout the Rock and Roll era
2002 - Reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped -- and subsequently murdered -- in
Karachi
Pakistan
by Islamic terrorists.
2004 – Because they went on the same day, a year apart, Bob Keeshan, TV’s Captain Kangaroo passed away and (see below)
2005 – Tonight Show host and comedian, Johnny Carson passed away on the same day one year later.
Back
24. 41 – Caligula kaput. The lunatic Roman emperor -A.D. 37-41 - known for his weirdness and cruelty was assassinated by his disgruntled Praetorian Guards. Given the name Caligula which means “little boot” by his father’s soldiers, Caligula became emperor after the death of Tiberius. Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (Caligula) was succeed by his uncle, Claudius. He was twenty eight years old.
76- Happy Birthday, Hadrian, (of
Hadrian’s Wall
fame), Roman Emperor. Hadrian was the 2nd of the four great emperors of the Pax Romana, following Trajan, and preceding Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. Hadrian initiated many building works and defenses, such as Hadrian's Wall built across the north of
England
to keep out the barbaric Picts and Scots, consolidated the Empire, and firmly established the boundaries of the Empire.
1544- On the same day that a solar eclipse was filmed in 1925 (see below), Dutch mathematician and astronomer Reinerus Gemma-Frisius at the University of Louvain, viewed a solar eclipse using a hole in one wall of a pavilion to project the sun’s image upside down onto the opposite wall. He used this illustration of the event in his book De Radio Astronomica et Geometrica, 1545. It is thought to be the first published illustration of a camera obscura..." Note: The first casual reference to the Camera Obscura was by Aristotle (Problems, - also a song by the Everly Brothers - circa 330 BC), who asked how the sun could make a circular image when it shined through a square hole. Nowadays there a quite a few “celebrities” who appear in front of cameras and we wish they would become “obscura”.
1705 – Happy Birthday, Farinelli Italian castrato singer who hoped to have his grand children hear him perform.
1828-Happy Birthday, Ferdinand Cohn ( brother of Ex Cohn),German naturalist and botanist who is considered one of the founders of bacteriology and known for his studies of algae, bacteria, and fungi, insect epidemics and plant diseases….and cookie recipes……no, no, no Professor Sy Yentz just slipped the last one in to see if you were paying attention.
1848- “
” – first said by Archimedes and now a town in
California
…. James W. Marshall was building a saw mill for Captain John Sutter, using water from the South Fork of the
American
River
. He noticed several nuggets of metal in the tailrace water and recognized them to be gold sparking the gold rush of 1849. Over 500,000 people would move to northern
California
in search of instant wealth, beachfront condos, mineral baths, overpriced
Napa
Valley
wine, and Grateful Dead T-shirts. The first printed notice of the discovery was in the March 15 issue of "The Californian" in
San Francisco
.
1850- Happy Birthday, Herman Ebbinghaus, German psychologist who pioneered in the development of experimental methods for the measurement of rote learning and memory. Ebbinghaus assumed that the process of committing something to memory involved the formation of new associations and that these associations would be strengthened through repetition. He discovered that people forget 90% of what they learn in a class within thirty days, and that there occurs a very rapid forgetting in the first hour. He also ...................................Whoops! I forgot.
1857 - The
…..”Hello, this Bob” when you call for technical support for anything.
1862 – Happy Birthday, Edith Wharton, American novelist, short story writer, and designer born in
New York
,
NY
. She was the author of the Age of Innocence (for which she won the Pulitzer Prize in 1920) and Ethan Frome
1872- Happy Birthday, Morris Travers English chemist who, while working with Sir Willam Ramsay in
London
, discovered the element krypton in 1898. The name comes from the Greek word for “hidden.” Krypton is used in some types of photographic flashes used in high speed photography. Some fluorescent light bulbs are filled with a mixture of krypton and argon gases. The atomic number is 36 and the atomic weight is 83.798.
It is also Superman’s home planet and the only substance that can weaken him…..in addition to bad movie sequels and politically correct comic books.
1873 – Happy Birthday, Leon Czolgosz, American anarchist, assassin of U.S. President William McKinley. Czolgosz, living in
Buffalo
proof enough of instability?) ,
New York
, 1901 site of the Pan American Exposition. Czolgosz waited for McKinley on a receiving line on September 6. He shot the President two times. After a brief trial, Czolgosz was convicted. He was executed on October 29, 1901.
1888- Happy Birthday, Ernst Heinrich Heinkel, German aircraft engineer who built the first rocket-powered aircraft. Not easily discouraged, Heinkel's first plane, constructed in 1910, crashed and burned. During WW II, he built bombers and fighters. He built the first jet plane, the HE-178 in 1939 as well as the first rocket powered aircraft, the HE-176. Heinkel’s designs formed an important part of the Lutftwaffe’s arsenal of planes. Heinkel was a critic of Hitler’s regime and in 1942 the government took control of his factories.
1899- Described by people as a real “heel”, Humphrey O’Sullivan obtained the first
U.S.
patent for a rubber heel for shoes. 1896, working as a printer O'Sullivan invented the rubber heel by nailing pieces of a rubber floor mat to his shoes. Hopefully he was not wearing them at the time. His patent described it as a “safety heel”
1908- The founding of the Boy Scouts as the first Boy Scout troop was organized in
England
by Robert Baden-Powell, ‘hero of the Siege of Mafeking’(1899 - 1900) during the Boer War.
1922- Attention dessert fans, the Eskimo Pie “confection”, a chocolate-covered vanilla ice cream bar wrapped in foil was patented by Christian K. Nelson, a high school teacher from
Onawa
Iowa
. He originally called it the I-Scream-Bar when he invented it in 1920.
1925- A motion picture of a solar eclipse was taken by the U.S. Navy from the dirigible
Los Angeles
. The dirigible was at an elevation of about 4,500-ft and positioned about 19 miles east of Montauk Point, Long Island, NY enabling a view of a total eclipse of the sun that lasted just over 2-min. They also go a great view of exotic dancer, Babette LaTouche rehearsing her routine at
Montauk
Beach
.
1927 – Director Alfred Hitchcock's first film, The Pleasure Garden, starring Patsy Brand as a chorus girl at the
Pleasure
music hall, was released in
England
. Oddly enough, the silent movie was shot in
Italy
in 1925 and not released in
England
until after Hitchcock’s second film The Lodger had become a big hit.
1932- Happy Birthday American solar astronomer Harold Babcock. Babcock proposed in 1961 that the sunspot cycle was a result of the Sun’s differential rotation and magnetic field. We always thought that the sunspot cycle came after the rinse cycle but before the drying cycle. Also see 2008 below for the Ulysses flight over the Sun’s North Pole.
1935- With Prohibition having gone kaput in 1933, the Gottfried Kreuger Brewing Company became the first sell canned beer on this day. In those days that was quite a risk. How would beer taste from a can? Of course after 4 or 5 beers it wouldn’t matter but, Krueger Brewing felt it was a huge gamble to be first out with canned beer. Most cans at that time only needed to withstand a pressure of 2535 lb per square inch, but beer needed a container that would withstand in excess of 80 Ib per square inch, otherwise there would be a major problem with cans bursting along the welded seam. They used Richmond Virgina as a test market. Two brands were sold, Krueger’s Finest Beer and Krueger’s Cream Ale. By the end of 1935, no less than 37
US
breweries were producing canned beer
1941 – Happy Birthday, Neil Diamond, American singer who was o.k early in his career with Solitary Man and Cherry Cherry but should be banned forever for inflicting Sweet Caroline on an unsuspecting world.
1950- “Method of Treating Foodstuffs.” That’s the title of the original microwave oven patent issued to its inventor Percy L. Spencer…..and it was all caused by a chunk of chocolate. Spenser, while touring a factory, stopped momentarily in front of a magnetron, the power tube that drives a radar set. He felt a sudden and strange sensation, (magnetic?) and noticed that the chocolate bar in his pocket had begun to melt…..so much for those trousers……. Being a scientist, (and a war hero too), Spenser decided to experiment. So, just like you or I would do, he got some un popped corn, held it next to the magnetron and ended up with popcorn. From this came the microwave oven.
1965- Sir Winston Churchill kaput. Churchill, was a major and then an outstanding political figure in British and world history between 1905 and 1965, he was also a Nobel Prize winning writer
1972- “Is it safe to come out yet?” After 28 years of hiding in the jungles of
Guam
, local farmers found Shoichi Yokoi, a Japanese sergeant who was unaware that World War II had ended. Yokoi lived in a tunnel-like, underground cave in a bamboo grove until when he was discovered near the
Talofofo
River
by hunters. Yokoi, who had been a tailor's apprentice before being drafted in 1941, made clothing from the fibers of wild hibiscus plants and survived on a diet of coconuts, breadfruit, papayas, snails, eels and rats.
1984 - The first Apple Macintosh went on sale. Apple Computers ran its' famous "1984" Macintosh television commercial during the NFL Super Bowl, and millions of viewers got their first glimpse of the Macintosh computer. The commercial was directed by Ridley Scott, and the Orwellian scene depicted the IBM world being destroyed by a new machine, the "Macintosh". Costing $2,495 (You get no price breaks from Apple) it was 8 Mhz with 128k RAM (not expandible) and 64k ROM, the “Mac” was the first personal computer with a graphical user interface and a mouse. Keeping with Apple tradition, it was probably obsolete and needed to be replaced with a newer model within weeks.
1986 -The Voyager II space probe made its closest approach to Uranus. (Remember! NOT pronounced Your Anus. Correct pronunciation is emphasis on the first syllable, YOOR a nus. Unless, of course the space probe did approach your anus). The spacecraft came within 81,500-km (50,600 miles) of Uranus’s cloud tops. Hopefully, your anus doesn’t have cloud tops (hopefully). It sent back pictures of of the five largest moons around Uranus that revealed complex surfaces indicative of varying geologic pasts. The cameras also detected 10 previously unseen moons. Several instruments studied the ring system, uncovering the fine detail of the previously known rings and two newly detected rings. Voyager data showed that the planet's rate of rotation (a day) is 17 hours, 14 minutes. The spacecraft also found a Uranian magnetic field that is both large and unusual. In addition, the temperature of the equatorial region, which receives less sunlight over a Uranian year, is nevertheless about the same as that at the poles.
1989- Ted Bundy kaput. The sociopath serial killer had confessed to 36 murders but probably committed many more. He was convicted for the 1979 kidnapping rape murder of a twelve year old girl in
Florida
. This gruesome monster was still able to postpone his well deserved execution for almost ten years through a series of appeals.
2004- NASA’s
Opportunity
rover landed on Mars three weeks after its identical twin, Spirit. The two met for drinks at the Olympus Mons Caf� and watched the moons Deimos and Phobos set in the night sky.
2008 - Ulysses Spacecraft Flew Over Sun's North Pole. T Unlike any other spacecraft, Ulysses was able to sample winds at the sun's poles, which are difficult to study from Earth. It also took pictures of a Solar Santa Claus, clad in only a towel, exhaustedly fanning himself while sipping mint julips. Ulysses had flown over the sun's poles three times before, in 1994-95, 2000-01 and 2007
25. 1533-
England
’s King Henry VIII secretly married Anne Boleyn, his second wife. He had also secretly divorced his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. The marriage to Anne Boleyn produced the schism with the Catholic Church resulting in the creation of the Church of England. It also produced Elizabeth, who would go on to become Queen of England from 1558 – 1603. It also produced a headless 2nd wife as Anne was executed in 1536. Henry went on to have 4 more wives giving him a grand total of 6. The old mnemonic of “divorced, beheaded, died, beheaded, divorced, survived” will help you keep track.
1627- Happy Birthday, Robert Boyle (brother of comedian Milton Boyle), Anglo-Irish chemist and natural philosopher noted for his pioneering experiments on the properties of gases. He developed Boyles Law, beloved by students of chemistry all over the world. Boyle observed that the product of the pressure and volume are observed to be nearly constant. The product of pressure and volume is exactly a constant for an ideal gas. p * V = constant This relationship between pressure and volume is called Boyle’s Law in his honor
1759 - Happy Birthday, Robert Burns Scottish poet: “Oh wad some power the giftie gie us / To see oursels as others see us!”. He also wrote Auld Lang Syne. Note, we all sing it but none of us knows what it means.
1812- Happy Birthday, William Shanks ,English mathematician who spent numerous years manually calculating the value of pi. He announced that it was easy as “pi”. On Halloween he had pumpkin pi. His calculation of pi reached 707 places by 1873, a feat unchallenged until the use of electronic computers. He used the formula:
/4 = 4 tan-1(1/5) - tan-1(1/239).
In 1944, D. F Ferguson’s new computation of pi showed Shanks had made a mistake in the 528th decimal place, invalidating the digits calculated beyond. Shanks had omitted two terms which caused his error. By the end of the twentieth century, computers could easily extend the results to over 2 billion places.
1825- Happy Birthday, George Edward Pickett, Confederate general who led the infamous “Pickett’s Charge” up Cemetery Hill on the 3rd , and final, day of the Battle of Gettysburg.
1839- Scientist, Michael Faraday (perhaps you remember the old quiz show “Queen Faraday”) publicly announced for the first time the existence of photography as the subject of his Friday Evening Discourse at the Royal Institution.
1858 - Replacing” the Macarena, Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March” was presented for the first time, as the daughter of Queen
Victoria
married the Crown Prince of Prussia
1878- Happy Birthday, Ernst Alexanderson, Swedish-American electrical engineer and television pioneer who developed a device that converts direct current into alternating current, called a high-frequency alternator
1915- The inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, inaugurated transcontinental telephone service in the United States with a call made between New York City and San Francisco, Cal., which was answered by Dr. Watson, (see January 18) his longtime assistant.
1924- The very first Winter Olympics began at
Chamonix
,
France
. There were 12 events including such successes as “the digging out your car relay”, the walk one block without slipping and falling in your spiked heels (open to men also) dash, the biggest snowman pentathlon, and the international snowball fight
1942- Bet you didn’t know this –
Thailand
, became the first
U.S.
city to begin fluoridating the drinking water. With the intention of reducing tooth decay, one part per million of fluoride was added to the water supply.
1961- President John F. Kennedy held the first presidential news conference carried live on radio and TV.
1995- In a case of almost globally tragic incompetence,
Russia
’s early-warning defense radar detected an unexpected missile launch near
Norway
. The nuclear command systems switched to combat mode, and the nuclear suitcases carried by Boris Yeltsin and his top commander were activated for the first time in the history of the Soviet-made weapons system. Five minutes after the launch detection, Russian command determined that the missile’s impact point would be outside
Russia
’s borders. Three more minutes passed, and Yeltsin was informed that the launching was likely not part of a surprise nuclear strike by Western nuclear submarines. Later, it was revealed that the missile, launched from
Spitzbergen
, was actually carrying instruments for scientific measurements. Nine days before,
Norway
had notified 35 countries, including
Russia
, of the exact details of the planned launch. The Russian Defense Ministry had received
Norway
’s announcement but had neglected to inform the on-duty personnel at the early-warning center of the imminent launch.
2006- The discovery of the world’s smallest vertebrate - the Paedocypris progenetica fish - was published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B (we believe it was the centerfold featured a Paedocypris progenetica draped in a feathered boa…..) A tiny member of the carp family, the transparent fish was discovered in the highly acidic peat swamps of the Indonesian
island
of
Sumatra
. Mature females are only 7.9mm (3/10 in) in length; the males measure up to 8.6mm. The swamp waters in which they live have a pH of 3, which is 100 times more acidic than rainwater
26. 1500- Spanish explorer Vicente Yanez Pinzon, who had commanded the Nina during Christopher Columbus’ first expedition to the New World, reached the northeastern coast of
Brazil
during a voyage under his own command. Pinzon’s journey produced the first recorded account of a European explorer sighting the Brazilian coast;
1697- Never mess with the most brilliant scientist/mathematician of all time. Isaac Newton received and solved Jean Bernoulli’s brachistochrone problem. The Swiss mathematician Bernouilli had challenged his colleagues to solve it within six months.
Newton
not only solved the problem before going to bed that same night, but in doing so, invented a new branch of mathematics called the calculus of variations.
Newton
, then 55, sent the solution to be published, at his request, anonymously. The brilliant originality of the work gave away his identity. When Bernoulli saw the solution he commented, “We recognize the lion by his claw.”
1788- Captain Arthur Phillip and a fleet of 11 British ships carrying convicts landed at the colony of
New South Wales
Australia
. In the “land down under” this is a major holiday, Australia Day.
.1789-A three man commission, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin voted to make the bald eagle the national emblem over the objections of Franklin who voted for the wild turkey.
1837-
1875 - George F. Green of
Kalamazoo
,
Michigan
, patented the electric dental drill for sawing, filing, dressing and polishing teeth. He described it as an “electromagnetic dental tool”. The dental-phobic Professor Sy Yentz describes it as an instrument of torture and another challenge to dentists to see how many things they can fit in your mouth at one time.
1886- Karl Benz (brother of Deep Knee Benz) patented the first car powered by an internal combustion engine.
1904- Happy Birthday, Ancel Keyes, American nutritionist and epidemiologist who was the first to identify the role of saturated fats in causing heart disease.
1905 - Searching for just the right stone for the engagement ring? The world’s largest gem-quality diamond was discovered in the Premier mine in Transvaal, a part of
South Africa
. It weighed 3,106 carats, or about 1-1/3 pounds, and was named the Cullinan Diamond in honor of Sir Thomas Cullinan, owner of the mining company.
1932-Ernest
Orlando
Lawrence
applied for a patent application for his invention, the cyclotron. In1939, he won the Nobel Prize for inventing “the atom smasher”. 1950-
India
officially proclaimed itself a republic as Rajendra Prasad took the oath of office as president. After years of work by Mohandas Ghandi, Lord Louis Mountbatten, Viceroy of India had proposed a compromise that resulted in two separate nations,
India
Pakistan
.
1961- Dr. Janet Travell was named President Kennedy‘s personal physician. She was the first woman to serve in this office.
1962-The United States launched Ranger 3 to land scientific instruments on the moon, but the probe missed its target by some 22,000 miles and landed in Las Vegas where alien beings took over the brains of Wayne Newton, Elvis Presley and Debbie Reynolds.
Back
27 1302 – After losing a political battle, poet and politician Dante Alighieri was exiled from Florence, where he served as one of six priors governing the city. Dante had banished of several rivals. Unfortunately for Dante (but fortunately for history and literature) the rivals returned and had Dante banished. He wrote his masterpiece, The Divine Comedy, as a virtual wanderer, seeking protection for his family in town after town.
1756- Happy Birthday, Composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart of
Salzburg
,
Austria
. With too many great works to list, Mozart composed symponies, concertos, chamber music and operas. Mozart is currently decomposing.
1785- The Georgia General Assembly incorporated the
University
, the first state-funded institution of higher learning in the new republic.
Georgia
ratified the Constitution in 1788 so technically the university is older than the state.
1832-Happy Birthday, Lewis Carroll or Charles Lutwidge Dodgson whose pen-name was, yes, Lewis Carroll, English logician, mathematician, photographer, and novelist, who wrote Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in1865 and its sequel, Alice Through the Looking Glass. He also wrote the incredibly boring and long forgotten, A Syllabus of Plane Algebraical Geometry in 1860.
1880- Patent for the first incandescent lamp (invented Nov. 21 1879) was granted to Thomas A.
Edison
.
1885- Happy Birthday, Jerome Kern, American songwriter, famous for the musical Showboat, which he wrote with Oscar Hammerstein II. Among his songs were
Ole
River
and Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.
1887- Happy Birthday, Carl Blegan, archaeologist who unearthed evidence that supported and dated the sack of
Troy
recorded in Homer’s Iliad. Storage jars, skeletons and ash piles, which he interpreted as evidence of the city’s fiery destruction. No Trojan horse though.
1899- Frenchman Camille Jenatzy set the land-speed record of 49.932 miles per hour in a battery-powered automobile that he had designed.
1900- Happy Birthday, Hyman Rickover, “the Father of the Nuclear Navy”, who supervised the building of the first atomic submarine. (Did you say Nautilus? The submarine, piloted by Captain Nemo in Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea?)
1926- Television was first demonstrated in
London
,
England
by Scotsman John Baird. Baird called it a “Televisor”. He based his work on that of Paul Nipkow, a German inventor who had patented his ideas in 1884. Nipkow’s invention never produced visible pictures. Baird’s first television program showed the heads of two ventriloquist dummies, which he operated in front of the camera apparatus out of view of the audience. Tune into contemporary Sunday morning talk shows and you’ll get an idea of what it was like to watch the dummies
1948- “Just speak into this flower in my lapel……” The Wire Recording Corporation of
America
announced the first magnetic wire recorder. It is lightweight and portable. The ‘Wireway’ machine with a built-in oscillator sold for $149.50.
1950-Science magazine announced the new antibiotic terramyacin. It was created by Pfizer & Co.,and was isolated from
Indiana
soil, and found to be effective against pneumonia, dysentery, and other infections.
1951- The first atomic bomb test in the
Nevada
desert began as an Air Force plane dropped a one-kiloton bomb on Frenchman Flats. The tests continued for several years, probably resulting in the mutant city of
Las Vegas
.
1964- Ever heard of Corfam? It was described in 1971 in the New York Times as “DuPont’s Edsel”. Corfam was introduced on this day and later joined the long list of-scientific failures. Corfam was hydrocarbon-based, synthetic substitute for leather. It was flexible, with tiny pores, for uses such as shoes, handbags, belts and suitcases. Shoes put on sale with Corfam uppers were supposed to give consumers the look, feel and durability of leather. Yes, it was fake leather and even though DuPont predicted that by 1984, 25% of
America
’s shoes would be made of Corfam. It was conspicuously ignored by customers in droves. Time on the market: seven years. Production ceased in 1971.
1967- Astronauts Gus Grissom,(2nd American in space) Ed White (first American to walk in space), and Roger Chaffee were killed when fire broke out during routine tests in the Apollo 1.
Back
28. 1611 – Happy Birthday Johannes Hevelius (who also died on his birthday in 1687- German astronomer, who compiled Selenographia (“Pictures of the Moon”, 1647), an atlas of the Moon with some of the earliest detailed maps. A few of his names for lunar mountains (e.g., the
Alps
) are still in use, and a lunar crater is named for him. He catalogued 1564 stars in Prodromus Astronomiae, discovered four comets, and was one of the first to observe the transit of Mercury.
1613-Galileo may have unknowingly viewed the undiscovered planet
Neptune
. His observing records show a “star” that doesn’t appear in modern star catalogues. Since its “official” discovery in 1846,
Neptune
has still not made one complete orbit around the Sun.
1807-
’s
Pall Mall
(imagine, a mall in 1807, did it have a Gap?, a food court?) became the first street lit by gaslight.
1858- Happy Birthday, Eugene Dubois, Dutch anatomist and geologist who discovered the remains of Java man, the first known fossil of Homo erectus. Dubois was the first person to ever deliberately search for fossils of humans. In Oct 1891 he found an intact skullcap (possibly a yarmulke?) on the island of Sumatra which would be known as Java Man, and in Aug 1892, he found an almost complete left thigh bone about 10m away. At this rate, with 206 bones in the human body, he would still be finding them today.
1878 -“ All of our consumer assistance technicians are busy helping other customers.” The first commercial telephone exchange in the
U.S.
,
Connecticut
, and served 21 subscribers connected by a single strand of iron wire. For the first six weeks, the exchange was not operated at night. Instead of “hello,” the first experimental shout was “Ahoy, ahoy.”
1884- Balloonacy! Happy Birthday August Piccard. He experimented with hot air balloons. Wow! hoisted on his own piccard! Also, Happy Birthday to his twin brother, Jean-Felix Piccard, also a balloonist.
1896- The first fine for speeding in an automobile was given to a British motorist for exceeding 2mph in a built-up area
1905- Happy Birthday, Luther George Simjian, American inventor, born in Turkey who had over 200 inventions including the TelePrompter, (without which clueless news “reporters” would not be able to read the stories that they are “reporting”), a self-posing portrait camera, automatic postage metering equipment, and an indoor golf practice range. The latter resulted in a lot of broken windows.
1934 - The first ski tow rope in the
U.S.
, built by Robert Royce, was used for the first time in
Woodstock
Vermont
. Previously, snow skiers had no way to get to the top of the mountain conveniently.
1956 - Rock singer Elvis Presley made his first-ever television appearance on the TV musical-variety program Stage Show , hosted by band leaders Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey. Elvis sand “Heartbreak Hotel”. Later that year, he would appear on Ed Sullivan’s Sunday night show, Toast of the Town, and become a superstar.
1986- 19 years less one day after the Apollo 1 tragedy came The Challenger Disaster, the accident that destroyed the
United States
space shuttle Challenger 73 seconds after takeoff from the
Kennedy
Space
Center
on January 28, 1986. The crew—Mission commander Francis R. Scobee, pilot Michael J. Smith, mission specialists Ronald E. McNair, Ellison S. Onizuka and Judith A. Resnick, and payload specialists Gregory B. Jarvis and Christa McAuliffe, a high school teacher from New Hampshire—died in the accident. See the Bonus Gnus below.
1998-Andy Nelson and navigator Bertrand Piccard, (the grandson of August Piccard – see above 1884) in the Breitling Orbiter II set the world record for endurance 233 hours and 55 minutes. Or nine days and 17 hours - or, to be exact, but the journey came to an abrupt end when they were not allowed to fly over the workers paradise of
China
. A year later with Brian Jones, Bertrand accomplished the first complete non-stop round-the-world flight in the Breitling Orbiter 3
Back
.
29. 1773-Happy Birthday to that big softy, Frederick Mohs (brother of Geronimohs), inventor of the Mohs scale to determine the hardness of minerals. Yes, it was “the mohs the merrier).
1843- Happy Birthday, William McKinley, 25th president of the
U.S.
. This resulted in “Bleeding Kansas” as “border ruffians” from western
Missouri
intimidated voters and legislators into voting
Kansas
as a slave territory. Abolitionists such as John Brown fought back and a mini-civil war was fought.
1850- Happy Birthday, Lawrence Hargrave, inventor of the box kite. No, not the box kite you’re thinking of…. This was quite big and he actually .attached himself to a huge four kite construction attached to the ground by piano wire. Due to their abilities to carry heavy payloads, steady flight, and capacity for high altitude flight, box kites had many industrial and military uses in the past. Box kites were used until the 1930's to carry meteorological equipment for high altitude weather studies
1860- Happy Birthday, Anton Chekhov, Russian playwright. Author of The Seagull ( and its sequel The Baygull), Uncle Vanya, and The Cherry Orchard among many others.
1880- Happy Birthday, W.C Fields, American comedian, aka Mahatma Kane Jeeves, Professor McGargle, Charles Bogle, and Otis Criblecoblis. Fields, born William Claude Dukenfeld in
Derby
,
Pa.
starred in The Bank Dick, You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man, and Never Give a Sucker an Even Break, among others
1901- Happy Birthday, Allen B.Du
Mont
,American engineer who perfected the first commercially practical cathode-ray (this replaced the protestant–ray and the jewish-ray) tube, which essential component of the modern television receiver
1922-Accumulated snowfall from a blizzard collapses the Knickerbocker Theatre in
Washington
,
D.C.
There were accumulations of more than two feet. On Saturday night, the snow had stopped and some 300 people attended a movie at Knickerbocker Theatre. In the middle of the film, the accumulated snow on the theater’s roof collapsed the building and tons of steel and concrete fell down on top of the patrons. One hundred and eight people were killed, including five in a single family. Another 133 were hospitalized. 1924- The first ice cream cone rolling machine was invented and patented by C.R Taylor.
1936- The first five members of the Baseball Hall of Fame were elected. The five, in order of votes received were: Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson, and Walter Johnson
1978-
Sweden
became the first nation to curb aerosol sprays to halt the destruction of the ozone layer. Chloroflurocarbons, which provided the propulsion for the aersols had been invented by the regrettable inventor Thomas Midgely in 1928. Midgely was also the genius that put lead in gasoline.
1979- “I Don’t Like Mondays” - Brenda Spencer killed two men and wounded nine children as they entered the
Cleveland
in
San Diego
. Spencer fired rifle shots from her home directly across the street from the school. After 20 minutes of shooting, police surrounded Spencer's home for six hours before she surrendered. Asked for some explanation for the attack, Spencer said, "I just don't like Mondays. I did this because it's a way to cheer up the day. Nobody likes Mondays." Unbelievably, her incredibly stupid father had given this 16 year old creature an automatic rifle as a Christmas gift. The incident inspired the hit song “I Don’t Like Mondays” by the Boomtown Rats – lead singer Bob Geldof.
1998 – While coughing and spitting up blood – no, we made that part up- but for the first time, a top tobacco company executive acknowledged the health risk of tobacco products under oath to Congress. As recently as 1994, seven tobacco industry executives had stood before the House Commerce Committee and sworn nicotine is not addictive.
, King Charles I of
England
, loser in the English Civil War to Oliver Cromwell and the Roundheads (sounds like a singing group) was beheaded for treason on January 30, 1649
1790-The first lifeboat -built specially to rescue people from stormy seas -it was named the “Original”, was first tested at sea by its English builder, Henry Greathead. Note; this boat was not on a ship. It was based on shore and responded to ships in distress. It was so successful that it remained in service for 40 years.
1835- The first attempted assassination of a U.S President occurred as Richard Lawrence fired two separate pistols in the direction of President Andrew Jackson. Both weapons misfired, and
Lawrence
was promptly arrested. He was found to be insane and was sent to a mental prison. In 1865, President Abraham Lincoln would become the first president to be assassinated.
1862- The Monitor, the US Navy’s first ironclad warship, was launched. It engaged in the famous battle with the Confederate ironclad, Merrimac (Virginia) shortly thereafter at Hampton Roads, VA.
1868-Charles
Darwin
's book - Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - was published. It is probably the second in importance of all his works. This was a follow-up work, written in response to criticisms that his theory of evolution was unsubstantiated. In this book,
Darwin
supported his views via analysis of various aspects of plant and animal life, including an inventory of varieties and their physical and behavioral characteristics, and an investigation of the impact of a species' surrounding environment and the effect of both natural and forced changes in this environment. For those who were still not convinced, he published yet another response entitled, You’re a Big Dummy with a Foo Foo Brain.
1901-The world's tallest geyser was discovered by Dr Humphrey Haines on the North Island of New Zealand. It had appeared after an eruption of
Mt.
Tarawera
in 1886. The Waimangu Geyser was the largest geyser in the world and erupted on a 36 hour cycle for four years, throwing black mud and rocks in the air and onto tourists. Waimangu is Maori for "black water." It stopped in 1904 when a landslide changed the local water table. Eruptions would typically reach 600 feet while Old Faithful in
Yellowstone
Park
in the U.S reaches 160 ft.
1933- 87 year-old President Paul von Hindenberg appointed Adolf Hitler, who had finished with 30% of the vote in the March 1932 elections, to be Chancellor of
Germany
.
1948 - Mahatma Gandhi, the political and spiritual leader of the Indian independence movement, was assassinated in
New Delhi
by a Hindu fanatic
1950-The development of the hydrogen fusion bomb (H-bomb) was ordered by U.S. President Truman. The codename of "Super" for the project reflected the far greater power of this thermonuclear device over the earlier fission bombs used to end WW II.
1958- The first two-way, moving sidewalk, 1,425 feet long, was put in service at Love Field Air Terminal in
Dallas
1964- The
United States
launched Ranger 6, an unmanned spacecraft carrying TV cameras that was to crash-land on the moon.
1969- The Beatles made their last public performance in an impromptu concert on the roof of their
London
recording studio. They sang “Get Back”…..Neighbors complained about noise, and police broke up the concert. John Lennon closed the performance announcing, "I'd like to say thank you very much on behalf of the group and myself and I hope we passed the audition." The group broke up the following year.
1972 - Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland In Londonderry, Northern Ireland, 13 unarmed civil rights demonstrators were shot dead by British Army paratroopers in an event that becomes known as “Bloody Sunday.” The protesters were all Northern Catholics,
Back
31. 1606- Guy Fawkes jumped to his death. In November of 1605, Fawkes was caught in the basement of Parliament with 2 tons of gunpowder… 2 tons!!!. Fawkes revealed that he was a participant in an English Catholic conspiracy organized by Robert Catesby to annihilate
England
's entire Protestant government, including King James I. The king was to have attended Parliament on November 5. Sentenced to death via the humane process of being hanged, drawn and quartered, Fawkes jumped off the steps of the scaffold and broke his neck.
1769-What was he thinking the first time he tried it? Happy Birthday, Andre Garnerin, French aeronaut, the first person to use a parachute regularly and successfully. 1841 –Happy Birthday, Samuel Loyd, an American puzzle maker who was best known for composing chess problems and games, including Parcheesi, in addition to other mathematically based games and puzzles. Loyd’s most famous puzzle was the 15 Puzzle which he produced in 1878.The 15 puzzle is the familiar 4x4 arrangement
of 15 square numbered tiles in a tray that must be reordered by sliding one tile at a time into the vacant space.
1881- Happy Birthday, Irving Langmuir, American physical chemist whose studies of molecular films on solid and liquid surfaces opened new fields in colloid research and biochemistry and won him the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1932. While studying atomic structure he introduced the terms covalence and electrovalence. This may have inspired the 1960’s western movie, The Man Who Shot
Liberty
1882- Happy Birthday, Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd president of the
U.S.
1923- Happy Birthday, Norman Mailer, American Novelist who is possibly more famous for being Norman Mailer than being a novelist. His first book The Naked and the Dead published in 1948, was probably his best.
1953- Flooding in the North Sea killed more than 1,500 people in the
Netherlands
and destroyed 1 million acres of farmland. The storm also caused death and destruction in
Great Britain
. A freak hurricane had developed .The hurricane moved towards the
Netherlands
, which, at that moment, had a high tide. The high tide was intensified by the hurricane's influence and in the
Netherlands
, water began to run over the dikes.
1958- The
United States
finally had a space success by launching the first successful orbiting satellite, Explorer-I, four months after the Soviet launch of Sputnik. Explorer It measured cosmic radiation, and led to the discovery of the Van Allen radiation belt. Later flights would discover Van Allen’s Suspenders, his handkerchief, socks and one cufflink.
1961- Ham the Chimp was the first animal to be sent into space by the
U.S.
He was ordered to stop monkeying with the controls or he would become Ham on rye.
1865 - The U.S. House of Representatives passed the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery in the
United States
. It read, "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude...shall exist within the
United States
, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." The amendment was then sent to the states for ratification and became law in December 1865.
1872- Happy Birthday, Zane Grey, American novelist, author of Riders of the Purple Sage.
1971- Apollo 14, the third lunar landing. This was the mission in which astronaut, Edgar Mitchell conducted unauthorized E.S.P experiments and Alan Shepherd hit a golf ball a � mile.
REVEALED !!! A Science Gnus exclusive—The decaffeinated coffee carried on the Titanic—SANKA
And, yes.......the salads contained iceberg lettuce
Bonus Gnus
Challenger Disaster, the accident that destroyed the
United States
space shuttle Challenger 73 seconds after takeoff from the
Kennedy
Space
Center
on January 28, 1986. The crew—Mission commander Francis R. Scobee, pilot Michael J. Smith, mission specialists Ronald E. McNair, Ellison S. Onizuka and Judith A. Resnick, and payload specialists Gregory B. Jarvis and Christa McAuliffe, a high school teacher from New Hampshire—died in the accident.
Following the incident, President Ronald Reagan appointed a special commission headed by former secretary of state William Rogers and former astronaut Neil Armstrong to investigate the cause of the accident and to develop corrective measures based on the results of their findings. The commission found fault with a failed sealant ring and with decision-makers at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), who allowed the launch to take place despite concerns voiced by NASA engineers.
The commission’s report cited that the disaster was caused by the failure of an “O-ring” seal in the solid-fuel rocket on the shuttle’s right side. The seal’s faulty design and the unusually cold weather, which affected the seal’s proper functioning, allowed hot gases to leak through the joint. Flames from within the booster escaped past the failed seal and enlarged the small hole. The flaming gases then burned through the shuttle’s external fuel tank and cut away one of the supports that attached the booster to the side of the external tank. The booster tore loose and ruptured the tank. Liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen fuels from the tank and booster mixed and ignited, causing the shuttle to tear apart.
The Shuttle Launch Program was halted during the commission’s investigation until shuttle designers made several technical modifications and NASA management implemented stricter regulations regarding quality control and safety. Shuttle missions resumed on September 28, 1988, with the flight of the shuttle Discovery.
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What is a brief period of time and a turning effect produced by a force? | FORCES
FORCES
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From the movements of the planets to the energy produced inside atoms, everything that happens in the Universe is ultimately caused by forces. A force is a push or pull that can make an object move or TURN around. The bigger the force, the more movement it can produce. When two or more forces act together on an object, their effects are COMBINED . Sometimes the forces add together to make a larger force, and sometimes they cancel each other out.
NEWTONS
Forces are measured in units called newtons (N), named after English scientist Sir Isaac Newton. The size of a force can be measured using a device called a force meter or newtonmeter. As the load pulls on the hook, it stretches a spring to give a reading on the scale. On Earth, the force of gravity on 1 kg (2.2 lb) is 9.8 newtons.
TURNING FORCES
If an object is fixed at one point and can rotate around it, that point is called a pivot. If a force acts on the object, the object turns around the pivot. The turning force is called a torque and the effect it produces is called a moment. The bigger the force, the greater the moment. The moment also increases if the force acts at a greater distance from the pivot.
A wheelbarrow is free to pivot around the large wheel at the front. When the worker lifts the handles, the force causes the entire wheelbarrow to swing upwards and turn around the wheel. The long body and handles of a wheelbarrow increase the turning effect and make it easier to tip out a heavy load.
INCREASING MOMENTS
It is easier to unscrew a nut with a spanner than with your fingers, because the spanner’s long handle increases the turning effect or moment of the force. The size of a moment is equal to the force used times the distance from the pivot on which it acts. If you use a spanner twice as long, you double the moment, and the nut is twice as easy to turn.
COMBINED FORCES
When forces act in the same direction, they combine to make a bigger force. When they act in opposite directions, they can cancel one another out. If the forces acting on an object balance, the object does not move, but may change shape. If the forces combine to make an overall force in one direction, the object moves in that direction.
SUPPORTING A BRIDGE
A suspension bridge has to support the weight of its own deck, plus the weight of the vehicles that go across it. The deck of the bridge hangs from huge steel cables suspended over giant pillars. The cables and pillars are arranged so that there is no overall force in any direction. A bridge stays up because the forces on it are balanced and cancel one another out.
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| Moment |
Permanent software programmed into a read-only memory is generally called what ' ...ware'? | Forces & Motion - Principle of Moments - Pass My Exams: Easy exam revision notes for GSCE Physics
Home > GCSE Physics > Forces & Motion
Moment
The turning effect of a force is known as the moment. It is the product of the force multiplied by the perpendicular distance from the line of action of the force to the pivot or point where the object will turn.
When undoing a nut fastened to a screw by hand one realises that the amount of force required is a lot greater than when undoing the same nut using a spanner. The spanner increases the distance between the fulcrum and the line of action of the force, thus for the same force a greater moment is obtained.
SMALL MOMENT
The distance from the fulcrum to the line of action of force is large
Principle of Moments
The principle of moments states that when in equilibrium the total sum of the anti clockwise moment is equal to the total sum of the clockwise moment.
When a system is stable or balance it is said to be in equilibrium as all the forces acting on the system cancel each other out.
In equilibrium
Total Anticlockwise Moment = Total Clockwise Moment
This principle can be explained by considering two people on a seesaw.
Moments Acting On A Seesaw
Both people exert a downward force on the seesaw due to their weights.
Person A’s weight is trying to turn the seesaw anticlockwise whilst person B’s weight is trying to turn the seesaw clockwise.
Person A’s Moment = Force x perpendicular distance from fulcrum
1000 x 1 = 1000 Nm
Person B’s Moment = Force x perpendicular distance from fulcrum
500 x 2 = 1000 Nm
Persons A’s moment = Persons B’s Moment
Anticlockwise moment = Clockwise moment
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What colour/color normally follows orange moving up the scale, low to high, in judo belts? | WadeSchalles.com | World Champion, Master Pinner, Innovative Coach and the Father of Funk Wrestling
World Champion, Master Pinner, Innovative Coach and the Father of Funk Wrestling
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Child Abuse or Child Development
Wrestling is still wearing its shirt inside out, and our leadership seems to be okay with the look. Somehow they feel it’s fashionable to show everyone ragged seams and a wrinkled tag when it comes to the sport in general, and specifically for this blog; youth wrestling.
So as I attempt to turn everything right side out, welcome to another partisan and I hope thought provoking installment of How Wrestling Wins.
Protecting Our Youth
It shouldn’t be a shock to anyone when I mention how catastrophically abysmal our annual retention rates are for youth wrestling. When we retain in many regions of the country less than 50% of our newcomers, we become the #1 sport in America for chewing up and spitting out little guys. In some years that percentage might be a bit higher, in other years a bit lower but either way, the problem is obvious and it’s not going away.
And regardless of your position, the fact is numbers don’t lie.
Now if any company in America had those statistics, and wrestling had better start figuring out it‘s a company, they would immediately fire the entire management team for incompetence. No organization can continually lose half of its customer base year in and year out and expect to remain viable. So I guess I should ask, why do we allow it? Aren’t we the sports majority stock holders?
Think about what’s happening, is it too much of a stretch to refer to how we handle the sports youth as bullying at a minimum or child abuse to the extreme. It’s actually quite amazing how many kids actually survive our sports culture of cruelty.
Now I’ll give you that what I just typed might seem a little over-the-top and brand me as you’re a mean one Mr. Grinch but bullying is bullying which is defined as; a form of aggressive behavior in which someone intentionally and repeatedly causes another person injury or discomfort. As for child abuse, it’s; any type of cruelty inflicted upon a child that includes mental or emotional cruelty or physical harm? So based on Webster, and knowing what happens in many of our wrestling rooms, where am I off base here?
To be clear, it’s not the sport that drives children out of wrestling rooms; it’s their absolute aversion to humiliation and being subjected to repetitive thumping’s. Whether it comes by way of practice or competition, no one likes to train at Olympic levels during their first week of practice or be embarrassed in competition a month after buying their first pair of wrestling shoes. And the idea that all this is somehow fair because we pair children by age and weight is so far removed from reality when experience is the sports trump card and deciding factor. It’s the first thing a coach should consider when pairing athletes.
Just as troubling for me is the speed at which we tend to forget the names of those we’ve lost as we lump all of them into a category that isn’t appropriate to type here.
I’ve also wondered how many potential World and Olympic champions we’ve run out of our wrestling rooms because they weren’t ready for the sports culture of total emersion? Or the number of adults who are a little less than they could have been because the sport decided they were expendable. And of those we might call the discarded many, how often do you think they go out of their way to support any of their children when they ask, “Dad, can I try wrestling?”
Don’t be confused, it’s not that children don’t enjoy wrestling; they do. What back yard, in any neighborhood in America hasn’t doubled as a wrestling mat at one time or another? What child hasn’t wrestled his brother or tussled with the kid next door? But the difference between organized programs and neighborhood play is, when it’s up to the children, they instinctively understand two things that many of our coaches don’t: 1) If it’s not fun, they aren’t going to do it for long, and 2) They know who to take on and who they should leave alone.
So if the sport’s to grow which it won’t and if wrestling wishes to expand its base and it can’t, we have to change. So instead I write for the pleasure of writing, not for the hope that something miraculous will happen.
As to Practices
In a report recently released by the Aspen Institute on reimagining sports for today’s youth it recommended that specialization should be delayed until adolescence and practices need to be geared to the children’s ability.
I guess that means we’re still on the wrong road because pairing youngsters in practice with others who are of the same age and weight but with considerably more experience borders on the criminal. An eight year old 80 pounder with 4 years’ experience wrestling another 8 year old 80 pounder with 4 weeks experience isn’t a fair fight and it’s exactly how we deplete our ranks.
And no I’m not saying that we should buy a litter of therapy puppies and hand them out to every child along with crayons and coloring books but I do want to see coaches using their judgment centers more often.
As to the makeup of practices, every program should be centered on Fun, Friendship and Fundamentals; the 3-F’s of childhood development. If practices aren’t at least 50% fun, coaches need to rethink their lesson plans. If the students aren’t making new friends because of the sports adversarial mindset the program won’t reach its potential. If students aren’t encouraging the boy next door to give wrestling a try due to the programs lack of enjoyment; that should be a huge red flag.
As to fundamentals, sure we want every child to learn how to wrestle. But you can only achieve that when you have kids to coach. Losing half of those who come out for the sport each year isn’t a strong model for success. Coaches must remember what it was actually like when they started wrestling and how many of their teammates didn’t survive the experience, and not what they conveniently remember or choose to forget.
And don’t get me started on weight reduction at this age . . . that’s shouldn’t even be a consideration. And if you think all I’m trying to do here is make everyone feel good, you’re right. Our little guys can get competitive later.
But I get it; society does judge the success of a coach and his club in terms of medals garnished and championships won. But do we ever look at the costs of that success and could it be that more success would have been possible with larger club numbers? Isn’t the old adage true that if the object is to produce more cream, you have to produce more milk? Everything is a numbers game, and we need to start at the bottom to build the pyramid of winning – children win because they are having fun, therefore, the coaches’ win because they have children to coach, and finally, the sport wins because the wrestling rooms are filled with coaches coaching and children learning – make sense?
But none of that is as important as how the sport handles competition.
Regarding Events
No child should be forced to endure the overwhelming experience of competition during his or her first year of participation. Period.
Have we all forgotten what it was like to walk onto a wrestling mat for the first time, all alone, no Mom or Dad to hold our hands; where every fiber of our beings begs to be back in the safety of our bedroom. To glance over at the other kid and suddenly realize that in a few minutes, or possibly seconds, one of us is going to be considered a loser. Gulp. And to hear your Mother say, “Just do your best” when the look on her face says something quite different is very unnerving. Then you think; when this is over I’m going to ask Dad if it’s too late to go out for soccer?
None of that can be the best way to grow a sport or treat God’s little creatures.
So I’m afraid it’s up to the parents to protect their offspring since the sport seems to be incapable of it. They shouldn’t have to say “no thank you,” to the coach, there should already be a rule in place that outlaws competition during an athlete’s first year.
What effects would this have? Well, the first thing we’d accomplish is reduce most of the anxiety children feel while trying to learn a sport that requires combative aggression when the last thing they learned to do along those lines was playing dodge ball at recess. No wait, that’s right, dodge ball isn’t allowed any longer. Schools have deemed it to be far too aggressive and belittling. So I wonder what the Department of Education would think about our sport if they put it under the same microscope.
Instead, children should learn the rules of the game, some basic techniques all the while learning body awareness skills, participating in drills that coaches have made into games, and learning how to protect oneself through gymnastic like tumbling routines. Finally, the children should be learning fun facts about the sports’ rich history and the tenets of sportsmanship.
Success at this stage should be measured by the number of children who return to the sport the next season.
But not us, most everything we do is backwards; we teach wrestlers how to throw someone before anyone learns how to tuck their head and roll. We scold them for locking hands before telling them when it’s legal and when it’s not. Coaches should be happy with athletes who can sprawl and circle back to their feet when two weeks earlier walking with gum in their mouth was a challenge. Coaches have to stop measuring success by the number of wins an athlete can accumulate. Instead, they should make a big deal out of their athletes being able to shake a person’s hand with a firm grip while looking them in the eye. That’s a skill worth learning and one we should be proud we were able to help them develop; or just being able to do 5 push-ups when 3 were impossible just a month earlier.
So are you saying that we shouldn’t take 1st year wrestlers to tournaments? No, I didn’t say that, I said they shouldn’t enter competition for a year. But they should go to events. They need to be a part of the team, they need to see how events are run and get familiar with their future surroundings. And yes, they’re there to participate . . . just not compete.
Here are two possible participation options. The first is to develop a series of Katas for wrestling and make them a part of tournaments for first year students, just like the martial arts community handles their events. For those who aren’t familiar with Katas, they’re individual exercises, drills or techniques that consist of specific movements that are demonstrated in harmony with a passive partner. It’s still competition, just not under live fire conditions. Employing this alternate type of competition assures that events still receive entry fees from the little guys while eliminating the ugliness of children collapsing into their mother’s arms in tears or having their warm-ups thrown in their faces by some south end of a horse going north.
A second option is to create a round robin scenario with let’s say 8 children in a weight class and divide the mats into 4 equal sized quadrants. Each child wrestles for a minute of running time before rotating to his or her next opponent. There’s no scoring whatsoever and the officials are only there to protect the wrestlers. At the end of four minutes with each child having wrestled 4 opponents, they shake hands and every child has his hand raised signifying the completion of effort, not because someone won by score. Instead each child overcame the unknown which defines winning.
Then if the numbers warrant it, time permitting, the tournament director could repeat the process so each child would receive another 4 sets of matches. The idea is to start each tournament with the little guys going first and a goal of having them at the local Dairy Queen within 3 hours after weigh-ins. Remember the first of the 3-F’s was having fun and nothing does that better than ice cream.
These are just two examples of what the sport might consider if the goal is to stop the bleeding. However it’s done, whoever decides it or takes the credit I don’t care but one thing’s for certain, what we’re doing now isn’t working.
And if there’s one thing we can count on, it’s that the Russians won’t be hacking our sports database or interfering in our programming anytime soon; why would they want us to change anything we’re doing with our youth?
Circle America Tour; 2017
Once again this summer I’m planning on touring the country teaching the power of down wrestling. So I wanted to ask; would you be interested in me stopping by for a day or two? I’m finalizing my dates now so if you think this might interest you, contact me at [email protected] or at 407-616-4250.
Now for some shameful commercialism; you won’t find a better clinician. At least that’s what I’ve heard after every clinic I’ve ever done. Coaches enjoy my abilities to entertain and teach what they thought they knew about pinning and down wrestling.
As to my fee, I’m way below what today’s headliners receive. So what’s there to lose, let’s see what’s possible.
A Potpourri of thoughts . . .
Did you know . . .
That the average roster size for college programs has shrunk in size from 37 wrestlers in 1975 to 23 today?
Scholastically almost 1/3rd of all high school matches are forfeits. Yet the sports leadership, at all levels, is operating under the assertion that all is well.
There isn’t a single Division I wrestling program that makes more money than they spend. That means were a red sport, not Democratic, just broke.
Academically, wrestling ranks at the bottom or near the bottom (depending upon the year you check) in relation to all the other collegiate sports. Reason; we have too many competitive dates on our calendars and the coaches care more about expanded schedules than elevating athletic department averages.
Medically, wrestling ranks at the top or near the top of all sports (depending upon the year you check) in relation to sport injuries. This doesn’t endear us to anyone but the Cramer tape company loves us.
At USAWrestling, the national governing body for wrestling, you don’t want to know what percentage of their card holders this year won’t renew their memberships next year. The number is actually staggering, not quite half, which is reflective of not being a customer service organization.
Instead of always saying how well we’re doing collegiately, let’s look at a list of big time schools that don’t offer wrestling and maybe we can then see how well we’re doing. LSU, Florida, Mississippi State, Colorado State, USC, Oregon, Washington, UCLA, Arizona, Georgia Tech, New Mexico, Texas, Baylor, Kansas, Notre Dame, Florida State, Clemson, California, Alabama, Arizona, Kentucky, Boston University, UTEP, Tulsa, Utah State, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, UConn, Rice, Yale, Houston, Idaho, San Diego State, San Jose State, Utah, Vanderbilt, Arkansas, Texas Tech, Kansas State, TCU, Georgia, Syracuse, Tennessee, Texas A&M, Colorado, Boston College, Mississippi, Georgetown, South Carolina, DePaul, Villanova, East Carolina, Xavier, Gonzaga, Creighton, Cincinnati, Seton Hall, Dayton, Butler, University of Central Florida, Washington State, Louisville, SMU, Memphis, Temple, Montana, Miami, Duquesne, Auburn and Tulane.
Of the Top 25 Junior Colleges in America, there’s not a single school from Pennsylvania which is the hands down best state in the union for producing All Americans. I know what that says to me, what does it say to you? Whatever it is, it can’t be good.
Of the Top 30 collegiate women’s programs in the country there isn’t a single one from PA either. Yet the Keystone state with 33 intercollegiate wrestling programs can’t convince a single Athletic Director to help their Title IX numbers by adding a women’s program? What message do you think they’re sending us?
Rule Changes . . . just thinking with a glass of scotch in hand.
Given that most of us believe stalling has a negative connotation, what do you think about the offending athlete’s team losing a point along with the athlete? If we actually want to stop stalling, let the coach whose wrestler is being passive handle it. You can bet stalling would become extinct, and quite quickly.
Allow every wrestler to wrestle 2 weight classes per dual if they want to, but no more than three times a season. Why? Because our stars typically pin their opponents in the first or early second periods and are done for the night. This is akin to paying a bunch of money to watch LeBron James play for half of the first quarter and then sit the bench for the rest of the evening. That doesn’t sound like a great marketing move on the part of the Cavilers just as it isn’t a wise use of our resources either.
And how about the concept that an athlete can’t be saved by the buzzer if he’s being pinned? If someone is on his back at the end of the period the referee may, at his discretion, allow the action to continue. If and when it becomes obvious that the pin isn’t going to occur, the action can be stopped.
Random Thoughts . . . I usually have a few.
The more I look at collegiate wrestling I can’t help but marvel why teams like Ohio State, Oklahoma State and Iowa haven’t thought about hiring assistants who have pedigrees in pinning? Let’s use Penn State’s successes at the NCAA tournament as an example. It’s not that the Nittany Lions always dominate the competition with regards to the number of wins they have or All-Americans they produce at the NCAA’s; they’re just dominant in the bouts they wrestle. That’s what sets them apart from the competition; they typically score about two dozen more bonus points than the next best team. That’s been the difference in most of PSU’s title runs; they simply outscore the competition . . . and by a lot. Hopefully I’m not telling coaches something that should be obvious but if they’re not teaching pinning and developing bonus point mentalities, finishing ahead of Penn State becomes very problematic.
To prove my point, as of the end of November, of the wrestlers who are nationally ranked, Penn State has pinned 45% of their opponents as opposed to 17% for Oklahoma State. If this trend continues, which history would suggest, the Nittany Lions should be able to count on receiving at least 15 more bonus points than the Cowboys at this year’s NCAA tournament. That’s a lot of points in a close race.
I wonder what it says for USAW that both freestyle medalists in Rio on the men’s side were collegians who were coming off successful folkstyle seasons. Isn’t it Colorado Springs that always explains to everyone that their international failings are a direct result of America’s love of folkstyle? Maybe I’m off base here but if anyone counted the number of shots that Cox and Snyder took on their way to the medal stand it would be in excess of twice as many shots as their 4 teammates took cumulatively. Myth debunked.
Given that we finished ahead of Russia in men’s freestyle, I have to wonder how that occurred. It certainly wasn’t that we had a good performance or even a fair one so was this the first Olympics where the soviets were actually wrestling “clean?” Hmmm. We know their track athletes haven’t been playing nice for quite some time and it’s been recently determined that their whole Olympic program is riddled with performance enhancing drugs. So were they always better than us or just superior as a result of chemistry?
I was dismayed to see one of our Greco coaches in Rio lose control of his emotions and throw the protest brick when it was obvious to everyone (except him) that he should have let sleeping dogs lay. Instead of reversing the 2-point call he questioned, the judges decided that he was right about questioning their call and instead awarded 4-points which was enough to end the bout and eliminate the American wrestler from competition. It seems to me if we ask and expect our wrestlers to do everything humanly possible to be ready for world level competition, shouldn’t USAWrestling hold their coaches to the same standard? Those who can’t help the athletes should be in the stands; and those whose actions might cause negative outcomes should be at home watching the competition on TV.
How about the Mongolian coaches stripping down on world-wide television in protest of an official’s call. I understand that removing ones clothes is an acceptable form of protest where they come from but that’s not the case in any other country that I’m aware of. And we wonder why the IOC feels wrestling might not be a sport they want in their stable. Can you imagine Coach Krzyzewski at Duke dropping his drawers at mid-court over a questionable call? Behavior like that combined with internal corruption is exactly why the IOC’s executives have placed wrestling on their soon to be extinct list. I can’t believe it took the UWW 6 weeks to discipline that coach. This isn’t good. It’s the same as spanking a puppy for soiling your rug 6 weeks after the occurrence. I understand due-process and going slow but the IOC is watching. President Lalovic should have walked onto the mat and taken our exhibitionist by the arm and escorted him to an exit. Social decorum has to rule the day. Now we learn that Mikhail Mamiashvili, the president of the Russian Wrestling Federation and Vice President of the UWW is under investigation by the Russian Olympic Committee and United World Wrestling’s ethics committee for punching one of his women wrestlers after a loss. I know wrestling is combative but we also need to be civil, especially in the court of public opinion. This is just another death by a thousand cuts occurrences that hurts what we all fight so hard to achieve. We have to remember that there are three very competent spectator-friendly sports who would love to replace us in the Games and if they can help the IOC decide our fate, they will gladly do so by handing us a concrete life preserver.
USAWrestling might want to consider filling a few of their positions with people who don’t always agree with leadership. The greatest growth in any organization comes from hearing the uncomfortable while understanding the way others see you and the job you’re doing. I understand that surrounding yourself with “yes men” comes with amazing levels of comfort while you’re being fed disinformation, ineffective viewpoints and distorted signals. But you can’t get ahead when all you hear is “you’re right.”
Remember in 2013 when we first heard of our dismissal from the Games how fast FILA began saying they were going to change their image? So they changed their name but not the organizations leadership. They changed the colors of the singlets and mats but not how they do business. They promised more scoring so they increased the number of points a person could earn for a takedown from 1 to 2 points. Amazingly that single change doubled the number of points scored in the finals in Rio compared to those in London. But in math according to Wade if the points for a takedown were doubled from one event to the next, that doesn’t mean the action has doubled. Even a fourth grader can see through that attempt at deception. So has anything really changed? Half empty stands are still the norm and they don’t even try to hide the corruption anymore . . . but we do have different colored mats. Yea for us.
Television and the Games; it’s not NBC’s job or any other network to cover a sport or make it popular. Rather it’s the sport’s responsibility to make itself popular which in turn draws the attention of television executives. Wrestling doesn’t seem to understand that and the fact that the UWW can’t even find a way to structure their events in a way to keep all their mats operating at one time only adds to the sports Ambien moments. None of this is what the UWW promised or NBC is interested in covering.
If you have a restaurant that’s known to have sub-par cuisine, if you upgrade to linen tablecloths and lay new carpet down you still have the same problem. The food sucks and that’s why people pick one restaurant over another. Ambiance is secondary and only adds to the experience if the food is yummy. In wrestling our problem is the sport’s not exciting which is the equivalent of food to a restaurant. That’s where the sport needs to focus its attention. Paying television to broadcast events only points out, with great clarity, how badly we cook. Charismatic announcers, music, cheerleaders, fog machines and elevated platforms won’t make us a meaningful entertainment source even though it does give everyone a sense of accomplishment for doing something, even if their efforts are all false-positives.
Should the IOC Keep Wrestling in the Olympics
Of course they should, but will they? After you read this you decide.
But to start, I’d like to take my hat off to Martin Floreani and FloWrestling. They’re the only media outlet we have that has the nerve to do investigative pieces in areas that wrestling would prefer to keep hidden. It’s actually refreshing because they don’t hesitate to point out that the King has no cloths on those occasions when he forgets to put them on.
Without Martin’s team of journalists and video professionals wrestling would be far less than it is today. In many ways he’s like Bob Ferraro, the father of the National High School Coaches Association. They both march to their own drummer, are extremely successful in what they do and each does it their way regardless of what others think or who’s toes gets stepped on.
Flo always reminds me how much the sport is an enigma of contradictions. Wrestlers wouldn’t think twice about jumping in a ring with a grizzly bear but at the same time they’re as thin skinned as earthworms. When anyone is critical of some aspect of the sport or those in leadership they immediately circle the wagons and collectively attack the accuser; regardless if the information being shared is valid or not. This is the largest challenge wrestling has because great changes always follow noticeable failures.
If WIN, Amateur Wrestling News or any other member of wrestling’s communication family reported on the issues that Flo tackles we’d be a much stronger sport. Martin understands better than anyone that openness and controversies create desirable outcomes and why his company is worth more than all our other media outlets combined.
An example of this was the breaking story of the massive corruption which took place in Rio with the officiating. This story was broken first by Flo writer Christian Pyles who reported on this injustice after the very first matches were wrestled in Rio. ( http://www.flowrestling.org/article/46587-how-uww-s-chief-referee-rigged-the-olympic-games ) As a consequence, many officials were sent home. But, what about those wrestlers who’s Olympic games were over as a result? To paraphrase one fan’s reactionary tweet, “what are we supposed to say, thank for training for 4 years, coming here to wrestle, and if you want to try again, there’s always Tokyo.”
Never before has our international leadership been so brazen in the way they exercise their power. I’d like to think their actions were honest missteps but it appears that the UWW is still FILA by any other name.
When a group of men knowingly cheat athletes it’s beyond disgraceful and the equivalent of breaking the most sacred of commandments in sports. It goes beyond shameful and I doubt very much if any member of the UWW can say, “I didn’t know what was going on.” Actually each one has to be complicit at some level because anyone who is clever enough to make their board couldn’t possibly have watched the competition without noticing the blatant chicanery. And now, for their organization to collectively stick their heads in the sand and pretend nothing is wrong is the equivalent of waving a red flag in front of the IOC bull.
And for all of you who care about the future of wrestling, especially with us remaining a core sport in the Olympics, you need to go to Flo and read the story. And when you do, you’ll be shaking your head before the end of the first paragraph.
Maybe this isn’t as serious as I’m making it sound but wouldn’t you agree that both knowingly and systematically cheating athletes is the kind of action, and now inaction that could very well affect our Olympic status? What message does this send the IOC who has had their own issues with scandals and corruption?
Remember, it wasn’t that long ago that we were shown the door for our various sins; none of which had anything to do with the sport itself. But it did reflect directly on our leadership’s inattentiveness to repeated requests by the IOC to operate more professionally and end the corruption.
What still amazes me is it was only after we got the boot that FILA reigned in their self importance and dropped to their knees promising change; finally realizing the IOC was serious.
Here’s what was expected:
A change in leadership.
Being more responsive to IOC requests.
End the corruption.
Work to create more excitement and spectator friendliness.
So let’s take a look at what they did in the last three years to turn things around. They changed their name because the old one had lost its luster. They redesigned the attire that referees wear and then made a few tweaks to each countries singlet.
But after enduring that exhaustive work they seemed to have stopped.
As to the IOC’s expectation for change in leadership, President Martinetti resigned under protest but was allowed to stay on as a member of the board which remained in tack. Only later when the IOC cleared their throat over promises not being kept did FILA finally force Martinetti out. But other than that, the faces of leadership remained the same; so essentially there was no change – again thumbing their nose at the IOC.
As to ending the corruption, given what we witnessed in Rio the only change they made was to shine a bright light on what they were doing. I guess you’d call that a change.
As to excitement and being spectator friendly, the UWW decided the best way to accomplish this was to double the number of points for a takedown. From that they did chest bumps proclaiming, “Look at what we accomplished! The average number of points scored per bout has doubled in the last three years.”
Really . . . of course there’s more scoring. If you double the number of points for a takedown and have the same number of takedowns, the point totals have to double. Maybe I’m wrong but isn’t that 3rd grade, 2nd month math?
Now following Rio the UWW has decided that par terre will no longer be forced on athletes in Greco matches. That means more defensive posturing and less attacks from standing. I’m confused, is that the direction the sport should head. What could they be thinking when a majority of all the points scored in Greco come from the down position?
All this reminds me of what Pelle Svensson, a two-time World Champion and 17 year member of the UWW Board said about them as he resigned in disgust. They are nothing more than “an inherently corrupt organization.”
And although I don’t agree with the street theater we saw from the Mongolian coaches in Rio, their protest was a direct result of the corrupt officiating. So one might be swayed to say that the UWW is partially responsible for the black eye we received here as a result of the coach’s actions.
I’m worried that so little has happened relative to the UWW’s assurances to reform that bad things are about to befall us. It’s still business as usual for them; political favors and financial inducements flowing upstream while the sport heads downstream and over the dam.
As to the question I posed at the top of the page; IOC President Thomas Bach has promised to fight all corruption, wherever he finds it with zero tolerance. So I’d have to believe he’s going to take a close look at wrestling and be compelled to act.
Now I get it for those who want to defend our sport that the IOC isn’t without sin; or willing to hold themselves to the same standards as they will judge us by. Yes, they had their issues in 2002 with the Salt Lake City Olympics followed by an ongoing string of allegations regarding bidding and voting irregularities. None of that is shocking but we should be very concerned about it because there’s a difference in the microscope settings when a mother judges herself versus one of her siblings; especially an insignificant one like wrestling when zero tolerance is promised. This is a “you or mother” scenario and I’d put money on the IOC deciding that it’s better to clean our house than to shine a negative light on theirs.
To help the IOC with a decision like this, there are several other sports who have been patiently waiting in the wings to become the next member of the Olympic family. And what do you think each of them is saying to every IOC board member they encounter?
”Why are you keeping wrestling? They’ve embarrassed themselves and you once again while cheating their own athletes. I would imagine that Pierre de Coubertin is turning over in his grave right about now. Do you really need the media taking a closer look at your group over wrestling’s transgressions? You have enough problems as it is and they’re continuously demonstrating that they can’t be trusted. Give us a chance, dump wrestling; we’ll bring honor, excitement and twice the number of spectators to your events.”
And if USAWrestling doesn’t force the UWW to jump on these transgressions with both feet, what message does that send, especially to our athletes here at home; that it’s okay to devote an entire career to that one moment in time when one is inches away from an Olympic medal to instead end up with a ticket home as a consolation prize. All because someone with a whistle got his palm greased.
Here are a few interesting posts on Flo’s website about the corruption in Rio;
“It’s time for entire cleansing of the wrestling world from the bottom to the top!!! To include our very own….”
“Where were the American officials at when this went down?”
“It’s time to get an official statement from UWW on what they have to say about the allegations and how they plan to respond to them.”
“So I guess the Mongolians were onto something.”
“Our country’s great sense of fairness make us gasp in disbelief at the blatant corruption possibilities that play themselves out on the wrestling mat.”
“Sadly this is the kind of stuff that gives the IOC ammo to throw wrestling out of the Olympics…”
“So if this is true they should pull the $50,000 fine they issued to Mongolian team for there protest on the mat seems unfair to fine a team when the officials were cheating.”
“And the decline of my beloved sport continues.”
Adeline and Jordan in Rio . . .
I’m not aware of what happened to Adeline on the women’s side of things but in talking with people who know Jordan, it seems the consensus is there were way too many distractions. Only JB knows for sure, and maybe he’s not completely aware of how each one added to the letdown but I believe we can agree that Rio wasn’t his best performance.
Actually it was painful to watch . . . to see such a great athlete and spokesman for the sport trying to regain his composure after the first loss and then again after his second. I can’t imagine what was going through his mind. But even if he’s one Gold Medal short of what he prepared for, he’s still our champion.
So what were the distractions? Before we talk about that we need to remember that JB is no longer the same person who won the worlds in 2011 or the Olympics in 2012. There has been a few changes in his life. To begin he married his sweetheart in 2013 and has become the father of two lovely children with all the associated responsibilities while trying to maintain the moniker of being the most popular wrestler in the world.
Besides those things what appeared to have sidetracked him the most is the media. They were so enamored by his intelligence and pleasant demeanor that they pulled him in every direction possible except the one that pointed to the winners circle.
If there was a fifth distraction it was the half million dollar Gold Medal incentive package he was offered. The pressure to win in Rio meant that if he was successful the Burroughs family would become financially comfortable for quite a few years to come.
And finally there was the stress that comes from knowing that your fans are expecting not only the Gold but to win each match by even larger margins than before.
I have to believe that Adeline had similar issues, especially with the media and the pressure that’s associated with being America’s flag bearer for the women’s program.
Combined, each one of these time consuming entanglements moved both Jordan’s and Adeline’s psyches away from the envious position of being the hunter to the exposed position of being the hunted.
When I watched Adeline’s first match it certainly appeared she was just trying to get through it against a women she had defeated 9 times before. The match was simply a matter of her under performing by keeping the bout closer than she was capable of and ended up on the losing end of a last second 2-pointer.
This shocked me because every match I’ve ever watched her wrestle she’s never been that conservative. I place the responsibility for that on the coaching staff. She just wasn’t ready to shake hands, kick fanny and take names.
For those who might take exception to that comment about the coaches, I’ll give you that it’s ultimately the athlete who’s responsible for their own success but keeping them focused and away from the pitfalls of distractions is the coach’s job. It couldn’t have been that Adeline wasn’t physically ready to wrestle or wasn’t emotionally capable of winning her fourth world title so through the process of elimination the easy conclusion is that the coaches simply did not step up to help her with the outside distractions.
In the case of Jordan who was 2-0 against his Russian opponent and beat Abdurakhmonov 9-3 just a month before the Games, I wonder if anyone grabbed him after his first loss and said; “Do you know what’s worse than going home and having to explain to everyone how you lost?” Then after a pause follow that with, “Going home and having to explain to everyone how you lost twice.” As much as we might not believe it, our Olympians are still young adults with quite a bit more to learn. It’s our senior level leadership who should be the ones to provide it. Something they clearly failed to do.
Writing this portion of the blog reminds me of watching Gable wrestle his last collegiate match against Larry Owings. It was probably the most shocking loss I’ve ever witnessed in sports. This defeat had nothing to do with physical preparedness but had everything to do with the number of distractions Dan endured before the match.
Every media outlet imaginable wanted time with our Golden Boy, even the ones that never covered wrestling before because he was that big, his accomplishments were that well known. Never beaten in high school and undefeated throughout his collegiate career the media just couldn’t get enough of Dan. And from what I’ve heard over the years, Coach Nichols blamed himself for not doing more to protect his star from the distractions. He was probably right because the media and all that surrounds them are, by definition, the things that pull a person away from their goals.
Don’t get me wrong, Owings’ was very good but not Dan Gable good. So whatever those things were that pulled Dan away from doing his best caused the greatest wrestler America has ever produced to under produce.
As to Rio, had Dan been the coach I doubt very much if Adeline or Jordan would have lost. For coaching is imparting the wisdom gained from what typically is 40+ years of competing, coaching and life experiences to those who have less than 20 years of competitive experience; regardless of how successful the athletes are.
Dan never forgot the lesson he endured in 1970; how expectations and distractions reduced his level of performance. He took those lessons to form the basis of who he became as a coach. I can’t remember a time when a Hawk wrestled below his capabilities; can you? That had everything to do with Dan continuously controlling his athlete’s access to external disturbances and a major reason why they won so often.
And when the time comes that Jordon and Adeline retires from competition, I’m sure they’ll both remember how dangerous an overabundance of distractions were and like Gable, become exceptional coaches.
So What’s A Person To Do . . .
Have you ever wondered what you could do as a member of USAWrestling if you wanted to express your concern (or displeasure) at our performance in Rio? Or for USAWrestling closing their eyes to the corruption within the UWW without exposing yourself to reprisals; or hurting the organization?
If you have, then maybe this might appeal to you?
Given that nothing significant happens at USAWrestling from September through November why not delay the purchase of your membership card until December? This action won’t hurt the organizations bottom line, but it is a way to express your concerns regarding our senior level programming and how they’re allowing the UWW to bury our beloved sport with the IOC.
This form of organized revenue disruption is temporary but it definitely sends a very strong message to USAWrestling’s Board of Directors and their half dozen or so senior level contributors. It tells them they have your support should they wish to force change.
This is the only way I can think of where everyday individuals like you and I can make a difference without actually hurting the organization or our access to their programming.
Thought for the day . . . things that matter the most must never be at the mercy of things that matter least.
USAWrestling; Red, White and Feeling Blue
Before USAWrestling has much of a chance to spin the results of the Games, you might like to know a few facts. Out of 72 medals that were awarded for wrestling in Rio America won 3 of them. That alone should tell you where we stand in the world and the job Colorado Springs is doing in relation to international competition.
In Rio there were 19 wrestlers in each weight class, 12 of which received first round byes. It’s hard to believe that we can’t do better given all the wrestlers had to do was win their first match to move into the medal round.
Now I’m not suggesting that winning matches on this stage is easy, but if our athlete’s preparedness was equal to their levels of talent, success shouldn’t be a stretch. That’s my point here and where USAWrestling falls short; we have the talent but the athletes aren’t ready and the sad part is they’re not even aware of it because they don’t know what they don’t know. Their unpreparedness is leaderships fault. I’ll take a more in-depth look at this point in the next blog.
As to Greco, of the 138 matches that were wrestled in the Games, Team USA won 2 of them.
We had two 3-time World Champions in Rio and all they could manage was 1 win apiece. Both exited the Games without a medal. So what happened, it’s not that they won their previous championships by mistake? This too will be discussed in the next blog.
Between 1972 and 2000 (the year that the current administration arrived in Colorado Springs), America averaged 5.7 medals per Olympiad. Since 2000, we’ve dropped to 2.25 medals for an embarrassing 250% decrease in performance.
But Wade, there were 10 weight classes per style back then and we only have 6 today so you’re not comparing apples to apples. You’re right about the number of weight classes then but there wasn’t a woman’s division in the Olympics prior to 2000 so the slide in our competitiveness is still over 200% and certainly signifies we’ve fallen off a steep cliff.
In some regards what we’re going through is like death by a 1000 cuts. We’ve grown so accustomed to slowly decreasing performances that we’ve grown numb to the lethalness of our decline. If you wonder why that is it’s because we’re Americans and always prefer to see the glass as being half full versus half empty, to see what we’ve accomplished rather than what we haven’t.
If America has anything to hang its hat on during this Olympic cycle, which granted isn’t much, it’s that we weren’t the only team that did far less than expected. Perennial powerhouse, Russia, finished behind us which is a first as far back as I can remember not counting the Games in Los Angeles that were boycotted. I would imagine their coaches belongings are already boxed and on their way to Siberia as a result of their failings.
Now before I continue I’d like to apologize to the staff of USAWrestling for a comment I made two blogs ago, when I complimented Pete Isais and followed it with . . . “he’s the brightest star we have within a constellation of white dwarfs.” My words clearly suggested something I didn’t mean, and I see how they could be mis-perceived. I was trying to point out that leadership was not preforming to the levels we expect or the athletes deserve. These shortcomings are probably a result of administrative non-decisions rather than poor decisions but either way, the buck stops at the top and my words missed the mark. I’m very sorry.
The staff at USAWrestling is professional, efficient, and devoted to the growth of the sport. Without them we’d be in a real pickle.
And further, to be very clear, every time I criticize leadership I don’t mean that every single decision they make is off the mark or any specific department within the organization is poorly run. To the contrary, USAWrestling as a whole is the envy of many of the USOC family of sports. It’s just that when they fall from grace in competition, as they so often do, they do it in spades, which is reflective of the entire organization.
When it comes to CEO’s or Executive Directors, they’re ultimately accountable to their investors or in our case, membership. In Colorado Springs Mr. Bender has the unenviable task of keeping a wide and diverse organization pleased which isn’t an easy job. And he does it well when it comes to Operations and Finance, Sales and Marketing, Capital Improvement, Human Resources and Employee Training but unfortunately appears clueless with regards to athlete development. Or quite possibly he’s so deep in the political swamp that it’s impossible to win for losing.
So here’s the problem . . . he’s the Executive Director in charge of the entire organization and is the man in charge of finding out when a ball is dropped who dropped it? But if he knows, he’s not saying but regardless he’s the one responsible to fix it.
Here’s the solution . . . Rich needs a buffer, he needs to hire someone who understands his weaknesses who can take the hit when teams have sub-par performances and give the credit to the organization when they succeed. That person should have the title of Director of National Teams and be responsible to provide strategic leadership to the coaches while overseeing athlete training and qualifying tournaments. If that position already exists under a different name, I think we’ve found the person who isn’t doing their job or possibly knowing how the organization works, isn’t being allowed to do their job? We need to approach leadership in today’s fast paced, information overloaded environment like a gardener approaches gardening. Gardeners tend to their gardens and find success when they create an environment where plants flourish, and the gardener only has to perform maintenance as all the ground work was done up front. However, this type of leadership is not passive but active and requires the leader to lead from the front where the actions of the leaders speak louder than the words.
So if I were in that position, and I’m definitely not lobbying for it, here are a few examples of what I’d insist take place. Most of them will be vehemently opposed by coaches and rejected by the athletes but that shouldn’t be a concern. Greatness in sports never happens by mistake and it certainly doesn’t happen when you allow the athletes or coaches to do their own thing or dictate the curriculum.
1) Insist that every wrestler who receives stipends train at the OTC or lose their funding. I know this idea is not going to be a popular initiative but we aren’t running a popularity contest. Winning is about setting goals and then achieving them. May I remind everyone that Lombardi was hated by every member of the Green Bay Packers until they won a few Super Bowls then the old coach was loved. If championships were easy, everyone would be a champion.
It’s simply impossible for any athlete to be at his/her best when he/she trains with others who aren’t currently at his/her level of development. NFL players don’t become All-Pro by working out with players from their old college teams. You can’t compete with lawyers in New York City when you practice law in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It’s simply impossible for a David Taylor who I happen to believe is one of our greats to reach his potential by working out in the Penn State room. He needs global level competition on a daily basis with people like Burroughs, Dake, Dieringer, Howe and Cox all who are well within reach of obtaining international greatness. As steel sharpens steel, we must insist that our best toughen one another just as other countries do. What do you think would happen if every member of the Iowa team decided to go back to their high schools to train during the week and then show up on the weekends to wrestle? How crazy is that, Tom would never allow it to happen but if he did, he’d only have to endure four months of losing before he was replaced. Does anyone else see the futility of allowing America’s best to train apart with those who have yet to step on the world stage? Getting along, being politically correct, having the individual freedom to do what you want when you want isn’t how anyone becomes great in a combat sport. It takes discipline, sacrifice and for those who just want to whine; to retire.
Our most successful years in wrestling were when everyone who was anyone lived in Iowa City and trained with Gable. My joints still remind me when the barometric pressure drops of those daily workouts with Dziedzic, Schultz, Kemp, Peterson, Keaser, Campbell and of course “the Gabe.” It wasn’t pleasant, and it wasn’t easy, but it did put all of us in the Hall of Fame. A day of relaxation for me was facing off against Carl Adams, and I can tell you that wasn’t a vacation. But today, everyone trains apart, and the results reflect that.
If anyone’s curious how Jordan, Kyle and our amazing women won championships training apart, remember I said “for athletes to be at their best they need to train together.” It’s just that the best those athletes have is above the line that’s necessary to be a World Champion. They’re that good and would become even better if they worked together while, at the same time, elevating those around them which is of equal or greater importance as USA Wrestling looks to improve their position on the world stage.
Taking this idea a step further, if I had the power to do so I’d add a second criterion for making a World, Pan Am or Olympic team. Instead of just winning the trials, each athlete would be required to fly to the OTC for a predetermined period of time to train. This wouldn’t be optional. Failure to show up means the athlete forfeits his/her position and the second place wrestler immediately replaces him/her. If we want to be serious about winning, then we have to be serious about winning.
2) One size doesn’t fit all and how we coach our national teams should mirror that fact. For the sake of argument let’s say there are three completely different wrestling styles. The first is conservative and hard-nosed like Ramos, Molinaro, Howe and Snyder. The second is moderate and creative which are your Pico’s, Cox’s and Burroughs’. The last one is unorthodox and imaginative like Taylor, Dake, and Rutherford. By the way, this last style is the most fun to watch, the most difficult to compete against and the hardest to dissect if you’re a foreigner.
In my opinion the second largest challenge USAWrestling faced leading up to Rio was every member of our freestyle coaching staff were disciples of conservative and hardnosed. Slay would do wonders with Snyder types but struggle to understand Dake. Zadick could improve Ramos but doesn’t speak Rutherford very well. Burnett believes that basics win matches and he’s right; however that doesn’t always help develop America’s imaginative wrestlers.
Now none of this is to say or insinuate that these men can’t coach, they’re some of this country’s best. I’m just trying to point out that in any organization if you have 3 people with the same mindset, it’s believed that 2 of them aren’t necessary. And if there’s one thing that makes America special it’s our creativeness and innovation. To stifle that for the benefit of conservatism is to witness what we saw in Rio.
Success development of our athletes means matching mindset with mindset, skillset with skillset and that can only take place when you pair athletes with likeminded coaches. This is exactly what Lombardi did when he built the Green Bay Packers into Super Bowl Champions – he used a framework built on what he called the seven blocks of granite; 1.Spartan qualities of sacrifice, selflessness, competitive drive, and perseverance; 2. The American Zeal to compete and win to find their better selves; 3. A man’s commitment to excellence and victory; 4. Too much freedom and not enough authority bringing us close to chaos; 5. Lack of disciplined leadership where people want to be told what to do but also to have freedom – effective leaders needed to understand this paradox; 6. A great leader is one that identifies himself with his group and backs his group even if it means displeasure from the superiors and to give a sense of approval as well as belief in teamwork through cooperation – a balance between mental toughness and love; and 7. The two inseparable qualities that make great leaders stand out are character and will – will is character in action – leadership is in sacrifice, self-denial, love, loyalty, fearlessness, and humility to build the winning team. Bottom line, USAWrestling needs to do a better job in diversifying their coaching staffs and learn from our own history of what makes people and athletes great.
3) Know your enemy without duplicating them. The former is where we score high marks, the latter produces losses. USAWrestling has done great work at gathering and analyzing videos of the world’s best wrestlers. But the question is how to handle this treasure trove of information? Obviously we should use it to identify those techniques the opposition will throw at us and then develop a) counter measures and b) counter attacks after blocking their shots. However, I’m not so sure that counter attacks is part of USAWrestling’s curriculum. If it were, our non-medalists would have done better. Cox and Snyder were successful, in part, to their counter attacks, a staple of collegiate wrestling – a fact which should be noted since those two still have collegiate eligibility remaining. It could be coincidence that they medaled where those who graduated several years ago didn’t but I think I see a pattern. What is obvious to me is we’re missing defensive offenses; ways to score from our opponent’s shots. This is as American as apple pie and exactly the area where the Europeans and Asians have trouble figuring us out. They have all learned to train by the step 1 is followed by step 2 methodology. That’s all well and good for them, but if you throw step 4 in-between steps 1 and 2 you’ll often notice smoke coming out of their ears as their circuitry is fried. No one knows chain wrestling like Americans do, yet, it appears that we’ve shelved it as not being “the way the Russians do it.”
What videos shouldn’t be used for are learning tools to duplicate our attacks to mirror theirs just because “the Iranians or the Russians win with it.” Americans need to wrestle the way we’ve always wrestled. But as an example to tell Ben Askren in ‘08 that he had to completely change from his “give them a leg and win from there” style to an elbows in, square stance, down block and push away philosophy took him from being the favored to win Gold and turned him into a spectator with 1 win and 2 losses. Misguided coaching by the staff of USAWrestling cost him his dream. That’s sad and I’m sorry but it’s also unforgivable.
Now if I offended anyone here, once again I’m sorry but I stick by my one size doesn’t fit all philosophy. It took me years to figure out that how I wrestled shouldn’t be shared with conservative hard-nosed types. That was a miscalculation on my part just as Gable learned after a couple of years at Iowa that his crunch style of coaching didn’t work well for those who were unorthodox and imaginative.
4) Fire any national team coach who sits in an athlete’s corner opposite another American. No exceptions, one strike and you’re out. You cannot have a cohesive program when sides are drawn by individuals who are paid to know better. This is one of the primary reasons why a vast majority of our greats won’t show their faces at the training center in Colorado Springs. They know if they do, they’ll more than likely be scouted, and their weaknesses used against them. Now it doesn’t matter to what degree this feeling is real or imagined, it’s an outgrowth of observing members of the national coaching staff choosing sides during matches between Americans. We can’t be at our best when coaches show favoritism and the athletes don’t trust them, or the organization, for allowing it to take place.
My next blog will go into depth regarding Rich’s more inhibiting challenges and how he might see them in a different light. It should be fun.
Olympic Notes
Maryland On The Move
Besides being known for blue crabs, rock fish and black-eyed susans, Maryland can now claim to be the home of Olympic Champions. That’s important to the state because before Rio the only thing Maryland could say with regard to wrestling was it bordered on Pennsylvania.
Now it has two larger than life heroes.
Helen Maroulis; what a story, what a lady. She became the first woman in United States history to win an Olympic Championship in freestyle wrestling by shocking Japan’s Saori Yoshida, a thirteen time World Champion and three-time Olympic Gold Medalist.
When the final buzzer sounded she cried tears of joy, then she cried again on the medal stand as she sang the national anthem and together with the American flag over her head we cried with her.
Helen you are simply the best. The way you handled yourself throughout the years is an inspiration to us all. We’ve loved watching you mature and your passion for the sport is obvious.
Kyle Snyder; won and done, cool, focused, a man on a mission. You never stop pushing, reaching, creating, striving, persisting or dreaming. Your performance was simply brilliant.
Never have I watched any of our champion’s march their way through the competition like you did. Elbows at your side, feet always moving, precise attacks and counters, never out of position, never a momentary loss of composure.
And most important of all, both of you are better people than you are wrestlers . . . and that speaks to the job your parents did and the choices you continually make.
Well done.
Changing Channels
I believe Ryan Lochte owes more than USA Swimming an apology. He single handily stole headlines from every Gold Medalist and their country after receiving his day in the sun as a competitor. Just as unforgiving was the way NBC and their affiliates handled the controversy.
Even today, 72 hours after the closing ceremonies and a week after the incident itself we are still being forced to ride Lochte’s shame train. Enough already. NBC wanted the story of the 4 swimmers who said they were robbed at gunpoint to be true. They wanted the ratings that such a scandal would produce. They wanted to validate what many were thinking; that a once proud and beautiful city was no longer deserving of such an exclusive event.
Granted, all was not perfect in Rio but what Games are? With millions of moving parts and with every event cycle locations and administrations change there’s going to be cracks, there’s going to be black holes not to mention a few oops’. But given Brazil is financially reeling as a result of falling oil prices and political scandals, the city still pulled it off and the event was something to watch.
In the meantime no one outside of wrestling could possibly understand what an amazing feat Helen accomplished and the odds that Kyle overcame to become the youngest American to ever win an Olympic Gold in our sport. NBC certainly didn’t. Both narratives of sacrifice, humility and triumph should have been lead stories for the network. But given that neither athlete urinated behind some building or lied to the police, those outside of wrestling will never know of their remarkable achievements.
Note to every media outlet . . . for Kyle to be the best in the world at the age of 20, that’s comparable to becoming boxing’s undisputed Heavyweight Champion of the World at the same age or the All-Around Champion in gymnastics at 12 . . . neither of which has ever occurred.
As for Helen, all she did with a little girl’s smile and enormous heart was the equivalent of besting Michael Phelps an hour after upsetting Usain Bolt.
On a different take, I wonder how NBC would have handled the Lochte story had it been 4 wrestlers instead of swimmers. Fortunately we won’t know because I can’t imagine our best putting themselves in that position.
As to the media coverage we received in general . . . remember it wasn’t that long ago we were thrown out of the Olympics. NBC was just taking their lead from the IOC . . . “if leadership doesn’t care about wrestling, why should we?” Unfortunately this snubbing and our continual fall from grace is just the tip of the iceberg regarding how people feel about our sport. And until our leadership sees fit to make significant changes in their attitude and the way they choose to administer wrestling, their myopic viewpoints and stubbornness will prove Darwin’s theory to be correct.
It’s all a matter of how quickly the UWW can clean up their image of corruption and make the sport spectator friendly and exciting. In the absence of those changes, wrestling is not going to make it past 2020.
The following is an exchange I had with one of the nation’s most recognizable wrestling officials. I thought you might find it interesting.
Wade,
This note to you is long overdue – I’ve read every one of your blogs and your writing is spot on. Well stated – many times over.
I’ve shared your concerns about the slow, certain death wrestling faces if we continue down this same old path of mediocrity. Additionally, the “sports fan” we compete for has no reason to pay to watch us when there are many other exciting alternatives available.
I’ve written to the NWCA on several occasions about my concerns and the response is predictable – “ho hum, leave us alone.” They don’t understand how difficult it is to watch the sport anymore. From 1978 thru 2001 I have been slowly tortured to death by the boring nature of Division I competition.
I don’t think most coaches and wrestling fans realize how close we are to a funeral.
How big is your bandwagon, and how do you (we) attract more like minded souls? They’re out there!
Name Withheld
______________________________________________________________
Dear Name Withheld,
Thank you so very much for the kind note. It is appreciated and I share many of your sediments. We are close to seeing unpleasant things befall the sport. And as I see it there are only two ways that things will change.
The sport totally collapses and our myopic leadership, without anyone left to lead finally quits and goes away. When and if that happens, it will be people like you who help us pick up the pieces and rebuild wrestling from the ground up.
Or there’s a nationwide coup as a result of a colossus failure to perform in Rio and membership starts a “throw the rascals out” revolt.
The first one took place to some degree when the AAU was replaced in the ‘70’s by the USWF. That forced everyone who was anyone in the AAU, except for Newt Copple, to jump ship and become part of the leadership team in what is now USAWrestling. What was left at the AAU were non-political individuals who were only interested in doing right for those who remained. From there the Union was rebuilt to where it is today, 1/3 the size of membership of USAWrestling with a budget that is 1/60th the size of Colorado Springs’ and a staff that is 1/35th as large.
At the NCAA, high school and international levels what I’ve observed is leadership likes the way things are . . . they feel that the outcome of any change someone may make could have a negative impact on their standing in the sport. That uncertainty is too daunting for them to endure. It seems they would rather change professions after the sport implodes than take a risk with the unknown even if that unknown is predictably known.
As you might guess, all this isn’t rocket science. There are so many common sense approaches to change that are being overlooked . . . it’s really quite maddening.
One of them is to support the “a point scored is a point earned” approach to improving action and excitement. I’m really committed to that change.
(For those who haven’t heard of a point scored is a point earned before, look to the right and click on that title 11 blogs down from the top. It’s the most important change we can make in the sport.)
All this is a sad state of affairs but nothing we do is going to make converts out of coaches. Just as a mind is a terrible thing to waste, so too are they impossible to change.
Consequently I’ve resigned myself to the way wrestling operates and I’m cataloging their inactivity in my writings so I can say “I told you so” sometime down the road. That may be a childish approach but I don’t know anything else to do.
Wade
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Wade,
I agree, your treatise on “a point earned is a point scored” is a huge step in the right direction. One of the reasons I gave up collegiate officiating was too many of the finest trained and conditioned athletes in the world would beat their best opponent by one point, and then an average competitor by two. Seldom was there any real risk taking, and most dual matches would yield one or two good to great matches, two or three matches with a few flurries and four or five matches that were quite frankly duds.
I don’t blame the athletes – they simply wrestle to the level the rules permit and that which their coaches insist on . . . basically that means get a 1 point lead and sit on it.
I stated something similar to a comment I believe you made a while back that goes like this: the athletes will wrestle to the rules but seldom do more – but as referees, administrators and coaches we need and we must find a way to reward attackers. A point earned is a point scored does exactly that.
And regarding another one of your opinions you are correct – get the coaches out of the rules meetings. That’s most definitely the fox in the hen house scenario.
Frankly I had never considered your point earned is a point scored idea – and every time I read it the more I like it. It’s all about continued scoring and attacking – all the way to a fall. Under that concept a great wrestler and his team is rewarded for continuing to do what he or she does best; and that’s to be spectacular!
And can you imagine what would happen when a great collegian joins the international ranks after his developmental years – he’ll be more than ready for the Iranians and Russians.
Stay tuned,
Name Withheld
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On a different subject, did you see where the United States finished 4th at the World Cups in Los Angeles this month? We were defeated by Iran in the semi-finals and then Georgia in the match for the Bronze medal.
You can imagine how Colorado Springs feels we did when they spend most of their time in post mortem talking about how well the event was received and how smoothly everything ran. But not how we finished.
Everything did go well administratively and as a result kudos to Pete Isais from the national office; he’s the brightest star we have within a constellation of white dwarfs.
Just as important to wrestling is the Titan-Mercury Club. Their invaluable assistance smoothed over any rough spots the Cup had while providing a certain level of refinement that’s seldom seen at events run by Colorado Springs. It’s too bad the TMC isn’t the National Governing Body; they actually know how to make things happen at the upper levels.
Speaking of USAWrestling, where was USAW-California regarding the work that had to be done to make the World Cup successful? One of the event managers was overheard bemoaning how little they did for the event . . . and “they didn’t even sell one ticket.”
As to the competition itself, there were certainly some memorable moments and a few great bouts. But note to USAWrestling; you lost to a team for 3rd place whose country is half the size of our state of Georgia with a population that’s 1/4th as big not to mention we were enjoying home court advantage! And if Azerbaijan had brought their first team, it’s quite possible we would have been wrestling for 5th and 6th against Mongolia instead of Georgia for 3rd.
Why is any of this acceptable and why doesn’t this outrage everyone who loves wrestling and America? We outnumber and outspend the rest of the world in wrestling by a lot and continually look to Burroughs as the face of our program and the sports lone Superman. Apologies to Kyle and Adeline here, they both have S’s on their chests too but 3 stars in a galaxy of 18 isn’t very blinding.
As usual our leadership failed us, the coaching staff failed us. The athletes did what they could but without proper training, which they aren’t receiving, the results speak for themselves.
Frankly it’s embarrassing. But am I the only one who feels this way? Are we actually that bad or is something else wrong? Our numbers and resources should give us at a minimum the equivalent of 2 Burroughs, 1 Snyder and 1 Grey . . . per discipline.
In the absence of that I’m confused, what magic wand does Colorado Springs have that they wave over membership that numbs everyone into accepting one dismal performance after another year after year? Or did they buy some pixy dust from Disney to use on their Board of Directors? I can’t believe that 40 very accomplished and intelligent men and women don’t see this for what it is . . . everyone being afraid of offending someone so the tough decisions are never addressed.
If USAWrestling’s medal count were numbers on a spread sheet for any Fortune 500 company stock holders would being going absolutely bananas. Leadership would be shown the door so fast their heads would spin. But instead the Board of USAWrestling keeps giving its Executive Director raises and annual bonuses for what one must assume is a job well done.
Hugh, what?
Leadership should not receive financial at-a-boys for having an impressive handicap in golf, but to produce in wrestling. Compensation should be determined by international performances, not managing three dozen or so self-motivated employees. What did the Board see regarding our performance at last year’s World Championships that made them vote for another raise and bonus? With home court advantage, we only had 3 wrestlers in the finals for all three disciplines in the Olympic weights. That’s 3 out of 36, not an effort worthy of writing home about.
In contrast did you know that at one time in the 1970’s, when America’s folkstyle programs were twice the size of what they are today, we won more World and Olympic Gold Medals than all the other Olympic sports with the exception of track and swimming which had twice as many athletes competing in twice as many events.
J is J
I’ve known J Robinson since the early 70’s and he has always marched to his own drummer. He’s an opinionated winner, a stubborn and rugged individualist, a person you can count on to reject political correctness while he embraces discipline and personal responsibility. I’ve always found J to say what he believes and believe what he says. I like that about the man and I’ve have always admired the bond of trust and respect he builds with his wrestlers. And as tough as he is on his athletes, he’s equally as tough on himself. J is the person you want to share a fox hole with and be in your corner during competition.
He’s the person who helped Gable become the coach he was and then the individual who challenged Iowa’s dominance after he moved to Minneapolis.
But somehow you knew as long as he continued to win big while the rest of the school’s programs won small, his uncompromising temperament and say it like it is demeanor wouldn’t be an issue. But with the combination of this year’s mediocre season with what appears to be a scandal of federal proportions, those who have never subscribed to J’s view of the world have attacked.
And this Xanax scandal is about to get uglier before it gets better, but not in the way some may think; so pass out the ice packs and salt, there’s going to be a few black eyes and individuals eating crow.
Now for those who haven’t heard or may not know much of the story, here’s what’s being reported and I’ve deduced from reading between the lines.
“A source with the wrestling program told the (Minneapolis) Star Tribune’s Joe Christensen that Robinson learned this season that his athletes were using and selling large amounts of Xanax. Robinson, according to the source, tried to handle the crisis internally. He reportedly did not tell his superiors.”
From this and a majority of other articles I’ve found online, J is getting crucified Joe Paterno style for trying to handle a very bad situation internally. And yesterday he was put on administrative leave by the universities newly appointed Athletic Director which in political speak usually means . . . you’re gone but we’re allowing you to save face for the outstanding service you’ve provided the university over the years.
What hasn’t been reported, but will become apparent when the authorities dig through the emails on his athletic department server, that J did what was expected of a man of character and followed university protocol.
So basically there appears to have been a rush to judgment here and knowing J, I believe he’ll deal with this in the same way he handles everything in his life . . . by powering through it. And given that this attack on J’s reputation occurred prior to being given an opportunity to defend himself and provide timelines, everyone is about to lose something. This is as predictable as it is indicative of the man who believes that conflict is good because it strengthens character.
A Combination of Thoughts
I’d like to start by complimenting USAWrestling and for some that might mean breaking out the smelling salts. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a while now given I don’t hesitate to call their leadership out when their priorities get out of whack.
So to begin, I’d like to recognize their staff and every one of their volunteers who work tirelessly not only for the sport but the children in their care. I can’t begin to tell you how much I respect what they do, why they do it and believe their unselfish sacrifices shouldn’t go unnoticed. Wrestling has always been a solid family unit and they’re all part of what’s good about the sport.
In a nutshell, USAWrestling is simply one of the best NGB’s that the USOC has in their stable. They are to wrestling what Secretariat or Sea Biscuit was to thoroughbred racing. Even its leadership is functioning close to Triple Crown levels when it comes to administering the organization.
But notice I chose the word close to describe their efforts. They certainly should receive a great deal of kudos for growing their organization but I guess I have to ask, at what cost to others and are they fulfilling their role as National Governing Body?
For the answer to the second part I went to the USOC website. I wanted to see how they defined the responsibility of being a National Governing Body. Here’s what I found; USAWrestling has two basic obligations:
To generate resources in support of its mission statement to help American athletes achieve sustained competitive excellence.
To ensure that their resources are used both wisely and effectively to that end.
When I began above, my praise of USAWrestling was reflective of their capabilities to generate a level of resources that are the envy of most, if not all the NGB’s in Colorado Springs, even given the USOC’s reduction in performance funding due to a decline in medal production. But relative to measuring their “sustained competitive excellence” they’re falling woefully short and regarding “wise and effective” use of resources that I’ll cover later in the blog.
To be an NGB, sustained international performances are half of the equation.
It’s not the number of memberships an organization sells or the quality of USAWrestling’s monthly magazine which is amazing by the way or the robustness of their website. But rather or not are they developing competitive excellence, do our singlets evoke a sense of global respect like Iowa’s did on a national basis during Gable’s tenure?
This should be easy to answer; it’s a yes or no question. Are we or are we not being successful internationally? If the answer is yes, all’s good. If it’s a no, before pointing fingers we should ask two questions; are we close and are our programs moving in the right direction?
Unfortunately the answers are no and no. We’re not competitive and if I can say anything positive here it’s we’re not headed in the wrong direction. We’re just remaining constant.
Were you aware, out of the Top 72 ranked freestyle wrestlers in the world; America only has 2 of them; Burroughs and Snyder. That means the United States; a country that is #1 in the world in every support category imaginable only has 2.7% of the planets best freestylers. Yes that’s correct, less than 3% of the world’s studs are American.
And unfortunately we’re only half that successful in Greco with 1 wrestler in the Top 72 and he’s ranked 5th in the world. That means America is dominating 1.3% of the Greco field.
On the women’s side we do a little better with 3 of our ladies ranked in the Top 72 or 4.1% of the field.
How is any of this possible? With everything we have going for us in the Land of the Free and Plenty; these numbers are beyond excusable. And it’s NOT the fault of our athletes. They are every bit as resilient, talented and amazing as anything the Europeans can put on the mat; but the two groups as a whole are vastly different.
The developmental years for the Eastern Europeans is far more physically challenging than what we have to go through here in the states. As children they have to fight for their next meal and the word bullying doesn’t exist in their cultures; nor is politically correct something they understand. The result is their physical builds and mentalities tend to mirror the immoveable object in relationship to the irresistible force of the Americans. We tend to be more creative, stubborn and proud than our counterparts. These differences and the way we don’t train to take advantage of our skillsets should be a blog by itself.
Our system is broken and leadership refuses to bite the bullet and do what is politically uncomfortable to fulfill their obligation as wrestling’s NGB. To find out why not you have to ask the President and Executive Director, they control the organizations direction and narrative from their offices on Lehman Drive.
Continuing comparisons, in men’s freestyle Iran, a country that is 20% the size of America in terms of population, has every member of their starting lineup ranked in the Top 10. As for depth, Russia with a population that’s less than half that of the United States has 8 times more ranked freestylers in the Top 10 than we do; 8 times.
As a breakdown, they have 3 of the top 4 ranked wrestlers in the world at 97kg and they have the #1 and #2 guys at 89kg. At 65 kg they have a World Champion and a formerly ranked #1 in the world. At 61kg they have stabled a World Champion, a formally ranked #1 and an Olympic Champion all battling it out to make the trip to Rio. To give you even a better idea of their depth; the worst guy on their team is ranked 3rd in the world and rumor has it he’s being sent to Siberia to mine for that which has eluded him on the mats.
At last year’s World Championships in Las Vegas, with home field advantage we finished a disappointing 7th as a team; not a memorable effort. And for those of you who are statistic junkies, the combined population of all six countries who finished ahead of us is 10 million less than what we have in the United States.
Let me reiterate once again; USAWrestling is a wonderful organization and it’s important for everyone to know how I feel because it’s so easy to think the opposite given the number of times I write unenthusiastic things about our NGB.
I hate losing as much as I’m sure you do . . . that need for dominance is what makes America great and I suspect why you’re reading this just as it’s why I write. God knows it’s not that I’m looking for a job, applause or some political appointment; I just want our athletes to be the best they can be.
With that being said I work particularly hard at double checking my facts and being as open-minded as I can with regard to how I portray individuals, events and happenings. Being factual, fair and balanced is always my goal.
But like beauty being in the eye of the beholder, what’s fair isn’t always seen as being balanced and what’s balanced isn‘t always seen as being fair. Way too often those whose ox is being gored turn to the weakest 2% of any article and spend 98% of their time challenging the perceived inaccuracy of the point that was trying to be made. But that’s fine; you can identify who those individuals are by reading the responses they post.
But the reason for this particular blog is not to appear displeased by the actions of USAWrestling’s leaders but to point out their deficiencies because I will never give up on the American athlete.
As to the other 50% of being an NGB, using resources wisely and effectively, USAWrestling is not doing well there either.
Given that over half of the events they sanction are in folkstyle where they spend resources promoting and at times producing, one must question how that assists their athletes in the quest for international dominance; especially when Colorado Springs continually uses the excuse that folkstyle undermines their ability to be competitive internationally. Certainly developing folkstyle helps increase membership numbers which can’t be a bad thing. However that also has to divide their staff’s attention between the various wrestling styles and place a strain on budgetary resources. That’s not what an NGB is supposed to do and for those who might not know, the real reason why they got into folkstyle in the first place was to obstruct the operation and development of Nuway, the AAU and all the other independent event operators. To say otherwise would be misleading.
Regarding the latter, if it’s true that the more milk a dairy farm produces, the more cream they have available to sell, then I’m confused why USAWrestling is trying to kill all the cows in the country other than their own? Remember an NGB is supposed to be responsible for the health, safety and development of the sport they oversee which logic dictates would lead to sustained competitive excellence overseas. So given that fact relies on how much cream they have to work with, why are they purposely trying to put all the other dairy farms in America out of business? It sure doesn’t sound like USAWrestling is a National Governing Body if we use the USOC’s definition of what constitutes one.
On the subject of the recent events surrounding Frank Molinaro, I’m very happy for the young man and so looking forward to watching him compete in Rio. I think “the Tank” will roll because 1) He’s motivated and 2) He understands a great opportunity when he sees one.
In closing were you aware that USAWrestling recently spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $175,000.00 to try and punch the tickets of those athletes that hadn’t qualified for Rio. And out of that expenditure we weren’t very successful. Only 2 more athletes qualified which has to be a huge ouch to the budget. Good thing is doesn’t take $87,500.00 to qualify each of the 18 weight classes.
As much as I appreciate USAWrestling’s willingness to do whatever it takes to put Americans on the Olympic team, why weren’t those weights qualified earlier? Almost a fifth of a million dollars is a heck of a hit to take for leadership boo-boos. But then again, when it’s not personal money being spent, I guess that’s okay.
Regional Training Centers . . . a cause for concern.
I guess I should apologize for starting this by mentioning the good old days when wrestlers didn’t have to qualify their weights before going to the Olympics; to a time when our athletes had enough confidence to achieve their potential; and to a time when you could trust the leadership at USAWrestling.
Regrettably that’s not the case today; too many things have changed as a result of a single change. Gone are the days of believing we’re the best in the world and whether that’s true or not doesn’t matter. Iowa wrestlers weren’t America’s best in the 80’s either, but Gable made them believe otherwise. They not only won but dominated the competition because he instilled in them the resolve to impose their will on others. They knew absolutely, positively that they were the best and that belief put them at the top of their game. It’s the “thing” that carried the Hawks to more national team titles than other schools care to count.
Fast forward to today; our athletes, other than Burroughs, Snyder and a few of the women have a vastly different mindset. They might say they’re going to win but I’m afraid their words are more of a hope that expectation. And here in lies the problem. No one ever goes into competition hoping to win and comes out a champion. That doesn’t happen. It’s the total belief in oneself that we’ve lost as a country.
This shift in our performance chi is the direct result of the decisions and direction the administration at USAWrestling has taken us; from the Executive Director to the President to the organization’s Board of Directors. I realize that making mistakes or having a lapse in judgment is normal for to err is human. But to ignore mistakes when they happen is stupid; to repeat them is inexcusable.
Never before have American wrestlers worried about being left at home after making an Olympic team. Granted this issue of qualifying weight classes is a relatively new one for Colorado Springs to worry about but the point is, had there been qualifying tournaments in the 70’s, 80’s and early 90’s I can’t think of a single weight class that wouldn’t have qualified because our athletes always focused on winning events, not qualifying at them.
Whether I’m 100% correct here isn’t the point. What is noticeable though since 2000 and the beginning of the present administration, our athlete’s belief in self has taken a nosedive. There are so few of our wrestlers who feel, actually believe, they can stay with the Russians, the Iranians or even the Cubans.
And one of the major reasons for our decline is the existence of the Regional Training Centers which we’ll cover together in a minute.
Are you aware that as of this writing USAWrestling has only qualified 50% of the 18 weight classes we compete in? That’s 9 out of 18 very deserving and talented athletes who won our Olympic trials who won’t be competing in Brazil. Hopefully we’ll have more going as there are still two qualifying events left on the calendar. But even then, why has it taken us so long? Why does USAWrestling’s budget have to absorb an additional expenditure of over $100,000.00 to send athletes overseas to do what the organization should have done months ago when we had several qualifying events here in the states?
As an aside, here’s some other information you might find interesting. The IOC (International Olympic Committee) allows between 16 and 18 wrestlers to enter competition per style and weight class. So when anyone fails to qualify a weight class it means that country doesn’t have one athlete who is good enough in world competition to be ranked at least in the Top 16 .
That’s incomprehensible. America, a country that has more wrestlers competing than any country in the world, better nutrition than any other nation, more wrestling rooms and better sports psychologists and medical services than anyone else on the planet and we can only qualify half our athletes?
Were you aware that we used to place 76% of our wrestlers in the Top 8 in world competition between 1980 and 2000? Now we’re only placing 50% of our athletes in the Top 16. How does this happen, how does our success rate and global expectations fall that far?
In my opinion, it’s due to the failure of our athletes to believe in themselves and I put the blame squarely on the shoulders of politically ambitious leaders who bow to the wishes of those who keep them in power.
Before going further, let’s look at some statistics . . .
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Comparing performances in World and Olympic competition from 1980 to 2000 and then under the current leadership. Here’s what the numbers tell us:
World Championships . . . . . 1980-2000, only 24% of our athletes didn’t place in the Top 8
2001-2015, now 46% of our athletes don’t place in the Top 8
A 96% reduction in athletic performance.
Olympic Championships . . . 1980-2000, only 12% of our athletes didn’t place in the Top 8
2001-2015, 30% of our athletes didn’t place in the Top 8
An even larger reduction in athletic performances, 250%.
On the men’s side in both styles, since 2001, only Bill Zadick, Jordan Burroughs and Kyle Snyder have won World Freestyle Titles as Dremiel Byers and Joe Warren did on the Greco side. That’s 11 years of competition and 158 opportunities for a Gold Medal with a production rate of 4%.
Similarly during the previous 11 years from 1990-2001 America won 17 individual World Championships with a Gold Medal production rate of 11%. That’s a 250% decrease in performance between the two administrations even with budgets that are almost double what they were in the 1990’s.
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Shame on USAWrestling . . . did you watch any of the Olympic Trials? If you did, something you may not have noticed was the unacceptable behavior of members of our national coaching staff as they openly sat in the corners of OTC athletes and coached against others who happen to be fellow Americans and USAWrestling card holders. How can this possibly be permissible and approved of by our Executive Director and President?
One would think that any National Governing Body should be impartial toward their own during competition. Yet that hasn’t been the case for this administration that supports stacking the deck in favor of the few at the expense of the many. Shouldn’t the goal of USAWrestling be the resurgence of competitiveness, not the expansion of organizational mistrust?
Preferential treatment like this is indefensible. This is why so few athletes go to the Olympic Training Center for help and why we’re falling short when we compete overseas.
Instead of going to Colorado Springs to train and use the OTC as a place where steel sharpens steel, our athletes prefer to attend Regional Training Centers because a) They’re more convenient and b) They know it won’t be help they receive but scouted instead so “favored” athletes can succeed. When you pair this distrust of family with USAWrestling’s poorly conceived RTC program you end up where we are today.
What I find so disturbing is somehow this behavior seems to be acceptable to USAWrestling’s Board of Directors. If it wasn’t acceptable, the practice would have been discontinued years ago.
Now I realize when I expand my scope of blame that I’m offending many of my dearest friends. I wish that wasn’t the case but if they’re going to enjoy the perks and responsibility of power which they’ve earned and are entitled to, then they have an obligation to right wrongs where they exist and be accountable not to leadership, but to membership. For without a willingness to check and balance, the organization is destined to continue achieving what it’s currently lacking.
Now granted in the big picture, does the manipulation of athletes trust cause cracks to appear in the foundation of USAWrestling and destabilize programming while assuring subpar performances overseas; you bet it does!
And I wonder, would anything change if one of the Board Members sons were wrestling opposite an athlete who was being coached by a member of the national staff? Does anyone need me to answer that for them?
So why is this okay for any child when it’s not okay for a Board Members child?
I hope everyone understands I write these blogs as a result of my endearing passion for the sport and my need to remind USAWrestling that politics, albeit a very positive way to operate not-for-profits but when decisions are made that strangle the effectiveness of performance, leadership has crossed the line. All of this is why wadeschalles.com should be on your favorites list of must reads.
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USAWrestling’s 32 Regional Training Centers are at the heart of our demise.
As much as they were created for the right reasons, all of which were promising, they’ve slowly turned as toxic as the water in Flint, Michigan.
Since their inception in 2004 and the NCAA’s approval of them in 2011, these training centers were meant to broaden America’s interest in the two international styles while providing geographically convenient training centers. As impressive as all this sounds the outcomes have fallen short of their designs.
For the athletes the training centers are double edged swords. On one hand they’re convenient, typically close to most of their homes where athletes can sleep in their own beds while training in familiar surroundings. There’s also the financial assistance of Colorado Springs’ stipend program in addition to anyone of several revenue sources that the RTC’s have available to them.
Yet to receive those secondary and in some cases substantially larger sums there are a few unwritten expectations. One of them is to help train those collegians who are sharing the same wrestling room. Granted I understand the NCAA has specific rules about such interaction but the grey areas of this is so expansive that it’s not hard to stay on the side of right while violating the intent of the rules.
In essence, there’s a quiet understanding between athletes who are training in freestyle for the purpose of winning World Championships with their collegiate counterparts who are training in folkstyle to win NCAA titles.
Now I don’t begrudge any of these athletes the freedom to select the type of cake they like and be able to eat it too. But I do blame Colorado Springs who should know better than allow this to take place when they’re responsible to advance the sport through international dominance; not collegiate success.
America’s international aspirants should strive to be all they can be, not what they think is the best they can be. There’s a stark difference between the two and training with collegians, no matter how structured practices might be can’t possibly achieve international goals. By definition, world class means clicking at 100% of ones capabilities and at 96% because you’re working out with college kids it means DNP (did not place). There’s a pretty wide gap between the two just as finishing .02 seconds behind the Olympic Champion in the 100 meter dash keeps you off the podium.
Training in collegiate wrestling rooms with athletes who are striving for much smaller goals doesn’t put anyone near a World Championship. This is always the way it is unless your name is Burroughs or Snyder where 96% of their talent level is 10% more than is needed for Gold. For the rest of the field, they have to be at 100%.
America’s best should all be in the same wrestling room if we expect to reverse misfortunes. No one can elevate their game globally by playing paddy cake with those who think nationally.
USAWrestling should absolutely rethink the way the RTC’s are being used or dump the concept all together. But they won’t because they serve a purpose beyond the obvious. You see the existence of the RTC’s helps USAWrestling stem their political hemorrhaging by soliciting the support of many of America’s most powerful collegiate coaches.
By approving collegiate applications to become an RTC, USAWrestling is assisting the rich in becoming richer by skirting around the intent, if not the rules the NCAA has in place to create parody. Basically the RTC’s have become a way for an institution to legally increase the number and quality of workouts partners that are otherwise forbidden. This makes those Division I coaches who have RTC’s very happy.
To give you an idea of who might be taking advantage of these training centers, 11 of the Top 20 and 20 of the Top 40 wrestling programs in America have them. By comparison, none of the bottom 40 teams have RTC’s and more than likely it’s the reason why they’ll stay where they are.
Now regarding USAWrestling, if being successful in world and Olympic competition is the goal, then the existence of RTC’s doesn’t make sense. You can’t keep America’s best athletes spread out all over the countryside and expect to develop finely-tuned competitors. It just isn’t possible and for the last 10 or so years there’s plenty of proof.
Again, back in the good old days when I competed and before sundials, America’s greatest would journey to Iowa City to train with Gable. For months on end we’d bang heads and I credit that with our international successes.
But to be clear, we hated every minute of it; but not as much as we loved realizing the outcomes of effort. Gable instilled a belief of self in us because of the ungodly tough competition we faced every minute of every hour of every day for weeks and months on end.
Day in and day out I helped Dziedzic along with others become a World Champion. He in turn helped Kemp win multiple world titles while Carl Adams was giving a young Dave Schultz and focused Butch Keaser lessons in double legs. When I wanted someone different to look at I’d move up to 180.5 and bang heads with Chris Campbell and John Peterson. This is how we all got tough, through the greatness of those we wrestled. And like the Green Bay Packers under Coach Lombardi, they couldn’t wait for Sunday because that was the only day of the week they had off by comparison. For us it was going to events. They were far easier than workouts under Gable.
Every day was the same; attack, defend and repeat the process. And if you stopped to catch your breath Gable would be in your face and no one wanted that because he had an unlimited gas tank, a fiery disposition and was a little crazy I believe.
But we loved him just the same. Well, it really wasn’t love, maybe it was more of a like, no that wasn’t it either. Whatever it was, no one ever appreciated what Gabe did for us until we returned from overseas with medals, and then none of us ever forgot him.
That’s what America is missing, a location like Iowa City where every one of our athletes can gather to advance the quality of their performances. That was how we became respectable in those good old days. But for over a decade now we’ve been enduring what the current administration feels will be one of their legacies; Regional Training Centers. And I’ll give it to them; they did look good when they were on the drawing board. So they get an A for effort and a B- for implementation but unfortunately the effectiveness of them has been an F.
As an aside, another reason why RTC’s are a bad idea is the revenue that alumni and friends dump into these training centers. I completely understand why they do it and wish to thank them for their kind assistance. But given that every collegiate wrestling team in the country is in the red, and there’s obviously money out there that the athletic departments aren’t seeing to help them with their budgetary challenges, while their facilities are being used by the RTC’s rent free, how do you think this plays out with Athletic Directors? This has also been a slick way for USAWrestling to alleviate the financial strain of training their athletes by placing a portion of that responsibility on the backs of the colleges.
The RTC’s have to go and while USAWrestling is doing that they need to start selling the athletes on the benefits of coming together as much as they might dislike what that means. Will it be inconvenient for a lot of them, yep, but if the goal is to win medals, production must be handled as a business. The athletes already receive paychecks; all that has to happen now is let them know that they’ve been transferred.
Winning is all about sacrificing that which is convenient by embracing that which is not.
And in return USAWrestling promises to stop the favoritism their coaches show toward specific athletes.
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A parting thought; if there are only a few dozen athletes training in Colorado Springs, what is USAWrestling doing with all the coaches they have on staff which costs the organization upwards of a million dollars a year in salaries? I don’t think I’ve heard of them traveling to the various RTC’s to help so besides coaching resident athletes against the rest of the country, it appears they may be overstaffed.
Now I know a lot of what I’ve written shouldn’t be a palm-of-the-hand-to-the-forehead surprise for most, but maybe it might be for Colorado Springs.
The NCAA’s that Changed Wrestling
Before I share my thoughts on this year’s NCAA Wrestling Championships, I wanted to remind everyone of the most important blog I have ever posted. It’s entitled; A Point Scored is a Point Earned and it’s the most significant alteration to the rules I’ve ever suggested and if nothing else ever happened in wrestling, and if I were fortunate enough to be selected King for a Day, enactment of this action driven policy would be my first decree. And I can say without hesitation that I’m completely convinced this one change would be judged by historians as the moment when wrestling started climbing back into relevance.
If you haven’t read it yet, you should. It’s over on the right, down 7 blogs, just click on the link. But readers beware; its tenets might be a bit startling, initially anyway. Think about what you’re reading in relation to all the other sports that are succeeding and then forget for a moment what we’ve always done, which historically hasn’t advanced our cause.
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As to Madison Square Garden, watching Penn State wrestle this season I’ve noticed that Cael’s coaching style is very similar to A Point Scored is a Point Earned. Every one of his wrestlers are bonus point addicts. So much so it has opposing coaches shaking their heads and wondering how they can close the gap. The answer is simple . . .
Duplicate the Nittany Lions “score more and score often” philosophy or get used to losing.
In a way, both A Point Scored is a Point Earned and Cael achieve similar goals . . . they force coaches to adjust their perspective relative to putting points on the board. No longer is squeaking out a 2 or 3 point win acceptable.
If the teams in the Top 10 want to compete for the big prize they have to change what they’ve been doing. What choice do they have and for that huge kudos to Cael. He’s doing more for the sport in the way he coaches than he ever did as a competitor . . . and that’s saying a lot.
And staying on the Penn State train for another moment if I may; it seemed when every one of their wrestlers were interviewed they gave smart and thoughtful responses to questions. Without any appearance of being coached each athlete indicated competition is all about scoring points and having fun; something they all did for 3 straight days which has Happy Valley happy again for the 5th time in 6 years.
As for the other teams who aren’t in the Top 10, A Point Scored is a Point Earned will force coaching staffs to create scoring fest atmospheres in the practice room. If they want to succeed they have no other choice; it’s the price of success and relevance.
So given what Cael is already doing and what I’m attempting to do by modifying team scoring, wrestling might finally become a revenue sport in spite of the howling cries of coaches.
Which brings me to this point; if football has quarterback, linebacker and line coaches, why doesn’t wrestling have pinning coaches? It always seemed silly to me that Head Coaches would hire Assistants that mirror their skill sets? Wouldn’t you think that teams who are great on their feet like Iowa, Okie State and Minnesota would insist on hiring assistants that are bonus point crazy? In business it’s widely accepted that if you have three managers with the same skill set, two of them aren’t necessary. Why wouldn’t that be true for wrestling, coaching staffs should consist of “up” and “down” coaches; those who are proficient on their feet and those who can teach the boys how you rub their opponents noses in the mat.
The good news for those who live in Pennsylvania is that’s exactly what Penn State is doing and the bad news for everyone else, until they embrace a philosophy of bonus points, the odds of winning a Team Title has flown the coop.
Speaking of the NCAA’s, they were amazing, especially if you were watching them from home. I loved the competing noises of great matches being wrestled throughout the arena each round. The teamwork and efficiency of the officiating crews and the quality of the finals had to be some of the best wrestling I’ve seen in decades. I never thought I’d see such a shift in wrestling like was evident in Madison Square Garden.
Now I’m not suggesting that everything was peaches and roses, but the transformation I witnessed was a game changer, especially when you take in to account the glacial pace that wrestling typically travels.
All in all my heart soared for three full days of competition. It wasn’t all about Billy Baldwin’s trained professionalism or ESPN’s “take it to the next level” production of the event or the Buffer-esque arena announcers, the whole experience was simply a pleasant combination of the sum of its parts.
Hopefully our leadership is smart enough to embrace the changes we saw or at least clever enough to find ways to take credit for the transformation.
In the meantime I’d like to say thank you to Beat the Streets , Madison Square Garden, ESPN and the NCAA Championship Committee; for they were the ones who are largely responsible for what will be forever known as the NCAA tournament that changed wrestling’s course in history.
And then there’s Dave Martin, Chairman of the NCAA Rules Committee who saw the immense benefits of having Madison Square Garden host the event four years ago and pushed to make it happen.
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NCAA Facts That Matter, Or Not
Did anyone notice in the championship rounds which weight class was the most productive relative to bonus points? Care to guess? For the 5% of you who said heavyweight you’re right. They had 29% more than the second most productive weight class! Here’s the breakdown. 125-8; 133-10; 141-6; 149-9; 157-9; 165-10; 174-8; 184-9; 197-10 and Heavyweight-14.
In one of the craziest first days in NCAA history, we had 7 returning All-Americans eliminated from competition.
There are upsets, there are surprises and then at times you’ll experience both. The following is one of those times. During the first round 6 wrestlers who were seeded in the Top 5 went down to defeat.
Out of the 55 officiating challenges that took place, 14 were overturned. I’m not sure what conclusion we can draw from that but it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me for anyone to ask the person who made a contested call if he thought he was right? Paralleling that; it might also be interesting to see if any of the 10 officials who were chosen to referee the finals had a contested call and if they did, did they overturn it? That might shed some light into why only 14 challenges were overturned and one more reason why this self-policing practice should be rethought.
The sport had the most fans ever sitting in their seats for this year’s opening round. Previously the NCAA might have sold the same number of first session tickets but a greater percentage of the fans voted with their feet to be in their seats.
Total attendance for The World’s Most Famous Arena was 90,924, a number slightly south of ticket sales in St. Louis. TV viewership for the finals came in around 650,000, roughly 10% lower than last year’s event.
It was apparent that Kyle has wrestled more high pressure matches than Nick and it was the difference in their heavyweight bout. To me it appeared by the slimmest of margins that Gwizz was slightly better but his mind meld with 30 seconds left in the match opened the door for Kyle to get back in the match. As far as heavyweights go, that bout ranks up there with the Lou Banach-Bruce Baumgartner battle in 1981 as the best of all time.
A big shout out to Andrew Hipps, Senior Editor of InterMat and Ryan Holmes from Flo Wrestling. Both are insightful writers who always find interesting ways to pull the reader into their articles.
Three fun facts . . . 7 of the 10 champions scored the first takedown, 8 of the winners wore the red anklet and more points were scored in the third period of the finals than either of the first two.
While it might seem like a no issue to fans, the lack of accessibility to floor passes for journalists who wanted post-match quotes wasn’t well thought out. When you deny reporters the ability to access information that will punctuate their articles; that probably isn’t a good thing. Then to put press row in the end zone, what a boneheaded move. And we wonder why wrestling continually receives shoddy media coverage.
In closing, I was excited to see we made weigh-ins for the 20 finalists a television event like boxing and MMA does, even if it was staged. It’s a move in the right direction all be it somewhat disappointing. While they meant to draw attention to the sport, it seemed to be less about the athletes and more about those in charge of showcasing it. Promotion is a great thing, but intelligent promotion is far better.
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As an aside; why do we have collegiate team rankings for all 3 divisions but in high school we still only have 1; there’s something wrong here. How is it fair to pit exclusive private schools that in some cases have dormitories, scholarships and no travel restrictions against public schools that can’t recruit and many times aren’t allowed to leave their state for competition? If the various high school associations realize there’s a difference between A, AA, and AAA schools why can’t wrestling’s media recognize the differences? Having various classifications would have to attract more interest in the sport and fuel some wonderful discussions about who’s the best?
United World Wrestling Faltering
It really wasn’t that long ago that the International Olympic Committee asked our leadership; “isn’t there something you can do to enhance your sport, make it more spectator friendly, find ways to put more points on the board, make the experience more exciting?” The response they heard was, “absolutely, we’ll assemble a group of our most creative minds (minus Wade that is) and take a look at what we can do.”
Then after rather numerous conversations and most likely a consumable or two the group pronounced that it was doubling of number of points an athlete can earn for a takedown. They figured that moving from 1 point to 2 would have to double or almost double the number of points scored in a bout. So they appropriately patted themselves on their backs and went back to business as usual.
Does anyone think that the IOC isn’t capable of seeing this as nothing more than a numerical sleight-of-hand? The IOC has to feel like they’re being discounted because wrestling didn’t respond in kind to their level of concern. And it doesn’t matter if our leadership is either incapable of understanding political speak or they just ignored the IOC’s request, this might be the type of miscalculation that makes them reconsider our involvement in the Games.
All this makes me wonder, was the UWW actually trying to placate the IOC or do they really believe they accomplished what was asked of them? Regardless, it really puts wrestling in a precarious situation because the IOC made it quite clear, find new ways to encourage your athletes to take more shots, score more points. They didn’t mean double up on point values; they wanted to see an increase in scoring attempts and their request wasn’t a suggestion.
I guess we’ll see where this goes in the coming months.
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More recently I heard some great news that our international leaders were finally redesigning the look of the singlet. I immediately saw this as being extremely positive; finally a new and improved look, a way to stand out in the multi-sport world. This is just what we need, a way to elevate ourselves in the eyes of the world’s media and the fans we have yet to attract.
But when I went to the UWW’s website and saw the proposed design, my first thought was they were showing us before and after designs. But then I realized there wasn’t an after. With that my head dropped.
I think we should be concerned. Nothing about this change is going to help wrestling become more relevant. It’s just another example of the UWW and USAW not being able to understand directives. The IOC wanted to see, no, they needed to see significant changes because they know what our leadership fails to see, that we’re no longer significant as an entertainment source.
This proposed singlet design is nothing more than a musical chair reshuffling of thread and fabric that couldn’t have taken more than 34 minutes to finalize. I’ll give it to them that the design is practical but wrestling doesn’t have time for practical.
Look at these photographs of swimsuits; the one on the left and in the middle are circa 1920 and the one with the lifeguard patch on the right is from the 1930’s. Notice any design differences between those and what’s being proposed today?
Why wouldn’t the UWW just go to Milan or Paris to find two or three clothing houses who would be willing to sketch a few concepts for us? It couldn’t be that difficult to find a few designers who would jump at the chance to enjoy the notoriety of having their patterns used in the Olympics.
What’s the downside? Doesn’t it make more sense to let the type of people we see on Project Runway handle this instead of wrestling’s event managers? This is exactly what the USOC did for the London Olympics; they contracted Ralph Lauren to redesign all of Team USA’s official dress uniforms that were spectacularly accepted and showcased in the media all throughout the Games.
So why wouldn’t the UWW and Colorado Springs do the same thing? If our sport is to survive, if we’re to impress the IOC when it comes time to vote on our Olympic status, and of course for the media to support our cause, we must live outside of ourselves. Wrestling has to take into consideration the tastes of those consumers and sponsors we have yet to attract, not those very small numbers of people who are currently part of the sport.
Am I missing anything here? If your parents tell you to “grow up,” what does that mean; probably that it’s time to start thinking, acting and dressing like a mature adult. And of the three, which is the easiest to accomplish? Thinking and acting differently takes time but your appearance can change overnight. A quick visit to a barber and a professional clothier and out goes the child and in comes the adult. So if cloths make the person, why isn’t that true for how we look in competition as well? Being fashion trendy has only been in vogue for centuries, why wouldn’t we want to be both stylish and practical?
Maybe I’m opening myself up to criticism here but look where the fearlessness of design has taken men’s and women’s beach volleyball? How many of you actually watch volleyball for their diving saves and in-your-face spikes? Granted, it’s a great action sport with very talented athletes, similar to what wrestling has minus the action. But both the women and men have added another dimension to their sport that’s rather hard to overlook. The results are undeniable and the effect is beach volleyball has the hottest tickets in Olympic competition in relation to wrestling that struggles to give seats away.
Now I’m not suggesting that we exploit our athlete’s sexuality because I find any type of exploitation offensive. But showing the world that wrestling is as much fun to watch as it is to see and we have some of the hottest bodies on the planet can’t be all that bad. But who outside of our sport is aware of our assets?
Wrestling has to focus its attention on the types of changes that create expansion opportunities and uniform engineering is easy to accomplish and a very noticeable beginning. This is exactly the type of expectations that the IOC was suggesting when they directed us to become more entertaining.
How about these pole vaulters, does anyone believe they chose their outfits based on wind resistance issues or a need to blend in?
Wrestling has to stand out and that’s something the sport is uncomfortable doing. We have to stamp New and Improved on every change we make across all media platforms. Then we have to make sure that everything we change and do match’s our tagline.
What’s wrong with allowing each country the freedom to design their uniforms, why is the sport being held to uninspired uniformity? Does it really matter if the various federations go different directions with their outfits? You might say it’s not fair for competitive reasons if various athletes are dressed differently but I’m not sure that’s true.
Granted, if one country decides to wear long sleeve compression tops which really accents a human form, those athletes might have an advantage when applying a gut wrench to athletes from other countries that chose to go bare-chested. But in the reverse the sleeved athlete would be at an equal disadvantage if his opponent was proficient at arm throws. Having different uniforms is a give and take with no one design having an advantage over another without giving up something in the reverse. But wouldn’t it be fun to see what the various countries would come up with and then listen to the media buzz we’d create. Remember, all press is good press and that’s something very foreign to wrestling.
While we’re talking about sexuality, the sport confuses me. On one hand we’re very open-minded and comfortable with our bodies but on the other hand we’re very prudish when it comes to what we wear in competition. We have to loosen up.
Bottom line, if we ever want to see a wrestler on the cover of Sports Illustrated again (Danny Hodge being the first and only one 60 years ago) he or she won’t get there as a result of their achievements, but they might as a combined effort of form (apparel) and function (titles).
As to retaining a certain level of modesty or decorum may I remind everyone of their approval and society’s acceptance of swimming and diving, a sport whose outfits are often transparent and definitely sex defining.
Does anyone remember how much press Flo Jo Joyner received for her cheeky and imaginatively designed competitive gear? What would be so wrong if both our men and women wore some of their own designs that accented, well, let’s say more than their skill sets? Even if you weren’t a track and field fan back in the 80’s, I’m sure you remember that the television ratings were off the charts every time Flo Jo ran and it wasn’t always to see her cross the finish line ahead of the competition.
I know change is difficult, but we have to bite the bullet if we’re to grow. Every country should be allowed to ask assistance from fashion designers for the purpose of creating their own look and style. Gone should be the days of re-purposing the old loin cloth singlet that was originally made from animal skins.
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Moving on to collegiate wrestling for a moment, I watched the Big 12 and Big 10 finals on TV and was dismayed to see that the NCAA didn’t find a need to advertise their championships in New York City next week during any of the commercial breaks. They promote championships in other sports; I wonder if they too feel wrestling is no longer relevant?
Wrestling needs a Donald Trump
In listening to the few who are trying to defend USAWrestling it’s apparent their organization desperately needs new leadership and of the type that brings a wealth of business knowledge to the table. Now I’m not talking about The Donald’s political positions or whether you prefer Democratic tenets to Republican beliefs, but if we’re to ever stop the bleeding, wrestling needs people with histories of business success, not those whose skills center around managing events.
Unfortunately there will be those who disagree with this opinion and feel that wrestling is doing fine. Maybe that’s true within the sport but not outside the cocoon where the rest of us live. Ask Athletic Directors in private what they think about our sport? Talk with any marketing group that has offices in New York City and ask them why wrestling isn’t on their radar? Do a personal study; compare how wrestling markets itself in relation to other sports and what you’ll find won’t be easy to swallow.
The fact is wrestling isn’t doing fine. Programs are disappearing, spectator numbers are dwindling except in a few geographical pockets, forfeits are increasing, retention rates at the elementary levels are the worst of any sport and we can’t even find one major sponsor in all of America who is willing to advertise with us. And all this is happening while sports who were non-existent 20 and 30 years ago are passing us by.
The problem is we’ve been doing things the same way for so long that it’s unfathomable to imagine what the future could be under effective leadership. Television contracts, six figure salaries for all collegiate coaches, international dominance, standing room only duals, athletes becoming house hold names and sponsorship dollars flowing in every direction. We could have it all but leadership doesn’t want it because there’s this little thing about losing one’s position when the company or organization he or she manages rises above their level of incompetence.
How many of you remember that domestically wrestling use to be bigger than soccer 30 years ago and that the UFC use to be nothing more than semi-organized brawls before Dana White took over? How about Rugby, the newest Olympic sport who most American’s can’t even tell you how they score points but it has passed us by along with Lacrosse and Squash, two other sports who want our spot in the Olympics.
Remember the IOC has capped the number of sports the Summer Games can have at 28, so for every one they add, one has to be subtracted.
That should make all of us nervous because I’m not aware of anything USAWrestling is doing outside the sport to keep wrestling off the chopping block come 2020, especially when heads didn’t roll when we lost the Olympics two years ago. Maybe I’m off base here but over 6 decades of life has taught me that the quickest way to change behavior is to attach consequences to failure. The reason why Wall Street controls the world’s economy is the word consequence, it dominates their culture. A simple downturn in company stock or a misstated phrase in the media is enough to have a CEO on the street looking for work. It’s accountability, it’s a dog eat dog financial corridor where only the best of the best survive as a result of consequences.
Now given the magnitude of wrestling losing the Olympics two years ago let me ask, who at USAWrestling lost their job or at the very least was demoted when we got the boot? The answer is no one so the next question should be; what’s the motivating factor for Colorado Springs to keep their eye on the prize between now and 2020?
Now you’ll hear they have it covered. But do they? It’s not so much about what the sport is doing internally, but how are we being perceived and compared to others like USALacrosse, a sport whose influence continues to climb that had 20,000 members 18 years ago and now has over 400,000 with a staff of 70 and a 17 million dollar budget. It’s the fastest growing sport in America and how we compare to them along with Squash will determine our Olympic future.
Let’s go over that again. If you’re a number’s person, USALacrosse has well over twice as many members, fans and momentum as USAWrestling, twice the staff as USAWrestling and yet is operating on a budget that is just a hair larger than USAWrestling’s bloated one. And Lacrosse has accomplished all this in the last 18 years! That sounds to me as if they’re operating as a business while our NGB is still in sport manager mode. These levels of achievement are the sort of things the IOC finds attractive when they begin the evaluative process.
Another issue worth spending time on is the area that the IOC listed earlier as being a dynamic failure of wrestling’s leadership, and that was the level of inequality between men and women in both competitive opportunities and positions of leadership. That was one of the most significant reasons why we lost our luster in the eyes of the IOC and subsequently our position as an Olympic sport.
So maybe we should ask, has anything changed because it doesn’t appear so.
The following sentence is part of the IOC’s Mission Statement and reflects the importance they place on the relationships between males and females in sport.
To encourage and support the promotion of women in sport at all levels and in all structures with a view to implementing the principle of equality of men and women.
In support of this ongoing commitment to equality the IOC Executive Board is comprised of 36% women whereas in wrestling, the UWW has 14% in leadership positions and USAWrestling has the following numbers:
Percentage of women in leadership roles at USAWrestling
Executive Committee . . . 7%
Freestyle Committee . . . 0%
Governance Committee . . . 0%
I think you’ll agree that these percentages are abysmal and don’t bode well for our sport when the women’s wrestling program here in the states, and globally, represents 25% of the programming. And why is it that the men’s freestyle team competes in 6 weight classes, the men’s Greco-Roman team competes in 6 weight classes and the women only get to wrestle in 4 freestyle weight classes? The IOC wants equality in sports, not explanations or excuses.
Back to wrestling and the importance of us operating like a business. Are you aware that each of the commissioners of Major League Baseball, the National Football League, the NBA and the National Hockey League never participated in the sport they administer? But most have either law and/or post graduate degrees in business from schools like Stanford, Harvard and Penn. That’s how major sports become major, by being smart enough not to hire from within and always reaching out for the best.
Wrestling needs an equivalent of Donald Trump the businessman to lead us out of our own ineptitude.
As to my latest Freestyle or Folkstyle blog, I’ve only heard from two individuals who felt my assertions were off base and interestingly both were USAWrestling personnel. In contrast, my go get’m Wade responders are running over 15 to 1 in favor of my willingness to share my opinions. To them I say thank you!
What I’d like to do now is clarify some of the misnomers that arose from the previous blog.
On the subject of National versus Regional training centers, I’m not sure the RTC’s are creating the desired effects if winning matches were the reason for their creation. There’s no doubt that having multiple training centers is exceptionally convenient for the athletes but does that convenience equate to success? So far no and why leadership can’t see that beats the hell out of me.
Remember, world class wrestlers must have access to two distinct facets of training.
The type of coaches who can provide technical skills that are equal to or greater than what the opposition is receiving.
And most importantly, daily steel sharpens steel workouts – in the international styles.
Of course it doesn’t hurt to have some of Jordan Burroughs skill sets but in the absence of those, quality coaching and solid workouts are a must. And once again, this is important, in the style you are going to compete in.
Let’s take a closer look at the RTC’s. To begin a few of them have tremendous staffs but far less than the 30 plus centers that USAWrestling is sanctioning. And given that these locations were developed more as a means of allowing our top flight athletes to train collegiate athletes in folkstyle than preparing for international competition, it’s not a wonder why we struggle against the world’s best. Regional Training Centers are a feel good, look good horrible idea.
Can you imagine how well Denver Bronco’s would have done this season had the front office allowed their 53 man roster to split into small groups and workout separately in 30 different locations across the country? Then on Sunday’s come together as a team just before kickoff. If you think that’s a stupid idea you’re right but that’s exactly what USAWrestling is allowing to happen. It‘s like they’re operating on a how can we position our programs to guarantee middle of the pack finishes?
Everyone knows wrestlers must have great coaches to succeed and we have them here in America but they’re spread out all over the landscape. Athletes also need championship caliber steel sharpens steel workouts because no one aspires to international greatness by wrestling athletes who are aspiring to national greatness; especially when the latter is being trained in folkstyle for NCAA competition. But that’s what Colorado Springs is supporting and we wonder why we’re not winning? None of this would occur if we had business leaders in charge because even with minimal knowledge of wrestling, corporate America knows how to evaluate what’s working, what’s not and then adapt.
Regarding my Folkstyle versus Freestyle blog, I’m still of the position that this debate is just a ruse that USAWrestling developed to hide their ridiculously poor performances internationally. But, if Colorado Springs really believes in what they’re saying, why in the last 16 years has the organization dramatically increased, and I mean dramatically increased the number of folkstyle events they offer? Prior to 2000, it used to be that springtime and summer was our international seasons, when everyone’s interest shifted from folkstyle to freestyle and Greco but not anymore. Go to themat.com and count the number of folkstyle events they sanction all throughout the year. If this is truly the evil discipline that they suggest it is, you won’t be able to tell it by their event calendar.
As to injustice, and another reason why top flight athletes stay clear of the training center in Colorado Springs is a little thing called impartiality. One would think that the reason why we have a national coaches and staff is to mentor and guide every American who is capable of competing at the international levels; and just not their favorites.
The next time you attend a senior level event look around. You’ll actually see members of the national coaching staff sitting in the corner for some athlete’s; but not for others. Why is that? They should be impartial and required to sit in the stands and watch the action, not be a part of it.
I understand why it happens; they want to coach the wrestlers they’re close to and in many cases the ones who live and train in Colorado Springs. But for the rest of the country, which is by far the majority of our talent pool, they expect to receive even-handed treatment. When that doesn’t take place, it fractionates our chances for success.
Let me ask, what do you think happens when a member of the national staff shows interest in a wrestler they just coached against? I would think they’d have questions about the sincerity of the persons willingness to help. Are they actually interested in me or are they just trying to learn more about my strengths as any opposing coach would?”
And I’m sure you realize that it doesn’t matter if this conflict-ridden method of operation is a perception or reality; no one wins here and now you have yet another reason why so few wrestlers want anything to do with training at the OTC and with it the death of steel sharpens steel workouts. This simply isn’t a way to run a company or in our case, become a dominant organization in the international wrestling marketplace.
Now as always, this is the way I see things. I hope you enjoyed the read.
Folkstyle or Freestyle
In one of the more recent editions of WIN Magazine I enjoyed reading an article by Jordan Burroughs addressing the issue of what we have to do to move USAWrestling and America back into competitive relevance.
I like Jordan; he’s a good man, a great wrestler and an outstanding ambassador for the sport. So when I saw his article, I knew it was a must read.
One of the first topics he covered was freestyle versus folkstyle. It was JB’s opinion that if we’re ever going to be competitive in world competition, we need to focus our attention away from folkstyle.
Of course that isn’t a new assertion; people have been expressing that for years. And it’s as wrong today as it was when USAWrestling began using it as an excuse to cover up almost two decades of international incompetence. To eliminate any confusion here, I’m talking about the leadership of USAWrestling and not the quarter of a million men and women that expect effective leadership. I’m referring to those who either enjoy the salaries and perks of power or those who are in line to succeed those who are currently enjoying the salaries and perks of power. This is how accountability gets skewered and status remains quo.
For the following statistics, I’ll be referencing America’s freestyle program for men at the World Championships which has always been the barometer we use to determine program effectiveness.
Did you know; that since 2000 when the present leadership at USAWrestling came to power we’ve only had 3 individuals win a World Freestyle Championship . . . just three. And in the same period of time prior to 2000, the United States won 22 individual World Freestyle Championships.
So if we’re to believe the excuse regarding the evils of folkstyle, how is it possible that we won 22 individual Gold Medals during those previous 16 years? I thought the idea was we needed to decommission folkstyle so we could concentrate on freestyle?
So I wonder if it’s not a folkstyle-freestyle issue, what could it be? I only see two options, either the leadership in Colorado Springs is woefully inadequate or someone drained America’s gene pool around the time our current administration took office?
Personally, I refuse to believe that starting in 2000 our athletes somehow became genetically inferior to their European counterparts. That only leaves the leadership option for those whose corner offices are on Lehman Drive. They simply don’t have a clue how to build a world class program or develop athletes for international competition. Isn’t that the most important responsibility for any National Governing Body; to assure its membership and in this case the USOC that the sport is in good hands? Failing the international performance tests as they repeatedly do has to put into question their capability of developing the sport here at home.
Even if it were true that folkstyle is getting in the way of effective freestyle performances, which it’s not, why would anyone want to kill a 200 year old combative style so 10 freestylers may or may not have a better chance of winning an Olympic medal once every 4 years?
Seriously?
Are we actually talking about the elimination of a wrestling form that hundreds of thousands of children compete in every year just so we might be able to benefit less than .000001 percent of our population? Somehow levelheadedness isn’t part of this conversation?
Just so everyone’s clear on how bad it is; were you aware that we have more wrestlers competing in America than any country in the world? That we have more wrestling rooms, more officials and more registered coaches than any country in the world and while we’re on a roll here, better sports medicine, sports psychology and access to better nutrition than any country in the world and if that didn’t get your attention, should I mention that America spends more money on wrestling than any country in the world.
And yet we’re continually losing matches to countries that are smaller than some of our states and have populations less than a lot of our cities.
We can’t even hold our heads up when we host World Championships; at least in the areas where it counts. When the event was in Las Vegas last summer, USAWrestling touted the outcomes as being a tremendous success, clearing over $600,000.00. However athletically, even with home court advantage and all that means from officiating help to partisan crowds, we only qualified 2 freestyle weights for the men, 1 for the women and 1 in Greco-Roman. In other words 4 out of 16 weights got their ticket punched for Rio.
Boy has our priorities changed. We use to plan, prepare and expect to win world medals in every weight, now USAWrestling worries about how they’re going to qualify weight classes just to be able to say they sent a team or worse, almost a full team to the big dance. When this becomes the mindset of any leadership group, where they begin to focus on just getting by, everything is about to go south, if it hasn’t already.
There may be some of you who are thinking about, “now wait a minute Wade, what about all the Soviet Republics that are now sending athletes to world competition as a result of the breakup? You need to compare apples to apples here to be fair.”
Good point, however the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989 so for those 11 years leading up to 2000, I am comparing apples to apples. And prior to that, for those who remember back that far, the top 5 or so wrestlers in each weight class who didn’t win the Russian National Championships were sent to various Soviet Bloc countries to represent them. Not to mention others who simply defected for the chance to be free and compete under a different flag. So we’ve always encountered multiple wrestlers from the Soviet Union in world competition.
Another issue that is high on my of course they do list is we not only can’t win, too many of our bouts end up with our coaches trying to explain what happened with let’s see if I can keep my job statements like “we were close, we wrestled tough and I’m so proud of the way Johnny fought. We just have to work a little harder that’s all.”
Work harder? At what? Doing the same thing?
That philosophy only worked decades ago when matches were 9 minutes long, but not anymore. We’re so hard wired into thinking that being tough in the physical sense and/or in great shape entitles a person to a world medal that it’s all they think about.
Toughness is a state of mind, not a physical presence and being in better shape only helps the athlete if he or she attacks enough to make superior conditioning an issue.
Jordan succeeds because he’s extremely talented and skilled but his strength by far is his mental toughness. You see it every time he steps on a mat. The difference between Taylor and Dake is not talent or skill but the fine line between levels of mental toughness. The same is true for Dake versus Burroughs. It’s just that Jordan was raised on a different street corner than the rest of the field and it’s apparent. It’s always the difference in big matches. Being a physical bruiser or in great shape only qualifies wrestlers to be entrants in tournaments, it never puts anyone on the medal stand.
Right now there are several differences between American wrestlers and their European counterparts. Mental toughness is certainly one of them and as I explain myself here please don’t point to Kyle Snyder or Burroughs as proof to where I’m off base. For they excel primarily due to the overwhelming dominance we enjoy in America as a result of the numbers of wrestler’s we have competing and the exceptional amount of resources we consume. I don’t think anyone believes they’re winning as a result of the administration in Colorado Springs.
As my college coach use to say; “when you have a great wrestler, don’t screw him up by trying to coach him. Just get him to the match on time and both of you will be fine.”
But if there is good news in all this it’s that mental toughness can be learned. Unfortunately it’s just not part of the curriculum at USAWrestling. As long as our national governing body doesn’t require our top athletes to gather in Colorado Springs for steel sharpens steel practices, no matter how amazing our athletes are, there will always only be minimal development. And as we’ve seen, Europeans eat minimal for lunch.
Last night my son and I were texting back and forth during the Penn State-Ohio State match and I was being critical of how the sport is failing and using the commercials that were being aired throughout the event as an example. Jake wrote somewhere during the evening, “Dad, I think you’re being hypercritical here.”
Well, perhaps. But if we’re to fix the things that keep us in the middle of the pack, it’s probably important to identify what they are and let people know.
Then it dawned on me. The reason I’m so adamant about fighting for the sport I love is my look into the future binoculars. It’s so clear where we’re not headed. How can we possibly feel we’re doing fine with 16,000 fans packing the Bryce Jordan Center and not one main stream company like Visa, Coke, Nike, T. Rowe Price or Chevrolet wanting to have anything to do with us? That should speak volumes.
All the Big Ten Network could round up were a few wrestling camps and one wrestling shoe manufacturer as advertisers because Wall Street is acutely aware of our nonexistent demographics.
Back to our international performances, I’m just sick at all the events we attend and the amount of resources we squander to continually see the letters DNP appear after our athlete’s names.
Our athletes deserve better, they deserve more.
But when USAWrestling continually gives their Executive Director hefty bonuses each year for embarrassing performances, I start to wonder if they aren’t actually a US government agency like the Veteran’s Administration? Especially when they turn around and increase the cost of memberships and service fees to overcome the hundreds of thousands of dollars of USOC money they don’t receive for medal production. It just seems wrong, every young athlete and hardworking volunteer has to pay more so those who are doing less can benefit.
The next failing I’d like to direct your attention to from those in Colorado Springs is their technical policies. It seems we’re so enamored with Soviet programming due to their current dominance that we’ve convinced ourselves the only way to win is to emulate their style.
What are they thinking? Sure, Russians do quite a lot of things well but so could we if our athletes were allowed to pour themselves a liberal dose of creativity.
Americans have always been the global kings of inventiveness, that’s one of our strengths and how many of our legends made the rest of the world shake their heads in confusion. We took creativity to interstellar levels and the opposition had no idea what unexpected techniques “those crazy Americans” were going to throw at them. But today we’re so predictable that countering our attacks seems like child’s play to even third and fourth tier athletes from other countries.
Now I do believe we should videotape all the opposing greats, but only to find weaknesses in their positioning, conditioning and attacks, not to turn what we see into a core curriculum for Team USA.
When you think about it, it’s irresponsible to coerce, compel or persuade athletes who have won several NCAA titles wrestling one way to change their styles. We should be fine tuning them instead, coaching to their strengths. If we would have forced Rick Sanders or Kendal Cross or John Smith or Dave Schultz or Ben Peterson or Andre Metzger or Randy Lewis or Cary Kolat or Bobby Weaver to wrestle like Lee Kemp or John Peterson, well, you can imagine that wouldn’t have gone well. Just look at the horrid performance Ben Askren had to endure in Beijing. He was our best chance for Gold and our coaches told him he couldn’t win if he was going to wrestle the way he had for the previous 15 years of legendary performances. So they changed him in a short three months, they took away his creativeness, his uniqueness and with it his confidence. It was just so sad to watch one of our greats implode on national television.
The idea shouldn’t be to eliminate the basics of wrestling or to make fun of conditioning, it’s to allow the cobra to bob and weave as the battle unfolds and the mongoose to feign, lurch and re-attack as openings are created. Battles like these don’t always go to the swiftest or the strongest but to the one who forces the opposition into unknown territory. No one can do that like Americans can.
We fail because our leadership core only subscribes to one way of wrestling and that philosophy has effectively reduced America’s flow of medal production to a trickle.
The point is we should be working to improve every athlete’s strengths; not trying to cram everyone into a one size fits all singlet. It’s so frustrating to see Colorado Springs have multiple freestyle coaches who all sing from the same hymnal. There’s no diversity of thought or any interest in diversity.
If I were wrong in my analysis here, you’d see our freestyle team flying to the OTC on a regular basis for fine tuning. But instead those from Iowa choose to stay in Iowa City to train; Pennsylvanians go to Penn State, Ohioans to Columbus while JB prefers Lincoln, Nebraska. Their non-verbal insistence that they stay clear of Colorado Springs should speak volumes.
What’s a Boy?
Between the time of innocence – when the male of the species is nothing more than a bundle of wrinkles in diapers and the dignity of manhood, we find a delightful creature called a boy. Each comes into this world in the same way, but in assorted sizes, colors and weights. They even share the same creed . . . to enjoy every second of every minute of every hour of every day and to protest with noise, which is their only weapon, when their last minute is finished and the parents pack them off to bed each night.
Boys are found everywhere . . . on top of, underneath, inside of, climbing on, swinging from, running around, or jumping into. Mothers love them, little girls hate them, sisters tolerate them, big brothers torture them, adults ignore them and heaven protects them. With little boys . . . what you see is most often what you get.
A boy is truth with dirt on his face, beauty with a cut on his finger, wisdom with bubble gum in his hair . . . and hope for the future with a frog in his pocket. He’s capable of leaping tall building blocks in a single bound and always faster than expected. He’s constant persistence in motion.
When parents have company, a boy is an inconsiderate, bothersome, intruding jungle of noise. When you want him to make a good impression, his brain either turns to jelly or he becomes a savage, sadistic jungle creature bent on destroying the world and himself in the process.
A boy is a composite of things . . . he has the appetite of a wrestler making weight for the first time, the digestion of a sword swallower, the energy of an Eveready bunny, the curiosity of a cat, the lungs of a dictator, the imagination of Brothers Grimm, the shyness of a violet, the audacity of a steel trap and the enthusiasm of a firecracker. And invariably, on those rare occasions when he wants to help around the house, he does so with two hands and ten thumbs.
He likes ice cream, knives, saws, Christmas, books with lots of pictures, the boy across the street, trees that are easy to climb, water in its natural habitat, large animals, Dad, noisy video games, Saturday mornings and cars that go fast . . . especially red ones. He’s not much for Sunday school, adult company, classrooms, music lessons, neckties, barbers, bedtime or girls of any size, shape or description.
Nobody else is so early to rise or so late to supper. Nobody else gets so much fun out of trees, dogs and breezes. Nobody else can cram into one pocket a rusty knife, a bag of gummy bears, three feet of string, four broken crayons, a shotgun shell casing, a chunk of unknown substance and a discount coupon for the latest Disney movie.
A boy is a magical creature . . . you can lock him out of your workshop, but you can’t lock him out of your heart. You can get him out of your study, but you can’t get him out of your mind. Might as well give up . . . he’s your capture, your jailer, your boss, and your master.
He’s a freckled faced, pint-sized, cat chasing bundle of noise. But when you come home at night from coaching other people’s children – with only shattered pieces of hopes and dreams still intact – he can mend everyone of them with two magical words . . . “Hi Dad!”
Athletics aren’t dessert; they’re meat and potatoes too . . .
It’s a common practice for school boards to adopt proposals that tie academic performance to after school activities. In most cases, if students fail to maintain a certain academic average they become ineligible to participate in after school activities like cheer-leading, tennis and chorus.
The prevailing philosophy is students are more apt to improve classroom performance when carrots are dangled and pressure is applied. Unfortunately for some students, the ones who fall into the category of academically challenged and yes, even academically lazy, this thought process doesn’t always live up to its billing or achieve the desired results. There has to be a more balanced approach schools can take.
Those in leadership positions seem to have the misconception that anything taking place after 3pm is non-academic in nature and as a result; considered dessert. Although a strong case can be made that Reading, Riting and Rithmetic are essential to success, so too are qualities like perseverance, time management, communication skills, integrity, responsibility, sportsmanship, hard work and discipline.
The question becomes; we know where the three “R’s” are taught and understand their role in education but where do you learn life’s trump cards; the qualities of achievement, the development of self-esteem?
Where are they found . . . in the classroom? Or could they be more representative of after school activities? Personally, I can’t ever recall learning much about persistence in English or discipline in Social Studies. People with integrity might have taught science class but it certainly wasn’t something I learned by sitting there. Self-esteem is mostly an after school offering.
Nonetheless, if we’re talking about making a real impact in a person’s life, after school activities has to be considered as a time frame where a vast majority of life’s qualities are taught.
So why is acceptable for school boards to take away educational opportunities for students who struggle with standard forms of testing when they don’t always indicate all that’s special about a person? Most individuals seem to understand not everyone has an IQ of 130 or can swim 100 meters in under a minute. Nor can everyone tear an engine apart and put it back together without leaving a few parts on the work bench.
Individual skills and talents are as diverse as the number of people you test so might our current approach to education be discriminatory? Can you imagine the school valedictorian not being eligible to go to class the next marking period because he or she only won 60% of their cross country events? Or become ineligible to take Physics because he or she didn’t have a passing grade in Social Studies? I think we’d all agree both of those examples are ludicrous!
Why then is the reverse acceptable?
Any student who doesn’t do well in class gets yanked from participating in after school activities. Why can’t they co-exist; why shouldn’t they co-exist? Everything the school offers is educational in nature, each one playing a different but significant role in a child’s development. The current approach in education is all about standards. But who is standard anyway? Who wants to be standard? Don’t we want our children to find their passions wherever that takes them, and then excel?
It’s hard to fathom that administrators would take one educational opportunity away for the perceived benefit of another. To me the most important role a school plays is helping each child become “worldly.” That means creating an environment that encourages students to grow in all three triangular aspects of life. Just as the YMCA’s developmental motto is body, mind and spirit, doesn’t it make sense to develop at least the body and mind? I’d say spirit as well but I don’t want to upset those who believe in the separation of church and state.
Why then would anyone pull a child from sports or after school activities when the country has such an inclination toward sedentary life styles and obesity? How can any administrator justify taking away a child’s opportunity to develop a healthy lifestyle or ways to mature socially because he or she is faltering in class?
The Duke of Wellington said, in regards to the Battle of Waterloo where his forces defeated the French led by Napoleon, that the battle was won on the playing fields of Eton. What he meant by that was the British system of education which educated and formed the character of those who became the elite officers of the British Army was a combination of their education and the vigorous after school activities they participated in at Eton, which for those who might not know is their Harvard level boarding school for boys.
And at America’s three main military academies, half of the buildings on their campuses were built for athletics because they’ve found that developing the total student is critical to success in every phase of their training.
Of course grades are terribly important but when after school opportunities are denied to those who are dyslexic, have Attention Deficit Disorder or currently aren’t motivated; aren’t other educational opportunities lost as well?
None of this is to say students shouldn’t do the best they can in the classroom or feel pressure toward class room achievement. But isn’t holding one form of education hostage at the expense of another comparable to throwing the baby out with the bath water? America’s strength is its diversity of thought and talents. One’s freedom to pursue passions makes that possible.
I think we need to understand there are four different intellectual levels of students; academically skilled, academically lazy, academically challenged and those who are classified learning disabled in any number of ways.
Granted, academically skilled individuals don’t have problems being able to participate in after school activities. That’s due to the fact they typically learn by visual or auditory stimulus whereas the last two levels rely primarily on tactile senses to excel. As to the lazy one; well Darwin did have a point but why are we trying to bury them before they’re dead?
If every student is truly entitled to equal educational opportunities under the law and after school activities are part of the total educational package, why then isn’t this illegal? What happens after school isn’t desert and we must stop thinking of it in those terms. It’s every bit the meat and potatoes that academic classes are.
Some thoughts to ponder:
Is putting academic requirements on after school activities actually effective in pulling grades up or is it a way of downsizing after school activities to ease budgetary pressure?
Does the fear of becoming academically ineligible actually inspire students to work harder or does it encourage them to drop AP and college preparatory courses to remain eligible?
Where do ineligible students go and what do they do after school when they aren’t being supervised in an organized activity? Does having free-time actually mean increased study time or might it cause something else?
Where do students who are learning disabled fall into this equation? Are they exempt from the rules others have to live with or just denied opportunities to gain self-esteem by demonstrating whatever talent they have that’s not taught in a classroom?
What about the many students who live in a one parent household with the second parental figure being the after school advisor or coach? Does taking away that role model help or worsen each child’s chances for success?
Is there anything to be said about the various academic differences between schools and teachers? Do those inconsistencies provide an even playing field for everyone?
Whether we like it or not, there are many students who’s primary means of personal growth is though their capabilities in music, debate, the arts or obviously athletics. How does taking those opportunities away meet the goals that school’s have of preparing everyone for success in life?
How many know that Einstein did poorly in school? Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard and Abraham Lincoln only had five years of formal education. Sir Isaac Newton did so badly that his teachers thought he couldn’t learn. Thomas Edison was considered to be a “dull student” and one teacher told him he was too stupid to learn anything. Steven Spielberg took special education classes. Woody Allen flunked motion picture production at New York University. Neither Dave Thomas from Wendy’s or Walt Disney finished high school and I was told by my high school guidance counselor to “forget college Wade”, that I’d be lucky if the military would take me.
School Boards need to take a closer look at how they 1) view and then 2) handle after school programs. There is no such thing as desert when it comes any after school program and no two students are the same. All honor students aren’t Rembrandt’s. Not every State Wrestling Champion can split molecules. Not all schoolchildren in college preparatory classes can tear a lawn mower engine apart and put it back together again. Musical talent has nothing to do with diagramming a sentence but Beyoncé makes a pretty good living at the former. Mikhail Baryshnikov’s skill as a dancer has nothing to do with his proficiency in Science or English.
Shouldn’t we be embracing the total student?
Anytime a rule is changed in wrestling, especially relative to scoring, it should meet four criteria:
Will it increase scoring?
Does it escalate action, which is different from increasing scoring.
Will it make wrestling simpler and easier to understand?
Does it increase the interest of the spectators we have and those who are watching for the first time?
What shouldn’t be a criterion:
The opinions of coaches.
I’m sorry but coaches have been in charge of the sport for as long as I can remember and unfortunately we are where we are as a result. But is it their fault or it is the fault of the NCAA and the various State High School Associations who have given them the power to control the sport and as a result our destiny?
Coaches, at least the ones who are currently running programs, should have no say in the general administration of wrestling and specifically the rules.
If you think for a moment, the only aspect of importance in any business is the color of the ink it produces. Revenue is the fuel that makes companies run. Without fuel, all enterprise comes to a halt, exactly what’s been happening in wrestling as the number of programs and spectators are being whittled down.
The only thing that’s keeping us solvent right now is the good graces of Athletic Directors because as everyone should know, every collegiate wrestling program in America, including Iowa and Penn State lose money each year. And given the ravenous financial nature of football and basketball to become bigger, stronger and better, non-revenue sports had better hunker down because administrators are growing less and less interested in keeping feel good liabilities on their books.
Adding insult to injury, without a steady stream of significant income, anything that happens in a sport that is negatively financed becomes magnified proportionally to the brightness of the red ink it creates.
There is no doubt that without revenue, wrestling is in serious trouble given we’re at the bottom (or next to the bottom) in relation to other sports in academic performance while being at the top (or next to the top) in the number of concussions, injuries and communicable skin infections. And socially, no one has ever accused wrestlers of being teetotalers or were shocked when they didn’t walk away from a good fight. Those are the types of things, exacerbated by the amount of red ink wrestling produces, that puts us in the cross hairs of extinction.
When things happen that aren’t good, I guess we should ask who’s responsible; the athlete’s parents, local bar tenders, the school’s academic counselors or training room staff or the coaches? Obviously the athletes are the ones who are ultimately responsible but regardless, it doesn’t matter where we point the finger. The sport always takes the hit along with individual(s).
As a result, given that we have our share of issues, we have to either manage the wrestlers in a more positive way or we can focus our energies on increasing revenue. Granted, it would be wonderful to focus on improvement in both areas but since that is too far removed from reality to even discuss, and the first one by itself being almost as difficult, we only have one option, increase revenues.
In defense of those who coach, it’s not that they’re trying to hurt the sport. It’s not that they’re failing their responsibilities as extremely gifted technicians or individuals who know how to inspire, motivate and lead. It’s they’re way too competitive to make decisions outside of their prime objective which is developing athletes and winning tournament titles.
As an example it’s the coaches who determine the number of matches their team will wrestle each year. And given those numbers mean experience for the athletes and run parallel to national success, every program is now wrestling four times as many matches as were wrestled in the 1950’s. Each decade coaches have added more and more dates to their schedule.
That translates into athletes missing classes 4 times more often than their counterparts did when Danny Hodge wrestled. And during those occasions when today’s athletes are in class, they’re losing weight 4 times more often . . . and we all know how that’s working for us academically.
Coaches cannot and should not be given responsibilities in areas that aren’t in their fields of expertise or be forced to choose between winning and that which is in the best interest of the sport.
Here’s where the NCAA, not the NCAA Wrestling Rules Committee has to step in and take charge. And if that means helping the sport focus on generating more revenue and increasing our spectator base, so be it! We need to seriously upgrade our wow factor which is currently more ugh than wow.
Wrestling has to become exciting, and please refrain from pointing out those far too few great matches we seldom see as being representative of wrestling. Great bouts are not the norm. It’s like fishing in a pond that’s been fished out. You’re going to sit there for a long time between nibbles.
What wrestling has to do and the coaches won’t like one bit is devise rules with the goal of making a great battles like Taylor-Dake and Nolf-Martinez the norm. When we achieve that, we’ll have something.
The number one rule change of the 21st century has to be A Point Earned is a Point Recorded.
This is so logical it’s beyond comprehension how we could have overlooked it for the system of 3 point decisions, 4 point majors and the 5 point techs that we have today. Whoever came up with that formula had to be a closet socialist.
Think about it; win by 1 point and you receive 3 team points. Win by 7 points and you receive 3 team points. That’s the basis of socialism, take from the producer so you can reward those who don’t. And with that form of collectivism, the outcome always ends up being the producer, which aren’t near as plentiful as we need, thinking what’s the point? Why am I busting my hump and putting myself as risk of losing to score a bunch of points when winning by 1 gives my team the same number of points as winning by 7?”
Our sport penalizes for trying and rewards those who won’t. So where’s the incentive?
Name one sport, just one, that has a point system like ours? Good luck with that . . .
That’s where wrestling is now and exactly why wrestler’s outnumber the fans at way too many events.
I can just hear the coaches now tearing this apart; “it’s unfair, it won’t work, I don’t like it.” And the reason they don’t like it is it takes them out of a comfort zone they know well. It changes the sports paradigm, it forces coaches to rethink everything they do. But is that really bad?
Wrestling has to make rules that benefit spectators, not the ones who coach it. For those who question that, we might ask, “how’s the current system they created working for us?”
Okay, enough already, here’s the fine print of a Point Earned is a Point Scored.
To begin, this means scrapping the 3, 4, 5, and 6 point match outcomes. Instead we change to a every point an athlete scores is a team point recorded.
Examples: regarding a regular decision: wrestler A wins by a score of 7-4. Wrestler A’s team receives 7 team points and wrestler B’s team receives 4 points.
Forfeits are worth 15 team points and I’ll explain my rationale for that further down. So, when wrestler A receives a forfeit, wrestler A’s team receives 15 team points; the opposing team receives 0 points.
Disqualifications: 15 team points are added to the winners bout score. If wrestler A is winning 5-2 at the time of wrestler B being disqualified, wrestler A’s team receives 20 points (15 + 5) and wrestler B’s team receives 2 team points.
Injury default: 10 team points are added to the winners bout score. If wrestler A is winning 5-2 at the time of wrestler B being injured, wrestler A’s team receives 15 points (10 + 5) and wrestler B’s team receives 2 team points.
Pins: 10 team points are added to the winners bout score. If wrestler A is winning 5-2 at the time of wrestler B being pinned, wrestler A’s team receives 15 points (10 + 5) and wrestler B’s team receives 2 team points.
Tech falls are just like they are now, 15 point separation. If wrestler A is ahead by the score of 18-3 the match ends with wrestler A’s team receiving 18 team points and wrestler B’s team receiving 3 team points.
I’m sure this raises a lot of questions . . . but rest assured I’ll answer every one of them before you’re done reading.
The benefits of these changes are immense. To begin there are no additional risks to athlete safety, there is no additional training that’s necessary for officials and there is no additional cost to the schools when this rule is applied. So put those thoughts behind you.
Over all, this system of a point scored is a point recorded:
Immensely encourages scoring and as a result increases excitement.
Allows every wrestler to contribute to the team score even in a losing effort.
Pushes both athletes to score points right up to the end of a match regardless of who’s ahead, who’s behind, or by how much.
Logically increases the number of pins by virtue of higher scoring.
Severely discourages stalling because even in a losing effort a last second escape actually means a lot to a teams total.
Allows a team whose losing rather badly to come back and win the dual. Come from behind wins are the sweetest events in spectators lives and keeps fans in their seats right up to the very end.
Makes the sport easy to understand for those who are new to wrestling.
It seriously discourages forfeits and bad behavior that are extremely positive outcomes especially given the number of times we see forfeits and cheat spectators out of that which was expected – X number of matches for the price of admission.
With larger team scores, the chance of two teams tying is near impossible as is having to explain to spectators our complicated system of tie-breaking.
As to the basis for change, wrestling strategies have slowly eroded scoring to the point that winning is all about who can make the least amount of mistakes and take the least amount of shots. Consequently low scoring matches with one or two points separating the combatants has become the norm. It’s this defensive posturing that has quietly ground down spectator interest in wrestling to the point of near extinction.
Granted the sport has more than a few issues, but the most important one we must address before all others is a lack of individual scoring. This change is huge for wrestling, something that will obviously create a great deal of controversy, most of it coming from the coaches. The source of their objections will center on their repulsion of being forced to change a long held belief and actual fact that the slow-down approach to wrestling wins matches.
But I will also tell you, as soon as the first whistle blows after this rule is implemented, coaches will forget every issue they had with the change and start coaching to the new rule. They’re competitors and if there’s one thing you can count on its them competing.
Speaking of losing spectators; my son who wasn’t a bad wrestler in his own rights, and knows the sport inside out won’t go to matches. I asked him why out of curiosity and he said, “They’re too boring to watch and I even know the nuances of the game. If they offered me free beer and a ticket, I wouldn’t go. I’d rather sit home and watch Jeopardy.”
This is exactly what I’m trying to explain to our leadership and now you; there is a crisis going on in wrestling and the current system does not and will not encourage athletes to score points other than what is absolutely necessary to win.
It shouldn’t be a shock to anyone that coaches who win the most, teach the slowdown approach to wrestling; with an apology to Cael Sanderson. It’s the way all the other coaches become successful using today’s rules. You get a lead, you play the edge and control the tie-up, down block on your opponent’s shots and follow them with a few half shots of your own. That’s how you keep the referee at bay while waiting for the match to end.
A vast majority of athletes don’t care what the score is when the final buzzer sounds, as long as they get their hand raised. So I don’t blame the competitors or in some cases the coaches for low scoring and often boring matches. It’s the rules they’re playing to and if we really want action, we need to change the rules they’re playing to.
Granted, this change is way over the top from what we’re accustomed to but we don’t have much time left before really bad things befall the sport. But I believe once you have had time to think about how simple this change is to make and how effective it will be at pulling athletes out of their comfort zone, it will become a huge hit very quickly.
But be forewarned, coaches will hate it and they will be very vocal about their opinions. It has everything to do with their fear of losing matches to teams that previously were walk-overs. But is that a bad thing? Not the loss’s but the fear? Isn’t fear the greatest motivator? If we scare the coaches, they in turn will see to it that their athletes feel the same amount of anxiety they’re feeling and everything will change. People love upsets and the sport needs more parity; this rule helps both to occur.
In every other sport a point earned is a point registered. So why not wrestling? Can you imagine basketball waiting to the end of a game to tally the team scores? How crazy would it be to give a player 5 team points if he scores between 10 and 15 points and 10 team points if he scores between 15 to 30 points? That’s what wrestling does? How about a quarterback who throws for 3 touchdowns and the scoreboard only gives him credit for 1 at the end of the game? Serve 3 aces in tennis and look up to see the score is only 15-Love. Hit a bases loaded home run and only get credit for your run, not the other three. Or winning in Rugby 27-23 and your team receives 10 team points for scoring 27 and your opponent loses all 23 of their points. Sound crazy, yep, and it is exactly what we do in wrestling.
The basic concept is every point scored by either wrestler is a point earned when the match ends. That’s so easy for everyone to understand from the sports veterans to our newbies.
Now you may ask why I’m penalizing Forfeits and Disqualifications beyond the amount of points an athlete earns for a pin. Because there should be consequences beyond a 10 point pin for poor behavior on the part of an athlete or for a team who can’t find a body to plug a hole in their lineup.
Regarding forfeits, it’s my contention that well over 90% of teams who forfeit a weight has someone on their current roster who could have wrestled. And 100% of the teams have someone at their school who would love to fill that spot if the coach would go to the club team or intramural tournament and find them. All too often the coach just decides he’d prefer not to have a match than throw a lesser athlete out there to get pinned and with it lose team momentum.
We should all understand when there’s a forfeit, the offending coach is basically breaching a legal contract that spectators have with the host school to provide a set number of matches for the price of a ticket. There should be an additional cost, a substantially larger penalty for cheating the spectator and putting the sport at risk and why it’s worth 15 points. Wrestling cannot grow as a sport when we knowingly choose to shortchange our customers.
How would you feel about a restaurant that served you 10 oysters when you ordered a dozen and are paying for a dozen? If baseball skipped the 5th and 6th inning would consumers feel slighted? What if Nascar decided to take 25 laps out of the Daytona 500? How about a movie theater randomly cutting 10 minutes out of the middle of the movie? Forfeits are the same thing; coaches are knowingly cheating those who bought tickets. That behavior tears at the fabric of our sport and certainly gives customer service a black eye.
With these new rules there’s now a strong impetus for athletes to fight to get off the bottom with 15 seconds left in a match, even if they’re losing 9-3. And conversely, there are tremendous incentives for the dominant wrestler to keep scoring up until the end of the match. If the athlete doesn’t get this, I’m sure his coach will remind him of the importance of scoring and scoring often, probably with a very loud voice.
Regarding the pin, this was the most difficult aspect to get a handle on relative to scoring. As simple as it is to say a point earned is a team point scored, throwing in how to handle the pin was nothing short of maddening. Trust me; I went through dozens of mental contortions to reach the following conclusion.
My problem was; if an athlete is winning 15-4 and gets pinned, the team score under this system is 15 points for the person who got pinned (loser) and 14 points (10+4) for the winner.
“Now wait a minute Wade. That’s not fair; the loser gets more team points than the winner!” Yep, that’s right, because all points scored must be points earned. We have to reward all wrestlers, in every situation, who put points on the board. Points mean action, action means spectators and spectators means institutional revenue.
No one knows more than me how difficult this was to think about and then type. But I’ve looked at this 20 ways to Sunday and it’s the best way of handling it because the pin is nothing more than a scoring technique that’s a level above a near fall. Think of it that way, a pin is similar to a takedown or a reversal. All three are scoring techniques but as it has always been, the pin ends the match and determines the victor.
I know that sounds crazy but the whole premise behind this system is to reward effort. We must incentivize wrestlers to score more and score often while forcing coaches out of their “protect the lead” approach to wrestling. Once everyone understands the game has changed, they’ll change with it; they’re too competitive not to.
Continuing the discussion regarding a pin, actually, how many times does the wrestler who’s ahead on points get pinned? So should we get our underwear all knotted up over something that seldom happens? But when it does, the offensive machine that racked up more points than his opponent in the example above should be rewarded for his effort.
If you think this rule will scare the bejesus out of coaches, you’re probably right. But we have to force each of them to alter the way they handle their athletes. Scoring must be our top priority and with it you can bet you’ll see a lot of action. Wrestlers must be forced or sufficiently motivated to engage their opponents as often as boxers throw punches or basketball players take shots.
If we’re to make significant changes to wrestling relative to scoring, athletes need to know that each point earned makes a difference. They also need to feel that the sport respects them enough and the chances they take to make this change.
So let’s say for the sake of argument that a team wins a dual meet by the score of 126 to 122. And one of the winning team’s wrestlers lost his individual bout 10-5. How valuable do you think he feels knowing that his 5 points made the difference in the outcome of the match? How vocal do you think his teammates were when he wrestled knowing that every point he scored could make the difference? Peer pressure is a wonderful thing.
Currently, when an athlete is losing 10-4 in the third period with 45 seconds left the match is basically over and the atmosphere in the arena is anemic. The person with 4 points has given up and the one with 10 is just riding out the period. As for the spectators, they’re talking among themselves about what they’re going to do after the match. But when every point counts, coaches are screaming, fans are cheering and the athletes are scrambling as a result of the pressure to produce. None of this can be a bad thing.
Tournaments should be scored in the same way but maybe that should be a discussion for another day.
Granted, there could be a few occasional upsets early on with this rule but over time the pecking order of teams will remain pretty much the same. Successful coaches know how they became successful and will continue being that way regardless of the rules.
Two years ago when the NCWA checked to see what would have happened using this system at their National Dual Meet Championships here’s what they found. Out of the 4 quarter-finals, 2 semi-finals and Championship match only 1 of the 7 duals would have had a different winner under this system.
Now if anyone is concerned about those high school teams that have 2 pinners and 12 average wrestlers defeating a team with 14 good wrestlers they should be. But think about this; how is this scoring system any different than other sports? One 6’ 11” basketball star in high school surrounded by 4 average players has a legitimate shot at winning the state championships. A great running back or quarterback can carry a so-so football team through the playoffs. An outstanding tennis player will compete in both singles and doubles and account for 30 percent of a team’s score. One good pitcher in baseball surrounded by 8 average players will defeat 8 great players with an average pitcher. Just because this is different from what we’ve grown accustomed to in wrestling, which is the reason why the slowdown approach to scoring is so familiar to us, it doesn’t mean the change shouldn’t be made.
As for the fans, what’s not to like about more scoring? This rule alteration completely eliminates the challenge we currently have trying to explain what regular decisions, majors and technical falls are to the sports newcomers. As to the referee’s; which one wouldn’t embrace any rule change that increased scoring and reduced the number of stalling calls?
I have to admit I was and still am perplexed about a Default? How many points should it be worth? 15 like we award teams for forfeits and disqualifications or where I have it now in the 10 point category? This was another dilemma where I ended up choosing between the better of two imperfect choices. I didn’t want an athlete who was injured trying to finish the match because he didn’t want the other team to receive 15 points. Yet on the other hand, I worry those wrestlers who have to wrestle an athletic scoring machine might feign injury to keep his team from losing too many points. But in the end, given that you can’t legislate morality, but you can protect athletes by your decisions, I chose the latter and made injury default a 10 point occurrence.
Now, not everything that’s wrong in wrestling is the coach’s fault but most of our fixes need to start there. The point is coaches don’t make the rules but they influence the rule makers enough that if they don’t like something, it doesn’t happen. That hurts the sport more than anyone realizes and wrestling can’t win when coaches have that level of power. They’ll always do what’s in the best interest of their programs and why their direct involvement in managing the sport should be rethought.
Make Scoring Simpler to Explain
Last year I posted on my How Wrestling Wins blog the importance of adding a point to nearfalls and takedowns. Fortunately the NCAA agreed with me regarding the 4 point nearfall and implemented it. They have yet to see the wisdom of going with the 3-point takedown but they will because 1) it simplifies how we explain the sport to new fans while 2) putting an emphasis on what’s important in the sport; takedowns and pins. Both rule alterations were used at this year’s NWCA All-Star Dual meet in Atlanta and the fans overwhelmingly supported the changes.
Here’s that post . . . remember it was written before the 4 point nearfall was passed.
Simplifying the rules: they’re too complicated. Spectators who are new to any sport will overlook the little nuances that make understanding it so much fun to watch. But they won’t return if the most basic of rules make them feel inept. Sports have to be easy to understand and even easier to explain. Right now wrestling’s rules are neither simple nor easy.
Here’s a suggestion relative to making the sport easier explain and understand while pleasing those who still think pinning is king and takedowns are a close second. Please remember these scoring adjustments are designed to simplify the sport for the spectators, increase the number of points scored per bout while putting a strong emphasis on what’s truly important.
Individual Scoring
Nearfall = a point for every hand count up to 4 points.
Takedown = 3 points
Reversal = 2 points
Escape = 1 point
This 4-3-2-1 scoring system is easy to remember and more importantly explain to any first time spectator. Remember who’s important here, without spectators we don’t need coaches or athletes because there won’t be a sport.
The problem the NCAA Rules Committee has when they meet is failing to ask the most critical question when they craft new rules, “will this increase spectator interest?” Instead they spend most of their time finding solutions to problems that were created by rules they made in previous years to fix problems that were created by rules they created before that . . . They’re so busy swatting at mosquito’s that they forgot the reason they’re in the swamp in the first place was to drain it.
As to nearfalls, a point for every stroke of the arm makes sense because it’s simple, easy to explain and rewards the efforts of offensive wrestlers more than ever before. It spotlights the importance of pinning and highlights its relationship to wrestling’s endgame.
How many know that in 1941 all nearfalls were worth 4 points? So why is it blasphemes to suggest 4 point nearfalls? Then in 1955 the rules committee added a 1 point nearfall and then a year later created the 2 and 3 point nearfall. So if we turn back the hands of time to where it was 75 years ago, is it really a big deal? Remember today the maximum nearfall is worth 3 points which is 1 more point than a takedown. So if we make these two changes, we’re only adding an extra point to each outcome so proportionally to one another, they’re still the same.
But regardless of what your individual feelings are about 4-3-2-1, if the rules committee agrees, the very least that will happen will be higher scoring matches and spectators, especially new ones smiling more. Neither can be a bad thing.
Now if I could only get the rules committee to buy into the absolute critical need to adopt the rule, a point scored is a point earned, we’d fix so many ills that the sport’s “desirability index” would skyrocket. It would transform the sport like no other rule in the history of wrestling. If you haven’t read about it yet, you should.
I will re-post it later this week.
Youth Wrestling . . . How Stupid
I just received a short note from a colleague who is well known as an icon in our sport. The gentleman is in his 70’s now and there’s not much he hasn’t seen or done. This was in response to a conversation we had regarding the way America handles its youth programing.
“I have coached for over 50 years I can honestly say that youth wrestling is destroying the sport!”
Now I realize this isn’t everyone’s opinion, but it should be when you step back and actually analyze what we’ve been doing, both with and to our little guys.
Initially the theme that leadership sold the wrestling community in the 1970’s when youth programming was in its infancy was the concept of the 3 F’s which stood for Fun, Friendship & Fundamentals. That was when cars got 8 miles to the gallon, Viet Nam had just ended and the New England Patriots seldom won more than 4 games a year.
But today, no one ever dreamt of seeing what we have, and as for wrestling, there are youth programs out there that are focusing practices around placing as many of their little guys on the next Olympic team as they can. The whole system has become Darwinistic; the strong get stronger and the weak get gone.
The problem is everyone goes to events regardless of their ability, maturity level or weeks of experience; all under the pretense of character development and the belief that cream always rises to the top. But at their ages, most of us realize that children can’t spell character development let alone understand the pain one has to go through to achieve it.
Then there’s those larger than life trophies that sometimes are just as tall as the athletes themselves and seem to gain in height as operators try and lure more and younger children to their tournaments. They’ve even come up with cumulative point systems for events that are used to dangle WWE-like championship belts in front of their noses.
All this is marketing at its best with the design of creating awe in the minds of parents and athletes and of course capital for event operators. This isn’t all bad and I’m not opposed to finding ways to fund the sport, God knows we need both a solid and increasing revenue stream but to do it through the demoralization of those we pretend to care about, there’s something wrong here.
Parents are simply being sold a bill of goods. They bought into the vision of their young children developing self-esteem and learning how to fine tune their kinesthetic senses in an environment of support, friendship and pleasurable experiences. Little did they know that the devouring nature of competition has driven many of our coaches to replace the word Fun with Drudgery, Friendship with Adversary and Fundamentals with Funding.
The damage this has caused to wrestling is staggering! Every year we lose approximately half of all our first and second year wrestlers. That’s 50% or 15 out of every 30 wrestlers who come out for the sport that disappear. And in some years that percentage might be a bit higher, in other years a bit lower but regardless, the problem is obvious.
Neither winning or events should ever be the end all, be all of youth wrestling.
Any company, and wrestling had better start figuring out it‘s a company, would immediately panic and fire its entire leadership team if every year it lost half of their customer base. So what do we do, keep embracing the same notions, doing the same sort of things and expecting a different outcome.
Now I’m not suggesting that we start handing out pink slips to coaches and administrators because they’re doing exactly what the parents and the rules allow. But the sports base had better start realizing where we’re headed, and the direction we’ve been going for quite some time.
Why would a sport, any sport, develop and then accept an environment that erodes self-esteem and assures a steady stream of tears from those we hold most dear? Not to mention the fracturing of relationships between coach and athlete and most troubling, parent and child? We’ve all witnessed those blowups and how ugly they can be.
Here’s an example of how wrestling arrived at where we are today; the #1 sport in America with the poorest athlete retention rate.
I received this note from a father regarding his son’s experiences in wrestling. As you read it, please understand this is far more the norm than anyone might think.
“I wanted to let you know how impressed I’ve been with all your blogs. Keep up the great work.
Since the birth of my son in 1996, I’ve stepped back and taken an objective look at the sport I love. I’ve been self-employed, an employer and a leader in a few startups since I left Cumberland Valley. And as I read my first “Schalles” blog I was ready to see what you had to say as short sighted, but it wasn’t. You were right on, our sport is far too isolated and our leadership has too little experience outside the sphere of state and NCAA level events. They need entrepreneurial and leadership skills that are prerequisites to success in life; humility; how to listen; make friends quickly; use influence like a scalpel, not a sledgehammer; serve on a board of directors and still make things happen; how to raise capital and the list continues.
My son got his black belt in Judo at age 11, mostly through Katas. Why Judo, because he learned to hate wrestling when I was talked into taking him to practice at age 10 and then a father-son camp. After the 1st competitive round, I dried his tears and took him fishing to heal his soul. He never walked back on a mat again. By the time he filled out athletically and got the hormones needed to be aggressive, the pace and intensity of the wrong-headed local youth program had left him in the dust. He found his competitive outlet in JROTC, where his Raider unit never lost. This year he scored 362 on a scale of 300 to win the award for the highest Army Physical Fitness Test score in his league. 106 pushups, 107 sit-ups each in 2 minutes, and then a 12:48 two-mile.
He’s aggressive enough to have jumped over a desk and decked another student when that student insulted his nation and the army. Fortunately for him the teacher was an ex-Ranger. He runs 2 miles 5 days a week with 30 lbs. in a pack on his back and plays paintball in a kilt for fun.
Unfortunately I just see my son as being emblematic of so many things wrong with wrestling. He had no interest because there was no fun, and the tone of the sport in the first day was attack or be attacked. The attitude of fans, parents and competitors wasn’t about friendship and it turned him away even before puberty.”
To be sure, there are thousands of stories out there like that and even more parents who are persuaded by coaches that say trophies won and individual champions developed is the way to gauge the quality of a program.
Success should not and cannot be measured by the number of athletes a child can defeat.
To the contrary, the only way a parent should, or could possibly judge the quality of a youth wrestling program is solely by its retention rate. What percentage of last year’s team is in the wrestling room this year? Now I don’t believe for a moment that anyone would expect to see a 90% retention rate, but something over 70% should be a minimum number.
Coaches have to learn to be happy with athletes who can now sprawl and circle back to their feet when two weeks earlier walking with gum in their mouth was a challenge. Coaches have to stop measuring success by the number of wins an athlete can accumulate. Instead, they should make a big deal out of their athletes being able to shake their hand with a firm grip while looking them in the eye. That’s a skill worth teaching and one we should be proud we were able help them develop. Or just being able to do 5 pull-ups when 3 were impossible just a month earlier.
Programs have lost sight of allowing children to grow at their own pace in a supportive environment.
What does all this mean? I think you can answer that yourself by just looking at the trends. They’re not good. So here I go, this is what I’d do if I were King. I’d ask the parents of every child to take back the control they mistakenly relinquished to the coaches by saying “no” to competition in the first year of wrestling. Then at the same time pass legislation that says . . .
No child is allowed to enter competition for one calendar year from the date they begin wrestling.
What that would immediately do is substantially reduce the anxiety children feel trying to learn a sport that requires combative aggression when the last thing they learned to do that was physical with some level of aggression was playing dodge ball at recess. No wait; that’s not allowed anymore, schools have deemed that to be far too aggressive and belittling. So I wonder what they would think about youth wrestling if they put our sport under their microscope?
Instead, what should be taking place during their first full season is learning the rules of the game, some basic techniques, participate in drills that are masquerading as games, learn body awareness skills and how to protect oneself through gymnastic like tumbling routines and some fun facts about the sports rich history and of course focus on the tenets of sportsmanship.
However, most everything we do is backwards; we teach wrestlers how to throw someone down before anyone learns how to tuck their head and roll. We scold them for locking hands before telling them it’s not legal. I could go on here but you get the idea.
“So what are you saying Wade, that we shouldn’t take 1st year wrestlers to tournaments for a year?” No, I didn’t say that, I said they shouldn’t enter competition for a year. But they should go to events. They need to be a part of the team, they need to see how events are run and get familiarized with their future surroundings. And yes, they’re there to participate . . . just not compete.
This is how that’s accomplished . . .
We need to develop a series of Katas for wrestling and make them apart of tournaments for first year students, just like many of the martial arts do all the time.
For those who aren’t familiar with Katas, they’re individual exercises, drills and/or techniques that consist of specific movements that are demonstrated in harmony with a passive partner.
We could accomplish this any one of several ways and this is just a suggestion that I’m not married to for those who wish to argue. If you don’t like what I’m proposing, change it, but the basic tenet of this is the way I believe we have to go.
Create a generic form that every athlete receives. On it list 10 takedowns; 8 reversals; 4 different escapes; several pinning combinations; 8 historical figures or eras of wrestling; 4 sportsmanship philosophies; 6 boxes for drilling that evaluators check off; the first one with 10 seconds next to it, the next consisting of 20 seconds and the third of 30 seconds etc. up to a minute in length and 10 boxes that get checked for correct answers to rules of the sport. And every time a young man or lady is evaluated, just like martial arts athletes have to bow to their Sensei, they have to shake hands with their evaluator and explain why that’s important or why they should stand at attention during the playing of our national anthem?
The athletes can pick any element they want from each category to be tested on. Then at the next event he or she must pick another set of skills and questions to answer and so on through out the season.
The idea is to have every box and technique checked off by the end of the year and in the process win up to 3 ribbons (Blue, Red or White) per weekend based upon how well he or she accomplishes what they’re being tested on. And the best part of this is no one can lose, it’s all about how well they can succeed and within 30 minutes from the time they start; they could be in the car and on their way home with proud parents in tow.
Now please don’t get caught up in the individual particulars that I just suggested such as who will do the testing and to what standards each athlete will be expected to achieve. We can change that any way you want, just focus on the concept.
And this isn’t to say that the current system hasn’t benefited its share of athletes, it has! But I’d like to think that those who are in this category would still succeed, would still grow and I believe would benefit even more from the postponement of gratification while they’re being forced to place a stronger emphasis on the basics and the human qualities it is so well known to develop.
With Katas everyone wins, the tournament operator still collects the entry fees these 1st year wrestlers generate, each child comes home a winner, the coach is happy his program has a far better chance of maintaining its numbers, the children love showing off without the pressure of actual competition and the parents are ecstatic they don’t have a disappointed child when it’s over. Then everyone goes home by way of Dairy Queen to celebrate.
As for increased revenue which is the life blood of businesses, as our numbers increase through improved retention percentages, the sports bottom line grows proportionally.
This is easy to set up and run on one or two mats at the end of the gym in far, far less time that it would take to eliminate all these athletes through regular competition. You just divide each mat into 4 equal parts and go to work testing 8 athletes at a time per mat.
In regards to who we select to be the evaluators, I would suggest the athletes older peers who are high school or college age. They certainly know enough to evaluate the sport’s most basic techniques and this level of responsibility would help in their development as well. Remember, this is all about retention rates and uplifting self-esteem. It’s worked extremely well for the martial arts just as I’m sure it will for us.
And just because it’s different from what we’re used to doing we shouldn’t dismiss the idea. Because in the end, it’s still all about winning.
Offering My Clinic Services
Over the next year my wife and I are planning to tour America. Visiting every state, seeing old friends and meeting new ones while sharing what I’ve learned over 45 years in the sport with coaches and their athletes.
Would your wrestling club, your team or someone you know be interested in my Pinning Made Simple clinic with Wade Schalles?
Not Sure? Click in the upper right hand corner on the ABOUT button to learn more about my background.
Also, below are some of the more recent testimonials I’ve received from both parents and coaches.
From parents:
“I wanted to thank you for the incredible time you spent with our son. Watching you interact with him and the rest of the campers was something beyond special. Hunter was so inspired. It’s so obvious that what we heard about you is true – you’re the best clinician in the country.”
“I always appreciated your lessons about the importance of wrestling in life. I know our children deeply believe that too. I also appreciate the power of your work with the rest of our team–they have all been utterly transformed.”
“My boys are so excited – anytime they continually give up a Sunday night of being couch potatoes and watching football, without a fight, speaks wonders to what you do.”
“My sons have not stopped talking about class; they’ve never been this excited about an extracurricular activity before.”
“I wanted to send you a note and update you on our son. You played such a big role in his life. He would not have won his State Title or moved into collegiate wrestling without your guidance. You definitely got in his head and taught him how to think like a champion.”
“Arthur was thrilled after training with you on Sunday! For a teenager known for his one word answers, he enthusiastically went into great detail about everything he learned from you.”
“I’ve had multiple conversations with other parents with the consensus that you are the master of working with kids and young adult teens!”
From coaches:
“As you mentioned, you may be an old name but you are the best I’ve ever seen. And I have seen some of the best. There’s no question about it. I’m happy our kids got the best coaching they will ever receive.”
“I wanted to let you know that our boys maintained a 100 percent pin to win ratio for a second straight week. I can’t believe what you did for them; did with them.“
“Having Wade in my room was a huge boost for our program in our quest to become pinners. Two seasons ago, 13% of our wins were by pins, this last season 51% of our wins were pins at the varsity level. Wade did this for us. He showed us how to start and finish everything we did to a pin, regardless if we started on top, underneath or from neutral. He’s fantastic at relating to kids of all ages. Most importantly, Wade always makes himself available via email or phone when I have questions. No one else we’ve had has been as interested in continuing to help after they left.”
I may be in my golden years, but I connect with the kids like no other and have a very unique teaching style. My reputation as a clinician, especially when it comes to pinning, trumps anyone out there.
Pricing is simple – 1k a day or $20.00 a head, whichever is greater. If that sounds like a lot, check out the top names in wrestling. They’re asking, and receiving, 5k to 10k a day! And if you make money after expenses, that’s yours to do with as you wish.
And I’ll even throw in this guarantee:
If you don’t like what I’ve done in the room, if the boys don’t thoroughly enjoy the day, DON’T pay me.”
I’m that confident in what you’ll receive.
If this offer interests you in any way . . . please contact me at:
How the 2015 World Championships Hurt Us
I just returned from Las Vegas and the World Championships. At a minimum, the event was interesting to watch and at times exciting, both on and off the mat.
May I begin here by offering my congratulations to all the medalists, both foreign and domestic. It’s always a great honor for anyone to wear their countries colors in competition and then to stand in the spotlight of achievement, even if it’s only for a minute or two. It’s a feeling they’ll never forget.
Now to the storylines you’re here to read that you probably won’t find anywhere else. There’s a reason for this because if we keep doing what we’ve always done, we’re going to keep getting what we’ve always gotten. And in my opinion, most of it I find unacceptable.
So let’s begin with the controversy over who’s the best wrestler in the world? Answer . . . Jordan Burroughs.
I realize a case could be made that the 19 year old Russian phenom, Abdulrashid Bulachevich Sadulaev is better. But if you evaluate the total body of work of both athletes, JB wins the head to head match-up; hands down.
It’s true Jordan has two international blemishes on a stellar career where Sadulaev only has one, but Burroughs has 110 international wins which is over twice as many as his Russian counterpart.
Then there’s the fact that Sadulaev, known as “the Russian Tank”, has two world titles whereas JB has three . . . plus an Olympic Gold.
As to the losses, Burroughs most recent one was to Russia’s three-time world champion Denis Tsargush in the semi-finals of the 2014 World Championships when he was so injured that it would have kept anyone I know from even wrestling.
Sadulaev’s loss came by tech fall in 2013 at the hands of Shamil Osmanov from nearby Azerbaijan.
Now I will submit that Sadulaev is on trajectory for intergalactic status but he still has 61 more wins to go before matching JB’s current number. And they have to be accomplished while avoiding injuries, bad calls, social diversions, political squabbles and the mountain of videotape the competition will gather on him.
Regarding any conversation on videotaping, there probably isn’t another athlete in the world, in any wrestling discipline that has been filmed as much as Burroughs. And if there were a weakness in his technique or a flaw in his approach to matches, the competition hasn’t found it.
Probably the most deceiving aspect of JB’s style is how basic his technique appears to be. But if you take the time to study tapes of him in slow motion, you notice a mind numbing number of technical nuances that turns ordinary into extraordinary.
And it doesn’t hurt the sport or Jordan’s reputation at all that he’s charismatic, charming and funny.
As to Kyle Snyder, what can I say? He stuck the landing every time he wrestled even if he doesn’t have a large tool box of techniques, blazing speed or gyroscopic balance. But what he does have is the ability to overwhelm opponents through his will to succeed and his execution of flawless game plans. Of course there’s also the amount of physical power he has that the sport hasn’t seen very often in 19 year olds.
Kyle simply refuses to allow matches to end with anyone else having more points than he does and for those who don’t know him personally, I can attest that he’s is a nicer human being than he is a wrestler if that’s possible. I don’t know of anyone in America who wouldn’t be proud to call him son; or JB for that matter.
As to the million dollar question; how will he do in Rio? The jury is still deliberating that because it’s just too early in his young career to have a serious conversation about multiple world and Olympic titles.
The smart money has to at least remember he did have a very favorable bracket in Vegas. The #1 and #2 best wrestlers in the world were on the opposite side of the bracket and the Iranian who was the previous #1 wrestler on the planet with two world titles was out with an injury. But you can bet he’ll be back in time for the opening ceremonies next summer and Kyle will have to go through at least two of the three on his way to the podium. So Gold might be a stretch.
Now if you’re a Kyle fans as I am, I can hear you say, “yea but, he’ll be a year older. Yea but he’ll be more experienced. Yea but he’ll be 12 months more technical and a lot more confident.”
Now that I think about it, you’re right on all counts. So I guess winning it all might not be such a stretch after all. “Go Kyle!”
As to those who didn’t do so well on the freestyle side of things, I think I’d look to those who were responsible for training them? From the cheap seats it appeared that Metcalf hasn’t changed much if at all in 5 years of international competition. He’s so predictable you could do an accurate commentary of his matches 5 seconds ahead of the action. So it wouldn’t be too hard for foreign coaches to devise a tactical plan to derail everything he’s trying to accomplish.
Now before I get crushed on social media for that comment, I want to say I like Brent and I loved watching him as a collegian but nothing’s changed in the way he wrestles. I’d parallel that to the Patriots knowing the opposing team’s plays before the snap of the ball.
So the question is; why haven’t our coaches a) forced Brent to develop at a bare minimum two new set-ups for his high crotch and b) a secondary takedown that will automatically be there when his first attack is blocked? Then there’s the question of why he seems to c) wrestle in every event he can find?
If you study what the best in the world do, they don’t compete near as much as you might think, which is in opposition to our domestic philosophy on individual development.
But the fact is, the more you enter tournaments the greater the odds are of a) getting banged up; especially given the achievement level of the competition you’re taking on, b) the more video tape opportunities you provide the opposition so they can dissect every new thing you just added to your offense and c) it’s so tough to peak in world competition when you’re trying to do it multiple times each year.
There should only be one, maybe two times a year when an athlete really needs to “get up” and I don’t have to outline which tournaments they are.
JB actually doesn’t wrestle that much, especially overseas. Sadulaev went to 2 international events last year and had a total of 12 matches in the same number of months. This is how elite athletes prepare for events so they will arrive uninjured and invigorated with a few new tricks in their attack bag.
Now this philosophy isn’t the best case scenario for second liners. They have to grab whatever experience they can if they ever hope to reach that next level. But once you’re there, the work shifts over to fine tuning your craft, staying healthy and not being seen very often while your mental batteries are recharging.
Hebert is in the same boat as Brent, he’s tough enough to win it all but that head down swing single which took him to the finals of the world’s 6 years ago became obsolete after the semi-finals 6 years ago. It wasn’t too hard for the competition to figure him out after a few rounds and that’s exactly what happened. He didn’t seem to have a Plan B when Plan A broke down.
In either case, someone or something has to be wrong. Either the athletes refuse to learn, which I can’t believe is the case, or someone isn’t being persuasive enough to force them to change. The other possibility is they don’t have anyone around them who has figured it out yet.
As to the event itself . . . whoever USAWrestling put in charge of organization should receive a Gold Medal level atta-boy! The arena was functional, well set-up and there were very few line-of-sight issues for the 6500 fans that came to the freestyle finals. I could only wish the NCAA would be that concerned about spectator enjoyment.
As to the number of those in the stands, all the event could manage to attract, held in the city of fun and diversions was half of what many of the state high school championships draw each March. The finals of the Greco-Roman Championships might have attracted 2500 and the number they had for their wrestle-backs you could have used a match box to count; and still have some matches left over.
This isn’t as much a weakness of USAWrestling, although they do have a history of not being able to draw well, as it is about the way the sport of wrestling markets itself. But that’s not the case in Iran. For the World Cups this year in Los Angeles the Iranian faithful outnumbered Americans. It was so bad that a member of the Iranian delegation asked one of the event organizers; “what’s wrong with America, no fans?”
As to the awards ceremonies in Las Vegas, they were well done even if Colorado Springs did a) get one of the national anthems wrong (oops) and b) by having scantily clad and might I add very buxom show girls help with the awards ceremony it appeared they weren’t being very politically correct.
If the male wrestlers had an opportunity to ogle their surroundings, why wouldn’t USAWrestling have gotten 3 Chippendale’s to hand out medals for the ladies? I’d like to be able to claim that I noticed it right away but I overheard several women who were sitting near me mention it first.
Could this be a continuance of the “war on women” that the UWW and USAW have a history of perpetuating? This particular slight is not an “OMG, I can’t believe they did that” but it does suggest that when Colorado Springs decides issues there are few who are there asking gender equality questions. Fellows . . . the IOC is watching.
Now I know we can’t do this but if it would be possible I’d support a rule where if you can’t get to the quarters finals of the worlds in three tries, you have to sit the next year and give someone else an opportunity. Staying with a person who for whatever reason isn’t getting the job done only keeps others who might rise to the occasion from developing.
Now I don’t want to diminish the positive feelings each of us took home after watching four of our own win Gold Medals. But the fact that we ended up 7th in the world with 2 champs and a Bronze out of 8 weights in freestyle should say something about how poorly we did as a whole. And this was a home match, in our strongest discipline, with probably 90% of those in the stands cheering for the red, white and blue. And we still only managed 7th?
As a parallel; when Russia hosted the World Championships in 2010 and there were only 7 weight classes, they claimed 4 Gold’s, 2 Silver’s and 1 Bronze.
Were you aware that if you add up the total populations of all the countries that placed ahead of us in Vegas that the United States has as many people? Were you aware that we have more wrestling rooms in America than any other country on the planet? That we have more wrestlers competing than in any other country, that we have better nutrition and better sports medicine and more money to spend on wrestling than any country in the world. Yet with all this the best our leadership can manage is 7th place, at home, in our flagship discipline?
A close friend and someone who is well respected in the sport told me privately last week, “our brand is dead” as far as being a world power is concerned. I’d like to say I was shocked to hear him say that but I wasn’t; it’s been apparent for quite some time.
Sure, we have those occasional super stars that regardless of what USAWrestling does, they can’t keep them from winning. But they are also the same ones who hurt our programming through their successes. Only when we fall completely on our faces will the general membership at USAWrestling begin to make noise. 7th place folks; for an event that was held on our own soil, with favorable officiating.
Were you aware that all three of our freestyle medalists aren’t residents of the Olympic Training Center where the entire Greco Roman team lives? I wonder what conclusions could be drawn from that?
Some of you might wonder why I write what I do when “if you don’t have something nice to say, you shouldn’t say anything at all.” Well, I find that when I don’t write, nothing changes and if I do write, very little changes. But very little is so much more than nothing at all.
I just happen to believe that what we’re seeing in the Presidential debates needs to happen in wrestling; a yearning to throw the rascals out. The electorate is so upset with the status quo and the feeling that no one is listening that the top 3 republican candidates have never held a political office. Maybe our full time politicians need to go as well.
This is how much I love the sport. I’ll duck as many arrows as I need to in order to get as many messages out as I can.
Wrestling as a Restaurant
I began to talk about this in How Wrestling Wins but I wanted to revisit it. For its wrestling’s skeleton, the framework that supports the challenge we have of making the sport relevant.
Think for a moment, you just bought a failing restaurant at a good price. You’ve always wanted to be in the food industry and the stars were aligned to make it happen. What now?
The first step in any business with challenges is to determine why the enterprise failed? Actually it should have been done before the contracts were signed. You needed to see if the problems the restaurant had could be fixed and then at what price? The best way to start this process is to employ a marketing company to survey those who live in the vicinity of the restaurant to find out what the problems are? Why didn’t the locals patronize the establishment or if they did, what happened that caused them not to return?
Wrestling for whatever reason hasn’t done that and I’m confused as to the why? We’re failing in an entertainment industry that’s booming with dollars, spectator appeal and an endless growth curve. Yet our leadership is either 1) fearful of what they might find with a survey, 2) are unknowing of simple business practices that leads up to doing a survey or possibly 3) so fanatically competitive that they don’t want to know what’s wrong. But not knowing the basis of our decline is the basis for our decline. I hope that makes sense?
If you don’t know what’s broken, how can you expect to fix it? And if I were to venture a guess, I think it’s a little of all three I mentioned with strong emphasis on the last one; fanatical competitiveness.
The sport simply doesn’t allow any one individual or organization to fix that which ails us. No one in power wants to see a counterpart let alone someone from outside their inner circle receive credit for putting the train back on the track.
It’s an interesting dynamic, organization against organization, power broker against power broker all in an attempt to protect each ones piece of the pie.
Yet each will passionately indicate they’re all on board with strengthening the sport but the only way that will happen is through the creation of commissions where everyone is involved. That’s what we’ve always done and it’s the only way they can minimize the paranoia they feel about their counterparts gaining power.
If you look back in our history, you’ll see quite a few examples of our organizations getting together with great fanfare for the purpose of making a difference. Then a business cycle or two later without great fanfare someone wonders aloud, “what ever happened to that group?”
The answer is they seldom if ever reach consensus on anything. Their fanatical competitiveness, which in one way makes wrestling a wonderful developmental sport for our young men and women, sadly becomes the basis for the sports failures.
Each leader starts with enthusiastic intent to raise the bar but the obsessive will to win derails the discussions. The individual instinct to succeed overrides logic just as emotion overrides logic. This outcome occurs because the sport teaches us to find weaknesses in our opponents and then exploit them so the focus of meetings isn’t to find a way to make a proposal work but rather, to find its weaknesses so they can be pointed out at the expense of the proposal.
That’s what we do in wrestling, we’ve been taught you either get the takedown or you don’t, we don’t have a mechanism in place for an athlete to receive a point for a great attempt or a point and a half if it’s almost successful. We live in a sport of all or nothing. That’s how we’ve been trained and it’s why we always look for a 100% fix of something when deciding to make a change. We’re not interested in an 87% solution, even if the current challenge we’re trying to fix is performing at 54%.
This is why the sport desperately needs outside help from individuals who can see the merits of certain change that might not be perfect but considerably better than what we have. This is the how and why we’ve been stumbling through decades of decline and it’s tough to blame any one individual or organization; although at times I do when it’s too obvious to overlook. Each one of us is a product of our environment, and that’s the proverbial good news-bad news story of wrestling.
The result of this fanatical competitiveness is my restaurant analogy. If the quality of the food receives strong marks in a survey but cockroaches can be seen scurrying about the dining room during the day the fix is easy; call Terminix. But you wouldn’t overlook the infestation and then paint the walls, buy different table cloths and hold a grand opening.
That’s sort of how wrestling approaches challenges. Leadership doesn’t ignore problems, they just don’t know what the problems are? And even if they did, they don’t have a clue which ones to tackle first.
That’s how we approach everything and it’s like shooting at a target in the dark. Sometimes you hit the mark but most of the time you miss the paper. When we don’t have data or an assessable analysis, we’re playing blind man’s bluff.
Now occasionally we do get it right. As an example, the rules committee did good when it enacted the one foot in bounds for takedowns rule and the one where pins can occur with the defensive man’s shoulders out of bounds. As much as I celebrate those changes, good job guys, in the big picture they’re small alterations, similar to handing buckets out to passenger’s on the Titanic.
What wrestling needs before we do anything else is a survey to find out what the sporting community thinks, not what our leadership tells us OR our current spectators feel. Basically, what we’ve done by our actions or inaction has us where we are today.
And talking about blunders, something a marketing company would immediately point out as being a huge error on our parts is the notion that television is the way to go.
Nothing could be further from the truth because . . .
Television doesn’t make anything popular; it only makes it public.
What do you think about inviting the local television station to attend your restaurants Grand Opening? If you think that’s a good idea, raise your hand. Go on, don’t be shy, put your hand in the air. We’ve been doing that for decades, exactly what leadership has told us we need to do.
Okay, let’s go back to the cockroaches for a moment and ask that same question again. If you hadn’t called Terminix and television showed up and the entire city got to watch those little creatures sharing a meal alongside the patrons what do you think the fallout would be?
Television doesn’t make anything popular; it only makes it public.
Being broadcast is the last thing wrestling needs right now, that is until we make the sport engaging enough to become entertaining and user friendly enough to be a pleasant way to spend 2 hours.
It’s my assessment, and granted this is my opinion, that every time a wrestling event is aired, we lose far, far, far more potential spectators than we attract because the sport, our product, is grossly inferior to what’s currently out there in the marketplace.
What does it say to those who are channel surfing when they stumble onto the World Team Trials or Pan American Championships and see a venue that has five empty seats for every one that’s occupied?
Why is it our leadership never seems to understand the absolute need to control the environment when events are being broadcast. Spectators should be required to fill the lower bowl on one side of the gym opposite the cameras before other seats become available. This is so Marketing 101 that it’s boggles my mind why wrestling doesn’t get it?
If I were wrong about how bad wrestling is as a spectator sport, broadcasters would be paying us to air our events instead of the reverse. And America’s businesses would be lining up to become sponsors and spend their advertising dollars on our sport. In the absence of any of this, leadership keeps paying broadcasters and we keep declining.
To summarize, television does not have a place in wrestling’s immediate future; until we improve the product.
Back to the restaurant; if you found out through the survey that the quality of the food was the source of the businesses decline, what would you do first, advertise or hire a new chef? The answer is daa, you’d never recover if you advertised first. And that’s exactly what we’ve been doing and wondering why we’re still declining.
The only way we can possible get better is to find out what’s wrong in the sport and that’s through surveys not of our coaches or athletes, or our current spectators but of the general population. That’s the only way to assess the sports strengths and weaknesses, by asking the right kind of questions of those who aren’t currently involved in our sport.
Now I’ve heard hundreds of suggestions for improvement over the years from the wrestling community. Many of them are outstanding ideas but few if any fall into the category of initial must-dos. Putting the cart before the horse or holding an open house before the arrival of Terminix doesn’t work.
If you want to know what I think should be first, read the last two How Wrestling Wins and if you find them entertaining or insightful, read a couple more.
How Wrestling Wins – Epilogue
Epilogue
I thought of three more things I would develop in the sport if I were the man in charge holding the magic wand. Please add these to your “let me think about it” list.
The team who forfeits a weight class also forfeits any say in the order of bouts for the evening and the choice of position at the beginning of the second AND third periods. That will get the coaches attention. Forfeits are that bad for the sport and should be penalized as such.
Simplify scoring for our spectators. Make it easy for everyone to remember while placing a stronger emphasis on takedowns. Bout scoring; 4-3-2-1. 4 point nearfalls (1 point for every hand count of the referee up to 4 points), 3 point takedowns, 2 point reversals and 1 point escapes. Penalties are the reverse. 1-2-3-4. 1 point for the first offense, 2 points for the second offense, 3 for the third etc. I don’t know what would happen if an athlete gets hit with a 5th penalty? Maybe we should force him or her to go out for another sport; no one can be that daft.
Lastly, an athlete can’t be saved by the buzzer if he’s on his back. The match continues until a pin occurs OR the athletes leave the mat area OR the official determines one isn’t going to take place.
The sport must stop allowing the tail to wag the dog. That’s the only way wrestling can reengage the spectators we’ve lost over the years and attract ones that have yet to see a meet in person. Wrestling must market itself as “new and improved” if we’re to get the public’s attention and then actually be “new and improved.” Continuing to make small tweaks with the belief that they’ll make a difference is sadly laughable.
How Wrestling Wins – Chapter 18
Chapter 18
Here’s the final chapter of How Wrestling Wins. I hope you’ve enjoyed the read as much as I enjoyed my time trying to infuse logic into the sport. This effort represents 147 pages of text and literally hundreds of hours of critical thinking, mostly with a good glass of scotch in hand so it wasn’t an unpleasant experience.
Unfortunately the sport as we know it is either a product of our leadership’s inability or unwillingness to remain relevant. Either way, the outcome of their ineffectiveness has placed an expiration date on what many administrators think of as a disposable sport.
I can’t believe our nativity; we put our trust in those who control the conversations only to find that they live on another planet. But if there’s good news; we can break free of their gravitational pull anytime we want. It just requires the decision that enough is enough.
Until that happens I will continue to keep you informed of the latest news that’s not being reported. To that point, why is it impossible to find objective information on the state of wrestling?
Granted, the esprit de corps we share among ourselves is one of the sport’s greatest strengths. But it’s also a weakness. We just can’t keep closing our eyes and say good things about the sport while shunning all those who dare to point out that some of our emperors aren’t wearing clothing.
Where are the editorial pages in WIN, Amateur Wrestling News or Wrestling USA that cover the sports shortcomings? If it’s acceptable and also effective for coaches to point out to their athletes by their actions or inactions how they’re stumbling, why shouldn’t our coaches and leadership receive the same scrutiny?
Whether we like it or not, wrestling needs disrupters, educated individuals who can point out which processes need overhauled and what positions need refreshed. Wrestling is in desperate need of fair, balanced and candid conversations. But currently that’s only happening in blogs and face to face conversations when no one else is listening.
We all know that USAWrestling is wonderful but when the United States only has 1 male wrestler that’s ranked in the Top 64 of the world’s best, that’s not very wonderful. So my question is, if performances we can evaluate are that bad, how are they doing in areas that aren’t so transparent?
How many of you were aware statistically of our shortcomings in international competition for the men? Did you know we only have 1 wrestler that’s good enough to make the world’s ranking ladder in either freestyle or Greco-Roman wrestling?
That’s the point. Why haven’t you read about that somewhere? Could it be that it represents exactly how ineffective our national governing body has been for over a decade at fulfilling it’s responsibilities. Not the organization itself or the staff, but leadership.
We’re in so much trouble as a sport yet all we’re ever given to read is made of cotton candy. Where’s the dialogue, the open discussions about areas that aren’t necessarily fun to read but are absolutely imperative that we know? Only when the sport is willing to discuss every challenge that faces it will we be on the road to recovery.
“As a parent of a former youth and now high school wrestler (with no wrestling history in the family), your comments are right on the mark! How can we not adopt your recommendations and hope to survive? Obviously, everything is up for debate, but your blog series is certainly the most well-considered and consolidated list of proposals I have come across. The duals focus, scoring and clothing changes should be adopted immediately. I think the sport deserves that your proposals be tried in a competitive environment before those in denial bash you for your irreverence.”
Jason Phillips, Arlington, TN
Title Sponsors, Strategic Alliances and Giving Back. Any sport that doesn’t have a corporate sponsor is inconsequential and if they haven’t aligned themselves with social causes they’re pretty much irrelevant. That’s wrestling in a nutshell.
Why don’t we have any title sponsors? At least for our NCAA Championships if not the sport in general? Even if we have to give them away to get relationships started, which I doubt we’d have to do, wrestling needs the clout that a Coca-Cola, or Chevrolet, or VISA brings to the table.
Having relationships with powerful corporations is a game changer. It moves societies’ perception of whomever they partner with from irrelevant to prominent.
The perplexing part of all this is it isn’t hard to do. There are companies out there that specialize in marrying sports and sponsors. This is why the National Wrestling Association (first discussed in Chapter 5) or the IFW (discussed later in this blog) is so important. Because wrestling doesn’t have an overarching organization that can speak for the sport like you see with the NFL, Major League Baseball, the NBA or NHL. Sponsorships aren’t hard to come by but each company needs to have someone to meet with that represents the sport. Who currently speaks for us, Rich Bender? Mike Moyer? Lee Roy Smith? Jack Roller? The answer is no one; each of those individuals are only responsible for the organizations they represent.
That’s probably our largest challenge; wrestling doesn’t have an overarching organization that can speak for the entire sport. Wall Street level companies aren’t interested in meeting with the heads of subset groups. Each of our organizations is too small for anyone to be bothered with, but as a unified sport wrestling is marketable.
A few years back we lost a great opportunity when Dave Pottruck, a very passionate retired wrestler/graduate of the University of Pennsylvania was CEO of Charles Schwab. Imagine if someone would have sat down and asked Dave to consider sponsoring wrestling and what such an alignment would have done for the sport. Envision television commercials with video of a wrestler helping a vanquished opponent back to his feet and having his hand raised in victory to the sound bite: “When wrestling with your investments remember Charles Schwab is here make sure you come out on top!”
Name one athletic administrator in America who would dare drop his wrestling program when the sport has AT&T, or Bayer Aspirin, or AutoNation as a national sponsor?
Either the wrestling community can’t see the amazing possibilities that sponsorships provide or they do but would rather be independently obstinate than work together as a team. Pick one, there isn’t an option C.
Regarding strategic alliances and the responsibility of giving back, wrestling as a sport and its individual programs has to begin to give back to others just as we expect to be given. We need to be seen as more than just a sport. We have to think beyond ourselves and share with others our good fortune of having health, happiness, strong mental capacities and an immense internal drive.
No matter the age of our athletes, where they’re from or the team they represent, each program must find ways to make a difference for society. We need to be known as “America’s Give Back Sport.”
Serving food at homeless shelters would work; reading books to hospitalized children is another. Donating time to an animal shelter or assisting at a senior citizen’s center are a few other possibilities. Coaches might consider adopting a highway close to their school or helping the local Red Cross with their annual blood mobile drive; or creating relationships with organizations like United Way or UNICEF.
Think of the cumulative benefits wrestling would receive when the sport combined its efforts for social good, not to mention how those we serve benefit. All anyone has to do is look around in their community; there are oodles of feel good, do good causes that could use our help.
This is so important because 84% of Americans have a more positive image of a company or group when it supports those who are less fortunate, be that a local charity or national cause. Nearly 90% of those surveyed said it was important that organizations come together for the purpose of solving pressing social issues and regarding the business side of things, 79% of Americans indicate they would likely switch from one product brand to another one if it was associated with a cause they believed in.
For wrestling in general, the Wounded Warrior Project seems to be a natural fit given the number of military personnel that were and are wrestlers and of course the great service the group does for those who give up a part of their tomorrow’s so we can have all of our todays. And ironically, the Wounded Warrior Project’s logo is one soldier carrying another over his shoulder in a double leg.
The American Red Cross would also work and regardless of the one or ones we choose, developing a reciprocal relationship with these sorts of companies would strengthen the public’s image of wrestling. When we work together, wrestlers and companies, wrestlers and local charities, each group exceeds the sum of its parts.
Can you name any major corporation who doesn’t look for this type of global synergy? The Walt Disney Company partners with the United Way because it’s good business and helpful to society. Microsoft supports the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, Procter and Gamble’s has been affiliated with UNICEF for decades and the list is endless. The time has come for the sport of wrestling to become one under the IFW banner so it can speak for the sport in matters of sponsorships, charities, causes and our overall health. No one else can do it to the level they can.
“Awesome! Tradition is one thing, but it’s time our sport evolves. Very well said Wade!”
Chesty Franks, Fairfax, Virginia
Develop a philosophy and consumer first attitude that puts spectators before coaches, athletes and the sports leadership. Too often those of us in wrestling have either forgotten or haven’t been taught the importance of the spectator; not by our words but through our actions. The sport doesn’t think twice about allowing coaches, athletes and non-working officials to crowd around mats at events so they can watch the action while forgetting that the sport has paying spectators who are in the stands who would like to see something other than the backs of those who are inconsiderate.
And God help the event director who tries to ask those who feel special to politely find seats. He’s met with such distain and hostility and feelings of entitlement that the logic behind this is beyond words. “We’ll stand where we want!”
Coaches don’t look at spectators as being the sports life blood or they wouldn’t schedule dual meet team tournaments, Quadangular’s or even Triangular’s that last the better part of a day. But they do anyway because they want matches for their wrestlers more than they care about revenue production. Then they’re absolutely shocked when their administrators drop the sport as a result of their selfish thought processes and expenses overshadowing income.
If those who buy tickets were actually important the coaches would insist that the NCAA develop a consumer management team whose sole responsibility is to evaluate their events from a spectator’s point of view. They would begin by developing a line-of-sight directive that promises spectators will not miss one moment of action due to poor placement of mats, clocks, tables, chairs, the media, coaches or medical personnel. They need to designate the middle two mats at tournaments as tennis’s equivalent of “Center Court” where the highest ranked wrestlers would be assigned their matches. Silly me but I happen to believe we should showcase those that are known for exceptional performances?
If spectators were important, all events would have at least one concession stand open at every competition and begin the event on time, as advertised. They’d have cheerleaders, programs and most importantly to our female guests, lavatories that are unlocked, clean and maintained throughout the event.
The sport would half halftimes with entertainment and we’d discontinue time-consuming pre-match lineups and introductions. Any information the spectators need to learn about a wrestler they can read in the program or hear an abbreviated version of from the announcer as the athletes begin their match.
There’s no question in my mind that each of you could add quite a few suggestions to this spectator comes first list. It’s really a sad state of affairs when we don’t have those who should know better overseeing what we do.
Basically, if you want spectators you have to have something they want to see. If you want to produce revenue you need spectators to buy tickets, eat concession stand food and purchase program merchandise. If you want corporate sponsors, you need to be able to demonstrate the level of support you enjoy as a result of your spectator numbers. If you want broadcast media and the press to be in attendance you have to have spectators and sponsors. Without spectators, sponsors, media and press; you don’t have a sport. It’s pretty basic.
“While most of the folks involved with wrestling act like non swimmers about to go under for the last time, you throw them a life preserver. BRAVO WADE!!”
James Hagen , Oregon State Alumni
Allow athletes to “Double Up” 3 times a year. (Chapter 7) Wrestling needs to create a lot more heroes and legends like baseball has done with Babe Ruth, boxing with Joe Louis and Mohammad Ali and basketball with legends such as Bill Russell and Michael Jordan. We need to find ways to make our stars just as well known to the general public as the other sports have done. Here’s my suggestion of accomplishing that . . .
I hope you’re sitting down for this addition to Wade’s Way of revitalizing the sport.
Wrestling should seriously consider allowing wrestlers to compete in two weight classes during a dual meet; but no more than 3 times a season.
Yes, you read that right, it’s called Doubling Up. I’m sure it’ll create as much buzz with the media and our fans as it is doing in your head right now. Doubling Up would be huge for the sport and here’s how.
Just think how many people would buy a ticket to the Cleveland Cavaliers when LeBron James was playing if they knew he was only going to be in the game for seven minutes? How about a similar question regarding Rhonda Rousey? How many of you would have paid $250.00 for a ticket to her last championship fight if you knew it was only going to last 14 seconds?
Both answers are obvious, so why is it acceptable that we keep our franchise athletes on the bench for 90% of a dual meet; or worse yet 95% of the evening’s event given these stars seldom wrestle half a match before ending it with a pin or a technical fall?
In business you wouldn’t pull your best salesman off the road after the first hour of the day and you can’t win the hearts of spectators when your flagship athletes spends 95% of the evening on the bench. If we want to develop hero’s and legends that the media will pick up on, what better way than to have David Taylor go out and decision Oklahoma’s Tyler Caldwell and Andrew Howell back to back. Wouldn’t that be worthy of a feature article in Sports Illustrated and then a guest appearance on ESPN’s Outside the Lines?
So why not; please don’t say it’s a safety issue. You have to be kidding!
If wrestlers are as tough as we tell everyone they are, that we’re in better shape than any other athlete on the planet, how can football and soccer players go for 2-hours, marathon runners for 26 miles and wrestlers for “safety sake” can only wrestle 7 minutes?
How many matches do coaches make their team wrestle every day in practice back to back to back to back without a break? No one has ever died from 45 minutes of non-stop wrestling and I’d bet medical evidence would show nothing but positive effects from those cardio-vascular experiences. So how bad can 14 minutes of competition be when it’s less than a third of what wrestlers go through every day in practice and its one minute less than the length of an undercard bout in the UFC.
I realize what I’m professing here violates our sports rule relative to the 30 minute rest period. But let me ask, “Who came up with 30 minutes in the first place?” I don’t mean the organization, what was the name of the person who saddled us with that number? I’d like to challenge him to produce any medical documentation that supports what he’s made us live with for decades. I’d be willing to bet he can’t and I have a strong feeling he just made the number up.
Sometimes it’s really tough to understand how completely obstinate the wrestling community can be about almost everything we do or things that are suggested and Doubling Up will be just another example. Yet they never question that which is already etched in stone regardless if it makes no sense at all and will fight to the death anyone who suggests something different. Folks; Doubling Up is nothing new in sports so let’s not ruffle our rooster tails. It happens in tennis where an exceptional athlete can represent his team in both singles and doubles competition. Track and Field and Swimming and Diving allow their athletes to participate in 4 different events per meet.
In Olympic competition, any athlete may participate in as many sports AND events as he or she can qualify for; there is no limit!
Football players are allowed to go both ways and play non-stop for the entire 2 hours if they’re good enough. But we have to worry about our athletes because they’re delicate wall flowers who can only manage 7 minutes of activity before having to sit down and rest. Are you kidding me; even basketball players are allowed to go non-stop for 2 hours. That should be enough said; making our athletes sit down to rest is simply laughable!
As to the reason behind limiting our athletes to Double Up only 3 times a season, I worry that coaches would be tempted to abuse the rule and take advantage of lesser athletes in their lineup who are a weight class above their team’s best wrestlers. Continually bumping young men out of the lineup after they’ve earned a varsity spot is wrong on so many levels.
Other solid reasons for Doubling Up are obviously the strategic value. Think how exciting it would be, all the decisions that coaches would have to make and all the tactical options that spectators get to discuss? Should Coach Robinson put Ness in for a second time and use one of his 3 Double Ups given Minnesota is down by 4 points with just 3 matches left? Or should Jay hold him back with the knowledge that he has Penn State, Iowa and Ohio State still on their schedule where he might be needed more? There are so many possibilities and strategies here that it becomes nirvana for armchair quarterbacks and a blessing for the shrewdest of coaches.
Doubling Up would also reduce forfeits; coaches would now have the option to push a wrestler up a weight class after competing in the lower one to fill a void they have in their lineup. Or we might even consider making it mandatory that any team who is surrendering a weight class must use the athlete directly below that weight to avoid the forfeit. Obviously such a rule wouldn’t fix a forfeit in the first weight class but anytime you can fix over 90% of a problem, why wouldn’t you?
Regarding the fine print; athletes can only move up and wrestle one weight class above their certified weight and when you think about it, how often will an athlete actually wrestle back to back matches? Given that both coaches can jumble the weight class order as you’ll read about next, I would imagine those who are doubling up would get a chance to rest at least 10 if not 30 minutes before being called back into battle. But if that doesn’t happen so what, either we are or aren’t the toughest athletes on the planet?
Alternate weight classes back and forth throughout dual meets. (Chapter 7) This is what makes Doubling Up so exciting, interesting and strategic; alternating weight classes. But not in the way you’re used to seeing. There will still be a flip of a coin before the meet with the winning coach selecting the first weight class to be contested. But after that bout ends the other coach gets to select the second weight class and back and forth it goes throughout the dual.
The twist that makes this so strategic for coaches and fun for the spectator is no one knows, other than the coach whose turn it is to select, which weight is going to wrestle next.
Think of the tactical value of who goes out on the mat next? Does the coach whose turn it is to select send his best wrestler out to stop the momentum the opposing team has built up or hold him in reserve for later? What weight class does a coach use after Logan Stieber just finished winning a close match against one of his better wrestlers? Should he jump a couple of weight classes and get Logan off the mat. Or should he challenge him with his 149 pounder while he’s somewhat fatigued or are the Buckeyes even going to use Logan a second time in this dual? Maybe the coach should jump to 197 pounds and try and take advantage of the one athlete on the other team’s bench who hasn’t been warming up? The possibilities are endless and that’s exactly what spectators love to see and argue the benefits of or stupidity regarding.
Do you see where this could go? Similar to military strategy, where and when do you attack; how do you take advantage of actual or perceived weaknesses in the opposing teams line up and which asset of yours do you throw into battle next?
These two alterations to the rules are so outstanding that they should be adopted automatically without debate.
Relative to our spectators, can you imagine the variety of opinions they’ll come up with regarding which weight should go next and what athlete should Double Up? This is so important to attracting and keeping new spectators. The more we compound the number of strategies that coaches have available to them the more we correspondingly engage those who are sitting in the stands. It’s important that we give the spectators the ability to outthink, at least in their minds, the coaches whose decisions determine the evening’s outcome. Armchair quarterbacks are a great thing in sports.
As to the naysayers, most will claim that not knowing what weight is going to go next isn’t fair to the opposing athlete. Why isn’t it fair? Anytime you make changes that are uniformly applied to all, then by definition, it’s fair to all. In basketball, doesn’t the coach yell down the bench, “Harris, get in there for Bradshaw!” Harris then says, “yes coach” and in he goes; no warm-up, no prior warning. The same happens in football, soccer and baseball. Seldom do athletes who are substituting for others know when they’re going to head into battle. Only in wrestling do we feel our athletes are so fragile that they need to be forewarned. There’s simply no physiological reason why this rule is bad and only because “we’ve never done it that way before” doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it.
Forfeits are arsenic to wrestling’s growth. (Chapter 9) There is little question that the sport must fix the issue of forfeits. There should be an exceptionally heavy consequence beyond 6 points for a team who can’t find a body to fill a weight class.
I’m sorry but I just don’t believe a team doesn’t have or can’t find someone to wrestle. It’s the coach who doesn’t want to take the time to find someone knowing a lesser replacement is probably going to get pinned anyway so why bother? I simply don’t believe any coach who says he can’t find someone to wrestle.
If the rules committee wanted to, they could pass legislation tomorrow that would stop all forfeits. All they’d have to do is say the team who forfeits a weight class also forfeits the dual meet. The individual matches would be still wrestled but the team outcome is already decided. I realize that might be a tad much to ask of the rules committee to swallow but the point is forfeits are that damaging to the sport. And if you think about it, there are other sports that already handle events that way and have similar rules; games are simply not played unless both teams have full lineups.
If the rules committee would adopt such a rule, I believe it would take coaches maybe 14 seconds to find someone they could insert into their lineup. The point is if something is worth doing, legislation can accomplish it as long as the penalty is greater than the benefit of breaking the rule is advantageous. If I were handed a magic rule producing wand, I’d handle this as I wrote in the section on team scoring, forfeits would be 15 points and a pin 10 points. Penalties always have to be stiffer than the benefits of ignoring them.
It’s important to remind everyone that when there’s a forfeit, the offending coach is basically breaching a legal contract spectators have with the host school to provide a set number of matches for the price of admission. Go to a football game and you’re promised, and receive 4 quarters of action. 9 innings in baseball and 3 quarters plus several fights in hockey. But in wrestling we’re allowed to cheat our spectators and do it regularly along with a “so what” attitude.
There must be additional costs beyond a 6 point penalty for those who forfeit. Wrestling cannot grow as a sport when we knowingly choose to shortchange customers. That behavior tears at the basic tenet of customer service and to think it’s somehow okay is to be sadly mistaken.
“I wanted to let you know how impressed I’ve been with what you’ve written. I was ready to see what you had to say as short sighted, but to my surprise it wasn’t! The challenge will be in the execution of your plan and if you need help, count me in.”
Doug Mitchell, PA
Create a new way of starting matches from standing and in the down positions. (Chapter 9) I believe we should eliminate all starting lines. We need to reduce the number of cautions that spectators endure and minimize the amount of time it takes referee’s to get matches started.
I understand the reasoning behind cautions and they are necessary for pre-mature starts but we need to find ways to speed everything up while adding strategic interplay.
In the standing position, as long as the two athletes are somewhere close to the middle of the mat, facing one another and ready to defend themselves the referee should blow his whistle. International wrestling has done this for as far back as I can remember (which is decades) and it definitely shortens the time it takes to complete a match. Having to stand with one foot on a colored line is nothing more than time consuming drool that kills spectator appeal.
I have to believe that referees would not only agree but do backflips if this passed because they hate cautions more than spectators dislike having to endure them.
To help clarify this, athletes in the standing position can be 2 feet away from one another or 6 feet away. As long as they are facing one another, somewhere inside the 12 foot circle and ready to go the match should start. This is so easy to administer and it’s worked for decades very successfully internationally so what’s the issue?
Relative to down wrestling I have to warn you the following proposal is off the charts even for me but I still love it.
The bottom man in the defensive position can assume any position he wishes, as long as both his hands and knees are touching the mat. He can crouch down if he wishes, lie on his belly if he wants, put his hands next to his knees or learn back and place his hands next to his ankles with his chest pointing up if that’s what floats his boat. Any position is legal as long as his hands and knees are touching the mat. And no, nothing has to be 12 inches apart.
To start the match after the bottom man is set, the top man places the palms of his hands on any part of the defensive man’s body. And as it is in international wrestling, as soon as the palms of the offensive man touch his opponent, the match should start.
As to the placement of those hands, the offensive man could put them on his opponents back like you see in freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling, or on the underside of each ankle, or both palms on his opponent’s chest or one on an arm and the other somewhere on his opponent’s neck. There are no off limits except the obvious eyes, nose, throat, mouth and certain boy parts.
As to the positioning of the offensive man’s body, he could be on one knee or both. He could be standing behind his opponent or off to one side or in front of him. He could even straddle him like he’s riding a horse if he wanted as long as the only thing that’s touching the down wrestler when the referee starts the match are the palms of his hands.
What’s so special about all these possible starting positions is the myriad of offensive and defensive opportunities that are created; not to mention the dozens of new strategies they present? The silent buzz coming from the stands over this would be deafening.
As to the athletes themselves, this allows them to devise their own unique styles and individual plans of attack and subsequent counters for the expected and unexpected. What great fun this rule would be to watch develop with the obvious benefit of less cautions and shorter dual meets.
Starting positions should be creative and give athletes complete control over their destiny. We don’t tell wrestlers how to stand in the up position or mandate that they wrestle solely in the down position so why is it acceptable to tell them how they need to get set? Each athlete should be allowed to be innovative and resourceful, the fans would love it.
New and Improved; the sport must find ways to generate enough revenue to engage the equivalent of a New York City advertising firm for the purpose of developing a national marketing campaign for wrestling. This should be the job of the National Wrestling Association to do, which doesn’t exist yet or the International Fraternity of Wrestlers which does because no one else has it on their plate.
For those who haven’t heard of the IFW ( www.ifwrestlers.org ), it’s a relatively new nonpartisan, membership driven organization whose goal is to strengthen the wrestling community by fighting for the issues that matter most to our survival.
It’s to wrestling what the AARP is to retired people and the NRA is to gun owners. Everyone who has ever wrestled, coached or officiated is eligible to join, and should because someone has to become the marketing and promotional arm for wrestling and either the NWA or the IFW is the logical choice. But neither can be accomplished without YOU.
Besides our individual efforts, the sport has to actually become New and Improved if we’re to survive. Wrestling needs to do things vastly different than they’ve been doing. Whether it’s incorporating a few of my suggestions or someone else’s; the point is substantial change is required for a national marketing campaign to be successful. The public must be made aware of our existence and then become curious enough by what we’ve done to check us out.
We need to focus on changing as many aspects of wrestling as we can that affects action, supports our New and Improved claim and places the spectator above all else. The more we can do to convince the public that wresting is undergoing change the better chance we have of actual change.
I hope you can see how all of this is tied together? One part without others is the same as building a boat but forgetting to add a helm or make its exterior water tight.
It’s time to lose the name Amateur Wrestling. It’s not the word wrestling that bothers me, it’s the use of the word amateur that according to Thesaurus means substandard, clumsy, crude, inept, unprofessional. They’re not the type of words an advertising agency would select to work with if given a choice.
So before we spend a lot of money on our New and Improved marketing campaign, the word amateur has to disappear forever. We should all say when people ask us what sport we participated in; we should simply say wrestling. It’s a small but yet powerful change because there’s nothing amateur about what we do on the mats just as there’s nothing professional about what the WWE does other than the way they handle marketing, promotions, customer service and deposits.
We need to think of ourselves as wrestlers, not amateur wrestlers.
Marketing outside of the sport. There isn’t a time when wrestlers get together that we don’t talk about the greatness of the sport. From its historical significance of Gilgamesh and Jacob wrestling an angel to Abe Lincoln.
But if we’re to become special in other people’s eyes, we have to make a concerted effort to tell those outside of wrestling about our specialness. That’s where the IFW comes into play and why I’d like to ask each of you to become members. No one else in wrestling is set up to market the sport like the IFW.
“First let me say, “How Wrestling Wins” is inspired. I have not been able to stop reading. Having just read the chapter regarding parity and the previous chapters regarding dropping tournaments and focusing on duals you couldn’t be more right.”
Brian McGuinty
Create a Wrestlers in Business Network group in your area. If wrestling is ever to climb back into relevance as a sport it must identify each one of its challenges and find ways to address them collectively.
One such challenge is to find a way of reengaging hundreds of thousands of men and women who wrestled at one time but have since moved on in their professional careers. Wrestler’s in Business is the answer.
Led by the very capable John Licata, WIB has grown tremendously over the last two years to become the preeminent business organization for wrestling with chapters in over a dozen states.
Similar to a community service club, the WIBN offers its members the opportunity to make valuable contacts and long-term friendships with others of similar backgrounds. The WIBN is the ideal word-of-mouth organization for those looking to generate additional activity in their own businesses.
What makes the WIBN different from other networking groups who are completely donor based is they ask their members to consider the sport when they benefit from their relationships within the group.
On the sport side, the organizations main goal is to support the various wrestling programs in each chapter’s geographical area. They accomplish that by offering each program a political umbrella of professional support while mentoring coaches who request help in areas they might not have a lot of expertise.
Recently the sport was successful in getting the wrestling program at Cleveland State reinstated and it was the WIBN who through the use of their collective skill sets swayed the discussions in our favor.
You owe it to the sport to read more about Wrestler’s In Business and consider becoming a member or starting a chapter in your area. The sport needs the help, it needs your support; you’re our most valuable asset. www.wrestlersinbusiness.org
In closing; I’d like to thank each of you for supporting How Wrestling Wins regardless of your personal or political views. The whole effort has been personally rewarding and hugely successful with over 600,000 unique hits in the last 6 months. Just knowing you care enough to endure my thoughts tells me the sport has a chance.
But survival means we have to stop fighting one another over the sports ever shrinking pie and decide on a course of action. Wrestling may be an individual sport but as long as we allow individuals with specific agendas to administer it, there won’t be but crumbs left in a couple of years.
I’ll leave you with this; what’s true isn’t always believable, and what’s believable isn’t always true. So question all you hear and believe half of what you see. That way you’ll be close to right 50% of the time.
How Wrestling Wins – Chapter 17
Chapter 17
When you combine the following baseline changes and short synopsis of why each is important with last week’s Chapter 16, you have the future of wrestling. But remember, none of what I’m espousing is perfect and I implore you not to get caught up in the finite minutia. Each of us can find things we don’t like about any of these proposals and why we’ve always failed. I understand nothing’s perfect, but the question we should ask ourselves is; do these recommendations move the bar significantly higher than it is now? I believe it moves it appreciably more than significantly and by the time you’re done reading I hope I’ve convinced you to the point that you agree.
You have to understand, your opinion doesn’t count any more than mine does. Even if the rule book said all athletes had to wear pink leotards and matches were going to be decided by riding time we’re still going to watch wrestling because we’re die-hards. We love the sport and what is does for America’s youth. So what I’m focusing on here and is a responsibility that I take seriously is the creation of an atmosphere that will attract the 10 million potential fans that wrestling currently doesn’t have. For they are the ones given our declining numbers that will pull us from the jaws of defeat.
So here we go, here are some of the initial changes I’d make if I were calling the shots and why. The remaining ones you’ll be able to read in my final chapter of How Wrestling Wins that will post next week.
Scholarships need to be reduced to 7.9 from 9.9 or I like even more keeping scholarships at the 9.9 level but make them tuition only. The latter is a far superior option if cost containment is the goal. Either way, pick one but the important thing to remember is we must start controlling expenses and each of these two options do three things. 1) Athletic administrators will applaud the reality of our vision while it 2) Creates greater parity within the sport. Now I can’t prove 3) But I believe a reduction in the maximum number of scholarships will actually increase the total number of scholarships that are available to the sport. There has to be 3 times more mid-level programs that currently have 4 to 7 scholarships than there are fully funded ones at 9.9. That being said, how many of those mid-level programs would add a scholarship or two to become fully funded when they can’t possibly reach 9.9? I hope I’m right here but even if I’m not, reducing scholarships is still something we have to do. Remember what happened when football reduced scholarships from 120 to 100 to 85? Before those reductions took place who ever thought that it was possible for the Baylor’s, Oregon’s, Boise State’s, Mississippi and Mississippi State’s of the world to become title contenders? The thought of reducing scholarship numbers certainly creates debate but it also broadens the sports power base to the chagrin of those who are part of the nation’s top programs. But what’s good for the sport and the masses has to take precedent over what’s best for the powerful elite.
The start of the season needs to move from November to January. (Chapter 10) This proposal isn’t new, it’s been debated for decades and during that time I’ve never heard one good reason why we shouldn’t change the season other than a few self-serving ones or the old stand-by; “it’s not the way we’ve done it in the past.” Without putting much thought to it I can come up with at least a half-dozen good reasons why this change is extremely positive. 1) The biggest one is it moves our national tournament away from the men’s and women’s basketball championships. Remember, their conference tournaments and national championship all fall on the same weekends as ours does. That’s not good for us when the lifeblood of any sport is the amount of media coverage one receives. 2) It gives our freshman athletes, many of whom are the first members of their family to attend college, an opportunity to become academically acclimated to the grind before season begins and weight is shed. I wish to remind everyone that our sport is academically either next to the bottom or two spots up from the bottom of all male sports. This fact hurts us as much as Title IX does. 3) Moving the season is also a safety issue because it trades December for April when our teams are driving on icy roads. 4) Waiting until January also opens the door for football players to come out for wrestling given their season has officially ended. In the past many wouldn’t come out because doing so meant they only had half the time to get in shape prior to the nationals. I could go on but you have to see the strength of this change whose time has come.
And while we’re at it, the time has come to accept the serious nature of implementing an official NCAA National Dual Meet Championship. Because the spectators we don’t have demand it. Yes that’s right, the ones we don’t have because we’re not going to survive doing what we’ve always done with the spectators we do have. As soon as the NCAA Dual Meet Championships is no longer a wish but a reality, we need to flip-flop the dates of that event with our individual tournament to make things work for the sport. You read that right too; move our current national championship. But read on, you can burn me at the stake for heresy later. In the last several years Mike Moyer at the NWCA has been getting beat up by influential coaches over his support of a National Dual Meet Championship. Bruised and battered he’s still at the plate trying to work with Division I coaches and some television networks to see what might be possible.
But the coaches are right to oppose it the way it’s being proposed.
I believe almost everyone agrees a Dual Meet Championship is a good thing but somehow the NWCA can’t make it work because they’re trying to fit it within the confines of the present seasonal structure. The largest objection and the one that counts is the number of high intensity matches that athletes from the top programs will have to wrestle going through a national dual meet championship before tackling their very vigorous regular season schedule leading up to exceptionally tough conference tournaments and then of course the individual nationals. That’s completely suicidal for their athletes and why coaches reject this proposal. Teams like Penn State, Iowa, Ohio State, Minnesota and Oklahoma State shouldn’t be asked to go through such a meat grinder when the other 80% of the DI programs sit back and watch the carnage. The toughest teams shouldn’t be penalized in the middle of the season because they’re our sports flag bearers. Having a Dual Meet Championship in January is a bad idea. But it’s a great idea if it’s held at the end of the season. Wrestling shouldn’t get caught up on what we use to do but instead look to what we must do. If the sports survival was my prime directive, here’s how I would handle it. I’d start by delaying the start of the season until the first of the New Year.
Season Begins – First week of January
Conference and Qualifying Tournaments – Middle of February
NCAA Individual Tournament – End of February
National Dual Meet Championship Series Begins – Early April
Now don’t get caught up on the exact dates and lose sight of the premise. If you want to move the time frames up some or backwards a bit, okay, that’s fine. But let’s work together on the big picture of having two championships in the correct order.
Let me explain. Who among us can’t see the genius and absolute must of a) having two championships and b) moving each of them away from basketball’s March Madness? Just answer those two questions please; not the order of the events or the dates. If you don’t think having two championships is a good idea, skip down and page and move to the next topic.
But if you feel two championships makes sense, the only decisions we have left is deciding on time frames and the order of the events. Anything other than having the National Duals going at the end of the season is as unreasonable to ask of the participants as it is impossible to get passed the coaches.
So the only alternative is to get the national dual meet tournament accepted and then flip-flop the timing of it with the individual tournament. That way everyone gets their cake and gets to eat it too. Athletes are fresh for the individual tournament which is a dream for every coach and the sport gets the much needed, and media favored dual meet tournament.
Plus, this is a huge marketing windfall for wrestling; the sport ends up with 10 NCAA Champions and 70 other All-Americans still in uniform for the remaining 2 months of the season! Just think of the potential match-ups we’d see once the pressure is off and the athletes go prowling for additional stardom? How about the crowds we could attract to watch a current All-American take on this year’s national champion or better yet, one national champion moving up a weight to wrestle another NCAA champion? Can you imagine the media excitement a David Taylor/Mark Perry or Ed Ruth/J’Den Cox would have generated! This is how you make legends in our sport and give our younger wrestler’s hero’s to look up to.
The way it’s done now, the season ends the moment all our best athletes receive their All-American plaques; half of which will graduate two months later so the sport NEVER gets a chance to market these young men’s achievements.
As to the National Dual Meet Championships, remember, there would only be 16 out of 77 DI teams wrestling in the Sweet Sixteen round, followed by the Elite Eight weekend and then the Final Four Championships 7 days later. What does that accomplish?
Most teams would finish their season by the end of March. I would imagine the NCAA would quickly support this arrangement because it actually shortens the season for 80% of the DI programs by 3 weeks. Only the best of the best programs would go for another week and then half of them would be eliminated and so on until we have a champion. This is also a tremendous way for those programs that aren’t financially competitive to reduce spending because they more than likely won’t be selected as one of the Sweet Sixteen. Cost containment has to be one of the sports priorities.
Wrestling must become an event, not just competition. The only way to do that is to become dual meet centric if we’re to continue as a sport (Chapter 10). Triangular’s, Quadangular’s, Dual Meet and Individual Tournaments during the season have to completely disappear. Our survival is based on becoming financially viable and that means attracting new spectators to wrestling’s New and Improved fan friendly format while keeping our die-hards in the stands. Who wants to attend something that will take a full day to complete that reminds people of watching grass grow? Even football fans wouldn’t attend an Ohio State-Oregon game if they knew it was going to take 8+ hours to complete so why would we believe we can tie up a person’s entire day with wrestling and have them lining up to buy tickets? All our events, other than pre and post season tournaments must be dual meets. No exceptions, we need to get our spectators in, out and home in a 2-hour time frame if we expect to increase revenues and start our march back to relevance (Chapter 6).
Place a seasonal maximum number of matches, not dates, on athletes. Right now there are athletes finishing the season with almost 50 matches. And we wonder why wrestling is near the end of the list regarding academic performance and leading all sports in the number of concussions. By voluntarily placing a limit on competitions to 30 matches a season (just a suggestive number) it does several things. First it reduces operational costs which help us in the eyes of administrators who determine which sports stay and which ones go. Next, logic would suggest that a move like this has to increase the sports academic standing because with every weigh-in there are at least 3 days of weight reduction. Who can get excited about doing more in class when they’re so dehydrated that they feel like they’re capable of passing dust? Limiting the number of matches to 30 also has to correspondingly reduce the percentage of injuries that are reported to the NCAA while increasing the amount of time coaches would have to market their programs and play nice with their administrators. And if I were a betting man, I would wager if you asked the athletes about limiting the number of matches to 30 a vast majority of them would agree if it was done by a silent vote.
Matside weigh-ins must start immediately. This is so easy to do and it removes the need to have a medical oversight committee monitoring our existence. The only reason wrestlers cut weight is the internal fear that they’ll lose matches to athletes who are larger than they are. Who can blame them; everyone wants a level playing field that’s based on individual talent and work ethic, not one that pits one athlete against another substantially larger athlete; even if it’s only in the mind of the athlete. Wrestlers certainly don’t cut weight because they enjoy cottonmouth and dizzy spells. But if the rules didn’t give them a minimum of 2 hours to rehydrate, I’m sure everyone would go up a weight. Who wants to suffer and then lose a match because his body is functioning at 74% of capacity? Doesn’t every wrestler want to feel strong, be mentally hungry and actually having a chance of winning? That will only happen with matside weigh-ins because everyone will go up a weight and best of all, the same athletes will still be competing against one another but this time with smiles on their faces and considerably more gas in their tanks. Some other positive outcomes are; 1) Matside weigh-ins should make a significant difference in class room attendance and performance while it 2) has every wrestling mother in the country applauding the decision. 3) It will completely eliminate those damaging articles the media enjoys writing about the horrors of weight reduction while 4) eliminating the costly medical communities involvement in the process. Weighing in matside also provides a promotional visual like you see in boxing where the athletes step on a scale in front of a crowd. And just like horse racing, wrestlers will weigh-in with headgear in hand like jockeys’ do with their saddles. Then each athlete walks to the center of the mat without as much as a single swallow of water and the bout begins.
That’s the magic of this regulation; there’s zero chance of recovery so athletes won’t lose that much weight if it’s going to reduce their chances of winning.
To handle the logistics of this, whether we add a three pound allowance for the additional clothing and equipment or change the weight classes, either works. But let the athletes solve the problem that the rules committee created. This will work because there’s not one wrestler on this planet who wants to suffer twice.
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“People don’t come to watch 2-1 defensive struggles; they come to see exciting action. You are right as usual and as Pogo once said “We have found the enemy and it is us”.
Ted DeRousse
USA Wrestling National Staff, Retired
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Kill the singlet as the sports competitive uniform. (Chapter 8) We should consider having multiple competitive ensembles that programs can choose from besides the singlet. Each institution and athlete should have choices in what they select to wear when it comes time for competition. The question we need to start with is what’s wrong with choices, it’s the 21st century. Why are we forcing wrestlers to wear something that were originally fashioned by the caveman using animal hides and only flatter those with developed bodies? Swim suit manufacturers understand this; it’s why they make one and two piece suits for women as well as cover-ups because not all bodies are the same; just as it’s true for adolescent children versus their post pubescent counterparts. I can’t begin to tell you how many young wrestlers I’ve talked to that won’t give the sport a try because they 1) have to wear a singlet or 2) have to strip down to their underwear for weigh-ins. Remember, this is the century of sensitivity training where self-esteem issues are high on everyone’s list. Making a young person put something on that isn’t flattering is an immediate turn-off just as having them stand in front of dozens of their peers in their underwear is embarrassing.
If you’re not sure this is a big deal with kids; take a group of elementary children and divide them into shirts and skins for a game of kick ball. Then see how many children on the skins side ask if they can be a shirt instead or say they don’t want to play? This is a really big deal with kids that the sport constantly dismisses as being inconsequential. I recently showed this segment of How Wrestling Wins to a friend who coaches and he responded, “oh my God, you’re right on the money here.” He continued, “You have no idea how many times I’ve heard, “I know I’d get in great shape if I came out for wrestling but I’m not wearing that leotard.” And when I tell my P.E. classes that we have a home match tonight I hear the girls snickering and whispering, “gross . . . man thong!”
Personally I think wrestlers should all be wearing various forms of compression gear which sculpts the body. (See the photograph in Chapter 8) Whether an athlete wears long tights and sleeveless top or half-length tights with long sleeve tops, does it really matter? As long as it doesn’t interfere with the match? It’s all about the spectators who buy tickets and what they see, it’s about the perceived strategies multiple outfits provide and how the sport is viewed by the media. Please take note; athletes do care about their appearance and sometimes that means a well-fitting singlet; but many other times it doesn’t. All this is why the fashion industry from Paris to Milan to New York is an ever changing 1.2 trillion dollar industry and why the new collegiate football uniforms have received such a positive reception. The point is this is creative, it’s fun and it sends a message that we’re a wide open sport with few boundaries; we’re creative and deserving of our spectator’s time.
As for our youth, long sleeved compression gear is the equivalent of a cover-up in swimming but with form fitting and slimming characteristics. All this is a win-win for everyone and if the sports goal is to work toward reducing the amount of skin infections, what better way of doing that than minimizing the use of singlets which provide the most skin on skin contact? Of course there’s the likelihood of increased scoring when “slipping out of a hold” becomes far more difficult to do as a result of additional material. But is that a bad thing in terms of spectator appeal? Nationally on both the scholastic and collegiate levels, wrestlers are allowed to wear t-shirts underneath their singlets for those who have a doctor’s note for dermatologic skin issues. To that point, we have been doing cover-ups for decades and there hasn’t been one safety or strategic issue ever mentioned. So what’s the problem? If we look back in time there has always been precedent regarding change. Wasn’t it the ancient Greek’s that wrestled in the nude? Amateur wrestlers in the 1930’s were bare-chested and wore full length tights. In the 1960’s and 1970’s wrestlers wore full length tights with short shorts over buttoned down tops. If for no other reason, do it for our little guys because we need as many of them as we can attract. And as far back as I can remember I’ve never known one wrestler who came out for the sport because he couldn’t wait to wear a singlet but I have known hundreds, maybe thousands that didn’t come out for the opposite reason. So over the years, this issue has to translate into a very large pool of youngsters who didn’t try wrestling because of the way we handle weigh-ins and our selection of uniforms.
Can you think of any good reason why we shouldn’t make some visual changes? It certainly conveys to society that wresting is undergoing change? It works in retail sales when companies change the look of a products packaging and then market it as being “new and improved.” Besides, what’s wrong with having a variety of options relative to what an athlete feels good about wearing? Certainly not the cost of development; let the athletic clothing companies handle that end of things and then enjoy the return on investment from sales. Whether you agree with adding fashion statements or not, please don’t get caught up in the specifics. Think variety, new and improved, skin infections, styling, strategic applications, improved self-esteem and of course sex appeal. This is really a no-brainer but somehow there will still be members of the rules committee who won’t like the idea while those from marketing, sales and promotions cheer it.
Chapter 18, the final chapter, next Sunday. Topics will include::
1. Create a national partnership with a non-profit organization.
2. Create a consumer pledge and booklet that puts spectators before coaches and athletes.
3. Allow athletes to “double up,” wrestle in 2 weight classes per dual meet up to 3 times a year.
4. Alternate weight classes back and forth throughout dual meets.
5. Eliminate forfeits; for they are arsenic to wrestling.
6. It’s time to lose the name Amateur Wrestling.
7. Create new starting positions for standing and down positions.
8. Create a New and Improved advertising campaign.
9. The importance of creating a Wrestlers in Business group in your town.
How Wrestling Wins – Chapter 16
Chapter 16
So to recap and start to bring to a close How Wrestling Wins, our future depends upon the speed and scope of our reforms. Small alterations in thinking will only assure equally small alterations in achievement. Deciding to wait until next year to finalize that which is clearly obvious this year only insures a continuing decline in our numbers and correspondingly the length of time it will take the sport to rebound.
Focusing on what matters . . . think of wrestling as a restaurant. If you want to make a go of it in the food industry you have to focus on the quality of food you’re serving. Sure the wait staff has to be competent and prompt, the maitre d’ friendly and helpful, the restaurants décor appealing and the rest rooms clean in women’s standards. But if you have all that going for you and the food is so-so, odds are your business won’t last. When you talk restaurants, food is king; it’s the sine qua non of survival.
In the case of wrestling, our food is the excitement we create, the willingness athletes have to battle one another and why we’re failing. The sport is simply boring, and even many of our die-hard spectators are voting with their feet not to attend as often as they used to. Even the hallowed PIAA (PA) State High School Championships have gone from 65k spectators 20 years ago to 45k now.
In International wrestling, the recent World Cup Championships in Los Angeles, America’s second largest city, only attracted 4,200 spectators for the USA-Iran finals. Said another way, that’s two category levels below “extremely poor showing” on any media chart. That’s why the LA Times, the LA Daily and every television network in the city didn’t think the event was worthy of coverage. Zip, nada, not an inch.
Topping that, over half the seats that were filled were being used by Iranians supporting their countrymen. How can that possibly happen in the wrestling rich state of California; a country that is over 7,000 miles away has more spectators there than we do? Now subtract for table workers, coaches, officials, parents and family members and what remains waving the red, white and blue is a paltry number indeed.
So what’s wrestling waiting for, something apocalyptic? The point is the sport is heading in the wrong direction at a frightening pace and we’re still sucking our thumbs. The rules are the reason why our food tastes so bad and we’re still protecting the cooks.
Look at what the UFC is doing in relation to wrestling and you can see why they’re the current media darlings. In the first 7 minutes of any UFC fight, you can count on seeing roughly 100 or so actual attacks as opposed to 15 on average in wrestling; and that number gets cut in half at the NCAA championships as the pressure increases. Wrestlers have become masters of the slowdown process (which are encouraged by the rules) and trust me on this; the spectators have noticed.
Now there are those who say that being aired on television is the answer to our woes and they couldn’t be more wrong. Being featured on TV doesn’t help a restaurant when the food is bad. It doesn’t make anything popular, it only makes it public. If you have good food, television will help the business soar to new heights. But if the food isn’t palatable, which it isn’t in our case, being aired only helps bury our restaurant. Then there’s the thought that putting wrestling on television also stops a certain percentage of our current spectators from attending major events, especially the NCAA Championships. Who wants to spend a grand on air travel, housing, tickets, food and entertainment when all 6 sessions can be viewed (note I didn’t say enjoyed) from the comfort of one’s own living room? The problem with that is wrestling doesn’t receive a dime from ESPN for airing the nationals so in essence, being on television only reduces the sports revenue numbers.
All in all, polishing the silverware, painting the walls and parking customer’s cars doesn’t help the restaurant if the food is forgettable. Granted, all these things are important to receive a 3-Star Michelin rating but without quality food everything’s a bust. Wrestling has to focus on improving what the kitchen is putting out and forget for the time being how clean the bathrooms are and how amenable the maitre d’ is. Most of what the NWCA does, who should be the driver of these initiatives, focuses on everything but the food and I realize that statement isn’t fair to their Executive Director. Mike is doing a wonderful job with the resources he doesn’t have but to set his sights on food is political suicide. Given the NWCA is a membership driven organization whose members are almost exclusively coaches, attempting rule changes is the same as poking a sleeping bear with a stick. How does one point out to his constituents that they’re to blame for that which ails the sport and expect to keep functioning as an organization? So I write How Wrestling Wins and say what he can’t say instead.
Until we serve tasty dishes, and that’s the level of action our wrestlers produce, everything else we do is putting the horse before the cart. Having a Leadership Academy is a very positive step and the NWCA should be commended for taking that responsibility on but it does little good when the sport continues to bleed red on the spread sheets. Who is helped when you have a more organized coach running a program that no longer exists?
Does anyone actually think that administrators care that basketball is equally as bad as wrestling academically? No, and why is that; they produce revenue, we don’t. But you can bet that poor academic performance will be mentioned as one of the reasons why Athletic Directors drop wrestling. What about the number of deaths football has every year? Administrators refer to them as tragedies and they are absolutely that and all of us should do everything possible to protect our student-athletes! But the sport marches on because it’s too lucrative to fail. But when wrestling lost 3 young men over a 100 year period the NCAA was inches away from dropping our sport like they did in 1960 with Boxing.
Why doesn’t wrestling get it? Survival isn’t having clean bathroom stalls or checkered linen table cloths; it’s all about the quality of our food and correspondingly the size of our deposits. Our focus must center on producing action and the only way that can be done is through incentivized legislation.
To begin, let’s not confuse the word scoring with action; they are not interchangeable. Action doesn’t always mean there will be points scored but points always mean action has taken place. Some of the best flurries known to mankind have ended without a point being scored; but there was some terrific spectator pleasing action; exactly where we need to focus our attention.
Ice Hockey and Soccer aren’t high scoring sports but you can count on an immeasurable amount of energy being used by their athletes in the attempt to score. That’s what ticket holders want to see; action. Baseball isn’t far behind in the low scoring metric but every time a pitcher throws the ball there’s a chance it’s heading over the fence so spectators find themselves holding their breath in anticipation of the crack of the bat.
How do I get this across to wrestling’s leadership; they spend too much time and energy treating the sports symptoms and overlooking the causes.
Programs are lost as a result of finances 10 to 1 over Title IX issues.
Any sport that increases its spectator numbers to the point where revenue overshadows expenses moves from endangered species to sacred cow status. To accomplish this for wrestling, our leaders have to stop imitating ostrich’s and being glacial in their decisions. The combination of a raging financial arms race in football and basketball during a declining economy; combined with those newly adopted pay increases for collegiate athletes above a full scholarship; plus the urgent need for equality among the sexes is more than non-revenue sports can bare.
The simple solution, actually the only solution we have, is to get off the non-revenue train and that can only be done by serving better food to our customers. I understand this is a time consuming effort but in the interim as Bob Bowlsby put it to the wrestling coaches at this year’s NCAA Championships, “wrestling’s immediate goal has to be to move itself to the back of the line.” He was referring to all the non-revenue sports and as schools drop programs, the ones that go first are at the head of the line. He said quite clearly, “this is not where wrestling wants to be.”
So to be successful in the short term until we can make it permanent, wrestling has to demonstrate to athletic administrators everywhere that we understand; it’s a financial thing. And then make meaningful course corrections that demonstrate a revenue-producing philosophy.
To achieve this we need to accomplish several objectives which are listed below, a number of which that should be tackled simultaneously.
As you read these final two chapters of How Wrestling Wins, when I mention specific rule changes or marketing ideas I’ll try and place the chapter ( ) in parentheses where you can find a much more expansive account.
So here we go, this is How Wrestling Wins.
1) First, the sports coaches and governance must decide to accept the changes that others will invariably impose on them. For without complete buy in, status quo will remain status quo. And we all know what that means as witnessed by the hundreds of wrestling programs that no longer exist; we don’t have the luxury of creating a committee on committees which will vote to generate a two-year long study on the viability of the initial committee’s suggestion to table the investigation of the proposed changes. That was tongue in cheek if you missed it . . .
2) Next, we must develop a leadership team that will be responsible for drafting a blueprint for growth; a document that will outline what the sport needs to do and in what order if the goal is survival. You’ll read my version of the blueprint in the next several pages.
As to the makeup of this team, each member needs to have enough political or financial clout that when the wrestling community reads their names, they simply acquiesce to what’s being proposed because there isn’t a way to argue with or discredit those that have that level of creditability. I’m not taking about the Mike Moyer’s, Cael Sanderson’s and Jordan Burrough’s of our world even as good as they are; I’m referring to people like retired Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, UFC’s President Dana White, West Virginia University’s Athletic Director Oliver Luck, Mike Golic from Mike and Mike in the Morning, Goldman-Sachs Steve Friedman and Academy Award winning author John Irving. These are the types of individuals who have the name, power and chutzpah’s that’s necessary to walk the walk. Basically they’re bullet proof. It’s going to take this collective level of respect before any proposed changes will be accepted by the wrestling community.
We might also consider adding a few individuals that aren’t from our sport because many of our greatest challenges aren’t unique to wrestling. People like the Vice President of Technology for Twitter would be a good choice. I bet whoever that is knows a few things about using social media as a marketing tool and already oversees a wide swath of that fabric. Maybe the Director of Promotions for the WWE could help us? These are the types of business champions we could learn from and use their resources to benefit our efforts. One of the main strengths that these individuals bring to the mix is they’re void of any preconceived notions regarding the way wrestling has always done things. All too often it’s this knowledge of our history that keeps us trapped on the hamster wheel of progress.
If we’re to have a chance of winning we can’t involve current members of wrestling’s leadership team.
The sport has tried that on numerous occasions in the past. And every organizational meeting, leadership coalition and event partnership they’ve tried has failed. For those in power, be they coaches, athletes or Executive Directors of wrestling’s various organizations, have always found it to be politically adventitious to say they’re willing to do anything that’s “in the best interests of wrestling” and then quietly ignore the very tenets of any meeting they voted to implement.
Who can blame them? It’s actually the sports gullibility that’s at fault here for believing the notion that leadership is actually interested in change. They’re not. It’s never the case because the simple act of change always brings with it a shift in power; some it benefits, others it doesn’t. But the problem with that is no one knows who will be the beneficiary of change until it happens. Basically, those who govern fear change more than they do prostrate surgery and the sport would have a better chance of Congress agreeing on Row v. Wade than wrestling has of fixing itself by involving our existing governance structure. They’re the ones who got us in this mess.
3) The creation and adoption of major rule changes that might not significantly increase scoring but will genuinely increase our athlete’s attempts at scoring.
I could spend pages explaining how every successful sport relative to revenue production and media effectiveness routinely make those types of changes for the sole purpose of increased action. And in almost every example I could also tell you about the firestorm of protests that emanated from the coaches when those changes were first proposed. Then later on it’s those same coaches who take credit for the changes, for it was their forward thinking and subsequent action that made it happen.
Bottom line, we need to craft rules that motivate athletes to action, not ones that penalize. When the rules committee has done that in the past, athletes and coaches get creative to find new ways to circumvent those very rules because it’s what they do; they’re competitors. Then another set of rules have to be created to remedy those very work-arounds the coaches and athletes developed. This has become a huge one ups-man-ship cycle, rules committee vs. those they impose their power over. That’s what happens when you penalize instead of incentivize.
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“I just read your piece; absolutely wonderful. Obviously you have an insight for the sport that few others have. Your writing is very engaging and an easy on the eyes. The sport needs you.”
Jake Shannon, Salt Lake City, Utah
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Over the years too many matches are won by clever athletes who use ill-conceived rules to draw stalling calls and receive penalty points. Granted, it’s far easier to lean on the rules for help than open yourself up to being scored on as a result of an offensive misstep. Most recently we have some from leadership who would like to see a “push out” rule put in place to penalize those who play the edge. Great, just what we need, another rule that doesn’t incentivize athletes to take shots. Instead they’re thinking about voting to allow athletes to score points by shoving someone out of bounds. Am I the only one who sees a problem with this thinking? Haven’t we just spent decades penalizing athletes for going out of bounds and now we’re going to reward athletes for accomplishing what we’ve been trying to stop.
Warning to the rules committee; all that will happen if you pass a rule like that is shoving will replace shooting; just as it has done internationally.
Only when we make points really mean something relative to team scores will coaches force their athletes out of their protective cocoon. Only when coaches become terrified of losing dual meets to programs they used to dominate will they impose their will on their athletes to create more action and score more points.
In Chapter 9 of How Wrestling Wins I outlined what is by far the most important rule alteration we could enact if the goal is increased action and spectator enjoyment.
A point earned is a team point scored.
If you believe our sport needs more action then scoring has to become significantly more important than it is now. Currently the way the sport is crafted, the only thing that’s important is having 1 more point at the end of the match than your opponent. That’s good for the athlete and his team but it’s lousy for the spectator and sport because way too often that 1 point win had so little action associated with it. Our continuing decline in attendance numbers only proves my point.
For those who disagree and point to the Penn State’s, Iowa’s and Minnesota’s of our world as a way to prove we’re on solid ground, I will remind them that there are also hundreds of other collegiate programs where athletes have been known to outnumber spectators.
To change this we must alter the way we score dual meets and tournaments. If an athlete wins his match by a score of 7-2 the sport should respect his efforts enough that his team receives the same number of points he worked so hard to achieve. And the 2 points the vanquished earned should go to his teams score as well.
Some might initially think that’s not reasonable or fair. That one team could win 8 out of 10 individual bouts and potentially lose the dual meet. Yes that’s exactly what I’m proposing! But let me ask, how many times do you think you’d actually see that happen? But it’s that exact fear of losing a dual to an inferior team that will incentivize coaches to push their athletes to do more. Currently the exact opposite is true . . . coaches instruct their athletes to protect their lead, they train them in the art of the slowdown approach to winning and how to play the edge in ways that keeps referee’s off their backs. Successful wrestling today is all about reduced activity.
As you can read in both Chapter 9 and my blog entitled A Point Earned is a Point Scored I answer all the questions you might have of how to handle pins, forfeits and disqualifications using this system.
All one has to do is look to the last 50 years to notice that the average number of points scored in the finals of the NCAA Championships went from 19.5 in 1979 to 6.9 in 2013. Here’s a breakdown of wrestling’s scoring decline. You can see how rules which coaches have influenced over the years has impacted the game starting in the 70’s when the rules committee adopted the 4 point major and 5 point technical fall.
Year Points Scored
2005 7.9
2013 6.9
Creating those two team outcomes weren’t bad decisions; but leaving the pin where it was at 6 team points devastated the incentive to do more and it immediately eliminated the need for athletes to learn down wrestling. Why would anyone want to learn a completely new set of skills when being proficient on your feet could earn 5 team points? Remember, prior to majors and techs being introduced, a decision was worth 3 points and the pin was worth twice as much, 6 points.
A point earned is a team point scored fixes most of the sports challenges regarding action and excitement.
But you’ll have to give this change some time to see the benefits. You won’t notice any change in action the first time it’s tried. Only when it becomes law and coaches become scared of what might happen if they don’t change, will they change.
This isn’t a breaker box fix; just throw the switch and everything’s different. It will take some time for the coaches to start screaming and their athletes to respond to the idea of doing more. Year 1 won’t be as memorable for change as year 2 will be and in year 3 everyone will notice a major shift in attitudes and actions.
Are there other rule alterations which are critical to wrestling continuing as a collegiate sport, you bet there are? Will it be painful, only for those who view it as painful? Personally I believe it will be great fun watching the transformation; coaches and athlete’s alike being pulled out their comfort zones. I can already hear the fans roaring their approval as they witness significant increases in action and as important, strategic interplay between the two head coaches and then between the spectators and the decisions the coaches made. Trust me on this . . . those who are whining today will be the ones whining tomorrow and those who are winning today will be winning tomorrow. Great programs will remain great, average will remain average. This change in scoring won’t impact the nation’s pecking order of teams as much as it will make a significant change in the number of points scored by athletes and the level of action that we’ll all enjoy.
Overall any changes we adopt must fall into one of four categories, each one playing a crucial role in our continuance as a sport.
Cost Containment . . . we have to voluntarily decide to reduce our expenses.
Revenue Production . . . by increasing spectator numbers and private giving.
New and Improved . . . adopting very visual changes that demonstrate to consumers the sports willingness to completely transform itself so, “won’t you give us a try!”
Tactical Advances . . . calculated rule modifications that are designed to decrease inactivity and increase the number of strategies a coach could employ to win and the spectators could use to second guess the coaches.
The concept of a point scored is a point earned falls under Tactical Advances. Nothing we can possibly do will impact scoring, activity and excitement like it will.
Chapter 17 next Sunday.
A Point Earned is a Point Scored
The following proposal recently made it’s way to the National High School Association for possible inclusion as a rule for next season. I’m sure it won’t see the light of day but it got that far; that’s a start. At least a few decision makers actually get to think about “what if” relative to a point earned is a point scored. The first section is what the committee got to read. The second part is what I wrote for the individual who is actually proposing the change. I wanted him to be able to answer any questions the committee might have.
Wade
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Effective for the 2015-2016 season no longer will wrestling have 3, 4, 5, and 6 team point match outcomes. Instead every point scored by an athlete is a team point recorded. Example: wrestler A wins by a score of 7-4. Wrestler A’s team receives 7 team points and wrestler B’s team receives 4 points.
Forfeits: 15 team points. Example: wrestler A receives a forfeit, wrestler A’s team receives 15 team points; the opposing team receives 0 points.
Disqualifications: 15 team points added to bout score. Example . . . wrestler A is winning 5-2 at the time of wrestler B being disqualified, wrestler A’s team receives 20 points (15 + 5) and wrestler B’s team receives 2 team points.
Default: 10 team points are added to the bout score. Example: wrestler A is winning 5-2 at the time of wrestler B being injured, wrestler A’s team receives 15 points (10 + 5) and wrestler B’s team receives 2 team points.
Pins: 10 team points are added to the bout score. Example: wrestler A is winning 5-2 at the time of wrestler B being pinned, wrestler A’s team receives 15 points (10 + 5) and wrestler B’s team receives 2 team points.
Match termination: 15 point separation. Example: when wrestler A is ahead by the score of 18-3 the match ends with wrestler A’s team receiving 18 team points and wrestler B’s team receiving 3 team points.
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The benefits of these changes are immense. To begin there are no additional risks to athlete safety, there is no additional training that is necessary for officials and there is no additional cost to the schools when these rules are adopted.
Over all, the system of a point scored is a point recorded:
Immensely encourages more scoring and thus more excitement.
Allows every wrestler to contribute to the team score even in a losing effort.
Pushes both athletes to score points right up to the end of a match regardless of who’s ahead, or by how much.
Increases the number of pins by virtue of higher scoring.
Discourages stalling because even in a losing effort a last second escape actually means a lot to teams totals.
Allows a team whose behind by 40 or more points to come back and win the dual. Come from behind wins are the sweetest events in spectators lives and keeps fans in their seats right up to the very end.
Makes the sport easy to understand for those who are new to wrestling.
It seriously discourages forfeits and bad behavior that are extremely positive outcomes.
With larger team scores, the chance of two teams tying is severely reduced as is having to explain to spectators our complicated tie-breaking criteria.
As to the basis for change, wrestling strategies have slowly eroded over the years to the point that winning is all about who can make the least amount of mistakes. Consequently very low scoring with one point wins has become the norm. This defensive posturing has quietly ground down spectator interest in wrestling to the point of near extinction and with it every collegiate program in the country has a negative budget. The goal should be that every school should be in the plus column financially. This is the quickest way of moving toward that target.
Granted the sport has more than a few issues, but the most important one that must be addressed before all others is a lack of individual scoring. These proposed changes are huge for the sport, something that will create a great deal of controversy, most of it coming from the coaches. The source of their complaints will be their repulsion of being forced to change a long held belief that negative action is preferred over positive action.
But as soon as the first whistle blows next season, I can promise the rules committee that coaches will forget every issue they had with the changes and start coaching to the new rules. They’re competitors, and they will compete.
As to the story behind the story, here is what I wrote in my blog about these proposed changes. When you’re done reading here you should be able to make a supportive case.
The Big Picture . . . anytime you change rules that aren’t related to safety I believe they should meet three criteria. Does it increase scoring, will it escalate action and does it attract the interest of the spectator? This rule change does all three.
Speaking of losing spectators; my son who wasn’t a bad wrestler and knows the sport at an NCAA championship level won’t go to matches. I asked him why out of curiosity and he said, “They’re too boring to watch and I know the nuances of the game. If they offered me free beer and a ticket, I wouldn’t go. I’d rather sit home and watch Jeopardy.” This is exactly what I’m trying to explain to our leadership; there’s a crisis going on in the sport.
Regarding team scoring, what I listed above is something that Jim Guinta, the founder of the National Collegiate Wrestling Association and I have been working on. He used their own version of it for the last two seasons at his NCWA National Dual Meet Championships.
Both versions (his and mine) have at their core the basic concept that every individual point scored in a match becomes a team point once the match has ended. And each version, whether it is Jim’s or mine with some tweaks, was developed because the current system does not, is not and will not encourage athletes to score points.
It shouldn’t be a shock to anyone that coaches who win the most, teach the slowdown approach to wrestling; it’s the way you become successful using today’s rules. You get a lead, you play the edge and control the tie-up, down block on your opponent’s shots and follow them with a few half shots of your own. That’s how you keep the referee at bay while waiting for the match to end.
A vast majority of athletes don’t care what the score is when the final buzzer sounds, as long as they get their hand raised. So I don’t blame the competitors or in some cases the coaches for low scoring and often boring matches. It’s the rules they’re playing to.
Granted, these changes are way over the top from what we’re accustomed to but we don’t have much time left before really bad things befall the sport. But please think about these changes. They’re really very simple, all be it aggressive.
But once the committee has had time to think about how simple they are and how effective they will be at pulling athletes out of their comfort zone, I believe everyone will embrace them.
But be prepared, coaches will hate it and they will be very vocal about their opinions. Because it’s all about the fear they’ll have of losing matches to teams that previously were walk-overs. But is that a bad thing? Not the loss’s but the fear? Isn’t fear the greatest motivator? If we scare the coaches, they in turn will see to it that their athletes feel the same amount of anxiety they’re feeling and everything will change. People love upsets and the sport needs more parity; this rule helps both to occur.
So in review, I’m suggesting that we eliminate the current 3, 4, 5, and 6 point match point outcomes. They should no longer exist because they never made sense in the first place. They confuse every new spectator we get while being patently unfair to the athletes who take risks to score points.
In every other sport a point earned is a point registered. So why not wrestling? Can you imagine basketball waiting to the end of a game to tally the team scores? How crazy would it be to give a player 5 team points if he scores between 1 and 10 points and 10 team points if he scores between 11 to 20 points? That’s what wrestling does? How about a quarterback who throws for 3 touchdowns and is only given credit for 1 at the end of the game? Serve 3 aces in tennis and look up to see the score is only 15 love. Hit a bases loaded home run and only get credit for your run, not the other three. That’s what wrestling does.
The basic concept is every point scored by either wrestler is a point earned when the match ends. That’s so easy for everyone to understand.
To this the NCWA and I agree; wrestling must heavily penalize Forfeits and Disqualifications. There should be a consequence beyond a 10 point pin for poor behavior on the part of an athlete or for a team who can’t find a body to plug a hole in their lineup.
Regarding forfeits, it’s my contention that well over 90% of teams who forfeit a weight has someone on their current roster who could have wrestled. And 100% of the teams have someone at their school who would love to fill that spot if the coach would go to the club team or intermural tournament and find them. The coach just decided he’d prefer not to have a match at that weight. The most common reason is it’s more strategic to skip over a weight class than throw a lesser athlete out there to get pinned and with it lose team momentum.
We should all understand when there’s a forfeit, the offending coach is basically breaching a legal contract that spectators have with the host school to provide a set number of matches for the price of a ticket. There should be an additional cost, a substantially larger penalty for this behavior and why it’s worth 15 points. Wrestling cannot grow as a sport when we knowingly choose to shortchange customers.
How would you feel about a restaurant that served you 10 oysters when you ordered a dozen and are paying for a dozen? If baseball skipped the 5th and 6th inning would consumers feel slighted? What if Nascar decided to take 25 laps out of the Daytona 500? How about a movie theater randomly cutting 10 minutes out of the middle of the movie? Forfeits are the same thing; coaches are knowingly cheating those who bought tickets. That behavior tears at the fabric of our sport and certainly customer service.
With these new rules there’s a reason why athletes would want to fight to get off the bottom with 15 seconds left in a match, even if their losing 9-3. And conversely, there are tremendous incentives for the dominant wrestler to keep scoring up until the end of the match. If the athlete doesn’t get it, I’m sure his coach will remind him of the importance of scoring.
Regarding the pin, this was the most difficult aspect to get a handle on relative to scoring. As simple as it is to say a point earned is a team point scored, throwing in how to handle the pin was nothing short of maddening. Trust me; I went through dozens of mental contortions to reach the following conclusion.
My problem was; if an athlete is winning 15-4 and gets pinned, the team score under this system is 15 points for the person who got pinned (loser) and 14 points (10+4) for the winner.
“Now wait a minute Wade. That’s not fair; the loser gets more team points than the winner!” That’s exactly right because points scored are points earned. We must reward all wrestlers, in all situations, who put points on the board.
No one knows more than me how difficult this was to think about and then type. But I’ve looked at this 20 ways to Sunday and it’s the best way of handling it because the pin is nothing more than a scoring technique that’s a level above a near fall. Think of a pin as being similar to a takedown or a reversal. All three are scoring techniques but as it has always been, the pin ends the match.
I know that sounds crazy but the whole premise behind this system is to reward effort. We must incentivize wrestlers to score more and score often while forcing coaches out of their “protect the lead” approach to wrestling. Once everyone understands the game has changed, they’ll change with it; they’re too competitive not to!
Continuing the discussion regarding a pin, actually, how many times does the wrestler who’s ahead on points get pinned? So should we get our underwear all knotted up over something that seldom if ever happens? But when it does, the offensive machine that racked up more points than his opponent should be rewarded for his effort.
If you think this rule will scare the bejesus out of coaches, you’re probably right. But we have to force each of them to alter the way they handle their athletes. Scoring must be our top priority. Wrestlers must be forced or sufficiently motivated to engage their opponents as often as boxers throw punches or basketball players take shots.
Just because the current system is the way it’s been doesn’t make it right or mean it’s the best way to handle things. Actually the current system is socialistic to its core. Win 15-9 and receive 3 team points. Win 1-0 and receive 3 points. We penalize for trying and succeeding and reward those who don’t try and succeed. So where’s the incentive?
So much of what we do in wrestling doesn’t make sense. We’ve been piling so many rule alterations on top of existing rules that everything is a jumble of greys in a sport that should be black and white.
If we’re to make significant changes to wrestling relative to scoring, athletes need to know that each point earned makes a difference. They also need to feel that the sport respects them enough to make this change.
So let’s say for the sake of argument that a team wins a dual meet by the score of 126 to 122. And one of the winning team’s wrestlers lost his individual bout 10-5. How valuable do you think he feels knowing that his 5 points made the difference in the outcome of the match? How vocal do you think his teammates were when he wrestled knowing that every point he scored could make the difference? Peer pressure is a wonderful thing.
Currently, when an athlete is losing 10-4 in the third period with 45 seconds left the match is basically over and the atmosphere in the arena is ghostly silent. The person with 4 points has given up and the one with 10 is just riding out the period. As for the spectators, they’re talking among themselves about what they’re going to do after the match. But when every point counts, coaches are screaming, fans are cheering and the athletes are scrambling due to the pressure to produce. None of this can be a bad thing.
Tournaments should be scored in the same way but maybe that should be a discussion for another day.
Granted, there could be a few occasional upsets early on with this rule but over time the pecking order of teams will remain pretty much the same. Successful coaches know how they became successful and will continue being that way regardless of the rules. But when we change I’m sure you’ll see a lot more spectators smiling.
Two years ago when the NCWA checked to see what would have happened using this system at their National Dual Meet Championships here’s what they found.
Out of the 4 quarter-finals, 2 semi-finals and Championship match only 1 of the 7 duals would have had a different winner under this system.
Now if anyone is concerned about those high school teams that have 2 pinners and 12 average wrestlers defeating a team with 14 good wrestlers they should be. But think about this; how is this scoring system any different than our major sports? One 6’ 11” basketball star in high school surrounded by 4 average players has a legitimist shot at winning the state championships. A great running back or quarterback can carry a so-so football team through the playoffs. An outstanding tennis player will compete in both singles and doubles and account for 30 percent of a team’s score. One good pitcher in baseball surrounded by 8 average players will defeat 8 good players with an average pitcher. Just because this is different from what we’ve grown accustomed to in wrestling, which is the reason why the slowdown approach to scoring is so popular, it doesn’t mean the change isn’t worth making.
As for the fans, what’s not to like about more scoring? This rule alteration completely eliminates the challenge we currently have trying to explain what regular decisions, majors and technical falls are to the sports newcomers. As to the referee’s; which one wouldn’t embrace any rule change that increased scoring and reduced the number of stalling calls?
I have to admit I was and still am perplexed about a Default? How many points should it be worth? 15 like we award teams for forfeits and disqualifications or where I have it now in the 10 point category? This was another dilemma where I ended up choosing between the better of two imperfect choices. I didn’t want an athlete who was injured trying to finish the match because he didn’t want the other team to receive 15 points. Yet on the other hand, I worry those wrestlers who have to wrestle an athletic scoring machine might feign injury to keep his team from losing too many points. But in the end, given that you can’t legislate morality, but you can protect athletes by your decisions, I chose the latter and made injury default a 10 point occurrence.
Now, not everything that’s wrong in wrestling is the coach’s fault but most of our fixes need to start there. The point is coaches don’t make the rules but they influence the rule makers enough that if they don’t like something, it seldom happens. That hurts the sport more than anyone realizes. Wrestling can’t win when the coaches have that level of power because they will always do what is in the best interest of their programs. Never have we heard, “we can’t do that; it will hurt our spectator numbers.”
To be fair coaches aren’t all callous, they’re just a product of their competitive environment; the need to win completely dominates their personas. So it’s probably reasonable to conclude that coaches don’t always know the best way to accomplish goals that are outside the realm of winning and losing, and why their direct involvement in managing the needs of the sport should be rethought.
Hopefully the high school league will see the wisdom in what we’re trying to do.
How Wrestling Wins – Chapter 15
Chapter 15
What I would like to do now is begin to work toward the end of my How Wrestling Wins blog. It’s been very time consuming but I felt compelled to share a few of my thoughts and fears with our leaders and of course you, my readership.
Now I realize not everyone agrees with what I’ve written and for some, very little of what I’ve put to paper but in every case I know I’ve made each of you think. There’s nothing better a writer can do than make his readership think. It’s the largest compliment a man of letters can receive.
But we must stop kidding ourselves, wrestling is in deep trouble.
As to my opinions, many have asked how I come up with them. I guess the answer comes from my mother; she used to always say I was born asking “why.” To this day I still ask why. I challenge everything I read and hear and most of what I see. This inquisitiveness hasn’t always endeared me to those I come in contact with but what I found through the process of asking why is there seems to be evidence that suggests more of us should be doing it.
Because the word why has everything to do with 1) a lot of what we thought was true never was and 2) the world we live in being so dynamic that some of what was actually true 30 minutes ago isn’t anymore. So when you ask why it usually places you at least a half hour ahead of the competition.
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Years ago it didn’t matter if the sport filled gymnasiums or wrestlers outnumbered spectators but today it does! Everything we do has to be about our bottom line and the depth of the hole we’re currently in.
I hope everyone understands that the more revenue we produce, the quicker the sports challenges disappear.
With few exceptions, whatever happens in a sport that’s bad gets whitewashed proportional to the income it produces.
If anyone in wrestling would have done or been accused of what a certain quarterback from Florida State was accused of, or did, what do you think would happen? Not only would the athlete have been thrown out of school but the program more than likely would have been dropped as well.
Now I’m not saying, indicating or even hinting that our sport is full of bad boys, to the contrary. But when challenges occur within an athletic department, only those who produce revenue get to walk away unscathed, which is a mirror of society in general. As to the question if that is right or wrong, that’s not the issue here. It is the way it is so until others answer those questions I think it’s wise if we play by the rules that are already in place. So, if we’re to ever cheat the hangman, wrestling has to become a revenue producer.
To be clear, sports have four noticeable revenue streams:
Ticket sales.
So how does wrestling fare:
Ticket sales. NOTHING REMOTELY CLOSE TO SUSTAINABILITY. NO DIVISION IPROGRAM IN AMERICA MAKES MONEY.
Broadcast rights. NONE. WE CAN’T EVEN GIVE OUR PROGRAMMING AWAY FOR FREE.
Merchandise licensing. NON EXISTENT, WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU SAW A YOUNG PERSON WEARING A SWEATSHIRT WITH THE NAME DAKE OR TAYLOR ON THE BACK?
Corporate sponsorships. TO FEW TO MENTION, AND WHAT WE DO HAVE AREN’T SPONSORSHIPS, THEY’RE REBATES FROM WRESTLING COMPANIES WHO GIVE BACK PROPORTIONALLY TO A PERCENTAGE OF THEIR SALES.
Regarding ticket sales, you’ll read that this year’s NCAA tournament set a new attendance record. That may be true for “paid attendance” but it’s far from being accurate relative to people sitting in the stands. I know what the NCAA was trying to do, and it’s commendable, but it gives the wrestling community a sense of relief that the sport isn’t in that bad of shape.
What the NCAA doesn’t understand about wrestling or maybe it does is many in our sport don’t understand marketing semantics or political wordsmithing.
In the case of “paid attendance” the NCAA chose their words carefully. They made the decision to highlight the positive when the fact was there were an alarming number of unoccupied seats at this year’s event as well as in previous years.
What others think:
“With Wade’s intimate knowledge of wrestling, he calls to the mat the leaders of this community in an attempt to save the sport from extinction. Whether you agree with Wade’s opinion or not, this is a must-read for anyone who cares about the future of wrestling.”
Stacy Ukishima
Frederick, Maryland
As to political wordsmithing, when an athletic director says “if you don’t improve your revenue numbers things could get difficult” coaches hear, “could you please work on getting more people to come to your meets.”
That’s a very large mistake because what was just said was, “I’m getting ready to drop your sport unless I see a significant attitude change on your part and a heck of a lot more tickets being sold.”
Then when the program is dropped the coach is absolutely stunned. He feels he was never warned and the administrator knows his message couldn’t have been clearer. There’s just a very noticeable disconnect between the black and white of wrestling and the greys of administration. If Darwin were alive today he’d redefine his survival of the fittest theory to read; those who can see the widest spectrum of greys are the ones who live.
As to this year’s NCAA’s, the fact remains that wrestling is in serious spectator decline.
“Your Honor, I’d like to submit into evidence Exhibit A.” They are photographs of this year’s NCAA tournament in St. Louis. They were all taken a few minutes after Sandy Stephens welcomed the crowd to each new round of the tournament. It’s a little hard to see, but I’d like to direct the jury to look to the upper decks where those seats where more empty than full.
For the first round Thursday morning.
For the second round Thursday evening.
For the Quarter-Finals Friday morning.
For the Semi-Finals Friday evening.
Now I do commend the NCAA for releasing paid attendance numbers. That does make the sport a winner financially and it does reflect a solid marketing effort on their part. But in doing so it gives the wrestling community hope that the sport is growing, or at least doing nicely when clearly it’s not.
Remember, the NCAA tournament is wrestling’s flagship event but unfortunately it has a gash in its side larger than the one that sank the Titanic.
What message do you think this sends those viewers who are watching wrestling for the first time on ESPN? Remember this is the biggest wrestling event in the world. It’s twice as big as the Olympics and the sport has empty seats in the middle of the arena in the lower bowl? I know what that says to me; the sport isn’t worth watching. It doesn’t matter if it’s true; it’s the perception that counts.
Regarding broadcast rights; I’m glad we have so little. Why would we want anyone to see a show that any network would cancel in its first week of being aired? Putting our sport on television only reminds potential fans why they need to continue to be not interested fans.
Now I realize that’s not true for the 1/100th of 1% of America’s sport spectators who go to wrestling but for the other 99.99% whom we need to attract to survive it’s true. Until we build excitement into our sport, we shouldn’t consider the notion that broadcasting is an end all, be all to our problems.
Being broadcasted does the opposite of what our spectators think it does.
Merchandise licensing; there are a few wrestlers and programs that have licensing deals but they are all with companies within the sport like Cliff Keen, Brute, Asics etc. This does little to help wrestling. When money comes from within and goes back to within that isn’t growth.
Corporate sponsorships; wrestling needs companies such as Avis, Coke, Merrill Lynch and McDonalds et al to see the benefits of being involved with our sport. But right now that’s so far away from happening that we’re on another planet as far as they’re concerned.
We have to stop saving the sport and start growing the sport if we’re to survive.
We must find ways to encourage our rules committee to change scoring in a way that motivates coaches to incentivize their athletes to produce double digit bouts.
We also have to do much more than we’re doing to say “thank you” to those in the stands by our actions. I’ll only give you one example out of about a dozen I would insist on if I were in charge of consumer happiness and one not so unique change to bracketing.
I’d throw all our score clocks in the East river along with the white foam board numbers they place on top of the clocks. Can you imagine going to a Broadway play where the house placed 3 wrestling clocks on the front of the stage between the actors and the audience?
What’s the difference between that and what we do in wrestling? Who’s in charge of this or do we even have anyone in charge? Placement of those clocks in the middle of the action is thoughtless, inconsiderate and rude.
In today’s world of computers, Bluetooth technology and Wi-Fi connectivity, why don’t we have the ability to project a scoreboard on the surface of the mat and while we’re at it make it available electronically to everyone’s cellphone or tablet? At a minimum, suspend each clock from the ceiling so they’re over the center of each mat and out of everyone’s line of sight.
While I’m feeling my oats here, who was the genius who approved putting Mat 4’s clock on the floor during the semi-finals then allowing two cameramen to sit on chairs in front of it? That’s the same as turning off the score board for an NBA game so the fans have to guess how much time is left and who’s winning. And should I mention that unless you’re an eagle or under the age of 30, who can read those clocks with their 4 pica digits?
Regarding the brackets, I’d like to think this is my idea but it’s not. It comes from basketball and wrestling should do it not because it helps the action or woos any spectator. It’s just one of many things I’d do if I were in charge to support my “New and Improved” marketing campaign that I’d begin once I had the sport back on its feet.
I’d like to continue seeding 16 per weight class like they’re currently doing but modify it to mirror NCAA basketball. When other sports get things right, plagiarism isn’t really cheating, it’s the sincerest form of flattery. Here’s what they do and we should mirror. Have four 1st seeds per weight, four 2nd seeds, four 3rd seeds and four 4th seeds. Instead of 1st through 16th seed, elevate the worth of those who receive a seed. Make the Top 4 seeds in wrestling (1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th) all become a 1st seed in their quarter bracket. Those seeded 5th through 8th become 2nd seeds in their quarter bracket. Those seeded 9th through 12th become 3rd seeds and 13th through 16th become 4th seeds.
This doesn’t hurt the event or the basis of what seeds do . . . keep the best wrestlers apart as long as possible. But this change does encourage more home town papers to have an interest in their native sons who were given a higher seed that what they receive now while visually supporting the sports “New and Improved” marketing slogan.
If you’d like to take bracketing a little further copy basketball again by splitting our 32 man brackets into two 16 man brackets which are facing one another. So after each round our top athletes are moving ever closer to one another; in essence they’re on a collision course.
And for goodness sake, stop treating the spectators at the NCAA’s like idiots by taking the time to explain the rules. You never ever, ever, ever, ever hear that at a tennis match, golf event, football game or swim meet. But not wrestling, we know our fans are low information voters and need the help. It’s rude and offensive. Even if you think it’s necessary, whether you’re teaching a special needs or academically advanced class, you never talk down to anyone, let alone those who are supporting the sport with their dollars and in essence allowing you to have the job you have.
What others think:
“I read your blog and am challenged by it, enjoy it. Keep asking and answering the difficult questions.”
Joe Russell, Head Coach
George Mason University
Oh by the way, Northern State (South Dakota) and Cleveland State just dropped wrestling. I’ll forgo any mention of shock because I’m not shocked. Dismayed yes, shocked no.
But not dismayed in the way you might think. The loss of any program is a catastrophe but in Cleveland’s case even more so for the sport. The university is located in the epicenter of the nation’s strongest high school programs for wrestling and home of St. Paris Graham, this year’s national champions. Cleveland State hosted the NCAA Division I National Championship a few years ago and the city is also home of Notre Dame College, last year’s Division II National Wrestling Champions. And the program is located in the state that houses the current NCAA Division I National Championship Team not to mention Cleveland borders on Congressman Jim Jordan’s District or that the state has over 600 high school programs participating in the sport.
Instead, I’m deeply discouraged at the way I know the sport is going to respond to the loss of these programs. We’ll mobilize the troops and head toward Aberdeen, SD and Cleveland, OH for the purpose of doing battle while overlooking the real enemy . . . the sport of wrestling itself.
The battle we have to win isn’t external, it’s internal. Until our leadership decides to take on the much larger and more difficult issues of deciding to decide and then change there will be more Cleveland State’s in our future; actually a hell of a lot more.
This is what my How Wrestling Wins has been all about. Pulling together a collation of our sports most powerful men and it’s not those who head USAW, the Hall of Fame, the NWCA or coach some of the nation’s top programs. I’m talking about business and political giants who love wrestling and collectively have the guts, gumption and power to make the changes the sport must make. Even at the ire of those in the sport who are used to calling the shots.
We definitely, positively don’t need people to be involved who are part of the sport during this rebirth. For the answers to our survival as a sport isn’t wrestling related; it’s business centric. And if there’s one thing our sport has demonstrated for over a century, it doesn’t have a clue about product development, placement or sales.
Remember, at one time wrestling was the #1 spectator sport in the entire world! Now the only time wrestling is mentioned in any of the major newspapers is when someone writes, “Homeland Security has to grapple with Congress over the new budget” or the headline “Christie Pinned by Bridgegate.” The sport has all but disappeared and been reduced to simple metaphors.
Should we do battle with the administrators at Northern and Cleveland State’s, we will because that is what we’ve always done. Is the battle worth taking on, I guess, but the one thing we should NEVER do is pay the ransoms those schools are asking for reinstatement.
When Cleveland says if you give us $800,000.00 it would go a long way to you achieving your goal and Northern a number I haven’t heard what it is yet, this is extortion. We’ve done this before at other schools and all that did was start the chain reaction of events we’re seeing today.
If you think the word isn’t out among Athletic Directors that if you want financial relief from fund raising drop wrestling. The sport has access to money and they have a history of coming to its rescue.
So as quickly as we bailed the first program out, a second one popped up. It’s been like wrestling’s edition of Whack-a-Mole ever since with no end in sight . . . and we caused it ourselves!
Winning is a national effort, fighting these little but significant battles only assures that wrestling will continue to be dismantled. We need to stop swatting at mosquitos and spray their breeding grounds if we want to stop itching. Wrestling needs to realize there is a much larger picture they’re not seeing.
Next week I’ll finish How Wrestling Wins so there is a conclusion to my attempt to educate those who have become misguided over the decades to what wrestling has become and where it needs to go.
Chapter 16 next Sunday.
Chapter 14
Nothing we do to save wrestling will work in the short term, or the long term for that matter without spectators. They are the lifeblood of any sport and the first step in any significant amount of national exposure or income.
I’m not trying to be Captain Obvious here but without spectators, corporations aren’t going to be interested in man’s oldest sport. Most CEO’s are absolutely set in their ways about receiving a return on investment, a term our sport seemingly doesn’t understand nor do we have the current ability to provide.
Don’t misunderstand how wrestling acquired the few sponsors we do have. In every case they became part of wrestling due to their ties with the sport, be it the CEO wrestled or the sponsorship is actually a rebate program. Most of our equipment manufacturers give back to the sport but their contributions typically parallel the number of units they sell so is that a sponsorship or a rebate program?
The point I’m trying to make is as much as we appreciate all the help we receive from where ever it comes, the simple fact is wrestling can’t attract sponsors because it’s not a good business model for them.
And without spectators wrestling can also forget any type of relationship with television networks. We have nothing that fits their business model either. Who’s going to be interested in, what company is foolish enough to buy commercial time on a program that has an insignificant number of eyeballs watching?
Not only won’t we be on television without spectators, if we were smart we shouldn’t want it to happen either.
Showing potential spectators something we can’t sell or even give to the networks should tell us something; no one wants to watch our sport in its current state.
Last season, the average number of spectators per dual meet for the nation’s Top 15 collegiate programs was 2,742. I’m talking the Penn State’s of the world, the Iowa’s, Minnesota’s and Oklahoma State’s. That’s a pretty dismal number given a typical high school play attracts that many.
What I’m trying to say is we need to work on income progression. As form follows function, revenue streams follows public interest. We have to sell tickets before we knock on any sponsor doors or approach the networks. Putting the cart before the horse doesn’t work.
To become relevant, wrestling has to change the way our athletes preform. The sport has to find a way to become exciting for the spectators we don’t have, not one ones we do have. The ones that do attend wrestling are our fanatical fans. Every sport has them and they amount to about 10% of any successful sports base. In wrestling, that 10% is our total base and I love every one of them dearly. But the sport can’t ask them what they think, because they’re fanatical, they’ll like whatever happens; especially if it means more scoring.
The ones we have to attract are the other 90% that doesn’t exist and to do that we have to find out why they aren’t already with us? On second thought we already know, the sport’s boring.
Don’t get upset at the messenger here, I’m referring to the opinions of the 10’s of millions of spectators we don’t have, not the 500,000 we do. The sports faithful can no longer point to the 1 great match they saw 4 weeks ago or the spectator appeal of an Iowa/Penn State dual as a way to make their point about wrestling being golden. There needs to be 10 great matches per dual meet, not 1 every 4 weeks. And the Penn State/Iowa match only happens once a year and is just 1 of 750 other Division I dual meets that take place each season.
And if I were to guess, I’d say that our largest duals in terms of attendance are more a result of spectators wanting to be present to support their favorite institution than for the anticipated excitement of the matches. I know that’s true for the Pittsburgh Steelers, which is the nearest professional team to my home town. They’ve done several marketing surveys regarding the whys of attendance. What they found was of course ticket holders went to enjoy watching Big Ben perform but everyone to a person said they were there to support their team, in their city, who to a man represent their way of life. They identify with the spirit of being a hardy stout group of hard working Americans. It was far more about feeling superior to those who lived in Cleveland, Baltimore and San Francisco as the game came to a close (assuming Pittsburgh was ahead) than the game itself. Football was a means to an end for those who attended.
That’s human nature and there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s far easier to feel superior by going to a sporting event than to move up at work through continual effort and persistence.
Stop and think for a moment, are the fans at the Iowa-Minnesota dual meet there primarily for the wrestling or for the pride in knowing that “my state is tougher than your state?” Not everyone is there because they can’t wait to see 10 bouts. Granted there is a percentage that truly enjoy the sport but more are there in the anticipation that 2 hours from now they’ll feel superior to those sitting across the gym floor from them. That’s not a bad thing but we can’t assume all spectators attend matches because they love to watch our athletes protect a lead.
If you’re curious and really want to see who enjoys wrestling because it’s wrestling, announce before any collegiate meet that due to some rule violation that the home team must forfeit 5 weight classes. They’re still going to wrestle all 10 bouts but the score is going to be 30-0 before the first whistle blows and see how many spectators show up?
I’m just trying to educate people to the fact that our attendance numbers are extremely poor and even those are elevated.
Some fun facts, last year, here is what some of America’s top wrestling programs netted after expenses. See anything that might be a concern to administrators?
Major Wrestling Programs
Iowa State -1,005,000
Minnesota -1,113,246
I truly get all the things wrestling has to do to become relevant and everyone I talk to pretty much understands it as well. Where we fail as a sport is our unwillingness to come together, prioritize the challenges by putting them in an attack order and set out to actually fix that which isn’t working.
It’s natural to want to commercialize wrestling like some of the sports more recent attempts at semi-pro wrestling or to have our events broadcasted. But you can’t build a skyscraper from the top floor down just as you can’t sell carburetors to car manufacturers when everyone has switched over to fuel ejectors. Living in the past doesn’t work.
As for living in the past, where do you think singlets come from that athletes wear? Weren’t they fashioned by cave men from animal skins? There are other parallels as well but I’m sure you are already aware of them.
Broadcasting wrestling just confirms what those who are not spectators already know; it’s not worth their time to watch or we would already be on television weekly. It’s that simple.
It’s also well-known that you only get one shot at a first impression. When we finally get our foot in the door with a potential sponsor and begin the presentation by answering their question regarding the number of eyeballs they can expect to receive as a result of the relationship, well, the meeting is over before it begins. The problem with that is the difficultly you’ll have getting a second meeting with that same group when your numbers are worthy of their time. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.
Scoring has to be our first priority! Matches are too defensive, the athletes are too careful; bouts are orchestrated to be boring. Spectator numbers will not grow until scoring is not only encouraged but a lack of it comes at great cost to the coach. Yes, the coach! He’s the person who decides how aggressive his athletes are in matches as surely as the manners of children at a dining table is a direct reflection on the parents.
It all begins with the coaches. When they start losing dual meets as a result of anemic offenses things will change . . . and change quickly.
You might ask what those changes I’m espousing are; well, go back and read the How Wrestling Wins series. Especially the section where I talk about an individual point scored is a team point recorded. When each point an athlete scores goes to the teams bottom-line, coaches will be screaming for more shots, more offense, more points.
But as you look back over what I’ve written, understand I’m not married to anyone of the ideas I put forth. They’re just starting points for discussion. I do believe though until we begin seeing double digit matches on a regular basis and significantly expanded strategies that encourage spectator involvement, wrestling is going to diminish in size and stature. And we have ourselves to blame, we’re watching it happen.
We also have to abolish all multi-event days that have become commonplace. Triangulars, Quadrangulars and Dual Meet tournaments have to end. They’re killing our spectator numbers while fine-tuning the athletes. So if it’s good for the athletes but bad for the sport, where do you think the coaches are on this subject?
Spectators will only budget 2-hour segments of their day for entertainment. Offering them 4, 6 and 8 hour events is absolutely criminal if we’re trying to save wrestling.
For those who think I’m off base here on anything I’ve written so far, I invite you to ask the 90% that aren’t sitting in the seats next to you what they think?
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Earlier this month I watched the Navy-Lehigh match and I can say without question that I’ve never seen a more comatose Navy team. Not in the way they wrestled although their performance was let’s say uneventful; it was the team’s matside state of unconsciousness that had my attention.
If teammates won’t cheer for those they live, eat and train with, how can anyone expect spectators to “catch” the excitement the sport has been known for on occasion? Have we completely morphed into an “it’s all about me” sport? This isn’t just Navy, there are more programs like this than not.
Excitement is contagious. With it we grow, without it bad things happen.
In every case excitement has to begin with the wrestlers who are on the mat. If they’re not into the battle, everything dies with them. However if they’re engaged, then the benches have to be engaged or everything dies at that level. Just as a magnet is attracted to metal, spectators are drawn in by excitement. As fire needs fuel, oxygen and heat to become a source for cooking, spectators need to know that the athletes will scramble and the benches will cheer before they decide to attend.
Can you imagine going to a football game where the players just sit on the bench instead of standing on the sidelines? No animation, no one yelling encouragement, just a bunch of store front mannequins in shoulder pads sitting on benches. Wouldn’t that have a deflating effect well below the allowable excitement level of 12.5 psi for watching a professional game?
How about basketball without cheerleaders, halftime shows, replay screens, shot clocks or t-shirt cannons? Heck, what are the Dallas Cowboys without their cheerleaders jumping about? Baseball even has concession people who bring food and drink directly to the fans. Wrestling does none of this . . . or really much of anything that might add to the enjoyment of the evening. At most matches they don’t even give the spectators a halftime or 7th inning stretch to go to the rest rooms.
So what is it that Iowa does at matches with their wrestlers? They allow them to get ready for their bout out of sight of the spectators and then when they’re done wrestling they’re allowed to run off into the tunnel. What other team sport has athletes who only show up when they’re expected to compete and then disappear when they’re done? It obviously works for the Hawks competitively but I wonder how much that hurts Iowa’s spectator numbers. Granted, winning is important but it’s only part of the show, the other half is what surrounds the action.
Now I just mentioned something that might hurt Iowa’s spectator numbers. And you say, they’re pretty strong numbers Wade, are you sure you know what you’re talking about?
I’m afraid I do or at least happen to believe that wrestling could be such a magnificent spectator sport that we’d have to find larger arenas for or duals and have live feeds piped into the school’s auditorium to accommodate the over flow crowd each week. Wrestling could command twice or three times the price it’s currently charging for tickets and still fill the gyms. We could be as popular as the UFC if we knew how to commercialize the sport. But everything begins with us providing the consumer with a product they want to see.
In essence, we have to become fan centric and work to produce fabulous shows. Dead and gone are the days where the sport alone can carry the day. Competition for the spectator dollar is too keen not to pour more than a winning attitude into the program.
We are working so hard at making it a me, me, I, I sport that we’re losing not only our spectators but our programs are disappearing with them.
We must, we have to generate enough energy in and around every match that spectators become engaged. This includes having so many different but related distractions that the fans are overwhelmed with stimulants.
We focus so much on the individual that it discourages team unity; we focus so much on winning that scoring points become irrelevant as long as you have 1 more than your opponent.
I don’t know how other people feel but the most exciting duals I’ve ever been to have both benches engaged in every match. This is what television looks for and requires of a sport if you expect to see their trucks in your parking lot. It’s simple; ESPN demands a total effort from the athletes, coaches and both benches just as we expect a total effort from them. Quid-pro-quo, one hand washes the other, tit for tat. It all boils down to if we aren’t willing to play ball with them, they’re not going to show up with theirs.
_________________________
The answer to most, if not all of our problems with excitement is to make changes from the bottom up. Start with our youth programs where our nation’s leadership seldom travels and make adjustments there first. Then each season as the athletes move from one division to the next, attitudes, behavior and techniques follow until a complete cleansing of the sport occurs.
Any rules we alter should meet at least one and preferably several of the following criteria; the big four of safety, action, excitement and retention.
I’m sure we all realize how fruitless it is trying to alter the thought processes of those at the top levels of our sport. Been there, tried it, have the t-shirt and scars to prove it. Wrestling would actually have a better chance of convincing Isis that America is good than changing the path we’re currently on so it’s simple, we start at the bottom and work our way up. That is unless we can incite wrestling’s masses to stage an internal revolution, minus the beheadings of course.
_________________________
I’d like to revisit my continuing displeasure with the leadership at USAWrestling. They’ve been in power for most of this century and has presided over 15 years of the worst international performances in our nation’s history. So the question is; why aren’t they being held accountable? Of course we also had the Olympic debacle of last summer and continuing record levels of retention issues in Colorado Springs yet everyone seems to accept this as the cost of doing business. I always thought if you want a bushier, healthier plant the best way to achieve it is to prune it from the top down.
What others think:
“I always like to read Wade’s articles. He is certainly our top realist and visionary for wrestling at this time.”
Major General Ken Leuer, NCAA Champion, University of Iowa
Now here’s a yippee and double at-a-boy for the United World Wrestling group (formally FILA) and mega kudo’s to their President Nenad Lalovic for their recent announcement that the singlet is dead! God Save the Queen and hip, hip, hooray! The UWW is not only changing the uniforms that wrestlers wear but also those of the officials and the colors of the wrestling mats; the impact of which can’t be overstated. I think they received the message that the IOC sent them last summer . . . retool or perish.
Hopefully the NCAA Rules Committee will take notice and be somewhat embarrassed that they’re being upstaged by a group that has demonstrated far higher levels of self-interest.
America’s collegiate program should be the rabbit of innovation, not the turtle. We’re so competitive that the question persists; why aren’t we competing? Didn’t the Olympic message make it to the NCAA Rules Committee that wrestling had better modernize? USAWrestling waited as did FILA until the hammer dropped then they responded. One would think that would have been a wakeup call for folkstyle as well.
The new baseball commissioner, Rob Manfred, had only been in office for 12 hours when he began making some interesting waves. In an interview that aired on ESPN he made it clear that examining the pace of the game was his first priority. His goal was to find ways to inject additional offense into the sport because their ticket sales have continually declined over the last several decades. If it wasn’t for television their books would be blood red.
I guess that’s why baseball is baseball and wrestling is well, wrestling; they have leadership. We use to be the largest spectator sport in the world during the time of the first Olympiad. That’s not where we are today, quite a fall from grace wasn’t it; from Penthouse to Outhouse, all in a couple hundred years.
What’s the definition of leadership if it’s not to lead? Mr. Manfred understands leadership, I wonder how much it would cost us to pull him over to wrestling so he could oust those who talk the talk but do nothing but walk the golf courses.
The issue is a simple one; we’re dying a death of a thousand cuts and the pain is so slight that no one is noticing. That’s just the opposite of what the IOC did to FILA, they punched them square in the nose; it’s what is known as an impact attitude adjustment and the international wrestling community has been scrambling to get back on their feet ever since. Can’t our domestic programs learn from the experience of others? The warning bells are clanging.
Did anyone watch last weekend’s Australian Open in tennis? How great were the outfits their athletes wore? Electrically charged lime green shoes with non-matching socks; neon colored tops and contrasting shorts. Boy has tennis changed with society’s interest in fun colors and designer labeled clothing. Gone are the days of their restaurant white attire and court room decorum. Wake up wrestling.
_________________________
As to the UWW mats, they will be painted a darker shade of orange and blue so the new lighter colored uniforms will stand out by contrast. Although the look hasn’t been unveiled yet, rumor has it they will be a combination of compression shorts and short sleeve tops that will accent the curves and bulges of those wearing them and gives way to enough space to print the countries name across the back. It’s always nice to know who you’re rooting for . . . as to uniform colors, replacing the traditional red and blue singlet will be those that match the flag of each athlete’s nation.
How smart is all this . . . these designs, along with a new look for officials is meant to modernize the sport and appeal to the spectator. Imagine that, they’re finally doing something for their fans and of course the broadcast community. You can bet Colorado Springs didn’t have a hand in any of this . . . it’s way too avant garde for them.
The question we should be asking at this point is what was the impetus for these changes? Why now and not 2, 5 or 15 years ago? The answer should be obvious; the IOC’s decision to drop wrestling from the Olympics. It seems wrestling never gets the message until it’s crammed down their throats.
Which leads me to the next question; when will our domestic programs get the memo? Are America’s wrestling coaches and administrators actually waiting until the sport disappears from our educational institutions before they act?
If we’d ask USAWrestling about their experiences, I believe they’d say, “don’t wait, we were not only blindsided but irresponsible in the way we handled the sport and it cost us dearly. Being proactive is the only way to go.”
_________________________
As a “can you believe it”, I saw this a couple of weeks ago on the UWW website. It’s regarding the Yarygin Grand Prix tournament in Russia and how well the host country was doing. Read the caption in italics that accompanied the photo.
Though the day was a triumph for the Russians, it didn’t come without controversy. At 74kg Andrew HOWE (USA) was in late on a double leg against Ahmed ADZHIMAGOMEDOV (RUS), but with the points seemingly locked up the referee stopped the action for an illegal hold. After the American coaches failed to challenge, the match ended 2-2, with Gadzhimagomedov winning by largest technical maneuver.
Say what; “After the American coaches failed to challenge”, what does that mean? Even the author of the article who wasn’t an American is scratching his head over this and I think I’ll join him?
As an overview of how bad the programming is in Colorado Springs with regards to training America’s best athletes, as of this writing the U.S. only has 1 male athlete with a world ranking of 4th or better in either freestyle or Greco-Roman wrestling. Said another way; only 1 of the world’s best 64 wrestlers, or 1½% call the United States home and that individual is ranked 3rd in his weight class.
So either our product is inferior or management is inept. I refuse to believe it’s the former because we have talented, dedicated wrestlers who are willing to work. But yet our international programs are in bankruptcy with nothing but grey clouds on the horizon.
Chapter 15 next Sunday.
Wrestling is Dead!
I just received this from a friend who is a member of the international press. It defines some of our issues and supports what I’ve been saying about wrestling’s leadership. Their actions continue to speak so loudly that none of us can hear what they’re saying.
Wade
____________________________
“It really is over. There was no TV for the Iowa-Oklahoma State dual meet. A match between the two teams in America that have the most NCAA titles. Okay, there were some obscure pay-per-view web streams but no TV.
The Iowa Public Relations guy used to send me press releases. He stopped a while back but to his credit he did help set up a recent interview with Tom Brands. I asked him to send me the press releases again. He still hasn’t. As you know, list management is a basic skill needed to run mailing lists.
None of the new real pro wrestling groups send me anything. I’ve asked them but I still receive nothing. And it’s not that they can’t use the exposure, especially when it’s free. In the past I’ve covered them more than just about anyone, but they continue to be clueless and are beyond help.
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the old phrase “let the dead bury the dead”. Wrestling, as we have known it, is dead. It is hopelessly run by incompetents, dullards, and clueless bureaucrats –and that’s just here in our country. Internationally, we have the Russian, East European, and Central Asian Mafia overseeing things.
So while these hopeless cases can’t figure out that maybe I want to do a lot more interviews and coverage about wrestling, I went to two boxing press conferences yesterday. One was at NBC, at 30 Rock. I posted the audio today from it, and have these interviews going up, probably tomorrow: Roberto Duran, Keith Thurman, Adrien Broner, Lamont Peterson, Lou DiBella, and NBC’s top marketing guy John Miller.
I then went to the HBO-Main Events press conference, and interviewed Sergey Kovalev, Jean Pascal, Steve Cunningham, and Roy Jones Jr. If I hadn’t been completely exhausted, I would have also gotten Shane Mosley and Floyd Mayweather Sr. I was too tired at the other one to do Sugar Ray Leonard (Duran was more fun anyway).
I’m more of a wrestling guy than a boxing guy, but one sport can’t tie its shoes, while the other one shouts from the virtual rooftops.
However, catch wrestling is growing; maybe that’s a good thing? It will be officially announced in about two weeks that this year there will be a joint tournament in July in Montreal of most of the catch groups (apparently Catch Wrestling Alliance is not involved, at least yet). Many of these same people are involved with combat wrestling, which is essentially Catch wrestling with points, or Sombo without the kurtka.
These styles are generally run by people who love to get the word out about what they do, and are also very social media savvy. That’s the place to be, actually the only place to be if you want to grow and unfortunately wrestling has yet to discover it.
So wrestling is dead — long live wrestling!”
| Green |
Sometimes called Echo Boomers, people born between around 1980 to the mid-1990s (or later depending on interpretation), are more commonly referred to as Generation what? | Digimon Digital Monsters Adventure 01: Here There Be Monsters Chapter 5: Viruses and Bugs, a digimon fanfic | FanFiction
By: JediMasterDraco
Hey this is a Rewrite of sorts because I'm new to fanfiction. You may have seen Digimon before but never like this. First of a five part series with epilogue. Will cover entire first season. No complaints about the pairings. Pairing hints only in this story. Includes two OCs. I don't own digimon and I doubt I really own the OCs. Rated T because of paranoia. Updates: Monthly. Enjoy.
Rated: Fiction T - English - Adventure/Humor - Taichi Y./Tai K., Sora T., Yamato I./Matt, OC - Chapters: 13 - Words: 64,672 - Reviews: 33 - Favs: 21 - Follows: 22 - Updated: 12/6/2014 - Published: 12/16/2012 - id: 8801561
+ - Full 3/4 1/2 Expand Tighten
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Chapter 4: Viruses and Bugs
A cool breeze woke me in the morning to a fairly pleasant sight. The rest of the gang slept contently with Yokomon piled all around like counted sheep. A few feet away Sora was using Tai's stomach as a pillow with one of his hands resting on her head. Matt was leaning against a tree with TK using him as a mattress. The twins were leaning against each other miraculously without falling. As for Izzy and Joe, they were in the strangest positions I'd ever seen. Izzy had somehow twisted himself so that he was sleeping on his head against a tree. And Joe was half on dry land, half hanging over the water.
The digimon were in hilarious positions too. Amphitheredramon had coiled himself over and over, so much so that if he wasn't careful he'd end up like Kaa from The Jungle Book. Biyomon had her head on top of Agumon's and both were snoring in perfect synchronization. Patamon was upside down, mouth wide-open and facing right at Gabumon. Tentomon was haning upside down from a branch of the same tree that Izzy was head-sleeping against. Palmon and Lalamon were both half buried in the sand next to their sleeping partners. And Gomamon was sleep-floating right under Joe's over-the-water half.
Taking advantage of the situation I decided to see what would happen if I woke everyone up with an imitation of Revelry. The results were like something out of a comedy show. As exactly like I predicted Amphitheredramon became Knotdramon. Tai and Sora woke up in a rush resulting in tangled limbs and Tai being socked in the stomach. Agumon banged his head into Biyomon's and nearly set her on fire with a panicked "Pepper Breath!" Matt leapt up with TK clinging to him like a young monkey. Patamon let out a startled "Boom Bubble!" and launched Gabumon into the oasis. Izzy toppled like a domino when Tentomon lost his grip and fell on top of him. Palmon and Lalamon both burst out of the earth and got dirt all over the twins clothes. Poor Joe fell off his precarious perch and nearly drowned both himself and Gomamon. And forming the background to this spectacle were the Yokomon running around like chickens with their heads cut off, panicked by the chaos.
Unfortunately everyone realized I was the only one who hadn't suffered because of the wake-up call, which probably lead them to believe I was its cause. That and the fact I almost suffocated from laughing. My laughter came to a dragging halt as I realized my friends had surrounded me with expressions ranging from freaked out, to mildly annoyed, to red with rage (that would be the twins overreacting).
A minute later I emerged from the lake bruised, burned, electrocuted, soaked, oxygen-deprived and (if Lalamon's Seed Shot had caused as much damage as I had suspected) sterilized. The sight of me gave everyone a good rollicking laugh at my expense but I was pretty sure I was forgiven (I decided to render forgiveness on the condition there was no permanent damage). The Yokomon happily treated us to a breakfast similar to the previous night's dinner. We chowed down quickly with a race popping up between most of the gang (minus Joe and the twins). This resulted in our meal ending in a belching contest.
"BLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Izzy burped as the winning remark.
While our eyes attempted to leap out of their sockets Izzy turned to the Yokomon Elder and politely asked, "Do you know which way we should go to get home?"
"I'm afraid I have no idea which way to tell you to go. But we have heard from other digimon that have passed through our village of an incredibly intelligent digimon somewhere in that direction." The Yokomon pointed toward the horizon in the opposite direction of the forest where we had come from. "Beyond that all I can do is wish you luck in your travels."
We went into a huddle to decided what we should do.
"I say we either stay here or go back." Matt began, preferring to err on the side of caution.
"The problem with staying here is that we would intrude upon the Yokomon." I pointed out before explaining further. "The food might be enough to spare some for our meals last night and this morning, but don't forget they live in the desert and we might overtax their foodsources."
"So staying here is definitely out." Izzy ruled.
"And going back to the forest wouldn't be a good idea either considering how many times we've been attacked there." Tai backed me up.
"Plus we'd have to cross the desert again which we would have to do anyway but at least we would be moving forward." Sora compared shifting her hands up and down like the arms of a scale.
"We don't know anything about what's ahead of us." Matt argued. "What if going to wherever this smart Digimon is takes even longer than it took to get here."
"We'll have to take that risk." Tai stated. "There's no point in hanging around here and hurting the Yokomon. Izzy what do you think?"
"There are risks for either path, but I think moving forward is a better idea. Who knows we might find a way home." The miniature genius opinionated.
"Let's put it to a vote." I recommended. "If two-thirds of us say go we go."
"Hey we digimon want in too." Biyomon piped up.
"It's only fair." Gabumon nodded.
"Why not? So, who thinks we should go then?" Tai demanded facing the group.
Sora put her hand in the air at the same time as Tai and I. Matt resolutely sat on his hand and shook his head. Izzzy raised his hand with a simple nod as accompaniment. The twins looked at each other and then the ground, before raising their heads again and shaking them 'no'. Joe couldn't seem to make up his mind and kept half-raising and lowering his hand. And TK raised hand beaming, but he added a small condition.
"As long as it's not as hot."
The Digimon however weighed in heavily in favor of going with only Gabumon voting no. Mixed reluctance was the general response of those who'd wanted to stay or go back, but there was no real grumbling. With the Yokomon's help we gathered enough food for close to a week (based on how fast we had consumed the last batch) and refilled our "water bottles". The Yokomon Elder also volunteered a large number of the village's water containers, which were hollowed-out fruits that had been left to harden and dry in the sun.
The Yokomon sent us off in what could probably be considered great fanfare only instead of throwing confetti they threw themselves off their roofs. With tentacles waving they bid us farewell as we headed out into the scorching wasteland.
Fortunately it wasn't as hot as we had feared, maybe Meramon was deliberately keeping the temperature low or something but our hike was relatively cool with only a couple necessary water breaks. By the time the sun had set we'd probably gone close to ten miles. We decided to keep walking by the light of a bright moon before finally reaching a small mesa with a decent sized cave.
"We made pretty good time." I noted with a yawn to Tai, Matt, Sora, and Izzy, Joe, the twins, TK, and the Digimon having already fallen asleep.
"Yeah but how do you think we'll do once it gets hot again." Matt countered.
"How about this: We wait till it gets late in the morning and if it's too hot we'll set off when the sun sets." Sora outlined
"Sounds good to me." Tai nodded.
"From a logical stand point it sounds like an excellent plan." Izzy concluded.
"Fine." Matt conceded before laying down next to TK and using Gabumon as a pillow. The rest of us shrugged, worked out a quick night watch schedule, and followed him to dreamland, or in my case sat outside the cave for another hour-and-a-half. When my shift was over I nudged Tai awake and fell asleep against the cave wall.
We woke up late in the morning but decided that we should follow through with Sora's plan and wait until things cooled off. Although it was boring in the cave Izzy let us use his computer (which despite everything looked like it was fresh out of the box) to play a variety of games. Some of us even started digital journals of our adventure.
As the sun hit the horizon we set out. Although the term furnace would be an understatement for the first hour or so, things soon cooled off to a reasonable temperature. I hadn't really paid attention before but the sky was truly wondrous. Whereas back home you sometimes saw dozens, occasionally scores of stars, here the sky was filled with them causing the sky to seem a light navy blue as they sparkled in the heavens. The moon likewise seemed much brighter than usual casting an ethereal white glow over everything and providing enough light to see great distances. In fact it seemed bright enough to be day but the harsh piecing light of the sun was replaced with the soft cooling rays reflected by the moon.
Everyone seemed almost relaxed by the serene beauty from on high. There was little talking only contented sighs, and the occasional humming as the calming peace infected us. Even the digimon seemed strangely calm, simply walking next to us (or in Amphitheredramon's case draping himself over my shoulders). Alas it would not last forever.
The sun rose all too soon and with it came the heat. And with the heat came exhaustion, and with exhaustion came confusion and a return to our regularly scheduled program of complaints
"I think we passed this place before." Sora told us indicating a very weird looking cactus similar to one that we'd passed earlier, except this one had an appendage shaped like a bird's wing instead of a dinosaur's claw.
"You mean we walked all the way around the whole planet!" Joe demanded with his usual tendency for exaggeration.
"Joe relax I doubt that we've walked around the entire planet." Tai tried.
"Yeah For one there's got to be an ocean around here somewhere," I reasoned, "And I doubt any of us are Basilisk Lizards. This place just seems extra repetitive, you know like those chase scenes in old cartoons like Scooby-Doo and Tom & Jerry."
"Besides that just can't be I can't walk that far can I?" Mimi asked collapsing to her knees.
"I'm so tired." Kiki moaned as she collapsed face-first in the dirt. "Can somebody please help me up?"
Probably the best indicator that they were completely exhausted was the fact that neither of them were complaining about the dirt on their clothes like they normally would
"My feet are hot." TK groaned falling backwards on his butt without another word. Nearby a wheezing Gomamon flopped down like a dying fish while Palmon and Lalamon leaned back to back and slid into sitting positions.
"Looks like we're taking a break." Matt guessed surveying our collapsing teammates. It was probably a good thing that we called a break because Joe just collapsed like he'd been hit over the head by a mallet.
"Well we have been walking all day aside from that quick breakfast." I pointed out, indicating the sun high in the sky.
"Besides it's not like we have some place to be." Sora reminding Matt that we still had nowhere to go.
"They both have good points, there's no real reason to hurry." Tai remarked, agreeing with me and Sora.
"Let's at least find some shade so these guys don't end up looking like raisins." I suggested.
With that we looked around for the slightest shelter. Fortunately a copse of trees was just over a small ridge and we eagerly took advantage of it. After lugging several of our half-dead teammates over to it that is. A good indicator of how relaxed we were was that Izzy had taken out his computer. I swear despite all the extremes that thing had been put through it was still functioning perfectly. Maybe I should consider trading in my Windows for a P-Mac.
"Check out Izzy I bet he's trying to e-mail the aliens." Matt quipped while Izzy tried desperately to access the internet, only to get a "No Signal" message.
"Maybe he's asking them to beam him up." Tai joined in as Izzy opened a random file and starting typing furiously.
"Why can't I access the internet? My infrared receiver has a two year warranty and I just got it last March." Izzy muttered to himself.
"Hey Izzy I know how to get it to work you've got to give it a couple of subtle adjustments." Tai said as he snagged Izzy's laptop and started "subtlety" beating it like a carpet. It was a good thing that it could withstand more punishment than a King Tiger tank.
"Heyquititareyourbraincellsmalfunctioning?" Izzy demanded his words tripping over each other, as he ripped his computer out of Tai's hands.
"Gosh you're acting like I'm hurting the dumb thing." Tai protested, ignorant as always, backing off with his hands held in the French position.
"Too bad your brain isn't as big as your hair maybe Izzy doesn't want grimy fingerprints and dents all over his computer." Sora scolded him.
"Now, now, it probably was just jostled loose when he smacked into the boat." I chuckled, in hindsight it was pretty funny. At that particular moment, not so much.
"Huh Humph!" Tai huffed. I guess his brain was a sensitive subject.
With that we had a little peace and managed to revive the flower children. Unfortunately Joe and Gomamon were still out like lights. We trickled a little water down their throats and they stirred with mild hacking coughs. Before we could wake them up completely Tai's ADHD acted up.
"Hey look do you guys see that smoke over there?" Tai demanded, pointing to a small plume of white smoke over the part of the ridge opposite where we had hiked over. He was soon scrambling to his feet and charging away, shouting back to his stunned audience. "I'll check it out."
"Hey Tai wait for me." Augumon yelled at him as he took off after his hair brained partner.
"The attention span of a gnat." Joe observed.
"Let's hope he doesn't get swatted like one." I deadpanned. "We might as well follow him and keeping from doing something stupid." I felt the need to clarify because of the odd looks thrown my way when I remained at just stupid. "-Er."
"Ah whatever." Matt sighed
"Prodigious, we are online." Izzy burst out, but glowing triumph was soon replaced by a deep scowl. "And it's gone again. What the? And now the battery needs recharging. What it going on it's been at more than 90 percent for days."
Before Izzy could ponder further on what was driving his computer crazy Tai caught our attention again.
"Hey everybody get over here quick." Tai shouted from the hill-line, jumping up and down like he'd just inhaled a dozen cups of coffee.
"We're coming Tai." Sora yelled back to our lion-resembling scout.
We got the surprise of the quarter hour when we caught up to Tai. Considering the utter wackiness of this world I'd be surprised if it remained so. But anyway the sight before us was that of a sprawling industrial complex.
"Looks like some kind of factory." Joe gasped.
"Let's hope they can manufacture a way for us to get home." Matt prayed.
"We aren't going to find anything out if we just sit here like bumps on a log. Let's get down there." Of course for some that was easier said than done. Our vantage point had the unfortunate dual role as a shallow cliff. Some of us were able to slide down in a controlled fashion while others climbed down in a more traditional, rock-climbing manner. Joe in his typical style lost his grip and his head arrived on the ground before his feet.
After we finished our descent we swiftly collected ourselves and set off for the factory. It almost seemed to grow as we got closer and the smoke continued to bellow out before disappearing faster than a turkey on thanksgiving. But there was no sign of life human or digimon.
"Hmm I wonder what they make in there?" Joe pondered as we passed under the pipe-lined entrance.
We began to hear the clanging sounds that spoke of heavy industrial production and the grinding whirl of giant gears. Hopefully they were as grey and rust-brown as the rest of the factory.
"Probably mechanical digimon with lightsabers bent on wiping us off the face of the earth." I quipped. And probably jinxed us knowing the type of luck we'd been experiencing since the angels had used us for target practice.
"I don't know but wouldn't it be great if there's a manufactures outlet store, they always have some killer deals." Mimi daydreamed as we explored the factory searching for a way in.
"With new shoes, purses, and nail polish." Kiki squealed.
"Let's get into the factory first." I suggested.
At that we realized almost as one that there was no way into the main building. There were a number of catwalks that connected everything but they were too high to get to unless we grew wings. After a few minutes of searching I came to the conclusion that there was nothing leading from where we were into the actual factory. We gathered back in front of the main building after about ten minutes of worthless effort.
"Well I don't see an entrance anywhere." Matt scowled, leaning against a rusted wall and rubbing away some of the remaining paint. "And it would probably be a waste of time to keep looking let's just rest here and start walking again when the sun goes down."
A number of us opened our mouths and almost voiced agreement when Joe proved himself useful.
"Gah!" The bluenette yelped falling through a tunnel that I swear had been solid wall a second ago.
"Way to go Joe. You found a way in." Tai celebrated.
A groan came out of the darkness. "Great now find me a doctor."
"I have a friend who's a Witch-Doctor, of course he only really helps treats diseases of the heart." I suggested with a devilish grin charging into the tunnel to help King Klutz to his feet.
"You already used that joke on me it won't work twice." Joe grumble pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.
"Oh yeah I forgot." I realized and briefly remember saying something similar back when we were at camp. I nearly had to take Joe to a real doctor after repeating that song for twenty minutes.
"If you two are done goofing around you might have noticed that we're heading inside." Sora remarked idly as she walked past us with an eye-roll. A quick glance around revealed that everyone, even Amphitheredramon and Gomamon, had gone into the factory.
"Wait for us!" We cried in tandem, hastening after our abandoning friends.
We quickly found the rest of the looking in what seemed to be a bunch of office areas, but they were as barren as the Steppes.
"Don't ask me how but there doesn't seem to be anyone here." Matt pointed out as we walked onto the factory floor, where dozens of conveyor belts in various conditions, from rusted to a halt to fast and sleek as though it had just come off itself.
"There's gotta be someone running the equipment." Sora rationalized as we walked past and under some of the machinery to get to the conveyor belts and see if anyone was hiding or something.
Tai paused briefly and was only brought back to reality by Izzy's response.
"I don't know it seems to be doing quite well all by itself."
Shaking his head Tai rejoined the group with a confused look on his face in time for Izzy to begin an extensive lecture on machinery, that only 1% of me understood.
"Hey Tai I take it you're confused by what Izzy's saying too?" Our resident carrot-top whispered. Considering it was Tai, that was no surprise but maybe Sora could identify his different levels of confusion.
"No, I was thinking that those gears back there reminded me of the black gear that cause Meramon to attack us. You don't think this is the place where it came from? And what if there are more?"
That line of thinking brought our column to a crashing halt. Worried expressions riddled the group as we looked at each other in fear. I, and the others likely, was imagining swarms of black gears flying out of the gloomy, darkened passages.
"Well we haven't been attacked yet so I don't think they come from here." Izzy observed, relaxing the group slightly. "But at the same time there is a possibility that other black gears may cause digimon to attack us." And we were as tense as coiled springs again.
"Let's just be calm." Sora cautioned "We just need to keep an eye out for anymore. And if anyone sees a Black Gear scream for help."
"Okay!" We nodded in almost perfect synchronization.
"Now let's get back to looking around for people who might be able to help us." Tai order with a grin. But as soon as most of the other had turned their backs it fell away and was replaced by one of those far-seeing looks where the observer seemed to almost see through walls. Sora moved next to him and muttered something in his ear. His only response was a brief nod.
We started investigating the conveyor belts for signs of life but soon the machines being built attracted our attention.
"Matt what are the machines making?" TK asked his brother as he stared at a conveyor belt that had rhomboid hunks of metal on it. They had small sections of the front cut out of them so that they vaguely looked like bunkers I had once seen on a vacation to Normandy (technically it was a six-month deployment to France but since I wasn't going to school and we moved right back into our old house I counted it as an extra-long vacation).
"You got me maybe parts for robots or spaceships." Matt guessed as bizarre arm-like appendages were attached to them.
"There would probably be a lot more people here if it wasn't so dusty." Mimi commented as she swept a gloved finger over one of the few idle surfaces.
"Or if they painted it pretty colors like baby-blue and pink." Kiki tried only to cause a sweat-drop from Matt.
"Somebody's got to be moving those belts and people gotta eat so is there a cafeteria in this place cause we could really use a good meal." Joe began to theorize and then his voice slowly rose to a heaven-directed scream.
While Joe ranted Tai and Sora had a quick whispered conversation that I wasn't really paying attention to. But I did hear the words: "search", "gear", "worry".
I went off on my own, save Amphitheredramon, for a little bit to search for the food. I told everyone to shout if they needed me. After about two minutes I was hopelessly lost. Or at least I would have been if it weren't for my trusty pocketknife. I carved signs in the walls whenever I came to a fork or intersection. After about an hour of exploring I heard a furious typing that I was pretty sure could only come from a certain red-head's yellow-gloved hands pounding on his Pineapple computer's keyboard.
I followed the click-clacking and soon found a door labeled Power Supply Room. Inside an array of gears spun in front of a bank of pipes leading to and from a ginormous battery with a panel open. And from the professor-ish tone coming from inside, Izzy had set up shop inside.
"… driven by an acidic chemical reaction which generates a current, but this one produces its own current independently. In fact it seems to derive energy to power itself from the usage of energy."
A friendly buzz confirmed that it was indeed Izzy and Tentomon. "And what does that mean in simple language?"
"Yeah we didn't all major in engineering." I snarked.
"What's engineering?" Amphitheredramon whispered to me.
"Something that can make your head explode." I simply replied.
"It means that this factory is doing something that is physically impossible." Izzy responded not even looking up from his computer as Amphitheredramon and I strolled in.
"So Izzy what's up?" I asked leaning against one of the poles that ran around the inside of the "battery".
He stared at me quizzically for a number of uncomfortable seconds before comprehension seemed to dawn on his face. Sort of. "Well if my calculations and chronological reasoning are correct the sun should be."
Amphitheredramon and I looked at each other, then Izzy, then each other again, then Izzy again, and finally Tentomon before glancing back at Izzy and tilting our heads. All in all we gave the impression of a very strange two-headed freak.
Finally Amphitheredramon gave voice to our confusion. "Whaaaat?"
"Never mind let me finish these calculations. Just give me a nano-year." Izzy brushed us off. Of course I was pretty sure a nano-year was somewhere between thirty-one-and-a-half and thirty-two milliseconds. Maybe he meant a micro-year which would give about half a minute.
While I had done multiple double digit multiplication and division (fortunately in decimal form) in my head, Tentomon and had been scratching his exoskeleton-covered head. He then started itching his chin before raising the multi-jointed limb as though to ask the "professor" a question.
"I'll give you three." He volunteered.
"Four if it helps." My sentient feathered boa offered.
"Anyways, where are the others?" I asked the red pair.
Izzy only ignored us and continued his manic researching. Tentomon was more accommodating.
"Well Tai led Sora and Joe off to look for something, unfortunately what I cannot say. We were with the rest poking our noses, not that I have one, around looking for more "people" as Joe would say when Izzy found this place and I haven't been able to tear him away since."
Throughout this quick summary Izzy had continued his investigations. It seemed to be irking Tentomon to a degree.
"I admire the way you keep working while your friends are out having fun. Don't you ever feel sort of left out?" Tentomon asked Izzy as he gazed around at the myriad symbols all around us.
"Not at all." Izzy replied without even sparing the electric ladybug a glance.
"So you'd rather spend your time with puzzles and not people." Tentomon clarified.
"Precisely. What could be better than breaking a cryptogram that no one else can figure out?" Izzy pointed out with a note of pride in his voice.
"Agreed." I said. "I personally feel a similar rush whenever I figure out one of my sister's riddles. She could give Smaug himself a run for his money."
"Well I can think of some other things of interest like relaxing on a warm beach and not worrying about being trapped in a small room with no exit, but that's just me." Tentomon shrugged as his imagination ran out the door and flew across the desert back the way we came.
"I'm just trying to determine how we all got to this place. And I'd like to learn more about you Digimon. Perhaps prove some of my theories." Izzy informed Tentomon.
"What are you theorizing about? What's the big mystery? I am who I am. I'm not hiding anything." Tentomon declared, sounding as though he was imitating Confucius or someone along those lines.
"Really?" Izzy demanded with a skeptically raised eyebrow.
"I simply can't understand this preoccupation with who you are. Is there some kind of deep dark secret in your origins?" Tentomon countered and for some reason causing Izzy to gain a blank look in his eyes.
For several minutes he just sat there motionless, not even pressing so much as the spacebar. Tentomon then began trying all sorts of ridiculous actions to get his partner's attention. He clapped is claws together in a number of different patterns, he buzzed upside down, and even attempted to break dance on his shell.
Amphitheredramon, then took over, flapping over and waving his wing in front of Izzy's face without getting a response. Even yanking out a feather and trying to tickle the computer-wiz failed to trigger a reaction. Finally Tentomon stomped over and rapped his claw on Izzy's forehead.
"Tentomon to Izzy-mon are you reading me?" Tentomon tried desperately.
"Huh? Oh what did you say?" Izzy demanded looking at Tentomon accusingly as he rubbed his head at the spot where the bold insect had just hit him.
"You were off in another world. Look at the screen." Tentomon deadpanned and indicated the computer with his claw drawing Izzy's attention to the screen.
"Huh?" Izzy gasped as the lines of code began drifting and shifting all over the screen. I was no Bill Gates but I was pretty sure that the only time stuff like that happened was when cut and paste was being used.
"It's acting rather strangely. Perhaps you should stop focusing on the problem and start looking for a solution." Tentomon recommended as the floating numbers, letters and other symbols gradually contorted themselves into a three-dimensional diagram of what appeared to be the factory.
"This is merely scientific speculation but I believe I've stumbled onto something more than just a simple computer game and I'm about to abandon my alien theory as well." Izzy began speaking rapidly as his map began spinning away leaving the factory as nothing more than a dot near a mountain that would make Olympus Mons on Mars envious.
But enough about that Izzy was going to stop bringing aliens up. Alert the media today was a historic day for our group. I'd have this day be inducted as an international holiday if I could get away with it.
Izzy resumed focusing solely on his computer. Amphitheredramon flapped back up to his perch and began hissing in my ear.
"Let's just get out of here. We know where to look if we need to find him again. How about we find one of the other groups and get some more exploring in." He suggested.
"Sounds good to me." I nodded waving good-bye to Tentomon and heading back out into the factory. A second later a loud bang followed by a moan of similar volume and two groans of "Joe" led me to Tai, Sora, and, sprawled out at the foot of some stairs, Joe.
"Let me guess Joe tripped?" I inquired with a slight smirk in my tone.
"How'd you guess?" Sora wondered drily as Tai and the digimon helped Joe to his feet.
"What are you guys doing?" I questioned gazing around and seeing that Tentomon's assertation that the group had split in two was correct.
"Well, remember how I thought that it was possible that Black Gear came from here." Tai began hesitantly.
"Yeah." I drawled encouraging him to get on with it.
"Well Sora and I thought it would be a good idea to snoop around and see if I was right."
"That doesn't explain why he's here." I pointed out tilting my thumb at Joe.
"He just decided to follow us." Tai shrugged.
"How about a couple extra pairs of eyes to help look out for those flying menaces?" I advised, volunteering myself and Amphitheredramon.
With that we clambered up the staircase that had been Joe's bane and emerged on one of the numerous catwalks that connected the various buildings. We poked around several of the smaller building near the entrance before heading towards one of the larger main buldings. Suddenly Biyomon froze up and whirled around
"Wait a minute don't go any further in this direction." She ordered before tilting her head head back and twisting it back and forth like a bird of prey seeking a tasty sparrow.
"What's the matter with this direction it's just as good as any other direction isn't it?" Joe squawked before looking all over the place and resembling a seizure victim.
"What is it Biyomon?" Sora asked ignoring Joe's self-induced convulsions.
"I'm not sure. I heard something." Biyomon responded narrowing her gaze in the direction of a small door whose walkway connected to ours up ahead.
Suddenly there was a loud groaning sound like a machine had collapsed. Several smaller clangs rang throughout the complex. It sounded as though an entire section of the factory was about to collapse.
"That doesn't sound good to me." Tai remarked as the clash of metal on metal faded into echos. He nervously glanced around looking for what had caused the horrendous noise.
"Mm hmm if that was as big as it sounded then this whole place could come tumbling down." I hypothesized.
"Then let's get out of here while we still can." Joe suggested.
"First I say that we make sure that the others weren't hurt in whatever caused that." Sora countered.
"Last I heard they were still in the same building but, better safe than sorry." I agreed.
"Well what are you waiting for?" A shout from the right demanded. I looked over and saw that Tai and Agumon were already well ahead of us. I see that Sora trained him well.
We walked into the building where the roar had originated and found it as deserted as the rest of the factory.
"I don't think there's anything here." Joe spoke up after about ten minutes of fruitless searching. "Least of all wreckage that had to have been cause by the explosion."
"Mm Hmm." Tai and Sora nodded.
"So let's find the thers and get out of here."
*Ding*
We whirled around at the small but ringing noise and where a wall had been two seconds ago was an elevator.
"Do you think we should take?" Tai asked.
"What if it takes us someplace really bad?" Joe whined.
"And what if it takes us to a way home?" I rebutted. "I'd say it's worth the risk."
"Sora, what do you think?" Tai asked our female companion.
"Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Come on boys." With that she strode into the elevator, Biyomon at her heels, and promptly faced us again tapping her foot impatiently.
We tumbled over ourselves to quickly get in and while we struggle out of our impression of an octopus, Sora pushed the down button. A couple heartbeats later we were all upright and the doors opened with another ding.
We discovered a half-demolished corridor with loose metal plates, exposed wiring, and drooping pipes. Despite the devastation it seemed, judging from all the rust, to be more because of old age than deliberate destruction. We had just passed a narrow passage, that looked more like a hole in the wall because of a layer of debris, when Agumon doubled back and called us back.
What we saw between the beams and piping was what looked to be a robot. This robot appeared to have been cobbled together by an insane mechanic using the human and metallic remains of a fatal motorcycle accident. We shifted away some of the junk blocking us in an effort to get over to the strange thing.
"What do you suppose happened to him?" Tai wondered as he shifted a metal sheet out of the way.
"Who knows but let's see if we can help." Sora ordered us shoving some piping back into the way it fell out of. Finally after about a minute of forcing our way down the narrow cluttered hallway, we reached the stranger and discovered his lower half caught in a section of the wall.
"It's just a busted robot." Tai concluded, rapping his knuckles of the thing's skull.
"It's not a robot it's Andromon." Gomamon argued with a self-satisfied smirk.
"What this big clunk is a digimon?" Tai exclaimed.
"Yes and very much advanced." Agumon replied with a nod.
"Poor thing I guess he got caught in the gears and that's how he got mangled." Biyomon pitied.
"That would explain the loud crash." I concluded.
"And all those little booms were probably caused by all that junk we had to get through." Amphitheredramon continued.
"So what do we do now?" Joe demanded.
"Maybe if we work together we can pull him out of there." Sora said bending over grabbing an arm.
"Oh my mom doesn't really want me moving very heavy objects I've got bad knees." Joe stuttered backing away.
"Relax we'll do it." Sora told him glancing back with a brief scowl that basically asked "What's wrong with you?". "I think the three of us can do it easily."
"Right." Tai agreed grabbing onto Andromon's other arm.
"Whimp." I teased Joe as I latched onto and started hauling Andromon by the shoulders.
"Hey!" Unfortunately Joe didn't have a prayer counter my quick insult.
We bent down and began trying to lug the unconscious mess out of his situation.
"I think it's moving." Tai groaned. But he apparently butters his gloves because he lost his grip on Andromon. He proved to be an unbalanced individual as he stumbled backward a dozen feet and did a backflip over a lever. After his gymnastics routine gears groaned to life and began twirling.
"Hey something's happening." Dr. Obvious said. "He's coming loose."
Slowly but surely we dragged him from his mechanical captors. We finally managed to pull him out of the gears, which made me wonder how he got stuck in the first place.
"I think he's slowly coming to." Agumon observed as Andromon's more organic parts tensed up.
"He just needs a couple of whacks for a jump start." Tai belted out before trying to "rebop" Andromon.
"Trying" being the optimal word because we were holding him back trying to keep him from doing something stupid. Again. Unfortunately in addition to great minds thinking alike, stupid minds think alike too because Agumon decided to give Andromon the "couple of whacks". At that point we ressembled a much of Ditto impersonators: narrow dots for eyes and half-opened mouths. And to top things off sweatdrops were abound. Even Tai seemed to realize the idiocy of the maneuver.
"Great job Agumon" Amphitheredramon hissed. "If he's hungry I'm going to turn you into dino steaks and getting out of his way."
"I am Andromon." The giant machine grumbled shifting slightly.
Sora brutally tore into the boneheads who would be held responsible if he woke up "crank"-y. "What are you braindead? How would you like it if some came up to you and bashed you awake? I don't know why boys were created in the first place but you two aren't helping my opinion."
"There's this movie where a robot came to life and ate everyone." Joe fretted worriedly twidiling his fingers as Sora continued to lecture Tai and Agumon on their lack of subtlety.
"Umm, Joe if those are the types of movies you usually watch I think I know what your problem is." I remarked idly. Seriously how would a kid afraid of his own shadow buck up the courage to watch anything scarier than a Disney movie? Then again it took a little bit of courage to watch the "Night on Bald Mountain" sequence. That wasn't exactly a cute princess story. Sora meanwhile continued barreling on like a twenty-car train.
"And for all we know he could be someone friendly who can help us get home. And he's more likely to do that if we don't do the stupid stunts you two like to pull."
And then Andromon's eyes blared blue and he zoomed up faster than Wylie Coyote on fire. He stood at a height that Goliath would envy and he had proven that he was a great hand at baseball having snagged a certain red-head on his way up.
"Forget what I said about being friendly." Sora shrieked as she was suspended a good three feet of the floor by her ankles.
"I shall punish alien intruders." Great it was no sooner that Izzy gave up on his inane theories that we ran into another sci—fi fan.
"Andromon is one of the most powerful Digimon of all. His body is a tireless machine capable of almost anything." Amphitheredramon told as the mechanical menace continued his impression of King Kong while Sora played his Ann.
"Let's give him all we've got." Tai ordered jabbing his fingers at the iron giant while Biymon flapped forward with a "Kaw!".
"Spiral Twister." Biyomon bird-called.
"Ah." Andromon exclaimed as the narrow funnel of green flames zipped into his eyes. He didn't take it well throwing Sora like an axe at the pink and blue bird. He is aim was apparently terrible as she flew no closer than five feet. And luckily Tai and Agumon were standing by to play landing pads. They landed in a crumpled heap under her weight and she detangled herself with a couple light punches, and elbow to Agumons snout, and a cry of "Get off me."
Andromon then stalked towards them like an upright tank.
"Watch out! We didn't exactly catch him on a good day." Joe moaned in warning.
"Maybe this is a good day." Gomamon said deciding to adopt his friend's mannerisms of thinking it's always going to be a worse case scenario.
"This is not good." Joe stated obviously for once being mildly optimistic.
"Well Tai what do we do now?" Agumon demanded as Andromon bore down on them. Amphitheredramon's relentless attacks to the back didn't even cause the big guy to flinch.
"We could feed you to him." Amphitheredramon panted angrily. "After all you're the one who woke him up."
"Er, Agumon how about trying to blast the roof." Tai said thinking on his feet as usual (if not always with his brain.)
But Tai proved me wrong as the subsequent "Pepper Breath!" streaked upwards and snapped a series of wires sending about a ton of metal braces down on Andromon's chrome dome and collapsing him like a slinky.
"Boy he's gonna have one ugly headache." Tai winced.
"No doubt." Sora agreed.
"Nah I think his skull is even thicker than yours thank to that metal plate." I pointed out to Tai.
"Now let's get out of here." Joe begged unnecessarily as we took off like Kowagumon was chasing us again. And knowing our luck we would run into that overgrown beetle for a second time.
"Hey who turned out the lights?" Tai demanded off to my left as we screeched to a halt thanks to the whole place going pitch black.
"I break out in hives in the dark." Joe whimpered to my right.
"Just when I thought you couldn't get stranger Joe; you manage to surprise me." Amphitheredramon chirped in my ear.
And then we heard a loud groan that could only be our favorite killer-robot. A pair of soft blue lights confirmed my suspicions.
"What was that?" Joe squeaked.
"I'll give you three guesses." I whispered.
"I hope the correct answer isn't Andromon." Sora grumbled with as much sarcasm as she could muster.
"It might be a good plan to keep moving so we don't have to find out." Tai recommended.
"Well I'm for that." Joe hastily agreed.
"Let's sneak away." Sora suggested.
"How about we link hands so we don't stumble into each other in this blackout." I added all the while praying he didn't have night-vision.
"Can you explain why we're tiptoeing instead of running for our lives?" Joe muttered as we tried to slip away.
"Because loud thundering footsteps would give us away." I snarled. "I if you make anymore noise we'll leave you as a distraction."
From behind us came a very angry voice that proved two things one that Andromon had night-vision and that bad things indeed came in threes:
"Intruders sighted and Andromon doesn't like intruders Lightning Blade."
Suddenly the corridor lit up with a blue-white light as an arc of devastation tore thru the sides sending sparks everywhere. A quick dodge around a newly lit corner saved out lives as the deadly attack blasted the wall in front of it sending shrapnel everwhere. At that exact moment the lights came back to life and a sign labeled "Exit" was revealed. Thanking God for small miracles I ran like heck for it and slammed through a pair of doors with the others right behind me. On the other hand Andromon was right behind them.
"Let's get out of here he's getting closer." Sora yelp-gasped as we ran faster and faster over the rickety wire bridge leading to the main building.
"This! Is! Not! Good! I! Don't! Like! This! At! All!" Joe panted and panicked with Gomamon trailing behind him held by the tail. What seals aren't exactly cheetahs on land.
"Come on you guys." Biyomon shouted moving her chicken legs faster than most Olympics runners.
"Lightning Blade… and Fire!" Andromon bellowed from behind us.
As the arc of nightmarish, white death zoomed towards us we did the usual whenever a hostile digimon attacked: Scream. Oh and we jumped off the bridge and ended up hanging by our fingertips, well, and claws (Agumon and Gomamon), talons (an upside down Biyomon), and tails (Amphitheredramon; who'd fallen off my shoulder and was hanging from my foot). Most of us had leapt to the right (it was a shorter drop to a roof) while Tai had unfortunately dove to the left.
"We really needed to start coming up with plans to deal with situations like this." I yelled over the monotonous clanking of Andromon's unstoppable Death Star March.
"Here me intruders, Andromon will exact his vengeance." The talking AT-ST monolouged.
"Hey come on, vengeance we're the ones that jump-started you remember." Tai complained.
"Andromon will exact his vengeance." Did this guy have to narrate his every move.
"Oh yeah just try it you walking tin can." Tai snarled as he partially clambered back onto the bridge.
I merely turned my head to face Sora and opened my mouth. "I know we're probably about to die so… How's the weather?"
Her expression screamed "Are you insane?" and so did her voice. Said voice also added. "Why would you ask that when we're about to be blasted by a rampaging digimon." A mix of battlecry and panicked screech brought Tai back to our attention.
At first it seemed his big plan was to go out with the taunt of wagging his butt at the bad guy (it kind of work for the Scots at Sterling). But he proved to be a step ahead of me as he achieved a remarkable feet of athleticism, hurtling himself to a crane a good ten feet from the bridge.
"Well come on!" He challenged, swiftly gaining mastery over the crane's controls, and swinging the hook around in a wide arc and whacking Andromon over the head and nearly knocking him off the bridge. But he was soon rebalanced and he set himself to receive Tai next blow.
"Will you please stop taunting the deranged android." Joe begged as Tai swung the crane around again, but nowhere near fast enough to knock the mechanical beast of the bridge.
But that wasn't Tai's object as the hook on the end hit Andromon with a clang and, by some miracle snagging on something, quickly hoisted him into the air.
"Ground Interruption! Altitude reading abnormal." Came the metallic, and as close a tone to panic as I heard yet, voice of the murderous cyborg.
Sora and I swiftly got back on the bridge and helped our digimon (plus Agumon and Gomamon) back up. Tai meanwhile raised the crane's platform and brought it closer to the bridge. He hopped off with an extremely cocky grin and began to help us haul Joe back up so that he didn't end up a grease spot.
"What did you guys think?" He demanded, as though expecting applause and cheers from an unseen audience.
"I'm. About. To barf. A lung." Joe managed his sides heaving like he was having an asthma attack.
"They should really put your picture next to the word 'reckless' in the dictionary." I "complimented".
"I'm not going to risk seeing your head get bigger than your hair." Sora deadpanned while Tai began pouting like a puppy in the doghouse and the digimon switched from cheers and praising to loud sniggering. Ignoring her best friend's injured pride Sora brought our attention back to the problem at hand. Or rather at hook. "I say we get out of here before he gets down."
We poor boys agreed that discretion was the better part of valor and commenced a full advanced to the rear. A.k.a. we ran screaming like little girls (Or at Joe's normal tone). Faster than you could blink we were back in the main building. A loud bang from behind us cued us in to Andromon's escape and caused us the redouble our efforts to get out of their intact. After a couple minutes, during which we heard the sound of more than one "Lightning Blade!", each closer than the last, a shout drew our attention up a flight of stairs. We stumbled up with a surprisingly loud racket and found the others (including Izzy) at the top.
."Hey you guys listen up." Tai caught their attention as we scrambled up the last steps
"I don't like the tone of your voice." Matt yelled back.
"We have got to get out of here now." Tai recommended as we paused to take a quick breather.
"What do you mean Tai?" Matt questioned. A second later Matt's question was answered very loudly.
Andromon crashed up through the floor and began his annoing monologue again this time directed at the others.
"Capture intruders. Sensors detect hostility bring intruders into firing range." Andromon narrated. It was getting old. Fast. Very fast to tell you the truth.
"Ah Mr. Whatevermon are you talking to us." Mimi asked trying to make small talk with the killing machine but I'll give her points for realizing that she was facing a digimon faster than Tai did.
"Bring missiles to position. Gatling Attack… and Fire!" Two very ugly fish-like missiles charged out Andromon hest and swooped right at the others. On the plus side you at least knew when he was trying to kill you thanks to his advanced warning systems. No chance for a sneak attack. Unfortunately while everyone else ran away TK was petrified with fear and unable to move. Even worse Andromon's missiles were heading right for him.
"Matt help!" TK cried curling up into a ball and tried to ward of the missiles with his bare hands.
"TK!" Matt screamed in utter helplessness.
"Look out." Gabumon shouted as he ran to help TK. A beam rocketed out of Matt's gizmo and struck the running Gabumon. The now familiar light of digivolving enveloped him as he rushed to TK's aid. "Gabumon digivolve to… Garurumon"
"Oh no!" TK yelped and began to duck.
With an almost casual flick of his paw Garurumon knocked the missiles away and spiraling into the stratosphere. One exploded but the other came back for Round 2, zooming towards those of us would been trying to escape the missiles' owner for the past twenty minutes. And then it started firing bullets at us. That's right it didn't explode, it start firing like a battery of machine guns. We, in our efforts to avoid the bullets, started a new dance craze: Bullet Dodging. It was pretty weird to see Gomamon on two legs. Agumon however charged forward and let the blasting thing we'd had enough. A light shot out from Tai's waist and combined with him.
"Agumon digivolve to… Greymon."
The big orange and blue dino faced towards Andromon and let his tail make spare parts out of the formerly deadly missile.
"Tail Crash!"
"Who challenges Andromon?" Did this guy ever get tired of hearing his voice?
Greymon lumbered towards Andromon and readied a fireball while Garurumon charged in full tilt like a white rhinoceros. Andromon however spun away from Greymon at the last second, snatching Garurumon off the ground right before he hit, and then brought the digital wolf down on Greymon's brown helmet. He then used Garurumon like a broom sweeping Greymon over the edge of the roof and into the courtyard, tossing his living weapon after him.
With a cry of "Bungling weaklings" he jumped down after them, landing with his steel elbow in Greymon's chest. The angry tyrannosaur threw him off with a backclawed strike. He quickly regained his footing, launching another pair of missles at our group and then and charged for the still half-stunned Champions.
"Amphitheredramon digivolve to… Wyverndramon!"
| i don't know |
Used especially in marketing and consumer profiling, what is the study of size, structure, development and dispersement of human populations? | ��ࡱ� > �� ���� ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 5@ �� � bjbj�2�2 �X �X P� �� �� �� � � � � � � � � � �� �� �� �� 4 .� l � � � �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� [� ]� ]� ]� ]� ]� ]� $ � R \� j �� Q � R� � | �� R� R� �� � � �� �� e �� ޥ ޥ ޥ R� f � �� � �� [� ޥ R� [� ޥ � ޥ ئ � � � � W� �� �� ��/�� �� �� � � � � � �� 0 � k� � �� �� F �� � W� � � � � � � �� � W� ( �� � C� � ޥ ɕ l 5� �� �� �� �� �� � � $� �� ȥ � � �� Consumer Behaviour Introduction and Overview Blend of Economics, Marketing, Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology and other behavioural disciplines. Need to study? �You cannot take the consumer for granted any more.� Consumer Behaviour � Those activities directly involved in obtaining, consuming and disposing of products and services, including the decision processes that precede and follow these actions. Peter Drucker 1954 � there is one valid purpose of doing business � �to create a customer.� Perspectives Consumer influence � Logical Positivism Understand and predict Consumer Behaviour Cause and effect � relationships that govern persuasion/education Post Modern � to understand consumption behaviour without any intent of influencing it. Peters and Austin � �A Passion for Excellence� Take exceptional care of your customers via superior service and superior quality. Constantly innovate and improve. Cultural Relevance Basic consumer needs and decision processes are universal. To understand prospective customers and meet their needs with culturally relevant alternatives. Eg. �thumbs up� - bad sign for Poles and Russians �belching� � sign of appreciation in the Middle east. Why is this so important? Ist study � Out of 11000 new products launched by 77 companies, only 56 % are present five years later. 2nd study � Only 8% of new product concepts offered by 112 leading companies reached the market. Out of this, 83% failed to reach marketing objectives. A new product must satisfy consumer needs, not the needs and expectations of a management team. Therefore understanding and adapting to consumer motivation and behaviour is not an option � it is an absolute necessity for competitive survival. Fortune Editor - �MEET THE NEW CONSUMER and smile when you do because she is your boss. It may not be the person you thought you knew. Instead of choosing from what you have to offer, she tells you what she wants. You figure out how to give it to her.� Consumer sovereignty presents a formidable challenge but skilful marketing can affect both motivation and behaviour if the product or service offered is designed to meet consumer needs and expectations. A sales success occurs because demand either exists already or is latent and awaiting activation by the right marketing offering. Dominant forces shaping Consumer Research Factors that move an economy from being Production - driven to Market � driven. (1930s Demand exceeded supply ; 1960s Supply exceeded demand) Level of sophistication with which human behaviour is understood in psychology and other behavioural sciences. Motivation Research Ernest Dichter was the father of motivation Research. It seeks to learn what motivates people in making choices. The techniques are such as to delve into the conscious, subconscious and the unconscious. �Women don�t buy cosmetics, they buy hope.� �Women bake cakes out of the unconscious desire to give birth.� His advice to footwear salesmen �Don�t sell shoes � sell lovely feet.� With brand proliferation, more and more brands are getting similar. Marketers must contend with small changing segments of highly selective buyers intent on receiving genuine value at the lowest price. All managers must become astute analysts of Consumer motivation and Behaviour. Segmentation The analytical goal is to measure Consumer Behaviour and place each person in a group (segment) that will minimise the variance in behaviour between each member of the segment and maximise variance between segments. Criteria for choosing market segments Measurability - quantifying Accessibility - reachable Substantiality � size Congruity � segment fit Marketing strategies Concentrated marketing � single segment marketing Differentiated marketing � Multisegmented marketing Undifferentiated marketing � caters to all segments Bases for segmentation Demographic Geographic Psychographic Behavioural � benefit, extent of usage, usage situation. Use of segmentation Positioning Promotion Distribution Pricing Direct marketing Effective marketing strategy requires that every element of the marketing mix fits together to deliver a coordinated and integrated appeal to the right group of customers. Planning for Change Unless managements act, the more successful a firm has been in the past, the more likely it is to fail in the future. Why? Because the basic psychological principle is that people tend to repeat behaviour for which they have been rewarded. Successful strategies must fit an environment that is constantly changing. Frequently, the future arrives before managers are willing to give up the present. Firms that fail to plan, generally plan to fail. Customer Buying Career Observing Making requests Making selections Making assisted purchases Making independent purchases Skippies � School aged kids with purchasing power Yuppies � young urban professionals Muppies � middle aged urban professionals Empty nesters � Children grown up and living outside (45 to 55 and 55 � 64) �Young again� � Chronological age high; but feel and think young Global Marketing strategies and Consumer segments Customer databases � benefits Customer profiling Customer segmentation List rentals Ethnocentricity � Focussing on one�s own way of doing things with little sensitivity or interest in the ways of the world. Michael Porter identified 5 common factors that characterise contemporary markets. Growing similarity of countries Fluid global capital markets Technological restructuring Integrating role of technology New global competitors Finding countries with the largest populations is not the only challenge facing companies wanting to expand their profits. From a market perspective, the greatest challenge for the �rich� countries that hope to have growing markets for their products in the future is to assist the �poor� countries in developing themselves to where they also are rich enough to be economically strong markets. Cultural analysis of Global Markets Marketing practitioners need cultural empathy defined as the ability to understand the inner logic and coherence of other ways of life. It is for this reason that global marketing could not be standardised although enormous economies can be had if it is done. But cross � cultural styles, habits, tastes prevents such standardisation. However, for a globalised advertising approach, it may be attempted when The communications message is based on similar lifestyles. The appeal of the ad is to be basic human needs and emotions The product satisfies universal needs and desires Language Problems �Please leave your values at the desk� Paris hotel �Drop your trousers here for best results� Bangkok Laundry � The Manager has personally passed all water served here� Acapulco restaurant �Because of the impropriety of entertaining guests of the opposite sex in the bedroom, it is suggested that the lobby be used for the purpose.� Zurich hotel �Ladies are requested not to have children in the bar� Norway bar �Come alive with Pepsi� �Come alive out of the grave� Germany �Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave� �It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken� Perdue �It takes a sexually stimulated man to make a chicken affectionate� Spanish Aaker indicates that it is important to globalise those elements for which there is a payoff in cost or impact but to let other elements of a product�s brand equity be customised to local markets. Gestures � facial ,hand .body Visual Language - where words are superfluous Consumer Decision Processes Focus groups �You can�t assume that people know what they want.� � You can�t assume that people will tell you the truth about their wants and dislikes, even if they know them. What you are more likely to get are answers that will protect the informants in their steadfast endeavour to appear to the world as really sensible, intelligent rational beings.� In fact, one management consulting firm has concluded that accepting the word of a customer as to what she wants is �the least reliable index the manufacturer can have on what he ought to do to win customers.� Eg. Beer light vs regular Preferred light over regular 3:1. Reality was that regular sold 9:1 over light and still demand was not met. Colour Research Institute Two rooms One tastefully done with modern functional furniture and soft shades and the other ornate,carpeted rich tapestry and period furniture. When women were asked to wait in either of the rooms, they automatically went to Room No.1 and then spilled over to Room no.2. When asked which room was better almost everyone agreed that Room No.2 was better. A group of people when asked if they borrowed from personal loan companies. Everyone said �NO�. The truth was that all selected for inerviews were borrowers from personal loan companies taken from their data bases. Housewifes were given 3 different pakages containing the same detergent. The first was a blue colour ( quiet colour), the second yellow (it had strong visibility) and the third was a yellow with blue stripes. Feed back Blue � it did not clean properly. Yellow � �was too strong� Yellow with blue stripes � �was just perfect� Department store. One of its slowest movng items Rs 7.50. It changed and clubbed the price of two to Rs. 16. People thought it to be a bargain price and sales increased 30%. Nature of Decision Processes � Purchase Options Whether to buy or save When to buy What to buy � both category and brand Where to buy How to pay Consumption Options Whether to consume or not When to consume How to consume Divestment Options Outright disposal Recycling Remarketing (resale of used items) Consumer Problem Solving Rational decision making (Utilitarian or functional attributes) Hedonic decision making (sensory pleasure, daydreams, aesthetic considerations) In most cases it is a combination of the two. Consumer Decision Making Stages Need recognition Search for information Pre � purchase alternative evaluation Purchase Consumption Post � purchase alternative evaluation Divestment Variables that shape Decision making Individual differences Environmental influences Psychological processes Individual Differences Consumer Resources � time, money, information reception and processing capabilities Knowledge Attitudes Motivation Personality,values,lifestyle Environmental Influences Culture Social class Personal influence Family Situation Psychological Processes Information processing � selective processing(consumers see and hear what they want to see and hear) Learning Attitude and behaviour change Stages in Information Processing Exposure Attention Comprehension Acceptance Retention Decision Process Continuum Complexity High Low Degree of Complexity Extended Mid range Limited Habitual Problem Problem Problem Decision Solving Solving Solving Making Extended Problem Solving Degree of involvement � Personal factors, product factors, situation Alternatives are differentiated � Time availability, Mood Sufficient time for deliberation Special Categories of Buying Behaviour Impulse Buying A sudden and spontaneous desire to act accompanied by urgency State of psychological disequilibrium in which a person can feel out of control Onset of conflict and struggle that is resolved by immediate action Minimal objective evaluation � emotional considerations are dominant Lack of regard for consequences Variety Seeking Activation of variety seeking as a motive. This happens when there are many similar alternatives frequent brand shifts high purchase frequency Need Recognition Need Activation � Such factors operate by altering the persons actual/desired states Time Changed circumstances Product acquisition Product consumption Individual differences Marketing influences Search Internal � from memory, knowledge, habit, purchase, degree of satisfaction External � when internal search is inadequate Dimensions of Search Degree of Search How many brands? How many stores? How many attributes? No. of information sources? How much time? Direction of Search Which brands? Advertising Which stores? In � store information Which attributes? Sales people Which information sources? General purpose Sequence of Search In what order of brands considered? Brand Search Sequence In what order of stores visited? In what order of product attributes considered? Attribute Search sequence In what order of information sources processed? Determinants of Search Situational Product Retail Consumer - Knowledge, Involvement, Beliefs and Attitudes, Demographic Statistics Prepurchase Alternative Evaluation Evaluative Criteria Price Brand Name Country of Origin Situational Influence Similarity of choice alternatives Motivation Involvement Knowledge Determinant Attributes � Salient attributes that actually influence the evaluation process. The use of cut � off on attribute values. A brand that fails to meet a cut � off may be rejected regardless of how well it performs on other dimensions. Consumers make trade � offs between quality of their choice and the amount of time and effort necessary to reach a decision. Purchase Not all purchase intentions are fulfilled. Reasons could be Changed motivations Changed circumstances New Information Desired alternatives are no longer available Purchase Intentions Fully planned purchase � extended problem solving and high involvement Partially planned purchase � Brand selected at time of purchase Unplanned purchase � 50% of purchases are like this That is why all this is important Relationship Marketing Consumer value addition Personal selling (Dyadic interaction) Sales promotion Data based marketing Sales person�s ability to win a buyer�s confidence Perceived knowledge and expertise Perceived trustworthiness Customer knowledge Adaptability Consumption, Satisfaction, Divestment Consumption research Profit motivated Consumption research Post � Modern Consumption research Post Consumption Alternative Evaluation Customer Satisfaction / Dissatisfaction (CS/D) emergence of customer retention as a dominant marketing objective in view of the formidable expense and difficulty of attracting new prospects. The undisputed fact that customer satisfaction is the key to customer retention. The central competitive role of product and service quality in forming CS/D response. The CS/D judgement takes one of 3 forms Positive disconfirmation � Performance is better than expected Simple disconfirmation � Performance is as expected Negative disconfirmation � Performance is worse than expected Divestment Environmental Concerns Outright disposal Recycling Remarketing Individual Differences Consumer resources Economic Resources � Income, GDP, Consumer confidence, Whose Income, Where is the income?, Identifying market potential Who has the buying power? Temporal resources Time using goods � TV, music systems, sports goods, vacations Time saving goods � kitchen gadgets, convenience foods, durables Polychronic use of time � simultaneous activity � having breakfast and reading the paper, driving to office and hearing the news, seeing the TV and answering the phone. Knowledge Companies are constantly sending information to consumers in the hope that such information will be accepted and acted upon. What do consumers know? We need to know their product knowledge, their purchase knowledge and their usage knowledge 2 basic types of knowledge Declarative Procedural Declarative knowledge is when factual information is presented. Episodic (When did you last buy?) Semantic (general knowledge that is useful to all of us) Procedural knowledge is how to use such factual information. Product Knowledge Awareness of the product category and brands within the product category Product terminology Product attributes or features Beliefs about the product category in general and specific brands Price knowledge Marketers would be more motivated to hold prices down and respond to price cuts when they believe consumers are knowledgeable about the prices charged in the market. Low levels of price knowledge enable marketers to be less concerned about significant price differences relative to competition. Organisation of Knowledge Associative network � memory consists of a series of nodes and links A link between two nodes forms a belief or proposition. These beliefs or propositions can be combined to create a higher order knowledge structure called a schema. Attitude Consumer likes and Dislikes Attitude consists of 3 levels Cognitive ( knowledge and beliefs) Affective (feelings) Conative ( action or behaviour) Properties of Attitudes Attitudes can vary along several dimensions or properties. One such dimension is valence. Valence refers to whether attitude is +ve, -ve, or neutral. Attitudes can differ in their extremity (intensity of liking or disliking) Attitudes can also differ in their resistance. Resistance is the degree to which an attitude is immune to change. Understanding attitude resistance is important for developing defensive and offensive marketing strategies. Defensive strategies focus on retaining customers whereas offensive strategies would seek to create new customers. Persistence is another property of attitudes. It reflects the notion that attitudes may gradually erode simply due to the passage of time. Finally not all attitudes are held with the same degree of confidence , which represents a person�s belief that his/her attitude is correct. Salience represents the importa n c e a s s i g n e d t o a n a t t r i b u t e . F i s h b e i n s M o d e l n A = " b i e i i = 1 w h e r e A = a t t i t u d e t o w a r d s t h e o b j e c t bi = strength of belief that the object has attribute i ei = evaluation of attribute i n = no. of salient attributes Ideal � Point Model n A = "W i %I i X i % i = 1 w h e r e A = a t t r i b u t e t o w a r d s t h e b r a n d W i = i m p o r t a n c e o f a t t r i b u t e i I i = t h e i d e a l p e r f o r m a n c e o n a t t r i b u t e i X i = b e l i e f about the brand�s actual performance on attribute i n = no. of salient attributes Motivation and Self - Concept A person can be said to be motivated when his/her system is energised (aroused), made active, and behaviour is directed towards a desired goal. Dynamics of the motivation process Need - activated or felt when there is a sufficient discrepancy between a desired or preferred state of being and the actual state. Drive - as this discrepancy increases, the outcome is activation of a condition of arousal. Can Marketing create needs? Skilful marketing can stimulate a want or desire for a product or service. Marketing efforts succeed by satisfying existing needs ; not by creating needs. Self � Concept Ideal self ( the self I aspire to be ) Real self ( the way I think I actually am ) Self in context ( the way I see myself in different social settings ) Extended self ( self as incorporated into objects and artifacts that assume importance ) Self � Monitoring Concern for social appropriateness of behaviour Attention to social comparision as cues for for appropriate self expression Ability to modify self presentation and expression across situations Fantasy � comparision with real self or ideal self Need for Cognition � although everyone engages in thinking there are real differences in the extent to which individuals exhibit a desire to know, understand, systematize and prioritise. The most important buying motive may be one that for varying reasons , the consumer does not want to knowledge consciously. When this happens , to let him off the hook , it is better to provide a more socially acceptable motive , making it seem objective or rational. Eg. An adult having a fetish for chocolates can rationalise that the doctor has asked him to balance out the sugar levels in his system. Personality, Values, Lifestyle Personality � consistent responses to environmental stimuli Human Personality System Id � seeks immediate gratification for biological and instinctual needs Superego � represents societal or personal norms and services as an ethical constraint on behaviour Ego � mediates the hedonistic demands of the id and the moralistic prohibitions of the superego Phycological Processes This refers to the physical and psychological processes that govern buying behaviour of individuals and groups. Information Processing Exposure � achievement of proximity to a stimulus to activate the senses Attention � allocation of processing capacity to stimulus Comprehension � interpretation of stimulus Acceptance � persuasive impact of stimulus Retention � transfer of stimulus interpretation to memory Attitudes � Consistency Theories People strive to maintain a consistent set of beliefs and attitudes. Adaptation Level Span of attention � the time your mind is focussed to a thing before wandering Attention getting devices Size Colour Intensity Contrast Position Directionality Movement Isolation Novelty Learned �stimuli� Attractive spokesperson A stimulus that dominates viewer�s attention , while leaving the remaining message ignored is self defeating. Comprehension � Information Processing / Understanding Stimulus categorization Stimulus elaboration Stimulus organization (stimulus, figure and ground, closure) Personal determinants of Comprehension Motivation (Hunger) Knowledge ( expert information) Expectation or Perceptual Set ( What you understand depends on what you have been seeing before this eg. I3 � is it 13 or is it B? Stimulus determinants of comprehension � colour, size, etc. Linguistics � using the right words Order effects � What comes before and after ? � primacy and recency Context Miscomprehension Acceptance Cognitive Response � Acceptance is enhanced as SAs increases but is reduced by greater Cas. Affective Response � Feelings +ve more acceptance , -ve less acceptance Retention This is the last stage in Information Processing. Left Brain � logical, abstract, conceptual Right Brain � creative, intuitive, imaginal Memory Sensory � iconic (visual), echoic ( auditory ) ST memory LT memory Learning Cognitive learning � Mental processes which include learning of information to problem solving are the focus under cognitive learning. Rehearsal � mental repetition of information Elaboration � the amount of elaboration (represents the degree of integration between the stimulus and existing knowledge ) that occurs which a stimulus is processed will influence the amount of learning that takes place. Motivation Direct learning Incidental learning Ability � Knowledge is an important determinant of learning, as it enables the person to undertake more meaningful elaboration during information processing. Forgetting Decay � memory trace will fade with passage of time Interference � caused by learning new information over time Classical conditioning Conditioned response � Pavlovian response Extinction � occurs when the CS no longer evokes the CR. It will disappear when the relationship between CS and US is broken. Generalisation � �umbrella branding� Discrimination � where an organism learns to emit a response to one stimulus but avoids making the response to a similar stimulus. Operant Conditioning � instrumental learning concerned with how the consequences of a behaviour will affect the frequency or probability of the behaviour being repeated . Reinforcement from Product Consumption +ve reinforcement � fragrant smell Room -ve reinforcement � removes odour Freshener Applications in marketing Sampling Trials Demonstrations Test drives Research has proved that there is 60% more penetration for products where free sampling is done. Shaping � encourages the marketers to think about what behaviours must precede the ultimate action of purchase and how these prerequisite behaviour can be encouraged through appropriate reinforcements. Vicarious learning � when an individual observes the action of others and the consequences of those behaviours Environmental Influences No person is an island. Influenced by culture Sense of self and space Communication and language Dress and appearance Food and feeding habits Time and time consciousness Relationships Values and norms Beliefs and attitudes Mental processes and learning Work habits and practices Values � are shared beliefs or group norms internalised by individuals Norms - beliefs held by consensus of a group concerning the behaviour rules for individual members. Socialisation The process by which people develop their values, motivations and habitual activity Consumer socialisation � is the acquisition of consumption related cognitions, attitudes and behaviour. Culture is learned � through imitation or by observing the process of reward or punishment in a society of members who adhere to or deviate from group norms. Culture is inculcated through family, religion and schools. Culture rewards socially gratifying responses. When norms no longer provide gratification in a society, the norms are extinguished. Culture is adaptive Eg. Family planning Female employment Education for all Changing Institutions Declining family influence Less time for in � house or parent � child influence Increasing divorce rate Isolated nuclear family Changing religious influence Changing educational institution Social Class and Consumer Behaviour Social Class affects Consumer Behaviour Social Stratification- �pecking order� Social Class � is defined as relatively permanent and homogeneous divisions in a society into which individuals or families sharing similar values, lifestyles, interests and behaviour can be categorised. Class - relation to production and acquisition of goods Status � �style of life� �Caste� � is based on hereditary status and religion What determines Social Class? Economic Occupation Income Wealth Interaction Personal prestige Association Socialisation Political Power Class consciousness Mobility Occupation is the best single proxy indicator of social class. Use of language, visuals, imagery, slang depends on the social class addressed. �Snob� and �Status� value of products are determined depending on which social classes they are meant for. Personal Influence Personal Influence, direct or indirect is one of the very best forms of persuasion. This is because the input from people with whom we can identify and relate can attain remarkable credibility. Reference group Comparative It can also come through WOM or opinion leaders Types of reference Groups Primary vs Secondary Family vs society Industry vs rest Company vs industry National vs foreign Aspirational vs Dissociative Aspirational � exhibit a desire to adopt the norms, values, behaviour of others with whom the individual aspires to associate Dissociative � when individual is motivated to avoid association Formal vs.Informal Word of Mouth ( WOM ) WOM to spread requires a opinion leader Consumer lacks interest sufficient information to make an adequately informed choice . When internal search for information proves to be adequate WOM has little impact. Product is complex and difficult to evaluate using objective cruteria; experience of others serves as �vicarious trial�. Person lacks the ability to evaluate the product or service, no matter how much information is disseminated presented. Other sources are perceived to be having low credibility. An influential person is more accessible than other sources and hence can be consulted with a saving in time and effort. Strong social ties are in existence between transmittee and receiver. High need for social approval Models of Personal Influence Process Trickle down theory � influence transmitted through social classes over time. Two step Flow � New ideas influences opinion leaders (WOM ) others Multistage interaction � Influential and seeker are affected by mass media. People will not share their experience with products or services unless it produces some gratification. What are these drives ? Involvement � experience product � tell others Self � enhancement � enhance status by giving information precious to others Concern for others � to help others genuinely in making a good purchase Message intrigue � to talk about certain ads or appeals Dissonance reduction � to reduce cognitive dissonance . Reassure consumers on their purchase. Impact of WOM communication Source vs. seeker � initiated conversation -ve vs. +ve information verbal vs. visual information Primary reliance of WOM Using the influential as a market target Eg. Coaches, doctors,dentists, lawyers, Priests,etc. Stimulating WOM � test drives, lunch vouchers, complimentary hotel stays, etc. Creating Influentials Family and Household Influences Family/Household unit Many products are bought b a family unit. Buying decisions of individuals may be heavily influenced by other members of the family. Family Nuclear Extended (joint) How families function Cohesion ( Bonding between family members ) Adaptability (measures the ability to change its power structure, role relationships and relationshp rules in response to situational and developmental stress) Communication (facilitates movement on the earlier two dimensions) Individual role in family purchases Initiator/Gatekeeper Influencer Decider Buyer User Family Marketing Model Purchase decision maker ConsumerOne memberSome membersAll membersOne membershaving creamtennis racquetsGift for grandpaSome memberssugar cubesclothesSchool uniformsAll memberstoothpastedraperiesTV Family Life Cycle Birth � toddler � school going � teenager � collegian �newly wedded � have children � middleage � children grow up and leave home � death Late marriages Divorce rates � Divorce creates markets. Both parties learn new pattern of consumer behaviour. Marketing to singles Situation Influences Perfumed counters sell more � research finding What are situational influences? Arising from factors that are particular to a specific time and place that are independent of consumer and object characteristics. Communication Situations Those settings in which the consumer is exposed to either personal and non � personal communications. Purchase Situations Willingness and change in price sensitivity across purchase situations Eg. Restaurant, movie theatre, grocery store, upmarket departmental store Information Environment Product related data available to the consumer Dimensions of information Availability Load � extent and amount of detail Format � list or separate Form � numeric or semantic Time May lead consumers to rely on existing knowledge and experience ; than collecting additional information Pressure may lead to purchasing lesser no. of items than planned Depends on when you had your last meal, especially for food items. Usage Situations Those settings where consumption occurs when purchase � consumption Location is same eg. Restaurant Location is different eg. Buying curtains for the home Used differently eg. Buying rice to be aten as it is or to be used in idlis At different social situations eg. Chewing gum instead of lighting a cigarette Time of the day eg. offering snacks instead of meals to guests dropping in Person � Situation Interaction Unexpected situation influences Product out of stock Guests dropping in for dinner Sudden leave being sanctioned Falling ill Diffusion of Innovations Criticality of new product management 5000 new products appear each year. Over 80% flop. Macromarketing - Issues Valuable resources are wasted that might have been chanelled toward more productive uses. Products that might have helped people do things more productively or attain higher levels in their quality of life, fail to be used. Micromarketing Successful new product development is an important element in achieving long term competitive superiority and profitability. New product development plays a important role in market leadership of the firm�s profitability. Marker leaders ( highest market share ) normally have 3 times higher returns than firms with lower market shares. Perceived product quality is highly associated with ROI and ESV. Contemporary firms are being attacked competitively on every dimension and from every direction. The only way to survive this onslaught, Porter has convincingly argued is to create a �value chain� to serve the customer , which will serve to differentiate the successful firm from its competitors and will provide competitive superiority on the critical attributes of importance to the consumer. Diffusion Variables Critical determinants of success for anew product Innovation (new product , service, idea ) Communication (through certain channels ) Time (at which certain individuals decide to adopt the product relative to others) Social system (interrelated people, groups and other systems) Innovation � is any idea or product perceived by the potential adopter to be new. Types of Innovations Continuous Dynamically continuous Discontinuous A continuous innovation is the modification of an existing product rather than the establishment of a totally new one. A dynamically continuous innovation may involve the creation of either a new product or the alteration of an existing one but does not generally alter established patterns of customer buying and product use. Eg. CDs, herbal foods, electric blankets A discontinuous innovation involves the production of an entirely new product that causes buyers to alter their behaviour patterns significantly Eg. TV, credit cards, e � mail, computers Assessment of a particular innovation for a given situation Relative advantage � New products most likely to succeed are those that appeal to strongly felt needs. Compatibility � refers to the degree to which the product is consistent with existing values and past experiences of the potential adopters. Complexity � is the degree to which an innovation is perceived as difficult to understand and use. Trialability � the ability to make trials easy for new products without economic risk to the consumer. Observability � reflects the degree to which results from using a new product are visible to friends and neighbours Speed of Diffusion The greater the competitive intensity of the supplier the more rapid the diffusion and higher the diffusion level. The better the reputation of the supplier (breeding confidence among potential adopters), the faster the initial diffusion. Products diffuse faster when standardised technology is used. Vertical co � ordination which refers to a high degree of vertical dependence and an interlocking relationship among channel members. Homophily � is the degree to which pairs of individuals who interact are similar in important attributes such as beliefs, education and social status. Heterophily � inconsistent with own beliefs and values Polymorphism � is the degree to which the innovators and early adopters for one product are likely to be innovators for other products Consumers who are innovators for many products are polymorphic. Those who are innovators for one product only are monomorphic. Consumerism and Ethical Responsibility Ethics � study of morality, standards that determine what is right or wrong, good and evil, helpful or harmful, acceptable or unacceptable. It is the nature given to the attempt to think through the moral implications of human actions. Ethics is concerned with any situation where there is actual or potential harm to any individual or group from a particular course of action. Ethical perspectives Utilitarianism Justice and fairness Theory of personal rights Utilitarianism Objective � greatest good for the greatest number Is there a net increase in the well being or welfare within a society? Have the means used to achieve this end been efficient? Justice and Fairness Impartiality and fairness are the criteria for ethical decision making. Justice is attained when the benefits and burdens of society are distributed fairly to stakeholders. Theory of Personal rights / � � � � � E G I � H \ � � � j 2 � � � � � * � k � �! �! 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What term, common in fantasy games, also refers to the three wise men in the Bible? | Home - Consumer Behavior Books: A Core Collection - UF Business Library at University of Florida
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A core collection of books on consumer behavior and consumer psychology
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"Most of what we know we don't know we know."
– Gerald Zaltman, How Customers Think
The Affluent Consumer: Marketing and Selling the Luxury Lifestyle by By Ronald D. Michman and Edward M. Mazze
Call Number: HF5415.33.U6 M53 2006 (Library West)
ISBN: 0275992829.Praeger,194p.$44.95
Publication Date: 2006
By any measure, the affluent sector is growing exponentially, and is far more diverse (in terms of ethnicity, education, location, and professional background) than at any time in the past. In 2004, there were 8.2 million households in the United States with net worth over $1 million, excluding primary residence. Meanwhile, between 1995 and 2001, the number of families filing tax returns for income exceeding $200,000 doubled. This market represents lucrative opportunities for companies that understand how these consumers think, act, and make purchasing decisions. Applying primary research, including demographic and economic data Ronald Michman and Edward Mazze present a comprehensive approach to analyzing affluent consumers--and creating, promoting, and selling innovative products and services to them. Illustrating their principles through dozens of examples the authors deconstruct how a complex market segment works. Dispelling popular myths and misconceptions about the composition and behavior of this segment, they provide not only a practical guide for marketers and students of marketing, but a fascinating glimpse into a culture driven by materialism, status, and aspirations to luxury.
Call Number: HC110.C6 C76 2000 (Library West)
ISBN: 0231113129.ColumbiaUniversityPress, 320p.$27.50
Publication Date: 2000
The unqualified victory of consumerism in America was not a foregone conclusion. The United States has traditionally been the home of the most aggressive and often thoughtful criticism of consumption, including Puritanism, Prohibition, the simplicity movement, the '60s hippies, and the consumer rights movement. But at the dawn of the twenty-first century, not only has American consumerism triumphed, there isn't even an "ism" left to challenge it. An All-Consuming Century is a rich history of how market goods came to dominate American life over that remarkable hundred years between 1900 and 2000 and why for the first time in history there are no practical limits to consumerism. The consumerism of today, thriving and largely unchecked, no longer brings families and communities together; instead, it increasingly divides and isolates Americans. Consumer culture has provided affluent societies with peaceful alternatives to tribalism and class war, Cross writes, and it has fueled extraordinary economic growth. The challenge for the future is to find ways to revive the still valid portion of the culture of constraint and control the overpowering success of the all-consuming twentieth century.
All You Can Pay: How Companies Use Our Data to Empty Our Wallets by Anna Bernasek; D. T. Mongan
Call Number: HF5415.33.U6B47 2015 (Library West, On Order)
ISBN: 9781568584744
Publication Date: Nation Books, 2015. $25.99
You don't care who can access your data because you have nothing to hide. But what if corporations were using that data to control your decisions? As millions of consumers carry on unaware, powerful corporations race to collect more and more data about our behaviors, needs, and desires. This massive trove of data represents one of the most valuable assets on the planet. In All You Can Pay, Anna Bernasek and D. T. Mongan show how companies use what they know about you to determine how much you are willing to pay for everything you buy. From college tuition to plane tickets to groceries to medicine, companies already set varying prices based on intimate knowledge of individual wants and purchasing power. As the consumer age fades into history, rapidly changing prices and complex offers tailored to each individual are spreading like a fog over the free market. Data giants know everything about us before we enter stores or open our browsers. We may think that the Internet lets us find the best deals, but the extensive information companies have about us means that the price we see tends toward the maximum they know we can pay. In a momentous shift, the economics of information will turn our economy on its head. Fair bargaining is over.
The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads by Tim Wu
Call Number: HF5811 .W82 2016 (Library West, On Order)
ISBN: 9780385352017
Publication Date: Alfred A. Knopf, 2016. $28.95
From Tim Wu, author of the award-winning The Master Switch ( a New Yorker and Fortune Book of the Year) and who coined the term "net neutrality"--a revelatory, ambitious and urgent account of how the capture and re-sale of human attention became the defining industry of our time. Feeling attention challenged? Even assaulted? American business depends on it. In nearly every moment of our waking lives, we face a barrage of messaging, advertising enticements, branding, sponsored social media, and other efforts to harvest our attention. Few moments or spaces of our day remain uncultivated by the "attention merchants," contributing to the distracted, unfocused tenor of our times. Tim Wu argues that this condition is not simply the byproduct of recent technological innovations but the result of more than a century's growth and expansion in the industries that feed on human attention. From the pre-Madison Avenue birth of advertising to the explosion of the mobile web; from AOL and the invention of email to the attention monopolies of Google and Facebook; from Ed Sullivan to celebrity power brands like Oprah Winfrey, Kim Kardashian and Donald Trump, the basic business model of "attention merchants" has never changed: free diversion in exchange for a moment of your consideration, sold in turn to the highest-bidding advertiser. Wu describes the revolts that have risen against the relentless siege of our awareness, from the remote control to the creation of public broadcasting to Apple's ad-blocking OS. But he makes clear that attention merchants are always growing new heads, even as their means of getting inside our heads are changing our very nature--cognitive, social, political and otherwise--in ways unimaginable even a generation ago. "A startling and sweeping examination of the increasingly ubiquitous commercial effort to capture and commodify our attention...We've become the consumers, the producers, and the content. We are selling ourselves to ourselves." --Tom Vanderbilt, The New Republic "An erudite, energizing, outraging, funny and thorough history...A devastating critique of ad tech as it stands today, transforming "don't be evil" into the surveillance business model in just a few short years. It connects the dots between the sale of advertising inventory in schools to the bizarre ecosystem of trackers, analyzers and machine-learning models that allow the things you look at on the web to look back at you...This stuff is my daily beat, and I learned a lot from Attention Merchants." --Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing "Illuminating." --Jacob Weisberg, The New York Review of Books
Call Number: HF5415.15 .G55 2007 (Library West)
ISBN: 9781591391456.HarvardBusinessSchoolPress, 299p.$26.95
Publication Date: 2007
In Authenticity, James H. Gilmore and B. Joseph Pine II argue that, to trounce rivals, companies must grasp, manage, and excel at rendering authenticity. Through examples from a wide array of industries as well as government, non-profit, education, and religious sectors, the authors show how to manage customers' perception of authenticity. The first to explore what authenticity really means for businesses and how companies can approach it both thoughtfully and thoroughly, this book is a must-read for any organization seeking to fulfill consumers' intensifying demand for the real deal.
Call Number: HF5415.32 .L45 2002 (Library West)
ISBN: 0471151351.Wiley, 245p.$27.95.
Publication Date: 2002
In the tradition of Why We Buy, this is a marketer's guidebook to what motivates grocery store consumers to choose or pass over certain products. Written by a widely-respected and passionate supermarket analyst, this book explores the buyer's choice. Lempert reveals the secrets to catching even the most fickle consumer's attention and how to establish lasting brand loyalty through powerful marketing strategies. This is a must-read for marketers, brand managers, and retailers everywhere-not just for grocery stores-that dissects each and every aspect of the shopping experience, showing how to appeal to today's discriminating consumer.
Call Number: HF5438.4 .F75 2004 (Library West)
ISBN: 0674012984.HarvardUniversityPress, 368p.$27.95.
Publication Date: 2004
Friedman narrates how salesmanship became integral to American capitalism. He argues that salesmanship, which in 2000 involved 16 million Americans in various sales positions, has contributed to the systematization and standardization of production, distribution, and consumption of goods. He focuses on those most responsible for "devis[ing] innovative and effective sales strategies," including academics such as Walter Dill Scott and corporate managers such as John Patterson at National Cash Register. Friedman shows how sellers evolved in the 19th and early 20th centuries from peddlers, hawkers, and drummers to modern salesmen with their emphasis on order, control, efficiency, professionalism, improved customer relations, industrial psychology, mass consumerism, and scientific salesmanship. He also considers gender issues, e.g., how men dominated sales, shunting women to less prestigious positions such as door-to-door sales agents. A worthy purchase for academic and public libraries with business collections.
Call Number: HC110.C6 B87 2010 (Library West)
ISBN: 9780230616844.PalgraveMacmillan, 207p.
Publication Date: 2010
The total number of affluent ethnic households in the United States in now estimated at over 1.3 million, the buying power of affluent African Americans (referred to as AAA’s in this book) is currently $87.3 billion. It would be foolish in the extreme not to tap into this rich buying segment, yet that is exactly what the marketing arms of companies do all too frequently. Sometimes this is because the executives in a particular marketing department are unaware of the potential that exists within this segment, sometimes it’s because they are baffled about how to reach out to this segment and sometimes it’s because they think they lack the money or resources to make a credible effort at adding a whole new segment. And sometimes, unfortunately, it’s because they have reached out in the past but their efforts were unappealing to the AAA audience. Black is the New Green will show you how to attract this lucrative market and create brand loyalty and product bonding among affluent African Americans in an affordable and measurable way.
Call Number: HN59 .G55 2004 (Library West)
ISBN: 0743229479.FreePress, 367p.$27.50.
Publication Date: 2004
The historian/host of the History Channel's History Center, Gillion chronicles post-WWII America through the lives of six boomers who represent different strands of baby boom culture which Gillon asserts has become synonymous with American culture. Four of his subjects have achieved national prominence: Bobby Muller, who founded Vietnam Veterans of America; lawyer and cancer survivor Fran Visco, who became president of the National Breast Cancer Coalition; Marshall Herskovitz, developer of the seminal television series Thirtysomething; and architect Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, who created the avant-garde Florida community of Seaside. Together with Donny Deutsch, a self-made advertising mogul, and AlbertaWilson, who overcame substance abuse and poverty to become a Christian educator, they provide the focus for a look at the Vietnam War, the women's movement and the attraction of some boomers to fundamentalist religion. What Gillon uniquely accomplishes is to illuminate how pervasive boomer influence continues to be in the 21st century.
Call Number: HF5415.3 .T7 2004 (Library West)
ISBN: 1403946418.PalgraveMacmillan, 258p.$95.00.
Publication Date: 2004
Customers use mental short cuts when making product and brand choices. Learning about the automatic thoughts that your brand evokes in the minds of customers provides valuable information. Brand Choice provides tools for revealing customers' automatic thoughts and how such thoughts can be used to accurately forecast brand choice. This book advocates finding out what attributes-benefits are evoked by your brand and your brand's competing brands, rather than asking 'What does your brand evoke?'." Strategic thinking by customers includes their focusing attention on how, when, where, and why they buy and use brands and products. This book advocates the long interview method and never using mail survey questionnaires to reveal customers' strategic thinking. The book gives nuance, details, and case examples on how to accurately reveal what customers really think and do.
Call Number: HF5415.1 .L48 1999 (Library West)
ISBN: 0761916962.SagePublications, 590p.$97.95.
Publication Date: 1999
Reprints 54 articles published between the middle 1950s to the middle 1990s by Levy (marketing, U. of Arizona), whose work has influenced executives since the late 1940s. They cover a life in the marketplace, marketing, products and brands, the symbolic nature of marketing, consumer analysis and observations, and qualitative methods of marketing study. Rook (clinical marketing, U. of Southern California) selected the articles and provides a substantial introduction. The collection is a useful reference for professionals, teachers, and students.
Call Number: HF5415.32 .L557 2011 (Library West)
ISBN: 9780385531733. Crown Business, 291p. $25.00
Publication Date: 2011
Marketing visionary Martin Lindstrom has been on the front lines of the branding wars for over twenty years. Here, he turns the spotli Fght on his own industry, drawing on all he has witnessed behind closed doors, exposing for the first time the full extent of the psychological tricks and traps that companies devise to win our hard-earned dollars. This searing expose introduces a new class of tricks, techniques, and seductions – the Hidden Persuaders of the 21st century- and shows why they are more insidious and pervasive than ever.
Call Number: HF5415.33.U6 W58 2006 (Library West)
ISBN: 9781419505201.KaplanPub., 179p.$25.00
Publication Date: 2006
Marketing experts Robert Witeck and Wesley Combs distill breaking research trends with their partner Harris Interactive and apply more than a decade’s client experience into the core insights of Business Inside Out. While other books have focused on specific dimensions of the gay market—political concerns, social issues, and identity—this is the first-ever resource to provide a complete, real-world approach to targeting this valuable segment. From building a strong business case and developing winning strategies, to designing the right media mix and measuring results, Business Inside Out gives business professionals the knowledge they need to capture the loyalty and wallets of customers in this powerful and still emerging niche market.
Call Number: HC110.C6 S46 2004 (Library West)
ISBN: 0231127340.ColumbiaUniversityPress, 311p.$35.00
Publication Date: 2004
Over the past decade, a variety of national corporations, including Subaru, Tanqueray, Abercrombie & Fitch, and American Express, have pitched their products at a new consumer niche: the gay market. In this hard-hitting book that refutes conventional wisdom, Katherine Sender argues that marketing has been integral in the constitution of a GLBT community and identity since the 1970s and has had significant impact on the visibility of gays and lesbians in the broader society." "Advocates and critics have looked at the boom in the gay market with both excitement and trepidation. For some, gay and lesbian themes in advertising represent mainstream validation of their existence, while others are concerned that marketers have misrepresented the gay community by depicting it as white, male, and wealthy. Critics also suggest that the phenomenon of gay consumerism runs counter to progressive gay activism. Sender expands on these concerns, arguing that what is at stake is not only acceptance and civil rights but also the very meaning of GLBT sexual identification. The book analyzes and gives an insider's account of how marketers conceive of gay and lesbian consumers and articulate the "gayness" of certain products.
Buyer Personas: How to Gain insight into Your Customer's Expectations, Align Your Marketing Strategies, and Win More Business by Adele Revella
Call Number: HF5415.32 .R48 2015 (Library West, On Order)
ISBN: 9781118961506
Publication Date: Wiley, 2015. $25.00
Named one of Fortune Magazine's "5 Best Business Books" in 2015 See your offering through the buyer's eyes for more effective marketing Buyer Personas is the marketer's actionable guide to learning what your buyer wants and how they make decisions. Written by the world's leading authority on buyer personas, this book provides comprehensive coverage of a compelling new way to conduct buyer studies, plus practical advice on adopting the buyer persona approach to measurably improve marketing outcomes. Readers will learn how to segment their customer base, investigate each customer type, and apply a radically more relevant process of message selection, content creation, and distribution through the channels that earn the buyers' trust. Rather than relying on generic data or guesswork to determine what the buyer wants, the buyer persona approach allows companies to ask the buyer directly and obtain more precise and actionable guidance. Buyer personas are composite pictures of the people who buy solutions, services or products, crafted through a unique type of interview with the people the marketer wants to influence. This book provides step-by-step guidance toward implementing the buyer persona approach, with the advice of an internationally-respected expert. Learn who buys what, and why Understand your buyer's goals and how you can address them Tailor your marketing activities to your buyer's expectations See the purchase through the customer's eyes A recent services industry survey reports that 52 percent of their marketers have buyer personas, and another 28 percent expect to add them within the next two years - but only 14.6 percent know how to use them. To avoid letting such a valuable tool go to waste, access the expert perspective in Buyer Personas, and craft a more relevant marketing strategy.
Call Number: HC110.C6 G56 2009 (Library West)
ISBN: 9780226298658.UniversityofChicagoPress, 403p.$45.00
Publication Date: 2009
Far from ephemeral consumer trends, buying green and avoiding sweatshop-made clothing represent the most recent points on a centuries-long continuum of American consumer activism. A sweeping and definitive history of this political tradition, Buying Power traces its lineage back to our nation’s founding, revealing that Americans used purchasing power to support causes and punish enemies long before the word boycott even entered our lexicon. A powerful corrective to the notion that a consumer society degrades and diminishes its citizenry, Buying Power provides a new lens through which to view the history of the United States.
Call Number: HF5415.12615.L56 2010 (Library West)
ISBN: 9780385523899.BroadwayBooks, 272p.$15.00
Publication Date: 2010
How much do we know about why we buy? What truly influences our decisions in today's message-cluttered world? An eye-grabbing advertisement, a catchy slogan, an infectious jingle? Or do our buying decisions take place below the surface, so deep within our subconscious minds, we're barely aware of them? In BUYOLOGY, Lindstrom, who was voted one of Time Magazine's most influential people of 2009, presents the astonishing findings from his groundbreaking, three-year, seven-million-dollar neuromarketing study, a cutting-edge experiment that peered inside the brains of 2,000 volunteers from all around the world as they encountered various ads, logos, commercials, brands, and products. His startling results shatter much of what we have long believed about what seduces our interest and drives us to buy.
Consumer Behavior Books: C
Call Number: HF5430.3 .U53 2004 (Library West)
ISBN: 0743235916.Simon&Schuster, 227p.$24.95.
Publication Date: 2004
Paco Underhill, the Margaret Mead of shopping and author of the huge international bestseller Why We Buy, now takes us to the mall, a place every American has experienced and has an opinion about. The result is a bright, ironic, funny, and shrewd portrait of the mall — America's gift to personal consumption, its most powerful icon of global commercial muscle, the once new and now aging national town square, the place where we convene in our leisure time. It's about the shopping mall as an exemplar of our commercial and social culture, the place where our young people have their first taste of social freedom and where the rest of us compare notes. Call of the Mall examines how we use the mall, what it means, why it works when it does, and why it sometimes doesn't.
Call Number: HF5822 .C43 1999 (Library West)
ISBN: 0876503830.PierianPress, 669p.$145.00
Publication Date: 1999
Children have been studied and considered as a potential consumer market since the mid-1950s. In the 1960s and 1970s, the research on children focused heavily on television and its effects. In the last two decades, as the economic significance of children as consumers has grown, manufacturers and retailers alike have reexamined their attention to children. During this same time period, the research on children in the consumer role has dramatically expanded in volume and variety. Research studies covered in this volume were selected from a wide range of sources, including professional journals, books, and trade papers. They provide a description of both the factors affecting the consumer behavior of youth and their actual consumption behavior and preferences. Approximately 220 different journals and proceedings are represented in the 836 summaries included in the bibliography.
Call Number: HF5415.32 .C47 2002 (Library West)
ISBN: 8763001004.CopenhagenBusinessSchoolPress, 301p.$31.00
Publication Date: 2002
Children - Consumption, Advertising and Media is a comprehensive collection of the newest international research on children and advertising.The book aims to present recent studies by researchers working in the field of consumption, advertising and media in relation to children. The purpose is to shed light on the relationship between consumer behavior, advertising and communication in general with a special focus on children and adolescents.
The book is suitable for undergraduate as well as graduate studies. It is also relevant to any person who has an interest in the development of children as consumers, their consumption and not least their relationship to advertising and media.
Call Number: HG3756.U54 G45 2009 (Library West)
ISBN: 9781576603253.BloombergPress, 276p.$27.95
Publication Date: 2009
Sometime in the 1970s and 1980s, the use of credit cards, which had begun as a convenience, began to grow into an addiction. Collateral Damaged: The Marketing of Consumer Debt to America explains how a nation of savers became a nation of consumers and how Wall Street used consumers' addiction to spending to create the "toxic securities" that threaten to bring about the collapse of the global economy. Geisst looks at the policy implications of the credit crisis and describes how the United States can get its fiscal house in order.
Call Number: HD60 .E38 2012 e-Book (MyiLibrary) and Library West
ISBN: 9780520266520.UniversityofCaliforniaPress,222p.
Publication Date: 2012
Pink ribbons, red dresses, and greenwashing--American corporations are scrambling to tug at consumer heartstrings through cause-related marketing, corporate social responsibility, and ethical branding, tactics that can increase sales by as much as 74%. Harmless? Marketing insider Mara Einstein demonstrates in this penetrating analysis why the answer is a resounding "No!" In Compassion, Inc. she outlines how cause-related marketing desensitizes the public by putting a pleasant face on complex problems. She takes us through the unseen ways in which large sums of consumer dollars go into corporate coffers rather than helping the less fortunate. She also discusses companies that truly do make the world a better place, and those that just pretend to.
The Confidence Game: Why We Fall for It...Every Time by Maria Konnikova
Call Number: HV6691 .K66 2016 (Library West, Pre-Order)
ISBN: 9780525427414
Publication Date: Viking, 2012. $28.00
A compelling investigation into the minds, motives, and methods of con artists--and the people who fall for their cons over and over again. While cheats and swindlers may be a dime a dozen, true conmen--the Bernie Madoffs, the Jim Bakkers, the Lance Armstrongs--are elegant, outsized personalities, artists of persuasion and exploiters of trust. How do they do it? Why are they successful? And what keeps us falling for it, over and over again? These are the questions that journalist and psychologist Maria Konnikova tackles in her mesmerizing new book. From multimillion-dollar Ponzi schemes to small-time frauds, Konnikova pulls together a selection of fascinating stories to demonstrate what all cons share in common, drawing on scientific, dramatic, and psychological perspectives. Insightful and gripping, the book brings readers into the world of the con, examining the relationship between artist and victim. The Confidence Game asks not only why we believe con artists, but also examines the very act of believing and how our sense of truth can be manipulated by those around us.
Consumed Nostalgia: Memory in the Age of Fast Capitalism by Gary S. Cross
Call Number: HC110.C6 C763 2015 (Library West, On Order)
ISBN: 9780231167581
Publication Date: Columbia, 2015. $35.00
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be. For many of us, modern memory is shaped less by a longing for the social customs and practices of the past or for family heirlooms handed down over generations and more by childhood encounters with ephemeral commercial goods and fleeting media moments in our age of fast capitalism. This phenomenon has given rise to communities of nostalgia whose members remain loyal to the toys, television, and music of their youth. They return to the theme parks and pastimes of their upbringing, hoping to reclaim that feeling of childhood wonder or teenage freedom. Consumed nostalgia took definite shape in the 1970s, spurred by an increase in the turnover of consumer goods, the commercialization of childhood, and the skillful marketing of nostalgia. Gary Cross immerses readers in this fascinating and often delightful history, unpacking the cultural dynamics that turn pop tunes into oldies and childhood toys into valuable commodities. He compares the limited appeal of heritage sites such as Colonial Williamsburg to the perpetually attractive power of a Disney theme park and reveals how consumed nostalgia shapes how we cope with accelerating change. Today nostalgia can be owned, collected, and easily accessed, making it less elusive and often more fun than in the past, but its commercialization has sometimes limited memory and complicated the positive goals of recollection. By unmasking the fascinating, idiosyncratic character of modern nostalgia, Cross helps us better understand the rituals of recall in an age of fast capitalism.
Call Number: HF5415.33.E85 A58 1998 (Library West)
ISBN: 0471975133.JohnWiley, 619p.$49.95
Publication Date: 1998
Consumer Behaviour is the first truly European consumer behaviour textbook, placing the subject clearly within its economic, psychological, sociological and historical context. The authors provide greater insight for readers by examining both the determinants and the consequences of consumer decision making. Antonides and Van Raaij include numerous examples, cases and sociodemographic data and provide complete coverage of core topics together with important new ones.The authors explore the full consumption cycle, not only the first stages of orientation and procurement, but also the usage and disposal of products. Consumer Behaviour is ideal for both undergraduate and postgraduate students. It will also benefit non-European students who need to gain a wider understanding of consumer behaviour. Marketers, market researchers, public relations officers and government officials dealing with consumer policy will also find it extremely useful.
Call Number: HF5415.32 .M66 2004 (Library West)
ISBN: 0761926682.SagePublications, 345p.$39.95
Publication Date: 2004
Consumer behavior is not converging across countries, argues this textbook, placing the question of cultural difference at the center of examinations of purchasing behavior. It bases its discussion of culture and consumer behavior on a model of national culture that distinguishes five dimensions for understanding culture: power distance, individualism/collectivism, masculinity/femininity, uncertainty avoidance, and long-term orientation.
Call Number: HF5415.32 .S6 2011 (Library West and Marston Science Library)
ISBN: 0131404067.Ninthedition,PrenticeHallPress,654p.$198.67
Publication Date: 2011
Solomon goes beyond the discussion of why people buy things and explores how products, services, and consumption activities contribute to shape people’s social experiences. Social networking, sensory marketing, illusion of truth effect, interactive mobile marketing, cross-cultural value differences, impression management, doppelganger brand image, red campaign, CSR, low literate consumer, crowdsourcing, and multigenerational marketing. For marketing professionals to understand the latest trends in consumer behavior.
Call Number: HF5415.33.A78 S38 1998 (Library West)
ISBN: 0814781144.NewYorkUniversityPress, 275p.$35.00
Publication Date: 1998
Asia currently accounts for a quarter of the world economy and half of the world's population. Few international companies can afford to ignore a market of such size and importance. Yet despite the centrality of Asia as a market, there exists a remarkable dearth of marketing theory specific to Asia. Cultural differences strongly influence consumer behavior. In the West, an effective brand name will be short, distinctive, memorable, and indicative of the product's functions. In Asia, however, a strong belief in luck and fate means that additional qualities, such as whether the characters which make up a product name are "lucky" ones, has a significant effect on brand attitude. Successful sales and marketing strategies in Asia must be rooted in an understanding of the cultural differences which affect Asian consumers' buying patterns. Consumer Behavior in Asia provides an invaluable guide to Western companies seeking to maximize their marketing success in Asia. Drawing on illustrations from a variety of Asian markets, the volume outlines the differences between Asian and Western cultures along cultural dimensions such as religion, tradition, and philosophy, explaining the effect such differences have on communication styles, brand loyalty, perceptions of products offered, and effective advertising methods.
Call Number: HF5415.32 .F75 1999 (Library West)
ISBN: 0415924561.Routledge, 284p.$19.95
Publication Date: 1999
Despite the increasing occurrence of consumer boycotts, little has been written about this form of social and economic protest. This timely volume fills the knowledge gap by examining boycotts both historically and currently. Drawing on both published and unpublished material as well as personal interviews with boycott groups and their targets, Monroe Friedman discusses different types of boycotts-from their historical focus on labor and economic concerns to the more recent inclusion of issues such as minority rights, animal welfare, and environmental protection. He also documents the shift in strategic emphasis from the marketplace (cutting consumer sales) to the media (securing news coverage to air criticism of a targeted firm). In turn, these changes in boycott substance and style offer insights into larger upheavals in the social and economic fabric of 20th century America.
Call Number: HC79.C6 G665 2003 (Library West)
ISBN: 1576079759.ABC-CLIO,251p.$45.00
Publication Date: 2003
Problems and crises. Analyses and answers. Contemporary World Issues explores--topic by topic--the critical challenges facing America and the world in the 21st century. 24-hour cable news. Millions of Internet sites. Information overload. How can we sort through the information? Assess the analyses? Trust the sources? Contemporary World Issues provides a simple solution -- informed and readable authors offering concise yet thorough discussions of today's most talked-about topics as they affect America and the world. Exploring such diverse subjects as tobacco and terrorism, rainforests and religion, affirmative action and urban sprawl, Contemporary World Issues provides the historical background, the contemporary context, and the resources for further research. Exhaustive, concise, accessible, accurate, and up-to-date.
Call Number: HF5415.3 .S8 2001 (Library West)
ISBN: 0877572976.2ndedition,AmericanMarketingEdition,233p.$39.95
Publication Date: 2002
Consumer Panels is the definitive work on the topic. By integrating cutting-edge academic research with global best practices, Consumer Panels provides data-driven tips on reducing reactivity and burnout, improving recruitment and retention, and cutting costs while increasing data quality. In addition, the book provides research-based guidance on reducing biases in electronic panels and on anticipating future developments in panel research. For expert market researchers, it provides new tips, ideas, and state-of-the-art innovations for leveraging both online and offline panels. For brand managers, it provides clear guidance on how to better understand consumers with less cost, time, and effort. For academics, it provides advice on how to develop and use convenience panels to answer difficult questions about purchase trends and consumption patterns.
Call Number: HC110.C6 C574 1999 (Library West)
ISBN: 0801484863.CornellUniversityPress,420p.$24.95
Publication Date: 1999
Consumption has often been called America's true national pastime. From the earliest European explorers trading with Native Americans to today's Internet shoppers, consumerism has driven American society. Until recent years, however, consumerism has received little serious attention from historians and other scholars. This welcome volume offers the most comprehensive and incisive exploration of American consumer history to date. The first book on this topic to span the four centuries from the colonial era to the present, and the first to propose theoretical frameworks, the volume brings consumer society to the center of American history. Indeed, its authors demonstrate the many ways their research enhances knowledge of a broad range of historical topics, such as politics, labor ideology, immigrant life, and race, gender, and class relations. By including types of consumer studies which are seldom linked, this volume offers both a basis for historical synthesis and a springboard for further inquiry.
Call Number: HF5415.32 .C65926 2007 (Library West)
ISBN: 9780750680240ButterworthHeinemann,339p.$39.95
Publication Date: 2007
Consumer Tribes are all the rage. Across the landscape of global business and throughout the Internet, the impassioned power of Consumer Tribes is being recognized and channeled into new forms of promotion and new businesses. Whether you are a consumer researcher, a sociologist, a marketer, a cultural trend spotter, or just an interested observer, you will benefit from understanding the intricacies of today's communal consumer culture. A powerful resource, Consumer Tribes presents cutting edge research that informs while it inspires. You hold in your hands the first book to carefully examine this global phenomenon.
Call Number: HF5415.32.S18 2011 (Library West)
ISBN: 9781616144296.Prometheus,$25.00
Publication Date: 2011
In this highly informative and entertaining book, Dr. Gad Saad, the founder of the vibrant new field of evolutionary consumption, illuminates the relevance of our biological heritage to our daily lives as consumers. While culture is important, Dr. Saad shows that innate evolutionary forces deeply influence the foods we eat, the gifts we offer, the cosmetics and clothing styles we choose to make ourselves more attractive to potential mates, and even the cultural products that stimulate our imaginations (such as art, music, and religion). The Consuming Instinct demonstrates that most acts of consumption can be mapped onto four key Darwinian drives—namely, survival (we prefer foods high in calories); reproduction (we use products as sexual signals); kin selection (we naturally exchange gifts with family members); and reciprocal altruism (we enjoy offering gifts to close friends). For anyone interested in the biological basis of human behavior or simply in what makes consumers tick—marketing professionals, advertisers, psychology mavens, and consumers themselves—The Consuming Instinct is a fascinating read.
Cool: How the Brain's Hidden Quest for Cool Drives Our Economy and Shapes Our World by Steven Quartz; Anette Asp
Call Number: HF5415.32 .Q37 2015 (Library West, On Order)
ISBN: 9780374129187
Publication Date: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2015. $26.00
If you have ever wondered why SUVs replaced minivans, how one rap song turned the cognac industry upside down, or what gives Levi's jeans their iconic allure, look no further-in Cool, Steven Quartz and Anette Asp finally explain the fascinating science behind unexpected trends and enduring successes. We live in a world of conspicuous consumption, where the clothes we wear, the cars we drive, and the food we eat lead double lives: they don't merely satisfy our needs; they also communicate our values, identities, and aspirations. In Beverly Hills, tourists flock to the famous Rodeo Drive-not to shop, but simply to take photographs of themselves in front of luxury stores. And for one week in August, hundreds of thousands of HarleyDavidson fans from all over the world descend on the remote town of Sturgis, South Dakota, and engulf the otherwise sleepy hamlet in the deafening roar of motorcycle engines. Why do brands inspire such devotion? Quartz and Asp bring together groundbreaking findings in neuroscience, economics, and evolutionary biology to present a new understanding of why we consume and how our concepts of what is "cool"-be it designer jeans, smartphones, or craft beer-help drive the global economy. The authors highlight the underlying neurological and cultural processes that contribute to our often unconscious decision making, explaining how we're able to navigate the supermarket on autopilot for certain items and yet arrive at the checkout counter with a basket full of products picked up on the spur of the moment. And they explore the opposite side of the consumer equation-the "choice architects" who design store interiors and the "coolhunters" who scour Berlin and Tokyo on the lookout for the latest trends. Through a novel combination of cultural and economic history and in-depth studies of the brain, Cool puts forth a provocative theory of consumerism that reveals the crucial missing links in an understanding of our spending habits: our brain's status-seeking "social calculator" and an instinct to rebel that fuels our dislike of being subordinated by others. Quartz and Asp show how these ancient motivations make us natural-born consumers and how they sparked the emergence of "cool consumption"in the middle of the twentieth century, creating new lifestyle choices and routes to happiness. Examining how cool was reshaped in the 1990s by a changing society and the Internet, they unpack the social motivations behind today's hip, ethical consumption, arguing that we should embrace, rather than deny, the power of consumerism. Taking us from Norman Mailer to normcore, Cool is surprising at every turn, and will forever change the way you think about money, status, desire, happiness, and choice.
Call Number: HF5415.32 .C73 2012 e-book (MyiLibrary)
ISBN: 9780765629647.M.E.Sharpe,331p.,$44.95
Publication Date: 2012
Filled with solid, actionable information and advice, this unique handbook focuses on how knowledge of the principles of consumer psychology can be used to improve managerial decision making and organizational performance. The contributing authors offer a set of managerial rules for action that have been distilled from reviews of a wide range of expert research. The book contains systematic, prescriptive managerial advice based on state-of-the-art knowledge regarding how consumers think and choose. The chapters cover fundamental topics, such as new product management, marketing mix strategy, marketing communications and advertising, social media, and experiential marketing.
Call Number: HC79.C6 M384 2005 (Library West)
ISBN: 0253345669.IndianaUniversityPress, 226p.$19.95
Publication Date: 2005
A follow-up to Grant McCracken's groundbreaking Culture and Consumption, this new book trades the usual platitudes about the consumer society for a more detailed, exacting anthropological treatment. Each section of the book pairs a brief essay with an academic article. The essay is designed for a quick, provocative glimpse of the topic; the article provides a deeper anthropological treatment. The book opens with a broadside against the now thoroughly conventionalized attack on the consumer culture. Essays follow on homes, cars, people, and social mobility; celebrities, consumerism, and self-invention; museums and the power of objects; the anthropology of advertising; and marketing, meaning management, and value. Like McCracken's previous volume, this new book is an engaging, informative, and eye-opening foray into modern consumer culture.
Call Number: HC79.C6 M385 1988 (Library West)
ISBN: 0253315263.IndianaUniversityPress, 174p.$17.95
Publication Date: 1988
This provocative book takes a refreshing new view of the culture of consumption. Mc
Cracken examines the interplay of culture and consumer behavior from the anthropologist's point of view and provides new insights into the way we view ourselves and our society.
Consumer Behavior Books: D - F
Call Number: HF5415.32 .T945 2011 (Library West)
ISBN: 9780300165012.YaleUniversityPress, 234 p., $28.00
Publication Date: 2012
The Internet is often hyped as a means to enhanced consumer power: a hypercustomized media world where individuals exercise unprecedented control over what they see and do. That is the scenario media guru Nicholas Negroponte predicted in the 1990s, with his hypothetical online newspaper The Daily Me—and it is one we experience now in daily ways. But, as media expert Joseph Turow shows, the customized media environment we inhabit today reflects diminished consumer power. Not only ads and discounts but even news and entertainment are being customized by newly powerful media agencies on the basis of data we don’t know they are collecting and individualized profiles we don’t know we have. Little is known about this new industry: how is this data being collected and analyzed? And how are our profiles created and used? Drawing on groundbreaking research, including interviews with industry insiders, this important book shows how advertisers have come to wield such power over individuals and media outlets—and what can be done to stop it.
Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World by Bruce Schneier
Call Number: HM846 .S362 2015 (Library West, On Order)
ISBN: 9780393244816
Publication Date: W.W. Norton, 2015. $27.95
Your cell phone provider tracks your location and knows who's with you. Your online and in-store purchasing patterns are recorded, and reveal if you're unemployed, sick, or pregnant. Your e-mails and texts expose your intimate and casual friends. Google knows what you're thinking because it saves your private searches. Facebook can determine your sexual orientation without you ever mentioning it. The powers that surveil us do more than simply store this information. Corporations use surveillance to manipulate not only the news articles and advertisements we each see, but also the prices we're offered. Governments use surveillance to discriminate, censor, chill free speech, and put people in danger worldwide. And both sides share this information with each other or, even worse, lose it to cybercriminals in huge data breaches. Much of this is voluntary: we cooperate with corporate surveillance because it promises us convenience, and we submit to government surveillance because it promises us protection. The result is a mass surveillance society of our own making. But have we given up more than we've gained? In Data and Goliath, security expert Bruce Schneier offers another path, one that values both security and privacy. He shows us exactly what we can do to reform our government surveillance programs and shake up surveillance-based business models, while also providing tips for you to protect your privacy every day. You'll never look at your phone, your computer, your credit cards, or even your car in the same way again.
Call Number: HD9999.L852 T46 2007 (Library West)
ISBN: 9781594201295.PenguinPress, 375p.$27.95
Publication Date: 2007
Once luxury was available only to the rarefied and aristocratic world of old money and royalty. It offered a history of tradition, superior quality, and a pampered buying experience. Today, however, luxury is simply a product packaged and sold by multibillion-dollar global corporations focused on growth, visibility, brand awareness, advertising, and, above all, profits. Award-winning journalist Dana Thomas digs deep into the dark side of the luxury industry to uncover all the secrets that Prada, Gucci, and Burberry don't want us to know. Deluxe is an uncompromising look behind the glossy façade that will enthrall anyone interested in fashion, finance, or culture.
Call Number: HB801 .S56 2011 (Library West)
ISBN: 9780307887320.CrownBusiness,357p.,$15.88
Publication Date: 2011
In Demand, Adrian Slywotzky provides a radically new way to think about demand, with a big idea and a host of practical applications—not just for people in business but also for social activists, government leaders, non-profit managers, and other would-be innovators. To succeed in their various missions, all these groups need to master such ground-breaking concepts as the hassle map (and the secrets of fixing it); the curse of the incomplete product (and how to avoid it); why “very good” does not equal “magnetic”; how what you don’t see can make or break a product; the art of transforming fence sitters into customers; why there’s no such thing as an average customer; and why real demand comes from a 45-degree angle of improvement (rather than the five degrees most organizations manage).
Call Number: HC110.C6 W44 1998 e-book (netLibrary) and Library West
ISBN: 0814792901.NewYorkUniversityPress, 195p. $18.95
Publication Date: 1998
Capitalism and slavery stand as the two economic phenomena that have most clearly defined the United States. Yet, despite African Americans' nearly $500 billion annual spending power, surprisingly little attention has been devoted to the ways U.S. businesses have courted black dollars in post-slavery America. Robert E. Weems, Jr., presents the first fully integrated history of black consumerism over the course of the last century. Desegregating the Dollar takes us through the "blaxploitation" film industry, the vast market for black personal care products, and the insidious exploitation of black urban misery by liquor and cigaretteadvertisers. Robert E. Weems, Jr., has given us the definitive account of the complicated relationship between African Americans, capitalism, and consumerism.
Call Number: HC79.C6 J64 2004 e-book (Books 24x7 and Library West)
ISBN: 081440815X.AMACOM,224p.$23.00
Publication Date: 2004
An Oregon marketer and a Vermont writer on the women's market dispel stereotypes about women's buying habits, in examining how to develop reality-based strategies for reaching this key market. Rather than resorting to pink packaging that women in focus groups nixed, marketers are advised on how to tailor "brand experiences" to meet the needs of women in specific demographic niches. Several recommended readings and Web resources are listed.
The Elgar Companion to Consumer Research and Economic Psychology by Edited by Peter E. Earl and Simon Kemp
Call Number: HF5415.32 .E48 1999 (Library West)
ISBN: 1858985544.EdwardElgar, 649p.$200.00
Publication Date: 1998
This major new reference book provides an authoritative analysis and survey of consumer research and economic psychology. It provides an international, in-depth overview of the present state of knowledge and theory which will be indispensable to students, researchers and practitioners. The companion presents over 100 specially commissioned entries on important topics in consumer research and economic psychology from behaviourism and brand loyalty to trust and the psychology of tourism. Leading scholars in the fields provide stimulating insights into the area as well as summarizing existing knowledge. The book will ably meet the needs of undergraduate and graduate students in business administration, economics, marketing and psychology, as well as informing researchers and practitioners in those disciplines.
Call Number: HF5415.32 .C45 2005 (Library West)
ISBN: 075067976X.ElsevierButterworthHeinemann,165p.$49.95
Publication Date: 2005
Arjun Chaudhuri offers a thorough review of the important role of emotions in his book entitled Emotion and Reason in Consumer Behavior. The text describes the complex interface between emotion, reason, and subsequent consumer behavior, including the relationship of emotion and reason with other important concepts like involvement, learning, perceived risk, and trust. The Chaudhuri text also offers a complete review of the theoretical underpinnings of emotion, as well as insights regarding measurement. As such, the text provides considerable guidance for academics teaching consumer behavior and/or interested in research areas in which emotional effects are prevalent.
Call Number: HF5415.32 .L83 2001 (Library West)
ISBN: 0226534332.UniversityofChicagoPress,209p.$18.00
Publication Date: 2001
Decision-making can be difficult and often results in necessary trade-offs, e.g., safety versus price in the purchasing of an automobile. This work provides a model of trade-off difficulty, focusing on its antecedents and consequences. The authors advance a new framework for the integration of the emotional and cognitive aspects of decision-making and argue that consumers perceive and appraise their choices in light of their goals and potential coping strategies.
Call Number: HF5415.32.H37 2007 (Library West)
ISBN: 8763001985.CopenhagenBusinessSchoolPress,2007.462p.$80.00
"Emotions, Advertising and Consumer Choice" focuses on recent neurological and psychological insights - originating from brain scanning or neurological experiments - on basic emotional processes in the brain and their role in controlling human behaviour. These insights are translated by the authors to cover the behaviour of ordinary individuals in everyday life.The book looks at these developments in the light of traditional cognitive theories of consumer choice and it discusses the implications for advertising and other communication testing. The book offers a first time thorough review of contemporary thinking in the field of consumer behaviour and an exhaustive amount of empirical evidence to support the authors' notion of an emerging paradigm of emotionally based consumer choice where mental brand equity becomes a central phenomenon. The empirical evidence is to a large extent developed on a questionnaire-based measurement method, pioneered by the authors and by researchers at the Center for Marketing Communication at the Copenhagen Business School.
The Empire of Things: How We Became a World of Consumers, From the Fifteenth Century to the Twenty-First by HarperCollins, 2016. $40.00
Call Number: HC79.C6T74 2016 (Library West, On Order)
ISBN: 9780062456328
Publication Date: 2016-03-29
What we consume has become a central—perhaps the central—feature of modern life. Our economies live or die by spending, we increasingly define ourselves by our possessions, and this ever-richer lifestyle has had an extraordinary impact on our planet. How have we come to live with so much stuff, and how has this changed the course of history? In Empire of Things, Frank Trentmann unfolds the extraordinary story of our modern material world, from Renaissance Italy and late Ming China to today’s global economy. While consumption is often portrayed as a recent American export, this monumental and richly detailed account shows that it is in fact a truly international phenomenon with a much longer and more diverse history. Trentmann traces the influence of trade and empire on tastes, as formerly exotic goods like coffee, tobacco, Indian cotton and Chinese porcelain conquered the world, and explores the growing demand for home furnishings, fashionable clothes and convenience that transformed private and public life. The nineteenth and twentieth centuries brought department stores, credit cards and advertising, but also the rise of the ethical shopper, new generational identities and, eventually, the resurgence of the Asian consumer. With an eye to the present and future, Frank Trentmann provides a long view on the global challenges of our relentless pursuit of more—from waste and debt to stress and inequality. A masterpiece of research and storytelling many years in the making, Empire of Things recounts the epic history of the goods that have seduced, enriched and unsettled our lives over the past six hundred years.
Call Number: HF5415.2 .M3164 2006 (Library West)
ISBN: 0761969462.SagePublications, 252p.$34.95
Publication Date: 2006
Ethnography, with its focus on observed everyday behavior, is quickly becoming the method of choice to identify unmet needs, stimulate novel insights, create strategies and develop new ideas. Hy Mariampolski, author of Qualitative Market Research: A Comprehensive Guide (Sage, 2001) again takes readers on a voyage of discovery in Ethnography for Marketers. These two companion works are essential guides for marketers seeking rich insights into their customers' thoughts and behaviors.
Call Number: HF5415.33.E85 E95 1997 (Library West)
ISBN: 0135523826.PrenticeHall, 432p.$35.00
Publication Date: 1998
This unique collection of the most well-known and influential consumer behaviour papers from the last 20 years represents the richness, originality and variety of studies of consumer behaviour on the European continent.
Call Number: HF5415.32 .S2 2007 (Library West)
ISBN: 0805851496.LawrenceErlbaumAssociates, 339p.$39.95
Publication Date: 2007
In the Evolutionary Bases of Consumption by Gad Saad applies Darwinian principles in understanding our consumption patterns and the products of popular culture that most appeal to individuals. The first and only scholarly work to do so, this is a captivating study of the adaptive reasons behind our behaviors, cognitions, emotions, and perceptions. This lens of analysis suggests how we come to make selections such as choosing a mate, the foods we eat, the gifts that we offer, and more. The Evolutionary Bases of Consumption will appeal to evolutionists who desire to explore new areas wherein evolutionary theory can be applied; consumer and marketing scholars who wish to learn about the ways in which biological-and evolutionary-based theorizing can be infused into the consumer behavior/marketing/advertising disciplines; as well as other interdisciplinary scholars interested in gaining knowledge about the power of evolutionary theory in explaining a wide range of behavioral phenomena.
Call Number: HM826b.B47 2006 (Library West)
ISBN: 0520246268.UniversityofCaliforniaPress,222p.$19.95
Publication Date: 2006
While fads such as hula hoops or streaking are usually dismissed as silly enthusiasms, trends in institutions such as education, business, medicine, science, and criminal justice are often taken seriously, even though their popularity and usefulness is sometimes short-lived. Institutional fads such as open classrooms, quality circles, and multiple personality disorder are constantly making the rounds, promising astonishing new developments--novel ways of teaching reading or arithmetic, better methods of managing businesses, or improved treatments for disease. Some of these trends prove to be lasting innovations, but others--after absorbing extraordinary amounts of time and money--are abandoned and forgotten, soon to be replaced by other new schemes. In this pithy, intriguing, and often humorous book, Joel Best--author of the acclaimed Damned Lies and Statistics--explores the range of institutional fads, analyzes the features of our culture that foster them, and identifies the major stages of the fad cycle--emerging, surging, and purging. Deconstructing the ways that this system plays into our notions of reinvention, progress, and perfectibility, Flavors of the Month examines the causes and consequences of fads and suggests ways of fad-proofing our institutions.
Call Number: HF5415.34 .S26 2010 (Library West)
ISBN: 9780812242515.UniversityofPennsylvaniaPress, 218p.$29.95
Publication Date: 2010
What do consumers really want? In the mid-twentieth century, many marketing executives sought to answer this question by looking to the theories of Sigmund Freud and his followers. By the 1950s, Freudian psychology had become the adman's most powerful new tool, promising to plumb the depths of shoppers' subconscious minds to access the irrational desires beneath their buying decisions. That the unconscious was the key to consumer behavior was a new idea in the field of advertising, and its impact was felt beyond the commercial realm. Centered on the fascinating lives of the brilliant men and women who brought psychoanalytic theories and practices from Europe to Madison Avenue and, ultimately, to Main Street, Freud on Madison Avenue tells the story of how midcentury advertisers changed American culture. Paul Lazarsfeld, Herta Herzog, James Vicary, Alfred Politz, Pierre Martineau, and the father of motivation research, Viennese-trained psychologist Ernest Dichter, adapted techniques from sociology, anthropology, and psychology to help their clients market consumer goods. Many of these researchers had fled the Nazis in the 1930s, and their decidedly Continental and intellectual perspectives on secret desires and inner urges sent shockwaves through WASP-dominated postwar American culture and commerce.
Consumer Behavior Books: G - H
Getting and Spending: European and American Consumer Societies in the Twentieth Century by Edited by Susan Strasser, Charles McGovern and Matthias Judt
Call Number: HC110.C6 G48 1998 (Library West)
ISBN: 0521622379.CambridgeUniversityPress, 477p.$26.66
Publication Date: 1998
The history of consumption is a prism through which many aspects of social and political life may be viewed. The essays in this collection represent a variety of approaches and raise such themes as consumption and democracy, the development of a global economy, the role of the state, the centrality of consumption to Cold War politics, the importance of the Second World War as a historical divide, the language of consumption, the contexts of locality, race, ethnicity, gender, and class, and the environmental consequences of twentieth-century consumer society. They explore the role of the historian as social, political, and moral critic. Unlike other studies of twentieth-century consumption, this book provides international comparisons.
Call Number: HF5415.127 .M66 2005 (Library West)
ISBN: 1412914752.2ndedition,Sage, 269p.$44.95
Publication Date: 2005
For international businesses seeking to communicate their message in various cultural contexts, this text offers information on cultural differences and similarities, as well as a structure for applying this knowledge to the management of branding and marketing. Mooij, a consultant based in the Netherlands, has studied the issues closely and discusses both theoretical and practical approaches, including the value paradox and marketing theory, global branding, cultural manifestations such as language and symbols, cross cultural value research, values and advertising, and values and strategy. This second edition contains new topics on the Internet, the media, and brand positioning, while redundant chapters have been omitted. As well, consumer behavior is discussed in more detail. Appended are Hofstede scores citing economic statistics for some 60 countries, and discussion and identification of various kinds of data sources.
Call Number: HT151 .S262 2001 (Library West)
ISBN: 0300084218.YaleUniversityPress,386p.$39.95
Publication Date: 2001
Ann Satterthwaite traces the history of shopping and considers its meaning and significance. According to Satterthwaite, shopping has become part of the American dream. To choose and to buy constitute not only a basic economic liberty but also the capacity to improve and transform ourselves. How we shop also reflects our culture, as disposable incomes have grown, women's roles have changed, and new styles of shopping and advertising have made their impact on an old adventure. But there is a downside. Shopping used to be a friendly business: shoppers and clerks knew each other, and the country crossroads stores and downtown markets were social as much as economic hubs. Shopping meshed with all aspects of civic life -- post offices, town halls, courts, and churches. In place of this almost vanished scene have come superstores and the franchises of international companies staffed by pressured clerks in featureless commercial wastelands. Shopping and community have been savagely divorced. However, shopping as a social plus need not be lost, says Satterthwaite. Examining trends in the United States and abroad, where new approaches to an old activity are strengthening its social and civic role, she states that shopping is more than ever a public concern with profound public impacts.
Call Number: HF5415.32 .M375 2008 (Library West)
ISBN: 0131357956.FTPress,191p.$24.99
Publication Date: 2008
In Habit, Dr. Neale Martin presents powerful new research that reveals how the mind actually works and explains in practical detail the implications of this new science for marketers and product developers. You'll learn why 50 years of marketing theory is deeply flawed, how your customers' unconscious minds thwart your marketing campaigns, and how to identify what customers really want when they don't even know. Martin explains how customer behavior actually changes the mind's neural connections and how companies can leverage this fact by refocusing on behavior, not on attitudes and beliefs. He offers a complete process for working with customers' unconscious and conscious minds together, to become your customer's habit, not just their choice. You'll even learn how to revamp organizational structures that undermine the promotion of customer habits. Using Martin's techniques, you can not only avoid marketing and product failures: you can finally achieve the twin holy grails of marketing: higher customer retention, and greater long-term profitability.
Call Number: HF5415.32 .H363 2008eb e-book (MyiLibrary)
ISBN: 9786611372248.LawrenceErlbaumAssociates,1273 p.
Publication Date: 2008
This new handbook, sponsored by the Society for Consumer Psychology, contains a series of original contributions in which top researchers in each area provide a succinct review of theory and research studies in consumer psychology and marketing, advertising and consumer behavior. Top scholars who have contributed to this handbook outline what they see as the major challenges and future research that is needed in their fields.This Handbook will be an excellent interface among many disciplines (e.g. Marketing, Psychology, Advertising, and Consumer Behavior) and will help students and researchers understand the psychological processes underlying consumer behavior.
Call Number: HF5415.3 .B323 1999 (Library West)
ISBN: 076191000X.2ndedition,SagePublications,537p.$79.95
Publication Date: 1999
Marketing scholars and marketing research practitioners will find this book useful. It offers an excellent sourcebook for a variety of scales, and the reviews of the scales are thoughtful and well crafted. The book includes many of the most widely used scales in the field. Its relatively modest price will also make it particularly attractive. This Second Edition of the highly successful Handbook of Marketing Scales is an essential, time-saving resource for all marketing professionals, researchers, and graduate students. After an exhaustive search of the field's major publications, they have included only those measures of most use to researchers.
Call Number: HG179 .D8587 2013 (Library West)
ISBN: 9781451665062.Simon&Schuster, 197 p., $25.00
Publication Date: 2013
If you think money can't buy happiness, you're not spending it right. Two rising stars in behavioral science explain how money can buy happiness. "Happy Money "explains why you can get more happiness for your money by following five principles, from choosing experiences over stuff to spending money on others. And the five principles can be used not only by individuals but by companies seeking to create happier employees and provide "happier products" to their customers. Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton show how companies from Google to Pepsi to Crate & Barrel have put these ideas into action. Along the way, the authors describe new research that reveals that luxury cars often provide no more pleasure than economy models, that commercials can actually enhance the enjoyment of watching television, and that residents of many cities frequently miss out on inexpensive pleasures in their hometowns. By the end of this book, readers will ask themselves one simple question whenever they reach for their wallets: Am I getting the biggest happiness bang for my buck?
Call Number: HF5415.33.U6 K67 2005 (Library West)
ISBN: 0750679034.Elsevier/ButterworthHeinemann,328p.$29.95
Publication Date: 2005
This book is a must read for not just those engaged in ethnic marketing but for all marketing professionals. Hispanic Marketing provides true insight into the Hispanic market and compelling rationale for addressing Hispanic consumers as part of any organized approach to marketing in the U.S. overall.The Korzennys provide us with salient information, and more importantly, tools and an approach, to unlock the full potential of the Hispanic consumer. Truly a breakthrough in enabling a comprehensive and meaningful understanding of this market.
Call Number: HF5415.32 .F378 2006 (Library West)
ISBN: 0976697343.ParamountMarket,132p.$24.95
Publication Date: 2006
Juan Faura, the author of PMP's bestselling The Whole Enchilada: Hispanic Marketing 101, presents a message that will be a wake-up call to all Hispanic-focused marketing and advertising agencies. Based on insights gathered from interviews with Hispanics from many different walks of life, in cities large and small, Hispanic Marketing Grows Up:-Explores 30 perceptions and realities that affect how you market to Hispanics.-Explains when and when not to use Spanglish in advertising.-Identifies 10 future trends that will affect the Hispanic consumer market.Faura's conversational style makes this a quick read--one loaded with insights, taken straight from Hispanic consumers' mouths to you.
Call Number: HF5415.32 .Z35 2003 (Library West)
ISBN: 1578518261.HarvardBusinessSchoolPress,323p.$29.05
Publication Date: 2003
Zaltman (business administration, Harvard Business School) draws upon such diverse disciplines as business theory, literary analysis, cognitive science, and sociology to explain how customers make buying decisions. Aimed at marketing professionals, the text describes ways to develop research questions that speak to the unconscious brain, accurately measure consumer reactions to marketing stimuli, and instill meaningful metaphoric images in brand communications.
Call Number: HD69.T54 H665 2008 (Library West)
ISBN: 9780880993371.W.E.UpjohnInstituteforEmploymentResearch,187p.$40.00
Publication Date: 2008
Economists have long been interested in the analysis of how people decide to spend their time. Up until recently, however, studies of this nature were limited by a lack of high-quality time-use data. In 2003, after years of study and preparation, BLS initiated the annual American Time Use Survey. This book offers contributions from a number of noted economists who exploit this new source of data to reveal findings that have numerous implications for the U.S. labor market.
Call Number: HF5415.32 .M36 2013 (Books24x7 & MyiLibrary)
ISBN: 9781118611319
Publication Date: Houghton Mifflin, 2013
Why we choose companies and brands in the same way that weunconsciously perceive, judge, and behave toward one another People everywhere describe their relationships with brands in adeeply personal way-we hate our banks, love our smartphones,and think the cable company is out to get us. What's actually goingon in our brains when we make these judgments? Through originalresearch, customer loyalty expert Chris Malone and top socialpsychologist Susan Fiske discovered that our perceptions arise fromspontaneous judgments on warmth and competence, the same twofactors that also determine our impressions of people. We seecompanies and brands the same way we automatically perceive, judge,and behave toward one another. As a result, to achieve sustainedsuccess, companies must forge genuine relationships with customers.And as customers, we have a right to expect relationalaccountability from the companies and brands we support. Applies the social psychology concepts of "warmth" (whatintentions others have toward us) and "competence" (how capablethey are of carrying out those intentions) to the way we perceiveand relate to companies and brands Features in-depth analyses of companies such as Hershey's,Domino's, Lululemon, Zappos, Amazon, Chobani, Sprint, and more Draws from original research, evaluating over 45 companies overthe course of 10 separate studies The Human Brand is essential reading for understandinghow and why we make the choices we do, as well as what it takes forcompanies and brands to earn and keep our loyalty in the digitalage.
Consumer Behavior Books: I - K
Call Number: HC79.C6 H55x 2002 (Library West)
ISBN: 0060185112.HarperCollins,222p.$24.95
Publication Date: 2002
Choosing and using objects is a primal human activity, and I Want That! is nothing less than a portrait of humanity as the species that shops. It explores the history of acquisition -- finding, choosing, spending -- from our amber-coveting Neolithic forebears to Renaissance nobles who outfitted themselves for power to twenty-first-century bargain hunters looking for a good buy on eBay. I Want That! explores the minds of shoppers in the quest to nourish and feed fantasies, to define individuality, to provide for family, and to satisfy the needs for celebration, power, and choice -- all of which lead us to malls, boutiques, websites, and superstores.
Call Number: BF774 .C53 2001 (Library West)
ISBN: 9780205609994.5thedition,PearsonEducation, 259p.$28.30
Publication Date: 2009
What factors cause someone to say yes? And which techniques most effectively use these factors to bring about such compliance? In his best-selling book, Robert Cialdini, former salesperson, fund-raiser, and advertiser, and current professor of social psychology, examines the science and practice of persuasion and compliance. Praised for its enjoyable writing, practical suggestions, and scientifically documented content, prior editions have been widely read by business professionals, fund-raisers, and those interested in psychology.
Call Number: HN65 .K43 2003 (Library West)
ISBN: 0743227298.FreePress,353p.$26.00
Publication Date: 2003
One American in ten tells the other nine how to vote, where to eat, and what to buy. They are The Influentials Who are they? The most influential Americans -- the ones who tell their neighbors what to buy, which politicians to support, and where to vacation -- are not necessarily the people you'd expect. They are the 10 percent of Americans most engaged in their local communities...and they wield a huge amount of influence within those communities. They're the campaigners for open-space initiatives. They're church vestrymen and friends of the local public library. They're the Influentials...and whether or not they are familiar to you, they're very well known to the researchers at RoperASW. For decades, these researchers have been on a quest for marketing's holy grail: that elusive but supremely powerful channel known as word of mouth. What they've learned is that even more important than the ""word"" -- what is said -- is the ""mouth"" -- who says it. They've identified, studied, and analyzed influence in America since the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey (now Exxon) hired Elmo Roper himself to develop a model for identifying opinion leaders, and in The Influentials, they are finally ready to share their results.
The Inner Lives of Markets: How People Shape Them and They Shape Us by Tim Sullivan; Ray Fisman
Call Number: HB171 .F545 2016 (Library West)
ISBN: 9781610394925
Publication Date: Public Affairs, 2016. $25.99
America's economic revolution isn't just driven by technology. It's about markets. The past twenty-five years have witnessed a remarkable shift in how we get the stuff we want. If you’ve ever owned a business, rented an apartment, or shopped online, you've had a front-row seat for this revolution-in-progress. Breakthrough companies like Amazon and Uber have disrupted the old ways and made the economy work better--all thanks to technology. At least that's how the story of the modern economy is usually told. But in this lucid, wry book, Ray Fisman and Tim Sullivan show that the revolution is bigger than tech: it is really a story about the transformation of markets. From the auction theories that power Google's ad sales algorithms to the models that online retailers use to prevent internet fraud, even the most high-tech modern businesses are empowered by theory first envisioned by economists. And we're all participants in this revolution. Every time you book a room on Airbnb, hire a car on Lyft, or click on an ad, you too are reshaping our social institutions and our lives.The Inner Lives of Markets is necessary reading for the modern world: it reveals the blueprint for how we work, live, and shop, and offers wisdom for how to do it better.
Call Number: HF5415.32 .I57 2005 (Library West)
ISBN: 0415341930.Routledge,356p.$39.95
Publication Date: 2005
What do we know about consumer motives, goals, and desires? Why do we choose to buy and consume certain products and services from the many available in the marketplace? Following the pioneering and successful volume,The Why of Consumption(2000), the same editors have brought together an all-new cast of leading scholars to address modern-day issues in consumer motivation. Representing diverse viewpoints and drawing on relevant theories and frameworks grounded in fields such as cognitive, clinical, and social psychology, behavioral decision theory, sociology, semiotics, cultural anthropology, and culture studies the chapters in this volume address a variety of topics. Topics include: * The interplay between the heart and the mind in what consumers desire * Hedonic, utilitarian, and variety-seeking motives * Implications of a promotion versus prevention focus in consumer decision-making * Motives for engaging in socially undesirable consumer behaviors * Howindividual consumers, communities and cultures come to value brands, fashion goods, and objects of art * Inter-generational as well as information age influences on the motives underlying consumers' identities, both present and future This provocative and important book provides insights for students, scholars and practitioners who seek to understand the vital relationship between motivation and consumption.
Call Number: HF5429 .S5937 2009 (Library West)
ISBN: 9780137126859.WhartonSchoolPub.,227p.$25.99
Publication Date: 2009
In Inside the Mind of the Shopper, world-renowned retail consultant Dr. Herb Sorensen, Ph.D. uncovers the truth about the retail shopper and rips away the myths and mistakes that lead retailers to miss their greatest opportunities. Drawing on Sorensen's breakthrough second-by-second analysis of millions of shopping trips, this book reveals how consumers actually behave, move, and make buying decisions as they move through supermarkets and other retail stores. Sorensen presents powerful, tested strategies for designing more effective stores, improving merchandising, and driving double-digit sales increases. He identifies simple interventions that can have dramatic sales effects, and shows why many common strategies simply don't work. You'll learn how to appeal to the "quick trip" shopper; make the most of all three "moments of truth"; understand consumers' powerful in-store migration patterns; learn the lessons of Stew Leonard's and other innovators; and much more. Then, in Part II, Sorensen presents revealing interviews with several leading in-store retail experts, including crucial insights on using technology and retailing to multicultural communities.
Call Number: HF5415.32 .S26 1995 (Library West)
ISBN: 089930883X.QuorumBooks,186p.$59.95
Publication Date: 1995
Not international consumers really, but consumers in the various cultures that are being penetrated by primarily western companies looking for international markets. Argues that the differences rather than similarities between cultures must be emphasized to determine factors that influence buyer behavior, such as social class, hierarchy of needs, formal and informal group membership, learning patterns, and the conception and experience of the individual. For marketing scholars or practitioners.
Call Number: HF5415.32 .I584 2000 (Library West)
ISBN: 8716134915.CopenhagenBusinessSchoolPress,365p.$29.00
Publication Date: 2000
Researching the consumer has progressed far beyond the research for managerial implications and has become a major focus for the social sciences. In the field of marketing research, interpretive approaches to studying consumer behavior are playing an increasing role. This book presents the wide range of conceptual and empirical approaches that are required in studies of the consumer and consumption. As such, it is essential reading for students and researchers working in the fields of consumer behaviour and marketing, cultural and media studies, and sociology.
Invisible Influence: The Hidden Forces That Shape Behavior by Jonah Berger
Call Number: (Library West, Pre-Order)
ISBN: 9781476759692
Publication Date: Simon & Schuster, 2016. $26.99
The New York Times bestselling author of Contagious explores the subtle, secret influences that affect the decisions we make—from what we buy, to the careers we choose, to what we eat—in this fascinating and groundbreaking work. If you’re like most people, you think that your choices and behaviors are driven by your individual, personal tastes, and opinions. You wear a certain jacket because you liked the way it looked. You picked a particular career because you found it interesting. The notion that our choices are driven by our own personal thoughts and opinions is patently obvious. Right? Wrong. Without our realizing it, other people’s behavior has a huge influence on everything we do at every moment of our lives, from the mundane to the momentous occasion. Even strangers have a startling impact on our judgments and decisions: our attitudes toward a welfare policy shift if we’re told it is supported by Democrats versus Republicans (even though the policy is the same in both cases). But social influence doesn’t just lead us to do the same things as others. In some cases we conform, or imitate others around us. But in other cases we diverge, or avoid particular choices or behaviors because other people are doing them. We stop listening to a band because they go mainstream. We skip buying the minivan because we don’t want to look like a soccer mom. In his surprising and compelling Invisible Influence, Jonah Berger integrates research and thinking from business, psychology, and social science to focus on the subtle, invisible influences behind our choices as individuals. By understanding how social influence works, we can decide when to resist and when to embrace it—and how we can use this knowledge to make better-informed decisions and exercise more control over our own behavior.
Call Number: HF5415.33.U6 Q56 2003 e-book (netLibrary) and Library West
ISBN: 0471369209.J.Wiley&Sons,256p.$27.95
Publication Date: 2003
Just Ask a Woman is a powerful book about how to tap into female consumers' needs. Mary Quinlan, the founder of the premiere consultancy dedicated to marketing to women, has personally interviewed 3,000 women in the course of her research for Just Ask a Woman. Women are the decision-makers in an estimated eighty-five percent of household buying decisions, and yet far too often, products marketed specifically to them fail to connect with their needs. Here, Quinlan explores topics such as how women judge brands and advertising, the effects of stress on their consumer behavior, and their increasing demands for service and communication. Quinlan rejects the traditional focus group approach in favor of highly energized and intimate talk sessions where women reveal their deeper feelings about products and services. In Just Ask a Woman marketers, brand managers, and advertisers will find a revelatory resource filled with ideas and action steps for building your brand with women-from a woman who has walked in a marketer's shoes.
Call Number: HC79.C6 S88 2003 (Library West)
ISBN: 0071416226.McGrawHill,192p.$29.95
Publication Date: 2003
Kidfluence details the latest research on the demographic and socio-cultural trends of young adults born after 1980—Generation Y. This "what works and what doesn't" book provides marketers and advertisers with sometimes-surprising findings on what information and products these kids really want, and how to reach them most effectively without turning them off completely.
Call Number: HD9995.S24 K564 2004 (Library West)
ISBN: 0814209769.OhioStateUniversityPress, 263p.$48.95
Publication Date: 2004
In addition to tracing Kimberly-Clark's fascinating history of technology development and product diversification, Heinrich and Batchelor explore momentous changes in consumer behavior and marketing. When Kotex first arrived on the scene in the 1920s, menstrual hygiene was burdened with cultural taboos that made it impossible for many women to ask the (inevitably male) pharmacist for a sanitary napkin. To solve such vexing marketing problems, Kimberly-Clark invented the artificial word "Kotex" and inserted it into consumer vocabulary through massive advertising campaigns. Making it easier for women to shop for the new product, Kimberly-Clark also recommended that stores place boxes of Kotex on the counter where women could help themselves without embarrassing conversation, thus pioneering the concept of self-service.
Consumer Behavior Books: L - M
Call Number: HF5415.33.U6 D38 2001 e-book (netLibrary) and Library West
ISBN: 0520227247.UniversityofCaliforniaPress,287p.$22.50
Publication Date: 2001
The influence of Latin culture is gaining momentum in American society as a whole. Yet the increasing visibility of Latinos in mainstream culture has not been accompanied by a similar level of economic parity or political enfranchisement. In this important, original, and entertaining book, Arlene Dávila provides a critical examination of the Hispanic marketing industry and of its role in the making and marketing of U.S. Latinos. Dávila finds that Latinos' increased popularity in the marketplace is simultaneously accompanied by their growing exotification and invisibility. She scrutinizes the complex interests that are involved in the public representation of Latinos as a generic and culturally distinct people and questions the homogeneity of the different Latino subnationalities that supposedly comprise the same people and group of consumers. In a fascinating discussion of how populations have become reconfigured as market segments, she shows that the market and marketing discourse become important terrains where Latinos debate their social identities and public standing.
Call Number: HF5415.3 .M273 1997 (Library West)
ISBN: 0684835452.FreePress, 448p.$30.00
Publication Date: 1997
How do customers decide what products and brands to buy? In this much-anticipated major work, Eric Marder reveals how universal patterns in survey responses lead not only to general principles in marketing but to empirically verifiable laws of human nature itself. Drawing on forty years of applying his pioneering experimental design techniques to marketing research surveys, Marder presents a global theory of choice behavior, supported by original data reported here for the first time from thousands of massive real-life experiments based on millions of interviews. His dramatic findings about pricing, optimal marketing tactics, product evaluation, the relative role of product and image, and advertising effectiveness will make this book required reading for the entire marketing community.
Call Number: HF5415.127 .C34 2006 (Library West)
ISBN: 9780789028686.HaworthPress, 184p.$24.95
Publication Date: 2006
Lifestyle Market Segmentation gives author and marketing expert Dennis Cahill the chance to put his nearly 30 years of marketing and teaching experience to practical use—to clearly explain the process of market segmentation and its applications. This text goes beyond the obvious demographic and/or geographic categories to get at the “whys” of customer behaviors, carefully reviewing every facet, from theory to the exploration of applications. Step by step, this easy-to-understand book, written by the author of How Consumers Pick a Hotel: Strategic Segmentation and Target Marketing and other classic marketing books, walks readers through the process, giving real-life examples as illustration as it provides the tools to effectively market by lifestyle segment in today’s competitive marketplace. Market segmentation research examines a broad range of demographic and psychographic information that can provide strategies to target both current and potential markets. This helpful guide comprehensively reveals how to gather and effectively use this crucial type of research.
Call Number: HF5415.127 .M535 2004 (Library West)
ISBN: 1567206409.Praeger, 241p.
Publication Date: 2004
In today's competitive economic environment, knowing your customer has never been more important. Research shows that most companies do not segment their market by lifestyle. Instead, they rely solely on demographic factors to define their customers. This book helps marketers understand how to reach customers from children to tweens and singles to seniors. It demonstrates how such trends as cross-shopping and the blurring of gender roles can be accounted for by one's overall marketing strategy. This book helps marketers understand how to reach customers from children to tweens and singles to seniors. Yet another consumer group evaluated here is the emerging affluent market. This book is a prerequisite to relationship marketing. It tells the reader how to reach carefully defined and described market segments. Because buyers' behaviors are so important to lifestyle market segmentation strategies, this book demonstrates how such trends as cross-shopping and the blurring of gender roles can be accounted for by one's overall marketing strategy.
Call Number: HF5415.32 .T95 2002 e-book (netLibrary) and Library West
ISBN: 0231124961.ColumbiaUniversityPress, 309p. $29.95
Publication Date: 2003
As the author of works on advertising, materialism and modern culture, University of Florida professor Twitchell should have been the most immune to acquisitive desire while doing research in posh Rodeo Drive and Madison Avenue stores. That he was momentarily struck with passion by a Ralph Lauren tie not only demonstrates his humanity, but also underlines one of his theses: no one is above a bit of luxury lust. The reason for this, he says, is, "We understand each other not by sharing religion, politics, or ideas. We share branded things. We speak the Esperanto of advertising, luxe populi." These are sentiments voiced by many who study consumer culture, but Twitchell addresses conspicuous consumption in a new way, free of the superior tone often adopted by his academic peers. He embarks on a course of fieldwork that is both absurdist and charming, as he chats up Fendi salespeople and stands slack-jawed in the lobby of the Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas. With the research done, but the tie unbought, he comes away with insights about the American quest for luxury products and provides a history of such yearning: "The balderdash of cloistered academics aside, human beings did not suddenly become materialistic. We have always been desirous of things." Many of those things, in the recent past and definitely in the present, have been imbued with an aura of opulence and indulgence, Twitchell posits, leading to a kind of emotional satisfaction through shopping, especially for items outside one's budget. With its intelligence and wit, Twitchell's exploration of consumerism belongs in every shopping bag.
Call Number: HF5415.127 .T48 2000 (Library West)
ISBN: 0761911030.SagePublications,397p.$38.95
Publication Date: 2001
The lesson for marketers is clear: Traditional marketing techniques and single marketing campaigns will not effectively reach consumers who express distinctive ethnic, age-related, or lifestyle values by what they buy and how they buy it. Using a variety of real-world examples and a rich set of data sources, Marketing and Consumer Identity in Multicultural America introduces students to the phenomenon of multiculturalism in America and examines its impact on consumer identity, consumer behavior, and marketing. In a straightforward, engaging style, Marye C. Tharp presents both the theoretical foundation and the practical tools necessary for marketers to thrive in a multicultural world.
Call Number: HF5415.32 .Z353 2008 (Library West)
ISBN: 9781422121153.HarvardBusinessSchoolPress, 230p.$29.95
Publication Date: 2008
Why do advertising campaigns and new products often fail? Why do consumers feel that companies don't understand their needs? Because marketers themselves don't think deeply about consumers' innermost thoughts and feelings. Marketing Metaphoria is a groundbreaking book that reveals how to overcome this "depth deficit" and find the universal drivers of human behavior so vital to a firm's success. Marketing Metaphoria reveals the powerful unconscious viewing lenses--called "deep metaphors"-- that shape what people think, hear, say, and do. Drawing on thousands of one-on-one interviews in more than thirty countries, Gerald Zaltman and Lindsay Zaltman describe how some of the world's most successful companies as well as small firms, not-for-profits, and social enterprises have successfully leveraged deep metaphors to solve a wide variety of marketing problems. Marketing Metaphoria should convince you that everything consumers think and do is influenced at unconscious levels--and it will give you access to those deeper levels of thinking.
Call Number: HF5415.32 .O743 2003 e-book (Books24x7) and Library West
ISBN: 0195150562.OxfordUniversityPress,274p.$35.00
Publication Date: 2003
Emotion is one of the defining forces in our lives. It lies at the very heart of many of our most important experiences and memories. Not surprisingly, the worlds of business and marketing have long drawn on the power of emotion to influence consumer impulses and brand loyalty. Yet beyond the obvious emotions evoked by an inspirational Nike ad or an affecting Hallmark commercial lies an emotional universe that is less conspicuous, even transparent, yet no less influential. In this definitive work, two marketing experts provide a highly original, entertaining and anecdote-rich account of the marketing power of emotion. The primordial force behind motivation and persuasion, emotions enter into all decisions involving tradeoffs and are thus especially relevant to consumer decision-making. The Marketing Power of Emotion traces the manner in which companies rely on emotion to connect with consumers, develop new products, improve their strategic position, and increase brand recognition. Essential reading for executives and middle management alike, as well as all students and scholars of consumer behavior, The Marketing Power of Emotion is the most authoritative statement yet on this critically important aspect of business strategy.
Call Number: HF5415.3 .B785 1992 (Library West)
ISBN: 1587992051.AmericanMarketingAssociation,842p.$98.95
Publication Date: 2005
In contrast to earlier volumes, this new volume compiling marketing measurement scales splits consumer behavior from organizational behavior (the latter to be the focus of a separate volume), but otherwise takes up where Volume III left off in collecting scales originally published in seven major marketing and advertising journals between 1998 and 2001. Bruner (marketing, Southern Illinois U. at Carbondale), Hensel (marketing, U. of New Orleans), and James (marketing, Louisiana State U.) present 511 scales for studying consumer behavior topics and 143 related to advertising or promotion. Each scale is named and described, its origins are given, reliability and validity are considered, references are provided, and scale questionnaire items are presented.
Call Number: HF5415.1 .N86 2004 (Library West)
ISBN: 1591391962.HarvardBusinessSchoolPress,272p.$29.95
Publication Date: 2004
Millions of consumers can now afford to pay more for everything from cleaning products to cars. Yet these "moneyed masses" are not spending all they could. Nunes, a researcher in business, and Johnson, a research analyst at an investment research and management firm, explore the impact of this explosion of consumer affluence on marketing strategy and practice, and outline seven new rules of mass marketing aimed at the "almost rich."
Call Number: HB835 .D48 2010 (Library West)
ISBN: 9780521766944.CambridgeUniversityPress, 240 p., $29.96
Publication Date: 2010
Do consumers really care where products come from and how they are made? Is there such a thing as an 'ethical consumer'? Corporations and policy makers are bombarded with international surveys purporting to show that most consumers want ethical products. Yet when companies offer such products they are often met with indifference and limited uptake. It seems that survey radicals turn into economic conservatives at the checkout. This book reveals not only why the search for the 'ethical consumer' is futile but also why the social aspects of consumption cannot be ignored. Consumers are revealed to be much more deliberative and sophisticated in how they do or do not incorporate social factors into their decision making. Using first-hand findings and extensive research, The Myth of the Ethical Consumer provides academics, students and leaders in corporations and NGOs with an enlightening picture of the interface between social causes and consumption.
Consumer Behavior Books: N - P
Call Number: HC79.W4 C657 2002 (Library West)
ISBN: 0393019659f.W.W.Norton,344p.$26.95
Publication Date: 2002
"It might be difficult to see the connection between a rich woman swanning around in her Manolo Blahniks and some underpaid clipboard-wielding biologist slogging through the bush in battered Tevas," Conniff writes, but readers of this unusual and delightful exploration of the richest members of the human species will understand that connection and a whole lot more. Journalist and essayist Conniff compares the super-rich to the animal kingdom in providing a frame of reference for their behaviors and actions. Butterflies and moths, which camouflage their true colors when not with their own kind, provide a context for discussing concealment, display and the "inconspicuous consumption" of those born to money: the signs of wealth are displayed subtly to be recognized by those in the know. Conniff finds an animal model for philanthropy in a bird called the Arabian babbler, which, after forcing a gift of food on a companion, "lift[s] his beak in a special trill... like a socialite posing for an event photographer at the Breast Cancer Awareness barbecue." Conniff who has written about the natural world for National Geographic and about the rich for Architectural Digest neither patronizes nor demeans his subjects (after all, he notes, we all hope to be rich some day). He merely uses them and the natural world to illuminate a class of people and range of behaviors that few among us will ever have the opportunity to observe firsthand.
Call Number: HF5415.12615.Z87 2010 (Library West)
ISBN: 9783540778288.Springer, 273p.$139.00
Publication Date: 2010
Over the last 10 years advances in the new field of neuromarketing have yielded a host of findings which defy common stereotypes about consumer behavior. Reason and emotions do not necessarily appear as opposing forces. Rather, they complement one another. Hence, it reveals that consumers utilize mental accounting processes different from those assumed in marketers' logical inferences when it comes to time, problems with rating and choosing, and in post-purchase evaluation. People are often guided by illusions not only when they perceive the outside world but also when planning their actions - and consumer behavior is no exception. Strengthening the control over their own desires and the ability to navigate the maze of data are crucial skills consumers can gain to benefit themselves, marketers and the public. Understanding the mind of the consumer is the hardest task faced by business researchers. This book presents the first analytical perspective on the brain - and biometric studies which open a new frontier in market research.
Call Number: HF5415.2 .W29 2009 (Library West)
ISBN: 9781439900154.TempleUniversityPress, 228p.$54.50
Publication Date: 2010
Charles Coolidge Parlin was considered by many to be the founder of market research. Working for the dominant Curtis Publishing Company, he revolutionized the industry by providing added value to advertisers through information about the racial, ethnic, and regional biases of readers and consumers. By maintaining contact with both businesses and customers, Parlin and Curtis publications were able to turn consumer wants into corporate profits. In A New Brand of Business, Douglas Ward provides an intriguing business history that explains how and why Curtis developed its market research division. He reveals the evolution and impact of Parlin’s work, which understood how readers and advertisers in the emerging consumer economy looked at magazines and advertisements. Ward also examines the cultural and social reasons for the development and use of market research—particularly in regard to Curtis' readership of upper-income elites. The result weaves the stories of Parlin and Curtis into the changes taking place in American business and advertising in the early twentieth century.
Call Number: HB74.P8 T53 2008 (Library West & Legal Information Center)
ISBN: 9780300122237.YaleUniversityPress,293p.$26.00
Publication Date: 2008
Every day, we make decisions on topics ranging from personal investments to schools for our children to the meals we eat to the causes we champion. Unfortunately, we often choose poorly. The reason, the authors explain, is that, being human, we all are susceptible to various biases that can lead us to blunder. Our mistakes make us poorer and less healthy; we often make bad decisions involving education, personal finance, health care, mortgages and credit cards, the family, and even the planet itself. Thaler and Sunstein invite us to enter an alternative world, one that takes our humanness as a given. They show that by knowing how people think, we can design choice environments that make it easier for people to choose what is best for themselves, their families, and their society. Thaler and Sunstein demonstrate how thoughtful “choice architecture” can be established to nudge us in beneficial directions without restricting freedom of choice. Nudge offers a unique new take—from neither the left nor the right—on many hot-button issues, for individuals and governments alike. This is one of the most engaging and provocative books to come along in many years.
Call Number: HF5415.33.U6 A25 2000 (Library West)
ISBN: 065800073X.NTCBusinessBooks,277p.$49.95
Publication Date: 2000
The Observational Research Handbook explores the burgeoning qualitative marketing research technique of ethnography or "descriptive anthropology," the observation and analysis of how consumers respond to a product within their own environments based upon their cultural values and relationships. The most comprehensive professional reference available on the subject, The Observational Research Handbook acquaints marketing and advertising professionals, market researchers, and manufacturers of consumer products with what observational research is, what it can add to a consumer marketing effort, and how an ethnographic marketing study is conducted. The book includes insights on setting study objectives, selecting the appropriate research method, defining the parameters of a study, creating interview scripts, applying specific practices and tips to the actual observations, and then compiling and analyzing the results. A complete case study—featuring a real proposal for an observational research study as well as an actual script and analysis of the results—is included in the appendix.
Call Number: HF5430.3 .F37 2003 (Library West)
ISBN: 1588341526..Smithsonian,329p.$24.95
Publication Date: 2003
A revealing examination of shopping, consumerism, and mall design in America.Loved and hated, visited and avoided, seemingly everywhere yet endlessly the same, malls occupy a special place in American life. What, then, is this invention that evokes such strong and contradictory emotions in Americans? In many ways malls represent the apotheosis of American consumerism, and this synthetic and wide-ranging investigation is an eye-popping tour of American culture's values and beliefs. Like your favorite mall, One Nation under Goods is a browser's paradise; and in order to understand America's culture of consumption you need to make a trip to the mall with Farrell. This lively, fast-paced history of the hidden secrets of the shopping mall explains how retail designers make shopping and goods "irresistible." From food courts and fountains to Santa and security, Farrell explains how malls control their patrons and convince us that shopping is always an enjoyable activity. And most importantly, One Nation under Goods shows why the mall's ultimate promise of happiness through consumption is largely an illusion.
Call Number: HF5415.32 .O55 2005 (Library West)
ISBN: 1410612694.LawrenceErlbaumAssociates,551p.$160.00
Publication Date: 2005
The papers in this volume were originally presented at the 2001 Advertising and Consumer Psychology Conference sponsored by the Society for Consumer Psychology. They address topics such as customization, site design, word-of-mouth processes and the study of consumer decision making while online. Some of the contributors present research methods for gaining insight into consumers' thought processes. Others discuss the concept of Internet communities and online advertising. The theories and research methods help provide greater insight into the processes underlying consumer behavior in online environments.
Paying with Plastic: The Digital Revolution in Buying and Borrowing by by David S. Evans and Richard Schmalensee
Call Number: HG3755.8.U6 E94 2005 (Library West)
ISBN: 026255058X.2ndedition,MITPress,367p.$24.95
Publication Date: 2005
The payment card business has evolved from its inception in the 1950s as a way to handle payment for expense-account lunches (the Diners Club card) into today's complex, sprawling industry that drives trillions of dollars in transaction volume each year. Paying with Plastic is the definitive source on an industry that has revolutionized the way we borrow and spend. More than a history book, Paying with Plastic delivers an entertaining discussion of the impact of an industry that epitomizes the notion of two-sided markets: those in which two or more customer groups receive value only if all sides are actively engaged. New to this second edition, the two-sided market discussion provides useful insight into the implications of these market dynamics for cardholder rewards, merchant interchange fees, and card acceptance. The authors, also examine the implications of the recent antitrust cases on the industry as well as other business and technological changes—including the massive consolidation brought about by bank mergers, the rise of the debit card, and the emergence of e-commerce—that could alter the payment card industry dramatically in the years to come.
Call Number: BF367 .P464 2003 (Library West)
ISBN: 0805842020.LawrenceErlbaumAssociates,436p.$99.95
Publication Date: 2003
This volume synthesizes and advances existing knowledge of consumer response to visuals. Representing an interdisciplinary perspective, contributors include scholars from the disciplines of communication, psychology, and marketing. The book begins with an overview section intended to situate the reader in the discourse. The overview describes the state of knowledge in both academic research and actual practice, and provides concrete sources for scholars to pursue. Having traveled a path that has gone from the precise working of the brain in processing visual stimuli all the way to the history of classical architecture, readers of this volume will have a new respect for the complexity of human visual response and the research that is trying to explain it. It will be of interest to those involved in consumer behavior, consumer psychology,advertising, marketing, and visual communication.
Call Number: BF637.P4 L48 2003 e-book (netLibrary) and Library West
ISBN: 0471266345.JohnWiley&Sons,278p.$24.95
Publication Date: 2003
This valuable and nonacademic guide reveals the extent to which we are surrounded by persuasion, and how we can resist. Levine (A Geography of Time), a professor of psychology at Cal State Fresno, opens by demonstrating that all of us (including himself) can be persuaded under the right circumstances. He goes on to study financial manipulation and the use of the sense of obligation and then proceeds to a nuts-and-bolts analysis of salesmanship by describing what he learned and did (and had done to him) as an automobile salesman. He offers an admirably concise and unemotional analysis of the famous Milgram experiment, involving the (claimed) administration of ever-stronger electric shocks to test the impulse to obedience. Inevitably, he moves to cults, the Moonies and the ultimate persuasion horror story, Jonestown. He avoids hysteria and demonization, even of Jim Jones, and points out that brute force is required at the extreme end of the persuasion spectrum. Levine's final chapter offers ways of dealing with unwelcome persuasion while remaining part of a society in which some persuasion is part of almost any social interaction.
Call Number: HB137.Z55 2007 (Library West & Legal Information Center)
ISBN: 006135323X.Harper,280p.$25.95
Publication Date: 2008
This sly and lucid book is not about your grandfather's dismal science. Ariely's trade is behavioral economics, which is the study, by experiments, of what people actually do when they buy, sell, change jobs, marry and make other real-life decisions…[Ariely] is good-tempered company—if he mentions you in this book, you are going to be called "brilliant," "fantastic" or "delightful"—and crystal clear about all he describes. But Predictably Irrational is a far more revolutionary book than its unthreatening manner lets on. It's a concise summary of why today's social science increasingly treats the markets-know-best model as a fairy tale.
Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade by Robert B. Cialdini
Call Number: BF774.C56 2016 (Library West, On Order)
ISBN: 9781501109799
Publication Date: Simon & Schuster, 2016. $28.00
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER The author of the legendary bestseller Influence, social psychologist Robert Cialdini shines a light on effective persuasion and reveals that the secret doesn’t lie in the message itself, but in the key moment before that message is delivered. What separates effective communicators from truly successful persuaders? Using the same combination of rigorous scientific research and accessibility that made his Influence an iconic bestseller, Robert Cialdini explains how to capitalize on the essential window of time before you deliver an important message. This “privileged moment for change” prepares people to be receptive to a message before they experience it. Optimal persuasion is achieved only through optimal pre-suasion. In other words, to change “minds” a pre-suader must also change “states of mind.” His first solo work in over thirty years, Cialdini’s Pre-Suasion draws on his extensive experience as the most cited social psychologist of our time and explains the techniques a person should implement to become a master persuader. Altering a listener’s attitudes, beliefs, or experiences isn’t necessary, says Cialdini—all that’s required is for a communicator to redirect the audience’s focus of attention before a relevant action. From studies on advertising imagery to treating opiate addiction, from the annual letters of Berkshire Hathaway to the annals of history, Cialdini draws on an array of studies and narratives to outline the specific techniques you can use on online marketing campaigns and even effective wartime propaganda. He illustrates how the artful diversion of attention leads to successful pre-suasion and gets your targeted audience primed and ready to say, “Yes.”
Call Number: HG223 .P67 2011 (Library West)
ISBN: 9781591843627. Portfolio Penguin, 296 p. $27.95
Publication Date: 2011
Many of the prices we pay seem to make little sense. We shell out $2.29 for coffee at Starbucks when a nearly identical brew can be had at the corner deli for less than a dollar. We may be less willing to give blood for $25 than to donate it for free. And we pay someone to cart away trash that would be a valuable commodity in poorer parts of the world. The Price of Everything starts with a simple premise: there is a price behind each choice, whether we're deciding to have a baby, drive a car, or buy a book. We often fail to appreciate just how critical prices are as motivating forces. But their power becomes clear when distorted prices steer our decisions the wrong way. Eduardo Porter uncovers the true story behind the prices we pay and reveals what those prices are actually telling us.
Call Number: HF5416.5 .P66 2009 (Library West)
ISBN: 9780809094691.HillandWang,352p.$26.99
Publication Date: 2010
In Priceless, the bestselling author William Poundstone reveals the hidden psychology of value. In psychological experiments, people are unable to estimate “fair” prices accurately and are strongly influenced by the unconscious, irrational, and politically incorrect. It hasn’t taken long for marketers to apply these findings. “Price consultants” advise retailers on how to convince consumers to pay more for less, and negotiation coaches offer similar advice for businesspeople cutting deals. The new psychology of price dictates the design of price tags, menus, rebates, “sale” ads, cell phone plans, supermarket aisles, real estate offers, wage packages, tort demands, and corporate buyouts. Prices are the most pervasive hidden persuaders of all. Rooted in the emerging field of behavioral decision theory, Priceless should prove indispensable to anyone who negotiates.
Call Number: HF5415.32 .P76 2008eb (Science Direct)
ISBN: 9780080450896.Elsevier,662p.
Publication Date: 2008
The book brings together research that investigates how people experience products: durable, non-durable, or virtual. In contrast to other books, the present book takes a very broad, possibly all-inclusive perspective, on how people experience products. It thereby bridges gaps between several areas within psychology (e.g. perception, cognition, emotion) and links these areas to more applied areas of science, such as product design, human-computer interaction and marketing. The field of product experience research will include some of the research from four areas: Arts, Ergonomics, Technology, and Marketing. Traditionally, each of these four fields seems to have a natural emphasis on the human (ergonomics and marketing), the product (technology) or the experience (arts). However, to fully understand human product experience, we need to use different approaches and we need to build bridges between these various fields of expertise *Most comprehensive collection of psychological research behind product design and usability *Consistently addresses the 3 components of human-product experience: the human, the product, and the experience *International contributions from experts in the field.
Call Number: HF5415.32 .E488 2004 (Library West)
ISBN: 0262050730.MITPress,179p.$25.00
Publication Date: 2004
In this book Greg Elmer brings the perspectives of cultural and media studies to the subject of consumer profiling and feedback technology in the digital economy. He examines the multiplicity of processes that monitor consumers and automatically collect, store, and cross-reference personal information. When we buy a book at Amazon.com or a kayak from L.L. Bean, our transactions are recorded, stored, and deployed to forecast our future behavior—thus we may receive solicitations to buy another book by the same author or the latest in kayaking gear. Elmer charts this process, explaining the technologies that make it possible and examining the social and political implications. Elmer begins by establishing a theoretical framework for his discussion, proposing a "diagrammatic approach" that draws on but questions Foucault's theory of surveillance. In the second part of the book, he presents the historical background of the technology of consumer profiling, including such pre-electronic tools as the census and the warranty card, and describes the software and technology in use today for demographic mapping. In the third part, he looks at two case studies—a marketing event sponsored by Molson that was held in the Canadian Arctic (contrasting the attendees and the indigenous inhabitants) and the use of "cookies" to collect personal information on the World Wide Web, which (along with other similar technologies) automate the process of information collection and cross-referencing. Elmer concludes by considering the politics of profiling, arguing that we must begin to question our everyday electronic routines.
Call Number: HC110.C6 P76 2003 (Library West)
ISBN: 1591470463.AmericanPsychologicalAssociation,297p.$49.95
Publication Date: 2003
In a volume dedicated to Erich Fromm, "who pointed the way toward an understanding of psychology and consumer culture," psychologists Kasser (Knox College, Galesburg, IL) and Kanner (Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center, CA) introduce 13 chapters that aim to overcome the field's relative neglect of how consumption-related issues affect personal development, society, and ecology. US contributors discuss theoretical and clinical issues, and call for further research on compulsive buying, the effects of advertising, and mindfulness as an antidote to its effects.
Call Number: HF5415.32 .W42 1999 (Library West)
ISBN: 0306460734. Kluwer Academic, 1999. 362 p. $69.95
An unusually understandable survey of the forces or perception and feeling that determine the purchases we make; the roles played by fashion, fads, and status; and the psychological needs that they fulfill. The book discusses how children become consumers and how they change as they age. Research based throughout, it shows how ads use classical conditioning, harnessing psychological motivation to create image and sell products.
Consumer Behavior Books: Q - S
Qualitative Methods for Marketplace Research by by Shay Sayre
Call Number: HF5415.2 .S29 2001 (Library West)
ISBN: 0761922695.Sage,255p.$36.95
Publication Date: 2001
All key topics are covered including the differences between quantitative and qualitative research, steps to take prior to conducting research, data collection techniques and tools, decoding and understanding collected data, and explaining research findings to someone else. Borrowing techniques from anthropology, sociology, psychology, and communication, the book presents specific examples to illustrate how these techniques are adapted for marketplace research. Studies conducted by renowned scholars and practitioners guide readers through all the nuances of qualitative methods needed to develop, execute and analyze state-of-the-art marketplace studies.
Call Number: HF5415.33.U6 J33 2004 (Library West)
ISBN: 0231113889.ColumbiaUniversityPress,299p.$35.00
Publication Date: 2004
In the present electronic torrent of MTV and teen flicks, Nintendo and Air Jordan advertisements, consumer culture is an unmistakably important -- and controversial -- dimension of modern childhood. Historians and social commentators have typically assumed that the child consumer became significant during the postwar television age. But the child consumer was already an important phenomenon in the early twentieth century. The family, traditionally the primary institution of child socialization, began to face an array of new competitors who sought to put their own imprint on children's acculturation to consumer capitalism. Advertisers, children's magazine publishers, public schools, child experts, and children's peer groups alternately collaborated with, and competed against, the family in their quest to define children's identities. At stake in these conflicts and collaborations was no less than the direction of American consumer society -- would children's consumer training rein in hedonistic excesses or contribute to the spread of hollow, commercial values? Not simply a new player in the economy, the child consumer became a lightning rod for broader concerns about the sanctity of the family and the authority of the market in modern capitalist culture. Lisa Jacobson reveals how changing conceptions of masculinity and femininity shaped the ways Americans understood the virtues and vices of boy and girl consumers -- and why boys in particular emerged as the heroes of the new consumer age. "Raising Consumers" is a provocative examination of the social, economic, and cultural forces that produced and ultimately legitimized a distinctive children's consumer culture in the early twentieth century.
Call Number: HC110.W4 F73 2007 (Library West)
ISBN: 9780307339263.CrownPublishers,277p.$24.95
Publication Date: 2007
The rich have always been different from you and me, but this revealing and funny journey through “Richistan” entertainingly shows that they are more different than ever. Richistanis have 400-foot-yachts, 30,000-square-foot homes, house staffs of more than 100, and their own “arborists.” They’re also different from Old Money, and have torn down blue-blood institutions to build their own shining empire. Richistan is like the best travel writing, full of colorful and interesting stories providing insights into exotic locales. Robert Frank has been loitering on the docks of yacht marinas, pestering his way into charity balls, and schmoozing with real estate agents selling mega-houses to capture the story of the twenty-first century’s nouveau riche
Call Number: HF5415.33.U6 N47 2004 (Library West)
ISBN: 0765612909.M.E.Sharpe,288p.$66.95
Publication Date: 2004
Not only are Hispanics the largest minority group in the United States, but Mexico is fast becoming our major trading partner, surpassing even Japan. In fact, the U.S. now has the fourth largest Spanish-speaking population in the world, after Mexico, Spain, and Argentina. How has this demographic group transformed the U.S. into a bi-lingual nation within the span of a generation? Why do Hispanics resist assimilation and insist on speaking Spanish in public life? And how can businesses effectively reach the emerging Hispanic consumer market with its estimated puchasing power of USD1 trillion by 2010? These questions constitute the single-most important marketing challenge for corporate America in the twenty-first century. This book challenges the viewpoint that American culture will soon dominate its NAFTA trading partners, looks carefully at the market for Hispanic goods in the U.S. and the market for our goods throughout the Spanish-speaking world, and shows how marketeers are now reaching the Hispanic community domestically.
Call Number: HF5415.335 .O55 1997 (Library West)
ISBN: 0070480257.McGrawHill,432p.$63.72
Publication Date: 1997
Designed for MBA and doctoral programs that have a quality/satisfaction sequence,this new text about the meaning,causes,and consequences of customer satisfaction derives from the author's twenty years of research on the topic. The book covers every psychological aspect of satisfaction formation and is applicable to all consumables,product or service. After defining satisfaction,reviewing current research,and describing what the best practitioners in the field of satisfaction measurement are doing today,the author broadens the determinants of satisfaction to include needs,excellence (quality),fairness,and regret ("what might have been"). Chapters on satisfaction processes including dissonance,attribution of responsibility,consumption affect,and consumption processing culminate in a "consumption processing model. " The book concludes with chapters that consider such postpurchase consequences as complaining behavior and customer loyalty and it discusses why an understanding of satisfaction psychology is vitally important to management.
Call Number: HC110.C6R626 2011 (Library West)
ISBN: 9780062093608.HarperOne,353p.,$25.99
Publication Date: 2011
The American Dream was founded on the belief that anyone dedicated to thrift and hard work could create opportunities and achieve a better life. Now that dream has been reduced to a hyperquantified desire for fancier clothes, sleeker cars, and larger homes. We’ve lost our way, but James Roberts argues that it’s not too late to find it again. In Shiny Objects, he offers us an opportunity to examine our day-to-day habits, and once again strive for lives of quality over quantity. What he and other researchers in his field have found is that no matter what our income level, Americans believe that we need more to live a good life. But as our standard of living has climbed over the past forty years, our self-reported “happiness levels” have flatlined. Roberts isn’t merely concerned with the GDP or big-ticket purchases—damaging spending habits play out countless times a day, in ways big and small: he demonstrates that even the amount we spend at our favorite fast-food joint increases anywhere from 60 to 100 percent when we use a credit card instead of cash. Every time we watch TV or turn on a radio we’re exposed to marketing messages (experts estimate up to 3,000 of them daily). Consumption is king, and its toll is not just a financial one: relationships are suffering, too. Roberts empowers readers to make smart changes, improve self-control, and curtail spending. The American Dream is still ours for the taking, and Shiny Objects is ultimately a hopeful statement about the power we each hold to redefine the pursuit of happiness.
Call Number: HF5415.33.U6 B47 2004 (Library West)
ISBN: 0742536904.Rowman&Littlefield,136p.$19.95
Publication Date: 2004
Are Americans obsessed with shopping? Shop til You Drop is a lively look at our consumer culture and its role in our everyday lives and society. Arthur Asa Berger considers the sacred roots of consumer culture, the demographics of consumption, theories about competing cultures, and the semiotics of shopping. Accessibly written and entertaining, this book is ideal for courses in cultural studies, advertising, and American studies, as well as for anyone curious about our nations drive to consume.
Call Number: HF5461 .M67 2007 (Library West)
ISBN: 9780739116814.LexingtonBooks,123p.$29.95
Publication Date: 2007
"Shopping as an Entertainment Experience" explores the ways in which shopping has become a significant entertainment feature in our daily lives. Dr. Mark H. Moss examines the mall, the e-store, and the department store to demonstrate how shopping is often the most common leisure experience that people indulge in to occupy themselves.
Call Number: E184.A1 H214 2000 (Library West)
ISBN: 0805241566.SchockenBooks,244p.$23.00
Publication Date: 2000
In America today, you can connect to your ethnic heritage in dozens of ways, or adopt an identity just for an evening. Our society is not a melting pot but a salad bar--a bazaar in which the purveyors of goods and services spend close to $2 billion a year marketing the foods, clothing, objects, vacations, and events that help people express their (and others') ethnic identities. This is a huge business, whose target groups are the "hyphenated Americans"--in other words, all of us. As immigrant groups gain economic security, they tend to reinforce--not relinquish--their ethnic identification. Marilyn Halter demonstrates that, to a great extent, they do it by shopping. And their purchasing power is enormous. How has the marketplace responded to this hunger? Instantly and wholeheartedly: tweaking old products and inventing new ones; launching new brands in supermarkets, new music groups, vacation itineraries, language courses, toys, greeting cards, et cetera. This nexus of business and ethnicity is already seen as the hottest consumer development of this decade, and Halter is uniquely qualified to describe its origins, the exponential growth of products and advertising, and the phenomenal sales of items from salsa to Chieftains CDs.
Small Data: The Tiny Clues That Uncover Huge Trends by Martin Lindstrom; Chip Heath (Foreword by)
Call Number: HF5415.32 .L5576 2016 (Library West, On Order)
ISBN: 9781250080684
Publication Date: St. Martin's, 2016. $25.99
Martin Lindstrom, a modern-day Sherlock Holmes, harnesses the power of small data in his quest to discover the next big thing Hired by the world's leading brands to find out what makes their customers tick, Martin Lindstrom spends 300 nights a year in strangers homes, carefully observing every detail in order to uncover their hidden desires, and, ultimately, the clues to a multi-million dollar product. Lindstrom connects the dots in this globetrotting narrative that will enthrall enterprising marketers, as well as anyone with a curiosity about the endless variations of human behavior. You'll learn
Call Number: HN90.S6 E67 2002 (Library West)
ISBN: 9780618340736.HoughtonMifflin,274p.$25.00
Publication Date: 2002
Joseph Epstein's highly entertaining new book takes up the subject of snobbery in America after the fall of the prominence of the old Wasp culture of prep schools, Ivy League colleges, cotillions, debutante balls, the Social Register, and the rest of it. With ample humor and insight, Epstein uncovers the new outlets upon which the old snobbery has fastened: food and wine, fashion, high-achieving children, schools, politics, health, being with-it, name-dropping, and much else, including the roles of Jews and homosexuals in the development of snobbery. He also raises the question of whether snobbery might, alas, be a part of human nature. Snobbery: The American Versionis the first book in English devoted exclusively to the subject since Thackeray's THE BOOK OF SNOBS.
Call Number: HF5415.32 .S596 2009eb e-book (MyiLibrary)
ISBN: 9786611994181.PsychologyPress, 396p.
Publication Date: 2009
The aim of this volume is two-fold. On the one hand, the application of social psychology to consumer behavior is meant to broaden the horizon of social psychologists. On the other hand, students and researchers of consumer behavior will be offered an advanced account of relevant theories tailored to their interests. While the range of topics is rather broad - including the construal of judgments and decisions, affective and cognitive feelings, social and media influences, and goals and self-regulation - each chapter is focused on one specific theoretical or methodological perspective and thereby gives a comprehensive and penetrative account of the relevant issues and the respective research." "The volume provides an invaluable resource to students, researchers, and instructors in social psychology, consumer psychology, consumer behavior, and marketing
Call Number: HB801 .B267 2002 (Library West)
ISBN: 0335207235.OpenUniversity,222p.$85.00
Publication Date: 2002
How do consumers process information? How do they make choices and decisions? How are decisions translated into actions of consumption? The Social Psychology of Consumer Behaviour illuminates an area of intense academic and wider interest, bringing together research and practical insights into how theories in social psychology can be applied to consumer behavior. Core themes include information processing and social cognition, communication processes, attitude models, emotion, social identity theory, and action theory. Within each of the major areas of social psychology, a historical perspective is provided, current knowledge reviewed, theories and findings critiqued, and directions for future research appraised. It provides a deeper perspective than standard texts, which tend to be atheoretical, overly encyclopedic, or outdated. It considers why consumers buy what they do, and how they go about making individual and group decisions concerning consumption. The result is essential reading for students, researchers and practitioners in psychology and marketing, as well as for those in related fields such as public policy, public health, health psychology, political science and sociology.
Call Number: HC110.C6 M35 2006 (Library West)
ISBN: 9780807830338.UniversityofNorthCarolinaPress,536p.$24.95
Publication Date: 2006
At the turn of the twentieth century, an emerging consumer culture in the United States promoted constant spending to meet material needs and develop social identity and self-cultivation. McGovern examines the key players active in shaping this cultural evolution: advertisers and consumer advocates. The result, says McGovern, was a redefinition of the citizen as consumer. The articulation of an "American Way of Life" in the Depression and World War II ratified consumer abundance as the basis of a distinct American culture and history.
Call Number: HB801 .M493 2009 (Library West)
ISBN: 9780670020621.Viking,374p.$26.95
Publication Date: 2009
A leading evolutionary psychologist probes the hidden instincts behind our working, shopping, and spending. Evolutionary psychology-the compelling science of human nature-has clarified the prehistoric origins of human behavior and influenced many fields ranging from economics to personal relationships. In Spent Geoffrey Miller applies this revolutionary science's principles to a new domain: the sensual wonderland of marketing and status seeking that we call American consumer culture. Starting with the basic notion that the goods and services we buy unconsciously advertise our biological potential as mates and friends, Miller examines the hidden factors that dictate our choices in everything from lipstick to cars, from the magazines we read to the music we listen to. With humor and insight, Miller analyzes an array of product choices and deciphers what our decisions say about ourselves, giving us access to a new way of understanding-and improving-our behaviors. Spent is a bold and revelatory book that illuminates the unseen logic behind the chaos of consumerism and suggests new ways we can become happier consumers and more responsible citizens.
Consumer Behavior Books: T - Z
Call Number: HF6146.I58 S65 2015 (Books24x7 & MyiLibrary)
ISBN: 9780814434994
Publication Date: AMACOM, 2014. $24.95
Far from the catchy television spots and sleek magazine spreads are the comparatively modest ads that pop up on websites and in Internet searches. But don't befooled - online advertising is exploding. Growing at a compound annual rate near 20%, it is now the second-largest advertising channel in the United States. Part history, part guidebook, part prediction for the future, Targeted tells the story of the companies, individuals, and innovations driving this revolution. It takes readers behind the scenes - examining the growth of digital advertising, its enormous potential, and the technologies that are changing the game forever. Leading the way is real-time bidding, which offers advertisers unprecedented precision in targeting ads and measuring their effectiveness. From keyword micro-markets and ad serving systems to aggregated virtual audiences and new business models, Targeted is sweeping in scope and stripped of technical complexity. It is an essential resource for anyone interested in finding and connecting with customers in the vast and shifting Internet universe.
Call Number: HM1033 .G53 2000 (Library West)
ISBN: 0316346624.LittleBrown,279p.$14.95
Publication Date: 2000
The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire. Just as a single sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a small but precisely targeted push cause a fashion trend, the popularity of a new product, or a drop in the crime rate. This widely acclaimed bestseller, in which Malcolm Gladwell explores and brilliantly illuminates the tipping point phenomenon, is already changing the way people throughout the world think about selling products and disseminating ideas.
Call Number: HB841 .S55 2005 (Library West)
ISBN: 1591840139.2ndEdition,Portfolio,300p.$26.95
Publication Date: 2005
Trading up isn't just for the wealthy anymore. These days no one is shocked when an administrative assistant buys silk pajamas at Victoria's Secret. Or a young professional buys only Kendall-Jackson premium wines. Or a construction worker splurges on a $3,000 set of Callaway golf clubs. In dozens of categories, these "new luxury" brands now sell at huge premiums over conventional goods, and in much larger volumes than traditional "old luxury" goods. Trading Up has become the definitive book about this growing trend.
Call Number: HF5415.32 .S557 2006 (Library West)
ISBN: 1591841232.Portfolio,267P.$26.95
Publication Date: 2006
A BMW in a Costco parking lot? A working class family with a 50 inch plasma TV? A 27-year-old Japanese administrative assistant with a collection of Coach purses? What's going on in the mind of the new consumer? Today's consumers can seem impossible to understand, and even harder to please. For instance, the average mall shopper will spend her $100, then leave when she hits that limit. She'll probably buy shoes rather than clothing, because she doesn't want to think about her dress size. And the store most likely to get her money isn't the one with the nicest display or the deepest discounts... it's the one closest to her parking spot. In his research with dozens of leading companies, Michael J. Silverstein has interviewed thousands of customers, extracting fascinating patterns about what really drives their purchase decisions. His first book, the acclaimed bestseller Trading Up, has taught a generation of marketers about the "new luxury" phenomenon, and why consumers will happily pay a steep premium for goods and services that are emotionally satisfying, from golf clubs to bathroom hardware to beauty products.
Call Number: HF5415.33.U6 K38 1998 (Library West)
ISBN: 0789001756.HaworthPress,235p.$39.95
Publication Date: 1998
A scholarly yet personal study, Twenty Million New Customers!: Understanding Gay Men's Consumer Behavior is a mixed shopping bag, taking you on a day-in-the-life tour of the buying patterns of 44 gay men. As an up-to-date catalog of scholarly data, it helps you see how "mainstream" businesses can tailor their marketing methods to this expanding demand in a competent, professional, and ethical manner. As a commentary on lifestyle, it transports you to unexplored consumer behavior territory that most people still consider "deviant."
Call Number: HF5415.32 .V36 2012 (Library West)
ISBN: 9780230341791.PalgraveMacmillan,274p.,$28.00
Publication Date: 2012
For too long marketers have been asking the wrong question. If consumers make decisions unconsciously, why do we persist in asking them directly through traditional marketing research why they do what they do? They simply can't tell us because they don't really know. Before marketers develop strategies, they need to recognize that consumers have strategies too . . .human strategies, not consumer strategies. We need to go beyond asking why, and begin to ask how,behavior change occurs. Here, author DouglasVan Praet takes the most brilliant and revolutionary concepts from cognitive science and applies them to how we market, advertise, and consume in the modern digital age. Van Praet simplifies the most complex object in the known universe - the human brain - into seven codified actionable steps to behavior change. These steps are illustrated using real world examples from advertising, marketing, media and business to consciously unravel what brilliant marketers and ad practitioners have long done intuitively, deconstructing the real story behind some of the greatest marketing and business successes in recent history, such as Nike's "Just Do It" campaign; "Got Milk?"; Wendy's "Where's the Beef?" ;and the infamous Volkswagen "Punch Buggy" launch as well as their beloved "The Force" (Mini Darth Vader) Super Bowl commercial.
Understanding Consumer Decision Making: The Means-End Approach to Marketing and Advertising Strategy by Edited by Thomas J. Reynolds and Jerry C. Olson
Call Number: HF5415.32 .U53 2001 e-book (netLibrary) and Library West
ISBN: 0805817301.L.Erlbaum, 447p. $45.00
Publication Date: 2001
The goal of this book is to help business managers and academic researchers understand the means-end perspective and the methods by which it is used, and to demonstrate how to use the means-end approach to develop better marketing and advertising strategy. The authors discuss methodological issues regarding interviewing and coding, present applications of the means-end approach to marketing and advertising problems, and describe the conceptual foundations of the means-end approach. This book is of interest to academic researchers in marketing and related fields, graduate students in business, marketing research professionals, and business managers. It is intended as a reference book containing ideas about the means-end approach and its applications.
Visual Consumption by by Jonathan E. Schroeder
Call Number: HF5415.32 .S365 2002 (Library West)
ISBN: 0415244242.Routledge,193p.$75.00
Publication Date: 2002
A key characteristic of the twenty-first century economy is 'the image'. Brand development is based on image, products advertised via images, and corporate image is critical for economic success. This book draws from art history, photography and visual studies to develop an interdisciplinary, image-based approach to understanding consumer behavior.
Call Number: HD60 .M327 2011 (Library West)
ISBN: 9780230110267.PalgraveMacmillan,250p.
Publication Date: 2011
A social media expert with global experience with many of the world’s biggest brands —including Nike, Toyota and Motorola—Simon Mainwaring offers a visionary new practice in which brands leverage social media to earn consumer goodwill, loyalty and profit, while creating a third pillar of sustainable social change through conscious contributions from customer purchases. These innovative private sector partnerships answer perhaps the most pressing issue facing business and thought leaders today: how to practice capitalism in a way that satisfies the need for both profit and a healthy, sustainable planet. Mainwaring provides case studies from companies such as P&G, Walmart, Starbucks, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Toyota, Nike, Whole Foods, Patagonia, and Nestlé as well as a bold plan for how corporations need to rethink their strategies.
Call Number: HF5415.33.C6 D634 2012 (Library West)
ISBN: 9780230340305.PalgraveMacmillan, 272 p., $27.00
Publication Date: 2012
Today, most Americans take for granted that China will be the next global superpower. But despite the nation's growing influence, the average Chinese person is still a mystery—or, at best, a baffling set of seeming contradictions—to Westerners who expect the rising Chinese consumer to resemble themselves. Here, Tom Doctoroff, the guiding force of advertising giant J. Walter Thompson's (JWT) China operations, marshals his 20 years of experience navigating this fascinating intersection of commerce and culture to explain the mysteries of China. He explores the many cultural, political, and economic forces shaping the twenty-first-century Chinese and their implications for businesspeople, marketers, and entrepreneurs—or anyone else who wants to know what makes the Chinese tick. Dismantling common misconceptions, Doctoroff provides the context Westerners need to understand the distinctive worldview that drives Chinese businesses and consumers. Change is coming fast and furious in China, challenging not only how the Western world sees the Chinese but how they see themselves. From the new generation's embrace of Christmas to the middle-class fixation with luxury brands; from the exploding senior demographic to what the Internet means for the government's hold on power, Doctoroff pulls back the curtain to reveal a complex and nuanced picture of a facinating people whose lives are becoming ever more entwined with our own.
Call Number: HC110.C6 M53 2005 (Library West)
ISBN: 0972529098.ParamountMarketing,123p.$39.95
Publication Date: 2005
At last--in-depth, qualitative insights paint an eye-opening picture of Black culture and the Black lifestyle and how to connect your products and services with Black consumers.What's Black About It? presents historical, psychological, and cultural influences that delve far deeper into the Black experience than the demographics that are at the heart of other ethnic marketing books and market research reports. Now you will be able to break through stereotypes to better understand and relate to African-American consumers.Other ethnic marketing books may include a general chapter or two on Black consumers. What's Black About It? focuses on African-American consumers and engages you with bold graphics, pop-culture sidebars, insights from focus groups, and examples from current advertising and marketing campaigns.
Call Number: HF5415.32 .C64 2006(Library West)
ISBN: 0071460365.McGrawHill,184p.$24.95
Publication Date: 2006
In today's rapidly shifting marketplace, brand loyalty has subsided and the consumer-of-the-moment rules. To successfully compete for customers' wallet share, you must connect with them, understand their buying habits, and anticipate their every move. In Why Customers Do What They Do, Marshal Cohen, the chief industry analyst for The NPD Group and one of the foremost authorities on consumer behavior, gives managers responsible for branding, marketing, and sales strategies the ability to anticipate the needs, wants, and desires of today's consumer. Drawing on years of market research from The NPD Group, Cohen uncovers the major trends that drive consumer behavior, revealing why and how consumers' daily habits affect their purchasing behavior--and how this behavior will affect your business.
Call Number: GN502 .S59 2003 (Library West)
ISBN: 0674010574.HarvardUniversityPress,432p.$55.00
Publication Date: 2003
Why do American children sleep alone instead of with their parents? Why do middle-aged Western women yearn for their youth, while young wives in India look forward to being middle-aged? In these provocative essays, one of the most brilliant advocates of cultural psychology reminds us that cultural differences in mental life lie at the heart of any understanding of the human condition. Drawing on ethnographic studies of the distinctive modes of psychological functioning in communities around the world, Richard Shweder explores ethnic and cultural differences in ideals of gender, in the life of the emotions, in conceptions of mature adulthood and the stages of life, and in moral judgments about right and wrong. Shweder, a cultural pluralist, dares readers to broaden their own conceptions of what is good, true, beautiful, and efficient and to take a closer look at specific cultural practices--parent/child cosleeping, arranged marriage, male and female genital modifications--that we may initially find alien or disturbing. He invites us to reject both radical relativism (the view that whatever is, is okay) and imperial visions of universal progressive cultural development (for example, the idea that "the West is Best") and to engage in more deeply informed cultural critique.
Call Number: HF5415.32 .R38 2000 (Library West)
ISBN: 0415220955.Routledge,330p.$90.00
Publication Date: 2000
This book brings together an international collection of authors from a variety of disciplines who offer new and critical perspectives, summarize key findings and provide important theoretical frameworks to guide the reader through the 'why?' of consumption. Unique in focus and with multifaceted approach which anyone interested in consumption and consumer research will find fascinating, this topical book provides an excellent overview of current research, and imparts key insights to illuminate the subject for both academics and practitioners alike.
Call Number: HF5415.3 .O84 1987 (Library West)
ISBN: 0195040864.OxfordUniversityPress,195p.$15.95
Publication Date: 1987
Why People Buy provides an original approach to studying and understanding consumers, showing how to identify their goals, wants, dbeliefs, and choices. Discussing these and many other issues from the point of view of the marketing manager seeking to attract new customers, retain old ones, increase business, or convert customers from rivals, O'Shaughnessy explains all the major criteria that enter into consumer choices. Original and provocative, Why People Buy is "must" reading for anyone involved in selling or buying.
Call Number: HF5415.32 .D36 2004b e-book (Books24x7) and Library West
ISBN: 0972529047.RevisedEdition,ParamountMarket,290p.$40.19
Publication Date: 2004
People like to spend. Consumers, and their spending on the things they want but do not need, make a tremendous contribution to the U.S. economy. Of the $10 trillion gross national product, 30 percent, or $3 trillion, is made up of consumer discretionary spending. Pamela Danziger, president of Unity Marketing, explores the motivations behind consumer discretionary spending to find out why people are spending their money on things other than necessities, such as food, homes, medical care and gasoline. After performing extensive research into her subject and conducting numerous focus groups, Danziger concludes that understanding why consumers behave the way they do will help marketers understand and predict future consumer spending behavior. While revealing the information she has uncovered, she develops insight into how predictable changes in consumer demographics will shape their behavior. She then aims to help marketers develop strategies that are grounded in consumer intelligence rather than impersonal data. Taking a new look at the consumer, she offers a better perspective on the future habits of these fickle, emotional, yet predictable consumers.
Call Number: HF5438.25 .W2864 1999 (Library West)
ISBN: 0738200123.PerseusBooks,198p.$24.00
Publication Date: 1999
In Why People Don't Buy Things, Washburn and Wallace break through the clutter and offer a deceptively simple, but revolutionary, approach to successful selling that turns the process on its head. Drawing from their extensive experience in sales research, marketing research, consulting, and training, as well as from the fields of psychology, neurology, and cognitive science, the authors present a field-tested sequence of steps - what they call the Dream path (Do-Repeat-Evaluate-Access-Money) - that breaks down the buying decision from the customer's point of view. At the heart of this process is the art of learning to "read" your customers - through their language, gestures, and personal environment - to identify buying profiles and tailor your messages for maximum impact. The authors identify the three dominant profiles as Commanders, Thinkers, and Visualizers, and present a wide range of strategies and specific approaches for successfully recognizing, and selling to, these profiles the way they intuitively prefer to buy.
Call Number: HC79.C6 B694 2009 (Library West)
ISBN: 9780307450388). Crown Business, 336 p. $26.00
Publication Date: 2009
Women are the engine of the global economy, driving 80 percent of consumer spending in the United States alone. They hold the purse strings, and when they’ve got a tight grip on them as they do now, companies must be shrewder than ever to win them over. Just when executives have mastered becoming technology literate, they find there’s another skill they need: becoming female literate. This isn’t always easy. Gender is the most powerful determinant of how a person views the world and everything in it. It’s stronger than age, income, or race. While there are mountains of research done every year segmenting consumers and analyzing why they buy, more often than not it doesn’t factor in the one piece of information that trumps them all: the sex of the buyer. It’s stunning how many companies overlook the psychology of gender when we all know that men and women look at the world so differently. Bridget Brennan’s Why She Buys shows decision makers how to bridge this divide and capture the business of the world’s most powerful consumers just when they need it most.
Call Number: HF5415.2 .U53 1999 (Library West)
ISBN: 0684849135.Simon&Schuster,255p.$15.00
Publication Date: 1999
Is there a method to our madness when it comes to shopping? Hailed by the San Francisco Chronicle as "a Sherlock Holmes for retailers," author and research company CEO Paco Underhill answers with a definitive "yes" in this witty, eye-opening report on our ever-evolving consumer culture. Why We Buy is based on hard data gleaned from thousands of hours of field research–in shopping malls, department stores, and supermarkets across America. With his team of sleuths tracking our every move, Paco Underhill lays bare the struggle among merchants, marketers, and increasingly knowledgeable consumers for control.
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In which city is the new 27-storey $1bn residential property 'Antilla', home to the 4th richest person in the world, and (as at 2010) reportedly the most expensive home anywhere? | YES Bank CEO Rana Kapoor Buys Rs 128 Cr Home Next to Ambani's 27-storey Antilla..! ~ Real Estate, Share Market, Mutual Fund, Insurance
YES Bank CEO Rana Kapoor Buys Rs 128 Cr Home Next to Ambani's 27-storey Antilla..!
By S. Chitra on Sunday, June 02, 2013
The family of YES Bank CEO and MD Mr. Rana Kapoor has bought a residential building - jointly owned by Citibank & GlaxoSmithKline - on tony Altamount Road in Mumbai for Rs. 128 crore, and plans to build a house there.
The building is next to Mukesh Ambani's 27-storey Antilla.
Khursheedabad Building, the apartment block, was put on the block in March this year (2013).
The building, built on a 3rd of an acre plot, stands in the middle of a posh neighbourhood that boasts of houses of some of India's richest businessmen - Mr. Ambani and Mr. Kumar Mangalam Birla - as well as of Washington House sold recently by the US Embassy to Lodha Developers. It has 6 apartments in all, of which the US-based bank owns 5 while one is owned by the British healthcare firm.
The building has been acquired in the name of Mr. Rana Kapoor's wife Ms. Bindu and a privately held company. The Mr and Ms. Kapoors plan to bring down the structure to build their house and a small office for themselves, one of the persons said.
Delhi-born Kapoor, a career banker, is the founder of YES Bank, India's 4th-largest private bank, and has been on the lookout for properties in south Mumbai for the last one year.
Many Indian businessmen have been buying expensive houses in Delhi & Mumbai over the last few years. Earlier this month, ITC Chairman Mr. Y.C Deveshwar bought a bungalow in Delhi's Shanti Niketan area for Rs. 85 crore.
The ground plus 2 storey structure on Altamount Road currently has a total built-up area of 14,800 square feet that includes a basement and has been used by Citibank and GSK over the years to house their mid-to-senior level executives. Mr, Nanoo Pamnani, who is on the advisory board of BMR Advisors, stayed in one of the apartments here in the 1980s-90s before he became the chief executive officer of Citibank India in 1999 and later its chairman.
Realty - Special Buildings
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'Five-finger discount' is US slang for what crime? | Reliance Industries Limited - First thoughts about
Reliance Industries Limited
Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) is an Indian conglomerate company headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.
Write here your first thoughts about Reliance Industries Limited ...
05 Oct 2016 13:29
Reliance Jioâs Range of 4G Services: Reliance Jio, the digital arm of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) launc...
04 Oct 2016 15:21
Wow! Exciting experiences from so many different places!. Today: Reliance Industries Limited!. Check it out!...
04 Oct 2016 04:55
Priyanka Agrawal (PGDMHR 2016-18) has bagged an internship at Reliance Industries Limited. Here is what she has toâ¦
04 Oct 2016 04:26
Transocean said Reliance Industries Limited has terminated contract for its 'Discoverer India' ultra-deepwater drillship, effective Dec 2016
29 Mar 2016 08:00
Dhirubhai Ambani the founder of Reliance Industries Limited is now holding He was always my role...
27 Dec 2015 11:32
Mind blowing is the word for by Reliance Industries Limited. Amazing initiative to put employees first.
26 Dec 2015 09:22
Want to get hired ? Visit to be the Reliance Brand Innovations. Executive!!
25 Dec 2015 12:26
Reliance Industries Limited aka RIL's pay-off line: "Growth is life.". Well, a tumour is also called "growth", so? .
25 Dec 2015 11:53
People named in this blog post, incl Reliance Industries Limited & r responsible 4 my torture,death:.
23 Dec 2015 08:42
An opportunity for Campus Students to work with Reliance Industries.
22 Dec 2015 15:30
This can be a dream start all fresh graduates in India...Huge step towards making India prosper.Cheers.. RIL ..!! httâ¦
21 Aug 2015 12:15
Reliance Industries Limited is Hiring Telecom Executive - Walk in Intevriew for Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd for ...
26 Jul 2015 09:06
Reliance Industries Limited's (RIL) share of profit from investments slips to 29%: The proportion of our bank ...
25 Jul 2015 14:08
Reliance shares have done well lately, but the upside seems limited:
24 Jul 2015 11:27
Reliance Industries Limited - Press Release: Reliance Industries Limited has informed the Exchange regarding a...
24 Jul 2015 11:04
Reliance Industries Limited - Unaudited Financial Results for the quarter ended June 30, 2015
28 May 2015 05:17
Mukesh Ambani -led Reliance Industries Limited will be soon come up with two new petrochemical plants. These...
10 Dec 2014 21:51
Reliance Industries Limited says not in overseas market to raise funds via bond sale - The Economic Times
03 Nov 2014 16:06
Arun Jaitley, Mukesh Ambani to speak at India Global Forum: Union Finance and Defence Minister Arun Jaitley will kick off the two-day India Global Forum meeting in Delhi with a keynote address on November 9. The India Global Forum is organised by the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) and the Observer Research Foundation (ORF). Jaitley will be followed by Minister for Commerce and Industry Nirmala Sitharaman who will address the second plenary session "The New Global Economic Order â Multilateral Institutions and the New Regionalism". Other star speakers on the first day include Suresh Prabhu, Prime Minister Modi's G-20 Sherpa, Yasutoshi Nishimura, Senior Vice Minister, Cabinet Office, Japan, Dino Patti Djalal, Deputy Foreign Minister, Indonesia, Saumitra Chaudhuri, former Member, Planning Commission of India and Amitabh Kant, Secretary, Industrial Policy and Promotion, India. On the second day, Mukesh Ambani , Chairman, Reliance Industries Limited, and Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman, Bha ...
14 Oct 2014 07:03
CURRENT AFFAIRS 13 â 14 OCTâ14 CURRENT AFFAIRS 13 OCTOBERâ14 1) 12 October 2014 etched its name in Indiaâs footballing history as Indian Super League (ISL) â countryâs first real professional football league featuring some top international names, got underway on this day. ISL will be second major football league in India after I-League. Which are the two entities who have main stake in ISL? â Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) and International Management Group (IMG) Explanation: RIL and IMG signed a Rs. 700 crore deal with the All India Football Federation (AIFF) in December 2010 for a 15-year exclusive right over ISL. This deal gave the duo exclusive commercial rights to sponsorship, advertising, broadcasting, merchandising, video, franchising, and rights to create a new football league. ISL started with a bang with its grand opening ceremony at Kolkataâs Salt Lake Stadium . The first season of ISL started on 12 October with eight franchisee teams â Atlético de Kolkata (Kolkata), Chenn ...
08 Sep 2014 15:36
Antilia is a residential complex in South Mumbai, India. It is owned by Mukesh Ambani , chairman of Reliance Industries Limited. It is reported to be the most expensive home in the world with 27 floors and includes 600 staff to maintain the residence, 6 floors of parking, ice room, a ball room, health room with a Jacuzzi, several floors of bedrooms and bathrooms ,gym and a 4 floors of garden. Back in 2010, the worldâs most expensive home is lying unused and abandoned because its billionaire owners believe moving in will bring them bad luck. The 27-storey, billion-dollar tower in Mumbai, called Antilia, is said to have fallen foul of vastu shastra â an obscure Hindu version of feng shui. Mukesh Ambani â ranked by Forbes as the ninth wealthiest person in the world with a fortune of $27billion â Antilia has dominated the Mumbai skyline since being completed in 2010. the property â w ...
29 Jul 2014 20:03
Buzzing News:. Reliance Industries Limited takes over Viacom 18's Colors channel, which means that there might be...
29 Jul 2014 14:51
Colours channel is taken over by RELIANCE INDUSTRIES LIMITED.
29 Jul 2014 14:31
Hope dis changes things fr our show in terms of promotion!
29 Jul 2014 09:50
Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) today reported its financial performance for the quarter
24 Jul 2014 08:47
Please enjoy your Modi Sarkar brought to you by Mukesh Ambani , sponsored by Reliance Industries Limited. I hope you like our product:-)
21 Jun 2014 11:01
Speaking at Reliance Industries Limited, AGM on June 18, Mukesh Ambani said that in just 37 years Reliance became a world-class company. It has so far invested Rs.240,000 crores in its businesses and was poised to invest a further Rs.180,000 crores in the next three year cycle. RIL is now poised to enter the Fortune 50 after being in the Fortune 100s for years. The story of how it reached these levels that made it India's biggest single company, its single biggest exporter and its single biggest tax payer is a remarkable story in itself. It is also a commentary on how India manages itself and deals with wealth creation. MG "You see things; and you say, âWhy?â But I dream things that never were; and I say, âWhy not?â George Bernard Shaw in âBack to Methuselahâ (1921) Dhirubhai Ambani : THE MAN WHO SAID WHY NOT? Given our recent political and intellectual tradition, the image of a greedy, exploitative, manipulative and somehow undeserving capitalist is etched in our minds and hence in our natio . ...
11 Jun 2014 13:39
What Future for the Media in India? Reliance Takeover of Network18 Indiaâs largest company now controls Indiaâs largest media conglomerate. Indiaâs media could therefore well be perceived to henceforth be a little less independent or, for that matter, trustworthy. The decision by Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) to wrest full managerial and editorial control over the Network18 group was not unexpected given the fact that two and half years ago, RIL, the country's biggest privately-owned company, had invested heavily in Network18, India's biggest media organisation after its virtual amalgamation with the Eenadu group. The country's richest man, Mukesh D Ambani, is now, formally, also India's biggest media baron. However, what took some by surprise was the speed with which the core team led by the Network18 group's principal promoter Raghav Bahl quit â rather, was ousted â within a fortnight of the declaration of the results of the general elections on 16 May. Rationale The Reliance Group seeks t ...
08 Jun 2014 11:21
Where's free media? Kuldip Nayar, Jun 6, 2014 : Between the lines I was not surprised when television channels did not cover the taking over of a large television news network by Mukesh Ambani âs Reliance Industries Limited. Most channels -- roughly around 300 -- are owned by property dealers who can afford to spend Rs 1 crore, an average monthly expenditure, through money laundering. Every one of them wants to be the Reliance one day. What has taken me aback is that the press has reported the deal but has preferred to keep quiet. Even though journalism has ceased to be a profession and has become an industry, I was expecting some reactions, at least from the Editorsâ Guild of India. But then it is understandable when it has rejected my proposal that editors should also declare their assets public, the demand which they voice for politicians. Double standards make a mockery of the high pedestal on which the media sit. I am not against corporations investing in the media. Rising costs and shrinking adve ...
03 Jun 2014 13:33
When is the International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers observed? Ans - 29 May [2] Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) announced on 29 May 2014 to buy 78 percent stake in Network18 Media and Investments for how much amount? Ans - 4000 crore rupees. [3] Name the two Indian-Americans who jointly won the prestigious Scripps National Spelling Bee ? Ans - Sriram J Hathwar and Ansun Sujoe [4] Name the eminent Hindi writer who has been awarded the prestigious Vyas Samman 2013? Ans - Vishwanath Tripathi [5] Who won Monaco Grand Prix of Formula One? Ans - Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg of Germany [6] When was Goa Day observed? Ans - Goa observes 30 May as Goa Day. Goa became 25th State of the Indian Union on 30 May 1987 and this is 27th Statehood Day. [7] Who has been appointed as the Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC)? Ans - Dinesh Sarraf [8] Who won the Protein Societyâs Protein Science Young Investigator Award for 2014 at Cambridge? Ans - Madan Babu [9] Who released ...
30 May 2014 03:38
HEADLINES:- * Congress suspends former-Kerala Minister T H Mustafa for making anti-Rahul Gandhi statement. * Centre promulgates ordinance on Polavaram multi purpose Project. * Enquiry committee set up by National Commission for Women to visit Badaun, Uttar Pradesh today to investigate alleged gang rape and killing of two minor girls. * SIT on black money to hold first meeting on 4th of June. * Reliance Industries Limited is all set to take control of Network 18 Group. * Chennai Super Kings to take on Kings Eleven Punjab in the second qualifier of IPL. *Defending champion Rafael Nadal enters third round of Men's Singles at French Open tennis championships.
30 May 2014 02:26
Raghav Bahl , Rajdeep Sardesai and Sagarika Ghose to quit as Reliance Industries Limited decides to buy Network 18 for 4000 Cr.
24 May 2014 03:53
Good Morning! News 24.5.2014 1. An attack on the Indian consulate in Herat, Afghanistan, by four men armed with grenades and rocket launchers, casts shadow on Modi's Saarc party 2. State Bank of India (SBI), the countryâs largest lender, sprung a pleasant surprise by reporting a drop in bad loans even as higher provisioning dragged its net profit down 7.8 per cent in the fourth quarter ended March 2014 3. The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) approved deferment of premiums for nine projects worth â¹5,960 crore, spread over the next 12 years 4. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is extending its presence in the wholesale business in India to the virtual marketplace by launching a business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce platform 5. Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) on Friday hit out at ONGC for suing it over the Krishna-Godavari (K-G) gas dispute and also denied the claim made by ONGC that the company was stealing gas from ONGCâs K-G gas block off Andhra coast
22 May 2014 11:14
* Test your gray cells * As per news, the annual salary of the Chairman/CEO of which of the following organizations was capped at Rs.15 crore for the sixth year in a row even as the remuneration of key executives went up, reflecting his desire to continue to set a personal example for moderation in managerial compensation levels? (1) Kingfisher Airlines (2) Hindustan Unilever (3) Reliance Industries Limited (4) Tata Sons (5) Hewett Packard
29 Apr 2014 12:59
The Supreme Court on April 29 cleared the decks for adjudication of dispute between Mukesh Ambani -led Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) and Government of India over recovery of cost for developing the country key natural gas field in KG Basin.
19 Apr 2014 04:15
::: Today TOP 10 HEADLINES ::: 1. India-born poet Vijay Seshadri has won 2014 Pulitzer Prize in poetry category for his witty & philosophical collection of poems. 2. Snapping the declining trend, the inflation rose to a three month high of 5.7 per cent in March mainly due to spurt in prices of food items like potato, onion and fruits. 3. Economic Affairs Secretary Arvind Mayaram has been designated as the new Finance Secretary. 4. The Guardian and The Washington Post were awarded the honour of sharing the Pulitzer Prize. 5. The first ever Indian-American Miss America 2014 Nina Davuluri with celebrated Indian-American chef Maneet Chauhan has been invited by the White House for its annual Easter Egg Roll Celebrations. 6. Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) recently commissioned its new polyester filament yarn (PFY) facility at Silvassa. 7. India received a cheque of USD 265,000 for finishing third, while South Africa pocketed USD 475,000 for claiming the top position in the ICC Test Team Rankings at the April ...
16 Apr 2014 07:52
Securities Appellate Tribunal adjourns hearing of an appeal by Reliance Industries Limited in an insider trading case.
10 Apr 2014 07:32
Mysterious silence of Cong/BJP on gas pricing The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) questions the mysterious silence of the Congress and the BJP on the issue of pricing of the natural gas. It is shocking that the UPA government had tried to push through a completely unjustified decision to double the prices of natural gas and impose huge financial burden on the people when its tenure is all but over. Equally shocking is the stand of the BJP and its Prime Ministerial candidate on the issue. It is beyond understanding as to why this party which is day-dreaming about forming the next central government is not willing to speak out on whether the UPA governmentâs decision was correct or not ? Is it because the BJP wants to hike the prices of natural gas to benefit the Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) even beyond the $ 8.4 per unit which the UPA government desperately wanted to fix ? The BJP stand on the UPAâs bid to double gas prices, which has been rightly deferred by the Election Commission, makes it clear that the ...
07 Apr 2014 06:20
On serious note, meeting a new client. He is ACTUALLY an agent of Reliance Industries Limited. Ambani ka agent. No man wearingâ¦
06 Apr 2014 17:04
UPA govt trying to interfere in investigations against RIL gas price scam The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) strongly condemns the desperate attempts by the Congress-led UPAâs central government to influence the ongoing investigation into the multi-crore natural gas price hike scam by Delhi governmentâs Anti-Corruption Branch. The opinion by a central governmentâs law officer (Solicitor General) reported in the media is shocking and clearly establishes collusion between the petroleum ministry and the Reliance Industries Limited, which is aimed at providing this company an unjustified gain of Rs 54,500 crore every year. The Solicitor General (SG) appears to be trying to create an erroneous impression that even if any central minister allegedly commits a crime in Delhi, then no action can be taken against such a minister. The timing of the SGâs opinion is questionable and raises suspicion that the UPA government, which is about to demit office in a monthâs time is using its law officers to avoid facing the ...
24 Mar 2014 05:07
Arvind's letter to EC on Gas pricing issue To Mr VS Sampath Chief Election Commissioner Election Commission of India Nirvachan Sadan New Delhi Sub : Request for EC intervention to put on hold the governmentâs decision to double the gas prices. Respected sir, I would like to draw your attention towards an extremely important issue concerning the people of the country. The central government has decided to increase the price of natural gas from April 1 from the existing $ 4.2 per mmbtu (One million British Thermal Unit) to $ 8.4. This policy decision, which the government is set to implement from April 1 is a clear violation of the Model Code of Conduct, since it is directly aimed at providing huge financial benefits to Reliance Industries Limited and falls within the ambit of corrupt practices during the elections. It is estimated that the government decision is likely to cost the country Rs 54,500 crore every year and it must be probed by the EC how much money has been provided by the RIL to the Congres ...
14 Mar 2014 02:33
Current Affairs Preparation Guide Feb. 16-2014 1) People in the News: Mukesh Ambani â Chairman of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) Pandit Jasraj â Associated with Hindustani Classical Music Y.S.P. Thorat â resigned as Chairman of NCDEX â National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange 2) The controversial spray used by a Vijayawada M.P. in the Parliament does not contain either pepper or chilli powder. It instead contains a chemical called capsaicin, derived from fruits of plants like capsicum or chilli. Itâs use in war is banned by Chemical Weapons Convention. 3) Tenge is the national currency of Kazakhstan. Protests were held against itâs devaluation. 4) SEBI â Securities and Exchange Board of India increases the minimum net worth requirement for Asset Management Companies from 10 crores to 50 crores. 5) âAttukal Pongalaâ is a festival celebration in Kerala which is Keralaâs considered one of the âlargest congregation of womenâ. Current Affairs Questions: 1) In which state is the fe ...
14 Feb 2014 15:16
Pertinent to remember recent history on the reliance gas issue.. Notice to Centre, Reliance on plea to cancel KG-D6 contract NGO Common Cause, others, allege mala fide conduct by RIL The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to the Centre, Reliance Industries and others on a public interest litigation petition filed by NGO Common Cause and others seeking a direction to the Union of India to cancel the production sharing contract (PSC) between Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) and NIKO Resources for extracting gas in the KG block. A Bench of Chief Justice P. Sathasivam and Justice Ranjan Gogoi, after hearing counsel Prashant Bhushan, issued notice returnable in four weeks. The Bench, which had earlier issued notice to the Centre on a PIL plea filed by CPI MP Gurudas Dasgupta, directed the present petition to be tagged with that case. The petitioners, including T.S.R. Subramanian (former Cabinet Secretary), Admiral (Retd.) L. Ramdas (former Chief of Naval Staff) and Ramaswamy R. Iyer (former Secretary, Gove ...
12 Feb 2014 08:14
Here is today's video of the Press Conference, where Arvind Kejriwal explains the full extent of the misdoings by Reliance Industries Limited.
12 Feb 2014 06:18
The GoI has allowed Reliance Industries Limited a recurring scam that would cost us each year what Odisha's mining scam cost us in a decade.
03 Feb 2014 15:51
(1) Mukesh Ambani ($22,600) â Reliance Group Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani is an Indian business magnate who is the chairman and CEO of the Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries Limited, the foremost company of the Indian energy and materials conglomerate Reliance Group . (2) Lakshmi Mittal ($19,200) ArcelorMittal Lakshmi Niwas Mittal is an English based Indian steel magnate. He is the chairman and CEO of ArcelorMittal, the worldâs largest steelmaking company (3) Azim Premji ($13,000) â Wipro Azim Hashim Premji is an Indian business tycoon and philanthropist who is the chairman of Wipro Limited, guiding the company through four decades of diversification and growth to emerge as one of the Indian leaders in the software industry. (4) Shashi Ruia and Ravi Ruia ($10,200) Vodafone-Essar The brothers, Shashi and Ravi Ruia , sold their one-third stake in telecom unit Vodafone Essar for $5.4 billion in July, 2011 after their plan for listing the holding was opposed by Vodafone. (5) Savitri Jindal ($9,500) â Ji ...
27 Dec 2013 17:03
Ambaniji, Audi ki Tyre mein kuch kala hain?! Phorum Ruparel, the complainant in the Mumbai accident case involving an Aston Martin owned by Reliance Industries Limited, has denied receiving any compensation from Ambanis as she replaced her damaged Audi 4 with the latest model, the Audi 6, worth at least Rs 40 lakh. The licence plate of the new car sporting a fancy number (MH03 BJ 6) triggered a controversy with the RTO saying it was "illegal" as it had not been registered with the transport department. It issued a showcause notice on Thursday. "There was no compensation involved. My car was declared a total loss and the insurance company was ready to replace my old Audi 4 with a new one. But I put in some more money and I upgraded it to the Audi 6," said Phorum, a 25-year-old student. If she appeared a bit cagey, her mother was categorical. "The new car has been purchased from our own money. Nobody from Reliance approached us," she said. Sources said the new Audi 6 is worth at least Rs 40 lakh and the tax ...
27 Dec 2013 16:10
Mukesh Ambani âs visit to Gadkariwada sets poll speculations scorching in Nagpur. Setting the rumor mills working at high pace, Mukesh Ambani , Chairman and Managing Director of one of the Indiaâs largest corporate Reliance Industries Limited, reportedly made a surprise visit to Nagpur few days back where he held a closed door meeting with former BJP President Nitin Gadkari at the latterâs residence. The meeting has stirred a hornetâs nest in the political circles which have been churning several equations out of the under-the-wraps parley between the industrial conglomerate and the BJPâs bigwig. Sources close to Gadkariwada informed that some days back Ambani landed in Nagpur and headed directly towards Gadkariâs residence from the airport. Both had the private discussion and after a brief meeting Ambani flew back to Mumbai. Speculations are rife that the meeting has much to do with the forthcoming general elections for which BJP has projected Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as its prime m ...
29 Nov 2013 14:15
Reliance Industries Limited. Mukesh Ambani is richest Indian and a wise gentleman.
28 Nov 2013 00:26
rajgaurav: Reliance Industries Limited - Allotment of Securities - Reliance Industries Limited has...
27 Nov 2013 07:47
Impressed by the quality of presentations made by speakers from Reliance Industries Limited
26 Oct 2013 12:02
Shah Rukh Khan enters super-rich list with wealth of $400 million: NDTV : Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan has entered the list of super-rich Indians who have personal wealth of $300 million or more, says a report. The actor, who is the co-owner of Red Chillies Entertainment, has been ranked at 114 with personal assets of $400 million, according to the second edition of Hurun India Rich List released on Thursday. The report says the total wealth of India's top 100 rich people rose to $250 billion this year as compared to $221 billion in the previous year. With personal wealth of $18.9 billion, Reliance Industries Limited chairman Mukesh Ambani tops the country's rich list followed by London-based ArcelorMittal's chief L.N. Mittal with assets of $15.9 billion. Dilip Shanghvi, 58, founder of Sun Pharmaceuticals, India's second largest drug maker, broke into the top three for the first time with a 66 per cent surge in his wealth. This rise in stock price was supported by the expected sales of the cancer dr ...
26 Oct 2013 06:11
Free Press:- The status of Free Press In India. On January 3 2012, the Mukesh Ambani -led Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) â announced that it was entering into a complex, multi-layered financial arrangement that involved selling of its interests in the Andhra Pradesh- based Eenadu group founded by Ramoji Rao to the Network 18 group headed by Raghav Bahl and also funding the latter through a rights issue of shares. The deal will make the combined conglomerate Indiaâs biggest media group, according to Bahlâbigger than media groups such as STAR controlled by Rupert Murdoch, and BCCL controlled by the Jain family. On May 19, 2012, the Aditya Birla group announced that it had acquired a 27.5 per cent stake in Living Media India Limited, a company headed by Aroon Purie. Living Media acts as a holding company and also owns 57.46 per cent in TV Today Network, the listed company that controls the groupâs television channels (Aaj Tak and Headlines Today) and a host of publications (including India Today). ...
25 Sep 2013 14:22
Amazing Facts about Gujarat: 1. Gujarat is one of the most prosperous states of the country,having a per-capita GDP 3.2 times India's average. 2. If it was a nation it would have been 67th richest nation in the world above many European and Asian economies like China and Ukraine . 3. Gujarat holds many records in India for economic development:· 20% of India's Industrial Output· 9% of India's Mineral Production· 22% of India's exports· 24% of India's textile production· 35% of India's pharmaceutical products· 51% of India's petrochemical production. 4. The world's largest ship breakingyard is in Gujarat near Bhavnagar at Alang. 5. Reliance Petroleum Limited, one of the group companies of Reliance Industries Limited founded by Dhirubhai Ambani operates the oi lrefinery at Jamnagar which is the world's largest grass roots refineries . 6. Gujarat ranks first nationwide ingas-based thermal electricity generation with national market share of over 8% and second nationwide in nuclear electricity generatio ...
16 Sep 2013 19:06
then see this report of India Today also and let me know here india today is right or wrong?
16 Sep 2013 19:02
wht a non corrupt gov. many alligations by CAG even cm brother claims PDS in Guj is corrupt
15 Sep 2013 19:50
RIL eyes coal mines in the US: Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), led by Mukesh Ambani is known to be sitting ...
13 Sep 2013 14:44
CAG sharpens attack on Modi govt over gas firm deals: - India Today via
11 Sep 2013 12:49
Mukesh Ambani , chairman of Reliance Industries Limited, poses with his mother Kokilaben Ambani (L), wife Nita Ambaniâ¦
08 Sep 2013 18:30
Reliance Industries Limited wantedly reduced production from KG Basin.
17 Aug 2013 14:40
Mukesh Ambani 's Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) has indirect financial control over the Network 18 group
14 Jun 2013 12:26
Oil Minister Veerappa Moily 's stunning claim: I have been threatened /// Surprising that the cabinet ministers are threatened and still he can not take action against them. Only one family in india has this power! / You are the Oil Minister of India ? And you can't bring about policy changes to stem the rot ? Or do you belong to a Specific lobby yourself ? Otherwise Surely the minister has to reveal the identities of these people. What is he afraid of? ** Moily has been under attack from the CPI leader Gurudas Dasgupta for suggesting a hike in natural gas prices by 60%. Left leader has said this will amount to "loot" and is designed to benefit Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), which is controlled by billionaire Mukesh Ambani . ** Veerappa Moily said : They don't want us to stop imports. There are some lobbies who are working on that. Every minister is threatened many a times. Every minister who occupies this position is threatened, that increasing natural gas prices will help boost foreign investor sentim ...
07 Jun 2013 04:55
GAS PRICING: AMBANIS RULE THE ROOST The ministry of petroleum, after its change of guard from Jaipal Reddy to Veerappa Moily , has been batting for a much higher price of natural gas. This is being supported by Montek Singh Ahluwalia, the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission , while it is being opposed by the ministry of power and the ministry of fertiliser, both pointing out its enormous impact on fertiliser subsidies and electricity prices. At a conservative estimate, we are talking of an annual net transfer of tens of thousands of crores from the pockets of the consumers to the gas producers, and primarily to Mukesh Ambani 's Reliance Industries Limited. As the gas and electricity prices are subsidised, it will also mean higher deficits for the government. In other words, an increase of gas prices will not only hit the common man but also the government finances. RELIANCE RENEGES ON CONTRACT WITH NTPC The Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) had initially promised gas at 2.34 US dollars per million British ...
06 Jun 2013 17:59
Hello Members :) All the members of a company has a definite right to attend the Annual General Meting of the company. Many of us have read about the AGMs and the law relating to it but seldom we find students of professional courses who have attended an AGM in their life, before during and after their studies. Today was one such opportunity, to attend the most sought after AGM of the nation where figures unfold in Crores, thousands and lacs of them, today was the 39th AGM of Reliance Industries Limited. Highlights of the AGM - 1. Achievements - a) Highest ever turnover , profit and exports (14% of total exports from India) for RIL at Rs.371119 Crores, Rs.21003 Crores and Rs.239226 Crores respectively. b) Reliance accounted for 4.8% of total indirect tax revenue of the Government. c) Every second child going to school in India wears uniform made from Reliance Polyester. d). Every automobile made in India has polypropylene produced by Reliance. e) Reliance retail crossed the revenues of Rs.10 Crores 2. Fu ...
05 Jun 2013 07:02
Mukesh Ambani has been placed 18 in the richest people in the world by Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with $23.5 billion to his name. Ambani has not been surpassed as the richest man in India for 5 years in a row. He has also been given the Forbes title of the richest sports owner in the world, as Reliance Industries Limited owns the Mumbai Indians cricket club. Mukesh Ambani 's spending has also lead to the building of the world's first billion-dollar home. The structure, situated in Mumbai, has 27 stories with spectacular views beyond the city skyline to the Arabian Sea. The building has been named after the mythical island of Antilia and is filled with extravagances such as a cinema, gym, pool, dance studio, four helicopter pads, 160 car spaces, a Picasso painting, to name a few. MukeshAmbani resides in this property with his wife and three children. The luxurious residence of Mukesh Ambani defies the requests of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's plea for business leaders to set an example of moderation, a ...
03 Jun 2013 07:44
Gigantic scam in gas price revision process for KG D-6 basin: Gurudas Dasgupta ET Bureau May 24, 2013, 03.31AM IST Tags: Reliance Industries Limited| Reliance Industries| P Chidambaram| Oil and Natural Gas Ministry| Manmohan Singh| Gurudas Dasgupta| Finance minister| Ashwani Kumar (Dasgupta today allegedâ¦) NEW DELHI: A senior CPI leader has alleged that the finance ministry, the oil ministry and the Planning Commission colluded to push Mukesh Ambani -owned Reliance Industries' KG-D6 gas price to more than the rate proposed by the Rangarajan Committee. "Thrice the secretary petroleum (Vivek Rae) had opposed it (gas price hike proposal) and thrice it was returned. It is pending with the petroleum minister, so it's time to speak of irregularity by (Veerappa) Moily, the same way A Raja (former telecom minister) had done. If Moily's formula is agreed to, it would result in a loss of Rs 76,000 crore," CPI MP Gurudas Dasgupta told reporters here on Thursday. Ads by Google EliteMatrimony.comExclusive Matchmaking ...
02 May 2013 03:33
The Supreme Court on Wednesday hauled up the government over the flailing security situation in the capital asking what was the need for providing Z-category security to Reliance Industries Limited chairman and CEO Mukesh Ambani when the common man had none.
22 Apr 2013 03:57
.Ironic that M.Ambani should get 'Z' 'security. "Reliance Industries Limited" anagrams to "I'll demand tinier securities"
16 Apr 2013 12:30
Commenting on the Q4 results, Mukesh D. Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director , Reliance Industries Limited (cont)
07 Mar 2013 08:32
Samsung to launch $100 LTE phone for India?: One of Indiaâs largest conglomerates, Reliance Industries Limited...
04 Mar 2013 05:12
Shri Mukesh Ambani has many accolades to his name and spearheads the Reliance Group in official capacity as the Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries Limited.
24 Feb 2013 09:29
The Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries Limited, India's largest private sector company, Mukesh Ambani was born on April 19, 1957 in Aden, Yemen. Son of the legendary Dhirubhai Ambani , Mukesh graduated in Chemical Engineering from the University of Bombay and went to the United States to pursue a Masters in Business Administration from Stanford University, but dropped out after his first year to help his father, Dhirubhai Ambani with some of his projects. He joined Reliance in 1981 and was instrumental in Reliance's backward integration from textiles into polyester fibres and petrochemicals. It was under his leadership that the world's largest grassroots petroleum refinery was set up by Reliance at Jamnagar in Gujarat. Mukesh oversaw Reliance's petrochemicals' manufacturing capacities increase from less than a million tonnes to over thirteen million tonnes per year. The Jamnagar refinery presently has a capacity of 660,000 barrels per day. Mukesh Ambani is now all set to enter the retail ...
06 Feb 2013 11:47
Reliance Industries Ltd on Sunday again denied Arvind Kejriwal 's allegation that Mukesh Ambani holds a secret Swiss bank account. "We had issued a statement on November 9, 2012 that categorically stated that neither Reliance Industries Limited nor Mr Mukesh Ambani have or had any illegitimate accounts anywhere in the world," an RIL spokesperson said. Last month, Kejriwal had alleged that Mukesh Ambani and Anil Ambani had Rs 100 crore each in Swiss bank accounts while their mother Kokilaben also had a Swiss bank account which had no balance.
04 Feb 2013 05:55
He argued for the Reliance Industries Limited regarding pricing and supply of the gas from Krishna Godavari Basin. *Rohitnton
02 Feb 2013 00:32
In May of 2012 Vanity Fair did an exclusive story on billionaire Mukesh Ambani and wife Nitaâs astounding private 27-story mansion called Antilla. Mukesh is the chairman and CEO of Reliance Industries Limited and has a personal wealth of $23.7 billion, retaining the position as the worldâs richestâ¦
25 Jan 2013 10:04
Arvind Kejriwal ups the ante on his battle with Reliance Industries Limited over the allegations he had levelled against them.
22 Jan 2013 13:45
Mumbai: The Billionaires Club of India almost doubled from last year to 54 members up from 27, aided by a rebounding stock market that gained two-thirds in the past year and an economy growing at six percent. According to Forbes Asia magazine, the country's 100 richest people have a combined net worth of USD 276 billion, which was almost a quarter of the country's GDP. Last year, there were only 27 billionaires on the India Rich List. This year, the number has almost doubled to 52-two short of what India had at the peak of the stock market boom in 2007. Mukesh Ambani , heading Reliance Industries Limited, is once again the wealthiest person in India with his net worth increasing by 54 percent to USD 32 billion from nearly USD 21 billion last year. India Editor of Forbes Asia Naazneen Karmali in a statement said, âHappy days are definitely back again for India's richest. This year's list shows yet again that when conditions in the financial markets and the economy are right, India has the scale and resour ...
01 Jan 2013 13:30
Dhiru Bhai Ambani the founder Chairman of Reliance Industries Limited believed that, âIf youâre born poor itâs not your fault but if you die poor itâs your faultâ His story is a true story of âRags to richesâ.
19 Dec 2012 16:14
Get ready for VoLTE: Mukesh Ambani led Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) has plans to invest $10 billion on 4G network of its subsidiary Infotel Broadband (IBSL), one of its vendors 'Spirit DSP' said today. Spirit DSP said, through its solution, Reliance will be able to offer its subscribers high-quality services as an alternative to Skype - an application for making voice calls using internet connection, over cellular networks. At present, most of the people are able to make free calls using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) application like Skype but in India such calls are allowed only between personal computers to personal computers. In October, IBSL has informed the Telecom Ministry that it is ready for trial runs of a technology that would enable voice calls service on its wireless broadband network and has sought allocation of number series to test its newly developed 'Voice over LTE (VoLTE) technology. The telecom arm of RIL has told the Ministry that it has developed a technology in preparation ...
26 Nov 2012 14:22
Come clear on gas pricing, BP writes to Petroleum Minister Stating that investments or import substitution worth $100-150 billion were waiting to be unlocked, British Petroleum Plc, which partners with Mukesh Ambani owned Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) in India, has sought putting in place a clear policy on exploration and pricing of gas in order to effectively develop these resources and unlock this huge potential. The BP group Region president and Head of Country (India), Sashi Mukundan during his recent meeting with the Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister, Veerappa Moily had handed over a detailed memorandum seeking his intervention resolving critical issues that have been pending for long, and if resolved, could help unlock Indiaâs energy potential. The meeting comes amid the ongoing tug of war between RIL and the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) over the audit of KG D6 block up to FY2011-12. âThere is currently more than 5 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of discovered gas resources in our KG D6 ...
12 Nov 2012 21:07
Kyong Gails liked RIL :: Reliance Industries Limited :: Reliance Group : Exploration and production of oil and gas isâ¦
10 Nov 2012 02:50
Mukesh Ambani owned Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) is keen on the acquisition of Hotel Leela venture - promot...
31 Oct 2012 12:03
Arvind Kejriwal today exhumed the Niira Radia tapes to expose what he claimed was the hold of corporations over the government, specifically naming Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) owner Mukesh Ambani , who he said was "running the country".
16 Oct 2012 12:23
Reliance Industries Limited (RIL)âs SEZ Refinery at Jamnagar has won the prestigious âGlobe of Honor Awardâ for the excellence in
10 Oct 2012 11:05
The Tycoon Who Runs ! Anil Ambani on the Marathon Anil Ambani , Reliance Industries Limited's Vice-Chairman and Managing Director , and India's Corporate Marathon Man, in an exclusive and heartfelt revelation to UpperCrust describes his participation in the Bombay International Marathon 2004, why he took up running and what it does to him. MOTHERâS will always be mothers! And my Mom is no exception. Typically, when she discovered I was going to run the Marathon, Mom said to me with great apprehension, âMarathon! Beta, why do you want to do it? What do you want to run so much for? Canât you just run a little, instead?â My answer was, âNo, donât worry, I can do it.â And I got on with my preparations for the Bombay International Marathon 2004 seriously. This was just six to eight weeks before the event on February 15. Tina Ambani, Anilâs proud wife, waits at the finish line of the race for her husband to return. He completed the Half Marathon, 22 km, in 1 hour 29 minutes and 11 seconds. My youn ...
16 Sep 2012 19:13
Mr Mukesh Ambani , Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) believes in, Shri Dhirubhai Ambani 's philosophy - Business has to have a purpose. Excerpts from the inter...
23 Aug 2012 06:44
Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), after having won spectrum for providing broadband wireless access (BWA) services in the 22 telecom circles through its subsidiary Infotel Broadband, will now use WiMax technology rather than long term evolution (LTE) BWA technology. RIL entered into an agreement to acquire a substantial stake in Infotel Broadband Services (P) Ltd, owned by the son of Mahendra Nahata, Managing Director of Himachal Futuristic Communications Ltd (HFCL). They had invested about Rs 4,800 crore by way of subscription to fresh equity capital at par to be issued by Infotel Broadband. Post this investment, RIL owns 95% of the equity and Infotel Broadband which is now a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited. From what we have heard from a trusted source,â Infotel has now finalized the technology and is in an advanced stage of negotiations with Samsung for sourcing WiMax equipment.â The Korean giant is a player both in network equipment as well as WiMax handsets business. The source further sai ...
31 Jul 2012 18:58
Completed 4 years of professional life in Reliance Industries Limited, Jamnagar. Met lot of people,got lot of friends and learnt lot of things.The journey continues :)
27 Jul 2012 15:08
Mr Mukesh Ambani ,Chairman Reliance Industries Limited is attending the Olympics opening ceremony tonight in London.
24 Jul 2012 11:02
Mr Mukesh Ambani , CMD, Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) says, "People perceive India as a land of a billion problems, but I see it as a land of a billion op...
18 Jul 2012 09:12
Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) is the flagship company of Reliance Group , India's largest private sector enterprise, with businesses in the energy and materials value chain.
17 Jul 2012 15:25
Rediff Live! The representatives of the Reliance Industries Limited and BP PMS Prasad and Sashi Mukundan met Min...
12 Jul 2012 15:37
Reliance Industries Limited has generously created the Reliance Dhirubhai Fellowhip to support Indian nationals living in India with financial need in obtaining an MBA at Stanford.
09 Jul 2012 06:14
B2B news: RIL to Stream Gas to Bawana Power Plant: Mukesh Ambani -led Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), one of I...
06 Jul 2012 07:14
Mumbai: Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) plans to invest nearly Rs.1 trillion ($18 billion) on expansion of its retail, petrochemical and telecom businesses in India
21 Jun 2012 19:13
After having charged Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) with âdeliberate and wilfulâ breach of production sharing contract (PSC), the government has decided to appoint former Chief Justice of India V. N. Khare to head the team that includes law firm Swarup & Co and possibly former Solicitor General G...
13 Jun 2012 14:08
Mumbai Indians to get its own Web domain suffix?: Reliance Industries Limited has applied for both .ril and .ind...
12 Jun 2012 15:11
Phillips 66 has been selected by Reliance Industries Limited, Indiaâs largest private sector enterprise, to...
07 Jun 2012 06:06
Dhirubhai Ambani - This man with a Midas touch laid the foundation of Reliance Industries Limited, the biggest...
30 May 2012 10:24
In the April 2008 email, labelled "urgent", Mr Kumar told Mr Gupta that Rajaratnam wanted him to ask whether "Reliance Industries Limited would be getting into the solar business aggressively because, if so, there would be implications for supplier companies."
25 May 2012 16:27
The Central Secretariat of the Communist Party of India strongly condemns the moves of the Prime Ministerâs Office (PMO) to concede to the demand of the Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) for upward revision of the gas prices extracted from KG basin.
22 May 2012 22:35
Reliance Industries Limited to boost refining margins
19 May 2012 00:56
Reliance Industries Limited Strategic Analysis Profile: This profile is an essential source for data, analysis a...
10 May 2012 19:05
Indias' richest Individual & chairman of Reliance Industries Limited Mr Mukesh Ambani is drawing an annual salary of Rs-15 crore since 2009.
09 Apr 2012 17:23
Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries Limited Mukesh Ambani , who ranked 19th on Forbes' list of billionaires in 2012, is the richest Indian with an estimated $22.3 billion net worth.
| i don't know |
What number is neutral on the pH acid/alkali scale? | Acids, Alkalis and Neutral Substances | S-cool, the revision website
S-cool, the revision website
Acids, Alkalis and Neutral Substances
You are here
Acids, Alkalis and Neutral Substances
Submitted by Anonymous on
2. They are solutions of compounds in water.
3. If concentrated they can be corrosive.
4. Acids taste sour (for example, vinegar).
5. Turn blue litmus paper red - this is an easy test for an acid!
6. Usually react with metals to form salts.
7. Acids contain hydrogen ions.
8. Turn Universal Indicator from green to red, and have a pH less than 7.
Examples of acids: are vinegar (ethanoic acid) and lemon juice (citric acid)
magnesium + hydrochloric acid -> magnesium chloride + hydrogen gas
Some common acids used in your laboratories at school will be:
1. Hydrochloric acid, HCl(aq)
1. They feel soapy to touch.
2. They are soluble bases.
3. Like acids, they can burn the skin.
4. They turn red litmus blue - this is how you test for an alkali!
5. Alkalis contain hydroxide ions (OH-).
6. They taste bitter.
7. Turns Universal Indicator from green to blue or purple.
Some common alkalis used in your laboratories at school will be:
1. Sodium hydroxide, NaOH(aq)
1. Litmus paper is not affected by neutral paper.
2. Tend to be harmless
3. Universal Indicator stays green.
Common examples of neutral substances:
1. Water
2. Sodium chloride solution, NaCl(aq)(common salt)
3. Sugar solution C6H12O6(aq)
The Strength of an Acid
Acids and alkalis can be strong or weak!
So how can we measure their strength?
The strength of an acid or alkali is shown using a scale of numbers called the pH scale. The numbers go from 0-14.
On the scale it follows that:
An acidic solution has a pH number less than 7
An alkaline solution has a pH number greater than 7
A neutral solution has a pH number of exactly 7.
You can find the pH of any solution using universal indicator. Universal indicator is a mixture of dyes. It comes as a solution or in paper.
Universal indicator will change from green to a different colour depending on the pH of the solution you place it in.
Note:
| 7 |
How many microns are in a metre? | Q & A: Why is pH = 7 the neutral point? | Department of Physics | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Q & A: Why is pH = 7 the neutral point?
Learn more physics!
Why does the PH-scales neutral point 7, and not 0??
- jacob ottosen (age 17)
A:
Jacob,
pH is a measure of the amount of Hydrogen ions (H+) in a solution. Ions are just atoms that have an electric charge on them, so H+ is a hydrogen atom with charge of 1. Even in pure water ions tend to form due to random processes (producing some H+ and OH- ions). The amount of H+ that is made in pure water is about equal to a pH of 7. That's why 7 is neutral.
For those who want a more complicated answer, pH is defined: pH = -log10[H+], where [H+] is the concentration of H+ , expressed in moles/liter. In pure water near room temperature, the concentration of H+ is about 10-7 moles/liter, which gives a pH of 7.
I hope this answers your question.
math dan (w. mike w)
(published on 10/22/2007)
| i don't know |
What four words appear on the rectangual logo molded into most plastic CD cases? | Difference between CD,DVD,BLUE RAY DISC's
CD
Physical details
A CD is made from 1.2 mm thick (.047 inches), almost-pure polycarbonate plastic and weighs 15– 20 grams.From the center outward, components are: the center (spindle) hole, the first-transition area(clamping ring), the clamping area (stacking ring), the second-transition area (mirror band), theinformation (data) area, and the rim.A thin layer of aluminum or, more rarely, gold is applied to the surface making it reflective. The metal isprotected by a film of lacquer normally spin coated directly on the reflective layer. The label is printed onthe lacquer layer. Common printing methods for CDs are screen-printing and offset printing . CD data are stored as a series of tiny indentations known as "
pits
", encoded in a spiral track molded intothe top of the polycarbonate layer. The areas between pits are known as "lands". Each pit is approximately100 nm deep by 500 nm wide, and varies from 850 nm to 3.5 µm in length. The distance between the tracks, the pitch, is 1.6 µm. A CD is read by focusing a780 nm wavelength ( near infrared ) semiconductor laser through the bottom of the polycarbonate layer. The change in height between pits (actually ridges as seen by the laser) and lands results in a difference inintensity in the light reflected. By measuring the intensity change with a photodiode, the data can be readfrom the disc.The pits and lands themselves do not directly represent the zeros and ones of binary data . Instead ,Non- return-to-zero, inverted (NRZI) encoding is used: a change from pit to land or land to pit indicates a one,while no change indicates a series of zeros. There must be at least two and no more than ten zeros betweeneach one, which is defined by the length of the pit. This in turn is decoded by reversing the eight-to- fourteen modulation used in mastering the disc, and then reversing the Cross-Interleaved Reed-Solomon Coding, finally revealing the raw data stored on the disc.CDs are susceptible to damage from both normal use and environmental exposure. Pits are much closer tothe label side of a disc, enabling defects and contaminants on the clear side to be out of focus duringplayback. Consequently, CDs are more likely to suffer damage on the label side of the disk. Scratches onthe clear side can be repaired by refilling them with similar refractive plastic, or by careful polishing.
Diagram of CD layers.
A. A polycarbonate disc layer has the data encoded by using bumps.B. A shiny layer reflects the laser.C. A layer of lacquer helps keep the shiny layer shiny.D. Artwork is screen printed on the top of the disc.E. A laser beam reads the CD and is reflected back to a sensor, which converts it intoelectronic data
Disc shapes and diameters
The digital data on a CD begins at the center of the disc andproceeds toward the edge, which allows adaptation to the differentsize formats available. Standard CDs are available in two sizes. Byfar, the most common is 120 mm in diameter, with a 74- or 80-minute audio capacity and a 650 or 700 MB data capacity. This diameter has been adopted by subsequent formats, including Super Audio CD , DVD, HD DVD , and Blu-ray Disc . 80 mm discs (" Mini CDs ") were originally designed for CD singles and can hold up to 24 minutes of music or 210 MB of data but never became popular. Today,nearly every single is released on a 120 mm CD, called a Maxi single .Novelty CDs are also available in numerous shapes and sizes, and are used chiefly for marketing. Acommon variant is the "business card" CD, a single with portions removed at the top and bottom makingthe disk resemble a business card.
Understanding the CD: The Spiral
A CD has a single spiral track of data, circling from the inside of the disc to the outside. The fact that the spiral track starts at thecenter means that the CD can be smaller than 4.8 inches (12 cm) if desired, and in fact there are now plastic baseball cards and
Physical sizeAudioCapacityCD-ROM DataCapacityNote
12 cm 74–99 min 650–870 MB Standard size 8 cm 21–24 min 185–210 MB Mini-CD size85x54 mm -86x64 mm~6 min 10-65 MB"Business card"size
business cards that you can put in a CD player. CD business cards hold about 2 MB of data before the sizeand shape of the card cuts off the spiral.What the picture on the right does not even begin to impress upon you is how incredibly small the datatrack is -- it is approximately 0.5 microns wide, with 1.6 microns separating one track from the next. (Amicron is a millionth of a meter.) And the bumps are even more miniscule.
Understanding the CD: Bumps
The elongated bumps that make up the track are each 0.5 microns wide, a minimum of 0.83 microns longand 125 nanometers high. (A nanometer is a billionth of a meter.) Looking through the polycarbonatelayer at the bumps, they look something like this:You will often read about "pits" on a CD instead of bumps. They appear as pits on the aluminum side, buton the side the laser reads from, they are bumps.The incredibly small dimensions of the bumps make the spiral track on a CD extremely long. If you couldlift the data track off a CD and stretch it out into a straight line, it would be 0.5 microns wide and almost3.5 miles (5 km) long!
CD player Components
The CD player has the job of finding and reading the data stored as bumps on the CD. Considering howsmall the bumps are, the CD player is an exceptionally precise piece of equipment. The drive consists of three fundamental components:
•
| Compact Disc Digital Audio |
In Gustav Holst's orchestral suite 'The Planets' what planet from the (our) Solar System is missing? | Difference between CD,DVD,BLUE RAY DISC's
CD
Physical details
A CD is made from 1.2 mm thick (.047 inches), almost-pure polycarbonate plastic and weighs 15– 20 grams.From the center outward, components are: the center (spindle) hole, the first-transition area(clamping ring), the clamping area (stacking ring), the second-transition area (mirror band), theinformation (data) area, and the rim.A thin layer of aluminum or, more rarely, gold is applied to the surface making it reflective. The metal isprotected by a film of lacquer normally spin coated directly on the reflective layer. The label is printed onthe lacquer layer. Common printing methods for CDs are screen-printing and offset printing . CD data are stored as a series of tiny indentations known as "
pits
", encoded in a spiral track molded intothe top of the polycarbonate layer. The areas between pits are known as "lands". Each pit is approximately100 nm deep by 500 nm wide, and varies from 850 nm to 3.5 µm in length. The distance between the tracks, the pitch, is 1.6 µm. A CD is read by focusing a780 nm wavelength ( near infrared ) semiconductor laser through the bottom of the polycarbonate layer. The change in height between pits (actually ridges as seen by the laser) and lands results in a difference inintensity in the light reflected. By measuring the intensity change with a photodiode, the data can be readfrom the disc.The pits and lands themselves do not directly represent the zeros and ones of binary data . Instead ,Non- return-to-zero, inverted (NRZI) encoding is used: a change from pit to land or land to pit indicates a one,while no change indicates a series of zeros. There must be at least two and no more than ten zeros betweeneach one, which is defined by the length of the pit. This in turn is decoded by reversing the eight-to- fourteen modulation used in mastering the disc, and then reversing the Cross-Interleaved Reed-Solomon Coding, finally revealing the raw data stored on the disc.CDs are susceptible to damage from both normal use and environmental exposure. Pits are much closer tothe label side of a disc, enabling defects and contaminants on the clear side to be out of focus duringplayback. Consequently, CDs are more likely to suffer damage on the label side of the disk. Scratches onthe clear side can be repaired by refilling them with similar refractive plastic, or by careful polishing.
Diagram of CD layers.
A. A polycarbonate disc layer has the data encoded by using bumps.B. A shiny layer reflects the laser.C. A layer of lacquer helps keep the shiny layer shiny.D. Artwork is screen printed on the top of the disc.E. A laser beam reads the CD and is reflected back to a sensor, which converts it intoelectronic data
Disc shapes and diameters
The digital data on a CD begins at the center of the disc andproceeds toward the edge, which allows adaptation to the differentsize formats available. Standard CDs are available in two sizes. Byfar, the most common is 120 mm in diameter, with a 74- or 80-minute audio capacity and a 650 or 700 MB data capacity. This diameter has been adopted by subsequent formats, including Super Audio CD , DVD, HD DVD , and Blu-ray Disc . 80 mm discs (" Mini CDs ") were originally designed for CD singles and can hold up to 24 minutes of music or 210 MB of data but never became popular. Today,nearly every single is released on a 120 mm CD, called a Maxi single .Novelty CDs are also available in numerous shapes and sizes, and are used chiefly for marketing. Acommon variant is the "business card" CD, a single with portions removed at the top and bottom makingthe disk resemble a business card.
Understanding the CD: The Spiral
A CD has a single spiral track of data, circling from the inside of the disc to the outside. The fact that the spiral track starts at thecenter means that the CD can be smaller than 4.8 inches (12 cm) if desired, and in fact there are now plastic baseball cards and
Physical sizeAudioCapacityCD-ROM DataCapacityNote
12 cm 74–99 min 650–870 MB Standard size 8 cm 21–24 min 185–210 MB Mini-CD size85x54 mm -86x64 mm~6 min 10-65 MB"Business card"size
business cards that you can put in a CD player. CD business cards hold about 2 MB of data before the sizeand shape of the card cuts off the spiral.What the picture on the right does not even begin to impress upon you is how incredibly small the datatrack is -- it is approximately 0.5 microns wide, with 1.6 microns separating one track from the next. (Amicron is a millionth of a meter.) And the bumps are even more miniscule.
Understanding the CD: Bumps
The elongated bumps that make up the track are each 0.5 microns wide, a minimum of 0.83 microns longand 125 nanometers high. (A nanometer is a billionth of a meter.) Looking through the polycarbonatelayer at the bumps, they look something like this:You will often read about "pits" on a CD instead of bumps. They appear as pits on the aluminum side, buton the side the laser reads from, they are bumps.The incredibly small dimensions of the bumps make the spiral track on a CD extremely long. If you couldlift the data track off a CD and stretch it out into a straight line, it would be 0.5 microns wide and almost3.5 miles (5 km) long!
CD player Components
The CD player has the job of finding and reading the data stored as bumps on the CD. Considering howsmall the bumps are, the CD player is an exceptionally precise piece of equipment. The drive consists of three fundamental components:
•
| i don't know |
Which aspiring US politician was criticized in Oct 2010 for her technically illegal act of autographing an American flag? | Specific examples of biased news coverage
Specific examples of biased news coverage
As if the obvious needs to be laid out even more clearly, this page presents several more examples of what I've been discussing on the other Media Bias pages.
The news media sometimes show bias when they don't report current events. Another nearby page on this site has a long list of suppressed news items .
Most recently, the press showed undeniable favoritism toward Barack Obama in the 2008 election cycle, and now, even after President Obama has been elected and sworn in, the favoritism continues .
Other related pages:
Bias in favor of Hillary Clinton .
Four dozen examples of media bias:
Scandal Rap Sheet: 48 Excellent Reasons to Distrust & Despise the Media . Forget bias for a moment. Forget mistakes and misstatements and stupid or nasty things said during live telecasts. There isn't enough Internet to begin to list the countless instances of left-wing bias and politicking and idiocy the media engage in. [...] All of these scandals involve an attempt by a media that advertises itself as non-partisan (MSNBC excepted) to aid and abet the Democrat Party, or undermine Republicans, or advance the media's primary cause, which is to increase the size and scope of America's central federal government. As you read the list below, ask yourselves which American company or institution could survive a rap sheet even half as long as this one — decades of lies, cover ups, dictator-coddling, outright fraud, theft, and the fabrication of evidence.
With CNN Credibility in Tatters Anderson Cooper Attempts To Defend Propaganda . In addition to the Trump transition team and NBC Reporting, Fox News is now also reporting the original claims by CNN were entirely manufactured, "fake news" by four CNN agenda driven reporters: Jake Tapper, Jim Sciutto, Evan Perez and Carl Bernstein[.] Nothing reported as fact by the CNN constructionists actually took place. Against, the back drop of CNN's destroyed credibility, pundit Anderson Cooper attempts to obfuscate and push back against the collapse during a contentious interview with Kellyanne Conway: [...]
Amusing, inasmuch as cable channels don't use "airwaves."
MSNBC Host to Planned Parenthood: 'These Airwaves Are Your Airwaves' . Americans know the liberal media are untrustworthy. But there's something especially repulsive when they don't even pretend to uphold journalistic integrity. On Sunday [1/8/2017], MSNBC host Joy Reid invited Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards on her show, AM Joy. But rather than conducting an interview, Reid turned her show into a Planned Parenthood lovefest, from insinuating that defunding Planned Parenthood would make women die to promising Richards that "these airwaves are your airwaves."
Hours Before Trump's Press Conference CNN And BuzzFeed Hit 'Fake News' Bottom . Just as we saw last Friday, with the completely fact and evidence-free dog and pony show put on by the Intelligence Community and their media allies, late Tuesday afternoon, the Establishment Empire struck again, this time with an unprecedented double down. No doubt working in tandem (and with Donald Trump's many establishment enemies on both the left and right), CNN and BuzzFeed did something so sleazy and dishonest that, just a few years ago, even to a media cynic like me, it would have seemed impossible. With a breathless breaking news report, left-wing CNN went first. To no one's surprise, the once-respected Jake Tapper took the lead. Undoubtedly CNN's overall goal was to offer up the imprimatur of "journalism" so that a batch of leaked and completely unsubstantiated anti-Trump documents could be dumped on the American public the night before the President-elect's very first press conference.
Vicious Hate Crime In Chicago Whitewashed By Press . Note that the AP makes no reference to the races of the people involved, and says it is too soon to tell whether the assault was racially motivated.
Chicago torture video highlights media double standard on hate . The four suspects are facing felony charges including hate crimes and kidnapping. But Chicago Police initially downplayed reports Wednesday night that the attack was racially motivated. "At this point we don't have anything concrete to point us in that direction," Police Supt. Eddie Johnson told reporters. A video of the suspects attempting to scalp a man while shouting "F*** white people" isn't concrete evidence? And while the police were trying their best to tone down the racial motivations of the attackers, the Mainstream Media was trying to whitewash their skin color. It took the Washington Post nine paragraphs to get around to the skin color of the attackers.
CNN's Camerota Frets 'Right-Wing Websites' Making Chicago Beating 'Political' . As Thursday's CNN New Day covered the horrendous story of a white special needs man being tortured by four black teens in Chicago while they made anti-white and anti-Donald Trump taunts and live streamed the assault on Facebook, CNN co-host Alisyn Camerota fretted that "right-wing websites" like Breitbart, The Blaze, and Townhall are going too far in making the story "political." At 6:31 a.m. ET, after a full report on the horrific attack, Camerota plugged an upcoming segment on right-wing reaction to the video as she worried: "I mean, look, not only is this hideous, it's being also now somehow parlayed into a political statement. There are some right-wing websites that believe that this is political. So we're going to have a debate about what is behind this coming up."
Zero Self-Awareness: Chuck Todd Whacks Trump's 'Concierge Media Friends' . On NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday [1/1/2017], Chuck Todd devoted a whole hour to analyzing Trump vs. the Press, but he worked energetically to avoid the notion the media lost trust because it's seen as part of the Democratic National Machine. There were no questions about whether they failed in being too soft on Hillary Clinton, because they never think they've been too soft on Democrats.
Midnight meltdown as tipsy Trump-hater Don Lemon has mic cut off by CNN . CNN anchor Don Lemon has copped the honor of the first on-air Trump-hater meltdown of 2017, year one of the Trump presidency. Sour Lemon's behavior was so disgraceful and out of place during a celebration of the New Year that the network brass cut his audio feed just after midnight when he began speak of "awful" 2016.
CNN Uses Germany Attack To Bash The Right . CNN's online coverage of Monday's deadly terror attack on a German Christmas market focused on the attack's potential to stoke far-right anger, rather than the threats of Islamic radicalism. The attack in Berlin killed at least 12 people and injured dozens more, but on CNN's website, the network's top story warned about "the fallout of fear" and said that "attacks fuel [the] far right's assault on democracy."
ABC Highlights Electoral College Disruptors, Shocked by Clinton Defections . As the Electoral College wrapped up its proceedings across the country Monday, it was abundantly clear that President-Elect Donald Trump had exceeded the 270 votes needed to win and that the efforts of his liberal opponents were sundered. On ABC's World News Tonight that evening reporter Cecilia Vega highlighted the efforts of those who set out disrupt the process. "It did not come without some fiery moments today," hyped Anchor David Muir leading into the report. "A chaotic scene in Wisconsin today," reported Vega, "Protesters shouting down electors as they cast their votes for Donald Trump." "Everyone one of you, you're pathetic! You don't deserve to be in America," a woman shouted as she was being escorted out by police. "This is my America! My America," she continued.
CNN's Robert Baer: We Should Have Another Election . Well, that didn't take long. The morning after the Washington Post's Friday evening [12/9/2016] story that a "Secret CIA assessment says Russia was trying to help Trump win White House," a "deeply disturbed" Bob Baer, appearing on CNN Newsroom, when questioned as to whether "we should have another election," said that if it's true, "I don't see any other way than to vote again."
WashPost Religion Columnist Attacks Evangelicals for 'Dangerous' Lack of Trust in the Mainstream Media . The escalation against conservatives continued on Thursday with an online Washington Post column by Sarah Pulliam Bailey that sought to connect the distrust in the mainstream media on the right to the rise of fake news and "dangerous" consequences like the false story that's become known as Pizzagate. "Listen, I was raised in an evangelical home. I know the media is supposed to be the butt of many jokes and the source of many of our problems. For many conservatives, the phrase "fake news" is now being used to describe "liberal bias," but fake news has real consequences," Bailey emphasized near the beginning of her post. Perhaps most frustrating but not surprising for this newspaper was that Bailey made no attempt to differentiate between conservatives not willing to trust the liberal media and those who have embraced everything they see and hear from sites that have no semblance of facts or substance (ex. Stories about Pope Francis endorsing Donald Trump).
CNN Gleefully Mocks Dr. Ben Carson — Exhibit Stunning Level of Ridicule Against Black Cabinet Nominee . During a presented Don Lemon discussion panel Monday night [12/5/2016], the severity of ridicule against Dr. Ben Carson was jaw-dropping and unprofessional in the extreme. Removing all pretense of substantive discussion, Don Lemon, Marc Lamont Hill and Peter Beinart began openly mocking the nomination of Dr. Carson for Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The scope and severity of the exhibited ridicule was so over the top, fellow CNN panelist Brian Stelter was both visibly trying to hide his glee and simultaneously uncomfortable joining in amid the laughter and mockery.
Nets Give Jill Stein Recount Effort 12 Times Coverage of Her Entire Campaign . When Jill Stein was the Green Party's candidate for U.S. president, the networks only gave her 36 seconds of coverage. However, as soon as she launched a campaign to contest the presidential election and demand a recount of ballots in several key states, the evening news shows on ABC, CBS and NBC managed to find 7 minutes and 26 seconds of coverage for her in just four days. That's more than 12 times as much coverage as in the entire campaign.
Left Targets Giuliani for Fighting Terrorism too Energetically . In a move that invites parody if not outright ridicule, the left-oriented Politico blog this week went after former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani for fighting Iran-sponsored terrorism too aggressively. Well, duh! In a week that saw "Fake News" become the number one topic of debate among mainstream journalists, Politico decided to double down on stupidity and serve up a prime example of fake news. The Washington post dutifully echoed the false accusations to give the lie a cloak of respectability not bestowed by Politico.
Journalists Hail Castro's Achievements, 'George Washington,' 'Folk Hero to Most of Us' . Fidel Castro, who died late Friday night, was a tyrant who oppressed Cubans and brought misery to many for several decades and while much of the breaking news coverage emphasized that reality, journalists on ABC, CNN and MSNBC — matching how too much of the media approached Castro for decades — couldn't resist crediting him for supposed great advancements in education, literacy and health care. On MSNBC, Andrea Mitchell insisted in a stock bio that Castro "gave his people better health care and education." Appearing live by phone, she soon trumpted how Castro "will be revered" for "education and social services and medical care to all of his people."
CBS, NBC Spend Three Times More Airtime on Neo-Nazi Conference Than Four Years of March for Life . A disturbing trend has emerged since the presidential election as the liberal media have been promoting neo-Nazis and white nationalists in hopes to (admirably) discredit them and falsely insinuate that they were far-right conservatives who propelled Donald Trump to the White House. Well, this trend manifested itself with five minutes and 17 seconds Tuesday morning on CBS and NBC that attempted to label the neo-Nazi conference as one featuring "conservative extremist[s]" and added up to three times more coverage than they've had on the March for the Life in the past four years (at one minute and 40 seconds).
The Exhausted Epithets of the Left . Barack Obama's signature phrase, "the audacity of hope," came from a black nationalist, Jeremiah Wright. Obama stocked his administration with black nationalists, delivered speeches to openly separatist black colleges and associations, rolled out the red carpet for Al Sharpton, encouraged the reverse racism of "Black Lives Matter," and rationalized the behavior of athletes who protested the American flag. None of this qualified as "ethnonationalism" in the eyes of the media. They reserve that smear for conservatives who oppose hyphenated Americanism.
CNN Disappointed Because The Stock Market is Rising . Liberal ideologues who hate America continue their frustrated teeth gnashing.
Hypocrisy Watch: Networks Pound Bannon, But Ignore Democrat Ellison's Radicalism . Since Sunday evening, ABC, CBS and NBC (along with a host of other establishment media outlets) have been engaged in a feeding frenzy over Donald Trump's appointment of Steve Bannon, with reporters relentlessly employing phrases such as "white nationalist," "white supremacist," "extremist," "racist" and "anti-Semitic" to solidify the image of Bannon as a dangerous pick for a top White House position. But since Friday, those same networks have been blind to the controversies surrounding the top candidate for Democratic National Committee Chairman, Rep. Keith Ellison. Ellison has been accused of ties to the radical Nation of Islam, the Muslim Brotherhood, and once suggested the 9/11 terrorist attacks were akin to the infamous Reichstag fire used to propel Hitler's Nazi party into absolute power in 1933 Germany.
The Washington Post Thinks Reporting On A Study That Shows Illegals Take Jobs Is Racist . In order to not be considered a racist by The Washington Post you should probably avoid reporting on a study by a federal economist that reveals illegal immigrants take jobs. This is made clear in the article "'Can you name one white nationalist article at Breitbart?' Challenge accepted!," published Tuesday afternoon [11/15/2016] on the Post's The Fix blog. The article was a response to a Breitbart editor who defended the publication from attacks that it supports racism Monday night by asking CNN's Don Lemon if he can name one white nationalist article on the site. Breitbart has been under attack for allegedly being a white nationalist publication ever since the site's former executive chairman Steve Bannon was named President-elect Donald Trump's chief strategist on Sunday.
Democratic Propaganda Disguised as Election Analysis . Julie Bosman and Monica Davey in a N.Y. Times article, "Republicans Expand Control in a Deeply Divided Nation," use understatement and a rhetoric of "thoughtful analysis" to make their case that Republican victories are negative events even though the people have spoken. By publishing this article, the N.Y. Times once again becomes an instrument of partisan politics under the guise of high-minded journalism. The authors have mastered the art of writing to project a sense that the reader is getting an overview of where we've been, where we are, and where we're going. But in fact, the article is filled with bias against the Republicans. Distortions abound.
ABC's Stephanopoulos: Trump Civil Suit Conviction Could Be 'Impeachable' . ABC's George Stephanopoulos raised the prospect of the impeachment of President-Elect Trump on Thursday's [11/10/2016] Good Morning America, as the morning show spotlighted the multiple civil lawsuits against the billionaire. The former Clinton administration communications director underlined that "if he takes the risk of going to trial and he's convicted, that could be seen as an impeachable offense." ABC legal analyst Dan Abrams corrected Stephanopoulos's faulty take: "You can't impeach someone for stuff that they did before they became president."
Slate Goes Ape . My wife pointed out the front page of today's Slate. (Slate, if you are not familiar with it, is a left-wing on-line magazine.) You can enlarge this image and then just ponder it. There are numerous delights to be discovered, from "Donald Trump's Victory Proves That America Hates Women" to "Trump Won the Election By Promising a Resurgent White Supremacy." Sure he did! One question: doesn't a complete lack of self-knowledge sometimes come back to bite you?
'Meltdown of the night' Bitter news anchor bemoans Trump's election success . As Donald Trump triumphed in the race to the White House a television news anchor has bemoaned his incredible success. As various major US news networks prepared to confirm the Republican's victory over Hillary Clinton, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow gave a bitter response while live on air. The sombre host told MSNBC viewers, as Mr Trump edged towards victory: "You're awake by the way. "You're not having a terrible, terrible dream. Also you're not dead and you haven't gone to hell. [...]"
Trump Wins — Time to End the Republican Civil War . [Scroll down] But if you were watching Fox News (not the more Trump-friendly and vastly more interesting Fox Business) as the returns were coming in, the commentators (except for the eminently sensible Tucker Carlson) made you think what we were witnessing was the final ascendance of Eugene V. Debs after six attempts and America was about to turn communist — or something. I'm not going to name names. It's pointless and contrary to what I am trying to do. But I thought half those commentators were about to cry. Some of them actually were. And this is a conservative network.
Leftist Protester Going Nuts On CNN Over Hillary Loss Was a CNN Cameraman? Is CNN using their own crew members as fake protesters? Earlier today, we posted a video of a Hillary supporter having a total meltdown on CNN last night. In a slightly longer version of the clip you can watch below, CNN's Don Lemon remarks at the end of the video that he knows the man and that he's a CNN cameraman.
Dain Bramage: Idiot Hillary Supporter Has A MELTDOWN On CNN . This meltdown, what is said, and WHO is saying it explains a lot of what's wrong with our country right now. Respectfully, sir, your school owes the taxpayer a refund and an apology. They've obviously failed you. The field reporter went to an anti-Trump rally in Chicago and stopped someone in the crowd for his comments. And then things got weird. [...] The newscaster back at the newsroom recognized this 'passerby'. As a cameraman. One who had traveled to Rwanda with the newscaster.
Dewey defeats Truman!
Newsweek recalls 125,000 copies of its souvenir Madam President issue . Everyone from pollsters to pundits got the result of the US presidential election wrong. But few can have made it in such an expensive manner. Newsweek and a partner that prints up special commemorative issues has been forced into an embarrassing recall, after it sent out 125,000 copies of its Madam President issue designed to celebrate Hillary Clinton's win.
ABC's Martha Raddatz Chokes Up While Discussing Implications of Trump Presidency . ABC News' Martha Raddatz began to choke up during the network's 2016 Election Night coverage when discussing the ramifications a President Donald Trump might have on the military. Raddatz, one of the 2016 debate moderators, sounded shaky from the get-go. "Donald Trump, I questioned what he would do about Syria and his understanding of military policy and civilian/military divide, I don't know that he really has a plan for what he's going to do there," she said.
CNN: A Blue Spot in 'This Sea of Red Makes You Feel a Little Better' . CNN's John King said that a state leaning blue toward Hillary Clinton in a "sea of red" had to make you feel better while looking at a map of the incoming results of the presidential election Tuesday night [11/8/2016]. After discussing with Wolf Blitzer how Virginia was moving toward Clinton, King zoomed out and took a look at all the states that had either gone or were leaning to Donald Trump, describing the map as a "sea of red."
Stunned Chris Matthews: Loser Hillary Won the Debates, Had 'Best Ad Campaign' . A stunned Chris Matthews struggled to comprehend Hillary Clinton's loss and the victory of Donald Trump on election night. On MSNBC, Matthews sputtered, "[Clinton] won every debate by all standards. Every debate.... She had the best ad campaign, the best ground game." He whined, "This is a shot against meritocracy, I think. Because she merited everything and the normal way you standardize these things, she did what you're supposed to do to win and Trump came in around the corner."
The Editor says...
Oh, yes, "she did what you're supposed to do," except for the secrecy, the cloud of corruption, the imperious condescension, the $200,000 speeches about nothing, lying about her obviously poor health, and 30 years of accumulated scandals, any one of which should have sent her to trial. What an immense relief it is to know that we won't have to listen to that ghastly voice of hers for the next four years. Nor does anyone have to listen to people like Chris Matthews, constantly campaigning for the Democrats while pretending to be "journalists."
WikiLeaks: John Harwood Asked Podesta What He Should Ask Jeb During Interview . John Harwood, a journalist for CNBC and The New York Times, asked Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta what he should ask then-Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush in an interview, according to a new email released by WikiLeaks on Sunday [11/6/2016]. The email from September 21, 2015 had the subject line, "what should I ask Jeb..."
The Truth About the Late Tom Hayden — Whitewashed by the MSM . The worst claim in the [New York] Times' obituary is that Hayden was a "peace activist" who "opposed violent protests but backed militant demonstrations." He could be called a peace activist only if one views someone who supported a Communist victory in Vietnam as a proponent of "peace."
"Amerca's Morning News" All in for Hillary . I was listening to the radio when America's Morning News came on with some election "news". It was essentially a campaign ad for Hillary Clinton disguised as "news". It dwelt on the made up "scandal" of Trump accusers that have been mostly debunked. Not a single word about the multiple Hillary scandals from exposing U.S. classified information, pay for play as Secretary of State, transferring half a million dollars to the campaign of the wife of the FBI individual who was supposed to be investigating Hillary, and on and on. I have never seen the full force of the organized media so completely all in for one candidate before.
Dishonest media 101: 'Your bias is showing' . [Scroll down] Unfortunately, when I was working on the copy desk putting out the Sunday paper last week, I was so shocked by a story that I changed my plans for this column. The story, which passed muster at the Associated Press and no doubt made its way into hundreds of newspapers and probably thousands of websites, was a report on a Trump rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on Oct. 13. It was so astoundingly biased that I had to extensively edit the story to remove the reporter's personal opinions before running it on the following day's front page. The story was headlined, "Trump challenges legitimacy of election." That was one of the few accurate statements in the report. It was all downhill from there. I'll provide a few examples to demonstrate how the reporter inserted personal opinions into a news story, and how easy it was for me as editor to correct them.
This is Abortion Advocacy, Not Journalism . I was kinda thrown off guard this morning. I got on the Facebook page of a local newspaper this morning. It's a great place to find recommendations on gutter clearings, etc. in our area. And along with the posts on golf carts for sale and BOLOs for pick up trucks speeding on backroads, there was this. [...]
Trump has a point with media criticism . Add it all up, and one presidential candidate's negative news of the day was somehow covered more than 23 times more than another candidate's negative news of the day. It's understood what has always sold in this business: sizzle always trumps steak, sex always triumphs over substance. If you told me the coverage was 2-1 or even a 3-1 ratio of Trump to Clinton, you wouldn't be reading this column right now. But a story winning the lead over another is one thing. Devouring it to the point of almost total omission via a more than 23:1 ratio is quite another: "NBC Nightly News" with Lester Holt devoted zero seconds to the Democrat and Wikileaks on Thursday night [10/13/2016].
How the Washington Post killed Bernie Sanders' candidacy . The Bernie Sanders candidacy didn't die a natural death — it was murdered. And the murder weapon has the fingerprints of the Washington Post all over it. That's the contention of the much-respected progressive writer Thomas Frank (author of the beloved-by-the-left book "What's the Matter With Kansas?") in an evisceration of the media's role in taking down Sanders that will be the cover story of the November issue of Harper's.
Washington Post Reporter Spiked Info About Podesta Conflict Of Interest . A Washington Post reporter gave former White House Senior Counselor John Podesta advance reassurance she was withholding information about his ethically compromising financial links to a Democratic mega-donor. "I just wanted to make sure John Podesta had a heads up that his name will be in a story concerning the White House's ethics policy, which could run on Monday," WaPo White House Bureau Chief Juliet Eilperin told then-Obama White House Assistant Press Secretary Frank Benenati in a March 21, 2015, email.
Nearly 20 Mins on Trump's 'Miss Piggy' Remark, Silence on Clinton Chief of Staff Immunity . Once again, ABC, CBS and NBC have ignored a major news story that could be embarrassing to Hillary Clinton and have national implications, while promoting a negative (and trivial) Trump story initially pushed by the Clinton campaign. On September 23, news broke that during the now-infamous investigation into Clinton's emails, the FBI granted Clinton's former chief of staff Cheryl Mills immunity. House Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz called Mills's immunity "beyond explanation," adding that "the FBI was handing out immunity agreements like candy." Yet, neither ABC, CBS nor NBC ever even mentioned this story once.
Trump Now Calls Debate 'Rigged' Due To Antagonistic Moderator . In the wake of extensive criticism of presidential debate moderator Lester Holt for aggressively confronting Republican candidate Donald Trump and lobbing softballs at Democrat Hillary Clinton, Trump is changing his verdict of how the debate was conducted. "And then I had to put up with the anchor and fight the anchor all the time on everything I said. What a rigged deal," Trump told a New Hampshire crowd Thursday [9/29/2016].
The Low Point of a Low Night . Lester Holt, anchor of NBC Nightly News and the moderator in last night's presidential debate, is hearing it from conservative critics about his performance. He pressed Donald Trump on his tax returns and his long record of birtherism, and he jumped in, Candy Crowley-like, when Trump claimed that he hadn't supported the Iraq War. He didn't ask Hillary Clinton, correspondingly, questions about her e-mails, the "basket of deplorables," or the rumors about her ill health. For me, Holt's lowest moment came at the end. "One of you will not win this election," he said. "So my final question to you tonight, are you willing to accept the outcome as the will of the voters?"
Trump Is Better Positioned for the Next Two Debates than the Pundits Dare Realize . [Scroll down] Lester Holt was profoundly one-sided. He interrupted Trump constantly (41 times), rarely Hillary (7 times). He tried a few Candy Crowley moments, as when he interjected his views on the constitutionality of stop-and-frisk. That is Hillary's job, if she wishes to interject along those lines, not the moderator's. He asked Trump five hard follow-up questions; he asked Hillary ... not one. However, whereas moderators like Crowley cowed Romney and McCain into submission, because those genteel nominees were oh-so-polite and well mannered, Trump was not cowed.
Corrupt Lester Holt shows why Americans are sick of media . If trust and confidence in the media have fallen to the lowest in history, as recently reported, Holt, in his total abandonment of any semblance of objectivity, has lowered both even more. This bootlicking cog, beholden to his pro-Hillary media masters, didn't bring up Benghazi, the email scandals, the Clinton Foundation slush fund, Huma Abedin's ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, or Clinton's connections to the biggest female oppressors on the planet. With no pushback at all, Holt allowed Hillary to reference an irrelevant 1996 beauty pageant winner as an example of Trump's so-called misogyny.
CBS Spotlights Debate Watch Party with No Trump Supporters . The Tuesday evening [9/27/2016] following the first 2016 presidential debate, CBS Evening News was eager to share the opinions of people at debate watch parties from all across the country, including Los Angles, Philadelphia, and Dallas. Of the three watch parties they covered, CBS chose to lead with Los Angles where the makeup of the room was highly biased. "This group of Latino debate watchers gathered early," reported CBS's John Blackstone, "None here support Donald Trump, but Ana Reyes came looking for more reasons why Hillary Clinton deserved her vote."
Hillary Clinton's Lyin' Eyes . [Scroll down] Eight years ago, John McCain's health was much discussed by the media with regard to his age and history of melanoma. Was he too old? Could his cancer return? Only four years older when he was seeking the nomination than Mrs. Clinton is now, one thought the grim reaper was sitting atop his shoulder. Yet those questioning Mrs. Clinton's health are conspiracy kooks, part of the "vast right wing conspiracy", card-carrying members of "The Deplorables", called "healthers" as the new "birthers". Mrs. Clinton is not running for Chappaqua town council, but for commander in chief of the United States. Her health is a legitimate concern.
The media loves Hillary — and it could cost her the election . [Scroll down] Holt's bias was obvious, but the impact was not inevitable. It mattered largely because, shockingly, Donald Trump was shocked that Holt was in the tank for Clinton. How could Trump not see that coming? And if he did, why wasn't he better prepared? Holt never pressed Clinton with any substantive follow-ups, while Trump repeatedly was asked to defend or explain what he had just said or said in the past.
MSNBC wins big at Media Research Center's Dishonors Awards night . [For example,] When her guest, Latino conservative Alfonso Aguilar, praised House Speaker Paul Ryan as a "hard worker" on October 26, the MSNBC schoolmarm took exception. "I want us to be super careful when we use the language 'hard worker,' because I actually keep an image of folks working in cotton fields on my office wall, because it is a reminder about what hard work looks like. So, I feel you that he's a hard worker, I do, but in the context of relative privilege."
Trump won the debate. Don't believe the "Intellectual Yet Idiot" class . [Scroll down] They stacked the deck against Trump with Lester Holt's one-sided questions and interventions. The Holt-Clinton team was glib, articulate, and self-congratulatory. However, they lost. The Intellectual Yet Idiot class that dominates our news media fell all over themselves critiquing Trump and praising Holt and Clinton. In doing so, they repeated the mistake they have made about every debate since August 2015.
If Lester Holt Really Wanted to Be Fair and Balanced... . NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt, at Monday night's [9/26/2016] debate, repeatedly cross-examined and fact-checked GOP nominee Donald Trump. However, for Hillary Clinton there was not one single challenge to anything she said. And there wasn't a hard-hitting question to the Democratic nominee on any of her controversies whether it be Benghazi, the Clinton Foundation or the e-mails. If Holt had correctly done his job as moderator he could've asked a tough question of Trump and then pivoted to ask an equally challenging question to Clinton. The debate might have gone completely different if he had.
Here's A List Of The Top 10 Issues Hillary Was NOT Asked About At Monday's Debate . Moderator Lester Holt is getting mixed reviews for his performance at Monday's presidential debate. While some are praising Holt as having been even-handed, critics have noted that the questions he asked — or didn't ask — seemed to favor former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Specifically, Holt pressed Donald Trump on a number of tough issues including his unreleased tax returns. However, Holt failed to hold Hillary Clinton to account for any of the significant issues surrounding her scandal-plagued campaign, including the Clinton foundation's pay-to-play accusations and her cozy relationship with Wall Street investment banks.
"Mostly true" when Bernie said it, "mostly false" when Trump did . The Social Justice Warriors at PolitiFact are at it again, lying like sacks of fertilizer inside the barn.
Dallas Paper Offers Discount In Scramble To End Hillary Endorsement Fallout . The Dallas Morning News is offering massively discounted subscriptions to its readers in an effort to withstand the fallout caused by its editorial board's endorsement of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. The endorsement has generated a lot of reader pushback in the form of angry comments, phone calls and vows to unsubscribe from the paper, which hasn't endorsed a Democrat in 75 years. Editor Joe Wilson has acknowledged it came with a price of dropped subscriptions, but no one from the paper has revealed how many readers actually unsubscribed.
The Editor says...
It is difficult enough to keep a newspaper afloat in the 21st century, without stuff like this.
After Charlotte shooting, press downplays a key fact: The officer's race downplays a key fact: The officer's race . The riot in Charlotte, and the fatal shooting of Keith Scott that sparked the violence, was the lead story in yesterday's New York Times. But a crucial fact was buried. Not until the 30th paragraph were readers told that "Brentley Vinson, the officer who the police say shot Mr. Scott, is black, as is the police chief." The Washington Post took a similar approach with its lead story, waiting until the 31st paragraph to report that "authorities said the officer who shot Scott is black."
Nets Omit IRS Head Admitting to Targeting Tea Party Groups at Hearing . At a contentious impeachment hearing conducted by the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday [9/21/2016], IRS Commissioner John Koskinen admitted that his agency targeted Tea Party groups looking to obtain tax-exempt status. "They were totally improper criteria used to select organizations, applying for c-4 designation for further review," testified Koskinen before the committee, "Those organizations predominantly were conservative organizations." This stunning abuse of power went unreported by the "Big Three" networks Wednesday evening and Thursday morning. The only reference to Koskinen being in a hearing that day was made by NBC that evening, but the report had nothing to do with a possible impeachment or his testimony. During her report on NBC Nightly News, reporter Katy Tur used a clip of the commissioner, talking about how tax-exempt organizations can spend their funds, to take a swipe at Donald Trump and his foundation for alleged self-dealing.
CNN Media Panel: Clinton vs. Trump Is Apples vs. 'Rancid Meat' . On his Sunday show Reliable Sources, [9/4/2016] host Brain Stelter brought out a panel made up a proverbial who's who of Donald Trump opponents to whine about how the media was being "unfair" to Hillary Clinton and going easy on Trump.
Dr. Drew loses his CNN show a week after questioning Hillary's health . Dr. Drew Pinsky raised a lot of eyebrows a week ago when he said he was gravely concerned over Hillary Clinton's health in an interview on KABC-AM radio. The interview went viral, and was taken down by the station (but a transcript lives on, courtesy of the Free Beacon). So the message had to be delivered in way tht [sic] would chill everyone who might think about revealing inconvenient truths.
Hillary's Corruption Is Overwhelming . After over two decades in the heart of America's spotlight, Hillary Clinton is still an unknown quantity for most Americans. That's thanks to one factor and one factor only: the love and worship of the mainstream media. Over the weekend, no less than six terrible stories broke that would have crippled anyone else's campaign.
Media that ripped Bush on Katrina ignores Obama on Louisiana flooding . President George W. Bush was torn to shreds in 2005 by mainstream media commentators for his initial response to Hurricane Katrina — yet President Obama's detached response to the recent Louisiana floods has been met with resounding silence from those same outlets. "George Bush doesn't care about black people" was the shocking charge by singer Kanye West about President Bush's response to Katrina. West's was a particularly blunt assessment, but echoed a growing narrative pushed by mainstream media outlets that Bush's response was out of touch, inept and most of all, he didn't care about people on the ground.
Chris Matthews: Get 'excited' about Clinton campaign, or 'don't vote' . MSNBC's Chris Matthews has a striking message for disaffected Democrats: Get "excited" about Hillary Clinton's campaign and the possibility of the party controlling Washington, or "don't vote." The "Hardball" host offered the advice on air Tuesday night, while griping about some Democrats' pessimistic attitude toward the election.
Chris Matthews Fails to Identify Disgraced Pennsylvania AG as a Democrat . Imagine that a Republican state attorney general had been forced to resign after being convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice. Now imagine how the story would have been played on MSNBC. Fair to assume that the word "Republican" would have featured in the story's first sentence? But in a stand-alone segment on today's Hardball on the forced resignation of Kathleen Kane, the Pennsylvania AG who was convicted on nine charges, host Chris Matthews failed to ever mention, and the screen graphics never revealed, that Kane is a Democrat. Kane had illegally leaked secret grand jury documents to harm a rival prosecutor, then lied about it under oath.
WaPo Writer Discovered on Payroll of Pro-Iran 'Echo Chamber' Architect . A Washington Post writer who recently claimed that a $400 million cash payment to Iran was "American diplomacy at its finest" failed to disclose that he has been on the payroll of an organization that emerged as a chief architect of the White House's self-described campaign to build a pro-Iran "echo chamber," according to information obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. Allen S. Weiner, a Stanford law professor and contributor to the Post's opinions section, co-authored a piece arguing in favor of the Obama administration's decision to pay Iran $400 million in hard currency in what many described as a "ransom payment" for the release of several U.S. hostages. Weiner and the Post failed to disclose that the writer has long been on the payroll of the Ploughshares Fund, an organization recently exposed as a key cog in a White House-orchestrated campaign to build what it called a pro-Iran "echo chamber."
Sharyl Attkisson Discusses DC Journalist Bureau Chief Urging Colleagues to Take Down Trump . Sharyl Attkisson was interviewed on NewsMax TV with Steve Malzberg and discussed an event she attended where a well known DC Journalist Bureau Chief urged all of the reporters in attendance to earnestly work at taking down candidate Donald Trump. When you consider the event being discussed, and further add the known hatred from a very specific Washington Bureau Chief, it stands to reason Attkisson is discussing Carl Bernstein. Bernstein previously said that all reporters have a professional journalistic responsibility to destroy the candidacy of Donald Trump. Bernstein, if you didn't know, is a full-throated supporter of Hillary Clinton.
VIDEO: Here's ten minutes of CNN cutting people's mics when they dare criticize Hillary . Note to pundits, journalists, witnesses, and commentators who would dare speak the truth about Hillary Clinton. You are not welcome on CNN. They have no interest in hearing the facts of Mrs. Clinton's life. They don't fit the obviously-biased narrative they're building, and [they won't] let you sit there and use their airwaves to inform people. The once and future Queen must be protected at all costs. Speak ill of her and CNN's gestapo will shout you down and cut you off with extreme prejudice — regardless of the accuracy of your comments.
A Good Joke About Political Murder . [Scroll down] Not only did Trump not say what the media has accused him of saying, but the media has no problem when Democrats openly called and call for the assassination of Republican presidents and presidential candidates. During Trump's candidacy a fine roster of media folks covering the gamut from the New York Times to VICE to the Nightly Show have joked about killing Trump or about his assassination. Anyone objecting to that sort of good clean progressive fun would have been a humorless spoilsport. Trump's remark however is being denounced in the press as everything from a threat to sedition. What did Trump actually say? When you go to the tape, it turns out that he said nothing.
CBS Admits: Host Gayle King Attended Gushing Obama Birthday Party . CBS This Morning co-host Gayle King isn't just a Democratic donor, she also attended Barack Obama's 55th birthday party this past weekend. The woman who regularly covers political stories, including the 2016 presidential election, was outed by her co-host Charlie Rose as a guest. After reporter Dana Jacobson highlighted a New York Times story on the secrecy of the Obama White House bash, Rose blurted, "Did you tweet anything [at the party]?" King replied, "Oh, no. They ask you not to tweet. I'm not tweeting a thing." She bragged, "It was a very nice tribute to him [Obama]. The last time in the White House and I can say a good time was had by all." An excited Rose wondered, "And you danced with the President?" Remember, these people call themselves neutral, unbiased journalists.
New York Times Blames Donald Trump for Biased Media Coverage . [Scroll down] In 2008 — to pick an arbitrary starting point — journalists swooned over the prospect of Barack Obama as the first black president, and coordinated to discuss attacks on Obama's critics. In one particularly noxious episode, a photographer working for the Atlantic photoshopped a cover image she had shot to cast McCain as a bloodthirsty monster. In 2012, journalists plotted together to make Mitt Romney the target of Benghazi coverage, rather than Obama or Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — and CNN's Candy Crowley infamously threw the second presidential debate to Obama. They played along with spurious attacks on Romney's record, such as his supposed responsibility for the death of a worker's wife and the alleged mysteries in his tax returns.
GOP Goes Full Democrat . [Scroll down] Media support for the Democrat candidate, no matter who that is, should be a foregone conclusion. The alphabet networks, cable news shows and major newspapers are nothing more than campaign arms of the DNC. The most recent example is Khizr Khan receiving 50 times more coverage than Benghazi mother Pat Smith on the three major networks, ABC, CBS, NBC. When George W Bush was running for president, Code Pink and Cindy Sheehan were constantly on the news, protesting the Iraq war and excoriating George W Bush. Then in 2008 with a new Democrat president, the war protests went into silent mode receiving no media coverage, having already served their purpose.
NBC Urges Hillary's VP to Trash Trump; CBS Urges Trump's VP to Trash Trump . Two networks. Two vice presidential candidates. Same questions. Today co-host Savannah Guthrie on Friday [8/5/2016] interviewed Mike Pence and urged the Republican to trash Donald Trump. On CBS This Morning, Norah O'Donnell talked to Tim Kaine and urged the Democrat to trash... Trump. She did not demand that Kaine bash Hillary Clinton. Instead she asked if Trump was "sane" and "competent." On NBC, Guthrie lectured, "Paul Ryan himself said that Donald Trump has been on a 'strange run' for the last few days. You're down in every national poll, some by double digits, in every recent battleground poll.
CBS Touts 'Feminist-in-Chief' Obama, Laments Dislike of Hillary Clinton . The journalists at CBS This Morning on Thursday [8/4/2016] hailed Barack Obama as the "feminist-in-chief" and praised his new essay in Glamour magazine on "women and politics." Naturally, Democratic donor and co-host Gayle King expanded the discussion to a complaint about people disliking Hillary Clinton. Talking to editor-in-chief Cindi Leive and insisted, "In Glamour magazine, you've been talking a lot about politics. I want to switch to Hillary Clinton and about likability. Because don't you find it interesting that this is still an issue for her today?" Leive scolded, "They [the public] can accept voting for somebody they think is competent but not necessarily like likable. They are tougher on women."
MSNBC: Pat Smith's Speech Was 'Offensive' But Khizr Khan's Was 'Memorable' . Both the Republican and Democratic conventions gave speaking slots to grieving parents of a son killed in combat, but — according to MSNBC's Steve Benen — Khizr Khan's DNC speech was "memorable," while Pat Smith's RNC speech was "offensive." Smith, whose son, Sean, was killed in Benghazi, slammed Hillary for allegedly lying to her about the cause of her son's death.
On CNN, Pat Smith Blasts 'Dirt' Treatment From Media Over RNC Speech . On Monday's [8/1/2016] CNN Newsroom, Patricia Smith hammered the media over their clear double standard between the often-negative way they treated her anti-Hillary Clinton speech at the Republican National Convention versus their hyping of Khizr Khan's anti-Donald Trump speech at the Democratic National Convention: "I was treated like dirt. I don't think the Khan family was treated that way. But I was treated like dirt. I was called a liar." Anchor Brooke Baldwin pressed Smith to condemn Trump's counter-attack on Khan and his wife. Baldwin led into her interview of the Benghazi mother by noting that Trump "isn't the only candidate facing backlash here. Hillary Clinton being criticized again by one of the most vocal parents... of the slain Americans in Benghazi."
Double Standard: Khizr Khan Receives 5 More Coverage Than Pat Smith on ABC, CBS, NBC . Two weeks ago at the Republican National Convention (RNC) a grieving mother blasted Hillary Clinton for the debacle of the 2012 Benghazi attack. Last Thursday [7/28/2016], at the Democratic National Convention (DNC), grieving parents gave a speech criticizing Donald Trump for his statements against Muslims. While all the grieving parents deserve sympathy, the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) network evening and morning shows seemed to only care about the parents that showed up at the Democratic Convention. Khizr Khan and his wife Ghazla's DNC appearance earned 55 minutes, 13 seconds of Big Three network coverage, nearly 50 times more than Pat Smith, whose RNC speech honoring her son earned just 70 seconds of airtime.
Glenn Greenwald: The Media's Coverage of Donald Trump Is 'Kind of Hysterical' . In a recent conversation with Slate, The Intercept's Glenn Greenwald agrees that a possible Donald Trump presidency "poses ... extreme dangers" to the U.S., but the journalist also argues that the mass media is not only creating a dangerous, unblinking consensus against Trump but also failing to reach his voters.
Charlie Rose Asks Eric Holder About 'Danger' of 'Not Smart' Trump . Acting more like a doorman than a journalist during PBS coverage of the Democratic National Convention Thursday night, CBS This Morning co-host Charlie Rose invited former Attorney General Eric Holder to blast Donald Trump: "You also said that Donald Trump, you questioned his gray matter. You mean he's not smart enough to be president?" Holder replied: "Yeah, I wonder. You know, I sometimes think that he hides behind a certain bravado to hide a lack of substance that he has.... he seems to me to be a very shallow man." Rather challenge the nasty personal attack or lecture Holder to tone down the rhetoric, Rose urged him to continue: "And because you don't see any intellectual interest, you don't see anything other than a businessman?"
CNN's David Gregory: 'I've Run Out of Words to Express My Shock' Over Trump . Following a long, rambling presser in which GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump encouraged a foreign nation to interfere in the election, CNN's David Gregory admitted that he had "run out of words to express my shock" about Trump. He observed "how completely beyond the pale Donald Trump is as a potential leader of the free world and commander-in-chief of our country. This is beyond the pale."
NBC Spin: Resignation of DNC Chair 'Best Thing for Democratic Unity' . In a desperate attempt to downplay chaos in the Democratic Party following leaked Democratic National Committee e-mails and the resignation of chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Shultz, on Monday's [7/25/2016] NBC Today, Meet the Press moderator Chuck actually tried to spin the controversy as a positive: "Look, the only piece of good news out of this for Democrats, Jeff Weaver, Bernie Sanders's campaign manager, told me yesterday the best thing for Democratic unity is her resignation and that actually could calm the waters today."
Of Course: MSNBC Connects Munich Terror Attack Talk to GOP Convention . MSNBC on Friday [7/22/2016] used the unfolding shooting spree in Munich to bash the Republican Party and connect the GOP convention to it. Regarding terror, Daily Beast editor Christopher Dickey talked to Brian Williams and lectured, "What we're looking at now in Europe and, to some extent, at the Republican convention and in the discourse in the United States, is a lot of talk about war as if we're talking about a massive operation." Dickey insisted that the terror threat not be overstated: "Yet we're often talking as if we're going to go to war with a billion Muslims. And I think we need to be very, very careful about that. You are very careful. NBC is very careful."
75 Percent Positive Response to Donald Trump Speech — So CNN Trashes Its Own Poll . Donald Trump won the Republican nomination for president in Cleveland during a momentous week in political history. On Thursday night [7/21/2016], Trump gave a one-hour-and-fifteen-minute speech accepting the Republican nomination. The speech was so overwhelmingly well-received among the crowd that the media did not know what to do to tear it apart.
Trump's Biggest Enemy is the Media . Although it's a given that the mainstream media is biased against conservative Republicans, the recent Wikileaks 20,000 DNC email dump disclosed that the MSM has colluded with Hillary Clinton in her attacks on her opponent Bernie Sanders. Poor Bernie didn't have a chance against the combined Clinton/MSM machine. The emails contained off the record correspondence with reporters at the Washington Post, Politico, and the Wall Street Journal, among others. They also show how the DNC conspired with media anchors and newspapers to torpedo Bernie Sanders. One devastating email discussed using Sanders religion or atheism as a potential talking point for the campaign. Hey Bernie, the Green Party wants you to run on their ticket. It would be nice to go out fighting. We certainly didn't need any proof that the mainstream media is in the pocket of the Democrat Party since we know that over 80 % of journalists are self-admitted liberals.
Another Clinton Email Scandal Erupts As Dem Convention Opens . Talk about a bad a start to a political convention. The release of almost 20,000 emails hacked out of Democratic National Committee servers has forced the head of the DNC to resign, sparked protests from Bernie Sanders supporters, and showed the media in cahoots with Democrats.
Leaked Emails: Politico's Ken Vogel Filed Story with DNC Before His Own Editors . A release of Democratic National Committee emails from WikiLeaks shows Politico reporter Ken Vogel sent a pre-publication negative copy of a story April 30 to the DNC's deputy communications director, so he and other staffers at the DNC along with Hillary Clinton campaign could coordinate a response. "Vogel gave me his story ahead of time/before it goes to his editors as long as I didn't share it. Let me know if you see anything that's missing and I'll push back," wrote Mark Paustenbach in an email to his boss, Luis Miranda, who before taking over communications for the DNC worked for President Barak Obama's White House outreach to Latinos, as well as other campaigns, including the Democratic 2000 recount operation in Florida.
The GOP convention exposes the reality of media bias . CNN alone spent nearly 45 minutes talking about Mrs. Trump's alleged plagiarism Tuesday morning [7/19/2016], as if this was a matter of major national importance. Why? The most obvious explanation is that the TV networks are run by Democrats who consider it their professional duty to provide negative coverage of Republicans. After a protester from the far-left group Code Pink attempted to stage a disruption Monday inside the Quicken Loans Arena, ABC News reporter Terry Moran claimed this incident was symbolic of what "a dark night" the convention had been. "Donald Trump has been a candidate whose approach has divided many people, drawn protesters," Moran said, terming the lone protester's act an illustration of "the kind of unsettled emotions that Donald Trump has sparked in many people around the country." Of course, kooks from Code Pink — founded in 2002 by radical leftists Jodie Evans and Medea Benjamin — have staged disruptive protests in all kinds of settings, but Terry Moran blamed their bizarre antics on Trump. Meanwhile, on NBC, Tom Brokaw was accusing Republicans of communicating "a pretty divisive message." According to Brokaw, the GOP convention made "no attempt to really pull the country together."
L.A. Times Suggests Military Coup Against President Trump . Jamie Kirchick, writing in the Los Angeles Times, asks readers to imagine a military coup against a future President Donald Trump — and argues why one would be necessary. Kirchick cites the example of the recent failed coup in Turkey as a source of inspiration.
Los Angeles Times runs op-ed promoting military coup against Donald Trump . Normally military coups are instigated by the right, but a senior fellow with the left-wing Foreign Policy Institute is arguing that an overthrow of the U.S. government might be necessary if Republican nominee Donald Trump is elected president. What's more, the op-ed by James Kirchick ran Tuesday [7/19/2016] in a major U.S. newspaper, the Los Angeles Times. "Trump is not only patently unfit to be president, but a danger to America and the world," Mr. Kirchick wrote in the op-ed. "If Trump wins, a coup isn't impossible here in the U.S." "Voters must stop him before the military has to," he concluded.
The Editor says...
If I had written an op-ed article to incite a military coup against the president and posted it on this web site, something bad would have happened to me by now. But the L.A. Times — with at least ten times the number of daily readers as akdart.com — acts as if there's nothing wrong with this sort of inflammatory rhetoric.
Uproar! Melania Trump Caught Borrowing Cliches From Michelle Obama Speech . In other words, the mainstream press has thankfully found a meaty topic in which to bite, since the other speeches on Monday [7/18/2016] were all about boring stuff like how Hillary Clinton lied to the mother of one of the men killed in Benghazi, or the stories of parents who lost their children to illegal immigrants, or Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke's stirring — and hugely crowd-pleasing — defense of the nation's police after eight were gunned down in targeted attacks within two weeks.
Who Gets Absolute Moral Authority? Among the sainted moms of the Black Lives Matter movement who will speak on Hillary Clinton's behalf are Gwen Carr, mother of Eric Garner; Sybrina Fulton, mother of Trayvon Martin; Maria Hamilton, mother of Dontre Hamilton; Lucia McBath, mother of Jordan Davis; Lesley McSpadden, mother of Michael Brown; Cleopatra Pendleton-Cowley, mother of Hadiya Pendleton; and Geneva Reed-Veal, mother of Sandra Bland. Each of these cases lumped under supposedly unjustified gun violence and systemic racism is complicated and distinct. For starters, Bland hanged herself when her friends and family wouldn't bail her out of jail after she had kicked a police officer. Two of the "children" involved in police shootings (Brown and Hamilton) had assaulted cops during their fatal encounters. [...] Because these women endorse race-baiting, gun-grabbing narratives and left-wing candidates, no one working in the mainstream media will ever challenge their parental prerogative to participate in politics on behalf of their loved ones.
Sad! How The Media Empowered Trump Haters To Be Meaner Than Hillary Haters! The media creation of Trump as essentially a bigoted, unhinged, uneducated, unfit-for-office monster is beginning to stick and this is the week Trump can (and must) attempt to change that narrative. Yet I've begun to notice that the Trump haters ranging from liberal Hillary Lovers to #NeverTrump constitutional conservatives, and even many casual political observers in between, despise Trump so much that I fear they are beyond persuasion.
Smug Chuck Todd: Benghazi Is 'Cheap Unity' for Lowest Common Denominator' Crowd . A smug Chuck Todd on Monday dismissed Benghazi at the Republican Convention as nothing more than "cheap unity" for the "lowest common denominator" crowd. Chris Matthews railed that the GOP speakers were presenting "third world rhetoric." Todd insulted, "Benghazi... does serve Trump in another way positively, politically, which is a way to unify this crowd quickly. It's a way to get cheap unity."
Indiana Thug Wearing "Black Lives Matter" T-Shirt Opens Fire on Police Officers House . He was wearing an "FTP" (F*** The Police), Black Lives Matter T-Shirt, he opens fire on a police officers house and squad car, yet the politically correct Indianapolis media are struggling with a motive.
Sonia Sotomayor Cites Ta-Nehisi Coates in a Supreme Court Dissent . Race is everything for the "wise Latina." The media have widely praised Sonia Sotomayor's dissent in Utah v. Strieff. Even though she is derided as one of the worst writers on the bench, even by her ideological comrades, headlines describe the dissent as "stinging" (New York Daily News), "ringing" (Atlantic), "fierce" (Washington Post), "fiery" (CNN), "epic" (Nation), "blistering" (NPR), "biting" (Christian Science Monitor), and "scathing" (NBC). In particular, they praise the dissent for bravely taking on racial injustice in America. Slate called it an "atomic bomb of a dissent slamming racial profiling and mass imprisonment." Mother Jones lauded the "court's only Latina justice" for putting "her life experience to practice" and "excoriating her colleagues for misunderstanding the police harassment to which people of color are regularly subjected." The Atlantic wrote that "few institutions in American life have grappled with race and racism like the U.S. Supreme Court, for better or worse, but rarely does it speak about it with this level of detail." It went on to suggest that the dissent may be a "veiled nod to the Black Lives Matter movement." The nod is barely veiled.
Why Isn't The Media Condemning All the People Supporting the Dallas Shooter? [Scroll down] I saw many postings (several with hundreds of "likes" and "retweets") from black people who have been infuriatingly supportive of the man who wanted to kill "white people" and end up assassinating several completely innocent police officers. I'm not talking about the usual conspiracy nuts who insist that Johnson wasn't really the shooter. That isn't that unusual in cases like this. What I saw was flat out praise for Johnson's actions. Perhaps even worse than that, there were numerous blacks who were being viciously attacked for having the gall the criticize those who would publicly support/justify such a heinous crime against humanity. To my knowledge (and I have searched hard to find it), not one major "black leader" has had the guts to call out this outrageous reaction. [...] This is a whole new level of insanity and delusion. This shows that there is a culture, at least within the massive online black community, where, even if it is not nearly the majority view, it is more than acceptable to think is it somehow justifiable to kill whites/police out of revenge for events which we still don't yet even fully understand.
MSNBC Spins: Black Lives Matter Has Never Been 'Anti-Police' . MSNBC anchor Brian Williams has been hosting the live reaction to the horrible shooting in Dallas. On Friday [7/8/2016], the journalist brought on a guest to claim that Black Lives Matter protesters have never been "anti-police." Sherrilyn Ifill of the NAACP and Williams also hinted that more gun control was needed in the wake of the killing. Speaking of bringing people together, Ifill claimed, "That's what the Black Lives Matter protests have been about. That's what the policing protests have been about, they have never been anti-police."
CBS Dismisses 'Innocent' Meeting Between AG Lynch and Bill Clinton . While credit goes to Thursday's CBS This Morning for leading the broadcast with the controversy swirling around Bill Clinton having a 30-minute private meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch amid the FBI investigation to Hillary Clinton's e-mail scandal, the hosts of the morning show proceeded to dismiss the suspicious incident as an "innocent" encounter. Turning to Bloomberg Politics editor John Heilemann, co-host Charlie Rose downplayed: "...the former President and a meeting with Loretta Lynch which seems on the face of it, simply to be an innocent meeting of two politician saying hello. But — "Heilemann replied: "Yes. Just not just smart, right? Not a smart thing to do. You know? The case she is still being investigated by the FBI. The Justice Department has jurisdiction over that case."
ABC Swoons Over Abortion Activists After SCOTUS Ruling; 'It's a Party Right Here!' ABC was the last of the "big three" networks to break in Monday morning [6/27/2016] with the Supreme Court's ruling striking down a pro-life Texas law, but they didn't hold back their approval as the assembled cast of smiling correspondents hailed the "fairly sweeping decision" and expressed glee at the "party right here" by abortion activists "lining up since 4:00 am. to witness this moment."
MSNBC lets Wendy Davis take abortion victory lap . MSNBC's coverage of the Supreme Court striking down Texas' recent abortion law Monday included a triumphant victory lap by failed gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis, whose 11-hour filibuster against the regulations in 2013 earned her high praise from the cable news network. The Supreme Court ruled 5-3 this week that Texas' recently enacted abortion law, HB2, unconstitutionally limited a woman's access to abortion under Roe v. Wade.
BET Awards: Clinton Rally, Then a Sermon Against Abusive 'Invention Called Whiteness' . Just as you would expect, the 2016 BET (Black Entertainment Television) Awards were full of Black Lives Matter references and reminders to register to vote and then get out the vote for Hillary Clinton. After the opening of the award ceremony featured Beyoncé and her back-up dancers marching into the auditorium to a Martin Luther King, Jr. speech, actor and producer Terence J went on to say, "Your vote is your voice," and reminded everyone to register and "vote smart" as he introduced the show hosts, ABC's Blackish stars Anthony Anderson and Tracee Ellis Ross.
The one question reporters failed to ask any of the Democrats about their sit-in protest . The media orgy over the Democrats' temper tantrum in the House of Representatives has been well documented over the past 24 hours. But with all the fawning tributes and comparisons to civil rights era protests on the 1960s, one fundamental, logical question seems to have escaped the minds of the hive-mentality media gaggle covering the Pelosi-run publicity stunt. Let's first point out the so-called "common sense gun safety legislation" these Democrats claim was the impetus behind their fund-raising escapade disguised as a protest. The crux of their agenda had to do with legislation designed to prevent individuals on the terrorist watch list from buying weapons. This would deny the right to bear arms to up to a million people because someone in a government office in Washington put their name on a list. A fundamental, constitutionally protected right would be denied without due process. It's pretty serious stuff, right? So, how did the media address the protesters?
CBS Hypes 'Risk' For Homosexual College Student To Come Out In Alabama . On Friday's [6/24/2016] CBS Evening News, Steve Hartman hinted that the Bible Belt — and specifically, Alabama — was a dangerous place for homosexuals. Hartman pointed out that "a lot of people came out after [the] Orlando" terrorist attack, but touted how "few took as big a risk as Jesse Johnson. Jesse's family lives in Jemison, Alabama, in the heart of the Bible Belt. Fly a flag here, and it better have just red, white, and blue." The correspondent included a soundbite from Johnson's mother, who expressed her deep concern: "I worry for his safety because of that. I mean, this is Alabama."
NBC producer calls would-be Trump assassin 'good guy with a gun' . In an effort to make a smug attack on the conservative position that the best way to fight a bad guy with a gun is a good guy, an NBC producer tweeted that the failed assassin who tried to murder Donald Trump could be considered a "good guy with a gun." Matt Mowrer, an associate producer for NBC Universal since 2014, tweeted late Tuesday night [6/21/2016] that anyone who kills the Republican nominee is considered deserves the same praise as someone who tries to stop a mass killing.
A Year After Honoring a Man in a Dress for Courage, ESPN Honors a Man in a Boy's Body . ESPN just announced its decision to give this year's Arthur Ashe Courage Award to Zaevion Dobson. This is another way of saying that ESPN honors a hero instead of itself in issuing the honor next month. The network too often depicted heroism through the award as the act of embracing the ideological precepts popular with Disney executives. [...] The people honoring other people often seek to honor themselves by attaching themselves to the popularity of others. But in celebrating a man in a boy's body the Worldwide Leader in Sports spotlights their recent buffoonery of celebrating a man in a woman's dress. There's nothing praiseworthy in praising someone for the purpose of winning praise.
CNN, DHS & SPLC's Blame Righty hit job . The Department of Homeland Security refuses to release a report on "right-wing" terrorism that somehow found its way into CNN's hands last week during the farcical White House summit on Don't Say Islamic Extremism.
What America's Freedom-Hating, Hoplophobic, Lying Financial Columnists Will Try and Tell You . You always know what to expect when someone claiming to be an authority on one topic decides to delve into another topic that has zero to do with his alleged expertise, and then begins his screed with an insult to a large portion of the American population. This is what popped up on my news feed this morning when I pulled up my Facebook account — shared by a friend from high school, who made it a habit of late to share idiotic anti-gun opinions and warn those reading her timeline that dissent will not be tolerated and opposing opinions deleted.
This Week Proves, Again, that Progressivism is a Cult . The most absurd thing about the progressive's 'Stop the Hate' pleas are that nobody, and I mean nobody, does hate better than progressives. We are talking Sith-level hate. When they say 'love is love,' they mean 'get to the back of the bus, you bigot.' When they say 'tolerance' they mean 'safe space for me, but not for thee.' CNN's Anderson Cooper, an open homosexual, thinks your tears for 49 dead people aren't real if you've never tweeted about gay pride, and he will tell you so on the air.
In a Mass Shooting, Wait and Die? Or Fight Back? Regarding the Orlando shooting, notice how quickly the media pivoted from the culpability of a sexually repressed Muslim Afghan registered Democrat mass murderer to an assault on firearms? Forget Islam and jihad and the Obama administration's resolute determination to fundamentally change the nature of the United States by importing as many Muslims from alien, anti-Christian and anti-Western cultures as possible. The real problem, in their view, is gun violence.
This is Why Trump's Journo-Bashing Scores Points . Watch here as the three CBS This Morning anchors nod together in self-satisfied disgust at the failure to advance gun control. As if there wasn't a conservative in their audience or another opinion in the land. [Video clip] How smug, and ultimately, how dumb. To be so sure of one's opinions that nobody could possibly disagree, and to be so blithely unaware that, as "mainstream" journalists, they have a responsibility to be nonpartisan. And then in another segment, surely, they'll profess to be astounded and outraged that Donald Trump is drawing excitement and applause by bashing the press.
After correcting for bias, Clinton's national lead in CBS News poll evaporates . CBS News is now pushing the pro-Hillary Clinton polls in rapid fashion. Late on Wednesday, this media outlet released the results of a national poll claiming to show that Clinton holds a 6% advantage over Donald Trump in the direct head-to-head matchup. [... But] this CBS News poll appears to be biased in favor of the Democrats by the same margin that Clinton purportedly holds over Trump, meaning that if the bias is removed, so is Clinton's lead, and we have a statistical tie.
Anderson Cooper's Orlando Ranting Is Bad For America . Based on information we have as of now, [Omar] Mateen was a longtime supporter of terrorism, having cheered 9/11 — on 9/11! — according to his high school classmates who witnessed his response. [...] He was a registered Democrat and son of an anti-American politician. Despite all that, the media and others on the Left decided to cover this terrorist attack by going after people who support self-government and its Second Amendment; people who pray to God in times of tragedy; people who believe the definition of marriage is the union of one man and one woman; people who accept the biological reality and implications of distinct sexes; people who are Republican; people who are traditional Christians; and so on and so forth. The media followed up by cheerleading this incivility.
The entire front page of the Boston Globe pushes a gun ban . Please note that the Orlando shooter did not — repeat, did not — use an AR-15 in his Islam-inspired terrorist attack. The weapon he used was a Sig Sauer MCX, not even close to being an AR-15. The fact that the media has chosen the AR-15 as the poster gun for banning "assault" weapons is typical of our dumb as a stone media when it comes to firearms. But you might note the manipulative, emotional appeal from gun control hysterics. Since they are unable to use factual arguments, they appeal to the heart and hope people don't catch on that what they are proposing won't stop a single terrorist or nutcase from commiting mass murder.
The Media Meme: Blame GOP for Orlando While Turning Sole Focus to Gun Control . The media and political exploitation we've witnessed as a country over the past five is one word: Disgusting. It's a shake-your-head moment in looking at the definitive narrative to emerge out of Orlando this week. We're a blame-ourselves culture regardless of who or what is actually responsible for horrific things, with Republicans usually the first to get a finger (index and/or middle) directed its way after every mass shooting that occurs all too often in this country. Members of a Charleston black church are massacred by a lunatic? It's a Republican problem because a Confederate flag was on his property. A Planned Parenthood facility in Colorado is attacked and three people — including a police officer — are killed? It's Carly Fiorina's fault. 49 innocents are slaughtered at an Orlando nightclub? The New York Times blames... the GOP.
The Editor says...
"49 innocents?" The clients in a meat market gay bar at 2:00 a.m. are not innocent.
CBS Insinuates Christians 'Promote the Kind of Violence' in Orlando . During their Tuesday night broadcast of Evening News CBS directed the blame for the Orlando terrorist attack towards American Christians, even though it was carried out by a pledged member of the Islamic State. To ease into the Christian bashing host Scott Pelley stated, "There has been so much progress for the LGBT Community, but we are now reminded that fear is still a constant reality." As the center piece of her report CBS's Mireya Villarreal brought on Lorri Jean the CEO of the LGBT Center in Los Angeles. In the report Villarreal showed Jean letting loose on her political opponents: [...]
Regressive media applaud the San Jose violence . The far-left media are excusing the behavior of San Jose rioters, instead blaming the violence on Trump and rally attendees. Some journalists have gone so far as to encourage the attacks. In the wake of the outrage over the violent protesters' behavior, online leftist publications churned out a flurry of articles that stank of damage control. But unlike of the apologia they exhibited during the Baltimore and Ferguson riots, the authors of these pieces went a step farther than merely excusing the mob attacks in San Jose. They endorsed them.
The Mexican Flag: An All-American Symbol? Violent mobs who have attacked Donald Trump supporters at one rally after another wave Mexican flags while burning American flags. The vast majority of Americans will disapprove, to say the least, so the Associated Press felt called upon to assure us that Mexican flags are really OK: "Mexican flag, seen at Trump protests, has long history in US." [...] The AP wants us to think that Mexico has legitimate grievances against the U.S., although how that is relevant remains unspoken.
After [One] Complaint, Pennsylvania High School Ends Tradition of Graduation Prayer . There will be no invocation or benediction at this year's Pottsgrove High School graduation, a change after years of tradition. As reported in the Pottsgrove Mercury, the decision to stop the prayers was made last year. According to reporter Evan Brandt, the change apparently is the result of one student's decision to invoke Jesus Christ in his comments at last year's graduation. The school received an anonymous complaint.
The Editor says...
The school board apparently has no backbone if it surrenders after one anonymous complaint.
News anchor booed at graduation ceremony for anti-Trump remarks, speaking Spanish . A commencement ceremony turned unruly over the weekend when the keynote speaker, Mar'a Elena Salinas, one of the most prominent journalists in Spanish-language news in the U.S., underscored the achievement of the Latinos among the graduates and made some remarks in Spanish. Non-Latino graduates and their guests at California State University, Fullerton's College of Communications booed the Univision anchor and yelled at her to leave the stage, according to a student who was at the ceremony.
Charlotte Observer: Girls must overcome 'discomfort' at seeing male genitals in locker room . A shocking editorial in the Charlotte Observer counseled young girls to get over the "discomfort" they feel at the sight of male genitalia when transgender facilities are allowed in North Carolina. The newspaper assumes the law will eventually be repealed or declared illegal. While that may or may not happen any time soon, it is the justification for this position used by the Observer that reveals the true nature of this battle of the bathroom.
Fox News is now completely devoted to Donald Trump . The political and media world seemed shocked this week when Megyn Kelly sat down for a warm interview with Donald Trump. She tossed him velvety soft questions like, "When did you realize you could be president?", sought to discover whether anyone had ever "hurt [him] emotionally," and peppered him with hard-hitting queries on his favorite book and movie. Kelly can of course do any kind of interview she likes, but it's as good a marker as any that Fox News is now thoroughly behind Donald Trump's candidacy for the White House.
Activism masquerading as journalism:
Here's Who's Controlling the Bathroom Debate . The bathroom wars raging in North Carolina, set off by House Bill 2 passed by the N.C. General Assembly, have attained international attention, partly from a febrile cadre of gay activists, but largely due to the Charlotte Observer that covers the city where the donnybrook began — and N.C.'s capital city daily, the Raleigh News & Observer. Without these papers, both owned by the McClatchy chain, the bathroom gender issue would have come and gone in a few days. [...] For two straight weeks, the Raleigh paper published from four to seven pieces a day on the subject — news articles, editorials, guest opinion, editorial cartoons, letters to the editor, and blurbs in their political happenings column. The theme that emerges is to exhort readers to approve of transgender lifestyles and special rights.
When Hillary Needs It Most, 'The Daily Show' Vets Bernie's Policies . With Hillary Clinton still unable to finish off Bernie Sanders, many in the liberal media are trying to drag her over the finish line. The night of the Indiana primary, which was a Sanders victory, CNN wanted to know when he would get out of the way and stop hurting Clinton. In a similar way, The Daily Show decided that Thursday night [5/5/2016] was the right time to actually analyze Sander's proposals and tell the truth about them.
Andrea Mitchell Stumps for Trump: 'Facts No Longer Matter, Tweets Matter' . Now that Ted Cruz and John Kasich have both dropped out of the Republican presidential race and Bernie Sanders is playing out the string, the mainstream media narrative around the Donald Trump versus Hillary Clinton general election matchup is beginning to gel. On MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Reports Wednesday afternoon [5/4/2016], host Andrea Mitchell made it clear that not only will she promote Trump's candidacy against Hillary Clinton, she will do so in defiance of the facts.
These are the same people who denounce bullying — when other people do it.
CBS's Rose Holds Up Daily News GOP Obituary During Interview With RNC Chair . During an interview with Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus on Wednesday's [5/4/2016] CBS This Morning, co-host Charlie Rose gleefully held up a copy of the [New York] Daily News and read the mock obituary on the cover of the left-wing tabloid: "...it says, 'Republican Party 1854-2016; Dearly beloved, we're gathered here today to mourn the GOP. A once great political party killed by epidemic of Trump.'" Just in case Priebus couldn't see the nasty front-page illustration, fellow co-host Gayle King described it in detail: "No, and there's an elephant, Reince, in a coffin, just to make the picture really clear for you." The hosts laughed as Priebus dismissed the publication: "Well, it's only fitting of the Daily News."
Dear Mainstream Media, Don't You Dare Whitewash Anti-Trump Violence . Just imagine for a moment the shrieking outrage if Trump supporters had tried to flip a car outside a Hillary Clinton rally. Imagine the fury at the sight of a bloody man wearing a Hillary shirt.
NBC Reporter Giddy With Excitement Aboard Cruise to Cuba: 'A Pinch-Me Moment' . In an exclusive for NBC's Today on Monday [5/2/2016], correspondent Kerry Sanders could not contain his pure joy at being aboard the first cruise ship bound for Cuba since the Obama administration resumed diplomatic relations with the communist nation. In his report, Sanders proclaimed: "This morning, history is being made as this cruise ship becomes the first in more than a half century to sail from Miami to Havana.... American passengers about to step on to Cuban soil, a country that most U.S. citizens have been forbidden to visit since 1963."
ESPN Fires Curt Schilling — What About Liberal Offenders? About Schilling's firing, the Disney-owned sports cable network said: "ESPN is an inclusive company. Curt Schilling has been advised that his conduct was unacceptable and his employment with ESPN has been terminated." Last summer ESPN suspended Schilling for retweeting a meme likening Muslim extremists to Nazis. Last month, he no doubt angered management for saying that Hillary Clinton should be "buried under a jail somewhere" for her email scandal. So Schilling, to ESPN, is a serial offender. And as a private company, it can terminate an employee for perceived offenses. OK, so Schilling has to go. But what are the rules?
Trump supporters, police attacked by illegal immigrants and their advocates . Thugs advocating the mass lawless invasion of the United States attempted to shut down a rally of those who demand the law be enforced. That is the true nature of what happened last night in Costa Mesa, California, in Orange County. But a quick scan of media headlines about the event makes it clear that the media is doing its best to obscure the nature of the aggression, and portray the incident as the inevitable outcome of Trump's vicious message of intolerance.
I'm done with Fox News . When Fox News debuted in 1996, it was a breath of fresh air, seemingly unadulterated by the leftist bias that had long characterized the three mainstream networks and CNN. But that initial commitment to balance has gone by the wayside, sacrificed on the altar of Donald Trump. Fox News, as Mark Levin has observed, has become a Trump super-PAC instead of a news organization.
CNN previews the unbelievable pro-Hillary bias it will be pushing . The presidential race that is shaping up will be a landmark for American media, exceeding even the pro-Obama bias of 2008 and 2012 — something that would have seemed impossible at the time of those races. But that was before Donald Trump and Ted Cruz became the likely alternatives for the GOP nomination. Each man, in his own way, is anathema to the progressives in the media, while Hillary Clinton evokes nothing but warm protectiveness, especially from female neoprogs. In a remarkable display of a complete lack of self-awareness, Carol Costello of CNN shamelessly prodded a pro-Sanders guest three times to say that Sanders should now "cool it" and stop attacking Hillary Clinton.
ABC Grilled Cruz in Town Hall, Skips Benghazi and E-Mails for Clinton . While ABC journalists grilled Ted Cruz on Monday with a Good Morning America town hall, they offered softballs to Hillary Clinton on Thursday [4/21/2016]. George Stephanopoulos and Robin Roberts showcased questions from the left and included queries about hot sauce and Saturday Night Live. At no time was there a question on Benghazi or the Democrat's secret e-mail server and the scandal around it. The tone started early as Robin Roberts teased the special program: "Clinton flying high, fresh off that huge victory in New York. In another tease, Roberts promised that the candidate would "answer her toughest critics. She didn't. Instead, ABC allowed a Clinton super delegate/Democratic congressman to ask a question.
Cross-Dressing WashPost Reporter Attacks 'Conservative Loudmouth' Schilling on 'Transphobia' . Justin Moyer contended that ESPN's firing of former baseball pitcher Curt Schilling "seemed destined" in a Thursday article for the Washington Post, which detailed the supposed "radicalization" of the former Phillies player turned "conservative loudmouth. Moyer spotlighted how "Schilling went fangs out" after Tweeting out a controversial image that "many deemed transphobic. However, the reporter didn't disclose his possible stake in this issue, as he moonlights as a cross-dressing musician in a rock band.
'Fox & Friends' orchestrates a round of applause for Donald Trump . In the contest among media types for the most obsequious treatment of Donald Trump, the idiotic Fox News morning program "Fox & Friends" on Tuesday [4/19/2016] put forth a very competitive entry. As it often does, the "Fox & Friends" hosting trio did a long interview with Trump via telephone. A key talking point was a Politico scoop by Ken Vogel and Ben Schreckinger about the campaign's reorganization, which is based on a reconstruction of a Trump campaign meeting on Saturday.
Chuck Todd Tells Ted Cruz Planned Parenthood Scandal 'Made Up' . During an MSNBC town hall event with Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz on Thursday, Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd dismissed the Texas Senator's condemnation of Planned Parenthood by insisting that scandal surrounding the abortion provider was "made up." Cruz observed: "You know, a few months ago, we had this series of videos that were horrifying. I will say virtually none of the network news would show the videos on air. These videos showed Planned Parenthood officials essentially admitting to what appeared to be a pattern of federal felonies."
Donald Trump's Rigged Media . The media — not just the liberal media, but some "conservative" media, too — have been the gale-force wind beneath Trump's wings. On the nightly news shows on ABC, CBS and NBC, Trump has far outpaced anyone other GOP candidate for attention. From last July through April 6, he's drawn 1,228 minutes of airtime, or 56 percent of the total coverage of the Republican primary race. The other 16 candidates have split the remaining 44 percent.
Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump and headlines the Boston Globe will never show you . The cat is out of the bag. The mainstream media in America no longer even pretends to hide their bias and disdain against Republicans. Exhibit A was Sunday's [4/10/2016] edition of the Boston Globe dedicated to headlines about what America might look like under a President Donald Trump. [...] How could a major newspaper so ferociously engage in slashing and burning a Republican candidate? Are we living in the land of the free, or a Banana Republic?
Newspaper Owned by Donald Trump's Son-in-Law Endorses Donald Trump . Two of Donald Trump's adult children may not be able to vote for him in the upcoming New York primary, but his son-in-law's newspaper is doing its best to help the cause, publishing an endorsement of the Republican candidate. "Donald Trump is the father-in-law of the Observer's publisher," began an editorial by the New York Observer published Tuesday [4/12/2016].
Legacy Media Urge Illegal Aliens to Sign Their Kids Up for Medi-Cal Welfare Program . Because California is running a massive surplus and the federal government is a financial powerhouse.
Joe and Mika All But Openly Campaign for Trump . It's official, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski finally stopped pretending they don't support their buddy Donald Trump and are now opening campaigning for him. Following Trump stunning two digit trouncing in Wisconsin co-host Brzezinski whined Wednesday [4/6/2016], "I think the establishment and the Stop Trump forces are shooting themselves in the foot because they're so blindly focused their hatred on Trump to the point where they can't see that what they're going to get is Cruz."
The Unfair Media Bias . The willful blindness of the Western media and intellectual elites to Palestinian incitement and their hyper-focus on any incident they can use to portray Israel in a negative light were on abundant display last week when footage emerged of an Israel Defense Forces soldier shooting a wounded and disarmed Palestinian terrorist. Since then, The New York Times and The Washington Post have run no fewer than 16 stories about the incident. [...] Meanwhile, these same news outlets consistently fail to speak out against the massive and ongoing denial of human rights, suppression of basic freedoms and daily torture meted out to any Palestinian dissident by both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas.
The Associated Press is Now Openly Pushing Democratic Talking Points . [Scroll down] This is an excellent example of Betteridge's Law by the way, which states that whenever a headline has a yes-or-no question, the answer is always "no." The only reason for these sorts of headlines is because the editor wants to imply something that cannot be backed up by a straight reading of the facts.
Cokie Roberts: Doesn't FBI Have Better Things To Do Than Investigate Hillary? MSNBC might have to build a deeper tank ... so Cokie Roberts can dive into it for Hillary. On today's Morning Joe, Roberts of NPR complained about the resources the FBI is devoting to the investigation of Hillary Clinton's misuse of email. Carped Cokie: "Don't they have other problems? There's no crime in the country they should be worrying about?" Roberts' timing could hardly have been worse. Just moments before, Joe Scarborough pointed out that last week it was revealed that 22 of the emails on Hillary's server "were so sensitive that the State Department said releasing them would cause grave danger to the United States national security." Not worth investiging, Cokie? Really? [Video clip]
Hillary's Really Bad Week No One Heard About because Guess Who . Hillary Clinton had a gaffe-filled, staggeringly bad week last week. It started with her politicizing Nancy Reagan's funeral and ending with more explosive allegations that her informal adviser Sidney Blumenthal had directly cut and pasted classified intelligence into an unsecured personal e-mail account. But you wouldn't know it from media campaign coverage, which has been far more occupied with the GOP primary and the escalation of violent incidents at rallies.
Drudge Report: Only Good Trump News Is Fit To Print . Drudge's ongoing pro-Trump bias has been noted in some quarters. Back in December, for example, the Daily Beast's Michael Tomasky wrote, "What (Drudge readers) have been getting for the last six months is a steady stream of pro-Trump agitprop." As much as Drudge has blown kisses at Trump, the candidate has been singing Drudge's praises. "What's better than Drudge? He's a fantastic guy. What he's built is unbelievably respected," Trump said after a Drudge reader poll showed him winning a GOP debate — which every Drudge poll has shown. But now as Trump gets closer to sealing the Republican nomination, some conservatives are starting to publicly attack Drudge's biased approach to the GOP nomination, not just because he backs Trump but also because he often promotes vicious attacks against Trump's more reliably conservative rivals.
The Editor says...
The article above is about Drudge, not Trump, but it brings up a related topic: For someone who has apparently enjoyed a lifetime of exposure to a number of influential people, Mr. Trump's vocabulary is remarkably narrow. He is apparently unable to endorse an idea or an individual in any of his speeches without resorting to pedestrian adjectives such as incredible, unbelievable, and fantastic. Mr. Trump, in my opinion literally is incredible, meaning that his claims are not credible — impossible to believe, in other words — beginning with his claim that he is a Republican. He is also literally unbelievable, for example, when he lays out his outlandish plans to build an insurmountable wall along the Mexican border.
By 15-to-1 Margin, Networks Blame Trump, Not Lefties, for Campaign Violence . MRC analysts Mike Ciandella, Scott Whitlock and Kyle Drennen examined ABC, CBS and NBC morning and evening show coverage from Saturday morning [3/12/2016] through Monday morning — a whopping 45 segments totalling nearly 85 minutes of airtime. They found that reporters specifically criticized the Trump campaign for its handling of the issue 46 times, vs. just three times when blame was placed on the left-wing protesters.
From Confirmation to Cancellation, CNN Irresponsible With Botched Rubio 'Exclusive' . CNN is at war with another Republican candidate. First it was Ted Cruz immediately following the Iowa Caucus after some incomplete on-air reporting regarding the state of Ben Carson's campaign. And on the eve of voting in four states, it's the Rubio campaign that is up in arms over another CNN report that can be deemed not only incomplete, but grossly irresponsible.
Rubio vs. CNN: The Little Marco Who Cried Liar . Generally, when a Republican calls a CNN reporter a liar, you gotta take the side of the Republican. CNN doesn't just lie, CNN is a network chock-full of left-wing propagandists deeply devoted to electing Democrats, expanding the scope of the federal government, and forcing Christians to participate in same sex marriages. CNN is much worse than MSNBC. The problem here is Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)'s track record.
The Week In Stupid . [Scroll down] Ultimately the media is to blame for the wide acceptance of these stupidities. People only know what they are told. In 2012 they turned a good and decent man into someone who burned money while his employees' wives died; tortured his dog and had elevators in his home for his cars. Think what you will of his politics and polices, and they had their shortcomings, but they made Mitt Romney into a caricature of a human being. It wasn't the first time, and it won't be the last. But this time, the media lost our confidence.
Washington Post Stealth-Edits Reagan Obituary, Covertly Removes Tasteless Lead Without Note . According to Gallup, trust in media by the general public was at 74 percent following Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post blowing the lid off Watergate and bringing a sitting president down in the process. It's now at 40 percent and dropping. We see the examples why every day. Forget the partisan blogs and social media... they are what they are. But the Washington Post must and always be held to the highest standard. They say the cover-up is worse than the crime. Nobody is saying Lois Romano or the Washington Post committed a crime here. It was just an obituary even Romano or the paper or both acknowledge was in poor taste if the changes after the fact are any indication. And to just modify, eliminate without notification to readers in any capacity is not only sneaky, but stupid given the original copy is already very much out there. Don't trust the media? You're not alone.
How the Columbia Journalism School smeared Exxon . When the Columbia Journalism School set up a project in 2014 to generate articles on energy and the environment, was its real agenda to exploit ExxonMobil's reputation as a climate-change villain? The fellowship project culminated last fall in an LA Times series that accused the world's largest oil company of downplaying the risks of climate change. InsideClimateNews, an aggressive online site known for its doomsday environmentalism, posted a nearly identical article, tapping Columbia's research. The stories paint a dark picture of the oil-industry icon, charging it with a cover-up that echoes the tobacco industry's denial of health problems from cigarettes.
Leaked Voicemails Show MSNBC Hosts Cozying Up To Donald Trump . Leaked Donald Trump voicemails reveal MSNBC hosts Tamron Hall, Mika Brzezinski, and Joe Scarborough cozying up to the New York real estate developer. The voicemails, which were released Friday [3/4/2016], were sent to Gawker by someone saying they hacked Trump. A source in the TV industry told The Daily Caller the voices seemed authentic, adding, "I'd bet money."
Report: Fox News 'finished with Rubio' . Republican presidential hopeful Marco Rubio's rough week got worse on Wednesday [3/2/2016] with a New York Magazine report that the head of Fox News has decided to stop giving the Florida senator prominent, favorable coverage. "We're finished with Rubio," Roger Ailes told one of the network's hosts recently, according to three unnamed sources. "We can't do the Rubio thing anymore."
The Editor says...
Why were you doing "the Rubio thing" in the first place? What happened to the Fox slogan, "We report, you decide"?
WB-Affiliated Magazine Produces Hit Job on Dr. Ben Carson . [Scroll down] So even though the case was thin, Crime Watch Daily ran with the story. It aired earlier this month, but it remained under the radar — until now. The show that featured this disgusting hit piece against a successful figure in medicine premiered just this year and is produced by Warner Bros. Television. Now, if Crime Watch Daily — as the show is named — did something similar to this about Barack Obama, which, of course, they would never do, cries of racism would fill the air. If they had done a similar, unsubstantiated story about Hillary Clinton, talking about her emails or her many other questionable activities, they'd be accused of engaging in a "witch hunt." I don't really care what they do at this point, but never again will I give them another dime for a movie ticket or a DVD/Blu-ray/Digital release of any of their movies or TV shows as a result of this.
The mass murders that dare not speak their name . Pity the late Cedric Ford. If he had understood the way the media worked, he might not have gone on the horrific shooting spree in central Kansas on Thursday [2/25/2016] that cost three people their lives and fourteen people their health. But alas, once the major media understood the demographics of the case, they lost interest in Ford quicker than you could say "Muhammad and Malvo." Ford simply did not fit the narrative. "Who commits mass shootings?" read the headline of an all too typical piece on CNN.com some months ago. CNN's answer: the "young, white and male." At 38, Ford was relatively young, and he was certainly male, but he was not white. Ford, in fact, represents the most recent manifestation of a widely underreported phenomenon — the black mass murderer. As in virtually every other case, Ford's blackness was not an incidental detail. It was at the heart of why he did what he did.
'Not a Man on That Stage I Wouldn't Gladly Knee in the Groin,' Tweets Liberal Columnist . During the Feb. 25 [Republican] debate, lefty Daily Beast and New York Times Magazine contributor, Ana Marie Cox, unleashed a livestream firestorm against the GOP candidates, which culminated in her labeling the entire GOP a "terrorist group."
Republicans Aren't Fighting Hillary, They're Fighting the Hillary-Loving Media . [Scroll down] Hillary has nothing going for her other than her last name. Well, that and the media. Because even though an occasional joke about Hillary will slip through the media machine, the vast majority of the time, the media prop Hillary up. That same Saturday Night Live routine mocking Hillary had characters talk about how she was the most qualified presidential candidate in history and how much they loved her foreign policy. Triumph spent more time insulting Bernie Sanders than Hillary. The media have spilled gallons of ink over the question of whether insulting Hillary's shrill screeching is sexist or not; they've played defense for Hillary on matters of race; they've covered for her completely on her email scandal.
Giddy Andrea Mitchell Wonders If Scalia Debate Could Help Democrats Regain Senate in November . As the debate over who should replace late conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia continued into Monday [2/15/2016], NBC News correspondent and MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell took to NBC Nightly News to tout claims that the discussion could hurt Republicans and lead to Democratic Senatorial candidates winning elections in November to help their party retake control.
The Editor says...
Of course, the exact opposite is true: If the Republicans don't fight Obama's nominees wholeheartedly, at least until after the election, they're in political trouble.
Wash Post Scalia Headline: 'Supreme Court Conservative Dismayed Liberals' . What was the most important thing for readers of Washington Post to see on the front-page of the paper Sunday morning? A headline focusing directly on the death of Antonin Scalia? No. In bold, large font, the Post declared, "Supreme Court Conservative Dismayed Liberals." Apparently, someone at the paper thought better of this for the online version. It declared, "Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia Dies at 79." The actual article itself included some nice tributes to Scalia. In contrast, even the liberal New York Times managed a respectful headline: "Justice Scalia, Who Led Court's Conservative Renaissance, Dies At 79."
Ten Thousand Demand Chris Matthews' Suspension, MSNBC Silent . A MoveOn.org petition demanding that MSNBC suspend "Hardball" host Chris Matthews has garnered just under 10,000 signatures, even as the network has refused to address what Huffington Post called a "clear conflict of interest." The petition began in response to outrage over Matthews' "constant shilling for Hillary Clinton." The number of petition signees has almost tripled in size since The Daily Caller reported that Hillary Clinton's biggest donors are bankrolling the congressional campaign of Matthews' wife, Kathleen.
'One Long Cheap Shot' — WashPost Lines Up Canadians to Bash Ted Cruz as Extreme . While The Washington Post would only go to Kenya looking for gushing over Barack Obama, they turn to Canada to make fun of Ted Cruz.
To maintain credibility, CNN must apologize publicly to Ted Cruz . In case you have not yet figured it out yet, CNN gave the distinct impression that Dr. Ben Carson was suspending his campaign on the night of the Iowa caucus. The report was used by the Ted Cruz campaign, who disseminated the information to precinct captains. This information was also used by anyone who happened to check the news with their mobile phone during the Iowa Caucus. It is absurd to consider that media types like Michael Smerconish, Business Insider, Buzzfeed and others were fooled by overly ambitious Ted Cruz precinct captains who were cherry picking information from a CNN report, as alleged by CNN correspondent Chris Moody.
'Today Show' Sandbags Palin, Doesn't Ask Hillary About Email Scandal . Although the classified information scandal surrounding Hillary Clinton's home-brewed email server blew sky-high Friday afternoon, NBC News, the left-wing outlet that attempted to rescue Clinton from this inexcusable behavior last year, jumped back into the tank Monday morning. During a 4-minute appearance on "The Today Show," the former Secretary of State was not asked a single question about the disturbing new revelations. Naturally, although she is running for nothing, this very same "Today Show" sandbagged Sarah Palin with a personal question about her children.
NPR Erases Israel From Map Of Middle East . Blatant anti-Israel bias like this is why NPR is referred to as 'National Palestine Radio' in my 'hood.
CNN's Begala, Bash Downplay Clinton Sex Scandals; 'Nobody Wants to Talk About' That . After NBC's Democratic co-moderator Andrea Mitchell wanted to know from Bernie Sanders in Sunday's debate about whether or not he regretted bringing up Bill Clinton's sex scandals, the post-debate analysis on CNN saw panelists Dana Bash and Paul Begala (a former Clinton aide) less than pleased with the issue and did their best to downplay its significance in the 2016 race.
Couric Presses Ryan on Gun Control: 'What Did You Think When the President Cried?' . In an interview with House Speaker Paul Ryan on Thursday, Yahoo! News anchor Katie Couric grilled the Republican leader on gun control: "Let's talk about President Obama's executive action on guns. What did you think when the President cried? ... Were you affected by it?" Ryan pushed back: "I didn't really think about his crying. ... I was affected by it, but I thought we should have had the same kind of reaction when James Foley was beheaded, when San Bernardino and Paris occurred."
Narcissistic Newsweek Senior Writer Compares Cruz Supporters to Nazis; No Suspension Coming . Is it ego or just plain stupidity? [...] Today's [1/6/2016] latest example comes courtesy of Newsweek senior writer Alexander Nazaryan. His crime? Tweeting out an old image of people marching with Nazi flags and sporting swastikas to illustrate what he calls "Ted Cruz's ground game." In other words, if you support Cruz, you advocate the genocide of Jews with fascism being your particular political flavor.
Angry ABC Railed at Obama Birther 'Nonsense,' Blase on Cruz Birtherism . In 2011 and 2012, the journalists at Good Morning America railed against birther claims relating to Barack Obama, assailing the conspiracy theory as "bizarre" and "nonsense." Yet, the same program lacked outrage on Thursday as Donald Trump promotes a form of birtherism against Ted Cruz. An ABC graphic mildly explained, "Trump Goes After Ted Cruz: Questions GOP Rival's Citizenship." Reporter Tom Llamas simply claimed that Trump is "raising questions about Cruz's birthplace, Canada." He added that the businessman is "suggesting Cruz go to court to prove he can run for president."
ABC's Llamas to Cruz: 'How Can You Be a President' If You 'Hate' Democrats, 'Culture of Washington' . While interviewing Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz for the Wednesday edition of ABC's World News Tonight, Republican campaign correspondent Tom Llamas demanded Cruz explain how he could "be a president and hate the Democrats and hate the culture of Washington so much and be effective." Before Llamas's question to Cruz, he remarked in his report that "some Republicans worry Cruz is too polarizing, too unwilling to compromise with Congress to win in a general election." Cruz responded to the liberal-learning question by flatly denying that he's ever said he hates Democrats and instead: "It's Hillary Clinton who describes her, quote, enemies, as Republicans, as half of the country she considers her enemies. I don't hate the Democrats."
Despicable New York Daily News Headline Screams: GOP Is the 'Party of Pro-Death' . In November and December, the New York Daily News characterized the NRA and its CEO Wayne LaPierre as a jihadists and terrorists. Now it has set its sights on Republican Party presidential candidates and leaders who are defending the plain, Supreme Court-upheld wording of the Constitution's Second Amendment and Congress's power to make laws over lawless presidential actions.
The Editor says...
It is remarkable that the Abortion Party has the audacity to refer pejoratively to others as pro-death.
Obama's pass from the press . Sometime in the spring of 2007, something strange happened to the Iraqi coverage in the national media — it disappeared. Or rather, as soon as the news ceased to be bad, the media lost interest in covering it. It was not till July, when Michael O'Hanlon reported back from the front that the surge had been working, that the world started to realize what happened. To them, the fact that George W. Bush had succeeded in something was what the press couldn't bear to believe. Something of the sort is happening now in reverse regarding the current Middle East crises, which make Iraq in 2006 seem calm in comparison. This time the press, which can no longer deny that the world has been going to hell since Barack Obama started unleashing his peacemaking powers, is doing its best to insulate him completely from any possible blame for it all.
WCBS News: Now Nakedly Purveying Radical Leftist Propaganda . WCBS News in New York offers us a classic example of a manipulative and dishonest media. Our "free press" is biased and is nudging us in one direction — leftward. Here are two disturbing examples though there are many in any given day.
NBC's Today Skips Planned Parenthood Videos, Clinton E-Mail/Foundation Scandals in Year in Review . With New Year's Eve upon us, NBC's Today dedicated a segment in its 9:00 a.m. hour on Thursday to looking back at the year in news, politics, and entertainment. Not surprisingly, the liberal network made no mention of the Planned Parenthood baby parts video scandal, Hillary Clinton's private e-mail server, the Clinton Foundation scandal, and Benghazi to name just a few. Speaking with Rolling Stone's Joe Levy, co-hosts Natalie Morales and Dylan Dreyer started with the year in news by not mentioning the scandal concerning Levy's publication and the University of Virginia but instead first talked about Bill Cosby and what's transpired concerning the sexual misconduct allegations made against him in the past year.
Biased Media Give Obama An Early Christmas Present . Our IBD/TIPP polls showed that the public has little faith in Obama either domestically or internationally. Just 46% now approve of the job he's doing overall, and a mere 28% approve his handling of ISIS. So what's the press writing about as the year comes to a close? How he's "broken the second-term curse"! His incredible faith! How he "roughed it" in Alaska with Bear Grylls and was in a Web video with Jerry Seinfeld! The New York Times ran through a "series of accomplishments" and how Obama's "success in the past 12 months, both overseas and at home, defied expectations." The story couldn't have been more glowing if it were written by the White House press office.
A new low: Cartoon mocks Cruz's kids, media call it a 'gift' . In daily journalism, there are inevitably mistakes, misjudgments and missteps. And then there is portraying a politician's children as animals. Why the Washington Post thought such a cartoon about Ted Cruz was fit to print is beyond me. I'm equally puzzled by the media's muted reaction.
'We're done': CNN cuts off conservative guest's microphone . CNN's Don Lemon abruptly ended an interview Tuesday afternoon [12/22/2015] after one of his conservative guests refused to stop talking about former President Bill Clinton's many sex scandals. The moment occurred after the CNN host failed repeatedly to get conservative columnist Kurt Schlichter to comment on GOP front-runner Donald Trump cracking bathroom jokes about Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. "Why did he have to go there?" Lemon asked Schlichter and Trump supporter Tara Grant. "Don, it's going to take a lot more for me to get upset at a woman who enabled a guy who turned the Oval Office into a frat house and his intern into a humidor," Schlichter responded, "I just don't care. I so don't care."
Pathetic Don Lemon Cuts Off Interview With Kurt Schlichter Cuz He Can't Handle The Truth . Not only is this clip hilarious, but it's also rather outrageous because all that military veteran and outspoken conservative Kurt Schlichter did is call Hillary an enabler of a sexual harassment, and Don Lemon couldn't deal with it. [Video clip]
6 Times the Mainstream DC Media Ridiculed Children of Republicans . One of the biggest lies told by our corrupt and rotting DC Media is the one that states that the children of politicians are off-limits. Unwritten or unspoken, there is no such rule. There is, of course, a strictly-enforced DC media rule about the children of Democrat politicians being off-limits. The children of Republican politicians, however, have always been fair game — and I'm not talking about in the left-wing fever swamps, but in mainstream outlets such as the Washington Post, CNN, NBC News, The Atlantic, The Daily Beast, and Salon.
Washington Post depicts Ted Cruz's children as monkeys. And won't apologize for it . That Tweet has since been deleted, of course: and now the Washington Post has yanked the editorial cartoon in question. Sans apology: because while Fred Hiatt is willing to admit that he didn't do his job, he's apparently not willing to admit that a Republican deserves an apology. And then there's how CNN put all of this: [...]
Ted Cruz Strikes Back at Washington Post Cartoonist for Mocking his Daughters . The Washington Post has officially yanked the cartoon down, un-publishing it late Tuesday evening [12/22/2015] after this Breitbart News story.
WaPo removes cartoon showing Cruz daughters as monkeys . The Washington Post removed the cartoon late Tuesday evening, and issued an apology explaining that they did not review Telnaes' work prior to publishing. "It's generally been the policy of our editorial section to leave children out of it," Post editor Fred Hiatt said in a statement.
Washington Post pulls cartoon depicting Cruz's daughters as monkeys . The Washington Post pulled a political cartoon Tuesday night that portrayed the daughters of Ted Cruz — ages 7 and 4 — as monkeys. The cartoon by Ann Telnaes showed the two girls as dancing like small simians before Mr. Cruz, who is Hispanic, dressed as an organ-grinder.
Washington Post stoops to a new low going after Ted Cruz . Imagine for a moment that the Washington Post had published a cartoon depicting Sasha and Malia Obama as monkeys, arguing that because the Obama daughters had campaigned for their father, they were fair game. I realize that such a scenario is unthinkable, that such a project would never pass review. [...] The plain fact is that whoever was on duty and reviewed the cartoon was part of the WaPo's newsroom culture, which hates Ted Cruz and conservatives in general. We have seen in the past a similar instance of egregious prejudice at the WaPo's newsroom, when in 1993 a front page story casually characterized evangelicals as "largely poor, uneducated and easily led." (Note: evangelicals have above average levels of education.)
Planned Parenthood Admits Sending Aborted Babies to Landfills; AP Plays Defense . The callousness towards human life at Planned Parenthood is such that it believes that the remains of preborn babies killed during abortions are just like any other "medical waste," and that sending them to landfills — or, perhaps even incinerators — is therefore "humane." That's what one must conclude from reading an Associated Press report Friday evening which strived mightily to play defense for the beleaguered group. The wire service's headline only described State Attorney General Mike DeWine as an "official."
See How NPR Hacks Up Testy Interview with Ted Cruz . NPR Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep is a big fan of President Obama, and when he interviews him, he helpfully sets him up. In a recent interview on race relations, Inskeep added little prompts instead of questions. That's not what Ted Cruz received on Wednesday's [12/10/2015] show. Inskeep was blunt when discussing the new Trump idea of banning Muslims from entering America: [Transcript omitted for brevity] NPR posted the full transcript online. What that demonstrated was that NPR and Inskeep routinely sliced out (for time and surely, for political convenience) Cruz whacking away at Democrats.
Planned Parenthood was 'right wing terror,' but with Islam suddenly 'motives don't matter' . Last month, when a Colorado Christian entered a Planned Parenthood clinic and fatally shot three people, the mainstream media rushed to make the connection to "right-wing domestic terrorism," even though police hadn't made any connection and the evidence was thin. When two California Muslims shot up a government office several days later, massacring 14, national journalists refused to call it Islamic terrorism even though evidence of the shooters' motive was overwhelming. Two mass shootings, two completely different standards of coverage.
The sky turned blue, the grass turned green, and ...
The media turn partisan after San Bernardino massacre . New York's Daily News used to play it pretty straight — a flashy tabloid, to be sure, but one that kept its opinions on the editorial page. Yesterday's taunting cover, aimed at blaming the Republicans in the wake of the San Bernardino massacre, shows how far it's moved left. And it kickstarted yet another round of media finger-pointing in the wake of tragedy, just as we saw last week after the killings at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs.
Media Rushes to Call Colorado Shooter 'Right-Wing Activist.' . The gulf between facts and conjecture over Colorado shooter Robert Lewis Dear is growing increasingly large by the second. Words like "pro-life activist," "terrorist," and "right-winger" are being used, and all of them are based on supposition and conjecture.
'60 Minutes' pushing Ethel Rosenberg pardon — don't buy it . Obama's presidency isn't over until the end of next year, yet rumors already are swirling about who he might pardon. One name in particular keeps surfacing: Ethel Rosenberg, a dedicated communist and convicted espionage conspirator. Willing to die for the Soviet cause along with her husband, Julius, in 1953, she is now receiving belated honors by misguided individuals and organizations that are more comfortable with claims based on emotional propaganda than actual historical evidence.
Media That Claimed Bush Chilled Speech Strangely Quiet Now . Last week CNN suspended a reporter name Elise Labott for editorializing on a vote by the US House of Representatives. [...] That a CNN reporter would be a lackwit incapable of understanding an issue is not news. That, seemingly, is part of the screening criteria used by their CNN's human resources department in hiring. That a CNN reporter would be a left wing hack devoted to using their position to advance a personal agenda is, likewise, not newsworthy. Who can forget when the ironically named Candy Crowley threw her more than ample weight into the 2012 presidential debate she was moderating on behalf of Barack Obama. What makes Labott unusual is that now we have a smoking gun that proves she slanted her news coverage of Hillary Clinton during her January 2013 Benghazi testimony. Well, slanted is not the right word. She sent her work to Hillary's press guru, Philippe Reines, for approval before releasing it.
Paul campaign slams CNN, says emails show reporter 'colluding' with Clinton aide . Rand Paul's presidential campaign slammed CNN on Wednesday [11/25/2015] after emails were released that the campaign claimed showed a reporter "colluding" with a Hillary Clinton aide to "attack" the Kentucky senator. The CNN global affairs correspondent, Elise Labott, already has been suspended over a separate incident — a tweet last week criticizing a House bill limiting Syrian refugees. But her communications with then-Clinton State Department official Philippe Reines turned up Tuesday [11/24/2015] in a batch of emails obtained and published by Gawker.
Chicago: Media Fans the Flames . Evidently, the [excrement] isn't hitting the fan hard enough, so certain media outlets have started to — get this — lie to advance their agenda. Here's CNN: [Video clip] Yes, that was CNN saying that Chicago Police shot this guy for "jaywalking." No mention of the burglary to auto calls, nothing about the PCP influenced behavior, not even a mention of the knife. Just shot for jaywalking.
CNN "Journalist" Caught Red-Handed Doing Media Favors for Hillary . Hillary wanted some self-serving quotes publicized, and CNN's "journalist" — the same one who just got suspended for her liberal angst about concerns about Syrian refugees — duly complied. She also hit Rand Paul for not attending all the hearings — just as she was seemingly asked.
Emails: CNN Reporter Coordinated With Hillary Aide To Smear Rand Paul During 2013 Benghazi Hearing . A CNN reporter who was recently suspended for two weeks for violating the network's editorial guidelines showed up in a new trove of State Department emails released on Tuesday [11/24/2015] in which she appears to have coordinated social media posts with a top Hillary Clinton State Department aide during the former secretary of state's Jan. 23, 2013 Senate testimony about the Benghazi attacks.
Colbert's 'Late Show' has become propaganda for Democrats . A survey by the Hollywood Reporter found that conservative viewers are turning off Colbert in droves. Nearly twice as many Republicans are watching Kimmel as Colbert, who has turned "Late Show" into a sort of wannabe MSNBC program. The pattern is familiar: When a Democrat is the guest, Colbert is Barbara Walters. When a Republican is on, he turns into Tim Russert.
The AP Lies About Trump and Muslims, and the Media Mob Follows . [Scroll down] Now consider. This is the Associated Press we're talking about here, and the AP can blatantly misreport what Trump actually said, and it goes everywhere. Note that at the very beginning of the AP report, the misrepresentation of what Trump said is fed to Jeb Bush — who promptly does as expected and condemns Trump for saying something Trump never said. Even Ted Cruz swallowed the bait, as Rush noted. The AP's false story is fed out to all the television networks, cable and broadcast, to radio, to newspapers, blogs and the world of Twitter. Thus the lie becomes the Big Lie.
ABC's Gibson Defends Clinton, Declares There's Nothing to Benghazi or Her E-Mails . Demonstrating there's no space between liberal politicians and major media figures — once they feel free in retirement to express their true views which guided their news judgments during their careers — long-time ABC News correspondent and anchor Charlie Gibson on Wednesday afternoon [11/18/2015] dismissed the relevance of Hillary Clinton's e-mails or Benghazi: "I don't think there's anything to Benghazi and I don't think there's anything to the e-mails."
Carson Says Press Deliberately Trying to Damage Candidacy . During a pre-recorded interview with Fox News' Howard Kurtz that aired on Sunday's MediaBuzz, Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson sharply criticized the press for trying to damage his candidacy with erroneous stories about his personal biography. When pressed by Kurtz to explain why the media would want to damage his campaign, Carson explained "when you deliberately lie and you put that out as a story, or you do shabby investigations, and you say we've investigated and we can't find anything, I mean, is that an acceptable standard?"
Dickerson Meets Privately with Democratic Candidates Before Debate . According to Politico's Hadas Gold and Annie Karni, Saturday night's Democratic presidential moderator John Dickerson of CBS News met privately with each of the three campaigns for separate, private meetings to preview the debate and tried to innocently be billed as "informational in nature." The pair spun the revelation as merely CBS "tak[ing] advantage of the smaller pool by doing some intense research" with Dickerson sitting down with representatives from the Hillary Clinton, Martin O'Malley, and Bernie Sanders campaigns "to discuss the major issues at play in the race."
Sorry, Media, You Won't Destroy Ben Carson . Let's begin with two propositions: There is a difference between an admirable man and a perfect man, and there is a difference between "vetting" and viciousness. The collective goal of the liberal media is now clear — to take one of America's most admired and brilliant men and somehow transform him into a dishonest, stupid extremist. The vetting of Ben Carson has become vicious, and to what end? An admirable man has been exposed as imperfect.
No, Ben Carson Didn't Lie About West Point. It's Another Media Hit Job . Now, some on the right are saying that Carson should be held to a higher standard here than other candidates because he's running as an "outsider." But this is a basic case of misinterpreting facts, not an outright lie. Carson served in ROTC. Prominent people wanted him to go to West Point. He wouldn't have had to pay. He didn't apply because he didn't want to go. Those facts are not in dispute. It's the specific wording over which media have decided to crucify him.
The Ben Carson Flaps . For example, in a video that someone dug up, Dr. Carson said to an audience that his "theory" about the Pyramids is that they were used as storage facilities. He was smiling as he said this, so it is not clear whether he was using this theory just to illustrate some point. But, in any case, he was not claiming this as a fact. More important, the Pyramids are not an issue in today's American political campaign, except as a "gotcha" gimmick. Yet the media have paid far more attention to Ben Carson's speculation about what the Pyramids were built for, thousands of years ago, than to outright lies that Hillary Clinton told about tragic American deaths in Benghazi, within days after she knew the truth, as her own e-mails now reveal.
Video Proof: CNN's Attack On Ben Carson's Biography Is Racially-Motivated . CNN's recent and troubling history of anti-black bias is well documented. The left-wing network has been sued for racial bias, is infamous for ginning up violence in predominantly black neighborhoods, and has faced scrutiny by the National Association of Black Journalists for its treatment of black staffers. It is no surprise, then, to discover that CNN is currently on a racially-motivated rampage to undermine Ben Carson's biography, and by extension, his presidential ambitions.
GOP Senator Calls Out Andrea Mitchell's 'Liberal Media Bias'; She Proves Him Right . In an interview with Republican Montana Senator Steve Daines on Wednesday [11/4/2015] about his endorsement of Marco Rubio for president, MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell continued pushing attacks on Rubio's Senate attendance: "One argument, though, is that he has not been in the Senate very much.... That since announcing his candidacy has missed 42% of his votes." Daines hit back: "Yeah, well, I think that's an example of a liberal media bias. Let's take a look at President Obama, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, they were all senators who also ran for president. They missed hundreds of votes. So I think there's a double standard here."
The Three (Clinton) Stooges and CNBC . Reading over the transcript, I was again impressed by Ted Cruz's intelligence. Not only did he brilliantly turn the tables on the stooges, but he understands what is lost on the obtuse Jeb and on John Kasich: if you want to win over someone else's supporters (Paul's and Huckabee's, in Cruz's case), you don't attack their candidate, you praise him. Reading the transcript also makes clear exactly how nasty and combative Quintanilla and Harwood were. If Hillary's staff were writing the questions, they could hardly have done a better job.
Thank You, CNBC . Here's the Republican dilemma: The RNC may succeed in quieting down its candidates and extracting some concessions from the networks, which do not wish to lose out on the premium advertising and large viewing audience a GOP presidential debate brings. But whatever happens, Democratic presidential contenders are unlikely ever to have to stand on a stage even half as tough as what their Republican counterparts endure. The great irony here is that it was precisely CNBC's bias that made for such a good evening for Republicans.
Charlie Rose Sticks Up for Hillary in Interview With Rubio . "You called Hillary Clinton a liar, senator," said Rose. "You called Hillary Clinton a liar." "Well," Rubio responded, "I said Hillary Clinton lied about Benghazi. There's no doubt about that, Charlie. [...]"
A debate that will live in infamy . [Scroll down slowly] The sneak attack had been effectively countered, and from that point forward, most of the candidates joined forces against the slippery sloppy questions. The entire nation rose up to ask, "Could those moderators possibly have not known how foolish they were? And what does that say about the mainstream media?" Watch the tape, or read the transcript of the debate online. You owe it to yourself to see the blatant attempt to manipulate public opinion by insulting the standard-bearers of the Republican Party. There is no reasonable, responsible Democrat anywhere who could defend the behavior of the three intemperate moderators.
The Gang That Couldn't Bias Straight . Usually liberal journalists are far better at hiding their biases than CNBC's inept and sneering moderators at last night's debate. Questions asked in an insulting tone, interruptions of candidates in mid-sentence, injections of personal opinion, and shouting down candidates attempting to defend themselves. CNBC began the evening full of bravado, showcasing its "star" panelists and then allowing them to deliver vapid commentary on the debate for 15 minutes before the debate started. It ended almost trying to pretend the debate never happened.
In (Partial) Defense of CNBC . Sweeping his arm across the stage, at the University of Colorado, in Boulder, he said, "This is not a cage match. And, you look at the questions: 'Donald Trump, are you a comic-book villain?' 'Ben Carson, can you do math?' 'John Kasich, will you insult two people over here?' 'Marco Rubio, why don't you resign?' 'Jeb Bush, why have your numbers fallen?' How about talking about the substantive issues the people care about?" He got a big round of applause, which Carlos Quintanilla, one of the moderators for CNBC, tried to interrupt, asking, "Do we get credit...," before Cruz interrupted him again. "The contrast with the Democratic debate, where every fawning question from the media was 'Which of you is more handsome and why?'" Cruz said.
The Editor says...
The writer in The New Yorker, after quoting Ted Cruz, went on to defend the left-wing propagandists masquerading as "moderators." The Ted Cruz quote was the best part of the article. Expect more article like the one above in the next week or so, because the biased left-wing news media can't afford to let these latest challenges go unanswered.
NYT Calls Jill Biden a Doctor 3 Times More Often than Ben Carson . The New York Times referred to Jill Biden as a 'doctor' three times more than Ben Carson, according to the Weekly Standard. Jill Biden, Vice President Joe Biden's wife, has a doctorate in education. Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson was the first neurosurgeon to successfully separate conjoined twins.
What Ted Cruz Did in Wednesday's Debate Was So Much More Than an Applause Line . In one moment, Senator Ted Cruz managed to do what no other candidate for the Republican nomination for president has done to this point: unite Republicans. He did so by pushing back against the ridiculously biased questions presented by CNBC moderators.
RNC Chair Bashes CNBC: 'It Was One Gotcha Question, One Personal Low Blow After The Other' . "I think it was one gotcha question, one personal low blow after the other," Reince Priebus told the press gathered in the spin room. "It's almost like they tried to design a Rubik's cube for every question."
CNBC Anchor Booed for Question Aimed at Carson . Wednesday at the CNBC Republican presidential debate, when moderator Carl Quintanilla questioned Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson over a company for which he gave paid speeches, the audience disapproved by loudly booing the anchor.
Cruz Rips Press At CNBC Debate: "This Debate Illustrates Why We Can Not Trust The Media" . At the Republican debate hosted by CNBC in Boulder, Colorado Wednesday night [10/28/2015], presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz lambasted the moderators, particularly John Harwood of The New York Times, and the media for their treatment and characterization of himself and his competitors. "The questions asked in this debate illustrate why the American people don't trust the media," Cruz at Wednesday's [10/28/2015] Republican debate. "Everyone home tonight knows that the moderators have no intention of voting in a Republican primary."
Cruz Burns CNBC Moderators: This is Why Americans Don't Trust the Media . Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R., TX) took the media to task on Wednesday [10/28/2015] for asking Republicans tougher questions than they ask Democrats. Cruz said that the questions asked by CNBC's moderators on Wednesday demonstrated why Americans do not trust the media. He ticked through a list of questions asked by the moderators of the CNBC debate.
Republican debate veers out of control as Ted Cruz blasts moderators for bias . The CNBC moderators temporarily lost control of Wednesday's testy Republican primary debate after Texas Sen. Ted Cruz blasted them for what he described as loaded questions designed to provoke infighting among Republicans. "The questions that have been asked so far in this debate illustrate why the American people don't trust the media," Mr. Cruz said instead of answering a question about the debt limit. "This is not a cage match."
Rubio: Mainstream media is the Democrats' 'ultimate super PAC' . Sen. Marco Rubio ripped into the mainstream media during the third GOP debate, calling them the "ultimate super PAC." "The Democrats have the ultimate super PAC. [T]hey're called the mainstream media," Rubio said before ripping them for praising Clinton's performance in front of the House Select Committee on Benghazi last Thursday.
RNC chairman blasts CNBC for 'deeply unfortunate' debate questioning . [Scroll down] Numerous analysts spoke similarly in the hour after the debate, with Charles Krauthammer of Fox News saying "the panel was a bunch of flaming liberals" and Ron Fournier of National Journal tweeting that "Biggest loser of this debate isn't JEB. It's MSM. We've earned this bashing." During the debate Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey and businessman Donald Trump all said, in one or other fashion, that the questions were loaded with liberal assumptions and/or outright contempt for Republican voters.
Ed Meese: RNC Leaders Who Allowed CNBC to Moderate Debate Should Be Condemned . With conservative leaders sharply criticizing CNBC's manner of moderating Wednesday night's Republican presidential debate — which featured multiple questions framed as personal attacks on the candidates — former Attorney General Ed Meese said the leaders of the Republican National Committee who allowed CNBC to moderate the debate should be condemned. "After 15 minutes it was clear that this was not a debate, but a verbal shooting gallery set up by CNBC, with the targets the Republican candidates and the shooters their biased antagonists from the press," said Meese.
Outrageous media bias yields good night for most GOP candidates . The winners tonight were the candidates who most effectively trounced the blatantly biased CNBC moderators. Heading that list are Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. [...] I knew the MSM had overreached very early on when my wife, a non-Republican who can't stand Donald Trump, said of John Harwood's suggestion that Trump is running a "comic book" campaign: "What kind of a question is that?"
Watch Out for Shenanigans! CNBC Debate Moderator's Most Biased Moments . The RNC may regret its approval of John Harwood as lead moderator for Wednesday night's GOP presidential debate on CNBC if past history is any guide. The CNBC anchor and New York Times columnist admitted he and a producer helped make Rick Perry's infamous "oops" moment even worse.
Charlie Rose to Socialist Bernie Sanders: Your Ideas Are 'Not Radical' . PBS host Charlie Rose on Monday night embraced many of Bernie Sanders's positions and announced that the socialist's positions are "not radical." At first, the journalist suggested the Democratic candidate not use the label when campaigning: "I'm the first person trying to argue you away from the idea that you're a socialist."
MSM Deploys Mediscare Against Carson . Mediscare is, of course, deployed by the Democrat-MSM complex in every election cycle to terrify seniors with the claim that Republicans want to deprive them of health care. It was famously used against Paul Ryan, who proposed a premium support plan to help control Medicare spending. This heresy resulted in a TV ad showing a Ryan-lookalike throwing an old lady off a cliff. It is now being deployed against Carson pursuant to his proposal to gradually transition U.S. health care away from government-run programs to a system in which every American would have a Health Savings Account (HSA) supplemented by catastrophic coverage.
MSNBC And Al Sharpton Cut Off Guest Who Says Hillary Proven A Liar At Benghazi Hearing . Completely Orwellian disregard of the truth. [Video clip]
Frontiers of political correctness: banning the word 'too' . Move over, Melissa Harris-Perry — it is getting crowded on the lunatic PC bench. Joining "hard worker" (racist!) on the PC banned word list is "too" (sexist!). That's right: an adjective and adverb positing that something is more excessive in some quality than desirable is now verboten, as far as the Huffington Post is concerned. The editors there gave considerable space to Cameron Schaeffer, who identifies herself as a freshman at the University of Vermont, where her head has obviously been filled with victimology nonsense.
Political Correctness Taken to the Extreme: "Hard Worker" Now Offensive . With presidential candidates including Donald Trump leading a pushback against overreaching political correctness, here's a video that will surely add some fuel to the fire. As you will see, MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry was apparently triggered by the phrase "hard worker" and went into a diatribe explaining why that term is offensive. It sounds as if she's somehow trying to connect the term "hard worker" to slavery. [Video clip]
Melissa Harris-Perry Scolds Guest to Be 'Super Careful' About Saying 'Hard Worker' Because Of Slavery . MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry derailed a conversation about potential Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) Saturday [10/24/2015] to admonish a guest for calling him a "hard worker," arguing it demeaned slaves and working mothers "in the context of relative privilege."
Melissa Harris-Perry Needs a Trip to Hard Work U . MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry is the cable TV pioneer who broke the tastelessness barrier for feminists by wearing tampons as earrings on air in 2013. This week, she made ignominious history again — as the race-baiting fool in an ivory tower bubble who believes the words "hard worker" are a slur against black slaves and moms who don't have health care.
MSNBC Admits Anti-Israel Graphics Were 'Wrong' . MSNBC has admitted that highly controversial graphics aired on the network that depicted Israel as stealing land from the Palestinians were "factually wrong" and that the broadcast would be corrected on Monday [10/19/2015], according to a network spokesperson. The cable news network has been fighting off criticism after it aired the graphics and analysis, including a map linked to conspiracy groups branded as anti-Semitic, that portrayed Israel as existing on territory expropriated from Palestine. The graphics garnered criticism from pro-Israel advocates and has now prompted the network to acknowledge that the graphics were highly misleading.
The Media's Shameful, Shameless Bias against Israel . On Sunday, October 11, the Los Angeles Times ran the headline "6 Palestinian Teens Die Amid Mideast Unrest." It was, technically, true. But it left out a few key details.
Reporting from Jerusalem: The astonishing bias of NBC's Ayman Mohyeldin . NBC News foreign correspondent and Palestinian-American Ayman Mohyeldin reported from Jerusalem this week as a Palestinian man dressed in camouflage raced past his camera wielding a knife. [...] The incident ended with the man being shot dead by Israeli police at the Damascus Gate. Mohyeldin went live to report on the incident minutes after it happened and stayed live for roughly an hour on MSNBC. But Mohyeldin, failed to give viewers the full picture of what he had just witnessed. He failed to tell viewers for over an hour that the suspect was a Palestinian and that he was dressed in a camouflage uniform similar to the ones Israeli soldiers wear. Mohyeldin never referred to the attempted terrorist attack as anything other than a man being shot by Israeli officials.
Biased coverage of Israeli-Palestinian 'violence': When terror becomes 'tensions' . If you are seeking an example of bias in the media's coverage of what journalists are calling the latest round of Israeli-Palestinian "violence," consider the case of Ahmad Manasra. In an angry speech on Wednesday night [10/14/2015], Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, appealed for calm but accused Israeli security forces of killing Palestinian boys "in cold blood," singling out the 13-year-old Manasra as one of the Palestinian youths Israel had "executed." [...] There are at least two major problems with Abbas' charge: First, Ahmad Manasra was not "executed" or even shot by Israelis.
Can the New York Times Discuss Whether Mohammed's Flying Horse Really Visited the Temple Mount? So the New York Times lapsed into what has been called Temple Trutherism by trying to deny the existence of the Jewish temples on the Temple Mount. [...] But let's have some equal time here. The Temple Mount is holy to Jews because of the Temples. So the New York Times chose to discuss whether the Temples really existed. It's holy to Muslims because Mohammed supposedly flew there on a flying horse (with a woman's head). Can we get a discussion of whether that really happened? Or does the New York Times only find it acceptable to mock Judaism, not Islam?
USA Today Offers Advice On How To Make Bernie Sanders And Socialism Less Scary . Did you know that the "S" word, Socialism, is scary to Americans? Which makes Democratic Party presidential candidate scary! Somehow, this whole article is in the news section of USA Today, rather than the opinion section.
CNN Ignores Planned Parenthood at Dem Debate Even When Hillary Brings It Up . CNN spent more than 10 minutes pressing GOP candidates about Planned Parenthood during the previous debate — but moderators couldn't bear to mention the abortion giant once during Tuesday's Democratic primary debate. Not even after Hillary Clinton brought up the topic.
CNN's very odd near-exclusion of its black and Latino debate moderators . For all the talk about inequality and inclusion from the Democratic presidential candidates, for all the major national news this year about the ways that American life remains shaped by race, for all the reporting that's been done on the rapidly changing demographics of the United States, the network airing the first Democratic presidential primary debate Tuesday [10/13/2015] thought it wise to allow an experienced Latino reporter to ask a small series of questions about immigration, and a black reporter to introduce a single inquiry from Facebook about Black Lives Matter. And that's all we heard from them until nearly two hours into the debate.
ABC's Quantico Uses Timothy McVeigh to Smear American Veterans . As I've said before, the second most far-left outfit in the history of broadcasting right now behind NBC is the American Broadcasting Company — ABC. Their new espionage drama Quantico has been shown to support far-left causes from the very first episode, from taking cheap-shots at Mormons, to making Planned Parenthood an innocent victim of conservative terrorists.
When is a Hillary scandal not a Hillary scandal? CNN's Ashleigh Banfield spoke to Democratic strategist Robert Zimmerman about the upcoming Democratic primary debate yesterday [10/9/2015]. They considered the unthinkable possibility that Bernie Sanders will bring up Hillary's email scandal, which Banfield quickly suggested isn't really a scandal.
Texas executes inmate for killing man in $8 robbery . No late appeals were filed for Juan Martin Garcia, who was lethally injected [10/6/2015] for the September 1998 killing and robbery of Hugo Solano in Houston.
The Editor says...
The Associated Press once again shows its bias, starting with the headline in this story. The execution was about the murder of an innocent man. It was not about the eight dollars that changed hands.
LA Times Labels Black Oregon Shooter As White Supremacist! The Los Angeles Times has labeled the Oregon shooter as having "white supremacist leanings" even though the shooter was black. The shooter identified as "mixed race" and reportedly had a black mother.
Once Again, DeRay McKesson Falsely Assumes Shooter Is White . Less than a month after Black Lives Matter activist DeRay McKesson got egg on his face for falsely implying the Roanake shooter was a white man, he apparently is at it again. In a series of tweets and retweets, McKesson laid out the case that there was a racial element to the policing and media coverage of the Oregon shooter.
CNN Photoshops Oregon Jihadist Shooter to "Fundamentally Transform" Him into a Caucasian Male . Remember the Trayvon Martin case? You know, the dude involved in burglary, PCP-like drug cocktails, and/or drug dealing who assaulted George Zimmerman and got capped for his trouble? Remember how the media claimed there was a new race called "White Hispanics", a term invented "by The New York Times to describe Zimmerman, apparently in some kind of push for a white vs. Black narrative"? Good times. Well, the media is at it again, this time photoshopping the Black Jihadist Oregon shooter [...] to make him appear white.
The Curious Case of Oregon Shooter Chris Harper-Mercer — A Social Media Profile Shaped, Modified and Deleted . On the left is the selfie Christopher Mercer uploaded to his social media. On the right is how CNN presented the same selfie in broadcast stories about him. Why did CNN need to change the complexion (color) of their broadcast? Why is no one showing pictures of mom, Laurel Margaret Harper[?]
The Baby Butchers and Their Media Butchers . The propagandists of Planned Parenthood don't want you to remember that earlier this summer the group apologized for the "tone" of one of its top officials, Deborah Nucatola, who casually hawked unborn baby parts to undercover journalists from the Center for Medical Progress as she swilled wine and chomped on a salad. Not long after confessing that the "tone" of their butchers might cause offense, another top Planned Parenthood trafficker, Mary Gatter, joked about scoring a luxury car after haggling over $75 baby-organ price tags. [...] Ten lengthy, damning videos later, the billion-dollar abortion giant is in full-blown whitewash mode — and its bloodstained accomplices in the liberal media are out in force with their paint rollers.
Embattled Washington Post Fact Checker Admits Pinocchio Ratings 'Are Subjective' . In a stunning confession Tuesday [9/29/2015], Glenn Kessler, editor of the embattled Washington Post's fact check column, admitted that the Post's fact-check findings "are subjective." Kessler was responding to the litany of complaints surrounding his partisan attack againt Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina. Although the Post's fact check column verified Fiorina's claim that she had once been a secretary, Kessler (who openly taunts Republicans) still awarded her three Pinocchios. Kessler's lengthy rationalization is essentially a confession that finally proves what many of us have been saying for years: that Kessler and the Post have been abusing the imprimatur of fact-checking as a partisan weapon to push a left-leaning agenda.
Editing flap: TV 'edits' 5-hour Planned Parenthood hearing to 1 minute . Network and cable TV news are coming under fire for repeatedly smearing as "heavily edited" the controversial secretly taped Planned Parenthood videos of officers discussing the sale of aborted fetus parts. After Tuesday's [9/29/2015] five-hour House hearing on the issue with witness Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood, the media is being slammed for doing exactly what the producer of the videos did — and worse — editing hours of tape for a watchable news segment.
MSNBC Got a Big Surprise While Pushing the Abortion Agenda . MSNBC anchor Thomas Roberts got a big surprise on Tuesday [9/29/2015] when he tried to use the mother of a stillborn child to attack a pro-life organization's effort to defund Planned Parenthood. Roberts talked to Lexi Oliver Fretz about her deceased son Walter. An image of the stillborn Walter was used in a video by the Center for Medical Progress in one of its videos. Roberts attacked, "How do you feel about Walter's picture used to discredit Planned Parenthood?" Fretz explained that she was surprised to see her son used to illustrate a grisly description in the video, but added, "My husband and I are actually extremely pro-life."
Washington Post Fact Checker Still Targeting Republicans By Nearly 2-to-1 . The Washington Post's fact-checking rampage against Republicans and right-of-center claims marches on. In late March, after Breitbart News reported that, for the first three months of 2015, the WaPo fact-check column targeted Republicans twice as often as Democrats, the column's editor, Glenn Kessler, assured Breitbart News readers that, "You need to look at the whole year to be fair." Well, with just 13 weeks left in the year, the likelihood that anything approaching an equal scrutiny of claims by Democrats and Republicans appears impossible.
Ben Carson Zooms to Top of Media's Kill List . The enemedia is patting itself on the back, congratulating itself with headlines that declare, "Ben Carson Walks Back Anti-Muslim Comments With More Anti-Muslim Comments," when in fact the subheadline is, "I stand by the comments." This is the sharia-compliant media at its deadliest. Islamic supremacists and their running dogs in the media have unilaterally adhered to the blasphemy laws under the sharia (Islamic law). Anyone who violates these laws (which mandate that one must not criticize Islam or Muhammad) will be destroyed. In Muslim countries, you are executed for blasphemy. In the West, for the same "blasphemy" your character and good name are assassinated.
Ted Cruz: The Biggest Elephant in the Room . To the Republicans in Washington who have habitually let down the American people, who is public enemy number one — the Ayatollah Khomeini, Vladimir Putin, President Obama? No, Ted Cruz. To the liberal media that apparently believes in a socialist utopia, who threatens to spoil their self-destructive fantasy? ISIS, Russia, Iran? No, Ted Cruz. In the wake of the CNN debate, is there any wonder now why moderator Jake Tapper avoided and interrupted Ted Cruz all night?
Media Smears Trump, Ignores Fact That Hillary Clinton Started Birther Movement . When asked by a reporter if Obama was a Muslim in 2008, she replied, "There's nothing to base that on ... as far as I know." The media is nothing but a bunch of left-wing liars. And what's wrong with being misidentified as a Muslim? It's [much] better than being identified accurately as someone who spent 20 years in a racist church, which is Obama's true (and very troubling) religious history.
'Fact-Checker' Challenge . Because Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina dared Wednesday night [9/16/2015] to be a woman who attacked the mainstream media's holy temple of abortion, the lying fact-checkers came out in force before the CNN debate was even over to punish her for sharing with the world the horrors of the infamous Planned Parenthood videos released over the summer. As an example, the prominent fact checkers at the left-wing Washington Post, Glenn Kessler and Michelle Ye Hee Lee, attacked Fiorina with this word salad of misinformation: [...]
Iran nuclear deal survives: Democrats block disapproval vote . The hard-fought nuclear accord with Iran survived the U.S. Senate on Thursday [9/10/2015], as Democrats overcame ferocious Republican opposition and delivered President Barack Obama a major victory on his top foreign policy priority.
The Editor says...
Sounds like we're getting mixed signals from the Associated Press: Did the Democrats block the vote, or did they overcome ferocious Republican opposition?
Shep Smith Rails Against Anti-Gay 'Haters' During Kim Davis Presser . During Fox News' live coverage of Kentucky clerk Kim Davis' release from prison, anchor Shepard Smith suddenly spoke over the press conference to chastise Davis and those who supported her decision to refuse to issue gay marriage licenses.
Chuck Todd Admits Iran Deal Vote More 'About Avoiding Defeat' for Obama . On Wednesday, September 2, all three network newscasts cheered Obama securing a 34th vote for the Iran deal which included Chuck Todd's colleague, NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt, who proclaimed the vote a "major win for the Obama administration" for a deal that "now appears unstoppable." In addition, the networks repeatedly dismissed the overwhelming majority of Congress who opposed the Iran deal and refused to provide soundbites of those who planned to vote against the controversial agreement.
Media shifts on violent rhetoric for Black Lives Matter . Some newsrooms are pushing back hard on the notion that the recent spike in police officer deaths is tied somehow to the anti-cop rhetoric of the Black Lives Matter movement. That's a sharp contrast from the press' more recent habit of tying Tea Party rhetoric to similarly deadly acts. The Black Lives Matters movement, which was born out of concerns over police brutality in African-American communities, has come under fire recently for some of its members' charged rhetoric.
Ignoring Science, 97% of Stories Hype BPA as Health Threat . Fear of chemicals and "toxins" is rampant among the so-called "environmental" left. Unfortunately, that phobia infects national media coverage as well. For more than a decade, the left has been on the attack against BPA, a chemical that is commonly found in plastics and other products. Anti-chemical groups such as the Breast Cancer Fund and some scientists have crusaded against BPA (known formally as bisphenol A), connecting it to cancer and reproductive problems and claiming that it is "a threat to human health," despite government agencies that have declared it "harmless" even in baby bottles. Much of the national media have bought in spreading fear of the chemical in ordinary canned goods, on cash register receipts, in dental sealants and more. In just the past two years, the three broadcast networks and top five national newspapers have continued to report on the "hidden danger" of BPA, labeling it "carcinogenic" and "toxic" often with small or flawed reports from activists.
Suddenly Media Worried Over Reporting Race-Based Motive of Killer of White Reporters . During the reporting of the murders in a black church in Charleston, the assumed racist motive of the shooter, white man Dylann Roof, was immediately the talk of the media. But now, after an African American murdered two white former co-workers and then released a 23-page, race-tinged manifesto, some in the media are suddenly squeamish about reporting the race-based motives of the killer.
Megyn Kelly defends Mexican supremacist Jorge Ramos . Megyn Kelly once again bashed Donald Trump while defending Mexican supremacist Jorge Ramos, despite not waiting until being called on. Last night Megyn Kelly had leftist and CNN reject Howie Kurtz to react to Trump basically deporting Jorge Ramos from his press conference in Iowa. So as is typical of Megyn Kelly, she took Ramos' side, saying: [Video clip]
The Top 50 Liberal Media Bias Examples . Let's face it, liberal media bias has been around since there have been liberals to do the "reporting" of the news. But this fact should surprise no one. After all, the news media has always been filled with bias of one type or another. In fact, there was a time when American customers of the news knew exactly which newspapers sported which point of view. It was taken for granted that one newspaper supported one side and another newspaper a different side.
An activist masquerading as a journalist:
Activist anchor Jorge Ramos uses influence to push immigration agenda . Univision anchor Jorge Ramos, who has long been as much an activist as a newsman, managed to find himself at the center of an immigration story yet again this week as he went head-to-head with GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, getting tossed from a press conference after repeatedly and insistently trying to ask questions.
Jorge Ramos Is an Immigration Activist Posing as a Reporter . Jorge Ramos may be the award-winning celebrity anchor of Univision's premier news broadcast, but "the Walter Cronkite of Hispanic News" long ago revealed himself to be less a journalist than another perpetually indignant immigration activist. His devolution into outright heckler was only a matter of time. It would be difficult to overstate Ramos's immigration radicalism. When Central American children were pouring over the border last summer, Ramos announced as a solution, "First, we treat children like children, as if they were our own." When, in their 2012 interview, Newt Gingrich told Ramos, "I'm not going to let you define what 'immigration reform' is," Ramos replied, "It's very simple: to legalize 11 million undocumented immigrants." And when, last November, President Obama lawlessly granted amnesty to some 5 million of those immigrants, Ramos touted the measure as "a triumph for the Latino community."
Jorge Ramos Has a Long History of Activist 'Reporting' . Ramos has been called the "Walter Cronkite of Latino America," but he has a history of behaving more like an activist with a cable-news platform than a reporter. Ramos constantly identifies with his Latino and immigrant audience, using words like "us" and "our" when reporting on any immigration-related issue. He seems to see himself as the gatekeeper of Latino American opinion — and to think that qualifies him to be a political kingmaker.
Indy Star Orchestrates Secret Campaign To Promote LGBT Special Protections . Breitbart News has exclusively obtained an email sent by the President and Publisher of the Indianapolis Star. It invites "community leaders" to help plan and coordinate an aggressive, highly orchestrated campaign to "persuade" the Indiana state legislature to adopt sweeping special protections for Indiana's gay, lesbian and transgender communities. The email, sent personally by Karen Ferguson Fuson, President and Publisher of the Star, was sent early this morning to an undisclosed list of business and media elites, together with gay rights activists. It pulls no punches in its scope or its goals.
Biased Media vs. Behavioral Standards . We all know that the mainstream media are biased. But they appear to have totally come out of the closet lately, exposing their true identity as leftist operatives. It was infuriating watching a CNN interviewer hammering Republican presidential contender Dr. Ben Carson. This despicable jerk kept trying to twist Dr. Carson's words to mean that Dr. Carson wants to bomb refugees with drones. [...] Also infuriating and evil is the MSM hiding the sick scandal happening at Planned Parenthood. In the latest video released exposing Planned Parenthood's black-market baby body parts business, one of PP's clients joked about shipping whole heads of aborted babies to research labs. I was stunned by the lack of media coverage and national outrage. Have we grown numb?
Cruz Accuses Megyn Kelly of Asking 'Mainstream Media Liberal' Question . Texas Senator and Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) accused Fox News Channel anchor Megyn Kelly of asking "the question every mainstream media liberal journalist wants to ask" and "the question Barack Obama wants to focus on" on Tuesday's [8/25/2015] "Kelly File" on the Fox News Channel.
Mainstream Scream: Carter revisionism begins, called 'too nice' to beat Reagan . The mainstream media's revisionism of former President Jimmy Carter's doomed presidency has begun amid reports he is battling brain cancer. Leading the charge last week was MSNBC's Joy Reid, a national correspondent who was host of the "Reid Report" from February 2014 to February 2015.
House Intelligence Committee Democrats Play Political Games on Iran Deal . The Hill ran a story today [8/14/2015], "Spy panel Dems rally to support Iran deal," which gives the impression that all of the House Intelligence Committee's Democratic members signed a letter supporting the nuclear agreement with Iran. The article did not mention that a third of the committee's Democratic members did not sign the letter or the absurdity of the letter's claims. I therefore believe a more accurate title for The Hill article would be "One-third of House Intel Committee Democrats Refuse to Sign Letter Supporting Iran Agreement."
Cover-Up: Major Newspapers Keep Hillary's E-Mails Off the Front Page . Four of the country's largest newspapers on Wednesday [8/12/2015] kept the latest developments in Hillary Clinton's growing E-mail scandal off the front page (one kept it out of the paper completely). The revelation that the Democratic candidate had top secret information on her server was relegated to the bottom of page A13 in the New York Times. The Washington Post managed to place the news that Clinton will finally turn over her server on A2. The Los Angeles Times hid the story on A9. All of these newspapers, however, did better than USA Today, which completely skipped Clinton's scandal in the print edition.
Press Downplays, Hides EPA's Responsibility for Western River Contamination . On Wednesday [8/5/2015], the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency committed an act which would have likely become instant national news if a private entity had done the same thing. On Friday, John Merline at Investors' Business Daily succinctly noted that the EPA "dumped a million gallons of mine waste into Animas River in Colorado, turning it into what looked like Tang, forcing the sheriff's office to close the river to recreational users." Oh, and it "also failed to warn officials in downstream New Mexico about the spill." Yet here we are four days later, and the story has gotten very little visibility outside of center-right blogs and outlets. That's largely explained by how the wire services have handled the story.
US carbon pollution from power plants hits 27-year low . Carbon dioxide — from the burning of coal, oil and gas — is the chief greenhouse gas responsible for man-made global warming.
Bias alert:
The Associated Press is wrong about one aspect of this story, in the first sentence: The primary greenhouse gas is water vapor, which no law or politician can counteract.
Red Flags Of Corruption Over Huntington Park . In a page-one headline, the Los Angeles Times hailed the appointment of illegal immigrants to two Huntington Park, Calif., civic commissions as a milestone that "charts a bold path for immigrants." It was booster journalism at its worst, gushing about illegals gaining participatory "rights" in U.S. public life that had supposedly been unjustly denied them. It also stood in stark contrast with the multiple local press reports — KPCC, KTLA, CBS-LA and more — which reported the event as primarily cause for angry protests.
GMA: No Time for Planned Parenthood Vote; 18 Minutes to Boy Band . ABC's Good Morning America, a two hour-long program, on Tuesday [8/4/2015] completely ignored the Senate's vote on Planned Parenthood, yet devoted 18 minutes of air time to boy band One Direction. Only CBS This Morning bothered with the Republican effort to defund the abortion group, allowing a meager 25 seconds. Even in that scant amount of time, co-host Norah O'Donnell managed to spin the undercover footage of the organization in a friendly way.
CNN Asks Activist Behind Planned Parenthood Videos if He's a 'Violent Extremist' . In an interview with the Center for Medicial Progress' David Daleiden, CNN's New Day host Alisyn Camerota asked the activist behind the undercover Planned Parenthood videos to respond to criticism he was a "violent extremist." "Your critics — critics of your organization I should say — say that you're not journalists as you purport to be on your website, but rather you're violent extremists," Camerota said to Daleiden.
The Editor says...
The abortion "doctors" are tearing babies apart and selling the pieces, and the guy who goes undercover to document this practice is accused of being a "violent extremist." That's a textbook case of liberal media bias.
New Hillary Emails: Media, Congress Fed Her Questions . A great deal of the communication contained in the latest batch of Clinton emails released to the public consists of sycophantic throne-sniffers at the State Department and White House competing with each other to see who can compliment Her Regal Majesty the most. But now we've got examples of people actively helping her stage public appearances — including, to no one's surprise, the media. Mediaite reports that one of the new emails shows a source within NBC News leaking Hillary questions in advance of a Meet the Press appearance: [...]
Only CBS Highlights 'Tough, New Questions' for Planned Parenthood . On Friday, CBS This Morning actually highlighted the "tough, new questions" Planned Parenthood is facing, showcasing the "latest and most graphic video." ABC's Good Morning America and NBC's Today, despite a combined running time of six hours, ignored the story. This Morning Co-anchor Norah O'Donnell, in addition to showing footage, alerted, "Planned Parenthood is facing tough new questions this morning. A fourth undercover video is out, showing a doctor at the women's health provider talking about selling fetal body parts."
NBC Hosts Thrilled Network Hired Obama's Chef as Analyst . On Wednesday [7/29/2015], the hosts of NBC's Today cheered the network's decision to hire former White House chef — and husband of left-wing MSNBC host AlexWagner — Sam Kass. Co-host Savannah Guthrie gushed: "...we've got an exciting announcement. You guys remember Sam Kass, of course he's the former assistant White House chef, executive director of the First Lady's Let's Move campaign, and nutrition advisor to the President.... He is becoming an NBC News senior food analyst."
'Respectable' Journalism is Slipping: Atlantic Writer Thinks Religious Believers Belong in Straitjackets . Jeffrey Tayler is a respected journalist — an author of multiple books, a contributing editor at The Atlantic, and a frequent commentator on NPR's venerable All Things Considered. Review his Atlantic author page, and you'll see a collection of sober-minded, interesting articles — written from a leftist perspective, to be sure, but many of them are certainly worth reading. I haven't caught his NPR commentary, but I expect they would be worth hearing. I enjoy thoughtful liberal commentary, and The Atlantic is still often a destination site for the best the Left has to offer. But that's Mr. Tayler as Dr. Jekyll. Mr. Hyde emerges over at Salon, [...]
Cahoots:
Email Reveals Hillary Clinton Was Fed Questions Before Meet the Press Appearance . One of the private Hillary Clinton emails released Friday [7/31/2015] reveals that an NBC source was leaking possible questions to the then-Secretary of State's staff ahead of an appearance on Meet the Press. In an July 2009 email with the subject line "heads up," Clinton staffer Lissa Muscatine wrote, "You probably already know this, but I just heard from a friend who is wired at Meet the Press that David Gregory will ask you about David Maziar, the Newsweek journalist arrested in Iran."
Nets Spend 30 Minutes on Lion; Censor Abortion Videos . The broadcast news shows covered Cecil the lion more in one day than they spent on the Planned Parenthood videos in two weeks — and that discrepancy only continues to grow. In two days, ABC, NBC and CBS have spent 30 minutes, 1 second on Cecil, a famed African lion shot by an American dentist. But anchors couldn't spare nearly as much time for the videos exposing Planned Parenthood's harvesting of aborted baby parts. Since the release of the Center for Medical Progress' first video two weeks ago, the networks have spent only 11 minutes, 13 seconds on the story.
World Explodes over Dead Lion, Ignores Planned Parenthood . On Tuesday [7/28/2015], the world lost its collective mind — whatever is left of it, anyway — when media discovered the identity of the killer of a Zimbabwean named Cecil. Cecil is a lion. Cecil, a lion, was by most accounts "one of Africa's most famous lions." Cecil, incredibly, was famous for being a lion, not for curing cancer, although you wouldn't know that by the media coverage. The man who shot Cecil, a lion, to death is Dr. Walter Palmer, a big game hunter who allegedly paid $55,000 for a big game permit. He hired a guide, who lured Cecil, a lion, out from a protected area, where Cecil, a lion, then met his end.
CNN's Camerota Downplays Baby Organ Harvesting Outrage; Suggests Price Fixing . On Tuesday's [7/28/2015] New Day, CNN's Alisyn Camerota made no mention of the outrage over Planned Parenthood varying its abortion techniques in order to preserve unborn babies' organs for medical research, as was revealed in two undercover videos. Instead, Camerota zeroed in on "these representatives from Planned Parenthood negotiating" over prices for these organs. She even touted how the "exchange of fetal tissue... obviously, does a lot of good. There's a lot of research — cures for diseases that come from it." [Video clip]
Panic in Pittsburgh: Media Struggling to Ignore Black Mob Violence . [Scroll down] The local TV news crews pieced together some of the action from April: Hundreds of "college kids" arriving on "school buses" to a "huge party" featuring large fights and gunfire at police. And of course lots of mayhem and property destruction. Twenty neighboring police departments were called in to help quell this non-event. And oh yeah, that has been happening for a long time at this mall. But the fact that this was a black party for black students organized by black people and students came from black fraternities and sororities — not a word.
Chris Matthews: Obama Has Had 'Immaculate' Presidency With No Corruption Allegations . [Scroll down] Matthews continued, "He's been immaculate in the presidency. Nobody has accused him of any corruption. His kids are perfect. His wife is perfect. He's done everything that these right-wing white conservatives say we're supposed to be in this country. He's done everything right. [...]"
The Media Love Affair with McCain . [S]ince when did the media get concerned about the noble cause of fighting communism in Vietnam? Our media, led by CBS Evening News anchorman Walter Cronkite, who was then an influential media figure, protested the Vietnam War and prompted the U.S. withdrawal and communist takeover. His FBI file demonstrated Cronkite's contacts with Soviet officials and how he was used as a dupe by the communists. More than 58,000 Americans sacrificed and died to save that country from communism. The liberal media never supported the war against communism in Vietnam. Yet they are now browbeating Trump over avoiding the war through deferments. Our media are full of hypocrites. They don't admire McCain for fighting in Vietnam. They admire him because he is a "maverick" who frequently takes the liberal line, such as on "comprehensive immigration reform."
Leftist propaganda is everywhere:
Every Day, A New Way to Hate . In channel surfing my way to the British Open, I lit for a moment on the usually sane ESPN show, "Mike and Mike." Co-host Mike Greenberg was off that morning so 28 year-old sub Ryan Ruocco sat in with regular Mike Golic, a former NFL defensive tackle. Flaunting his liberal chops for the suits upstairs, Ruocco gushed about the Arthur Ashe Award. Of course, he did not call the winner "Bruce Jenner." He refused to even say "Jenner." It was always "Caitlyn Jenner," over and over. Those who dared say "Bruce" Ruocco surely would have lumped — in his words — with "the critics who hate." Bingo! There it was. Our progressive friends had discovered the glory of transgenderism about fifteen minutes ago, and they were already prepared to brand critics of any sort as "haters," the collective term for the non-elect in their perverse neo-puritan presbytery.
Andrea Mitchell Tries to Portray Abdulazeez as a Gun Nut . Desperately looking for a way to avoid pegging the Chattanooga murderer Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez as anything but a terrorist, MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell asked a childhood friend of the killer what he liked to do in "small town Tennessee": [...] Abdulzaeez apparently owned some guns, but it is unknown whether he bought them after his return from the Middle East last year. For a terrorist, guns are a tool of the trade and not a means of self defense or anything to take pleasure from on a hunt. For Mitchell to try and equate terrorism with the gun culture instead of trying to get to the bottom of the shooter's radicalization is horrible journalism.
Walloping Walker: The Media's Worst Attacks on the Wisconsin Governor . Scott Walker's official entry into the 2016 presidential race has already been met with questions about his sophistication and readiness to be president by the liberal media. The day of Walker's announcement The New York Times' Patrick Healy portrayed the GOP governor as someone who isn't ready for the world stage: "Two words these [Walker] voters do not use about him? 'Smart' and 'sophisticated.'"
AP: It's Not Selling Aborted Unborn Baby Parts, It's the 'Disposition of Fetal Remains' . We've long known that the Associated Press is loathe to refer to unborn children as unborn children, preferring the clinical term "fetus." But in covering a shocking new story about how Planned Parenthood sells fetal tissue from aborted babies for profit, the AP bent over backwards to use clinical euphemisms to soften the blow of the ghoulish practice.
More about Planned Parenthood .
Dogfight: WashPost Google-Mocks All the GOP Candidates, No Democrats . Jeff Guo of The Washington Post began his article correctly: "Stop. This will be the most horrifying and pointless thing you read today." One new technique on Google now is called "DeepDream," to enhance and visualize all the strange associations that artificial-intelligence programs are making. MRC's Dan Gainor pointed out that the Post proved it's a Democratic rag by taking this strange "stoner" imaging tool and applied it to all the Republican presidential candidates and posted it — and not a single Democrat was included for balance in silliness. So Bobby Jindal looks like a dog — and so does Chris Christie's 18-year-old daughter Sarah.
Shameless NBC Uses Murder by Illegal Immigrant to Bash GOP . Monday's [7/6/2015] network evening newscasts offered continuing coverage on the July 1 murder of a San Francisco woman allegedly at the hands of an illegal immigrant, but it was NBC Nightly News that shamelessly used the occasion to blast "the new Todd Akin" in Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump for having "seized upon" the story to promote his stance on illegal immigration as the GOP is "desperate to win Latino voters."
AP: Mass Unemployment, Lower Wages Is 'New Normal' . The AP's subtle point here is we are supposed to accept Obama's failed economy as the 'new normal.' There's nothing that can be done about it. And certainly none of this is Obama's fault.
MSNBC's O'Donnell: 'Essential Truth That We're All Socialists Now' . Last night [7/6/2015], Lawrence O'Donnell gushed over Bernie Sanders' authenticity and the consistently large crowds he has acquired in his speeches across the country. The July 6 edition of The Last Word featured a panel discussion which emphasized that the Vermont senator's socialism isn't that far outside the mainstream. O'Donnell asked former Vermont governor Howard Dean if Sanders has "managed to educate Vermonters to the essential truth that we're all socialists now?" He prefaced that question by noting the tendency of Democrats to "run away" from calling themselves liberal. The MSNBC personality then cheered the fact that Sanders openly embraces socialism and "the fact that he is a socialist."
Shock: Arizona Paper Decries Border Fence as Too High for Mexicans to Safely Jump . A mainstream Arizona newspaper is decrying the small section of the Arizona-Mexico border that has a 14-foot-high primary fence because it is too high for illegal immigrants to safely cross. The article, "Border Fence Jumpers Breaking Bones," includes the claim that sections of the border with a 14-foot-high fence are "as tall as a two or three-story house" and tells the stories of several women who broke bones and were treated extensively to healthcare and surgeries at the expense of U.S. taxpayers. The writer never mentions any lives directly lost as a result of there not being a border fence in most sections, such as when Mexican nationals crossed into the U.S. and murdered father and husband Robert Rosas, a U.S. Border Patrol agent.
Collusion Between Hillary and Media . The elite media types have been in bed with the elite national Democratic party types for so long that one hardly bothers to note it any longer. Still, it is a little jarring when the Hillary Clinton e-mails reveal this kind of panting sycophancy
We Must Stop the Media From Silencing Your Voice on Marriage . If there's one thing the Supreme Court accomplished last Friday (besides unleashing cultural chaos on America), it was ending the liberal media's charade. Whatever scrap of journalistic impartiality existed flew out the courtroom window Friday when the press decided five justices not only invented a right to same-sex marriage but to censorship, too. [...] After years of trying to drive out debate, the liberal media are using the cloak of the court to do it. Desperate to take away the voice of Christians at the public table, the left is already on the march to undermine the very freedom that gives breath to the speech it now enjoys.
AP Photo Lines Pistol Up with Senator, 2016 Candidate Ted Cruz's Brain . Of course, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is a Republican. That puts him in proximity with guns and gun posters, as seen in [a] picture from Associated Press photog Charlie Neibergall, more often than Democrats. Still, imagine a similar situation — a U.S. Senator campaigning for President — and instead of a pro-2nd Amendment event, it's a pro-gun control event. Imagine this Senator is standing in front of a giant poster of a pistol — one meant to demonize the weapon rather than promote it.
Published Wire Photo Has Gun Graphic Pointing at Ted Cruz's Head . The Associated Press currently has a photo for sale at its APimages.com site showing a graphic of a gun pointing at Ted Cruz's head. It has been there since early Saturday evening [6/20/2015]. It would appear that Charlie Neibergall, the person who snapped this photograph, had to patiently wait for the "right" moment to take the photo in question.
Update:
Photos of gun pointed at Cruz disappear from AP photo bank . Controversial photographs from the Associated Press showing the image of a large gun pointing at the head of 2016 presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz have disappeared from AP's photo bank. APImages.com "no longer yields a handful of photos from photojournalist Charlie Neibergall wherein the barrel of a gun on a poster points to the U.S. senator and presidential candidate's head," Breitbart reported Monday [6/22/2015]. The images had drawn outrage from conservatives who said the photo was an example of media bias.
Rush Limbaugh Blasts Media for Trying to Destroy Ben Carson While Fawning over Clintons . On Wednesday [6/17/2015], conservative icon and talk radio host Rush Limbaugh blasted the mainstream press for trying to destroy and dismiss Dr. Ben Carson even though nobody in the mainstream can claim to come close to having any of the Carson's accomplishments. "Dr. Benjamin Carson is one of the finest, most accomplished human beings on this planet who has done more for people than most people in politics will ever do," Limbaugh declared on his radio show. "And he's done it personally, not with other people's money."
MSNBC's Dyson Implies Rachel Dolezal Is More Black Than Clarence Thomas . On Monday's [6/15/2015] The Ed Show, Michael Eric Dyson, MSNBC Political Analyst and frequent guest host on the "Lean Forward" network, used the ongoing controversy surrounding Rachel Dolezal claiming to be African American to smear Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
More about Rachel Dolezal .
Marco Rubio, average American . Marco Rubio bought a bunch of stuff he probably couldn't afford. Welcome to America. So The New York Times has pulled together another hit piece — this one insinuating that Rubio, who the newspaper evidently believes is the GOP front-runner, is both a reckless spendthrift and a financial failure. The story confuses offshore fishing boats with "luxury speedboats" and pickup trucks with SUVs to render a distasteful account of Rubio's financial life. But what we really learned is that though Rubio is not great with money, the senator from Florida has relatively modest desires, considering his fame.
Media Bias Jumps the Shark With Marco Rubio 'Luxury Speedboat' Story . Just how desperate is the mainstream press to cast Sen. Marco Rubio as someone who can't handle his money? Desperate enough, apparently, to describe a family fishing boat as a "luxury speedboat," which the New York Times did this week in its front page hit piece about Rubio's alleged "history of financial struggles." That same Times story also portrayed a home Rubio bought — after getting an $800,000 advance on a book — as some sort of mansion in Florida, when it is, in fact, just one home crammed into a cul-de-sac next to many other similarly sized, middle-class dwellings.
Associated Press Pens The Most Dishonest Anti-Cop Conspiracy Theory You Are Likely To Ever Read . I'll be quite frank: I have very little respect for the Associated Press and the quality of their reporting, which tends to range from mediocre to abysmal in terms of factual accuracy, and which seems to be far more interested in publishing propaganda in recent years than reflecting reality. Their latest attempt to generate controversy, "Witnesses: Semi-automatic gunfire dominated biker shootout," is perhaps the most dishonest and incompetent bit of reporting I've ever had the misfortune to read. The premise for the article is to promote the recent biker-generated conspiracy theory that Waco law enforcement officers did almost all the shooting at the May 18 shootout at a Waco restaurant called Twin Peaks.
An NBC Affiliate Manufactures a Story to Attack Conservatives . "Months before the conference, my family booked a hotel room at the same resort as ALEC," reported Brendan Keefe of WXIA TV, also known as 11 Alive. It's the NBC affiliate in Atlanta. "We found the fabled back room where the laws are made," he told their audience. It was sweeps week and NBC had a scoop. What he failed to mention is that the event held by the right-leaning American Legislative Exchange Council was open to the press, he did not register for the event, he registered at the hotel under an assumed name, and the hotel was not a resort, just a hotel in Savannah. More particularly, it was the Hyatt in Savannah.
Times Hit Piece Ignores Scott Walker's Success . The article is more sophisticated than the awkward and error-filled attempted hit on Walker by Gail Collins from the Times editorial page, who blamed Walker for layoffs that took place before he had been elected. And it avoids the kind of over-the-top claims that require corrections. But the piece nonetheless makes clear that its authors believe Walker's views are far out of the mainstream and that he owes his success to wealthy conservatives eager to exploit a simpleton as the vessel for their ideological goals.
Media warn Marco Rubio is dangerously middle-class and not wealthy . The [New York] Times revealed recently that Rubio incurred four traffic tickets over 17 years, not exactly disqualifying events. Other reports had Rubio and his wife Jeannette spending money to upgrade their Miami home's air conditioning and buy a new refrigerator. You may remember back in 2007 another freshman senator named Barack Obama suddenly paid off nearly four dozen overdue tickets just before launching his bid to move his family and mother-in-law into the rent-free White House. No, of course you don't remember that because the media skipped over such inconvenient legal blemishes in its enthusiastic coverage of the "reform" Chicagoan.
Even lefty MSM laughing at NY Times story on Rubio 'luxury speedboat' . Not exactly a cigarette boat. In fact, exactly the kind of boat you see fishermen using all over Florida, more or less the Ford Focus or Toyota Camry of fishing craft. The obvious comparison is to John Kerry's yacht, the one he docked in Rhode Island to avoid Massachusetts taxes.
Media: Never Mind Hillary's Scandals, Let's Talk About Marco Rubio's Wife's Driving Habits . Remember how the media left Barack Obama completely unvetted, ignoring even the most damaging stories from his past, while a squirming mass of reporters fought over every scrap of trash in the dumpster behind Sarah Palin's house? It's happening again. For some reason, the New York Times decided to devote two reporters to the urgent task of reviewing Senator and presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio's driving record over the past 18 years. And they still couldn't make much of a story about it, so they decided to add his wife's record to the story.
Surprise! NYT's Embarrassing Rubio Hit Piece Came From Democratic Super PAC . A reporter at the Washington Free Beacon discovered that The New York Times' embarrassing story attacking Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio for traffic violations was almost certainly planted by a Democratic super PAC. [...] Missing from the headline is the important context that the candidate himself only had four violations to his name, over the span of two decades.
New York Times ignored 15 unpaid tickets of Obama in 2007 . You can't get much more hypocritical than the New York Times, which acted as a megaphone for the oppo research efforts of American Bridge, the pro-Hillary operation founded by David Brock. The "scandal" amounted to four traffic tickets for Marco Rubio over 18 years, puffed up by including his wife's driving record into a headline of 17 violations for the couple. The problem is that the Times studiously ignored the scofflaw behavior of Barack Obama, who ignored 15 outstanding parking tickets until his run for the presidency forced him to clean up his record.
Pummeling Perry: The Media's Worst Attacks on the Former Texas Governor . If his 2012 presidential run is any indicator, Rick Perry's jump into the 2016 presidential race will bring a flurry of the liberal media's favorite pejoratives for Republicans. Racist? Anti-science? Religious bigot? Gun nut? Heartless cutter of programs for the poor? You name it, the former Texas governor was called it by his haters in the leftist press.
MSM Journalist Wants Republican Presidential Candidates to 'Unleash Their Lizard Brains' in Upcoming Debates . Three mainstream media journalists are showing their bias against the large field of Republican Presidential candidates. In a recent podcast, they discussed the 2016 campaign. When asked by MSNBC's Alex Wagner what she thought of the Republican candidates who will be invited to participate in the upcoming Fox News debates, Annie Lowrey, who writes for New York Magazine, let loose: "Even in terms of getting a better bread and circus type ludicrous production, which as a journalist is all that I care about, I just want chaos, anarchy, racist comments, sexist comments, I want, I want the worst of these people, I want them to, like, unleash their lizard brains."
No Time for Hillary Scandals — Because Every Reporter Everywhere Is Covering the Dennis Hastert Indictment . [Scroll down] Yet one cannot help but observe: Three authors are given a byline for this scoop, and six others are credited with "contributing" to the report. That's nine Washington Post authors hard at work getting the (legally non-actionable) background to the indictment of a retired congressman. And it's not just the Post. ABC News needed six authors to report the same story. The New York Times needed five. Politico needed four. Would that so much media manpower were devoted to covering current scandal-laden politicians — like, oh, for instance, Hillary Clinton.
CNBC's Harwood Hits Rubio for Looking 'Like a Schoolboy' Compared to Hillary . CNBC Washington correspondent Richard Harwood and the co-hosts of CNBC's Squawk Box briefly discussed during Friday's [5/29/2015] show the age difference between Hillary Clinton and Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio that included Harwood knocking Rubio for "look[ing] like a schoolboy" compared to Clinton.
NY Post: Stephanopoulos gets $105M from ABC . When it emerged that George Stephanopoulos had failed to disclose $75,000 in donations to the Clinton Foundation to either the network or viewers while repeatedly covering the organization, ABC News declared that it would stand by its "chief news anchor." The New York Post's Emily Smith explains that they have one hundred and five million reasons to ignore their own declared standards and practices. ABC renewed Stephanopoulos' contract last year for more than double what NBC paid Brian Williams ... and it's working out just as well.
The Real Stephanopoulos Scandal . No, it's not his blatant partisanship, his ties to the increasingly thuggish Clinton Machine, or even his complete lack of journalistic ethics. It's that ABC should never have hired him in the first place. Back in the Stone Age, before reporters became "journalists" and before "journalists" became politically motivated Fifth Columnists masquerading as members of the Fourth Estate, there was a cardinal rule: a reporter could leave a newspaper and accept a job as a public-relations flack, but under no circumstances could he or she then return to reporting. Ever. In other words, once having forfeited any pretense of objectivity, and having accepted payment for advocating a particular point of view, that guy's career in real journalism was finished.
Why is everybody so surprised about George? Back in 1996, ABC president Roone Arledge hired deeply partisan Democrat hack, George Stephanopoulos, to be the network's political analyst and contributor. ABC promised that he would not cover news but would only provide commentary as a seasoned and professional pundit. After I laughed uproariously at the news, I knew that all major network news programs would be biased against Republicans. I knew this way before Bernard Goldberg wrote his book Bias in 2001 because of what happened in 1992 on the Larry King show.
Stephanopoulos's Long History of Mixing Journalism and Politics . Was Stephanopoulos's conflict simply a minor oversight? A matter of, "I should have gone the extra mile to avoid even the appearance of a conflict"? Or was this a long-standing pattern of a political operative pretending to be a journalist finally reaching the light of day?
Stephanopoulos's Long, Long Record of Loyal Service to the Clintons . If George Stephanopoulos had simply donated $75,000 to the Clinton Foundation while also serving as one of its favorite media panelists, the controversy over his conflicts of interest would be much less. Stephanopoulos would be guilty of a clear error, but he also would have had a lot of media company. What makes his scandal different is that he himself chose to interrogate Peter Schweizer, the author of Clinton Cash, the new exposé on the Clinton Foundation. If you watch the interview, it's pretty obvious that Stephanopoulos is playing prosecuting attorney against Schweizer while also declining to ask key questions, for instance, about Hugh Rodham, Hillary Clinton's brother and his highly questionable dealings involving the foundation.
What Amtrak Spends Its Money On . Before the bodies had been pulled out of the wreckage, Democrats were preaching the poor-mouth about Amtrak funding, often dishonestly. (Seriously, how is it that a Washington Post writer and his Washington Post editors don't understand how federal spending works?) Smoking ruins of train cars in Philadelphia, and the usual ghouls start up with the usual thing: "Oh, if those mean Republicans had only let us spend money on the trains, this wouldn't have happened!"
Stephanopoulos' $75,000 Gift To Clintons Underlines Media Corruption . In another sign the left's grip on the news is bigger than anyone knew, ABC News' George Stephanopoulos hid a $75,000 gift to the Clinton Foundation even as he reported news about corruption allegations. While skeptically interrogating author Peter Schweizer about "Clinton Cash," his book exposing the Clinton Foundation last April 26, the anchor for ABC News conveniently left out the highly relevant fact that he himself had donated $75,000 to the Clinton Foundation.
Also posted under Media bias in Hillary Clinton's favor .
Clinton — 30 Days, 8 Press Questions; Fiorina — 8 Days, 322 Press Questions . Tuesday [5/12/2015] will mark exactly 30 days since Hillary Rodham Clinton launched her official presidential bid for the White House, yet she still hasn't done a formal sit down interview with national media, setting a record for the longest running presidential candidate without doing so following a campaign launch, as first reported by Breitbart News. Unlike Clinton, GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina has been on what CNN coined a "media blitz" introducing herself to voters.
The Halperin-Cruz teaching moment . There is more to this story than a simple case of media gotcha. It's one thing to ask a candidate what newspapers she reads, or whether he can identify the president of Mexico. It's quite another to set out to show that the candidate isn't who he says he is because he doesn't meet your subjective standard for determining who's who and what's what. Actually, as should be obvious to anyone who has watched the clip, this was no interview. It was an interrogation. Journalists conduct interviews to obtain information. That's not what Halperin did here. He was on the attack, quizzing Cruz about his Cuban-ness to make the 2016 Republican presidential hopeful look like a phony.
Mark Halperin's Real Bias Is Partisan, Not Racist . Imagine it's 2007 and a prominent journalist is interviewing then-Senator Barack Obama. "Senator, people are really interested in you and your identity. I just wanted to ask you as a historical matter, when you filled out your application to Columbia, to Harvard Law School, did you list yourself as an African American?" Imagine he pressed further. Do you have a favorite traditional black food? Who's your favorite African-American performer? It's a safe bet that journalist would be lucky to have a job today as a greeter at Wal-Mart.
Ted Cruz's finest moment . The United States owes Bloomberg columnist Mark Halperin a debt of gratitude. For a rare and fleeting moment, Americans of all political persuasions, religious affiliations, and ethnic backgrounds were united in revulsion over the spectacle of his attempt to interview Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). [...] Halperin's apology for his contemptible actions was even worse. After more than 24 hours of controversy and condemnation, Halperin issued a mealy-mouthed mea culpa in PDF format. In the "apology" in which he asked forgiveness only from those who might have been offended, a rudimentary blame-shifting tactic, Halperin insisted that a number of factors were responsible for this kerfuffle. Everything, in fact, but his intent.
The Real Takeaways From the Cruz-Halperin Interview . Liberal media honcho Mark Halperin really showed his "colors" as he tried to de-Hispanify Sen. Ted Cruz in an interview for Bloomberg Politics over the weekend. If you like arrogant, condescending, rude, insolent and patronizing Beltway journalism, you may appreciate Halperin's performance. If you are a person of ordinary sensibilities, however, and not so intoxicated with the leftist worldview that you are incapable of dispassionately assessing the segment, you will have a different reaction.
Authenticity challenge: Ted Cruz asked to prove he's 'Cuban' — controversy ensues, apology issued . Analysts and journalists are still puzzling over the recent interview between Bloomberg News managing editor Mark Halperin and Sen. Ted Cruz. The Texas Republican and Cuban-American was subjected to a string of inquiries about his taste in Cuban food and music, his ability to speak Spanish and other matters that had no real place in the political discourse. There was a price to pay however.
Sing Us a Song Boy: Mark Halperin's Racist Interview with Ted Cruz . As most of you know Cruz is Hispanic, specifically Cuban; the media believe the Hispanic vote is crucial to winning the White House; the media loathe Sen. Ted Cruz, and Halperin is a member-in-good-standing among the elite media. What better way, then, for Halperin to shine among his colleagues than to racially disqualify Cruz; to make him toxic to Hispanic voters.
White man asks the son of Cuban immigrants if he is Cuban enough . Mary Katharine Ham, in one of the very best single questions ever asked, proved herself to be very forward-thinking when she asked "What is the point of you, Mark Halperin?" To this day, no one can answer this question, but we all find ourselves asking it once again.
Mark Halperin's Terrible Ted Cruz Interview Unites Left and Right in Mockery . Mark Halperin's truly cringe-worthy interview with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) may have aired April 30 on Bloomberg TV, but somehow we the media missed it until a San Jose Mercury-News columnist tore it apart over the weekend. Since then, much of the media — left and right — has united in deriding Halperin. First, the interview itself: The seven-minute interview largely focused on Cruz's appeal to Latino voters, with some truly strange questions like "Your last name is Cruz and you're from Texas. Just based on that, should you have appeal to Hispanic voters?" and "I wanted to give you the opportunity to welcome your colleague Senator Sanders to the race and I'd like you to do it, if you would, en Español."
Conservatives go to Twitter to Shame Mark Halperin's Cuban Inquisition . Yesterday [5/9/2015] many conservatives were incensed at the idiotic race inquisition that news media hack Mark Halperin put Ted Cruz through in order to prove his Cuban bona fides. Today they took it nationwide by trending "Halperin Quotes" to mock and shame Halperin by composing other racist questions he might ask of other candidates.
Mark Halperin interviews Ted Cruz, expects Ricky Ricardo . I was born and raised in Puerto Rico, and, if I had $5 for every liberal idiot who looks at me and says "You don't look Puerto Rican", etc., because I don't fit the Liberal template of what a Lateeeno/Lateeena should be like, this blog wouldn't need to carry ads. Frankly, by now I expect to consistently encounter discrimination and bigotry from Liberals. It's in their mindset — identity politics is their lifeblood.
Latino Columnist 'Nauseated' by Racist' Halperin Queries Testing Cuban Heritage of Ted Cruz . Bloomberg TV host Mark Halperin drew a serious rhetorical beating from Washington Post-syndicated columnist Ruben Navarrette over his prove-you're-a-Cuban line of questioning to Ted Cruz on his program With All Due Respect. (The "respect" seemed to be missing, or as phony-sounding as it can be during an argument.) The interview came on April 30, but the columnist just picked up the argument. Would a liberal Latino get this line of questioning?
Clinton Political Director Tasks Univision with Hounding Bush, Rubio . Brazen cheerleading was the order of the day on Univision this week, as Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton travelled to Las Vegas to announce her support of U.S. citizenship for millions of unauthorized immigrants in the country, in addition to the expansion of the Obama administration's current policies of amnesty and non-enforcement of federal immigration law.
MSNBC Pundit Suggests Ben Carson an Affirmative-Action Case Who Drank the GOP's 'Kool-Aid' . According to MSNBC pundit Michelle Bernard — best known at NewsBusters perhaps because of her insistence that there is a "war on black boys" in America — savaged newly-announced GOP presidential aspirant Dr. Ben Carson tonight by alleging his success is all owed to "affirmative action." She also suggested that he's a disgrace to his enslaved ancestors and to the black community in Baltimore, where he's lived throughout his career as an acclaimed neurosurgeon.
Carly Fiorina Nails Katie Couric on Double Standards, Hillary Defense . Newly minted Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina went toe-to-toe with liberal journalist Katie Couric on Monday [5/4/2015], sparring for 45 minutes on abortion, Hillary Clinton and qualifications for President.
I support free speech, but... . After Pamela Geller's free speech event in Texas and the terror attack that followed, it has been stunning to hear one journalist after another ask Ms. Geller why she held the event, question the wisdom or need for such an event, and go so far as to insinuate that she was somehow to blame for the violence.
How long will her media allow Hillary Clinton to avoid questions? Clinton's skating smoothly so far because despite little gripes here and there, media members have largely gone along with the Clinton campaign's determination to protect the party's most likely presidential nominee from awkward questions, gaffes and hypocrisy charges. Planners do this by plopping her in front of hand-picked sympathizers to ask them questions that allow her to utter the day's themed policy platitudes, as cameras snap and roll.
Are Unions Getting MSNBC Airtime by Donating to Sharpton's Nonprofit? Since Politics Nation debuted on MSNBC on August 29, 2011, Al Sharpton's nonprofit National Action Network has collected more than $2.38 million in contributions from unions, according to Department of Labor records. Meanwhile, Sharpton has often used his show to promote pro-labor viewpoints, also inviting union leadership on as guests.
Anti-Christian bias at CBS? Conservatives blast 'Face the Nation' . Last week, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins was invited to be on CBS News' "Face the Nation." What was supposed to be a cordial conversation about the Supreme Court and same-sex marriage turned out to be a professional ambush.
NY Times Blamed Reagan/Bush for LA Riots, But No Blame in Baltimore . Is President Obama responsible for the Baltimore riots? If you take a look at how The New York Times portrayed the reaction to the Los Angeles riots of 1992, apparently so. [...] Today, as the events in Baltimore unfold — now with formal charges including murder brought against six Baltimore cops — there is one striking aspect that is not present as it was in Los Angeles. That would be blaming the President of the United States. Yes, that's right. As Los Angeles burned, the media was quick to finger the real culprit as then-incumbent Republican President George H.W. Bush. Not to mention his predecessor, Ronald Reagan — then four years gone from the White House.
Feminist Media Hail Satanists for Deeming Abortion a 'Religious Belief' . The pro-abortion media crowd is embracing new ally in their fight: Satanists. "Mary" from Missouri is hoping to bypass her state's 72-hour abortion waiting period by citing "sincerely held religious beliefs" — as a Satanist. The Friendly Atheist blog broke the story of how the Satanic Temple plans to aid a woman it calls Mary who believes in its "tenets." The media followed suit, from a Think Progress editor expressing "love," to a Salon editor concluding, "[R]eligious exemption laws are maybe cool when Satanists use them to get abortions."
Our fawning press and Hillary Clinton's Iowa magical mystery tour . Republicans critiquing this comedy should not get too cocky. A recent Rasmussen poll, taken in the wake of the email scandal, showed that 57% of Americans likely to vote think Hillary will be our next president. That kind of certainty can become self-fulfilling, causing people to withhold donations and stay home on voting day. Republicans have to work much harder than they may think to turn this around.
Clinton "Déjà vu" Scandals . During the Democrat presidential primary debates of 1992, then California Attorney General Jerry Brown accused then-Arkansas governor Bill Clinton of being involved in a shady real estate business known as the Whitewater Development Corporation. While Clinton was able to sidestep the issue that evening, the tip was given to the press and they began to take a look into the situation. As evidence of crooked deals and illegal land-flipping grew more and more obvious, the liberal-leaning press got less and less curious, especially after Bill Clinton won the 1992 election and began to settle into office.
Face the Nation' Should Face-Up to Its Apalling and Unfair Question . Over the weekend, the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins appeared on CBS's Face the Nation. [...] Thankfully, CBS News didn't actually bow to pressure and cancel Perkins's appearence on Face the Nation — but to have him show up then ask him to defend the very legtimacy of his right to speak is appalling.
CNN's Brooke Baldwin Blames Military Veterans For Baltimore Riots . While conducting an interview with Democratic Maryland Representative Elijiah Cummings, CNN host Brooke Baldwin questioned whether the violence in Baltimore had something to do with the amount of military veterans in the police department.
The Movement To Keep Dubya Silent Continues . Bloomberg News is ideologically an extension of CNN propaganda and their latest exploit is a case study in remarkable bias.
Professor And CNN Commentator: 'We Should BE STRATEGIC In How We Riot' . Marc Lamont Hill, a Morehouse College professor and regular CNN commentator, embraced radical violence in the streets during an interview Monday [4/27/2015] on CNN. "There shouldn't be calm tonight," Hill told CNN host Don Lemon as riots raged in the streets of Baltimore. "Black people are dying in the streets. We've been dying in the streets for months, years, decades, centuries. I think there can be resistance to oppression."
Joe Scarborough Rips Liberal Media 'Bowing Down' on Clinton Cash . A fiery Joe Scarborough on Tuesday [4/28/2015] denounced the media's double standard when it comes to investigating the scandal engulfing the Clinton Foundation's financial dealings. An angry Scarborough erupted "The Clintons have made $150 million over the past decade because of contacts they made during public service!" He described the typical journalist reaction as "Let's bow down before Bill and Hillary, because if we ask the same questions of them that we ask of every other politician, then [...] We have crossed a line!"
George Stephanopoulos makes the case why he should be fired from his ABC News job . George Stephanopoulos got aggressive yesterday [4/26/2015] in challenging author Peter Schweizer on his book Clinton Cash. But in relying on the principal talking point proffered by the Clinton campaign, he indicted himself on charges of bias. Ramesh Ponnuru and Scott Johnson both picked up on the irony.
Stephanopoulos Aggressively Questions Peter Schweizer Over 'Clinton Cash' . On Sunday's [4/26/2015] This Week, ABC's George Stephanopoulos interviewed Peter Schweizer, author of Clinton Cash, and repeatedly badgered his guest about the accuracy of his book and chose to focus on Democratic attacks against the author. [...] Stephanopoulos never appeared interested in the actual substance of Schweizer's book, which alleges the Clinton Foundation took in millions of dollars in donations in exchange for potential influence with the U.S. government and instead acted as a Clinton defender.
NBC Champions Children's Gender Confusion . On April 21 and 22, NBC ran a two-part series revolving around "transgender" children that featured its correspondent Kate Snow interviewing Pediatrician Michelle Forcier, associate professor of pediatrics at Brown University Alpert. Forcier was honored by "The Center for Sexual Pleasure and Health" as its "Hump Day Hero," and who advocates early puberty interventions of kids who think they should be the opposite sex.
Media jump on reporter's ties to Sarah Palin, ignore a convicted felon's ties to Hillary Clinton . Establishment media are intensely interested in Peter Schweizer's brief stint as an advisor to Sarah Palin after an advance tease from his forthcoming book suggested a fresh scandal in the long career of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. But they are showing a nearly total disinterest in an even more prominent newsmaker's connection to Clinton herself. After Rajat K. Gupta, a former Goldman Sachs executive currently serving a two-year prison sentence for insider trading, lost his appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court Monday [4/20/2015], the press didn't find it worth mentioning that the convicted felon is a longtime Clinton associate and donor.
CNN and The Obama Agenda — A collaborative goal to work policy objectives through the media . [Scroll down] These would seem like disconnected coincidences if we didn't know, with direct sourcing, that CNN and the White House work in concert with each other both ideologically and specifically with a collaborative goal to work policy objectives through the media. Most conservatives immediately respond with thoughts of CNN's Candy Crowley supporting Obama during the CNN hosted 2012 presidential debate. Or you might reference CNN's Fareed Zakaria who is also a key Obama foreign policy advisor.
Our fawning press and Hillary Clinton's Iowa magical mystery tour . [E]verywhere Hillary Clinton goes, now that her campaign is launched, an entire gaggle of reporters tags along. These folks are there for a story. Hillary is giving them nothing — no policy pronouncements, no big speeches, no off-the-cuff responses to shouted inquiries about pesky emails or foreign donations. As a result, the press corps is sending along whatever news scraps they can pluck from the road trip, including: [...]
Clinton Embroiled in Scandal Again, Newsweek Frets Over 'Enemies' Discrediting Her . [Scroll down] The worst reading of this is that the media is hopelessly biased in favor of Democrats, and to some latent degree actually buys into Hillary Clinton's famous assertion that there's a "vast right-wing conspiracy" out to get her. The most favorable interpretation of this is that the media is incapable of covering substantive facts in a straightforward manner, and always defaults to petty horse race coverage of the presidential race. And there's always a possibility that it's a little bit of both.
WashPost Reporter Claims: 'The Media Isn't Biased in Favor of Hillary' . Washington Post political reporter Chris Cillizza recently lectured Rand Paul not to play media critic. Now he's decided conservative media critics as a whole have no argument in an article provocatively headlined "No, the media isn't biased in favor of Hillary Clinton." There is no evidence for that charge, he wrote, even as he acknowledged the embarrassing video of journalists chasing after the Scooby van.
NBC Reporter to Rick Perry: Are you smart enough for the White House? It's becoming apparent that the public would be better served if presidential candidates were interviewed not by reporters but by an algorithm that randomly generates pearls of inside-the-Beltway conventional wisdom. [...] The latest example of the phenomenon in which liberal clichés serve as a guiding philosophy comes to us courtesy of NBC News reporter Kasie Hunt.
The Sham Candidacy of Hillary Clinton — and What It Means for the Republic . [T]he only reason an HRC candidacy is even plausible is the influence of the legacy media, which has simply declared, by fiat, her suitability and her inevitability. You may recall that the MSM did the same thing in the run-up to 2008, until their dreamboat, Obama, came along and gave the aging Baby Boomers, who had dreamed of exactly this moment since 1968, a reason to push the female candidate to the back of the bus in order to celebrate the only kind of "diversity" they advocate, which is racial.
Compare and contrast: Same TV reporter approaches Hillary Clinton and Marco Rubio . The following contrasting videos should be enough to chill the bones of every Democrat sensibly worried about how good a candidate Hillary Clinton will be. Dan Calabrese, of Herman Cain's CainTV.com website brings us the two videos of the same TMZ reporter walking up to both candidates at an airport as they arrive.
Media Now Itself Leading Outrage Mobs Against Individual Citizens . A random woman in Dallas expressed xer opinion that women did not have the hormonal stability to be president. Which prompted a local Dallas news outfit to go after her, similar to how we saw news stations go after Memories Pizza. We live in a period of fear, darkness, cruelty, and stupidity. Andrew Stiles of the Free Beacon calls this a new low for journalism. This latest stupidity from angry, truculent left-wing morons with cameras has pretty much broken his spirit.
Video: The dumbest news segment ever . [Scroll down] There are two explanations for this segment being broadcast, which aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. One: There was absolutely nothing of interest happening in Dallas-Fort Worth yesterday. (Possible, but unlikely.) Two: Someone in CBS Dallas wants to paint all opposition to Hillary Clinton as kooky, bigoted, and possibly evidence that religion makes people both of those. My hunch is that Option Two looks pretty likely here. And my further hunch is that we'll see more of this ludicrous media focus on even the smallest nuggets of anti-Hillary kookiness to exploit as a way to marginalize her opposition over the next several months.
Questions No Mainstream Media Hack Will Ever Ask Hillary . There are plenty of questions that real journalists would ask Hillary, except she will never — ever — expose herself to a real journalist. She will stay hidden and talk only to the select coterie of Democrat transcriptionists who have distinguished themselves via sycophancy above and beyond the call of duty. So we need to detonate the narrative by asking the tough questions ourselves. It's sad that it has come to this, but the Clintons destroy everything they put their grubby hands on, and the old idea of journalism is just one more casualty in their quest for power. Half the mainstream media has worked for the Clintons, or is married to someone who did, and the other half would happily do so.
WaPo: It's Difficult to Sell Hillary as a Normal Person Because She's Just SO Awesome . At first, [Chris] Cillizza gives the impression that he might be lampooning Team Clinton's approach. The average American knows that it is difficult to sell Her Madameship as normal because she's a wealthy snob who looks down on everyone and has a sense of entitlement that would make a British royal from the 17th Ccntury [sic] blush. This, however, is what is going on in the largely vacant space that is the mind of the mainstream media.
Behold the World's Lowest Bar! I've spent much of my life observing and writing about media bias, so you'd think nothing could surprise me at this point. But the fawning, deferential coverage of Hillary Clinton really is amazing.
Mediasplaining . Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for president this week and ran smack dab into the wall separating both Americas, via satellite on the "Today Show." While being interrogated by TV host Savannah Guthrie, whose second husband is Democratic political operative Michael Feldman, Paul objected to a leading question that could have been written by the Democratic National Committee. [...] The journalism awards undoubtedly will flow to Guthrie for that interview, but a candidate gets only one shot to launch a campaign. To his great credit, Paul did not play the media's game.
Media Fabricated Evidence to Smear GOP Three Times In One Day . As right-of-center New Media grows stronger (and it is much stronger today than it was even in 2012), because the mainstream media is in reality a propaganda outlet to empower central government and boost those who share that goal, everyday this same mainstream media becomes more desperate and ugly. That's why the media told serial-lies around Trayvon Martin, Ferguson, and religious freedom laws. And that's why on Friday [4/10/2015], the media was caught on three occasions fabricating evidence to smear the GOP.
'Hitler Made a Difference': The Liberal Gang Rape of Journalism . Rolling Stone magazine perpetrated a hoax against the University of Virginia, doing "journalism" about an alleged gang rape that evidently never happened. The source of the dramatic tale Rolling Stone published last November, "A Rape on Campus," was a UVA student named Jackie who has been proven to be a liar. [...] What better way to exploit the political "gender gap" than to claim that college girls are being raped en masse, and then to suggest that the solution to this problem could be summarized in two words: "VOTE DEMOCRAT!"
More about the Rolling Stone .
Meet The Press Panel Eagerly Hits GOP Over Religious Freedom Laws . On Sunday's [4/5/2015] Meet the Press, an all liberal panel repeatedly took shots at the Republican Party over its support for religious freedom laws with Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report going so far as to suggest that on the issue on the issue of gay marriage "if we took everybody over the age of 50, and just moved them out of this country, this wouldn't be an issue at all."
The Editor says...
Ms. Walter speaks like a true revolutionary: Get rid of everybody over 50, and then we can make progress! Where do you suppose she would like to move 100 million people? See, the thing about people over age 50 is that eventually everybody passes 50, so there's a steady supply. If Ms. Walter is looking for practical solutions, it would be far easier to deport the 71,165 couples in same-sex marriages. But of course she isn't speaking about concrete plans, she's engaging in an emotional outburst with no basis in reality, like so many liberals do.
NYTimes Hypocrisy: It Denounces Corporate Speech in Citizens United, Cheers When Against Indiana . When the issue was the Citizens United ruling and the resulting ability of corporations to directly spend money on political advertising, well the Times worried about the supposed corrupting influence of the practice and the drowning out of the common man's voice, which is not amplified by hordes of corporate cash. But fast-forward to this week and it's a far different story.
Mika: Governor Mike Pence Must Be A Bigot, Because He 'Sounds Like' And 'Looks Like' One . Host of MSNBC's "Morning Joe" Mika Brzezinski said it was fair to call Indiana Gov. Mike Pence a bigot, because he "looks like" and "sounds like" one after his support for the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act. "These are firmly held beliefs that people have had for thousands years," argued her co-host Joe Scarborough. "And you can call it bigotry if you want to. ..."
Nets Devote 3x More Time to Indiana Law Than Hillary E-Mail Server Wipe . The stunning revelation that Hillary Clinton wiped her personal e-mail server clean is the kind of political cover-up that should have sent the networks into overdrive, except they had an even more important agenda to advance: smearing an entire state and its Republican governor as anti-gay bigots. From the morning of March 27 through March 30 evening the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) networks spent only 10 minutes and 15 seconds to the admission by Clinton's own attorney that her State Department e-mails were wiped from the server that had been subpoenaed by Congress, but they devoted a whopping 35 minutes and 1 seconds [sic] to coverage of the Indiana religious freedom law.
NBC's Ann Curry Compares Conservatives in U.S. to Skeptical Iranian Leaders Ahead of Deadline . While reporting on Monday's [3/30/2015] NBC Nightly News with the latest from the Iranian side of the international talks in Switzerland over their nuclear program, Ann Curry smeared U.S. conservatives by likening them to radical hardliners in Iran's Islamic regime.
For Hillary Clinton, Excellence In Servility From The Lapdog Media . At an "Excellence In Journalism" gala, Hillary Clinton drew a standing ovation from the media's supposedly tough watchdogs. Before that, they failed to ask tough questions at a presser. Just when does the lapdogging stop?
Harry Reid, partisan brawler, gets pattycake treatment from the press . Harry Reid has just pulled off a triple coup. He got to make his own retirement announcement without having it leak in advance. He essentially got to anoint his successor. And despite years as a bare-knuckled partisan warrior who makes incendiary comments about the other side, he's gotten a pretty nice media sendoff. Usually when a 75-year-old lawmaker gets knocked out of the majority and then suffers a terrible accident, there's all kinds of media speculation about whether he'll hang it up. But who ever thought the Nevada Democrat would relinquish power voluntarily?
Americans Support Nuclear Deal With Iran? Presumably, hardly any of those telephoned by the pollsters realized that the objective of the agreement, assuming that Iran abides by it — a laughable assumption — is to extend the time it will take Iran to build a bomb to one year. Even assuming that objective could be achieved, which most experts do not believe, it would be a small payoff for ending sanctions, which will entrench the mullahs' regime and increase the resources they can devote to nuclear enrichment and ICBM development, which will not be addressed in the prospective deal.
Indianapolis Star Front Page Scolds Religious Freedom Law . The Tuesday [3/31/2015] print edition of the Indianapolis Star will devote its entire front page to Indiana's Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) — not a news article but an editorial attacking the measure.
Editing Teddyworld: Some facts didn't make 'Institute' cut . When Ted Kennedy wrote his initial account of Chappaquiddick for the Edgartown police in 1969, after he scrawled the words "Mary Jo" in the first sentence he left a blank space — because he had no idea what his victim's last name was. That's one of the many facts about Ted Kennedy that you won't learn by visiting the new Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate. In case you haven't been eagerly anticipating this magic moment, the "Institute" opens tomorrow amid yet another orgy of shameless bum-kissing of what was once called "America's First Family" by the mainstream media.
Networks Pile on to Attack 'Controversial' Indiana Religious Freedom Law . On Saturday [3/28/2015] and Sunday, the "big three" (ABC, CBS, and NBC) networks vigorously condemned a new Indiana law that would protect private businesses from government infringement on their religious freedom. Rather than provide balanced coverage of the Indiana bill, the networks eagerly trashed the legislation as opening "the door to discrimination against gays and lesbians."
Republicans Twice as Likely To Be Targeted By Washington Post Fact Checker . Breitbart News analyzed the Washington Post fact check column for all of 2015 and found that so far this year Republicans and their claims have been targeted twice as often as Democrats and their claims. A good faith search revealed that over almost four full months, Republicans (this includes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu) were fact-checked a total of 32 times. Democrats were fact-checked only 16 times.
After Breitbart Report WaPo Fact Checker Promises Changes . Glenn Kessler, editor of the Washington Post's fact-check column, promised to make some changes in the wake of a Breitbart News report that showed Republicans are twice as likely as Democrats to be targeted by his fact checks.
How much are Kennedy's like Jesus? Let Parade magazine count the ways . The Sunday-newspaper supplement Parade magazine lards on the Kennedy love today. The cover shows two of Teddy's sons, Teddy Jr. and Patrick with the words "The Kennedy Legacy: The next generation carries on the family's exuberant mission of public service." Parade even touted their deep religious faith, with the headline inside: "Guided by the Beatitudes and the notion that helping others is both a duty and a pleasure, the next generation of Kennedys carries on the family's public service legacy."
The Editor says...
Marilyn Monroe and Mary Jo Kopechne probably had their doubts about any "deep religious faith" in the Kennedy family.
Late Night Comics Mock Ted Cruz as Anti-Immigrant, Stupid . In a preview of the 2016 campaign, all five late night comics on Monday night [3/23/2015] mocked Ted Cruz, hitting the Republican as anti-immigrant, regressive and stupid. CBS host David Letterman didn't bother with a joke. Instead, he lectured, "Here's what I find interesting about Ted Cruz, he was born in Canada. His father fled to the United States from Cuba. Yet, Ted Cruz is against immigration. Isn't that odd?"
MSNBC Guest: GOP Supports Israel Because They're 'Xenophobic, Nativist,' And 'Racist' . Executive director of the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation Youssef Munayyer said on MSNBC's "Andrea Mitchell Reports" that the Republican Party supports Israel because its base is "xenophobic, nativist, and at many times racist."
Crushing Cruz: The Media's Worst Attacks on the GOP Presidential Candidate . Ted Cruz's announcement that he is running for president was immediately greeted with hostility from the liberal media. On Monday, MSNBC's Jonathan Alter questioned, "Is this 1964 when the Republican Party decided it would go with its most extreme candidate?" Donny Deutsch, also on MSNBC, called Cruz "unelectable" and added "I think he's the worst. I think he's scary, I think he's dangerous, I think he's slimy and I think he brings no fresh ideas."
Of Course Obama Wants to Take Hillary Down . We can believe Ed Klein's sources claiming Valerie Jarrett is the White House point woman for the destruction of Hillary Clinton. Evidence: It was the New York Times which broke the story. The Democratic press does not eat its own, ever. Yet here was the Gray Lady, setting the headlines for Drudge. People asked how Hillary could have been so stupid. The answer is that in the normal course of mainstream reporting, there is no Democrat crime too large for the press to cover up. She knew she was perfectly safe. [...] To make it even clearer that something was going on behind the scenes: the fact that Secretary of State Clinton was using private email had come out in the news two years ago. Raking up an old story detrimental to their team is not normally what the New York Times does. The Times followed the emerging scandal with article after article. They didn't just want to embarrass Hillary, they were out to destroy her.
Flashback: 'Big Three' Ignored Ted Kennedy's Letter to Soviet Union . On Monday, March 9 and Tuesday, March 10, the "big three" (ABC, CBS, and NBC) networks pounced on a letter signed by 47 Republican senators to the leaders of Iran regarding its negotiations with the Obama administration over its nuclear program. Despite the networks' eagerness to tout Democratic opposition to the GOP letter, on two separate occasions the "big three" completely ignored a letter penned by former Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) written to the Soviet Union in 1983 aimed at undermining President Ronald Reagan's nuclear negotiations with the Communist regime.
NBC News Whitewashes history on Iran Diplomacy . In a tweet this morning, NBC News senior political editor Mark Murray writes: "With GOP Senators' Iran Move, Politics Goes Beyond the Water's Edge." 47 Republican Senators sent to the Supreme Leader of Iran reminding him that Congress is not bound by deals that Congress does not approve. The article Murray links to describes this as "stunning" and "unprecedented" and implies that the letter constitutes a breach of protocol so significant that it ends the long tradition of bipartisan foreign policy. This is utterly preposterous. The only way to reach such a conclusion is to ignore efforts by Democrats to undermine George W. Bush.
White House, NYT leave Bushes out of lead photos from Selma march . The decision by The New York Times to run a front-page image on Sunday of President Obama — and family — leading a march to mark the 50th anniversary of the Selma civil rights clashes, while leaving out of the image former President George W. Bush and his wife Laura, apparently was mirrored in the "official White House photo" of the event. The official White House blog's Sunday entry on the Alabama march led with a similar image, focusing on Obama and his family, as well as civil rights figures, but leaving out the Bushes.
Few say Obama has helped race relations, as 2 presidents (not 1) mark Selma . The peaceful scene Saturday [2/7/2015] was designed to display unity in the face of ongoing racial difficulties, often involving police force. The photo [in this article] shows the actual scene as modern-day marchers joined hands and arms in unity and hope. Both in shirt-sleeves, the last two presidents — Obama and George W. Bush with wife Laura — set out at the head of some 10,000 supporters. But consumers of the weekend news could be excused if they did not realize the two-term 43rd president was present at the historic memorial.
New York Times Crops Selma Picture To Remove President George W Bush . Yesterday Debbie Wasserman Schultz cropped a picture of President Obama on stage to remove the image of President George W Bush also being present. The first reason was obvious, bias. However, the second reason was more subtle — the absence of President Clinton and Hillary. Today [3/8/2015] the New York Times cropped out President Bush for the same reason.
Just to be fair, here is the NYT's rebuttal:
'There Was No Crop' of Selma Photograph . Many readers wrote to me over the weekend, upset that a front-page photo of President Obama and his family leading a commemorative march in Selma, Ala., did not include former president George W. Bush and his wife, Laura. The Bushes were also in the front line of marchers. Twitter was ablaze with criticism of The Times, many conservative news organizations wrote critical articles — and my email inbox overflowed. Some readers said they were canceling their Times subscriptions. Others were simply disappointed.
MSNBC's Harris-Perry: Today's Selma March Is For 'Reproductive Rights' . Selma's "Bloody Sunday" is now about "reproductive rights" according to MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry. Her view directly contradicted Martin Luther King, Jr.'s niece, who has made her pro-life views public. While covering the 50th anniversary of the "Bloody Sunday" march in Selma, Ala. live for MSNBC on March 8, Harris-Perry proclaimed that this year's march stood for issues "on the table right now." Issues like abortion.
CBS, NBC Hit Netanyahu for 'Controversial Address' While Obama 'Fires Back' . All three broadcast networks reported on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech before Congress with segments in their Tuesday night [3/3/2015] broadcasts, but it was CBS and NBC that led the way in hitting Netanyahu for making a "controversial speech" and touted President Obama for "firing back," "point by point for 11 minutes." CBS Evening News substitute anchor Charlie Rose began the show's coverage by telling viewers that "Netanyahu did an end run around President Obama today" in his speech with the caption "controversial speech" appearing beside him.
Walker-Bashing Media Ignores Bill Maher Questioning Bushes' Religious Choice . While the liberal media insisted it was politically poisonous for Scott Walker to answer "I don't know" if President Obama is a Christian, it's never unacceptable to suggest Jeb and George W. Bush chose their brand of Christianity for political reasons. That's exactly what HBO star Bill Maher did in a blog post titled "Jeb Bush: Convenient Catholic?" Recall that Maher donated $1 million to Barack Obama's re-election and no one in the press has located a reason why Obama should be asked to distance himself from anything Maher has said, so why start now? That would only make them look even-handed and principled.
CNN, DHS and SPLC's Blame-Righty Hit Job . The Department of Homeland Security refuses to release a report on "right-wing" terrorism that somehow found its way into CNN's hands last week during the farcical White House summit on Don't Say Islamic Extremism. [...] CNN splashed the big scoop on its website: "DHS intelligence report warns of domestic right-wing terror threat." The fear-mongering piece featured a huge map of 24 alleged acts of "violence by sovereign citizen extremists since 2010." [...] But a closer look at the rigging of that phony factoid simply confirms the malevolent intention of so-called objective journalists and "hate watch" groups to marginalize conservative political speech and dissent. The CNN/MSNBC/SPLC smear job involved both the dishonest deflating of left-wing and jihadist incidents, and the dishonest inflating of "right-wing" incidents.
All the news fit to... miss . It's hard to imagine MSNBC could manage to limbo below its own low credibility bar, but America's most shamelessly partisan cable "news" channel has really pulled it off. There's always stiff competition for bias in America's slavishly left-loving media. Think of Dan Rather's "fake but accurate" Bush-bashing National Guard story, Newsweek's flushed Korans fable and Candi Crowley's assist for President Obama in the 2012 debates. Yes, the "Morning Joe" wet kiss of an "interview" with U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren yesterday [2/24/2015] belongs in that company.
Why Is The Press So Down On North Dakota's Success? The unemployment in North Dakota is a mere 2.8%. The average hourly wage there has climbed 18% since 2009 — more than double the national average. And despite its oft-perceived inhospitable climate, the state's population jumped 11% over those years (vs. 4% nationwide). And pretty much all of this growth has been driven by the oil production boom, which resulted from the ability of oil producers to recover vast amounts of previously inaccessible oil through fracking. So what does the Los Angeles Times decide to write about? Increased drug use on an Indian reservation.
Media Coverage of Rudy Giuliani Comments Dwarfs Coverage of Clinton Foundation Foreign Donors . Despite the new revelations this week about the massive amounts of money the Bill, Hillary, & Chelsea Clinton Foundation has raised from questionable foreign governments and shady billionaires — something even Clinton's defenders admit is a problem — the media hasn't shown much interest in the story.
The Media's Difficulty in Perceiving Christians as Victims . [Scroll down] Finally, some newsroom denizens practice an open contempt for Christians and/or religion in general: The Washington Post's Sally Quinn had no problem openly declaring, "When It Comes to Hateful Internet Speech, Christians Are the Worst." Separately, the President of the United States just did an interview with Vox's Matt Yglesias who once declared, "I take an old-school Jacobin-style line that religion should be stamped out." The coverage of Christians abroad is pretty skimpy — other than when Pope Francis says something that progressives like.
Scott Walker Didn't Finish College. And? The Washington Post has a long article up about Scott Walker's formative years. It has some fine reporting, but the overall tone and headline are curious: "As Scott Walker mulls White House bid, questions linger over college exit." Questions linger? Over what, exactly? It's not a secret and it never has been that Walker didn't finish college.
The Walker-Stupid, Obama-Genius Myth . Through their control of the media, [the Democrats] have been rigging political IQ tests for the last half-century, if not longer. Those Republicans who were not evil geniuses — Nixon, Gingrich, Cheney, Rove — the media have painted as blithering idiots. Dwight Eisenhower was doddering and incoherent. Gerald Ford, perhaps the best athlete to occupy the White House, was a bumbling fool. "I wanted [Jimmy] Carter in and I wanted [Ford] out," comedian Chevy Chase would later admit of his mocking Ford impersonation on "Saturday Night Live", "and I figured look, we're reaching millions of people every weekend, why not do it."
Media's Lack of Curiosity About Killer of Muslims in North Carolina . [Scroll down] The SPLC runs a hate crimes racket, and the media — desperate to promote headlines that fit their pre-existing left-wing narratives about race, inequality and religion — are quick to swallow their propaganda. "I think it's perfectly natural to guess that this is anti-Islamic," [Mark] Potok told the [Washington] Post in the interview regarding the triple murder. "Not just because the three victims are Muslim, but because there has been so much terrible news in recent days about extremist Muslims." Potok also appeared on MSNBC on the morning of February 13 with the news anchor Tamron Hall, and there was no mention of Hicks' political leanings, which appear to be consistent with their own.
NBC's Guthrie Helps Axelrod Keep the 'Obama Critics Are Racists' Myth Alive . A news division that's reeling might want to get out of the low-info leftist opinion pimping business and work a bit on some actual reporting. This is nothing more than Savannah Guthrie earning her good little lapdog cred by keeping a tired lie alive.
A Police Shooting in Denver: How the Media Frames the 'Narrative' . It starts with the headline, which may at first seem innocuous until you think about it for a moment: "Outrage follows Denver police shooting of Latina in stolen car." We'll get to the story, which was published in the Los Angeles Times on Feb. 4, in a moment, but let's unpack that hed, which is just loaded with loaded words. The word, "Outrage," suggests a widespread, mass reaction to some sort of enormity. "Police shooting" immediately evokes Ferguson, Staten Island and any other place in which there has been a recent confrontation between a "minority" and the cops. And how do we know that the victim was a minority? The very next word: "Latina," a politically correct identification of a designated victim group who's just come out on the wrong end of a police shooting. Finally, this bit of additional information: "stolen car." [...] In short, we haven't even started reading the story, and already we know the dramatis personae (good girl Latina, bad guy killer cops). Now it's just a matter of letting the players do their thing, complete with weeping chorus of relatives, onlookers and ministers in the background: [...]
Ted Kennedy Institute Gushed Over By NYT, But [the] Bush Library [is] a 'Disturbing' Threat to 'Academic Freedom' . Ted Kennedy, the late liberal "Lion of the Senate" (as he's invariably called) had his hugely exaggerated bipartisan reputation polished to a gleam in a story in the New York Times Arts section by Robin Pogrebin, "In the Mold of a Senator Who Bartered — Edward M. Kennedy Institute Aims to Teach Collaboration." Next month the institute will open in Boston as a legacy of the Massachusetts senator who died in 2009. Yet the George W. Bush Presidential Library was considered by the Times "disturbing" and a possible threat to academic freedom when it opened.
More about the New York Times .
Washington Post's Al Sharpton profile leaves out much of the Rev.'s past . A lengthy new Washington Post profile on the Rev. Al Sharpton looks at the MSNBC host's standing as a civil rights leader and but treads very lightly around some of the less flattering details of Sharpton's past. [...] The piece only briefly touches on Sharpton's multimillion-dollar tax troubles, his lead role in the Tawana Brawley hoax in the 1980s, and his statements during 1995 demonstrations at Freddie's Fashion Mart in Harlem — omitting entirely that the Freddie's agitation ended when a protestor murdered seven people in the store and burned it down.
The New York Times Commits One of Its Funniest Blunders Ever . [Scroll down] The paper eventually realized its mistake and corrected it, although without acknowledging the correction. I suppose it was just too embarrassing. You can see how this kind of thing might happen; people occasionally have such synapse failures. But some people expect more from the Times editorial board. (I don't, but some others do.) In fact, the Times editorial board is no better than, or different from, a minor-league left wing blogger. Actually, that's where they get a lot of their material.
Army of 'fact checkers' and 'proof readers' at NY Times fails again . How out of touch with the rest of the country are employees of the New York Times? An editorial skewering Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker was a typical Times hit piece on a potentially dangerous opponent in 2016 — typical except earlier versions of the editorial referred to Mr. Walker as "Mr. Scott." [...] The governor of Wisconsin is just not imporant enough to register on the Times' radar. Besides, he's a Republican. Those two factors make errors like "Mr. Scott" possible.
Beat the Media, Win the White House . One of the reasons that Romney lost is that he failed to take on the media. The ultimate lost opportunity came when CNN's debate moderator Candy Crowley directly inserted herself into the argument between Obama and Romney to declare her favorite right and Romney wrong. Romney had won the Republican primaries, but had failed to absorb the lesson of his most tenacious opponent. Newt Gingrich did not treat the media as a neutral moderator, but as a debate opponent, challenging its premises and agendas. And so Romney was left unprepared for Crowley's attack.
MSNBC's O'Donnell: Catholicism Was Once 'The Most Murderous Force on the Face of the Earth' . MSNBC's resident socialist Lawrence O'Donnell made a whopper of a historical claim on the Thursday [2/5/2015] edition of his program. In the midst of ripping President Obama's controversial National Prayer Breakfast speech from earlier in the day, O'Donnell asserted that "Catholicism was the most murderous force on the face of the Earth for hundreds of years," as he ripped President Obama's controversial National Prayer Breakfast speech from earlier in the day. The left-wing host led the segment by mocking the breakfast as "the place where presidents go to pander to leaders of organized religions once a year."
CNN Host Kisses De Blasio Before Interview . On CNN this morning, the host kissed Mayor Bill de Blasio before she interviewed him, and handed him a cup of hot chocolate: [Video clip] The other host, Chris Cuomo, complained that he'd been waiting for an hour and a half for his hot cocoa to arrive.
A Gunfight in Kansas . The local news stories have not only been deliberately stingy with the details of how events unfolded, and have used a deliberately passive voice (e.g. "gunfire erupted"), but they have consistently characterized the suspects as "teenagers" or merely "teens". It was also several days before any identifying details about the four "teens" were reported; nor were their names reported for several days, and it was longer before their photos were shown. The cynics among us have almost come to expect that when a journalist's physical description of a suspect conspicuously omits anything about the suspect's complexion, there's a reason. And that's part of why the cynics feel that the media are following a template we've seen before, as in the way 17 yr. old, 6'2" and 175 lb. "little" Trayvon Martin was characterized as "a child", accompanied by a childhood photo, and the way Michael Brown of Ferguson, MO was characterized as a "gentle giant".
NBC Hyped 'Da Vinci Code,' but 'Charlie Hebdo' Is Too Offensive . In the wake of the massacre of journalists in France by Muslim terrorists, NBC has made an editorial decision to not show the cover of the new Charlie Hebdo cover featuring Muhammad, deeming it too offensive for viewers. This is quite a contrast to the way the network promoted The Da Vinci Code in 2006. The movie (and Dan Brown book it was based on) insisted that Jesus Christ was not divine and had a sexual relationship with Mary Magdalene. Many Christians considered that offensive.
NBC omits "God" from Pledge of Allegiance — again . An astute reader pointed out that NBC has once again omitted God from the Pledge of Allegiance. The omission happened during a commercial promoting the network's upcoming spy thriller called "Allegiance." How's that for a coincidence? "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands," a chorus of voices intones in the spot. "One nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
This isn't journalism, it's activism.
Chris Cuomo Vows CNN Will Help White House 'Shame' Congress Into Action On Education . CNN's Chris Cuomo openly promised Tuesday [1/13/2015] that CNN will help the White House in a "shame campaign" to get Congress to act on education. During an interview with Obama's Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, Cuomo also promised to use the show he co-hosts, "New Day," in this shaming campaign. "Secretary, my only advice for you is that you should go on a shame campaign with congress to get them to act," Cuomo said. "New Day will help. CNN will help."
Blaming Bush never gets old, apparently.
Dem Sen. Murphy to Maddow: Blame Bush for Radicalization of Hebdo Terrorists . "We Blame George W. Bush" is a recurring category in James Taranto's "Best of the Web Today" column at the Wall Street Journal. The meme mocks the penchant of progressives to blame the former president for everything under the sun. The phenomenon was illustrated in an ugly way on last night's [1/12/2015] Rachel Maddow Show.
2015: Will GOP Congress Cooperate with Obama? 2007: Democrats Should Impeach Bush! This week the media greeted the new GOP Congress with fears about a conservative "kamikaze caucus," pushing "confrontation with Obama," and stressed that if Republicans were to be successful they needed to look less "scary," as they pointed out the 114th Congress was "80 percent white, 80 percent male and 92 percent of its members are Christian." But in 2007, when Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats took over the House, the tone from the liberal media was very different. ABC anchor Charlie Gibson gushed: "The new Speaker was on the floor for a time, holding her 6-year-old [6-month-old] grandson, all the while giving directions on how events were to proceed. It seemed the ultimate in multitasking: Taking care of the children, and the country."
When "arrested without incident" becomes "white privilege" . Leave it to our fine mainstream media to build an entire narrative based on one, off the bell curve incident. The latest case of this comes from Charles Blow at the New York Times who makes a herculean effort to show that cops are just, you know... racists. Why? Because one of the many maniacs roaming the country wound up being arrested without incident and wasn't gunned down by the Five O. And she happened to be white.
Sorry, Kansas City Star, this woman is not a Catholic priest . Journalism is supposed to be about informing people. Sometimes, journalists do the opposite, though, and misinform them. Today [1/5/2015], the Kansas City Star is misinforming readers. The headline, "Woman claims role as Kansas City's first female Catholic priest," is grossly misleading. You might think that a woman has become a Catholic priest. Of course, this hasn't happened.
Congressman Lee Zeldin: 'Mainstream Media' 'Look For Any Opportunity' To Destroy GOP . On Sunday [1/4/2015], freshman Congressman Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.) appeared on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace and slammed the media in the wake of the controversy surrounding Steve Scalise (R-La.) and his alleged speech at a white supremacist conference in 2002. Speaking to Wallace, Zeldin called out the "mainstream media who look for any opportunity to try to tear down Republicans to help back up the President of the United States and the Democrats in Congress."
Media: Um, that big Steve Scalise story probably didn't happen, but he's still 'embattled' anyway . Hey, remember how the biggest story in every mainstream media outlet yesterday was the shattering revelation that House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) spoke to a group with ties to the odious white supremacist David Duke in 2002? Ancillary stories blossomed with lightning speed throughout the day, spreading across the front pages like fractal patterns blooming on a computer screen saver: the latest comments from Scaliese, reactions from other Republican leaders, calls for his doom from top Democrats, hard-hitting political analysis from veteran correspondents about whether the "embattled" Republican could possibly survive this devastating scandal. Have you checked the big news websites today? Nothing. Yesterday's top story is gone. CBS and NBC still have day-old posts about Scalise apologizing for delivering the brief 12-year-old address he barely remembers, but he's vanished everywhere else.
Lap dogs and attack hounds . Points of view are fine with me as long as news organizations don't pretend to be "objective," defined as not favoring one side or the other. That means no dart-throwing at MSNBC, because that network does not pretend to be neutral. Instead, I look for outrageous spin such as that offered by anchor Scott Pelley on the CBS Evening News, when he said "2 million Americans are likely to pass up full-time jobs because of the president's health insurance program. ... Those aren't necessarily jobs being lost. They're also workers choosing to work less." (Yes, and in 1789 some French families chose not to eat bread because they had cake.)
Confessions of a Public Defender . I am a public defender in a large southern metropolitan area. Fewer than ten percent of the people in the area I serve are black but over 90 percent of my clients are black. [...] The media invariably sugarcoat black behavior. Even the news reports of the very crimes I dealt with in court were slanted. Television news intentionally leaves out unflattering facts about the accused, and sometimes omits names that are obviously black. All this rocked my liberal, tolerant beliefs, but it took me years to set aside my illusions and accept the reality of what I see every day.
Chuck Todd and the Rosetta Stone of Liberal Bias . Chuck Todd, who hosts Meet the Press on NBC, opened his show the way he often does, by introducing his panel of journalists. There was Luke Russert of NBC News, and Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report, and there was "Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post ... and Ken Blackwell, conservative columnist and former Ohio Secretary of State." Did you catch it? Eugene Robinson isn't the liberal columnist of the Washington Post. He's simply Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post. But Ken Blackwell is identified as a "conservative columnist."
The Ku Klux Con Job Award for Smearing Conservatives with Phony Racism Charges . One of the more unfortunate trends of the Obama years has been for liberal journalists to smear conservative opponents of the President as racist. Not surprisingly, all four finalists in this category could be found on MSNBC.
Hey GQ, can't find any crazy Democrats? Here are 16 . In a survey of the "Craziest Politicians of 2014," GQ had difficulty locating any Democrats. Seventeen out of 20 on the list were Republicans, with the only liberals being Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, Georgia Rep. Hank Johnson and America's reigning nabob of nuttiness, Joe Biden. In a note appended to the story, GQ defensively said it wasn't guilty of "standard liberal-media bias," it just couldn't find any loony Democrats to speak of.
NBC Asks America for the Meaning of Christmas: 'Jesus' Didn't Make Their Cut . NBC Nightly News offered two stories on Christmas in their December 25 newscast, including a show-ender about "what Christmas means to me." Substitute anchor Tamron Hall offered this introduction: "Finally, on this special night, a question: What does Christmas mean to you? Maybe it's the presents, the lights, the music, or getting together with family. We put the question to people around the country and discovered once against that Christmas means something a little different to everyone."
Time: Right-Wing Militias Are The Real Threat To Cops . Time Magazine warned of a growing threat to cops nationwide in September 2010. The nationally renowned publication argued that sinister individuals would launch targeted attacks against police officers and even ambush them in their patrol cars. Time alerted readers that these groups and individuals have a disturbing hatred of cops and that there was a real threat of "lone-wolf" attacks. Who are these groups that present such a threat to police? Right-wing militias, according to Time.
5 Takeaways from Media Coverage of Christians in 2014 . It's the reason for the season, so naturally, attacks on Christianity tend to pick up around this time of year. The mocking and sacrilege gets a bit more pointed in the media. The sneering contempt from entertainers and lefty activists gets a bit thicker. But insulting Christians is a year-round sport, like bowling. Unlike bowling, you'll find all the best people doing it, from the New Yorker to Comedy Central, from CNN to Hollywood. Whether it's a "beef baby Jesus," "climate change Christmas carols" or simply slandering core beliefs as "bigotry," media liberals haven't held back when it comes to Christians this year. Unless there was serious or good news to report. Then there was mostly silence.
NBC Reporters Reject [Their] Own Poll Showing Americans Support CIA Interrogations . On her 12 p.m. ET hour MSNBC show on Tuesday, host Andrea Mitchell could barely conceal her disgust while reporting on a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll showing a majority of Americans supported the enhanced interrogation tactics used by the CIA after September 11th: "51% said that the procedures used, the interrogation enhanced tactics, which have been defined as torture, 51% said that they were acceptable under the circumstances. Only 28% said that they went too far."
Wise Warren and Crazy Cruz . Sen. Ted Cruz and Sen. Elizabeth Warren are polar opposites, a Tea Party conservative and an Occupy Wall Street socialist. Then there are the similarities: Both were elected in 2012, both have Harvard on their resume and both are mentioned as presidential material. But the media's read of the two demonstrates an unquestionable slant. Both senators have shaken up the Senate over heavy spending and regulation. When Warren does it, she's promoted as a profile in courage, standing up for fairness. When Cruz does it, he's a selfish brat causing meltdowns.
And yet CNN wonders why their ratings are so lousy? Multiple autopsies, including one conducted by Eric Holder's Justice Department, have reached similar conclusions — one being that Michael Brown's hands weren't up and he wasn't trying to surrender when Darren Wilson shot him. But don't tell that to these CNN dopes who care more about contributing to pushing a false narrative than reporting the known facts of the case: [...]
If Cruz And Lee Don't Trust McConnell or Boehner, Why Should We? [Senator Ted] Cruz's point is simple and difficult to argue, "Even though millions of voters rose up just one month ago to protest how President Obama and the Senate Democrats were running Washington, business as usual is continuing inside the marble halls of the United State Congress," he said. And it's not just Cruz, although the media seems to enjoy painting it at that, perhaps making it easier to cast him in a poor light.
Arson, Looting 'Not Necessarily Violence' . Next time you're assembling a criminal defense team, remember to forget Melissa Harris-Perry.
SC Jury Indicts White Officer for Killing Black Man — Media Ignores . In a case with several parallels to both the Michael Brown and Eric Garner cases, a South Carolina grand jury indicted a white police officer with murder Wednesday [12/3/2014] for the shooting of an unarmed black man. Despite the significant parallels and timing, however, the national media has largely ignored the story.
Predictable CNN Suggests Tea Party Could Destroy GOP . On Sunday [12/7/2014], CNN's Inside Politics spent several minutes hyping the supposed headache Tea Partiers could give GOP leadership despite the Republican Party winning their 54th Senate seat following Saturday's runoff in Louisiana.
The Mike Brown PBS "Lie Chart" — The False PBS Claims Deconstructed Visually . A Treeper has been reviewing every piece of testimony in the case and comparing it with the chart that PBS published. Turns out they misrepresented almost all of the statements.
Look what CNN host said about Sarah Palin's kids — she still has her job . It's no secret there's a hypocritical double standard planted deep within the heart of the liberal Democrat way of thinking. For example, it's wrong to say something disparaging about a non-white person — such as the president's sweeping generalization that all illegals are fruit pickers and maids — unless you're a Democrat. It's okay to ruthlessly attack a conservative woman and her family, as long as you ascribe to liberal thought.
After Putting Lauten on Page 1, WashPost Buries Democrat Sex-Assault Plea: 281 Words on Page A-5 . Insult the Obama daughters, and you are a nationally infamous political figure. Rape some women? Well, if you're a Democrat, that's a yawner of a story by comparison. Call it a tale of two Hill staffers. While The Washington Post put Republican aide Elizabeth Lauten's resignation over Facebook comments on page 1 on Tuesday [12/2/2014] with an 1,161-word report, a Wednesday story on a former Democratic congressional aide pleading guilty to sexual assault ended up on the far-right edge of page A-5 and was just 281 words long.
Bozell Slams Networks for Covering Lauten Twice as Much as Gruber . A study just released by the Media Research Center reveals the big three networks have covered unknown Capitol Hill staffer Elizabeth Lauten's Facebook post — about how President Obama's daughters looked and acted at an official event — almost twice as much as ObamaCare architect Jonathan Gruber's "stupid voters" comments. The study found that ABC, CBS, and NBC have given Lauten's post a total of 14 minutes, 13 seconds versus the scant 8 minutes, 20 seconds of total coverage for Gruber since November 9 on their morning and evening news shows. While CBS, NBC, and ABC waited four days, eight days, and nine days to cover Gruber, both ABC and NBC wasted no time on Lauten covering the story on their Sunday broadcasts, with CBS joining the party on Monday.
In much less important news than Lauten's Facebook post, Dem staffer pleads guilty to sexual assault . Sexual assault is a hot-button issue; add to it that the perpetrator, Donny Ray Williams, seems to have a similar modus operandi to the alleged assaults by Bill Cosby, and boy have we got a recipe for an awareness-raising glut of coverage that might change the dynamic that allowed this man to abuse his colleagues in this way. Prepare for think pieces on the toxic environment that led to this type of behavior. Prepare for many questions of his former bosses about what blinded them to the abuse happening under their noses. Prepare for official inquiries of who knew what when, and whether Williams' behavior had raised red flags in the past. Wait, what? His bosses were Sen. Mary Landrieu, Rep. Elijah Cummings, Sen. Herb Kohl, and Rep. Jan Schakowsky? Nevermind.
Media in Frenzy Over Hill Staffer's Comments on Obama's Daughters . Five days after Elizabeth Lauten published a Facebook post criticizing the outfits worn by President Barack Obama's daughters, the previously obscure Republican Hill staffer is being inundated with threatening messages and major media outlets are pouring resources into tracking her moves and digging into her past. Two network news vans camped outside of Lauten's parents home in North Carolina on Tuesday, one day after she resigned as communication director for Rep. Steven Fincher (R., Tenn.) due to the controversy.
Republican children are fair game, totally mockable; Democratic ones are sacred . [A] staff member for a Republican representative wrote a mildly critical observation about the girls on her personal Facebook page, and — pow! Forget the trivial, oh-so-well media-covered events in Ferguson; Jonathan Gruber's admissions about the (Un-)Affordable Care Act; the Obama's administration selling out to Iran over nuclear weapons; the Democratic debacle in the elections; the Obama's administration's expensive carbon regulations; Obama's unilateral, unconstitutional illegal alien amnesty; the horrors of the Islamic State; Russia's dangerous aggressiveness; etc.; etc. — her Facebook remark is a serious, national consequential matter, the liberal media decreed.
Networks Spend More Time on GOP Staffer Comments Than Gruber Scandal . On Sunday and Monday, the broadcast networks seized on the personal Facebook comments of mid-level congressional staffer Elizabeth Lauten criticizing the Obama daughters — devoting over 14 minutes of national news air time to the controversy in the period of two days. However, it took those same networks several days to even notice the video comments of ObamaCare architect Jonathan Gruber crediting "the stupidity of the American voter" for passage of the law — providing only 8 minutes of coverage to the much larger scandal.
CNN: 'Slow News Cycle' Led to Media Hype About 'Cyber-Bullying' GOP Staffer . On Monday's At This Hour, CNN's Brian Stelter brushed aside a regular conservative critique about the media — that the press has a double standard about covering controversial remarks from Republican/conservative officials, while ignoring similar comments from Democrats/liberals.
Gruber, the Grey Lady, and Gullibility . [Scroll down] Finally, on Nov. 18 (a day earlier online), the Grey Lady cleared her throat and delivered a huffy editorial. It included nearly as many lies as words: [For example,] Republicans "were well aware of what was in the bills." This was not even true of earlier versions, but certainly not of the 11,000-page final version, which had to be passed so we could find what was in it. In a media-orchestrated campaign, it was hustled through the House as if the health care system would come crashing to the ground in hours if nothing were done.
Brown Revealed to Have Charged Wilson; MSNBC Declares the Word Charge to Be Racist . The grand jury found that Darren Wilson was justified in shooting Michael Brown in part because forensic evidence and eyewitness accounts reveal that the oversized maniac was charging him. Liberals respond as you might expect: by barking that the word charge is racist.
Black Mob Violence Now a Sickness . Thank you, Ferguson: Thanks to you we learned that black mob violence is now a sickness — not just a problem. And no one is sicker than the reporters who ignore, condone, excuse, and even encourage it, as we learned from the latest riot. For reporters, Mike Brown has always been a moving target: At first the Gentle Giant was cut down for no reason whatsoever. Reporters ate it up and black mob violence followed. When that fairy tale evaporated, they replaced it — with ease.
Yesterday's 60 Minutes Report on America's Infrastructure Was a Complete and Utter Scam . I rarely if ever watch 60 Minutes, as they have been kissing Obama's *** since before he was elected in 2008. They are part of the left wing media and are now a joke when it comes to investigative journalism. Last night it came on after the football game I was watching and the opening story was about the infrastructure crisis in this country. I thought I'd give it a chance. After five minutes of propaganda, mistruths, false story lines and interviewing an ultimate insider hack lobbyist for corporate America, I turned on a more realistic truth telling show — The Simpsons.
20 Ways Media Completely Misread Congress' Weak-Sauce Benghazi Report . The media immediately turned [Benghazi] into a political story, focusing more anger on Mitt Romney's comments about the administration's blaming of a YouTube video critical of Islam than determining the facts of the attack itself. Many in the media thought it fine that President Obama jetted off to a high-dollar fundraiser before the bodies cooled. When various high-level government officials blamed either a YouTube video critical of Islam — or our laws protecting free speech, it didn't generate much controversy among big media. The media tended to parrot White House talking points about the attack even years later. So even though everyone with knowledge of the scene in Benghazi knew otherwise, the New York Times was claiming until Friday — just this past Friday [11/21/2014] — that al Qaeda had nothing to do with the attack on Benghazi.
President Obama On Ferguson: The "I Didn't Build This" Segment . President Obama sat down with ABC's George Stephanopoulos, a fellow traveler and ideological compatriot for Democrat political administrations, to frame their collective narrative and discuss their united approach. The Hill published an article about it. During the recorded, edited and broadcast, conversation the subject of Ferguson Missouri came up. Of course it did. Controlling the forward narrative is now of paramount concern. For those who willingly digest the manipulation much buffet was offered. For others, those who see the larger picture, the falsehoods were a stark contrast.
Telemundo Celebrates Weakened U.S. Immigration Law Enforcement . "There's a lot to celebrate tonight," Telemundo anchor José Díaz-Balart declared during Telemundo's special coverage of President Obama's Nov. 20 announcement of unilateral executive actions that include lifting the threat of deportation for 4.1 million unauthorized immigrants in the United States, along with eliminating the Secure Communities program of federal, state and local cooperation in the enforcement of U.S. immigration law that was launched during the administration of President George W. Bush.
MSNBC Host Literally Screams 'No One Cares About Jonathan Gruber!' MSNBC's "The Cycle" went into overdrive while covering for the Obama administration and the recent videos of Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber insulting American voters and admitting to lying about to law, with co-host Ari Melber literally screaming "Nobody cares about Jonathan Gruber!"
Media hype trumps appeal for calm in Ferguson . The media that for months have hyped the protests involving the shooting have been all but declaring the small city will soon become a battle zone. CNN's Carol Costello introduced one Nov. 13, story with typical moderation: "If the town explodes in unrest one female pastor says she will stand between police and protesters appealing for calm." Correspondent Sara Sidner followed with a prediction that violence would occur, claiming, "we do know there is a small group of people who are planning violent acts."
More about Ferguson, Missouri .
Jonah Goldberg on FNC: 'Transmission Belt of Liberal Journalists' Reaffirmed Gruber's Mendacity . National Review's Jonah Goldberg went on a tear on Monday's [11/17/2014] Special Report with Bret Baier, connecting the circles of lies by the White House and Jonathan Gruber that had impact thanks to liberal journalists. Goldberg charged that, in the lead up to the ObamaCare vote, Gruber was "being touted around through a transmission belt of liberal journalists, who all are all pretending to be objective analysts too, quoting each other, reaffirming each other, all with the help of the White House which went along with this soup to nuts — a process which this guy says was all about lies and misleading the American people."
More about Jonathan Gruber , lies about Obamacare , and media bias in Obama's favor .
Media Myths About Republicans . Ever since the Democrats were trounced in the midterm elections, they and the media have been trying to figure out how Republicans triumphed so thoroughly. Wasn't the GOP supposed to be in permanent decline, on the wrong side of history, demography, and the issues? So far the soul searching has been almost nonexistent.
CNN Warns America: You Are About To Hear The National Anthem . The video story is entitled "Sailor mom surprises daughter at school." It first appeared on CNN on Thursday [11/13/2014] — on loan from an Indianapolis Fox affiliate. Prior to CNN's presentation of the video (just after the mandatory commercial), a warning message appeared for several seconds in bold font atop a two-tone black background. "Please be advised you are about to hear an excerpt of the national anthem," the warning declared.
Mika Admits: If Gruber Were Republican, MSM 'Would Be Exploding' . Kudos to Mika Brzezinski for admitting the truth: if Jonathan Gruber were a Republican, the MSM "would be exploding." Instead, noted Mika on today's [11/12/2014] Morning Joe, the MSM has been silent on the Gruber story, with only conservative sites [ed.: notably including Newsbusters] covering it. Mika contrasted the current quietness on the MSM-Gruber front with the media "firestorm" that erupted when David Stockman made his infamous allegations about Reagonomics.
Media to Wendy Davis: Oh, how we love thee no matter what . "She's totally lionized as a passionate, motivated, rising political star," says Matt Philbin of the Media Research Center, who co-authored an article detailing how 95 percent of broadcast network stories ignored critics of Wendy Davis, a Democratic state senator. The MRC story by Philbin and Katie Yoder describes how 44 of 46 media stories ignored any criticism of Davis, noting that only one network reported on a Dallas Morning News story that dug into her touted biography, among other facts dug up by MRC. Philbin says Davis was going to be "the new toast of the hard left" of the Democratic Party.
GMA Promotes Michelle Obama's School Lunch Program .v On Monday, ABC's Good Morning America provided First Lady Michelle Obama's school lunch program, entitled the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, with some free publicity. Co-host George Stephanopoulos touted how "new federal guidelines pushed by the First Lady have cafeterias serving up healthier foods. And a new study finds those lunches may be better than the ones parents pack for their kids."
"Reporter" Nancy Cordes Pushing Out Daily Kos Propaganda Under Aegis of CBSNews . NANCY CORDES: ["]Mr. Speaker, you have a new crop of conservatives coming into the House who have suggested among other things that women need to submit to the authority of their husbands, that Hillary Clinton is the anti-Christ and that the families of Sandy Hook victims should just get over it. So the hell no caucus as you've put it is getting bigger and some of them don't think you're conservative enough.["]
CBS reporter asks loaded, insane question with a smirk that could anger a monk . The GOP regained control of the Senate and extended its majority in the House to the largest since at least 1946, but CBS reporter Nancy Cordes did her best to stir up discontent with a question she posed to House Speaker John Boehner at a Thursday [11/6/2014] press conference.
The Lessons Of Wendy Davis . Davis' campaign could not have had more mainstream media support. After her filibuster of the late-term abortion ban, she was profiled and praised on nearly every major network and cable news outlet, in nearly every major political magazine, and throughout the websites and print editions of the country's top newspapers. The profiles asked roughly zero tough questions of the candidate. The Washington Post, the newspaper that famously dismissed the arrest and subsequent murder trial of abortionist Kermit Gosnell as a "local crime" story, couldn't seem to stop finding new and varied reasons to cover Davis. One of my favorites was their story on the best Amazon reviews for the pink shoes Davis wore while trying to make sure women could procure late-term abortions for any reason.
This Reporter Asks Boehner One of the Most Biased and Ridiculous Questions You'll Ever Hear . The mainstream media infamously failed to vet Barack Obama or hold him to account for any of the radical things that he or his many associates have said and done. But a reporter tried to use House Speaker John Boehner's press conference today to hold him to account for things that may or may not have been said by some incoming House members.
Watch the evolution of an MSNBC meltdown . As a rule, the most interesting coverage of an election night is always the losing side's coverage. Last night, MSNBC's anchors, most of whom would concede they are more ideologically friendly toward Democrats than Republicans, lost and lost big. While there was some stellar analysis and measured commentary on that network from the likes of Chuck Todd and Steve Kornacki, there was also a fair bit of infighting, punchy recrimination, and general despair from the left-leaning network's flagship personalities.
How the Media Helped the GOP Walk Away with the 2014 Midterms . [Scroll down] In short, this may have been one of the most significant midterm elections in history. And yet, the American broadcast news organizations had barely covered them between Labor Day until almost the week before they took place. As I noted two weeks ago, a Media Research Center study showed that the Big Three networks had only mentioned the midterms 25 times during that period, as compared to 159 mentions in the same period before the 2006 midterm sweep for Democrats.
CBS Worried GOP Congress Will Actually Pass Legislation . On Wednesday's [11/5/2014] CBS This Morning, co-host Norah O'Donnell fretted that the newly elected Republican Congress would dare to pass legislation: "If you look at a number of these new senators, they're quite conservative. Why wouldn't they go along with what Rand Paul has said? They're gonna send bills up to the President, as he told Charlie Rose last night, 'We're going to keep sending bills up to the President and we'll see whether the President wants to work with us or not.' Is the President going to be forced to veto a bunch of bills?"
North Carolina Newspaper, Charlotte Observer, Pulls Story of Kay Hagen Family Corruption Just Prior To Election Day . Republicans accused the Charlotte Observer of engaging in a "conspiracy of silence" after it pulled its story about a state government memo calling for "legal review" of stimulus grants given to the family of Senator Kay Hagan (D., N.C.).
Meet The Press Insists Repealing ObamaCare Is 'So Retro' . On Sunday [11/2/2014], Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) spoke with Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd to discuss the future of the Republican Party. Following the conclusion of the interview the MTP panel eagerly criticized the Kentucky Republican for daring to call for a repeal of ObamaCare if the Republicans win control on the Senate.
The Statist Media Spins GOP As 'The Party of No' . The recent revelations of Sharyl Attkisson, the one-time CBS investigative reporter, are very telling in this respect. What Attkisson describes is a major television network whose executives are hard-core Statists, Statists who have made it their goal in life to support and protect Statism wherever and however it appears on the American political scene. If that meant suppressing Attkisson's various investigative projects that might cast a negative light on a Statist project — than so be it.
Stephanopoulos, ABC News Refuse to Apologize for False Scott Brown Attack . Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee for president in 2012 and a supporter of former Sen. Scott Brown's campaign, decried an effort by the liberal media to falsely smear Brown during last night's final New Hampshire Senate debate against incumbent Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH).
CNN anchor, liberals give grins and thumbs up to violence against the 'Right' women . How do you get liberals to approve of violence against women? Just tell them the women are Republicans named "Palin." Wednesday afternoon [10/22/2014], CNN anchor Carol Costello hyped newly released audio of Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol tearfully recounting her being physically assaulted during a fight the family was involved in last month by saying it was "quite possibly the best minute and a half of audio we've ever come across." She grinned during the entire setup.
How the NYT blatantly spins for Obama on Ebola . Just look at the New York Times, always an industry leader: It's become the official stenographer of the Obama White House. On Saturday, The Times ran a story about the president and his response to the Ebola outbreak that read like it was dictated word for word by the president's top men. If I were a stockholder in the New York Times Co., I would certainly hope the paper was properly compensated for the front-page placement of this naked political advertisement.
In Ferguson, and elsewhere, the media clings to predetermined conclusions . Some examples: Ferguson's population is two-thirds black, but five of its six city council members are white, as is its mayor. Conclusion: this racial composition must be the product of racism. Never mind that blacks barely turn out to vote and field practically no candidates. Never mind that the mayor ran for a second term unopposed. Is there a record of Ferguson's supposed white power structure suppressing the black vote? None has been alleged. Did the rioters even know who their mayor and city council representatives were? The press didn't bother to ask. But this "problem" is disturbingly widespread, in the media's eyes.
Omar Gonzalez vs. Alton Nolen . In virtually every report, Nolen is described as the "alleged" or "accused" "suspect" of an office place beheading. He's never described as "Muslim Alton Nolen" or "Islamic extremist Alton Nolen." And that's probably right. But why is Omar Gonzalez not afforded the same standard?
Texas Is Booming…but CNN Doesn't Want You to Know Why . Much of my writing is focused on the real-world impact of government policy, and this is why I repeatedly look at the relative economic performance of big government jurisdictions and small government jurisdictions. But I don't just highlight differences between nations. Yes, it's educational to look at North Korea vs. South Korea or Chile vs. Venezuela vs. Argentina, but I also think you can learn a lot by looking at what's happening with different states in America. So we've looked at high-tax states that are languishing, such as California and Illinois, and compared them to zero-income-tax states such as Texas.
Politico: Lois Lerner is the Real Victim of the IRS Scandal . Lois Lerner wants a new job. She can't get one. No one will hire her. So it makes perfect sense that she would go to the leftwing Politico for aid and comfort.
More about Lois Lerner .
Democratic Party Media Run Interference for Hillary . Sarah Palin served one-half of one term as Governor of Alaska. While she was, of course, the Republican vice-presidential nominee in 2008, she is not now, and most likely will not be in the future, a candidate for public office. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, is not only a former First Lady, Senator from New York and Secretary of State, she is said to be the odds-on favorite to be the next president of the United States. So by any normal journalistic standard, it is far more important to inform the public about Hillary Clinton than Sarah Palin, especially as to matters that may bear on Clinton's fitness for the nation's highest office.
Networks Reported Bush 2006 Low Approval Numbers 13 Times More Than Obama's 2014 Numbers . According to a study released by the Media Research Center last week, the network evening newscasts have been reluctant to report on President Barack Obama's low-approval numbers, particularly compared to the extensive coverage given to then-President George W. Bush eight years ago.
ABC Ignores Start of Ray Nagin's Prison Term; NBC Gives Story Only 15 Seconds . Beginning on Monday afternoon [9/8/2014], Democrat and former Mayor of New Orleans Ray Nagin began a 10-year prison sentence for corruption charges that were as result of his actions following the landfall of Hurricane Katrina and subsequent flooding of the city in August 2005. When it came to reporting on the story during their evening newscasts, ABC World News Tonight with David Muir refused to cover the story while NBC Nightly News offered only a 15-second news brief.
Reuters Editor at Large Likens U.S. Death Penalty to ISIS Beheaders . While promoting a book of news photography on CBS This Morning on Saturday [9/6/2014], Sir Harold Evans, editor at large of the Reuters news agency, called the electric chair a "monstrosity" and said seeing a picture of one was "almost as appalling, in its sense, as these barbarians who have taken the heads off journalists in the desert." Of course, the imposition of the death penalty in the U.S. is reserved for the worst murderers, after lengthy trials and appeals, while the ISIS executioners beheaded innocent journalists as a way to terrorize the civilized world.
Washington Post Covers Voter Fraud Inaccurately and Incompletely . [Scroll down] Naturally the Washington Post makes no inquiry as to why the Eric Holder Department of Justice has failed to do anything about the scourge of double registration. It's in DOJ's job description. DOJ isn't doing the job. Instead, groups like the American Civil Rights Union, Judicial Watch and True the Vote have had to bring the cases Eric Holder has refused to bring to clean up voter rolls. Those who create and manage the left-of-center election narrative ignore entirely this DOJ history, as does the Washington Post.
The Ferguson Debacle . [Scroll down] It's not that the reporting out of Ferguson has been deliberately false, it's that so much of it has been sensationalistic and produced with the clear objective of furthering controversy. Controversy sells newspapers and draws viewers for television news programs. And in the present case, it gives New York- and Washington-based reporters the opportunity to get out on the streets in flyover country so they can later pretend to understand what has happened. There has been a competition among people in the media to see who can find the angriest person and haul him before a camera and a microphone.
5 Liberal Mega-Donors Nearly as Dangerous as George Soros . As the 2014 midterm elections approached, the media were quick to criticize conservative donors like the Koch brothers for backing issues important to them. But journalists largely ignored the incredible financial power being used to promote the liberal agenda. Five top donors — Michael Bloomberg, Warren Buffett, Pierre Omidyar, Tom Steyer and George Soros's own son, Jonathan — are major funders of the left. Together, they have contributed at least $2.7 billion since 2000 to groups pushing abortion, gun control, climate change alarmism and liberal candidates. That's not how major media depicted them. Broadcast networks applauded when billionaire hedge fund manager Tom Steyer promised $100 million to influence environmental policy. CBS News praised Steyer for "giving back" and ABC News called the billionaire an "everyman."
Washington Post finds Darren Wilson guilty by association . The Washington Post has convicted Police Officer Darren Wilson, who shot Michael Brown, of guilt by association with a former troubled police force in a different town in a prior job than the one he held in Ferguson, MO, and of having parents who were in trouble with the law. Seriously. There is nothing, zero, nada, in the WaPo story linked [in this article] that shows Darren Wilson ever did anything wrong himself. In fact, to the extent his own conduct is even mentioned, it's in the context of staying out of trouble. But that does not stop WaPo from trashing Wilson by association.
Best of facts-free reporting hands-down... I mean up . I began to lose interest in Ferguson, Mo., when it was first reported that the late Michael Brown was an "aspiring rapper." Hadn't heard that one yet? It was in the LA Times, under the headline: "Michael Brown's raps: Money, sex, drugs — and a vulnerable side." Of course he had to have a vulnerable side. That's why he was known as "the Gentle Giant." He didn't look terribly gentle in that closed-circuit video, shoving the owner of the Ferguson Market when he was stealing the box of Swisher Sweets just before he got shot. But the demonstrators could see right through that — "the man" had photoshopped the video, or so they said live on national TV.
The MSM's and Left's Racism on Parade in Ferguson . During a discussion on CNN about the shooting of Michael Brown by a white police officer, in the background was a photo of Brown in a school graduation cap and gown. Give me a break! Where was the picture from the surveillance video of the 6'4", 290 pound thuggish Brown grabbing the store clerk by the throat after stealing cigars? The DOJ has advised news outlets not to broadcast the video of Brown assaulting the store clerk and robbing the store, claiming that it might incite violence. [...] Rather than exposing the true character of Brown, promoting the lie that a white police officer shot a studious innocent black youth who was simply minding his own business will not spark violence? Absurd.
Why does AP refer to Michael Brown as 'teen', despite style guide? The Associated Press Stylebook states that in reports referring to a person's age, the figure for the age number should be used. It also states that reports should "use man or woman for individuals 18 and older." Why, then, are AP reports on the shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown solely referring to him as a "teen" and "teenager"?
Trayvon 2.0 Redux — Comparing Mike Brown and Trayvon Martin Similarities . While the two shooting events are separated by two and a half years, Trayvon (Feb 2012) Mike Brown (Aug 2014) the similarities are quite remarkable. One of the key aspects that aligns both narratives is the appearance of the attorney for both families Benjamin Crump. The second key aspect is the way the media portray both events.
Publisher Rejects Fellow Soldiers' Book on Bowe Bergdahl, Because 'the Right' Might Use It 'Against Obama' . Remember all those books that the publishing houses rejected during the eight years before Dear Leader took office because they might get used by "the Left" to hurt George W. Bush? No you don't, because it didn't happen. But now, things are different. Fellow soldiers of released 5-year Taliban captive Bowe Bergdahl are trying to publish a book on their side of the "he was a deserter" controversy. A divison of publishing giant Simon & Schuster has rejected their submission. That isn't necessarily unusual, but the contents of a rejection letter from one of the publisher's representatives certainly is.
White House loosens restrictions on lobbyists . President Barack Obama is loosening restrictions on lobbyists who want to serve on federal advisory boards, a White House official said on Tuesday [8/12/2014], a setback to the president's efforts to tamp down special interest influence in Washington.
The Editor says...
Instead of calling it a flip-flop or a betrayal of a campaign promise, the Reuters writer called it "a setback to the president's efforts," as if he had no control over his own actions.
Media go nuts over presidential corruption... in Nixon White House . Journalists who snooze at the mere mention of Obama scandals, still want to revel in the triumphs of yesteryear. No wonder. That was when the most powerful people in America were reporters and editors because they helped take down the president of the United States.
Flashback: In October 2001, Liberal Media Bashed Bush for Air-dropping Food, Medicine in Afghanistan . As President Obama authorizes both limited airstrikes on ISIS targets and the air-dropping of relief supplies to beleaguered religious minorities in northern Iraq, we thought it good to rewind to the early days of the war in Afghanistan when the liberal media criticized President Bush for both bombing al Qaeda and Taliban targets while simultaneously air-dropping food and medicine for civilians.
Media bias in the Christie and Cuomo scandals . Let's see: which is worse: snarling traffic or covering up potential corruption? From the media response, you'd think traffic cones are vastly more important.
Frustration over stalled immigration action doesn't mean Obama can act unilaterally . The president should think twice. Some of the same Democrats and pro-immigrant advocates urging him to protect millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation would be outraged if a Republican president took a similarly selective approach to enforcing the laws — say, those that guarantee voting rights or prohibit employment discrimination.
The Editor says...
The Washington Post writer slips in an unfounded accusation against a future Republican president by making a baseless assertion that Republicans would take away voting rights or implement some kind of employment discrimination if given the chance.
CBS Hypes Democrats Fundraising Off Impeachment, Dismisses Boehner Lawsuit . In the wake of Speaker of the House John Boehner's impending lawsuit against President Obama, CBS This Morning [7/30/2014] did their best to minimize its merits and instead promote Democratic efforts to raise money off of impeachment. [...] [Nancy] Cordes did her best to oversell the political damage Republicans faced following the impeachment of President Clinton. After the 1998 election, the "backlash" Cordes referenced was a loss of only five seats in the House and none in the Senate. Republicans didn't lose their majority until Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords left the GOP in 2001, a far cry from the "backlash" portrayed by CBS.
Obama needs to work on his foreign policy, not his golf game . Nero fiddled while Rome burned. On Saturday [7/26/2014], President Obama played golf while his foreign policy, and that of the nation he leads, was going up in smoke. Literally. Saturday was the day the State Department ordered the evacuation of the U.S. Embassy in Libya.[...] The embassy staff had to be evacuated overland as thick black smoke from the fighting hung over the Tripoli skyline. In any other circumstances — and especially if the chief executive were a Republican — this would have been a scandal blared across the media. But at a time when we are witnessing the near-total collapse of American foreign policy, it barely registers.
NBC News, Politico Bury Nunn Campaign's Asian Slur . You would think that a major U.S. Senate campaign caught referring to an ethnic group as financially "very tight" would thrill a media that loves nothing more than political scandal mixed with race. Well, not when it's a Democrat campaign. When that's the case, the media circle the wagons to pretend it didn't happen, or in this case, reassure everyone there's nothing to see here, because this is just how campaigns are run.
NBC, CBS, Reuters, Lie About Israeli Attacks; Face No Repercussions . Reporters covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for NBC, CBS, Reuters, and other outlets brazenly reported false information on Monday [7/28/2014] claiming Israel was responsible for attacks on Palestinian civilians that were actually committed by Hamas. The reporters have faced no repercussions yet for the promulgation of erroneous and biased information. It is yet another example of how reporters for major outlets in the Middle East interject their anti-Israel bias into their supposedly neutral reporting on the conflict.
Poll: 64% of Hispanics Back Deportations . When this story first broke at Breitbart Texas, the media jumped all over it. At first, it was obvious the media planned to exploit the story of 50-plus thousand unaccompanied Central American children illegally crossing our border as a way to pressure the GOP into caving on amnesty. A new poll from Economist/YouGov shows how badly that plan backfired — even among Hispanics. [...] Only 11% want what Obama, Democrats, and the media want — which is amnesty for everyone.
Salon Attempts to Paint Avowed Communist Lee Harvey Oswald as a "Right-Winger" . Via Salon today [7/24/2014] comes one of the most truly bizarre pieces of revisionist history I have ever seen, even within the context of articles appearing at Salon.
Amid Global Chaos, Al Roker Asks Michelle Obama: 'Who's the Best Cook' in the First Family? Despite the continuing fallout from the shoot down of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 and Israel's incursion into Gaza, Monday's [7/21/2014] NBC Today devoted over four minutes of air time to weatherman Al Roker conducting a fawning interview with First Lady Michelle Obama. In what Roker teased as a "revealing conversation," he asked Obama: "Who's the best cook in the family?"
Charlie Rose Waits Almost a Full Hour to Ask Hillary About Benghazi . PBS's Charlie Rose opened his 62 minute-long interview with Hillary Clinton, aired in two parts on Thursday and Friday's Charlie Rose show, by reciting a Maya Angelou poem dedicated to the former Secretary of State. Almost an hour later Rose finally asked Clinton about the Benghazi scandal. In the second part of the interview, aired at the end of Friday's [7/18/2014] show, Rose waited until his last question, with just a little over 3 minutes of interview time left, to finally bring up Benghazi.
Over 700 Syrians Were Killed Last Week. But Jews Didn't Do it, So the Media Doesn't Care . From reading the international and national news you would probably never have known that last Thursday and Friday alone, over 700 people were killed in Syria at the hands of jihadists and pro-Assad forces. Muslim on Muslim, Arab on Arab, human on human, whatever you like to think of it as[,] Western media is doing an awful job of reporting these abhorrent incidences[,] and I think I know why.
More Miserable Anti-Israel Bias from the New York Times . The New York Times' coverage of the ongoing situation in Israel, which began with the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers, continued this past week to be marked by intense anti-Israel bias in tone and labeling, and overwhelming emotionalism over the deaths of Palestinian civilians in the crossfire (Israeli deaths from terrorism rarely if ever merited such heart-felt treatment).
The IRS Scandal and Media Bias . Here's a thought experiment. Assume during the George W. Bush administration the IRS had targeted MoveOn.org, Planned Parenthood, the Center for American Progress, and a slew of other liberal groups. Assume, too, that no conservative groups were the subject of harassment and intimidation. And just for the fun of it, assume that press secretary Ari Fleischer had misled the press and the public by saying the scandal was confined to two rogue IRS agents in Cincinnati and that President Bush had declared that there was "not even a smidgen of corruption" that had occurred. Let's go a step further. Assume that the IRS Commissioner, in testifying before Congress, admitted that the emails of the person at the heart of the abuse of power scandal were gone, that the backup tapes have been erased and that her hard drive was destroyed. For good measure, assume that the person who was intimately involved in targeting liberal groups took the Fifth Amendment.
Jose Antonio Vargas and the End of Driver's Licenses . CNN chose to describe the recently detained Jose Antonio Vargas, longtime journalist for U.S. publications and legal citizen of the Philippines, as a "symbol of the immigration debate." The news network aired his documentary, Undocumented, several times. [...] But one big problem with Vargas is that he's proven he's quite comfortable violating or ignoring other laws as well, ones that are less disputed or controversial. For example, whatever one thinks of entering the country illegally as a child, falsifying official documents is a different story. Vargas described in the New York Times how he did just that: [...]
The Editor says...
I'm sure by now you get the idea. This page used to go on and on, but to conserve bandwidth, the remainder of this page is now located here .
| Sarah Palin |
In which country is Lake Banyoles, site of the 1992 Olympic rowing events? | Specific examples of biased news coverage
Specific examples of biased news coverage
As if the obvious needs to be laid out even more clearly, this page presents several more examples of what I've been discussing on the other Media Bias pages.
The news media sometimes show bias when they don't report current events. Another nearby page on this site has a long list of suppressed news items .
Most recently, the press showed undeniable favoritism toward Barack Obama in the 2008 election cycle, and now, even after President Obama has been elected and sworn in, the favoritism continues .
Other related pages:
Bias in favor of Hillary Clinton .
Four dozen examples of media bias:
Scandal Rap Sheet: 48 Excellent Reasons to Distrust & Despise the Media . Forget bias for a moment. Forget mistakes and misstatements and stupid or nasty things said during live telecasts. There isn't enough Internet to begin to list the countless instances of left-wing bias and politicking and idiocy the media engage in. [...] All of these scandals involve an attempt by a media that advertises itself as non-partisan (MSNBC excepted) to aid and abet the Democrat Party, or undermine Republicans, or advance the media's primary cause, which is to increase the size and scope of America's central federal government. As you read the list below, ask yourselves which American company or institution could survive a rap sheet even half as long as this one — decades of lies, cover ups, dictator-coddling, outright fraud, theft, and the fabrication of evidence.
With CNN Credibility in Tatters Anderson Cooper Attempts To Defend Propaganda . In addition to the Trump transition team and NBC Reporting, Fox News is now also reporting the original claims by CNN were entirely manufactured, "fake news" by four CNN agenda driven reporters: Jake Tapper, Jim Sciutto, Evan Perez and Carl Bernstein[.] Nothing reported as fact by the CNN constructionists actually took place. Against, the back drop of CNN's destroyed credibility, pundit Anderson Cooper attempts to obfuscate and push back against the collapse during a contentious interview with Kellyanne Conway: [...]
Amusing, inasmuch as cable channels don't use "airwaves."
MSNBC Host to Planned Parenthood: 'These Airwaves Are Your Airwaves' . Americans know the liberal media are untrustworthy. But there's something especially repulsive when they don't even pretend to uphold journalistic integrity. On Sunday [1/8/2017], MSNBC host Joy Reid invited Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards on her show, AM Joy. But rather than conducting an interview, Reid turned her show into a Planned Parenthood lovefest, from insinuating that defunding Planned Parenthood would make women die to promising Richards that "these airwaves are your airwaves."
Hours Before Trump's Press Conference CNN And BuzzFeed Hit 'Fake News' Bottom . Just as we saw last Friday, with the completely fact and evidence-free dog and pony show put on by the Intelligence Community and their media allies, late Tuesday afternoon, the Establishment Empire struck again, this time with an unprecedented double down. No doubt working in tandem (and with Donald Trump's many establishment enemies on both the left and right), CNN and BuzzFeed did something so sleazy and dishonest that, just a few years ago, even to a media cynic like me, it would have seemed impossible. With a breathless breaking news report, left-wing CNN went first. To no one's surprise, the once-respected Jake Tapper took the lead. Undoubtedly CNN's overall goal was to offer up the imprimatur of "journalism" so that a batch of leaked and completely unsubstantiated anti-Trump documents could be dumped on the American public the night before the President-elect's very first press conference.
Vicious Hate Crime In Chicago Whitewashed By Press . Note that the AP makes no reference to the races of the people involved, and says it is too soon to tell whether the assault was racially motivated.
Chicago torture video highlights media double standard on hate . The four suspects are facing felony charges including hate crimes and kidnapping. But Chicago Police initially downplayed reports Wednesday night that the attack was racially motivated. "At this point we don't have anything concrete to point us in that direction," Police Supt. Eddie Johnson told reporters. A video of the suspects attempting to scalp a man while shouting "F*** white people" isn't concrete evidence? And while the police were trying their best to tone down the racial motivations of the attackers, the Mainstream Media was trying to whitewash their skin color. It took the Washington Post nine paragraphs to get around to the skin color of the attackers.
CNN's Camerota Frets 'Right-Wing Websites' Making Chicago Beating 'Political' . As Thursday's CNN New Day covered the horrendous story of a white special needs man being tortured by four black teens in Chicago while they made anti-white and anti-Donald Trump taunts and live streamed the assault on Facebook, CNN co-host Alisyn Camerota fretted that "right-wing websites" like Breitbart, The Blaze, and Townhall are going too far in making the story "political." At 6:31 a.m. ET, after a full report on the horrific attack, Camerota plugged an upcoming segment on right-wing reaction to the video as she worried: "I mean, look, not only is this hideous, it's being also now somehow parlayed into a political statement. There are some right-wing websites that believe that this is political. So we're going to have a debate about what is behind this coming up."
Zero Self-Awareness: Chuck Todd Whacks Trump's 'Concierge Media Friends' . On NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday [1/1/2017], Chuck Todd devoted a whole hour to analyzing Trump vs. the Press, but he worked energetically to avoid the notion the media lost trust because it's seen as part of the Democratic National Machine. There were no questions about whether they failed in being too soft on Hillary Clinton, because they never think they've been too soft on Democrats.
Midnight meltdown as tipsy Trump-hater Don Lemon has mic cut off by CNN . CNN anchor Don Lemon has copped the honor of the first on-air Trump-hater meltdown of 2017, year one of the Trump presidency. Sour Lemon's behavior was so disgraceful and out of place during a celebration of the New Year that the network brass cut his audio feed just after midnight when he began speak of "awful" 2016.
CNN Uses Germany Attack To Bash The Right . CNN's online coverage of Monday's deadly terror attack on a German Christmas market focused on the attack's potential to stoke far-right anger, rather than the threats of Islamic radicalism. The attack in Berlin killed at least 12 people and injured dozens more, but on CNN's website, the network's top story warned about "the fallout of fear" and said that "attacks fuel [the] far right's assault on democracy."
ABC Highlights Electoral College Disruptors, Shocked by Clinton Defections . As the Electoral College wrapped up its proceedings across the country Monday, it was abundantly clear that President-Elect Donald Trump had exceeded the 270 votes needed to win and that the efforts of his liberal opponents were sundered. On ABC's World News Tonight that evening reporter Cecilia Vega highlighted the efforts of those who set out disrupt the process. "It did not come without some fiery moments today," hyped Anchor David Muir leading into the report. "A chaotic scene in Wisconsin today," reported Vega, "Protesters shouting down electors as they cast their votes for Donald Trump." "Everyone one of you, you're pathetic! You don't deserve to be in America," a woman shouted as she was being escorted out by police. "This is my America! My America," she continued.
CNN's Robert Baer: We Should Have Another Election . Well, that didn't take long. The morning after the Washington Post's Friday evening [12/9/2016] story that a "Secret CIA assessment says Russia was trying to help Trump win White House," a "deeply disturbed" Bob Baer, appearing on CNN Newsroom, when questioned as to whether "we should have another election," said that if it's true, "I don't see any other way than to vote again."
WashPost Religion Columnist Attacks Evangelicals for 'Dangerous' Lack of Trust in the Mainstream Media . The escalation against conservatives continued on Thursday with an online Washington Post column by Sarah Pulliam Bailey that sought to connect the distrust in the mainstream media on the right to the rise of fake news and "dangerous" consequences like the false story that's become known as Pizzagate. "Listen, I was raised in an evangelical home. I know the media is supposed to be the butt of many jokes and the source of many of our problems. For many conservatives, the phrase "fake news" is now being used to describe "liberal bias," but fake news has real consequences," Bailey emphasized near the beginning of her post. Perhaps most frustrating but not surprising for this newspaper was that Bailey made no attempt to differentiate between conservatives not willing to trust the liberal media and those who have embraced everything they see and hear from sites that have no semblance of facts or substance (ex. Stories about Pope Francis endorsing Donald Trump).
CNN Gleefully Mocks Dr. Ben Carson — Exhibit Stunning Level of Ridicule Against Black Cabinet Nominee . During a presented Don Lemon discussion panel Monday night [12/5/2016], the severity of ridicule against Dr. Ben Carson was jaw-dropping and unprofessional in the extreme. Removing all pretense of substantive discussion, Don Lemon, Marc Lamont Hill and Peter Beinart began openly mocking the nomination of Dr. Carson for Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The scope and severity of the exhibited ridicule was so over the top, fellow CNN panelist Brian Stelter was both visibly trying to hide his glee and simultaneously uncomfortable joining in amid the laughter and mockery.
Nets Give Jill Stein Recount Effort 12 Times Coverage of Her Entire Campaign . When Jill Stein was the Green Party's candidate for U.S. president, the networks only gave her 36 seconds of coverage. However, as soon as she launched a campaign to contest the presidential election and demand a recount of ballots in several key states, the evening news shows on ABC, CBS and NBC managed to find 7 minutes and 26 seconds of coverage for her in just four days. That's more than 12 times as much coverage as in the entire campaign.
Left Targets Giuliani for Fighting Terrorism too Energetically . In a move that invites parody if not outright ridicule, the left-oriented Politico blog this week went after former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani for fighting Iran-sponsored terrorism too aggressively. Well, duh! In a week that saw "Fake News" become the number one topic of debate among mainstream journalists, Politico decided to double down on stupidity and serve up a prime example of fake news. The Washington post dutifully echoed the false accusations to give the lie a cloak of respectability not bestowed by Politico.
Journalists Hail Castro's Achievements, 'George Washington,' 'Folk Hero to Most of Us' . Fidel Castro, who died late Friday night, was a tyrant who oppressed Cubans and brought misery to many for several decades and while much of the breaking news coverage emphasized that reality, journalists on ABC, CNN and MSNBC — matching how too much of the media approached Castro for decades — couldn't resist crediting him for supposed great advancements in education, literacy and health care. On MSNBC, Andrea Mitchell insisted in a stock bio that Castro "gave his people better health care and education." Appearing live by phone, she soon trumpted how Castro "will be revered" for "education and social services and medical care to all of his people."
CBS, NBC Spend Three Times More Airtime on Neo-Nazi Conference Than Four Years of March for Life . A disturbing trend has emerged since the presidential election as the liberal media have been promoting neo-Nazis and white nationalists in hopes to (admirably) discredit them and falsely insinuate that they were far-right conservatives who propelled Donald Trump to the White House. Well, this trend manifested itself with five minutes and 17 seconds Tuesday morning on CBS and NBC that attempted to label the neo-Nazi conference as one featuring "conservative extremist[s]" and added up to three times more coverage than they've had on the March for the Life in the past four years (at one minute and 40 seconds).
The Exhausted Epithets of the Left . Barack Obama's signature phrase, "the audacity of hope," came from a black nationalist, Jeremiah Wright. Obama stocked his administration with black nationalists, delivered speeches to openly separatist black colleges and associations, rolled out the red carpet for Al Sharpton, encouraged the reverse racism of "Black Lives Matter," and rationalized the behavior of athletes who protested the American flag. None of this qualified as "ethnonationalism" in the eyes of the media. They reserve that smear for conservatives who oppose hyphenated Americanism.
CNN Disappointed Because The Stock Market is Rising . Liberal ideologues who hate America continue their frustrated teeth gnashing.
Hypocrisy Watch: Networks Pound Bannon, But Ignore Democrat Ellison's Radicalism . Since Sunday evening, ABC, CBS and NBC (along with a host of other establishment media outlets) have been engaged in a feeding frenzy over Donald Trump's appointment of Steve Bannon, with reporters relentlessly employing phrases such as "white nationalist," "white supremacist," "extremist," "racist" and "anti-Semitic" to solidify the image of Bannon as a dangerous pick for a top White House position. But since Friday, those same networks have been blind to the controversies surrounding the top candidate for Democratic National Committee Chairman, Rep. Keith Ellison. Ellison has been accused of ties to the radical Nation of Islam, the Muslim Brotherhood, and once suggested the 9/11 terrorist attacks were akin to the infamous Reichstag fire used to propel Hitler's Nazi party into absolute power in 1933 Germany.
The Washington Post Thinks Reporting On A Study That Shows Illegals Take Jobs Is Racist . In order to not be considered a racist by The Washington Post you should probably avoid reporting on a study by a federal economist that reveals illegal immigrants take jobs. This is made clear in the article "'Can you name one white nationalist article at Breitbart?' Challenge accepted!," published Tuesday afternoon [11/15/2016] on the Post's The Fix blog. The article was a response to a Breitbart editor who defended the publication from attacks that it supports racism Monday night by asking CNN's Don Lemon if he can name one white nationalist article on the site. Breitbart has been under attack for allegedly being a white nationalist publication ever since the site's former executive chairman Steve Bannon was named President-elect Donald Trump's chief strategist on Sunday.
Democratic Propaganda Disguised as Election Analysis . Julie Bosman and Monica Davey in a N.Y. Times article, "Republicans Expand Control in a Deeply Divided Nation," use understatement and a rhetoric of "thoughtful analysis" to make their case that Republican victories are negative events even though the people have spoken. By publishing this article, the N.Y. Times once again becomes an instrument of partisan politics under the guise of high-minded journalism. The authors have mastered the art of writing to project a sense that the reader is getting an overview of where we've been, where we are, and where we're going. But in fact, the article is filled with bias against the Republicans. Distortions abound.
ABC's Stephanopoulos: Trump Civil Suit Conviction Could Be 'Impeachable' . ABC's George Stephanopoulos raised the prospect of the impeachment of President-Elect Trump on Thursday's [11/10/2016] Good Morning America, as the morning show spotlighted the multiple civil lawsuits against the billionaire. The former Clinton administration communications director underlined that "if he takes the risk of going to trial and he's convicted, that could be seen as an impeachable offense." ABC legal analyst Dan Abrams corrected Stephanopoulos's faulty take: "You can't impeach someone for stuff that they did before they became president."
Slate Goes Ape . My wife pointed out the front page of today's Slate. (Slate, if you are not familiar with it, is a left-wing on-line magazine.) You can enlarge this image and then just ponder it. There are numerous delights to be discovered, from "Donald Trump's Victory Proves That America Hates Women" to "Trump Won the Election By Promising a Resurgent White Supremacy." Sure he did! One question: doesn't a complete lack of self-knowledge sometimes come back to bite you?
'Meltdown of the night' Bitter news anchor bemoans Trump's election success . As Donald Trump triumphed in the race to the White House a television news anchor has bemoaned his incredible success. As various major US news networks prepared to confirm the Republican's victory over Hillary Clinton, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow gave a bitter response while live on air. The sombre host told MSNBC viewers, as Mr Trump edged towards victory: "You're awake by the way. "You're not having a terrible, terrible dream. Also you're not dead and you haven't gone to hell. [...]"
Trump Wins — Time to End the Republican Civil War . [Scroll down] But if you were watching Fox News (not the more Trump-friendly and vastly more interesting Fox Business) as the returns were coming in, the commentators (except for the eminently sensible Tucker Carlson) made you think what we were witnessing was the final ascendance of Eugene V. Debs after six attempts and America was about to turn communist — or something. I'm not going to name names. It's pointless and contrary to what I am trying to do. But I thought half those commentators were about to cry. Some of them actually were. And this is a conservative network.
Leftist Protester Going Nuts On CNN Over Hillary Loss Was a CNN Cameraman? Is CNN using their own crew members as fake protesters? Earlier today, we posted a video of a Hillary supporter having a total meltdown on CNN last night. In a slightly longer version of the clip you can watch below, CNN's Don Lemon remarks at the end of the video that he knows the man and that he's a CNN cameraman.
Dain Bramage: Idiot Hillary Supporter Has A MELTDOWN On CNN . This meltdown, what is said, and WHO is saying it explains a lot of what's wrong with our country right now. Respectfully, sir, your school owes the taxpayer a refund and an apology. They've obviously failed you. The field reporter went to an anti-Trump rally in Chicago and stopped someone in the crowd for his comments. And then things got weird. [...] The newscaster back at the newsroom recognized this 'passerby'. As a cameraman. One who had traveled to Rwanda with the newscaster.
Dewey defeats Truman!
Newsweek recalls 125,000 copies of its souvenir Madam President issue . Everyone from pollsters to pundits got the result of the US presidential election wrong. But few can have made it in such an expensive manner. Newsweek and a partner that prints up special commemorative issues has been forced into an embarrassing recall, after it sent out 125,000 copies of its Madam President issue designed to celebrate Hillary Clinton's win.
ABC's Martha Raddatz Chokes Up While Discussing Implications of Trump Presidency . ABC News' Martha Raddatz began to choke up during the network's 2016 Election Night coverage when discussing the ramifications a President Donald Trump might have on the military. Raddatz, one of the 2016 debate moderators, sounded shaky from the get-go. "Donald Trump, I questioned what he would do about Syria and his understanding of military policy and civilian/military divide, I don't know that he really has a plan for what he's going to do there," she said.
CNN: A Blue Spot in 'This Sea of Red Makes You Feel a Little Better' . CNN's John King said that a state leaning blue toward Hillary Clinton in a "sea of red" had to make you feel better while looking at a map of the incoming results of the presidential election Tuesday night [11/8/2016]. After discussing with Wolf Blitzer how Virginia was moving toward Clinton, King zoomed out and took a look at all the states that had either gone or were leaning to Donald Trump, describing the map as a "sea of red."
Stunned Chris Matthews: Loser Hillary Won the Debates, Had 'Best Ad Campaign' . A stunned Chris Matthews struggled to comprehend Hillary Clinton's loss and the victory of Donald Trump on election night. On MSNBC, Matthews sputtered, "[Clinton] won every debate by all standards. Every debate.... She had the best ad campaign, the best ground game." He whined, "This is a shot against meritocracy, I think. Because she merited everything and the normal way you standardize these things, she did what you're supposed to do to win and Trump came in around the corner."
The Editor says...
Oh, yes, "she did what you're supposed to do," except for the secrecy, the cloud of corruption, the imperious condescension, the $200,000 speeches about nothing, lying about her obviously poor health, and 30 years of accumulated scandals, any one of which should have sent her to trial. What an immense relief it is to know that we won't have to listen to that ghastly voice of hers for the next four years. Nor does anyone have to listen to people like Chris Matthews, constantly campaigning for the Democrats while pretending to be "journalists."
WikiLeaks: John Harwood Asked Podesta What He Should Ask Jeb During Interview . John Harwood, a journalist for CNBC and The New York Times, asked Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta what he should ask then-Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush in an interview, according to a new email released by WikiLeaks on Sunday [11/6/2016]. The email from September 21, 2015 had the subject line, "what should I ask Jeb..."
The Truth About the Late Tom Hayden — Whitewashed by the MSM . The worst claim in the [New York] Times' obituary is that Hayden was a "peace activist" who "opposed violent protests but backed militant demonstrations." He could be called a peace activist only if one views someone who supported a Communist victory in Vietnam as a proponent of "peace."
"Amerca's Morning News" All in for Hillary . I was listening to the radio when America's Morning News came on with some election "news". It was essentially a campaign ad for Hillary Clinton disguised as "news". It dwelt on the made up "scandal" of Trump accusers that have been mostly debunked. Not a single word about the multiple Hillary scandals from exposing U.S. classified information, pay for play as Secretary of State, transferring half a million dollars to the campaign of the wife of the FBI individual who was supposed to be investigating Hillary, and on and on. I have never seen the full force of the organized media so completely all in for one candidate before.
Dishonest media 101: 'Your bias is showing' . [Scroll down] Unfortunately, when I was working on the copy desk putting out the Sunday paper last week, I was so shocked by a story that I changed my plans for this column. The story, which passed muster at the Associated Press and no doubt made its way into hundreds of newspapers and probably thousands of websites, was a report on a Trump rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on Oct. 13. It was so astoundingly biased that I had to extensively edit the story to remove the reporter's personal opinions before running it on the following day's front page. The story was headlined, "Trump challenges legitimacy of election." That was one of the few accurate statements in the report. It was all downhill from there. I'll provide a few examples to demonstrate how the reporter inserted personal opinions into a news story, and how easy it was for me as editor to correct them.
This is Abortion Advocacy, Not Journalism . I was kinda thrown off guard this morning. I got on the Facebook page of a local newspaper this morning. It's a great place to find recommendations on gutter clearings, etc. in our area. And along with the posts on golf carts for sale and BOLOs for pick up trucks speeding on backroads, there was this. [...]
Trump has a point with media criticism . Add it all up, and one presidential candidate's negative news of the day was somehow covered more than 23 times more than another candidate's negative news of the day. It's understood what has always sold in this business: sizzle always trumps steak, sex always triumphs over substance. If you told me the coverage was 2-1 or even a 3-1 ratio of Trump to Clinton, you wouldn't be reading this column right now. But a story winning the lead over another is one thing. Devouring it to the point of almost total omission via a more than 23:1 ratio is quite another: "NBC Nightly News" with Lester Holt devoted zero seconds to the Democrat and Wikileaks on Thursday night [10/13/2016].
How the Washington Post killed Bernie Sanders' candidacy . The Bernie Sanders candidacy didn't die a natural death — it was murdered. And the murder weapon has the fingerprints of the Washington Post all over it. That's the contention of the much-respected progressive writer Thomas Frank (author of the beloved-by-the-left book "What's the Matter With Kansas?") in an evisceration of the media's role in taking down Sanders that will be the cover story of the November issue of Harper's.
Washington Post Reporter Spiked Info About Podesta Conflict Of Interest . A Washington Post reporter gave former White House Senior Counselor John Podesta advance reassurance she was withholding information about his ethically compromising financial links to a Democratic mega-donor. "I just wanted to make sure John Podesta had a heads up that his name will be in a story concerning the White House's ethics policy, which could run on Monday," WaPo White House Bureau Chief Juliet Eilperin told then-Obama White House Assistant Press Secretary Frank Benenati in a March 21, 2015, email.
Nearly 20 Mins on Trump's 'Miss Piggy' Remark, Silence on Clinton Chief of Staff Immunity . Once again, ABC, CBS and NBC have ignored a major news story that could be embarrassing to Hillary Clinton and have national implications, while promoting a negative (and trivial) Trump story initially pushed by the Clinton campaign. On September 23, news broke that during the now-infamous investigation into Clinton's emails, the FBI granted Clinton's former chief of staff Cheryl Mills immunity. House Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz called Mills's immunity "beyond explanation," adding that "the FBI was handing out immunity agreements like candy." Yet, neither ABC, CBS nor NBC ever even mentioned this story once.
Trump Now Calls Debate 'Rigged' Due To Antagonistic Moderator . In the wake of extensive criticism of presidential debate moderator Lester Holt for aggressively confronting Republican candidate Donald Trump and lobbing softballs at Democrat Hillary Clinton, Trump is changing his verdict of how the debate was conducted. "And then I had to put up with the anchor and fight the anchor all the time on everything I said. What a rigged deal," Trump told a New Hampshire crowd Thursday [9/29/2016].
The Low Point of a Low Night . Lester Holt, anchor of NBC Nightly News and the moderator in last night's presidential debate, is hearing it from conservative critics about his performance. He pressed Donald Trump on his tax returns and his long record of birtherism, and he jumped in, Candy Crowley-like, when Trump claimed that he hadn't supported the Iraq War. He didn't ask Hillary Clinton, correspondingly, questions about her e-mails, the "basket of deplorables," or the rumors about her ill health. For me, Holt's lowest moment came at the end. "One of you will not win this election," he said. "So my final question to you tonight, are you willing to accept the outcome as the will of the voters?"
Trump Is Better Positioned for the Next Two Debates than the Pundits Dare Realize . [Scroll down] Lester Holt was profoundly one-sided. He interrupted Trump constantly (41 times), rarely Hillary (7 times). He tried a few Candy Crowley moments, as when he interjected his views on the constitutionality of stop-and-frisk. That is Hillary's job, if she wishes to interject along those lines, not the moderator's. He asked Trump five hard follow-up questions; he asked Hillary ... not one. However, whereas moderators like Crowley cowed Romney and McCain into submission, because those genteel nominees were oh-so-polite and well mannered, Trump was not cowed.
Corrupt Lester Holt shows why Americans are sick of media . If trust and confidence in the media have fallen to the lowest in history, as recently reported, Holt, in his total abandonment of any semblance of objectivity, has lowered both even more. This bootlicking cog, beholden to his pro-Hillary media masters, didn't bring up Benghazi, the email scandals, the Clinton Foundation slush fund, Huma Abedin's ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, or Clinton's connections to the biggest female oppressors on the planet. With no pushback at all, Holt allowed Hillary to reference an irrelevant 1996 beauty pageant winner as an example of Trump's so-called misogyny.
CBS Spotlights Debate Watch Party with No Trump Supporters . The Tuesday evening [9/27/2016] following the first 2016 presidential debate, CBS Evening News was eager to share the opinions of people at debate watch parties from all across the country, including Los Angles, Philadelphia, and Dallas. Of the three watch parties they covered, CBS chose to lead with Los Angles where the makeup of the room was highly biased. "This group of Latino debate watchers gathered early," reported CBS's John Blackstone, "None here support Donald Trump, but Ana Reyes came looking for more reasons why Hillary Clinton deserved her vote."
Hillary Clinton's Lyin' Eyes . [Scroll down] Eight years ago, John McCain's health was much discussed by the media with regard to his age and history of melanoma. Was he too old? Could his cancer return? Only four years older when he was seeking the nomination than Mrs. Clinton is now, one thought the grim reaper was sitting atop his shoulder. Yet those questioning Mrs. Clinton's health are conspiracy kooks, part of the "vast right wing conspiracy", card-carrying members of "The Deplorables", called "healthers" as the new "birthers". Mrs. Clinton is not running for Chappaqua town council, but for commander in chief of the United States. Her health is a legitimate concern.
The media loves Hillary — and it could cost her the election . [Scroll down] Holt's bias was obvious, but the impact was not inevitable. It mattered largely because, shockingly, Donald Trump was shocked that Holt was in the tank for Clinton. How could Trump not see that coming? And if he did, why wasn't he better prepared? Holt never pressed Clinton with any substantive follow-ups, while Trump repeatedly was asked to defend or explain what he had just said or said in the past.
MSNBC wins big at Media Research Center's Dishonors Awards night . [For example,] When her guest, Latino conservative Alfonso Aguilar, praised House Speaker Paul Ryan as a "hard worker" on October 26, the MSNBC schoolmarm took exception. "I want us to be super careful when we use the language 'hard worker,' because I actually keep an image of folks working in cotton fields on my office wall, because it is a reminder about what hard work looks like. So, I feel you that he's a hard worker, I do, but in the context of relative privilege."
Trump won the debate. Don't believe the "Intellectual Yet Idiot" class . [Scroll down] They stacked the deck against Trump with Lester Holt's one-sided questions and interventions. The Holt-Clinton team was glib, articulate, and self-congratulatory. However, they lost. The Intellectual Yet Idiot class that dominates our news media fell all over themselves critiquing Trump and praising Holt and Clinton. In doing so, they repeated the mistake they have made about every debate since August 2015.
If Lester Holt Really Wanted to Be Fair and Balanced... . NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt, at Monday night's [9/26/2016] debate, repeatedly cross-examined and fact-checked GOP nominee Donald Trump. However, for Hillary Clinton there was not one single challenge to anything she said. And there wasn't a hard-hitting question to the Democratic nominee on any of her controversies whether it be Benghazi, the Clinton Foundation or the e-mails. If Holt had correctly done his job as moderator he could've asked a tough question of Trump and then pivoted to ask an equally challenging question to Clinton. The debate might have gone completely different if he had.
Here's A List Of The Top 10 Issues Hillary Was NOT Asked About At Monday's Debate . Moderator Lester Holt is getting mixed reviews for his performance at Monday's presidential debate. While some are praising Holt as having been even-handed, critics have noted that the questions he asked — or didn't ask — seemed to favor former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Specifically, Holt pressed Donald Trump on a number of tough issues including his unreleased tax returns. However, Holt failed to hold Hillary Clinton to account for any of the significant issues surrounding her scandal-plagued campaign, including the Clinton foundation's pay-to-play accusations and her cozy relationship with Wall Street investment banks.
"Mostly true" when Bernie said it, "mostly false" when Trump did . The Social Justice Warriors at PolitiFact are at it again, lying like sacks of fertilizer inside the barn.
Dallas Paper Offers Discount In Scramble To End Hillary Endorsement Fallout . The Dallas Morning News is offering massively discounted subscriptions to its readers in an effort to withstand the fallout caused by its editorial board's endorsement of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. The endorsement has generated a lot of reader pushback in the form of angry comments, phone calls and vows to unsubscribe from the paper, which hasn't endorsed a Democrat in 75 years. Editor Joe Wilson has acknowledged it came with a price of dropped subscriptions, but no one from the paper has revealed how many readers actually unsubscribed.
The Editor says...
It is difficult enough to keep a newspaper afloat in the 21st century, without stuff like this.
After Charlotte shooting, press downplays a key fact: The officer's race downplays a key fact: The officer's race . The riot in Charlotte, and the fatal shooting of Keith Scott that sparked the violence, was the lead story in yesterday's New York Times. But a crucial fact was buried. Not until the 30th paragraph were readers told that "Brentley Vinson, the officer who the police say shot Mr. Scott, is black, as is the police chief." The Washington Post took a similar approach with its lead story, waiting until the 31st paragraph to report that "authorities said the officer who shot Scott is black."
Nets Omit IRS Head Admitting to Targeting Tea Party Groups at Hearing . At a contentious impeachment hearing conducted by the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday [9/21/2016], IRS Commissioner John Koskinen admitted that his agency targeted Tea Party groups looking to obtain tax-exempt status. "They were totally improper criteria used to select organizations, applying for c-4 designation for further review," testified Koskinen before the committee, "Those organizations predominantly were conservative organizations." This stunning abuse of power went unreported by the "Big Three" networks Wednesday evening and Thursday morning. The only reference to Koskinen being in a hearing that day was made by NBC that evening, but the report had nothing to do with a possible impeachment or his testimony. During her report on NBC Nightly News, reporter Katy Tur used a clip of the commissioner, talking about how tax-exempt organizations can spend their funds, to take a swipe at Donald Trump and his foundation for alleged self-dealing.
CNN Media Panel: Clinton vs. Trump Is Apples vs. 'Rancid Meat' . On his Sunday show Reliable Sources, [9/4/2016] host Brain Stelter brought out a panel made up a proverbial who's who of Donald Trump opponents to whine about how the media was being "unfair" to Hillary Clinton and going easy on Trump.
Dr. Drew loses his CNN show a week after questioning Hillary's health . Dr. Drew Pinsky raised a lot of eyebrows a week ago when he said he was gravely concerned over Hillary Clinton's health in an interview on KABC-AM radio. The interview went viral, and was taken down by the station (but a transcript lives on, courtesy of the Free Beacon). So the message had to be delivered in way tht [sic] would chill everyone who might think about revealing inconvenient truths.
Hillary's Corruption Is Overwhelming . After over two decades in the heart of America's spotlight, Hillary Clinton is still an unknown quantity for most Americans. That's thanks to one factor and one factor only: the love and worship of the mainstream media. Over the weekend, no less than six terrible stories broke that would have crippled anyone else's campaign.
Media that ripped Bush on Katrina ignores Obama on Louisiana flooding . President George W. Bush was torn to shreds in 2005 by mainstream media commentators for his initial response to Hurricane Katrina — yet President Obama's detached response to the recent Louisiana floods has been met with resounding silence from those same outlets. "George Bush doesn't care about black people" was the shocking charge by singer Kanye West about President Bush's response to Katrina. West's was a particularly blunt assessment, but echoed a growing narrative pushed by mainstream media outlets that Bush's response was out of touch, inept and most of all, he didn't care about people on the ground.
Chris Matthews: Get 'excited' about Clinton campaign, or 'don't vote' . MSNBC's Chris Matthews has a striking message for disaffected Democrats: Get "excited" about Hillary Clinton's campaign and the possibility of the party controlling Washington, or "don't vote." The "Hardball" host offered the advice on air Tuesday night, while griping about some Democrats' pessimistic attitude toward the election.
Chris Matthews Fails to Identify Disgraced Pennsylvania AG as a Democrat . Imagine that a Republican state attorney general had been forced to resign after being convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice. Now imagine how the story would have been played on MSNBC. Fair to assume that the word "Republican" would have featured in the story's first sentence? But in a stand-alone segment on today's Hardball on the forced resignation of Kathleen Kane, the Pennsylvania AG who was convicted on nine charges, host Chris Matthews failed to ever mention, and the screen graphics never revealed, that Kane is a Democrat. Kane had illegally leaked secret grand jury documents to harm a rival prosecutor, then lied about it under oath.
WaPo Writer Discovered on Payroll of Pro-Iran 'Echo Chamber' Architect . A Washington Post writer who recently claimed that a $400 million cash payment to Iran was "American diplomacy at its finest" failed to disclose that he has been on the payroll of an organization that emerged as a chief architect of the White House's self-described campaign to build a pro-Iran "echo chamber," according to information obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. Allen S. Weiner, a Stanford law professor and contributor to the Post's opinions section, co-authored a piece arguing in favor of the Obama administration's decision to pay Iran $400 million in hard currency in what many described as a "ransom payment" for the release of several U.S. hostages. Weiner and the Post failed to disclose that the writer has long been on the payroll of the Ploughshares Fund, an organization recently exposed as a key cog in a White House-orchestrated campaign to build what it called a pro-Iran "echo chamber."
Sharyl Attkisson Discusses DC Journalist Bureau Chief Urging Colleagues to Take Down Trump . Sharyl Attkisson was interviewed on NewsMax TV with Steve Malzberg and discussed an event she attended where a well known DC Journalist Bureau Chief urged all of the reporters in attendance to earnestly work at taking down candidate Donald Trump. When you consider the event being discussed, and further add the known hatred from a very specific Washington Bureau Chief, it stands to reason Attkisson is discussing Carl Bernstein. Bernstein previously said that all reporters have a professional journalistic responsibility to destroy the candidacy of Donald Trump. Bernstein, if you didn't know, is a full-throated supporter of Hillary Clinton.
VIDEO: Here's ten minutes of CNN cutting people's mics when they dare criticize Hillary . Note to pundits, journalists, witnesses, and commentators who would dare speak the truth about Hillary Clinton. You are not welcome on CNN. They have no interest in hearing the facts of Mrs. Clinton's life. They don't fit the obviously-biased narrative they're building, and [they won't] let you sit there and use their airwaves to inform people. The once and future Queen must be protected at all costs. Speak ill of her and CNN's gestapo will shout you down and cut you off with extreme prejudice — regardless of the accuracy of your comments.
A Good Joke About Political Murder . [Scroll down] Not only did Trump not say what the media has accused him of saying, but the media has no problem when Democrats openly called and call for the assassination of Republican presidents and presidential candidates. During Trump's candidacy a fine roster of media folks covering the gamut from the New York Times to VICE to the Nightly Show have joked about killing Trump or about his assassination. Anyone objecting to that sort of good clean progressive fun would have been a humorless spoilsport. Trump's remark however is being denounced in the press as everything from a threat to sedition. What did Trump actually say? When you go to the tape, it turns out that he said nothing.
CBS Admits: Host Gayle King Attended Gushing Obama Birthday Party . CBS This Morning co-host Gayle King isn't just a Democratic donor, she also attended Barack Obama's 55th birthday party this past weekend. The woman who regularly covers political stories, including the 2016 presidential election, was outed by her co-host Charlie Rose as a guest. After reporter Dana Jacobson highlighted a New York Times story on the secrecy of the Obama White House bash, Rose blurted, "Did you tweet anything [at the party]?" King replied, "Oh, no. They ask you not to tweet. I'm not tweeting a thing." She bragged, "It was a very nice tribute to him [Obama]. The last time in the White House and I can say a good time was had by all." An excited Rose wondered, "And you danced with the President?" Remember, these people call themselves neutral, unbiased journalists.
New York Times Blames Donald Trump for Biased Media Coverage . [Scroll down] In 2008 — to pick an arbitrary starting point — journalists swooned over the prospect of Barack Obama as the first black president, and coordinated to discuss attacks on Obama's critics. In one particularly noxious episode, a photographer working for the Atlantic photoshopped a cover image she had shot to cast McCain as a bloodthirsty monster. In 2012, journalists plotted together to make Mitt Romney the target of Benghazi coverage, rather than Obama or Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — and CNN's Candy Crowley infamously threw the second presidential debate to Obama. They played along with spurious attacks on Romney's record, such as his supposed responsibility for the death of a worker's wife and the alleged mysteries in his tax returns.
GOP Goes Full Democrat . [Scroll down] Media support for the Democrat candidate, no matter who that is, should be a foregone conclusion. The alphabet networks, cable news shows and major newspapers are nothing more than campaign arms of the DNC. The most recent example is Khizr Khan receiving 50 times more coverage than Benghazi mother Pat Smith on the three major networks, ABC, CBS, NBC. When George W Bush was running for president, Code Pink and Cindy Sheehan were constantly on the news, protesting the Iraq war and excoriating George W Bush. Then in 2008 with a new Democrat president, the war protests went into silent mode receiving no media coverage, having already served their purpose.
NBC Urges Hillary's VP to Trash Trump; CBS Urges Trump's VP to Trash Trump . Two networks. Two vice presidential candidates. Same questions. Today co-host Savannah Guthrie on Friday [8/5/2016] interviewed Mike Pence and urged the Republican to trash Donald Trump. On CBS This Morning, Norah O'Donnell talked to Tim Kaine and urged the Democrat to trash... Trump. She did not demand that Kaine bash Hillary Clinton. Instead she asked if Trump was "sane" and "competent." On NBC, Guthrie lectured, "Paul Ryan himself said that Donald Trump has been on a 'strange run' for the last few days. You're down in every national poll, some by double digits, in every recent battleground poll.
CBS Touts 'Feminist-in-Chief' Obama, Laments Dislike of Hillary Clinton . The journalists at CBS This Morning on Thursday [8/4/2016] hailed Barack Obama as the "feminist-in-chief" and praised his new essay in Glamour magazine on "women and politics." Naturally, Democratic donor and co-host Gayle King expanded the discussion to a complaint about people disliking Hillary Clinton. Talking to editor-in-chief Cindi Leive and insisted, "In Glamour magazine, you've been talking a lot about politics. I want to switch to Hillary Clinton and about likability. Because don't you find it interesting that this is still an issue for her today?" Leive scolded, "They [the public] can accept voting for somebody they think is competent but not necessarily like likable. They are tougher on women."
MSNBC: Pat Smith's Speech Was 'Offensive' But Khizr Khan's Was 'Memorable' . Both the Republican and Democratic conventions gave speaking slots to grieving parents of a son killed in combat, but — according to MSNBC's Steve Benen — Khizr Khan's DNC speech was "memorable," while Pat Smith's RNC speech was "offensive." Smith, whose son, Sean, was killed in Benghazi, slammed Hillary for allegedly lying to her about the cause of her son's death.
On CNN, Pat Smith Blasts 'Dirt' Treatment From Media Over RNC Speech . On Monday's [8/1/2016] CNN Newsroom, Patricia Smith hammered the media over their clear double standard between the often-negative way they treated her anti-Hillary Clinton speech at the Republican National Convention versus their hyping of Khizr Khan's anti-Donald Trump speech at the Democratic National Convention: "I was treated like dirt. I don't think the Khan family was treated that way. But I was treated like dirt. I was called a liar." Anchor Brooke Baldwin pressed Smith to condemn Trump's counter-attack on Khan and his wife. Baldwin led into her interview of the Benghazi mother by noting that Trump "isn't the only candidate facing backlash here. Hillary Clinton being criticized again by one of the most vocal parents... of the slain Americans in Benghazi."
Double Standard: Khizr Khan Receives 5 More Coverage Than Pat Smith on ABC, CBS, NBC . Two weeks ago at the Republican National Convention (RNC) a grieving mother blasted Hillary Clinton for the debacle of the 2012 Benghazi attack. Last Thursday [7/28/2016], at the Democratic National Convention (DNC), grieving parents gave a speech criticizing Donald Trump for his statements against Muslims. While all the grieving parents deserve sympathy, the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) network evening and morning shows seemed to only care about the parents that showed up at the Democratic Convention. Khizr Khan and his wife Ghazla's DNC appearance earned 55 minutes, 13 seconds of Big Three network coverage, nearly 50 times more than Pat Smith, whose RNC speech honoring her son earned just 70 seconds of airtime.
Glenn Greenwald: The Media's Coverage of Donald Trump Is 'Kind of Hysterical' . In a recent conversation with Slate, The Intercept's Glenn Greenwald agrees that a possible Donald Trump presidency "poses ... extreme dangers" to the U.S., but the journalist also argues that the mass media is not only creating a dangerous, unblinking consensus against Trump but also failing to reach his voters.
Charlie Rose Asks Eric Holder About 'Danger' of 'Not Smart' Trump . Acting more like a doorman than a journalist during PBS coverage of the Democratic National Convention Thursday night, CBS This Morning co-host Charlie Rose invited former Attorney General Eric Holder to blast Donald Trump: "You also said that Donald Trump, you questioned his gray matter. You mean he's not smart enough to be president?" Holder replied: "Yeah, I wonder. You know, I sometimes think that he hides behind a certain bravado to hide a lack of substance that he has.... he seems to me to be a very shallow man." Rather challenge the nasty personal attack or lecture Holder to tone down the rhetoric, Rose urged him to continue: "And because you don't see any intellectual interest, you don't see anything other than a businessman?"
CNN's David Gregory: 'I've Run Out of Words to Express My Shock' Over Trump . Following a long, rambling presser in which GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump encouraged a foreign nation to interfere in the election, CNN's David Gregory admitted that he had "run out of words to express my shock" about Trump. He observed "how completely beyond the pale Donald Trump is as a potential leader of the free world and commander-in-chief of our country. This is beyond the pale."
NBC Spin: Resignation of DNC Chair 'Best Thing for Democratic Unity' . In a desperate attempt to downplay chaos in the Democratic Party following leaked Democratic National Committee e-mails and the resignation of chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Shultz, on Monday's [7/25/2016] NBC Today, Meet the Press moderator Chuck actually tried to spin the controversy as a positive: "Look, the only piece of good news out of this for Democrats, Jeff Weaver, Bernie Sanders's campaign manager, told me yesterday the best thing for Democratic unity is her resignation and that actually could calm the waters today."
Of Course: MSNBC Connects Munich Terror Attack Talk to GOP Convention . MSNBC on Friday [7/22/2016] used the unfolding shooting spree in Munich to bash the Republican Party and connect the GOP convention to it. Regarding terror, Daily Beast editor Christopher Dickey talked to Brian Williams and lectured, "What we're looking at now in Europe and, to some extent, at the Republican convention and in the discourse in the United States, is a lot of talk about war as if we're talking about a massive operation." Dickey insisted that the terror threat not be overstated: "Yet we're often talking as if we're going to go to war with a billion Muslims. And I think we need to be very, very careful about that. You are very careful. NBC is very careful."
75 Percent Positive Response to Donald Trump Speech — So CNN Trashes Its Own Poll . Donald Trump won the Republican nomination for president in Cleveland during a momentous week in political history. On Thursday night [7/21/2016], Trump gave a one-hour-and-fifteen-minute speech accepting the Republican nomination. The speech was so overwhelmingly well-received among the crowd that the media did not know what to do to tear it apart.
Trump's Biggest Enemy is the Media . Although it's a given that the mainstream media is biased against conservative Republicans, the recent Wikileaks 20,000 DNC email dump disclosed that the MSM has colluded with Hillary Clinton in her attacks on her opponent Bernie Sanders. Poor Bernie didn't have a chance against the combined Clinton/MSM machine. The emails contained off the record correspondence with reporters at the Washington Post, Politico, and the Wall Street Journal, among others. They also show how the DNC conspired with media anchors and newspapers to torpedo Bernie Sanders. One devastating email discussed using Sanders religion or atheism as a potential talking point for the campaign. Hey Bernie, the Green Party wants you to run on their ticket. It would be nice to go out fighting. We certainly didn't need any proof that the mainstream media is in the pocket of the Democrat Party since we know that over 80 % of journalists are self-admitted liberals.
Another Clinton Email Scandal Erupts As Dem Convention Opens . Talk about a bad a start to a political convention. The release of almost 20,000 emails hacked out of Democratic National Committee servers has forced the head of the DNC to resign, sparked protests from Bernie Sanders supporters, and showed the media in cahoots with Democrats.
Leaked Emails: Politico's Ken Vogel Filed Story with DNC Before His Own Editors . A release of Democratic National Committee emails from WikiLeaks shows Politico reporter Ken Vogel sent a pre-publication negative copy of a story April 30 to the DNC's deputy communications director, so he and other staffers at the DNC along with Hillary Clinton campaign could coordinate a response. "Vogel gave me his story ahead of time/before it goes to his editors as long as I didn't share it. Let me know if you see anything that's missing and I'll push back," wrote Mark Paustenbach in an email to his boss, Luis Miranda, who before taking over communications for the DNC worked for President Barak Obama's White House outreach to Latinos, as well as other campaigns, including the Democratic 2000 recount operation in Florida.
The GOP convention exposes the reality of media bias . CNN alone spent nearly 45 minutes talking about Mrs. Trump's alleged plagiarism Tuesday morning [7/19/2016], as if this was a matter of major national importance. Why? The most obvious explanation is that the TV networks are run by Democrats who consider it their professional duty to provide negative coverage of Republicans. After a protester from the far-left group Code Pink attempted to stage a disruption Monday inside the Quicken Loans Arena, ABC News reporter Terry Moran claimed this incident was symbolic of what "a dark night" the convention had been. "Donald Trump has been a candidate whose approach has divided many people, drawn protesters," Moran said, terming the lone protester's act an illustration of "the kind of unsettled emotions that Donald Trump has sparked in many people around the country." Of course, kooks from Code Pink — founded in 2002 by radical leftists Jodie Evans and Medea Benjamin — have staged disruptive protests in all kinds of settings, but Terry Moran blamed their bizarre antics on Trump. Meanwhile, on NBC, Tom Brokaw was accusing Republicans of communicating "a pretty divisive message." According to Brokaw, the GOP convention made "no attempt to really pull the country together."
L.A. Times Suggests Military Coup Against President Trump . Jamie Kirchick, writing in the Los Angeles Times, asks readers to imagine a military coup against a future President Donald Trump — and argues why one would be necessary. Kirchick cites the example of the recent failed coup in Turkey as a source of inspiration.
Los Angeles Times runs op-ed promoting military coup against Donald Trump . Normally military coups are instigated by the right, but a senior fellow with the left-wing Foreign Policy Institute is arguing that an overthrow of the U.S. government might be necessary if Republican nominee Donald Trump is elected president. What's more, the op-ed by James Kirchick ran Tuesday [7/19/2016] in a major U.S. newspaper, the Los Angeles Times. "Trump is not only patently unfit to be president, but a danger to America and the world," Mr. Kirchick wrote in the op-ed. "If Trump wins, a coup isn't impossible here in the U.S." "Voters must stop him before the military has to," he concluded.
The Editor says...
If I had written an op-ed article to incite a military coup against the president and posted it on this web site, something bad would have happened to me by now. But the L.A. Times — with at least ten times the number of daily readers as akdart.com — acts as if there's nothing wrong with this sort of inflammatory rhetoric.
Uproar! Melania Trump Caught Borrowing Cliches From Michelle Obama Speech . In other words, the mainstream press has thankfully found a meaty topic in which to bite, since the other speeches on Monday [7/18/2016] were all about boring stuff like how Hillary Clinton lied to the mother of one of the men killed in Benghazi, or the stories of parents who lost their children to illegal immigrants, or Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke's stirring — and hugely crowd-pleasing — defense of the nation's police after eight were gunned down in targeted attacks within two weeks.
Who Gets Absolute Moral Authority? Among the sainted moms of the Black Lives Matter movement who will speak on Hillary Clinton's behalf are Gwen Carr, mother of Eric Garner; Sybrina Fulton, mother of Trayvon Martin; Maria Hamilton, mother of Dontre Hamilton; Lucia McBath, mother of Jordan Davis; Lesley McSpadden, mother of Michael Brown; Cleopatra Pendleton-Cowley, mother of Hadiya Pendleton; and Geneva Reed-Veal, mother of Sandra Bland. Each of these cases lumped under supposedly unjustified gun violence and systemic racism is complicated and distinct. For starters, Bland hanged herself when her friends and family wouldn't bail her out of jail after she had kicked a police officer. Two of the "children" involved in police shootings (Brown and Hamilton) had assaulted cops during their fatal encounters. [...] Because these women endorse race-baiting, gun-grabbing narratives and left-wing candidates, no one working in the mainstream media will ever challenge their parental prerogative to participate in politics on behalf of their loved ones.
Sad! How The Media Empowered Trump Haters To Be Meaner Than Hillary Haters! The media creation of Trump as essentially a bigoted, unhinged, uneducated, unfit-for-office monster is beginning to stick and this is the week Trump can (and must) attempt to change that narrative. Yet I've begun to notice that the Trump haters ranging from liberal Hillary Lovers to #NeverTrump constitutional conservatives, and even many casual political observers in between, despise Trump so much that I fear they are beyond persuasion.
Smug Chuck Todd: Benghazi Is 'Cheap Unity' for Lowest Common Denominator' Crowd . A smug Chuck Todd on Monday dismissed Benghazi at the Republican Convention as nothing more than "cheap unity" for the "lowest common denominator" crowd. Chris Matthews railed that the GOP speakers were presenting "third world rhetoric." Todd insulted, "Benghazi... does serve Trump in another way positively, politically, which is a way to unify this crowd quickly. It's a way to get cheap unity."
Indiana Thug Wearing "Black Lives Matter" T-Shirt Opens Fire on Police Officers House . He was wearing an "FTP" (F*** The Police), Black Lives Matter T-Shirt, he opens fire on a police officers house and squad car, yet the politically correct Indianapolis media are struggling with a motive.
Sonia Sotomayor Cites Ta-Nehisi Coates in a Supreme Court Dissent . Race is everything for the "wise Latina." The media have widely praised Sonia Sotomayor's dissent in Utah v. Strieff. Even though she is derided as one of the worst writers on the bench, even by her ideological comrades, headlines describe the dissent as "stinging" (New York Daily News), "ringing" (Atlantic), "fierce" (Washington Post), "fiery" (CNN), "epic" (Nation), "blistering" (NPR), "biting" (Christian Science Monitor), and "scathing" (NBC). In particular, they praise the dissent for bravely taking on racial injustice in America. Slate called it an "atomic bomb of a dissent slamming racial profiling and mass imprisonment." Mother Jones lauded the "court's only Latina justice" for putting "her life experience to practice" and "excoriating her colleagues for misunderstanding the police harassment to which people of color are regularly subjected." The Atlantic wrote that "few institutions in American life have grappled with race and racism like the U.S. Supreme Court, for better or worse, but rarely does it speak about it with this level of detail." It went on to suggest that the dissent may be a "veiled nod to the Black Lives Matter movement." The nod is barely veiled.
Why Isn't The Media Condemning All the People Supporting the Dallas Shooter? [Scroll down] I saw many postings (several with hundreds of "likes" and "retweets") from black people who have been infuriatingly supportive of the man who wanted to kill "white people" and end up assassinating several completely innocent police officers. I'm not talking about the usual conspiracy nuts who insist that Johnson wasn't really the shooter. That isn't that unusual in cases like this. What I saw was flat out praise for Johnson's actions. Perhaps even worse than that, there were numerous blacks who were being viciously attacked for having the gall the criticize those who would publicly support/justify such a heinous crime against humanity. To my knowledge (and I have searched hard to find it), not one major "black leader" has had the guts to call out this outrageous reaction. [...] This is a whole new level of insanity and delusion. This shows that there is a culture, at least within the massive online black community, where, even if it is not nearly the majority view, it is more than acceptable to think is it somehow justifiable to kill whites/police out of revenge for events which we still don't yet even fully understand.
MSNBC Spins: Black Lives Matter Has Never Been 'Anti-Police' . MSNBC anchor Brian Williams has been hosting the live reaction to the horrible shooting in Dallas. On Friday [7/8/2016], the journalist brought on a guest to claim that Black Lives Matter protesters have never been "anti-police." Sherrilyn Ifill of the NAACP and Williams also hinted that more gun control was needed in the wake of the killing. Speaking of bringing people together, Ifill claimed, "That's what the Black Lives Matter protests have been about. That's what the policing protests have been about, they have never been anti-police."
CBS Dismisses 'Innocent' Meeting Between AG Lynch and Bill Clinton . While credit goes to Thursday's CBS This Morning for leading the broadcast with the controversy swirling around Bill Clinton having a 30-minute private meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch amid the FBI investigation to Hillary Clinton's e-mail scandal, the hosts of the morning show proceeded to dismiss the suspicious incident as an "innocent" encounter. Turning to Bloomberg Politics editor John Heilemann, co-host Charlie Rose downplayed: "...the former President and a meeting with Loretta Lynch which seems on the face of it, simply to be an innocent meeting of two politician saying hello. But — "Heilemann replied: "Yes. Just not just smart, right? Not a smart thing to do. You know? The case she is still being investigated by the FBI. The Justice Department has jurisdiction over that case."
ABC Swoons Over Abortion Activists After SCOTUS Ruling; 'It's a Party Right Here!' ABC was the last of the "big three" networks to break in Monday morning [6/27/2016] with the Supreme Court's ruling striking down a pro-life Texas law, but they didn't hold back their approval as the assembled cast of smiling correspondents hailed the "fairly sweeping decision" and expressed glee at the "party right here" by abortion activists "lining up since 4:00 am. to witness this moment."
MSNBC lets Wendy Davis take abortion victory lap . MSNBC's coverage of the Supreme Court striking down Texas' recent abortion law Monday included a triumphant victory lap by failed gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis, whose 11-hour filibuster against the regulations in 2013 earned her high praise from the cable news network. The Supreme Court ruled 5-3 this week that Texas' recently enacted abortion law, HB2, unconstitutionally limited a woman's access to abortion under Roe v. Wade.
BET Awards: Clinton Rally, Then a Sermon Against Abusive 'Invention Called Whiteness' . Just as you would expect, the 2016 BET (Black Entertainment Television) Awards were full of Black Lives Matter references and reminders to register to vote and then get out the vote for Hillary Clinton. After the opening of the award ceremony featured Beyoncé and her back-up dancers marching into the auditorium to a Martin Luther King, Jr. speech, actor and producer Terence J went on to say, "Your vote is your voice," and reminded everyone to register and "vote smart" as he introduced the show hosts, ABC's Blackish stars Anthony Anderson and Tracee Ellis Ross.
The one question reporters failed to ask any of the Democrats about their sit-in protest . The media orgy over the Democrats' temper tantrum in the House of Representatives has been well documented over the past 24 hours. But with all the fawning tributes and comparisons to civil rights era protests on the 1960s, one fundamental, logical question seems to have escaped the minds of the hive-mentality media gaggle covering the Pelosi-run publicity stunt. Let's first point out the so-called "common sense gun safety legislation" these Democrats claim was the impetus behind their fund-raising escapade disguised as a protest. The crux of their agenda had to do with legislation designed to prevent individuals on the terrorist watch list from buying weapons. This would deny the right to bear arms to up to a million people because someone in a government office in Washington put their name on a list. A fundamental, constitutionally protected right would be denied without due process. It's pretty serious stuff, right? So, how did the media address the protesters?
CBS Hypes 'Risk' For Homosexual College Student To Come Out In Alabama . On Friday's [6/24/2016] CBS Evening News, Steve Hartman hinted that the Bible Belt — and specifically, Alabama — was a dangerous place for homosexuals. Hartman pointed out that "a lot of people came out after [the] Orlando" terrorist attack, but touted how "few took as big a risk as Jesse Johnson. Jesse's family lives in Jemison, Alabama, in the heart of the Bible Belt. Fly a flag here, and it better have just red, white, and blue." The correspondent included a soundbite from Johnson's mother, who expressed her deep concern: "I worry for his safety because of that. I mean, this is Alabama."
NBC producer calls would-be Trump assassin 'good guy with a gun' . In an effort to make a smug attack on the conservative position that the best way to fight a bad guy with a gun is a good guy, an NBC producer tweeted that the failed assassin who tried to murder Donald Trump could be considered a "good guy with a gun." Matt Mowrer, an associate producer for NBC Universal since 2014, tweeted late Tuesday night [6/21/2016] that anyone who kills the Republican nominee is considered deserves the same praise as someone who tries to stop a mass killing.
A Year After Honoring a Man in a Dress for Courage, ESPN Honors a Man in a Boy's Body . ESPN just announced its decision to give this year's Arthur Ashe Courage Award to Zaevion Dobson. This is another way of saying that ESPN honors a hero instead of itself in issuing the honor next month. The network too often depicted heroism through the award as the act of embracing the ideological precepts popular with Disney executives. [...] The people honoring other people often seek to honor themselves by attaching themselves to the popularity of others. But in celebrating a man in a boy's body the Worldwide Leader in Sports spotlights their recent buffoonery of celebrating a man in a woman's dress. There's nothing praiseworthy in praising someone for the purpose of winning praise.
CNN, DHS & SPLC's Blame Righty hit job . The Department of Homeland Security refuses to release a report on "right-wing" terrorism that somehow found its way into CNN's hands last week during the farcical White House summit on Don't Say Islamic Extremism.
What America's Freedom-Hating, Hoplophobic, Lying Financial Columnists Will Try and Tell You . You always know what to expect when someone claiming to be an authority on one topic decides to delve into another topic that has zero to do with his alleged expertise, and then begins his screed with an insult to a large portion of the American population. This is what popped up on my news feed this morning when I pulled up my Facebook account — shared by a friend from high school, who made it a habit of late to share idiotic anti-gun opinions and warn those reading her timeline that dissent will not be tolerated and opposing opinions deleted.
This Week Proves, Again, that Progressivism is a Cult . The most absurd thing about the progressive's 'Stop the Hate' pleas are that nobody, and I mean nobody, does hate better than progressives. We are talking Sith-level hate. When they say 'love is love,' they mean 'get to the back of the bus, you bigot.' When they say 'tolerance' they mean 'safe space for me, but not for thee.' CNN's Anderson Cooper, an open homosexual, thinks your tears for 49 dead people aren't real if you've never tweeted about gay pride, and he will tell you so on the air.
In a Mass Shooting, Wait and Die? Or Fight Back? Regarding the Orlando shooting, notice how quickly the media pivoted from the culpability of a sexually repressed Muslim Afghan registered Democrat mass murderer to an assault on firearms? Forget Islam and jihad and the Obama administration's resolute determination to fundamentally change the nature of the United States by importing as many Muslims from alien, anti-Christian and anti-Western cultures as possible. The real problem, in their view, is gun violence.
This is Why Trump's Journo-Bashing Scores Points . Watch here as the three CBS This Morning anchors nod together in self-satisfied disgust at the failure to advance gun control. As if there wasn't a conservative in their audience or another opinion in the land. [Video clip] How smug, and ultimately, how dumb. To be so sure of one's opinions that nobody could possibly disagree, and to be so blithely unaware that, as "mainstream" journalists, they have a responsibility to be nonpartisan. And then in another segment, surely, they'll profess to be astounded and outraged that Donald Trump is drawing excitement and applause by bashing the press.
After correcting for bias, Clinton's national lead in CBS News poll evaporates . CBS News is now pushing the pro-Hillary Clinton polls in rapid fashion. Late on Wednesday, this media outlet released the results of a national poll claiming to show that Clinton holds a 6% advantage over Donald Trump in the direct head-to-head matchup. [... But] this CBS News poll appears to be biased in favor of the Democrats by the same margin that Clinton purportedly holds over Trump, meaning that if the bias is removed, so is Clinton's lead, and we have a statistical tie.
Anderson Cooper's Orlando Ranting Is Bad For America . Based on information we have as of now, [Omar] Mateen was a longtime supporter of terrorism, having cheered 9/11 — on 9/11! — according to his high school classmates who witnessed his response. [...] He was a registered Democrat and son of an anti-American politician. Despite all that, the media and others on the Left decided to cover this terrorist attack by going after people who support self-government and its Second Amendment; people who pray to God in times of tragedy; people who believe the definition of marriage is the union of one man and one woman; people who accept the biological reality and implications of distinct sexes; people who are Republican; people who are traditional Christians; and so on and so forth. The media followed up by cheerleading this incivility.
The entire front page of the Boston Globe pushes a gun ban . Please note that the Orlando shooter did not — repeat, did not — use an AR-15 in his Islam-inspired terrorist attack. The weapon he used was a Sig Sauer MCX, not even close to being an AR-15. The fact that the media has chosen the AR-15 as the poster gun for banning "assault" weapons is typical of our dumb as a stone media when it comes to firearms. But you might note the manipulative, emotional appeal from gun control hysterics. Since they are unable to use factual arguments, they appeal to the heart and hope people don't catch on that what they are proposing won't stop a single terrorist or nutcase from commiting mass murder.
The Media Meme: Blame GOP for Orlando While Turning Sole Focus to Gun Control . The media and political exploitation we've witnessed as a country over the past five is one word: Disgusting. It's a shake-your-head moment in looking at the definitive narrative to emerge out of Orlando this week. We're a blame-ourselves culture regardless of who or what is actually responsible for horrific things, with Republicans usually the first to get a finger (index and/or middle) directed its way after every mass shooting that occurs all too often in this country. Members of a Charleston black church are massacred by a lunatic? It's a Republican problem because a Confederate flag was on his property. A Planned Parenthood facility in Colorado is attacked and three people — including a police officer — are killed? It's Carly Fiorina's fault. 49 innocents are slaughtered at an Orlando nightclub? The New York Times blames... the GOP.
The Editor says...
"49 innocents?" The clients in a meat market gay bar at 2:00 a.m. are not innocent.
CBS Insinuates Christians 'Promote the Kind of Violence' in Orlando . During their Tuesday night broadcast of Evening News CBS directed the blame for the Orlando terrorist attack towards American Christians, even though it was carried out by a pledged member of the Islamic State. To ease into the Christian bashing host Scott Pelley stated, "There has been so much progress for the LGBT Community, but we are now reminded that fear is still a constant reality." As the center piece of her report CBS's Mireya Villarreal brought on Lorri Jean the CEO of the LGBT Center in Los Angeles. In the report Villarreal showed Jean letting loose on her political opponents: [...]
Regressive media applaud the San Jose violence . The far-left media are excusing the behavior of San Jose rioters, instead blaming the violence on Trump and rally attendees. Some journalists have gone so far as to encourage the attacks. In the wake of the outrage over the violent protesters' behavior, online leftist publications churned out a flurry of articles that stank of damage control. But unlike of the apologia they exhibited during the Baltimore and Ferguson riots, the authors of these pieces went a step farther than merely excusing the mob attacks in San Jose. They endorsed them.
The Mexican Flag: An All-American Symbol? Violent mobs who have attacked Donald Trump supporters at one rally after another wave Mexican flags while burning American flags. The vast majority of Americans will disapprove, to say the least, so the Associated Press felt called upon to assure us that Mexican flags are really OK: "Mexican flag, seen at Trump protests, has long history in US." [...] The AP wants us to think that Mexico has legitimate grievances against the U.S., although how that is relevant remains unspoken.
After [One] Complaint, Pennsylvania High School Ends Tradition of Graduation Prayer . There will be no invocation or benediction at this year's Pottsgrove High School graduation, a change after years of tradition. As reported in the Pottsgrove Mercury, the decision to stop the prayers was made last year. According to reporter Evan Brandt, the change apparently is the result of one student's decision to invoke Jesus Christ in his comments at last year's graduation. The school received an anonymous complaint.
The Editor says...
The school board apparently has no backbone if it surrenders after one anonymous complaint.
News anchor booed at graduation ceremony for anti-Trump remarks, speaking Spanish . A commencement ceremony turned unruly over the weekend when the keynote speaker, Mar'a Elena Salinas, one of the most prominent journalists in Spanish-language news in the U.S., underscored the achievement of the Latinos among the graduates and made some remarks in Spanish. Non-Latino graduates and their guests at California State University, Fullerton's College of Communications booed the Univision anchor and yelled at her to leave the stage, according to a student who was at the ceremony.
Charlotte Observer: Girls must overcome 'discomfort' at seeing male genitals in locker room . A shocking editorial in the Charlotte Observer counseled young girls to get over the "discomfort" they feel at the sight of male genitalia when transgender facilities are allowed in North Carolina. The newspaper assumes the law will eventually be repealed or declared illegal. While that may or may not happen any time soon, it is the justification for this position used by the Observer that reveals the true nature of this battle of the bathroom.
Fox News is now completely devoted to Donald Trump . The political and media world seemed shocked this week when Megyn Kelly sat down for a warm interview with Donald Trump. She tossed him velvety soft questions like, "When did you realize you could be president?", sought to discover whether anyone had ever "hurt [him] emotionally," and peppered him with hard-hitting queries on his favorite book and movie. Kelly can of course do any kind of interview she likes, but it's as good a marker as any that Fox News is now thoroughly behind Donald Trump's candidacy for the White House.
Activism masquerading as journalism:
Here's Who's Controlling the Bathroom Debate . The bathroom wars raging in North Carolina, set off by House Bill 2 passed by the N.C. General Assembly, have attained international attention, partly from a febrile cadre of gay activists, but largely due to the Charlotte Observer that covers the city where the donnybrook began — and N.C.'s capital city daily, the Raleigh News & Observer. Without these papers, both owned by the McClatchy chain, the bathroom gender issue would have come and gone in a few days. [...] For two straight weeks, the Raleigh paper published from four to seven pieces a day on the subject — news articles, editorials, guest opinion, editorial cartoons, letters to the editor, and blurbs in their political happenings column. The theme that emerges is to exhort readers to approve of transgender lifestyles and special rights.
When Hillary Needs It Most, 'The Daily Show' Vets Bernie's Policies . With Hillary Clinton still unable to finish off Bernie Sanders, many in the liberal media are trying to drag her over the finish line. The night of the Indiana primary, which was a Sanders victory, CNN wanted to know when he would get out of the way and stop hurting Clinton. In a similar way, The Daily Show decided that Thursday night [5/5/2016] was the right time to actually analyze Sander's proposals and tell the truth about them.
Andrea Mitchell Stumps for Trump: 'Facts No Longer Matter, Tweets Matter' . Now that Ted Cruz and John Kasich have both dropped out of the Republican presidential race and Bernie Sanders is playing out the string, the mainstream media narrative around the Donald Trump versus Hillary Clinton general election matchup is beginning to gel. On MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Reports Wednesday afternoon [5/4/2016], host Andrea Mitchell made it clear that not only will she promote Trump's candidacy against Hillary Clinton, she will do so in defiance of the facts.
These are the same people who denounce bullying — when other people do it.
CBS's Rose Holds Up Daily News GOP Obituary During Interview With RNC Chair . During an interview with Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus on Wednesday's [5/4/2016] CBS This Morning, co-host Charlie Rose gleefully held up a copy of the [New York] Daily News and read the mock obituary on the cover of the left-wing tabloid: "...it says, 'Republican Party 1854-2016; Dearly beloved, we're gathered here today to mourn the GOP. A once great political party killed by epidemic of Trump.'" Just in case Priebus couldn't see the nasty front-page illustration, fellow co-host Gayle King described it in detail: "No, and there's an elephant, Reince, in a coffin, just to make the picture really clear for you." The hosts laughed as Priebus dismissed the publication: "Well, it's only fitting of the Daily News."
Dear Mainstream Media, Don't You Dare Whitewash Anti-Trump Violence . Just imagine for a moment the shrieking outrage if Trump supporters had tried to flip a car outside a Hillary Clinton rally. Imagine the fury at the sight of a bloody man wearing a Hillary shirt.
NBC Reporter Giddy With Excitement Aboard Cruise to Cuba: 'A Pinch-Me Moment' . In an exclusive for NBC's Today on Monday [5/2/2016], correspondent Kerry Sanders could not contain his pure joy at being aboard the first cruise ship bound for Cuba since the Obama administration resumed diplomatic relations with the communist nation. In his report, Sanders proclaimed: "This morning, history is being made as this cruise ship becomes the first in more than a half century to sail from Miami to Havana.... American passengers about to step on to Cuban soil, a country that most U.S. citizens have been forbidden to visit since 1963."
ESPN Fires Curt Schilling — What About Liberal Offenders? About Schilling's firing, the Disney-owned sports cable network said: "ESPN is an inclusive company. Curt Schilling has been advised that his conduct was unacceptable and his employment with ESPN has been terminated." Last summer ESPN suspended Schilling for retweeting a meme likening Muslim extremists to Nazis. Last month, he no doubt angered management for saying that Hillary Clinton should be "buried under a jail somewhere" for her email scandal. So Schilling, to ESPN, is a serial offender. And as a private company, it can terminate an employee for perceived offenses. OK, so Schilling has to go. But what are the rules?
Trump supporters, police attacked by illegal immigrants and their advocates . Thugs advocating the mass lawless invasion of the United States attempted to shut down a rally of those who demand the law be enforced. That is the true nature of what happened last night in Costa Mesa, California, in Orange County. But a quick scan of media headlines about the event makes it clear that the media is doing its best to obscure the nature of the aggression, and portray the incident as the inevitable outcome of Trump's vicious message of intolerance.
I'm done with Fox News . When Fox News debuted in 1996, it was a breath of fresh air, seemingly unadulterated by the leftist bias that had long characterized the three mainstream networks and CNN. But that initial commitment to balance has gone by the wayside, sacrificed on the altar of Donald Trump. Fox News, as Mark Levin has observed, has become a Trump super-PAC instead of a news organization.
CNN previews the unbelievable pro-Hillary bias it will be pushing . The presidential race that is shaping up will be a landmark for American media, exceeding even the pro-Obama bias of 2008 and 2012 — something that would have seemed impossible at the time of those races. But that was before Donald Trump and Ted Cruz became the likely alternatives for the GOP nomination. Each man, in his own way, is anathema to the progressives in the media, while Hillary Clinton evokes nothing but warm protectiveness, especially from female neoprogs. In a remarkable display of a complete lack of self-awareness, Carol Costello of CNN shamelessly prodded a pro-Sanders guest three times to say that Sanders should now "cool it" and stop attacking Hillary Clinton.
ABC Grilled Cruz in Town Hall, Skips Benghazi and E-Mails for Clinton . While ABC journalists grilled Ted Cruz on Monday with a Good Morning America town hall, they offered softballs to Hillary Clinton on Thursday [4/21/2016]. George Stephanopoulos and Robin Roberts showcased questions from the left and included queries about hot sauce and Saturday Night Live. At no time was there a question on Benghazi or the Democrat's secret e-mail server and the scandal around it. The tone started early as Robin Roberts teased the special program: "Clinton flying high, fresh off that huge victory in New York. In another tease, Roberts promised that the candidate would "answer her toughest critics. She didn't. Instead, ABC allowed a Clinton super delegate/Democratic congressman to ask a question.
Cross-Dressing WashPost Reporter Attacks 'Conservative Loudmouth' Schilling on 'Transphobia' . Justin Moyer contended that ESPN's firing of former baseball pitcher Curt Schilling "seemed destined" in a Thursday article for the Washington Post, which detailed the supposed "radicalization" of the former Phillies player turned "conservative loudmouth. Moyer spotlighted how "Schilling went fangs out" after Tweeting out a controversial image that "many deemed transphobic. However, the reporter didn't disclose his possible stake in this issue, as he moonlights as a cross-dressing musician in a rock band.
'Fox & Friends' orchestrates a round of applause for Donald Trump . In the contest among media types for the most obsequious treatment of Donald Trump, the idiotic Fox News morning program "Fox & Friends" on Tuesday [4/19/2016] put forth a very competitive entry. As it often does, the "Fox & Friends" hosting trio did a long interview with Trump via telephone. A key talking point was a Politico scoop by Ken Vogel and Ben Schreckinger about the campaign's reorganization, which is based on a reconstruction of a Trump campaign meeting on Saturday.
Chuck Todd Tells Ted Cruz Planned Parenthood Scandal 'Made Up' . During an MSNBC town hall event with Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz on Thursday, Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd dismissed the Texas Senator's condemnation of Planned Parenthood by insisting that scandal surrounding the abortion provider was "made up." Cruz observed: "You know, a few months ago, we had this series of videos that were horrifying. I will say virtually none of the network news would show the videos on air. These videos showed Planned Parenthood officials essentially admitting to what appeared to be a pattern of federal felonies."
Donald Trump's Rigged Media . The media — not just the liberal media, but some "conservative" media, too — have been the gale-force wind beneath Trump's wings. On the nightly news shows on ABC, CBS and NBC, Trump has far outpaced anyone other GOP candidate for attention. From last July through April 6, he's drawn 1,228 minutes of airtime, or 56 percent of the total coverage of the Republican primary race. The other 16 candidates have split the remaining 44 percent.
Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump and headlines the Boston Globe will never show you . The cat is out of the bag. The mainstream media in America no longer even pretends to hide their bias and disdain against Republicans. Exhibit A was Sunday's [4/10/2016] edition of the Boston Globe dedicated to headlines about what America might look like under a President Donald Trump. [...] How could a major newspaper so ferociously engage in slashing and burning a Republican candidate? Are we living in the land of the free, or a Banana Republic?
Newspaper Owned by Donald Trump's Son-in-Law Endorses Donald Trump . Two of Donald Trump's adult children may not be able to vote for him in the upcoming New York primary, but his son-in-law's newspaper is doing its best to help the cause, publishing an endorsement of the Republican candidate. "Donald Trump is the father-in-law of the Observer's publisher," began an editorial by the New York Observer published Tuesday [4/12/2016].
Legacy Media Urge Illegal Aliens to Sign Their Kids Up for Medi-Cal Welfare Program . Because California is running a massive surplus and the federal government is a financial powerhouse.
Joe and Mika All But Openly Campaign for Trump . It's official, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski finally stopped pretending they don't support their buddy Donald Trump and are now opening campaigning for him. Following Trump stunning two digit trouncing in Wisconsin co-host Brzezinski whined Wednesday [4/6/2016], "I think the establishment and the Stop Trump forces are shooting themselves in the foot because they're so blindly focused their hatred on Trump to the point where they can't see that what they're going to get is Cruz."
The Unfair Media Bias . The willful blindness of the Western media and intellectual elites to Palestinian incitement and their hyper-focus on any incident they can use to portray Israel in a negative light were on abundant display last week when footage emerged of an Israel Defense Forces soldier shooting a wounded and disarmed Palestinian terrorist. Since then, The New York Times and The Washington Post have run no fewer than 16 stories about the incident. [...] Meanwhile, these same news outlets consistently fail to speak out against the massive and ongoing denial of human rights, suppression of basic freedoms and daily torture meted out to any Palestinian dissident by both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas.
The Associated Press is Now Openly Pushing Democratic Talking Points . [Scroll down] This is an excellent example of Betteridge's Law by the way, which states that whenever a headline has a yes-or-no question, the answer is always "no." The only reason for these sorts of headlines is because the editor wants to imply something that cannot be backed up by a straight reading of the facts.
Cokie Roberts: Doesn't FBI Have Better Things To Do Than Investigate Hillary? MSNBC might have to build a deeper tank ... so Cokie Roberts can dive into it for Hillary. On today's Morning Joe, Roberts of NPR complained about the resources the FBI is devoting to the investigation of Hillary Clinton's misuse of email. Carped Cokie: "Don't they have other problems? There's no crime in the country they should be worrying about?" Roberts' timing could hardly have been worse. Just moments before, Joe Scarborough pointed out that last week it was revealed that 22 of the emails on Hillary's server "were so sensitive that the State Department said releasing them would cause grave danger to the United States national security." Not worth investiging, Cokie? Really? [Video clip]
Hillary's Really Bad Week No One Heard About because Guess Who . Hillary Clinton had a gaffe-filled, staggeringly bad week last week. It started with her politicizing Nancy Reagan's funeral and ending with more explosive allegations that her informal adviser Sidney Blumenthal had directly cut and pasted classified intelligence into an unsecured personal e-mail account. But you wouldn't know it from media campaign coverage, which has been far more occupied with the GOP primary and the escalation of violent incidents at rallies.
Drudge Report: Only Good Trump News Is Fit To Print . Drudge's ongoing pro-Trump bias has been noted in some quarters. Back in December, for example, the Daily Beast's Michael Tomasky wrote, "What (Drudge readers) have been getting for the last six months is a steady stream of pro-Trump agitprop." As much as Drudge has blown kisses at Trump, the candidate has been singing Drudge's praises. "What's better than Drudge? He's a fantastic guy. What he's built is unbelievably respected," Trump said after a Drudge reader poll showed him winning a GOP debate — which every Drudge poll has shown. But now as Trump gets closer to sealing the Republican nomination, some conservatives are starting to publicly attack Drudge's biased approach to the GOP nomination, not just because he backs Trump but also because he often promotes vicious attacks against Trump's more reliably conservative rivals.
The Editor says...
The article above is about Drudge, not Trump, but it brings up a related topic: For someone who has apparently enjoyed a lifetime of exposure to a number of influential people, Mr. Trump's vocabulary is remarkably narrow. He is apparently unable to endorse an idea or an individual in any of his speeches without resorting to pedestrian adjectives such as incredible, unbelievable, and fantastic. Mr. Trump, in my opinion literally is incredible, meaning that his claims are not credible — impossible to believe, in other words — beginning with his claim that he is a Republican. He is also literally unbelievable, for example, when he lays out his outlandish plans to build an insurmountable wall along the Mexican border.
By 15-to-1 Margin, Networks Blame Trump, Not Lefties, for Campaign Violence . MRC analysts Mike Ciandella, Scott Whitlock and Kyle Drennen examined ABC, CBS and NBC morning and evening show coverage from Saturday morning [3/12/2016] through Monday morning — a whopping 45 segments totalling nearly 85 minutes of airtime. They found that reporters specifically criticized the Trump campaign for its handling of the issue 46 times, vs. just three times when blame was placed on the left-wing protesters.
From Confirmation to Cancellation, CNN Irresponsible With Botched Rubio 'Exclusive' . CNN is at war with another Republican candidate. First it was Ted Cruz immediately following the Iowa Caucus after some incomplete on-air reporting regarding the state of Ben Carson's campaign. And on the eve of voting in four states, it's the Rubio campaign that is up in arms over another CNN report that can be deemed not only incomplete, but grossly irresponsible.
Rubio vs. CNN: The Little Marco Who Cried Liar . Generally, when a Republican calls a CNN reporter a liar, you gotta take the side of the Republican. CNN doesn't just lie, CNN is a network chock-full of left-wing propagandists deeply devoted to electing Democrats, expanding the scope of the federal government, and forcing Christians to participate in same sex marriages. CNN is much worse than MSNBC. The problem here is Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)'s track record.
The Week In Stupid . [Scroll down] Ultimately the media is to blame for the wide acceptance of these stupidities. People only know what they are told. In 2012 they turned a good and decent man into someone who burned money while his employees' wives died; tortured his dog and had elevators in his home for his cars. Think what you will of his politics and polices, and they had their shortcomings, but they made Mitt Romney into a caricature of a human being. It wasn't the first time, and it won't be the last. But this time, the media lost our confidence.
Washington Post Stealth-Edits Reagan Obituary, Covertly Removes Tasteless Lead Without Note . According to Gallup, trust in media by the general public was at 74 percent following Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post blowing the lid off Watergate and bringing a sitting president down in the process. It's now at 40 percent and dropping. We see the examples why every day. Forget the partisan blogs and social media... they are what they are. But the Washington Post must and always be held to the highest standard. They say the cover-up is worse than the crime. Nobody is saying Lois Romano or the Washington Post committed a crime here. It was just an obituary even Romano or the paper or both acknowledge was in poor taste if the changes after the fact are any indication. And to just modify, eliminate without notification to readers in any capacity is not only sneaky, but stupid given the original copy is already very much out there. Don't trust the media? You're not alone.
How the Columbia Journalism School smeared Exxon . When the Columbia Journalism School set up a project in 2014 to generate articles on energy and the environment, was its real agenda to exploit ExxonMobil's reputation as a climate-change villain? The fellowship project culminated last fall in an LA Times series that accused the world's largest oil company of downplaying the risks of climate change. InsideClimateNews, an aggressive online site known for its doomsday environmentalism, posted a nearly identical article, tapping Columbia's research. The stories paint a dark picture of the oil-industry icon, charging it with a cover-up that echoes the tobacco industry's denial of health problems from cigarettes.
Leaked Voicemails Show MSNBC Hosts Cozying Up To Donald Trump . Leaked Donald Trump voicemails reveal MSNBC hosts Tamron Hall, Mika Brzezinski, and Joe Scarborough cozying up to the New York real estate developer. The voicemails, which were released Friday [3/4/2016], were sent to Gawker by someone saying they hacked Trump. A source in the TV industry told The Daily Caller the voices seemed authentic, adding, "I'd bet money."
Report: Fox News 'finished with Rubio' . Republican presidential hopeful Marco Rubio's rough week got worse on Wednesday [3/2/2016] with a New York Magazine report that the head of Fox News has decided to stop giving the Florida senator prominent, favorable coverage. "We're finished with Rubio," Roger Ailes told one of the network's hosts recently, according to three unnamed sources. "We can't do the Rubio thing anymore."
The Editor says...
Why were you doing "the Rubio thing" in the first place? What happened to the Fox slogan, "We report, you decide"?
WB-Affiliated Magazine Produces Hit Job on Dr. Ben Carson . [Scroll down] So even though the case was thin, Crime Watch Daily ran with the story. It aired earlier this month, but it remained under the radar — until now. The show that featured this disgusting hit piece against a successful figure in medicine premiered just this year and is produced by Warner Bros. Television. Now, if Crime Watch Daily — as the show is named — did something similar to this about Barack Obama, which, of course, they would never do, cries of racism would fill the air. If they had done a similar, unsubstantiated story about Hillary Clinton, talking about her emails or her many other questionable activities, they'd be accused of engaging in a "witch hunt." I don't really care what they do at this point, but never again will I give them another dime for a movie ticket or a DVD/Blu-ray/Digital release of any of their movies or TV shows as a result of this.
The mass murders that dare not speak their name . Pity the late Cedric Ford. If he had understood the way the media worked, he might not have gone on the horrific shooting spree in central Kansas on Thursday [2/25/2016] that cost three people their lives and fourteen people their health. But alas, once the major media understood the demographics of the case, they lost interest in Ford quicker than you could say "Muhammad and Malvo." Ford simply did not fit the narrative. "Who commits mass shootings?" read the headline of an all too typical piece on CNN.com some months ago. CNN's answer: the "young, white and male." At 38, Ford was relatively young, and he was certainly male, but he was not white. Ford, in fact, represents the most recent manifestation of a widely underreported phenomenon — the black mass murderer. As in virtually every other case, Ford's blackness was not an incidental detail. It was at the heart of why he did what he did.
'Not a Man on That Stage I Wouldn't Gladly Knee in the Groin,' Tweets Liberal Columnist . During the Feb. 25 [Republican] debate, lefty Daily Beast and New York Times Magazine contributor, Ana Marie Cox, unleashed a livestream firestorm against the GOP candidates, which culminated in her labeling the entire GOP a "terrorist group."
Republicans Aren't Fighting Hillary, They're Fighting the Hillary-Loving Media . [Scroll down] Hillary has nothing going for her other than her last name. Well, that and the media. Because even though an occasional joke about Hillary will slip through the media machine, the vast majority of the time, the media prop Hillary up. That same Saturday Night Live routine mocking Hillary had characters talk about how she was the most qualified presidential candidate in history and how much they loved her foreign policy. Triumph spent more time insulting Bernie Sanders than Hillary. The media have spilled gallons of ink over the question of whether insulting Hillary's shrill screeching is sexist or not; they've played defense for Hillary on matters of race; they've covered for her completely on her email scandal.
Giddy Andrea Mitchell Wonders If Scalia Debate Could Help Democrats Regain Senate in November . As the debate over who should replace late conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia continued into Monday [2/15/2016], NBC News correspondent and MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell took to NBC Nightly News to tout claims that the discussion could hurt Republicans and lead to Democratic Senatorial candidates winning elections in November to help their party retake control.
The Editor says...
Of course, the exact opposite is true: If the Republicans don't fight Obama's nominees wholeheartedly, at least until after the election, they're in political trouble.
Wash Post Scalia Headline: 'Supreme Court Conservative Dismayed Liberals' . What was the most important thing for readers of Washington Post to see on the front-page of the paper Sunday morning? A headline focusing directly on the death of Antonin Scalia? No. In bold, large font, the Post declared, "Supreme Court Conservative Dismayed Liberals." Apparently, someone at the paper thought better of this for the online version. It declared, "Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia Dies at 79." The actual article itself included some nice tributes to Scalia. In contrast, even the liberal New York Times managed a respectful headline: "Justice Scalia, Who Led Court's Conservative Renaissance, Dies At 79."
Ten Thousand Demand Chris Matthews' Suspension, MSNBC Silent . A MoveOn.org petition demanding that MSNBC suspend "Hardball" host Chris Matthews has garnered just under 10,000 signatures, even as the network has refused to address what Huffington Post called a "clear conflict of interest." The petition began in response to outrage over Matthews' "constant shilling for Hillary Clinton." The number of petition signees has almost tripled in size since The Daily Caller reported that Hillary Clinton's biggest donors are bankrolling the congressional campaign of Matthews' wife, Kathleen.
'One Long Cheap Shot' — WashPost Lines Up Canadians to Bash Ted Cruz as Extreme . While The Washington Post would only go to Kenya looking for gushing over Barack Obama, they turn to Canada to make fun of Ted Cruz.
To maintain credibility, CNN must apologize publicly to Ted Cruz . In case you have not yet figured it out yet, CNN gave the distinct impression that Dr. Ben Carson was suspending his campaign on the night of the Iowa caucus. The report was used by the Ted Cruz campaign, who disseminated the information to precinct captains. This information was also used by anyone who happened to check the news with their mobile phone during the Iowa Caucus. It is absurd to consider that media types like Michael Smerconish, Business Insider, Buzzfeed and others were fooled by overly ambitious Ted Cruz precinct captains who were cherry picking information from a CNN report, as alleged by CNN correspondent Chris Moody.
'Today Show' Sandbags Palin, Doesn't Ask Hillary About Email Scandal . Although the classified information scandal surrounding Hillary Clinton's home-brewed email server blew sky-high Friday afternoon, NBC News, the left-wing outlet that attempted to rescue Clinton from this inexcusable behavior last year, jumped back into the tank Monday morning. During a 4-minute appearance on "The Today Show," the former Secretary of State was not asked a single question about the disturbing new revelations. Naturally, although she is running for nothing, this very same "Today Show" sandbagged Sarah Palin with a personal question about her children.
NPR Erases Israel From Map Of Middle East . Blatant anti-Israel bias like this is why NPR is referred to as 'National Palestine Radio' in my 'hood.
CNN's Begala, Bash Downplay Clinton Sex Scandals; 'Nobody Wants to Talk About' That . After NBC's Democratic co-moderator Andrea Mitchell wanted to know from Bernie Sanders in Sunday's debate about whether or not he regretted bringing up Bill Clinton's sex scandals, the post-debate analysis on CNN saw panelists Dana Bash and Paul Begala (a former Clinton aide) less than pleased with the issue and did their best to downplay its significance in the 2016 race.
Couric Presses Ryan on Gun Control: 'What Did You Think When the President Cried?' . In an interview with House Speaker Paul Ryan on Thursday, Yahoo! News anchor Katie Couric grilled the Republican leader on gun control: "Let's talk about President Obama's executive action on guns. What did you think when the President cried? ... Were you affected by it?" Ryan pushed back: "I didn't really think about his crying. ... I was affected by it, but I thought we should have had the same kind of reaction when James Foley was beheaded, when San Bernardino and Paris occurred."
Narcissistic Newsweek Senior Writer Compares Cruz Supporters to Nazis; No Suspension Coming . Is it ego or just plain stupidity? [...] Today's [1/6/2016] latest example comes courtesy of Newsweek senior writer Alexander Nazaryan. His crime? Tweeting out an old image of people marching with Nazi flags and sporting swastikas to illustrate what he calls "Ted Cruz's ground game." In other words, if you support Cruz, you advocate the genocide of Jews with fascism being your particular political flavor.
Angry ABC Railed at Obama Birther 'Nonsense,' Blase on Cruz Birtherism . In 2011 and 2012, the journalists at Good Morning America railed against birther claims relating to Barack Obama, assailing the conspiracy theory as "bizarre" and "nonsense." Yet, the same program lacked outrage on Thursday as Donald Trump promotes a form of birtherism against Ted Cruz. An ABC graphic mildly explained, "Trump Goes After Ted Cruz: Questions GOP Rival's Citizenship." Reporter Tom Llamas simply claimed that Trump is "raising questions about Cruz's birthplace, Canada." He added that the businessman is "suggesting Cruz go to court to prove he can run for president."
ABC's Llamas to Cruz: 'How Can You Be a President' If You 'Hate' Democrats, 'Culture of Washington' . While interviewing Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz for the Wednesday edition of ABC's World News Tonight, Republican campaign correspondent Tom Llamas demanded Cruz explain how he could "be a president and hate the Democrats and hate the culture of Washington so much and be effective." Before Llamas's question to Cruz, he remarked in his report that "some Republicans worry Cruz is too polarizing, too unwilling to compromise with Congress to win in a general election." Cruz responded to the liberal-learning question by flatly denying that he's ever said he hates Democrats and instead: "It's Hillary Clinton who describes her, quote, enemies, as Republicans, as half of the country she considers her enemies. I don't hate the Democrats."
Despicable New York Daily News Headline Screams: GOP Is the 'Party of Pro-Death' . In November and December, the New York Daily News characterized the NRA and its CEO Wayne LaPierre as a jihadists and terrorists. Now it has set its sights on Republican Party presidential candidates and leaders who are defending the plain, Supreme Court-upheld wording of the Constitution's Second Amendment and Congress's power to make laws over lawless presidential actions.
The Editor says...
It is remarkable that the Abortion Party has the audacity to refer pejoratively to others as pro-death.
Obama's pass from the press . Sometime in the spring of 2007, something strange happened to the Iraqi coverage in the national media — it disappeared. Or rather, as soon as the news ceased to be bad, the media lost interest in covering it. It was not till July, when Michael O'Hanlon reported back from the front that the surge had been working, that the world started to realize what happened. To them, the fact that George W. Bush had succeeded in something was what the press couldn't bear to believe. Something of the sort is happening now in reverse regarding the current Middle East crises, which make Iraq in 2006 seem calm in comparison. This time the press, which can no longer deny that the world has been going to hell since Barack Obama started unleashing his peacemaking powers, is doing its best to insulate him completely from any possible blame for it all.
WCBS News: Now Nakedly Purveying Radical Leftist Propaganda . WCBS News in New York offers us a classic example of a manipulative and dishonest media. Our "free press" is biased and is nudging us in one direction — leftward. Here are two disturbing examples though there are many in any given day.
NBC's Today Skips Planned Parenthood Videos, Clinton E-Mail/Foundation Scandals in Year in Review . With New Year's Eve upon us, NBC's Today dedicated a segment in its 9:00 a.m. hour on Thursday to looking back at the year in news, politics, and entertainment. Not surprisingly, the liberal network made no mention of the Planned Parenthood baby parts video scandal, Hillary Clinton's private e-mail server, the Clinton Foundation scandal, and Benghazi to name just a few. Speaking with Rolling Stone's Joe Levy, co-hosts Natalie Morales and Dylan Dreyer started with the year in news by not mentioning the scandal concerning Levy's publication and the University of Virginia but instead first talked about Bill Cosby and what's transpired concerning the sexual misconduct allegations made against him in the past year.
Biased Media Give Obama An Early Christmas Present . Our IBD/TIPP polls showed that the public has little faith in Obama either domestically or internationally. Just 46% now approve of the job he's doing overall, and a mere 28% approve his handling of ISIS. So what's the press writing about as the year comes to a close? How he's "broken the second-term curse"! His incredible faith! How he "roughed it" in Alaska with Bear Grylls and was in a Web video with Jerry Seinfeld! The New York Times ran through a "series of accomplishments" and how Obama's "success in the past 12 months, both overseas and at home, defied expectations." The story couldn't have been more glowing if it were written by the White House press office.
A new low: Cartoon mocks Cruz's kids, media call it a 'gift' . In daily journalism, there are inevitably mistakes, misjudgments and missteps. And then there is portraying a politician's children as animals. Why the Washington Post thought such a cartoon about Ted Cruz was fit to print is beyond me. I'm equally puzzled by the media's muted reaction.
'We're done': CNN cuts off conservative guest's microphone . CNN's Don Lemon abruptly ended an interview Tuesday afternoon [12/22/2015] after one of his conservative guests refused to stop talking about former President Bill Clinton's many sex scandals. The moment occurred after the CNN host failed repeatedly to get conservative columnist Kurt Schlichter to comment on GOP front-runner Donald Trump cracking bathroom jokes about Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. "Why did he have to go there?" Lemon asked Schlichter and Trump supporter Tara Grant. "Don, it's going to take a lot more for me to get upset at a woman who enabled a guy who turned the Oval Office into a frat house and his intern into a humidor," Schlichter responded, "I just don't care. I so don't care."
Pathetic Don Lemon Cuts Off Interview With Kurt Schlichter Cuz He Can't Handle The Truth . Not only is this clip hilarious, but it's also rather outrageous because all that military veteran and outspoken conservative Kurt Schlichter did is call Hillary an enabler of a sexual harassment, and Don Lemon couldn't deal with it. [Video clip]
6 Times the Mainstream DC Media Ridiculed Children of Republicans . One of the biggest lies told by our corrupt and rotting DC Media is the one that states that the children of politicians are off-limits. Unwritten or unspoken, there is no such rule. There is, of course, a strictly-enforced DC media rule about the children of Democrat politicians being off-limits. The children of Republican politicians, however, have always been fair game — and I'm not talking about in the left-wing fever swamps, but in mainstream outlets such as the Washington Post, CNN, NBC News, The Atlantic, The Daily Beast, and Salon.
Washington Post depicts Ted Cruz's children as monkeys. And won't apologize for it . That Tweet has since been deleted, of course: and now the Washington Post has yanked the editorial cartoon in question. Sans apology: because while Fred Hiatt is willing to admit that he didn't do his job, he's apparently not willing to admit that a Republican deserves an apology. And then there's how CNN put all of this: [...]
Ted Cruz Strikes Back at Washington Post Cartoonist for Mocking his Daughters . The Washington Post has officially yanked the cartoon down, un-publishing it late Tuesday evening [12/22/2015] after this Breitbart News story.
WaPo removes cartoon showing Cruz daughters as monkeys . The Washington Post removed the cartoon late Tuesday evening, and issued an apology explaining that they did not review Telnaes' work prior to publishing. "It's generally been the policy of our editorial section to leave children out of it," Post editor Fred Hiatt said in a statement.
Washington Post pulls cartoon depicting Cruz's daughters as monkeys . The Washington Post pulled a political cartoon Tuesday night that portrayed the daughters of Ted Cruz — ages 7 and 4 — as monkeys. The cartoon by Ann Telnaes showed the two girls as dancing like small simians before Mr. Cruz, who is Hispanic, dressed as an organ-grinder.
Washington Post stoops to a new low going after Ted Cruz . Imagine for a moment that the Washington Post had published a cartoon depicting Sasha and Malia Obama as monkeys, arguing that because the Obama daughters had campaigned for their father, they were fair game. I realize that such a scenario is unthinkable, that such a project would never pass review. [...] The plain fact is that whoever was on duty and reviewed the cartoon was part of the WaPo's newsroom culture, which hates Ted Cruz and conservatives in general. We have seen in the past a similar instance of egregious prejudice at the WaPo's newsroom, when in 1993 a front page story casually characterized evangelicals as "largely poor, uneducated and easily led." (Note: evangelicals have above average levels of education.)
Planned Parenthood Admits Sending Aborted Babies to Landfills; AP Plays Defense . The callousness towards human life at Planned Parenthood is such that it believes that the remains of preborn babies killed during abortions are just like any other "medical waste," and that sending them to landfills — or, perhaps even incinerators — is therefore "humane." That's what one must conclude from reading an Associated Press report Friday evening which strived mightily to play defense for the beleaguered group. The wire service's headline only described State Attorney General Mike DeWine as an "official."
See How NPR Hacks Up Testy Interview with Ted Cruz . NPR Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep is a big fan of President Obama, and when he interviews him, he helpfully sets him up. In a recent interview on race relations, Inskeep added little prompts instead of questions. That's not what Ted Cruz received on Wednesday's [12/10/2015] show. Inskeep was blunt when discussing the new Trump idea of banning Muslims from entering America: [Transcript omitted for brevity] NPR posted the full transcript online. What that demonstrated was that NPR and Inskeep routinely sliced out (for time and surely, for political convenience) Cruz whacking away at Democrats.
Planned Parenthood was 'right wing terror,' but with Islam suddenly 'motives don't matter' . Last month, when a Colorado Christian entered a Planned Parenthood clinic and fatally shot three people, the mainstream media rushed to make the connection to "right-wing domestic terrorism," even though police hadn't made any connection and the evidence was thin. When two California Muslims shot up a government office several days later, massacring 14, national journalists refused to call it Islamic terrorism even though evidence of the shooters' motive was overwhelming. Two mass shootings, two completely different standards of coverage.
The sky turned blue, the grass turned green, and ...
The media turn partisan after San Bernardino massacre . New York's Daily News used to play it pretty straight — a flashy tabloid, to be sure, but one that kept its opinions on the editorial page. Yesterday's taunting cover, aimed at blaming the Republicans in the wake of the San Bernardino massacre, shows how far it's moved left. And it kickstarted yet another round of media finger-pointing in the wake of tragedy, just as we saw last week after the killings at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs.
Media Rushes to Call Colorado Shooter 'Right-Wing Activist.' . The gulf between facts and conjecture over Colorado shooter Robert Lewis Dear is growing increasingly large by the second. Words like "pro-life activist," "terrorist," and "right-winger" are being used, and all of them are based on supposition and conjecture.
'60 Minutes' pushing Ethel Rosenberg pardon — don't buy it . Obama's presidency isn't over until the end of next year, yet rumors already are swirling about who he might pardon. One name in particular keeps surfacing: Ethel Rosenberg, a dedicated communist and convicted espionage conspirator. Willing to die for the Soviet cause along with her husband, Julius, in 1953, she is now receiving belated honors by misguided individuals and organizations that are more comfortable with claims based on emotional propaganda than actual historical evidence.
Media That Claimed Bush Chilled Speech Strangely Quiet Now . Last week CNN suspended a reporter name Elise Labott for editorializing on a vote by the US House of Representatives. [...] That a CNN reporter would be a lackwit incapable of understanding an issue is not news. That, seemingly, is part of the screening criteria used by their CNN's human resources department in hiring. That a CNN reporter would be a left wing hack devoted to using their position to advance a personal agenda is, likewise, not newsworthy. Who can forget when the ironically named Candy Crowley threw her more than ample weight into the 2012 presidential debate she was moderating on behalf of Barack Obama. What makes Labott unusual is that now we have a smoking gun that proves she slanted her news coverage of Hillary Clinton during her January 2013 Benghazi testimony. Well, slanted is not the right word. She sent her work to Hillary's press guru, Philippe Reines, for approval before releasing it.
Paul campaign slams CNN, says emails show reporter 'colluding' with Clinton aide . Rand Paul's presidential campaign slammed CNN on Wednesday [11/25/2015] after emails were released that the campaign claimed showed a reporter "colluding" with a Hillary Clinton aide to "attack" the Kentucky senator. The CNN global affairs correspondent, Elise Labott, already has been suspended over a separate incident — a tweet last week criticizing a House bill limiting Syrian refugees. But her communications with then-Clinton State Department official Philippe Reines turned up Tuesday [11/24/2015] in a batch of emails obtained and published by Gawker.
Chicago: Media Fans the Flames . Evidently, the [excrement] isn't hitting the fan hard enough, so certain media outlets have started to — get this — lie to advance their agenda. Here's CNN: [Video clip] Yes, that was CNN saying that Chicago Police shot this guy for "jaywalking." No mention of the burglary to auto calls, nothing about the PCP influenced behavior, not even a mention of the knife. Just shot for jaywalking.
CNN "Journalist" Caught Red-Handed Doing Media Favors for Hillary . Hillary wanted some self-serving quotes publicized, and CNN's "journalist" — the same one who just got suspended for her liberal angst about concerns about Syrian refugees — duly complied. She also hit Rand Paul for not attending all the hearings — just as she was seemingly asked.
Emails: CNN Reporter Coordinated With Hillary Aide To Smear Rand Paul During 2013 Benghazi Hearing . A CNN reporter who was recently suspended for two weeks for violating the network's editorial guidelines showed up in a new trove of State Department emails released on Tuesday [11/24/2015] in which she appears to have coordinated social media posts with a top Hillary Clinton State Department aide during the former secretary of state's Jan. 23, 2013 Senate testimony about the Benghazi attacks.
Colbert's 'Late Show' has become propaganda for Democrats . A survey by the Hollywood Reporter found that conservative viewers are turning off Colbert in droves. Nearly twice as many Republicans are watching Kimmel as Colbert, who has turned "Late Show" into a sort of wannabe MSNBC program. The pattern is familiar: When a Democrat is the guest, Colbert is Barbara Walters. When a Republican is on, he turns into Tim Russert.
The AP Lies About Trump and Muslims, and the Media Mob Follows . [Scroll down] Now consider. This is the Associated Press we're talking about here, and the AP can blatantly misreport what Trump actually said, and it goes everywhere. Note that at the very beginning of the AP report, the misrepresentation of what Trump said is fed to Jeb Bush — who promptly does as expected and condemns Trump for saying something Trump never said. Even Ted Cruz swallowed the bait, as Rush noted. The AP's false story is fed out to all the television networks, cable and broadcast, to radio, to newspapers, blogs and the world of Twitter. Thus the lie becomes the Big Lie.
ABC's Gibson Defends Clinton, Declares There's Nothing to Benghazi or Her E-Mails . Demonstrating there's no space between liberal politicians and major media figures — once they feel free in retirement to express their true views which guided their news judgments during their careers — long-time ABC News correspondent and anchor Charlie Gibson on Wednesday afternoon [11/18/2015] dismissed the relevance of Hillary Clinton's e-mails or Benghazi: "I don't think there's anything to Benghazi and I don't think there's anything to the e-mails."
Carson Says Press Deliberately Trying to Damage Candidacy . During a pre-recorded interview with Fox News' Howard Kurtz that aired on Sunday's MediaBuzz, Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson sharply criticized the press for trying to damage his candidacy with erroneous stories about his personal biography. When pressed by Kurtz to explain why the media would want to damage his campaign, Carson explained "when you deliberately lie and you put that out as a story, or you do shabby investigations, and you say we've investigated and we can't find anything, I mean, is that an acceptable standard?"
Dickerson Meets Privately with Democratic Candidates Before Debate . According to Politico's Hadas Gold and Annie Karni, Saturday night's Democratic presidential moderator John Dickerson of CBS News met privately with each of the three campaigns for separate, private meetings to preview the debate and tried to innocently be billed as "informational in nature." The pair spun the revelation as merely CBS "tak[ing] advantage of the smaller pool by doing some intense research" with Dickerson sitting down with representatives from the Hillary Clinton, Martin O'Malley, and Bernie Sanders campaigns "to discuss the major issues at play in the race."
Sorry, Media, You Won't Destroy Ben Carson . Let's begin with two propositions: There is a difference between an admirable man and a perfect man, and there is a difference between "vetting" and viciousness. The collective goal of the liberal media is now clear — to take one of America's most admired and brilliant men and somehow transform him into a dishonest, stupid extremist. The vetting of Ben Carson has become vicious, and to what end? An admirable man has been exposed as imperfect.
No, Ben Carson Didn't Lie About West Point. It's Another Media Hit Job . Now, some on the right are saying that Carson should be held to a higher standard here than other candidates because he's running as an "outsider." But this is a basic case of misinterpreting facts, not an outright lie. Carson served in ROTC. Prominent people wanted him to go to West Point. He wouldn't have had to pay. He didn't apply because he didn't want to go. Those facts are not in dispute. It's the specific wording over which media have decided to crucify him.
The Ben Carson Flaps . For example, in a video that someone dug up, Dr. Carson said to an audience that his "theory" about the Pyramids is that they were used as storage facilities. He was smiling as he said this, so it is not clear whether he was using this theory just to illustrate some point. But, in any case, he was not claiming this as a fact. More important, the Pyramids are not an issue in today's American political campaign, except as a "gotcha" gimmick. Yet the media have paid far more attention to Ben Carson's speculation about what the Pyramids were built for, thousands of years ago, than to outright lies that Hillary Clinton told about tragic American deaths in Benghazi, within days after she knew the truth, as her own e-mails now reveal.
Video Proof: CNN's Attack On Ben Carson's Biography Is Racially-Motivated . CNN's recent and troubling history of anti-black bias is well documented. The left-wing network has been sued for racial bias, is infamous for ginning up violence in predominantly black neighborhoods, and has faced scrutiny by the National Association of Black Journalists for its treatment of black staffers. It is no surprise, then, to discover that CNN is currently on a racially-motivated rampage to undermine Ben Carson's biography, and by extension, his presidential ambitions.
GOP Senator Calls Out Andrea Mitchell's 'Liberal Media Bias'; She Proves Him Right . In an interview with Republican Montana Senator Steve Daines on Wednesday [11/4/2015] about his endorsement of Marco Rubio for president, MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell continued pushing attacks on Rubio's Senate attendance: "One argument, though, is that he has not been in the Senate very much.... That since announcing his candidacy has missed 42% of his votes." Daines hit back: "Yeah, well, I think that's an example of a liberal media bias. Let's take a look at President Obama, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, they were all senators who also ran for president. They missed hundreds of votes. So I think there's a double standard here."
The Three (Clinton) Stooges and CNBC . Reading over the transcript, I was again impressed by Ted Cruz's intelligence. Not only did he brilliantly turn the tables on the stooges, but he understands what is lost on the obtuse Jeb and on John Kasich: if you want to win over someone else's supporters (Paul's and Huckabee's, in Cruz's case), you don't attack their candidate, you praise him. Reading the transcript also makes clear exactly how nasty and combative Quintanilla and Harwood were. If Hillary's staff were writing the questions, they could hardly have done a better job.
Thank You, CNBC . Here's the Republican dilemma: The RNC may succeed in quieting down its candidates and extracting some concessions from the networks, which do not wish to lose out on the premium advertising and large viewing audience a GOP presidential debate brings. But whatever happens, Democratic presidential contenders are unlikely ever to have to stand on a stage even half as tough as what their Republican counterparts endure. The great irony here is that it was precisely CNBC's bias that made for such a good evening for Republicans.
Charlie Rose Sticks Up for Hillary in Interview With Rubio . "You called Hillary Clinton a liar, senator," said Rose. "You called Hillary Clinton a liar." "Well," Rubio responded, "I said Hillary Clinton lied about Benghazi. There's no doubt about that, Charlie. [...]"
A debate that will live in infamy . [Scroll down slowly] The sneak attack had been effectively countered, and from that point forward, most of the candidates joined forces against the slippery sloppy questions. The entire nation rose up to ask, "Could those moderators possibly have not known how foolish they were? And what does that say about the mainstream media?" Watch the tape, or read the transcript of the debate online. You owe it to yourself to see the blatant attempt to manipulate public opinion by insulting the standard-bearers of the Republican Party. There is no reasonable, responsible Democrat anywhere who could defend the behavior of the three intemperate moderators.
The Gang That Couldn't Bias Straight . Usually liberal journalists are far better at hiding their biases than CNBC's inept and sneering moderators at last night's debate. Questions asked in an insulting tone, interruptions of candidates in mid-sentence, injections of personal opinion, and shouting down candidates attempting to defend themselves. CNBC began the evening full of bravado, showcasing its "star" panelists and then allowing them to deliver vapid commentary on the debate for 15 minutes before the debate started. It ended almost trying to pretend the debate never happened.
In (Partial) Defense of CNBC . Sweeping his arm across the stage, at the University of Colorado, in Boulder, he said, "This is not a cage match. And, you look at the questions: 'Donald Trump, are you a comic-book villain?' 'Ben Carson, can you do math?' 'John Kasich, will you insult two people over here?' 'Marco Rubio, why don't you resign?' 'Jeb Bush, why have your numbers fallen?' How about talking about the substantive issues the people care about?" He got a big round of applause, which Carlos Quintanilla, one of the moderators for CNBC, tried to interrupt, asking, "Do we get credit...," before Cruz interrupted him again. "The contrast with the Democratic debate, where every fawning question from the media was 'Which of you is more handsome and why?'" Cruz said.
The Editor says...
The writer in The New Yorker, after quoting Ted Cruz, went on to defend the left-wing propagandists masquerading as "moderators." The Ted Cruz quote was the best part of the article. Expect more article like the one above in the next week or so, because the biased left-wing news media can't afford to let these latest challenges go unanswered.
NYT Calls Jill Biden a Doctor 3 Times More Often than Ben Carson . The New York Times referred to Jill Biden as a 'doctor' three times more than Ben Carson, according to the Weekly Standard. Jill Biden, Vice President Joe Biden's wife, has a doctorate in education. Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson was the first neurosurgeon to successfully separate conjoined twins.
What Ted Cruz Did in Wednesday's Debate Was So Much More Than an Applause Line . In one moment, Senator Ted Cruz managed to do what no other candidate for the Republican nomination for president has done to this point: unite Republicans. He did so by pushing back against the ridiculously biased questions presented by CNBC moderators.
RNC Chair Bashes CNBC: 'It Was One Gotcha Question, One Personal Low Blow After The Other' . "I think it was one gotcha question, one personal low blow after the other," Reince Priebus told the press gathered in the spin room. "It's almost like they tried to design a Rubik's cube for every question."
CNBC Anchor Booed for Question Aimed at Carson . Wednesday at the CNBC Republican presidential debate, when moderator Carl Quintanilla questioned Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson over a company for which he gave paid speeches, the audience disapproved by loudly booing the anchor.
Cruz Rips Press At CNBC Debate: "This Debate Illustrates Why We Can Not Trust The Media" . At the Republican debate hosted by CNBC in Boulder, Colorado Wednesday night [10/28/2015], presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz lambasted the moderators, particularly John Harwood of The New York Times, and the media for their treatment and characterization of himself and his competitors. "The questions asked in this debate illustrate why the American people don't trust the media," Cruz at Wednesday's [10/28/2015] Republican debate. "Everyone home tonight knows that the moderators have no intention of voting in a Republican primary."
Cruz Burns CNBC Moderators: This is Why Americans Don't Trust the Media . Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R., TX) took the media to task on Wednesday [10/28/2015] for asking Republicans tougher questions than they ask Democrats. Cruz said that the questions asked by CNBC's moderators on Wednesday demonstrated why Americans do not trust the media. He ticked through a list of questions asked by the moderators of the CNBC debate.
Republican debate veers out of control as Ted Cruz blasts moderators for bias . The CNBC moderators temporarily lost control of Wednesday's testy Republican primary debate after Texas Sen. Ted Cruz blasted them for what he described as loaded questions designed to provoke infighting among Republicans. "The questions that have been asked so far in this debate illustrate why the American people don't trust the media," Mr. Cruz said instead of answering a question about the debt limit. "This is not a cage match."
Rubio: Mainstream media is the Democrats' 'ultimate super PAC' . Sen. Marco Rubio ripped into the mainstream media during the third GOP debate, calling them the "ultimate super PAC." "The Democrats have the ultimate super PAC. [T]hey're called the mainstream media," Rubio said before ripping them for praising Clinton's performance in front of the House Select Committee on Benghazi last Thursday.
RNC chairman blasts CNBC for 'deeply unfortunate' debate questioning . [Scroll down] Numerous analysts spoke similarly in the hour after the debate, with Charles Krauthammer of Fox News saying "the panel was a bunch of flaming liberals" and Ron Fournier of National Journal tweeting that "Biggest loser of this debate isn't JEB. It's MSM. We've earned this bashing." During the debate Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey and businessman Donald Trump all said, in one or other fashion, that the questions were loaded with liberal assumptions and/or outright contempt for Republican voters.
Ed Meese: RNC Leaders Who Allowed CNBC to Moderate Debate Should Be Condemned . With conservative leaders sharply criticizing CNBC's manner of moderating Wednesday night's Republican presidential debate — which featured multiple questions framed as personal attacks on the candidates — former Attorney General Ed Meese said the leaders of the Republican National Committee who allowed CNBC to moderate the debate should be condemned. "After 15 minutes it was clear that this was not a debate, but a verbal shooting gallery set up by CNBC, with the targets the Republican candidates and the shooters their biased antagonists from the press," said Meese.
Outrageous media bias yields good night for most GOP candidates . The winners tonight were the candidates who most effectively trounced the blatantly biased CNBC moderators. Heading that list are Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. [...] I knew the MSM had overreached very early on when my wife, a non-Republican who can't stand Donald Trump, said of John Harwood's suggestion that Trump is running a "comic book" campaign: "What kind of a question is that?"
Watch Out for Shenanigans! CNBC Debate Moderator's Most Biased Moments . The RNC may regret its approval of John Harwood as lead moderator for Wednesday night's GOP presidential debate on CNBC if past history is any guide. The CNBC anchor and New York Times columnist admitted he and a producer helped make Rick Perry's infamous "oops" moment even worse.
Charlie Rose to Socialist Bernie Sanders: Your Ideas Are 'Not Radical' . PBS host Charlie Rose on Monday night embraced many of Bernie Sanders's positions and announced that the socialist's positions are "not radical." At first, the journalist suggested the Democratic candidate not use the label when campaigning: "I'm the first person trying to argue you away from the idea that you're a socialist."
MSM Deploys Mediscare Against Carson . Mediscare is, of course, deployed by the Democrat-MSM complex in every election cycle to terrify seniors with the claim that Republicans want to deprive them of health care. It was famously used against Paul Ryan, who proposed a premium support plan to help control Medicare spending. This heresy resulted in a TV ad showing a Ryan-lookalike throwing an old lady off a cliff. It is now being deployed against Carson pursuant to his proposal to gradually transition U.S. health care away from government-run programs to a system in which every American would have a Health Savings Account (HSA) supplemented by catastrophic coverage.
MSNBC And Al Sharpton Cut Off Guest Who Says Hillary Proven A Liar At Benghazi Hearing . Completely Orwellian disregard of the truth. [Video clip]
Frontiers of political correctness: banning the word 'too' . Move over, Melissa Harris-Perry — it is getting crowded on the lunatic PC bench. Joining "hard worker" (racist!) on the PC banned word list is "too" (sexist!). That's right: an adjective and adverb positing that something is more excessive in some quality than desirable is now verboten, as far as the Huffington Post is concerned. The editors there gave considerable space to Cameron Schaeffer, who identifies herself as a freshman at the University of Vermont, where her head has obviously been filled with victimology nonsense.
Political Correctness Taken to the Extreme: "Hard Worker" Now Offensive . With presidential candidates including Donald Trump leading a pushback against overreaching political correctness, here's a video that will surely add some fuel to the fire. As you will see, MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry was apparently triggered by the phrase "hard worker" and went into a diatribe explaining why that term is offensive. It sounds as if she's somehow trying to connect the term "hard worker" to slavery. [Video clip]
Melissa Harris-Perry Scolds Guest to Be 'Super Careful' About Saying 'Hard Worker' Because Of Slavery . MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry derailed a conversation about potential Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) Saturday [10/24/2015] to admonish a guest for calling him a "hard worker," arguing it demeaned slaves and working mothers "in the context of relative privilege."
Melissa Harris-Perry Needs a Trip to Hard Work U . MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry is the cable TV pioneer who broke the tastelessness barrier for feminists by wearing tampons as earrings on air in 2013. This week, she made ignominious history again — as the race-baiting fool in an ivory tower bubble who believes the words "hard worker" are a slur against black slaves and moms who don't have health care.
MSNBC Admits Anti-Israel Graphics Were 'Wrong' . MSNBC has admitted that highly controversial graphics aired on the network that depicted Israel as stealing land from the Palestinians were "factually wrong" and that the broadcast would be corrected on Monday [10/19/2015], according to a network spokesperson. The cable news network has been fighting off criticism after it aired the graphics and analysis, including a map linked to conspiracy groups branded as anti-Semitic, that portrayed Israel as existing on territory expropriated from Palestine. The graphics garnered criticism from pro-Israel advocates and has now prompted the network to acknowledge that the graphics were highly misleading.
The Media's Shameful, Shameless Bias against Israel . On Sunday, October 11, the Los Angeles Times ran the headline "6 Palestinian Teens Die Amid Mideast Unrest." It was, technically, true. But it left out a few key details.
Reporting from Jerusalem: The astonishing bias of NBC's Ayman Mohyeldin . NBC News foreign correspondent and Palestinian-American Ayman Mohyeldin reported from Jerusalem this week as a Palestinian man dressed in camouflage raced past his camera wielding a knife. [...] The incident ended with the man being shot dead by Israeli police at the Damascus Gate. Mohyeldin went live to report on the incident minutes after it happened and stayed live for roughly an hour on MSNBC. But Mohyeldin, failed to give viewers the full picture of what he had just witnessed. He failed to tell viewers for over an hour that the suspect was a Palestinian and that he was dressed in a camouflage uniform similar to the ones Israeli soldiers wear. Mohyeldin never referred to the attempted terrorist attack as anything other than a man being shot by Israeli officials.
Biased coverage of Israeli-Palestinian 'violence': When terror becomes 'tensions' . If you are seeking an example of bias in the media's coverage of what journalists are calling the latest round of Israeli-Palestinian "violence," consider the case of Ahmad Manasra. In an angry speech on Wednesday night [10/14/2015], Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, appealed for calm but accused Israeli security forces of killing Palestinian boys "in cold blood," singling out the 13-year-old Manasra as one of the Palestinian youths Israel had "executed." [...] There are at least two major problems with Abbas' charge: First, Ahmad Manasra was not "executed" or even shot by Israelis.
Can the New York Times Discuss Whether Mohammed's Flying Horse Really Visited the Temple Mount? So the New York Times lapsed into what has been called Temple Trutherism by trying to deny the existence of the Jewish temples on the Temple Mount. [...] But let's have some equal time here. The Temple Mount is holy to Jews because of the Temples. So the New York Times chose to discuss whether the Temples really existed. It's holy to Muslims because Mohammed supposedly flew there on a flying horse (with a woman's head). Can we get a discussion of whether that really happened? Or does the New York Times only find it acceptable to mock Judaism, not Islam?
USA Today Offers Advice On How To Make Bernie Sanders And Socialism Less Scary . Did you know that the "S" word, Socialism, is scary to Americans? Which makes Democratic Party presidential candidate scary! Somehow, this whole article is in the news section of USA Today, rather than the opinion section.
CNN Ignores Planned Parenthood at Dem Debate Even When Hillary Brings It Up . CNN spent more than 10 minutes pressing GOP candidates about Planned Parenthood during the previous debate — but moderators couldn't bear to mention the abortion giant once during Tuesday's Democratic primary debate. Not even after Hillary Clinton brought up the topic.
CNN's very odd near-exclusion of its black and Latino debate moderators . For all the talk about inequality and inclusion from the Democratic presidential candidates, for all the major national news this year about the ways that American life remains shaped by race, for all the reporting that's been done on the rapidly changing demographics of the United States, the network airing the first Democratic presidential primary debate Tuesday [10/13/2015] thought it wise to allow an experienced Latino reporter to ask a small series of questions about immigration, and a black reporter to introduce a single inquiry from Facebook about Black Lives Matter. And that's all we heard from them until nearly two hours into the debate.
ABC's Quantico Uses Timothy McVeigh to Smear American Veterans . As I've said before, the second most far-left outfit in the history of broadcasting right now behind NBC is the American Broadcasting Company — ABC. Their new espionage drama Quantico has been shown to support far-left causes from the very first episode, from taking cheap-shots at Mormons, to making Planned Parenthood an innocent victim of conservative terrorists.
When is a Hillary scandal not a Hillary scandal? CNN's Ashleigh Banfield spoke to Democratic strategist Robert Zimmerman about the upcoming Democratic primary debate yesterday [10/9/2015]. They considered the unthinkable possibility that Bernie Sanders will bring up Hillary's email scandal, which Banfield quickly suggested isn't really a scandal.
Texas executes inmate for killing man in $8 robbery . No late appeals were filed for Juan Martin Garcia, who was lethally injected [10/6/2015] for the September 1998 killing and robbery of Hugo Solano in Houston.
The Editor says...
The Associated Press once again shows its bias, starting with the headline in this story. The execution was about the murder of an innocent man. It was not about the eight dollars that changed hands.
LA Times Labels Black Oregon Shooter As White Supremacist! The Los Angeles Times has labeled the Oregon shooter as having "white supremacist leanings" even though the shooter was black. The shooter identified as "mixed race" and reportedly had a black mother.
Once Again, DeRay McKesson Falsely Assumes Shooter Is White . Less than a month after Black Lives Matter activist DeRay McKesson got egg on his face for falsely implying the Roanake shooter was a white man, he apparently is at it again. In a series of tweets and retweets, McKesson laid out the case that there was a racial element to the policing and media coverage of the Oregon shooter.
CNN Photoshops Oregon Jihadist Shooter to "Fundamentally Transform" Him into a Caucasian Male . Remember the Trayvon Martin case? You know, the dude involved in burglary, PCP-like drug cocktails, and/or drug dealing who assaulted George Zimmerman and got capped for his trouble? Remember how the media claimed there was a new race called "White Hispanics", a term invented "by The New York Times to describe Zimmerman, apparently in some kind of push for a white vs. Black narrative"? Good times. Well, the media is at it again, this time photoshopping the Black Jihadist Oregon shooter [...] to make him appear white.
The Curious Case of Oregon Shooter Chris Harper-Mercer — A Social Media Profile Shaped, Modified and Deleted . On the left is the selfie Christopher Mercer uploaded to his social media. On the right is how CNN presented the same selfie in broadcast stories about him. Why did CNN need to change the complexion (color) of their broadcast? Why is no one showing pictures of mom, Laurel Margaret Harper[?]
The Baby Butchers and Their Media Butchers . The propagandists of Planned Parenthood don't want you to remember that earlier this summer the group apologized for the "tone" of one of its top officials, Deborah Nucatola, who casually hawked unborn baby parts to undercover journalists from the Center for Medical Progress as she swilled wine and chomped on a salad. Not long after confessing that the "tone" of their butchers might cause offense, another top Planned Parenthood trafficker, Mary Gatter, joked about scoring a luxury car after haggling over $75 baby-organ price tags. [...] Ten lengthy, damning videos later, the billion-dollar abortion giant is in full-blown whitewash mode — and its bloodstained accomplices in the liberal media are out in force with their paint rollers.
Embattled Washington Post Fact Checker Admits Pinocchio Ratings 'Are Subjective' . In a stunning confession Tuesday [9/29/2015], Glenn Kessler, editor of the embattled Washington Post's fact check column, admitted that the Post's fact-check findings "are subjective." Kessler was responding to the litany of complaints surrounding his partisan attack againt Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina. Although the Post's fact check column verified Fiorina's claim that she had once been a secretary, Kessler (who openly taunts Republicans) still awarded her three Pinocchios. Kessler's lengthy rationalization is essentially a confession that finally proves what many of us have been saying for years: that Kessler and the Post have been abusing the imprimatur of fact-checking as a partisan weapon to push a left-leaning agenda.
Editing flap: TV 'edits' 5-hour Planned Parenthood hearing to 1 minute . Network and cable TV news are coming under fire for repeatedly smearing as "heavily edited" the controversial secretly taped Planned Parenthood videos of officers discussing the sale of aborted fetus parts. After Tuesday's [9/29/2015] five-hour House hearing on the issue with witness Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood, the media is being slammed for doing exactly what the producer of the videos did — and worse — editing hours of tape for a watchable news segment.
MSNBC Got a Big Surprise While Pushing the Abortion Agenda . MSNBC anchor Thomas Roberts got a big surprise on Tuesday [9/29/2015] when he tried to use the mother of a stillborn child to attack a pro-life organization's effort to defund Planned Parenthood. Roberts talked to Lexi Oliver Fretz about her deceased son Walter. An image of the stillborn Walter was used in a video by the Center for Medical Progress in one of its videos. Roberts attacked, "How do you feel about Walter's picture used to discredit Planned Parenthood?" Fretz explained that she was surprised to see her son used to illustrate a grisly description in the video, but added, "My husband and I are actually extremely pro-life."
Washington Post Fact Checker Still Targeting Republicans By Nearly 2-to-1 . The Washington Post's fact-checking rampage against Republicans and right-of-center claims marches on. In late March, after Breitbart News reported that, for the first three months of 2015, the WaPo fact-check column targeted Republicans twice as often as Democrats, the column's editor, Glenn Kessler, assured Breitbart News readers that, "You need to look at the whole year to be fair." Well, with just 13 weeks left in the year, the likelihood that anything approaching an equal scrutiny of claims by Democrats and Republicans appears impossible.
Ben Carson Zooms to Top of Media's Kill List . The enemedia is patting itself on the back, congratulating itself with headlines that declare, "Ben Carson Walks Back Anti-Muslim Comments With More Anti-Muslim Comments," when in fact the subheadline is, "I stand by the comments." This is the sharia-compliant media at its deadliest. Islamic supremacists and their running dogs in the media have unilaterally adhered to the blasphemy laws under the sharia (Islamic law). Anyone who violates these laws (which mandate that one must not criticize Islam or Muhammad) will be destroyed. In Muslim countries, you are executed for blasphemy. In the West, for the same "blasphemy" your character and good name are assassinated.
Ted Cruz: The Biggest Elephant in the Room . To the Republicans in Washington who have habitually let down the American people, who is public enemy number one — the Ayatollah Khomeini, Vladimir Putin, President Obama? No, Ted Cruz. To the liberal media that apparently believes in a socialist utopia, who threatens to spoil their self-destructive fantasy? ISIS, Russia, Iran? No, Ted Cruz. In the wake of the CNN debate, is there any wonder now why moderator Jake Tapper avoided and interrupted Ted Cruz all night?
Media Smears Trump, Ignores Fact That Hillary Clinton Started Birther Movement . When asked by a reporter if Obama was a Muslim in 2008, she replied, "There's nothing to base that on ... as far as I know." The media is nothing but a bunch of left-wing liars. And what's wrong with being misidentified as a Muslim? It's [much] better than being identified accurately as someone who spent 20 years in a racist church, which is Obama's true (and very troubling) religious history.
'Fact-Checker' Challenge . Because Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina dared Wednesday night [9/16/2015] to be a woman who attacked the mainstream media's holy temple of abortion, the lying fact-checkers came out in force before the CNN debate was even over to punish her for sharing with the world the horrors of the infamous Planned Parenthood videos released over the summer. As an example, the prominent fact checkers at the left-wing Washington Post, Glenn Kessler and Michelle Ye Hee Lee, attacked Fiorina with this word salad of misinformation: [...]
Iran nuclear deal survives: Democrats block disapproval vote . The hard-fought nuclear accord with Iran survived the U.S. Senate on Thursday [9/10/2015], as Democrats overcame ferocious Republican opposition and delivered President Barack Obama a major victory on his top foreign policy priority.
The Editor says...
Sounds like we're getting mixed signals from the Associated Press: Did the Democrats block the vote, or did they overcome ferocious Republican opposition?
Shep Smith Rails Against Anti-Gay 'Haters' During Kim Davis Presser . During Fox News' live coverage of Kentucky clerk Kim Davis' release from prison, anchor Shepard Smith suddenly spoke over the press conference to chastise Davis and those who supported her decision to refuse to issue gay marriage licenses.
Chuck Todd Admits Iran Deal Vote More 'About Avoiding Defeat' for Obama . On Wednesday, September 2, all three network newscasts cheered Obama securing a 34th vote for the Iran deal which included Chuck Todd's colleague, NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt, who proclaimed the vote a "major win for the Obama administration" for a deal that "now appears unstoppable." In addition, the networks repeatedly dismissed the overwhelming majority of Congress who opposed the Iran deal and refused to provide soundbites of those who planned to vote against the controversial agreement.
Media shifts on violent rhetoric for Black Lives Matter . Some newsrooms are pushing back hard on the notion that the recent spike in police officer deaths is tied somehow to the anti-cop rhetoric of the Black Lives Matter movement. That's a sharp contrast from the press' more recent habit of tying Tea Party rhetoric to similarly deadly acts. The Black Lives Matters movement, which was born out of concerns over police brutality in African-American communities, has come under fire recently for some of its members' charged rhetoric.
Ignoring Science, 97% of Stories Hype BPA as Health Threat . Fear of chemicals and "toxins" is rampant among the so-called "environmental" left. Unfortunately, that phobia infects national media coverage as well. For more than a decade, the left has been on the attack against BPA, a chemical that is commonly found in plastics and other products. Anti-chemical groups such as the Breast Cancer Fund and some scientists have crusaded against BPA (known formally as bisphenol A), connecting it to cancer and reproductive problems and claiming that it is "a threat to human health," despite government agencies that have declared it "harmless" even in baby bottles. Much of the national media have bought in spreading fear of the chemical in ordinary canned goods, on cash register receipts, in dental sealants and more. In just the past two years, the three broadcast networks and top five national newspapers have continued to report on the "hidden danger" of BPA, labeling it "carcinogenic" and "toxic" often with small or flawed reports from activists.
Suddenly Media Worried Over Reporting Race-Based Motive of Killer of White Reporters . During the reporting of the murders in a black church in Charleston, the assumed racist motive of the shooter, white man Dylann Roof, was immediately the talk of the media. But now, after an African American murdered two white former co-workers and then released a 23-page, race-tinged manifesto, some in the media are suddenly squeamish about reporting the race-based motives of the killer.
Megyn Kelly defends Mexican supremacist Jorge Ramos . Megyn Kelly once again bashed Donald Trump while defending Mexican supremacist Jorge Ramos, despite not waiting until being called on. Last night Megyn Kelly had leftist and CNN reject Howie Kurtz to react to Trump basically deporting Jorge Ramos from his press conference in Iowa. So as is typical of Megyn Kelly, she took Ramos' side, saying: [Video clip]
The Top 50 Liberal Media Bias Examples . Let's face it, liberal media bias has been around since there have been liberals to do the "reporting" of the news. But this fact should surprise no one. After all, the news media has always been filled with bias of one type or another. In fact, there was a time when American customers of the news knew exactly which newspapers sported which point of view. It was taken for granted that one newspaper supported one side and another newspaper a different side.
An activist masquerading as a journalist:
Activist anchor Jorge Ramos uses influence to push immigration agenda . Univision anchor Jorge Ramos, who has long been as much an activist as a newsman, managed to find himself at the center of an immigration story yet again this week as he went head-to-head with GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, getting tossed from a press conference after repeatedly and insistently trying to ask questions.
Jorge Ramos Is an Immigration Activist Posing as a Reporter . Jorge Ramos may be the award-winning celebrity anchor of Univision's premier news broadcast, but "the Walter Cronkite of Hispanic News" long ago revealed himself to be less a journalist than another perpetually indignant immigration activist. His devolution into outright heckler was only a matter of time. It would be difficult to overstate Ramos's immigration radicalism. When Central American children were pouring over the border last summer, Ramos announced as a solution, "First, we treat children like children, as if they were our own." When, in their 2012 interview, Newt Gingrich told Ramos, "I'm not going to let you define what 'immigration reform' is," Ramos replied, "It's very simple: to legalize 11 million undocumented immigrants." And when, last November, President Obama lawlessly granted amnesty to some 5 million of those immigrants, Ramos touted the measure as "a triumph for the Latino community."
Jorge Ramos Has a Long History of Activist 'Reporting' . Ramos has been called the "Walter Cronkite of Latino America," but he has a history of behaving more like an activist with a cable-news platform than a reporter. Ramos constantly identifies with his Latino and immigrant audience, using words like "us" and "our" when reporting on any immigration-related issue. He seems to see himself as the gatekeeper of Latino American opinion — and to think that qualifies him to be a political kingmaker.
Indy Star Orchestrates Secret Campaign To Promote LGBT Special Protections . Breitbart News has exclusively obtained an email sent by the President and Publisher of the Indianapolis Star. It invites "community leaders" to help plan and coordinate an aggressive, highly orchestrated campaign to "persuade" the Indiana state legislature to adopt sweeping special protections for Indiana's gay, lesbian and transgender communities. The email, sent personally by Karen Ferguson Fuson, President and Publisher of the Star, was sent early this morning to an undisclosed list of business and media elites, together with gay rights activists. It pulls no punches in its scope or its goals.
Biased Media vs. Behavioral Standards . We all know that the mainstream media are biased. But they appear to have totally come out of the closet lately, exposing their true identity as leftist operatives. It was infuriating watching a CNN interviewer hammering Republican presidential contender Dr. Ben Carson. This despicable jerk kept trying to twist Dr. Carson's words to mean that Dr. Carson wants to bomb refugees with drones. [...] Also infuriating and evil is the MSM hiding the sick scandal happening at Planned Parenthood. In the latest video released exposing Planned Parenthood's black-market baby body parts business, one of PP's clients joked about shipping whole heads of aborted babies to research labs. I was stunned by the lack of media coverage and national outrage. Have we grown numb?
Cruz Accuses Megyn Kelly of Asking 'Mainstream Media Liberal' Question . Texas Senator and Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) accused Fox News Channel anchor Megyn Kelly of asking "the question every mainstream media liberal journalist wants to ask" and "the question Barack Obama wants to focus on" on Tuesday's [8/25/2015] "Kelly File" on the Fox News Channel.
Mainstream Scream: Carter revisionism begins, called 'too nice' to beat Reagan . The mainstream media's revisionism of former President Jimmy Carter's doomed presidency has begun amid reports he is battling brain cancer. Leading the charge last week was MSNBC's Joy Reid, a national correspondent who was host of the "Reid Report" from February 2014 to February 2015.
House Intelligence Committee Democrats Play Political Games on Iran Deal . The Hill ran a story today [8/14/2015], "Spy panel Dems rally to support Iran deal," which gives the impression that all of the House Intelligence Committee's Democratic members signed a letter supporting the nuclear agreement with Iran. The article did not mention that a third of the committee's Democratic members did not sign the letter or the absurdity of the letter's claims. I therefore believe a more accurate title for The Hill article would be "One-third of House Intel Committee Democrats Refuse to Sign Letter Supporting Iran Agreement."
Cover-Up: Major Newspapers Keep Hillary's E-Mails Off the Front Page . Four of the country's largest newspapers on Wednesday [8/12/2015] kept the latest developments in Hillary Clinton's growing E-mail scandal off the front page (one kept it out of the paper completely). The revelation that the Democratic candidate had top secret information on her server was relegated to the bottom of page A13 in the New York Times. The Washington Post managed to place the news that Clinton will finally turn over her server on A2. The Los Angeles Times hid the story on A9. All of these newspapers, however, did better than USA Today, which completely skipped Clinton's scandal in the print edition.
Press Downplays, Hides EPA's Responsibility for Western River Contamination . On Wednesday [8/5/2015], the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency committed an act which would have likely become instant national news if a private entity had done the same thing. On Friday, John Merline at Investors' Business Daily succinctly noted that the EPA "dumped a million gallons of mine waste into Animas River in Colorado, turning it into what looked like Tang, forcing the sheriff's office to close the river to recreational users." Oh, and it "also failed to warn officials in downstream New Mexico about the spill." Yet here we are four days later, and the story has gotten very little visibility outside of center-right blogs and outlets. That's largely explained by how the wire services have handled the story.
US carbon pollution from power plants hits 27-year low . Carbon dioxide — from the burning of coal, oil and gas — is the chief greenhouse gas responsible for man-made global warming.
Bias alert:
The Associated Press is wrong about one aspect of this story, in the first sentence: The primary greenhouse gas is water vapor, which no law or politician can counteract.
Red Flags Of Corruption Over Huntington Park . In a page-one headline, the Los Angeles Times hailed the appointment of illegal immigrants to two Huntington Park, Calif., civic commissions as a milestone that "charts a bold path for immigrants." It was booster journalism at its worst, gushing about illegals gaining participatory "rights" in U.S. public life that had supposedly been unjustly denied them. It also stood in stark contrast with the multiple local press reports — KPCC, KTLA, CBS-LA and more — which reported the event as primarily cause for angry protests.
GMA: No Time for Planned Parenthood Vote; 18 Minutes to Boy Band . ABC's Good Morning America, a two hour-long program, on Tuesday [8/4/2015] completely ignored the Senate's vote on Planned Parenthood, yet devoted 18 minutes of air time to boy band One Direction. Only CBS This Morning bothered with the Republican effort to defund the abortion group, allowing a meager 25 seconds. Even in that scant amount of time, co-host Norah O'Donnell managed to spin the undercover footage of the organization in a friendly way.
CNN Asks Activist Behind Planned Parenthood Videos if He's a 'Violent Extremist' . In an interview with the Center for Medicial Progress' David Daleiden, CNN's New Day host Alisyn Camerota asked the activist behind the undercover Planned Parenthood videos to respond to criticism he was a "violent extremist." "Your critics — critics of your organization I should say — say that you're not journalists as you purport to be on your website, but rather you're violent extremists," Camerota said to Daleiden.
The Editor says...
The abortion "doctors" are tearing babies apart and selling the pieces, and the guy who goes undercover to document this practice is accused of being a "violent extremist." That's a textbook case of liberal media bias.
New Hillary Emails: Media, Congress Fed Her Questions . A great deal of the communication contained in the latest batch of Clinton emails released to the public consists of sycophantic throne-sniffers at the State Department and White House competing with each other to see who can compliment Her Regal Majesty the most. But now we've got examples of people actively helping her stage public appearances — including, to no one's surprise, the media. Mediaite reports that one of the new emails shows a source within NBC News leaking Hillary questions in advance of a Meet the Press appearance: [...]
Only CBS Highlights 'Tough, New Questions' for Planned Parenthood . On Friday, CBS This Morning actually highlighted the "tough, new questions" Planned Parenthood is facing, showcasing the "latest and most graphic video." ABC's Good Morning America and NBC's Today, despite a combined running time of six hours, ignored the story. This Morning Co-anchor Norah O'Donnell, in addition to showing footage, alerted, "Planned Parenthood is facing tough new questions this morning. A fourth undercover video is out, showing a doctor at the women's health provider talking about selling fetal body parts."
NBC Hosts Thrilled Network Hired Obama's Chef as Analyst . On Wednesday [7/29/2015], the hosts of NBC's Today cheered the network's decision to hire former White House chef — and husband of left-wing MSNBC host AlexWagner — Sam Kass. Co-host Savannah Guthrie gushed: "...we've got an exciting announcement. You guys remember Sam Kass, of course he's the former assistant White House chef, executive director of the First Lady's Let's Move campaign, and nutrition advisor to the President.... He is becoming an NBC News senior food analyst."
'Respectable' Journalism is Slipping: Atlantic Writer Thinks Religious Believers Belong in Straitjackets . Jeffrey Tayler is a respected journalist — an author of multiple books, a contributing editor at The Atlantic, and a frequent commentator on NPR's venerable All Things Considered. Review his Atlantic author page, and you'll see a collection of sober-minded, interesting articles — written from a leftist perspective, to be sure, but many of them are certainly worth reading. I haven't caught his NPR commentary, but I expect they would be worth hearing. I enjoy thoughtful liberal commentary, and The Atlantic is still often a destination site for the best the Left has to offer. But that's Mr. Tayler as Dr. Jekyll. Mr. Hyde emerges over at Salon, [...]
Cahoots:
Email Reveals Hillary Clinton Was Fed Questions Before Meet the Press Appearance . One of the private Hillary Clinton emails released Friday [7/31/2015] reveals that an NBC source was leaking possible questions to the then-Secretary of State's staff ahead of an appearance on Meet the Press. In an July 2009 email with the subject line "heads up," Clinton staffer Lissa Muscatine wrote, "You probably already know this, but I just heard from a friend who is wired at Meet the Press that David Gregory will ask you about David Maziar, the Newsweek journalist arrested in Iran."
Nets Spend 30 Minutes on Lion; Censor Abortion Videos . The broadcast news shows covered Cecil the lion more in one day than they spent on the Planned Parenthood videos in two weeks — and that discrepancy only continues to grow. In two days, ABC, NBC and CBS have spent 30 minutes, 1 second on Cecil, a famed African lion shot by an American dentist. But anchors couldn't spare nearly as much time for the videos exposing Planned Parenthood's harvesting of aborted baby parts. Since the release of the Center for Medical Progress' first video two weeks ago, the networks have spent only 11 minutes, 13 seconds on the story.
World Explodes over Dead Lion, Ignores Planned Parenthood . On Tuesday [7/28/2015], the world lost its collective mind — whatever is left of it, anyway — when media discovered the identity of the killer of a Zimbabwean named Cecil. Cecil is a lion. Cecil, a lion, was by most accounts "one of Africa's most famous lions." Cecil, incredibly, was famous for being a lion, not for curing cancer, although you wouldn't know that by the media coverage. The man who shot Cecil, a lion, to death is Dr. Walter Palmer, a big game hunter who allegedly paid $55,000 for a big game permit. He hired a guide, who lured Cecil, a lion, out from a protected area, where Cecil, a lion, then met his end.
CNN's Camerota Downplays Baby Organ Harvesting Outrage; Suggests Price Fixing . On Tuesday's [7/28/2015] New Day, CNN's Alisyn Camerota made no mention of the outrage over Planned Parenthood varying its abortion techniques in order to preserve unborn babies' organs for medical research, as was revealed in two undercover videos. Instead, Camerota zeroed in on "these representatives from Planned Parenthood negotiating" over prices for these organs. She even touted how the "exchange of fetal tissue... obviously, does a lot of good. There's a lot of research — cures for diseases that come from it." [Video clip]
Panic in Pittsburgh: Media Struggling to Ignore Black Mob Violence . [Scroll down] The local TV news crews pieced together some of the action from April: Hundreds of "college kids" arriving on "school buses" to a "huge party" featuring large fights and gunfire at police. And of course lots of mayhem and property destruction. Twenty neighboring police departments were called in to help quell this non-event. And oh yeah, that has been happening for a long time at this mall. But the fact that this was a black party for black students organized by black people and students came from black fraternities and sororities — not a word.
Chris Matthews: Obama Has Had 'Immaculate' Presidency With No Corruption Allegations . [Scroll down] Matthews continued, "He's been immaculate in the presidency. Nobody has accused him of any corruption. His kids are perfect. His wife is perfect. He's done everything that these right-wing white conservatives say we're supposed to be in this country. He's done everything right. [...]"
The Media Love Affair with McCain . [S]ince when did the media get concerned about the noble cause of fighting communism in Vietnam? Our media, led by CBS Evening News anchorman Walter Cronkite, who was then an influential media figure, protested the Vietnam War and prompted the U.S. withdrawal and communist takeover. His FBI file demonstrated Cronkite's contacts with Soviet officials and how he was used as a dupe by the communists. More than 58,000 Americans sacrificed and died to save that country from communism. The liberal media never supported the war against communism in Vietnam. Yet they are now browbeating Trump over avoiding the war through deferments. Our media are full of hypocrites. They don't admire McCain for fighting in Vietnam. They admire him because he is a "maverick" who frequently takes the liberal line, such as on "comprehensive immigration reform."
Leftist propaganda is everywhere:
Every Day, A New Way to Hate . In channel surfing my way to the British Open, I lit for a moment on the usually sane ESPN show, "Mike and Mike." Co-host Mike Greenberg was off that morning so 28 year-old sub Ryan Ruocco sat in with regular Mike Golic, a former NFL defensive tackle. Flaunting his liberal chops for the suits upstairs, Ruocco gushed about the Arthur Ashe Award. Of course, he did not call the winner "Bruce Jenner." He refused to even say "Jenner." It was always "Caitlyn Jenner," over and over. Those who dared say "Bruce" Ruocco surely would have lumped — in his words — with "the critics who hate." Bingo! There it was. Our progressive friends had discovered the glory of transgenderism about fifteen minutes ago, and they were already prepared to brand critics of any sort as "haters," the collective term for the non-elect in their perverse neo-puritan presbytery.
Andrea Mitchell Tries to Portray Abdulazeez as a Gun Nut . Desperately looking for a way to avoid pegging the Chattanooga murderer Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez as anything but a terrorist, MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell asked a childhood friend of the killer what he liked to do in "small town Tennessee": [...] Abdulzaeez apparently owned some guns, but it is unknown whether he bought them after his return from the Middle East last year. For a terrorist, guns are a tool of the trade and not a means of self defense or anything to take pleasure from on a hunt. For Mitchell to try and equate terrorism with the gun culture instead of trying to get to the bottom of the shooter's radicalization is horrible journalism.
Walloping Walker: The Media's Worst Attacks on the Wisconsin Governor . Scott Walker's official entry into the 2016 presidential race has already been met with questions about his sophistication and readiness to be president by the liberal media. The day of Walker's announcement The New York Times' Patrick Healy portrayed the GOP governor as someone who isn't ready for the world stage: "Two words these [Walker] voters do not use about him? 'Smart' and 'sophisticated.'"
AP: It's Not Selling Aborted Unborn Baby Parts, It's the 'Disposition of Fetal Remains' . We've long known that the Associated Press is loathe to refer to unborn children as unborn children, preferring the clinical term "fetus." But in covering a shocking new story about how Planned Parenthood sells fetal tissue from aborted babies for profit, the AP bent over backwards to use clinical euphemisms to soften the blow of the ghoulish practice.
More about Planned Parenthood .
Dogfight: WashPost Google-Mocks All the GOP Candidates, No Democrats . Jeff Guo of The Washington Post began his article correctly: "Stop. This will be the most horrifying and pointless thing you read today." One new technique on Google now is called "DeepDream," to enhance and visualize all the strange associations that artificial-intelligence programs are making. MRC's Dan Gainor pointed out that the Post proved it's a Democratic rag by taking this strange "stoner" imaging tool and applied it to all the Republican presidential candidates and posted it — and not a single Democrat was included for balance in silliness. So Bobby Jindal looks like a dog — and so does Chris Christie's 18-year-old daughter Sarah.
Shameless NBC Uses Murder by Illegal Immigrant to Bash GOP . Monday's [7/6/2015] network evening newscasts offered continuing coverage on the July 1 murder of a San Francisco woman allegedly at the hands of an illegal immigrant, but it was NBC Nightly News that shamelessly used the occasion to blast "the new Todd Akin" in Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump for having "seized upon" the story to promote his stance on illegal immigration as the GOP is "desperate to win Latino voters."
AP: Mass Unemployment, Lower Wages Is 'New Normal' . The AP's subtle point here is we are supposed to accept Obama's failed economy as the 'new normal.' There's nothing that can be done about it. And certainly none of this is Obama's fault.
MSNBC's O'Donnell: 'Essential Truth That We're All Socialists Now' . Last night [7/6/2015], Lawrence O'Donnell gushed over Bernie Sanders' authenticity and the consistently large crowds he has acquired in his speeches across the country. The July 6 edition of The Last Word featured a panel discussion which emphasized that the Vermont senator's socialism isn't that far outside the mainstream. O'Donnell asked former Vermont governor Howard Dean if Sanders has "managed to educate Vermonters to the essential truth that we're all socialists now?" He prefaced that question by noting the tendency of Democrats to "run away" from calling themselves liberal. The MSNBC personality then cheered the fact that Sanders openly embraces socialism and "the fact that he is a socialist."
Shock: Arizona Paper Decries Border Fence as Too High for Mexicans to Safely Jump . A mainstream Arizona newspaper is decrying the small section of the Arizona-Mexico border that has a 14-foot-high primary fence because it is too high for illegal immigrants to safely cross. The article, "Border Fence Jumpers Breaking Bones," includes the claim that sections of the border with a 14-foot-high fence are "as tall as a two or three-story house" and tells the stories of several women who broke bones and were treated extensively to healthcare and surgeries at the expense of U.S. taxpayers. The writer never mentions any lives directly lost as a result of there not being a border fence in most sections, such as when Mexican nationals crossed into the U.S. and murdered father and husband Robert Rosas, a U.S. Border Patrol agent.
Collusion Between Hillary and Media . The elite media types have been in bed with the elite national Democratic party types for so long that one hardly bothers to note it any longer. Still, it is a little jarring when the Hillary Clinton e-mails reveal this kind of panting sycophancy
We Must Stop the Media From Silencing Your Voice on Marriage . If there's one thing the Supreme Court accomplished last Friday (besides unleashing cultural chaos on America), it was ending the liberal media's charade. Whatever scrap of journalistic impartiality existed flew out the courtroom window Friday when the press decided five justices not only invented a right to same-sex marriage but to censorship, too. [...] After years of trying to drive out debate, the liberal media are using the cloak of the court to do it. Desperate to take away the voice of Christians at the public table, the left is already on the march to undermine the very freedom that gives breath to the speech it now enjoys.
AP Photo Lines Pistol Up with Senator, 2016 Candidate Ted Cruz's Brain . Of course, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is a Republican. That puts him in proximity with guns and gun posters, as seen in [a] picture from Associated Press photog Charlie Neibergall, more often than Democrats. Still, imagine a similar situation — a U.S. Senator campaigning for President — and instead of a pro-2nd Amendment event, it's a pro-gun control event. Imagine this Senator is standing in front of a giant poster of a pistol — one meant to demonize the weapon rather than promote it.
Published Wire Photo Has Gun Graphic Pointing at Ted Cruz's Head . The Associated Press currently has a photo for sale at its APimages.com site showing a graphic of a gun pointing at Ted Cruz's head. It has been there since early Saturday evening [6/20/2015]. It would appear that Charlie Neibergall, the person who snapped this photograph, had to patiently wait for the "right" moment to take the photo in question.
Update:
Photos of gun pointed at Cruz disappear from AP photo bank . Controversial photographs from the Associated Press showing the image of a large gun pointing at the head of 2016 presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz have disappeared from AP's photo bank. APImages.com "no longer yields a handful of photos from photojournalist Charlie Neibergall wherein the barrel of a gun on a poster points to the U.S. senator and presidential candidate's head," Breitbart reported Monday [6/22/2015]. The images had drawn outrage from conservatives who said the photo was an example of media bias.
Rush Limbaugh Blasts Media for Trying to Destroy Ben Carson While Fawning over Clintons . On Wednesday [6/17/2015], conservative icon and talk radio host Rush Limbaugh blasted the mainstream press for trying to destroy and dismiss Dr. Ben Carson even though nobody in the mainstream can claim to come close to having any of the Carson's accomplishments. "Dr. Benjamin Carson is one of the finest, most accomplished human beings on this planet who has done more for people than most people in politics will ever do," Limbaugh declared on his radio show. "And he's done it personally, not with other people's money."
MSNBC's Dyson Implies Rachel Dolezal Is More Black Than Clarence Thomas . On Monday's [6/15/2015] The Ed Show, Michael Eric Dyson, MSNBC Political Analyst and frequent guest host on the "Lean Forward" network, used the ongoing controversy surrounding Rachel Dolezal claiming to be African American to smear Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
More about Rachel Dolezal .
Marco Rubio, average American . Marco Rubio bought a bunch of stuff he probably couldn't afford. Welcome to America. So The New York Times has pulled together another hit piece — this one insinuating that Rubio, who the newspaper evidently believes is the GOP front-runner, is both a reckless spendthrift and a financial failure. The story confuses offshore fishing boats with "luxury speedboats" and pickup trucks with SUVs to render a distasteful account of Rubio's financial life. But what we really learned is that though Rubio is not great with money, the senator from Florida has relatively modest desires, considering his fame.
Media Bias Jumps the Shark With Marco Rubio 'Luxury Speedboat' Story . Just how desperate is the mainstream press to cast Sen. Marco Rubio as someone who can't handle his money? Desperate enough, apparently, to describe a family fishing boat as a "luxury speedboat," which the New York Times did this week in its front page hit piece about Rubio's alleged "history of financial struggles." That same Times story also portrayed a home Rubio bought — after getting an $800,000 advance on a book — as some sort of mansion in Florida, when it is, in fact, just one home crammed into a cul-de-sac next to many other similarly sized, middle-class dwellings.
Associated Press Pens The Most Dishonest Anti-Cop Conspiracy Theory You Are Likely To Ever Read . I'll be quite frank: I have very little respect for the Associated Press and the quality of their reporting, which tends to range from mediocre to abysmal in terms of factual accuracy, and which seems to be far more interested in publishing propaganda in recent years than reflecting reality. Their latest attempt to generate controversy, "Witnesses: Semi-automatic gunfire dominated biker shootout," is perhaps the most dishonest and incompetent bit of reporting I've ever had the misfortune to read. The premise for the article is to promote the recent biker-generated conspiracy theory that Waco law enforcement officers did almost all the shooting at the May 18 shootout at a Waco restaurant called Twin Peaks.
An NBC Affiliate Manufactures a Story to Attack Conservatives . "Months before the conference, my family booked a hotel room at the same resort as ALEC," reported Brendan Keefe of WXIA TV, also known as 11 Alive. It's the NBC affiliate in Atlanta. "We found the fabled back room where the laws are made," he told their audience. It was sweeps week and NBC had a scoop. What he failed to mention is that the event held by the right-leaning American Legislative Exchange Council was open to the press, he did not register for the event, he registered at the hotel under an assumed name, and the hotel was not a resort, just a hotel in Savannah. More particularly, it was the Hyatt in Savannah.
Times Hit Piece Ignores Scott Walker's Success . The article is more sophisticated than the awkward and error-filled attempted hit on Walker by Gail Collins from the Times editorial page, who blamed Walker for layoffs that took place before he had been elected. And it avoids the kind of over-the-top claims that require corrections. But the piece nonetheless makes clear that its authors believe Walker's views are far out of the mainstream and that he owes his success to wealthy conservatives eager to exploit a simpleton as the vessel for their ideological goals.
Media warn Marco Rubio is dangerously middle-class and not wealthy . The [New York] Times revealed recently that Rubio incurred four traffic tickets over 17 years, not exactly disqualifying events. Other reports had Rubio and his wife Jeannette spending money to upgrade their Miami home's air conditioning and buy a new refrigerator. You may remember back in 2007 another freshman senator named Barack Obama suddenly paid off nearly four dozen overdue tickets just before launching his bid to move his family and mother-in-law into the rent-free White House. No, of course you don't remember that because the media skipped over such inconvenient legal blemishes in its enthusiastic coverage of the "reform" Chicagoan.
Even lefty MSM laughing at NY Times story on Rubio 'luxury speedboat' . Not exactly a cigarette boat. In fact, exactly the kind of boat you see fishermen using all over Florida, more or less the Ford Focus or Toyota Camry of fishing craft. The obvious comparison is to John Kerry's yacht, the one he docked in Rhode Island to avoid Massachusetts taxes.
Media: Never Mind Hillary's Scandals, Let's Talk About Marco Rubio's Wife's Driving Habits . Remember how the media left Barack Obama completely unvetted, ignoring even the most damaging stories from his past, while a squirming mass of reporters fought over every scrap of trash in the dumpster behind Sarah Palin's house? It's happening again. For some reason, the New York Times decided to devote two reporters to the urgent task of reviewing Senator and presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio's driving record over the past 18 years. And they still couldn't make much of a story about it, so they decided to add his wife's record to the story.
Surprise! NYT's Embarrassing Rubio Hit Piece Came From Democratic Super PAC . A reporter at the Washington Free Beacon discovered that The New York Times' embarrassing story attacking Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio for traffic violations was almost certainly planted by a Democratic super PAC. [...] Missing from the headline is the important context that the candidate himself only had four violations to his name, over the span of two decades.
New York Times ignored 15 unpaid tickets of Obama in 2007 . You can't get much more hypocritical than the New York Times, which acted as a megaphone for the oppo research efforts of American Bridge, the pro-Hillary operation founded by David Brock. The "scandal" amounted to four traffic tickets for Marco Rubio over 18 years, puffed up by including his wife's driving record into a headline of 17 violations for the couple. The problem is that the Times studiously ignored the scofflaw behavior of Barack Obama, who ignored 15 outstanding parking tickets until his run for the presidency forced him to clean up his record.
Pummeling Perry: The Media's Worst Attacks on the Former Texas Governor . If his 2012 presidential run is any indicator, Rick Perry's jump into the 2016 presidential race will bring a flurry of the liberal media's favorite pejoratives for Republicans. Racist? Anti-science? Religious bigot? Gun nut? Heartless cutter of programs for the poor? You name it, the former Texas governor was called it by his haters in the leftist press.
MSM Journalist Wants Republican Presidential Candidates to 'Unleash Their Lizard Brains' in Upcoming Debates . Three mainstream media journalists are showing their bias against the large field of Republican Presidential candidates. In a recent podcast, they discussed the 2016 campaign. When asked by MSNBC's Alex Wagner what she thought of the Republican candidates who will be invited to participate in the upcoming Fox News debates, Annie Lowrey, who writes for New York Magazine, let loose: "Even in terms of getting a better bread and circus type ludicrous production, which as a journalist is all that I care about, I just want chaos, anarchy, racist comments, sexist comments, I want, I want the worst of these people, I want them to, like, unleash their lizard brains."
No Time for Hillary Scandals — Because Every Reporter Everywhere Is Covering the Dennis Hastert Indictment . [Scroll down] Yet one cannot help but observe: Three authors are given a byline for this scoop, and six others are credited with "contributing" to the report. That's nine Washington Post authors hard at work getting the (legally non-actionable) background to the indictment of a retired congressman. And it's not just the Post. ABC News needed six authors to report the same story. The New York Times needed five. Politico needed four. Would that so much media manpower were devoted to covering current scandal-laden politicians — like, oh, for instance, Hillary Clinton.
CNBC's Harwood Hits Rubio for Looking 'Like a Schoolboy' Compared to Hillary . CNBC Washington correspondent Richard Harwood and the co-hosts of CNBC's Squawk Box briefly discussed during Friday's [5/29/2015] show the age difference between Hillary Clinton and Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio that included Harwood knocking Rubio for "look[ing] like a schoolboy" compared to Clinton.
NY Post: Stephanopoulos gets $105M from ABC . When it emerged that George Stephanopoulos had failed to disclose $75,000 in donations to the Clinton Foundation to either the network or viewers while repeatedly covering the organization, ABC News declared that it would stand by its "chief news anchor." The New York Post's Emily Smith explains that they have one hundred and five million reasons to ignore their own declared standards and practices. ABC renewed Stephanopoulos' contract last year for more than double what NBC paid Brian Williams ... and it's working out just as well.
The Real Stephanopoulos Scandal . No, it's not his blatant partisanship, his ties to the increasingly thuggish Clinton Machine, or even his complete lack of journalistic ethics. It's that ABC should never have hired him in the first place. Back in the Stone Age, before reporters became "journalists" and before "journalists" became politically motivated Fifth Columnists masquerading as members of the Fourth Estate, there was a cardinal rule: a reporter could leave a newspaper and accept a job as a public-relations flack, but under no circumstances could he or she then return to reporting. Ever. In other words, once having forfeited any pretense of objectivity, and having accepted payment for advocating a particular point of view, that guy's career in real journalism was finished.
Why is everybody so surprised about George? Back in 1996, ABC president Roone Arledge hired deeply partisan Democrat hack, George Stephanopoulos, to be the network's political analyst and contributor. ABC promised that he would not cover news but would only provide commentary as a seasoned and professional pundit. After I laughed uproariously at the news, I knew that all major network news programs would be biased against Republicans. I knew this way before Bernard Goldberg wrote his book Bias in 2001 because of what happened in 1992 on the Larry King show.
Stephanopoulos's Long History of Mixing Journalism and Politics . Was Stephanopoulos's conflict simply a minor oversight? A matter of, "I should have gone the extra mile to avoid even the appearance of a conflict"? Or was this a long-standing pattern of a political operative pretending to be a journalist finally reaching the light of day?
Stephanopoulos's Long, Long Record of Loyal Service to the Clintons . If George Stephanopoulos had simply donated $75,000 to the Clinton Foundation while also serving as one of its favorite media panelists, the controversy over his conflicts of interest would be much less. Stephanopoulos would be guilty of a clear error, but he also would have had a lot of media company. What makes his scandal different is that he himself chose to interrogate Peter Schweizer, the author of Clinton Cash, the new exposé on the Clinton Foundation. If you watch the interview, it's pretty obvious that Stephanopoulos is playing prosecuting attorney against Schweizer while also declining to ask key questions, for instance, about Hugh Rodham, Hillary Clinton's brother and his highly questionable dealings involving the foundation.
What Amtrak Spends Its Money On . Before the bodies had been pulled out of the wreckage, Democrats were preaching the poor-mouth about Amtrak funding, often dishonestly. (Seriously, how is it that a Washington Post writer and his Washington Post editors don't understand how federal spending works?) Smoking ruins of train cars in Philadelphia, and the usual ghouls start up with the usual thing: "Oh, if those mean Republicans had only let us spend money on the trains, this wouldn't have happened!"
Stephanopoulos' $75,000 Gift To Clintons Underlines Media Corruption . In another sign the left's grip on the news is bigger than anyone knew, ABC News' George Stephanopoulos hid a $75,000 gift to the Clinton Foundation even as he reported news about corruption allegations. While skeptically interrogating author Peter Schweizer about "Clinton Cash," his book exposing the Clinton Foundation last April 26, the anchor for ABC News conveniently left out the highly relevant fact that he himself had donated $75,000 to the Clinton Foundation.
Also posted under Media bias in Hillary Clinton's favor .
Clinton — 30 Days, 8 Press Questions; Fiorina — 8 Days, 322 Press Questions . Tuesday [5/12/2015] will mark exactly 30 days since Hillary Rodham Clinton launched her official presidential bid for the White House, yet she still hasn't done a formal sit down interview with national media, setting a record for the longest running presidential candidate without doing so following a campaign launch, as first reported by Breitbart News. Unlike Clinton, GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina has been on what CNN coined a "media blitz" introducing herself to voters.
The Halperin-Cruz teaching moment . There is more to this story than a simple case of media gotcha. It's one thing to ask a candidate what newspapers she reads, or whether he can identify the president of Mexico. It's quite another to set out to show that the candidate isn't who he says he is because he doesn't meet your subjective standard for determining who's who and what's what. Actually, as should be obvious to anyone who has watched the clip, this was no interview. It was an interrogation. Journalists conduct interviews to obtain information. That's not what Halperin did here. He was on the attack, quizzing Cruz about his Cuban-ness to make the 2016 Republican presidential hopeful look like a phony.
Mark Halperin's Real Bias Is Partisan, Not Racist . Imagine it's 2007 and a prominent journalist is interviewing then-Senator Barack Obama. "Senator, people are really interested in you and your identity. I just wanted to ask you as a historical matter, when you filled out your application to Columbia, to Harvard Law School, did you list yourself as an African American?" Imagine he pressed further. Do you have a favorite traditional black food? Who's your favorite African-American performer? It's a safe bet that journalist would be lucky to have a job today as a greeter at Wal-Mart.
Ted Cruz's finest moment . The United States owes Bloomberg columnist Mark Halperin a debt of gratitude. For a rare and fleeting moment, Americans of all political persuasions, religious affiliations, and ethnic backgrounds were united in revulsion over the spectacle of his attempt to interview Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). [...] Halperin's apology for his contemptible actions was even worse. After more than 24 hours of controversy and condemnation, Halperin issued a mealy-mouthed mea culpa in PDF format. In the "apology" in which he asked forgiveness only from those who might have been offended, a rudimentary blame-shifting tactic, Halperin insisted that a number of factors were responsible for this kerfuffle. Everything, in fact, but his intent.
The Real Takeaways From the Cruz-Halperin Interview . Liberal media honcho Mark Halperin really showed his "colors" as he tried to de-Hispanify Sen. Ted Cruz in an interview for Bloomberg Politics over the weekend. If you like arrogant, condescending, rude, insolent and patronizing Beltway journalism, you may appreciate Halperin's performance. If you are a person of ordinary sensibilities, however, and not so intoxicated with the leftist worldview that you are incapable of dispassionately assessing the segment, you will have a different reaction.
Authenticity challenge: Ted Cruz asked to prove he's 'Cuban' — controversy ensues, apology issued . Analysts and journalists are still puzzling over the recent interview between Bloomberg News managing editor Mark Halperin and Sen. Ted Cruz. The Texas Republican and Cuban-American was subjected to a string of inquiries about his taste in Cuban food and music, his ability to speak Spanish and other matters that had no real place in the political discourse. There was a price to pay however.
Sing Us a Song Boy: Mark Halperin's Racist Interview with Ted Cruz . As most of you know Cruz is Hispanic, specifically Cuban; the media believe the Hispanic vote is crucial to winning the White House; the media loathe Sen. Ted Cruz, and Halperin is a member-in-good-standing among the elite media. What better way, then, for Halperin to shine among his colleagues than to racially disqualify Cruz; to make him toxic to Hispanic voters.
White man asks the son of Cuban immigrants if he is Cuban enough . Mary Katharine Ham, in one of the very best single questions ever asked, proved herself to be very forward-thinking when she asked "What is the point of you, Mark Halperin?" To this day, no one can answer this question, but we all find ourselves asking it once again.
Mark Halperin's Terrible Ted Cruz Interview Unites Left and Right in Mockery . Mark Halperin's truly cringe-worthy interview with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) may have aired April 30 on Bloomberg TV, but somehow we the media missed it until a San Jose Mercury-News columnist tore it apart over the weekend. Since then, much of the media — left and right — has united in deriding Halperin. First, the interview itself: The seven-minute interview largely focused on Cruz's appeal to Latino voters, with some truly strange questions like "Your last name is Cruz and you're from Texas. Just based on that, should you have appeal to Hispanic voters?" and "I wanted to give you the opportunity to welcome your colleague Senator Sanders to the race and I'd like you to do it, if you would, en Español."
Conservatives go to Twitter to Shame Mark Halperin's Cuban Inquisition . Yesterday [5/9/2015] many conservatives were incensed at the idiotic race inquisition that news media hack Mark Halperin put Ted Cruz through in order to prove his Cuban bona fides. Today they took it nationwide by trending "Halperin Quotes" to mock and shame Halperin by composing other racist questions he might ask of other candidates.
Mark Halperin interviews Ted Cruz, expects Ricky Ricardo . I was born and raised in Puerto Rico, and, if I had $5 for every liberal idiot who looks at me and says "You don't look Puerto Rican", etc., because I don't fit the Liberal template of what a Lateeeno/Lateeena should be like, this blog wouldn't need to carry ads. Frankly, by now I expect to consistently encounter discrimination and bigotry from Liberals. It's in their mindset — identity politics is their lifeblood.
Latino Columnist 'Nauseated' by Racist' Halperin Queries Testing Cuban Heritage of Ted Cruz . Bloomberg TV host Mark Halperin drew a serious rhetorical beating from Washington Post-syndicated columnist Ruben Navarrette over his prove-you're-a-Cuban line of questioning to Ted Cruz on his program With All Due Respect. (The "respect" seemed to be missing, or as phony-sounding as it can be during an argument.) The interview came on April 30, but the columnist just picked up the argument. Would a liberal Latino get this line of questioning?
Clinton Political Director Tasks Univision with Hounding Bush, Rubio . Brazen cheerleading was the order of the day on Univision this week, as Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton travelled to Las Vegas to announce her support of U.S. citizenship for millions of unauthorized immigrants in the country, in addition to the expansion of the Obama administration's current policies of amnesty and non-enforcement of federal immigration law.
MSNBC Pundit Suggests Ben Carson an Affirmative-Action Case Who Drank the GOP's 'Kool-Aid' . According to MSNBC pundit Michelle Bernard — best known at NewsBusters perhaps because of her insistence that there is a "war on black boys" in America — savaged newly-announced GOP presidential aspirant Dr. Ben Carson tonight by alleging his success is all owed to "affirmative action." She also suggested that he's a disgrace to his enslaved ancestors and to the black community in Baltimore, where he's lived throughout his career as an acclaimed neurosurgeon.
Carly Fiorina Nails Katie Couric on Double Standards, Hillary Defense . Newly minted Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina went toe-to-toe with liberal journalist Katie Couric on Monday [5/4/2015], sparring for 45 minutes on abortion, Hillary Clinton and qualifications for President.
I support free speech, but... . After Pamela Geller's free speech event in Texas and the terror attack that followed, it has been stunning to hear one journalist after another ask Ms. Geller why she held the event, question the wisdom or need for such an event, and go so far as to insinuate that she was somehow to blame for the violence.
How long will her media allow Hillary Clinton to avoid questions? Clinton's skating smoothly so far because despite little gripes here and there, media members have largely gone along with the Clinton campaign's determination to protect the party's most likely presidential nominee from awkward questions, gaffes and hypocrisy charges. Planners do this by plopping her in front of hand-picked sympathizers to ask them questions that allow her to utter the day's themed policy platitudes, as cameras snap and roll.
Are Unions Getting MSNBC Airtime by Donating to Sharpton's Nonprofit? Since Politics Nation debuted on MSNBC on August 29, 2011, Al Sharpton's nonprofit National Action Network has collected more than $2.38 million in contributions from unions, according to Department of Labor records. Meanwhile, Sharpton has often used his show to promote pro-labor viewpoints, also inviting union leadership on as guests.
Anti-Christian bias at CBS? Conservatives blast 'Face the Nation' . Last week, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins was invited to be on CBS News' "Face the Nation." What was supposed to be a cordial conversation about the Supreme Court and same-sex marriage turned out to be a professional ambush.
NY Times Blamed Reagan/Bush for LA Riots, But No Blame in Baltimore . Is President Obama responsible for the Baltimore riots? If you take a look at how The New York Times portrayed the reaction to the Los Angeles riots of 1992, apparently so. [...] Today, as the events in Baltimore unfold — now with formal charges including murder brought against six Baltimore cops — there is one striking aspect that is not present as it was in Los Angeles. That would be blaming the President of the United States. Yes, that's right. As Los Angeles burned, the media was quick to finger the real culprit as then-incumbent Republican President George H.W. Bush. Not to mention his predecessor, Ronald Reagan — then four years gone from the White House.
Feminist Media Hail Satanists for Deeming Abortion a 'Religious Belief' . The pro-abortion media crowd is embracing new ally in their fight: Satanists. "Mary" from Missouri is hoping to bypass her state's 72-hour abortion waiting period by citing "sincerely held religious beliefs" — as a Satanist. The Friendly Atheist blog broke the story of how the Satanic Temple plans to aid a woman it calls Mary who believes in its "tenets." The media followed suit, from a Think Progress editor expressing "love," to a Salon editor concluding, "[R]eligious exemption laws are maybe cool when Satanists use them to get abortions."
Our fawning press and Hillary Clinton's Iowa magical mystery tour . Republicans critiquing this comedy should not get too cocky. A recent Rasmussen poll, taken in the wake of the email scandal, showed that 57% of Americans likely to vote think Hillary will be our next president. That kind of certainty can become self-fulfilling, causing people to withhold donations and stay home on voting day. Republicans have to work much harder than they may think to turn this around.
Clinton "Déjà vu" Scandals . During the Democrat presidential primary debates of 1992, then California Attorney General Jerry Brown accused then-Arkansas governor Bill Clinton of being involved in a shady real estate business known as the Whitewater Development Corporation. While Clinton was able to sidestep the issue that evening, the tip was given to the press and they began to take a look into the situation. As evidence of crooked deals and illegal land-flipping grew more and more obvious, the liberal-leaning press got less and less curious, especially after Bill Clinton won the 1992 election and began to settle into office.
Face the Nation' Should Face-Up to Its Apalling and Unfair Question . Over the weekend, the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins appeared on CBS's Face the Nation. [...] Thankfully, CBS News didn't actually bow to pressure and cancel Perkins's appearence on Face the Nation — but to have him show up then ask him to defend the very legtimacy of his right to speak is appalling.
CNN's Brooke Baldwin Blames Military Veterans For Baltimore Riots . While conducting an interview with Democratic Maryland Representative Elijiah Cummings, CNN host Brooke Baldwin questioned whether the violence in Baltimore had something to do with the amount of military veterans in the police department.
The Movement To Keep Dubya Silent Continues . Bloomberg News is ideologically an extension of CNN propaganda and their latest exploit is a case study in remarkable bias.
Professor And CNN Commentator: 'We Should BE STRATEGIC In How We Riot' . Marc Lamont Hill, a Morehouse College professor and regular CNN commentator, embraced radical violence in the streets during an interview Monday [4/27/2015] on CNN. "There shouldn't be calm tonight," Hill told CNN host Don Lemon as riots raged in the streets of Baltimore. "Black people are dying in the streets. We've been dying in the streets for months, years, decades, centuries. I think there can be resistance to oppression."
Joe Scarborough Rips Liberal Media 'Bowing Down' on Clinton Cash . A fiery Joe Scarborough on Tuesday [4/28/2015] denounced the media's double standard when it comes to investigating the scandal engulfing the Clinton Foundation's financial dealings. An angry Scarborough erupted "The Clintons have made $150 million over the past decade because of contacts they made during public service!" He described the typical journalist reaction as "Let's bow down before Bill and Hillary, because if we ask the same questions of them that we ask of every other politician, then [...] We have crossed a line!"
George Stephanopoulos makes the case why he should be fired from his ABC News job . George Stephanopoulos got aggressive yesterday [4/26/2015] in challenging author Peter Schweizer on his book Clinton Cash. But in relying on the principal talking point proffered by the Clinton campaign, he indicted himself on charges of bias. Ramesh Ponnuru and Scott Johnson both picked up on the irony.
Stephanopoulos Aggressively Questions Peter Schweizer Over 'Clinton Cash' . On Sunday's [4/26/2015] This Week, ABC's George Stephanopoulos interviewed Peter Schweizer, author of Clinton Cash, and repeatedly badgered his guest about the accuracy of his book and chose to focus on Democratic attacks against the author. [...] Stephanopoulos never appeared interested in the actual substance of Schweizer's book, which alleges the Clinton Foundation took in millions of dollars in donations in exchange for potential influence with the U.S. government and instead acted as a Clinton defender.
NBC Champions Children's Gender Confusion . On April 21 and 22, NBC ran a two-part series revolving around "transgender" children that featured its correspondent Kate Snow interviewing Pediatrician Michelle Forcier, associate professor of pediatrics at Brown University Alpert. Forcier was honored by "The Center for Sexual Pleasure and Health" as its "Hump Day Hero," and who advocates early puberty interventions of kids who think they should be the opposite sex.
Media jump on reporter's ties to Sarah Palin, ignore a convicted felon's ties to Hillary Clinton . Establishment media are intensely interested in Peter Schweizer's brief stint as an advisor to Sarah Palin after an advance tease from his forthcoming book suggested a fresh scandal in the long career of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. But they are showing a nearly total disinterest in an even more prominent newsmaker's connection to Clinton herself. After Rajat K. Gupta, a former Goldman Sachs executive currently serving a two-year prison sentence for insider trading, lost his appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court Monday [4/20/2015], the press didn't find it worth mentioning that the convicted felon is a longtime Clinton associate and donor.
CNN and The Obama Agenda — A collaborative goal to work policy objectives through the media . [Scroll down] These would seem like disconnected coincidences if we didn't know, with direct sourcing, that CNN and the White House work in concert with each other both ideologically and specifically with a collaborative goal to work policy objectives through the media. Most conservatives immediately respond with thoughts of CNN's Candy Crowley supporting Obama during the CNN hosted 2012 presidential debate. Or you might reference CNN's Fareed Zakaria who is also a key Obama foreign policy advisor.
Our fawning press and Hillary Clinton's Iowa magical mystery tour . [E]verywhere Hillary Clinton goes, now that her campaign is launched, an entire gaggle of reporters tags along. These folks are there for a story. Hillary is giving them nothing — no policy pronouncements, no big speeches, no off-the-cuff responses to shouted inquiries about pesky emails or foreign donations. As a result, the press corps is sending along whatever news scraps they can pluck from the road trip, including: [...]
Clinton Embroiled in Scandal Again, Newsweek Frets Over 'Enemies' Discrediting Her . [Scroll down] The worst reading of this is that the media is hopelessly biased in favor of Democrats, and to some latent degree actually buys into Hillary Clinton's famous assertion that there's a "vast right-wing conspiracy" out to get her. The most favorable interpretation of this is that the media is incapable of covering substantive facts in a straightforward manner, and always defaults to petty horse race coverage of the presidential race. And there's always a possibility that it's a little bit of both.
WashPost Reporter Claims: 'The Media Isn't Biased in Favor of Hillary' . Washington Post political reporter Chris Cillizza recently lectured Rand Paul not to play media critic. Now he's decided conservative media critics as a whole have no argument in an article provocatively headlined "No, the media isn't biased in favor of Hillary Clinton." There is no evidence for that charge, he wrote, even as he acknowledged the embarrassing video of journalists chasing after the Scooby van.
NBC Reporter to Rick Perry: Are you smart enough for the White House? It's becoming apparent that the public would be better served if presidential candidates were interviewed not by reporters but by an algorithm that randomly generates pearls of inside-the-Beltway conventional wisdom. [...] The latest example of the phenomenon in which liberal clichés serve as a guiding philosophy comes to us courtesy of NBC News reporter Kasie Hunt.
The Sham Candidacy of Hillary Clinton — and What It Means for the Republic . [T]he only reason an HRC candidacy is even plausible is the influence of the legacy media, which has simply declared, by fiat, her suitability and her inevitability. You may recall that the MSM did the same thing in the run-up to 2008, until their dreamboat, Obama, came along and gave the aging Baby Boomers, who had dreamed of exactly this moment since 1968, a reason to push the female candidate to the back of the bus in order to celebrate the only kind of "diversity" they advocate, which is racial.
Compare and contrast: Same TV reporter approaches Hillary Clinton and Marco Rubio . The following contrasting videos should be enough to chill the bones of every Democrat sensibly worried about how good a candidate Hillary Clinton will be. Dan Calabrese, of Herman Cain's CainTV.com website brings us the two videos of the same TMZ reporter walking up to both candidates at an airport as they arrive.
Media Now Itself Leading Outrage Mobs Against Individual Citizens . A random woman in Dallas expressed xer opinion that women did not have the hormonal stability to be president. Which prompted a local Dallas news outfit to go after her, similar to how we saw news stations go after Memories Pizza. We live in a period of fear, darkness, cruelty, and stupidity. Andrew Stiles of the Free Beacon calls this a new low for journalism. This latest stupidity from angry, truculent left-wing morons with cameras has pretty much broken his spirit.
Video: The dumbest news segment ever . [Scroll down] There are two explanations for this segment being broadcast, which aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. One: There was absolutely nothing of interest happening in Dallas-Fort Worth yesterday. (Possible, but unlikely.) Two: Someone in CBS Dallas wants to paint all opposition to Hillary Clinton as kooky, bigoted, and possibly evidence that religion makes people both of those. My hunch is that Option Two looks pretty likely here. And my further hunch is that we'll see more of this ludicrous media focus on even the smallest nuggets of anti-Hillary kookiness to exploit as a way to marginalize her opposition over the next several months.
Questions No Mainstream Media Hack Will Ever Ask Hillary . There are plenty of questions that real journalists would ask Hillary, except she will never — ever — expose herself to a real journalist. She will stay hidden and talk only to the select coterie of Democrat transcriptionists who have distinguished themselves via sycophancy above and beyond the call of duty. So we need to detonate the narrative by asking the tough questions ourselves. It's sad that it has come to this, but the Clintons destroy everything they put their grubby hands on, and the old idea of journalism is just one more casualty in their quest for power. Half the mainstream media has worked for the Clintons, or is married to someone who did, and the other half would happily do so.
WaPo: It's Difficult to Sell Hillary as a Normal Person Because She's Just SO Awesome . At first, [Chris] Cillizza gives the impression that he might be lampooning Team Clinton's approach. The average American knows that it is difficult to sell Her Madameship as normal because she's a wealthy snob who looks down on everyone and has a sense of entitlement that would make a British royal from the 17th Ccntury [sic] blush. This, however, is what is going on in the largely vacant space that is the mind of the mainstream media.
Behold the World's Lowest Bar! I've spent much of my life observing and writing about media bias, so you'd think nothing could surprise me at this point. But the fawning, deferential coverage of Hillary Clinton really is amazing.
Mediasplaining . Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for president this week and ran smack dab into the wall separating both Americas, via satellite on the "Today Show." While being interrogated by TV host Savannah Guthrie, whose second husband is Democratic political operative Michael Feldman, Paul objected to a leading question that could have been written by the Democratic National Committee. [...] The journalism awards undoubtedly will flow to Guthrie for that interview, but a candidate gets only one shot to launch a campaign. To his great credit, Paul did not play the media's game.
Media Fabricated Evidence to Smear GOP Three Times In One Day . As right-of-center New Media grows stronger (and it is much stronger today than it was even in 2012), because the mainstream media is in reality a propaganda outlet to empower central government and boost those who share that goal, everyday this same mainstream media becomes more desperate and ugly. That's why the media told serial-lies around Trayvon Martin, Ferguson, and religious freedom laws. And that's why on Friday [4/10/2015], the media was caught on three occasions fabricating evidence to smear the GOP.
'Hitler Made a Difference': The Liberal Gang Rape of Journalism . Rolling Stone magazine perpetrated a hoax against the University of Virginia, doing "journalism" about an alleged gang rape that evidently never happened. The source of the dramatic tale Rolling Stone published last November, "A Rape on Campus," was a UVA student named Jackie who has been proven to be a liar. [...] What better way to exploit the political "gender gap" than to claim that college girls are being raped en masse, and then to suggest that the solution to this problem could be summarized in two words: "VOTE DEMOCRAT!"
More about the Rolling Stone .
Meet The Press Panel Eagerly Hits GOP Over Religious Freedom Laws . On Sunday's [4/5/2015] Meet the Press, an all liberal panel repeatedly took shots at the Republican Party over its support for religious freedom laws with Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report going so far as to suggest that on the issue on the issue of gay marriage "if we took everybody over the age of 50, and just moved them out of this country, this wouldn't be an issue at all."
The Editor says...
Ms. Walter speaks like a true revolutionary: Get rid of everybody over 50, and then we can make progress! Where do you suppose she would like to move 100 million people? See, the thing about people over age 50 is that eventually everybody passes 50, so there's a steady supply. If Ms. Walter is looking for practical solutions, it would be far easier to deport the 71,165 couples in same-sex marriages. But of course she isn't speaking about concrete plans, she's engaging in an emotional outburst with no basis in reality, like so many liberals do.
NYTimes Hypocrisy: It Denounces Corporate Speech in Citizens United, Cheers When Against Indiana . When the issue was the Citizens United ruling and the resulting ability of corporations to directly spend money on political advertising, well the Times worried about the supposed corrupting influence of the practice and the drowning out of the common man's voice, which is not amplified by hordes of corporate cash. But fast-forward to this week and it's a far different story.
Mika: Governor Mike Pence Must Be A Bigot, Because He 'Sounds Like' And 'Looks Like' One . Host of MSNBC's "Morning Joe" Mika Brzezinski said it was fair to call Indiana Gov. Mike Pence a bigot, because he "looks like" and "sounds like" one after his support for the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act. "These are firmly held beliefs that people have had for thousands years," argued her co-host Joe Scarborough. "And you can call it bigotry if you want to. ..."
Nets Devote 3x More Time to Indiana Law Than Hillary E-Mail Server Wipe . The stunning revelation that Hillary Clinton wiped her personal e-mail server clean is the kind of political cover-up that should have sent the networks into overdrive, except they had an even more important agenda to advance: smearing an entire state and its Republican governor as anti-gay bigots. From the morning of March 27 through March 30 evening the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) networks spent only 10 minutes and 15 seconds to the admission by Clinton's own attorney that her State Department e-mails were wiped from the server that had been subpoenaed by Congress, but they devoted a whopping 35 minutes and 1 seconds [sic] to coverage of the Indiana religious freedom law.
NBC's Ann Curry Compares Conservatives in U.S. to Skeptical Iranian Leaders Ahead of Deadline . While reporting on Monday's [3/30/2015] NBC Nightly News with the latest from the Iranian side of the international talks in Switzerland over their nuclear program, Ann Curry smeared U.S. conservatives by likening them to radical hardliners in Iran's Islamic regime.
For Hillary Clinton, Excellence In Servility From The Lapdog Media . At an "Excellence In Journalism" gala, Hillary Clinton drew a standing ovation from the media's supposedly tough watchdogs. Before that, they failed to ask tough questions at a presser. Just when does the lapdogging stop?
Harry Reid, partisan brawler, gets pattycake treatment from the press . Harry Reid has just pulled off a triple coup. He got to make his own retirement announcement without having it leak in advance. He essentially got to anoint his successor. And despite years as a bare-knuckled partisan warrior who makes incendiary comments about the other side, he's gotten a pretty nice media sendoff. Usually when a 75-year-old lawmaker gets knocked out of the majority and then suffers a terrible accident, there's all kinds of media speculation about whether he'll hang it up. But who ever thought the Nevada Democrat would relinquish power voluntarily?
Americans Support Nuclear Deal With Iran? Presumably, hardly any of those telephoned by the pollsters realized that the objective of the agreement, assuming that Iran abides by it — a laughable assumption — is to extend the time it will take Iran to build a bomb to one year. Even assuming that objective could be achieved, which most experts do not believe, it would be a small payoff for ending sanctions, which will entrench the mullahs' regime and increase the resources they can devote to nuclear enrichment and ICBM development, which will not be addressed in the prospective deal.
Indianapolis Star Front Page Scolds Religious Freedom Law . The Tuesday [3/31/2015] print edition of the Indianapolis Star will devote its entire front page to Indiana's Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) — not a news article but an editorial attacking the measure.
Editing Teddyworld: Some facts didn't make 'Institute' cut . When Ted Kennedy wrote his initial account of Chappaquiddick for the Edgartown police in 1969, after he scrawled the words "Mary Jo" in the first sentence he left a blank space — because he had no idea what his victim's last name was. That's one of the many facts about Ted Kennedy that you won't learn by visiting the new Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate. In case you haven't been eagerly anticipating this magic moment, the "Institute" opens tomorrow amid yet another orgy of shameless bum-kissing of what was once called "America's First Family" by the mainstream media.
Networks Pile on to Attack 'Controversial' Indiana Religious Freedom Law . On Saturday [3/28/2015] and Sunday, the "big three" (ABC, CBS, and NBC) networks vigorously condemned a new Indiana law that would protect private businesses from government infringement on their religious freedom. Rather than provide balanced coverage of the Indiana bill, the networks eagerly trashed the legislation as opening "the door to discrimination against gays and lesbians."
Republicans Twice as Likely To Be Targeted By Washington Post Fact Checker . Breitbart News analyzed the Washington Post fact check column for all of 2015 and found that so far this year Republicans and their claims have been targeted twice as often as Democrats and their claims. A good faith search revealed that over almost four full months, Republicans (this includes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu) were fact-checked a total of 32 times. Democrats were fact-checked only 16 times.
After Breitbart Report WaPo Fact Checker Promises Changes . Glenn Kessler, editor of the Washington Post's fact-check column, promised to make some changes in the wake of a Breitbart News report that showed Republicans are twice as likely as Democrats to be targeted by his fact checks.
How much are Kennedy's like Jesus? Let Parade magazine count the ways . The Sunday-newspaper supplement Parade magazine lards on the Kennedy love today. The cover shows two of Teddy's sons, Teddy Jr. and Patrick with the words "The Kennedy Legacy: The next generation carries on the family's exuberant mission of public service." Parade even touted their deep religious faith, with the headline inside: "Guided by the Beatitudes and the notion that helping others is both a duty and a pleasure, the next generation of Kennedys carries on the family's public service legacy."
The Editor says...
Marilyn Monroe and Mary Jo Kopechne probably had their doubts about any "deep religious faith" in the Kennedy family.
Late Night Comics Mock Ted Cruz as Anti-Immigrant, Stupid . In a preview of the 2016 campaign, all five late night comics on Monday night [3/23/2015] mocked Ted Cruz, hitting the Republican as anti-immigrant, regressive and stupid. CBS host David Letterman didn't bother with a joke. Instead, he lectured, "Here's what I find interesting about Ted Cruz, he was born in Canada. His father fled to the United States from Cuba. Yet, Ted Cruz is against immigration. Isn't that odd?"
MSNBC Guest: GOP Supports Israel Because They're 'Xenophobic, Nativist,' And 'Racist' . Executive director of the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation Youssef Munayyer said on MSNBC's "Andrea Mitchell Reports" that the Republican Party supports Israel because its base is "xenophobic, nativist, and at many times racist."
Crushing Cruz: The Media's Worst Attacks on the GOP Presidential Candidate . Ted Cruz's announcement that he is running for president was immediately greeted with hostility from the liberal media. On Monday, MSNBC's Jonathan Alter questioned, "Is this 1964 when the Republican Party decided it would go with its most extreme candidate?" Donny Deutsch, also on MSNBC, called Cruz "unelectable" and added "I think he's the worst. I think he's scary, I think he's dangerous, I think he's slimy and I think he brings no fresh ideas."
Of Course Obama Wants to Take Hillary Down . We can believe Ed Klein's sources claiming Valerie Jarrett is the White House point woman for the destruction of Hillary Clinton. Evidence: It was the New York Times which broke the story. The Democratic press does not eat its own, ever. Yet here was the Gray Lady, setting the headlines for Drudge. People asked how Hillary could have been so stupid. The answer is that in the normal course of mainstream reporting, there is no Democrat crime too large for the press to cover up. She knew she was perfectly safe. [...] To make it even clearer that something was going on behind the scenes: the fact that Secretary of State Clinton was using private email had come out in the news two years ago. Raking up an old story detrimental to their team is not normally what the New York Times does. The Times followed the emerging scandal with article after article. They didn't just want to embarrass Hillary, they were out to destroy her.
Flashback: 'Big Three' Ignored Ted Kennedy's Letter to Soviet Union . On Monday, March 9 and Tuesday, March 10, the "big three" (ABC, CBS, and NBC) networks pounced on a letter signed by 47 Republican senators to the leaders of Iran regarding its negotiations with the Obama administration over its nuclear program. Despite the networks' eagerness to tout Democratic opposition to the GOP letter, on two separate occasions the "big three" completely ignored a letter penned by former Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) written to the Soviet Union in 1983 aimed at undermining President Ronald Reagan's nuclear negotiations with the Communist regime.
NBC News Whitewashes history on Iran Diplomacy . In a tweet this morning, NBC News senior political editor Mark Murray writes: "With GOP Senators' Iran Move, Politics Goes Beyond the Water's Edge." 47 Republican Senators sent to the Supreme Leader of Iran reminding him that Congress is not bound by deals that Congress does not approve. The article Murray links to describes this as "stunning" and "unprecedented" and implies that the letter constitutes a breach of protocol so significant that it ends the long tradition of bipartisan foreign policy. This is utterly preposterous. The only way to reach such a conclusion is to ignore efforts by Democrats to undermine George W. Bush.
White House, NYT leave Bushes out of lead photos from Selma march . The decision by The New York Times to run a front-page image on Sunday of President Obama — and family — leading a march to mark the 50th anniversary of the Selma civil rights clashes, while leaving out of the image former President George W. Bush and his wife Laura, apparently was mirrored in the "official White House photo" of the event. The official White House blog's Sunday entry on the Alabama march led with a similar image, focusing on Obama and his family, as well as civil rights figures, but leaving out the Bushes.
Few say Obama has helped race relations, as 2 presidents (not 1) mark Selma . The peaceful scene Saturday [2/7/2015] was designed to display unity in the face of ongoing racial difficulties, often involving police force. The photo [in this article] shows the actual scene as modern-day marchers joined hands and arms in unity and hope. Both in shirt-sleeves, the last two presidents — Obama and George W. Bush with wife Laura — set out at the head of some 10,000 supporters. But consumers of the weekend news could be excused if they did not realize the two-term 43rd president was present at the historic memorial.
New York Times Crops Selma Picture To Remove President George W Bush . Yesterday Debbie Wasserman Schultz cropped a picture of President Obama on stage to remove the image of President George W Bush also being present. The first reason was obvious, bias. However, the second reason was more subtle — the absence of President Clinton and Hillary. Today [3/8/2015] the New York Times cropped out President Bush for the same reason.
Just to be fair, here is the NYT's rebuttal:
'There Was No Crop' of Selma Photograph . Many readers wrote to me over the weekend, upset that a front-page photo of President Obama and his family leading a commemorative march in Selma, Ala., did not include former president George W. Bush and his wife, Laura. The Bushes were also in the front line of marchers. Twitter was ablaze with criticism of The Times, many conservative news organizations wrote critical articles — and my email inbox overflowed. Some readers said they were canceling their Times subscriptions. Others were simply disappointed.
MSNBC's Harris-Perry: Today's Selma March Is For 'Reproductive Rights' . Selma's "Bloody Sunday" is now about "reproductive rights" according to MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry. Her view directly contradicted Martin Luther King, Jr.'s niece, who has made her pro-life views public. While covering the 50th anniversary of the "Bloody Sunday" march in Selma, Ala. live for MSNBC on March 8, Harris-Perry proclaimed that this year's march stood for issues "on the table right now." Issues like abortion.
CBS, NBC Hit Netanyahu for 'Controversial Address' While Obama 'Fires Back' . All three broadcast networks reported on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech before Congress with segments in their Tuesday night [3/3/2015] broadcasts, but it was CBS and NBC that led the way in hitting Netanyahu for making a "controversial speech" and touted President Obama for "firing back," "point by point for 11 minutes." CBS Evening News substitute anchor Charlie Rose began the show's coverage by telling viewers that "Netanyahu did an end run around President Obama today" in his speech with the caption "controversial speech" appearing beside him.
Walker-Bashing Media Ignores Bill Maher Questioning Bushes' Religious Choice . While the liberal media insisted it was politically poisonous for Scott Walker to answer "I don't know" if President Obama is a Christian, it's never unacceptable to suggest Jeb and George W. Bush chose their brand of Christianity for political reasons. That's exactly what HBO star Bill Maher did in a blog post titled "Jeb Bush: Convenient Catholic?" Recall that Maher donated $1 million to Barack Obama's re-election and no one in the press has located a reason why Obama should be asked to distance himself from anything Maher has said, so why start now? That would only make them look even-handed and principled.
CNN, DHS and SPLC's Blame-Righty Hit Job . The Department of Homeland Security refuses to release a report on "right-wing" terrorism that somehow found its way into CNN's hands last week during the farcical White House summit on Don't Say Islamic Extremism. [...] CNN splashed the big scoop on its website: "DHS intelligence report warns of domestic right-wing terror threat." The fear-mongering piece featured a huge map of 24 alleged acts of "violence by sovereign citizen extremists since 2010." [...] But a closer look at the rigging of that phony factoid simply confirms the malevolent intention of so-called objective journalists and "hate watch" groups to marginalize conservative political speech and dissent. The CNN/MSNBC/SPLC smear job involved both the dishonest deflating of left-wing and jihadist incidents, and the dishonest inflating of "right-wing" incidents.
All the news fit to... miss . It's hard to imagine MSNBC could manage to limbo below its own low credibility bar, but America's most shamelessly partisan cable "news" channel has really pulled it off. There's always stiff competition for bias in America's slavishly left-loving media. Think of Dan Rather's "fake but accurate" Bush-bashing National Guard story, Newsweek's flushed Korans fable and Candi Crowley's assist for President Obama in the 2012 debates. Yes, the "Morning Joe" wet kiss of an "interview" with U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren yesterday [2/24/2015] belongs in that company.
Why Is The Press So Down On North Dakota's Success? The unemployment in North Dakota is a mere 2.8%. The average hourly wage there has climbed 18% since 2009 — more than double the national average. And despite its oft-perceived inhospitable climate, the state's population jumped 11% over those years (vs. 4% nationwide). And pretty much all of this growth has been driven by the oil production boom, which resulted from the ability of oil producers to recover vast amounts of previously inaccessible oil through fracking. So what does the Los Angeles Times decide to write about? Increased drug use on an Indian reservation.
Media Coverage of Rudy Giuliani Comments Dwarfs Coverage of Clinton Foundation Foreign Donors . Despite the new revelations this week about the massive amounts of money the Bill, Hillary, & Chelsea Clinton Foundation has raised from questionable foreign governments and shady billionaires — something even Clinton's defenders admit is a problem — the media hasn't shown much interest in the story.
The Media's Difficulty in Perceiving Christians as Victims . [Scroll down] Finally, some newsroom denizens practice an open contempt for Christians and/or religion in general: The Washington Post's Sally Quinn had no problem openly declaring, "When It Comes to Hateful Internet Speech, Christians Are the Worst." Separately, the President of the United States just did an interview with Vox's Matt Yglesias who once declared, "I take an old-school Jacobin-style line that religion should be stamped out." The coverage of Christians abroad is pretty skimpy — other than when Pope Francis says something that progressives like.
Scott Walker Didn't Finish College. And? The Washington Post has a long article up about Scott Walker's formative years. It has some fine reporting, but the overall tone and headline are curious: "As Scott Walker mulls White House bid, questions linger over college exit." Questions linger? Over what, exactly? It's not a secret and it never has been that Walker didn't finish college.
The Walker-Stupid, Obama-Genius Myth . Through their control of the media, [the Democrats] have been rigging political IQ tests for the last half-century, if not longer. Those Republicans who were not evil geniuses — Nixon, Gingrich, Cheney, Rove — the media have painted as blithering idiots. Dwight Eisenhower was doddering and incoherent. Gerald Ford, perhaps the best athlete to occupy the White House, was a bumbling fool. "I wanted [Jimmy] Carter in and I wanted [Ford] out," comedian Chevy Chase would later admit of his mocking Ford impersonation on "Saturday Night Live", "and I figured look, we're reaching millions of people every weekend, why not do it."
Media's Lack of Curiosity About Killer of Muslims in North Carolina . [Scroll down] The SPLC runs a hate crimes racket, and the media — desperate to promote headlines that fit their pre-existing left-wing narratives about race, inequality and religion — are quick to swallow their propaganda. "I think it's perfectly natural to guess that this is anti-Islamic," [Mark] Potok told the [Washington] Post in the interview regarding the triple murder. "Not just because the three victims are Muslim, but because there has been so much terrible news in recent days about extremist Muslims." Potok also appeared on MSNBC on the morning of February 13 with the news anchor Tamron Hall, and there was no mention of Hicks' political leanings, which appear to be consistent with their own.
NBC's Guthrie Helps Axelrod Keep the 'Obama Critics Are Racists' Myth Alive . A news division that's reeling might want to get out of the low-info leftist opinion pimping business and work a bit on some actual reporting. This is nothing more than Savannah Guthrie earning her good little lapdog cred by keeping a tired lie alive.
A Police Shooting in Denver: How the Media Frames the 'Narrative' . It starts with the headline, which may at first seem innocuous until you think about it for a moment: "Outrage follows Denver police shooting of Latina in stolen car." We'll get to the story, which was published in the Los Angeles Times on Feb. 4, in a moment, but let's unpack that hed, which is just loaded with loaded words. The word, "Outrage," suggests a widespread, mass reaction to some sort of enormity. "Police shooting" immediately evokes Ferguson, Staten Island and any other place in which there has been a recent confrontation between a "minority" and the cops. And how do we know that the victim was a minority? The very next word: "Latina," a politically correct identification of a designated victim group who's just come out on the wrong end of a police shooting. Finally, this bit of additional information: "stolen car." [...] In short, we haven't even started reading the story, and already we know the dramatis personae (good girl Latina, bad guy killer cops). Now it's just a matter of letting the players do their thing, complete with weeping chorus of relatives, onlookers and ministers in the background: [...]
Ted Kennedy Institute Gushed Over By NYT, But [the] Bush Library [is] a 'Disturbing' Threat to 'Academic Freedom' . Ted Kennedy, the late liberal "Lion of the Senate" (as he's invariably called) had his hugely exaggerated bipartisan reputation polished to a gleam in a story in the New York Times Arts section by Robin Pogrebin, "In the Mold of a Senator Who Bartered — Edward M. Kennedy Institute Aims to Teach Collaboration." Next month the institute will open in Boston as a legacy of the Massachusetts senator who died in 2009. Yet the George W. Bush Presidential Library was considered by the Times "disturbing" and a possible threat to academic freedom when it opened.
More about the New York Times .
Washington Post's Al Sharpton profile leaves out much of the Rev.'s past . A lengthy new Washington Post profile on the Rev. Al Sharpton looks at the MSNBC host's standing as a civil rights leader and but treads very lightly around some of the less flattering details of Sharpton's past. [...] The piece only briefly touches on Sharpton's multimillion-dollar tax troubles, his lead role in the Tawana Brawley hoax in the 1980s, and his statements during 1995 demonstrations at Freddie's Fashion Mart in Harlem — omitting entirely that the Freddie's agitation ended when a protestor murdered seven people in the store and burned it down.
The New York Times Commits One of Its Funniest Blunders Ever . [Scroll down] The paper eventually realized its mistake and corrected it, although without acknowledging the correction. I suppose it was just too embarrassing. You can see how this kind of thing might happen; people occasionally have such synapse failures. But some people expect more from the Times editorial board. (I don't, but some others do.) In fact, the Times editorial board is no better than, or different from, a minor-league left wing blogger. Actually, that's where they get a lot of their material.
Army of 'fact checkers' and 'proof readers' at NY Times fails again . How out of touch with the rest of the country are employees of the New York Times? An editorial skewering Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker was a typical Times hit piece on a potentially dangerous opponent in 2016 — typical except earlier versions of the editorial referred to Mr. Walker as "Mr. Scott." [...] The governor of Wisconsin is just not imporant enough to register on the Times' radar. Besides, he's a Republican. Those two factors make errors like "Mr. Scott" possible.
Beat the Media, Win the White House . One of the reasons that Romney lost is that he failed to take on the media. The ultimate lost opportunity came when CNN's debate moderator Candy Crowley directly inserted herself into the argument between Obama and Romney to declare her favorite right and Romney wrong. Romney had won the Republican primaries, but had failed to absorb the lesson of his most tenacious opponent. Newt Gingrich did not treat the media as a neutral moderator, but as a debate opponent, challenging its premises and agendas. And so Romney was left unprepared for Crowley's attack.
MSNBC's O'Donnell: Catholicism Was Once 'The Most Murderous Force on the Face of the Earth' . MSNBC's resident socialist Lawrence O'Donnell made a whopper of a historical claim on the Thursday [2/5/2015] edition of his program. In the midst of ripping President Obama's controversial National Prayer Breakfast speech from earlier in the day, O'Donnell asserted that "Catholicism was the most murderous force on the face of the Earth for hundreds of years," as he ripped President Obama's controversial National Prayer Breakfast speech from earlier in the day. The left-wing host led the segment by mocking the breakfast as "the place where presidents go to pander to leaders of organized religions once a year."
CNN Host Kisses De Blasio Before Interview . On CNN this morning, the host kissed Mayor Bill de Blasio before she interviewed him, and handed him a cup of hot chocolate: [Video clip] The other host, Chris Cuomo, complained that he'd been waiting for an hour and a half for his hot cocoa to arrive.
A Gunfight in Kansas . The local news stories have not only been deliberately stingy with the details of how events unfolded, and have used a deliberately passive voice (e.g. "gunfire erupted"), but they have consistently characterized the suspects as "teenagers" or merely "teens". It was also several days before any identifying details about the four "teens" were reported; nor were their names reported for several days, and it was longer before their photos were shown. The cynics among us have almost come to expect that when a journalist's physical description of a suspect conspicuously omits anything about the suspect's complexion, there's a reason. And that's part of why the cynics feel that the media are following a template we've seen before, as in the way 17 yr. old, 6'2" and 175 lb. "little" Trayvon Martin was characterized as "a child", accompanied by a childhood photo, and the way Michael Brown of Ferguson, MO was characterized as a "gentle giant".
NBC Hyped 'Da Vinci Code,' but 'Charlie Hebdo' Is Too Offensive . In the wake of the massacre of journalists in France by Muslim terrorists, NBC has made an editorial decision to not show the cover of the new Charlie Hebdo cover featuring Muhammad, deeming it too offensive for viewers. This is quite a contrast to the way the network promoted The Da Vinci Code in 2006. The movie (and Dan Brown book it was based on) insisted that Jesus Christ was not divine and had a sexual relationship with Mary Magdalene. Many Christians considered that offensive.
NBC omits "God" from Pledge of Allegiance — again . An astute reader pointed out that NBC has once again omitted God from the Pledge of Allegiance. The omission happened during a commercial promoting the network's upcoming spy thriller called "Allegiance." How's that for a coincidence? "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands," a chorus of voices intones in the spot. "One nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
This isn't journalism, it's activism.
Chris Cuomo Vows CNN Will Help White House 'Shame' Congress Into Action On Education . CNN's Chris Cuomo openly promised Tuesday [1/13/2015] that CNN will help the White House in a "shame campaign" to get Congress to act on education. During an interview with Obama's Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, Cuomo also promised to use the show he co-hosts, "New Day," in this shaming campaign. "Secretary, my only advice for you is that you should go on a shame campaign with congress to get them to act," Cuomo said. "New Day will help. CNN will help."
Blaming Bush never gets old, apparently.
Dem Sen. Murphy to Maddow: Blame Bush for Radicalization of Hebdo Terrorists . "We Blame George W. Bush" is a recurring category in James Taranto's "Best of the Web Today" column at the Wall Street Journal. The meme mocks the penchant of progressives to blame the former president for everything under the sun. The phenomenon was illustrated in an ugly way on last night's [1/12/2015] Rachel Maddow Show.
2015: Will GOP Congress Cooperate with Obama? 2007: Democrats Should Impeach Bush! This week the media greeted the new GOP Congress with fears about a conservative "kamikaze caucus," pushing "confrontation with Obama," and stressed that if Republicans were to be successful they needed to look less "scary," as they pointed out the 114th Congress was "80 percent white, 80 percent male and 92 percent of its members are Christian." But in 2007, when Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats took over the House, the tone from the liberal media was very different. ABC anchor Charlie Gibson gushed: "The new Speaker was on the floor for a time, holding her 6-year-old [6-month-old] grandson, all the while giving directions on how events were to proceed. It seemed the ultimate in multitasking: Taking care of the children, and the country."
When "arrested without incident" becomes "white privilege" . Leave it to our fine mainstream media to build an entire narrative based on one, off the bell curve incident. The latest case of this comes from Charles Blow at the New York Times who makes a herculean effort to show that cops are just, you know... racists. Why? Because one of the many maniacs roaming the country wound up being arrested without incident and wasn't gunned down by the Five O. And she happened to be white.
Sorry, Kansas City Star, this woman is not a Catholic priest . Journalism is supposed to be about informing people. Sometimes, journalists do the opposite, though, and misinform them. Today [1/5/2015], the Kansas City Star is misinforming readers. The headline, "Woman claims role as Kansas City's first female Catholic priest," is grossly misleading. You might think that a woman has become a Catholic priest. Of course, this hasn't happened.
Congressman Lee Zeldin: 'Mainstream Media' 'Look For Any Opportunity' To Destroy GOP . On Sunday [1/4/2015], freshman Congressman Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.) appeared on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace and slammed the media in the wake of the controversy surrounding Steve Scalise (R-La.) and his alleged speech at a white supremacist conference in 2002. Speaking to Wallace, Zeldin called out the "mainstream media who look for any opportunity to try to tear down Republicans to help back up the President of the United States and the Democrats in Congress."
Media: Um, that big Steve Scalise story probably didn't happen, but he's still 'embattled' anyway . Hey, remember how the biggest story in every mainstream media outlet yesterday was the shattering revelation that House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) spoke to a group with ties to the odious white supremacist David Duke in 2002? Ancillary stories blossomed with lightning speed throughout the day, spreading across the front pages like fractal patterns blooming on a computer screen saver: the latest comments from Scaliese, reactions from other Republican leaders, calls for his doom from top Democrats, hard-hitting political analysis from veteran correspondents about whether the "embattled" Republican could possibly survive this devastating scandal. Have you checked the big news websites today? Nothing. Yesterday's top story is gone. CBS and NBC still have day-old posts about Scalise apologizing for delivering the brief 12-year-old address he barely remembers, but he's vanished everywhere else.
Lap dogs and attack hounds . Points of view are fine with me as long as news organizations don't pretend to be "objective," defined as not favoring one side or the other. That means no dart-throwing at MSNBC, because that network does not pretend to be neutral. Instead, I look for outrageous spin such as that offered by anchor Scott Pelley on the CBS Evening News, when he said "2 million Americans are likely to pass up full-time jobs because of the president's health insurance program. ... Those aren't necessarily jobs being lost. They're also workers choosing to work less." (Yes, and in 1789 some French families chose not to eat bread because they had cake.)
Confessions of a Public Defender . I am a public defender in a large southern metropolitan area. Fewer than ten percent of the people in the area I serve are black but over 90 percent of my clients are black. [...] The media invariably sugarcoat black behavior. Even the news reports of the very crimes I dealt with in court were slanted. Television news intentionally leaves out unflattering facts about the accused, and sometimes omits names that are obviously black. All this rocked my liberal, tolerant beliefs, but it took me years to set aside my illusions and accept the reality of what I see every day.
Chuck Todd and the Rosetta Stone of Liberal Bias . Chuck Todd, who hosts Meet the Press on NBC, opened his show the way he often does, by introducing his panel of journalists. There was Luke Russert of NBC News, and Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report, and there was "Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post ... and Ken Blackwell, conservative columnist and former Ohio Secretary of State." Did you catch it? Eugene Robinson isn't the liberal columnist of the Washington Post. He's simply Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post. But Ken Blackwell is identified as a "conservative columnist."
The Ku Klux Con Job Award for Smearing Conservatives with Phony Racism Charges . One of the more unfortunate trends of the Obama years has been for liberal journalists to smear conservative opponents of the President as racist. Not surprisingly, all four finalists in this category could be found on MSNBC.
Hey GQ, can't find any crazy Democrats? Here are 16 . In a survey of the "Craziest Politicians of 2014," GQ had difficulty locating any Democrats. Seventeen out of 20 on the list were Republicans, with the only liberals being Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, Georgia Rep. Hank Johnson and America's reigning nabob of nuttiness, Joe Biden. In a note appended to the story, GQ defensively said it wasn't guilty of "standard liberal-media bias," it just couldn't find any loony Democrats to speak of.
NBC Asks America for the Meaning of Christmas: 'Jesus' Didn't Make Their Cut . NBC Nightly News offered two stories on Christmas in their December 25 newscast, including a show-ender about "what Christmas means to me." Substitute anchor Tamron Hall offered this introduction: "Finally, on this special night, a question: What does Christmas mean to you? Maybe it's the presents, the lights, the music, or getting together with family. We put the question to people around the country and discovered once against that Christmas means something a little different to everyone."
Time: Right-Wing Militias Are The Real Threat To Cops . Time Magazine warned of a growing threat to cops nationwide in September 2010. The nationally renowned publication argued that sinister individuals would launch targeted attacks against police officers and even ambush them in their patrol cars. Time alerted readers that these groups and individuals have a disturbing hatred of cops and that there was a real threat of "lone-wolf" attacks. Who are these groups that present such a threat to police? Right-wing militias, according to Time.
5 Takeaways from Media Coverage of Christians in 2014 . It's the reason for the season, so naturally, attacks on Christianity tend to pick up around this time of year. The mocking and sacrilege gets a bit more pointed in the media. The sneering contempt from entertainers and lefty activists gets a bit thicker. But insulting Christians is a year-round sport, like bowling. Unlike bowling, you'll find all the best people doing it, from the New Yorker to Comedy Central, from CNN to Hollywood. Whether it's a "beef baby Jesus," "climate change Christmas carols" or simply slandering core beliefs as "bigotry," media liberals haven't held back when it comes to Christians this year. Unless there was serious or good news to report. Then there was mostly silence.
NBC Reporters Reject [Their] Own Poll Showing Americans Support CIA Interrogations . On her 12 p.m. ET hour MSNBC show on Tuesday, host Andrea Mitchell could barely conceal her disgust while reporting on a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll showing a majority of Americans supported the enhanced interrogation tactics used by the CIA after September 11th: "51% said that the procedures used, the interrogation enhanced tactics, which have been defined as torture, 51% said that they were acceptable under the circumstances. Only 28% said that they went too far."
Wise Warren and Crazy Cruz . Sen. Ted Cruz and Sen. Elizabeth Warren are polar opposites, a Tea Party conservative and an Occupy Wall Street socialist. Then there are the similarities: Both were elected in 2012, both have Harvard on their resume and both are mentioned as presidential material. But the media's read of the two demonstrates an unquestionable slant. Both senators have shaken up the Senate over heavy spending and regulation. When Warren does it, she's promoted as a profile in courage, standing up for fairness. When Cruz does it, he's a selfish brat causing meltdowns.
And yet CNN wonders why their ratings are so lousy? Multiple autopsies, including one conducted by Eric Holder's Justice Department, have reached similar conclusions — one being that Michael Brown's hands weren't up and he wasn't trying to surrender when Darren Wilson shot him. But don't tell that to these CNN dopes who care more about contributing to pushing a false narrative than reporting the known facts of the case: [...]
If Cruz And Lee Don't Trust McConnell or Boehner, Why Should We? [Senator Ted] Cruz's point is simple and difficult to argue, "Even though millions of voters rose up just one month ago to protest how President Obama and the Senate Democrats were running Washington, business as usual is continuing inside the marble halls of the United State Congress," he said. And it's not just Cruz, although the media seems to enjoy painting it at that, perhaps making it easier to cast him in a poor light.
Arson, Looting 'Not Necessarily Violence' . Next time you're assembling a criminal defense team, remember to forget Melissa Harris-Perry.
SC Jury Indicts White Officer for Killing Black Man — Media Ignores . In a case with several parallels to both the Michael Brown and Eric Garner cases, a South Carolina grand jury indicted a white police officer with murder Wednesday [12/3/2014] for the shooting of an unarmed black man. Despite the significant parallels and timing, however, the national media has largely ignored the story.
Predictable CNN Suggests Tea Party Could Destroy GOP . On Sunday [12/7/2014], CNN's Inside Politics spent several minutes hyping the supposed headache Tea Partiers could give GOP leadership despite the Republican Party winning their 54th Senate seat following Saturday's runoff in Louisiana.
The Mike Brown PBS "Lie Chart" — The False PBS Claims Deconstructed Visually . A Treeper has been reviewing every piece of testimony in the case and comparing it with the chart that PBS published. Turns out they misrepresented almost all of the statements.
Look what CNN host said about Sarah Palin's kids — she still has her job . It's no secret there's a hypocritical double standard planted deep within the heart of the liberal Democrat way of thinking. For example, it's wrong to say something disparaging about a non-white person — such as the president's sweeping generalization that all illegals are fruit pickers and maids — unless you're a Democrat. It's okay to ruthlessly attack a conservative woman and her family, as long as you ascribe to liberal thought.
After Putting Lauten on Page 1, WashPost Buries Democrat Sex-Assault Plea: 281 Words on Page A-5 . Insult the Obama daughters, and you are a nationally infamous political figure. Rape some women? Well, if you're a Democrat, that's a yawner of a story by comparison. Call it a tale of two Hill staffers. While The Washington Post put Republican aide Elizabeth Lauten's resignation over Facebook comments on page 1 on Tuesday [12/2/2014] with an 1,161-word report, a Wednesday story on a former Democratic congressional aide pleading guilty to sexual assault ended up on the far-right edge of page A-5 and was just 281 words long.
Bozell Slams Networks for Covering Lauten Twice as Much as Gruber . A study just released by the Media Research Center reveals the big three networks have covered unknown Capitol Hill staffer Elizabeth Lauten's Facebook post — about how President Obama's daughters looked and acted at an official event — almost twice as much as ObamaCare architect Jonathan Gruber's "stupid voters" comments. The study found that ABC, CBS, and NBC have given Lauten's post a total of 14 minutes, 13 seconds versus the scant 8 minutes, 20 seconds of total coverage for Gruber since November 9 on their morning and evening news shows. While CBS, NBC, and ABC waited four days, eight days, and nine days to cover Gruber, both ABC and NBC wasted no time on Lauten covering the story on their Sunday broadcasts, with CBS joining the party on Monday.
In much less important news than Lauten's Facebook post, Dem staffer pleads guilty to sexual assault . Sexual assault is a hot-button issue; add to it that the perpetrator, Donny Ray Williams, seems to have a similar modus operandi to the alleged assaults by Bill Cosby, and boy have we got a recipe for an awareness-raising glut of coverage that might change the dynamic that allowed this man to abuse his colleagues in this way. Prepare for think pieces on the toxic environment that led to this type of behavior. Prepare for many questions of his former bosses about what blinded them to the abuse happening under their noses. Prepare for official inquiries of who knew what when, and whether Williams' behavior had raised red flags in the past. Wait, what? His bosses were Sen. Mary Landrieu, Rep. Elijah Cummings, Sen. Herb Kohl, and Rep. Jan Schakowsky? Nevermind.
Media in Frenzy Over Hill Staffer's Comments on Obama's Daughters . Five days after Elizabeth Lauten published a Facebook post criticizing the outfits worn by President Barack Obama's daughters, the previously obscure Republican Hill staffer is being inundated with threatening messages and major media outlets are pouring resources into tracking her moves and digging into her past. Two network news vans camped outside of Lauten's parents home in North Carolina on Tuesday, one day after she resigned as communication director for Rep. Steven Fincher (R., Tenn.) due to the controversy.
Republican children are fair game, totally mockable; Democratic ones are sacred . [A] staff member for a Republican representative wrote a mildly critical observation about the girls on her personal Facebook page, and — pow! Forget the trivial, oh-so-well media-covered events in Ferguson; Jonathan Gruber's admissions about the (Un-)Affordable Care Act; the Obama's administration selling out to Iran over nuclear weapons; the Democratic debacle in the elections; the Obama's administration's expensive carbon regulations; Obama's unilateral, unconstitutional illegal alien amnesty; the horrors of the Islamic State; Russia's dangerous aggressiveness; etc.; etc. — her Facebook remark is a serious, national consequential matter, the liberal media decreed.
Networks Spend More Time on GOP Staffer Comments Than Gruber Scandal . On Sunday and Monday, the broadcast networks seized on the personal Facebook comments of mid-level congressional staffer Elizabeth Lauten criticizing the Obama daughters — devoting over 14 minutes of national news air time to the controversy in the period of two days. However, it took those same networks several days to even notice the video comments of ObamaCare architect Jonathan Gruber crediting "the stupidity of the American voter" for passage of the law — providing only 8 minutes of coverage to the much larger scandal.
CNN: 'Slow News Cycle' Led to Media Hype About 'Cyber-Bullying' GOP Staffer . On Monday's At This Hour, CNN's Brian Stelter brushed aside a regular conservative critique about the media — that the press has a double standard about covering controversial remarks from Republican/conservative officials, while ignoring similar comments from Democrats/liberals.
Gruber, the Grey Lady, and Gullibility . [Scroll down] Finally, on Nov. 18 (a day earlier online), the Grey Lady cleared her throat and delivered a huffy editorial. It included nearly as many lies as words: [For example,] Republicans "were well aware of what was in the bills." This was not even true of earlier versions, but certainly not of the 11,000-page final version, which had to be passed so we could find what was in it. In a media-orchestrated campaign, it was hustled through the House as if the health care system would come crashing to the ground in hours if nothing were done.
Brown Revealed to Have Charged Wilson; MSNBC Declares the Word Charge to Be Racist . The grand jury found that Darren Wilson was justified in shooting Michael Brown in part because forensic evidence and eyewitness accounts reveal that the oversized maniac was charging him. Liberals respond as you might expect: by barking that the word charge is racist.
Black Mob Violence Now a Sickness . Thank you, Ferguson: Thanks to you we learned that black mob violence is now a sickness — not just a problem. And no one is sicker than the reporters who ignore, condone, excuse, and even encourage it, as we learned from the latest riot. For reporters, Mike Brown has always been a moving target: At first the Gentle Giant was cut down for no reason whatsoever. Reporters ate it up and black mob violence followed. When that fairy tale evaporated, they replaced it — with ease.
Yesterday's 60 Minutes Report on America's Infrastructure Was a Complete and Utter Scam . I rarely if ever watch 60 Minutes, as they have been kissing Obama's *** since before he was elected in 2008. They are part of the left wing media and are now a joke when it comes to investigative journalism. Last night it came on after the football game I was watching and the opening story was about the infrastructure crisis in this country. I thought I'd give it a chance. After five minutes of propaganda, mistruths, false story lines and interviewing an ultimate insider hack lobbyist for corporate America, I turned on a more realistic truth telling show — The Simpsons.
20 Ways Media Completely Misread Congress' Weak-Sauce Benghazi Report . The media immediately turned [Benghazi] into a political story, focusing more anger on Mitt Romney's comments about the administration's blaming of a YouTube video critical of Islam than determining the facts of the attack itself. Many in the media thought it fine that President Obama jetted off to a high-dollar fundraiser before the bodies cooled. When various high-level government officials blamed either a YouTube video critical of Islam — or our laws protecting free speech, it didn't generate much controversy among big media. The media tended to parrot White House talking points about the attack even years later. So even though everyone with knowledge of the scene in Benghazi knew otherwise, the New York Times was claiming until Friday — just this past Friday [11/21/2014] — that al Qaeda had nothing to do with the attack on Benghazi.
President Obama On Ferguson: The "I Didn't Build This" Segment . President Obama sat down with ABC's George Stephanopoulos, a fellow traveler and ideological compatriot for Democrat political administrations, to frame their collective narrative and discuss their united approach. The Hill published an article about it. During the recorded, edited and broadcast, conversation the subject of Ferguson Missouri came up. Of course it did. Controlling the forward narrative is now of paramount concern. For those who willingly digest the manipulation much buffet was offered. For others, those who see the larger picture, the falsehoods were a stark contrast.
Telemundo Celebrates Weakened U.S. Immigration Law Enforcement . "There's a lot to celebrate tonight," Telemundo anchor José Díaz-Balart declared during Telemundo's special coverage of President Obama's Nov. 20 announcement of unilateral executive actions that include lifting the threat of deportation for 4.1 million unauthorized immigrants in the United States, along with eliminating the Secure Communities program of federal, state and local cooperation in the enforcement of U.S. immigration law that was launched during the administration of President George W. Bush.
MSNBC Host Literally Screams 'No One Cares About Jonathan Gruber!' MSNBC's "The Cycle" went into overdrive while covering for the Obama administration and the recent videos of Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber insulting American voters and admitting to lying about to law, with co-host Ari Melber literally screaming "Nobody cares about Jonathan Gruber!"
Media hype trumps appeal for calm in Ferguson . The media that for months have hyped the protests involving the shooting have been all but declaring the small city will soon become a battle zone. CNN's Carol Costello introduced one Nov. 13, story with typical moderation: "If the town explodes in unrest one female pastor says she will stand between police and protesters appealing for calm." Correspondent Sara Sidner followed with a prediction that violence would occur, claiming, "we do know there is a small group of people who are planning violent acts."
More about Ferguson, Missouri .
Jonah Goldberg on FNC: 'Transmission Belt of Liberal Journalists' Reaffirmed Gruber's Mendacity . National Review's Jonah Goldberg went on a tear on Monday's [11/17/2014] Special Report with Bret Baier, connecting the circles of lies by the White House and Jonathan Gruber that had impact thanks to liberal journalists. Goldberg charged that, in the lead up to the ObamaCare vote, Gruber was "being touted around through a transmission belt of liberal journalists, who all are all pretending to be objective analysts too, quoting each other, reaffirming each other, all with the help of the White House which went along with this soup to nuts — a process which this guy says was all about lies and misleading the American people."
More about Jonathan Gruber , lies about Obamacare , and media bias in Obama's favor .
Media Myths About Republicans . Ever since the Democrats were trounced in the midterm elections, they and the media have been trying to figure out how Republicans triumphed so thoroughly. Wasn't the GOP supposed to be in permanent decline, on the wrong side of history, demography, and the issues? So far the soul searching has been almost nonexistent.
CNN Warns America: You Are About To Hear The National Anthem . The video story is entitled "Sailor mom surprises daughter at school." It first appeared on CNN on Thursday [11/13/2014] — on loan from an Indianapolis Fox affiliate. Prior to CNN's presentation of the video (just after the mandatory commercial), a warning message appeared for several seconds in bold font atop a two-tone black background. "Please be advised you are about to hear an excerpt of the national anthem," the warning declared.
Mika Admits: If Gruber Were Republican, MSM 'Would Be Exploding' . Kudos to Mika Brzezinski for admitting the truth: if Jonathan Gruber were a Republican, the MSM "would be exploding." Instead, noted Mika on today's [11/12/2014] Morning Joe, the MSM has been silent on the Gruber story, with only conservative sites [ed.: notably including Newsbusters] covering it. Mika contrasted the current quietness on the MSM-Gruber front with the media "firestorm" that erupted when David Stockman made his infamous allegations about Reagonomics.
Media to Wendy Davis: Oh, how we love thee no matter what . "She's totally lionized as a passionate, motivated, rising political star," says Matt Philbin of the Media Research Center, who co-authored an article detailing how 95 percent of broadcast network stories ignored critics of Wendy Davis, a Democratic state senator. The MRC story by Philbin and Katie Yoder describes how 44 of 46 media stories ignored any criticism of Davis, noting that only one network reported on a Dallas Morning News story that dug into her touted biography, among other facts dug up by MRC. Philbin says Davis was going to be "the new toast of the hard left" of the Democratic Party.
GMA Promotes Michelle Obama's School Lunch Program .v On Monday, ABC's Good Morning America provided First Lady Michelle Obama's school lunch program, entitled the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, with some free publicity. Co-host George Stephanopoulos touted how "new federal guidelines pushed by the First Lady have cafeterias serving up healthier foods. And a new study finds those lunches may be better than the ones parents pack for their kids."
"Reporter" Nancy Cordes Pushing Out Daily Kos Propaganda Under Aegis of CBSNews . NANCY CORDES: ["]Mr. Speaker, you have a new crop of conservatives coming into the House who have suggested among other things that women need to submit to the authority of their husbands, that Hillary Clinton is the anti-Christ and that the families of Sandy Hook victims should just get over it. So the hell no caucus as you've put it is getting bigger and some of them don't think you're conservative enough.["]
CBS reporter asks loaded, insane question with a smirk that could anger a monk . The GOP regained control of the Senate and extended its majority in the House to the largest since at least 1946, but CBS reporter Nancy Cordes did her best to stir up discontent with a question she posed to House Speaker John Boehner at a Thursday [11/6/2014] press conference.
The Lessons Of Wendy Davis . Davis' campaign could not have had more mainstream media support. After her filibuster of the late-term abortion ban, she was profiled and praised on nearly every major network and cable news outlet, in nearly every major political magazine, and throughout the websites and print editions of the country's top newspapers. The profiles asked roughly zero tough questions of the candidate. The Washington Post, the newspaper that famously dismissed the arrest and subsequent murder trial of abortionist Kermit Gosnell as a "local crime" story, couldn't seem to stop finding new and varied reasons to cover Davis. One of my favorites was their story on the best Amazon reviews for the pink shoes Davis wore while trying to make sure women could procure late-term abortions for any reason.
This Reporter Asks Boehner One of the Most Biased and Ridiculous Questions You'll Ever Hear . The mainstream media infamously failed to vet Barack Obama or hold him to account for any of the radical things that he or his many associates have said and done. But a reporter tried to use House Speaker John Boehner's press conference today to hold him to account for things that may or may not have been said by some incoming House members.
Watch the evolution of an MSNBC meltdown . As a rule, the most interesting coverage of an election night is always the losing side's coverage. Last night, MSNBC's anchors, most of whom would concede they are more ideologically friendly toward Democrats than Republicans, lost and lost big. While there was some stellar analysis and measured commentary on that network from the likes of Chuck Todd and Steve Kornacki, there was also a fair bit of infighting, punchy recrimination, and general despair from the left-leaning network's flagship personalities.
How the Media Helped the GOP Walk Away with the 2014 Midterms . [Scroll down] In short, this may have been one of the most significant midterm elections in history. And yet, the American broadcast news organizations had barely covered them between Labor Day until almost the week before they took place. As I noted two weeks ago, a Media Research Center study showed that the Big Three networks had only mentioned the midterms 25 times during that period, as compared to 159 mentions in the same period before the 2006 midterm sweep for Democrats.
CBS Worried GOP Congress Will Actually Pass Legislation . On Wednesday's [11/5/2014] CBS This Morning, co-host Norah O'Donnell fretted that the newly elected Republican Congress would dare to pass legislation: "If you look at a number of these new senators, they're quite conservative. Why wouldn't they go along with what Rand Paul has said? They're gonna send bills up to the President, as he told Charlie Rose last night, 'We're going to keep sending bills up to the President and we'll see whether the President wants to work with us or not.' Is the President going to be forced to veto a bunch of bills?"
North Carolina Newspaper, Charlotte Observer, Pulls Story of Kay Hagen Family Corruption Just Prior To Election Day . Republicans accused the Charlotte Observer of engaging in a "conspiracy of silence" after it pulled its story about a state government memo calling for "legal review" of stimulus grants given to the family of Senator Kay Hagan (D., N.C.).
Meet The Press Insists Repealing ObamaCare Is 'So Retro' . On Sunday [11/2/2014], Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) spoke with Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd to discuss the future of the Republican Party. Following the conclusion of the interview the MTP panel eagerly criticized the Kentucky Republican for daring to call for a repeal of ObamaCare if the Republicans win control on the Senate.
The Statist Media Spins GOP As 'The Party of No' . The recent revelations of Sharyl Attkisson, the one-time CBS investigative reporter, are very telling in this respect. What Attkisson describes is a major television network whose executives are hard-core Statists, Statists who have made it their goal in life to support and protect Statism wherever and however it appears on the American political scene. If that meant suppressing Attkisson's various investigative projects that might cast a negative light on a Statist project — than so be it.
Stephanopoulos, ABC News Refuse to Apologize for False Scott Brown Attack . Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee for president in 2012 and a supporter of former Sen. Scott Brown's campaign, decried an effort by the liberal media to falsely smear Brown during last night's final New Hampshire Senate debate against incumbent Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH).
CNN anchor, liberals give grins and thumbs up to violence against the 'Right' women . How do you get liberals to approve of violence against women? Just tell them the women are Republicans named "Palin." Wednesday afternoon [10/22/2014], CNN anchor Carol Costello hyped newly released audio of Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol tearfully recounting her being physically assaulted during a fight the family was involved in last month by saying it was "quite possibly the best minute and a half of audio we've ever come across." She grinned during the entire setup.
How the NYT blatantly spins for Obama on Ebola . Just look at the New York Times, always an industry leader: It's become the official stenographer of the Obama White House. On Saturday, The Times ran a story about the president and his response to the Ebola outbreak that read like it was dictated word for word by the president's top men. If I were a stockholder in the New York Times Co., I would certainly hope the paper was properly compensated for the front-page placement of this naked political advertisement.
In Ferguson, and elsewhere, the media clings to predetermined conclusions . Some examples: Ferguson's population is two-thirds black, but five of its six city council members are white, as is its mayor. Conclusion: this racial composition must be the product of racism. Never mind that blacks barely turn out to vote and field practically no candidates. Never mind that the mayor ran for a second term unopposed. Is there a record of Ferguson's supposed white power structure suppressing the black vote? None has been alleged. Did the rioters even know who their mayor and city council representatives were? The press didn't bother to ask. But this "problem" is disturbingly widespread, in the media's eyes.
Omar Gonzalez vs. Alton Nolen . In virtually every report, Nolen is described as the "alleged" or "accused" "suspect" of an office place beheading. He's never described as "Muslim Alton Nolen" or "Islamic extremist Alton Nolen." And that's probably right. But why is Omar Gonzalez not afforded the same standard?
Texas Is Booming…but CNN Doesn't Want You to Know Why . Much of my writing is focused on the real-world impact of government policy, and this is why I repeatedly look at the relative economic performance of big government jurisdictions and small government jurisdictions. But I don't just highlight differences between nations. Yes, it's educational to look at North Korea vs. South Korea or Chile vs. Venezuela vs. Argentina, but I also think you can learn a lot by looking at what's happening with different states in America. So we've looked at high-tax states that are languishing, such as California and Illinois, and compared them to zero-income-tax states such as Texas.
Politico: Lois Lerner is the Real Victim of the IRS Scandal . Lois Lerner wants a new job. She can't get one. No one will hire her. So it makes perfect sense that she would go to the leftwing Politico for aid and comfort.
More about Lois Lerner .
Democratic Party Media Run Interference for Hillary . Sarah Palin served one-half of one term as Governor of Alaska. While she was, of course, the Republican vice-presidential nominee in 2008, she is not now, and most likely will not be in the future, a candidate for public office. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, is not only a former First Lady, Senator from New York and Secretary of State, she is said to be the odds-on favorite to be the next president of the United States. So by any normal journalistic standard, it is far more important to inform the public about Hillary Clinton than Sarah Palin, especially as to matters that may bear on Clinton's fitness for the nation's highest office.
Networks Reported Bush 2006 Low Approval Numbers 13 Times More Than Obama's 2014 Numbers . According to a study released by the Media Research Center last week, the network evening newscasts have been reluctant to report on President Barack Obama's low-approval numbers, particularly compared to the extensive coverage given to then-President George W. Bush eight years ago.
ABC Ignores Start of Ray Nagin's Prison Term; NBC Gives Story Only 15 Seconds . Beginning on Monday afternoon [9/8/2014], Democrat and former Mayor of New Orleans Ray Nagin began a 10-year prison sentence for corruption charges that were as result of his actions following the landfall of Hurricane Katrina and subsequent flooding of the city in August 2005. When it came to reporting on the story during their evening newscasts, ABC World News Tonight with David Muir refused to cover the story while NBC Nightly News offered only a 15-second news brief.
Reuters Editor at Large Likens U.S. Death Penalty to ISIS Beheaders . While promoting a book of news photography on CBS This Morning on Saturday [9/6/2014], Sir Harold Evans, editor at large of the Reuters news agency, called the electric chair a "monstrosity" and said seeing a picture of one was "almost as appalling, in its sense, as these barbarians who have taken the heads off journalists in the desert." Of course, the imposition of the death penalty in the U.S. is reserved for the worst murderers, after lengthy trials and appeals, while the ISIS executioners beheaded innocent journalists as a way to terrorize the civilized world.
Washington Post Covers Voter Fraud Inaccurately and Incompletely . [Scroll down] Naturally the Washington Post makes no inquiry as to why the Eric Holder Department of Justice has failed to do anything about the scourge of double registration. It's in DOJ's job description. DOJ isn't doing the job. Instead, groups like the American Civil Rights Union, Judicial Watch and True the Vote have had to bring the cases Eric Holder has refused to bring to clean up voter rolls. Those who create and manage the left-of-center election narrative ignore entirely this DOJ history, as does the Washington Post.
The Ferguson Debacle . [Scroll down] It's not that the reporting out of Ferguson has been deliberately false, it's that so much of it has been sensationalistic and produced with the clear objective of furthering controversy. Controversy sells newspapers and draws viewers for television news programs. And in the present case, it gives New York- and Washington-based reporters the opportunity to get out on the streets in flyover country so they can later pretend to understand what has happened. There has been a competition among people in the media to see who can find the angriest person and haul him before a camera and a microphone.
5 Liberal Mega-Donors Nearly as Dangerous as George Soros . As the 2014 midterm elections approached, the media were quick to criticize conservative donors like the Koch brothers for backing issues important to them. But journalists largely ignored the incredible financial power being used to promote the liberal agenda. Five top donors — Michael Bloomberg, Warren Buffett, Pierre Omidyar, Tom Steyer and George Soros's own son, Jonathan — are major funders of the left. Together, they have contributed at least $2.7 billion since 2000 to groups pushing abortion, gun control, climate change alarmism and liberal candidates. That's not how major media depicted them. Broadcast networks applauded when billionaire hedge fund manager Tom Steyer promised $100 million to influence environmental policy. CBS News praised Steyer for "giving back" and ABC News called the billionaire an "everyman."
Washington Post finds Darren Wilson guilty by association . The Washington Post has convicted Police Officer Darren Wilson, who shot Michael Brown, of guilt by association with a former troubled police force in a different town in a prior job than the one he held in Ferguson, MO, and of having parents who were in trouble with the law. Seriously. There is nothing, zero, nada, in the WaPo story linked [in this article] that shows Darren Wilson ever did anything wrong himself. In fact, to the extent his own conduct is even mentioned, it's in the context of staying out of trouble. But that does not stop WaPo from trashing Wilson by association.
Best of facts-free reporting hands-down... I mean up . I began to lose interest in Ferguson, Mo., when it was first reported that the late Michael Brown was an "aspiring rapper." Hadn't heard that one yet? It was in the LA Times, under the headline: "Michael Brown's raps: Money, sex, drugs — and a vulnerable side." Of course he had to have a vulnerable side. That's why he was known as "the Gentle Giant." He didn't look terribly gentle in that closed-circuit video, shoving the owner of the Ferguson Market when he was stealing the box of Swisher Sweets just before he got shot. But the demonstrators could see right through that — "the man" had photoshopped the video, or so they said live on national TV.
The MSM's and Left's Racism on Parade in Ferguson . During a discussion on CNN about the shooting of Michael Brown by a white police officer, in the background was a photo of Brown in a school graduation cap and gown. Give me a break! Where was the picture from the surveillance video of the 6'4", 290 pound thuggish Brown grabbing the store clerk by the throat after stealing cigars? The DOJ has advised news outlets not to broadcast the video of Brown assaulting the store clerk and robbing the store, claiming that it might incite violence. [...] Rather than exposing the true character of Brown, promoting the lie that a white police officer shot a studious innocent black youth who was simply minding his own business will not spark violence? Absurd.
Why does AP refer to Michael Brown as 'teen', despite style guide? The Associated Press Stylebook states that in reports referring to a person's age, the figure for the age number should be used. It also states that reports should "use man or woman for individuals 18 and older." Why, then, are AP reports on the shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown solely referring to him as a "teen" and "teenager"?
Trayvon 2.0 Redux — Comparing Mike Brown and Trayvon Martin Similarities . While the two shooting events are separated by two and a half years, Trayvon (Feb 2012) Mike Brown (Aug 2014) the similarities are quite remarkable. One of the key aspects that aligns both narratives is the appearance of the attorney for both families Benjamin Crump. The second key aspect is the way the media portray both events.
Publisher Rejects Fellow Soldiers' Book on Bowe Bergdahl, Because 'the Right' Might Use It 'Against Obama' . Remember all those books that the publishing houses rejected during the eight years before Dear Leader took office because they might get used by "the Left" to hurt George W. Bush? No you don't, because it didn't happen. But now, things are different. Fellow soldiers of released 5-year Taliban captive Bowe Bergdahl are trying to publish a book on their side of the "he was a deserter" controversy. A divison of publishing giant Simon & Schuster has rejected their submission. That isn't necessarily unusual, but the contents of a rejection letter from one of the publisher's representatives certainly is.
White House loosens restrictions on lobbyists . President Barack Obama is loosening restrictions on lobbyists who want to serve on federal advisory boards, a White House official said on Tuesday [8/12/2014], a setback to the president's efforts to tamp down special interest influence in Washington.
The Editor says...
Instead of calling it a flip-flop or a betrayal of a campaign promise, the Reuters writer called it "a setback to the president's efforts," as if he had no control over his own actions.
Media go nuts over presidential corruption... in Nixon White House . Journalists who snooze at the mere mention of Obama scandals, still want to revel in the triumphs of yesteryear. No wonder. That was when the most powerful people in America were reporters and editors because they helped take down the president of the United States.
Flashback: In October 2001, Liberal Media Bashed Bush for Air-dropping Food, Medicine in Afghanistan . As President Obama authorizes both limited airstrikes on ISIS targets and the air-dropping of relief supplies to beleaguered religious minorities in northern Iraq, we thought it good to rewind to the early days of the war in Afghanistan when the liberal media criticized President Bush for both bombing al Qaeda and Taliban targets while simultaneously air-dropping food and medicine for civilians.
Media bias in the Christie and Cuomo scandals . Let's see: which is worse: snarling traffic or covering up potential corruption? From the media response, you'd think traffic cones are vastly more important.
Frustration over stalled immigration action doesn't mean Obama can act unilaterally . The president should think twice. Some of the same Democrats and pro-immigrant advocates urging him to protect millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation would be outraged if a Republican president took a similarly selective approach to enforcing the laws — say, those that guarantee voting rights or prohibit employment discrimination.
The Editor says...
The Washington Post writer slips in an unfounded accusation against a future Republican president by making a baseless assertion that Republicans would take away voting rights or implement some kind of employment discrimination if given the chance.
CBS Hypes Democrats Fundraising Off Impeachment, Dismisses Boehner Lawsuit . In the wake of Speaker of the House John Boehner's impending lawsuit against President Obama, CBS This Morning [7/30/2014] did their best to minimize its merits and instead promote Democratic efforts to raise money off of impeachment. [...] [Nancy] Cordes did her best to oversell the political damage Republicans faced following the impeachment of President Clinton. After the 1998 election, the "backlash" Cordes referenced was a loss of only five seats in the House and none in the Senate. Republicans didn't lose their majority until Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords left the GOP in 2001, a far cry from the "backlash" portrayed by CBS.
Obama needs to work on his foreign policy, not his golf game . Nero fiddled while Rome burned. On Saturday [7/26/2014], President Obama played golf while his foreign policy, and that of the nation he leads, was going up in smoke. Literally. Saturday was the day the State Department ordered the evacuation of the U.S. Embassy in Libya.[...] The embassy staff had to be evacuated overland as thick black smoke from the fighting hung over the Tripoli skyline. In any other circumstances — and especially if the chief executive were a Republican — this would have been a scandal blared across the media. But at a time when we are witnessing the near-total collapse of American foreign policy, it barely registers.
NBC News, Politico Bury Nunn Campaign's Asian Slur . You would think that a major U.S. Senate campaign caught referring to an ethnic group as financially "very tight" would thrill a media that loves nothing more than political scandal mixed with race. Well, not when it's a Democrat campaign. When that's the case, the media circle the wagons to pretend it didn't happen, or in this case, reassure everyone there's nothing to see here, because this is just how campaigns are run.
NBC, CBS, Reuters, Lie About Israeli Attacks; Face No Repercussions . Reporters covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for NBC, CBS, Reuters, and other outlets brazenly reported false information on Monday [7/28/2014] claiming Israel was responsible for attacks on Palestinian civilians that were actually committed by Hamas. The reporters have faced no repercussions yet for the promulgation of erroneous and biased information. It is yet another example of how reporters for major outlets in the Middle East interject their anti-Israel bias into their supposedly neutral reporting on the conflict.
Poll: 64% of Hispanics Back Deportations . When this story first broke at Breitbart Texas, the media jumped all over it. At first, it was obvious the media planned to exploit the story of 50-plus thousand unaccompanied Central American children illegally crossing our border as a way to pressure the GOP into caving on amnesty. A new poll from Economist/YouGov shows how badly that plan backfired — even among Hispanics. [...] Only 11% want what Obama, Democrats, and the media want — which is amnesty for everyone.
Salon Attempts to Paint Avowed Communist Lee Harvey Oswald as a "Right-Winger" . Via Salon today [7/24/2014] comes one of the most truly bizarre pieces of revisionist history I have ever seen, even within the context of articles appearing at Salon.
Amid Global Chaos, Al Roker Asks Michelle Obama: 'Who's the Best Cook' in the First Family? Despite the continuing fallout from the shoot down of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 and Israel's incursion into Gaza, Monday's [7/21/2014] NBC Today devoted over four minutes of air time to weatherman Al Roker conducting a fawning interview with First Lady Michelle Obama. In what Roker teased as a "revealing conversation," he asked Obama: "Who's the best cook in the family?"
Charlie Rose Waits Almost a Full Hour to Ask Hillary About Benghazi . PBS's Charlie Rose opened his 62 minute-long interview with Hillary Clinton, aired in two parts on Thursday and Friday's Charlie Rose show, by reciting a Maya Angelou poem dedicated to the former Secretary of State. Almost an hour later Rose finally asked Clinton about the Benghazi scandal. In the second part of the interview, aired at the end of Friday's [7/18/2014] show, Rose waited until his last question, with just a little over 3 minutes of interview time left, to finally bring up Benghazi.
Over 700 Syrians Were Killed Last Week. But Jews Didn't Do it, So the Media Doesn't Care . From reading the international and national news you would probably never have known that last Thursday and Friday alone, over 700 people were killed in Syria at the hands of jihadists and pro-Assad forces. Muslim on Muslim, Arab on Arab, human on human, whatever you like to think of it as[,] Western media is doing an awful job of reporting these abhorrent incidences[,] and I think I know why.
More Miserable Anti-Israel Bias from the New York Times . The New York Times' coverage of the ongoing situation in Israel, which began with the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers, continued this past week to be marked by intense anti-Israel bias in tone and labeling, and overwhelming emotionalism over the deaths of Palestinian civilians in the crossfire (Israeli deaths from terrorism rarely if ever merited such heart-felt treatment).
The IRS Scandal and Media Bias . Here's a thought experiment. Assume during the George W. Bush administration the IRS had targeted MoveOn.org, Planned Parenthood, the Center for American Progress, and a slew of other liberal groups. Assume, too, that no conservative groups were the subject of harassment and intimidation. And just for the fun of it, assume that press secretary Ari Fleischer had misled the press and the public by saying the scandal was confined to two rogue IRS agents in Cincinnati and that President Bush had declared that there was "not even a smidgen of corruption" that had occurred. Let's go a step further. Assume that the IRS Commissioner, in testifying before Congress, admitted that the emails of the person at the heart of the abuse of power scandal were gone, that the backup tapes have been erased and that her hard drive was destroyed. For good measure, assume that the person who was intimately involved in targeting liberal groups took the Fifth Amendment.
Jose Antonio Vargas and the End of Driver's Licenses . CNN chose to describe the recently detained Jose Antonio Vargas, longtime journalist for U.S. publications and legal citizen of the Philippines, as a "symbol of the immigration debate." The news network aired his documentary, Undocumented, several times. [...] But one big problem with Vargas is that he's proven he's quite comfortable violating or ignoring other laws as well, ones that are less disputed or controversial. For example, whatever one thinks of entering the country illegally as a child, falsifying official documents is a different story. Vargas described in the New York Times how he did just that: [...]
The Editor says...
I'm sure by now you get the idea. This page used to go on and on, but to conserve bandwidth, the remainder of this page is now located here .
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Jomo Kenyatta became the first president of which African country in 1964? | Kenya's first president, Jomo Kenyatta | African American Registry
Kenya's first president, Jomo Kenyatta
Jomo Kenyatta
Date:
Fri, 1893-10-20
On this date in 1893, we celebrate the birth of Jomo Kenyatta. He was an African political leader, and the first president of Kenya.
He was from the Kikuyu tribe, and one of the earliest and best-known African nationalist leaders. He became secretary of his tribal association in 1928, campaigning for land reform and African political rights. In England, he collaborated with other African nationalist students and in 1946, founded with Kwame Nkrumah, the Pan-African Federation. Returning to Kenya, he became president of the Kenya African Union that same year. In 1953, during the Mau Mau uprising, Kenyatta was imprisoned by the British as one of its instigators and sent to internal exile in 1959.
Kenyatta was elected president of the newly founded Kenya African National Union while in exile (1960). Released in 1961, he participated in negotiations with the British to write a new constitution for Kenya, which became independent in 1963. An author, he wrote "Facing Mount Kenya" (1938) and "Suffering Without Bitterness" (1968). Kenya became a republic in 1964 with Kenyatta as its first president. Influential throughout Africa, Kenyatta was intolerant of dissent in Kenya. Outlawing some opposition parties in 1969, he established a one-party state in 1974. The stability resulting from his leadership attracted foreign investment, partly because of his non-aligned foreign policy. He died in office in 1978.
Reference:
The Encyclopedia Britannica, Fifteenth Edition.
Copyright 1996 Encyclopedia Britannica Inc.
ISBN 0-85229-633-0 The World Book Encyclopedia.
Copyright 1996, World Book, Inc.
ISBN 0-7166-0096-X
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What chemical element is a pure diamond? | Kenya is granted independence | South African History Online
South African History Online
Home » Kenya is granted independence
Kenya is granted independence
Kenyan Flag
Thursday, 12 December 1963
Kenya gained its independence from Britain with Jomo Kenyatta as the country’s first Prime Minister. The Union Jack was replaced by the black, red and green flag of the new nation. This followed the first all inclusive elections on 27 May 1963. A year later Kenya was declared a Republic.
The campaign for independence in Kenya dates back to the 1940s before Kenyatta became the leader of the Kenya African Union (KAU) in 1947 and birth of the Mau Mau rebel movement. In 1952 in response to the Mau Mau rebellion, the government declared a state of emergency which lasted for eight years. During the state of emergency a number of Mau Mau operatives, including Kenyatta and Achieng Aneko were arrested. In 1953, Kenyatta was charged with leading the Mau Mau rebellion and sentenced to seven years in prison.
When Kenya became a Republic on 12 December 1964, Kenyatta was named Kenya's first president, with Jaramogi Oginga Odinga as his vice-president.
References:
• The New York Times," Kenya Gains Independence ",From: The New York Times,Available at: learning.blogs.nytimes.com [Accessed : 25 November 2013]
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Which character is the science officer of the starship Enterprise (in the original TV series)? | "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock" - Leonard Nimoy 1931-2015 - Pictures - CBS News
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"Star Trek"
Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock, the half-Vulcan/half-human science officer of the Starship Enterprise, in the original sci-fi TV series, "Star Trek" (1966-69). The show launched a franchise that extended to animation, feature films, spin-off TV series, and the recently rebooted films, in which Nimoy recreated his immortal character, known for his unerring logic, pointy ears, and the phrase, "Live long and prosper."
Nimoy, an actor, director and photographer, died on Friday, Feb. 27, 2015, at his home in Los Angeles, at the age of 83.
By CBSNews.com senior producer David Morgan
Credit: Paramount Television
"Star Trek"
Born in Boston to Ukrainian Jewish immigrants, Leonard Nimoy acted in a local production of Clifford Odets' "Awake and Sing" at age 17. He won a drama scholarship to Boston College and later moved to California, taking acting lessons at the Pasadena Playhouse, and getting small roles in TV series and movies.
Nimoy was hired for the pilot of Gene Roddenberry's "Star Trek," filmed in 1965, as Mr. Spock, the half-alien/half-human science officer of the Starship Enterprise.
Credit: Paramount Television
"Star Trek"
Jeffrey Hunter as Captain Christopher Pike and Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock in the original pilot of "Star Trek."
The science fiction adventure, in which an advanced race uses mind control on captured human subjects, was rejected by NBC for being "too cerebral."
Nimoy survived cast changes for the second pilot, shot later that year, which included more violence and phasers - and which NBC bought.
Credit: Paramount Television
"Star Trek"
William Shatner joined the Enterprise crew as Captain James T. Kirk, with Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock.
"Star Trek" would run for three seasons on NBC (1966-69) to middling ratings, but its popularity would take off into the stratosphere once the show entered syndication.
Credit: Paramount Television
"Star Trek"
Introduced in the episode "Journey to Babel," were Spock's parents: the Vulcan ambassador, Sarek (Mark Lenard) and a human mother, Amanda (Jane Wyatt).
Spock's relationship with his father illustrated his conflicted feelings about siding with his human or Vulcan sides. And try as he might to project his cool, rational side, it turns out a favorite book read to him by his mother was Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" - as far from rationality as one could get.
Credit: Paramount Television
"Star Trek"
Nurse Chapel (Majel Barrett) held out hope that her unrequited desires for the Vulcan would be reciprocated.
Credit: Paramount Television
"Star Trek"
On expeditions to planets with "primitive" societies (as in the episode "Return of the Archons"), Spock's alien ears must be carefully disguised to allay suspicion.
Credit: Paramount Television
"Star Trek"
In "The Naked Time," Spock and other members of the Enterprise become infected with a substance that causes them to behave irrationally or emotionally - in the case of the Vulcan, to cry over his mother.
Credit: Paramount Television
"Star Trek"
In the episode "This Side of Paradise," a mysterious plant's spores cause Spock to reveal emotions, even love, to Jill Ireland.
Credit: Paramount Television
Mr. Spock displays the Vulcan salute.
Leonard Nimoy received three Emmy Award nominations for his performances as Spock.
Credit: Paramount Television
"Star Trek"
Faced with a budget crunch during the first season, series creator Gene Roddenberry expanded the original, unsold pilot, "The Cage," into a two-part episode, "The Menagerie," in which Mr. Spock accompanies the now-disfigured Christopher Pike back to the planet that was the setting of the original story.
Credit: Paramount Television
Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) plays the Vulcan harp.
Credit: Paramount Television
"Star Trek"
Futuristic technology in the hands of Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy), with DeForest Kelly and George Takei, in "Star Trek."
Credit: Paramount Television
"Mission: Impossible"
Nimoy joined the cast of the TV series "Mission: Impossible" in seasons 4 and 5, playing Paris, a magician and master of disguises.
Credit: CBS
"Sherlock"
Among Nimoy's stage appearances was as Arthur Conan Doyle's immortal detective in "Sherlock Holmes." He also starred in the one-man show "Vincent," about Vincent van Gogh; ''Cat on a Hot Tim Roof"; ''Fiddler on the Roof"; and ''The King and I."
His Broadway credits include appearances in Otto Preminger's production of "Full Circle," and as the lead in Peter Shaffer's "Equus," He also directed "The Apple Doesn't Fall" in 1996.
Credit: CBS News
"I Am Not Spock"
In his 1975 autobiography, "I Am Not Spock," Nimoy wrote of his conflicted relationship with his most famous role:
"I like being Spock. But I like myself too. I'd like to be me independent of him. I try - very hard, but it's tough. Sometimes I think I've done it. Sometimes I work very hard at doing my things, thinking my thoughts. To be me, Leonard Nimoy. Sometimes I think I've got it made! Then I'll get on an airplane and somebody'll flash me a Vulcan salute. Or some nice lady will ask for my autograph and I'll proudly sign, "Leonard Nimoy," and then she'll say, "Please sign Mr. Spock. That's the way my son knows you."
"So sometimes I get tired of the struggle and I simply sign, Spock. I tell myself it's faster. It's only five letters instead of twelve. But who am I kidding? No one. I do it because the look in this particular child's eyes says, "I love you, Mr. Spock" and I know that if I signed any other name, two people would be cheated: The child and Spock, and I can't do that. I don't want to hurt that child, and I must be fair to the Vulcan. I think he would do the same for me."
Nimoy's second autobiography, published 20 years later, was perhaps more forgiving of the Vulcan's part in his life. It was titled, "I Am Spock."
Credit: Celestial Arts
Unveiling
Leonard Nimoy and other "Star Trek" cast members attend NASA's rollout of the first space shuttle, the appropriately-named Enterprise, at Palmdale, Cal., Sept. 17, 1976.
From left: NASA Administrator Dr. James D. Fletcher; DeForest Kelley, George Takei, James Doohan, Nichelle Nichols, Leonard Nimoy, Gene Roddenberry; an unnamed NASA official; and Walter Koenig.
Credit: NASA
"Invasion of the Body Snatchers"
Leonard Nimoy starred in Philip Kaufman's chilling 1978 remake of the science fiction thriller, "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," made all the more alienating by its transposition to big-city San Francisco.
Credit: United Artists
"Invasion of the Body Snatchers"
Leonard Nimoy, Donald Sutherland and Jeff Goldblum in the 1978 remake of the science fiction thriller, "Invasion of the Body Snatchers."
Credit: United Artists
"Star Trek: The Motion Picture"
Credit: PARAMOUNT PICTURES
"Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan"
Despite Nimoy's misgivings about being typecast as Spock, he agreed to return for the sequel, "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan," on the condition that his character would be killed off.
Credit: Paramount Pictures
"Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan"
Leonard Nimoy as Spock and Kirstie Alley as Saavik, in "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan."
Credit: Paramount Pictures
Trio
The "Three Musketeers" of science fiction: Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelly), Captain Kirk (William Shatner), and Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy).
Credit: Paramount Pictures
"Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan"
An irradiated Spock's death scene in "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan."
Credit: Paramount Pictures
"A Woman Called Golda"
Leonard Nimoy earned his fourth Emmy Award nomination for his performance as Morris Meyerson, the husband of the young Golda Meir (Judy Davis), in the TV movie, "A Woman Called Golda" (1982). Ingrid Bergman costarred as the older Meir.
Credit: Paramount Television
"Star Trek III: The Search for Spock"
Science fiction seemingly poses no problems when a character is killed off, if he is to be returned for a sequel. Leonard Nimoy returns as the revived Vulcan in "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock."
Credit: Paramount Pictures
"Star Trek III: The Search for Spock"
Leonard Nimoy directs William Shatner on the set of "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock."
In addition to "Star Trek III" and "IV," Nimoy's other directing credits include the comedy "Three Men and a Baby," "The Good Mother" (starring Diane Keaton), "Funny About Love" (starring Gene Wilder), the TV movie "Vincent," and episodes of Rod Serling's "Night Gallery" and "The Powers of Matthew Star."
Credit: Paramount Pictures
"Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home"
From alien worlds to an even more alien environment: 20th century San Francisco, the setting for the Enterprise crew's time-travel adventure, "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home."
Credit: Paramount Pictures
"Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home"
Catherine Hicks meets up with some out-of-this-world visitors: Captain Kirk (William Shatner) and Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy), in "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home."
Credit: Paramount Pictures
"Star Trek V: The Final Frontier"
In "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier," Spock (Leonard Nimoy) is pictured with his half-brother Sybok (Laurence Luckinbill), who seeks the planet that myth paints as the origin of the universe, in "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier."
Credit: Paramount Pictures
"Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country"
Spock (Leonard Nimoy) uses a Vulcan mind-meld to get at the bottom of a murder mystery with Lt. Valeris (Kim Cattrall) in "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country" (1991).
Credit: Paramount Pictures
"Fringe"
In the J.J. Abrams TV series "Fringe" (2008-2013), about federal investigators of so-called "fringe science," Leonard Nimoy appeared in the recurring role of Dr. William Bell.
Credit: Warner Brothers Television
Where No One Has Gone Before, Again
Leonard Nimoy reprised his Spock role in an episode of the TV series "Star Trek: The Next Generation," but made a more substantial contribution in J.J. Abrams' 2009 reboot, "Star Trek," playing the elder Spock who, thanks to time travel, gets to have a one-on-one with his younger self (played by Zachary Quinto).
Credit: Paramount Pictures
Portraitist
In addition to his careers as an actor, director and poet, Leonard Nimoy also found success as a photographer, particularly of black-and-white nude images that were the centerpieces of exhibitions and books dedicated to such themes as body image and self-identity.
Credit: Seth Kaye/Courtesy of R. Michelson Gallery
"Secret Selves"
| Spock |
What type of animal is a markhor, the national animal of Pakistan? | 'Star Trek: Captain Pike' Fan Film to Boldly Go to Pre-Kirk Enterprise
'Star Trek: Captain Pike' Fan Film to Boldly Go to Pre-Kirk Enterprise
Elizabeth Howell
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This model of the starship Enterprise was used in the original "Star Trek" TV series, which aired from 1966 to 1969.
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A group of dedicated "Star Trek" fans want to make a new movie, featuring a character from "The "Original Series" who was captain of the Enterprise before James T. Kirk. And they plan to have experienced "Star Trek" actors taking part.
Christopher Pike was featured in the first pilot episode of the original " Star Trek " TV show. That episode, called "The Cage," concerns a mission in the year 2254, when Captain Pike and his crew are leaving the planet Rigel VII, where several team members were killed.
"The incident filled Pike with so much guilt that he is considering resigning his commission. But that's all we know about Captain Pike, and we want to know so much more. Don't you?" the group's Kickstarter page reads .
"This is the story of Captain Pike when he first takes command of the Enterprise and his first mission aboard her," it adds. "And with your help, it will lead into a 90-minute Captain Pike film or Web Series."
The group — which calls itself Rigel 7 Productions — aims to first make a 45-minute feature called "Star Trek: Captain Pike," then produce the 90-minute movie "Star Trek: Encounter at Rigel."
So far Rigel 7 Productions' Kickstarter campaign has raised almost $24,000 of its $112,000 goal. The campaign will close on June 3.
Rigel 7 Productions says "Encounter at Rigel" wouldanswer three questions raised by "The Cage" pilot episode: What happened to Pike's first officer and science officer (Mr. Spock) on the first mission; if Pike ever went into battle; and what alien race he encountered.
Pike will be played by Todd Shawn Tei, the producer of the show. The cast also includes Robert Picardo, who played The Doctor on "Star Trek: Voyager."
Other headliners include Bruce Davison ("Star Trek: Voyager and Enterprise"), Dwight Schultz ("Star Trek: TNG"), Linda Park ("Star Trek: Enterprise") and Chase Masterson ("Star Trek: Deep Space 9").
The funds will go toward payments for items such as set construction, filming, actors and make-up, with a small portion going to charity, project representatives said.
Paramount Pictures, which is working on a third film in the rebooted "Star Trek" series in Hollywood, allows "Star Trek" fan productions to go forward as long as those projects do not make a profit. Last year, another project called " Star Trek: Axanar " warped well past its crowdfunding goal on Kickstarter.
Follow Elizabeth Howell @howellspace , or Space.com @Spacedotcom . We're also on Facebook and Google+ . Original article on Space.com .
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Which couturiere and perfumier's first names were Gabrielle Bonheur? | Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel (1883 - 1971) - Genealogy
Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel
Saumur, Pays de la Loire, France
Death:
Aug 19 1883 - Saumur,Maine Et Loire,France
Death:
Eugenie Jeanne Devolle, Albert Chanel
Siblings:
Henri Albert Chanel, Jeanne Eugénie Chanel (geboren Devolle)
Siblings:
Julia Bertha Channel, Alphonse Adrien Channel, Antoinette Julia Channel, Lucien Albert Channel, Pierre Channel, Augustin Julien Channel
Aug 19 1883 - Saumur, France
Death:
Albert Chanel, Jeanne Chanel (born Devolle)
Siblings:
Aug 19 1883 - Saumur, Maine-et-Loire, Pays de la Loire, France
Death:
Jan 10 1971 - Paris, Paris, Ile-de-France, France
Husband:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coco_Chanel
Born Gabrielle Bonheur Chasnel, Coco Chanel pioneered French fasion design with her modernist philosophy, menswear-inspired fashions, and pursuit of expensive simplicity. She was the founder of the famous fashion brand Chanel and an important figure in 20th-century fashion. Her extraordinary influence on fashion was such that she was the only person in the field to be named on Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century. Coco Chanel spent her later childhood in an orphanage and because of her poverty was very determined to make something of herself. She learned to sew in the orphanage and took it from there, with help from a few wealthy lovers.
Chanel was born in the small town of Saumur in France. She was the second daughter of Albert Chanel and Jeanne Devolle, a market stallholder and laundrywoman respectively at the time of her birth. Her birth was declared the following day by employees of the hospital in which she was born. They, being illiterate, could not provide or confirm the correct spelling of the surname and it was recorded by the mayor François Poitou as "Chasnel". This misspelling made the tracing of her roots almost impossible for biographers when Chanel later rose to prominence. In 1895, when she was 12 years old, Chanel's mother died of tuberculosis and her father left the family. Because of this, the young Chanel spent six years in the orphanage of the Roman Catholic monastery of Aubazine, where she learned the trade of a seamstress. School vacations were spent with relatives in the provincial capital, where female relatives taught her to sew with more flourish than the nuns at the monastery were able to demonstrate. When Chanel turned eighteen, she left the orphanage, and the ambitious young girl took off for the town of Moulins to become a cabaret singer. During this time, Chanel performed in clubs in Vichy and Moulins where she was called “Coco.” Some say that the name comes from one of the songs she used to sing, and Chanel herself said that it was a “shortened version of cocotte, the French word for ‘kept woman,” according to an article in The Atlantic. While she failed to get steady work as a singer, it was here that she met rich, young French textile heir Étienne Balsan, to whom she soon became an acknowledged mistress, keeping her day job in a tailoring shop.
Balsan lavished on her the beauties of "the rich life": diamonds, dresses and pearls. While living with Balsan, Chanel began designing hats as a hobby, which soon became a deeper interest of hers. "After opening her eyes," as she would say, Coco left Balsan and took over his apartment in Paris.
Chanel became a licensed modiste in 1910 and opened a boutique at 21 rue Cambon, Paris named Chanel Modes. Chanel's modiste career boomed once theatre actress Gabrielle Dorizat modelled her hats in the F Noziere's play Bel Ami in 1912 (Subsequently, Dorizat modelled her hats again in Les Modes). In 1913, she established a boutique in the fashionable seaside town Deauville, where she introduced luxe casual clothes that were suitable for leisure and sport. Chanel launched her career as fashion designer when she opened her next boutique, titled Chanel-Biarritz, in 1915. Fashionable like Deauville, Chanel created loose casual clothes made out of jersey, a material typically used for men's underwear. By 1919, Chanel was registered as a couturiere and established her maison de couture at 31 rue cambon.
Later in life, she concocted an elaborate false history for her humble beginnings. Chanel would steadfastly claim that when her mother died, her father sailed for America to get rich and she was sent to live with two cold-hearted spinster aunts. She even claimed to have been born in 1893 as opposed to 1883, and that her mother had died when Coco was two instead of twelve.
In 1920, she was introduced by ballet impresario Sergei Diaghilev to world famous composer Igor Stravinsky (who composed 'The Rite of Spring'), to whom she extended an offer for him and his family to reside with her. During this temporary sojourn it was rumoured that they had an affair.
In 1925, Vera Bate Lombardi, reputedly the illegitimate daughter of the Marquess of Cambridge, became Chanel's muse, and also her liaison to a number of European royal families. Chanel established the English look based upon Lombardi's personal style. Lombardi also had the highest possible social connections. She introduced Chanel to her uncle, the Duke of Westminster, her cousin, the Duke of Windsor, and many other aristocratic families.
In 1939, at the beginning of World War II, Chanel closed her shops. She believed that it was not a time for fashion. She lived in the Hôtel Ritz Paris on and off for more than 30 years, making the hotel her Paris home even during the German occupation. During that time she was criticized for having an affair with Hans Gunther von Dincklage, a German officer and Nazi spy who arranged for her to remain in the hotel. She also maintained an apartment above her couture house at 31 rue Cambon and built Villa La Pausa in Roquebrune on the French Riviera.
In 1943, after four years of professional separation, Chanel contacted Lombardi, who was living in Rome. She invited Lombardi to come to Paris and renew their work together. This was actually a cover for "Operation Modellhut", an attempt by Nazi spymaster Walter Schellenberg to make secret contact with Lombardi's relative Winston Churchill. When Lombardi refused, she was arrested as a British spy by the Gestapo. Chanel was later charged as a collaborator, but avoided trial due to an intervention by the British Royal family.
Walter Kutschmann, who was responsible for the murder of thousands of Poland's Jews early in World War II, was transferred to France in 1943 where he became Chanel's Paris SS contact. Chanel was a very close friend of Walter Schellenberg to the extent that when he died penniless of cancer in Milan, Chanel paid for his funeral. Kutschmann made frequent trips to Spain with Chanel with large sums of money passing from Kutschmann to Chanel.
In 1945, she moved to Switzerland, eventually returning to Paris in 1954, the same year she returned to the fashion world. Her new collection did not have much success with the Parisians because of her relationship with the Nazis; However, it was much applauded by the British and Americans, who became her faithful customers.
Chanel had affairs with some of the most influential men of the time, but she never married. The reason may be found in her answer, when asked why she did not marry the Duke of Westminster: "There have been several Duchesses of Westminster. There is only one Chanel."
| Coco Chanel |
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Coco Chanel
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1- The seamstress Gabrielle Bonheur , better known by the name of Coco Chanel was born in Saumur in France in 1883
La couturiere Gabrielle Bonheur, plus connu sous le nom de Coco Chanel est née à Saumur en France en 1883 (mille huit cent quatre vingt trois).
2- She grew up in orphanages where she learned to sew.
Elle a grandi dans des orphelinats où elle a appris la couture
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3- She had a very brief career with a cabaret singer when she was named Coco
Elle a eu une carrière très brève chez une chanteuse de cabaret où elle a reçu le nom Coco
4- But shortly after , she opened her first hat shop
Mais peu de temps après, elle a ouvert sa première boutique de chapeaux.
5- Coco was a lady who did not have a lot of interest in the extravagant and tight clothes that were fashionable at that time
Coco était une dame qui n’avait pas beaucoup d’ interet dans les habits extravagants et serrés qui étaient à la mode en ce temps
6- She rather liked the simple and dark she took inspiration for men and nuns with whom she grew dresses.
Elle aimait plutot les robes simples et sombres dont elle a pris l’inspiration chez les hommes et les nonnes avec qui elle a grandi.
7- It has even become an icon known for its simple and elegant style but at the same time sophisticated
Elle est même devenue une icone connue pour son style simple et elegant mais en même temps sophistiqué.
8- It creates a new aspect of fashion for women of the 20th century.
Elle a crée un nouvel aspect de couture pour les femme du 20ème siecle
9- It also creates comfortable clothes she explained saying " luxury must be comfortable, otherwise it 's not a luxury ."
Elle a aussi crée des habits confortables qu’elle a expliqué en disant “ le luxe doit être confortable, sinon ce n’ est pas un luxe”.
10- In the 20s she introduced her first perfume , Chanel No. 5 , the Chanel suit, the little black dress , and her logo with two C intertwined.
Dans les années 20s elle a introduit son premier parfum, Chanel No 5, le costume chanel, la petite robe noire, et son logo avec les 2 C entrelacés.
11- It is famous for its monochrome colors and large beads
Elle est fameuse pour ses couleurs monochrome et ses grosses perles
12- Chanel is also known for his determination , ambition , and energy she applied to her professional and social life.
Chanel est aussi connue pour sa determination, son ambition, et son energie qu’elle a appliquées à sa vie professionnelle et sociale.
13- Coco Chanel died in 1971 at the age of 87 in Paris
Coco Chanel est decedée en 1971 à l’âge de 87 ans à Paris.
14- One of the most famous of his sentences is , and I quote : " the outmoded fashion , style forever."
Une de ses phrases la plus celèbre est, je cite : “ la mode se demode, le style jamais” .
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A traditional weapon of the Sicilian mafia, what is a lupara? | Lupara | The Godfather Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia
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Michael and Calo.
Lupara is an Italian word used to refer to a sawn-off shotgun of the break-open type. It is traditionally associated with Cosa Nostra , the Italian organized crime group dominant in Sicily for their use of it in vendettas.
The shortened barrel (or barrels) of a lupara lend themselves to easier handling in wooded areas, or to easier concealment and indoor employment in urban areas. The lack of choke contributes to a wider spread of shot when the weapon is fired.
Michael Corleone 's bodyguards in Sicily, Fabrizio and Calò , were known to carry Lupara shotguns with them while traveling through the Sicilian countryside.
Terminology
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In geological classification what granular term is between silt and gravel? | Dinner With the Mob: Philadelphia Restaurants With Mafia Connections | WhereTraveler
Gun lamp sconces decorate the Kitchen Consigliere Cafe. (©Matt Rourke/Associated Press)
Dinner With the Mob: Philadelphia Restaurants With Mafia Connections
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It was a busy night at La Veranda, an upscale Italian restaurant on Delaware Avenue. Diners, looking for a taste of Italy in the heart of Philadelphia, were digging into sumptuous dishes of pasta, seafood or veal chops. The joint was buzzing.
And then things got interesting. A hit man carrying a sawed-off shotgun began to chase the restaurant’s pizza maker through the dining area. Customers ducked under white linen-covered tables. Other members of the wait staff looked on incredulously.
This was 1992, and what was playing out was an attempted mob hit, one of several that had rocked the City of Brotherly Love during a turbulent period of underworld unrest. Not everything, however, went as planned.
As the hapless Sicilian-born hit man—who later became a cooperating government witness—told a federal jury, someone had mistakenly put the wrong size shells in his shotgun. The lupara, the Sicilian Mafia’s weapon of choice, misfired. The pizza maker got away and was next heard from in Italy.
It was just another day in the Philadelphia branch of Cosa Nostra, a mob family that clearly had lost its way. In the 1990s, wanton violence, senseless shootings and disorganization were the marks of the local mob, arguably one of the most dysfunctional crime families in America.
Today, those blood-splattered years have given way to a more benign, low-key Mafia, one that still calls South Philadelphia home and that remains heavily involved in illegal sports betting, loan sharking and other traditional rackets. Murder is now a negotiating tool of last resort rather than a calling card.
As always, good food and drink, the glue that holds the Italian-American social fabric together, is part of the underworld experience. Meals are a chance for mobsters to network, to socialize, to break bread rather than break knees.
Visitors looking for a “taste” of this dark side of Philadelphia can dine on delicious food served with a dollop of mob folklore at several local bars and restaurants.
Former boss Angelo Bruno had a philosophy that served him well during a 21-year run as capo di tutti capi of Philadelphia. Bruno believed in operating in the shadows; he was more interested in making money than headlines. His murder in 1980 sent his once highly efficient and low profile organization careening out of control.
But for every hit, there seemed to be a half-dozen misses.
There’s a corner tavern in the heart of South Philadelphia, The Bomb Bomb BBQ Grill and Italian Restaurant at 10th and Wolf Streets that is testament to those misfires. Legend has it that in the 1930s, the owners of the tavern were not buying their booze from an “endorsed” distributor, so the joint was bombed. The owners refused to change over, and it was bombed again.
Eventually a deal was worked out, and the tavern was later renamed the Bomb Bomb to celebrate the “negotiations.” Today’s owners had nothing to do with those long ago events, but if you’re looking for a good, home-style meal, great ribs, mouth-watering seafood dishes or just an excellent crab cake sandwich, this is where to head
Cous’ Little Italy, where Bruno had his last meal, no longer exists—it’s now the site of several upscale townhouses—but many of the Italian restaurants along the Ninth Street Italian Market or Passyunk Avenue offer the same delectable food and neighborhood ambience asthe one-time mob hangout.
Villa di Roma , on Ninth Street, may be one of the best. Ninth Street is also the home of Ralph’s , one of the oldest Italian-American restaurants in the country.
Radicchio , a no-reservation BYOB at the corner of Fourth and Wood, is a favorite of one-time mob boss Joseph “Uncle Joe” Ligambi, who might very well be tucking into a great meal at a table near you—in total, there are only about a dozen. The branzino, filleted tableside, is the best in the city and may be the best on this side of the Atlantic.
Dante & Luigi’s also serves up mob history. It has been a South Philadelphia landmark for generations. A great wine list and excellent pasta and seafood are the marks of this small, but comfortable, corner dining spot at 10th and Catharine.
Savor the experience over an order of spaghetti and clams, which is the meal Nicodemo S. Scarfo was eating on Halloween Night 1989
Scarfo was the son of jailed mob boss Nicodemo D. “Little Nicky” Scarfo, a psychopathic murderer who took over after Philip “Chicken Man” Testa died when a nail bomb planted under his porch literally blew him through his front door.
The elder Scarfo had been jailed in 1987 and was trying to run the crime family from prison, using his son as his proxy. That night, a man wearing a Halloween mask and carrying a trick-or-treat bag walked up to the young Scarfo’s table, pulled a nine millimeter machine pistol out of his bag and opened fire.
Scarfo was hit six times but miraculously survived.
Finally, if you’re willing to travel, there’s a restaurant in nearby Collingswood, New Jersey, just a 15-minute ride on the Patco High Speed line from Center City. Kitchen Consigliere Café serves Italian “comfort food” according to former mob associate Angelo Lutz (original family name Luzzi) who holds court here every night and supplied the kitchen with his mother’s and grandmother’s recipes. The restaurant is designed in Mafia-esque style: the sconces on the lamps over each table are fake .45 pistols; mafia films run in a loop on large screen televisions strategically located around the 93-seat restaurant; murals on the wall celebrate real and cinematic gangsters.
Lutz did eight years on a racketeering-gambling charge before coming home five years ago to this small restaurant that he has since expanded.
During his trial, he testified in his own defense, telling the jury “I’m a cook, not a crook.” Though the jury didn’t accept that explanation, apparently times have changed.
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William Van Allan designed which New York building - the tallest brick building in the world in 1930? | Chrysler Building - Building in Turtle Bay
Chrysler Building
455
ratings
"... and was designed by William Van Alen. Built in 1930, it was the headquarters for"(4 Tips)
"One of our favorite NY buildings."(3 Tips)
"A view from 69th floor.."(2 Tips)
"Art Deco skyscraper; distinctive feature of Manhattan skyline;..."(2 Tips)
86 Tips and reviews
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Alan Morton September 20, 2016
Favourite building in New York
Heli Roinisto July 26, 2016
Lovely My HUSBAND
Josh Taroli April 20, 2016
View from below.
Sara Y April 15, 2016
Secret amazing cobbler in the basement!
Nikos Fotou January 31, 2016
Famous landmark. Lots of fotos
Hector December 19, 2015
Olexy Sadovy December 2, 2015
The most beautiful tower
Norman Ellis June 10, 2015
Been here 100+ times
Since CAA moved into the building there's a very good chance of spotting celebrities in the lobby.
Celia Navarrete Bravo April 26, 2015
Art Deco representation. You can see the hall for free.
Mike Hopkins April 14, 2015
The best building in New York City
Tanner Welsh March 17, 2015
Go in the lobby. Look up. Admire.
Onur Avcı December 19, 2014
Don't forget to look up when entering the building...it's best.
Alexandre Curiel September 24, 2014
Art Deco's temple
Kaya Gofrey March 27, 2014
great one infact
Mitchell Luo February 28, 2014
Easy to walk and pass by. The neon at night changes its color for different occasions.
Rob Mehta February 28, 2014
There is no observation room here. Unless you are going to see the dentist.
Filippa Edberg-Manuel September 23, 2013
Don't forget to look up when entering the building...
The Capital Grille September 17, 2013
Completed in 1930, this Art Deco landmark is still the tallest brick building in the world.
Jacob Shemkovitz August 27, 2013
Art Deco skyscraper; distinctive feature of Manhattan skyline; at one point world's tallest building
Rebecca Brown July 14, 2013
Built in 1930 and designed by Architect, William Van Alen. Height is 1,046 ft (319 m). Fact; Built from 29961 tons of steel and 3,826,000 bricks.
Daniel Trezub May 12, 2013
The details inside the lobby are fantastic. Make sure you get inside to see them. Don't mind the people that work here, they don't get the beauty or the importance of the building.
The Tiny TieRant May 2, 2013
There are stores and shops in the lower arcade open to the public.
Cristina April 26, 2013
Judy Briskman Arnold April 19, 2013
One of the most recognizable buildings in N.Y.C. skyline and one of the most interesting, architecturally speaking, IMHO
Wanda Barrett April 14, 2013
Great scenery, on way to IBS SHOW
Eddie R. March 20, 2013
Prettier than the Empire State, IMO
Lauren Murphy-Gerling March 6, 2013
A unique building that you cannot miss. A must see for first timers to the city.
Michelin Travel & Lifestyle February 19, 2013
New York’s tallest for only one year, the 1930 skyscraper’s spire of radiant stainless steel arches won it icon status nonetheless. - Green Guide Editor
Elton Julian December 4, 2012
Chrysler Building good to visit
Small Demons October 24, 2012
"Look at it, like a giant, steel Christmas tree."—Christopher Krovatin, "Venomous" Read more
Cooper Smith August 16, 2012
For a sans-tourist view of the NYC skyline, tell security you're going to Zen Dentistry on the 69th floor. Once there, ask if they take your insurance. While they research, enjoy the view & take pics Read more
Untapped Cities July 20, 2012
From 1930 to 1931 the Chrysler Building was the tallest building in the world. Did you know parts of the building were modeled on 1920s Chryslers? Read more
Bloomberg TV July 16, 2012
How much would you pay for the tallest brick building in the world? In 2008, a 90% stake in this classic Art Deco-style structure was purchased by the Abu Dhabi Investment Council for $800m
Mike Beauchamp July 6, 2012
Check out the lobby. No observation deck, though.
Paul Pascual June 20, 2012
A view from 69th floor..
Renaissance Hotels May 22, 2012
The lobby at the Chrysler Building, clad in marble, onyx and amber, is one of the most beautiful, iconic rooms in NYC. For more local tips, follow us on 4sq or check out www.renhotels.com.
IWalked Audio Tours May 8, 2012
Iconic NYC skyscraper. Was vision of Walter Percy Chrysler who wanted the world's highest toilet so he could "look down on Henry Ford and s**t on the rest of the world." More site history here. <LINK> Read more
ArtNerdNewYork May 6, 2012
Automobile-inspired, Art Deco decadence, the Chrysler building is one of the most recognizable buildings in the world and was designed by William Van Alen. Built in 1930, it was the headquarters for Read more
NY Waterway May 2, 2012
There's no observation deck, but the lobby of the Chrysler Building is worth a visit to see the ceiling mural.
Metropolis magazine April 10, 2012
One of our favorite NY buildings. Designed by achitect William Van Alen, the building still lights up the NY skyline.
New York Habitat April 10, 2012
Unfortunately this beautiful Art Deco building’s observation deck has been closed since 1945. The marble lobby is open to visitors though, and it’s free!
Andrew Hogue March 27, 2012
319.9 metres (1,050 ft), tallest building in the world 1930-1931.
Metropolis Magazine March 25, 2012
One of our favorite NY buildings. Designed by achitect William Van Alen, the building still lights up the NY skyline.
TIME February 29, 2012
TIME's 1929 "Man of the Year" was Walter P. Chrysler, a man who helped shape not only the American auto-industry, but architecture as well.
EchoDA February 15, 2012
The top of the building is a NYC classic, with Art Deco motif's,look at the top and you will see, plus the interior's take you back to the 30's..
EchoDA December 22, 2011
the top of the building is a NYC classic, with Art Deco motif's,look at the top and you will see, plus the interior's take you back to the 30's..
Amy Atomic November 3, 2011
The most beautiful building in all of NY.
Collectivus November 2, 2011
| Chrysler Building |
What was Brad Pitt's initialised character name in the film 'Thelma and Louise'? | construction
77 floors, 319.5m (1048 feet) high, 29961 tons of steel, 3,826,000 bricks, near 5000 windows. Cost: $ 20,000,000
The building is clad in white brick and dark gray brickwork is used as horizontal decoration to enhance the window rows. The eccentric crescent-shaped steps of the spire (spire scaffolding) were made of stainless steel (or rather, similar nirosta chrome-nickel steel) as a stylized sunburst motif, and underneath it steel gargoyles, depicting American eagles (image), stare over the city. Sculptures modeled after Chrysler automobile radiator caps (image) decorate the lower setbacks, along with ornaments of car wheels.
The three stories high, upwards tapering entrance lobby has a triangular form, with entrances from three sides, Lexington Avenue, 42nd and 43rd Streets. The lobby is lavishly decorated with Red Moroccan marble walls, sienna-coloured floor and onyx, blue marble and steel in Art Deco compositions. The ceiling murals, painted by Edward Trumbull, praise the modern-day technical progress -- and of course the building itself and its builders at work. The lobby was refurbished in 1978 by JCS Design Assocs. and Joseph Pell Lombardi.
type
notes
What started as a small speculative office building became one of New York's most admired landmarks. Chrysler took over the lease of the office building when it was in construction, hired William Van Alen to create a monument to his growing company and, allegedly, asked the architect to build the highest building constructed to date. To beat out his competitors who were also trying to build the world's tallest building, Van Alen erected a 185-foot spire on the top of the tower which was secretly delivered to the site in sections and raised to the top in a mere 90 minutes. Only a few months later, the Empire State Building surpassed the building in height, but the Art Deco skyscraper remains an unparalleled monument to industry.
One of the first large buildings to use metal extensively on the exterior, the building's ornament makes reference to the automobile, the quintessential symbol of the machine age. Metal hubcaps, gargoyles in the form of radiator caps, car fenders and hood ornaments decorate shaft and setbacks of the white and black brick building. This aluminum trim culminates in a beautiful, tapered stainless steel crown that supports the famous spire. A private lounge called the Cloud Club and an observation area were located at the top of the building. A particularly beautiful example of the Art Deco style, the lobby is clad in different marbles, onyx and amber. It is decorated with Egyptian motifs and a ceiling fresco by Edward Trumbull entitled "Transport and Human Endeavor" that depicts buildings, airplanes, and scenes from the Chrysler assembly line. The building was landmarked in 1978 and it is now owned by Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company.
By Jeff Glasser
One day in April 1929 an agitated Walter Chrysler called elite architect William Van Alen into his Manhattan office. "Van, you've just got to get up and do something," said the auto magnate, according to a contemporary account. "It looks as if we're not going to be the highest after all."
Chrysler's bid to put up the tallest building in the world, a monument to himself and American capitalism, was in jeopardy. In the canyons of Lower Manhattan, George Ohrstrom, a 34-year-old banker dubbed "the kid," was vowing to set the record at 40 Wall Street.
"Think up something," Chrysler harangued his architect. "Your valves need grinding. There's a knock in you somewhere. Speed up your carburetor. Go to it!" The great skyscraper race was afoot.
At 40 Wall Street, the cold calculus of money was paramount. Ohrstrom, the investment banker, chose Craig Severance, Van Alen's estranged former partner, to be the architect. The building took form from the inside out, according to Bascomb. Severance figured out how many offices he could fit on a floor, then placed the elevators and the steel columns to determine the shape of the building, which would rise 67 stories and reach 840 feet.
Construction started in May 1929, under deadline pressure. In those days, all New York office leases began on May 1. To finish 40 Wall Street by that date in 1930, workers laid foundations for the tower even before they had finished wrecking the old building on the site.
In August 1929, Bascomb writes, rumors reached Severance that Van Alen had tweaked the Chrysler Building to exceed the official 808 feet. Severance made his building's pyramidal top steeper and added a 60-foot steel cap to push 40 Wall Street to 925 feet.
With three shifts working seven days a week, builder Paul Starrett met the May 1930 deadline and set a speed record for completing a skyscraper.
But Ohrstrom, Severance, and Starrett had jumped the gun in claiming the height prize. In November 1929, with the interior still unfinished, they invited the downtown elite to a ceremony. "The World's Tallest Building Raises the Stars & Stripes to the New York Heavens," said the headline in the New York World. Unbeknownst to those assembled, Chrysler and Van Alen had outfoxed them.
First Van Alen added an arch to the ornate steel dome, bringing the Chrysler Building to 860 feet. Then he ordered workers to assemble a 27-ton steel tip deep within the construction site. A few weeks before the Wall Street event, workers hoisted the spike--called a "vertex"--to the top. The Chrysler Building gained 186 feet instantly; at 1,046 feet, it surpassed 40 Wall Street and the Eiffel Tower, for 40 years the world's tallest structure. No one noticed until the story broke four days after the downtown ceremony.
Gimmicks. Ohrstrom and Severance led a campaign to condemn Chrysler's dirty trick. George Chappell, the New Yorker's architecture critic, denounced Chrysler's building as "a stunt design, evolved to make the man in the street look up." In response, Chrysler hired famed photographer Margaret Bourke-White to climb 1,000 feet and take sweeping photos of his building.
Chrysler was soon overshadowed by Raskob, who had hired Al Smith, the former presidential candidate and New York governor, as a front man. In December 1929, Smith announced to his old pals in the press that the Empire State Building would rise 202 feet taller than the Chrysler Building. Most of the elevation would come from a mooring mast for zeppelins. It soon became clear that zeppelins could not land at 1,250 feet, 102 stories above the street, because of crosswinds. That didn't faze Raskob: Topping the others was what counted.
Raskob and Smith hired Starrett, who embarked on a second all-out construction push. Another rental deadline loomed, 11 months away. To finish by May 1, 1931, he couldn't afford to let his 3,500 men come down from the higher floors for lunch, so he built them restaurants in the unfinished building. The Empire State Building opened on time in 1931, at less than half the projected $50 million cost.
It hardly mattered: By then the nation was mired in the Great Depression. With a 77 percent vacancy rate, critics began to call the world's tallest building the Empty State. One half-seriously suggested turning it into a hotel for New York's 1 million homeless.
Starrett suffered a nervous breakdown, Ohrstrom lost his stake in 40 Wall Street, and Van Alen never worked on another big commission. "Another Louisiana Bubble had burst, but at least something more than paper and forlorn dreams were left," Starrett later wrote in his autobiography. "The tall buildings remained. They would stand for a long time."
The Chrysler Building is an Art Deco skyscraper in New York City, located on the east side of Manhattan at the intersection of 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue. Standing at 319 m (1,047 ft) high,[1] it was briefly the world's tallest building before it was surpassed by the Empire State Building in 1931. However, the Chrysler Building remains the world's tallest brick building.[2][3] After the destruction of the World Trade Center, it was again the second tallest building in New York City until December 2007, when the spire was raised on the 365.8 m (1,200 ft) Bank of America building, pushing the Chrysler Building into third position. In addition, the New York Times Building, which opened in 2007, is exactly tied with the Chrysler Building in height, making the two buildings tied for 3rd position.[4] Despite the change in tallness ranking in New York, the Chrysler Building is still a classic example of Art Deco architecture and considered by many, at least among contemporary architects, to be one of the finest buildings in New York City.
History
The Chrysler Building was designed by architect William Van Alen to house the Chrysler Corporation. When the ground breaking occurred on September 19, 1928, there was an intense competition in New York City to build the world's tallest skyscraper.[5][6] Despite a frantic pace (the building was erected at an average rate of four floors per week), no workers died during the construction of this skyscraper. [7]
Design beginnings
Van Alen's original design for the skyscraper calls for a decorative jewel-like glass crown. His design also features the building's base in which showroom windows were tripled in height and topped by various number of stories with glass-wrapped corners, creating an impression that the tower appeared physically and visually light as if floating on mid air.[8] The height of the skyscraper was also originally designed to be 246.0 m (807 ft) tall.[7] However, the design was proved to be costly. Hence, building contractor William H. Reynolds disapproved Van Alen's original plan.[9] The design and lease was sold to Walter P. Chrysler, who worked with Van Alen and redesigned the skyscraper for additional stories was later revised to be 282.0 m (925 ft) tall.[7] As Walter Chrysler was the chairman of the Chrysler Automobile Corporation,[7] various architectural details and especially the building's gargoyles were modeled after Chrysler automobile products like the hood ornaments of the Plymouth, and in which must also exemplify the machine age in the 1920s.
Construction
As construction proceeded on September 19 1928[7], over 400,000 rivets were used[7] and approximately 3,826,000 bricks which were manually laid by hand, was used to create non-loadbearing walls of the skyscraper.[12] Tradesman with specialized skills converged on the site. Contractors, builders and engineers were joined by other building services experts to coordinate construction.
Prior to its completion, the building stood about even with a rival project at 40 Wall Street designed by H. Craig Severance. Severance increased the height of his project and then publicly claimed the title of the world's tallest building[13] (this distinction excluded structures that were not fully habitable, such as the Eiffel Tower)[14]. In response, Van Alen obtained permission for a 56.3 m (185 ft)[15] long spire and had it secretly constructed inside the frame of the building. The spire was delivered to the site in 4 different sections.[16] On October 23, 1929, the bottom section of the spire was hoisted onto the top of the building's dome and lowered into the 66th floor of the building. The other remaining sections of the spire were hoisted and riveted to the first spire section in sequential order in just 90 minutes.[17]
Completion
As construction was completed on May 28, 1930[7], the added height of the spire allowed the Chrysler Building to surpass 40 Wall Street as the tallest building in the world and the Eiffel Tower as the tallest structure. It was the first man-made structure to stand taller than 1,000 feet (305 meters). Van Alen's satisfaction in these accomplishments was likely muted by Walter Chrysler's later refusal to pay the balance of his architectural fee [18]. In less than a year after it opened to the public on May 27, 1930, the Chrysler Building was surpassed in height by the Empire State Building.
Business dealings
The Chrysler Building was bought in 1957 by real estate moguls Sol Goldman and Alex DiLorenzo, and later sold to the Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company. The lobby was refurbished and the facade was renovated in 1978 - 1979[19][20]. The building was purchased by Jack Kent Cooke, a Washington, D.C. investor in 1979. The spire underwent a restoration that was completed in 1995. The building was sold by Cooke's estate to Tishman Speyer Properties and the Travelers Insurance Group in 1998. In 2001, a 75% stake in the ownership of the building was sold to TMW, a German investment group[21].
The building was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1976[22][23][24].
Architecture
Detail of the Art Deco ornamentation at the crownThe Chrysler Building is considered a masterpiece of Art Deco architecture. The distinctive ornamentation of the building is based on features that were then being used on Chrysler automobiles. The corners of the 61st floor are graced with eagles, replicas of the 1929 Chrysler hood ornaments[25]. On the 31st floor, the corner ornamentation are replicas of the 1929 Chrysler radiator caps[26]. The building is constructed of masonry, with a steel frame, and metal cladding. In total, the building currently contains 3,862 windows on its facade and 4 banks of 8 elevators designed by Otis Elevator Corporation.[7]
Crown ornamentation
The Chrysler Building is also well renowned and recognised for its terraced crown. Composed of seven radiating terraced arches, Van Alen's design of the crown is a cruciform groin vault constructed into seven concentric members with transitioning set-backs, mounted up one behind each other.[27] The stainless steel cladding was ribbed and riveted in a radiating pattern and had many triangular vaulted windows, transitioning into smaller segments of the seven narrow set-backs of the facade of the terraced crown. The entire crown is clad with silvery "Enduro KA-2" metal, an austenitic stainless steel developed in Germany by Krupp and marketed under the trade name "Nirosta" (A German play-on-words for "nie rost", meaning "never rust") [28][29].
Observation and broadcasting
When the building first opened, it contained a public viewing gallery on the 71st floor, which was closed to the public in 1945. The private Cloud Club occupied the 66th-68th floors, but closed in the late 1970s. The very top stories of the building are narrow with low sloped ceilings, designed mostly for exterior appearance with interiors useful only to hold radio broadcasting and other mechanical and electrical equipment.[7] Television station WCBS-TV (Channel 2) originally transmitted from the top of the Chrysler in the 1940s and early 1950s, before moving to the Empire State Building.[7] For many years, WPAT-FM and WTFM (now WKTU) also used the Chrysler Building as a transmission site, but they also moved to the Empire by the 1970s. There are currently no commercial broadcast stations located at the Chrysler Building.
Lighting
There are two sets of lighting in the top spires and decoration. The first are the V-shaped lighting inserts in the steel of the building itself. Added later were groups of floodlights which are on mast arms directed back at the building. This allows the top of the building to be lit in many colors for special occasions. This lighting was installed by electrician Charles Londner and crew during construction.[7]
Appeal
In more recent years, the Chrysler Building has continued to be a favorite among New Yorkers. In the summer of 2005, New York's own Skyscraper Museum asked one hundred architects, builders, critics, engineers, historians, and scholars, among others, to choose their 10 favorites among 25 New York towers. The Chrysler Building came in first place as 90% of them placed the building in their top 10 favorite buildings.[30]
The Chrysler Building's distinctive profile has inspired similar skyscrapers worldwide, including One Liberty Place in Philadelphia.
Cultural Depictions
As an iconic part of the New York City skyline, the Chrysler Building has been depicted countlessly in almost every medium - film, photography, video games, art, advertising, music, literature, and even fashion, as its use quickly establishes without doubt the location in which the depicted events are occurring.
In the music scene, Meat Loaf's 1993 album Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell's cover art depicts a demonic bat clinging to the top floors of the Chrysler Building. The artwork was by done by Michael Whelan.[31] The Chrysler building is widely known to be depicted in many films, such as the 1998 film Deep Impact, where the wall of water that surrounds the skyscraper, people can be seen on the 61st floor observation deck fleeing to the other side of the building.[32] In another film, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, while Johnny Storm chases the Silver Surfer through Manhattan, The Silver Surfer flies straight through the Chrysler Building.[33][34] Towards the end of Steven Spielberg's A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, the Chrysler Building is seen totally submerged underwater as the aliens guide their spacecraft through the submerged ruins of Manhattan.[35] In the first movie series of Spider-man, Spiderman perched on top of one of the building's gargoyles, mourning of a beloved relative's murder.[35]
Quotations
Chrysler Building"Art Deco in France found its American equivalent in the design of the New York skyscrapers of the 1920s. The Chrysler Building...was one of the most accomplished essays in the style."
—John Julius Norwich, in The World Atlas of Architecture
"The design, originally drawn up for building contractor William H. Reynolds, was finally sold to Walter P. Chrysler, who wanted a provocative building which would not merely scrape the sky but positively pierce it. Its 77 floors briefly making it the highest building in the world—at least until the Empire State Building was completed—it became the star of the New York skyline, thanks above all to its crowning peak. In a deliberate strategy of myth generation, Van Alen planned a dramatic moment of revelation: the entire seven-storey pinnacle, complete with special-steel facing, was first assembled inside the building, and then hoisted into position through the roof opening and anchored on top in just one and a half hours. All of a sudden it was there—a sensational fait accompli."
—Peter Gossel and Gabriele Leuthauser, in Architecture in the Twentieth Century
"One of the first uses of stainless steel over a large exposed building surface. The decorative treatment of the masonry walls below changes with every set-back and includes story-high basket-weave designs, radiator-cap gargoyles, and a band of abstract automobiles. The lobby is a modernistic composition of African marble and chrome steel."
—Elliot Willensky and Norval White, in AIA Guide to New York
References
^ The World's Tallest Brick Building - SkyscraperPicture.com
^ A view from Above - The Chrysler Building
^ Emporis Data - See Tallest buildings Ranking
^ Emporis Data "...a celebrated three-way race to become the tallest building in the world."
^ The Manhatten Company - Skyscraper.org; "...'race' to erect the tallest tower in the world."
^ a b c d e f g h i j k University of Wisconsin-Madison; School of Engineering - The Chrysler Building
^ The Silver Spire; How two men's dreams changed the skyline of New York Paragraph 8. Author: James E. Beyer, American Institute of Architects
^ Emporis.com - Chrysler Building
^ Glass Steel and Stone - Chrysler Building & automobile parts http://glasssteelandstone.com/BuildingDetail.php?ID=436]
^ Emporis Data
^ The Chrysler Building, Creating a New York icon, day by day. Pages 54, 158, image caption no.39 ISBN 1-56898-354-9
^ Emporis Data - See source no.4 line 4; "Briefly held the world's tallest title until it was eclipsed by the spire of Chrysler Building."
^ CTBUH - Criteria of World's Tallest Building
^ The Chrysler Building, Creating a New York icon, day by day. Page 161. Image caption no.39 - ISBN 1-56898-354-9
^ The Chrysler Building, Creating a New York icon, day by day. Page 161, image caption no.54 ISBN 1-56898-354-9
^ The Chrysler Building, Creating a New York icon, day by day. Pages xiii (Paragraph 10) and 161. Image caption no.39 - ISBN 1-56898-354-9
^ http://www.jayebee.com/discoveries/criticism/silver_spire.htm.
| i don't know |
Opened in 1998, accessible usually only by air, and continually in permafrost, the EKATI Diamond Mine is in which country? | Read Microsoft Word - Ariel_Winkelmeyer.doc
October 2007 Compiled by Michael Fuller Student Representative
Table of Contents
(clickable links) 4th Year Students ........................................ Mining Option ............. Mining & Mineral Processing Options 3rd Year Students ........................................ Mining Option ............. Mining & Mineral Processing Options 2nd Year Students ........................................ Mining Option
4th Year Students
Mining Option
In fourth year the six credits of constrained electives consist of one of the following options: A: MINE 403 and MINE 482 MINE 403 Rock Mechanics Design MINE 482 Maintenance Engineering B: MINE 434 and MINE 462 MINE 434 Processing Precious Metal Ores MINE 462 Coal Preparation Technology
The following students already have taken or currently plan to take option A.
Brad Howe
24 Mountain St Grimsby Ont L3M 3J8 Phone: (905)945-9708 Email: [email protected]
Technical Skills
· · · · · · Vulcan 6/7 MineSight Promine AutoCAD Gemcom Mine 2-4D
Survey Equipment
· · · Trimble GPS Ashtek GPS Leica TotalStation
Laboratory Skills
· · · Titrations Analytical Balances Bench Scale flotation, crushing/grinding, HMS
Work Experience
· Analyzed and tracked consumables spending at Barrick underground mines to locate sites where supply chain practices could be improved. · Evaluated and scored site Life Of Mine submissions based on completeness, accuracy of data, and continuous improvement initiatives. · Created mining inventory for longhole stoping option and calculated mining costs based on a first principles cost model for the Interlake mine design for the Barrick/Teck Cominco Hemlo Operations. · Supervised all aspects of pastefill admixture trials at Williams Operating Corp. Set up all testing and sampling procedures for the trials as well as cast all underground samples. Tested all samples in the lab for UCS for specific curing times. · Re-evaluated Tulawaka underground mine design for any development savings as well as feasibility of mining additional areas. Evaluated mine schedule for savings on vent return requirements as well as increasing early phase ounce production.
Barrick Gold Corporation Mining Engineer Co-Op Student
Jan 2007 Sept 2007
· Updated 3D drifts in PROMINE using survey data for accurate development and longhole blast design. · Responsible for performing stope reconciliations to track total dilution and longhole blasting performance using MineSight. · Assisted surveyors with underground surveying duties (details, CMS, line and grade) as required. · Assisted the senior planner with the development of the 6 month plan.
NVI Mining Ltd - Myra Falls Operations May 2006 - Sept 2006 Mining Engineer Co-Op Student · Updated blast plans and production spreadsheets with daily drilling, cleaning, and loading information.
Elk Valley Coal Corporation Mine Engineering Co-op Student
Sept 2005 - Dec 2005
· Responsible for all the daily surveying needs of Coal Mountain Operations such as face advances, dig limits, coal flag lines and staking out design crests and toes for final pit design. · Responsible for daily spoil inspection and maintaining active daily log. · Responsible for all month end surveys and end of quarter site stockpile surveys required for volume calculations. · Assisted with month end volume calculations and reconciliations. · Designed a quarry access haul road linking 1908 spoil to 1944 spoil. · Compared actual truck productivities with the budget by tracking daily truck haulage routes.
Huckleberry Mines Ltd Mine Engineer Co-op Student
May 2005 - Sept 2005
· Designed blast patterns using GEMCOM and staked out and picked up blast drill holes using TRIMBLE GPS system. · Surveyed daily face advances and created daily dig maps using GEMCOM. · Staked out and flagged pit limits, ore/waste boundaries and dig limits. · Ensured that equipment operators were following the design (outer NAG shell and till core)during the tailings dam construction. · Staked out drill location coordinates for diamond drilling program. · Assisted with the updating of status maps required for month end surveys. · Surveyed prism monuments on the pit highwall and main tailings dam using a Total Station to monitor wall and dam movement. · Read piezometers to monitor pore pressure in the tailings dams.
VOLUNTEER EXPERIENCE
Mineral Exploration Roundup 2005-06 High school student tour guide Jan 2005
· Guided students in groups of 2-3 around the exhibition hall. · Interacted with exhibitors and allowed students to ask the companies geological related questions. · Helped students to better understand the UBC Mining Engineering program.
EDUCATION
Bachelor of Applied Science - Presently completing final year
Sept 2003 - Present Sept 1998 - June 2003
Grimsby Secondary School
High school diploma - Graduated with honors
ACTIVITIES AND INTERESTS
· · · · Intramural sports (basketball, volleyball, flag football) Skiing Golfing Tennis and Squash References will be provided upon request
Chris McCann
5862 Booth Avenue Burnaby, BC V5H 3A8 Telephone: (778) 840-5938 e-mail: [email protected]
Objective
To work in a position where I am required to call upon knowledge gained in my formal education, as well as drawing upon technical and interpersonal skills from past work experience.
Summary
· · · · · Self-motivated with a drive to excel at all jobs. Effective at communicating ideas in writing, and orally. Thrive in an environment that promotes thought and ingenuity. Proficient in the use of industry software(Vulcan, Surpac, MineStar and PITRAM). Competent in data recording with or without a computer.
Education
· Currently in 4th year at the Norman B. Keevil Institute of Mining at UBC · Completed and completing courses in Underground Mine Design, Structural Geology, Environmental Impact Studies, Engineering Economics, Groundwater Hydrology, Mine Ventilation, Rock Mechanics Design and Feasibility.
Awards and Honours
· · · · · · · The Dr. E. B. Gillanders Memorial Scholarship One year exceptional service award to the Engineering Undergraduate Society Competed in WEC 2004 and 2005 (Western Engineering Conference and Competition) Honourable mention in the Ripple Effect Highschool Writing Contest Passport to Education recipient Graduated Highschool with Honours Winner of the Burnaby Optimist Club Oratorical contest Logical thinker with an extremely curious mind Adapt easily to new situations Conscious and responsible in all environments Diligent and thorough Capable of using available technology to complete jobs efficiently Speak grade level Spanish, and currently taking further Spanish education Experience in organising a large scale event, after being on the organising committee for the Western Engineering Competition in 2007.
Skills
Page 2 of 2
Work and Volunteer Experience
Barrick Gold of Australia Position: Engineering Student Dates: February 2007 to August 2007 While working for Barrick Gold I was given 3 months of experience at two different mines each with different geographical and geological conditions. I had responsibilities that included: full end of month reporting, MineStar monitoring and set up, underground labour work, underground equipment operation, survey assistance both on surface and underground, Surpac modelling and other data interpretation. Western Engineering Competition 2007 Position: VP Hospitality Dates: February 2006 - February 2007 WEC is a volunteer student run competition for 180 engineering students in Western Canada. As VP Hospitality my responsibilities included, but were not limited to, venue selection, transportation logistics, delegate relations, volunteer coordination. Northgate Minerals Position: Student Engineer/Geologist Dates: May 2006 to August 2006 My duties at the Young-Davidson project have included everything from logging and sampling core, permitting applications, modelling with Vulcan, labour work, and the design and set-up of a geo-technical drilling program. Highland Valley Copper Position: Student Labourer Dates: May 2005 to August 2005 I worked as part of a 25 member student labour team to accomplish mill cleanup and other labour tasks efficiently and in quantity. My duties included shovelling, hosing, heavy lifting. I also got the opportunity to work in the mine maintenance department where I painted, moved offices and equipment, and organised light vehicle parts. Roundup Mineral Conference Position: Volunteer Date: January 2005, 2006 and 2007 I was a volunteer "Rockhound" tour guide and activity facilitator for a group of elementary school children. I helped them with gold panning, a treasure hunt, answered their questions about rocks and mining, and I also gave them pop quizzes on the rocks and minerals that they had learned about in class.
Interests and Activities
I enjoy playing organised rugby, and various other pick up sports. I like to roller blade, snowboard, cross-country ski, and enjoy camping and hiking in all seasons. I am also an avid reader and someone who can relax without needing to turn on a computer or TV.
Colin Garner
P.O box 4364 Quesnel, B.C V2J 3J4
________________________
Qualifications ____________________________________
Work Experience
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 18 months on-the-job technical mining experience Drill and blast, short range planning, work scopes, equipment operation, data entry and CAD design Capable technically and comfortable in underground and open pit operations Injury free work experience MSHA Training (2006) Lock out tag out training (2004-2007) Mine site driving (2005, 2006, 2007) Respirator Training (2003-2007) Confined Space Entry & Gas Testing (2003 -2005) H2S and hot work safety training (2003 - 2005) WHMIS & MSDS (2001-2006) Helicopter Safety and Orientation (2004 & 2005) Hand-held/ Trimble Backpack GPS units MS Office: Word, PowerPoint & Excel MicroStation/J Surpac Ring King Vulcan Design Software AutoCAD and Key CAD Well organized and very priority based Excellent team member Safety conscious Highly capable multi-tasker Sociable and outgoing personality Adaptable Canadian Securities Course Completion Dec. 2007 UBC Mining Engineering with a Minor in Commerce
Certification/Education
Excellent Computer and Equipment Skills
Personal Attributes
________________________
Employment History ____________________________________
Barrick Gold Osbourne, QLD May August 2007 Engineer in Training Internship · Worked underground operating equipment including underground trucks, integrated tool carriers and rock breakers. Also worked in vertical egress ways installing ladder ways. · Developed charge up diagrams for longitudinal stopes using Ring King data. Assisted in underground charge up for development drives. · Developed time studies for determining cost analysis of truck routes. Vent surveys, underground workshop feasibility studies, and survey work. Barrick Gold Henty Queenstown, TAS March May 2007 Drill and Blast Internship · Utilized Surpac and Ring King to slice rings and design drill holes · Developed charge up diagrams for transverse stopes using Ring King data and assisted in underground charge up · Worked with underground crews performing a variety of duties
1
Phelps Dodge Morenci Inc. Morenci, AZ May August 2006 Mine Maintenance Summer Intern · Worked with blasting crew, surveying, priming, loading and tying in blast hole · Weekend surveying including bench marks, leach pads, shovel faces and piping · Prepared a variety of AutoCAD drawings for Fabrication Shop engineer. Examples include alteration to 793 truck bed canopy, truck stands, and replacement shovel parts · Assisted other Engineers in daily duties: troubleshooting equipment, working out safety problems, and technical support of tire, fabrication and maintenance shop Syncrude Canada Ltd. Fort McMurray, AB May - December 2005 Short Range Tailings Planning Student · Assisted with the preparation of operations plans and work scopes. This included fieldwork, volumetric cad work and preparing maps and drawings · Assisted geotechnical department: read slope indicators and piezometers, monitored tailings dam cell construction with weekly GPS surveys. · Data entry and editing including the preparation of charts and graphs for weekly operations packages. Tracked progress and constantly compared to corporate targets. Weyerhaeuser Pulp and Paper, Kamloops, BC June - August 2004 Summer Student · Gas testing, spark watch and confined space entry watch during major shutdown of mill · Expected to be able to work up to fourteen hour days for two weeks during shutdown · Worked on a team for the remainder of the summer coordinating various tasks with other summer students; performed work with little or no supervision · Participated in daily safety meetings
________________________
Education ____________________________________
University of British Columbia Mining Engineering with a Minor in Commerce University College of the Cariboo Engineering Transfer Quesnel Secondary School High School Diploma Sept 2004 Apr. 2008 Sept. 2002 - Apr. 2004 Sept. 1998 - June 2002
________________________
Personal Interest ____________________________________
· · · · · · APEGGA, AMEBC and CIM student member Active mining engineering student: Member of mining engineering student council and social coordinator for mining engineering (2005 & 2006), and Graduate Rep. for 2007/2008 Avid Skier Past times include golfing, hockey, long boarding, surfing, scuba diving, and advanced off-roading Devoted Outdoorsman: enjoy camping, fishing, hunting and mountain biking 2006 UBC Mining Games Team Member Obtained Vulcan Design and Jackleg operation training for event
References will be provided upon request
2
12475 188TH Street Pitt Meadows, BC V3Y 2G9
Cell Phone: 778-834-1174 Home Phone: 604-465-4425 Email: [email protected]
Diego F. Airo
Objective
To be part of a team where I can use my experience and skills to achieve technically challenging tasks. Jan. Sep. 2007 Norwest Corporation Position: Mining Engineering Student Vancouver, BC
Work Experience
· Worked closely with mining, civil and geotechnical engineers to provide technical services to mines worldwide. · Contributed to the development of a feasibility study for a gold mine in California, in particular, pit design, dump design, ore and waste release schedule, haul cycles and closure plans. · Developed a scoping study for a coal property in North Eastern British Columbia. · Performed field work involving geotechnical core logging in BC and helped set up test cells for a tailings consolidation experiment in Fort McMurray, Alberta. · Other major tasks completed included dump re-sloping for closure plans, geotechnical analysis of pit walls, balancing cut/fill volumes for dyke & buttress building, rip rap placements and ore body evaluations.
May Aug. 2006 Roktek Services Inc. Prince George, BC Position: Mining and Mineral Processing Student
· Design and monitor blast pattern operations in a road construction project while ensuring a PPV less than 50 mm/s on a nearby dam. · Write 5 grass roots exploration reports on properties visited while on a trip to Peru. · Assist in the writing and translation of contracts made between Roktek and third parties in Peru. · Meet with business parties to assess current status of operations and discuss areas of improvement. · Visit and report on possible pilot plant for rental. · Research and visit placer mining property claims in Northern British Columbia.
Sep. Dec. 2005 Position: Surveyor
Elk Valley Coal Corp.
Sparwood, BC
· Provide accurate surveys of areas undergoing development throughout the property. · Re-design and monitor construction of a major haul road.
· Update mine plans daily while assisting with short and long term planning. · Stake out ramps, pit limits and pit designs using high precision GPS equipment. · Monitor high walls and dumps for movement using a Geodometer.
May Aug. 2005 Position: Labourer
Highland Valley Copper
Logan Lake, BC
· Responsible for cleaning various parts around the mill and mine. · Participated in a job shadow rotation around the mine and mill. · Gained valuable safety skills.
Technical Skills
Computer: · Proficient with MineSight 3D, AutoCAD, MS Word, MS Excel and MS Powerpoint · Familiar with Slope W/, Surpac, MS Access, Java and C++ Language: · Fluent in English and Spanish Lab and Field: · Experienced with Ashtech GPS Surveying equipment, highwall monitoring laser surveying equipment, geotechnical core logging, point load testing and vane testing. · Performed various flotation, grinding, dewatering, flocculation and optical microscopy tests. 2003 Present University of British Columbia Vancouver, BC th · Enrolled in 4 year in BASc, majoring in Mining and Mineral Processing Engineering. Graduation expected for May 2008. Important Courses and Electives to be Completed by May 2008: · Rock Mechanics · Surface Mine Design (in progress) · Hydrometallurgy · Flotation · Drilling and Blasting
Education
· Mine Waste Management (in progress)
· Industrial Automation and Robotics (in progress) · Mine Ventilation (in progress) · Underground Mining Methods · Precious Metal Processing (in progress)
Interests and Activities
· I enjoy playing sports, particularly on the UBC Hadley Cup Soccer League, Futsal League, Squash, Tennis and hiking. · I also enjoy other activities such as camping, reading, photography and keeping up with current events and politics. References Available Upon Request
Glenn Mathieson
Glenn Mathieson
Mining Engineer
Skills Computer Skills Working Knowledge of Surpac, Vulcan, Minesight, Mincom, Minex, Xeras Costing Software, Talpac, AutoCad, I-Site Studio. Strong MS Office Skills Knowledge of C++ and SAP Database Technical Skills Other Relevant Skills Fully trained on Komatsu 830E and Liebherr First Aid Trained haul trucks. Valid Drivers License Survey Experience with Leica and Trimble GPS systems Maintenance and Service Costing Skills Equipment Productivity Analysis Skills Mineral Deposit Modeling Skills Haul Cycle Modeling Skills
CO-OP Experience Rio Tinto Coal & Allied, Australia January 2007- Present · Gained experience in operations, survey and the mid range planning department at RTCA's Mount Thorley Warkworth open cut coal operation. · Operated haul trucks on roster gaining valuable experience working at the coal face seeing mine plans put into practice. Demonstrated effective communication skills and commitment to safety. · Worked with both Leica and Trimble GPS systems to provide survey control to the dragline and shovel operations. · Worked closely with engineers to understand and ensure plans were correctly implemented through survey control and any design issues were addressed. · Responsible for data acquisition and processing of I-Site Scans. Suncor, Fort McMurray May 2006-September 2006
· Worked in the long range planning department developing a 2007 long range plan for Suncor's Oil Sands operations. · Responsible for tracking waste volumes and placement to ensure efficient material usage for dyke construction as well as calculating dump space requirements. TransAlta, Calgary May 2005 - December 2005
· Worked with the long range planning department on one of Canada's largest surface coal mine in addition to coal mines in the United States. · Responsible for the research into historical maintenance and service costs for all mining equipment on site, as well as preparing a technical report outlining recommendations for future rates to be used in the long range plan. · Created a streamlined process for data extraction from the SAP database. Developed a format for the ongoing update of the maintenance and service data. · Researched historic productivities for all mining equipment on site. Involved communicating with onsite engineers to obtain data from modular mining systems. Calculated productivities for each unit as well as mining material specific productivities to use in the Xeras costing model for the long range plan. · Involved with a permit and bond application package. Provided historic equipment costs for use in the bond estimate. Worked alongside the reclamation department to understand key issues in the permit process. · Created haulage systems for 6 pits to be used in the bond estimate. Technical Projects I-Site Survey Project May 2007 - Present · Utilized I-Site 4400 3d laser scanner to provide high detail surveys to the engineering department. · In charge of data acquisition and processing relating to the I-Site scanner. · Trained by I-Site representative and created an operation guide to instruct the other surveyors. · Replaced the old practice of using the point and shoot laser to do pit surveys with the faster I-Site scans. Permit application June 2005 - July 2005
Glenn Mathieson
· Worked with the reclamation department to calculate a bond estimate for use in a mine permit application package for the Office of Surface Mining in Washington. · Prepared equipment costs and productivity assumptions to be used in the bond. Reported haul criteria and total volumes for 6 pits. · Calculated factors for terraces and drainage to be used in the bond based on current reclamation activity. Reduced the bond estimate from the previous application with mine specific costs and equipment. Haul Cycle Modeling June 2005 - July 2005
· Used Talpac haul cycle modeling software to calculate specific haul criteria for use in a permit application. · Took XYZ coordinates from Minesite and created haul segments with calculated distances and relative slopes for use in Talpac. · Manipulated input variables to provide an optimized haulage system. · Provided a project report which was included in the permit application. Maintenance, Service and Depreciation Cost Analysis May 2005 - December 2005
· Provided cost/hr for Maintenance, Service, and Depreciation rates for all equipment at the Centralia mine. · Required to travel to site to obtain information and insight. · Kept detailed records of data and data analysis methods. Examined several data analysis methods in depth and concluded on the most appropriate method. · Provided a forecasted rate as well as a historic rate for all equipment. · Detailed records of my methods now allow this project to be continually updated in the future and become part of the long range planning process ultimately leading to more accurate costing models. Education University Of British Columbia, BASC Mining Engineering graduating April 2008 West Island College High School, Great Distinction and Honors Awards · Placed first in the Chevron-Texaco Calgary city wide science fair. · Awarded the EnCana Dependent Scholarship from 2003 to 2007. · Awarded the Alexander Rutherford Scholarship for academic performance. · Awarded the Cy and Emerald Keyes Award in Mining and Mineral Process Engineering Volunteer Experience Ogden Elementary School, Physical Education Teacher January 2002 - June 2002 · Instructed 2 gym classes a week while ensuring children's skills were developed in a safe environment. · Mediated several situations through the use of strong communication skills to effectively resolve the situations. · Demonstrated responsibility and maturity and as a result earned an excellent reputation with the school. Professional Affiliations · Member of the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of British Columbia (APEGBC), at a student level. Activities and Interests · Played 1st division AFL for Singleton, NSW, Australia · Member of the 2006 UBC Mining Games team. · Played high school basketball for the West Island College Wolves · Played city wide basketball in division one in Calgary · Played high school rugby and developed exceptional teamwork skills · Former President of Guitar Club and performed in several student run fundraisers · Enjoy outdoor activities such as hiking and camping
141 Webb Drive Fort McMurray , AB T9H 5H3
Home : 780 713 3598 Cell : 604 612 9379 Email : [email protected]
Jack Law
May 2007 August 2007
Albian Sands Energy
Fort McMurray, AB Strategic Mine Planning Coop Student · Identified problem areas on the haul roads that were adversely affecting productivity · Produced weekly maps identifying these problem areas for mine operations to ensure that wheel dozers and graders were used efficiently · Redesigned long term haul roads so that the problem areas were no longer adversely affecting productivity · Went on daily pit and dump tours · Worked with dump field engineer to ensure that the Northeast and Southwest dumps were being constructed as planned · Worked with dump field engineer to ensure that the In-Pit dyke was being constructed as planned · Worked with pit field engineer to ensure that there was a proper mix of shovels in ore and shovels in waste
May 2006 August 2006
Petro-Canada
Calgary, AB Mining Engineering Coop Student · Worked on Fort Hills Oil Sand Project · Designed muskeg ditches for the entire lease using Bentley InRoads Suite · Calculated muskeg ditching volumes using Bentley InRoads Suite · Calculated volumes for muskeg removal and overburden removal for the OPP opening and plantsite area using Bentley InRoads Suite · Created numerous maps using Auto CAD · Assisted on the writing of a regulatory report for the government · Produced different designs for the in pit crusher lay out using Auto CAD
May 2005 December 2005
Suncor
Fort McMurray, AB Short Range Planning Coop Student · Completed study on haul truck productivities · Assisted on the design of a new haul road using Mincom MineScape · Assisted in the creation of a new geology block model using Mincom MineScape
· Calculated volumes of overburden dump piles using Mincom MineScape · Performed daily and weekly updates on production figures · Created weekly contour maps using Mincom MineScape of the two pits in
Suncor
· Assembled the week plan package for the weekly week plan meeting · Worked as a surveyor for three months May 2004 August 2004
Syncrude
Fort McMurray, AB Non Discipline Summer Student · Completed a PC audit of all Syncrude owned computers within the four month work term. · Entered data in a computer database TS Census
Computer Skills
· · · · · · · · · · ·
Mincom MineScape Surpac Autodesk Civil 3D Bentley InRoads Suite Auto CAD Modular Dispatch C++ Programming MS Excel MS Word MS Powerpoint TS Census
Education
Bachelors of Applied Science, Mining Engineer
Sept 2003 Present
Basketball Volleyball Golf Guitar Piano Fooseball Pool
Jasmine Rai
11135 90th Avenue, Delta, BC V4C 3H1 Phone: +1 604 763 1216 Email: [email protected]
Mining and Mineral Process Engineering
CO-OP/TECHNICAL WORK EXPERIENCE
Mount Thorley Warkworth Rio Tinto Coal Australia February 2007 - August 2007 Mine Engineering Vacation Student · Short Term Planning - Organized the fundamentals of a Truck Utilisation Project designed to efficiently communicate real time truck usage, queues and hauled tonnage. - Compiled various short-term engineering roles' documentations as well as flowcharts illustrating the interaction between such roles to create a clearer department-wide understanding of accountabilities as a team · Production Support Engineer - Ensured that Coal & Partings and Shovel plans were properly communicated to Superintendents and correctly implemented by Production Crew; created daily Mudmaps, Truck Allocations and intended mining sequences per shift to send to appropriate Dispatch Operators and Supervisors · Medium Term Planning - Verified Coal & Partings Truck Productivity values for relevant forecasted haul cycles with the aid of Minex and an Excel based substitute for Talpac - Assisted Maintenance in creating machine-specific engine uprate factors by using prior data to accurately estimate engine hours based on predicted utilised hours - Completed various calculations in order to complete the most recent version of the Annual Operating Plan (AOP) · Business Improvement Projects - Assisted with Truck Payload Project by interacting with Komatsu representatives and by recording relevant haul truck information to calibrate the payload systems. - Organized data for the ROM Rehandle Project to determine erroneous Modular entries - Assisted Drill & Blast department by compiling and implementing blasting standards according to site-wide policies Highland Valley Copper Teck Cominco May 2006 - August 2006 Mine Engineering Co-op Student · Supervised Summer Reclamation Operations (see "Technical Projects"). · Coordinated School Tours of the Mine site, explaining procedures associated with Reclamation, Mining and Mineral Processing. · Analysed Inclinometer Probe Readings to create reports of in situ shear zones · Assisted in the creation of waste dumps for the expansion plan of the Lornex Pit in 2019 by utilizing Gemcom and Talpac. Gibraltar Mine Ltd. Taseko Mines Ltd. May 2005 - December 2005 Metallurgical Student · Compiled Metallurgical, Crushing and Grinding data for Daily Metallurgical Reports. · Managed Anti-Scalent Project (see "Technical Projects"). · Created Low Grade Assay Standard in order to ensure assaying quality. · Responsible for preparing On-Stream Analyzer calibration samples (Sample taking, Filtering, Pulverizing). · Performed Ball Mill Bond Work Index tests. · Inspected Flotation Cell parts (Agitators, Bells, Stators, Rotors, Diffuser Cones) during Mill downtimes.
· Tracked and documented Molybdenum and Cleaner circuits in order to conduct a Circuit Survey for Mass Balancing.
TECHNICAL PROJECTS
Summer Reclamation Supervising May 2006 - August 2006 Highland Valley Copper · Acted as a liason between Mine Operations and Mining Engineering, ensuring consistency of overburden placement as well as explaining material selection and location guidelines to operators. · Attended morning meetings to convey progress to Mine Ops Foremen. · Regularly updated reclamation database information to be used for monthly budgeting, including equipment operating hours and tonnage of material used. Anti-Scalent Project April 2005 Gibraltar Ltd. · Responsible for restarting the Anti-Scalent system at Gibraltar Mine by ensuring pipes/lines carrying reagent were intact. · Replaced and fitted hoses that were worn out and organized work orders to replace pipes. · Calculated the amount of Anti-scalent to be added to areas of the flotation circuit depending on percent solids, moisture content, hourly tonnage etc. · Ensured correct reagent flow was maintained through weekly checks.
VOLUNTEER EXPERIENCE
· · · · Western Engineering Competition 2007 Planning Committee (VP Events) Successfully coordinated entertainment and networking events (including meals) for participants, volunteers, sponsors and industry members. Also designed, ordered and distributed all merchandise for the WEC events and competitions. AMEBC Mineral Exploration Roundup Volunteer Guided groups of elementary children through the conference centre while liaising with exhibitors and parent chaperones (2005 2007) Canadian Institute of Mining Lunches Volunteer (2004-2006) Canadian Mineral Processors Conference Volunteer (2006)
EDUCATION
University of British Columbia BASC - Mining and Mineral Process Engineering (In progress) 2003 - Present
AWARDS
Western Engineering Competition - Debate (Silver) Graduating Awards: Academic Award, Service Award, Outstanding English Award Future Shop and Boys' & Girls' Club of Canada's Future Leaders Award 2006 2003 2003
ACTIVITIES AND INTERESTS
· Mining Engineering Undergraduate Society Executive: Social Coordinator (Present), Engineering Undergraduate Society: Assistant Social Coordinator (Present) · University Intramural teams: Volleyball, Longboat, Urban Challenge · Previous active involvement in: Volunteering/Working at the Boys' & Girls' Club of Canada (2003/2004), Varsity Fencing Club (2004), Volunteering with the Canadian Cancer Society (2002 2004). · Touch Football, Fencing, Kayaking/Canoeing, Rock Climbing, Softball, Curling, Hiking, Computer Related Activities, Charity-related runs (Vancouver Sun Run, City 2 Surf).
JEFFREY HUNTER
2607 Byron Road, North Vancouver, BC V7H1L9 604-929-9549 | [email protected]
MINING ENGINEERING SKILLS SUMMARY
AutoCAD MSExcel, MSWord, Powerpoint Drawing plotting
Technical
Geodimeter Total Station Trimble GPS
Safety Previous certification in First Aid
and CPR WHMIS Training
MMM Group, Williams Lake, BC
Civil Engineering Consulting Student
(May 2007 Aug 2007)
Create INAC project completion documentation for two First Nations community infrastructure projects. Interact extensively with clients, coworkers and sub-consultants via telephone and email. Provide construction and consulting cost estimates to coworkers and clients. Conduct periodic construction site inspections with attention to progress and quality. Modify AutoCAD drawings to reflect record drawing changes. (July 2005 Aug 2005)
Endako Mines, Fraser Lake, BC
Mine Engineering Department Student
Perform extensive site surveys using GPS and Total Station equipment Create simple blast pattern layouts, assist in complex blast layouts Monitor pit stability using wall mounted prisms, Total Station survey equipment, extensometers Opportunities to use AutoCAD and MineSight, use of MS Excel Exposed to tailings runoff water quality monitoring (May 2005 June 2005)
Endako Mines, Fraser Lake, BC
Tailings Operations Department Student
Monitor and operate tailings line spigot distribution system Provide heavy labour in completion of annual tailings pipeline relocation Assist with various site maintenance tasks (January 2006 August 2006)
Rock Solid Rebar, Vancouver, BC
Lead Hand
Coordinate group of 1 to 5 coworkers in 1 to 3 day projects installing reinforcing steel into foundation, structural and aesthetic concrete forms Communicate with site contractors and owners regarding project requirements and scheduling Read building plans to determine reinforcing and installation specifications Perform installation of reinforcing steel
EDUCATION
2004 Present
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC Mining and Mineral Process Engineering Expected Graduation: April 2008 Capilano College, North Vancouver, BC Engineering University Transfer Program
2003 2004
OTHER EXPERIENCE
Mountain Bike Mechanic (June 2001 April 2005) Cove Bike Shop, North Vancouver, BC Interact with customers and staff on a regular basis Analyze and solve mechanical problems to professional standards and customer satisfaction Repair all types of bicycles using various hand and power tools
INTERESTS
Competitive mountain biking, other cycling sports Wilderness activities, music, downhill skiing, travel, soccer
REFERENCES
Shih Fen (Jenny) Chen Mining Engineering
559 Draycott St. Coquitlam, BC, V3J 6M5 604-936-5729 [email protected]
CO-OP/TECHNICAL WORK EXPERIENCE Barrick Technology Center June 2007-Aug 2007 Met/Assay Labs Coop Student · Assisted metallurgist in conducting CIL, chlorine, and neutralization tests. · Acquired knowledge and hand-on practice on iron titration (total, ferrous, and ferric), free acid titration, carbon/sulfur analysis (LECO), and AA. · Entrusted with responsibilities as the relief for technicians on vacation. · Gained a general understanding of fire assay by shadowing the lab technicians. Huckleberry Mines Ltd. Mar 2006 - Aug 2006 Surveyor · Quickly took on the role of surveyor in a short period of time through selfmotivation, effective time management, and eager learning attitude. · Actively partcipated in short-term mine planning and daily production. · Skillfully employed GENCOM in survey, blast design, ore control, and dam construction. Huckleberry Mines Ltd. Jan 2006 - Feb 2006 Mining & Environmental Student Engineer · Collected and analyzed data of wall prisms and piezometers with alertness. · Hiked out weekly with snow shoes to various sample points on mine site to collect water samples and prepare them for the lab testing. · Performed internal water quality tests and compared them with the external lab results. · Organized and updated various environmental reports and mine report such as quarterly report. Highland Valley Copper Mine Sept 2005 - Dec 2005 Mill Technical Fall Intern · Quickly adapt to lab environment by being observant and having an earnest/eager perspective. · Approaching new and challenging tasks with an open mind, and completing it in the minimal time with efficacious time management while maintaining high quality of productive work. · Continuously calculating assay results on different parts of mill circuit to optimize the recovery and the concentration grade. · Display quick analytical thinking by effectively organized leach plant's filter cloth experiment from scratch within limited time frame. · As a reliable teammate, always ready to assist fellow mill technicians with their tasks, and display eager to learn attitude. Highland Valley Copper Mine May 2005 - Aug 2005
Summer Student Labor in Mill Operation · Performing cleaning tasks in various departments through out mine site with an effective efficient effort and finishing with minimal time. · Assisted in GPS Mapping of land vegetation for environmental department. · Involved in relocating fishes from the creek to the lake for the environmental department. · Career shadowing the engineers of various departments with an earnest and up-tothe-challenge aptitude. TECHNICAL PROJECTS Moly leach plant filter cloth prescreening Sept 2005 - Dec 2005 · Learned leaching processes, limiting factors, and various testing procedures before complete the design of the experiment. · Completed the filter cloth screening within the deadline and with minimal supervision. · Selected the suitable filter cloth for in plant testing by performing critical analysis on the experimental results. · Established sound relationships with the vendors and the operators with an earnest attitude. VOLUNTEER EXPERIENCE Ducks Unlimited Smithers, BC, General Volunteer Jan 2006 - May 2006 · Looked for sponsorship in the community of Smithers. · Setting up banquet hall for the auction night. Smithers, BC, Volunteer Jan 2006 - Mar 2006 · Looked for sponsorships for the auction/dinner events for the mentally challenged children. · Volunteered at the senior housing auction/dinner event. · Volunteered at the local hockey games. EDUCATION University of British Columbia Sept 2003-Present Bachelor of Applied Science--3rd year mining engineerin--graduating April 2009 PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS · · CIM APEC-MAPS
References will be provided upon request
Jeremy F. G. Guichon
6323 195B Street Surrey, B.C. V3S 7L8
604-612-3595
Cell: 604-612-3595 E-Mail: [email protected]
Objective Education
May 2008
Full time employment in the field of Mine Engineering, in the rock mechanics field. BASc University of British Columbia in Mining Engineering.
Technical Skills
· · · · Standard First Aid CPR Level A WHMIS MSHA for surface mines (expires 2/20/2008)
COMPUTER
· · · · · AutoCAD Dips Slide Swedge Surpac or Gems (to be learned this year)
APPLIED SKILLS
· · Underground ventilation and gas surveys Installing and monitoring rock mechanics instruments Core Logging
·
Jan 2007 August 2007
GOLDER ASSOCIATES LTD BURNABY OFFICE
· · · · · · · · Assisted open pit feasibility study (rock mechanics) Performed statistical analyses on datasets Constructed and interpreting dips stereographic plots Assisted with construction and interpretation of limit equilibrium models in SLIDE Introduced to geotechnical core logging Created and audited applications in excel Liaised with drafting to create, review and assemble drawings for reports (up to 100 figs) Technical writing for reports and memos Worked under pressure to meet deadlines Performed water sampling for turbidity tests Sampled waste dumps and in-pit coal for analysis Set up ARD test barrels for waste dump modeling Set up a small weather station Estimated environmental bonds based on mine plans and environmental assessment Installed and monitored rock-mechanics instrumentation including geophones (micro-seismic) and extensometers Performed monthly refuge station safety checks Performed weekly underground ventilation and gas surveys Created ventilation plans and communicated them to underground workers and supervisors Began implementation of automated ventilation monitoring system Created short-term mining and tonnage plans Back-analyzed borer mining rates using excel and summarized for short and long term mine planning
·
WESTERN CANADIAN COAL WOLVERINE MINE
·
5111 235 Street Langley BC V2Z 2P5 Phone: (604) 612-0304 Email: [email protected]
Jeremy Wolgram
Mining Engineering Skills
· · · · Familiar with computer software used in the mining industry: Datamine, AutoCAD, Ellipse, and Microsoft Office Mine Rescue Experience and Safety Training-Attitude aligned with safety oriented operations Excellent communication and people skills Willing to learn and work in diverse environments and aspects of the industry
Work Experience
Northparkes Mines Parkes NSW, Australia June-August 2007 Mining/Geotechnical Engineering Intern · Updated the Block Cave Interpretation for the Lift 2 Development using Datamine · Assisted in collecting and analyzing underground mine geotechnical data, completed crack mapping, down hole surveys, and TDR readings · Completing daily blast plans for multiple mining faces · Worked on Underground Production crew maintaining conveyor system · Gained an excellent understanding of the Block Cave Mining method · Job shadowed engineers in various roles Diavik Diamond Mines North West Territories, Canada May-December 2006 Underground Mining Engineering Intern · Completed a detailed high profile time study on a new Roadheader used to mine kimberlite. Study used throughout the Rio Tinto group of companies. · Help to develop, troubleshoot, and maintain the underground communication system · Assisted in developing water management plans, detailed inventory forecasting plans and storage facility layout designs. · Worked with a Diamond Drill Crew orientating core and data logging. Completed rock structure and shotcrete strength measurements. · Completed Kimberlite Drift Development Risk Assessment Plan. Analyzed pre existing drill holes in kimberlite and assisted in designing a drift a safe distance away from holes. · Worked as a diversified team of contractors, engineers, work crews on a development project. Achieved one year with no LTI's.
3DM Devices Langley, BC December 2004í-XO\ Machinist Assistant · Operated a lathe, milling machine, and hand tools to machine parts for laser measuring equipment. · Followed strict part documentation and inspection procedures to help company achieve ISO 9001 accreditation. · Assisted technicians and engineers in the assembly of products. · Attended engineer meetings and gained understanding of the process behind product development.
Education
University of British Columbia Bachelor Degree of Mining Engineering University College of the Fraser Valley Associate of Science Diploma DW Poppy Secondary School High School Diploma September 2005-Present September 2002-April 2005 September 1998-June 2002
Awards
Canadian Mineral Industry Education Foundation Scholarship 2006, 2007 IODE Ruskin Chapter Alfred Newton Wolverton Memorial Scholarship August 2006 Rio Tinto Scholarship January 2006 Cy and Emerald Keyes Award in Mining and Mineral Processing Engineering Nov 2005 UCFV Top 2nd Year Math Student Award April 2004 UCFV Entrance Scholarship June 2002
Professional Association
· APEGí0$36 · Canadian Institute of Mining (CIM) Student Member
Interests
I am passionate about mountain biking, hiking, mountaineering, camping and playing baseball. I also enjoy traveling, reading, and time with friends and family.
#403 2370 West 2nd Ave. Vancouver, BC, V6K 1J2 Phone: (604) 323-6398 E-Mail: [email protected]
Marc Mains
OBJECTIVES
To obtain a summer position within the mining industry that allows me to use my skills to be a productive part of the operation
HIGHLIGHTED EXPERIENCE
o Performed longhole blast sequencing including void ratio and hydraulic radius calculations o Performed pre/post longhole blast checks o Completed Ontario Common Core 0,1&2 o Installed ventilation tubing, fans, water and air lines in an underground mine o Collected structural data from diamond drill core o Performed drill site reclamations o Supervised core cutters to ensure QA/QC standards were being met o Performed historical data analysis and interpretation o Honed communication, multitasking, and interpersonal skills working with customers and in teams
SPECIAL SKILLS
Computer: Minesite, Surpac Vision, AutoCAD, Excel, Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, C++ Programming, Adobe Photoshop Surveying: Leveling, traversing, Total Station, area/volume calculations, GPS Languages: Fluent in written and spoken French and English Driving: Class 5 Driver's License, experienced in all Conditions, clean driving record
EMPLOYMENT HISTORY
GoldCorp Inc., Musselwhite Mine, ON Underground Production Helper summer 2007
Marc Mains
Page 2 Strata Gold Corp., Dublin Gulch, YT Geotechnician/Relief Camp Manager Syncrude Canada Ltd., Fort McMurray, AB Extraction Technical Co-op Student The Old Spaghetti Factory, Whistler, BC Frontline Service Staff CD Smart Homes, Whistler, BC General Labourer summer 2006 summer 2005 2000 - 2004 1997 - 2002
EDUCATION
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC Completed second year mining engineering Continuing mining engineering degree, 4th year British Columbia Institute of Technology, Burnaby, BC Mining Technologist Program 2003 2005 2006-present 2005 - 2006
VOLUNTEER WORK
Whistler-Blackcomb Foundation Charity Gala Auction setup and guest reception Mineral Exploration Roundup Booth attendant Rossignol Snowboard Air Tour Coaching and obstacle construction 2007 2006 2001 - 2002
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
o o o o o o CIM Undergraduate Book Prize Competitive sponsorship from Rossignol Snowboards 1st Place in Atomic Pro/Am halfpipe competition Provincial Scholarship Award Bob Brown Memorial Scholarship Grade 12 Fine Arts Award 2006 2000 2004 2003 2003 2003 2003
EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITES
o Snowboarding, competitive and recreational o Intramural football and volleyball o Tennis
MARK MORIN
60 TRAILVIEW DRIVE · SUDBURY, ON · P3E 6M3 PHONE (778) 686-8946 · E-MAIL: [email protected]
OBJECTIVE
To network and gain experience in the field of mining engineering, to apply learned skills in the industry and to focus on the business aspects of mining and the commodities market.
EDUCATION
2003 2008 The University of British Columbia Vancouver, BC Bachelor of Applied Science - Mining Engineering Computer Skills: Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, MATLAB, AutoCAD, Surpac, Vulcan, Map3D, Mine2-4D, Rocscience DIPS
TECHNICAL WORK EXPERIENCE
Summer 2007 CVRD Inco Limited Creighton Mine Lively, ON U/G Ground Control Engineering Summer Student Worked with rock mechanics engineer in various ground monitoring programs including monitoring of sill pillars using SMART cable technology. Carried out duties of the on-site microseismic technician and gained an understanding of ESG's microseismic technology. Helped update AutoCAD & MineCAD level layouts for use in ground control department. Analyzed various stopes to calculate the ELOS value & using geological data, determine a slope stability curve to be used to determine acceptable dilution based on metal prices. Summer 2006 BHP Billiton Diamonds Inc. Ekati Diamond Mine Yellowknife, NT Open Pit Engineering Summer Student Provided vacation relief for Drill/Blast Engineer & Short Term Planner. Assumed their duties including blast pattern design/tie-in, updating drill/blast/production figures, preparing short term mine plan and chairing weekly planning meetings. Worked with Geotechnical Engineer conducting various pit wall monitoring projects. Used mine planning and various geotechnical software packages as part of job. Summer 2005 Spring 2006 Falconbridge Limited Onaping, ON Underground Mine Labourer Planned and carried out maintenance of backfill systems on the 2000 level of Craig Mine. Obtained basic underground common core modules and was trained on 1 cubic yard LHD and mobile utility vehicle. Shoveled out various ore and waste pass overflows and extracted hundreds of old steel fill pipes from the 2000 level to the shaft station for hoisting to surface.
Time Studies & Incentive Department Co-op Student Executed various time studies for the Six Sigma Projects and Worker Incentive departments. Equipment studied included remote operated 8 and 9 yard LHDs and ITH drills. Tabulated time study data and prepared written reports for supervisors to make recommendations.
Summer 2004 Thompson Creek Mining Endako Mines Division Fraser Lake, BC Haul Truck Operator Safely and efficient operated the Euclid R190 & Lectra M120 off-highway haul trucks in the Endako pit and on surface. Maintained production during summer months. Operated on a four 12 hour day tour alternating between day and night shifts. Assisted in moving shovel cables, cleaning out crushers and performed any other job as assigned by supervisor.
RECENT VOLUNTEER EXPERIENCE
2006 2007 Norman B. Keevil Institute of Mining Engineering UBC Mining Games Team Co-Captain Organized UBC team for annual Canadian Mining Games Competition. Handled team finances and organized fundraising plan. Assisted in approaching corporate sponsors for team fundraising. Participated in Mine Design, Mineral Economics, Mine Rescue and Equipment Selection Events Part of two-man Mine Design team, placed 2nd out of 10 Canadian Mining Universities 2005 2006 2964 Royal Canadian Army Cadet Corps Civilian Instructor Planned and supervised weekend training exercises for cadet corps. Provided counsel/instruction for 4 senior army cadets in preparation for their National Star Certification Exam. Carried out other duties as passed down from Commanding Officer. 2004 2005 UBC Engineering Undergraduate Society Red Sales Manager Ordered and sold engineering related clothing and other items. Managed a group of assistants and ensured smooth operation. Organized stores and kept track of budget and inventory
AWARDS RECEIVED
2005 2005 2004 2004 2003 - 2006 2003 - 2006
CMIEF Scholarship Sandy Laird Service Award CIM M/E Division J.D. Patterson Memorial Entrance Scholarship Cy and Emerald Keyes Memorial Scholarship in Mining and Mineral Processing UBC Undergraduate Scholar Program Dean's Honour List
INTERESTS AND ACTIVITIES
Alpine Skiing Outdoor sports (camping, hiking, canoeing, orienteering, SCUBA diving) Musical instruments (saxophone & guitar) Creative Design, Powerpoint and Publishing Business, Commerce and Investments
PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS & CERTIFICATIONS
Student Member of the Society for Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration Golden Key International Honour Society Standard First Aid/CPR Class B & Basic Lifesaver Certification PADI SCUBA Certification Advanced Open Water Diver WHMIS Certification (NORCAT) Ontario Ministry of Training Basic Underground Common Core
3044 18th Avenue Port Alberni, BC, Canada V9Y 3A9 Tel.: 778-990-4704 E-mail: [email protected]
TECHNICAL SKILLS
Computer · MS Word · MS Excel · AutoCad · · · · · Laboratory Mass Balance Calculations Fractional Dilutions PH Calorimeter Testing Preparing Assay Samples Particle Screen Size Analysis Field · Surveying with a Trimble GPS · X-Ray Fluorescence Machine Calibrations · Geotechnical Face Mapping with a Clar Compass
MARK MUKHIJA
RELEVANT WORK EXPERIENCE
Barrick Gold of Australia, Cowal Gold Project May 2007- September 2007 Mining Engineer · Performing geotechnical face mapping to monitor pit wall stability · Monitoring pit wall displacements from geotechnical prism data · Using a GPS controller to perform surveying tasks such ore mark-ups, drill hole positioning, and setting out blast patterns. · Performing safety audits on drill rigs · Conducting safety inspections in the open pit · Designing blast patterns Barrick Gold of Australia, Lawlers Gold Mine February 2007 - May 2007 Underground Mining Engineer · Evaluating the efficiency of underground equipment for Barrick Gold's Continuous Improvement initiative · Working underground (2 months) helping on charge up, being a member of the service crew, drill rig off-siding, and assisting the air leg drillers Teck Cominco, Highland Valley Copper May 2006 - Sept 2006 Mineral Process Engineer · Worked as part of the Mill Technical Development Team · Determining recoveries based on assay results compared with on-stream analyzer data (X-Ray Fluorescence machines) · Supervising the installation of a new sonar flow meter · Evaluating the efficiency and performance of newly purchased hydrocylones · Preparing month end metallurgical reports BHP Billiton Diamonds Inc September 2005 - December 2005 Junior Project Engineer · Worked as part of the Underground Studies Team in Yellowknife, NWT, Canada. · Performing production calculations and estimates · Determining underground fleet sizes and costs · Working on dilution models
TECHNICAL PROJECTS
Underground Fleet Sizing November 2005 · Was involved in determining the number of underground loaders and trucks required for the expansion of the EKATI Diamond Mine. · Consulted with staff and management to gather information with respect to time studies, ramp conditions and projected tonnages. · Performed calculations and analysis of previous data and recent findings to figure out how many trucks would be needed. · Completed a technical report on my findings.
VOLUNTEER EXPERIENCE
International SAG Conference 2006 September 2006 Student Volunteer · Assisted with registering delegates · Provided audio visual support for presentations Westcoast Hockey Camp August 2003 Hockey Instructor · Developed a daily training program for hockey players attending the camp · Led the players through on ice drills and exercises · Supervised the participants during social events · Provided participants with written evaluations D.A.R.E. (RCMP) March 2002 D.A.R.E. Role Model · Worked with the RCMP and other selected role models as a part of the local D.A.R.E.(Drug Abuse Resistance Education) program to educate elementary school students about the dangers of drug and alcohol abuse. · D.A.R.E. Role Models were selected based on academic and extra-curricular performance.
EDUCATION
University of British Columbia 4th Year Mining Engineering Student Graduating April 2008 Alberni District Secondary School Graduated with honours September 2003 - Present
September 2000 - June 2003
AWARDS
Academic Excellence Award for Grade 12 at Alberni District Secondary School Cloverdale Minor Hockey Tournament Scholarship June 2003 March 2003
PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
· APEG MAPS
ACTIVITIES AND INTERESTS
· Avid ice hockey player, surfer, and golfer · Was a member of the Alberni Valley Track and Field Club · Participate in 4 UBC intramural sports, (ball hockey, ice hockey, football and tennis) · I also enjoy reading References will be provided upon request
MICHAEL FULLER
10 Lloyd Manor Rd, Toronto, ON, M9B 5H6 email: [email protected]
mobile: 604.868.6846 ________________________________________________________________
SKILLS PROFILE
Technical Skills & Professional Qualifications · Jackleg operation · Surveying surface/underground · NW Territories Underground Mine Rescue certification · St. John Ambulance Standard First Aid certification Computer Hardware · Setup, configuration, and troubleshooting for wired/wireless networks · Hardware installation and maintenance · Problem diagnosis and repair Computer Software · Proficient with Microsoft Excel, Powerpoint, Word, Access · Experience with Surpac, Gemcom, AutoCAD, Microstation, Promine
EDUCATION
University of British Columbia Bachelor of Applied Science - Mining Engineering (Co-op Option) September 2003 - Present April 2008 Graduation
CO-OP / TECHNICAL WORK EXPERIENCE
First Quantum Minerals - Kansanshi Mining Plc May - August 2007 Mining Engineering Student Solwezi, Zambia · Initiated contact and secured summer placement in Zambia, motivated to learn about the social and economic impacts of mining in a developing country · Responsible for creating long-term pit designs and amending current plans at one of the largest and fastest growing mining companies left in Canada · Maintained daily production maps outlining relevant survey, geological, and mining information at one of the lowest cost copper producers in the world De Beers Canada - Snap Lake Project January - August 2006 Mining Engineering Coop Student NWT, Canada · Responsible for weekly ventilation surveys to ensure adequate air flows to all headings at a rare dyke-only diamond mine · Developed a fuel consumption database to track diesel input/output which would aid in predictive modeling at an underground mine in the construction phase · Participated as team member in monthly Mine Rescue training at the first De Beers' mine outside Africa · Relied upon for coverage of short term planner and hydrogeologist while simultaneously conducting overbreak study by collecting and analyzing drift profile data from entire mine Teck Cominco - Highland Valley Copper September - December 2005 Mining Engineering Coop Student Logan Lake, BC, Canada · Assisted in the Mine Engineering department of an open-pit copper and molybdenum mine · Gave regular tours to large school groups comprised of students, teachers, and parents · Balanced the responsibilities of pit and dump designs, geotechnical project support, efficiency studies, and monitoring field project work at a unique low-grade, high-profit operation Teck Cominco - Highland Valley Copper May - August 2005 Mill Operations Labourer Logan Lake, BC, Canada · Helped maintain the daily operations of one of the world's largest mines by assisting with cleanup and maintenance of the mill, crushers, conveyors, and vehicles
MICHAEL FULLER
PAGE 2
VOLUNTEER EXPERIENCE
Industry Advisory Committee September 2007 - Present Student Representative · Represented mining engineering students at monthly meetings with members of mining industry · Discussed strategies mutually beneficial to university education and corporate performance Canadian Mining Games Team October 2006 - April 2007 Captain · Recruited a team of 12 students to represent UBC at the 17th Annual Canadian Mining Games Competition in Montréal · Trained for Jackleg event for three days at Eskay Creek gold mine · Succeeded in raising over $10 000 in sponsorship from industry and funding committees UBC Mining Undergraduate Club May 2006 - May 2007 Treasurer · Created budget, secured funding, and ensured responsible management of thousands of dollars for social events, field trips, and clothing fundraisers · Worked harmoniously with rest of executive to give Mining students an interesting and memorable school year Varsity Outdoor Club May 2006 - April 2007 Membership Chair · Organized the Club Days week-long event to promote one of UBC's largest clubs (400 members) · Generated over $12 000 in membership dues to put towards new gear and building public backcountry huts · Ensured prospective members had all their questions answered and new members were quickly oriented to UBC's oldest club (Est. 1917) Engineers Without Borders - Habitat for Humanity January 2007 Construction Volunteer · Assisted in the construction of affordable houses for low-income families in Vancouver, while simultaneously developing and improving basic technical and teamwork skills
AWARDS
Barrick Gold Mining Engineering Scholarship Turnbull Cup Student Photo Competition: 1st and 2nd prize UBC Undergraduate Scholars Program Lt. Eric Soulis Ditmars Scholarship CMIEF Scholarship Rio Algom Scholarship January 2007 February 2007 September 2003, 2004, 2006 September 2006 September 2005 September 2004
ACTIVITIES AND INTERESTS
Varsity Outdoor Club (Rock climbing, Backcountry Skiing, Canoeing, Mountaineering, Hiking) Martial Arts Training (Kali, Muay Thai, Wing Chun, Kickboxing, Hapkido) Photography (Semi-professional, using Digital SLR) Travel (Backpacked through 8 countries, visited 15 total) Cooking and Baking (Nutrition)
Russell Pennell 308 310 E 14th Avenue Vancouver BC V5T 2M8 Tel: 604 408 4849 email: [email protected]
Profile Self motivated mining engineering student, with experience in a group or independent setting. Well organized with strong interpersonal and communication skills, with proven leadership abilities and management experience. Excellent customer service skills practised in a high volume dynamic environment. Ability to work within strict guidelines set by the company and government regulators. Experience Assistant Branch Manager 2000-Present BMO Bank of Montreal, 10th Avenue and Granville St. Branch, Vancouver BC
· Responsible for the supervision and scheduling 15 employees on a daily basis · Effectively conducted dozens of new employee orientations, helping employees to feel
welcome while reinforcing the demands of the job
· Coaching, and successfully training of 10 new employees in the past year · Audit and control of branch assets as outlined in policy and procedure ensuring that all
documentation is up to the standards of corporate auditors
· Audit of new accounts ensuring proper documentation is present and acceptable · Successfully resolved customer complaints and service requests on a daily basis by
·
· · ·
· ·
identifying and addressing problems and providing relevant solutions to meet customer needs Branch compliance officer, auditing of all branch mutual fund sales ensuring proper documentation is present and the guidelines set out by the Canadian Securities Commission are followed Interviewing and selection of new hires for three branches in the community Sale of investments including fixed rate investments and mutual funds Opening of new personal and commercial accounts, making sure that all required documentation is present and acceptable and that the proper accounts are opened to meet the customers needs and expectations Control of branch cash holdings of up to $1 million dollars on a daily basis Organizing and presenting meetings to a work group of 20 staff members
SMG Consulting Brisbane Australia Project Engineer co-op Student January 2007 August 2007
· Assisted engineering staff on various projects that had to be completed no time and on
budget
· Conducted research on technical issues for use on a variety of projects · Completed a report for a continuous mining system for use in open cut coal
· Assisted on a pre-feasibility project for an underground cut and fill mine. · Conducted financial analysis for various projects · Contacted suppliers for quotations on equipment and integrated the quotations and cost
estimates into projects · Performed drafting duties for a variety of projects with the use of AutoCad and Corel
BHP Billiton Diamonds Inc Underground Engineering co-op Student May 2006 August 2006
· Compiling data from different sources to produce and then distribute the daily report to
staff members
· Auditing the production drilling, and blasting, to ensure that the mine plan is followed · Surveying the ventilation systems to ensure that requirements are met · Reporting on the consumables, drill bits and drill steel, determining how the consumables
are used and reconditioned. Reporting on which consumables are most efficient
· Covering various positions in the department as holiday relief
Huckleberry Mines Ltd. Surveyor/Planner/Environmental Tech Sep 2005-Dec 2005
· Responsible for updating the daily face advances and generating the grades of the ore · · · · · · · · · · · · ·
mined Determined and laid out ore and wall control for the equipment operators in the field Created blast designs and laid them out in the field for drilling Designed the blast tie-ins to ensure correct detonation sequence of the blasts Created daily dig maps used by the foremen for their daily planning Created the weekly planning maps used by the engineering department for short term planning and drill pattern sequencing Provided survey control on the construction of the tailings dam Supported mine operations with survey control for road and ramp construction Weekly reading of the piezomters, extensometers and inclinometers Collected data from the wall prisms and dam monuments using a total station Collected water samples from discharge areas around the mine Determined flow rates from the discharge areas Prepared water samples for shipment to the lab by filtering, adding preservatives, and ensuring correct labelling of the samples was followed to ensure accuaracy Conducted total suspended solid testing on the samples collected and reported the findings of the tests to the environmental coordinator and the ministry of mines
Highland Valley Copper Labourer May 2005-Aug 2005
· Completing production support duties as assigned · Assisting Contractors in renovations
Senior Customer Service Representative and Financial Services Officer BMO Bank of Montreal 10th and Granville and Broadway and Yew Branches 1994-2000 · · · · · Supervised and coached 10 employees on a daily basis Trained new hires on how to operate a cash use the computer systems and interact appropriately with the customers Successfully opened new personal and commercial accounts; sold investments including fixed rate investments and mutual funds Handled cash responsibilities of up to $ 1 million dollars on a daily basis and balanced cash accurately 98% of the time within the allotted 15 minutes Performed audits as required
Education and Courses University of British Columbia · 2003-present
Faculty of applied science in the department of Mining Engineering 2001-2003
Langara College · ·
Successfully completed courses to transfer to the University of British Columbia Held a GPA of 3.66 at the time of transfer
Branch Compliance Officer Course
· Successfully completed the correspondence course required to become a registered Branch
Compliance Officer
· Course is a requirement to audit and control mutual fund sales
Investment Funds in Canada
· Successfully completed the correspondence course required to become a registered mutual
fund sales representative Occupational First aid level 1
· Successfully completed the course to become a registered first aid attendant
Behavioural Focused Interviewing
· Completed the course as a part of managerial training for the BMO Bank of Montreal
Technical Skills
Volunteer Experience
· Team leader for the BC wheelchair sports Wheel-a-thon, collected pledges and elicited
participation · Helped construct the successful student clinic at the Boucher Institute of Naturopathic Medicine · Participated in the Bowl for Big Brothers collecting pledges and eliciting participation Interests
· Actively playing in the ASHL hockey League · Running, cycling, swimming and triathlon
4th Year Students
Mining and Mineral Processing Options Combined
In fourth year the six credits of constrained electives consist of one of the following options: A: MINE 403 and MINE 482 MINE 403 Rock Mechanics Design MINE 482 Maintenance Engineering B: MINE 434 and MINE 462 MINE 434 Processing Precious Metal Ores MINE 462 Coal Preparation Technology
The following students already have taken or currently plan to take all four courses covering both options A and B.
12970 14A Avenue Surrey, BC, V4A 1H8 Phone: 604 916 7285 [email protected]
Colby Miller
Education 2003-Present University of British Columbia Faculty of Applied Science Mining Anticipated Graduation: April 2008 1998-2003 Graduated Elgin Park Secondary Surrey, B.C. Vancouver, B.C.
Awards received
2005 Advisor of the Year Totem Park Alan Rae Bursary Award Winner Top Grade 12 Male Student Athlete Cy and Emerald Keyes Scholarship for Mining and Mineral Processing
Work experience February 2007-Present Co-op Engineering Student Rio Tinto Coal Australia Mount Thorley-Warkworth Operation Ben Coleman, +61 02 6570 2657
My time with RTCA was provided to give me an overview or their entire operation; being rotated through mid-range planning, operational crews, and short-range planning. To date I have used design and scheduling programs to create dump plans and timelines, gained operational experience driving haul trucks, and created short term designs and schedules for three draglines utilizing the 3D Dig software package. May 2006-August 2006 Co-op Mining Engineer Albian Sands Energy Craig Simpson, +1 780-715-2950
As a co-op mining engineer with Albian Sands Energy my main duties included planning and implementing pit de-watering activities and improving haul fleet productivity by improving road quality and maintenance. These activities gave me the opportunity to work both in the field to gain operational experience, as well as in the office to expand my technical skills.
August 2005-December 2005 Co-op Process Engineer
Coal Mountain Operations, Elk Valley Coal Jared Maschoot, +1 780-732-2042
As a co-op process engineer at Coal Mountain, I was assigned various project works. Projects included an appropriation requests for new equipment, mass balances for the wash plant, tracking wear on machinery, and assisting in month end reporting. These projects required me to work as a team member, as well as completing independent work. May 2005-August 2005 General Labourer Highland Valley Copper Kirby Humphrey, +1 250-523-3318
As a co-op student at HVC I was appointed tasks such as core sorting, rock sample collecting, assisting in reclamation work, and general cleanup.
Extracurricular activities
President UBC Mining Undergrad Society B.C. Rugby Team U18 silver medalists 2003 B.C. Rugby Team U20 silver medalists 2004 Rugby Canada - player on U19 Junior World Cup 2003 team
Further Qualifications
Trained in the use of AutoCad, Vulcan Ming Design, SQL Database Server, and Mine Maintenance programming Attended Student Leadership Summit 2004 and 2005 at UBC, also seminars for Peer Helping, Event Programming, Assertiveness, Identifying "At Risk" Individuals, Emergency Preparedness, Crisis Management, Stress Management, and Goal Setting
References
Stephane Gagnon Operations Area Manager Upgrader 2- Oil Sands Suncor Energy, Inc. (780) 743-7512 [email protected]
Meeting Stephane while working in Fort McMurray, I have come to know him as a mentor and friend. He is willing to speak on my character and employability as a mining engineer.
Dalvit Gill
8635 162nd Street Surrey, British Columbia Canada V4N-1A9 Home: 604-543-8074 Cellular: 604-671-0790 Email: [email protected]
Academic Status Work Experience
Mining and Mineral Processing Engineering B.A.Sc Cumulative University Grade Average 80.7 % (A-) May 2007 August 2007 Diavik Diamond Mine, Lac de Gras NWT Student Engineer, Mineral Processing Engineering Grease table testing for efficiency Clean up diamond testing Data analysis of x-ray single particle sorter circuit Cost analysis on filtration project Writing reports and memos for test work Creating standard operating procedures Lab work Diamond sorting Single particle sorter bowl audits Grease table scraping Bulk sample tests Sample collection Circuit checks Floor checks Working with contractors Training students Assisted all engineers and departments when called upon for help May 2006 August 2006 Agrium Kapuskasing Phosphate Operations, Kapuskasing ON Metallurgical Technician Flotation Tests using different conditions (i.e. collectors, dosages, conditioning times, etc.) Finding hardness of ore using the Bond Work Index procedure & formula Mill, Cyclone, Flotation, and High Intensity Magnetic Separation (HGMS) Surveys Daily Accounting & Logistics Size Distribution Analysis Replacing lifters for the SAG Mill Maintained a SNF FloDose Flocculent System Sampling & Sample Preparation Analysis of Results using Microsoft Excel Watchman during shutdowns Assisted all engineers and departments when called upon for help September 2005 December 2005 SGS Lakefield Research, Lakefield ON Junior Metallurgical Technician
Conducted research in a lab environment Worked on a pilot plant project Performed cyanidation experiments for gold recovery Executed sample preparation
Performed representative sampling Experienced in using Ball & Rod Mills for grinding (30kg, 10kg, & 2kg
grinds) Used a Knelson Tails Concentrator & a Mozley Table
Assisted all engineers and departments when called upon for help May 2005 August 2005 Norman B. Keevil Institute of Mining Engineering, Vancouver BC Summer Intern Created and maintained website (www.wilson.mining.ubc.ca) for Dr. G.
Assisted all engineers and departments when called upon for help
Ward Wilson (Mining Engineering professor at UBC) Assisted a PhD student with her research Grinded samples of different strength to both coarse and fine sizes Used a jaw crusher, cone crusher, ball mill, and a rod mill Ran tests on different samples of soil to plot Soil Water Characteristic Curves Assisted a Masters student with his research at the Inco tailings area Installed a weather station Ensured cleanliness of the lab facility Prepared course material using Microsoft PowerPoint Performed administrative work
Extremely experienced with: Win 9X/ME/XP MS Word, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint, MS Outlook Gemcom HTML Surpac Macromedia Flash C++ Visual Basic CMIEF Award for Academic Excellence Undergraduate Scholar Program Scholarship Cy and Emerald Keyes Mining Engineering Scholarship Undergraduate Scholar Program Scholarship British Columbia Government Scholarship 2007-2008 2006-2007 2004-2005 2003-2005 2003-2004
Computer Literacy
Awards
Activities and Interests
Ice Hockey, Ball Hockey, Basketball Charity Events Pool Practising Golf Salsa Lessons Phi Delta Theta Fraternity 2003-Present
Affiliation And Membership References And Additional Work Experience
Available Upon Request
James Henderson
#9 7179 18 Ave. Burnaby, B.C. V3N 1H2 (604) 525 7057 (h) (604) 314 8279 (cell) [email protected]
th
Objective Experience
To join a team that will assist the EIT program and promote development of engineering and managerial skills. Technical Student Costing May 2007 August 2007; Procon Mining and Tunnelling Ltd. Burnaby, B.C. Administrator tasks Costing Engineering work Time Study/Field Work Technical Student Environmental Services May 2006 August 2006; Highland Valley Copper, Logan Lake, B.C. Supervision of work crews Planning Jobs/Work Orders Field Sampling/Field Work Lifeguard/Swim Instructor March 1998 August 2006; City of Vancouver Park Board, Vancouver, B.C. Head guard at seasonal outdoor pool
Education
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C. September 2004 - Present Working towards a degree in Mining Engineering th Currently in 4 year Active in many student groups Recipient of the Harold Steane Memorial Award this year Received a Cy and Emerald Keyes Scholarship in second year Langara College, Vancouver, B.C. September 1999 May 2001 Focus on Science and Math
Volunteer/Hobbies
Vice President External and Academic of the Engineering Undergraduate Society 2006-2007 Managed the engineering store "Red Sales" 2005-2006 Head Delegate at the Canadian Federation of Engineering Students Congress 2007 (Montreal) Head Delegate at the Western Engineering Student Society Team Annual General Meeting 2006 (Victoria) Current President of Sigma Phi Delta, a professional engineering fraternity Available on Request
References
Ran Qiu (Linda) Zhang
103 8775 Jones Rd Richmond, BC V6Y3Y9 Phone: (604) 271-2348 Mobile: (778) 859-3855 E-mail: [email protected]
OBJECTIVE
To obtain a position in the mining and mineral processing industry, where I can apply my knowledge and skills to contribute to the company.
EDUCATION
Bachelor of Applied Science, University of British Columbia Fifth-year Mining and Mineral Processing Engineering High School Diploma, Hugh McRoberts Secondary School
2003-2008 2000-2003
Vulcan Minex Surpac AutoCAD Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint
EMPLOYMENT HISTORY
Mining Engineer, Albian Sands Energy Inc. meetings
01/2007 08/2007
Developed weekly in-pit dyke construction schedule and chaired weekly Worked with senior geotechnical engineers, field engineers, geotechnical monitors and surveyors to implement construction schedule Produced in-pit dyke construction volumes from survey surfaces using Vulcan Analyzed past haulage cycle data to develop haulage parameters for longrange planning Cost analysis and efficiency evaluation of different models of shovel bucket. Surveyed various areas of the mine using Leica GPS equipment Mining Engineer, SMG Consultants Pty Ltd. 05/2006 12/2006 Facilitated with pit design study and developed pit and dump designs using Minex and Surpac Designed annual haulage route and waste dump, and assisted with scheduling for long-range mine planning. Performed trucking hour analysis using TALPAC Compiled geological data to produce working seam surfaces Performed analysis of geological structures from borehole data Laboratory Assistant, UBC Mining Dept. efficiency of IsaMill and Stirred Media Detritor Performed size analysis and surface area analysis on the mill products 05/2005 08/2005 Conducted grinding tests on concentrate samples to evaluate the energy
Facilitated with the study of waste rock pile discharge, and constructed 24 Time Domain Reflectometry (TDR) probes to monitor water content. VOLUNTEER EXPERIENCE Minoru Seniors' Residence Assisted with social events and outings. High school tutoring program AWARDS Dean's Honor List SAG Mining Engineering Scholarship Undergraduate Scholar Program PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS INTERESTS Enjoy outdoor activities and hiking Enjoy tennis, lacrosse, swimming and badminton Play violin REFERENCES Available upon request APEGBC Member Advantage Program for Students 2002-2003 2003-2005 2004 2003-2004 2002-2003
Navneet Baath
8570 - 156 Street Surrey, B.C. · V3S 3R9 PHONE: (778) 242-6200 E-MAIL: [email protected]
EDUCATION Bachelor of Applied Science in Mining Engineering ( 4th Year) University of British Columbia, British Columbia (Expected Graduation Date - May 2008) High School Diploma Yadvindra Public School, Mohali, India AWARDS · · · · · Cy and Emerald Keyes Bursary in Mining and Mineral Process Engineering Undergraduate Scholar Program Scholarship SPEATBC Student Scholarship Undergraduate Scholar Program Scholarship Frederick Armand McDiarmid Scholarship Oct. 2004 Aug. 2004 Jan. 2006 Aug. 2006 Sep. 2006 Sep. 2003 Present
Mar. 2003
WORK EXPERIENCE Extraction Coop Student Syncrude Canada Limited, Fort McMurray, AB · Updated Plant and Instrument Diagrams · Created energy balance for the plant · Performed and evaluated test work as it related to recovery of bitumen · Presented an overview of caustic usage · Formulated a test plan to estimate capacity and efficiency of the deaerators · Conducted a sampling campaign to estimate oil losses in the tumbler screens Jan. 2007 Aug. 2007
Mining Engineering Coop Student Elk Valley Coal Corporation, Sparwood, BC May 2006 Aug. 2006 · Developed a spreadsheet to schedule pit sequencing based on strip ratios and coal needs · Determined truck productivities for 2007 budget and the current year using software and haulage plans · Conducted daily interpretation of production drill results for explosive loading instructions · Performed testing of potable water on daily basis · Did geological input from exploration data collected · Entered and analyzed spoil movement rates · Assisted in reclamation measures Lab/Field Technician May 2005 Dec. 2005 Metro Testing Laboratories, Burnaby, BC · Managed all duties in the asphalt lab · Performed complete Marshall test on 6 to 7 asphalt samples daily · Conducted various tests on aggregates like Soundness test, Gradation and Degradation · Monitored contractors in a downtown construction project · Performed Density tests, Moisture content & Sieve analysis on concrete samples · Managed a highway paving project in Williams Lake
COMPUTER & WRITING SKILLS Operating Systems · Microsoft Windows 9X/2000/XP · Mac OS 9.2/X Tiger CAD & Mining Applications · AutoCAD · Gemcom · Minesite · Talpac · Surpac Vision Spreadsheet and Office Software · Microsoft Office Suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) Programming · MatLab · C++ EXTRA-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES Sports and Music · Playing Volleyball · Listening to music · Reading REFERENCES Available upon request
3rd Year Students
Mining Option
In fourth year the six credits of constrained electives consist of one of the following options: A: MINE 403 and MINE 482 MINE 403 Rock Mechanics Design MINE 482 Maintenance Engineering B: MINE 434 and MINE 462 MINE 434 Processing Precious Metal Ores MINE 462 Coal Preparation Technology
The following students already have taken or currently plan to take option A.
Alexander MacKinnon
6389 Portland St. Burnaby, BC, V5E 1A1 Cellular: 604-619-3195 Email: [email protected]
Education - graduated from Burnaby South Secondary with honours - currently in 3rd year Mining Engineering at UBC Work Experience May 2006 August 2006 May 2007 August 2007 General Labour, Archer Cathro & Associates Consulting Geological Engineers, Whitehorse YT
- Split and prepared core samples - Performed camp duties and maintenance - Constructed an extensive soil sampling grid - Worked extensively with diamond drills
June 2003 August 2003
Information Technology Support Technician, Burnaby South Secondary School, Burnaby BC
- Replaced or upgraded the over 300 computers at the school
Skills Proficient at: - Excel, Word, Power Point and basic C programming - Using basic metal and wood shop equipment - Basic mechanics and machine maintenance Personal Skills: - Good problem solving skills - Analytical thinker - Methodical - Reliable Certifications: - TDG & MSDS - Class 5 Drivers Liscense - WCB approved ATV Liscense
Volunteering I volunteered for the Burnaby South Tech Support Crew for 3 years (Nov. 2001June 2003), in which I helped to manage and maintain the school network of computers. Currently I volunteer extensively and provide computer support services for the Engineer's Undergraduate Society events at UBC. Awards Burnaby South Honour Cord UBC AP Scholar 2005 2nd Place Overall in 2004 UBC Physics Olympics
Interests & Activities Downhill Mountain Biking Dragonboating Downhill Skiing Computer Gaming and Building Automotive & Mechanics
References Mr. Derek Hogg Owner Spectrum Landscaping Burnaby, BC Tel: 604-434-4891
284 Seymour River Pl., North Vancouver, BC, V7H 1W6·604 929 2878· [email protected]
Daniel Stein
To further my experience and knowledge in the mining industry.
Work Experience
Elk Valley Coal
Sparwood, BC
Operated Gamma Ray Logging Unit. Managed exploration program budget. Responsible for blast hole loading instructions. Keep track of daily blending information.
May 2006 December 2006
Highland Valley Copper
Logan Lake, BC
Managed external contractors. Assisted in research for GPS alteration project. Played a major role in the design of a new copper-molybdenum ore body using the program GEMCOM. Digitalized old maps.
July 2002 September 2002, July 2004 September 2004, May 2005 August 2005
Materials Handler
Benton and Overbury
Vancouver, BC
Assisted in the construction of office rooms and general maintenance at Douglas College and various other locations around New Westminster. Erected the steel framework in many offices on a tight schedule. Screwed the drywall boards onto the framework.
July 2005
Vancouver, BC
Laborer
Responsible for the demolition of commercial offices on a rigid timeline. Worked with little or no supervision for days at a time.
July 2003 September 2003
Pedalheads
North Vancouver, BC
Solely responsible for a group of up to 12 kids for around 2.5 hours at a time. Duties included keeping them all safe, ensuring they were having fun, and teaching them useful bike handling skills.
Education
September 2004 present UBC Vancouver, BC
In pursuit of Mining Engineering Degree
Currently enrolled in year 3. Maintained 80% average for first two years. Cy and Emerald Keyes Award in Mining Engineering 2 years running. Put on Dean's List UBC Undergraduate Scholarship BC Government Scholarship CUPE Union Scholarship Nexen Chemicals Scholarship
Awards
Avid cross country and downhill mountain bike racer. Dedicated downhill skier. Fly-fishing.
References
References are available on request.
Engineering Annex, 6298 Biological Sciences Road Vancouver, B.C. V6T 1Z4
Tel: (604) 822-3022 Fax: (604) 822-3449
www.coop.apsc.ubc.ca
Eugene McGillivray Mining Engineering
TECHNICAL SKILLS Mining Skills · Familiarity with underground operations, procedures, and safety requirements. · Collection and interpretation of ventilation and gas level data. · Interaction between society and the geological environment. · Various mining and milling methods, and the equipment involved with each process.
Computer Skills Geological Skills · Experience with AutoCAD in · Experience with hard rock core mine planning, and monitoring. logging, specifically of a · Understanding of various copper-gold porphyry deposit. computer design programs · Understanding of mineralogy including Microsoft Word, and petrology. Excel, Visio, Adobe Photoshop, · Working knowledge of resource and Surpac Vision. development, including exploration, modeling, and additional studies.
CO-OP/TECHNICAL WORK EXPERIENCE Abacus Mining & Exploration Student Geologist · Logged and interpreted geological data on several diamond drill holes. · Entered drillhole data into a computer database, and assisted in modeling section plans. · Conducted specific gravity studies on a variety of rock types. · Trained new employees in camp operations, including core logging and data modeling. May 2006 - August 2007
Falconbridge Ltd. Brunswick Mine September 2005 - December 2005 Vent Tech Assistant · Collected airflow and gas data on a monthly basis underground. · Collected data for various hygiene studies, including the DPM study, to ensure safe and healthy working conditions underground. · Plotted comprehensive airflow plans of the mine workings, using programs such as Drager Gas Vision, and Autocad. · Stored and plotted collected data using Microsoft Excel. TECHNICAL PROJECTS Ajax West Specific Gravities July 2006 · Designed and conducted tests to determine the specific gravities of various rock types present at the Ajax West zone. · Compiled and analyzed results, presenting them in a report which was used in the resource estimate on Ajax West, and which will be used in the forthcoming full feasibility study. Diesel Particulate Matter Study October 2005, November 2005 · Measured the levels of various gases, including CO, SO2, and NO2, in an underground mine, using a variety of instruments. · Calibrated and maintained the instruments used for gas measurements, such as the Multiwarn and ITX. · Stored, plotted, and analyzed acquired gas and temperature data. JA Zone Project Report April 2005 · Analyzed data concerning the JA Zone mineral deposit using a variety of computer programs, including Microsoft Excel and Surpac Vision. · Calculated possible ore grades of copper and molybdenum using different mining methods.
Eugene McGillivray · Presented findings in a comprehensive, formal report. OTHER WORK EXPERIENCE Pelton Reforestation Ltd Seasonal Employee · Graded and ensured quality control of tree saplings, on a fast paced conveyor belt system. · Cleaned and stored tree holding blocks using a washing machine. · Wrapped and packaged tree saplings. Fresh Ideas & Solutions Machine Operator · Operated various mixing machines in a fast and action oriented environment. · Cleaned and maintained various mixing machines. · Measured and packed food powder products, ensuring accuracy and quality control. · Sorted, and took inventory of ingredients to maintain organization and accurate records.
Page 2
June 2005 - Present
July 2003 - August 2004
Westview Secondary School 2000 - 2001 Lab Assistant · Cleaned lab equipment and apparatus, keeping it prepared for class experiments and demonstrations. · Stored and organized lab chemicals, in an effective and easily accessible manner. · Constructed lab experiments for science classes, involving the setup of equipment and preparation of chemicals and procedures. VOLUNTEER EXPERIENCE Westview Secondary School February 2003 - June 2003 Student Aid · Tutored students in the use of various computer programs, including Director, Adobe Photoshop, and iMovie by providing one on one, or small group instruction. EDUCATION University of British Columbia Currently in 3rd year Mining Engineering, expected to graduate in 2009. Westview Secondary School Graduated with honours. AWARDS Passport to Education Top Student in Advanced Placement English 12 Top Student in Earth Science 11 ACTIVITIES AND INTERESTS · Hiking, and biking, or just exploring the outdoors. · Swimming and jogging. · Road hockey, where I prefer to play goalie. · Reading and writing. My favorite author is Frank Herbert. · Video and image design and editing using various computer programs. 2003 2002/2003 2001/2002 2003 - 2007 1998 - 2003
Holly Burton
3022 Carina Place Burnaby, BC V3J 1B5 Home Phone: 604-421-7240 Cellular Phone: 604-763-2380 E-mail: [email protected]
Objective Skills
To secure student-level employment in mining engineering for a four to eight month term beginning in January, 2008.
-
Extremely safety conscious First-rate technical communication Microsoft Word and Excel
-
-
WHMIS certified (May 2006) Some Gemcom Experience St. John's Ambulance first aid courses (2003, 2005 - expired)
2004 - Present
The University of British Columbia Vancouver, BC Norman B. Keevil Institute of Mining Engineering
May `07 Aug. `07 Western Canadian Coal Tumbler Ridge, BC Mining Engineering Student - Compared truck models using time studies and made recommendations resulting in ten million dollars of new equipment. - Helped model coal reserves using gemcom. - Designed haul routes and simulated cycle times for the cost model. - Prepared and analyzed core samples for their acid-generating potential. May `06 Dec. `06 Gibraltar Mine Williams Lake, BC Metallurgical Laboratory Student - Conducted tests to find a means to raise the molybdenum concentrate grade. - Performed Bond Work Index testing. - Conducted grinding circuit surveys. - Carried out size-by-size analysis. - Prepared samples for assay. May `05 - Aug. `05 Dr. G. Ward Wilson Vancouver, BC Summer intern - Performed on-site work on an acid rock drainage mitigation research project at Inco's Copper Cliff Tailings Area in Sudbury, Ontario. - Created a research website, www.wilson.mining.ubc.ca. - Created a business card database and updated his Curriculum Vitae (CV).
Volunteer Experience Extracurricular Activities
Summer `03 `05 - Helped with coat check - Collected Donations
-
DanceSport BC Vancouver, BC - Assisted with setup/takedown - Answered questions
Mining Undergraduate Club: Professional Development Representative (07/08), Secretary (06/07), Second Year Students' Representative (05/06) AE Sorority: Professional Development Officer (07/08), Candidate (06/07) UBC Mining Games Team Member (2006) Ballroom/Latin Dance (2001-Present) Quilting Crossword Puzzles
References Available Upon Request
Jonathan Chan
Mining Engineering
TECHNICAL SKILLS Computer Skills · Amine 2000 Autocad application · Gemcom · Trimble Geomatics Office · C Programming · Word and Excel · Matlab
Lab Skills ·Bench-scale rod, ball, and Isa mills · Magnetic separation with Davis Tube · Dry and wet screening (Gilson / Sweco) · Malvern Mastersizer for particle size distributions · Quantachrome gas absorption for BET surface areas
Field Safety · WHMIS · UBC Lab Safety Course St. John Ambulance Safety Oriented First Aid (School Level)
Surveying Skills · Trimble GPS - TSC1 controller with 5700 Receiver · Total Station - Various Leica models · Optech Cavity Monitoring System
CO-OP/TECHNICAL WORK EXPERIENCE Xstrata Zinc - Brunswick Mine May 2007 - Aug. 2007 Surveyor · Read drill and blast prints to mark up stope rings for down-the-hole drills. · Marked up development headings for jumbos and surveyed rounds to update the database. · Performed laser surveys of blasted/mucked stopes with cavity monitoring system · Trained newer students on surveying principles and procedures (in French!) Huckleberry Mines Ltd. Sept. 2006 - Dec 2006 Surveyor · Used Trimble GPS rover to surveyed daily advances and stake dig limits and ore boundaries. · Used Gemcom to update mine model, acquire design dimensions, krig, and make daily maps for shifters. · Designed drillhole patterns, blasthole tie-ins, and collaborated with drillers and blasters · Communicated frequently with foremen, shifters, and operations to ensure proper pit construction · Surveyed dam monuments with a Leica Total station to monitor movement Norman Keevil Institute of Mining (UBC) May 2006 - Sept. 2006 Mineral Processing Lab Research Assistant · Worked on multiple mineral processing research projects headed by professors and graduate students. · Operated bench_ scale milling equipment to study mineral breakage at high energy inputs. · Coordinated equipment for use on multiple projects in order to maximize progress on all tasks at the same time. · Wrote a 20 page report for client summarizing results of 8 unit operation tests on a 1.2 tonne garnet sample. · Collected company contacts for 70 Canadian mining companies by internet and phone to assist graduate program. City of Surrey Apr. 2005 Aug. 2005 Engineering Dept. Clerk · Answered and directed all engineering dept. phone inquiries to appropriated personnel at the Engineering Department. · Communicated with dispatch (at Works Yard) throughout the day to request inspections on city property and time-sensitive public emergencies such as ruptured water lines.
637 West 23rd Ave Vancouver, B.C. V5Z 2A5
Jonathan Chan
Mining Engineering
· Worked with several databases (Access, Cosmos) to provide information on City Services to public and city crew. · Provided city plans of underground services and measurements to contractors and homeowners. · Handled more than 50 phone calls a day efficiently, while ensuring customer satisfaction. VOLUNTEER EXPERIENCE AWANA club, Fraser Lands Community Church Sept. 2000 June 2006 Club Leader · Attended weekly meetings, teaching good behaviour and monitoring a group of boys (ages 8-12) · Lead games, singing and council time throughout the evening to create a fun and educational series of events. · Worked for 5 years with preschool and kindergarten children, responding appropriately to the needs of that age group. Sir Winston Churchill Secondary Sept. 2003 May 2004 Physics Tutor · Tutored 3 students to improve their physics comprehension and raise their grades. · Taught clearly and patiently, increasing confidence in problem-solving skills. Marpole Community Centre Mini soccer coach and referee · Instructed and encouraged young children as they learned to play soccer. · Taught sportsmanship, creating friendly and minimal injury environment EDUCATION University of British Columbia 3rd year Mining Engineering. Expected graduation May 2009 Sir Winston Churchill Secondary International Baccalaureate Bilingual Diploma (English / French) AWARDS Canadian Mineral Industry Education Foundation Scholarship Cy and Emerald Keyes Award inMining and Mineral Process Engineering B.C. Provincial Scholarship. UBC scholarship Churchill Parent Advisory Committee Scholarship Graduated on Honour Roll Passport to Education PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS · APEG MAPS (University Student Membership) · CIM ACTIVITIES AND INTERESTS · Enjoys various sports such as golf, soccer, snowboarding and skateboarding. · Played in a BC community soccer league for 12 years. · Plays the guitar, bass and drums. References will be provided upon request Sept. 2001 - Sept.2002
Sept. 2004 May 2009 Sept. 1999 - June 2004
2007 2006 2004 2004 2004 2004 2000 - 2004
1360 W 64th Ave. Vancouver, BC V6P 2N2
Tel: (604) 999-4974 Alt.: (778) 988-1197
[email protected]
D. Kent MacDonald
Objective: To gain valuable work experience as a mining engineering student. WORK EXPERIENCE Syncrude Canada Ltd.; Fort McMurray Short Range Planner May 2007 August 2007
·Planned all dump activities in Syncrude's North Mine. ·Designed dump spaces, roads, and ramps using Microstation and Surpac software. ·Communicated with Geotechnical Engineers to ensure all designs met specifications. ·Monitored construction of dumps in the field. ·Investigated any problems that would arise in daily operations, and helped find solutions. ·Calculated volumes of dumps and submitted the information for mine material balances. ·Provided daily and weekly dump plans to operations, and management. ·Presented plans to operations leaders in daily meetings, and clearly communicated the details of the work needed to be carried out. ·Updated and distributed mine maps weekly. ·Assisted the dispatch engineer in designing and maintaining haul routes. ·Monitored and corrected truck and shovel data collected by GPS using Wenco Software. AMEX Exploration Services; Kamloops Field Crew/Office Assistant March 2006 August 2006 May 2005 August 2005 May 2004 August 2004
·Staked claims under contracts for various mining companies while utilizing knowledge in GPS (Global Positioning System) technologies. ·Performed grid and soil surveys on possible future mine sites. ·Spent time with a PhD geologist assisting in ground roots prospecting, and looking at rock and vein structures. ·Searched MTO (Mineral Titles Online) to inventory mineral titles, created maps, and helped with office filing. Lake City Stucco; Williams Lake Labourer April 2004 - May 2004
·Installed tar paper and wire to outer walls of houses at a very fast pace. ·Constructed scaffolding to enable access to upper parts of houses. ·Mixed and transported fresh cement to stucco spreaders. ·Cleaned and tidied work site at end of the day to maintain customer happiness and a safe, efficient work environment.
Panago; Williams Lake Supervisor / Driver
March 2002 August 2003
·Delivered pizza to customers and collected money for the store. ·Handled customer complaints and helped to ensure complete customer satisfaction. ·Occasionally closed the store by cutting staff as per demand, counting the float, locking the safe, and activating the store's alarm system. EDUCATION and TRAINING University of British Columbia Mining Engineering September 2006 Present Expected Year of Graduation: 2009
Jackleg Drilling January 2007 Trained for 4 days at Barricks' Eskay Creek site on jackleg drilling as part of Barricks' UBC mining games sponsorship. University of British Columbia Mechanical Engineering University College of the Cariboo First Year Engineering Columneetza Secondary School British Columbia Dogwood Diploma August 2004 April 2005 September 2003 April 2004 September 1999 June 2003
VOLUNTEER EXPERIENCE Williams Lake Youth Soccer Association April 2002 July 2004 Coach ·Coached a team of 12 year old boys to improve and develop their skills. ·Organized and executed team practices and games. ACTIVITIES AND INTERESTS ·Member of the 2006/2007 UBC Mining Games team competing in the Canada wide student mining competition at McGill University. ·Backpacked for 4 months in South East Asia in 2005 through Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, and Singapore ·Played in University intramural soccer for the 2003, 2004, 2006 and 2007 seasons. ·Played on BC's sixth ranked `AA' high school soccer team for the 2001, and 2002 seasons. ·Played on Williams Lake's rep soccer team from 1998 2003. REFERENCES AMEX Exploration Services Ltd. Ab Ablett, President (250) 573-3111 Syncrude Canada Ltd. Siba Patnayak, Senior Planner (780) 791-5183
Engineering Annex, 6298 Biological Sciences Road Vancouver, B.C. V6T 1Z4
Tel: (604) 822-3022 Fax: (604) 822-3449
Lewis Kitchen Mining Engineering
TECHNICAL SKILLS Computer · MS Office · C, Qbasic · RGui, Matlab · Internet · ArcGIS · CoreMIS · AutoCAD · MicroStation
Field Skills · Compassing · Clinometer reading · GPS (handheld or backpack unit) · 2-way CB radio · 4 wheel drive vehicle · Hip Chaining · Map reading · Anemometer reading
Safety Skills · S-100 Fire Training (2005) · Bear Aware · Forestry Safety Training · Limited heavy equipment operation · Underground Sounding and Scaling procedures
CO-OP/TECHNICAL WORK EXPERIENCE PCS Potash Lanigan Division May-December 2006 Student Mining Engineer · Daily update and distribute microseismic events detected by geophones placed throughout the mine. · Weekly complete ventilation checks for harmful gases, as well as overall airflow in all active areas of the mine. · Periodically download and analyze data examining movement in high risk or high potential for danger areas. · Monthly complete full checks of refuge stations ensuring good ground conditions, proper equipment in the mine, and well sealed from outside airflow. · Quarterly do a full survey of the ventilation in the mine, looking for any problems missed in weekly checks. Also do a quarterly more detailed examination of the refuge station, making sure all items meant to be there are present and in good condition. · Complete various projects assigned by the Chief Mine Engineer such as a testing rockbolts for yield and maximum loads. Creat a detailed list of all conveyors including HP, length, belt type, height difference, as well as a map of the system. Do a test on the surface variable frequency drive booster fan, testing different settings to analyze optimum settings to obtain maximum allowable airflow as is determined by the shaft. Sitka Consulting Group July-August 2004 May-August 2005 Forestry Consultant · Layout and GPS of logging blocks for both Tahtsa Timber Ltd. and the Nee Tahi Buhn Indian Band ranging from 0.5 hA to 60 hA, as well as coordinate with harvesting supervisor for approved permits · Layout and GPS of logging road stretches 300 m. to 1.5 km. long · Generated silviculture prescriptions for areas to be harvested · Surveyed areas after tree planting to ensure acceptable regeneration NVI Mining Myra Falls Operation May 2007-August 2007 Rock Mechanics Technician · On site evaluation of rockmass conditions · Ventilation Monitoring · Cablebolt layouts · Used new computer programs to generate a 3D model of underground mine workings for stress analysis · Instrumentation installation and monitoring
Lewis Kitchen EDUCATION University of British Columbia Bachelor of Applied Science - Mining AWARDS Forbes George Vernon Memorial Scholarship Undergraduate Scholarship Program Vernon School District No 22 Award Passport to Education PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS · Canadian Institue of Mining, Metallurgy, and Petroleum (Student Member) · Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists (MAPS) ACTIVITIES AND INTERESTS · Ultimate Frisbee · Climbing · Hunting · Snowboarding · Social activities References will be provided upon request
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September 2004 June 2004 June 2004 2001-2004
Page 1 of 2
(604)-803-0683 [email protected]
Technical Skills
· · · · Microsoft Office, C++ Programming, & AutoCAD. MineSight 3D / MEDS, Trimble GPS Surveying, Geodimeter monitoring. Fluent in written and spoken English & French. Ability to operate manual transmission vehicles, WHMIS Certificate.
Work Experience
Kemess Mine Northgate Minerals Corp. · · · · · · · Student Engineer January 2007 August 2007
Designed blast patterns using MineSight 3D / MEDS. Surveyed blast patterns and miscellaneous prisms using Trimble GPS. Published the daily pit production database. Measured piezometers and inclinometers on the tailings dam. Created a blasting quality assurance/control database using Microsoft Access. Completed various projects dealing with surfaces, solids, block models, etc. using MineSight 3D and also conducted Life of Mine planning in Microsoft Excel. Monitored blast data using a Blastware Minimate device. Mill Ops Day Crew May 2006 August 2006
Highland Valley Copper Teck Cominco · · · · · ·
Split drill hole cores with a senior Geological engineer and sent bags to the Assay Lab. Processed samples from Metallurgical Lab at scale grinding units which were to be tested. Helped the Mine Engineering department with Bethlehem drill hole data using Microsoft Excel. Monitored a 325ft thickener reclaim to recover $7 million worth of fine copper and molybdenum. Went through a week long safety and administration orientation. Practiced various cleanup duties around the mine in a safe and reliable manner. Job shadowed with the Mill Operations, Mine Operations, and Mill Metallurgy departments. Assistant/Labourer June 2005 August 2005
West Bridge Corporation · · ·
Worked in a small team of 4 people for the construction of a Forest Service Road bridge near Campbell River, BC. Drove trucks, operated various power tools, put up retaining walls, and poured concrete in a dangerous workplace while maintaining a high standard of safety that resulted in 0 lost working hours. Typed up documents with Microsoft Word/Excel, answered/received all phone calls, compiled Bill of Materials from small-scale bridge plans, and provided general office assistance to alleviate the head Engineer's workload.
Nicolas Fung · (604)-803-0683 · [email protected]
Page 2 of 2
University of British Columbia · · Student September 2004 Present
Currently enrolled in Mining Engineering. Expected to graduate April 2009. Student September 1998 April 2004
Sentinel Secondary School · · ·
Took French Immersion from Kindergarten to Grade Nine at École Pauline Johnson. On both Academic and Spartan Honour rolls every year. Graduated with Honours.
Volunteering
Rotary Club · Helped pack containers full of health supplies for Tsunami victims overseas in the Philippines. School Representative Helper
Greater Vancouver Food Bank Society ·
Organized the making of posters and boxes, arranged pick-ups and drop-offs, made announcements, and motivated people to donate. Sports Camp Leader
West Vancouver Recreation Centre ·
Oversaw a group of 30 children aged 6-12. Arranged games, sports, and activities.
Activities & Interests
· · Have played competitive ice hockey the past 11 years for the WVMHA winning two `AA' Provincial Championships. Have also played competitive football and won a `AA' Provincial Championship.
References
Engineering Annex, 6298 Biological Sciences Road Vancouver, B.C. V6T 1Z4
Tel: (604) 822-3022 Fax: (604) 822-3449
Talha Khan Mining Engineering
Minor in Commerce
TECHNICAL SKILLS Laboratory Skills · Mineral Identification · Rocks Identification · Titrations Software Application · AutoCAD · Microsoft office Applications · Mine Vision Programming/Web Designing · C programming · MatLab · HTML Certification · Level 1 First aid training · Norcat WHIMIS · Norcat Common Core Underground training
TECHNICAL PROJECTS Ore Body Modeling October 2005 November 2005 · Constructed drill hole designs from given data and plotted calculated points in AutoCAD · Determined ore body location and size · Used various estimation methods to calculate volume of ore present and defined specific methods to mine the ore body Pirates of the Caribbean March 2003 March 2003 · Designed a foot long wind powered model boat · Built a mechanism that dropped treasure (Loonies) at the bottom of a pool. · My team's boat was one of the few successful ones that made it directly across the pool and achieved one of the best scores in the competition CO-OP/TECHNICAL WORK EXPERIENCE Norman B. Keevil institute of Mining Engineering , UBC May 2007 - August 2007 Research Lab Assistant · Performed Dense Media Separation testing on Xstrata's ore by preparing DMS liquid with Iron Silicate and water. · Prepped samples for assay by crushing and grinding. Performed an analytical metallurgical balance on the results. · Determined work index numbers of ores using the Bond Work Index and the comparative Method. · Accompanied the project supervisor to a concrete batch plant to see how concrete is prepared and how it can add value to the mining industry. · Participated in a field trip to Sudbury to go underground in one of Xstrata's mines and obtain a 1 ton representative sample of the stope to bring back to UBC. Syncrude Canada September 2006 December 2006 Mine Planning Student · Assisted a team of engineers in formulating bench designs and conducting other short term mine planning. · Charted daytoday shovel positions in micro station, updated their digging location, elevation and quality of their ore. · Met with mine operations team daily and communicated with shovel operators, provided feedback on their positions and advised them on subsequent digging strategies as well as Implemented customized routes to increase efficiency. · Supported dispatch engineer in daytoday functions, including coordinating routing cycle for dump trucks. . · Investigated optimal tonnage for trucks operating in the mine. Conducted research by collecting data on truck weights.Explored weight correlation to various relevant measures, in order to pinpoint the key drivers of productivity, as well as evaluate the constraints of augmenting the payload. · Evaluated a new shovel payload system introduced recently to the mine. Helped ensure the accurate tracking of extraction and refining tonnage, thereby increasing productivity and efficiency of the mine.
Talha Khan
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Highland Valley Copper Mine May 2006 - August 2006 Labour Student · Communicated effectively and worked as a team with mine and mill labour staff to ensure that all required work was completed efficiently · Undertook tasks such as core sorting, rock sample collecting and assisting in reclamation work · Applied mine and mill safety procedures such as; mill driving safety and use of personal protective equipment for a world class open pit copper/molybdenum mine · Shoveled excess copper ore debris from the mill floor and hosed the floor to ensure a cleanly work environment OTHER WORK EXPERIENCE FritoLay Canada July 2005 - September 2005 Route Sales Representative · Drove a five ton truck and managed a major sales route, delivering Frito Lay products to retail and merchandize stores · Managed day to day sales and inventory, and was responsible for stocking and checking inventory count · Analyzed promotions of competitors while innovatively marketing and promoting Frito Lay products to store managers. · Drafted end-of-day sales summary, revenue, cash and inventory reports and presented them to district managers Fido July 2005 - September 2005 Back to School Sales Representative · Managed and coordinated sales operations for several retail locations promoting back to school specials · Trained and motivated sales staff of these retailers and informed them of the details of new phones and accessories, as well as updated them about FIDO's superior promotions over the competition VOLUNTEER EXPERIENCE Math and Physics Tutoring June 2003 - August 2004 Tutor · Taught grade 12 math along with introduction to physics and calculus to students · Constructed many practice exams for the tutee to practice and go over them step by step in every session Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce Teller service · Balanced all the credit and the debit slips · Arranged signature cards in Chronological order · Escorted customers to their personal lockers in the bank EDUCATION University Of British Columbia BASC - Mining Engineering (2009 graduate year) Burnaby Mountain Secondary High school diploma AWARDS FreshWater Bursary Ronald Cliff Bursary Service award for serving on Grad Council PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS · APEGBC-MAPS (Member advantage program for students) ACTIVITIES AND INTERESTS · Golf, squash, music, reading, hockey, billiards, chess, snowboarding, horseback riding and traveling References will be provided upon request September 2005 - April 2006 September 2004 - April 2005 September 2003 - June 2004 September 2004 - Present September 2001 - June 2004 December 2003 - January 2004
3rd Year Students
Mining and Mineral Processing Options Combined
In fourth year the six credits of constrained electives consist of one of the following options: A: MINE 403 and MINE 482 MINE 403 Rock Mechanics Design MINE 482 Maintenance Engineering B: MINE 434 and MINE 462 MINE 434 Processing Precious Metal Ores MINE 462 Coal Preparation Technology
The following students already have taken or currently plan to take all four courses covering both options A and B.
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HIGHLIGHTS AND QUALIFICATIONS · · · · Computer Knowledge $ $ -. ! "# " "& $ $ " / 0 ! PROFESSIONAL WORK EXPERIENCE Teck Cominco Highland Valley Copper Senior Mining Engineering Student · · · · . ' . 7 ! 2 3456 May 2007 August 2007 "* $ 1 1 % " %" " TECHNICAL SKILLS Analytical Laboratory Knowledge Knowledge ' " $ ! " $ " ()%" $ ) ' Miscellaneous Skills * ) & % " + ,$" $ " $ "
Thyssen Mining: Cigar Lake Project Summer Student · · · ' ! .
July 2006
Corporation of Delta Engineering Assistant Water Conservation Officer · · · · # " $ 7 % " % : # " 8
May 2005 - December 2005 May 2004 - September 2004 9 7
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EDUCATION Bachelor of Applied Science # ; & 0 % 9 3446 High School Diploma % $ $ VOLUNTEER EXPERIENCE Western Engineering Competition 2007 VP Communications · · · · ) . . <= > * ? 3447 April 2006 February 2007
Engineering Undergraduate Society Various Positions · ·
·
January 2004 - December 2006 , &0 ' ' 3
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Delta Secondary Theatre Department Stage Manager · · · . % 0 " @ $ $ A @ $
January 2002 - April 2003 $ A
AWARDS · · · · · , &' ,- ./ 0 1* 2 ) & 3 ) ' * - ,45 & 3 * ./ # 1 6 - 13 - ./ # April 2007 April 2007 April 2006 April 2005 April 2005
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ACTIVITIES AND INTERESTS · · · · 344BC " " 7
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P.O. Box 1900 Fort Nelson, B.C., Canada V0C 1R0 School Phone (778) 229 2741
Home Phone (250) 774 - 2052 E-mail: [email protected]
Ariel Rhea Winkelmeyer
Education Grade 8 9 The Northern BC Distance Education School Gr. 10 - Gr. 12 Saint Michaels' University School, Victoria, B.C. First Year of Engineering at University of British Columbia Awards received Girl Guides awards and badges, An Art Contest (rewarded a prize and work was published) Grade 6, A Honors and Merit Awards from Grades 5 9, Swimmer of the year 1998, Sportsman of the year and Most Improved of the Seniors for Swimming 2003, Outstanding Effort in Band (2005), Distinction in Drama (2005), Duke of Edinburgh: Bronze (2005), Gold (2006). Colours Award for Rowing (represents leadership and commitment) (2006). Music, outdoors, sports, science, swimming, rowing, biking, reading, listening to music and drama
Interests and activities Languages Work experience
French Grades 4 8, Spanish Grades 8 12 Babysitting/Meat Packager (IGA)/Motel & RV Front Desk Clerk & Cashier (PetroCanada/Bluebell Motel)/ Lifeguard/Contracted Lawn Mower/ Field Medic servicing Encana(Osborne Safety Inc.) Trail Making, Fundraising for clubs (girl guides, swim club, school band), volleyball official, Library monitor, Assistant Directing for school plays, Alpha Omega Epsilon Sorority Volunteering, UBC's EUS First Year Engineering President Representative NLS, Bronze Medallion and Bronze Cross, Standard First Aid, Babysitting Certificate, Swimming Levels 1 - 12, Piano grade 3 complete with grade 2 Technique, CPR C, Wilderness First Aid, PST, AED, H2S Alive, OFA L3
Volunteer experience
Training and Certification
Extracurricular activities References
Swimming, Rowing, Hiking, School plays (Evita 2004)/(Les Miserables 2005), AOE Executive Membership Educator Janis Buck Employer ('07) - Osborne Safety Inc.: Field Medic (250) 263 4549 Town of Fort Nelson Employer (`05-`07) Lifeguard - (250) 774-2541
Bonnie Nylander Employer (`05) PetroCanada/ Bluebell: Cashier/Front Desk Reception (250) 774-6961
Daniel Robertson
2760 Oyama Ct Vancouver, BC V6T 1N6 Phone: 604 221 5228 (evening) 604 561 4253 (day) Email: [email protected]
Relevant Skills and Attributes:
Ten years in heavy industry and no history of LTA's/First Aids Familiarity with Barrick safety philosophy and standards Extensive front-line operating and design experience Eligibility for certification as Mining Technologist in ASTTBC/ASET
Education:
University of British Columbia Vancouver, BC Third year Mining Engineering Due to graduate 2009 Camosun College Victoria, BC Mining Engineering Bridge Program January June 2003 British Columbia Institute of Technology Burnaby, BC Diploma Mining Technology graduated 2001 Coursework: surveying, blast design, assaying, mineral processing Received Mackenzie Scholarship for highest first year average Extra credit courses: CAD/CAM 3305 - Parametric modeling BLAW 3100 - Canadian business law
Certification and Training:
St Johns Ambulance CPR Level B, Occupational First Aid Level 1 Survival Mine Rescue, Mine Rescue, BC Free Miners License WHMIS, H2S Alive, Blow Out Prevention Software: AutoCAD, Minesight, Trimble Survey Office, SURPAC, VULCAN, Mine2-4D, AutoLISP, MS Office, Promine, others...
Employment:
2005 - 2007 Procon Mining Nalunaq Gold Mine Nanortalik, Greenland Mine Surveyor/Mine Technician Day to day underground front line survey responsibilies Day to day admininstrative duties Twice monthly development reports/bonus calculations Various mapping, drafting, and IT responsibilities
2003 - 2005 Barrick Gold Eskay Creek Mine Mine Surveyor/Mine Technician Day to day underground front line survey responsibilies Weekly vent surveys Implementation and administration of mine planning software Various mapping, drafting, and IT responsibilities
Smithers, BC
2001 TeckCominco Elkview Coal Corporation Sparwood, BC Blast Technician/Mine Surveyor Provided weekly surveys of pit faces and construction areas for status maps Designed and provided survey control for pit wall, road, and dump designs Designed blast patterns and tie-in/loading instructions for drill/blast crews Supervisor: Clayton Podrasky, Short Range Planner Geotechnician Provided daily survey control and Proctor testing for tailings pond construction Conducted various surveys for property reclassification and appraisal Responsible for weekly monitoring of wall and dump movements as well as extensive piezometer and inclinometer monitoring Instruments operated: Trimble 4800 GPS receiver and TSC-1 Data Recorder, Geodimeter Total Station, Laser Tech Theodolite, auto levels, pneumatic and electronic piezometers, RST Inclinometer Supervisors: Ryan Ulansky, E.I.T 1995-1999 Various Oilfield Operations BC, Alta, Sask. Welder's Helper, Laborer, Lease Hand Prepared welds and joints for welders/pipefitters on oil and gas pipelines Aided in stringing out, lowering in, and reclamation crews on pipelines Lease-hand on service rig Various oilfield labour
ERIN NIEMI
[email protected]
Catalyst Paper, Elk Falls Division. Campbellriver, BC May 7 till Aug 31 2007 The task laid out for me during this summer was to create an inventory of the all the roofs on the mill site and categorize them with respect to asbestos content. I was also to develop an up-to-date AutoCAD drawing of the mill site, to accompany the spreadsheet. Having a position that was largely unstructured and unsupervised with responsibility of handing in a project at the end of the summer was a great learning experience. The mill environment itself made it necessary to follow strict safety precautions and to be aware of hazards. In this position I became familiar with AUTOCAD 2007, and the mills ACCESS based Engineering Drawing Management System (EDMS) Comox Recreation Center, Hands on Farm Coordinator. Comox BC June 9 till Aug 26 2006 June10 till Aug 27 2005 I was the on site manager of a children's petting zoo, my responsibilities included managing 2 staff members, running of a weekly children's program, finances, weekly reports, advertising, and animal care. I found the children to be entertaining and fun to work with on a day to day basis, and the experience as a whole very educational. Please feel free to contact Patti Fletcher, of the Comox Recreation Commission, at (250) 339-2255 as a reference. Comox Recreation Center, Summer Camp Assistant. Comox BC June 28 till September 3 2004 I really had fun at this job. My supervisor, Dawn Collins, and I were responsible for the welfare and entertainment of twenty children from 10am till 5pm, five days a week. It was a great time, and taught me a great deal in public relations due the continuous demands of parents and children. Crown Isle Resort and Golf Community, Villa House Keeping. Comox BC May 10 till June 23 2004 House Keeper. I was assigned rooms and suits to clean on my own or with a partner. As my first experience in hospitality it was eye opening and I enjoyed the challenge of being directly responsible for the results of my work. Unfortunately the season was not as busy as originally projected and I chose that it would best to pursue other options in summer employment. Tim Horton's. Comox BC June, 22 2002 - August, 24 2003 Customer Service. Comox Location on Anderton and Lerwick. Please feel free to contact my former manager Tracy Caissie at 339-3926
Volunteer
Cumberland Health Center ( May 2005 - June 2005 ) - In my search for a career I stumbled upon recreational therapy. After doing a career orientation day, I continued to help with art class every Friday morning from 9:30 till 12:30. I found the people fun and educational to talk to. Regrettably, I started my summer employment at the Hands on Farm in mid June, but in the future I hope to again find time for extended care facilities. Contact Coral Spowart at (250) 336 8531.
ERIN NIEMI
[email protected]
Nova Voce (April 2003) - Accompanied Nova Voce, a community youth choir, to Calgary as temporary member, and chaperone. Art Exploration Camp ( Aug 1999, 2000, 2001 ) - A one week camp for kids that allows them to play with and learn about art from local artist. I love volunteering at this camp because it encouraged me as a young child to explore art and its many medias. Courtenay Recreation Center - During summer of 1999 I helped with several programs Hands on Farms (June - Aug 2001 and 2002) - A local petting farm, within the local Filberg Park
Education
University of British Columbia - Sept 2006 until approx 2010 - Faculty of Applied Science, Engineering North Island College - Jan 2006 until April 2006 - University Studies University Of Victoria - Sept 2003 until Dec 2005 - For 5 semesters I studied in several faculties including Computer Science, Political Science and General Sciences. G.P. Vanier Secondary - Graduated June 2003
Interests
Fine Arts BAND - Attended band from grades 7 till 11 VOICE - I attend private voice lessons for six years 1997-2003 ART - I have found great enjoyment in all basic artistic media (drawing, painting, print, sculpture), and I am always experimenting with possibility. COOKING - I love to cook. It has become a favorite pass time of mine. KARATE - I currently train with the Courtenay Karate Club, Shito Ryu Seiko Kai - I have been training for eight years. I am currently Shodan (Black Belt) - Brenda Bombini (Sempi) and Tod Robertson (Sensei) at (250) 338-9722
Fitness
References
Professional Personal Recreational Paolo Tancon, Engineering Documents Manager, Catalyst Paper. Attached Dave Allen, Teacher (250) 338 7969 Brenda Bombini (Sempi) and Tod Robertson (Sensei) at (250) 338 9722
Fang Lu
#302-925 West 70th Avenue 327-3291 Vancouver, B.C 327-3291 Canada, V6P 2X7 Job Objective: Production McDonald's 891 Granville Street Vancouver Volunteer Gateway Theatre Halloween Fun House Event Richmond, BC Volunteer Recycling Club Sir Winston Churchill Secondary School 7055 Heather Street Vancouver, BC Canada, V6P
Phone: (604) Fax: (604) E-mail: [email protected]
May 2007-Sep 2007
Education: UBC 1st year Engineering Student Academic Award: Art 3D Grade 11/12 C.E.London Secondary School
2004-2005
of UBC Chapter are clear and transparent Designs for a Sustainable World helped organize logistics of event Engineers without Borders representative to the Engineering Undergraduate Society maintained communication between the two groups 2004-2005 Promontory Heights Chilliwack B.C.
Y o u t h Ni g ht V o l u n t eer
Helped set up and run activities for nine to twelve year olds Over saw computer lab Sold snack items Elder College Chilliwack B.C.
2005
Te a c her ' s A s si st a n t
Helped elderly students learn basic computer techniques
AWA RDS R EC EIVED
UBC Presidents Entrance Scholarship Passport to Education in grades nine through twelve. Two gold medals and one bronze in Kiwanis Music Festival Scholarship award in grades ten through twelve from Sardis Secondary
AC TIVITIES AN D INTER ESTS
1997-Present
Royal Conservatory of Music Grade 7 Piano First Class Honours Socially active throughout Campus
46554 MACGREGOR PLACE · CHILL IWACK BC · V2 R 3Y2 PHONE (604) 773-1791· E-MAIL [email protected]
GAJAN SIVAPALAN
PR OFILE
EDUC A TION
Second year engineering student Responsible, organized and hardworking Leader that is able to effectively manage a team Self motivated and dependable
2006-present University of British Columbia Second year mining engineering student 2003-2006 Sardis Secondary School Graduated with "A" honours throughout all years
Vancouver, B.C. Chilliwack, B.C.
Cottonwood 4 Cinemas
Chilliwack B.C.
U s h er / C o n c es si o n / Bo x o f fi c e W o r k er
Sold movie tickets and food Seat packed busy theatres Dealt with problem customers Trained numerous other employees Prospera Centre Chilliwack B.C.
2006-2007
S ec u r i t y / C o n v er si o n
Provided security for special events Assisted with ice rink conversions for events The Real Canadian Superstore Chilliwack B.C.
2004
C o u r t e sy C l er k
Assisted shoppers with groceries Price checked
VOLUNTEER EXPER IENC E
2006-Present Engineers Without Borders: UBC
V a r i o u s P o si t i o n s
Vancouver B.C.
First Year Representative informed students of the club's activities Director of Finance charged with making sure accounting practices
of UBC Chapter are clear and transparent Designs for a Sustainable World helped organize logistics of event Engineers without Borders representative to the Engineering Undergraduate Society maintained communication between the two groups 2004-2005 Promontory Heights Chilliwack B.C.
Y o u t h Ni g ht V o l u n t eer
Helped set up and run activities for nine to twelve year olds Over saw computer lab Sold snack items Elder College Chilliwack B.C.
2005
Te a c her ' s A s si st a n t
Helped elderly students learn basic computer techniques
AWA RDS R EC EIVED
UBC Presidents Entrance Scholarship Passport to Education in grades nine through twelve. Two gold medals and one bronze in Kiwanis Music Festival Scholarship award in grades ten through twelve from Sardis Secondary
AC TIVITIES AN D INTER ESTS
1997-Present
Royal Conservatory of Music Grade 7 Piano First Class Honours Socially active throughout Campus
GEOFFREY POH
Permanent Address 966 Captain Court Port Coquitlam, BC V3C 5P2
Phone (604) 944-7126 Mobile (778) 998-2865 Email Address [email protected]
2nd year B.A.Sc Mining Engineering Degree, Sept. 2006 Present University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC. Riverside Secondary School, Graduated, June 2006 Riverside Secondary School, Port Coquitlam, BC. Graduated from the French Immersion program with Honours 87%. PIT Express Clerk, June 2007 August 2007 Greyhound Canada, Coquitlam, BC Sorted freight to their respective destinations. Loaded and unloaded personal luggage and freight in Greyhound Busses and Greyhound Courier Express Trucks to customers. Level 1 Labourer, June 2007 August 2007 Euro-Rite Cabinets, Port Coquitlam, BC Assembled mass-produced cabinets, wrapped cabinets for shipment with protective shrink wrap and cardboard, and loaded cabinets to be shipped. Page, September 2003 September 2006 Terry Fox Library, Port Coquitlam, BC Restocked and reorganized Library inventory. Assisted Customers with finding books and with computer difficulties. Class 5 Referee, September, 2002 May, 2003 Port Coquitlam Soccer Association, Port Coquitlam, BC Referee for Under 6 to Under 10 age group Leagues teaching young children the rules of the game. Linesman, assisting experienced Youth Soccer Referees in older league matches. Port Moody Recreation Summer Fun Program, August 2005 Worked in an outdoors daycare, looking after young children. Organized group activities and special lunches. SHARE food bank, August 2005 Sorted and packaged donated foods for those in need. Conversation French Trip, March 2006 Wrote and presented a French play to homeless shelters, French Schools for underpriveleged children and institutions for the mentally ill around the Province of Quebec. Prepared and served meals at homeless shelters around the Province of Quebec.
EMPLOYMENT HISTORY
VOLUNTEER EXPERIENCE
University Of British Columbia Rowing Team, 2006 May 2007 ACTIVITIES & Member of the University of British Columbia , Novice Rowing ACHIEVEMENTS Team. Simon Fraser Youth Rugby Team, 2003 2005 Member of the Simon Fraser University Youth Development Teams. Player on the Under-16 and Under-19 League Teams. Riverside Secondary School Rugby Team, 2003 2006 Member of the Riverside Secondary School Rugby Team. Captain of the Team, 2004 2005 Season. Assistant Coach, 2005 2006 Season. Riverside Secondary School Soccer Team, 2003 2006 Member of the Riverside Secondary School Soccer Team. Awarded Top Defence-man, 2005-2006 Season. Port Coquitlam Eagles Gold Soccer Team, 1999 2006 Member of the Port Coquitlam Eagles Gold-League Soccer Team. Awarded Most Valuable Player in the Coastal Cup Finals leading to the Provincials, 2005. Royal Conservatory Music, 1993 2003 Grade 8 level Piano with Honours. Awarded Gold and Silver, at the Chancellor Music Festival. Presidents Scholarship, University of British Columbia, 2006
GLENN F. FINLAY 730 23rd Street West North Vancouver, BC V7P 3J4 E-mail: [email protected]
(778) 389-9297 EDUCATION Sept 2006-Present University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC Second year, Mining Engineering Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC Fourth year, Engineering Science/History
Sept 2002April 2006 EMPLOYMENT May 2007-Aug 2007
Labourer, Walkabout Construction Supervisor: Kelly Stevenson (604) 728-6628 Supervisor: Casey Heubers (604) 307-7546 Laid paving stones and built retaining walls, from base preparation to finish cutting, gardening and landscaping. Supervisor, Pie R Squared, UBC Alma Mater Society SUB101 6138 SUB Boulevard, Vancouver (604) 822-4396 Supervisor: Ryan Kissinger (Manager) Wrote daily warehouse orders and food preparation lists, handled cash, supervised and directed chef's assistants and performed any necessary tasks, including food prep and sanitation. Security Patrol, Paladin Security Suite 295 4664 Lougheed Hghwy, Burnaby (604) 677-8700 Supervisor: Geoff Woolley (Customer Service Manager) Provided duties on a site-by-site basis, with a focus on communication, assistance, and conflict resolution. Experience in health care facilities in the Downtown Eastside and Vancouver General Hospital. Salesperson, Sport Chek 1000 Park Royal Mall S., West Vancouver (604) 922-3336 Supervisor: Corey Loken (Senior Footwear Salesperson) Determined customers' needs and assisted them in choosing product which best suited them. Organized and stocked warehouse and display floor.
Sept 2006- April 2007
Aug 2005-Dec 2005
June 2004-Dec 2004
General Clerk, Save-On Foods 1250 Marine Drive, North Vancouver (604) 985-3069 Supervisor: Jamil Mithwani (Assistant Operations Manager) Maintained warehouse, unloaded delivery trucks, stocked shelves, cleaned store, and provided service and assistance to customers.
PROJECTS SFU 2003 Guitar Tuner Using the Motorola HC-12 microcontroller, built, programmed, and tested a functional guitar tuner. All coding was done in assembly. Output was a real-time LCD display which showed which string was being tuned and how sharp or flat the pitch was.
VOLUNTEER AND EXTRA-CURRICULAR ACTIVITES May 2005-Dec 2006 Volunteer, Edgemont Community Policing Centre 3077 Woodbine Drive, North Vancouver (604) 990-7455 Supervisor: Dave MacRae (Municipal Clerk) or Cst. Pat Lussier (Storefront Constable) Bass Trombonist, Vancouver Youth Symphony Orchestra (Intermediate and Senior Divisions) Participated in the Aberdeen International Youth Festival tour of Scotland in 2001 Violinist, Vancouver Youth Symphony Orchestra (Intermediate Division) Violinist and Concert Set-Up Crew, Summer Pops Youth Orchestra Participated in tours of the Okanagan, Kootenays, and Maritimes
2000-2002
1999-2000
Summers 1997-1999
INTERESTS Music Visual Arts Athletics · Continuing studies in violin, learning guitar, and playing piano · Painting miniatures and cartooning · Swimming (Bronze Medallion), hapkido (orange belt), and paintball
Gregory R.F. McCaffrey
6111 Wiltshire Street Vancouver, B.C. Canada V6M 3M1 email: [email protected]
Phone (604) 710-0975
Education:
University of British Columbia · Currently in 2nd year Mining Engineering University of Western Ontario · Completed a BSc. in Biology · Focused on environmental issues St. George's School · All boys private school · Attended grades 2 12 Vancouver, B.C. London, Ontario 2005-Present 2001-2005
Vancouver, B.C.
1990-2001
Professional Experience:
Marino General Contracting Vancouver B.C. 2004-2007 Local construction company which specializes in restoration and renovations Carpenter's assistant · Assisted different tradesmen with many different projects. o Framing, excavating, concrete, and finishing work o New construction to heritage restorations Fat Tire Bike Tours Paris, France 2005 Bicycle and Segway tour company for English speaking travelers Tour Guide · Led groups of up to 30 people through guided bike tours of Paris. · Designed and performed private tours for company groups and clubs. · Also performed miscellaneous office tasks reservations, sales, marketing, repairs etc. Earl's Café Fish Vancouver, B.C. 2002 and 2003 Classy, bistro style restaurant Cook · Preparation of food in a fast paced environment. · Worked as part of a team in an open kitchen where presentation and attention to detail is of top priority.
Action Windows London, Ontario 2002 Student window cleaners Marketing and Operations · Advertised and obtained customer base. · Door to door sales. · Customer relations scheduling and dealing with complaints etc. · Washed windows. K.P.M.G. Accounting Firm Summer Temp · Documenting and filing. · Other miscellaneous office tasks. Vancouver, B.C. 2001
Activities and Accomplishments:
· · · · · · · · · · UBC Tri-mentoring program participant 2006 / 2007 & 2007/2008 Member of the University of Western Ontario Ski Team University intramural soccer team captain Associated with other University clubs and organizations both academic and non-academic PADI certified SCUBA diver Obtained Duke of Edinburgh Bronze public service award Bronze Cross & Bronze Medallion certified (CPR, pulmonary resuscitation, basic first aid) Participate in beach cleanups and other environmental aid opportunities Outdoor enthusiast with great appreciation and knowledge of the environment Generally very well traveled and experienced
References available upon request.
Kurtis Weins
14550 33A Ave., Surrey, BC, V4P 3N2 604-535-7036 Experience Green Bay Bible Camp, Westbank, BC (June-August 2007) Senior Cabin Leader/Boat Driver · Responsible for a different cabin of kids each week · Mentored Junior Counsellors · Worked at camp ski school as boat driver and instructor · Strong team environment Lakewood Group, Cloverdale, BC (May-June 2007) Construction Labourer · Operated packing machine · Assisted Carpenters · Prepared foundations for pouring · Prepared sub-flooring for carpets/laminate MSN Construction, Aldergrove, BC (June-August 2006) Construction Labourer · Constructed commercial greenhouses · Drove a hydraulic lift · Poured foundations · Some intense manual labour Morgan Creek Keg, Surrey, BC (November 2004-August 2006) Line Cook · Started as dishwasher · Moved up through salad bar to appetizer cook, sauté cook, and second cook · High paced, high stress environment · Trained new staff Education 2006/2007 University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC Completed first year of Bachelors Degree in Applied Science Semiahmoo Secondary School, White Rock, BC Completed Grade 12, plus IB certificates in Physics, Geography, and Calculus
2005/2006
Skills/Strengths · · · · Experience in Windows, Word, Power-Point, and Excel Hardworking, Determined, Enthusiastic Not afraid to ask for help if necessary Can handle long hours well
Provided by www.signform.ca
Volunteer Work Amor Ministries (2001) · Traveled to Mexico on missions trip · Built a house for a family in Tijuana Northview Community Church (2003/2004) · Played bass in Worship band for children's ministries · Participated in skits and demonstrations Club Involvement · Former Member of UBC Ski and Board Club.
Interests/Activities · · · · · Wakeboarding Snowboarding The Automotive Industry Music Christianity
References Steve Houser Site Supervisor--Lakewood Group (604)835-5814 Rich Lange Program Director--Green Bay Bible Camp (250)768-5884 Jereon Vanderwolfe Manager--Morgan Creek Keg (604) 542-9733
Provided by www.signform.ca
Phone: (773) 317 - 3141 E-mail: [email protected]
Mike Humphrey
Summary of Qualifications:
Highly organized and enthusiastic; able to prioritize effectively to complete multiple tasks under pressure. Precise and attentive to detail Proactive and safety conscious Self directed worker.
Education:
Bachelor of Applied Science Columbia University of British Mining Engineering 1999 2004 Waterloo, On. 2006 Present Vancouver, BC.
Bachelor of Honours Science University of Waterloo Minor Physics
O.S.S.D. P.C.V.S. Graduated as an Ontario Scholar
1994 1999 Peterborough, On.
Work Experience:
Lab Assistant University of British Columbia Organized and completed multiple tasks with limited time. Worked with limited supervision. Ran experiments, documenting all work. 2005 2006 Fukushima, Japan 2006 2007 Vancouver, B.C.
English Teacher GEOS for Children
Created dynamic lesson plans. Responsible for tripling student numbers over a 6 month period. Provided model lessons for prospective students and parents. 2004 Peterborough, On.
Technical Support Representative Minacs
Provided front-line technical support for Apple computers. Maintained a high service level while meeting customers needs. Used multi-tasking to quickly record and solve customer issues.
Mover McWilliams Moving and Storage Ensured a customer friendly atmosphere. Worked long and unpredictable hours. Safety oriented worker.
Summer 2003 Peterborough, On.
Teaching Assistant Physics Department, University of Waterloo
Fall 2003 Waterloo, On.
Responsible for the Instruction of 90 students. Documented student marks and progress. Prepared for tutorial sessions reviewing and learning course material. Summer 2001, 2002 Prince George, B.C.
Treeplanter Seneca Enterprises Excelled under adverse working conditions. Produced high quality results under tight deadlines. Highest quality crew for all CANFOR contracts. Self-directed worker, requiring minimal supervision.
Level 2 Instructor Kawartha Ski School Created student oriented lesson plans and activities Prioritized student safety. Followed C.S.I.A. specified teaching procedures.
1995 1999 Peterborough, On.
WHMIS training C.S.I.A. level 2 ski instructor JLPT level 4
Interests:
Photography, Skiing, Aikido, Studying Japanese
References Available Upon Request
3351 Chatham St., Richmond BC V7E 2Y8 ph.(604)279-9984 [email protected]
Objective Skill Profile
To receive a full time summer intern position. Excellent communication and social skills Conscientious, responsible, organized and very hardworking Dedicated and thorough in my work A quick learner Efficient when working alone, or as part of a team Positive and enthusiastic Have worked in Mat lab and Octave Basic knowledge of C programming Thorough knowledge of MS Office package CESL (Teck Cominco) May-Sept 2007
Computer Skills
Work Experience
I was an operator working at the demonstration plant of CESL's copper campaign and pilot plants for both copper and nickel. At the start of my term I helped in the construction of the demonstration plant with jobs such as making measurements and calculations for a slanted floor and designing and putting together piping between tanks. When this was complete, as an operator I operated the solvent extraction and electrowinning circuits of the plant. This included taking samples and based on lab results for these, calculating flow rates and currents, as well as much more. Heart and Stroke Foundation 2003- Present
I have a long history with this organization, first as a volunteer and then working on two consecutive contracts as a full time employee. My responsibilities included work on various campaigns as a liaison between clients, donors, and the foundation. I designed and maintained volunteer and donor databases, along with working on annual budgets and timelines. After my promotion to the position of Walk for Heart Coordinator my responsibilities focused on advertising, renting equipment, and assigning tasks to volunteers. Dental Offices of Dr. Po 2003-04 My responsibilities included preparing tools and machinery for use with clients, as well as dealing with client files and databases.
Activities
University of British Columbia Engineering Design competitor (top two placement) (2006), Western Engineering Competition competitor (top three placement) (2007) Multiple Symposium and Conference participant and volunteer, including the National Conference on Women in Engineering (Kingston, ON), Asia Pacific Forum on Mining and Minerals (Vancouver, BC), Building Communities Symposium (Chilliwack, BC) AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) tutor (2005)
High School Student Council member (2002-2004) "Colt Connections" and "Imagine" mentor for younger students (2003-2007) High school volleyball and basketball team member (2001-2004)
Education
Richmond Secondary Graduate of 2006 with both a Dogwood and International Baccalaureate Diploma. Principal's Honor Roll recognition every year throughout high school. University of British Columbia Pursuing an undergraduate degree in Mining Engineering with a 3.4/4 GPA. References are available upon request.
Peter Klaponski 8535-165A St. Surrey, BC V4N 3H2 1-604-574-4675 [email protected]
Objective: · Job to gain experience in Mining Engineering Education: · Currently Attending University of British Columbia's Mining Engineering Program 2nd Year Mining Student · Attended Holy Cross Regional High School, Surrey BC. · Gold Honour Roll student · Archbishop Carney Scholarship for student representing ideals of the school · Red Cross Bronze Medallion and Bronze Cross swimming courses achieved · Two-time Youth Leadership Convention attendee, 2004 and 2005 · Former UBC Future Trekkers member Personality and Skills: · Intelligent, honest, hard-working individual · Loves working with people, gets along well with co-workers and clients · Guaranteed to give 100% in all jobs and tasks assigned · Loves challenges, good listener, quick learner Organizations: · Holy Cross High School Student Council · President of Student Council, 2005-2006 · Outstanding Service to Holy Cross Community Award in recognition of work as President, 2006 · Player of Newton Canadian Baseball Association for 10 years · Member of the Knights of Columbus Squires for 4 years · Marshal Squire, 2002 · Deputy Chief Squire, 2003 · Chief Squire, 2004 · Holy Cross Football team 2001 to 2005 · Team Captain on both Junior Varsity and Varsity teams · Awarded Most Inspirational Player in Junior Varsity · Band member of Holy Cross Music Program, 2003-2006 · Member of Kvitka Ukrainian Dance Performers of Surrey 1995-2006
Work Experience: T.H. Solid Wood Furniture Inc. · Employer : Mr. Terry Hofoss · Carpentry and manual labour · Summers of 2006 and 2007 #19-8125 130th St. Surrey, BC V3W 7X4 1-866-847-6543
Save-On-Foods · Junior Grocery Clerk · July to September 2005
9014 152 St, Surrey, BC V3R 4E7 1-604-930-1133
White Mountain Homemade Ice Cream · Employer: Mr. Brian Toxopeus · Attending to customers, clean-up, and cashier · July to September 2004
104-14909 Marine Drive White Rock, BC V4B 1C2 1-604-538-0030
Rory Grunerud
7504 Mckinnon Road Nelson, BC, V1L 6R5 Telephone: 250-229-5245 Cellular: 250-505-6001 Email: [email protected]
Highlights and Qualifications:
Effective leader with excellent vocational skills Hard working and dedicated to finishing the objective Able to react quickly to changing requirements Welcome new challenges and encourages constructive criticism Team and company minded Efficient and reliable worker Very flexible with work schedules and willing to relocate
Education:
University of British Columbia Bachelor of Applied Science (Engineering) Second year student in Mining Engineering L.V. Rogers Secondary School Nelson, BC Grades 10-12 Sophianum Academic School Gulpen, The Netherlands Exchange student for 2003-2004 school year
Experience:
May 2004-June 2004 Eurobrick, Heerlen, The Netherlands Electrical Engineer Assistant Helped to create wiring designs for factory machinery control panels as well as electrical maintenance of production line. Developed technical skills using various software, including MS Word and excel. Hands on learning by designing, then wiring the control panels with an electrician. April 2006-Current High Country Forest Consulting, Procter, BC Junior Forest Technician and assistant to Registered Professional Forester (RPF) Surveying and laying out boundaries for land usage Quality control and report reviews of contractors work Map and road layout using GPS and UTM grids
Managing of contracted tree planting crews Extensive use of MS word and excel Constructed official government contracts Learned to plan for maximum utilization of contractors as well as becoming efficient at contract paperwork and filing May 2007-August 2007 BC Government: Ministry of Forests and Range, Cranbrook, BC Scientific Technical Officer Working in teams on various projects throughout the forest district GPS layout of timber blocks and range fences Inspections of: timber cruising plots, free growing blocks, stand level bio-diversity plots, range areas, engineered roads and bridges, scaling sites Involved in ecosystem restoration in Rocky Mountain trench Member of team studying, then tracking effects of environmental damage from humans and livestock Managing Initial Attack fire fighting team during district work program Working with Aboriginal Liaison in local reservations and First Nation timber interests
Skills:
Fluent in Dutch and Flemish Experience with Solidworks, basic C++, MS Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, Maple mathworks Experienced Driver with vehicles, ATVs, Snowmobiles, Boats
Certifications and Memberships:
WHMIS Occupational First Aid: Level 1 Firearms PAL for non-restricted and restricted firearms APEG (Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists) SAE (International engineering association)
Volunteering:
West Arm Outdoors Club (fish and wildlife protection) Rotary: Youth exchange student, Member of Dutch Rotary club helping organize outdoor retreat week for handicapped youth Student Council: Elected Prime Minister, organized school events, also a youth representative at local and regional meetings along side of Mayors, MLAs and MPs UBCO SAE heavy lift aircraft team: designing, engineering and building an aircraft to compete against other international universities References available upon request
6040 Iona Drive
778-834-7838
Stephen William Buckler
Objective To gain relevant and essential knowledge and experience while on the path to becoming a Mining Engineer Summer 2006 Yukon Territorial Government Whitehorse, YT
Experience
Assistant Project Manager Experience working in groups designing full construction projects and territorial maintenance requests Traveling to small Yukon communities to supervise and relay instructions to local contractors Extensive Auto-CAD and surveying experience Examples of projects: Survey and design of water drainage system for small community school sinking on permafrost, full replacement of a Halon fire suppression system, full design of local school playground
Summer 2005
Yukon Tire
Whitehorse, YT
Tire Mechanic Trainee/Propane Re-certifier Training and certification in handling of explosive and poisonous trade goods Shop safety training Cleaning and maintenance of equipment and shop area Update and control over shop stock
Summer 2005
The Electrical Shop
Whitehorse, YT
Electrician's Assistant Counting shop inventory and re-shelving Basic circuit analysis Experience operating bucket trucks and large power tools
Summer 2004 Gas Attendant
Yukon Tire
Whitehorse, YT
Experience working with tourist from all over the world Opening and closing of Gas Bar including money count out and count in Counting and ordering of company stock
Summer 2003 Assistant Manager
Quiznos
Whitehorse, YT
Cutting and preparing daily food stock In charge of daily money count out and employee scheduling General restaurant cleaning
Education
University of British Columbia Vancouver, BC Bachelor of Applied Science in Mining Engineer Member of UBC Rugby Association st 1 Year Engineer Charity Representative and Council Member
Shawnigan Lake Boarding School Honors Graduate House Prefect, Double Senior Sports colors Academic Captain AAA Provincial Rugby Championships Finalist BC Independent Schools Squash Champion Film Award AP Scholar Interests Skills
Shawnigan Lake, BC
Hiking, fishing, camping, white water rafting and kayaking, rugby, computers, snowmobiling, dirt biking, squash Great people skills, creative problem solving, friendly natured, hardworking
VANESSA ROELAND
Address (through April 30, 2008): 2752-1 Fairview Crescent Vancouver BC V6T 2B9 (604) 828-7461 [email protected]
Permanent Address: 4721 52 Avenue Taber AB T1G 1H2 (403) 223-3145
OBJECTIVE EDUCAION
To obtain a co-op position in the mining industry allowing me to utilize skills I have developed in my studies and enhance my work experience. University of British Columbia Vancouver BC, 2006 present Bachelor of Applied Science in Mining Engineering (currently in second year) Medicine Hat College Certificate in Computer Aided Drafting and Design - Academic Excellence Award, College Honor Roll - Experience and training with AutoCAD 2005 - Experience and training with Microsoft Office Pro Holy Trinity Academy Alberta High School Diploma, Honors with Distinction - Recipient of the Alexander Rutherford scholarship Medicine Hat AB, 2004/2005
Okotoks AB, 2000-2004
EXPERIENCE Stantec Consulting Ltd.
Lethbridge AB, May 2007 August 2007 Summer student for a consulting engineering firm specializing in environmental infrastructure Completed a variety of tasks some of which included field data collection, assisting with report preparation for various stormwater management projects, assisting in project cost estimating and, creating informational public open house display boards.
Charlton & Hill Welding Ltd. Lethbridge AB, August - December 2005 and June - August 2006 Draftsperson with a busy welding shop that fabricates large scale oilfield equipment and customized items Worked independently and collaboratively on a range of projects from initial designs to release of drawings. Received experience and formal training with AutoDesk Inventor. Smitty's Part time employment as a server. Frito-Lay Canada Seasonal laborer Taber AB, November 2005 Taber AB, May 2005 August 2005
Better Than Home Coin Laundry Okotoks AB, June 2003 August 2004 Gained the ability to work well independently, and further developed my customer relation skills. Wal-Mart Canada, Electronics Okotoks AB, September 2002 April 2003 Responsibilities included cash handling, customer service and product knowledge.
VOLUNTEER & OTHER
UBC Imagine Day MUG Leader 2007/2008 academic year Orientation day leader for new UBC undergraduate engineering students. Participant in the UBC Engineering Tri-Mentoring Program 2006/2007 academic year The program provides a mentoring experience with a senior student and a professional engineer. Member of the Holy Trinity SADD (Students Against Drinking and Driving) Chapter Helped organize and run events to raise awareness about the risks of drinking and driving. Social Director, Holy Trinity Academy High School Students Council Planned and managed major school events such as dances, pep rallies and fundraisers. Travel Backpacked throughout Thailand, New Zealand and Australia. January May 2006
| Canada |
Which US president's mother was known as 'Miss Lillian'? | Assessing the application of decision analysis in stakeholder consultation in the mining industry - UBC Library Open Collections
Assessing the application of decision analysis in stakeholder consultation in the mining industry
Creator
2005
Description
Earning and sustaining a "social license to operate" is of critical importance to the mining industry. Aligning mining practice with societal expectations of sustainability and public participation is crucial to achieving this aim. Multi-stakeholder Structured Decision Processes based on decision analysis are promising tools for effective stakeholder consultation, but have seen very little application in the mining industry. This innovative approach involves stakeholders in collaboratively building a structured decision framework that is transparent and grounded in principles of effective decision making. This thesis assesses the effectiveness of using decision analysis in consultation by evaluating a case study consultation process regarding the optimization of a tailings management plan at the Ekati Diamond Mine in the Northwest Territories, Canada. This represents the first time a decision analysis-based process has been used for project-based consultation with wide stakeholder involvement in the Canadian mining industry. The forces driving public participation and criteria for its evaluation, as well as the decision analysis approach are discussed. The case study process, involving the use of a decision analysis tool called Multiple Accounts Analysis (MAA), is evaluated from the perspective of its participants (including mining company staff) based on questionnaires and interviews using the critical incident technique. A strong majority of respondents were satisfied with the outcome of the process and an even greater majority recommended future use of MAA. Strength and weakness themes generated from inductive analysis of the data are discussed in detail. The most important strength themes are learning, engagement, facilitation and representation of values, and the most important weakness themes are unequal and insufficient participation, trust and transparency, and time constraints and time management. These themes are compared with the public participation evaluative frameworks found in the literature, which are based on government rather than corporate public participation efforts. Practical recommendations for improving the application of MAA to consultation, both at Ekati and at other mines, are given and drivers for further application of Structured Decision Processes in the mining industry are discussed.
Genre
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
Rights
For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use .
DOI
831-1.0081052.ris
Full Text
\ ASSESSING THE APPLICATION OF DECISION ANALYSIS IN STAKEHOLDER CONSULTATION IN THE MINING INDUSTRY by: ANDREW THRIFT B.A.Sc, The University of British Columbia, 2000 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF APPLIED SCIENCE in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Mining Engineering) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA July 2005 © Andrew Thrift, 2005 Abstract Earning and sustaining a "social license to operate" is of critical importance to the mining industry. Aligning mining practice with societal expectations of sustainability and public participation is crucial to achieving this aim. Multi-stakeholder Structured Decision Processes based on decision analysis are promising tools for effective stakeholder consultation, but have seen very little application in the mining industry. This innovative approach involves stakeholders in collaboratively building a structured decision framework that is transparent and grounded in principles of effective decision making. This thesis assesses the effectiveness of using decision analysis in consultation by evaluating a case study consultation process regarding the optimization of a tailings management plan at the Ekati Diamond Mine in the Northwest Territories, Canada. This represents the first time a decision analysis-based process has been used for project-based consultation with wide stakeholder involvement in the Canadian mining industry. The forces driving public participation and criteria for its evaluation, as well as the decision analysis approach are discussed. The case study process, involving the use of a decision analysis tool called Multiple Accounts Analysis (MAA), is evaluated from the perspective of its participants (including mining company staff) based on questionnaires and interviews using the critical incident technique. A strong majority of respondents were satisfied with the outcome of the process and an even greater majority recommended future use of MAA. Strength and weakness themes generated from inductive analysis of the data are discussed in detail. The most important strength themes are learning, engagement, facilitation and representation of values, and the most important weakness themes are unequal and insufficient participation, trust and transparency, and time constraints and time management. These themes are compared with the public participation evaluative frameworks found in the literature, which are based on government rather than corporate public participation efforts. Practical recommendations for improving the application of MAA to consultation, both at Ekati and at other mines, are given and drivers for further application of Structured Decision Processes in the mining industry are discussed. u Table of Contents Abstract ii Table of Contents iiList of Tables vList of Figures viList of Abbreviations viii Acknowledgements ix Chapter 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Purpose and obj ectives 2 1.2 Study approach 3 1.3 Scope and assumptions1.4 Thesis structure 4 Chapter 2 Literature Review 6 2.1 Public participation in the Canadian mining industry 6 2.1.1 Drivers for public participation in the mining industry 6 2.1.2 Characterizing public participation 11 2.1.3 Public participation in the Canadian mining industry 25 2.2 Criteria for evaluation of public participation 32.2.1 Why evaluation is important 32.2.2 Selecting goals and criteria 7 2.3 A primer on decision analysis 41 2.3.1 Why mining decisions are difficult 42.3.2 Overview of decision analysis 3 2.3.3 Process 45 2.3.4 Principles 7 2.3.5 Tools 51 2.3.6 Experiences of implementation in the mining industry 58 Chapter 3 Case Study: Ekati Diamond Mine Tailings Management Multiple Accounts Analysis 60 3.1 Mine context 63.1.1 Location and facilities 63.1.2 Biophysical environment 2 3.1.3 Socio-economic environment 3 3.1.4 Regulatory environment 64 3.2 Consultation activities 7 3.2.1 Stakeholders 63.2.2 Pre-operation consultation 68 3.2.3 Current consultation activities 9 3.3 Long Lake Containment Facility Five Year Review Process 70 3.3.1 Long Lake Containment Facility 71 3.3.2 Five-Year Review Process 3 Chapter 4 Methodology 79 4.1 Introduction4.2 Approach4.3 Credibility and trustworthiness in research 81 4.4 Observation 84 iii 4.5 Questionnaires 85 4.6 Interviews4.7 Critical incident technique 86 4.7.1 Description & Procedures : 84.7.2 Evolution & Applications 8 4.7.3 Establishing credibility of the critical incident technique 89 4.8 Participants 90 4.8.1 Selection process and recruitment 94.9 Study procedures 1 4.9.1 Observation of MAA 94.9.2 Evaluation questionnaire 2 4.9.3 Interviews 93 4.9.4 Data analysis 5 4.9.5 Credibility and trustworthiness of study 96 Chapter 5 Results 7 5.1 Overview5.2 Participant demographics 98 5.3 Observation.... 100 5.4 Questionnaire, 1 5.4.1 Consultation Experience 105.4.2 • Experience with decision analysis in consultation..: 101 5.4.3 Assessment of LLCF Multiple Accounts Analysis 102 5.5 Interviews 103 5.5.1 Background questions 106 5.5.2 Strength Themes 7 5.5.3 Weakness Themes 115.5.4 Other themes 125.5.5 Specific questions 9 5.5.6 Summary questions ....130 5.6 Summary of results 134 Chapter 6 Discussion .....135 6.1 Ekati case study6.2 Strengths and areas for improvement 136 6.2.1 Ekati context 136.2.2 MAA methodology 145 6.2.3 Further application of Structure Decision Processes in the mining industry 147 6.3 Comparison to criteria in literature 149 6.4 Limitations and generalizability 153 6.5 Suggestions for further research 5 Chapter 7 Conclusion 157 References 15Appendices •••• 171 Appendix A: UBC Ethics Approval Letter 172 Appendix B: Participant Letter of Initial Contact... 174 Appendix C: Questionnaire 176 iv Appendix D: Interview Consent Form 180 Appendix E: Interview Questions 2 Appendix F: Multiple Accounts Analysis Ledger from LLCF Five Year Review Process 186 v List of Tables Table 2-1 The terminology of "public participation" 13 Table 2-2 Core Values for the Practice of Public Participation (IAP2, 2004) 16 Table 2-3 Public participation during the environmental assessment process (Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency 2005) 29 Table 2-4 Practitioner "rule of thumb" criteria for public participation (Beierle 1998)... 37 Table 2-5 The generic decision analysis process 4Table 2-6 Summary of decision analysis tools 51 Table 2-7 Comparison of standard decision analysis and Multiple Accounts Analysis terminology 55 Table 3-1 Aboriginal communities of interest 64 Table 3-2 Objectives of the Ekati Environmental Agreement (BHP Billiton, 2004c) 65 Table 3-3 Summary of key lessons learned from five years of operating LLCF (BHP Billiton, 2004a) .' 74 Table 5-1 Summary of Study Respondents 99 Table 5-2 Respondents' impressions of previous consultation experience with Ekati... 107 Table 5-3 Satisfaction with outcome of MAA by group 131 Table 5-4 Recommending use of MAA in future consultation by group 132 Table 5-5 Comparison of past experience of consultation with support for MAA outcome 133 Table 6-1 Comparison of consensus and decision-aiding approaches to public participation (modified from Vanderwal, 1999) 142 vi List of Figures Figure 2-1 Public participation spectrum (IAP2, 2000) 17 Figure 2-2 Typology of public participation tools with respect to degree of interaction and information flows (modified from Beierle, 1998) 19 Figure 2-3 Typology of public participation tools with respect to type of representation and decision-making role (modified from Beierle, 1998) 19 Figure 2-4 The generic decision analysis process (Keeney, 1982; Ohlson, 1999) 46 Figure 2-5 Example of environmental account of MAA Ledger. 57 Figure 3-1 Ekati Diamond Mine location (courtesy of Ekati Diamond Mine) 61 Figure 3-2 Schematic of Ekati stakeholders and agreements 67 Figure 3-3 Satellite image of Long Lake Containment Facility (courtesy of Ekati Diamond Mine) 72 Figure 3-4 Timeline of LLCF Five-Year Review , 75 Figure 5-1 Respondents' previous experience with decision analysis in consultation ... 102 Figure 5-2 Attendance and interview distribution by group : 103 Figure 5-3 Strength themes sorted by percentage of respondents mentioning theme .... 104 Figure 5-4 Weakness themes sorted by percentage of respondents mentioning theme.. 105 Figure 5-5 Strength themes sorted by number of critical incidents 10Figure 5-6 Weakness themes sorted by number of critical incidents 106 Figure 5-7 Comparison of Summary Questions From Questionnaire and Interview 131 Figure 5-8 Satisfaction with MAA outcome by group 132 Figure 5-9 Recommending use of MAA in future consultation by group 133 vii List of Abbreviations BHPB BHP Billiton CEAA Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency COI Community of Interest DFO Department of Fisheries and Oceans (federal agency) EA Environmental Assessment EARP Environmental Assessment Review Panel EC Environment Canada (federal agency) EIA Environmental Impact Assessment ENGO Environmental Non-Governmental Organization IAP2 International Association for Public Participation IBA Impact Benefit Agreement IEMA Independent Environmental Monitoring Agency INAC Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (federal agency) LLCF Long Lake Containment Facility MAA Multiple Accounts Analysis MAC Mining Association of Canada MVEIRB Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board MVLWB Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board NGO Non-Governmental Organization NIMBY Not In My Back Yard NWT Northwest Territories PK Process Kimberlite PR Public relations RGC Robertson Geoconsultants RWED Resources, Wildlife & Economic Development (territorial agency) SDP Structured Decision Process SIA Social Impact Assessment TK Traditional Knowledge TSM Towards Sustainable Mining (initiative of MAC) viii Acknowledgements I wish to express my gratitude to my supervisors, Dr. Malcolm Scoble and Dr. Marcello Veiga, for encouraging and supporting me as I pursued a non-traditional interdisciplinary engineering thesis, and to William Trousdale for his expert insight as my external examiner. I am also thankful for my student colleagues in the Sustainability Working Group who have been incredibly helpful. I look forward to continuing collaboration with this visionary group of individuals. I am truly grateful to my wife Erin, not only for her wisdom and encouragement, but also for her analytical insight and expertise. I would be amiss to not also thank our daughter Emilia whose impending arrival spurred me to bring this thesis to a conclusion. Both sets of parents have supported and equipped me in this endeavour, ranging from giving pragmatic advice on research methods to modeling a life-long love of learning. I would like to thank Andy Robertson and Shannon Shaw for opening up the opportunity to study the Ekati consultation process and for their welcome and generosity. I would also like to gratefully acknowledge the financial support of NSERC and BHP Billiton Diamonds Inc. Finally I would like to thank the participants who shared their experience and insight with me in this study. ix Chapter 1 Introduction The mining industry in Canada and around the world is undergoing a transition largely influenced by society's increasing emphasis on sustainable development. This poses unique challenges for an extractive industry reliant on non-renewable resources. The mining industry has been stigmatized by the public and recognizes that its future viability is dependent on its ability to demonstrate that it is a net contributor to society. This focus on the "social license to operate" has resulted in most mining companies developing sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies with an increasing emphasis on measurable results. Mining companies have committed themselves to stakeholder engagement and consultation as vital parts of this effort, but often appear to lack the experience and skills to engage stakeholders in a mutually-satisfactory manner. The mining industry needs tools for stakeholder engagement that can meet the challenge of both achieving corporate objectives and facilitating meaningful, substantive stakeholder involvement. The field of decision analysis prescribes an approach for making good decisions under conditions of complexity and uncertainty. The range of decision analysis techniques has evolved and expanded from accommodating a single decision maker to facilitating the involvement of multiple parties in a decision. Structured Decision Processes (SDPs), based on the principles, process and tools of decision analysis, are multi-stakeholder processes that facilitate broad involvement and transparent decision-making. They hold the promise of helping parties with varied interests in the mining industry to collaboratively make decisions that are of high quality and have broad support. SDPs have been used successfully in other natural resources industries such as electrical power generation, but have had very limited application in the mining industry. There has not been any rigorous evaluation of mining SDPs to date that could assess whether the great promise of SDPs actually translates into positive outcomes "on the ground." This type of evaluation would help mining companies and their stakeholders to decide whether to employ such processes in the future. The evaluation of the case study at the Ekati 1 Diamond Mine examined in this thesis, accompanied by a literature review of the historical and conceptual background of public participation and decision analysis in the mining industry, is aimed at making a significant contribution towards bridging that gap. 1.1 Purpose and objectives The purpose of this thesis is to assess the potential contribution of SDPs to consultation in the mining industry. Specific objectives include: 1. Describe the growth of public participation and sustainable development thinking in the mining industry and present a rationale for their continued importance; 2. Characterize public participation and decision analysis, and their synthesis in SDPs; 3. Document the state of policy and practice of public participation and SDPs in the mining industry; 4. Examine the literature on evaluating public participation and develop an evaluation approach suitable for corporate consultation activities such that of the case study; 5. Provide a rich description of the case study context so that a reader may understand its particular and general characteristics; 6. Evaluate the case study consultation process at the Ekati Diamond Mine from the perspective of its participants, and compare these results with the decision analysis and public participation literature; and 7. Make recommendations on the future application of SDPs in consultation in the mining industry, both in terms of improving the processes themselves and also how they fit into a comprehensive approach to mine-stakeholder relations. My hope is that beyond having academic merit, this thesis will be useful to managers and public participation practitioners designing and facilitating stakeholder consultation in the mining industry, as well as engineers and scientists who are called upon to contribute their knowledge and experience to such processes. 2 1.2 Study approach This work addresses the broad question of "Are Structured Decision Processes an effective methodology for involving stakeholders in consultative decision-making in the mining industry?" through a literature review and a participant-centred evaluation of a case study. The literature review describes the growth of public participation in society in general and in the Canadian mining industry in particular. It also discusses the selection of criteria for evaluating public participation and presents an introduction to decision analysis and its application in the mining industry. All of these topics provide a background for understanding the case study at the Ekati Diamond Mine in the Northwest Territories, Canada. The case study involves the use of Multiple Accounts Analysis (a particular type of SDP) at the Ekati Diamond Mine in the Northwest Territories, Canada, as a methodology for involving stakeholders in the process of selecting an optimized tailings management plan. The case study represents the first time a SDP has been used for project-based consultation with wide stakeholder involvement in the Canadian mining industry and as such provides an excellent opportunity to assess the effectiveness of this approach. The study employed mostly qualitative research methods, and focused on evaluating the consultation process from the perspective of the participants through questionnaires and interviews. 1.3 Scope and assumptions Although the literature review examines public participation and decision analysis in general, with a focus on corporate rather than government-initiated applications, the geographical scope is limited to the Canadian context, with particular reference to mining in Canada's North. The individual case study approach was selected because it is unique and "data-rich," permitting empirical as well as conceptual analysis of the research question. The specificity of the case study perhaps limits the generalizability of the findings, although many characteristics of the case study parallel circumstances within the mining industry in Canada and abroad. 3 1.4 Thesis structure This thesis consists of the following six chapters: Chapter One - Introduction. The introduction briefly describes the justification for this work, identifies its purpose and objectives, and outlines the information contained herein. Chapter Two - Literature Review. This chapter introduces the rationale and significance of the study and reviews selected literature on public participation and its practice in the Canadian mining industry, evaluation of public participation and decision analysis, and the application of SDPs in the mining industry. Chapter Three - Case Study: Ekati Diamond Mine Tailings Management Multiple Accounts Analysis. This chapter describes the case study at the Ekati Diamond Mine. An overview of the biophysical, socioeconomic and regulatory context of the mine is presented. The tailings management decision process regarding the operation of the Long Lake Containment Facility is discussed along with the stakeholders involved and nature of the Multiple Accounts Analysis process used to guide the consultation process on the decision. Chapter Four - Methodology. This section describes the methodological approaches and techniques employed for participant evaluation of the Ekati LLCF Multiple Accounts Analysis consultation process, which included participant observation, a questionnaire at the conclusion of the process, and interviews with participants using the critical incident technique. The research methodologies used in this study are primarily qualitative. Chapter Five - Results. Results of the observation, questionnaire and interviews regarding the case study are detailed in this section. Chapter Six - Discussion. The final chapter discusses the results and their implications for the use of SDPs like Multiple Accounts Analysis at Ekati specifically, and in the Canadian mining industry generally. Recommendations based on participants' feedback 4' from the data collected for improving the application of these methods to consultation are proposed. The themes from the case study are compared to public participation evaluative frameworks found in the literature and topics for further research are suggested 5 Chapter 2 Literature Review This chapter introduces the rationale and significance of the study and reviews selected literature on public participation and its practice in the Canadian mining industry, evaluation of public participation and decision analysis and the application of SDPs in the mining industry. 2.1 Public participation in the Canadian mining industry Although this thesis is focused on an applied methodology, it is important to give some context of the sociopolitical environment in which it is applied and the drivers for its adoption. The intent is to understand the part (in this case, one method of stakeholder involvement) in the context of the whole (the mining industry responding to societal forces). The following section gives a brief overview of public participation and its importance for the mining industry, then addresses the current state of practice of public participation in the Canadian mining industry. 2.1.1 Drivers for public participation in the mining industry The mining industry, like any other industry that desires to prosper well into the 21st century, has evolved and adapted to changes in society (Humphreys, 2000). Changing societal values towards the natural and human environment necessitate progressive corporate policies that in turn require new tools or methodologies to be implemented and evaluated successfully. While the central thrust of this thesis is the evaluation of one such tool with a specific application - stakeholder involvement in mining decisions - it is helpful to understand the historical and sociopolitical context in which this tool is applied. This facilitates an assessment of whether the tool in question is consistent with the overarching normative societal values driving the change, as well as being pragmatic and effective "on the ground" for its primary users. For this reason the next section of the thesis presents some of the historical developments that are particularly pertinent to a discussion of stakeholder involvement in the mining industry, with particular reference to the Canadian context. 6 The environmental movement The environmental movement in Western society that began in the 1960's has had a profound effect on the way mines are developed, operated and closed. The first publication of Rachel Carson's seminal book 'Silent Spring' in 1962 raised public awareness of human impacts on the earth's ecological systems, and the role of corporations in causing many of the impacts. As popular respect for the environment grew, increasing pressure was brought to bear on mining companies to be intentional about characterizing and minimizing the environmental impacts associated with their operations. This resulted in the introduction of comprehensive environmental impact assessment (EIA) of mining projects in 1970s and the concept of "planning for closure," among other advances. EIA is a process to predict the environmental effects of proposed projects before they are carried out that facilitates avoiding or mitigating negative effects and incorporating environmental factors into decision making (Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, 2005). Improving environmental management of mines, as with any change in paradigm or practice, had both its progressive champions and its reluctant laggards, who dismissed environmentalism as a passing fad. Modern mining practice has proven these naysayers wrong. Today, environmental management is entrenched in government regulations, corporate policy and, most importantly, in day-to-day mining operations.1. Despite these improvements, the Canadian public remains wary of the industry's environmental performance (MacDonald, 2002; McAllister, Scoble, & Veiga, 1999; Mining Watch, 2000). Sustainable development The seeds of another wave of change in the mining industry were planted in 1987 with introduction of "sustainable development" into the popular lexicon with the publication of the Brundtland report. This report of the United Nations World Commission on Economic Development defined sustainable development as "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their 1 Note that although this is certainly true for major publicly-listed mining companies, the environmental practice of some smaller privately-owned mines and artisanal and small-scale miners (ASM), particularly in developing countries, is generally poor, causing some significant local environmental impacts. 7 own needs (1987, p. 43)." This statement encompasses principles of equity and fairness, taking a long-term view by applying the precautionary principle and entails taking a systems approach to considering the interconnected challenges in the environmental, economic and societal domains. The precautionary principle states that a lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation (United Nations, 1992). The conceptual development of this idea can be traced in the progression of 20th century environmental thought and shares an ethos of living in harmony with nature consistent with indigenous traditions around the world (Mebratu, 1998). The innovation of sustainable development was proposing the reconciliation of environmental protection and economic growth, goals previously assumed by many to be mutually.exclusive. This also had the effect of raising the profile of social issues alongside environmental concerns as a challenge to the dominance of economic issues in the head offices of mining companies. It is argued that the protection of the environment has an unavoidable social dimension, and that there is very little justification for treating environmental and social issues in isolation (Carter, 1999). Growing importance of social issues Although public concern for the environment is not diminishing, the social implications of large mine development have displaced environmental concerns as the primary public concern, at least in developing countries (World Bank, 1998), due to several separate developments. First, it has been generally accepted that such mine development will employ "best practice" techniques with more environmentally friendly technology. Second, the globalization of the mining industry has resulted in exploration outside of traditional mining areas and into remote areas that are often largely settled by indigenous communities with different values and lifestyles than those of Western culture (including mining companies). The significance of this development is heightened by a greater international acceptance of the intrinsic value of indigenous cultures, in contrast to the 2 There have been many definitions proposed for "sustainable development", many reflecting the perspective and bias of the party proposing it, and this is an ongoing debate. However, the Brundtland Report definition is the most often quoted version. It is most frequently used by mining companies in their corporate reports (see Section 2.1.3 on corporate policies). 8 assimilation rhetoric of the recent past. The importance of Aboriginal communities to the burgeoning activity of the mining industry in northern Canada provides ample evidence of these trends. Accordingly, greater attention is being placed on social issues in mining, from a sustainability perspective. However, treatment of social issues still lags environmental issues (Hilson, 2000); although Social Impacts Assessment (SIA) is "quickly becoming the rule rather than the exception" for mining companies (World Bank, 1998, p. 7), they lack the policy framework and consistency of EIAs (Joyce & MacFarlane, 2001). B.E. Harvey, the Chief Advisor on Aboriginal and Community Relations with Rio Tinto, one of the world's largest mining companies, makes this statement about the evolving skill requirement of mining professionals: Whilst senior management appreciate the need for social competencies to further the transition to sustainable development and sustainable relationships, there remain many mid-level mining executives who retain a view that a narrow spectrum of technical competence is all that is necessary to succeed. Whilst not advocating comprehensive social science training for mining professionals, some grounding in cultural preparation and cultural awareness (the former preparing the way for the latter) will greatly benefit the sustainable miner. Intelligence and energy and being in charge of a mine are no longer enough to handle community issues. If nothing else, managers should at least be able to read and understand the reports prepared by social scientists carrying out Social Impact Assessments. (Harvey, 2002, p. 4) A rapidly developing area that has implications both for resolving environmental disputes and managing social impacts is that of public participation. Along with SIA, the methods and approaches of public participation, while having great promise, have not been operationalized with the same consistent rigour as environmental management tools. In addition to raising the profile of social issues, a further corollary of sustainable development with particular relevance to this thesis is that sustainable development must include effective citizen participation in decision making, above and beyond changes in legislation and regulation. The Brundtland report makes explicit the importance of public 9 participation in harmonizing the protection of the environment and the common interest of its human inhabitants: The law alone cannot enforce the common interest. It principally needs community knowledge and support, which entails greater public participation in the decisions that affect the environment. This is best secured by decentralizing the management of resources upon which local communities depend, and giving these communities an effective say over the use of these resources... (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987). The growth of public participation Momentum for public participation was also building during the same time as the environmental movement and the dawn of sustainable development thinking. In the United States, federal anti-poverty efforts in the 1960s began to emphasize broad participation by citizens to counter the disproportionate impacts of previous urban renewal programs on low-income residents (Thomas, 1995). Dorcey (2003) characterizes the growth of public participation in Canadian governance systems, particularly in the management of natural resources, in terms of "waves of innovation." The first wave in Canada shortly followed American initiatives in the mid 1960s and involved governments at the federal, provincial and local levels experimenting with the use of a variety of communication and participatory techniques including information brochures, media releases, citizen surveys, public hearings, workshops, task forces and advisory committees. This wave lost momentum in the mid 1970s due to a weak economy and perceptions of these initiatives as being unsuccessful in resolving issues, time consuming and costly. A second wave of innovations began in the second half of the 1980s with renewed interest in environmental matters in the new context of sustainable development. This wave was not only characterized by new tools and techniques such as multi-stakeholder, conflict resolution and consensus building processes but also by the fact that they were being initiated by business and civil society as well as government and commonly involved stakeholders from all of these sectors. The Whitehorse Mining Initiative, a two-year national consultation process to develop a strategic vision for the Canadian mining 10 industry that concluded in 1994, embodied these characteristics. This consensus-based process was launched by the mining industry but had significant support and participation from officials from federal, provincial and territorial governments, labour unions representing mining workers, environmental groups, and Aboriginal peoples (Natural Resources Canada, 2005). Despite being used to address an expansive range of issues as a part of governance processes at all levels, enthusiasm for public participation began to wane in the mid-1990s, again under the weight of criticism that they were "too lengthy and costly and of limited value in terms of reaching and implementing agreements that met the interests of the diversity of stakeholders" (Dorcey, 2003). The new millennium seems to have ushered in a third wave in response to the need to revitalize democratic governance processes to understand, make choices and forge a willingness to act on complex and pressing sustainability issues. Fischhoff (1995) chronicles the same trend towards public participation in the closely related field of risk communication. Yosie and Herbst's (1998) study of stakeholder processes in environmental decision making concluded that public participation was not a "passing fad" but rather the product of the forces described in the previous section: The increased use of stakeholder processes over the past decade represents a societal interest in more interactive forms of decision making. Rather than a transitory phenomenon, this development reflects a culmination of a series of environmental, political, societal, and technological developments that have begun to yield significant changes in the methods of making environmental decisions (p. 1). 2.1.2 Characterizing public participation Public participation developed initially in parallel with the environmental movement, but soon became closely associated with both the environmental movement and sustainable development.3 Changes in society at large and specific challenges of the mining industry 3 Much of the literature examined in this thesis is from the area of environmental public participation. Environmental issues are important to mining stakeholders, so this knowledge is applicable to this thesis, although public participation is not by any means limited to environmental issues. 11 have contributed to its growing importance, and there are a number of reasons why mining companies are taking public participation seriously. Much like "sustainable development," there is some confusion regarding the definition of "public participation" and its near-synonyms. This is reflective of the breadth of application of public participation, whose activities can be thought of as laying along a continuum (although the nature of the continuum or typology is also the source of debate). Defining public participation Public participation has been defined as "forums for exchange that are organized for the purpose of facilitating communication between government, citizens, stakeholders, and interest groups, and businesses, regarding a specific decision or problem." (Renn, Webler, & Wiedemann, 1995, p. 2). Other definitions are more direct about the role of stakeholders in influencing and not merely communicating about decisions. The extent to which stakeholders have a legitimate right and are effectively able to influence decisions is a source of debate. Public participation was initially concentrated on decisions made by government agencies, and much of the literature is based in this area. The same issues have been addressed by the corporate sector in stakeholder theory, which is discussed in Section 2.1.2. In order to further explore what public participation means, it is necessary to digress to a discussion of the various terms used to describe what I have thus far called public participation. Although "public participation" is the most widely-used term in research literature to describe the involvement of stakeholders in agenda setting and decision-making (Chess & Purcell, 1999), other terms such as "stakeholder engagement" are also commonly used. These terms may be used synonymously or their usage may be intended to convey subtle yet significant differences in meaning. This section presents the range of terminology used in the literature (Table 2-1) and clarifies and justifies the choice of terminology used in this thesis. 12 Table 2-1 The terminology of "public participation" Agent/Parties Descriptor stakeholder involvement citizen participation public engagement civic consultation community community of interest (COI) Using key words such as "citizen" or "public" or "civic" or "community" to describe the agents involved generally implies the inclusion of everybody within a particular jurisdiction (e.g., country, town) whereas "stakeholder" may "limit the former to only those who have a specific interest in the issue as opposed to being generally interested as citizens" (Dorcey, 2003). The prevalence of these terms evidences the primary arena for discussion of these issues as government-citizen relations. A "stakeholder" is defined from a corporate perspective as an individual or group who can affect or who is affected by a corporation's activities (Svendsen, 1998) and may in some cases be used to identify only non-governmental interests or imply that the participants represent discrete,, identifiable constituencies (Beierle, 1998). Connor (1999b) warns that a narrow focus on stakeholders that gives no voice to the "residual" population in a community or region is dangerous. He advocates that every group or "public" has an opportunity to become informed and provide input, albeit not with uniform programs or level of influence. The usage of the term "community of interest" (COI) is more recent and broader in scope. It refers to a group that is united by shared interests, rather than by having a "stake" in a particular issue, as is connoted by "stakeholder." COI is a preferred by some Aboriginal peoples who rightly regard themselves as having more than a "stake" in mining activities in their traditional territories (Aboriginal and treaty rights receive special recognition in Section 35 of the Canadian Constitution Act, 1982 (Hipwell, Mamen, Weitzner, & Whiteman, 2002; Joseph, 2001)). COI also avoids negative associations with the "free-entry" system of staking mineral claims that has been associated with Aboriginal concerns and title (Bankes & Sharvit, 1999; Hipwell et al., 2002; Indigenous Corporate Training, 2003). 13 The descriptive terms "involvement" or "engagement" commonly entail a more active and influential role for stakeholders while "participation" may imply a more passive role. The term "consultation," to a yet greater degree than "participation," may indicate a purely advisory process, with stakeholders merely being informed, as opposed to allowing for direct contribution to decision-making. Note that there is debate over the definitions and implications of these terms, and distinctions mentioned above are not universally recognized but rather depend on the perspective of the user (Joyce & MacFarlane, 2001; Whiteman & Mamen, 2002). Confusion and differences in understanding of the commonly used terms among stakeholders need not be a hindrance to successful dialogue and collaboration so long as these differences in meaning are expected and clarified to foster fresh insights (Dorcey, 2003). The terms "stakeholder," "consultation" and "public participation" are used in this thesis. Although I personally believe that "community of interest" is a better term than "stakeholder" for the reasons stated above, the latter has widespread acceptance industry vernacular (although the Mining Association of Canada4 is promoting the use of COI instead). "Stakeholder" and "public participation" are also consistent with the larger body of literature in this area. The term "consultation" is also used in Chapter 3, Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 since this is the term most commonly used by those involved in the Ekati Diamond Mine case study. Although public participation shares some common ground with SIA and public relations (PR), they have important distinctions and should not be confused. Public participation is focused on identifying stakeholder interests and concerns and deals with all the significant issues related to a decision, including social ones. It entails extensive and ongoing contact with all stakeholders throughout a project. SIA includes short-term contact with stakeholders for the purpose of contributing to the evaluation of social or socio-economic aspects of the project by qualified social scientists. Its product is a 4 The Mining Association of Canada is a national organization that promotes and lobbies on behalf of the Canadian mining industry. It has been involved in developing initiatives with and for its member companies such as Towards Sustainable Mining (TSM), which has external outreach and dialogue as one of its central components. 14 specialist report that makes recommendations for maximizing benefits and reducing negative social impacts (Chamber of Mines of South Africa, 2002). Public relations, like public participation, is based on principles of effective communication. However, public participation must present objective information, both negative and positive, regarding a project and its proponent, and also emphasizes enabling stakeholder contributions to improve decision-making. PR focuses on distribution of information aimed at changing attitudes towards the project and is usually conducted by the proponent itself. Confusing these two functions is common and can lead to stakeholders rejecting the public participation process as "white-wash" or "rubber-stamping." Public participation is often conducted by an independent agency to increase its credibility in the eyes of stakeholders and distinguish it from PR (Chamber of Mines of South Africa, 2002). Typologies of public participation Public participation covers a whole range of objectives and tools, and numerous authors have proposed typologies for understanding its full spectrum of activities. Typologies help us by providing us with a common language with which we can discuss public participation approaches and tools. The seminal typology, Arstein's (1969) "Ladder of Citizen Participation," was written from an activist perspective, critiquing urban citizen participation efforts of the day and focusing on the redistribution of power as an essential element of citizen participation. The ladder consequently considers participation programs that do not share decision-making powers with citizens (i.e., the lower rungs of the ladder) as being of little value, classifying them as degrees of "non-participation" or "tokenism."5 Subsequent typologies have evolved to take a less absolutist stance, acknowledging that different levels of participation, from basic sharing of information all the way to delegated decision-making, may each be appropriate for particular decisions in varying contexts (Beierle, 1998; Connor, 1999a; Dorcey, Doney, & Rueggeberg, 1994; IAP2, 5 Tokenism is defined as "the policy or practice of making only a symbolic effort" (Merriam-Webster, 2004) 15 2000; Wilcox, 1994; World Bank, 1996), although their authors tend to agree that most decision makers would benefit from "moving up the ladder" to some extent. Wilcox (1994) states that "participation may work best for all concerned when each of the key interests - the stakeholders - is satisfied with the level of participation at which they are involved" (p. 9). These typologies typically use a horizontal rather than a vertical axis, since the relationship between different approaches or techniques is not hierarchical, and approaches on different parts of the spectrum may be employed simultaneously for different stakeholder groups. The International Association for Public Participation (IAP2), an organization representing public participation practitioners, has developed a "Public Participation Spectrum" (shown in Figure 2-1) that reflects this pragmatic view, although IAP2's core values statement emphasizes that the public should be given considerable degree of influence over both the process and outcome of shared decision-making (see Table 2-2). Table 2-2 Core Values for the Practice of Public Participation (IAP2,2004) 1. The public should have a say in decisions about actions that affect their lives. 2. Public participation includes the promise that the public's contribution will influence the decision. 3. The public participation process communicates the interests and meets the process needs of all participants. 4. The public participation process seeks out and facilitates the involvement of those potentially affected. 5. The public participation process involves participants in defining how they participate. 6. The public participation process provides participants with the information they need to participate in a meaningful way. 7. The public participation process communicates to participants how their input affected the decision. The IAP2 spectrum provides a snapshot of current public participation practice, linking the goals of the various levels of public involvement with examples of common tools used for each. 16 =>=>=> INCREASING LEVEL OF PUBLIC IMPACT =>=>=> 1 INFORM i CONSULT ••'I . • INVOLVE COLLABORATE: EMPOYV1.R i Public 1 Public Participation j Participation Coal ; Coal Public Participation Coul Public Participation Coal Public Participation Coal To provide the public with balanced and objective information to assist them in understanding the problem, alternatives and/or solutions. To obtain public feedback on analysis, alternatives and/or decisions. To work directly with the public throughout the process to ensure that public issues and concerns are consistently understood and considered. To partner with the public in each aspect of the decision including the development of alternatives and the identification of the preferred solution. To place the final decision-making in the hands of the public. Promise to Ihc public Promise to the public Promise to the public Promise to the public Promise to the public We will keep you informed. We will keep you informed, listen to and acknowledge concerns and provide feedback on how public input influenced the decision. We will work with you to ensure that your concerns and issues are directly reflected in the alternatives developed and provide feedback on how public input influenced the decision. We will look to you for direct advice and innovation in formulating solutions and incorporate your advice and recommendations into the decisions to the maximum extent possible. We will implement what you decide. Example tools Mllf^!!!§||^i||||p|||pi!!!!^ Example tools Example tools Example tools Example tools • Fact sheets • Web sites • Open houses • Public comment • Focus groups • Surveys • Public meetings • Workshops • Deliberate polling • Citizen Advisory Committees • Consensus-building • Participatory decision-making • Citizen juries • Ballots • Delegated decisions Figure 2-1 Public participation spectrum (IAP2,2000) 17 Beierle (1998) presents a more detailed approach to matching tools with goals, describing the tools in terms of four characteristics, including: • information flows; • the degree of interaction among potentially opposing interests; • the type of representation; and • the decision-making role of stakeholders. This typology is rooted in the government context and as such includes some techniques that do not directly apply to private sector public participation efforts. Figure 2-2 and Figure 2-3 present a graphical depiction of this typology defining common tools with respect to each of the four characteristics.6 Information flows can be one-way, with information flowing from stakeholders to the proponent in forms such as surveys and focus groups (Group A). Or, they can go in the opposite direction, with the proponent providing information to stakeholders through public notices or the provision of right-to-know information (Group C). Mechanisms employing two-way flows of information, such as advisory committees or mediations—offer varying degrees of opportunity for deliberation among participants (Group B). The degree of interaction among potentially opposing interests can range from none, as in the case of a survey, to high, as in the case of a multi-party mediation. The type of representation ranges from citizens representing themselves at a public hearing, to "representative" members of an advisory committee, to professional public interest or environmental group representatives engaged in a regulatory negotiation. The decision-making role of stakeholders can range from none, in the case of a focus group, to a direct decisional role in ratifying an agreement arrived at through mediation. Multi-stakeholder SDP based on decision analysis (Section 2.3) is shown on Figures 2-3 and 2-4. This tool involves extensive face-to-face interaction among participants, who may include representatives of public or interest groups, as well as technical experts For a more comprehensive list of public participation tools with practical tips for implementation, see the IAP2 Public Participation Toolbox, available at http://iap2.org/practitionertools/toolbox.pdf. 18 representing government and industry. The results of the process may be advisory or decisional. No Decision Making-Role Decision Milking Role of Public Advisoiy Decisional Type of Representation Interest Sg|£R^j>reseirtation i%oIi't;Re^ Mbiiiis/E^peits PJslit-to-Know Public EiliKfltion Public Notice c Smvev Ffn.ll- Omup PubKc Comment A Cttizeu Jtuy/Poitel Ciinseii.iio (.Vnfeieuce Figure 2-2 Typology of public participation tools with respect to degree of interaction and information flows (modified from Beierle, 1998) Low Degree of Interaction Among Potentially Medium Opposing Interests Direction of Information Flows ;Otte-way: ;One-w5vy; Kiblic to Pi bpoiieiit Two-way Proponent to Public Survey A Focus Group Public Comment I \>mui'.H^ CiiiiiemRc Public Hcai 1112 ('itizeii Jmv Panel Ach l-on ('omuuttees Reuulatui^ Neeittiaricm Mediation SDP / Rlldlt-tO-Klinw C Pulilii Notice Public t'(luv,.itiuu Figure 2-3 Typology of public participation tools with respect to type of representation and decision making role (modified from Beierle, 1998) 19 Rationales for doing public participation There are numerous drivers behind the rise in public participation in North American society. A root cause is a higher level of education: "As people become more educated, they ask for more involvement in the decisions that will affect their lives" (Thomas, 1995). Not only are levels of institutional educational achievement higher, but new information technologies, particularly the world wide web, have given concerned citizens rapid access to information about the issues that concern them, regardless of their geographical proximity (B.C. Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, 1994). The public's level of trust in institutions, both governmental and corporate, has diminished and fewer people believe that these institutions will genuinely serve their best interests without public intervention (B.C. Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, 1994; Yosie & Herbst, 1998). This phenomenon is particularly acute for transnational corporations (Hemmati, 2002), including most mining companies. The importance of individual rights and democratic tradition in North American society also reinforce the normative rationale that people should have meaningful input into the decisions that affect them (National Research Council, 1996). Government policy and legislation are changing in favour of greater participation, providing a "lagging" legal rationale for public participation to buttress the "leading" factors described above (Wilcox, 1994) Apart from these contextual factors that favour greater public participation, there are a number of rationales why a corporation would choose to involve its stakeholders, related both to the quality of the decision-making process and outcomes and to the corporation's relationship with its stakeholders. Public participation can provide additional data for decision-making (Connor, 1999a; National Research Council, 1996); this data provides insight into local knowledge, often over a longer timeframe than the corporation's existing data and is generally available at minimal cost. The incorporation of Traditional Ecological Knowledge shared by Aboriginal communities into impact assessment and decision-making represents one of the innovative edges of this approach. The public also brings to the table a wide variety of perspectives and abilities that enhance the creative capacity of a corporation (Connor, 1999a; Dorcey et al., 1994). The importance of creativity to successful organizations is well established (Jalan & Kleiner, 1995; 20 Woodman, Sawyer, Griffin, & Ricky, 1993) and stakeholder perspectives can help mining companies to temporarily step outside of their standard technocentric, positivist worldview and envisage novel alternatives. Environmental decision-making has both technical and political dimensions, and public participation can provide insight on the goals and attitudes of stakeholders to ensure that final decisions are politically acceptable as well as technically adequate (Beierle, 2002; Connor, 1999a; National Research Council, 1996). A good decision is characterized not only by the selection of the optimal alternative but also by one's ability to implement it. Working with stakeholders in a joint problem-solving frame to choose an alternative creates greater ownership on their part, facilitating the implementation of the chosen alternative (Gray, 1989). A review of 239 case studies of stakeholder involvement in environmental decision-making in the United States found evidence of stakeholders improving decisions over the status quo in the majority of cases, and further concluded that more intensive stakeholder processes are more likely to result in higher quality decisions (Beierle, 2002). A good public participation process also encourages mutual education, allowing stakeholders to learn about the interests and procedures of the mining company, and builds valuable trust that is simply not attainable using a traditional public relations approach (Beierle, 1998). Capacity building both in terms of the technical issues surrounding an operating mine and its organizational and political considerations provide a foundation for more informed direct communication between a mine and its stakeholders (Connor, 1999a; Wilcox, 1994), instead of the reactive, sensationalized communication via third parties such as the media, NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) or regulatory agencies that often characterize mine-stakeholder relations. Public participation by no means guarantees the absence of conflict (nor would this extreme be a desirable outcome) between a mine and its stakeholders, but public participation is a valuable contributor to conflict resolution. The benefits of positive relationships with stakeholders with which an organization deals directly also include an improved reputation amongst the wider community (Humphreys, 2000). 21 Corporate perspectives on public participation Government agencies and corporations have different motivations and needs for using public participation processes (Yosie & Herbst, 1998). Governments, who are elected with an explicit mandate to represent the interests of their electorate, have an obvious rationale to support public participation as a means of fulfilling their mandate, consistent with democratic principles.7 As a result, government agencies have been practicing public participation for much longer than corporations, and most of the literature is focused on this area. Similarly, public participation represents a logical extension of the mandate of development agencies and international financial institutions such as the World Bank Group to improve the living standards of people in the developing world. A normative rationale for corporations is much less apparent, so the ability of public participation programs to deliver net benefits for the corporation and its stakeholders is most germane. Furthermore, the extent to which stakeholders should influence decision making (directly or indirectly) by a privately owned corporation, whose traditional mandate is to generate profits for its shareholders, is contentious. The opposing points of view are expressed in the business world by stockholder theory and stakeholder theory, respectively. Proponents of stockholder theory, exemplified by conservative economist Milton Friedman, claim that corporations are designed to maximize wealth for their principals -the stockholders. He argues in his seminal 1970 article that managers are not equipped to decide what is good for the public and should leave "social responsibility" to governments, and declares that market mechanisms can be trusted to correct abuses of stakeholders (Friedman, 1970). Stockholder theorists would allow that stakeholder engagement may be warranted, but only if it is justified solely by the benefits it provides the company, such as improved employee recruitment and retention, or reduced opposition to new projects (which ultimately contribute to greater profits for shareholders). 7 The strength of this argument depends somewhat on one's understanding of the nature of democracy. Managerial and popular perspectives represent opposite ends of the spectrum of how involved the public should be in government decision-making (Beierle, 1998). 22 Stakeholder theory, first popularized by R. Edward Freeman in 1983, emphasizes stakeholder engagement not only because of the long-term benefits it may afford a corporation, but also because of an underlying belief in the inherent dignity of stakeholders as persons. The impetus behind stakeholder theory was to try and build a framework that would help managers develop new strategic directions and create new opportunities in the midst of unprecedented levels of environmental turbulence and change. A stakeholder approach to strategic management draws on concepts in corporate planning, systems theory, corporate social responsibility and organizational theory. Its purpose is active management of the corporation's relationships by understanding and responding to the interests of legitimate stakeholders (Donaldson & Preston, 1995; Freeman & McVea, 2001). Stakeholder theorists not only suggest that stakeholders have an indirect influence on corporate strategy by virtue of a company's commitment to social responsibility (i.e., the corporation's understanding of stakeholder interests), but also encourage their direct participation in decision making. For example, Evan and Freeman (1993) propose the creation of a parallel stakeholder board of directors vested with the duty of care to manage the affairs of the corporation in unison with the interests of its stakeholders. While this proposal has never been implemented, empirical studies have shown increased stakeholder representation on the board of directors of American corporations (Luoma & Goodstein, 1999). Cameco, a medium-sized Canadian mining company, has an Aboriginal representative on their board of directors (Natural Resources Canada, 2005). Others emphasize the pursuit of collaboration with stakeholders, rather than managing stakeholder relationships as constraints to be minimized (Svendsen, 1998). An examination of corporate policies and reporting seems to indicate the tide is turning in favour of a stakeholder approach (discussed in further detail for the mining industry in Section 2.1.3). One of the most forceful critiques of the stockholder paradigm is that it has been unable to prevent corporations from externalizing their costs onto stakeholders, 23 leading to environmental degradation and other impacts (Hawken, 1993). The failures of the stockholder model have been brought to the fore by the anti-globalization movement (Klein, 2000) to the extent of demanding fundamental redefinition of the corporation (Bakan, 2004). The "holy grail" of corporate social responsibility (CSR), under which public participation is often subsumed, is the "business case" that CSR is justified by its financial benefits alone, apart from any ethical arguments. Although this position is not empirically definitive (Donaldson & Preston, 1995; Svendsen, 1998), it is compelling enough for most major Canadian mining companies to publicly support it. Thus support for public participation in the mining industry and other sectors is contingent upon societal expectations and their influence on shareholder value. (Humphreys, 2000). The definition of a "legitimate" stakeholder from a corporate perspective has broadened considerably over time from only primary stakeholders (upon whom the corporation directly depends) to include more and more secondary stakeholders (who have an interest in the corporation's activities). The sphere of interest has grown from just employees and customers (Donaldson & Preston, 1995), to encompass suppliers, local communities and even NGOs, who have had largely antagonistic relationship with the mining industry. Active involvement of the NGOs has been limited, but there are some positive examples of collaboration, including a collaborative learning program between BHP Billiton and Oxfam Community Aid Abroad (CAA), called the Corporate Community Leadership Program (CCLP). The CCLP was designed to sensitize BHP Billiton managers to a participatory and human rights-based approach to development (Kemp, 2003). Rio Tinto also has a number of collaborative projects in conservation with government and NGOs such as Birdlife International (Rio Tinto, 2003). Today, many corporations have combined "made for business" strategies and rationales from stakeholder theory with methods and experience from the public participation field. 8 Evan and Freeman (1993) offer an example of the ineffectiveness of this theory when it comes to negative externalities: "No one has an incentive to incur the cost of clean-up or the cost of nonpollution, since the marginal gain of one firm's action is small. Every firm reasons this way, and the result is pollution of water and air. Since the industrial revolution, firms have sought to internalize the benefits and externalize the costs of their actions." 24 Although most public participation practice and research has been in the government sector, corporations have adopted the rhetoric and methods of public participation theory for their own use. 2.1.3 Public participation in the Canadian mining industry This section discusses the public participation policy and practice of the Canadian mining industry. It focuses only on senior companies that are either based in Canada or operate mines in Canada. The senior companies have more developed sustainability and public participation policies and have tended to lead the junior (exploration) and mid-sized companies in this area (MacDonald, 2002). They also have more resources to organize and fund public participation decision processes that are complex and important enough to justify rigorous application of decision analysis, which is the focus of this thesis. BHP Billiton, the owner of the Ekati Diamond Mine that is involved in the case study, is a senior mining company based in Australia. These companies are transnational and their policies are consistent with other seniors around the world, partly due to the emergence of international quasi-regulatory guidelines on environmental and social performance mandated by international financial institutions such as the International Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank Group. The Canadian mining industry shares many of the rationales for public participation expressed in Section 2.1, as well as having particular sectoral characteristics and concerns. The industry is stigmatized by the public, so building trust with stakeholders is a key concern. The industry uses the phrase "social license to operate" to describe the acceptance it needs in order to permit and operate mines successfully (Joyce & Thomson, 2002; Thomson, 1999). This focus on the "social license to operate" is one of the reasons why most senior mining companies have developed sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies with a growing emphasis on indicators and measurable results. One of industry's responses was the initiation of the independent two-year Mining, Minerals and Sustainable Development (MMSD) project in 2000 that identified a number of key challenges for the industry, including access to information, stakeholder engagement in 25 governance, and local communities (IIED, 2002). This emphasis on improving relationships with stakeholders is also at the forefront of the work of the Mining Association of Canada in its Towards Sustainable Mining initiative. This has a primary objective of encouraging and facilitating dialogue between mining companies and their communities of interest. Stakeholders of the Canadian mining industry include employees, contractors, Aboriginal peoples, citizens of mining communities, suppliers, customers, environmental organizations, governments, the financial community and shareholders (Mining Association of Canada, 2003). Since most mining activities take place in the Aboriginal traditional territories, building positive relationships with Aboriginal communities is a key priority. Although this thesis concentrates on industry-initiated public participation, government policy has an important influence on corporate policy and practice and is also discussed in the following sections. Policy As noted earlier, corporate policies on sustainability and public participation are now common practice for mining companies. PricewaterhouseCoopers' annual review of the global mining industry reviewed 30 of the largest mining companies around the world and found that 20 of the 30 published a separate sustainability report in addition to their annual report, and the majority of the remaining companies included information on their environmental and social performance in their annual report (PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2004). The policies of following nine senior mining companies were examined in publicly available annual reports or sustainability reports: Barrick Gold (2003), BHP Billiton (2004b), Placer Dome (2003), Noranda/Falconbridge (2004), Rio Tinto (2002) and its Canadian subsidiary Diavik Diamond Mines (2004), Suncor (2004), Syncrude (2003) and 26 TeckCominco (2004a).9 Companies were selected based on size (market capitalization) for Canadian-based companies or because they have mines or projects in the same jurisdiction (i.e., the Northwest Territories) as the case study, for offshore based companies. All the companies have stated their commitments to public participation, using a diversity of names reflective of the general ambiguity over terminology: stakeholder consultation, community involvement, public participation, communities of interest, stakeholder engagement, dialogue, etc. The following examples illustrate these commitments. BHP Billiton's Health, Safety, Environment and Community (HSEC) Management Standard number seven on "Communication, consultation and participation" states that: "Effective communication and consultation is maintained with stakeholders associated with BHP Billiton activities, and they are encouraged to participate in and commit to HSEC performance improvement initiatives" (BHP Billiton, 2004b, p. 13). Placer Dome's Sustainability Charter (2003) describes its policy to "implement effective and transparent engagement, communication and independently verified reporting arrangements with our stakeholders" (p. 3) and further states: We are committed to building partnerships with our host communities and other stakeholders, and despite divergent views, we are committed to work towards consensus. Ultimately, achieving sustainability requires the support and active participation of our stakeholders; we cannot achieve sustainability on our own . The Mining Association of Canada (MAC), which includes all of the above companies (or their Canadian subsidiaries) among its membership, launched a Towards Sustainable Mining (TSM) initiative in 2004. This was driven by recognition that the mining industry's past efforts to improve its public image and stakeholder relations by using a public relations approach were unsatisfactory. According to MAC, TSM represents "a strategy for improving the mining industry's performance by aligning its actions with the 9 Barrick Gold, BHP Billiton, DeBeers Canada, Placer Dome, Noranda/Falconbridge, Rio Tinto, Suncor, Syncrude, TeckCominco. Companies were selected based on size (market capitalization) for Canadian-based companies and having mines or projects in the same jurisdiction (i.e., the Northwest Territories) as the case study, for offshore based companies. 27 priorities and values of Canadians" and "a process for finding common ground with our communities of interest" (2004) based on performance. External outreach (dialogue with mining stakeholders) is one of the components of this initiative, along with crisis communications, tailings management and energy management. Performance indicators have been developed for each of these to enable consistent reporting and benchmarking by MAC member companies. MAC has also developed an Outreach and Dialogue Field Guide to build capacity among its members to engage in dialogue with their respective communities of interest (Mining Association of Canada, 2003). A TSM Communities of Interest Advisory Panel, including representatives from labour, Aboriginal organizations and communities, NGOs, mining communities and the investment sector, meets semi-annually to foster dialogue between the industry and its communities of interest, and to help shape TSM goals. Broad policy commitments found in corporate charters and management standards are also expressed in more specific policies at the individual mine level. BHP Billiton (2004b) states that: Each of our sites prepares a community relations plan that helps them to identify their key stakeholders, particularly those from vulnerable or marginalized groups. These plans also detail the contact, frequencies and engagement mechanisms that are unique to each site and situation (p. 16). Government policy encourages public participation and provides opportunities for stakeholder involvement independent of any corporate initiatives, largely through the environmental assessment (EA) and permitting processes. Table 2-3 illustrates the opportunities for public participation made available during the EA process by the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA). 28 Table 2-3 Public participation during the environmental assessment process (Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency 2005) • Visit the Canadian Environmental Assessment Registry for information about projects taking place in your area. • Apply for funding to assist your participation, or that of your organization of group, in the comprehensive studies, mediations and review panels through the Agency's Participant Funding Program. • Take advantage of opportunities to participate in screenings, including reviewing and commenting on screening reports before a final decision is made on the project. • Examine and comment on a class screening report before the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency declares it an appropriate means to assess similar projects. • Review and submit comments during a comprehensive study process. The Minister of the Environment takes public comments into account before determining the future of a project. • Participate in any public meetings or hearings associated with a review panel. CEAA works with provincial and regional EA offices such as the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board (MVEIRB) in the NWT to coordinate environmental assessment of mining projects and other industrial activities. In addition to attaining an EA certificate, proponents must also acquire various licenses and permits for land and water use, among others. In the Ekati case study context this is under the mandate of the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board (MVLWB), whose vision for itself expresses a clear commitment to public participation: "A forum for regional decision making, ensuring effective participation of residents in the use, protection, and benefits of the lands and waters of the Mackenzie Valley" (Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board, 2005). Opportunities for public participation are similar to those in the environmental assessment process. A study by Sinclair and Diduck (2001) found that although regulatory bodies in the EA process place considerable onus on proponents for conducting public participation programs, proponents were given little guidance in developing such programs and criteria and standards for evaluating them were not available. Aboriginal peoples are also developing their own policies for mining on their traditional lands (Hipwell et al., 2002). For example, the Innu Nation of Labrador and eastern Quebec published "Mineral Exploration in Nitassinan: A Matter of Respect - Innu Nation Guidelines for the Mining Industry" after publicity around the Voisey's Bay nickel 29 deposit discovery in 1995 resulted in 280,000 claims being staked and several dozen exploration companies descending on Nitassinan (Labrador and eastern Quebec) in the space of a few months, all without Innu consent. This document contains explicit guidelines on community consultation and information, including what information companies are required to provide and to obtain about Innu activities such as hunting and trapping, and procedures for resolving potential conflicts between such activities and mineral exploration activities (Innu Nation, 2001). Practice Mines interact intentionally with stakeholders in a variety of ways at different levels on the Public Participation Spectrum (Figure 2-1) throughout the mine life cycle. Some public participation programs and activities are ongoing while others are tied to specific part of the mine project life cycle. Most mines have regular information transfer activities and conduct more intensive consultation and involvement on a sporadic "as-needed" basis. At the lower end of the spectrum (i.e., information sharing) there is rarely a clear distinction between PR and public participation activities. For instance, most mines produce a regular newsletter than provides updates on mining activities and charitable community involvement. Company assistance with community projects is often done through trusts, funds and foundations that share or delegate decision-making to communities (Harvey, 2002; Laurence, 2001). However, this form of public participation, although superior to older paternalistic models of mine-community relations in which companies made such decisions unilaterally, does not entail stakeholder involvement in decisions about core company activities such as tailings management or supply and procurement. Inviting stakeholders on mine tours to inspect facilities and reclaimed sites is another common technique for information transfer (Laurence, 2001). Mines may produce annual reports on their environmental and socioeconomic performance and monitoring programs (BHP Billiton, 2003a). These reports may be presented in workshops or community meetings to allow stakeholders to provide feedback, elevating them to the consultation level on the Public Participation Spectrum. 30 Consulting with local citizens and Aboriginal groups to gather local or traditional knowledge (TK) is an increasingly prevalent practice for incorporating indigenous knowledge and values into environmental assessment and mine development (BHP Billiton, 2003a; Harvey, 2002; Keewatin Publications, 2000). This has the advantage of allowing stakeholders to provide input in a culturally appropriate format rather than trying to "squeeze" their knowledge into the typical Western worldview, but the actual extent of TK integration into mine decision-making is unclear. Social science methods such as opinion leader surveys and community needs assessment involving questionnaires, interviews and focus groups are also used (Harvey, 2002). These would typically be part of a SIA or a company-wide initiative rather than being driven by an individual mine. Involvement and collaboration approaches are less common. Impact Benefit Agreements (IBA) between Aboriginal communities and mining companies have become a de facto regulation in the Canadian mining industry (Hipwell et al., 2002; Sosa & Keenan, 2001; Wolfe, 2001). These comprehensive agreements cover a wide range of issues outside the scope of public participation, including financial payments and employment provisions, but they may also include specific provisions for involvement of Aboriginal representatives in decision-making on mine environmental issues, access to company information and dispute resolution mechanisms such as those found in the Musselwhite General Agreement. This agreement was negotiated and signed in 1992 between Placer Dome Inc. with its joint venture partner TVX Gold Inc. and four First Nation groups and two tribal councils affected by the Musselwhite mine project (Hipwell et al., 2002). While the content of IBAs may provide only some guidance for ongoing Aboriginal participation in mine decisions, the negotiations required to reach these agreements do give Aboriginal groups greater agenda-setting influence than most other public participation activities. Public liaison committees, particularly for stakeholder involvement around reclamation and mine closure are another forum for involvement and collaboration (Britton, 1998; Porcupine Joint Venture, 2003; Whale, Dawson, & Ridge, 2001). These committees are 31 formed around mandates of shared interest (e.g., community economic development, environmental protection) where the parties have different but complementary responsibilities. The Sullivan Public Liaison Committee involved TeckCominco, the owner of the Sullivan Mine, municipal and provincial governments, ENGOs and Aboriginal groups in planning for sustainable economic development in the town of Kimberly, B.C., which had built up around the mine over its 92 years in operation (Whale et al., 2001). It is worth noting that the committee did not start in earnest until a temporary mine closure reminded all of the participants of the challenging reality of mine closure for the community. Another example is the Porcupine Watchful Eye, which is a group of interested community stakeholders who meet on a regular basis to discuss sustainability issues relating to Porcupine Joint Venture mining and reclamation activities. Members of the group include representatives of the Timmins Fur Council, Amateur Naturalists, the City of Timmins and representation from the mining company. The group has undertaken a number of environmental monitoring and habitat restoration at the mine (Porcupine Joint Venture, 2003). Britton's (1998) evaluation of three such committees in British Columbia (including the Sullivan committee) noted that although these public participation initiatives were well-structured for promoting involvement and generally supported by participants, they were relatively weak with respect to decision-making. He further recommended future research in applying techniques of decision analysis to public participation processes to facilitate the making of informed and insightful reclamation decisions. The highest level of the Public Participation Spectrum, empowerment and delegation of final decision-making to stakeholders, is not practiced by mining companies. Since companies bear the ultimate liability for their decisions regarding mine activities, it is unlikely a mining company (or any private corporation for that matter) would willingly forego its right to make the final decision. In general most public participation activities are on the information transfer and consultation end of the Public Participation Spectrum, and involvement and collaboration activities are sporadic and uncommon. Critics in the the NGO community such as Hipwell et al. (2002) declare that the positive examples of 32 meaningful consultation in the mining industry, particularly with Aboriginal peoples, are still the exception rather than the rule. Putting public participation policies into practice at the operating mine level is a challenge for companies and the extent of integration into engineering practice is murky. Government-initiated public participation, almost all of which is part of EA and permitting processes, are described in Table 2-3. These processes have advantages of clear guidelines and uniformity that does not leave all public participation in the hands of mining companies, but they represent a minimum standard and have necessarily judicial elements (e.g., public hearings) that do not foster collaborative solutions. Sinclair and Diduck (2001) cite one EA manager who said: "one concern we hear is that once the public participates and provides their input it is put into a black box" (p. 125). They also point out that consultation is not required until well on in the planning process -which questions its meaningfulness - and passive information dissemination techniques are favoured over continuous information exchange mechanisms such as community advisory committees. Public hearings have been criticized because communication is typically one-way, with little opportunity for dialogue. Further, the timing and location of hearings, as well as their highly technical nature, are "formidable" challenges for low-income and minority citizens to overcome. Often hearings are seen to contain and control participation by allowing only limited choices on narrow, short-term questions at a late stage of the policy process (Rowe & Frewer, 2000). Complying with regulatory requirements for consultation and public participation during the EA process may not be enough to ensure the success of mining projects. In the case of the Tulsequah Chief mine project in northwestern British Columbia, the B.C. Supreme Court issued an injunction in June 2000 temporarily halting work on the project, citing the B.C. government's failure to engage in meaningful consultation with the Taku River Tlingit First Nation during the 1998 EA process which had originally approved the project (Hipwell et al., 2002). To date, the development of the mine has not proceeded. 33 EA processes in the NWT have spawned some innovative third-party arrangements to facilitate public participation and ensure good environmental and social performance. A major outcome of the EA for the Ekati Diamond Mine included an Environmental Agreement that stipulated the creation of an Independent Environmental Monitoring Agency (IEMA) as a mechanism to support the achievement of the Agreement's environmental protection goals, including providing advice to BHP Billiton and facilitating the effective participation of Aboriginal people and the general public (discussed in greater detail in Section 3.1.4) (BHP Billiton, 2004c). The Diavik project followed this path by creating a Diavik Community Advisory Board (DCAB) and an Environmental Monitoring Advisory Board (EMAB) in accordance with the socio economic and environmental agreements reached in the EA process. DCAB provides advice to the Diavik Mine with respect to issues such as business opportunities, recruitment strategies, cross-cultural awareness and employee-specific support programs. EMAB provides similar input for environmental monitoring programs (Diavik Diamond Mines, 2004). Both of these northern diamond mines have involved Aboriginal peoples in participatory environmental monitoring related to the mines and have funded Aboriginal communities to undertake monitoring programs of their own design. Most community and Aboriginal involvement in mining decision-making is still initiated by governments or mining companies, but these groups have been increasingly successful in acquiring funding from various sources (companies, government and NGOs) to conduct independent studies and monitoring programs that inform assessment of mine-related activities. Capacity-building is needed in most cases to facilitate full community and Aboriginal participation in technical engineering and science aspects of mine decision-making. Structured decision processes (SDPs) have not been used in public participation in the Canadian mining industry. They have seen limited use in the USA in public participation processes initiated by regulators (discussed in more detail in Section 2.3). In Canada there have been some use of SDPs in other resource industries such as the Water Use 34 Planning processes undertaken by BC Hydro, a utility company in British Columbia (BC Hydro, 2005) 2.2 Criteria for evaluation of public participation I have argued thus far that public participation is of vital and growing importance to the mining industry, and presented rationales for practicing public participation. I have also hypothesized that SPDs can provide a suitable framework for effective public participation. There is evident conceptual appeal in an explicit, transparent and quantitative framework for making decisions with stakeholder involvement; however, real-world decisions involving real people often bear little resemblance to the abstract principles of decision-making models. The essential question is: do SPDs work in practice? This is especially important for mining companies, who are generally conservative in their use of innovative public participation because of the negative publicity they have received in the past. Regulatory (i.e., government) agencies, the other parties that may conduct such processes, have limited resources for assessment of mining projects and cannot devote the considerable time, energy and funding that such processes require without reasonable assurance that they will be fruitful. Forward looking assessment provides some information in this regard, but it is the evaluation of SDPs based on empirical data that is the best means of answering the question posed above. 2.2.1 Why evaluation is important Evaluation is about determining merit or worth, usually by careful appraisal and study (Chess, 2000; Merriam-Webster, 2004). It is a diverse field and evaluations vary in their goals and methodology. There are three primary reasons for conducting evaluations: to judge merit or worth, to improve programs, and to generate knowledge (Patton, 1997). Judgment-oriented (summative) evaluation looks retrospectively at a participatory process for accountability and decisions regarding replication. Improvement-oriented (formative) evaluation typically occurs during a process, with the aim of making mid-course corrections and generally optimizing the process. One evaluator's metaphor 35 illustrates this distinction: "When the cook tastes the soup, that's formative; when the guests taste the soup, that's summative" (ibid, p. 69). Knowledge-oriented evaluation expands the scope of usage from instrumental to conceptual; it seeks to increase knowledge that is generalizable beyond the process at hand. Academic research usually falls into this category. Public participation processes are initially more complex, costly and potentially frustrating than the traditional "Decide-Announce-Defend" model of decision-making; the ostensible benefits of public participation, including better decisions, increased trust and reduced conflict, come much later than the initial investment of resources.10 Managers therefore have a justifiable interest in knowing that public participation is effective in attaining its goals, and yet: there is little systematic knowledge about what works in public participation, deliberation, and the coordination of deliberation and analysis. When government agencies and other organizations have promoted or created specific deliberative processes, they have rarely reported the results of their efforts (National Research Council, 1996, p. 76). Programs are employed ad hoc, and the lack of data on both process considerations and the quality of resultant decisions also make improving existing programs more difficult (Beierle, 2002; Chess, 2000; van Asselt Marjolein & Rijkens-Klomp, 2002). However, more and more attention is being paid to evaluating public participation Evaluations have two foci: how public participation activities take place (process evaluation) and the results of participatory processes (outcome evaluation) (Chess, 2000; Chess & Purcell, 1999). Process evaluation examines the means used to make a decision and explores issues such as fairness, information exchange, group process, and procedures. Outcome evaluation defines success from results of public participation using goals such as consensus, education and improved quality of decisions. Some researchers concentrate on only one of these aspects, but others believe that public participation should meet some balance of outcome and process goals (Renn et al., 1995). Process 10 In DAD decision making stakeholders are informed only after a decision has been made. 36 considerations should not be downplayed as merely means to "getting results"; the literature on procedural justice suggests that fair processes are likely to have an equal or greater impact on the level of participant satisfaction than any substantive decisions made (Kim & Mauborgne, 1997; Lawrence, Daniels, & Stankey, 1997). If participants are satisfied, they may learn more, share more opinions, brainstorm more effectively, trust the sponsoring organization more and engage other stakeholders more constructively (Beierle, 1998). Chess and Purcell suggest that participants' satisfaction with participatory processes may be associated with satisfaction with outcomes, although they warn that other studies found examples where processes were rated as satisfactory on process and unsatisfactory on outcome, and vice versa. In any case, there is no arguing the fact that public participation should have a goal of improving decisions, and what little evaluation of stakeholder processes has been conducted has focused on process, not decision outcomes (Beierle, 2002). 2.2.2 Selecting goals and criteria Chess and Purcell (1999) identify two major methods for selecting goals and criteria: criteria based on participants' goals and satisfaction and theory-based criteria. Beierle (1998) adds to this "rules of thumb" which practitioners and researchers have found to be consistently successful over time, which are likely reflective of the former two sources (Table 2-4). Table 2-4 Practitioner "rule of thumb" criteria for public participation (Beierle 1998) • Clarity of goals and roles of participants; • Sufficient resources, including financial support, time, and information; • Recognition of the legitimacy of public input equal to that of officials and technical experts; • Procedural independence of public to make decisions, set the agenda, and acquire technical information; and, • Presence of a strong chairperson or facilitator Participant-based criteria are specific to the process at hand, and may vary depending on culture, decision problem, historical context, and other factors. These criteria provide 37 important information to the conveners of a participatory process as they decide whether it provides sufficient benefits to justify their continued support and funding. However, participant-based criteria also present major challenges. Evaluating based on participant-defined outcome criteria raises the difficulty of deciding whose definition of success should be used to base the evaluation. For example, is it the mining company's desire for expedient permitting of a project, or the NIMBY residents' interest in the halting of a project?11 One could argue that all participants have shared interests (e.g., health and public safety), in addition to their own interests, and that these are often more fundamentally important than individual interests. Public participation could be evaluated objectively according to how well it serves the collective interest; the difficulty here is defining with certainty the collective will. Assessing the subjective satisfaction of all the participants is another option; the challenge here is choosing and justifying a weighting scheme that would permit an overall quantitative evaluation (Beierle, 1998). This would also complicate the comparison of different participatory models or techniques (Renn et al., 1995). These considerations led to the development of theoretical bases for evaluating public participation. Criteria based on a particular theory have the advantage of being consistent for different models in varied contexts. Webler suggests that public participation should manifest the general goals of "fairness," giving participants equal opportunities for interaction, and "competence," which he defines as "construction of the most valid understanding and agreements possible given what is reasonably knowable at the time" (Renn et al., 1995). Webler's normative framework emphasizes multi-way communication, consensus-based interaction, critical self-reflection and "reasonableness" as traits of "right" participation that balances individual interests with collective well-being. In contrast to Webler's focus on the communication between individuals, Fiorino (1990) takes a macro-level perspective; he draws on contemporary democratic theory in 11 NIMBY is an abbreviation of Not In My Back Yard (i.e., someone who objects to siting something in their own neighbourhood but does not object to it being sited elsewhere). 38 developing the following four criteria that measure how well citizen participation mechanisms meet democratic ideals: direct participation of amateurs (non-experts), shared decision-making authority, face-to-face discussion, and basis for equality with experts or officials in interaction (e.g., agenda setting, questioning technical experts). Fiorino focuses on normative criteria because he believes that participation in environmental risk decisions reflects technocratic rather than democratic values ; however, he also acknowledges that instrumental and substantive criteria, such as clarifying the factual basis of disputes and improved decision quality, and practical considerations of cost are of some importance. However, even theorists acknowledge that not all public participation should aim for theoretical ideals. For example, routine decisions with little impact may not require extensive deliberation (Renn et al., 1995; Thomas, 1995). Evaluators may also have trouble reconciling the abstract and philosophical basis of these theories with the need to be make their findings practical for their intended users as emphasized in evaluation literature (Patton, 1982, 1997). Beierle (1998) proposes an evaluative framework of "social goals" that are valued outcomes of a participatory process, but transcend the immediate interests of any party in that process. These broader social goals include: educating and informing the public, incorporating public values into decision-making, improving the substantive quality of decisions, increasing trust in institutions, reducing conflict, and achieving cost-effectiveness. Rowe and Frewer (2000) propose criteria based on their experience that strives for applicability to a wider range of methods, including indirect techniques such as surveys. Their criteria fit the description of what Beierle refers to as practitioners' "rules of thumb." Rowe and Frewer do not link their criteria to a theoretical basis or participant goals, but rather divide their criteria into acceptance and process criteria. Technocracy is government by technicians, more specifically the management of society by technical experts (Merriam Webster, 2004). 39 Chess (2000) recommends that practicing "methodological pluralism" in evaluation (i.e., mixing the use of theory-based criteria and goals defined by participants) holds the greatest promise for greater sensitivity to the differences in goals of participants and greater ability to compare between programs. Chess also suggests that studies identify the extent of differences between theoretical criteria and those based on participants' expressed goals. Beierle (1998) states that "there is no 'right' evaluative framework. The choice of approach should be tailored to the kind of problems the evaluator is interested in and the questions he or she is trying to answer" (p. 15). Methodological pluralism is consistent with the recommendation of public participation practitioners that a range of participatory methods of varying intensity and deliberation be used complementarity to engage the spectrum of stakeholders who have differing levels of interest, legitimacy and influence (Connor, 1999a;. Fiorino, 1990; Thomas, 1995); different techniques entail different criteria that may adhere to a greater or lesser degree to theoretical ideals. For example, a responsive publication mailed to the general public to inform and solicit input from ambivalent citizens would rate poorly against many theoretical criteria, but may be an excellent complement to an intensive participatory process for more concerned stakeholders.13 Even studies of the relative effectiveness of public participation methods against a common set of criteria have not found a single best method (Chess & Purcell, 1999; Rowe & Frewer, 2000). In summary, it is recognized that public participation needs systematic evaluation to improve its application and judge whether to implement it. Different sources of criteria have been proposed and many researchers espouse "methodological pluralism," ideally maintaining enough similarity to allow comparison of different models of public participation while maintaining flexibility to adapt to specific contexts. 13 A responsive publication is an information brochure mailed out with a tear-off slip or return envelope that recipients can return to the proponent with comments or concerns (Connor 1999). 40 2.3 A primer on decision analysis 2.3.1 Why mining decisions are difficult The mining industry is faced with difficult decisions. The process of developing a mine today requires a series of decisions based on limited information collected during the exploration phase. Hundreds of millions of dollars are invested based on expert judgment, experience and limited data from geo-physical surveys and diamond drilling core that represents a minute proportion of the mineral resource to be mined. Miners in every era have made decisions that are difficult because of the inherent uncertainty of the geology of mineral resources hidden in the ground. The increasing complexity of mining has also made decisions more difficult. Mines have tended to become bigger, utilizing larger and more sophisticated equipment; the complexity of the mining system itself is compounded by the expansion of mining into areas that introduce situational complexity. Mining today occurs in regions with complex regulatory environments, unstable political regimes and physical environments that present major geotechnical challenges. Each of these sources of complexity adds its own inherent uncertainty. Mining decisions today must also take into account multiple objectives. In the early 20th century, achieving sufficient mine production to guarantee the economic success of the mine was effectively the sole objective. Spurred on by a number of disastrous mine accidents, an emphasis on miner safety evolved in the industry, adding safety objectives to the decision context. The growth of the environmental movement since the 1960s has added environmental objectives such as protection of wildlife habitat and water quality, first as expectations, then as legal requirements. Similarly, the introduction of sustainability thinking in the 1980s has added social objectives such as maximizing local employment and protecting cultural resources; these objectives are not codified as much as environmental ones but are sure to follow the same pattern. Sustainability also emphasizes the interconnectedness of social objectives with economic and environmental ones and stresses holistic problem solving. The result of all these changes is that mining 41 decisions must accomplish multiple objectives, inevitably requiring trade-offs between objectives. Society expects mining decision-makers to take all of the above into consideration, but mining companies are not, nor should they be, primary providers of social services or experts in every aspect of the biophysical and socio-cultural environment in which they operate. Making good decisions therefore often requires information and involvement from stakeholders who have expertise and responsibilities in such areas. Many stakeholders are demanding greater influence on decisions that affect them, reflecting a societal emphasis on public participation in decision-making that has roots in sustainability concepts. A significant challenge of involving multiple stakeholders in decision-making is that different perspectives lead to different conclusions. In other words, stakeholders may interpret the same information and reach very different conclusions based on their distinct values. This variation in perspective is also evident within mines; different components of the organization such as production units and environmental and mine planning departments embody different disciplinary traditions and have different directives that make finding internal consensus on decisions a challenging prerequisite to involving external communities of interest. Some in the mining industry would argue that it is unrealistic and undesirable to achieve so many social and environmental objectives, and to proactively involve stakeholders. Ignoring the pressures of public opinion forces stakeholders to find alternative means of influencing mining decisions such as lawsuits, protests and media campaigns; there is growing evidence that these actions can severely constrain mining companies, to the extent of killing otherwise viable projects. Therefore, the difficulty of mining decisions is inescapable, but mining decision makers have the choice of engaging those sources of difficulty proactively and creatively, or having constraints imposed on their decision making by taking a reactive stance. The first option is clearly more appealing, but what resources are available to assist decision makers with making good decisions subject to inherent uncertainty, complexity, multiple objectives and differing perspectives (Clemen 42 & Reilly, 2001)? My hypothesis is that decision analysis can provide these necessary resources. 2.3.2 Overview of decision analysis There is no trivial solution to getting good outcomes from difficult decision problems; even well thought decisions are subject to some element of chance. However, having a well-developed understanding of a decision problem can greatly increase the likelihood of enjoying a better outcome. Decision analysis prescribes a structured approach to decision-making that can foster the necessary understanding. In practice, decision analysis is often boiled down to a quantitative framework for analysing and comparing alternatives associated with complex decision problems (Ohlson, 1999). A range of quantitative and qualitative analytical tools supports this framework. Decision analysis developed from roots in mathematics and economics, particularly in the study of subjective probability and utility theory (Howard, 1988; Keeney, 1982). These roots shaped the structured approach that provides the framework "skeleton" for quantitative comparison of alternatives. Decision analysis has also been shaped by insights from psychology on the behavioural aspects of decision-making (Keeney, 1982; von Winterfeldt & Edwards, 1986). Consideration of qualitative values and judgments fleshes out the evaluative framework. The synthesis of these two disciplinary traditions has produced a systematic, quantitative model for decision-making that integrates qualitative judgment in an explicit and defensible manner. Decision analysis theory was initially developed for the case of a single decision maker, but adapted in response to the interaction of multiple decision makers and stakeholders present in many real-world decision problems. The multiple-stakeholder approach, in which the same decision problem is analyzed from the perspective of different stakeholders, was the result; the goal of this approach is not to find the best alternative, but to "clarify the values and opinions of the stakeholders, to pinpoint the sources of disagreement, and to develop compromise solutions" (von Winterfeldt, 1992, p. 322). 43 This introduced elements of negotiation and collaboration and as a result, crosses over into the realm of public participation. In summary, decision analysis is based on principles that prescribe a process for decision making. Analytical tools have been developed to assist with various steps of the process. Each of these - process, principles, and tools - is discussed in the following sections. These are applicable both to traditional (single decision maker) and multi-stakeholder decision analysis. Since the latter is most germane for this thesis, attention has been drawn to aspects that are particularly important for a multi-stakeholder context. Terminology of decision analysis Decision analysts assign precise meaning to a number of terms that may be used or understood differently in common usage. Definitions of the key decision analysis terms are given below. Values are what we consider as intrinsically desirable or valuable. In decision analysis, values are more precisely defined as "principles for evaluating the desirability of any possible alternatives or consequences (Keeney, 1994, p. 33)." They define all that decision makers care about in a specific decision and are the most fundamental aspects of any decision. An objective is a statement of something that one wants to strive towards or achieve. It is characterized by a decision context, an object and a direction of preference. For example, a mine would have an objective to "minimize water quality impacts" from their tailings facility. The decision context is tailings management, the object is water quality and the direction of preference is less impact rather than more. Objectives are further distinguished as fundamental objectives, which concern the final outcomes the decision makers value in a specific decision context, or means objectives, which are ways of achieving ends (Keeney, 1994). Attributes (also called attribute scales) measure the degree to which objectives are achieved. Objectives may have natural, proxy or constructed attribute scales (Clemen & 44 Reilly, 2001). Some objectives such as "minimize construction costs" can be measured quantitatively with a natural attribute scale like dollars. Others may have a suitable proxy attribute that measures an indicator with a known or inferred relationship to the actual objective in cases where the objective is very difficult or impossible to measure (e.g., measuring greenhouse gas emissions as a proxy for measuring effects of industry on climate change). Custom attribute scales can be constructed for objectives related to values such as aesthetics or cultural resources that may not have a natural or proxy attribute (constructed scales are further described in Section 2.3.5). Alternatives represent the range of potential choices a decision maker has for pursuing his or her objectives. Consequences (also called impacts) are the expected outcomes with respect to each of the attributes for the alternatives under consideration. The decision maker articulates his preference for consequences in terms of tradeoffs between objectives. Tradeoffs involve giving up something in one objective in order to achieve more in terms of another (Hammond, Keeney, & Raiffa, 1999). Decision analysis applications are known by a number of similar terms, including multi-attribute tradeoff analysis, multi criteria decision-making, multi criteria analysis, multiple accounts analysis and other variants. These terms are not clearly differentiated and may describe a decision by a single decision maker or a multi-stakeholder decision process. For the purposes of this thesis, multi-stakeholder applications of decision analysis are referred to generically as Structured Decision Processes (SDP). 2.3.3 Process Decision analysis is founded on a set of axioms that imply that the attractiveness of alternatives in a decision problem should be based on i) the likelihoods of the possible consequences of the alternatives; and ii) the preferences of decision makers for those consequences (Keeney, 1982).14 These axioms provide the theoretical basis for the decomposition approach at the heart of decision analysis: 14 An axiom is "a statement accepted as true as the basis for argument or inference" (Merriam- Webster 2004). 45 The methodology of decision analysis consists of decomposing a decision problem into its factual and value parts, analyzing the factual parts as probability problems, analyzing the value parts as utility problems, and re-aggregating both by using explicitly stated and logical principles of probability and utility theory (von Winterfeldt, 1992, p. 321). The application of this methodology is illustrated in a four-stage process suggested by Keeney (1982) and shown in Figure 2-4 and summarized in Table 2-5. The terminology for the specific SDP used in the case study, Multiple Accounts Analysis (MAA), is also shown. STEP 1 Structure Problem Identify decision makers and other stakeholders Identify potential alternatives Identify objectives & decision criteria STEP 2 Assess Impacts Determine the impacts of each alternative with respect to each objective STEP 3 Assess Preferences Assess the preferences of stakeholders and decision makers STEP 4 Evaluate Evaluate using a multi-attribute ^ framework MAA Terminology Identify accounts and options Scaling of options Weighting of accounts Combine in MAA ledger Figure 2-4 The generic decision analysis process (Keeney, 1982; Ohlson, 1999) 46 Table 2-5 The generic decision analysis process Step Description 1. Define and structure the decision problem 2. Assess the impacts 3. Assess the preferences Specify the decision to be made. Define and structure the objectives of the decision-makers.15 Using these objectives, develop specific criteria to evaluate alternatives. Define current alternatives and generate new alternatives. Specify the probable impact of each alternative with respect to the objectives defined in Step 1. Impacts are assessed and quantified using empirical data, modeling and subjective judgment from a variety of sources. Special emphasis is placed on modeling uncertainty in the predicted impacts. Elicit the preferences of the decision makers for each of the impacts predicted for the alternatives in Step 2. Decision makers are required to make explicit value tradeoffs between objectives, which are quantified relative to one another to create a comprehensive utility model. 4. Evaluate and compare Combine the impact model and utility model to evaluate and compare alternatives alternatives. Sensitivity analyses can be conducted on both the factual (impact) and value (utility) components of the decision problem. Iteration is used to incorporate improvements in understanding. Although Figure 2-4 gives the impression of a linear process, decision analysis is ideally (and typically) iterative (Clemen & Reilly, 2001). There should be feedback loops at every stage as one gains a deeper understanding of the circumstances and events (Raiffa, 2002). Sensitivity analysis may reveal the need for more analysis or deliberation on highly sensitive aspects of a decision, or new alternatives may bring to light hidden objectives, for example. In some cases, the definition of the problem itself may need to be modified. 2.3.4 Principles Decision analysis is a prescriptive approach to improving how we make real-life decisions. Its principles are influenced both by its roots in mathematics and economics, which suggest how decisions should be made by ultra-smart, ultra-rational individuals, and also by a descriptive perspective, which describes how people actually behave in reality. Behavioural decision research has shown that people do not act in accordance 15 For the purposes of this section, stakeholders involved in a SDP are considered to form part of the group of decision makers, although they may not directly influence the final decision. 47 with normative rational ideals; they fall into a number of decision traps, also called heuristics and biases (Raiffa, 2002; Slovic, Fischhoff, & Lichtenstein, 1979). These are essentially "rules of thumb" for inferring judgments from available information that can be misleading for complex decisions. The principles of decision analysis are designed to mitigate the effect of decision traps by breaking complex decision problems into simpler sub-problems. Value-focused thinking The typical way we approach decisions problems is reactive. Decisions are thrust upon us by circumstances or by the actions of others and we regard them as problems. We face these decisions by identifying alternatives and only then consider objectives and criteria to evaluate them. Keeney (1992) describes this approach as "alternative-focused thinking" and proposes "value-focused thinking" as a proactive approach to better decision making. Value-focused thinking reverses the traditional process by identifying what is important to decision makers in a specific decision situation prior to defining alternatives: It is these values that are fundamentally important in any decision situation, more fundamental than alternatives, and they should be the driving force for our decision making. Alternatives are relevant only because they are means to achieve values (Keeney, 1994, p. 33). Values are the basic principles that guide actions and preferences; they are the basis for identifying the objectives we hope to achieve in a decision situation.16 A corollary of this approach is that having a clear understanding of our values enables us to move from reacting to decisions as problems imposed upon us to proactively identifying decision opportunities (i.e., circumstances that enable us to accomplish our objectives). Problem structuring and decomposition Problem structuring is a key principle of decision analysis because it is a prerequisite to decomposing the decision problem into manageable sub-problems. Objectives are clarified and systematically related to one another. Fundamental objectives are 16 Value-focused thinking is notably consistent with the principles of interest-based negotiation described in Getting to Yes (Fisher, Ury, & Patton, 1991), a well-known book on principled negotiation. Negotiation literature uses the term "interest" synonymously with "objective." 48 distinguished from means objectives and linked hierarchically to sub-objectives. Only fundamental objectives should be used to evaluate and compare alternatives (Hammond et al., 1999), because this allows greater creativity in finding ways to accomplish objectives. Sub-objectives that are specific enough to be measurable are used as criteria (also known as attributes) for alternative evaluation. Defining alternatives requires creativity to expand options beyond the first alternatives that come to mind, such as the status quo, that unnecessarily constrain thinking. Focusing on values removes the "anchor of the obvious." Alternatives are characterized with respect to each attribute (criteria) in the objective hierarchy. Decomposition of complex decision problems happens in two distinct ways. The first is the separation of the factual and value components of the decision17 (as stated by von.': Winterfeldt, 1992) and the second is the decomposition of the alternatives with respect to each attribute. Within the factual component (Step 2 in the generic process illustrated in Figure 2-4), the impact of an alternative on each attribute is modeled and quantified using tools such as computer simulation or elicited judgments. Attacking one sub-problem at a time is conceptually easier for decision makers and takes into account the limitations of assessment tools. The distinction between predicting impacts and assessing preferences allows decision makers (particularly in multi-stakeholder contexts) to reach agreement on the factual basis of predictions prior to moving on to the typically more contentious relative valuation of impacts. Pinpointing sources of disagreement can make decision processes more efficient; disagreements over data collection and modeling may be solved with more complete information or more sophisticated modeling, but if values underlie the disagreement, then negotiation, not more data, is required. 17 Ohlson (1999) acknowledges that the distinction between facts and values is in reality not clear-cut, but nevertheless argues for the utility of this construct: "This separation of facts and values is, admittedly, an oversimplification. Especially in the presence of uncertainty, the interpretation of scientific information is dependent on values and preferences. Thus, there is no absolute distinction between facts and values. Nonetheless, this simplification is useful in that there is a role for scientific experts in informing decision making processes that is qualitatively different from the role of affected stakeholders in assigning preferences to alternative outcomes or objectives." 49 Explicit treatment of uncertainty and subjective judgment Uncertainty over facts (What will happen?) and values (What matters?) pervades all complex decisions. Explicit characterization of the source and range of uncertainties is a fundamental principle of decision analysis. It enables decision makers to evaluate alternatives against their risk tolerance, improves understanding of conflicting expert opinions and facilitates adaptive management. Adaptive management is a systematic approach to improving environmental management that "explicitly recognizes the existence of uncertainty, documents hypotheses about the response of ecological systems to management intervention, monitors actual responses, and adjusts management actions over time" (Failing, Horn, & Higgins, 2004, p. 1). Subjective judgments play a central role in decision analysis. Objective, value-free analysis is not possible or practical. As complexity increases, professional judgment and experience play a larger role as the percentage of a problem that can be captured by "objective data" typically decreases (Keeney, 1982; Ohlson, 1999). Vick (2002) argues that judgment is also an inherent and essential part of engineering practice, despite the common view that judgment is "stop-gap" for objective, quantitative data. Rather than downplaying the important contribution of judgment, as many decision processes do, decision analysis provides theory and procedures for systematically gathering and integrating explicit professional and value judgments. Techniques for this are well developed and described in the literature (Clemen & Reilly, 2001). Applying value focused thinking, problem structuring and explicit treatment of uncertainty and subjective judgment contributes to a transparent decision framework, which makes decision making less arbitrary and easier to communicate (Ohlson, 1999). This transparency facilitates iteration because it is easy for decision makers to see how specific data or judgments fit into the decision framework, so new and improved knowledge can easily be incorporated. 50 2.3.5 Tools The practical application of decision analysis principles is supported by a number of tools or techniques that are used to structure the decision, characterize uncertainty and assess impacts and value tradeoffs (Table 2-6). These tools complement typical tools for collecting and analyzing information such as Geographical Information Systems (GIS), environmental baseline studies and computer modeling. A number of the tools for problem framing (structuring) employ graphical representations or tables to show the often-complex relationships between problem elements. The discussion below is not intended to cover the "how to" application of these representative tools, but rather to introduce them. Table 2-6 Summary of decision analysis tools Decision structuring Characterizing uncertainty Assessing impacts and tradeoffs • Fundamental objectives hierarchy • Means-ends objective network • Influence diagram • Decision tree • Strategy table • Multi-attribute evaluation frameworks • Sensitivity analysis • Expected value calculation • Expected value of information methods • Probability elicitation • Constructed attribute scales • Preference assessment techniques A fundamental objectives hierarchy or value tree expresses all the important objectives relating to a decision and defines them in terms of more specific, lower level sub-objectives (Keeney, 1992). Performance measures are developed for each of the lowest-level objectives in the hierarchy. Objectives hierarchies should strike a balance between completeness and avoiding redundancy. Only fundamental (ends) objectives are included to avoid double-counting caused by using means objectives. A means-ends objective network shows how means objectives contribute to one another, and ultimately to achieving the overall fundamental objectives. Means objectives, unlike fundamental objectives, may be connected to several different objectives. Objectives 51 networks are a good basis for generating creative new alternatives (Clemen & Reilly, 2001). An influence diagram is a simple, graphical representation of a decision situation (Clemen & Reilly, 2001). It uses differently shaped nodes to represent decisions, uncertain events and resultant outcomes, and arrows to show how elements influence one another. Influence diagrams can aid for communication of complex decisions and foster "systems thinking," especially for SDP participants with limited technical knowledge (Howard, 1988). A decision tree is an alternative format for decision modeling that is more detailed and amenable to calculation. It includes the same elements as an influence diagram but in a branched tree format that allows decision makers to model and see the possible future outcomes of their decisions when combined with important uncertain events. A strategy table is a tool for organizing a series of smaller decisions in specific areas, each with a number of alternatives that make up a larger decision. A strategy-generation table displays these sub-decisions and their associated alternatives to enable the decision maker to develop a "strategy" of compatible or synergistic choices without being overwhelmed by the sheer number of possible combinations (Howard, 1988). Multi-attribute evaluation frameworks are used to structure and concisely display the essential elements of a decision situation. It consists of a matrix with objectives along one axis and alternatives along the other, with the predicted impacts of each alternative on each objective filling the cells (also called an objectives by alternatives table or consequence table). It used to make comparisons and clarify tradeoffs between objectives. Uncertainty is dealt with by methods varying in analytical sophistication and information requirements, depending on both the nature and the magnitude of the uncertainty itself, the potential consequences of being wrong, and the resources available. Methods vary 52 from simple identification of major uncertainties to simulations with continuous probability distributions for key input variables (McDaniels, 1996). Several particularly useful methods are described below: Sensitivity analysis involves varying uncertain parameters within a plausible range to determine their effect on possible outcomes (Clemen & Reilly, 2001). This highlights what parameters are most important to the decision, and consequently where information gathering efforts (i.e., to reduce uncertainty) would be most beneficial. Probabilistic tools are important for describing uncertainty quantitatively. Selecting an alternative on the basis of maximizing expected value (typically monetary) is one example of this approach. The expected value of an alternative is the probability-weighted average of all possible outcomes; it can be thought of as the "best guess" for the value of an uncertain quantity (Clemen & Reilly, 2001). In practice, expected value techniques require that decision makers identify all possible uncertain events, assign a probability to each, estimate the outcome of interest, and calculate the probability-weighted average (Ohlson, 1999). Expected value of information methods build on basic expected value calculations to estimate the value that a decision maker would gain from having improved information that eliminates or reduces uncertainty. This is helpful for determining what level of resources could be reasonably committed to obtaining better information. 53 Probability elicitation In many decision situations there is a lack of data on the probability of important uncertain events or conditions. Gathering this data may be too costly or time-consuming to be practical for informing a decision. Getting estimates of probabilities from structured interviews with experts in the field of interest is another option. Eliciting expert judgments is no substitute for modeling, experimentation, and data analysis, but is meant to "provide a snapshot of the state of knowledge" based on these traditional means of garnering insights for decision-making (von Winterfeldt, 1992, p. 333). Constructed attribute scales Quantitative valuation can be obtained for an objective that is inherently qualitative (e.g., minimize aesthetic impacts) or incompatible with existing natural measures by constructing an attribute scale that indexes a quantitative scale to written descriptions of "best" to "worst" achievement of the objective (Clemen & Reilly, 2001). There are many constructed attributes in common usage, such as gross national product (GNP) in economics and the Apgar test for assessing the well-being of newborn babies in health care. For multi-stakeholder decisions, stakeholders can be directly involved in defining the scale for objectives that most concern them. Preference assessment techniques Assessing the preferences of decision-makers for the predicted outcomes of decision alternatives is essential to support making tradeoffs between objectives. A number of techniques are used to assess preferences, varying from relatively simple holistic ranking to more complex, quantitative methods such as swing-weighting that elicit ratios of utility between attributes. Multiple methods may be used in the same decision problem to verify preferences; inconsistencies between methods (for each stakeholder) and between stakeholders can be used to clarify rationales behind preferences (Hobbs & Horn, 1997). Structured Decision Processes Structured Decision Processes (SDPs) follow the decision analysis process shown in Table 2-5 to aid multi-stakeholder decision making. Different SDPs vary in how closely they observe the full range of decision analysis principles and in which tools they employ 54 throughout the process. All SDPs follow the principles of decomposition and problem structuring, although they vary in the emphasis they place on distinguishing fundamental (ends) objectives from means objectives. A number of SDPs do not explicitly use a "value-focused" approach but are instead "alternative-focused" by default. SDPs may utilize sophisticated techniques (e.g., for characterizing uncertainty) or rely primarily on unstructured subjective judgment, depending on the scope, importance and availability of resources for the decision context. Multi-attribute evaluation frameworks are the primary means of organizing and aggregating relevant information for a decision; simply stated, the key differences between the various SDPs are in how this information is gathered. Multiple Accounts Analysis Multiple Accounts Analysis (MAA) is a simplified SDP adapted for mining applications by Robertson and Shaw (1998), mining consultants based in Vancouver.18 It is worth noting here that MAA uses different terminology than the standard decision analysis terms described in Section 2.3.2. The differences are shown in Figure 2-4 and summarized in Table 2-7 below. Table 2-7 Comparison of standard decision analysis and Multiple Accounts Analysis terminology Standard decision analysis Multiple Accounts Analysis • Objective • Attribute • Alternative • Assessing consequences • Assessing preferences and tradeoffs • Objectives by alternatives/consequence table • Account • Indicator • Option • Scaling impacts • Weighting accounts • Multiple Accounts ledger MAA uses a multi-attribute evaluation framework called a MAA Ledger of Accounts that divides the decision criteria into four main accounts: environmental, technical, project economics and socio-economics (the MAA ledger developed in the Ekati case study is shown in Appendix F). The technical account includes engineering criteria such as stability, ease of construction and maintenance requirements. The project economics 18 Further description of Multiple Accounts Analysis is available at: http://technology.infomme.corri/enviromine/Issues/cls_MAA.html 55 account includes the proponent's financial costs and benefits related to the project, while the socio-economics account covers a broad range of external criteria including areas as diverse as employment and aesthetics. The four accounts are then divided into sub accounts that are elicited from the MAA participants and given appropriate indicators to measure their performance. In practice, the MAA ledger is developed interactively with a spreadsheet projected onto a large screen visible to all the process participants. A simple example of the environmental sub-account for a hypothetical decision is shown in Figure 2-5. The sub-accounts are the criteria or issues of importance against which the alternatives are compared (e.g., dust, contamination of surface water). Each sub-account has one or more indicators that are measures or descriptors of the degree to which a sub account objective is achieved. Indicators may be natural measures such as dollar value for costs, or may a qualitative descriptor such as "ease of construction". It is at this stage in the MAA process that an initial set of options is developed. Once all of the sub-accounts (on the vertical axis) and options (on the horizontal axis) have been added of the MAA ledger, the next step is to scale the impacts of each option on each sub-account. This step involves a synthesis of "hard" scientific data and the judgment of those with expertise or experience in the subject matter. Both qualitative and quantitative indicators are converted to a scalar 1 to 9 scale; this impact scale is relative, meaning that the best option for a particular sub-account scores a 9 and the other options are scaled relative that option, regardless of whether the best option is ideal in an absolute sense The accounts, sub-accounts and indicators are then weighted relative to one another, usually on a scale of 1 to 5, based on discussion and debate amongst the full group of stakeholders. Weighting is done using holistic ranking and does not involve direct valuation of tradeoffs between sub-accounts. The factual (i.e., scaling) and value (i.e., weighting) components of the decision are aggregated by take the sum of the scalar values multiplied by the weights, then dividing by the sum of the weights, as shown in Figure 2-5. This is done successively for sub-accounts, accounts and then the option as a 56 whole to give a summary MAA score for each option (on a 1 to 9 scale). The options are ranked in order of decreasing MAA score.. sub-account score s,, alternative, OPTION SCALAR ii.-,' Site 3 /sue* Site 5 i^i.i!.M.i.i.iiiti!fnnBnHiri i IN mm IIII III •II1MII1 1 a i!if 1 'tl i]' - 1 wl | S*ib Account Scwe:| [•••••RB 4 7 9 9 7 2 Fisn/berithic impadpotential 4 rating (hign• low) MM B n n a i-i- •: : , • . . 4 ratingih.gt. \un> tl H H H H Sub Account Seine: pHnMMHRP*t|HM| _______ Account si in i-: 5.5 77 4.9 account score S = SUM( W,. s, j) / SUM( W,) Figure 2-5 Example of environmental account of MAA Ledger Screening out indicators that do not discriminate between options further refines the decision model. If the difference in the product of the scalar value and weight between the best and worst option is less than a threshold percentage (usually 30%), the indicator is taken out of the model by reducing its weighting to zero. This gives a greater contrast between options, because non-discriminating indicators have a "diluting" effect on the spread of the MAA scores. Sensitivity analysis is performed to determine whether varying decision model parameters (usually weightings) change the ranking of the options. For example, one iteration is usually done with a zero weighting assigned to the project economics account to allow stakeholders to assess how important cost considerations are to the decision. 57 2.3.6 Experiences of implementation in the mining industry Decision analysis has been used successfully to assist decision makers for the past 40 years (von Winterfeldt & Edwards, 1986). Early applications were in private industry and government and included new product decisions, medical problems, energy policy, and the setting of standards (Keeney, 1982). These applications involved a single decision maker and were not complicated by multi-stakeholder considerations. Mining-related applications include monitoring water flow in fractured rocks (Jardine, 1996), mining investment decisions (Walls & Clyman, 1998) and tailings facility siting (Kerr, Home, Brown, & Poling, 2004). Use of decision analysis in the mining industry is not commonplace, but its cousin risk analysis has become standard. Risk analysis techniques such as Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) have become a regular part of the engineering design process for mine facilities, particularly tailings dams (Vick, 2002). FMEA involves systematically characterizing the likelihood and consequences of the potential failure modes of structures, equipment or processes. The past few decades have seen an expansion of multi-stakeholder applications as public participation in decision-making has become more prevalent. Most of these applications have been at a policy level, with many addressing natural resource management issues. This is likely due to the greater resources and time available to develop a SDP, as compared to project level decisions. BC Hydro has undertaken some of the most sophisticated and lengthy SDPs in Canada to develop Water Use Plans with its stakeholders for 23 hydro generating facilities over the past several years (BC Hydro, 2005; Gregory & Failing, 2002; Nikolic, 2002). The Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of British Columbia (APEGBC) awarded BC Hydro with its Sustainability Award in 2004 for its Water Use Planning efforts (Mathews, 2004). BC Hydro's innovative use of SDPs is facilitated by their status as a crown corporation, which gives them a stronger rationale for public participation than strictly private sector corporations. There have only been two project-level SDPs in the mining industry, all of which were initiated by regulators in the USA prior to the Ekati case study. 58 These two case studies have involved the use of Multiple Accounts Analysis (MAA). MAA has been closely integrated with FMEA in the design and development of operating plans (Robertson & Shaw, 2005). The first MAA case study in 2000 was used to select a reclamation alternative for the Zortman and Landusky gold mines in Montana. These two mines were closed when the owner became insolvent, leaving the regulators with limited reclamation bonding for reclamation and closure measures. The regulators initiated the MAA with a stakeholder group consisting of three regulatory agencies (Montana Department of Environmental Quality, U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency), the Fort Belknap Indian Band and their technical consultants (Center for Science in Public Participation), the engineering firm selected to perform the reclamation work (Spectrum Engineering) and their sub consultants, including Robertson GeoConsultants who facilitated the MAA process. The participants met once a month for approximately a year before unanimously choosing a preferred alternative, and regarded the MAA as a success (Shaw, Robertson, Maehl, Kuipers, & Haight, 2001). The second case study again was similar to the first, involving many of the same groups involved in the Zortman-Landusky MAA in the selection of a reclamation alternative for another mine in Montana. The Golden Sunlight MAA was conducted for an operating mine and ran from May to September 2003. The political driver for this MAA was a lawsuit by several environmental NGOs demanding that the open pit be fully backfilled, an option that the mining company claimed would render a planned pit expansion unfeasible, effectively reducing the life of the mine by five years (BLM, 2004; RGC, 2003). The participants reached a consensus on a reclamation plan but no detailed information on their level of satisfaction with the outcome is available. 59 Chapter 3 Case Study: Ekati Diamond Mine Tailings Management Multiple Accounts Analysis In this section the case study at the Ekati Diamond Mine is introduced. An overview of the biophysical, socioeconomic and regulatory context of the mine is presented. The decision context of developing an updated tailings management plan for the Long Lake Containment Facility is described. The stakeholders involved in the consultation process and the Multiple Accounts Analysis approach used to structure their involvement are also presented. The evaluation of this process is discussed in Chapters 4 and 5. 3.1 Mine context 3.1.1 Location and facilities The Ekati Diamond mine, operated by BHP Billiton Diamonds Inc.,19 began production in 1998 as Canada's first diamond mine. The mine is located in a remote Arctic tundra region of the Northwest Territories (NWT) approximately 300 km northeast of its capital city of Yellowknife (Figure 3-1). The diamonds are hosted in a series of kimberlite pipes that are mined with both open pit and underground methods. The mine is estimated to yield 3 to 5 million carats annually. In the process plant, diamonds are separated from the waste rock using physical processes: crushing, scrubbing and screening; heavy medium separation using a slurry of water and ferrosilicon; and X-ray recovery. Unlike mineral processing of metal ores, diamond processing does not rely heavily on chemical reagents, although a small amount of chemical flocculants and coagulants are added to the tailings stream after diamond recovery to speed the settling of fine particles and reduce the Total Suspended Solids (TSS) in the tailings water. Mining is planned to continue until 2014. BHP Billiton Diamonds is part of the BHP Billiton Group, the world's largest diversified resources company with mining, oil and gas properties (BHP Billiton, 2003b). 60 Figure 3-1 Ekati Diamond Mine location (courtesy of Ekati Diamond Mine) 61 Access to the mine site is by air and winter road from Yellowknife over frozen lakes and tundra (open for about 10 weeks of the year). Ekati is operated as a long distance commuting operation, with most employees working on a two-week rotation. 3.1.2 Biophysical environment The Ekati Diamond mine is located in the "barrenlands," close to Lac de Gras in an area of continuous permafrost, 100 km north of the tree line. The mineral claim block covers 344,000 hectares or 3,440 square kilometres, of which only 10,960 hectares are included in the active mining land lease. The barrenlands are flat and covered with numerous small lakes, some of which were drained to allow mining of the underlying kimberlite pipes. The mining lease area provides habitat for a number of large and small mammals, birds and fish species, most notably the Bathurst caribou herd that migrates through the area each spring and fall. The range of environmental issues associated with the mine include wildlife impacts, aquatic effects, impacts associated with mine waste and cumulative effects (Independent Environmental Monitoring Agency, 2001; Independent Environmental Monitoring Agency, 2002). MacLachlan et al (1996) observed in the Report of the Environmental Assessment Panel "potential effects on wildlife, in particular caribou, and water were the most important environmental issues in this review" (as cited by Ross, 2004, p. 182). The Bathurst caribou herd is the largest herd in Canada and caribou are of great importance for the local Aboriginal peoples. Ekati's management of environmental issues is centred on environmental management plans and an adaptive management strategy. The mine is ISO 14001 certified and management plans include monitoring programs for air quality, aquatic effects, wildlife effects and reclamation programs (BHP Billiton, 2003a). These plans also incorporate traditional knowledge of the Aboriginal people of the area, as required by the Environmental Assessment Review Panel (EARP), particularly in the protection of cultural heritage resources and wildlife monitoring. Adaptive management involves conducting studies and monitoring results to reduce uncertainty about environmental 62 effects and using this knowledge to develop mitigative strategies as impacts become known. The Independent Environmental Monitoring Agency (IEMA) reports that "BHP Billiton has conducted its Ekati operation in an environmentally safe and responsible manner since it was first licensed. No significant environmental problems have occurred, and no major environmental issues are looming" (IEMA, 2004b, p. 2), although it also has suggestions for improvement in specific aspects of environmental management at the mine. 3.1.3 Socio-economic environment Diamond mining is an important contributor to the NWT economy, accounting for just over 20% of the Northwest Territories' GDP in 2002 (Santarossa, 2004). This contribution is growing with newer mines such as the Diavik mine, which began producing in 2003, and a number of advanced projects scheduled to begin mining in the next few years. It is anticipated that once NWT mines reach full production, they will produce from 12% to 15% of the world's diamonds by value — making Canada the third-largest producer of diamonds, ahead of South Africa (GNWT, 2005). Ekati has approximately 750 employees. Hiring preference is given to Aboriginal northerners and other NWT residents. In 2002 the total operations employment was 28% northern Aboriginal and 58% northerners, just below the targets of 31% and 62%, respectively, set in the Socio-Economic Agreement (SEA) signed in 1996 by BHPB and the Government of the NWT (GNWT). The SEA outlines areas of cooperation between the two parties on socio-economic factors of the Ekati Diamond Mine, including mine procurement spending, skills training and business opportunities, in addition to employment targets (GNWT, 1996). One of the stipulations of the agreement is for Ekati to reserve a portion of the rough diamonds (currently 10%) for cutting and polishing in Yellowknife as part of a strategy to develop a local diamond cutting industry. Although results are reported annually, the SEA has no enforcement mechanisms. 63 Ekati also entered into four voluntary Impact and Benefits Agreements (IBA) directly with Aboriginal communities of interest (Table 3-1): Dogrib Treaty 11 Council, Akaitcho Treaty 8, North Slave Metis Alliance, and Kitikmeot Inuit Association. The IBAs are confidential contracts that detail the benefits that specific Aboriginal communities receive and generally include cash payments, scholarships, as well as hiring and business preference provisions (BHP Billiton, 2003b). Employees from the point-of-hire communities (most of the communities shown in Table 3-1) are flown directly from the mine site to their respective home communities, without a stopover in Yellowknife, to ensure that increased income does not result in undue social disruption. Table 3-1 Aboriginal communities of interest Affiliation Community Population Distance from project (km) Treaty 11 Dogrib Dene Rae-Edzo 1,600 330 Wha Ti 415 370 Rae Lakes 255 310 Snare Lake (Wekweti) 135 180 Akaitcho Treaty 8 Dene Lutsel k'e 300 250 Dettah 190 310 N'dilo 150 310 North Slave Metis Alliance Yellowknife 1,200 310 Rae-Edzo 50 330 Kitikmeot Inuit Association Kugluktuk (Coppermine) 1,200 400 Umingmaktok 50 350 3.1.4 Regulatory environment Mining has played a significant role in the development of the NWT, from the growth of the city of Yellowknife around the Giant and Con gold mines to the nascent Canadian diamond mining industry. However, many mines that spurred economic activity in the north such as the Colomac, Giant and Port Radium mines also left poor environmental and social legacies (NOAMI, 2003). This legacy of poorly planned mine closures has understandably spurred public vigilance of the industry, resulting in a strict regulatory environment for current mines. 64 The regulatory approval process for the Ekati Diamond Mine included a full panel review, the highest level of assessment under the Canadian environmental impact assessment process. The extensive review was carried out from 1994 to 1996 (Couch, 2002). Approval also required granting of a Water License by the Northwest Territories Water Board, as well as several other permits and authorizations. In addition to the regulatory requirements, an Environmental Agreement (EA) was negotiated with the Government of Canada and the Northwest Territories to address environmental concerns that were not covered by existing legislation and regulation (BHP Billiton, 2003b). The Environmental Agreement outlines the management, monitoring and regulation of the environmental effects of the mine (Table 3-2). Table 3-2 Objectives of the Ekati Environmental Agreement (BHP Billiton, 2004c) • To respect and protect land, water and wildlife and the land-based economy essential to the way of life and wellbeing of the Aboriginal peoples; • To facilitate the use of holistic and ecosystem-based approaches for the monitoring, management and regulation of the project; • To provide advice to BHP Billiton to assist BHP Billiton in managing the project consistent with these purposes; • To maximize the effectiveness and coordination of environmental monitoring and regulation of the project; and • To facilitate effective participation of the Aboriginal peoples and the general public in the achievement of the above The Environmental Agreement also established the formation of the Independent Environmental Monitoring Agency (IEMA) which serves as a public watchdog for the regulatory process, and collects and reviews reports on environmental data, environmental effects, monitoring programs and the integration of traditional knowledge and experience into environmental plans (IEMA, 2004a). IEMA board members have considerable technical expertise and the Agency has a sufficient budget to hire additional experts to review Ekati reports. The IEMA is primarily funded by BHPB as stipulated The seven-member Agency board includes four members appointed by Akaitcho Treaty 8, Kitikmeot Inuit Association, Dogrib Treaty 11 Council and the North Slave Metis Alliance. In addition, three 65 by the Environmental Agreement. It represents the first such independent agency for environmental assessment follow-up for a mining project in Canada. The adaptive management approach taken by BHPB made it all the more important to have an effective monitoring and management program in place for the mine (Ross, 2004). The IEMA has no formal influence on environmental decisions made by the mine although it has significant indirect influence by participating as an intervenor in regulatory processes and other consultation forums. The key regulatory agencies responsible for ongoing oversight of Ekati include the Departments of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC, commonly known as DIAND, the acronym of its predecessor) and the Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) and Environment Canada (EC) at a federal level, and the NWT Department of Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development (RWED) and the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board21 (MVLWB) at a territorial/regional level. The Canadian mining industry has complained of the uncertainty of the regulatory regime in the NWT due to a lack of clarity and coordination between the various regulatory bodies (NWT and Nunavut Chamber of Mines, The Mining Association of Canada, & The Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada, 2004). Figure 3-2 shows a graphical summary of Ekati's primary stakeholders and the major agreements that guide its consultation activities. members are appointed by BHP Billiton, Canada and the Government of the NWT in consultation with the Aboriginal peoples. 21 The EKATI Diamond Mine was permitted under the Northwest Territories Water Act, which was replaced in 1998 by the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act (MVRMA). This Act resulted from the Gwich'in and Sahtu Comprehensive Land Claims Agreements and established the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board, with increased Aboriginal representation (MVLWB, 2003). 66 Gove i mnent Re gill at or Figure 3-2 Schematic of Ekati stakeholders and agreements 3.2 Consultation activities 3.2.1 Stakeholders The major communities of interest affected by the project were determined by the Environmental Assessment Review Panel (EARP) to be Aboriginal groups from the surrounding regions shown in Table 3-1. These Aboriginal groups traditionally used the area where the mine is now located or waterways downstream of the mine. First Nations and Inuit have constitutionally protected rights to consultation and compensation regarding any developments on their traditional territories. The success of any mining project in Canada, particularly in the North, is dependent on a good relationship with Aboriginal stakeholders. The regulatory agencies and the IEMA mentioned in Section 3.1.4 are also important stakeholders for the mine. There are also other groups that would fit the definition of a stakeholder as an individual or group who can affect or who is affected by a corporation's 67 activities (Svendsen, 1998), although they were not active participants in the case study consultation process. The City of Yellowknife is also a stakeholder, although it could be argued that many of its socioeconomic interests are captured in the SEA and represented by the NWT government. The non-governmental organization (NGO) community also has a clear interest in the mine's activities. Although the mining industry has not traditionally proactively engaged NGOs, there are signs that this is changing as these organizations have proved themselves effective at mobilizing popular opposition to projects and have considerable legitimacy in the eyes of the public. The Canadian Arctic Resources Committee (CARC) has been active voice in sustainable development discourse in the North for over 30 years and is perhaps the North's most prominent NGO. 3.2.2 Pre-operation consultation Consultation on the "NWT Diamonds Project" was initiated by the EARP, which held scoping meetings in early 1995 in eight communities in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. It then issued the final guidelines for the environmental impact statement.: When the environmental impact statement had been accepted, the panel held 18 days of project review public hearings. These were held in nine different communities in early 1996. Approval also required subsequent hearings in Yellowknife before the Northwest Territories Water Board (Ross, 2004). BHP began some consultation directly with these Aboriginal groups in 1995. This intensified during the summer of 1996 when Indian Affairs Minister Ron Irwin (acting as the lead agency in the environmental assessment) gave the BHP diamond project conditional approval subject to "significant progress in sixty days" on IBAs and . Environmental and Socio-economic Agreements (Bielawski, 2003). The Aboriginal groups were involved in three separate processes (water license hearings, IBAs and the Environmental Agreement), in addition to ongoing treaty (land claim) negotiations with the federal government for some groups. This ultimatum led to rushed negotiations that gave communities little time to develop an understanding of the possible impacts and a strategy for maximizing the benefits, according to Bielawski, a negotiator for the Akaitcho Treaty 8 Dene, based in Lutsel K'e. 68 3.2.3 Current consultation activities Ekati's consultation program is guided by its commitment made in agreements signed with its communities of interest before or at the start-up of the mine: the Environmental Agreement (EA), the Socio-Economic Agreement (SEA), and the four IBAs (see Figure 3-2). The consultation schedule includes regular meetings as conditions of these agreements, as well as mine site tours and presentations made by Ekati staff in response to requests (BHP Billiton, 2003c). Consultation and public participation activities undertaken by Ekati include the following, listed in order of increasing stakeholder participation: • Publishing a quarterly newsletter that gives updates on mining activities and corporate community activities; • Presentations about environmental monitoring programs to local high schools; • Annual presentations and meetings in seven Aboriginal communities, including environmental management and socio-economic performance (including northern and Aboriginal employment, training and business opportunities); • Tours of the mine site (Regulators with a direct role in environmental management at Ekati may visit the site several times each year). Aboriginal groups are invited annually to visit the mine to observe caribou migration and archaeological sites; • Technical meetings with regulatory agencies on specific topics; and • Project specific multi-stakeholder meetings and workshops (such as the meetings held recently for the LLCF 5 year optimization project). Some consultation activities such as the annual community meetings are stipulated in the EA, while other are done on a project or issue-specific basis. Ekati used to hold annual environmental workshops to provide updates and elicit input on its monitoring programs each February. These plain language workshops were attended by all the key stakeholders (regulators, Aboriginal communities and the IEMA) and were preceded by technical group meetings during the previous December. Ekati ceased hosting these annual workshops and replaced them with a tri-annual workshop after 2003 because they 69 were considered to be unnecessary on an annual basis since the programs were well-established and not needing to be altered every year (Jane Howe, Ekati Permitting Coordinator, personal communication, Feb. 7, 2005). The annual workshop was regarded positively by stakeholders who were disappointed by its cancellation (Independent Environmental Monitoring Agency, 2004). Regulatory stakeholders and the IEMA also organize and host consultation activities in which Ekati participates. The IEMA also plays a role in public participation with Ekati by acting as a forum for the interchange of information, between the company, Aboriginal communities, the general public and both levels of government, and provides an accessible public repository of environmental information relevant to the project.22 It also advocates to Ekati and governments the concerns of Aboriginal peoples and the general public and participates in Inter-Agency Coordination Team (IACT) meetings with Ekati and its regulators. In 2004 the IEMA organized an environmental workshop to replace the annual workshop formerly hosted by Ekati, and a mine closure and reclamation workshop that involved other stakeholders in the NWT/Nunavut mining sector was sponsored by INAC and facilitated by the IEMA. The monthly or bimonthly IACT meetings are coordinated by INAC and include the IEMA and the regulators. IACT has a strongly technical environmental focus and its objective is communication to ensure that environmental activities related to the various regulatory requirements of the mine are carried out effectively and efficiently. This is important given the complexity of NWT's regulatory environment. 3.3 Long Lake Containment Facility Five Year Review Process This section describes the context of the consultation meetings that were based on Multiple Accounts Analysis (a SDP described in Section 2.3.5) and were evaluated in this study. All of the Agency's reports and outgoing correspondence are made available on its website: www.monitoringagency.net. 70 3.3.1 Long Lake Containment Facility The Long Lake Containment Facility (LLCF) was designed for storage of tailings (Processed Kimberlite, or PK) produced by the process plant, as well as treated wastewater from the camp (a small fraction of the overall volume). The facility consists of five cells (A to E) in a natural headwater basin, divided by intermediate dykes. The facility extends 7 km in a north-south direction and 3 km in an east-west direction and has a sufficient volume to contain the PK production over the entire life of the mine (Figure 3-3). The PK sent to the LLCF is allowed to settle onto the bottom and to become encased in permafrost (permanently frozen ground). To date PK slurry has been deposited in the upper cells (B and C). The water drains towards the south and eventually into Cell E, which serves as a settling pond and provides sufficient storage capacity to contain all process-affected water until discharge water quality is met. This is currently achieved without a water treatment plant. Water management is done using pumping (including a reclaim barge in Cell D that pumps water back to the process plant) and a frozen-core dam at the outlet of Cell E. 71 Figure 3-3 Satellite image of Long Lake Containment Facility (courtesy of Ekati Diamond Mine) 72 Flocculant and coagulant are added in the process plant thickener to allow recycling of process water and the residual components of these settling additives help to maintain low levels of suspended solids in the LLCF, assisted by the intermediate filter dykes that allow water to pass through but trap suspended sediments. Since these two benign additives are the only two reagents used and the ore does not contain significant amounts of sulphides, the LLCF inherently has fewer water quality issues than metal mines, which often contain sulphides (and hence have Acid Rock Drainage potential) and use more toxic reagents (e.g., cyanide). The LLCF has reliably met water quality discharge requirements and is generally functioning as designed. The currently approved abandonment and reclamation plan calls for covering the LLCF - with a 1 ni waste rock cover with a 150 mm topsoil/brganic growth medium layer over the entire beach (above-water) surface. A suitable source of topsoil has not been found and there is an ongoing research program on direct vegetation of PK with local plant . species to establish whether, this is a viable, option for meeting post-closure stability and environmental objectives. '/'i .' 3.3.2 Five-Year Review Process When the Ekati Diamond Mine began operation in 1998, the LLCF was the only facility of its kind designed for storing kimberlite tailings (PK) in a sub-arctic climate. It utilized innovative technology such as thermosiphons to ensure rapid and continuous freezing of a water-retaining frozen core dam. As such, there were some uncertainties regarding how it would operate in practice, and water quality and the management of tailings water from Long Lake were central issues in the environmental assessment (Couch, 2002). In 2004, after five years of operating the LLCF without significant problems, Ekati had gained a better understanding of the facility and wanted to design and implement a new optimized PK management plan that would incorporate this knowledge, in accordance with the mine's emphasis on adaptive management. Key "lessons learned" from five years of operation are summarized in Table 3-3. 73 Table 3-3 Summary of key lessons learned from five years of operating LLCF (BHP Billiton, 2004a) • Beach angles of the sub-aerial (above water) PK are steeper than the design basis (1.8% vs. 1.2% design). This means that PK discharged from a spigot at a given elevation cannot travel as far, resulting less efficient use of the available storage volume without additional discharge points. • Discharging PK at thickness greater than 1.5 m in the winter entrains ice in the PK that will not thaw during the summer and will permanently remain in the LLCF, reducing the available storage volume for solids. Discharge points should be varied to maintain a seasonal deposition of PK less than 1.5 m thick. • Operating conditions for moving pipelines and discharge points during the winter are severe. Pipelines moves should be planned well ahead and carried out during the summer to the extent possible. • PK weathers relatively quickly and breaks down into smaller clay-size particles, increasing its water retention (a benefit for revegetation) but also making it more susceptible to wind and water erosion. • The PK beaches have poor stability and trafficability, meaning that operating equipment on the beaches is risky. • The flocculants and coagulants, along with the filter dykes, have been effective in reducing suspended solids in the water. • There is a paucity of cover soils, entailing a need for a different cover strategy than the original waste rock and topsoil cover. The direct PK vegetation program and test plots have been successful, indicating that establishing vegetation without topsoil is a possible viable component of an alternative cover strategy. • Flow routing of closure drainage paths must be planned to avoid erosion of weathered very fine PK and ponding, which can lead to permafrost degradation and instability. In summary the LLCF was operating as designed. The Five-Year Review Process represented an opportunity to further improve the management of the LLCF based on the lessons learned, rather than a response to problems with its operation. For example, a number of the options on the table involved placing more tailings in the upper cells (A, B and C) than the original design in order to maintain the downstream cells (D and E) as settlement ponds, adding another measure to improve the water quality ahead of the discharge point into the receiving environment. Since the Five-Year Review Process was convened proactively and involved a decision on an operating facility with a good track record, it was not as controversial as similar process on facility yet to be constructed, or an operating facility with significant problems. 74 Ekati hired Robertson Geoconsultants (RGC) to facilitate a risk assessment (FMEA) and an internal MAA of the LLCF in January 2004 to begin the process of developing a LLCF management plan (Wastewater and Processed Kimberlite Management Plan) for the next five years of operation. The management plan that Ekati would ultimately select would be submitted as an application to the MVLWB for permitting. The MVLWB permitting process would include a comment period to allow stakeholders to request clarifications and give input to Ekati regarding the plan. Ekati initiated the multi-stakeholder LLCF Five Year Review process in order to facilitate stakeholder input prior to the permitting process, with the aim of incorporating this input earlier and submitting a plan to the MVLWB already with substantial buy-in. This would serve to minimize the risk of permitting delays. The timeline of the Five-Year Review process is summarized in Figure 3-4 below. Timeline Internal MAA & Risk Asst. (FMEA) LLCF Review External MAA * Application to MVLWB New Plan Permitted 2004 / / mid 2005 Stakeholder Input •1st Meeting Oct. 2004 at Ekati: / Explanation of "lessons learned" and lour of the LLCF. y*2nd Meeting Dec. 2004 in Yellowknife: ' Introduction to MAA process, presentation of the options and preliminary definition of accounts and sub-accounts. —•3rd Meeting Feb. 2005 in Yellowknife: Sub-accounts in MAA ledger were completed, then scaling, weighting and ranking of the options was done interactively using a custom spreadsheet projected onto a large screen. One preferred option stood out after the ranking process and sensitivity analysis. •Mandatory consultation initiated b\ MVLWB late 2005 Figure 3-4 Timeline of LLCF Five-Year Review 75 MAA, again facilitated by RGC, was the method chosen to structure the consultation process. Andy Robertson of RGC and Don Hayley of EBA Engineering Consultants Ltd., the primary designer and engineer of record for the LLCF, gave most of the presentations at the meetings. All the stakeholder groups participated in all three meetings. The role of stakeholder participation in the LLCF Five Year Review and the "big picture" of managing the LLCF were described in the first of the three meetings: 1. Monitor, investigate and study the performance of the LLCF during the first five years of operation and define the "lessons learned"; 2. From Ekati's knowledge of lessons learned and knowledge of the management of processed materials generally, develop optimized options for the future development, operation and closure of the LLCF 3. Evaluate the options using a methodology that is rational, clear, and transparent and allows all stakeholder issues and value bases to be considered. Based on this evaluation, select an option for future development, operation and closure of the Ekati LLCF. These three parts are followed by: • Preparation of detailed designs; • Preparation of operating manuals; • Preparation of closure plans; • Permitting; and • Implementation. (BHP Billiton, 2004a) The first meeting was held on October 14 and 15 , 2004 at the Ekati mine site. The first day focused on providing background information, including the history and the design of the LLCF and included a tour of the facility. On the second day the key lessons learned were explained and measures for dealing with issues raised by this knowledge were introduced. The MAA methodology was also briefly introduced. Stakeholder involvement was mostly limited to clarifying topics raised in the presentations and raising concerns and interests regarding the management of the LLCF. A CD of the presentations was sent out to participants following the meeting. The second meeting was held on December 14th and 15th, 2004 at a hotel in Yellowknife. The first half-day was basically a review of the first meeting for stakeholders who had 76 been unable to attend. The second day comprised a detailed overview of the three primary options, preliminary definition of the accounts and sub-accounts (evaluation criteria for the options) and further introduction to the MAA process. The options under consideration were designed by RGC prior to the meeting and there was not an opportunity for participants to modify the options presented or to create new ones. Stakeholder participation was actively solicited in developing accounts and sub-accounts in plenary to add to the preliminary list suggested by RGC based on their previous experience. The third meeting was held on February 7th and 8th, 2005 at a hotel in Yellowknife. The first day was evenly divided between a review (of the MAA method, lessons learned, measures and options) and completing the MAA matrix (ledger) by rating and quantifying the relative impacts (scaling) and importance (weighting) of the accounts for each option. For example, Option 3a was given a rating of 7 (out of 9) for the indicator "ease of construction" in the "Construction" sub-account in the "Technical" account (see first line of MAA ledger in Appendix F). The indicator "ease of construction" was given a weighting of 9, the sub-account "Construction" was given a weighting of 9 and the "Technical" account was given a weighting of 6 (all out of 9). This was done interactively using a custom Excel spreadsheet projected onto a large screen. The MAA ledger was not complete at the end of the first day so the consultants and Ekati staff stayed into the evening to complete the scaling of the lower-concern accounts (e.g., project economics, operations). The second half-day began with a preliminary review of the results of the completed MAA ledger and a sensitivity analysis of the options. Sensitivity analysis involved varying the weightings assigned to accounts to determine if changing values would affect the ranking of the options. This was followed by questions and a discussion of the next steps in the larger process of developing and permitting a plan. Ekati agreed to send out electronic versions of the MAA ledger for stakeholder review and comment (a copy of which is included in Appendix F), complete with an added column explaining the key drivers and information gaps for each sub-account, as requested by some of the stakeholders. This was done in March 2005. 77 Of the five options evaluated in the MAA ledger at the third meeting, Option 3 a was shown to be the preferred option, rating 8.0 (out of 9), as shown on the bottom line of the MAA ledger in Appendix F. This option involves constructing higher roads on Cells A and B in order to maximize the PK storage in Cells A, B and C. This delays the deposition of PK into Cell D for as long as possible and could possibly avert disposal into Cell D entirely if an exhausted pit becomes available for PK disposal in the future. Since water quality in the operating and post-closure phases of the LLCF is of great importance to stakeholders, maintaining Cell D as an additional settling pond for as long as possible appealed to all the parties. Options 3b and 3c were only slightly lower, rating 7.97 and 7.82, respectively, but Option 3a's dominance was robust and various sensitivity analyses did not change the preference order of these options. Ekati is not bound to implement the preferred plan from the MAA and has the prerogative of submitting a different plan to the MVLWB for permitting. However, it: is most likely that the preferred option (or a refined version thereof) will be submitted since it has support from the stakeholders and Ekati staff. 78 Chapter 4 Methodology 4.1 Introduction This chapter reviews the methodological approaches and techniques employed for data collection. The three components of the study are, in chronological order, participant observation of the Ekati LLCF Multiple Accounts Analysis (MAA) consultation process, a questionnaire at the conclusion of the MAA and interviews with MAA participants using the critical incident technique. The interviews are the primary source of data and the observation and questionnaire were designed to complement the interviews. As such, the interview component is discussed in much greater detail than the other two components. The research methodologies used in this study are primarily qualitative. For the present study, various qualitative and quantitative research methods were considered and the critical incident technique was chosen as the primary methodology for collecting interview data. The measures taken to ensure the credibility and trustworthiness of the data are described. The methods employed are discussed in general and the specific procedure for this study is detailed in this chapter. 4.2 Approach The initial strategy for developing the study methodology was to identify a suitable set of relatively objective criteria for decision-focused stakeholder consultation and to evaluate the MAA process against these criteria. The literature review revealed a lack of consensus on such criteria, and the body of criteria that did exist was primarily developed for public participation activities initiated by government agencies, rather than corporations (as discussed in Section 2.2). Furthermore, the subjective experience and worldview of each stakeholder could strongly influence whether they considered the LLCF MAA process to be successful against almost any given criteria. For these reasons an alternative strategy was chosen that would allow criteria to emerge from the data, rather than choosing a somewhat arbitrary set of criteria a priori. This inductive approach was best suited to qualitative research methods. An inductive 79 approach reasons from known facts (e.g., data collected) rather than from general principles (e.g., evaluative frameworks from the literature) as with a deductive approach. The use of qualitative research methods in engineering research is non-traditional. Engineering involves the application of science and mathematics to solve practical problems. Traditionally this has been restricted to the natural sciences. For this reason engineering has implicitly embraced the dominant experimental/quantitative paradigm of the natural sciences. This paradigm values deductive reasoning, quantitative measures, experimental design and statistical analysis and is influenced by the philosophical tenets of logical positivism.23 An alternative paradigm emerged in the second half of the 20 century to challenge the supremacy of the dominant paradigm in both the natural and social sciences. The alternative naturalistic/qualitative paradigm came out of the tradition of anthropological field studies and is undergirded by the philosophical tenets of phenomenology.24 This paradigm relies on qualitative data, naturalistic inquiry, and detailed description derived from close contact with the people in the setting under study, and uses the techniques of in-depth, open-ended interviewing and personal observation. It emphasizes understanding the meaning behind actions/human behaviour. The approach of this study was not based on strict adherence to either one of these research paradigms, but rather an appreciation that both have led to the creation of useful research methods. To answer the research question, predominantly qualitative methods were deemed most appropriate. Although the topic of this study involves a range of techniques and perspectives outside the traditional domain of an engineering thesis, it was conducted under the auspices of a mining engineering program. Engineers play important roles in consultation as communicators of technical knowledge; however, they 23 Logical positivism is a philosophy asserting the primacy of observation and experiment in assessing the truth of statements of fact and holding that metaphysical and subjective arguments not based on observable data are meaningless (Merriam Webster, 2004). 24 Phenomenology is a philosophy asserting that reality consists of objects and events as they are subjectively perceived or understood in human consciousness and not of anything independent of human consciousness (Merriam Webster, 2004). 80 are often ill equipped to communicate in "plain language" with non-technical audiences. SDPs are a potentially valuable tool for engineers to bridge the gaps in knowledge (both technical and non-technical) and worldview that they encounter in the context of consultation. Furthermore, approaching this study as a mining engineer has allowed me access to a mining company-initiated process that perhaps might have been inaccessible to a non-engineer. The central empirical component of this thesis is evaluation of the case study consultation process. Patton (1997) exhorts evaluators to know the intended use (and users) of an evaluation. Some evaluations focus on one of these three uses described in Section 2.2.1 (i.e., summative, formative, knowledge-generating), but this thesis contains elements of all three. The questionnaire and interviews allowed participants in the LLCF MAA process to both make a summative judgment on the merit of this particular consultation process, as well as suggesting formative improvements for future MAA consultation processes. Their summative judgment is admittedly interim, in the sense that the participants do not have the benefit of knowing the longer-term outcomes (e.g., what management plan will ultimately be submitted for permitting). Finally this thesis aims to contribute to the scholarly body of knowledge on public participation and decision analysis/SDPs, as well providing insight to mining companies and their stakeholders who may seek to use such processes in the future. 4.3 Credibility and trustworthiness in research Most researchers seek a research design that: 1. Accurately describes the phenomenon under investigation; 2. Consistently allows fair comparisons between subjects or populations; and 3. Enables the knowledge acquired to be applied to other populations and contexts. These objectives relate to the individual data collection techniques as well as to the study as a whole. Qualitative and quantitative research methods have evolved from different 81 traditions, and have therefore developed different approaches and evaluative criteria for answering these questions (Krefting, 1990). Quantitative researchers address the above three questions using the parameters validity, reliability and generalizability as evaluative criteria.25 Qualitative researchers address the same concerns but many argue that the three parameters as understood in quantitative research are not applicable to most qualitative studies (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Within the qualitative tradition, reliability and validity are instead discussed in terms of credibility and trustworthiness. Patton (1990) suggests the following three criteria for establishing the credibility of qualitative inquiry. 1. Rigorous techniques and methods for gathering high-quality data that is carefully analyzed, with attention to issues of validity, reliability and triangulation; 2. The credibility of the researcher, which is dependent on training, experience, track record, status, and presentation of self; and 3. Fundamental appreciation of naturalistic inquiry, qualitative methods, inductive analysis and holistic thinking. Addressing these criteria in a credible qualitative study leads to the following practical questions: "What techniques and methods were used to ensure the integrity, validity and accuracy of the findings? " Transparency and triangulation are examples of such methods. Transparency entails the clear and explicit reporting of qualitative procedures in order that, "a.) The reader will be confident of, and can verify, reported conclusions; b.) Secondary analysis of the data is possible; c.) The study could in principle be replicated; and d.) Fraud or misconduct, if it exists, will be more trackable." (Huberman & Miles, 1994, p. 439). Triangulation involves the use of convergent sources of methods or data to reduce systematic bias in the data (Krefting, 1990; Patton, 1990). There are four types of triangulation that contribute to the verification and validation of qualitative analysis: For a more detailed discussion on validity, reliability and generalizability for quantitative methods, see for example Gliner & Morgan (2000). 82 • methods triangulation: checking out the consistency of findings generated by different data-collection methods (usually through comparing qualitative and quantitative data); • triangulation of sources: checking out the consistency of different data sources within the same (qualitative) method (e.g., comparing observational data with interview data); • analyst triangulation: using multiple investigators or analysts to collect or review findings. This can include having multiple researchers or those who were studied review the findings; and • theory/perspective triangulation: using multiple perspectives or theories to interpret the data (Patton, 1990). "What does the researcher bring to the study in terms of qualifications, experience and perspective? " Since the researcher is effectively the "instrument" in qualitative inquiry (in contrast to quantitative inquiry in which the instrument may be a piece of laboratory equipment, for example), a qualitative report must include information about the researcher. There is no definitive list about what information should be provided, but the guiding principle is to report any personal or professional information that may have affected data collection, analysis and interpretation, either negatively or positively. There are four ways that the presence of a researcher can distort the findings of a study: • reactions of study participants to the presence of the researcher (i.e., Hawthorne effect); • changes in the researcher (the measuring instrument) during the course of the study (i.e., analogous to instrument error); • the predispositions or biases of the evaluator; and • researcher incompetence (including lack of sufficient training or preparation) (Patton, 1990). 83 The above list illustrates that rigorous qualitative research requires both technical competence and self-awareness on the part of the researcher. The latter is often called reflexivity and involves the continual assessment of personal perceptions and experiences that may influence the research process (Krefting, 1990). 4.4 Observation Direct observation involves the researcher observing and recording the behaviours of the participants in a study. Observational techniques vary in the following dimensions: • Naturalness of the setting. The setting for the observations can vary from natural environments (such as the home or office) to highly controlled settings (such as used in a hospital or psychological laboratory). Qualitative researchers observe almost exclusively in natural settings, while quantitative researchers use the whole range of settings. • Degree of observer participation. This can vary from situations where the observer is a full participant to settings such as public places in which the observer is entirely unobtrusive. Most observations, however, are done with the awareness and consent of participants. • Amount of detail. Observers record data that varies from summaries for the whole observation period to moment-by-moment records of observed behaviours. The latter provides more detail and requires considerable training and preparation of observers. Detailed records may employ codes for various behaviours or describe everything that happens in sequential order in a narrative form. • Breadth of coverage. Observation schemes may attempt to record many different things happening in a person's environment or focus on a few, specific types of behaviour, such as task-directed behaviours (Gliner & Morgan, 2000). The primary advantage of observation is that the researcher can see what people actually do, rather than relying on reports of what people say they do. This approach can reveal 26 Indirect observation, in which the researcher interviews untrained observers such as parents or teachers about participants they know well (e.g., children), is another means of collecting data (Gliner & Morgan, 2000). However, this technique is not applicable to this study. 84 more about what actually takes place than a respondent might report in an interview. Also, observation might reveal valuable unexpected findings since participant behaviours are in no way limited to the domain of the pre-determined research questions. Disadvantages include difficulty in gaining access to private actions or events and that the presence of the researcher can change the way subjects behave due to their awareness of being studied (known as the Hawthorne effect) (Brym, 2001). Direct observation is also time-consuming for the researcher. 4.5 Questionnaires Questionnaires are any group of written questions to which participants are asked to respond in writing. Questionnaires vary from highly structured with close-ended questions in which the respondent picks one of a specified list of specified responses, to less structured with open-ended questions that allow the respondent to formulate a response in his or her own words (Gliner & Morgan, 2000). Questions may ask about behaviours (i.e, what a person does or has done), opinions (i.e., what a person thinks about something), feelings (i.e., emotional responses to thoughts and experiences) and knowledge (i.e, what factual information a person has) (Patton, 1982). Questionnaires may be mailed to a sample population or directly administered to a group of people who are assembled in a certain place for a specific purpose. The main advantage of directly administered questionnaires is that a high response rate is typically obtained (Gliner & Morgan, 2000). In general the advantages of questionnaires include standardization and reliability, greater anonymity for respondents and less expense. 4.6 Interviews Much like questionnaires, interviews can vary from what amounts to a highly structured oral questionnaire with close-ended answers to in-depth interviews with more open-ended questions. In-depth interviews are often recorded and subsequently transcribed so that the participant's comments can be analyzed or coded. The advantages of interviews include the ability to clarify answers by probing the respondent and greater control and adaptability of data collection. This results in greater depth and richness of data, 85 particularly in understanding how respondents interpret and formulate their responses to the questions. Interviews also have higher response rates than other methods of data collection and are particularly useful for questioning people who cannot write their own responses (because of illiteracy or other factors). Conducting interviews (and analyzing interview data) is relatively expensive because of their one-to-one nature. Another disadvantage is that they are prone to the 'the interviewer effect"; attributes of the interviewer such as age and ethnicity can affect the responses received (Gliner & Morgan, 2000). 4.7 Critical incident technique The methodology chosen for the interviews in this study is critical incident technique (CIT). The basic premise of CIT is to interview respondents and ask them to describe incidents or factors that helped or hindered an activity or process. The researcher then analyzes and organizes these "critical incidents" that the respondents have described during the interviews into logical themes. CIT is in the middle of the spectrum between quantitative and qualitative extremes in social science methodology (Norman Amundson, personal communication, Oct. 14, 2004). An important advantage of the CIT over purely quantitative research design with close-ended questions (e.g., only using questionnaires) is that participants do not feel forced to give an opinion about any given attribute or criteria, but are rather free to comment on what they felt was significant. This is important given the uncertainty regarding what public participation criteria are appropriate for this context (corporate-initiated consultation). The CIT also provides a clear and rigorous methodology for discovering these criteria inductively that may not be present in more open-ended qualitative methods, such as phenomenology. 4.7.1 Description & Procedures The following five steps are involved in a CIT study (Flanagan, 1954): 1. Defining the topic of the study and a broadly defined statement of objectives for the activity: This serves as a point of reference against which the critical incidents to be collected can be judged as helping or hindering, positive or negative. In this 86 case, the topic of the study was the LLCF MAA consultation process. The objective of the activity was to decide on a preferred LLCF management plan that met the interests of all the participants. 2. Setting plans and specifications for collecting the critical incidents: The means for collecting the critical incidents (e.g., direct observation or interviews) are selected and the definition of what constitutes a "critical" incident is specified. In this study the decision was made to collect critical incidents from participants using interviews conducted after the consultation process was over. For research such as this study that relies on retrospective self-report, what was determined to be a critical incident was largely left to the discretion of the participants in the activity. In other words, participants were asked what specific factors of the MAA process they did or did not consider to be helpful and the incidents they reported were accepted at face value. 3. Collecting the data: This is usually done by interviewing respondents after the activity or process of interest (also called retrospective self-report). It could also include direct observation of the activity by researchers, or having participants record critical incidents independently (i.e., in a journal or logbook). In this case, participants were interviewed at the conclusion of the three meetings. 4. Analyzing the data: A categorization scheme is created to summarize the data while "sacrificing as little as possible of their comprehensiveness, specificity, and validity" (Flanagan, 1954, p. 344). This is considered to be the most important and difficult step in the CIT process (Flanagan, 1954; Woolsey, 1986). Formulating the categories (themes) is an inductive and iterative process of logically grouping the critical incidents using the judgment of the researcher. For this study the interviews were recorded and each critical incident that was reported to have helped or hindered was transcribed. Using a system of progressive readings, the researcher then placed the critical incidents into logical groups. For example, numerous participants reported, in different words, that something they liked about the process was that they had the opportunity to learn about the LLCF. Thus, after numerous readings, and after sorting through the critical incidents, the researcher identified that a major theme was "Learning." 87 5. Interpreting and reporting the data: The four preceding steps are re-examined to determine what biases may have been introduced by the procedures used and the judgments made. Employing credibility checks is a means of systematically testing for biases. In this study, an impartial third party was given a random list of critical incidents and was asked to sort them into thematic groupings. His results were compared with the researcher's original groupings. Details regarding the outcome of this reliability check are reported in Section 4.9.5. CIT studies should aim for a minimum of 15-20 interviews (Norman Amundson, personal communication, Oct. 14, 2004), although strictly speaking the sample size is defined by the number of critical incidents observed or reported, not by the number of participants (Flanagan, 1954). There is no set rule for how many incidents are sufficient, apart from the general guideline that they must adequately cover the content domain of the activity. A typical CIT study will include at least several hundred critical incidents. Concept saturation is reached when additional critical incidents do not add significantly to the number of themes. 4.7.2 Evolution & Applications The critical incident technique was developed during World War II in the Aviation Psychology Program of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) for selecting and classifying aircrews. Over the past 50 years CIT has been utilized in a wide array of disciplines beyond its roots in industrial and organizational psychology, in part due to its flexibility. According to Flanagan (1954): "[CIT] does not consist of a rigid set of rules governing such data collection. Rather it should be thought of as a flexible set of principles that must be modified and adapted to meet the specific situation at hand" (p. 335). Butterfield, Borgen, Amundson and Maglio (2004) describe in greater detail the range of applications of the CIT and point out several major departures from the way Flanagan (1954) envisioned the method that are significant for this study. The authors point out that CIT was initially very behaviourally grounded, with data being collected by trained 88 observers or experts recording observations of human behaviour, either by direct observation or by workers keeping diaries at work. Flanagan's (1954) definition reflects this original emphasis: "The critical incident technique consists of a set of procedures for collecting direct observations of human behaviour in such a way as to facilitate their potential usefulness in solving practical problems and developing broad psychological principles" (p. 327). The method has since also been applied to studying experiences, reflecting the trends towards postmodern or constructivist approaches in the social sciences. Woolsey (1986) cites CIT's flexibility in being able to encompass factual happenings, qualities or attributes, not just critical incidents, as a key strength. Retrospective self-report has all but replaced direct observation as the preferred method for collecting critical incidents in the past 15 years, likely because it is very labour intensive and therefore expensive to gather data by recording it as it occurs (Butterfield et al., 2004). 4.7.3 Establishing credibility of the critical incident technique Ensuring the credibility of results is a crucial concern for any research method. Studies by Andersson and Nilsson (1964) and Ronan and Latham (1974) affirmed the reliability and validity of the CIT in its traditional research context of job analysis. Further procedures for establishing the credibility of CIT research in its contemporary applications have also been developed. Butterfield et al. (2004) describe nine separate credibility checks that include recording interviews, cross-checking of incidents and categories by CIT experts and study participants and clearly stating the underlying assumptions that guide the study. Flanagan (1954) also proposed a general guideline for determining which incidents are credible and to be included as a critical incident for analysis. He suggested that full, precise details about the incident provided by the participant/observer indicate accuracy, while general or vague descriptions mean the incident is not well remembered and should therefore be excluded. 89 The combination of these checks enhances the credibility of the findings because the research protocols consistent with the CIT method are being followed (Creswell, 1998). 4.8 Participants Participants in this study are people who participated in the Ekati Diamond Mine LLCF Multiple Accounts Analysis consultation process. Further information about participants is included in Section 5.0. 4.8.1 Selection process and recruitment A purposeful sampling design was used to select study subjects. A purposeful sampling design involves selecting individuals who are likely to be "information-rich" with respect to the purposes of a study (as opposed to random sampling for example). Since this study examines a general question - the applicability of decision analysis to consultation in the mining industry- primarily by studying a particular case study, the sampling frame is necessarily constrained to individuals with experience and knowledge of the case study. Critical incident techniques studies typically aim for a minimum of 15 to 20 interviews, with upper limits constrained only by time and resources. Since the total population of MAA participants was relatively low, I endeavoured to include all the participants in the sample, knowing that for various reasons some MAA participants would not choose to participate in my study. Obviously participants who attended all three of the meetings would provide the richest data, but I decided to include even participants who attended only one meeting both to gather their impressions of the meeting they attended and to understand their reasons for not attending the other meetings Participants were recruited in several steps. A letter of initial contact (see Appendix B) was sent out to the stakeholders invited to the LLCF MAA two weeks prior to the first meeting, briefly explaining the study and indicating my desire to administer a questionnaire and conduct interviews. At the start of the each of the meetings I again introduced my research project and explained how I would be collecting data. I also 90 spoke with a large number of the MAA participants informally during breaks in the meetings to express the importance of hearing their opinions in the interview stage. Finally, at the end of the questionnaire (see Appendix C) a request for contact information was included to arrange interviews with those who were interested. Prior to third and final meeting an email was sent to MAA participants to remind those from outside of Yellowknife to remind them to allow for an interview in their travel schedule if they so desired. 4.9 Study procedures This section describes the procedures used in the study. These procedures were reviewed by the University of British Columbia Behavioural Research Ethics Board. A copy of the approval form is included in Appendix A. 4.9.1 Observation of MAA I was present as an observer at all three MAA meetings. In addition to providing an additional source of data to verify (triangulate) the self-reported data provided in the questionnaires and interviews, this provided me with an opportunity to talk informally during breaks with most of the participants and to build rapport that would facilitate the interview process after the MAA. In terms of the dimensions of observational methods mentioned in the section 4.4, the MAA was held in a natural setting for mine consultation activities, with the first meeting taking place in the offices at the Ekati mine site and the last two meetings were held in hotels in Yellowknife. The majority of participants appeared to know each other personally from previous consultation processes and venues such as the Inter-Agency Coordination Team. I was a passive participant in the MAA process. I attended all the meetings but tried to be unobtrusive and did not contribute to the discussion as would a full participant representing one of the stakeholder groups. The MAA participants were sent a brief letter of introduction describing my study prior to the first meeting (which was also a 91 requirement of the university ethical review process). I also introduced myself and briefly explained my research project at the start of each meeting for participants who did not attend the previous meetings. I recorded only summary level data from the meetings without a pre-existing coding system. I took some notes during the meetings and wrote a daily summary of my impressions at night. My observations had a wide breadth of coverage of behaviours and conditions. I noted anything that I thought might influence participants' perceptions of the process, from the physical layout and acoustics of meeting rooms, to the manner in which challenging questions were answered. Particular attention was paid to the tone of discussions (i.e., collaborative or adversarial), the nature and frequency of questions and the attentiveness of participants. 4.9.2 Evaluation questionnaire A brief questionnaire was given to the participants at the end of the third and final MAA meeting (see Appendix C). The purpose of the questionnaire was twofold: to give a quantitative "snapshot" of participants' overall perceptions of the MAA, and to elicit information on participants' previous experience with consultation and SDPs that would help to guide subsequent interviews (see Appendix E). Questions were carefully chosen to avoid introducing specific evaluation criteria (e.g., learning, cost-effectiveness) that could bias the critical incident technique interviews. The questionnaire was composed of primarily close-ended questions. The first section of the questionnaire (Initial Information) asked personal and factual information of the respondent, including what organization they represented at the MAA consultation process. This allowed an assessment of the relative satisfaction with the MAA process between the different types of stakeholders (e.g., regulator, Aboriginal community). The second section (Consultation Experience) asked about respondents' previous experience with consultation with the Ekati Diamond Mine (see Section 3.2.3 for a 92 description of Ekati's consultation activities) and with the use of structured decision making processes in consultation in general. This provided an understanding of the "baseline" level of consultation experience participants had as a reference against which they could compare the MAA process. The third section (LLCF Multiple Accounts Analysis) requested the respondent to provide global summary opinions on his or her agreement with the outcome of the MAA and the use of MAA in future consultation processes, using a Likert-type summated attitude scale (i.e., ranging from Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree). The final section (Concluding Remarks) of the questionnaire included a space for open-ended comments and a request for contact information and indication of interest for conducting an interview. 4.9.3 Interviews Face-to-face interviews were conducted in Yellowknife from February 8th to 14th, 2005 and took places in respondents' offices or restaurants. The final five interviews were completed by phone between February 23rd to March 2nd, 2005 since face-to-face; interviews were not possible. Interviews were scheduled at a time and location convenient for each interviewee. The nominal duration of the interviews was one hour and the actual duration varied from 25 minutes to one hour. The interviews were tape-: recorded for later selective transcription. Respondents were told that they could turn off the tape recorder at any time if they so chose. All participants read and signed an interview consent form (see Appendix D). A standardized, open-ended interview style was used consisting of "a set of questions carefully worded and arranged for the purpose of taking each respondent through the same sequence and asking each respondent the same questions with essentially the same words" (Patton, 1982). A copy of the interview guide is included in Appendix E. The interview had three sequential parts. I opened the interview by briefly reviewing and clarifying the respondent's questionnaire responses regarding his or her past experience with consultation and structured decision-making processes. Beginning the interview 93 with easy descriptive questions was intended to help the respondent feel comfortable in the interview setting. This questioning strategy is recommended by Patton (1990). The second and most important part of the interview used the critical incident technique (CIT) described in Section 4.7. Each research method has its own constraints and strengths (Eisner, 2003) and the CIT was selected because of its fit with the objectives and context of this research project. In particular the CIT is flexible and open-ended enough to allow respondents to evaluate the MAA in their own words without pre-imposed categories, yet still provides a rigorous procedure for identifying themes from the data collected. In this part respondents were asked to give specific examples of things that they liked about, or considered to be strengths of the LLCF MAA process. Vague examples were probed for full, specific details to ensure the accuracy of the incident as recommended by Flanagan (1954) (e.g., "Can you think of a specific example when this [characteristic] was demonstrated?"). After each incident the respondent was asked, "What else did you like?" until he or she could give no more examples. The respondent was then asked if there were any things they disliked about the first meeting, and the same process was repeated until no more examples we given. This process of giving an overview, then asking for examples of positive and negative factors was repeated for the second and third meetings. Respondents were presented with pictures taken at the first and second meetings prior to asking about each of these respective meetings, to serve as a memory-trigger since over three months had elapsed since the first meeting. I closed this part of the interview by asking the respondents if they could think of anything else they liked or disliked about any part of the MAA process. In the third part of the interview respondents were asked a mix of more specific open-ended and closed questions. The first of these questions (Question 7 on the interview guide) asked why the respondent had missed meetings, if this was the case. The intent of 94 this question was the gauge whether absenteeism was due to schedule conflicts with other unavoidable commitments, or due to dissatisfaction with the LLCF MAA process. Question 8 elicited suggestions on how the MAA could be improved, apart from ideas that came up in the critical incident section. Question 9 whether they could think of another consultation process that would have been better than MAA in this particular context. This was designed to check that my line of questioning did not solely focus on how MAA could be improved without considering if there was another consultation method that was altogether superior to MAA. The final two questions asked the same global summary questions (using the same Likert-type summated attitude scale) that had been asked on the questionnaire. I introduced these questions by saying that I was asking them again to check if the process of reflecting on and talking about the LLCF MAA process had changed their opinions. They also allowed me to gather summary opinions from respondents who had not filled out a questionnaire. Before closure of the interview respondents were given an open-ended opportunity to add any final comments on the MAA or consultation with Ekati. 4.9.4 Data analysis The analysis of the observation data was informal rather than systematic. Attending the meetings as a participant observer was very valuable for grounding my prior conceptions of how the MAA would transpire. Since there was a considerable time lag between the start and the finish of the MAA process (nearly three months) I was able to use my observation data from the first two meetings to refine the questionnaire and interview questions prior to the third meeting. The questionnaire results were reviewed and any relevant responses from a particular respondent such as consultation experience and overall satisfaction with the LLCF MAA process were noted on the interview form for that respondent. Simple averages and variances were calculated for the Likert-scale questions using a 1 to 5 numerical conversion (i.e., Strongly Disagree (SD) = 1, Strongly Agree (SA) = 5). 95 The first step in analyzing the interview data was transcribing of the critical incidents from the interview tapes. Any incidents reported by respondents that were overly vague were discarded. Once all the critical incidents had been transcribed, then they were sorted into preliminary themes (categories) that were judged to capture the meaning of the incident. These themes were refined throughout the analysis process. A list of the critical incidents with their associated themes from each interview was sent to each respondent to cross-check the appropriateness of the categories and review what quotes had been identified as critical incidents. After the themes were finalized, minor themes that included critical incidents from less than 25% of the respondents were discarded, as suggested by CIT researchers (Butterfield et al., 2004). Note that minor themes are summarized in Section 5.5.4. 4.9.5 Credibility and trustworthiness of study This section summarizes the measures taken to ensure the credibility of the study and its findings. The study procedures and instruments were described in detail in this chapter; this transparency allows the reader to understand how the data was collected and analyzed and make a judgment of its merit. Triangulation was also used, comparing observation, questionnaire and interview data against one another. I also endeavoured to exhibit reflexivity throughout the study through reflection on my experience during both data collection and analysis. Specific measures taken to ensure the credibility of the CIT method included having an experienced CIT researcher independently sort a random sample of 25 critical incidents into themes. The intercoder reliability was 88%, above the recommended minimum of 80% (Norman Amundson, personal communication, Oct. 14, 2004). Also, each respondent was sent a list of the critical incidents gathered in his or her interview, along with the themes tentatively assigned to them, and asked to notify me if I had misunderstood any of their comments and assigned an inappropriate theme. Several respondents replied to clarify or correct a statement they had made to ensure that I had understood their meaning, while others affirmed that the themes summarized their thoughts well. 96 Chapter 5 Results 5.1 Overview A total of 35 people participated in at least one of the three LLCF MAA meetings, not including the two consultants who facilitated the MAA. The average daily attendance at the first, second and third two-day meetings was 23, 32 and 22 persons, respectively. Of the total of 35 participants, nine people were not included in the study because they were not present at the third MAA meeting when the questionnaires were handed out and did not return questionnaires sent by email. A total of 14 organizations participated in the LLCF consultation meetings. The participating organizations were divided into the following five categories according to their mandate and characteristics: 97 • Company: Ekati Diamond Mine (BHP Billiton Diamonds); • Consultants to Ekati: Robertson Geoconsultants, EBA Engineering Consultants, HMA28 and Rescan Environmental Services; • Regulators: Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC, also known by its former acronym DIAND), Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), Environment Canada, Government of Northwest Territories Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development (RWED), Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board (MVLWB); • Communities: Yellowknives Dene First Nation, Lutsel K'e Dene First Nation, Kitikmeot Inuit Association (KIA); and • NGO: Independent Environmental Monitoring Agency (IEMA). 5.2 Participant demographics A total of 26 respondents (out of the 35 people who participated in at least one of the LLCF meetings) either completed a questionnaire, or participated in an interview, or both. This is a participation rate of 74%. The complete list of study respondents (with names omitted to protect respondents' confidentiality) is presented in Table 5-1 below. The age range of the respondents is estimated to be from mid-twenties to early sixties and the gender distribution was approximately 60% male and 40% female. Robertson Geoconsultants facilitated the LLCF MAA process, as well as having providing technical and design input during the meetings. Therefore, RGC staff are not included in study. 28 Full name of organization not given to protect the confidentiality of the participant. 98 Table 5-1 Summary of Study Respondents # Organization Role within Organization Meeting Attendance Questionnaire Interview 1 2 3 1 HMA Principal Agrologist X X Y Y 2 IEMA Board Member X X X Y Y 3 KIA Lands and Water Technician X X X Y Y 4 MVLWB Regulatory officer X X X Y Y 5 Yellowknives Dene Representative/advisor X X Y Y 6 RWED Manager of Environmental Assessment X Y 7 RWED Industrial Specialist-Mining, Environmental Protection Service X Y 8 Environment Canada Water Pollution Specialist, Environmental Protection Branch X X X Y Y 9 DFO Fish Habitat Biologist X X Y Y 10 Ekati Chief Engineer X X X Y 11 Ekati Reclamation specialist X X X Y Y 12 INAC Environment and Conservation Division X Y Y 13 Ekati Manager of Process Plant X X X Y Y 14 Ekati Permitting Coordinator X X X Y Y 15 Ekati Environmental Manager X X X Y Y 16 IEMA Environmental Analyst X X X Y Y 17 DFO Fish Habitat Biologist X X X Y Y 18 Lutsel K'e Dene Manager, Lands & Environment X X Y 19 Lutsel K'e Dene Community member, Representative of Wildlife Committee X X Y 20 INAC Resource Management Officer X X Y Y 21 IEMA Board Member X X Y 22 EBA Principal Engineer X X X Y Y 23 INAC Water Resources X X Y 24 Rescan President X Y 25 INAC Unknown X X Y 26 IEMA Board Member X X Y 99 5.3 Observation Although each of the three meetings differed slightly, my observations from all the meetings were fairly consistent. Almost all of the participants appeared to know each other from previous meetings and the atmosphere was collegial. Participants were respectful towards one another in the discussions and disagreements on particular issues did not affect the overall tenor of the meetings. Most participants were active in the discussions. Participants from the IEMA were more vocal and explicit about their agenda than other participants. The presentations were well structured and used a lot of graphics support such as pictures, graphs and large wall posters of the options under discussion. Questions from the audience seemed to reflect a genuine interest in understanding the concepts that were being presented, despite their often complex nature. Fitting all the presentations and discussions into the agenda was often a challenge, particularly in the third meeting. At the end of the first day of the third meeting, the MAA ledger had not yet been completed (as scheduled) so Ekati staff and consultants worked into the evening after the others had left completing sections of the ledger that were less important to external stakeholders (e.g., operations and costs). This was necessary to complete the MAA ledger for next morning so that there would be enough time for sensitivity analysis and review. All of the meetings were conducted in plenary (i.e., as one large group) and some participants appeared to lose interest during some fairly technical discussions between the presenters and technical experts amongst the participants. Although the majority of participants were fully present and attentive during the meetings, several participants appeared to be distracted by other duties during the second and third meetings, which were held in Yellowknife. For example, some participants worked on laptops or left the room to take lengthy phone calls. In summary, everyone involved in the meetings appeared to participate in good faith and no one tried to block the process or drastically change the agenda of the meetings. 100 5.4 Questionnaire The questionnaire was designed to gather background information for the interviews and to gather the opinions of MAA participants who would be unwilling or unable to participate in an interview. Since the last day of the final meeting went half an hour over time, some participants had to leave early for other scheduled commitments. I gave these participants who were unable to stay and fill out the questionnaire immediately a copy and asked if I could pick up their completed questionnaire at the interview. I also arranged to e-mail an electronic copy of the questionnaire to participants who would not be able to do a face-to-face interview or who did not attend the final day of the third meeting. Of the 20 questionnaires that were returned, eight were filled in immediately after the final meeting, four were collected at interviews and eight were completed electronically and returned by e-mail. 5.4.1 Consultation Experience All but four of the respondents had participated in previous consultation processes with Ekati. The average length of experience in consultation with Ekati was just over four years, and ranged from no experience to 14 years (dating back to the start of the environmental assessment process). Most respondents had participated in a wide range of consultation and communication activities that included public hearings, IACT meetings, site visits to the mine and environmental monitoring program workshops; some of the more experienced respondents had also participated in community meetings and served on Environmental Assessment review panels for other projects. 5.4.2 Experience with decision analysis in consultation Respondents' experience with structured decision-making processes in multi-stakeholder contexts (consultation) is shown in Figure 5-1. 101 Figure 5-1 Respondents' previous experience with decision analysis in consultation Half of the respondents had no previous experience with decision analysis or had some exposure only in university courses. Thirty-one percent had at least some experience with decision analysis in a professional setting, but not in a multi-stakeholder context. This group includes the five Ekati staff and respondents who participated in an internal MAA on the LLCF in January 2004. The remaining 19% of respondents, six in total, had experience with structured decision-making processes in consultation (although not MAA specifically). The context of this previous experience included regional and municipal planning exercises, mine reclamation plan selection and urban transportation planning. Two of these respondents had only provided technical input and were not directly involved in the decision process. Another respondent's experience was with a decision analysis process that was conducted internally, the results of which were communicated to stakeholders in a consultation process. 5.4.3 Assessment of LLCF Multiple Accounts Analysis The responses to the following summary questions were quantified on a 5-point interval scale, from "Strongly Disagree" = 1 to "Strongly Agree" = 5, and the average scores from the questionnaire are shown: 102 • "/ am satisfied with the outcome of the MAA." Average score 3.79 of out 5, individual responses ranging from Disagree to Strongly Agree. • "/ would recommend the use of MAA in future consultation processes. " Average score 4.00 of 5, individual responses ranging from Undecided to Strongly Agree. Only one respondent answered Disagree to the first summary question. Any additional comments on the free-form section of the questionnaire were included as possible critical incidents, along with those taken from the interviews, for the critical incident component of the study. 5.5 Interviews Twenty-two interviews were conducted, satisfying the suggested critical incident technique suggested minimum of 15-20 interviews (Norman Amundson, personal communication, Oct. 14, 2004). Figure 5-2 shows that the distribution of the interviews by group closely matches the attendance distribution for the three meetings, measured in person-days. LLCF Meetings Attendance (Person-Days) Interviews Figure 5-2 Attendance and interview distribution by group Excerpts from the interviews that were judged to fit the criteria of a critical incident or factor were transcribed and recorded along with the other questionnaire and interview data in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet for analysis. A total of 423 critical incidents were 103 noted. Themes, or categories of incidents, were developed inductively and iteratively to create a final set of 14 themes, broken down into strengths and weaknesses of the LLCF MAA process. A total of 253 critical incidents were assigned to strength themes and 201 incidents were assigned to weakness themes (note that a single critical incident may be assigned to multiple themes). The relative importance of themes is both a function of the number of respondents who mentioned the theme (by providing a critical incident that was judged to fit into the theme) and number of critical incidents assigned to the theme. Figure 5-3 and Figure 5-4 show the strength and weakness themes, respectively, in order of percentage of respondents who mentioned the theme. Figure 5-5 and Figure 5-6 show the same themes, in order of number of critical incidents assigned to each theme. Respondents generally thought that the LLCF Five-year process was positive and were supportive of Ekati's initiative to consult its stakeholders using MAA, as expressed by an IEMA participant: "Overall, I thought it was just a good process." % of Respondents 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Learning Engagement Facilitation Representation of values Methodology Venue & scheduling • 59% 36% i 77% 73% Figure 5-3 Strength themes sorted by percentage of respondents mentioning theme 104 % of Respondents 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Unequal and insufficient participation Trust & transparency Time constraints & time management Better explanation of process Continuity & review Venue & scheduling Methodology Representation Figure 5-4 Weakness themes sorted by percentage of respondents mentioning theme Ten of the themes (five strengths and five weaknesses) are considered to be major themes since they were mentioned by over 50% of the respondents. Learning Engagement Facilitation Representation of values Methodology Venue & scheduling Number of Critical Incidents 20 30 40 50 60 70 55 3^7 Figure 5-5 Strength themes sorted by number of critical incidents 105 Number of Critical Incidents 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 Unequal and insufficient participation Trust & transparency Time constraints & time management Better explanation of process Continuity & review Venue & scheduling Methodology Representation Figure 5-6 Weakness themes sorted by number of critical incidents The relative importance of themes according to the percentage of respondents who mentioned the theme and the number of critical incidents are positively correlated. Sorting the themes according to either criteria results in the same order for both strengths and weaknesses. This indicates that importance of individual themes is not tied to a small number of respondents mentioning a single theme many times, which would result in a relatively higher number of critical incidents but a relatively lower percentage of respondents mentioning the theme. 5.5.1 Background questions The first section of the interview asked background questions that elaborated and expanded on the background information provided in the questionnaires. Respondents were asked to describe their overall impressions of their previous consultation experience with Ekati (see Section 5.4.1), given the options of "generally positive," "mixed" or "generally negative." Two respondents were not able to answer since the LLCF MAA process was their first experience, and the responses of the remaining 20 respondents are shown in Table 5-2 below. The responses have been quantified on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 = generally negative, 5 = generally positive) to allow comparison of group averages. 106 Table 5-2 Respondents' impressions of previous consultation experience with Ekati Regulators Community IEMA Consultants Ekati All Generally Positive 5 1 0 0 0 6 Positive-Mixed 1 0 0 0 0 1 Mixed 1 0 3 1 4 9 Mixed-Negative 0 1 0 0 1 2 Generally Negative 1 1 0 0 0 2 Total responses 8 3 3 1 5 20 Average 4.13 2.67 3.00 3.00 2.80 3.35 Most respondents described their previous experience as mixed. Regulators tended to rate their experience substantially more positively than Ekati or community participants. The type of consultation or public participation venue and the subject matter of the process were important variables for the majority of respondents whose experience was mixed or partially mixed. For examples, public hearings and issues related to closure and reclamation were associated with negative experiences. Leading up to and during the time of the LLCF MAA meetings most of the same organizations were involved in the process of renewing Ekati's water license. These negotiations had been noted by a few respondents as being adversarial. However, this experience did not appear to have a significant effect on the LLCF MAA process, and was not brought up during the meetings. 5.5.2 Strength Themes The strength themes, in order of importance, of learning, engagement, facilitation, representation of values, methodology, and venue and scheduling are described in this section. Illustrative quotes from interviews are shown for each theme. Selected quotes have been modified slightly (i.e., names have been removed) to protect the confidentiality of participants. The aspects of each theme (sub-themes) are presented in order of importance according to the number of critical incidents linked the particular aspect. Learning Respondents liked the opportunities for learning that the LLCF MAA process provided. This included learning about technical topics such as the biophysical processes that occur 107 in the Long Lake facility such as erosion and permafrost degradation, as well as the operational and management constraints of the facility. The first meeting was the first time I really understood beaching and I really understood the very fine, the fluffy stuff as Andy calls it, as a management problem. I mean people may have told me about some of those things, [participant] in particular, but I hadn't appreciated exactly what was happening, so that was quite important. (IEMA participant) I found Dr. Robertson's descriptions of how it would work, they stand out in my mind as, yeah, finally kind of getting that mental image of how it would work... I just remember coming away from his presentation with a good feel, like I understood. (Regulator) Sometimes we don't think too much about the actual engineering part of it. We're quick to offer a solution, but to have the engineers there saying 'Look, well this would be great but we literally can't construct this, we can't do it. It's physically impossible' (Community participant) Respondents praised the heavy use of graphics by the presenters in the meetings. Examples included large-scale plans and satellite images of the management options under consideration and PowerPoint presentations with many pictures and charts, with accompanying handouts. The quality of the information presented was good, as was the resource binder. The maps and the PowerPoint presentations were very good. (IEMA participant) Having those big posters up around the room with all the options. That was definitely good, rather than just having it on the PowerPoint, and being able to actually walk up to them and look at them. (Community participant) ... using the visuals, the maps that were on the wall, to explain to everybody what the different options are that the company's looking at, that was great. Having the handouts so people can follow along...nice to be able to refer to it in your own individual copy. I think they did a great job of that. (Regulator) The afternoon tour of the LLCF during the first meeting at Ekati was also noted as helpful for understanding what the concepts described in the meeting room actually looked like in the field. 108 The most positive thing was the tour, to get out and see and understand all of the different options and actually see physically how it would work and where things were. I had seen Long Lake before that but it was interesting to hear so much about it then go out and actually see it, have a better understanding of its function. (Regulator) Some of these [concepts/plans] aren't simple to grasp, and I didn't grasp the visuals necessarily until I was out on the site... some of the other concepts, like putting a road on the other side, when you see it on the land then you realize 'Ah, okay, I understand'... So without the field trip part, even the presentation I don't think would have really, for me, being so unfamiliar with the site, would have really completely understood the context of everything...For me it as absolutely essential to have the two together. (Regulator) The most positive thing is the fact that it happened on site and that we were able physically to get into the field and look at things happening in front of our own eyes and discuss in that environment, why we were seeing what we were seeing. (Consultant) Respondents also appreciated the opportunity to learn from other participants besides the presenters who had considerable experience and knowledge. I think we got a lot of really good involvement from people like [IEMA participant] and [Regulator] at that meeting. They have both been involved since the beginning of time with the project. They went through the environmental assessment in the mid nineties so they had a lot of knowledge to bring to the table and so I think their involvement was really helpful at assuring some of the other people who were newer and less familiar with the site, that we weren't pulling the wool over their eyes. (Ekati participant) The evening [at the mine site], I guess, with the group, it did give me a chance then to touch base with some of the other people, just to double-check on how they were seeing, and following up some questions I knew I didn't quite understand. Having them rephrase it in their terminology was helpful. (Regulator) Engagement The way the LLCF MAA process engaged the active participation of stakeholders was affirmed by respondents. Participants were encouraged to ask questions and share their concerns and the opportunity for dialogue was viewed as a strength. The interactive 109 atmosphere helped to deepen participants' understanding of the concepts presented. This included questions in the plenary as well as conversations during breaks. The whole thing was open to dialogue. We were all able to say what we thought. (Regulator) That [opportunity for dialogue] is not something that is unique to the MAA process, but it does provide the venue, it does provide the setting for it. You know, that you're open to these kinds of ideas, entertaining input. (Consultant) The other part of being up there that I found really useful was of course the ability to chat with some of the people at lunch and over coffee, in a way that you maybe felt you didn't want to drag down the bigger group by asking what you thought might be dumb questions, but at least you could at least ask those questions on the side. And I found the consultants very open to that. (Regulator) The early involvement of stakeholders in assessing various management options for the LLCF prior to the formal permitting application was welcomed. Stakeholder consultation traditionally takes place after an application, specifying single option selected by the company, is submitted to the MVLWB. The idea of involving them in this MAA to me seemed like a great idea. Bringing them into the decision-making process early enough, give them a technical, educate them on how things were designed, how things have worked and how we want to make them work better and improve them... (Ekati participant) I was impressed when I understood what BHP was doing and how proactive they were being and I thought it was a really good initiative to get everybody involved, all the stakeholders involved so early in the decision-making process. (Regulator) Respondents appreciated the collaborative aspects of building an MAA ledger that directly incorporated the knowledge and concerns of all the participants to assist with the selection of a preferred option. This was contrasted against past consultation experiences that were more conflictual. It just seemed positive. People were trying to work towards a solution, rather than some other setting that we've been in where you definitely 110 have that negative feeling, like there's a conflict there, that people are butting heads all the time. (Community participant) When you open up to a public hearing or other public consultation where people are expressing just their opinions and it's not -1 won't say factually based - but it's an interpretation of the facts. Then you don't get the closer consensus that we got in the MAA I think. This process took the options, it gave a ranking to them and it gave a weighting to them based on people's concerns and they could see 'Yes my concerns have been taken into account or they haven't been,'" which is fine as well, and out of that here is what we came up with through our discussions. We were able to come up with something that is, I won't call it concrete, but it's a definite result, versus weighting people's opinions through a public hearing process. (Regulator) Respondents liked the transparency of the MAA methodology for showing how different criteria and information contribute to the selection of a preferred option. They also liked the transparency of Ekati in making available to its stakeholders the information necessary to complete the MAA, contrasting this with previous approaches. This is more than transparent, it's involving. (Consultant) In the early years we would ask questions about how the tailings pond operates in detail, about the water chemistry and so on, and for many years, and this is very different from what happened in the last year, for many years we were told, I try to use some of the company terms, 'LLCF is a black box. You don't have to know what happens inside it. All you have to know is the water quality units released at 161630 at the outlet.' The agency found that to be very frustrating because it showed a lack of appreciation for the importance of understanding how things work to ensure that water quality criteria are not only being met now, but will continue to be met in the future. And so when the company started to be more responsive in carrying out studies about what is going on in the tailings pond and to talk about it openly as it did, we found that to be very encouraging. (IEMA participant) I quite thought this would be a useful approach, because the only other alternative is the standard one whereby they make an application to the Water Board with their recommended option. And we don't see the consideration that has gone on behind the scenes to get to that option, and we don't have a transparent process to look at what the pluses and minuses are... The involvement of the stakeholders in getting to that end process could be a real strength of using the MAA. (Regulator) 111 Facilitation Respondents commented that the facilitators and presenters were good at explaining concepts and directing the MAA process. The credibility and expertise of the presenters in the topics that were discussed, as well as their direct experience with Ekati, was considered very valuable. The credibility and relative independence of the presenters were considered to add to the credibility of the whole process for respondents. What's lacking in the project is the corporate history as people have changed hands. So in this instance, you were dealing with the guys [consultants] who had reasons why things were where they were. From 1995, they had been working on the project... [Getting the historical background was important] because in order to provide a tour on what we are going to do to change the Long Lake Containment Facility, now you know why and how Long Lake Facility was designed originally. (IEMA participant) To have the expertise there that Ekati did in Don Hayley and Mr. Robertson certainly went a long way in convincing people that Ekati had done their ground work and that they actually were presenting what they knew was correct... Especially the consulting engineers who had done the majority of the work, that's a big thing, to have the people who actually said T was there and did this.' (Regulator) And I think we were effectively communicating what it was we were up to...I think Don and Andy are credible. A lot of our problems aren't that the concepts are hard. It's that nobody believes us no matter how we put it or what we say. (Ekati participant) The company was relatively passive and so as a part of the process overall, that added great credibility to if for me... Having the company delegate to consultants to provide explanations, and the consultants have their own reputations to consider, that was very important. The source of this credibility was both their expertise and the fact that they were somewhat independent from the company. (IEMA participant) The time given at the second and third meetings to review what had been discussed at the prior meetings was appreciated by respondents, especially for those who missed one of the earlier meetings and because of the time lags between meetings. That was very helpful, the half-day review. If we are going to do that again, where we have the big time gaps in between, having that half day before, it might have seemed a bit excessive, but I think it was really 112 helpful, particularly for those who weren't at the first meeting... It was good for me too because, you know, you get working and you just don't have time to look at this stuff, and then when you are forced to be at the meeting and sit there, then it all starts coming back to you. (Community participant) Especially as somebody who came into the series of meetings later, I liked how the consultants did spend the better part of the first morning going through what had been said at previous meetings and what the different options were. (Regulator) Respondents appreciated how the facilitators responded to input and questions from participants. The also liked that the facilitators projected the MAA ledger onto a large screen so that their input was included and the ledger updated immediately before their eyes, making the process interactive. Andy is an excellent facilitator and you never get the feeling that your question isn't being acknowledged or properly answered, or you know, that it's got full weight... (Consultant) I like the way the consultants dealt with concerns and questions from the crowd... They tried hard to incorporate the values of the group, into creating the sub-accounts, and they added more sub-accounts. (IEMA participant) Probably I would say one of the most powerful things that happened at the meeting was that when people had their concern, they went up as sub accounts and we assessed them. That really demonstrates full, actual participation that your words are now sitting in that Multiple Accounts Analysis, so that was good. (Ekati participant) Respondents mentioned that facilitators responded well to the time constraints of the process. In particular, they appreciated how Ekati staff and consultants worked into the evening at the third meeting so that the entire group of participants would be able to review the MAA ledger the next day and finish on time, as mentioned in Section 5.3. The group that evening did a really good job getting a nice working model for us to see. So that was definitely a positive thing, bringing that to the table first thing the next morning. (Regulator) 113 Time constrained, but I think even that was handled well, because we, rather than trying to ram things through, went as far as we could go and then we [Ekati and consultants] completed it. And then we [full group] went back and reviewed it. (Consultant) Respondents also said that the facilitators and presenters did a good job of explaining concepts in "plain language" that helped all the participants to understand, regardless of their technical background. The consultants that they had there, like Andy Robertson, I found that for some pretty complicated technical stuff, he was really good at simplifying it and breaking it down so that it was easily understandable. And he didn't try to talk over everybody's head like some do, or forget that a lot of people talk in plain language. (Community participant) I especially like Andy's presentation as far as ease of understanding. I think he does well in explaining concepts at a very basic level that everybody around the room can understand. (IEMA participant) Representation of values Respondents appreciated that stakeholder values were actively elicited in the MAA. Stakeholders liked that their interests were taken into consideration in the decision process and Ekati staff liked hearing what stakeholders were concerned about. What I got out of it was, basically, what the stakeholders want. Taking away their concerns and then trying to incorporate those needs into the future reclamation plans that we need to develop. (Ekati participant) And also we always appreciate having forums where there's all the different agencies sitting together in the same room and you can hear other people's opinions. (Community participant) You get so many different interests coming together to come up with the best solution from everybody's perspective, I guess, is was it is designed to. I think that's a good way to capture the best of what everybody thinks in one decision. (Regulator) It was also noted that not only were the values of participants incorporated into the MAA, but also that the various stakeholder groups were well represented at the meetings. 114 We had good people involved, we had an excellent representation from the stakeholder group. I think that was very appropriate. (Regulator) The cross-section of people, the mix of people who attended I think was very good. Better representation from the stakeholders than I would have expected. (Consultant) You've got all of the stakeholders there, all the disparate backgrounds, all your Aboriginal representatives, us and the company there and they're all talking about issues surrounding this one mine component. And so we are all learning a great wealth of knowledge from Don and Andy and the other consultants about what goes on in this LLCF. (IEMA participant) Some respondents, including Ekati staff and stakeholders, liked that the MAA decision process took into account stakeholder values without trying come up with a unanimous consensus decision at the end of the process. ...it [MAA] allows you to put weighting on the things that are important. It's hard with 30 people to try and get consensus over one thing. You'll never get 100% consensus. So you have to have a process in which everybody can be heard, and you can take a look and sort of see what the key drivers are. (Ekati participant) Methodology Respondents noted several characteristics of the MAA methodology that they found to be helpful. Having a quantitative model at the conclusion of the process that allowed participants to ask "what if questions and easily test the sensitivity of the preferred option to changes in value weighting reassured respondents that preferred option was robust. The best thing of all, I found, was that we got to a point where we had a working model of it, where they could show how robust it was and demonstrate the sensitivity to changes in the weightings and the assignments. (Regulator) It was really good this morning to have the opportunity to play with some of those numbers and still see how that one option sort of dominated all the rest, so I think that was a really positive thing too. (Community participant) 115 I though that being able to play the 'what-if scenarios with the rankings, and back various pieces out helped people understand the strength of the direction towards the option. (Ekati participant) Respondents also said that the MAA helped them to think clearly about what was important in the decision. The MAA also broke the decision into smaller components (i.e., account and sub-accounts) and allowed them to see the effect of different options on each of the components. I think breaking down all the issues that way helps. Here's all the things that we need to think about when we're trying to make decisions about things. I think that's really useful. Rather than just saying 'Well, we're concerned about the land and the water' What about the land, what about the water are you concerned about? How is this one going to be better than this one? What effect is this one going to have? (Community participant) In this particular example, if you construed the structured process to be the identification of what you call the accounts and sub-accounts as things worthy of consideration and examining those, then I think the approach is very valuable... (IEMA participant) Ekati staff also liked the flexibility of the MAA in accommodating both "technical types" like engineers and participants with other backgrounds that approach decisions in a different way. I think that why it appeals maybe to a broad spectrum of people, because it appeals to the engineers because its mathematical and it's scientific and it's numerical, and you know, they're within a box, right, they can feel comfortable that way. And they can feel like they're going down through a linear process, clear decision points. And it makes other people who are less comfortable with decision-making more comfortable, because they are just small little decision points and it's not a 'yes or no,', it's not a 'black and white,', it's not T agree or I disagree.'. It's I feel...I feel that this is this way, or I feel that this is this way. I think it gives everybody a little more sense of satisfaction. Like you say, it's a hybrid and it balances perspectives. (Ekati participant) Venue and scheduling Respondents commented that the venue (meeting room facilities) for the first and third meeting were good. Ekati staff liked having the first meeting at the mine site because it allowed the stakeholders to focus on the task at hand and not be distracted by their other responsibilities during the meetings. Several respondents mentioned that they liked the 116 long breaks (over a month) between meetings because they allowed them to think over what was presented and discussed at the meetings. The other thing too is that you essentially had their undivided attention because they really had nowhere to go or anything else to do, so that is a good thing. (Ekati participant) It was nice not to rush through to your decision-making at the end, and the ability to have a few weeks before the second meeting was coming up, so that way one can have chats with other people, and sort of say 'This one struck me this way. What did you think about it.' (Regulator) 5.5.5 Weakness Themes The weakness themes, in order of importance, are unequal and insufficient participation, trust and transparency, time constraints and time management, better explanation of process, continuity and review, venue and scheduling, methodology and representation. The weakness themes are presented in an identical format as the strength themes in Section 5.5.2. Unequal and insufficient participation Although the respondents acknowledged that there were opportunities for participation, they didn't think there was enough participation and that some people participated actively and vocally while others were more passive. Respondents suggested that having the discussion in a large plenary group (between 20 and 35 people) made it intimidating for some participants to ask questions or share their concerns, and proposed that breaking out into smaller groups could have made these participants more comfortable and likely to participate actively. ...maybe this should have been done in small groups, rather than just one big group. Sometimes - and it's true -1 think sometimes people are a bit reluctant to speak when they are in larger groups. (Community participant) Until we got to sort of start to talk about the MAA, we didn't really get a lot of participation. So it wasn't overly participatory. You kind of have to get people to understand but I think by them not participating they wouldn't understand... I would say for this particular one you probably 117 would have been better off to go into little groups and talk about, maybe have groups with each of the different options and discuss that and get some feedback and talk about it. (Ekati participant) Respondents also remarked that having the presenters, who are top experts in their respective fields, lead the discussion and suggest numbers for ranking the options made it difficult for participants to give suggestions, for fear of contradicting what the experts had just said. I thought maybe it would be structured differently so that people would have more of a chance at dialoguing. As it was, I felt that the consultants really did the discussion. It was kind of them going up and saying 'Okay, this is what we think, where the numbers should be, and everyone else, what do you think?' 'Oh year, it sounds pretty good' (Regulator) I would say one of the things we didn't do as well as we could have was that a lot of the, where we were looking at the sub-components there, the expert would talk to it. And then realistically, who was to refute that, when realistically you would be much better to have a lay-person talk to it, and say T think this would be the best' and then that will generate the discussion. When the expert talked to it, you were pretty much done. (Ekati participant) Despite efforts to make the technical content easy to understand, the presentations and discussions were still considered to be too technical for some participants. This was regarded as a major challenge for this type of broad multi-stakeholder consultation process. We need to think more about how to tailor the MAA more so that it is more accessible to people with less education, while still being useful to the technical sorts. And I think part of that is just the level of language that is used, that you can say the same things but you have to work on the simplicity. (Ekati participant) I could certainly look around the room and see that some of this was much too technical for people. I noticed some people were showing some disinterest in some of the topics. (Regulator) 118 Respondents noted that there was unequal participation, with some participants dominating the discussions and others not speaking. They would have liked to hear more from the Aboriginal community participants, in particular. I think that still, even at that meeting, though, you could see the focus of the discussion was probably more related to the monitoring agency... It seemed like we were spending a lot of time talking about their issues, and again it may not have reflected the concerns that everybody would have. (Regulator) The second meeting did not elicit, with some exceptions, a lot of input from stakeholders. There was a lot of people who attended the meeting who said very little. There was or two of the stakeholders, external stakeholders who were quite dominant. So it certainly wasn't a uniform contribution from the stakeholders (Consultant) I think there were always people who didn't ask many questions. And that's sometimes difficult, to draw people out and to make sure you get everybody talking. (Ekati participant) A number of respondents mentioned that they would have preferred for the facilitator to have been more directive in cutting short some of the more vocal participants, particularly those who went "on tangents" (off topic), to allow more space for others to contribute to the discussions. I found that [the facilitator/speaker] would get involved in the conversation, then, like I said, an hour would go by, and all of a sudden we've spent time talking about, you know, someone else's concerns, and meanwhile, we're falling further and further behind in our schedule. (Community participant) I think some of the people tended to get off on long tangents. Perhaps one of Andy's weakness is not stopping things 'Okay we've heard you, don't keep talking about it for the next half hour.' I think Andy's a very, very patient man. (Ekati participant) Trust and transparency There were some concerns related to the transparency of the LLCF five-year review process and Ekati's motives for undertaking the MAA. These concerns were generally 119 not expressed as outright criticisms, but as suspicions or unease with certain aspects of the process. The fact that participants were asked to assess a fixed set of options (for the management of the LLCF) without having an opportunity to modify them led some respondents to suspect that the MAA was set up to have one of the predetermined options come out as a "winner." Within a few hours of talking about alternatives and so on, it became very clear to me that for both the consultants and for the company alternative three, the one ultimately chosen, was the preferred alternative and there was some tendency to colour their responses to questions to promote that conclusion. (IEMA participant) The session that I was at was very well planned, in the sense that the people doing the work had really worked through it and probably a thousand more options before trying to hone in on what they thought were the best... Some of the people I know who attended were very worried that they were being manipulated. (Regulator) In the back of my mind, it is almost as if the company has presented some options and gone through this process to get everybody to agree with some of the things that they wanted. And so that's just like a background thought that you have. (Regulator) Other respondents noted that having a pre-determined set of options limited the ability of the group to create new and perhaps better options. There was not really time set aside to say, if you wanted to, in all these options that we have up here, is there anything that you see in this one here that you might want to put into this, to work some combinations? (Ekati participant) We weren't involved with developing these options to start with. We were given these options to deal with... For instance, the option in lb, the option of putting a drainage channel down the east side of Cell B would improve lb immensely in terms of reclamation. That wasn't one of the options that was on the table. (Consultant) Respondents generally thought that the MAA process was productive and worthwhile, but had concerns about whether its outcome would really influence Ekati's ultimate 120 decision or whether it would be portrayed as a replacement for regular consultation during the permit application process. I thought it was a useful exercise, I just hope that BHP is really committed to at least considering what the community recommends, in terms of options, and not just doing this, I am not sure what you would call it, a PR exercise. You know 'Oh yes, we brought everyone in and everyone knew what was going on, and everyone agreed, that this is what they recommended.'. (Community participant) I don't know if you have heard this from other government-type people, but the worry, I think, is that BHP's consultation, the results of their consultation will be brought forward as a 'Well, everyone decided this is what should happen,' whereas there are channels to go through to really confirm that... Just so people don't get confused between a government consultation around a change to the facility... (Regulator) Some of these concerns are linked in part to different conceptions on the part of Ekati and its stakeholders about what constitutes consultation. Ekati's operational definition of consultation seems to be broader and includes formal and informal venues, from information sharing and site tours to deliberative processes such as MAA. Their stakeholders' understanding of consultation is limited to formal venues that directly and substantively involve them in providing input, as well as listening to information provided by the company. I know that I had gone to some meetings at Ekati...I know that Ekati portrayed it as consultation, that they had consulted us, and specifically named our department. And there's a lot of different definitions of what consultation is, and especially concerning the requirements for Aboriginal consultation... I am not sure that I necessarily agree with their terms. I can see more of it through this MAA approach, that may have been more consultation than in the past...I think there has been [in the past] information transfer, that's really what it was, but to me I think Ekati considers that consultation. (Regulator) There's so many things that, you know, constitute consultation, like picking up the phone is, you know, a great deal of it is consultation...I think consultation is multi-faceted. (Ekati participant) 121 There were also a few concerns raised that some aspects of the process could have been more transparent, such as being more explicit in telling participants that they could modify the electronic versions of the MAA ledger that were to be sent out following the last meeting and send them back to Ekati for consideration. They didn't announce that [sending in MAA ledgers electronically] to the larger group at the end, which surprises me. And a more cynical man than I might say that, well they are hoping not to receive anything. So for transparency, that's not a good idea to leave it as they did. (IEMA participant) Time constraints and time management Respondents said that time during the meetings often seemed rushed and that more time was needed, particularly for the third meeting. On the negative side I think we kind of ran out of time so we probably could have used another day to do the job if we wanted to the job in a more thorough manner. (Consultant) If you really wanted to do this really well - definitely more time. A day and a half was not enough, not by far. Some of these things, you really need to think about. (Community participant) Some respondents remarked that they were sometimes hesitant to ask questions or participate in discussions because they knew the meeting was behind schedule. The whole thing was open to dialogue. We we're all able to say what we thought. But there was always that thought in my mind 'Well I am not going to raise this because we are approaching the end of our day or we are running out of time or we don't want to go off on a tangent.' So it was the time crunch. (Regulator) Suggestions from respondents on making efficient use of the available time included more control of the discussion by the facilitator, as mentioned in the "Unequal and insufficient participation" theme above, and having Ekati and its consultants complete the economic and operations accounts outside the plenary meetings. 122 We were allowed to get off schedule. I think overall, though, we did get enough comments and I think we still did accomplish. But the way they had to make it up was they had to spend the evening and go overtime, and then spend a lot of time in the evening to address those deficiencies in time. (Regulator) As far as the stakeholders' concerns, I think that there were some of the categories or accounts which really didn't necessarily apply to people in the room. Sometimes it seemed like they were issues that were really best dealt with between BHP and their consultants and there wasn't a lot of input that we could have given at that stage. (Regulator) Better explanation of process Respondents thought that the objectives and steps of the MAA should have been explained earlier and more comprehensively. Some respondents suggested that doing a few simple examples of scaling and weighting MAA sub-accounts would have helped in this regard. Coming out of that [second] meeting, I guess, I was a little bit muddy about what they were expecting of us coming into the third meeting. (IEMA participant) We had it over three different meetings and we knew in our minds what we were doing and what information was going to come up in each of those three meetings, but I didn't necessarily think that we conveyed that to the stakeholders... We had a good grasp on how these meetings were going to lay out, evolve. They didn't and we didn't really give them a good overview of [the MAA process]. (Ekati participant) And I had trouble getting my head around how actually this would work. You know, it might have worked better if one actually engaged people in an example, saying 'Look, this is where we want to head, this is what we want you guys to do and so that you better understand what we expect from you.'(Consultant) Apart from the expectations and objectives of the LLCF MAA process itself, there was also a lack of clarity regarding how this process would fit into the eventual permit application to the MVLWB. 123 The only thing that I wasn't sure of was again, where was it going to lead to. By the end of it, I still didn't quite have the concept of 'Is there a decision being made that's going as a consensus to the Land and Water Board?' or is it just really the understanding, so that when people are trying to put their positions together for the Land and Water Board? (Regulator) Continuity and review Respondents remarked that the attendance at each meeting varied and that it would have been ideal to have the same group of people attend all three meetings since each meeting built on the presentations and discussions of the previous meeting. They also acknowledged that this is very difficult due to travel arrangements, and the challenge of finding meeting times that work for a large number of busy people with many commitments. I think that's pretty important to have the same people [come to all the meetings], because if not I think you're losing a little bit, because people haven't heard the same things other people have heard and they are coming in later in the process. (Community participant) The thing that kind of frustrated me, and whether it's a weakness or not, is the fact that we had changing people at all of these meetings... You want to get the same people all the time yet you know it's impossible with thirty-odd people, trying to get them all booked together for the same couple of days. (Ekati participant) Although they acknowledged that it was necessary to accommodate participants who missed earlier meetings, some respondents thought that the lack of continuity of participants forced the presenters to spend too much time reviewing content from the earlier meetings. We had new people brought into the process that hadn't attended the first meeting so that, I guess we certainly had some expectations that that would happen, that would be kind of a negative because we were constantly having to backtrack. Maybe a little bit too much backtracking was required to bring these people up to speed. (Consultant) 124 I found it to be a bit of a rehash... There were some new people there so I think they covered some of the ground a little more extensively that we covered already in the first meeting. (Regulator) Venue and scheduling Some of the meeting facilities were noted as being less than ideal, although respondents stated that they did not consider these to be major drawbacks. In particular, the meeting on the first day of the first meeting in the gymnasium had poor acoustics and lighting, and facilities for the second meeting were crowded. There might have been a bit of an underestimation of the interest in this and the facilities, the Chateau, were probably not sufficient for the number of people we had. (Regulator) Respondents also commented that although the site visit was helpful, it would have been more useful if it had been done before earlier in the season when it was warmer and the features of the facility were not obscured by snow. The negative part of that was that the timing of the meeting from a climatic standpoint wasn't very good. So it was cold and frozen. To be more effective, the scheduling and timing of that meeting on site should have been before freeze-up. (Consultant) Respondents also commented on the time between meetings. Although some liked having long periods between the meetings as mentioned in Section 5.5.2, others viewed the lags between meetings as an inconvenience because the prior meetings were not fresh in their minds. That was probably one of the negative aspects of this whole process: the time gaps between the meetings. I know it's hard. You've got lots of people with different commitments, you've got holidays in there and all this kind of stuff, but it was very difficult, I found, to get back into the swing of things. (Community participant) Methodology 125 Respondents expressed concerns about some characteristics of the MAA methodology. In particular, the scaling and weighting (quantification) steps were seen as problematic. This included the difficulty of ranking one potential impact on nature against another, and the perception that people have difficulty understanding the process and assigning scores that accurately reflect their values. The Accounts Analysis, in general for me, and I think for most First Nations people, it was really hard to - I mean, it was easy to break down the issues as to things that you were concerned about - but when it came down to ranking them, in terms of one that's more important than the other. You know, do rank water as more important than air quality? That was really, really difficult, because when you talk to community people or elders, everything's connected, everything goes together... (Community participant) If the purpose of Multiple Accounts Analysis is really to force decision makers, in this case, multi-stakeholder decision-makers, to think about and to identify the various kinds of consequences of the different alternative, then it is of immense value and should properly be replicated. If it is of value because, having identified these various consequences, one then has to find some way of comparing apples and oranges, and the essence of it is the scoring and weighting, then I find that to be of some value, but relatively limited value. And the reason for that is that the ability to score abstractly and correctly is relatively rare in most human beings. (IEMA participant) Other respondents' concerns were related less to inherent challenges of quantification and more to how MAA methodology was applied in the meetings. These included using a wider range of ranking numbers than necessary (e.g., 1 to 5 instead of 1 to 9), not recording the rationales behind rankings and showing an example of intra-account ranking that used an inconsistent interval scale. I think this one [MAA] was very complicated. We could have simplified it a lot, I think, and maybe that would have made it easier for people to understand. (Community participant) One of the weaknesses of the MAA process is there is no way to record your reasonings behind your choices, behind giving something a five as 126 opposed to a seven, or whatever. I hope BHP does it. I hope we get a list of their reasons [for rankings]. (Community participant) Representation Respondents commented certain stakeholders, in particular Aboriginal communities, and particular areas of expertise were not represented at some of meetings. Again, I think it would have been nice to have more Aboriginal people, more community representatives there. (Community participant) I really, really, really would have liked some of our other people to have participated because I really wanted to hear the wildlife stance, and I think by them not participating, it was harmful to the bigger group. (Regulator) I was a little bit disappointed at some of the attendance because there were definitely some key people that weren't there that had been at the first two meetings. (Ekati participant) Others noted that although there had been opportunities for discussion, they still didn't know where some of the groups stood on the issues of managing the LLCF and that they didn't feel like they could say that they could make a final judgment without reporting back to their constituencies. I am sort of reluctant, okay I went to the meetings, but I don't say my opinion as representing the community's. I have my opinion, I might bring that back to the community but it's up to them what they decide. (Community participant) 5.5.4 Other themes There were several other themes that either did not meet the criteria of being mentioned by at least 25% of the respondents (i.e., minor themes) or were common observations rather than identifiable strengths or weaknesses. Information gaps were raised as a weakness, both in the context of missing the results of studies pertaining specifically to the LLCF (e.g., water chemistry), but also relating to the operation of the mine itself. One community participant felt strongly that Ekati should be 127 taking a much more precautionary approach: "For the way they're handling things, they should have more research on it before they even consider going ahead with it." The effort involved in putting together a deliberative multi-stakeholder process such as the LLCF 5-Year review was another theme. It was noted that the MAA was resource-intensive, requiring substantial time commitments from Ekati staff and stakeholders, in addition to the expense of bringing all the participants together incurred by Ekati. Respondents thought that it was worth the effort, but some remarked that not all decisions merit this level of deliberation and that this type of process can't be done with partial effort, but rather needs a commitment to do it properly. I guess that I have to look at the overall benefits of doing it [the MAA], the time and cost involved and ask myself... You would have to justify the true value you're going to get back from it. I think in this case with Ekati the value was there. I think a person has to be fairly objective in terms of whether it's the right process for the objectives that are desired. (Consultant) Another theme was that the MAA process and its outcome were not yet decided. Judgments on the cost-effectiveness of the LLCF MAA process from Ekati's perspective, and the level of satisfaction with its outcome from the perspective of the stakeholders, were considered to be premature. Some respondents wanted to go through their own electronic copy of the MAA ledger that Ekati was to send out and return it with their own numbers, and considered the process unfinished until this was done: "The MAA isn't over until, I believe, they receive the participants' final go at 'Here are our preferred rankings.'" (IEMA participant) Both Ekati staff and stakeholder respondents said that they would only be comfortable making a final judgment on the merits of the MAA after the chosen option for the LLCF management plan had been successfully permitted by the MVLWB. Stakeholders want to see if Ekati goes ahead with the widely-supported preferred option of the MAA in its application, or chooses a different option altogether without stakeholder input. Ekati staff 128 want to see if the permitting process proceeds smoothly and rapidly because they involved stakeholders early in the decision-making process. So if the company doesn't use these results, there will probably be a lot of complaints among the stakeholders that attended, that their time wasn't used properly. (IEMA participant) It was very time-consuming. I think it was beneficial. I think it was time well spent and I think it will be very helpful in getting this approved in the end. (Ekati participant) 5.5.5 Specific questions Following the CIT section of the interview respondents were asked several open-ended questions on specific topics. Question 7 asked respondents who had missed one or more meetings the reasons for their absence. The reasons given included being on vacation, having other work-related commitments, travel delays due to weather or being asked to replace organization representatives from prior meetings who could no longer attend. No respondent indicated that dissatisfaction with an earlier meeting influence his or her decision to not attend. In some cases, I explicitly probed initial responses to verify that dissatisfaction was not the cause of absenteeism. Question 8 asked "What are some ways that the MAA process could be improved?" The majority of the suggested improvements from respondents were given in the CIT section of the interviews, without prompting, in response to the question about weaknesses of the LLCF MAA process. The suggestions for improving the MAA process are captured in the weakness themes in Section 5.5.3. Frequent suggestions included breaking out into smaller groups for discussion, allowing more time and explaining the MAA rating procedure more clearly before starting to assign numbers (i.e., scaling). Question 9 asked "Apart from improving the MAA process, can you suggest any different consultation methods that would better than MAA for consultation activities like the LLCF consultation?" No respondents suggested a better alternative. One respondent 129 with extensive public participation experience said that other processes could be equally effective if they allow for the same identification and consideration of the importance of key issues (regardless of whether they involved a quantitative comparison of options or not), but did not name one specifically. Several other respondents responded initially by saying that they could think of a better alternative, but when probed acknowledged that their ideas represented improvements how MAA methodology was applied for the LLCF review process, rather than a distinct methodology or process. For example, these respondents described a process in which participants are involved in creating the options, or scaling and weighting of the options is done in small groups, then reported back to other participants in a plenary session. 5.5.6 Summary questions The same summary questions on satisfaction with MAA outcome and recommending future use of MAA in the questionnaire were asked again at the end of the interview. Outcome satisfaction increased negligibly, from 3.79 to 3.80 and recommending future use increased by 7% from 4.00 to 4.27 from questionnaire to interview. Note that some respondents who returned a questionnaire did not participate in an interview, and vice versa. The results for only the 15 respondents who completed both a questionnaire and participated in an interview are shown in Figure 5-7. Outcome satisfaction for this subset of respondents increased by 3% and recommending future use increased by 10%. These results indicate that talking about and reflecting back on their experience caused respondents to look more favourably on the LLCF MAA process. This may be due to the fact that the questionnaire was administered at the end of the very busy last half-day, after the meeting had gone half an hour over time. Respondents were likely too rushed to feel comfortable making stronger statements about the process and hence tended more towards "undecided" than in the interviews. 130 Summary Questions Strongly Agree 5 Agree 4 Undecided 3 Disagree 2 Strongly disagree 1 • Questionnaire Interview -3.87 4.00 440 4.00 Satisfied with outcome of MAA Recommend use of MAA in future consultation Figure 5-7 Comparison of Summary Questions From Questionnaire and Interview The summary questions data for all 26 respondents are shown in Table 5-3 and Table 5-4 below. The data is from the interviews, with the exception of questionnaire data from the four respondents who completed the questionnaire but did not participate in an interview. Group averages to both summary questions are also shown graphically in Figure 5-8 and Figure 5-9. Table 5-3 Satisfaction with outcome of MAA by group Regulators Community IEMA Consultants Ekati All Strongly Agree 0 0 0 1 3 4 Agree 5 1 3 2 2 13 Undecided 3 1 1 0 0 5 Disagree 0 1 0 0 0 1 Strongly Disagree 0 1 0 0 0 1 Total responses 8 4 4 3 5 24 Average 3.63 2.50 3.75 4.33 4.60 3.75 131 Table 5-3 shows that 71% of respondents rated their satisfaction with the outcome of the MAA as agree or strongly agree. Community respondents' satisfaction is substantially lower than the average, and Ekati and consultants' satisfaction is higher than the average. Satisfied with outcome of MAA Strong!/ Agree 5 Agree 4 Undecided 3 Disagree 2 Strongly disagree ^ Figure 5-8 Satisfaction with MAA outcome by group Table 5-4 Recommending use of MAA in future consultation by group Regulators Community IEMA Consultants Ekati All Strongly Agree 3 0 2 2 4 11 Agree 5 2 2 1 1 11 Undecided 2 1 0 0 0 3 Disagree 0 1 0 0 0 1 Strongly Disagree 0 0 0 0 0 0 Total responses 10 4 4 3 5 26 Average 4.10 3.25 4.50 4.67 4.80 4.23 Table 5-4 shows that 85% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed with recommending the use of MAA in future consultation processes. The distribution of the various groups' ratings about the overall mean is similar to the previous question. 132 Recommend use of MAA in future consultation Strongly Agree 5 -i— — A • Regulators •Community S IEMA K Consultants • Ekati • All Figure 5-9 Recommending use of MAA in future consultation by group Based on my observation of the meetings, satisfaction with the outcome and willingness to recommend future use of MAA (from the above data) is correlated with how actively and vocally each group participated in the meetings. Impressions of previous consultation experience with Ekati (Table 5-2) are not strongly correlated to support for the MAA outcome, apart from distinctly more negative assessments from the community group, as shown in Table 5-5 below. Table 5-5 Comparison of past experience of consultation with support for MAA outcome Average score Regulators Community IEMA Consultants Ekati All Past experience with consultation 4.13 2.67 3.00 3.00 2.80 3.35 Satisfaction with come of MAA 3.63 2.50 3.75 4.33 4.60 3.75 133 Both questions summarized in the above table are on a scale of 1 to 5 (negative to positive), albeit with slightly different verbal descriptors (i.e., strongly disagree to strongly agree, generally negative to generally positive). 5.6 Summary of results A total of 26 respondents participated in the study. Overall respondents had a positive assessment of the LLCF MAA meetings. Themes from the interviews were divided into strength and weakness themes. The most important strength themes were learning, engagement and facilitation. The most important weakness themes were unequal and insufficient participation, trust and transparency, and time constraints and time management. The majority of respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the following statements: • "I am satisfied with the outcome of the MAA." (71% of respondents, average score 3.75 out of 5);.and • "I would recommend the use of MAA in future consultation processes." (85% of respondents, average score 4.23 out of 5). 134 Chapter 6 Discussion This research question guiding this thesis is: "Are Structured Decision Processes an effective methodology for involving stakeholders in consultative decision-making in the mining industry?" The first section of this chapter examines this broad question within the narrower scope of the case study by asking the practical questions: "Did the use of. MAA in the LLCF consultation meetings "work?" Was it a positive experience for the range of participants?" The second section looks in more detail at the specific aspects of the process that respondents did or did not like, and draws out from these recommendations on: 1) improving MAA and consultation in general at the Ekati Diamond Mine, 2) improving the MAA methodology itself, and 3) applying SDPs such as MAA at other mines. The third section compares the themes drawn from the interviews with the public participation evaluation criteria from the literature. Finally, suggestions for future research are proposed and a summary of the thesis is given. 6.1 Ekati case study Based on the questionnaire and interview data collected and my observations of the LLCF consultation process, SDPs such as MAA are an effective means of involving stakeholders in consultative decision-making for the Ekati Diamond Mine. As mentioned in Section 5.5.4, how the permitting process proceeds will have an important influence on participants' final perceptions on whether the MAA process was worthwhile. Respondents' feedback on the LLCF MAA process was generally positive and there was strong recommendation for its future application. However, all respondents also noted areas for improvement, many of which I had also noticed during my observation of the meetings (and are discussed in Section 6.2); this is not surprising since this application of MAA was novel for the majority of participants, and even for the facilitating consultants in certain respects (see Section 2.3.6). It was significant that not a single respondent was able to think of an alternative methodology that would have been preferable for this particular context and decision, even though most respondents had experience with numerous other consultation methods. While this is by no means an absolute seal of approval, it does indicate that there is value in putting effort towards improving the application of MAA. 135 As noted in Section 3.3.2, the LLCF Five-Year Review Process was not particularly controversial because it was a proactive measure to improve the operation of a facility that already had a good track record. As such it was a good opportunity for the company and its stakeholders to try a novel approach to consultation in a lower-risk environment. 6.2 Strengths and areas for improvement This section describes the identified strengths and proposes improvements to mitigate the perceived weaknesses of MAA, based on my direct observations and my interpretation of the results reported in the previous chapter. It is grounded in the case study experience, but seeks to relate this to the literature review, and make observations about possible opportunities for farther application of SDPs in the mining industry. 6.2.1 Ekati context Many of the strengths identified also have corresponding areas for improvement, as expressed in the weakness themes. Although many of the themes discussed could apply to a wide range of consultation methods, how the distinct characteristics of MAA contributed to the themes is emphasized. The opportunity that the LLCF MAA provided for learning about the LLCF was a key strength of the process. Having presenters with considerable experience in tailings management, and long-term experience with the LLCF itself, was a definite asset. It was also important that the presenters not only possessed useful knowledge, but were also able communicate this to a diverse audience, skillfully using analogies and graphical representations to convey the salient concepts. The presence of stakeholders with considerable technical expertise also contributed to learning, because their independence from the company assured less-experienced stakeholders that the material presented was balanced and accurate. Review and repetition of lessons learned and options at the later meetings reinforced key concepts, and facilitated the participation of those who had missed earlier meetings. Any good consultation process should foster learning, but the fact that the MAA entailed application of newly gained knowledge may have enhanced 136 learning compared to more passive consultation methods. There is possibly a sense of accountability in learning, both on the part of the company and its consultants, to ensure that stakeholders are able to make a meaningful contribution to the MAA ledger and are not frustrated by the process, and on the part of stakeholders who are expected to contribute their own knowledge and values to the decision at hand. Involving and engaging stakeholders earlier than usual (i.e., well before the permitting application) and using a transparent decision framework were also key strengths. The collaborative atmosphere was contrasted against some respondents' previous experiences with conflictual public hearings, for example. There were many opportunities to have one's values reflected in the accounts chosen and the weighting process, and a broad enough representation of stakeholders to allow a fair balance of interests. Presenters affirmed questions from participants and created a positive atmosphere for dialogue. As much as respondents appreciated the opportunities for participation, they also said that the participation was dominated by a small number of people and that some aspects of the meeting format worked against fostering broad involvement. Respondents from all groups expressed a desire for more Aboriginal participation, both in terms of greater representation of the Aboriginal communities at the meetings, as well as hearing more about interests and concerns from Aboriginal participants who attended the meetings. The more vocal participants were mostly technical experts, who asked technical questions and were confident enough to keep pressing if they were not satisfied with the responses they received from the presenters or Ekati staff. This occasionally evolved into effectively two-way conversations that were exclusive because they involved subject matter beyond the knowledge level of most participants, although I do not think this was anybody's intention. When presenters are asked specific, pertinent technical questions, they have little other choice but to respond,with technical explanations, so this scenario is difficult to avoid. Not only are these conversations difficult to "jump into," they also may cause other participants to be apprehensive in subsequent discussions for fear of appearing "ignorant." Participants commented on only one vocal participant who asked questions that were markedly off-topic and was perceived by some to be motivated by a need to 137 appear important rather than a sincere desire to understand or help others understand the topic of discussion. There are a number of possible techniques for encouraging more equal and active participation. Within the larger plenary group, more intervention from facilitators could help draw out some of the quieter participants. This would occasionally require the facilitators to cut short more vocal participants, which may seem counter-intuitive since a central objective of MAA is fostering dialogue. However, this is necessary and can be done sensitively, particularly if the facilitator gives notice to participants at the outset that he or she will do this to ensure everyone gets a chance to be heard. Facilitators can also have keep a flip chart nearby to use as a "parking lot" to jot down ideas that merit discussion but are either off-topic or only of interest to a small fraction of the group. This enables participants to see that their idea is not dismissed, but rather "parked" until a more appropriate time such as during a coffee break. Several respondents noted that the needs of individual participants to be heard have to be balanced with respecting'the time of all the other participants. Another approach is to conduct more of the MAA in breakout groups rather than entirely in plenary. The different dynamics of smaller groups would encourage more discussion and involvement of quieter participants. Breakout groups could be used at different stages (e.g., explaining lessons learned, brainstorming accounts, scaling the options), reporting back in plenary if necessary. For examples, groups of five to seven people could be led by different presenters or Ekati staff who would speak to their particular area of expertise, with groups rotating through stations. This strategy was used effectively for a three-day intensive policy-oriented mining SDP in Malaysia (Gregory & Keeney, 1994). Another "breakout" strategy would involve a separate half-day meeting at the start of the process specifically for Aboriginal community participants and others with minimal direct experience with the topic (e.g., the LLCF). This would be specifically tailored for this audience and would be designed to give them a head start before commencing the full group meetings. More experienced stakeholders could be invited to participate in teaching role, rather than pursuing the mandate of their organizations as they would in the 138 regular meetings. There are many options for the format of breakout groups, but I believe that used in conjunction with plenary sessions they would enhance attentiveness by breaking up long presentations and fostering more dialogue. Participation was also limited by time constraints, particularly in the third meeting. Some respondents expressed that because the meeting was behind schedule they did not want to hold up the whole group with their questions or input. One apparent remedy is adding another meeting or making each meeting longer. However, the given the challenges of scheduling and getting the same busy people to attend all of the meetings, this would not appear to be desirable for most participants, and especially not for Ekati, which has to organize and fund each meeting. Some of those who attended all the meetings were frustrated by the lack of continuity of participants, which forced the facilitators to spend a significant amount of time reviewing material presented at previous meetings. Despite this frustration, the participants could understand that the reasons for absenteeism were valid and largely unavoidable. A more promising alternative than adding more meetings is making more efficient use of the same allotted meeting time. Respondents acknowledged the tension between reviewing enough to allow participation of those who missed and progressing through the agenda. I cannot think of a feasible way of ensuring continuity of participants, so finding ways of getting people up to speed outside of allotted meeting time is important. Producing more detailed handouts to be distributed in advance of meetings is an option, although prepared plain language summaries requires a lot of effort and skills that are not common among engineers and scientists. The facilitator could strongly emphasize at the start of the process that the meeting content is cumulative, and attempt to shift more of the responsibility of briefing and review onto organizations that are unable to send consistent representatives. For example, the facilitator could explain that only a small amount of time will be allotted for review of other meetings so organizations should give a detailed briefing to representatives joining the process in later meetings. 139 One respondent suggested that Ekati should do the scaling of accounts that are not salient to stakeholders outside the meetings and simply present the results for discussion. In the LLCF MAA process, this would include only the Operations and Project Economics accounts, which do not lend themselves to stakeholder involvement because the relevant knowledge is almost entirely in the domain of the company, and because they are only of interest to stakeholders inasmuch as they influence other accounts (e.g., Environmental and Closure). Participants would still be involved in the weighting of these accounts relative to the others. Another approach to minimizing time pressures in meetings is to develop parts of the MAA ledger outside the meetings. This could be done after the initial information transfer phase (i.e., between the first and second meetings for the LLCF MAA process). Participant interests and values would be elicited through individual or small group phone or personal interviews to develop the accounts and sub-accounts. The facilitator/interviewer would combine the accounts gathered into a preliminary comprehensive MAA ledger that would be reviewed in the next meeting. Individual brainstorming of objectives followed by group discussion has been shown to be effective for developing a comprehensive set of decision criteria (Hill, 1982) and this technique has been employed by numerous prominent decision analysts ((Gregory & Keeney, 1994; Keeney & McDaniels, 1999; McDaniels, 2000; von Winterfeldt, 1992)). Respondents in a study by Hobbs and Horn (1997) felt strongly that individual interviews with the decision analysis facilitator were a critical complement to group discussion sessions. This approach would ensure that all participants (including those reluctant to speak out at meetings) would contribute their values, and would put less demand on precious meeting time. One aspect of the process that would have benefited from more time in the meetings is explanation of the MAA method, and how the LLCF MAA process fits into the ultimate permitting of a plan. Even though the MAA process was explained at each meeting, participants were not totally clear on the desired outcome of the MAA process or what was expected of them. Using illustrative examples of simple MAAs and explicitly stating 140 how stakeholder input would be incorporated (e.g., suggesting sub-accounts, scaling and weighting), were suggestions made by respondents. I would add to this more explanation about how decision analysis aids decision making through decomposition and minimizing the effects of heuristics and biases, for example. A simple presentation would help to show that selecting a SDP such as MAA is not an arbitrary choice on the part of Ekati, but rather a means to making a better decision for all the parties involved. A particularly interesting comment from an IEMA participant in one of the earlier interviews was that because the process had not been fully explained, he had feared that Ekati was going to push for a unanimous consensus by the end of the third meeting. I had wondered if stakeholders might have preferred a consensus process, but over the course of the remaining interviews a number of other stakeholders and Ekati staff indicated that they did not support consensus as a requisite goal. The stakeholders were hesitant to get involved in a consensus process initiated by Ekati, for fear that they would be pressured into an agreement that the company might portray as a "done deal," precluding any further discussion or intervention during the later permitting application. Ekati rejected a consensus process because of the great difficulty of reaching consensus with some many people, particularly over a short period of time. The "decision-aiding" approach favoured by some decision analysts (Gregory, McDaniels, & Fields, 2001; McDaniels, Gregory, & Fields, 1999), which emphasizes the importance of stakeholder input for fostering insight but avoids consensus as a primary goal (leaving ultimate decision making responsibility in the hands of the proponent), seemed preferred by LLCF MAA participants. Table 6-1 summarizes the differences between the two schools by comparing consensus principles (Canadian Round Tables, 1993) with a decision-aiding approach. Explicitly presenting the MAA as a decision aiding exercise, not a consensus process, would have perhaps allayed some of these concerns. Apart from implementing the interventions described above, future application of MAA at Ekati will benefit simply from the familiarity and knowledge gained by participants during the LLCF MAA process. 141 Table 6-1 Comparison of consensus and decision-aiding approaches to public participation (modified from Vanderwal, 1999) Consensus Principles Decision-aiding approach Purpose-Driven People need a reason to participate in the process. Yes (i.e., principle shared by both approaches) Inclusive, Not Exclusive All parties with a significant interest in the issues should be involved in the consensus process. Yes Voluntary Participation The parties design the consensus process. Yes Self-Design The parties design the consensus process. No, this results in endless negotiations about "process" and in poor decision making. Flexibility. Flexibility should be designed into the process. Maybe, but the steps of the decision analysis process must be followed. Equal opportunity All parties have equal access to relevant information and the opportunity to participate effectively throughout the process. Yes, but decision analyst/facilitator is responsible for synthesizing and transmitting information. Respect for Diverse Interests Acceptance of the diverse values, interests, and knowledge of the parties involved in the consensus process is essential. Yes Accountability The participants are accountable both to their constituencies and to the process that they have agreed to establish. Yes Time limits Realistic deadlines are necessary throughout the process. Yes Implementation Commitments to implementation and effective monitoring are essential parts of any agreement. Yes, but process outcome is not restricted to reaching an agreement. The IEMA participant's comment about consensus process also reflects issues of trust and transparency. Since this use of MAA approach was new, some stakeholders had suspicions "in the back of their mind" that it was an elaborate ruse to push through a particular option, or that its results would not be taken seriously. This is likely linked to how Ekati and its stakeholders define consultation differently, since in the past some activities interpreted by Ekati as consultation have not been regarded as such by stakeholders (Section 5.5.3), and perhaps also to issues related to negative legacies of mining in the North (Section 3.2.4). Ekati could use the Public Participation Spectrum (Figure 2-1) with its stakeholders as a tool for avoiding such problems of semantics and ensuring that both parties have a shared understanding of the intent of a consultation-142 related (i.e., public participation) activity. Ekati should also strive to avoid describing activities as consultation unless they have explicitly framed them as such. Assessing pre-determined options also led to some respondents to think that Ekati was not being completely transparent. While the facilitators did explain that the options were not fixed, no meeting time was devoted to brainstorming about adding or adapting options. A Value Focused Thinking approach to decision analysis (see Section 2.3.4) advocates creative option invention following elicitation of values and objectives. The LLCF MAA process was done in the reverse order with options developed and modified by the consultant facilitators. "Carte blanche" wide-open option invention would not have been feasible for this process because of the constrained timeline and the in-depth technical knowledge required. However, there could have been a brainstorming session at the end of the second meeting to see if there were any combinations or modifications that might have been superior to those on the table. Some opportunity for modifying options was also supported by some Ekati participants and consultants. Aspects of the LLCF MAA process that were trust-building included incorporating all the sub-accounts suggested by participants, sending out the electronic versions of the MAA ledger after the process and recording the rationales behind the scaling as requested by stakeholders. Aspects of the MAA methodology were both praised and criticized by respondents. Dividing the large decision into smaller components (i.e., sub-accounts) helped participants to think clearly about the all the consequences associated with the decision. Ekati staff liked how the MAA could accommodate both the interests of engineers and scientists (i.e., quantitative, systematic process) and stakeholders with varied background (i.e., value-based discussion of important issues). Respondents expressed reservations with the numerical scaling and weighting. Some articulated that quantification is very difficult to do well and was at best a distraction and others noted that weighting one sub account against another (e.g., air quality versus water quality) was problematic from an Aboriginal perspective, which emphasizes the holistic interconnectedness of nature. Another respondent thought that the scaling had been rushed and was not totally comfortable with the numbers assigned. However, this same respondent was reassured by 143 the robustness exhibited by the preferred option during sensitivity analysis, which was praised by other respondents as well. Although holistic rating may be difficult and it would be preferable to develop quantitative or descriptive indicators for all the sub accounts, and use tradeoff techniques such as swing-weighting to weight the accounts (Clemen & Reilly, 2001; Hobbs & Horn, 1997), this level of effort may not be justified for a decision of this nature and consultation process of this timeframe and scope. The quantification process may not always be necessary to select a preferred option but it does permit easy sensitivity analysis, which is a very powerful tool for testing and communicating decisions. Respondents also made observations about the level of effort and resources (i.e., time and money) required to organize and host a MAA process and remarked that not every decision requires extensive consultation and intensive process like MAA should not be initiated unless the company is committed to following through and doing it properly. Another observation by a community respondent was that the best way to get community input would be to run through a modified version of the MAA in the community, with full participation of the elders and interested community members, rather than just sending a few representatives. While repeating the full-scale MAA in each community would not be feasible, going over the key aspects and issues of the MAA in this context could be valuable. This community respondent planned to present the results of the MAA in a community meeting. Ekati made an open offer at the last meeting to come and discuss the LLCF MAA process in the communities, so this is a possibility if interest is expressed. As noted in Section 5.5.5, some respondents qualified their judgments on the MAA process by noting that the final decision on what plan would be submitted to the MVLWB for permitting had not yet been made. Had the interviews been conducted after a plan had been submitted for permitting, the relative importance of some of the themes may have changed. For example, concerns expressed in the trust and transparency theme 144 that Ekati might ignore the results of the participatory MAA process would have proved to be correct or incorrect. 6.2.2 MAA methodology In the previous section a number of possible improvements to the application of MAA in the Ekati case study context were discussed. These are in response to participant feedback and my observations of this particular process, but the same interventions (e.g., explaining objectives and expectations of participants at the start of the MAA) would apply in most contexts. Decision analysis includes a suite of tools and techniques (described in Section 2.3) that improve decision making, as demonstrated by the behavioural decision research literature (see Gregory et al., 2001 for a list of the common decision traps that decision analysis is designed to counteract). For example, constructed scales can be developed for indicators without a natural measure (i.e., pH, cost) and swing-weighting can be used to assess tradeoffs, which is cognitively less complex than giving a sub-account a holistic rating (Clemen & Reilly, 2001). A number of these techniques could be integrated into the MAA methodology as practiced in the Ekati case study. However, each of these tools demands additional resources and research. The cases studies examined in the literature review that used these more sophisticated techniques appeared to require more effort than the LLCF MAA process (McDaniels et al., 1999) or involved a group of participants with a more consistently high level of pertinent knowledge of the decision context (Gregory & Keeney, 1994). For example, BC Hydro's Water Use Planning processes were typically two years and up to three years in duration (Steve McFarlane (DFO), personal communication, Mar. 11, 2004). Therefore, the following suggestions are intended to be pragmatic and easy to incorporate with minimal additional effort: • The MAA should be introduced as a "decision-aiding" process, not a consensus process. Stakeholder should be reassured that their participation does not preclude 145 participating in the normal consultation forums (e.g., during the permitting process) and that the results will not be portrayed as a binding consensus decision. This also helps to manage potentially unrealistic expectations, such as unconditional implementation of the preferred option of the MAA without further proponent consideration; The MAA process (and its role within the broader company decision-making and implementation procedure) should be explained thoroughly at an early stage, using simple examples to illustrate how each step contributes to the end product; Conducting individual (or focus group) interviews to elicit objectives outside the full group meetings would better ensure that all participants have their values well represented and would make efficient use of meeting time. The facilitator /decision analyst could develop appropriate indicators for the objectives gathered in the interviews, and then review this in the next meeting; Some time in the process should be specifically set aside for brainstorming new or modified options. If there is no likelihood that options will be changed significantly, this should made clear to the participants. However, allowing for some flexibility in options helps build trust in the process and leverages the creativity of a wide range of stakeholders; The assigning of impacts (scaling) by quantification should be emphasized as an iterative process so that participants are aware that the impact values may be modified as new information or insights become available. This reinforces the objective of the MAA to foster insight, not make a final, definitive choice of one option; Describing the key drivers for each sub-account (as was done after the final MAA meeting) is important for adaptive management and should be done concurrently with assigning scaling numbers, as much as possible; In additional to the "Level of Confidence in Assessment" column, an "Uncertainty" column should be added to the MAA ledger so that inherent uncertainty in the sub-account can be flagged separately. Level of confidence in the assessment (e.g., high confidence that Option 1 is vastly superior to Options 2 and 3) is different from the uncertainty in the sub-account indicator itself (e.g., 146 increased permafrost degradation due to climate change). From an adaptive management perspective, identifying and reducing uncertainty over time is more important than the level of confidence in relative scaling of options in a single decision process; • The aim of the weighting process should be explained as making tradeoffs between certain ranges of impacts to a part of a system, different from rating the relative importance of the underlying biophysical systems. This framing should help to avoid putting Aboriginal participants in the philosophically untenable position of rating the importance of water versus land, for example; and • Changing the meeting schedule from several one or two-day meetings to 10 shorter meetings (i.e., two or three hours in duration), as is typical for many SDPs (Robin Gregory, personal communication, Jun. 14, 2004), could address the issues of participants feeling rushed by breaking the information transfer and elicitation into smaller, more manageable parts and allowing time in between for reflection. This would have been cost prohibitive in the Ekati case study due to the great distances traveled by participants to attend the meetings, but would be practical in more urban settings. 6.2.3 Further application of Structure Decision Processes in the mining industry The most important entry point for further adoption of SDPs in the mining industry is as an alternative to existing consultation practices such as workshops that do not involve stakeholders directly in the decision process (and hence are generally less costly and time-consuming), and not for less frequent but more intensive applications such a policy analysis. SDPs must therefore provide significant additional benefits without incurring cost increases that make it unviable for this application. MAA, as currently practiced, has several attributes that make it well suited for this entry point. Firstly, it begins with an objectives by alternatives table (i.e., the MAA ledger) that already includes the major objectives (accounts) that commonly appear in high-concern mining issues (e.g., environmental, project economics, etc.), thus reducing the effort required to develop context-specific objectives. Secondly, Robertson Geoconsultants, the sole provider of MAA services in the Canadian mining industry, has considerable 147 mining-specific expertise, strong credibility in the industry and is able to integrate MAA with other more widely-used engineering design and risk assessment services. Mine-stakeholder relations are often sensitive so SDP practitioners in this context ideally should have the trust of the proponent, mining-specific and decision analysis expertise, as well as facilitation and communication skills. Other more sophisticated and labour-intensive SDP approaches such as the Multi-Attribute Tradeoff Analysis approach employed by BC Hydro in their Water Use Planning process may be appropriate in applications where more resources are available, such as for regional and cumulative effects assessment in mining regions (e.g., the Fort McMurray oilsands in northern Alberta or the diamond mining region around Great Slave Lake in the NWT) where resources can be pooled. Large EAs may carry enough resources to justify this level of effort, but mining companies may be reluctant to release to the public the necessary information for conducting a SDP at such an early stage, particularly when there may be a perceived risk that this information could be used against the project in the EA and permitting process. More sophisticated decision analysis approaches may also be required for more controversial decisions in higher-conflict contexts. The Ekati case study did not involve a particularly controversial decision, given the positive track record of the LLCF, and there was a reasonable rapport and level of trust amongst the participants. Furthermore, the dominance of the preferred option from the MAA (option 3 a) was shown to be fairly insensitive to changes in weighting during sensitivity analysis. In decision contexts with lower trust and no such dominant alternative, more time and more involved approaches may be necessary. For example, the roles of decision analyst/facilitator and design engineer, which were melded successfully in the Ekati case study, may be need to be divided in a low trust environment to avoid perceptions of bias. Adoption of SDPs in the Canadian mining industry could be facilitated by incorporating them as an additional tool for decision-focused consultation in MAC's External Outreach & Dialogue Field Guide (2003) and other resources associated with the Towards 148 Sustainable Initiative (TSM). SDPs are compatible with the Guide's stated goal of enabling company representatives to "plan and conduct effective outreach and dialogue with their communities of interest" by providing MAC member companies with "a leading-edge, science-based process supported by techniques and tools" (ibid., p. 4). It may be that SDPs are most effective when used as part of a comprehensive consultation strategy that includes community or stakeholder advisory boards such as the Community of Interest panels advocated by MAC. By having such standing forums for listening and responding to stakeholder concerns of any type, the likelihood of SDPs being used as a platform for airing grievances or issues outside the decision context of the SDP would be reduced. These advisory board forums would hopefully also help to build trust in the company, enabling SDPs to be conducted efficiently, without wasting any of the parties' time. 6.3 Comparison to criteria in literature In this section the themes that arose inductively from the critical incidents gathered during the interview process are analyzed and compared to public participation evaluation frameworks from the literature described in Section 2.2.2. While the list of evaluative frameworks discussed are by no means exhaustive, they do include a broadly representative range, from the utilitarian practitioner rules of thumb (Beierle, 1998) to Webler's (1995) rigorously theoretical fairness and competence framework. I discuss the strength (S) and weakness (W) themes together, in order of importance (in terms of percentage of respondents who mentioned the theme and number of critical incidents per theme). Learning (S) is represented in many of the evaluations frameworks. It encompasses both access to information and understanding. Beierle's (1998) social goals include "educating and informing the public," Webler's (1995) criteria of "competence" includes access to information for developing the most valid understanding possible and Rowe and Frewer (2000) include access to the appropriate resources (e.g., knowledge and information of 149 the decision context as resource), which is also featured in Beierle's (1998) practitioner rules of thumb. The engagement theme (S) included opportunity for dialogue, early involvement, collaboration and transparency. It encompasses Webler's (1995) concept of fairness, reducing conflict in Beierle's (1998) social goals, Fiorino's (1990) face-to-face discussion and direct participation of non-experts, as well as Rowe and Frewer's (2000) acceptance criteria of early involvement and transparency. Facilitation (S) is mentioned in Beierle's (1998) practitioner rules of thumb, but is for the most part an instrumental factor in meeting other goals such as fairness, fostering open dialogue and managing the use of resources (e.g., information and time). Since the facilitators in the case study process also played an active role as experts (in contrast to a traditional, process-focused facilitator role), the expertise and experience aspects of this theme are linked to Webler's (1995) competence criteria. Unequal and uneven participation (W) is a negative reflection of the criteria of the engagement and representation of values strength themes. This reinforces the salience of those criteria and indicates that although the case study process supported fair involvement and interaction of stakeholders, it did not attain their ideal state. Trust and transparency (W) was related to constrained option creation and the concerns this raised with respondents, largely due to negative past experiences related to differing definitions of consultation. This corresponds to the building trust criteria of Beierle's (1998) social goals. As noted in the engagement theme, transparency was generally characterized as a strength of the LLCF MAA process, with the exception of the constrained options. Representation of values (S) includes two of the most common criteria, namely representation of the major stakeholders and integrating public values into decision making. Both are mentioned by Webler (1995), Beierle (1998) and Rowe and Frewer 150 (2000) and the latter is included in the practitioner rules of thumb. The corresponding weakness theme (representation) also applied to these criteria. This theme related to the perceived inability of the process to adequately incorporate some (namely Aboriginal) interests. Time constraints and time management (W) merit only a passing mention in Beierle's (1998) practitioner rules of thumb along with other resources (i.e., time, financial support). It is likely that time featured more prominently in the case study data because it was challenging to stick to the agenda timelines since the process was compressed into a total five days of meetings. Respondents also noted positive management of time constraints in the facilitation strength theme, which is a component of the cost-effectiveness themes proposed by Beierle (1998) and Rowe and Frewer (2000). Methodology (S) relates to the substantive quality of decisions criteria included by Webler (1995) and Beierle (1998). In particular, structuring and decomposition, as well as sensitivity analysis were highlighted for their contribution to thinking clearly about the decision. Rowe and Frewer (2000) include a criterion of structuring decision making (largely for displaying the process and outcome) but notably omit any criteria on improving decision quality. The concerns about methodology (in the weakness theme) were mostly related to the quantification process; some respondents thought it had been done a little too quickly and subjectively and others didn't think this latter step was necessary. Both of these are linked to decision quality. Better explanation of process (W) is expressed in the practitioner-oriented frameworks, as clarity of goals and roles of participants (practitioner rules of thumb) and task definition (Rowe & Frewer, 2000). Continuity and review (W), emphasizing the importance of maintaining a consistent group throughout the process, is not included in any of the evaluative frameworks. Continuity does however indirectly influence effective use of time and substantive 151 decision quality (due to maintaining or losing knowledge and experience gained by participants during the process). Venue and scheduling (S and W) themes were mutually contradictory and did not show any important trends. Adequate meeting facilities undoubtedly play a role in the success of public participation processes, but this is a relatively minor consideration, and none of the evaluative frameworks include it as a criterion. The range of criteria associated with the inductively generated empirical themes is a mixture of process and outcome criteria, consistent with Chess' (2000) call for methodological pluralism. Themes that feature prominently among the evaluative frameworks but were absent from the themes include shared decision-making power (Beierle's (1998) practitioner rules of thumb; Fiorino, 1990; Webler, 1995), independence in agenda-setting (Fiorino, 1990; Rowe & Frewer, 2000) and cost-effectiveness (Beierle's (1998) social goals and practitioner rules of thumb; Rowe & Frewer, 2000), in terms of monetary cost. I attribute these differences to the corporate context of the case study. My hypothesis is that stakeholders did not expect, or perhaps even feel entitled, to share in determining the overall agenda or making the ultimate decision, given their past experiences in consultation with the company (which were less participative processes) and because they recognized the company's legitimate right to make the choice of what plan they would submit in a permitting application to the MVLWB. This is not to say that stakeholders did not expect to substantively influence the decision, or pursue their own mandate within the broader agenda of the process (i.e., select a management plan for the LLCF). They also were aware that they would have another opportunity to influence the final outcome before an independent board (the MVLWB) during the permitting process. Fairness is no less important in the corporate context, but perhaps there is a different understanding of what this means to stakeholders in such processes. Cost-effectiveness was mentioned by a few respondents (Ekati staff and consultants) but was not a prominent theme because Ekati was responsible for the direct costs of planning and hosting the meetings. Stakeholders were only required to contribute their time. 152 In a government agency context similar to the case study, the public's right to be involved in agenda setting and decision-making could be strongly argued from a democratic rationale. Similarly, government-sponsored public participation processes are funded through taxpayer dollars, so the public is aware of the (admittedly indirect) link between cost-effectiveness and their "back pocket." Time management proved to be a more significant factor than the evaluative frameworks would appear to indicate. Having sufficient time for analysis and deliberation is intuitively an important driver of substantive decision quality. Yosie and Herbst (1998) note that poorly managed process can lead to participant burnout. Perhaps the criteria of allowing sufficient time for deliberation has relatively more importance in the corporate context because companies have more aggressive timelines and are subject to time-dependent market opportunities, whereas government agencies are under far less pressure to make rapid decisions. In summary, the themes from the case study predictably bear strong resemblance to the evaluative frameworks found in public participation literature. Webler's (1995) meta-criteria of fairness and competence are equally applicable in the government and corporate context. However, certain aspects of his criteria and others, namely shared decision-making and agenda setting, and cost-effectiveness have relatively less importance to stakeholders in the corporate context, while allowing sufficient time for deliberation is relatively more salient. 6.4 Limitations and generalizability The findings of this study are considered to be generalizable to the NWT mining context. Most major mine decisions in the NWT requiring some form of permitting would involve the same or similar organizations and Aboriginal groups, and would be subject to similar constraints around travel and scheduling. Although the NWT regulatory system is slightly different from the rest of Canada due to the roles that co-management boards such as the MVLWB play, the major stakeholder groups, namely regulatory agencies and Aboriginal groups, are key stakeholders virtually everywhere in Canada. The findings are therefore 153 also reasonably generalizable in the pan-Canadian mining sector, and to a lesser extent in the American and Australian contexts, which feature similar regulatory systems and politically organized Aboriginal peoples. Outside these countries in the western developed world, increased presence of international stakeholders (both NGOs and financing institutions such as the World Bank Group), weaker government capacity and transparency and greater discrepancy in access to resources between local and other stakeholders render the conclusions of this study less generalizable. Participant factors that limit generalizability include the uniqueness of the IEMA and absence of other stakeholders, such as more traditional ENGOs or municipal governments. Other consultation processes that relate to different stages of the mine life cycle (e.g., pre-operation permitting or near closure) or are situated closer to larger population centers would likely feature these other stakeholders more prominently. The LLCF decision context was also relatively narrow since it looked at an existing facility and had negligible range of socioeconomic impacts. The greatest limitation of this study is that it does not give sufficient voice to Aboriginal concerns. Although this is in part due to the low number of Aboriginal participants in the LLCF process itself, and a number of non-Aboriginal respondents who work for First Nations were interviewed, there was only one Aboriginal respondent in the study. Given that the study data indicated that the four community respondents gave markedly lower assessments of their previous consultation experience, satisfaction with MAA outcome and recommendations for future use of MAA than the mean, this perspective merits more consideration. Another possible limitation is that I may have been perceived to be too close to BHP and its consultants. Since my point of entry into the case study was through initial contact with the facilitating consultants (through undertaking a short course taught at UBC), respondents may have been reticent to voice strongly critical opinions of them or the company. I made an effort of speaking informally to all the participants over the course of the meetings, partly to gather preliminary unstructured feedback but also as an attempt 154 to demonstrate my neutrality. I also made sure that I began the interview questions with a statement to the effect of letting the respondent know that I expected to hear valid criticism of the LLCF MAA process and Ekati's consultation program in general. Overall my perception is that this was not a significant limitation, but it does bear mentioning so that the reader can come to his or her own conclusion. 6.5 Suggestions for further research The present research has assessed the effectiveness of SDPs in consultation in the mining industry by gathering the experiences of a broad range of participants in a specific case study context. It has also compared a representative sample of public participation evaluation frameworks with themes arising from the corporate-context case study. Follow-up interviews with the respondents of the LLCF case study during and after the permitting process for the plan would be informative. Several respondents gave the caveat with their responses that their final judgment would only come after the permitting process. Looking at the quality of the ultimate decision outcome is another important issue that fell outside the scope of this thesis study. This could be done by developing and assessing the future performance of the LLCF against its performance in the five or so years prior to this consultation process. Many of the accounts and sub-accounts could easily be translated into performance indicators (a number of indicators such as discharge water quality are currently monitored in Ekati's environmental monitoring programs(BHP Billiton, 2003a)). Future research could assess the experience each of the participating groups separately to gain a richer understanding of how SDPs could best meet each of their interests. In particular, this study indicated that Aboriginal communities are least satisfied with consultation activities, but this group was least well presented in the study. Assessment of the application of SDPs to the initial environmental assessment and permitting of mining projects would be valuable. Employing SDPs early in this process, in developing the terms of reference of the EA for example, has great potential for 155 improving the relevance and quality of EA while minimizing conflict and inefficient use of resources (both time and money). However at this early stage mining companies face a lot of uncertainty and may be inclined to "get the thing permitted" before taking the necessary risks of transparency and "deep" engagement that SDPs require. An assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of this high risk-high reward venture, as well as drivers for adoption, would be beneficial. Gregory, Keeney & von Winterfeldt (1992) present a brief assessment of applying decision analysis to the American EA process, but a more thorough study in the Canadian context is merited. Examination of the ability of SDPs to meaningfully involve groups of stakeholders with large discrepancies in technical knowledge, worldview and language would also be valuable. This is salient for the consultation processes in the developing world, where the discrepancies between parties are more significant. This study has hinted that the "divide and conquer" approach to decisions advocated by decision analysts may be weakly compatible with the holistic worldview held by most Aboriginal peoples. 156 Chapter 7 Conclusion The research question guiding this thesis was: "Are Structured Decision Processes an effective methodology for involving stakeholders in consultative decision-making in the mining industry?" In order to address this question, an evaluation of the Long Lake Containment Facility Five-Year Review consultation process at the Ekati Diamond Mine was conducted. This consultation process used a Structured Decision Process (SDP) called Multiple Accounts Analysis (MAA). This was the first time a decision analysis-based process had been used for project-based consultation with wide stakeholder involvement in the Canadian mining industry. The main conclusions of this thesis are summarized below: • Stakeholders have greater expectations for consultation in mining decisions than ever before. Decision analysis provides a framework for meaningful stakeholder involvement and good decision-making; • Participants in the Ekati case study considered the use of MAA to be successful and the process resulted in a preferred option with broad support. A strong majority (71%) of respondents were satisfied with the outcome of the process and an even greater majority (85%) recommended the use of MAA in future consultation processes; • Respondents were not able to think of a better method than MAA for this particular consultation process. Suggestions for improvement were primarily related to how this method could be better applied. For example, some deliberation could have been done in small groups to draw out quieter participants, and participants could have been involved in creating or modifying the decision options under consideration; • Stakeholders were supportive of the advisory "decision-aiding" (i.e., non-binding) role of the MAA process but were interested in seeing how the company would use the results of the process; • Aboriginal community participants were less positive about MAA than the other groups. One of the key challenges of a Structured Decision Process approach to 157 consultation is accommodating the wide range of technical expertise and experience on the decision topic; The Ekati consultation process did not involve a particularly controversial decision. A more controversial context may require the use of more sophisticated but more resource-intensive decision analysis tools such as those used by BC Hydro in their Water Use Planning processes; SDPs require earlier involvement of stakeholders, transparency with relevant data and have more "up front" costs than typical consultation activities such as workshops or public meetings. 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World Commission on Environment and Development. (1987). Our Common Future. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Yosie, T. F., & Herbst, T. D. (1998). Using Stakeholder Processes in Environmental Decisionmaking: An Evaluation of Lessons Learned, Key Issues, and Future Challenges. Washington: Ruder Finn and ICF Inc. 170 Appendices 171 Appendix A: UBC Ethics Approval Letter 172 Appendix B: Participant Letter of Initial Contact 174 Appendix C: Questionnaire 176 III. LLCF Multiple Accounts Analysis Section: This section asks you questions about your experience and opinions of this Multiple Accounts Analysis (MAA) process. For the following statements, please mark the single most appropriate response. Please add any comments you have in the spaces provided. 8. I am satisfied with the outcome of the MAA. • Strongly • Disagree • Undecided • Agree • Strongly Disagree Agree 9. I would recommend the use of MAA in future consultation processes. • Strongly • Disagree • Undecided • Agree • Strongly Disagree Agree Comments: (If you need additional space please write on the reverse of this page) IV. Concluding Remarks Would you be willing to have a confidential personal interview to discuss your experiences and opinions on this Multiple Accounts Analysis consultation process? • Yes Contact Phone #: • No Thank you for taking part in this questionnaire and I look forward to discussing your experience in more detail in the interview. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Andrew Thrift at (669-6452) or by email at [email protected]. Version 1.0 179 Page 3 of 3 Appendix D: Interview Consent Form 180 Appendix E: Interview Questions 182 UBC PI UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA DEPT. OF MINING ENGINEERING 6350 STORES ROAD VANCOUVER, BC, V6T 1Z4, CANADA [email protected] ph: 604-822-2540 fax: 604-822-5599 Assessing the Application of Multi-Attribute Decision Analysis in Stakeholder Consultation in the Mining Industry INTERVIEW QUESTIONS Background questions (10 min) 1. To begin with please you tell me about your role (position) and responsibilities in the organization you represent. 2. On the questionnaire I handed out at the close of the LLCF MAA you indicated that: a) this is the first consultation process with Ekati you have taken part in. Is that correct? Do you have any experience with consultation with other companies or organizations? b) you have been involved with consultation with Ekati for X years and have experience with public hearings, workshops (list all the types they wrote on the questionnaire). Did I miss anything or is there anything you want to add to that list? 3. a) You also indicated on your questionnaire that you [have/have not] participated in structured decision making processes like Multiple Accounts Analysis (i.e., a group decision making process that involved listing the important decision criteria, predicting impacts and weighting their relative importance). b) [If yes] Can you describe for me those processes, in terms of what decision was to be made and who participated? • Who initiated and facilitated the process? • What feedback did participants give about the process? 4. How would you describe your overall impressions of your previous consultation experience with Ekati, in a few sentences?[Generally positive, generally negative, mixed] 5. What did you see as your role coming into the LLCF consultation process? [Clarification: What responsibilities or contributions to the process did you bring to the table?] 6. What were your expectations coming into this LLCF consultation process? Version 1.4 183 Page 1 of 1 Strengths and weaknesses (45 min) Thanks for the background information. Now I would like to ask you about the things you liked and didn't like about the LLCF MAA. I am first going to ask you about the things you liked and then about the things you didn't like. I will ask about each meeting separately. You attended [all/first only/...] of the three meetings. Is that right? First meeting • Can you give me a specific example of what you liked about the first meeting?(ask for examples) What was effective? What was helpful? Thanks for that example. I am going to continue asking you the same question to make sure that I get all of your ideas. Is there anything else you liked? (repeat until no more new) • Can you give me a specific example of what you didn't like about the first meeting? What else? (repeat until no more new) Second meeting. • Can you give me some specific examples of what you liked about the second meeting? • Can you give me some specific examples of what you did not like about the second meeting? Third meeting • Can you give me some specific examples of what you liked about the third meeting?(ask for examples of factors) • Can you give me some specific examples of what you did not like about the third meeting? What else? Before we move on, are there any other specific examples of what you thought was positive or negative about any of the three meetings? Specifics (5 min) - address these after more open-ended strengths and weaknesses questions Thanks for sharing your assessment of the process. Before we end the interview, I just have a few more questions that I would like to ask. 7. You weren't able to attend the [first/second, etc.] meetings. This process has been quite lengthy and I know there are lots of good reasons why people couldn't make some of the meetings. Can you tell me why you did not attend the [first/second] meeting? 8. What are some ways that the MAA process could be improved? Version 1.4 184 Page 2 of2 9. Those are good suggestions for improvement. Apart from improving the MAA process, can you suggest any different consultation methods that would better than MAA for consultation activities like the LLCF consultation? Your questionnaire gave me an understanding of your initial impressions of the MAA process. I would like to know if having reflected back on the process has changed your opinion, so I am going to ask you the following two questions again. 10.1 am satisfied with the outcome of the MAA. • Strongly • Disagree • Undecided • Agree • Strongly Disagree Agree 11.1 would recommend the use of MAA in future consultation processes. • Strongly • Disagree • Undecided • Agree • Strongly Disagree Agree Closure 12. Thanks again for taking the time to do this interview. Before we close, is there anything else about the MAA or Ekati's consultation program that you would like to discuss? Version 1.4 185 Page 3 of3 Appendix F: Multiple Accounts Analysis Ledger from LLCF Five Year Review Process 186 MAA SPREADSHEET FOR EKATI PK MANAGEMENT OPTIONS - RESULTS OF MAA MEETING FEB 7-8. 2005 -VERSION 1: FEB 8TH GROUP REVISED MAA ACCOUNTS w SUB-ACCOUNTS W INDICATORS W Option 1 b Jetties to struck level Option 2 Early progressive reclamation Option 3a uptimizea A, BSC (with US raisest Option 3b Optimized A, BSC (off WRD) Option 3c Optimized A, B&C (N-S jetty) Level of Confidence in Assessment Discrimination Value (based on 30% diff) GENERAL COMMENTS/INFO GAPS KEY DRIVERS IN ASSESSMENTS Technical 6 Construction 9 ease of construction 9 3 9 7 6 5 H 54 D constructability trials for jetties and raises planned in '05 There is uncertainty as to the ability to construct jetties in particular on soft PK. construction of upstream raises is considered straightforward. Ranking directly relates to number, length, orientation and sequencing (early or late) of jetties degree of seasonal restrictions 7 2 9 9 9 7 H 49 D Jetties will require intricate seasonal scheduling. Well into the winter, material can be placed, well into summer material can be excavated and placed ~ (provided PK is well drained and not too soft), construction wilt be too dangerous sub-account score 2 56 9.00 . 7.88 7.31 5.88 Operation 9 flexibility within the option 5 7 5 9 8 9 M 20 ND Flexibitlity to adapt in the future for disposal in other cells or by other means if needed. inter-option flexibility 4 4 9 8 8 8 L 20 ND Flexibility to switch to features of other options or entirely to another option at some point in the future. Higher rank given to those options that would allow a change to higher roads, or jetties etc. if deemed advantageous in the future long-term operatingjlexibility 8 2 3 9 9 9 H 56 D Flexility to add additional volume within the options without considerable amounts of re-enqineerinq. Options that put the least amount into Cell D ease of operation / simplicity 9 2 9 4 4 4 M 63 D The ability to operate on a day to day basis, the components of each option. The greater the number of soiqot Icoations the more difficult the dailv operabilitv. level of assuredness of operation / precedent in the North 7 3 9 9 6 7 42 D The operation of a PK system using jetties is not precedented in the North where seasonal restrictions are so great. Those options with jetties ranked lower than those without. sub-account score . • '-fj'i. 3.21 . 6^94 7.52 7.15 7.09 Trafficability 7 ease of construction equipment access on PK 7 5 7 9 9 8 28 D The weak areas of the beaches approaching the pond edges are considered poorty trafficable, except when completely frozen. The options with greatest pond/beach shoreline considered less favorable. sub-account score : ,. .' 'iv* . 5 00 ; t 7.00 9.00 9.00 8.00 Beach erosion (outside of drainage system) 6 degree of water erosion (sheet erosion, runnels etc) 9 9 8 7 6 7 27 D The longer the beaches, the greater the potential for sheet erosion. degree of wind erosion 6 9 8 6 5 6 24 D The longer the beaches, the greater the potential for wind erosion. The aspect of the beaches also considered, but to a lesser extent as wind direction is variable, but predominantly from the north across LLCF. sub-account score Y' ' , 9.dd';. 8.00. \: 6.60 . 5.60 . 6.60 ..... •r*^.l Ice entrapment 4 potential for minimizing ice entrapment 8 4 3 9 8 8 48 D note some trade-off in certain areas (N Cell B) in order to start prog reel research The long beaches, with multiple spigot locations and greatest number of possible discharge locations for the longest period of time are believed to minimize ice entrainment. The extensive use of parallel jetties is thought to create "pools' in the troughs between them and lead to greater ice entrainment potential for stability of permafrost w/in LLCF (long term) 6 7 4 9 9 9 30 D The stability of permafrost will be enhanced by minimizing standing pools of water and by creating the most stable landform. The dry long beaches of Options 3a, b and c are considered favourable, Option 1 with pools is less so and Option 2 with the qreatest potential for cross beach erosion considered least sub-account score 5.29 3.43 9.00 8.43 8.43 Internal drainage system 8 erosion 9 3 3 8 9 7 M 54 D external drainage system on east of Cell B can be included in all options, assumed not included in this valuation The three Option 3 variants include measures to route the drainage around the LLCF beaches whereas Options 1 and 2 include substantially more cross-beach drainage which are more susceptible to erosion. A secondary consideration is the larger ponds of water and the area of contact with the PK beaches. Option 3c and to a lesser extent Option 3a were down-rated compared to Option 3b due to this consideration stability 6 3 3 8 9 7 M 36 D Similar to above, the options with greatest shoreline and cross-beach drainage considered less stable than those with less. sub-account score 3.00 3.00 8.00 9.00 7.00 i • ' ; External drainage system 5 erosion and stability 9 9 9 7 7 7 18 ND Options 1 and 2 have no external drainage system - therefore favoured in this indicator Options 3a throuqh 3c considered the same ability to divert run-on 7 4 4 9 9 9 35 D Options 3a to 3c have a greater ability to divert run-on due to the external drainage system (in particular beside Cell 8) whereas Options 1 and 2 will have siqnificant run-on across Cells B and A. ease of construction 4 9 9 7 7 7 8 ND No construction required in Options 1 and 2, Options 3a through 3c have minor construction (primarily fill in low soots) sub-account score 7.25 7.25 7.70 7.70 7.70 187 MAA SPREADSHEET FOR EKATI PK MANAGEMENT OPTIONS - RESULTS OF MAA MEETING FEB 7-8, 2005 -VERSION 1: FEB 8TH GROUP REVISED MAA ACCOUNTS W SUB-ACCOUNTS W INDICATORS W Option 1b Jetties to struck level Option 2 Early progressive reclamation Option 3a uptimizea A, B&C (with US Option 3b Optimized A B&C (off WRD) Option 3c Optimized A B&C (N-S jetty) Level of Confidence in Assessment Discrimination Value (based on 30% diff) GENERAL COMMENTS/INFO GAPS KEY DRIVERS IN ASSESSMENTS Use of Cell D 8 year deposition requried 9 4 3 8 9 8 54 D Options 1 and 2 requires Cell D deposition in 2007; Options 3a and 3c in eariy 2015 and Option 3b in mid to late 2015 sub-account score 4.00 ' V 3.00 .. \ . 8.00 9.00 8.00 • • i- • ' •• Cover system 8 ability to minimize surface irregularities (including frost heaving) 5 3 7 9 9 9 30 D Long dry beaches considered to have less surface irregularities, option 2 may have some due to internal drainage system and greater anticipated ice entrainment, option 1 with jetties and soft troughs between jetties anticipated to have most irreaular surface differential settling/comoaction 6 7 9 9 9 9 12 ND not considered to be substantial in any case, but possibly greater in Option 1 witr larger ponding potential between jetties and likely greater ice entrainment than other options. subsidence / sinkholes -same as potential for stability of permafrost (see above) 0 ND frost heaving - considered m" surface irregularities 0 ND sub-account score 5 18 8.09 9.00 9.00 9.00 Permit complexity 6 potential tor permitting constraints 6 9 8 8 7 8 12 ND related pnmariy to footprint area, option 3b includes the area between LLCF and the waste rock dump that is currentiv not part of the LLCF sub-account score. 9 00 , ,8.00. : 8.00 7.00 8.00 Techliicaracco unt score ii-' 5 00 6 44 . 8.05.: 7.90 ' 7.49 . Environmental 7 Water quality (short term) 9 degree of poor quality (?) porewater release from PK 5 9 9 9 9 9 L 0 ND on-going studies to evaluate trends identified in discharge All options considered equal in this regard as the surface areas are similar between options and the porewater release would only occur within the active laver degree of protection at compliance point (I.e. downstream impacts) 9 2 2 8 9 7 L 63 D studies on-going This substantially reflects the volume for settling in Cell D and therefore the total volume and time for placement of PK into Cell D. Options 1 and 2 have very similar volumes and timing. Option 3b has the least amount and the greatest delay. Option 3a and 3c are similar with slightly more into Cell D, Option 3c down rated by one in comparison due to the presence of a shoreline down both sides degree of protection to Exeter watershed 7 9 9 8 8 6 H 7 ND Considered a negligible concern for all cases, but Options with high road in Cell A down-rated sliqhtlv because thev are closer to the watershed divide than the impacts from waste rock storage areas draining into LLCF 3 9 9 9 8 9 3 ND Only Option 3b which may have some surface water run-on across the PK beach was down-rated slightly, all other options considered equal, no significant impacts anticipated in anv sub-account score 6.38 6.38 . 8.33, . 8.58 .7.96 • . ' 'Tv7" -: •' Aquatic impacts 9 degree of protection of downgradient aquatic system 9 2 2 8 9 8 M 63 D Similar to water quality, the greater the volume the greater the, settling etc. between the PK and the downgradient environment, the higher the degree of protection and more favourable the option sub-account score • 2.00 •: . 2:00 8.00 9.00 8.00 Air quality/dust 5 dust dispersion 7 9 8 6 5 7 H 28 D gaps in understanding of dusting, reveg. rock covers etc. This indicator was ranked based on length of slope and, to a lesser extent, on aspect. The options with PK beaches sitting higher in the landscape are likely more susceptible to dust. Note that during operations, the beaches will be quite wet and therefore little dust is anticipated in anv of the options degree of protection to Exeter watershed 4 8 9 7 7 7 M 8 ND All options believed to have a high degree of protection to the Exeter watershed. Option 1 has slightly higher profile in Option A than Option 2, similarly Options 3E throuqh 3c are even hiqher. sub-account score 8 64 V 8.36 6.36 5.73 7.00 Terrestrial impacts 3 quality & sustainability of vegetative cover 9 6 8 9 8 9 27 D While none of the options are believed to have a significant vegetative cover during operations, progressive reclamation, to the extent possible would be worked into all options, therefore the quality and sustainability is ranked here on the basis of favoured options having least water table fluctuations, inundation and qreatest erosion protection metal uptake effects on wildlife 9 9 9 9 9 9 0 ND all options considered the same degree of deference to wildlife 6 9 9 9 9 9 0 ND all options considered the same ' 188 MAA SPREADSHEET FOR EKATI PK MANAGEMENT OPTIONS - RESULTS OF MAA MEETING FEB 7-8, 2005 -SUB-ACCOUNTS INDICATORS degree of impact to present permafrost regime Jetties to struck level Option 2 Early progressive reclamation VERSION 1: FEB BTH GROUP REVISED MAA Option 3a uptimizea A, B&C (with US raises. Option 3b Optimized A, B&C (off WRD) Option 3c Optimized A, B&C (N-S jetty) Level of Confidence ir Assessment Discrimination! Value (based on 30% diff) GENERAL COMMENTS/INFO GAPS KEY DRIVERS IN ASSESSMENTS Options 3a through 3c could have an impact to the permafrost regime in those areas that would be covered by the discharge from the higher Cell A and B roads, as well as along the external drainage system route adjacent to Cell B. Options 1 and 2 would have neither of these impacts sub-account score Progressive reclamation year that reel, could begin [any option, prog reel to the extent possible be done as soon as feasible Reclamation could begin immediately in Option 2 as well as in the north part of Cell B in Option 1, the south end of Ceil B in Option 1 could begin in 2007. Options 3c through 3b would be delayed until 2012 for complete reclamation of Cell B, but the north end could be fast tracked for reclamation earlier (-2009) sub-account score Safety/liability risks of personnel Option 1 with the required and continual construction of jetties over soft PK |zones was least favoured, Option 3c was also down-rated slightly due to the need to construct the long central jetty, all other options considered the same. Note that the central Jetty in Option 3c isn't considered as great a risk as the jetties in Option 1 due to the alternative discharge locations available in Option 3c if jetty construction was stalled. sub-account score Environmental account score Closure/ Reclamation Coyer system sustainability of waste rock cover |The more area that is considered to be better drained (long beaches) with less ice entrainment the more favourable the option in this consideration. Therefore Option 3b considered the best, Option 1 with the soft areas between jetties anticipated to be least sustainable and option 2 with the greater potential for ice entrainment compared to Options 3a through 3c down-rated. Options 3a and 3c $!.!.9l?.^ ,t0 greater area of pond/beach interface sustainability of vegetation cover sustainability of water cover over flooded areas Most stable landforms and therefore most sustainable for vegetation considered to be Options 3a through 3c, Option 3b slightly down-rated because of potential to be too dry. Option 2 down-rated slightly due to greater potential for ice entrainment and inundation (especially in Cell B), Option 1 ranked the lowest due) |tojhejinticipated unstable landform in troughs between jetties. Considered sustainable for all options (no net water loss anticipated) 'sub-account score Closure landform ability to create closure !§!n.^.fPi!m„?!urin9 operations A diverse closure landform would result during the operations of Option 1, with less desirable landform 'engineering' being attainable during operations for .QMojis 2.^ degree of flexibility for diversity [All options considered equal except Option 1 which was down-rated slightly because of the difficulty in being able to do any earthworks on closure to maximize the landform desired for closure. Isub-account score Water quality (long term ) degree of poor qualify (?) porewater release from PK on-going studies to evaluate trends .y.?.D*i]EiM .'n.d'scna!!9e All options considered equal in this regard as the surface areas are similar between options and the porewater release would only occur within the active layer degree of protection at compliance point (i.e. [downstream impacts) _ [degree of protection to Exeter watershed This substantially reflects the volume for settling in Cell D and therefore the total volume and time for placement of PK into Cell D. Options 1 and 2 have very similar volumes and timing, Option 3b has the least amount and the greatest dejay. .Option 3a^^ more into Cell D Considered a negligible concern for all cases, but Options with high road in Cell A down-rated slightly because they are closer to the watershed divide than the sub-account score [Air quality/dust dust dispersion This indicator was ranked based on length of slope and, to a lesser extent, on aspect. The options with PK beaches sitting higher in the landscape are likely more susceptible to dust. The cover will minimize long term dust impacts on any of the options sub-account score terrestrial and biological impacts metal uptake effects on wildlife All options considered to have the same potential 189 MAA SPREADSHEET FOR EKATI PK MANAGEMENT OPTIONS - RESULTS OF MAA MEETING FEB 7-8, 2005 -• VERSION 1: FEB 8TH GROUP REVISED MAA , ACCOUNTS W SUB-ACCOUNTS W INDICATORS W Option 1b Jetties to struck level Option 2 Early progressive reclamation Option 3a Uptimizea A, B&C (with US raises! Option 3b Optimized A, B&C (offWRD) Option 3c Optimized A, B&C (N-S Jetty) Level of Confidence in Assessment Discrimination Value (based on 30% diff) GENERAL COMMENTS/INFO GAPS KEY DRIVERS IN ASSESSMENTS degree of deterence to wildlife 5 9 9 9 9 9 0 ND Ail options considered to be equally deterent to wildlife degree of impact to future permafrost regime 5 7 7 9 9 9 10 ND The high, dry beaches are likely to have greater permafrost aggradation than Options 1 and 2 with the greater ponding, and interaction with drainage across the beaches etc. sub-account score t< .".8.47 ,. -8.47 9.00 9.00 9.00 blopes, valleys and contoured areas 3 degree of diversity 5 9 8 8 7 8 10 ND Option 1 will have the most undulating landform and therefore greatest diversity in this reaard. followed bv Options 2, 3a and 3c and lastlv. Option 3b. subaccount score • •- L .9.00 V . 8.00 8.00 7.00 8.00 Aquatic impacts 9 degree of protection of downgradient aquatic system 9 5 5 9 9 9 36 D Similar to water quality, the greater the volume the greater the, settling etc. between the PK and the downgradient environment, the higher the degree of protection and more favourable the option subaccount score I. _' 5.00 5.00 9.00 9.00 9.00 Safety (safe fail) 9 ability to design for 'safe' deterioration of structures 9 7 7 9 9 9 18 ND The east dam is the primary structure evaluated here. There is a chance that either it can be avoided or that a less substantial dam would be required in Options 3a throuqh 3c than in Options 1 and 2. sub-account score .'. 7.00 '. 7.00 9.00 9.00 . 9.00 Long term care and maintenance 7 degree of long term interaction (diversions and dams) 7 8 8 9 9 9 7 ND While all options are likely to have some degree of interaction to ensure diversions and dams are maintained, Options 1 and 2 are likely to have slightly higher requirements over the long term, the internal drainage system in these options is likely to need more maintenance than the external drainages in Options 3a throuqh 3c. sub-account score L. 8.00 .8.00 •9.00 9.00 9.00 Safety/liability risks 5 of wildlife 5 8 9 9 9 9 5 ND The safety of wildlife is likely fairly similar across the options in the long term, Option 1 was slightly down-rated because of the greater anticipation of ponded areas and weaker tailinqs between the jetties sub-account score l: , ' - "" L= 8.00 , •"..Si9.00 9.00 ..- 9.00 9.00. Aesthetics 4 degree of aesthetic value 4 9 8 8 7 8 8 ND The lower the final landform is in the landscape, the greater the aesthetic value was perceived to be, option 1 being the lowest (and most variable) and option 3b beinq the hiqhest (with the straiqhtest profile). subaccount score i .",9.00 8.00 . . „ 8.00 7:00 8.00 Closure/ reclam atio n account score 7.31 7.31 8.55 8.40 8.53 Project Economics 4 Costs 4 capital cost 9 9 9 7 7 7 18 ND includes the costs of the east dam and spillway dam in every option, Options 3a through 3c are higher due to the cost of the higher roads and pipelines operatingjx>sts 7 6 9 8 8 8 21 ND operating costs of constructing jetties higher than those options without, longer pumpinq costs in Options 3a throuqh 3c compared to Option 2 reclamation costs (including covers) 6 8 9 8 8 8 6 ND Related to surface area (all very similar) and the time in which reclamation could start long term maintenance costs 5 5 7 9 9 9 20 ND Options 1 and (to a lesser extent) 2 considered likely to have greater long term maintenance, in particular for issues related to erosion and drainage sub-account score •V. 7,26 . :, .8:63 • -. ' 7.85 . 7.85 7.85 .. Project economics account score 7.26 8.63 7.85 7.85 7.85 combined MAA score 6.34 7.12 8.00 . 7.97 ' 7.82 NOTES: W = weight (scale of 1 to 9 with 9 being the most 'weighty* or most important) Level of Confidence valued as high (H), medium (M) or low (L) to describe confidence in the assessment of the particular indicator Discrimination value provides the difference between the maximum and minimum weighted scalar value within an indicator D = discriminating (i.e. greater than or equal to a 30% difference between the maximum and minimum weighted scalar values within an indicator ND = non-discriminating (i.e. less than a 30% difference between the maximum and minimum weighted scalar values within an indicator 190
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In human anatomy, in which part of the body is the buccinator muscle? | Buccinator Origin, Function & Anatomy | Body Maps
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Buccinator
The buccinator muscle is the major facial muscle underlying the cheek. It holds the cheek to the teeth and assists with chewing.
The buccinator muscle is served by the buccal branch of cranial nerve VII, also known as the facial nerve.
The buccinator is one of the first muscles that a human can control; the sucking reflex of a baby depends on it. Smiling, chewing, and whistling are all dependent upon it, and speech would be difficult and slurred without its proper function.
If the facial nerve is impaired, as in Bells Palsy or by a stroke, the buccinator is often paralyzed, thus making all functions dependent upon it difficult or impossible.
The buccinator muscle and its proper function are of special interest to speech therapists. Because it is the muscle that spreads the mouth wide, bilabial fricative sounds — not used in English but used for Spanish [b] and [v] sounds — and certain sounds that require the mouth to be wider — like the [i] and [e] sounds — are impaired when the buccinator does not work properly. The buccinator muscle also controls the amount of open space in the mouth, affecting many other vocal factors like tone and echo.
| Cheek |
Diacetylmorphine is the technical term for which drug? | Buccinator Anatomy: Origin, Insertion, Action, Innervation
Buccinator Anatomy: Origin, Insertion, Action, Innervation
Buccinator Anatomy Study: Origin, Insertion, Action and Innervation
Origin: Attaches to the alveolar process of the maxilla and the mandible of the opposing molar, as well as the pterygo-mandibular raphe
Insertion: Attaches to the orbicularis oris and the fibers from the deep portion of the lips
Action: Compresses the cheek
Innervation: Buccal branch of the facial nerve (cranial nerve VII)
Blood Supply: Branches from the facial artery
Primary Action of the Buccinator Muscle:
1. Compression of the cheek
For pain and symptom information see: Buccinator Muscle Pain
Basic Anatomy Books
The Anatomy Coloring Book is one of the best study and reference books for beginning anatomy students. The diagrams are clearly labeled and allow you to see the relationship and placement of the various structures of the body. You will also be surprised how the act of coloring will help with recall. But this is not just a beginners book, it is also great for practitioners and therapists to have on hand to use with clients and patients to use as a visual reference.
Out of the scores of books in my office Basic Clinical Massage Therapy is by far the most referenced book in my library. The musculoskeletal system is overlaid on human models allowing you to learn the precise location, origin and insertions of each muscle. The models are pictured in various poses throughout the book which also helps you visualize muscles in motion and their actions relationship with the skeletal structure and other muscles. Though it is written for massage therapists, it is an excellent book for anyone who wants to learn about the muscular system. MT’s will benefit from recommended treatments for each muscle.
References:
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The actress Caryn Johnson is better known by which name? | Name Caryn - The Meaning Of The Name
The Meaning Of The Name
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Name: Caryn
Gender: Female
Usage: Caryn is a popular first name. It is more often used as a girl (female) name.
People having the name Caryn are in general originating from United Kingdom, United States of America.
For another variant of the name Caryn across the world, see Karen .
Meaning:
Pure
Please feel free to read what others say about this name and to share your comments if you have more information.
N.B. Sometimes it happens that another name has the same meaning. There is nothing surprising in this: both names have the same origin or the same numbers of numerology.
To test the compatibility of this name with another, enter a name
and click
The Growth number corresponding to this first name is 7.
Interpretation:
Learn more with our free
Numerology Tool
Popularity of the Name
The name Caryn is ranked on the 3,239th position of the most used names. It means that this name is commonly used.
We estimate that there are at least 108100 persons in the world having this name which is around 0.002% of the population. The name Caryn has five characters. It means that it is relatively medium-length, compared to the other names in our database.
The graph below represents the number of people who were given the name Caryn for each year since 1900 in the U.S.A.:
The name day of Caryn is 5 March.
For other names check our
Name Day Calendar
Caryn is a given name, and may refer to:
In acting:
Caryn Elaine Johnson (better known as Whoopi Goldberg), Academy Award-winning American comedian and film actress
Caryn Richman, actress who primarily appeared in television series in the late 1980s early 1990s
In other fields:
Caryn Kadavy, American figure skater known for her classical style in singles skating
Caryn Mower, former professional wrestler and a stunt performer
Caryn Navy, blind American mathematician and computer scientist
The section "History and Origin" of this page contains content from the copyrighted Wikipedia article " Caryn "; that content is used under the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) . You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.
| Whoopi Goldberg |
Iapetus (or Japetus) is a satellite of which planet? | What is the stage name of film actress Caryn Johnson born 1949*whoopi goldberg - Pastebin.com
What is the stage name of film actress Caryn Johnson born 1949*whoopi goldberg
On clothing, what does the symbol of a circle crossed-out indicate*do not dry clean
In what sport do teams compete for the Swaythling Cup*men's table tennis
What animal is represented by the constellation Monoceros*unicorn
Who shared the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize with Menachem Begin*anwar sadat
How many VCs were awarded in the Falklands War*two
In which city are the Headquarters of INTERPOL located*lyons
In which city are the Headquarters of OPEC located*vienna
What units are used to measure the size of pearls*grains
Which car manufacturer was the first to introduce front wheel drive in 1934*citroen
What is best viewed from two tourist viewpoints - the North Rim and the South Rim*grand canyon
What is the name of the island that separates the two waterfalls at Niagara*goat island
Who was nominated for a BAFTA Award in 1997 as a result of an interview with the Duchess of York*ruby wax
Who recorded the 1997 album "Flaming Pie"*paul mccartney
Endorphins are produced in the brain and in the pituitary gland. What is their function*pain killers
In medical descriptions, what is the meaning of the term "chronic"*lingering, lasting
Who recorded the 1996 alburn, "Older"*george michael
In Mathematics, the Greek capital letter "sigma" is used to denote what process*the sum of (summation)
In Physics, what type of length is represented by the small Greek letter "lambda"*wavelength
What is the first name of the French painter Matisse*henri
Who, in literature, is eligible to be nominated for the annual award called the Carnegie Medal*authors of children's books
What is the first name of the French painter Monet*claude
Which substance, occurring naturally in fruit, causes jams and preserves to set*pectin
What was the title of Joe Loss's signature tune*in the mood
What was the title of Mantovani's signature tune*charmaine
Which substance causes milk to curdle, and is used to make cheese*rennet
Who was the author of the series of novels referred to as the Raj Quartet*paul scott
Which country (capital Kiev) lies just south of Belarus*ukraine
The name of which musical instrument means "sound of wood"*xylophone
Which 1978 film from the book of the same name by Ira Levin, tell of the cloning of Adolf Hitler*the boys from brazil
Which country (capital Luanda) lies just south of Zaire*angola
Which airline has its home base in Atlanta, Georgia*delta
Which gemstone has the highest value per carat*ruby
Which city's airport is the home base for Cathay Pacific Airlines*hong kong
In Gulliver's Travels, what is the name of the flying island inhabited by scientific theorists*laputa
Rubies are a red variety of corundum. What name is given to corundum gemstones of any other colour*sapphires
In The Pilgrim's Progress, which city of Christian's final destination*celestial city
Who is the Roman equivalent of the Greek god Dionysus*bacchus
What is the name of the dark fine grained rock of which the Giant's Causeway is formed*basalt
Who is the Greek equivalent of the Roman goddess Diana*artemis
Which modem country was formerly Nyasaland*malawi
Who was the Scottish mathematician who drew up the first logarithmic tables*john napier
Whose epitaph reads "He snatched the lightning from the skies and the sceptre from tyrants"*benjamin franklin
Xizang (spelt X-I-Z-A-N-G) is now a province of China. What is its other name*tibet
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Give another name for hydrocyanic acid (HCN), sometimes wrongly called cyanide*prussic acid
Name the ship lost off Zuyder Zee in 1799 from which a famous item was salvaged in 1858*lutine
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The word "Hellas" appears on the stamps of which country*greece
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Once married to Ted Hughes, which American poet committed suicide in 1963*sylvia plath
Which type of wheat yields flour used to make best quality spaghetti*durum
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Which character from Dickens' "Great Expectations" had been jilted on her wedding day*miss havisham
In which Australian State is Wagga Wagga*new south wales
In which Australian State is Kalgoorlie*western australia
Wolfram is the alternative name for which element*tungsten
What does Sweden call itself on its stamps*sverige
Which singer is the son of former bandleader and singer Ross McManus*elvis costello
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Name the British novelist, a successful member of the Bloomsbury Group, who drowned herself in 1942*virginia woolf
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What shape is something that is cuneiform*wedge shaped
In which opera does the US naval officer Lieutenant B.F. Pinkerton appear*madam butterfly
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Who wrote "The Black Prince", "The Sea The Sea", and "The Philosopher's Pupil"*iris murdoch
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In what field was Erie Shipton famous*mountaineering
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In which city is the eastern terminus of the Trans-Siberian railway*vladivostock
Which Italian composer's funeral in 1924 was said to have brought Rome to a standstill*puccini
Which painting medium is an emulsion of egg yolks and water*tempera
Name the variety of brassica, whose thickened stem, resembling a turnip, is eaten as a vegetable*kohlrabi
In which State is the Little Bighorn, scene of Custer's last stand*montana
What kind of creature is a redpoll if it isn't a red cow*bird
In which film did Roger Moore first appear as James Bond*live and let die
Queen Berengaria never came to England, although she was married to the King. Which King*richard the first
The town of Beersheba is in which country*israel
Which American clarinettist and bandleader created the jazz idiom known as swing*benny goodman
Much loved by Scrabble players, what kind of creature is a zebu*ox
Which US President won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906 for his mediation in the Russo-Japanese War*theodore roosevelt
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Which American city is served by Dulles Airport*washington d c
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What type of bird is a 'Beltsville'*turkey
What is the more popular narne of the plants belonging to the genus galanthus*snowdrop
Who played 'Kookie' in the T.V. series Seventy Seven Sunset Strip*ed byrnes
Which chemical element is named after the Greek word for 'green'*chlorine
According to the Gospel of Saint John, what 'lay on the other side of the Brook of Cedron'*garden of gethsemane
On which river is the city of Florence situated.*arno
Who became the first Prime Minister of Tanganyika in 1961*julius nyerere
The Sublime Porte was the Court of Government of which Empire*turkish/ottoman
Which chemical element is named after die Latin word for 'red'*rubidium
Who was the last Roman Catholic monarch of England*james the second
On which river is the city of Mandalay situated*irrawaddy
What company was founded by Sir Allan Lane in 1935*penguin books
Who were the learned class of the ancient Celts whose name means 'knowing the oak tree'*druids
Who became the first Prime Minister of Malawi in 1964*hastings banda
In horse racing, what is the maximum age of a filly*four years
To which instrument does an orchestra normally tune*oboe
Which vegetable is used if a dish is described as 'a la Crecy'*carrots
Who created WinnieThe Pooh*a a milne
For which film did Humphrey Bogart win an Oscar in 1951*the african queen
Who, in 1889, painted the picture called The Starry Sky*vincent van gogh
What is the highest-pitched woodwind musical instrument*piccolo
Who wrote The Bad Child's Book of Beasts, first published in 1896*hilaire belloc
Which vegetable is used if a dish is described as 'a la Bretonne'*haricot beans
For which film did Anthony Quinn win an Oscar for Best Suporting Actor, in 1956*lust for life
Who wrote a series of novels about C.I.A. analyst, Jack Ryan*tom clancy
Who, in 1874, painted the picture called La Loge*auguste renoir
Who was the second man to step onto the Moon in 1969*buzz aldrin
Who succeeded Caligula as Roman Emperor*claudius
Which country left the Commonwealth in 1949 and has not rejoined*eire
Who is the subject of Anouilh's play L'Alouette ( The Lark )*joan of arc
Which group had a British top five hit in the 1960s with Monday, Monday*mamas and the papas
From which country are the European Space Agency Ariane rockets launched*french guiana
Who was The Man of Destiny in George Bernard Shaw's play of that name*napoleon bonaparte
Which country left the Commonwealth in 1987 and has not rejoined*fiji
Which group had a British number one hit in the 1970s with I Don't Like Mondays*boomtown rats
In what year was the Battle of Balaclava*1854
Which city, capital of the Assyrian Empire, was destroyed by fire in 612 B.C.*nineveh
Which of Shakespeare's plays is set in the Forest of Arden*as you like it
According to the Acts of the Apostles, from where did Christ's Ascension into Heaven take place*olivet*mount of olives
In which Latin American country is the Quetzal the main unit of currency*guatemala
From which large South American country do the beers 'Brahma Chopp' and 'Antarctica' come*brazil
What is the name given to the science of improving the population by controlled breeding*eugenics
Which English poet wrote 'No man is an island, entire of itself.'*john donne
Which British physician, 1749 to 1823, developed the first effective vaccine against smallpox*edward jenner
For the development of a vaccine against which disease is Jonas Edward Salk best remembered*poliomyelitis (polio)
In which city were the summer Olympic Games of 1900 held*paris
In 1984 Los Angeles hosted the Summer Games, which city hosted the Winter Games that year*sarajevo
Which group of Australian origin had a top twenty hit in 1965 with The Carnival is Over*the seekers
Whom did Isabel Peron succeed as President of Argentina in 1974*juan peron
In which year did Charles de Gaulle die*1970
Of which country was Anastasio Somoza president during the 1960s and '70s*nicaragua
Reaching number two in the UK charts in 1991, which was the first hit single for Right Said Fred*i'm too sexy
Before coming a full time author, what was the profession of Frederick Forsyth*journalist
Fredericton is the capital of which Canadian province*new brunswick
How many times did Fred Archer win the English Derby*five
At which weight was boxer Freddie Mills World Champion*light heavyweight
Fredcrick the First, 1657 to 1713, was the first king of which country*prussia
The Portuguese capital, Lisbon, stands on which river*tagus
Which Latin phrase translates into English as 'peace be with you'*pax vobiscum
What is the literal English translation of the French phrase 'cordon bleu'*blue ribbon
Who won a Best Actress Academy award for her performance in Annie Hall*diane keaton
What were the two forenames of dramatist and novelist J.M. Barrie*james matthew
What do the letters 'T' and 'S' stand for in T. S. Eliot's name*thomas stearns
Who played Tchaikovsky in the 1971 film The Music Lovers*richard chamberlain
Which actor played Mozart in the 1984 film Amadeus*tom hulce
Which forename, deriving from the Germanic 'rulehard', has been held by three English kings*richard
Which ovine expression is used to describe a wishful amorous glance*sheep's eyes
Which ovine expression is used for a disreputable member of a family or group*black sheep
Which Australian state capital was named in honour of a British naturalist*darwin
Which Australian state capital was named in honour of a British Prime Minister*melbourne
Which dormant volcano is the highest peak in Japan*fujiyama
Which historian wrote "The Lays of Ancient Rome"*macaulay
Which boxer holds the record for the longest-reign as World Heavyweight Champion*joe louis
For what condition is the drug Mogadon prescribed*sleeplessness
With which group is Damon Allbarn the lead singer*blur
What word is used in a balance sheet to mean "Everything a company owns"*assets
Name the Japanese Stock Exchange Index.*nikkei
Which Greek did Cicero call "The Father of History"*herodotus
What is the official language of Cambodia*khmer
Which French brothers were responsible for the development of cinematography*lumiere
Which Panamanian boxer's nickname, translated into English, means "hands of stone" or "stone fists"*roberto duran
Which is the only work by Dukas most people have ever heard of*the sorcerer's apprentice
The film "The Innocents" was based on which Henry James story*the turn of the screw
Which fantasy writer's latest book is called "The Fifth Elephant"*terry pratchett
The cocktail "Daiquiri" contains limejuice and which spirit*rum
What is the official language of Ethiopia*amharic
Which British bird is the largest of the European grouse*capercaillie
In the 1998 film "Titanic", who played the part of Captain Smith*bernard hill
With which group is Keith Flint the lead singer*prodigy
In which novel is Phoebe Caulfield the hero's younger sister*catcher in the rye
Which city is the capital of the Austrian province of Tyrol*innsbruck
The cocktail "Margarita" contains cointreau, lime and which spirit*tequila
In the traditional song, what did the children dance around "on a cold and frosty morning"*the mulberry bush
From whom did Peter Mandelson borrow the money for his house*geoffrey robinson
Which is the only work by Leoncavallo most people have ever heard of*i pagliacci
With which musical instrument is Dizzy Gillespie chiefly associated*trumpet
Who is the subject of the book "Longitude" by Dava Sobel*john harrison
Which novel by Louis de Bernieres is set in Cephalonia*captain corelli's mandolin
Which city is the capital of the Italian region of Tuscany*florence
To which family of birds does the fieldfare belong*thrush
The film "High Society" was a musical remake of which 1940 film*the philadelphia story
Which novelist's latest chiller is called "Bag of Bones"*stephen king
What word is used in a balance sheet to mean "What a company owes to its suppliers and lenders"*liabilities
With which musical instrument is Julian Bream chiefly associated*guitar
In Germany, where would you be if you were in a "Krankenhaus"*hospital
What is the name of the Nike sports logo*swoosh
Which author wrote the four best-selling crime novels known as "The LA Quartet"*james ellroy
In which city is the horse race the Palio run*sienna
Bette Midler won an Oscar nomination for playing a rock singer in the style of Janis Joplin in which 1979 film*the rose
The Rose Bowl, America's oldest college football contest, is held annually in which city*pasadena
Which wild flower is also known as Fireweed, because it is the first to grow back after a fire*rose bay willow herb
Which Arthur first conceived the idea of geostationary satellites*arthur c clarke
In 1938, Pearl S. Buck became the first American woman to be awarded what international honour*nobel literature prize
A woman described as a Magdalene in the 17th Century was a repentant what*prostitute
Which species of fir is named after the plant collector. who sent its seeds back to Britain in 1827*douglas fir
Who died at Gravesend in March 1617 when she was about to embark for her homeland in America*pocahontas
Who starred as Jimmy Porter in the film version of John Osborne's play Look Back in Anger*richard burton
Doubly-ionised helium atoms, when emitted by some radioactive nuclei, are known as what*alpha particles
Who starred as History lecturer Jim Dixon in the film version of Kingsley Amis' novel Lucky Jim*ian carmichael
Also known as the Chile Pine, what is the common name of the tree Araucaria araucana*monkey puzzle
What is the name of the strong, heavy grating lowered to block the entrance to a castle*portcullis
What is the name of the central tower of a castle, the innermost and strongest part*keep
Which country was invaded by Soviet troops in August 1968*czechoslovakia
Which country was invaded by Soviet troops in December 1979*afghanistan
Jacqueline du Pre was a soloist on which instrument*cello
Evelyn Glennie is the world's first full time soloist on which part of the orchestra*drums
Which is the second largest city in Norway*bergen
Which is the second largest city in Sweden*gothenburg
The Bay of Naples and the Gulf of Salerno are inlets of which sea*tyrrhenian
Whose best-selling album is An Innocent Man which reached number two in the charts in 1983*billy joel
Who was the defeated Socialist Prime Minister in the Spanish General Election of March 1996*felipe gonzalez
The Gulfs of Taranto and Corinth are inlets of which sea*ionian sea
Who was the defeated Labour Prime Minister in the Israeli General Election of May 1996*shimon peres
Which duo's best-selling album, The Innocents, topped the album charts in January 1989*erasure
Which Jane Austen novel was originally entitled First Impressions*pride and prejudice
Who wrote the novel The Last of the Mohicans, first published in 1820*james fenimore cooper
In which Italian city is the original of Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper to be seen*milan
Which band reached number two in the charts in 1988 with the album The First of a Million Kisses*fairground attraction
With which country did Britain break off diplomatic relations in April 1984*libya
With which country did Britain break off diplomatic relations in February 1991*iraq
In cookery, what term is used for the sprinkling of food lightly and evenly with flour, sugar, etc*dredging
In which American city can the Liberty Bell be found*philadelphia
Who succeeded Georges Pompidou as President of France*valery giscard d'estaing
Which is the second largest of the Japanese islands*hokkaido
Who won the best Actress Oscar for "Blue Sky"*jessica lange
Which is the last of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments to be played in the year*us open
The Mason-Dixon line ran between Maryland and which other American State*pennsylvania
Which American president renamed "Shangri-la" as "Camp David" after his grandson*eisenhower
Which band comprises sisters Andrea, Sharon, and Caroline with their brother Jim*the corrs
Which island is known to its inhabitants as Kerkyra*corfu
Who composed the opera "Boris Godunov"*moussorgsky
What name is given to an equilateral parallelogram which contains a right angle*a square
Which sport uses the terms knuckleball, cycle, and bunt*baseball
Grenadine is a syrup from the juice of which fruit*pomegranate
Who had a 1999 hit single with "I Try"*macy gray
In the nursery rhyme, what medication was applied to Jack's head after his tumble down the hill*vinegar and brown paper
Which planet has a moon called Charon*pluto
Which is the only country to represent a letter in the phonetic alphabet*india
Which band comprises Shaznay and Melanie plus sisters Natalie and Nicole*all saints
The small tree Camellia Sinensis provides us with which digestible product*tea
Name the character played by John Cleese in "A Fish called Wanda"*archie leach
What was the nickname of bank robber Charles Floyd, killed in a shoot-out in 1934*pretty boy
The port of Oran is the second city of which North African country*algeria
Who won the best Actor Oscar for "Scent of a Woman"*al pacino
Jimmy Carter's family grew goober peas in Georgia. What's their more familiar name*peanuts
Which band had a 1999 hit single with "Flying Without Wings"*westlife
In an isosceles triangle, if the two equal angles are 35 degrees, what is the third angle*110 degrees
Name the chief port of Iraq*basra
In the TV series "The Beverley Hillbillies", who played Jed Clampett*buddy ebsen
Which planet has a moon called Europa*jupiter
As what was Anne Bonney notorious in the 18th century*pirate
Which character in Bond films has been played by Donald Pleasance, Telly Savalas, and Charles Gray*blofeld
Name both of the cities to represent a letter in the phonetic alphabet*lima & quebec
A carbohydrate consists of carbon, hydrogen, and which other element*oxygen
Where did the dormouse finish up at the Mad Hatter's tea party*in the teapot
For which 1949 film did Anton Karas write and perform the music*the third man
Which is the only Shakespeare play with the name of an English town in the title*the merry wives of windsor
Which UN Secretary-General was killed in an air crash in 1961*dag hammarskold
Which group recorded the albums Regatta de Blanc and Ghost in the Machine*the police
What was the unit of work in the c.g.s. system, which was replaced by the Joule in the S.I. system*the erg
Which poet described autumn as 'the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness'*john keats
On which temperature scale does water freeze at 0 degrees and boil at 80 degrees*reaumur
la Picardy is a region of which European country*france
Which brand of sportswear takes its nape from a South African gazelle*reebok
Who, in the Holy Bible, was the father of David*jesse
Which magazine is subtitled 'The International Magazine for Men'*penthouse
Who recorded A Walk in the Black Forest in 1965*horst jankowski
The song Love is All Around, performed by Wet Wet Wet, is featured in which Richard Curtis film*four weddings and a funeral
Which political party was founded in West Germany in 1972 by the late Petra Kelly*the green party
In the film The Great Escape , what were 'Tom', 'Dick' and 'Harry'*three escape tunnels
Which medical condition is detected using the Ishiharo Test*colour blindness
On George Martin's farewell album In My Life, which actor sings the title song*sean connery
What name is given to a statistician employed by an insurance company to calculate risks*an actuary
Name the singer who won the 1998 Eurovision Song Contest with the song Diva*dana international
Name one of the birds which Noah released from the Ark*raven or dove
In which country is the chief range of Drakensberg Mountains*south africa
Which is the largest of the Canary Islands*tenerife
Which opera, based on Bizet's Carmen, is set in a parachute factory*carmen jones
Who was the Prime Minister of Malta between 1971 and 1984*dom mintoff
According to the Holy Bible, where did Cain go after killing Abel*land of nod
Which European country is ruled jointly by the Spanish Bishop of Urgel and the President of France*andorra
The name of which disease comes from the Italian meaning 'bad air'*malaria
In which country was guitarist Django Reinhardt born*belgium
In which year did Roger Bannister run the first sub-four minute mile*1954
Which religion's holiest shrine is the Golden Temple at Amritsar*sikh
Which religion's holiest shrine's are in the Ise Shima National Park near Osaka*shinto
Born Georgios Panayiotou in England in 1963, by what name is this singer better known*george michael
Which Greek philosopher was appointed tutor to Alexander the Great in 342 B.C.*aristotle
Which 1995 film, starring Tom Hanks, used the publicity blurb "Houston, we have a problem."*apollo 13
In 65 A.D., which Roman emperor forced his former tutor, Seneca the Younger, to commit suicide*nero
The name of which of the seven hills of Rome is the origin of the word 'palace'*palatine hill
Which of the seven hills of Rome gives its name to the Italian presidential palace*quirinal hill
Which Oscar-winning actor's only film as a director was the 1961 Western One-Eyed Jacks*marlon brando
Known as 'The Ace of Aces', who was the leading American fighter pilot of World War One*eddie rickenbacker
What are wrapped in rashers of bacon to make the dish Angels on Horseback*oysters
Which French artist, in 1883, gave up his job as a stockbroker to paint full time*paul gauguin
Which is the most westerly South American country through which the Equator passes*ecuador
What is added to a Welsh Rarebit to make a Buck Rarebit*poached egg
What are train drivers called in the U.S.A.*engineers
Which of Charles Dickens' novels is mainly set in the Marshalsea Prison*little dorritt
Thomas Gradgrind and Sissy Jupe appear in which of Charles Dickens' novels*hard times
What name is given to the blend of Black China and Darjeeling teas, flavoured with oil of Bergamot*earl grey
Which saint founded a monastery at Iona in the sixth century*saint columba
In which month of the year are Nobel Prizes presented*december
On which object would you find a crown, a waist, a sound-bow and a clapper*bell
Who produced the album In My Life, featuring covers of Beatles' songs by various artists*sir george martin
Which river forms part of the southern boundary of the state of Indiana, separating it from Kentucky*ohio
If you left Oklahoma by crossing the Red river in a southerly direction, which American state would you enter*texas
A welt, a vamp, a tongue and a quarter can all be found on which object*a shoe
The sacred book of which religion is divided into 114 chapters called Suras*islam
What was the Russian city of St. Petersburg called from 1924 to 1991*leningrad
Which 19th Century poet was known as 'The Bard of Rydal Mount'*william wordsworth
Which 18th Century poet was known as 'The Bard of Ayrshire'*robert burns
In the 1960s, which company made a version of the Austin Mini, called the Elf*riley
1n the 1960s, what was the name of the Wolseley version of the Austin Mini*hornet
Which garden pest, which can cause great damage to lawns, is the grub of the crane fly*leatherjacket
Nancy Cartwright and Yeardley Smith provide the voices for which brother and sister on television*bart & lisa simpson
Which class of racing yacht has the same name as a Wagner opera*flying dutchman
Which class of racing yacht has the same name as a Shakespeare play*tempest
In the 1960s, Alan Reed and Jean Vander Pyle were the voices of which television husband and wife*fred & wilma flintstone
Israel Baline, born in Temum, Russia, on 1lth May 1898, became famous under what name*irving berlin
Name the title which, together with Berlin Game and London Match completes Len Deighton's trilogy*moscow set
Which city is, in terms of population, the second largest in Mexico*guadalajara
In which Australian state or territory is the Kimberley Plateau and Eighty Mile Beach*western australia
In which Australian state or territory is the Flinders Range and Lake Eyre*south australia
Which is Argentina's second most populous city*cordoba
Gypsum is a hydrated sulphate of which metal*calcium
What name is given to the broad gap between the outermost and the brightest of Saturn's rings*cassini division
Who, in 1655, discovered Saturn's rings*christiaan huygens
Talc is a hydrated silicate of which metal*magnesium
What is the name of the weak attractive bonds which exist between molecules*van der waals forces
What name is given to the bonds which link amino acid molecules together to form proteins*peptide bond
The malleus and the incus are two of the three auditory ossicles. Which is the third*stapes
In which ship did Captain Scott sail to the Antarctic on his ill-fated expedition of 1910 to 1912*terra nova
In which ship did John Cabot sail to the New World in 1497*mathew
Which American aircraft company makes the F15 Eagle*mcdonnell douglas
What was the name of the Royal Navy's first nuclear submarine*h m s dreadnought
Which German firm produced the World War Two plane the Condor*fockewulf
What is the name of the Kellogg's cereal prefixed with the word 'healthwise'*bran flakes
What is the alternative name of the foodstuff called sea asparagus*samphire
What is the alternative name of the foodstuff called scallions*spring onions
If you saw the word 'sag' on an Indian menu, which vegetable would it signify*spinach
If you saw the word 'aloo' on an Indian menu, which vegetable would it stand for*potato
What is the name of the Kellogg's cereal prefixed with the word 'Optima'*fruit and fibre
The foodstuff 'carambola' is known by what alternative name*starfruit
In the U.S.A., this food is known as 'granola' how is it known in europe*muesli
Princeton University is in which state*new jersey
In which state is Cornell University*new york
Which film links Harrison Ford and novelist Scott Turon*presumed innocent
Which actor played Alain Chanier in The French Connection*fernando rey
In the film Friday The Thirteenth, which character was the killer*mrs. vorhees
In the film Copycat , which entertainer played serial killer Daryll Lee*harry connick jnr
Which film links novelist Ira Levin and Sharon Stone*sliver
Who composed the Goldberg Variations*j. s. bach
What does a petrologist study*rocks
Who wrote the Booker Prize-winning novel The Old Devils*kingsley amis
What is the large central inner tower of a castle called*keep
Who married antonio banderas, her co-star in the film too much*melanie Griffith
What is the young of this animal called: Antelope*calf
What is the young of this animal called: Bear*cub
What is the young of this animal called: Beasts of prey*whelp
What is the young of this animal called: Beaver*kit
What is the young of this animal called: Birds*fledgling*nestling
What is the young of this animal called: Cat*kitten
What is the young of this animal called: Codfish*codling*sprat
What is the young of this animal called: Cow*calf
What is the young of this animal called: Deer*fawn*yearling
What is the young of this animal called: Dog*puppy*pup
What is the young of this animal called: Duck*duckling
What is the young of this animal called: Eagle*eaglet
What is the young of this animal called: Eel*elver
What is the young of this animal called: Elephant*calf
What is the young of this animal called: Elephant seal*weaner
What is the young of this animal called: Fish*fry
What is the young of this animal called: Fowl*chick*chicken
What is the young of this animal called: Fox*cub*pup
What is the young of this animal called: Frog*tadpole
What is the young of this animal called: Goat*kid
What is the young of this animal called: Goose*gosling
What is the young of this animal called: Grouse*cheeper
What is the young of this animal called: Guinea fowl*keet
What is the young of this animal called: Hawk*eyas
What is the young of this animal called: Hen*pullet
What is the young of this animal called: Hippo*calf
What is the young of this animal called: Horse*foal*yearling*colt*filly
What is the young of this animal called: Kangaroo*joey
What is the young of this animal called: Lion*cub
What is the young of this animal called: Owl*owlet
What is the young of this animal called: Partridge*cheeper
What is the young of this animal called: Pig*piglet*shoat*farrow*suckling
What is the young of this animal called: Pigeon*squab*squeaker
What is the young of this animal called: Quail*cheeper
What is the young of this animal called: Rabbit*bunny*kit
What is the young of this animal called: Rat*kitten
What is the young of this animal called: Rhino*calf
What is the young of this animal called: Rooster*cockerel
What is the young of this animal called: Salmon*parr*smolt*grilse
What is the young of this animal called: Seal*pup
What is the young of this animal called: Shark*cub
What is the young of this animal called: Sheep*lamb*lambkins
What is the young of this animal called: Swan*cygnet
What is the young of this animal called: Tiger*cub*whelp
What is the young of this animal called: Turkey*poult
What is the young of this animal called: Whale*calf
What is the young of this animal called: Zebra*foal
To within 3 mph, at what speed in m.p.h. does a wind become a hurricane*seventy three*73
In which year did Britain's coinage go decimal*1971
In which year did prohibition end in the USA*1933
What relation was Queen Victoria to George III*granddaughter
Who was Chairman of British Coal during the miners strike of the 1980s*ian mcgregor
Who was Arthur Scargill's predecessor as President of the NUM*joe gormley
What is the first name of the son of David and Victoria Beckham*brooklyn
What was the name of Minnie Caldwell's cat in Coronation Street*bobby
Who sang the song Raindrops keep falling on my Head" in the film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid"*b.j. thomas
What is the state capital of Alaska*juneau
In which city is the Blue Mosque*istanbul
In which city is the Alhambra Palace*granada
In Shakespeare's play who was the wife of Othello*desdemona
What is the colour of lobster's blood*blue
Which man has made the highest individual innings at Lord's, an innings of 333*graham gooch
Who painted "The Naked Maja"*goya
Who painted "Resurrection: Cookham"*stanley spencer
In Shakespeare's play, who tamed the shrew*petruchio
Which is the only living bird with two toes on each foot*ostrich
On which ground did Brian Lara score 501 not out*edgbaston
Which Gloucestershire town, famous for its abbey, lies on the confluence of the Severn and Avon*tewkesbury
What is the technical term for long-sightedness*hypermetropia
Which writer created Detective-Inspector Bucket*charles dickens
Which country produces Dao wine*portugal
Which country produces Franconia wine*germany
Which writer created Sergeant Cuff*wilkie collins
Where in the body are the Haversian canals*inside bones
Which Yorkshire river is formed by the confluence of the Swale and Ure*ouse
Who was the Head of State of Vichy France*petain
In what year was the "Marshal Plan" devised*1948
What links the Isle of Portland to the mainland coast of Dorset*chesil bank
The Welland Canal links Lake Erie to which other of the Great Lakes*lake ontario
Who is the current Secretary of State for Social Security*alastair darling
Who was the dictator of Portugal from 1932 to 1968*salazar
Which Marilyn Monroe film was adapted for a stage play starring Daryl Hannah in London in 2000*seven year itch
In the culinary world, what is passata*sieved tomatoes
Which game is played at 12 a-side for women, but at 10 a-side for men*lacrosse
Which element has the lowest boiling point*helium
Name the man who developed the first practical pneumatic tyre.*john dunlop
Which American devised a noise reduction system, now in general use, for tape-recorders etc*ray dolby
Which member of the Cabinet draws the largest salary*lord chancellor
To what fabric does the French city of Nimes give its name*denim
In medieval Spain which city was noted for its quality leather*cordova
Which "daring young man on the flying trapeze" gave his name to a garment*jules leotard
What fruit is the basis for guacamole*avocado
Which former child star made his debut on the London stage in October 2000*macaulay culkin
Who was the English born Surveyor-General of India who completed the first trigonometrical survey of the Sub-Continent*sir george everest
In medieval Spain which city was noted for its quality steel*toledo
Who was Speaker of the House of Commons immediately prior to Betty Boothroyd*bernard weatherill
Which newspaper owner's career inspired the film "Citizen Kane"*william randolph hearst
Which newspaper owner's name became an exclamation of surprise or disbelief*gordon bennett
Which town in Brazil, 1,000 miles up the Amazon, was at one time the major port for the rubber trade*manaus
Which statesman said that Germany's problems could only be resolved by "blood and iron"*bismarck
How many facets has a snowflake*six*6
What is the name of the "Oklahoma Bomber"*timothy mcveigh
Who wrote the words that are engraved on the Statue of Liberty*emma lazarus
What does a pteridologist study*ferns
Who is credited with inventing the transistor*dr william shockley
Who wrote the poem "The Owl and the Pussycat"*edward lear
What in the USA is celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November*thanksgiving
How many standard bottles of wine are there in a Jereboam*four*4
Of what is hippophobia a fear*horses
Which British rock group released a 1990s album called Parklife*blur
Which country is the only one to have won the Rugby Union World Cup twice*australia
Which planet in the solar system was discovered in 1846*neptune
Who wrote the novel "To Kill a Mockingbird"*harper lee
In which region of France is the red wine Chateauneuf du Pape produced*rhone valley
Which Prime Minister introduced Income Tax*pitt the younger
In which year was the Berlin Wall built*1961
What is the culinary term meaning to coat or sprinkle with flour or sugar*dredging
Which metal is combined with lead to make pewter*tin
Which US President ordered the dropping of the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki*truman
What name did the Romans give to Wales*cambria
Which army rank is equivalent to the naval rank of Lieutenant-Commander*major
Who was the first South African in space*mark shuttleworth
"Hot lesbian witches Ouch, that's hot!"*being john malkovitch
"I am totally butt crazy in love with Josh."*clueless
"I feel a hate crime coming on. "*chasing amy
"Why, I guess you don't know everything about women yet"*the empire strikes back
1996-1997 Movies: A sports agent (Cruise) forms his own company centered around Cuba Gooding Jr.*jerry Maguire
1996-1997 Movies: Annie falls victim to hijacking--again, this time on a boat.*speed 2 cruise control
1996-1997 Movies: George Clooney and Michelle Pfeiffer have a rocky relationship.*one fine day
1996-1997 Movies: This trilogy was restored and re-released February of 1997.*star wars
1996-1997 Movies: Tom Cruise in a remake of a popular 1966 series.*mission impossible
Actors Common Ground 1: Lifeboat, Cocoon.*hume cronyn
Actors Common Ground 1: My Mother the Car, Coach*jerry van dyke
Actors Common Ground 1: The Donna Reed Show, Pete and Gladys, M-A-S-H*harry morgan
Actors Common Ground 1: The Untouchables, The Man Who Would Be King.*sean connery
Actors Common Ground 1: Zorro, Lost in Space.*guy williams
Actors In Film : Pierce Brosnan, Patrick Stewart*detonator
Actors In Film: David Caruso, Stacy Keach*mission of the shark
Actors In Film: Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline, John Cleese*a fish called wanda
Actors In Film: Sean Penn, Al Pacino, John Leguzamo*carlitos way
Actors In Film: Willem Dafoe, Tom Berringer, Charlie Sheen*platoon
B Movies: 1989-Japanese feature about 5 years in a Hiroshima-surviving family*black rain
B Movies: BAD medical school comedy with Steve Gutenberg and Julie Hagerty*bad medicine
B Movies: Steve McQueen's first starring role was in this 1958 B-Movie*the blob
B Movies: Sting and Jennifer Beals in this remake of The Bride of Frankenstein*the bride
B Movies: William Hurt and Holly Hunter team up in this comedy about the network news*broadcast news
Beverly Hills 90210: For what popular singer did David play keyboards at a campus function*babyface
Beverly Hills 90210: Jamie Walters (Ray Pruitt) also starred on what short-lived Fox series*the heights
Beverly Hills 90210: This SUPER-hunk played Brenda's love interest in France.*dean cain
Beverly Hills 90210: What was the name of the guidance counselor at West Beverly*mrs. teasley
Beverly Hills 90210: Which character had an unrequited crush on Brandon through most of high school*andrea zuckerman
Bleeding Heart Movies: "Gimme some sugar, baby."*army of darkness
Bleeding Heart Movies: Brad Pitt knifes a man in a bathroom stall.*kalifornia
Bleeding Heart Movies: Debra Winger is turned prostitute and gets her finger cut off.*the piano
Bleeding Heart Movies: Jewish boy escapes death by impersonating a German and becoming a Nazi.*europa Europa
Bleeding Heart Movies: Will Smith knifes himself to get aquantied with high society folks.*six degrees of Seperation
Brady Mania: Allan Melvin played...*sam
Brady Mania: Bobby's small size enabled him and Greg to escape from the inside of one.*freezer
Brady Mania: Eve Plumb played...*jan
Brady Mania: Greg learned the meaning of "let the buyer beware" after purchasing this.*car
Brady Mania: She crashed her bicycle in the garage when she wasn't wearing glasses.*jan
Character Creators: Elmer Gantry*sinclair lewis
Couples: Rhett Butler and _______ _____*scarlett ohara
Couples: Ricky Ricardo and ____*lucy
Dick Van Dyke Show: In what year did the show premiere*1961
Dick Van Dyke Show: What body part would Rob lose if he became a Twyloite*thumb
Dick Van Dyke Show: What instrument did Buddy play*cello
Dick Van Dyke Show: What kind of sports car did Rob Petrie buy*tarantula
Dick Van Dyke Show: Who played Rob Petrie in the original pilot for the series*carl reiner
Dr Seuss: _Hop on ---_*pop
Dr Seuss: Dr. Derring's Singing Herring sing this to you!*happy birthday
Dr Seuss: He owned a bottomless pool*mcelligot
Dr Seuss: The number of hats Barholomew Cubbins wore*500
Dr Seuss: The totalitarian turtle*yertle
Entertainment Potpourri: Garp's sport in The World According to Garp*wrestling
Entertainment Potpourri: Mustached comedian who portrayed Frankie in North to Alaska*ernie kovacs
Entertainment Potpourri: TV show that featured a buzzer named Beulah*truth or consequences
Entertainment Potpourri: Whose father ran the Gillis Grocery Store*dobie gillis
Famous Celebrities: What is the surname of 8-times married actress Zsa Zsa*gabor
Famous Celebrities: What nationality is Sophia Loren*italian
Famous Celebrities: Which Gareth's summer miss of 1996 made him a household name*southgate
Famous Celebrities: Which TV show made Canadian Pamela Anderson famous*baywatch
Famous Directors: Directed "Bicycle Thieves"*vittorio de sica
Famous Directors: Directed "Blow-Up"*michelangelo antonioni
Famous Directors: Directed "Fear Eats the Soul"*rainer werner fassbinder
Famous Directors: Directed "Out of Africa"*sidney pollack
Famous Directors: Directed "Shadowlands"*richard attenborough
Film Air: "How To Marry A Millionaire" co-starred 3 film legends: Monroe, Bacall, and who*betty grable
Film Air: Film which won Audrey Hepburn an Oscar for best actress.*roman holiday
Film Air: First man to play Chester A. Riley on TV version of "The Life of Riley"*jackie gleason
Film Air: In "The Maltese Falcon," what was Peter Lorre's character named*joel cairo
Film Air: Voice of Jack Benny's hispanic friend Sy (Sy...Si!), his car, and Bugs Bunny.*mel blanc
Film Roles: Elmer Gantry*burt lancaster
Film Roles: Ghandi*ben kingsley
Film Roles: Norman Bates*anthony perkins
Film Roles: The Music Man*robert preston
Film Roles: The Sheik*rudolph valentino
Flicks: Archaeologist teams up with long lost father in search of the Holy Grail*indiana jones and the last Crusade
Flicks: Dim-witted man finds himself in important histrical events in the USA*forrest gump
Flicks: Documentary about the pressure placed on women to be thin and beautiful.*the famine within
Flicks: Exquisite movie about a boy who tames and races an Arabian horse.*the black stallion
Flicks: Jack Nicholson movie about mental hospital and R.P. McMurphy.*one flew over the cuckoos nest
Flicks: Mountain Ranger races terrorists on mountain to find three money suitcases*cliffhanger
Flicks: Movie featuring the immortal characters Blanche DuBois and Stanley Kowalski.*a streetcar named Desire
Flicks: Policeman visits wife in Los Angeles and battles terrorists on highrise*die hard
Flicks: Spielberg movie about a group of kids who go looking for buried treasure.*the goonies
Flicks: Suicidal cop is partnered with reluctant aging cop. Fight drug runners*lethal weapon
Get Smart: In Smart's _apartment_, the phone is hidden inside this.*phone
Get Smart: Siegfried's faithful sidekick and dummkopf.*shtarker
Get Smart: Smart calls this Chinese KAOS agent "The Craw".*the claw
Get Smart: Smart's call number.*86
Get Smart: This actor plays Smart and also provides the voice of Inspector Gadget.*don adams
Grease: Frenchy dropped out of beauty school after tinting her hair this color*pink
Grease: Sandy left Danny while seeing this movie at the drive-in.*the blob
Grease: She got her name because she was the best dancer at St. Bernadette's.*chacha
Grease: This was the rival gang of the T-Birds.*scorpions
Grease: What did Frenchy do that made Sandy puke*pierced her ear
Highlander: On Highlander The Series, what is the name of Duncan MacLeod's young partner*richie ryan
Highlander: What is the backdrop for the infamous 'cut scene' in the first movie*world war ii
Highlander: What is the full name of Connor MacLeod's mentor (hint: 5 words)*juan sanchez villa lobos Ramirez
Highlander: What was the name of Duncan MacLeod's monk mentor*darius
Highlander: Who plays Duncan MacLeod*adrian paul
Indiana Jones: In Latin, what letter does Jehova start with*i
Indiana Jones: In the Temple of Doom, what bodily fluid is Indy forced to drink*blood
Indiana Jones: In what type of institution does Marcus Brody work*museum
Indiana Jones: What animal is Indy's father terrified of*rat
Indiana Jones: What does the penitent man do in the presence of God*kneel
Indiana Jones: What kind of scientist is Indiana Jones*archaeologist
Indiana Jones: What nationality was rival archaeologist Rene Belloq*french
Indiana Jones: What nationality was rival archaeologist Rene Belloq*french
Indiana Jones: What was the name of Indy's dog from childhood*indiana
Indiana Jones: What woman conspires with Nazis to steal the grail diary (first name only)*elsa
Marx Movies: Chico and Harpo are spies Chicolini and Pinkie in this movie*duck soup
Marx Movies: In this movie Chico is a tooty-fruity selling tout*a day at the races
Marx Movies: Say,if you get near a song , play it*animal crackers
Marx Movies: The first part of the party of the first part .... the second part...*a night at the opera
Marx Movies: This movie contains their celebrated state room scene aboard an ocean liner*a night at the opera
MASH: Colonel Potter paints him throwing a discus.*klinger
MASH: Klinger wears dresses to earn himself one of these.*section 8
MASH: Trapper John and Hawkeye build one of these in their tent.*still
MASH: What is Klinger court-martialed for*theft
MASH: Who directed the final episode*alan alda
Mostly Older Movies: Anne Francis and Robby The Robot starred in this SciFi classic:*forbidden planet
Mostly Older Movies: Early Nat'l Lampoon film; John Belushi plays Bluto:*animal house
Mostly Older Movies: Jimmy Stewart had an invisible friend by this name:*harvey
Mostly Older Movies: Musical about Viet Nam with Treat Williams and Beverly D'angelo:*hair
Mostly Older Movies: Older scifi movie starring Sigourney Weaver:*alien
Movie Actors: He starred in Lassie Come Home and Planet of the Apes*roddy mcdowall
Movie Actors: He was in Silkwood and Backdraft*kurt russell
Movie Actors: The mute Marx Brother*harpo
Movie Actors: The piano-playing Marx brother*chico
Movie Actors: The Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz*jack haley
Movie Actresses: Actress in Psycho and Touch of Evil*janet leigh
Movie Actresses: She was Oscar nominated for Sunset Boulevard*gloria swanson
Movie Actresses: She was the star of 40s MGM swimming spectaculars*esther williams
Movie Actresses: She won Oscars for (ch) Kramer vs. Kramer and Sophie's Choice*meryl streep
Movie Actresses: The star of Roman Holiday and Breakfast at Tiffany's*audrey hepburn
Movie Lines: Excuse me while I whip this out.*blazing saddles
Movie Lines: I sound my barbaric YAWP...*dead poets society
Movie Lines: Show me a move, Q Ball*under siege
Movie Tag Lines: 1979: In space, no one can hear you scream.*alien
Movie Tag Lines: 1985: 17 year old Marty McFly got home early last night. 30 years early.*back to the future
Movie Tag Lines: 1995: What kind of man would defy a king*braveheart
Movie Tag Lines: 1997: A message from deep space. Who will be the first to go*contact
Movie Tag Lines2: 1940: Walt Disney's Technicolor FEATURE triumph!*fantasia
Movie That Features: Fisher Stevens, Ally Sheedy, and Steve Guttenberg*short circuit
Movie That Features: Julia Roberts, Cameron Diaz, and Dermot Mulroney with wedding bell blues.*my best Friends Wedding
Movie That Features: Matthew Modine, Mercedes Ruehl, Dean Stockwell, and Michelle Pfeiffer*married to the Mob
Movie That Features: Patrick Swayze, Cynthia Gibb, Ed Lauter, and Rob Lowe*youngblood
Movie That Features: Stephen Rea, Miranda Richardson, Jaye Davidson, and Forest Whitaker*the crying Game
Movie Trivia: "Citizen Kane" won this many Academy Awards*1
Movie Trivia: Amount of money "E.T." grossed in first 2 weeks of release (in millions)*44
Movie Trivia: Madonna and sean Penn starred together in this 1987 film*shanghai surprise
Movie Trivia: MGM is an acronym for this*metro goldwyn mayer
Movie Trivia: Number of movies Burton and taylor made together*10
Movies: Jane Wyman had no speaking role, but lots of acting, in this movie.*johnny belinda
Movies: Ronald Coleman played Charles Rainier, an amnesia victim from WWI, in this film*random harvest
Movies: Timothy Dalton starred in this flashy sci-fi film*flash gordon
Movies: Western in which Gable said, "Why don't you jump in and get wet all over"*honky tonk
Movies: William Hurt plays Macon Leary in this movie.*accidental tourist
Music Movie Trivia: "Arnold" solos this Cole Porter song in Torch Song Trilogy.*love for sale
Music Movie Trivia: Each Mad Max movie has a version of this song.*happy birthday
Music Movie Trivia: Sound of Music song: "The sun has gone to bed and so must I...".*so long farewell
Music Movie Trivia: This famous jazz musician was the band leader in "Hello, Dolly!"*louis armstrong
Music Movie Trivia: This Gypsy song's footage is thought to be lost forever.*together we go
Name That Actor: ...who played Charles Foster Kane*orson welles
Name That Actor: ...who played Dirty Harry*clint eastwood
Name That Actor: ...who played Mozart in "Amadeus"*tom hulce
Name That Actor: ...who played Obi Wan Kenobi*alec guiness
Name That Actor: ...who played Willy Wonka*gene wilder
Name That Celebrity: Director and dixieland clarinetist*woody allen
Name That Celebrity: Star of one-man shows thar portrayed Harry Truman and Will Rogers*james whitmore
Name That Celebrity: The director of Citizen Kane and The Third Man*orson wells
Name That Celebrity: The male anchor of 20/20*hugh downs
Name That TV Show: Goober, Floyd, Opie, Barney*andy griffith
Name That TV Show: Hayden, Christine, Dauber*coach
Name That TV Show: Max Weinberg, Andy Richter, Conan*late night with conan obrien
Name That TV Show: Urkel, Laura, Carl*family matters
Name That TV Show: Wapner, Rusty, Doug*peoples court
Name Their Network: Candice Cameron*abc
Name Their Network: Craig T. Nelson*abc
Name Their Network: Lloyd Robertson*ctv
Name Their Network: Principal Skinner*fox
Name Their Network: Sandy Rinaldo*ctv
Pop Music On Film: This singer can currently be seen on film in "Little Buddah"*chris isaak
Pop Music On Film: This singer has hit #1 four times with movie themes, including 2 from "Buster"*phil collins
Quantum Leap: Dr. Sam Beckett was born in this year.*1953
Quantum Leap: First name of Sam's wife.*donna
Quantum Leap: How many degrees does Sam have, including one in ancient languages*six
Quantum Leap: In "The Beast Within", Sam meets this legendary creature.*bigfoot
Quantum Leap: In the 1st episode, Sam Leaped into Tom Stratton, who was of this profession.*test pilot
Quantum Leap: Modern-day tycoon who with his dad exits a cab Sam is entering, in one ep.*donald trump
Quantum Leap: Sam usually says these 2 words just after Leaping, sometimes more than once.*oh boy
Quantum Leap: Sam's true love that he sees again when he leaps into one of her professors.*donna
Quantum Leap: Show name of the boxer Sam leaps into in the ep. The Right Hand of God.*kid cody
Quantum Leap: The main character, Dr. Sam Beckett, was played by this actor.*scott bakula
Rush Limbaugh: Call letters of the EIB flagship station in New York.*wabc
Rush Limbaugh: Rush's chief of staff.*kit carson
Rush Limbaugh: Rush's on-air name as a disc jockey.*jeff christie
Rush Limbaugh: The name of Rush's newletter.*limbaugh letter
Rush Limbaugh: The name of Rush's second book.*see i told you so
Sports Actors: Besides Field of Dreams, what other baseball movie starred Kevin Costner*bull durham
Sports Actors: Who co-starred as Gale Sayers in Brian's Song*billy dee williams
Sports Actors: Who co-starred as Gale Sayers in Brian's Song*billy dee williams
Sports Actors: Who played Babe Ruth in The Babe Ruth Story*william bendix
Sports Actors: Who played Lou Gehrig in Pride of the Yankees*gary cooper
Sports Actors: Who played Roy Hobbs' old girlfriend and eventual wife in The Natural*glenn close
Sports Actors: Who played the manager in The Natural*wilfred brimley
Sports Actors: Who played the pesky sportswriter in The Natural*robert duvall
Sports Actors: Who starred as an Olympic skier in Downhill Racer*robert redford
Sports Actors: Who starred as an Olympic skier in Downhill Racer*robert redford
Star Trek Next Generation: Captain Edward Jellico commanded this ship in Chain of Command, Part I.*cairo
Star Trek Next Generation: Data can process this many trillion operations per second.*60
Star Trek Next Generation: First encounter with Moriarty occurs in this episode*elementary dear data
Star Trek Next Generation: Picard becomes a Borg in this episode*best of both worlds
Star Trek Next Generation: The musical instrument Picard prizes most.*flute
Star Trek Next Generation: Characters: Picard had a fling with this woman who left him for Q.*vash
Star Trek Next Generation: Characters: The first character from TOS to make an appearance on TNG*mccoy
Star Trek Next Generation: Characters: Transporter Chief with a constantly changing rank...*obrien
Star Trek Next Generation: Characters: Who is the Chief of Engineering*laforge
Star Trek Next Generation: Characters: Worf's son's name*alexander
Star Trek Next Generation: Tech: This type of electronics is used in computer systems and networks*optical electronics
The 80s: This actor was with Wagner and Natalie Wood when she drowned.*christopher walken
Disney Afternoon: BO What is Bonkers' full name*bonkers t. bobcat
Disney Afternoon: DD What is Darkwing's often-humorous battle cry in the face of danger*letus get dangerous
Disney Afternoon: RR According to one episode, where did dinosaurs come from*space
Disney Afternoon: RR What is the name of the fly*zipper
Disney Afternoon: TS What is Baloo's term of endearment for his employer*beckers
Threes Company: Chrissy won this fabulous prize in a grocery store contest*turkey baster
Threes Company: Jack faked this condition after wrecking Janet's car*amnesia
Threes Company: Janet became a real floozy when she got this fashion accessory*blonde wig
Threes Company: The girls convinced Mr Roper to let Jack live with them by telling him Jack was*gay
Threes Company: Three's Company spun off this show focusing on Jack*threes a crowd
TV Pets: Name Roscoe P. Coltrane's dog on "Dukes of Hazzard."*flash
TV Pets: Name the dog on "The Brady Bunch."*tiger
TV Pets: Name the dog on "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir."*scruffy
TV Pets: Seen/heard after "Family Ties": "Sit, ___, sit. Good dog!"*ubu
TV Pets: What breed of dog was Lassie*collie
TV Themes: Believe it or not, it's just me*greatest american hero
TV Themes: But those dreams have remained and they've turned around...*welcome back kotter
TV Themes: I've been down this road, walking the line that's painted by pride...*ally mcbeal
TV Themes: These days are ours...*happy days
TV: 1960's series followed the exploits of Kelly Robinson and Alexander Scott.*i spy
TV: McHale's rank in McHale's Navy.*lieutenant commander
TV: Name of the character on "Have Gun, Will Travel".*paladin
TV: She shared an apartment with Jack Tripper and Chrissy Snow (full name).*janet wood
TV: This product goes "plop plop fizz fizz"*alka seltzer
UK TV: What type of programme is Sophie Grigson most likely to present*cooking
UK TV: Which Eamonn spoke the first words on GMTV*holmes
UK TV: Which Gaby presented the first series of "Whatever You Want"*roslin
UK TV: Which Jill replaced Sue Cook on "Crimewatch UK"*dando
UK TV: Who is Mrs. Lenny Henry (Full name)*dawn french
Wizard Of Oz: Chevy Chase movie which takes place in 30's Hollywood.*under the rainbow
Wizard Of Oz: First kind of animal heard in the MGM film.*lion
Wizard Of Oz: In the book, these items give the Emerald City its green appearance. (2 words)*green spectacles
Wizard Of Oz: It makes the muskrat guard his musk.*courage
Wizard Of Oz: The actor who played the scarecrow.*ray bolger
World Of Disney: In "Pinocchio", what is the name of Geppetto's pet cat*figaro
World Of Disney: In "The Toroise and the Hare," what's the Hare's first name*max
World Of Disney: In what state was "Old Yeller" set*texas
World Of Disney: What are the only 2 words that Pluto has every said*kiss me
World Of Disney: What color is the fairy that grants Geppetto's wish to bring Pinocchio to life*blue
Movie Lines: Your ego's writing checks your body can't cash.*top gun
Earth's outer layer of surface soil or crust is called the _____________.*lithosphere
This county has the lowest point in South America.*argentina
What US City is known as The River capital of the world*Akron
Who created Maudie Frickett*Jonathan Winters
Who sought to create The Great Society*Lyndon Johnson
Who wrote the Father Brown crime stories*GK Chesterton
What does the C stand for in the equation E=mc2*Speed of light
What's a funambulist*tightrope walker
What's the worlds widest river*Amazon
What weapon is tattooed on Glen Campell's arm*dagger
Who was kidnaped on the night of March 1, 1932*Charles Lindbergh Jr
What subject did Mr. Chips teach*Latin
What did Wilhelm Roentgen discover in 1895*X-rays
What's the better-known name of the card game Twenty-One*Blackjack
What are the Twin Cities*Minneapolis and St Paul
What film did Art Carney win the 1974 best actor Oscar for*Harry and Tonto
What organization was given the only Nobel Peace Price awarded during World War I*The Red Cross
What day of the week did Solomon Grundy die*Saturday
What's the only day named for a planet*Saturday
What hobby was developed by the Palmer Paint company of Detriot*Painting by numbers
What's the capital of Wyoming*cheyenne
Where's the famed Arch of Hadrian*athens
What tropic passes through Australia*capricorn
What's the longest river in Asia*yangtze
Where is Dam Square*Amsterdam
What's the largest museum in the world*louvre
Who was winnie the pooh's neighbor*piglet
What seaport's name is Spanish for white house*casablanca
Who signed the Emancipation Proclamation*Abraham Lincoln
Quotations: "Discipline without freedom is tyranny; freedom without discipline is chaos."*Cullen Hightower
Quotations: "The greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our disposition and not our circumstances."*Martha Washington
Quotations: "The greater the difficulty, the more the glory in surmounting it."*Epicurus
Quotations: "The greatest difficulties lie where we are not looking for them."*Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Quotations: "The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved - loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves."*Victor Hugo
Quotations: "The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes."*Sir Winston Churchill
Quotations: "The greatest of all faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none."*Thomas Carlyle
Quotations: "Distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes."*Henry David Thoreau
Quotations: "Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."*George Bernard Shaw
Quotations: "Do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of."*Benjamin Franklin
Quotations: "A bikini is like a barbed-wire fence. It protects the property without obstructing the view."*Joey Adams
Quotations: "A billion here, a billion there - pretty soon it adds up to real money."*Everett Dirksen
Quotations: "A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog."*Jack London
Quotations: "A converted cannibal is one who, on Friday, eats only fishermen."*Emily Lotney
Quotations: "Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person."*Mother Teresa
Quotations: "Do one thing at a time, and do that one thing as if your life depended on it."*Eugene Grace
Quotations: "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."*Theodore Roosevelt
Quotations: "Do you realize the responsibility I carry? I'm the only person standing between Nixon and the White House."*John F. Kennedy
Quotations: "Doctors are the same as lawyers; the only difference is the lawyers merely rob you, whereas doctors rob you and kill you, too."*Anton Chekhov
Quotations: "Doctors can bury their mistakes, Architects can only advise their clients to plant vines."*Frank Lloyd Wright
Quotations: "I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is to try to please everyone."*Bill Cosby
Quotations: "I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts."*Will Rogers
Music: Who recorded 'Cuts Like a Knife' in 1983*Bryan Adams
Music: What was REO Speedwagon's 1983 chartbusting LP*High Infidelity
Music: What group did Steve Howe join in 1982*Asia
Music: Who recorded 'Shadows of the Night' in 1982*Pat Benatar
Music: Who recorded 'In the Air Tonight' in 1981*Phil Collins
Music: What group taped the first 3-D rock video in 1983*Aerosmith
Music: In what year did the 'Pretenders' release their first LP*1980
Music: What 80's band included members from Bad Company and Led Zeppelin*The Firm
Music: What was the first album Roger Waters released after leaving Pink Floyd*The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking
Music: Who replaced Ronnie James Dio in Black Sabbath*Ian Gillan
Music: What Rush album cover features rabbits and a magician's hat*Presto
Music: What is Paul McCartney's real first name*James
Music: What was John Lennon's real middle name*Winston
Music: What is Ringo Starr's real name*Richard Starkey
Music: Who is Pat Andrejewski better known as*Pat Benatar
Music: What is Ozzy Osbourne's real first name*John
Music: Who is David Robert Jones better known as*David Bowie
Music: Who is Don Van Vliet better known as*Captain Beefheart
Music: What is Ray Charles' real last name*Robinson
Music: What guitar company created the 'Flying V' guitar in the late 1950's*Gibson
Music: Who recorded 'Long Tall Sally' in 1956*Little Richard
Music: Who was known as 'The Killer' in the 1950's*Jerry Lee Lewis
Music: What year did Chet Atkins release his first solo album*1953
Music: What song by Frankie Avalon went to #1 in 1959*Venus
Music: Who played stand-up bass on Elvis' songs for Sun Records*Bill Black
Music: What band did James Brown tour and record with in the 1950's*The Famous Flames
Music: What 1958 song was The Coaster's only #1 hit*Yakkety Yak
Music: What 1958 Eddie Cochran song became his biggest US hit and a rock classic*Summertime Blues
Music: What was Sam Cooke's only #1 song*You Send Me
Music: Who recorded 'I Can't Explain' in 1965*The Who
Music: Who recorded 'Be True to your School' in 1963*The Beach Boys
Music: What Rolling Stones album originally had a 3-D cover in 1967*Their Satanic Majesties Request
Music: What was the only hit song for the band 'It's a Beautiful Day'*White Bird
Music: What was the original name of the group 'Chicago'*Chicago Transit Authority
Music: What instrument does Ravi Shankar play*The Sitar
Music: What group is Phil Lesh with*The Grateful Dead
Music: Who replaced Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd*David Gilmour
Music: What female rock star did Mike Wallace of '60 Minutes' interview in 1969*Janis Joplin
Music: Who sang vocals for 'Big Brother and the Holding Company'*Janis Joplin
Music: What band did Dion form in 1958*The Belmonts
Music: Who sang lead vocals for Lynyrd Skynyrd*Ronnie Van Zandt
Music: What is Leslie West's nickname*Mountain
Music: Who was Jesus on the LP version of 'Jesus Christ Superstar'*Ian Gillan
Music: Who re-recorded 'Secret Agent Man' in 1979*Devo
Music: Who recorded 'Blue Morning Blue Day' in 1978*Foreigner
Music: Who played guitar for 'The James Gang'*Joe Walsh
Music: Who replaced 'Bernie Leadon' of 'The Eagles' in 1975*Joe Walsh
Music: What Stevie Wonder song was recorded by 'Beck Bogart and Appice'*Superstition
Music: What Beatles song did Dr. John remake*Yesterday
Music: What did Pat Benatar sing before she went into Rock music*Opera
Music: What John Lennon/David Bowie single went to #1 in 1975*Fame
Who was the first U.S. President to use a word processor*Jimmy Carter
What was the first personal computer: Kenbak, Scelbi, or Apple1*Kenbak
Which of these is NOT a computer: MANIAC, SILLIAC, BRAINIAC,ILLIAC, JOHNNIAC*BRAINIAC
What was the first computer software company to go public on the New York Stock Exchange*Cullinet
What is the significance of the moth found in the Harvard Mark I computer*First computer "bug"
What does VAX stand for*Virtual Access eXtension
Where is the world's largest computer manufacturing plant*Japan
The relative speed of the TRS-80 to the ENIAC is __:1*20
What do you call the three wires on a transistor*Emitter, Base, Collector
What is the name of Jonny Quest's Dog*Bandit
What is the name of the theme song for The People's Court*The Big One
What is the name of Mighty Mouse's girl friend*Pearl Pureheart
What Indian word means "big village"*Canada
What animals cannot walk backwards*Emus
What animal's milk does not curdle*Camel
"Mr. Mojo Risin" is an anagram for...*Jim Morrison.
What animal only blinks one eye at a time*hampster
Barbie's measurements if she were life size:*39-23-33
Who invented scissors*Leonardo Da Vinci
What is the most common name in the world*Mohammed.
What color was Coca Cola originally*green
The Hawaiian alphabet has how many letters*12
What is the only bird that can fly backwards*Hummingbird
Who was the original voice of Darth Vader (hint: NOT James Earl Jones)*David Prowse
What foreign country's phone book is alphabetized by first name*Iceland
What animals eye is bigger than its brain*ostrich
What did Al Capone's business card say he was*used furniture dealer
What is the longest recorded flight of a chicken*13 seconds
What was Wilma Flintstone's maiden name*Wilma Slaghoopal
What was Betty Rubble's Maiden name*Betty Jean Mcbricker
What animal, other than humans, can get leprosy*Armadillos
Who played John Candy's obnoxious brother-in-law in "The Great Outdoors"*Dan Akyroyd
How many Jews were saved on Schindler's List*1,100
In the movie "Mall Rats", What famous author was signing comic books*Stan Lee
Where were the Toltecs from*Mexico
What US city was the capital from 1789 to 1790*New York City
What rare metal melts at 86 degress Fahrenheit*Gallium
What yummy snack is used in the construction of dynamite*Peanuts
What city exists on every continent*Rome
What actor was freshman college roommate to Al Gore*Tommy Lee Jones
What is Pogonophobia the fear of*Beards
The first toilet ever seen on television was on what show*Leave It To Beaver
What is Barbi's full name*Barbara Millicent Roberts
Who was Queen of England for only nine days*Lady Jane Grey
Whose comment on the first moon landing was "This is the greatest week in the history of the world since the creation"*Richard Nixon
What century saw the War of the Roses*The 15th century
James Hepburn, the fourth Earl of Bothwell, died in 1578. Who did he marry in 1567*Mary Queen of Scots
Who did Spain fight in the 1808-1814 Peninsular War*Portugal
Who went on to become an Eastern Communist leader after working as a pastry chef at London's Carlton Hotel*Ho Chi Minh
Which lawyer broke the law by refusing to be finger-printed in the Transvaal during 1907*Gandhi
Which cosmetics giant began in 1886 as the California Perfume company*Avon
Who was the first woman to lead a British trade union*Brenda Dean
In what years were the "Great Plague" and the "Great Fire" of London*1665 and 1666
Napoleon had connections with three islands, he was imprisoned on Elba and died on St. Helena, where was he born*Corsica
Which country saw the Mau Mau uprising*Kenya
What happened to lady Jawara , the President of Gambia's wife when he was at Prince Charles wedding*She was kidnapped
What year saw the launch of Sputnik I*1957
In 1936 King Edward VIII abdicated from the British throne to marry an American divorcee, who was she*Mrs. Wallis Simpson
Which great battle took place from July 1st to November 18th 1916*The Battle of the Somme
With what acid do nettles cause irritation*Formic acid
What did the old woman who lived in a shoe give her children for supper*Broth without any bread
Which is the only English word to both begin and end with the letters U-N-D*Underground
Which famous artist took up painting with his left hand when he lost the use of his right hand at the age of sixty*Leonardo da Vinci
Who was the first person to make a million pounds out of playing golf*Arnold Palmer
From what is rum distilled*Sugar cane
What is the most common surname in the Barcelona telephone directory*Garcia
Who was the last to stab Caesar in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar*Brutus
Quotes: A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.*William James
Quotes: The trouble with being punctual is that nobody's there to appreciate it.*Franklin P Jones
Quotes: Experience enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.*Franklin P Jones
Quotes: All paid employments absorb and degrade the mind.*Aristotle
Quotes: A little inaccuracy saves a world of explanation.*CE Ayres
Quotes: I don't want to achieve immortality through my work, I want to achieve it through not dying.*Woody Allen
Quotes: In his private heart no man much respects himself.*Mark Twain
Quotes: A stand can be made against invasion by an army; no stand can be made against invasion by an idea.*Victor Hugo
Quotes: To my embarrassment I was born in bed with a lady.*Wilson Mizner
Which jazz trumpet virtuoso is credited as having invented scat' singing*Louis Armstrong
Which 9-fingered pop pianist starred in the film Its all Happening*Russ Conway
Who, according to a song, damaged her foot on a piece of wood and fell into a raging torrent*Clementine
Which musical includes the Barbara Dickson/Elaine Page song I Know Him So Well*Chess
Which musical was based on the play The Matchmaker*Hello Dolly
What type of singing does Pavarotti use*Baritone
Which single didn't get banned by the BBC despite the line, "Candy never lost her head even when she was giving head"*Walk on the wild side
Which new-wave band rocked the Casbah*The Clash
What country controls access to the North Sea from the rivers Schelde, Meuse & Rhine*Netherlands
Music: Who sang "Everybody wants to Rule the World?"*Tears for fears
In Korean, what does Seoul mean*Capital
What is the birthplace (city) of the late John Candy*Toronto
What insects do isopterpophobics fear*Termites
What was Lestat's mother's name*gabrielle
This Canadian art-metal trio sings sci-fi themes a lot.*Rush
What's the only property an orthodox Hindu woman can own*Jewelry
What is Venezuela named after*Venice
Music: what was Steve Miller's magical incantation in 1982*abracadabra
He is known as "the father of geometry".*Euclid
The compound of this sect was under siege in Waco, Texas.*Branch Davidians
What did Emerson, Lake & Palmer burn on stage during their concerts*The American flag
What did Americans call the first Cuban in space*Castronaut
Who played Little Joe on "Bonanza"*Michael Landon
What are the names of the Ninja Turtles in alphabetical order*Donatello Leonardo Michelangelo Raphael
How many squares are on a Shogi (Japanese chess) board*eighty one
What was Donald Fagen's first solo album title (1982)*The Nightfly
What tv series starred six female impersonators during its 17 year run*Lassie
Hitchhiker's Guide: What race writes the third worst poetry in the Universe*Vogons
Lazy Susans are named after who*Thomas Edison's daughter
The Voyage of the Beagle told of which scientist's discoveries*Charles Darwin
She starred in Broadcast News & The Piano.*Holly Hunter
What is the name of the capital of Quebec*Quebec City
What does yellow gold contains 10% of*Copper
Movies: Who played andy thompson in The Headmaster*Andy Griffith
Music: Who admited stealing a copy of his girlfriend's autobiography from an airport stand*Rod Stewart
How many tusks does an Indian Rhinocerous have*one
How many sides does a hexagon have*six
What is the symbol for the zodiacal sign Aries*ram
What features of the African elephant are larger than those of the Indian elephant*ears
What are you if you're hirsute*hairy
What city did Jacques Guernerin make the first parachute jump over, in 1797*paris
What is the cube root of 27*three
What grass has a capability of growing 36 inches in one day*bamboo
How many zeros are there in a British billion*twelve
What are you if your IQ is below 25*idiot
What, translated literally, is the ninth month*november
What birds feathers does superstition say should never be in a house as decoration*peacock
How many hearts does an octopus have*three
What is the most common colour of topaz*yellow
What type of bomb is a Mills bomb*grenade
What is quicksilver*mercury
What do vampire bats usually go for on sleeping humans*toes
What are rats unable to do, making them extra vulnerable to poison*vomit
Which nightingale sings the male or the female*male
What insect lends its name and gives its body to a food colouring*cochineal
How many engines does a B-52 bomber have*eight
What is the only native North American marsupial*opossum
What is measured in curies*radioactivity
How many chambers are there in the human heart*four
What bird provided the quills that were used for writing*goose
What yellow, fossilised resin did the Greeks and Romans use in jewellery*amber
What day of the week will January 1st 2001 be*monday
What is the Diamond Anniversary*sixtieth
What resin used in varnish is a secretion of the lac insect*shellac
Whose profession is considered the greatest insurance risk in the US*astronaut
What colour is a Granny Smith apple*green
What do gasoline and napthenic and palmatic acids combine to form*napalm
What is commited if a person murders his father*patricide
What does an androphobic maiden fear*men
What gas did Joseph Priestley discover in 1774*oxygen
What planet is best known as both the morning and the evening star*venus
What was the name of Charles Darwin's survey ship*beagle
What sign of the zodiac covers November 22nd to December 21st*sagittarius
What is the first sign of the zodiac*aries
How many landing weels does a Concorde have*ten
What is the collective term for crows*murder
How many times thicker than water is blood*six
What fabric derives its name from the French for cord of the king*corduroy
What is the zodiacal symbol for Capricorn*goat
What is the longest living land mammal after man*elephant
What African animal kills the most people*crocodile
What was Christ's zodiacal sign*capricorn
What animal was revered by the ancient Egyptians*cat
Which shoulder should you throw spilled salt over*left
What animal is the provider of coney fur*rabbit
What are igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary the three classes of*rock
What constellation represents a hunter with club and shield*orion
What is the crystal anniversary*fifteenth
What is January's birthstone*garnet
Who was the Sun god of ancient Egypt*ra
What natural phenomenon is Iris the goddess of*rainbow
What is the common term for the tympanic membrane*eardrum
What planet's moons include Io, Ganymede and Hades*jupiter
What alloy do tin and lead form*pewter
What plant is revered by the lovers of the stinky rose*garlic
What brewing aid is obtained from the sturgeon*isinglass
What does a pluviometer measure*rainfall
What tiny vessel connects an artery with a vein*capillary
What is a group of bears called*sleuth
What civilisation invented the arch*roman
Who's known as the father of geometry*euclid
Who are the queen's best mates in bee hives*drones
What is the largest planet in the solar system*jupiter
What animal provided the hair for hairspring watches*pig
What is the only female animal that has antlers*caribou
What worm prefers the mulberry*silkworm
What class of animals makes up more then two thirds of known species*insects
What is the seven letter term for a person who shoes horses*farrier
What is known as The Royal Disease*haemophilia
What number cant be represented in Roman numerals*zero
What fabric are Harris, Lewis and Donegal the leading examples of*tweed
What do bees collect*nectar
What abbreviation comes from libra, meaning pound in Latin*lb
What age is adolescence considered to end at*eighteen
What were broccoli and cauliflower developed from*cabbage
What domestic fowl lives the longest*goose
How many sides does a nonagon have*nine
What colour is produced by the complete absorption of light rays*black
What is the square root of 900*thirty
What is the more common name for sodium chloride*salt
What is the only prime number that is even*two
What is converted into alchohol during the brewing process*sugar
What are you caught in if a haboob blows up*sandstorm
What is the term for a limestone deposit rising from the floor of a cave*stalagmite
What is the term for a limestone deposit hanging from the ceiling of a cave*stalagtite
What must a Mensa member be*genius
How many sides does a snowflake have*six
What is the study of fossils called*paleontology
What does a meteorologist study*weather
What creature does the Galapagos Islands take their name from*tortoise
What is the most common colour of garnet*red
What by product of the manufacture of Coca Cola is sold to pharmaceutical companies*cocaine
Is the thumb considered to be a finger*yes
What animal's fleece yields lanolin*sheep
What is the Roman numeral for 50*l
What are sheep if cats are feline*ovine
Which moves faster, frogs or toads*frogs
What element do all organic compounds contain*carbon
What is the only day named after a planet*saturday
What planet did the Mariner space craft explore*venus
How many tines are there on a standard dinner fork*four
What valuable edible fungus grows undergound*truffle
What is statistically the safest age of life*ten
What one type of cattle produces more than eighty percent of the UK's milk*friesian
How many points are there on a Maltese cross*eight
How do you write ninety nine in Roman numerals*xcix
What part of the human body is most commonly bitten by insects*foot
What is another term for radiolocation*radar
What is South America's version of the Ostrich*rhea
What is a shadow clock*sundial
What does a panophobe fear*everything
What is the nearest galaxy to our own*andromeda
What bird has a 46 foot long small intestine*ostrich
How many years of bad luck follow breaking a mirror*seven
What type of bird is South Africa's aasvogel*vulture
What is the zodiacal symbol for Pisces*fish
What plant is sometimes referred to as a 'sparrow grass'*asparagus
What disease do the French call 'la rage'*rabies
What line divides a circle into two semi circles*diameter
What reptilian feature evolved into feathers*scales
What went from 405 to 625 lines*television
Where is the line of life*palm
What is the chemical symbol for gold*au
What is a pipistrel or a flittermouse*bat
What is the only mammal that can not fly that can fly*man
What does barley become when prepared for brewing*malt
What is the simplest gem in chemical composition*diamond
What zodiacal sign is represented by the balance, or scales*libra
What is the world's fastest dog*greyhound
What does a phonophobe fear*noise
What celestial body is the centre of the Jovian system*jupiter
How many pecks are there in a bushel*four
What is a Canis Lupus*wolf
Where are a cow's sweat glands*nose
What fruit is packed with the most calories*avocado
What is the common name for the fruit Citrus grandis*grapefruit
What colour on black produces the most visible combination*yellow
What bird is a symbol of peace*dove
What is a female swan called*pen
What uncomely creature inspired sailors tales of mermaids*manatee
How many sides does a heptagon have*seven
How many nautical miles are there in one degree of longitude at the equator*sixty
What was the 24 disc John Gabel Entertainer the first example of*jukebox
Which are barnacles, plants or animals*animals
How many gases make up 95 percent of the sun*two
What was the first parachute jump made from*balloon
How many wings does a bee have*four
How many gallons of water are in a bath if the water weighs 100 pounds*ten
What is the fastest land animal*cheetah
What are Walrus tusks made of*ivory
What is the only month that can have fewer than four moon phases*february
What is tripe on a menu*stomach
What type of snake is the Egyptian asp*cobra
What does a mahout mind*elephant
What is the international radio code word for the letter O*oscar
Is a spider an insect*no
What is the secret identity of lysergic acid diethylamide*lsd
What is a male swan called*cob
How many teats does a cow have*four
What recording innovation was introduced in 1958*stereo
What is your zodiacal sign if you are born on August 9th*leo
How many rows of whiskers does a cat have*four
How many dimensions does a solid have*three
What is the common name for a Japanese dwarf tree*bonsai
How often are brain cells replaced*never
What mammal ranks after man on the evolutionary scale*ape
Which is colder, minus 40 degrees centigrade or minus 40 degrees fahrenheit*neither
Where is the human skin least sensitive*heel
What planet did Percival Lovell discover*pluto
What is the term for mass per unit volume*density
What type if people have an appetite for anthropophagy*cannibals
What planet has a pink sky*mars
What strikes a bell to make it ring*clapper
What animal is used to locate truffles*pig
What drug can be found in tonic water*quinine
What is considered the luckiest number worldwide*nine
What do a pen and a cob produce*cygnets
What membrane controls the amount of light entering the eye*iris
What is the psychiatric term for self love*narcissism
What colour is demerara sugar*brown
What is the opposite of the nadir*zenith
How many eyes does an earthworm have*none
What is the only dog that doesnt have a pink tongue*chow
What is the syrup drained from raw sugar*molasses
What alloy do copper and tin form*bronze
What is the only mammal that cant jump*elephant
What does a heliologist study*sun
How many equal angles are there in an isosceles triangle*two
What does a gynephobic man fear*women
How many daily tides are there*two
What is the paper anniversary*first
How many minutes does it take the typical person to fall asleep*seven
Where in an old house would you find wattle*walls
What sort of drum is the tympanum*eardrum
What part of the body does glaucoma strike*eyes
What is shredded to make sauerkraut*cabbage
What constellation contains the twins Castor and Pollux*gemini
What strikes the Empire State Building more than 50 times a year*lightning
What is missing from a navel orange*pips
What was the first instant coffee*nescafe
How many years make up a vicennial period*twenty
What is the term for opposition to an electrical current in a conductor*resistance
What is the winter counterpart to estivation*hibernation
What acid is the cause of a nettles sting*formic
What get larger when one thinks harder*pupils
Which have warts, frogs or toads*toads
What is the longest bone in the human body*femur
What metal makes up 10 percent of yellow gold*copper
What Roman god is January named after*janus
What is the standard of strength of distilled alcoholic liquors called*proof
What is a community of ants called*colony
How many tenths of the earths surface lie under water*seven
How many legs does an oyster catcher have*two
What is the fourth sign of the zodiac*cancer
What mountain range is the natural habitat of the Llama*andes
What adjective is used to describe trees which shed their leaves periodically*deciduous
What number is represented in Morse code by five dots*five
What did Archimedes say upon discovering the principle of buoyancy in his bath*eureka
What is the term for any four sided figure*quadrilateral
What is a male witch called*warlock
What is the nearest star to earth*sun
What is a Portuguese man of war*jellyfish
What is April's birthstone*diamond
What is the most common colour of Amethyst*purple
How many sides does a cube have*six
How many land miles are there in a league*three
How many colours are there in the spectrum*seven
What is the most abundant element in the Sun*hydrogen
What drink is the best thirst quencher*water
What does the camera shutter speed b stand for*bulb
What fastener did Whitcomb Judson patent in 1893*zip
What food got its name from the way it hung in bunches like grapes*grapefruit
What cult of people do Stonehenge and Eisteddfods have in common*druids
What are love apples*tomatoes
How many queen bees reign in a hive*one
What is a smooth blenny*fish
What seasonal south Asian wind is characterised by heavy rains*monsoon
What do a kangaroo, an anteater and a seahorse have in common*pouch
What is the most common atom in the universe*hydrogen
What are quasi-stellar radio sources better known as*quasars
What facial feature typically contains about 550 hairs*eyebrow
What is the worlds longest snake*python
Which is larger, the British or US pint*british
Which sex is twice as likely to contract leprosy*male
What is the medical term for cancer of the blood*leukaemia
What is the most intelligent subhuman primate*chimpanzee
What was Linus Yale's occupation*locksmith
What is the largest gland in the human body*liver
What does the Kelvin scale measure*temperature
What insect can jump 200 times its own height*flea
Where is the Sea of Showers*moon
What vegetable yields the most pounds of produce per acre*cabbage
What drug is obtained from the cinchona tree*quinine
What did an IBM 7090 computer calculate to 100,265 decimal places in 1961*pi
What is 40 percent of 40*sixteen
What is the oldest known vegetable*pea
What drug was named for Morpheus, the greek god of dreams*morphine
What is the largest cat in the Americas*jaguar
What is the smallest bird in the world*hummingbird
What kind of cats are seal points and blue points*siamese
What is another name for tetanus*lockjaw
What is banana oil produced from*coal
What is an eagles nest called*eyrie
What does the disease Impetigo affect*skin
What gives beer its distinctive bitter flavour*hops
Which way do the clocks go in winter*back
What number did Adolf Hitler believe possessed supernatural powers*seven
What country saw the origin of the Asian flu*china
What is a somnambulist*sleepwalker
What is the minimum number of bars on an abacus*nine
What feline is the baboons chief natural enemy*leopard
What isnt outstanding about a Manx cat*tail
What is known as The Bishops Stone*amethyst
What organ contains the island of Langerhans*pancreas
What is removed in a splenectomy*spleen
What is the chemical symbol for iron*fe
What is the hogs largest living relative*hippopotamus
How do you write 49 in Roman numerals*xlix
What is known as the universal solvent*water
What does a cooper make*barrels
What is a pyrotechnic display*fireworks
Which of the five senses is less sharp after you eat too much*hearing
What month features the harvest moon*september
What adjective describes an animal that eats both plants and animals*omnivorous
What is another term for a black leopard*panther
What is receding from Earth by half an inch a year*moon
What is the most intelligent creature on Earth after man*dolphin
Which side of the bed does superstition say is the wrong side*left
What are feta and portella*cheeses
What is a dried plum*prune
What London station did Brunel's Great Western Railway terminate at*paddington
Is a jellyfish a polyp*yes
Which of the Wright brothers flew their plane based on the toss of a 50 cent piece*orville
What is a rhinoceros horn made of*hair
What organ did Aristotle think the blood cooled*brain
What inhabitant of rivers and lakes plays host to the bilharzia worm*snail
What sailor's disease resulted from a deficiency of Vitamin C*scurvy
What colour beards grow the quickest*blonde
What kind of animals was Napoleon terrified of*cats
How many times more than the brain does the human body typically weigh*forty
What is 550 times sweeter than cane sugar*saccharin
What is the geometric shape of the cells in a honeycomb*hexagonal
What is consumption otherwise known as*tuberculosis
Does Uranus have an aurora*yes
How many claws does a house cat have*eighteen
What appear when the sun activates your melanocytes*freckles
Which have a better chance of running you down on land, alligators or crocodiles*alligators
What letter is to the right of k on a keyboard*l
What is the term for oscillation of water particles*wave
What do you call an infant whale*calf
How many humps does an African camel have*one
Who discovered Saturn's rings*galileo
How is the year 2000 written in Roman numerals*mm
What does a burglar call a crow bar*jemmy
What did Ira Remsen discover in 1879, perhaps proclaiming 'How sweet it is'*saccharin
What are Saddlebacks, Middle Whites and Berkshires*pigs
What type of building has sails*windmill
What country has the third most satellites in orbit*france
Which sex has the shorter human vocal cords*female
What is another name for a may tree*hawthorn
What is the process of splitting atoms called*fission
Where did voodoo originate*haiti
What do humans catch zoonose diseases from*animals
How many degrees are there in each house of the zodiac*thirty
What plant does a natural vanilla flavouring come from*orchid
What is 3.14159 better known as*pi
What disease is carcinomaphobia a fear of*cancer
What ore is aluminium made of*bauxite
What is permanently frozen sub soil called*permafrost
What is your zodiacal sign if you are born on July 15th*cancer
What is the most widely used tranquiliser in North America*valium
What is the square root of 121*eleven
What is the smallest mammal*shrew
What are Lincoln Red, Galloway and Welsh Black*cattle
What takes eight minutes to reach Earth*sunlight
What is the first day of the week*sunday
What planet boasts the Great Red Spot*jupiter
What is the term for a young hare*leveret
Which of the five senses develops first*smell
What constitutes 12 percent of an eggs weight*shell
What is the science of growing plant in liquid nutrients rather than soil*hydroponics
What is the pure spirit distilled from wine*brandy
What is 400 in Roman numerals*cd
What are the two ends of a magnet called*poles
What is the symbol for the zodiacal sign of Taurus*bull
What do trees get 90 percent of their nutrients from*air
What is shed when you desquamate*skin
What constellation is known as The Water Bearer*aquarius
What number is represented in Morse code by five dashes*zero
How many times a year does a penguin have sex*one
What is your zodiacal sign if you're born on New Years Day*capricorn
What is the name of Jacques Cousteau's research ship*calypso
What is a Lent lily otherwise known as*daffodil
What type of steel did Englishman Harry Brearly invent in 1913*stainless
How many wings does a flea have*none
What Tibetan mammal lives at a higher altitude than any other in the world*yak
Where are the convolutions of Broca*brain
What is a nightjar*bird
What is the term for the physical disintegration of a nuclear reactor's core*meltdown
What is a Bombay Duck*fish
What do frogs have in their mouths that toad's dont*teeth
How many pips are there in the BBC's radio time signal*six
What animal is considered to have the highest blood pressure*giraffe
What does the E stand for in the equation E=mc2*energy
What is the fruit of a rosebush called*hip
What is the common name for Hydrogen Hydroxide*water
What is the international radio code word for the letter Z*zulu
What turns blue litmus paper red*acid
What are the front cutting teeth called*incisors
What science deals with the motion of projectiles*ballistics
What is the collective term for flying geese*skein
What causes bakers itch*yeast
What planet did Viking 1 Land on*mars
What is the symbol of the zodiacal sign Gemini*twins
How many astronauts manned each Apollo flight*three
How many stars are there in the Big Dipper*seven
What fungus is used in making bread*yeast
What process forms drumlins, eskers and cirques*glaciation
What company is the worlds largest user of silver*kodak
What planet has the longest day*venus
What travels through space at 66,700 miles per hour*earth
What is the international radio code word for the letter Y*yankee
What bird is a shag*cormorant
What plant takes its name from the Italian for 'Beautiful lady'*belladonna
What bodily function can reach the breakneck speed of 200 miles per hour*sneeze
What sign is the water carrier the zodiacal symbol for*aquarius
What insect transmits yellow fever*mosquito
What is the largest feline*tiger
What mammals travel in pods*whales
What is another term for Wildebeest*gnu
What is 'nutty slack'*coal
What planet has the shortest year*mercury
What is the outermost layer of skin called*epidermis
Whose army were canned foods developed to feed*napoleon
What type of wool is obtained from angora goats*mohair
How many noggins are there in a print*four
How many astronauts manned each of the Project Gemini flights*two
What are 'electric shadows' to the Chinese*films
What was the name of Armstrong and Aldrin's lunar module*eagle
Which is more tender, the left or right leg of a chicken*left
What bird in Greek legend was given the 100 eyes of Argus*peacock
What is a dactylogram*fingerprint
What sport features sculls, strokes and slides*rowing
What do the five olympic rings represent*continents
How many fingers are used to draw a bow*three
What would you get from a vintner*wine
What country is home to the football team Anderlecht*belgium
What thirst quencher was promoted with the line 'Probably the best lager in the world'*carlsberg
What type of bird is preserved at Lords since being bowled to death in 1936*sparrow
How many points does it take to win a Cribbage game*121
How many players are there in a Rugby League side*thirteen
What tool gave a puzzle its name*jigsaw
What does an archer carry his arrows in*quiver
What strikes the ball in a game of fives*hand
How many numbered coloured balls are there in pool*fifteen
What Olympic event's winner is considered the world's greatest athlete*decathlon
What player on a basketball team usually plays the post or pivot position*centre
Who owns the Jules Rimet trophy*brazil
What country hosted soccer's 1978 world cup*argentina
What did Dougal Haston excel at*mountaineering
Where were the 1952 Summer Olympics*helsinki
What number is at 6 o'clock on a dart board*three
What is the practice of training hawks called*falconry
What did Alan Webster fire 1,231 yards to set a world record in 1982*arrow
What was Wembley's Olympic year*1948
Where was snoooker invented*india
How many squares are there on a Snakes and Ladders board*100
What age does a filly become a mare at*five
What colour shirts must table tennis players wear in official competitions*black
How many rings are there on a five zone archery target*four
How many strokes are tournament golfers penalised for slow play*two
What was Lord John Oaksey's highest ever placing in the Grand National*second
Where is the Longchamps racetrack*paris
What did cowboys refer to as tonsil plant*whisky
What did a pack of cards not include until 1857*jokers
What are B&O, Reading, Pennsylvania and Short Line on an American Monopoly board*stations
What sport requires stones to be thrown at houses*curling
What is Surrey Cricket Club's home ground*oval
What country has the best defensive position in the board game Diplomacy*england
What herb is most often used as a garnish*parsley
What country has won the most Contract Bridge world championships*italy
How many laps are there in a speedway race*four
What year saw the first League Cup final played at Wembley*1967
Where did Ian Botham score his 149 not out Test snatching innings in 1981*headingley
How many years old are horses that run in the Derby*three
How many tiles are there in a Scrabble game*100
Does tennis service begin in the left or right court*right
What do you call a left arm bowler's off break to a right handed batsman*chinaman
How many bowling balls does it take to make a spare*two
What country did roulette originate in*france
What game made Monte Carlo*roulette
How did Paul Wilson run 100 yards in 13.1 seconds on September 22nd 1979 to set a world record*backwards
What is the classic fillies race run over the Derby course*oaks
What sport could see six chinamen in a maiden and a nightwatchman with a duck*cricket
How many players are in a water polo team*seven
What is the point value of the letter C in Scrabble*three
What is Tio Pepe*sherry
What is the liqueur Kirsch made from*cherries
What year saw the first colour broadcast of the F A Cup Final*1968
What continent is considered the easiest to defend in the game of Risk*australia
What sport is played in more countries than any other*soccer
What does a red flag mean in auto racing*stop
What is considered tennis's most illustrious championship*wimbledon
What is the maximum number of coins that can be turned up with four players of Spoof*twelve
How many pawns does each player have at the start of a chess game*eight
What is the other name for the card game Patience*solitaire
What year did football's Munich air disaster happen*1958
What is the game if your balls are black and blue and your opponents are red and yellow*croquet
What is the main ingredient in bouillabaisse*seafood
What is the better known name of Edson Arantes do Nascimento*pele
What game does the New York Institute for the Investigation of Rolling Speroids specialise in*marbles
What is the near side on a horse*left
What colour light is displayed on the port side of a boat*red
Which colour moves first in draughts*black
What is the highest ranking suit in Bridge*spades
What sport was Boris Onishchenko caught cheating at in the Montreal Olympics*fencing
How many sleds may each country enter in the four man Olympic bobsled event*two
What is a jockeys uniform called*silks
How many English Test Cricket venues are there*six
What combat sport did Dr Jigoro Kano devise in Japan in 1882*judo
What term applies to the consistency, thickness and substance of a wine*body
What does a piscatologist excel at*fishing
What is the name of the piece flipped into the cup in tiddlywinks*wink
What sport is played on the largest field*polo
What country played host to the 1982 soccer World Cup Finals*spain
What soccer player was known as The Black Pearl*pele
What American dice rolling game can be won with an initial throw of seven or eleven*craps
How many balls were there in the old Australian over*eight
What water sport, other than fishing, might you catch crabs in*rowing
What sport originated when William Ellis grabbed a soccer ball and ran with it in 1823*rugby
What football team calls Vetch Field home*swansea
What is the metal favoured by most dart players*tungsten
What is the nickname of the Australian Rugby League side*kangaroos
What vegetable will a chasseur add to your food*mushrooms
Where were the 1960 Summer Olympics held*rome
How many Olympic Games were cancelled because of World War II*four
How many players make up a water polo team*seven
What alcoholic beverage is made from honey and water*mead
What is the centre division of a backgammon board called*bar
Where did the rumba originate*cuba
What craft uses a kiln and kick wheel*pottery
What is the prize money in a horse race or a boxing match called*purse
What is the captain of a curling foursome called*skip
How many clubs can a professional golfer play a round with*fourteen
What colour is Chablis*white
What was the site of the first modern day Olympic Games*athens
What board game derives its name form the Persian word for king*chess
How many lanes does an Olympic swimming pool have*eight
What is a long legged snooker rest called*spider
What is the first word played in the Scrabble rules demostration game*horn
When did the three points for a win system start in the football league*1981
What sport was standardised under the Queensberry rules*boxing
How many triple word score spaces are there on a Scrabble board*eight
What are the clay targets in trap shooting called*pigeons
How many heads are there on a croquet mallet*two
How many rooms are there on a Cluedo game board*nine
What non mechanical sport achieves the highest speeds*skydiving
What sport features snatches and clean jerks*weightlifting
What colour on Monopoly properties are landed on most often*orange
What sporting target has a point total of 1,335*dartboard
What is the minimum number of masts on a schooner*two
What is the term for the rook in chess*castle
What boxing division has Britain held the most world titles in*flyweight
What is the bullseye worth in archery*nine
What british car was the Le Mans success story of the 1950's*jaguar
What do opposite faces of a die always add up to*seven
How many classic horse races are there*five
How many footballers died in the Munich air crash*eight
What is the closely cut grass that surrounds a golf green*apron
How many layers of tobacco are there in a handmade cigar*three
What is par on a 245 yard golf hole*three
What Latin American country is home to the World Boxing Council*mexico
Where was the football ground stampede that caused 66 deaths in 1971*glasgow
What make of British car won the Le Mans motor race five times from 1924 to 1930*bentley
What drink was invented by oilmen, who used their tools to stir it*screwdriver
What make of car did Jim Clark die in*lotus
What is a meerschaum*pipe
What card game can you peg out in*cribbage
What do chefs cal The Master Spice*pepper
What flavour is Grand Marnier*orange
What colour bottles do good Rhine wines come in*brown
What is England's best known rifle range*bisley
How many players are there in a volleyball team*six
What handicraft requires you to interlace your warp and weft*weaving
Which way does the jack of hearts usually face*right
How many holes are there in a ten pin bowling ball*three
How many points are there on a star in a Chinese chequers board*six
What were 'ivories' to an Old West gambler*dice
How many furlongs are there in a mile and a quarter racetrack*ten
How many spaces are there on a Monopoly board*forty
What country is considered the cradle of horse racing*england
What is an off break ball that is bowled with a leg break action called*googly
What space precedes Park Lane on a Monopoly board*chance
How many spaces are there on a Scrabble board*225
What wood is a cricket bat made from*willow
What is the tallest piece on a chessboard*king
What is the lowest ranking suit in Bridge*clubs
How many drops make a dash in cooking*six
How many nail holes are there in a standard horseshoe*eight
Where would you see a horse jump over the chair*aintree
What horse was ridden by Walter Swinburn Jr for his first Derby win*shergar
What second division side defeated Manchester United in the 1975 F A Cup Final*southampton
What is the only country to have qualified for all of the soccer World Cup finals*brazil
What hobby uses the term cast on*knitting
What country saw the origin of lawn tennis*england
What is the point value of the standard vowels in Scrabble*one
What do fletchers make*arrows
How many metres can an Olympic swimmer swim without turning*fifty
What tennis term is said to come from the French word for eggs*love
What colour is the danger flag in auto racing*yellow
What soccer club won three consecutive league titles in the 1930's*arsenal
What did the Crane brothers run the length of in a record 101 days in 1983*himalayas
What site staged the original Olympics*olympia
What sport featured Mick McManus and Jackie Pallo*wrestling
How many counters of each colour does backgammon have*fifteen
What seagulls have played at Wembley*brighton
What is usually thrown the farthest in a track and field competition*javelin
What is the Scrabble point value of the word jar on a double word score without blanks*twenty
What South American country has the world's highest golf course*peru
How many years did Alf Ramsey reign as England team manager*eleven
What type of fish is most commonly caught on hempseed bait*roach
What sport did Mark Twain describe as 'a good walk spoiled'*golf
Which direction are greyhound races run in, clockwise or anticlockwise*anticlockwise
What popular card game originated in Turkey*bridge
What sport might you shoot a clout in*archery
How many players are there in a baseball team*nine
What is the nearest country to the UK to have staged the Winter Olympics*france
What board game's name is derived from the Latin for 'I Play'*ludo
What sport is it recommended that you duck the boom in*yachting
What is Sebastian Coe's middle name*newbold
What is another term for a badminton bird*shuttlecock
What is the minimum number of letters in the first word of a Scrabble game*two
What horse carried Lester Piggott to his record breaking Derby win in 1983*teenoso
What would you be doing to the instructions k1, p1, k2tog*knitting
What term applies to the aroma of wine*bouquet
What is the most popular finishing double in darts*sixteen
What sport do Americans play on a diamond*baseball
What does a boxer's second throw into the ring to stop a fight*towel
How many fences does a Grand National winner jump*thirty
What is the most frequently rolled number with two dice*seven
What fish, weighing in at 388 pounds, is the largest ever caught in a British river*sturgeon
What did Abebe Bikila go without in winning the 1960 Olympic marathon*shoes
What colour of boxing trunks was Muhammad Ali partial to*white
How many bottles are there in a magnum of champagne*two
What is the traditional trade for aspiring Spanish Bullfighters*bricklaying
What is mixed with Kahlua or Tia Maria to make a Black Russian*vodka
What is better than stone in the paper, stone and scissors game*paper
What board game was originally called criss cross*scrabble
What board game is called checkers in North America*draughts
How many cherubs are there on a Trivial Pursuit board*nineteen
What sport did Olga Korbut excel at*gymnastics
Who released Back Home in 1970*England world cup football squad
Which sport used a Pavarotti performance as its theme in 1990*football
What was the nickname of former Oasis guitarist Paul Arthurs*bonehead
Who had hits with Bed Sitter and Torch*soft cell
How many siblings has Celine Dion*thirteen*13
How old was Billie when she had her first number 1*fifteen*15
How old was the sweet person Neil Sedaka wished Happy Birthday to in 1961*sixteen*16
In which decade did Kool and the Gang have their first hit*1970’s
Which country does Bryan Adams come from*canada
Which boy did Sister Sledge take to number 1*frankie
Who, or what, is or was a bridewell*prison
What is the capital of Denmark*copenhagen
Who wrote Alice's Adventures in Wonderland*lewis carroll
Where are the 2006 Winter Olympics to be held*turin
What is the name of the Queen Mother's London home*Clarence house
Walter Matthau starred as a slovenly sports reporter in the film The Odd Couple, what was his character name in the film*oscar madison
What type of game bird is a capercailzie*grouse
Who said, in song, The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore*the walker brothers
In which city would you find the Wailing Wall*jerusalem
Who was British Prime Minister on Sunday 3rd September 1939*Neville chamberlain
Crikey, It's a Sniiike: Although the South American Anaconda is sometimes claimed to be the longest snake, this is actually the longest recorded snake*Reticulated Python
KAOS: The Top 10, The world's sleepiest mammals, at 12 hours or more per day*Koala*Sloth*Armadillo*Opossum*Lemur*Hamster*Squirrel*Cat*Pig*Spiny Anteater
Land Animals: This animal has the longest gestation period, at 660 days*African Elephant
Land Animals: Insects and Spiders are the most abundant animal class. Which class holds the number two spot*Crustaceans
Land Animals: At a weight of 220kg(485lb) and a height of 200cm(6'7"), what is the world's heaviest primate*Gorilla
Land animals: Any and every spermologist knows that the cheetah is the world's fastest mammal, but only the best can name number two*Pronghorn Antelope
KAOS: The Top 10, Heaviest Mammals on the face of the Earth, go*Elephant*Rhinoceros*Hippopotamus*Giraffe*Bison*Camel*Polar Bear*Moose*Tiger*Gorilla
Talk about an IQ! : With a weight averaging 7,800kg (17 lbs), this critter boasts having the heaviest brain*Sperm Whale
Aquatic Animals: With a maximum weight of 704kg (1,552lbs), this is the world's heaviest turtle species*Pacific Leatherback
KAOS: The Top 10, Countries that still find it necessary to kill the most whales*Japan*Norway*Brazil*Russia*France*Greenland*St. Lucia*United States*South Korea*South Africa
Aquatic Animals: This fish has a recorded maximum speed of 112kph (69mph)*Sailfish
Aquatic Animals: The Sailfish is the fastest fish, try and guess either number two or three*Marlin*Wahoo
Aquatic Animals: Living up to the ripe old age of 200 years, this is the world's longest-lived marine animal*Bowhead Whale
Old Man of the Sea: The ______, the unique member of the family dungongidae, is a large and long-lived marine mammal that may have contributed to the myth of mermaid sightings*Dugong
Flying Animals: Birds with the Largest Wingspan, 1st place goes to*Great White Pelican
Flying Animals: Birds with the Largest Wingspan, 2nd place goes to*Wandering Albatross
Flying Animals: Birds with the Largest Wingspan, 3rd place goes to*Andean Condor
Flying Animals: With a distance of 19,000 kms (11,806 mi), this bird holds the record for the furthest migration route*Pectoral Sandpiper
Flying Animals: The world's fastest flying bird, at over 76kph (47mph)*Common Eider
Flying Animals: The world's fastest swimming bird, at over 35kph (21mph)*Penguin
Flying Animals: The world's fastest running bird, at over 72kph (44mph)*Ostrich
Creepy Crawlies: Name the world's largest butterfly, with a wingspan of 280mm (11in)*Queen Alexandra's Birdwing
Creepy Crawlies: Name the world's largest moth, with a wingspan of 300mm (11.8in)*Atlas Moth
KAOS: The Top 10, Creepy Crawlies, Creatures having 8 or more legs*Spider*Crab*Shrimp*Woodlice*Symphylan*Millipede*Centipede
Creepy Crawlies: What is the world's largest Mollusc, with a length of 16,764mm (660in)*Giant Squid
Creepy Crawlies: What is the wolds largest snail species, with a length of 770mm (30.3 in)*Australian Trumpet
KAOS: The Top 10, Countries with the largest areas of forest*Russia*Brazil*Canada*United States*China*Australia*Congo*Indonesia*Angola*Peru
KAOS: The Top 10, Types of animals kept as livestock worldwide (plurals please)*Chickens*Cattle*Sheep*Pigs*Ducks*Goats*Rabbits*Turkeys*Geese*Buffaloes
KAOS: The Top 10, World's most-produced cereal crops*Corn*Rice*Wheat*Barley*Sorghum*Millet*Oats*Rye*Triticale*Buckwheat
KAOS: The Top 10, This one will get your goat, name the top goat producing countries of the world*China*India*Pakistan*Bangladesh*Iran*Nigeria*Ethiopia*Indonesia*Somalia*Tanzania
The Human Body: The most common health disorder, affecting both males and females*Depression
KAOS: The Top 10, The most common phobias that people have*Spiders*Social situations*Flying*Open spaces*Confined spaces*Heights*Vomiting*Cancer*Thunderstorms*Death
KAOS: The Top 10, According to the United Nations, the best countries to live in*Norway*Australia*Canada*Sweden*Belgium*United States*Iceland*Netherlands*Japan*Finland
The Human Condition: Norway is the country with the best quality of life (per the UN). Name the country in either 2nd or 3rd place*Australia*Canada
Cradle to the Grave: Name the country with the highest birth rate (49.3 live births per 1,000 people)*Niger
Cradle to the Grave: Name the country with the lowest birth rate (8.0 live births per 1,000 people)*Bulgaria
Cradle to the Grave: Name the country with the highest life expectancy (81.5 yrs)*Japan
Cradle to the Grave: Japan is the country with the highest life expectancy, name the 2nd or 3rd place countries*Sweden*Iceland
Cradle to the Grave: Name the country with the lowest life expectancy (36.1 yrs)*Botswana
Cradle to the Grave: Botswana is the country with the lowest life expectancy, name the 2nd or 3rd place countries*Mozambique*Swaziland
For Better or Worse: Which is the country having the lowest divorce rate, with a rate of .11 per 1,000*Colombia
For Better or Worse: Which is the country having the highest divorce rate, with a rate of 10.97 per 1,000*Maldives
For Better or Worse: Comoros and Gambia are among 4 countries where virtually 100% of the women are married by age 50, name one of the other two*Ghana*Nauru
KAOS: The Top 10, Per Modern Bride magazine, the most chosen Honeymoon Destinations for U.S. couples*Hawaii*Mexico*Jamaica*Bahamas*Europe*Virgin Islands*St. Lucia*Aruba*Canada
KAOS: The Top 10, Most chosen wedding songs in Canada*Unchained Melody*Unforgettable*At Last*Can't Help Falling in Love*You Light Up My Life*Truly, Madly, Deeply*The Power of Love*Everything I Do*Have I Told You Lately*Endless Love
For Better or Worse: With an average age of 16.6 yrs, this is the country where WOMEN marry the youngest*Democratic Republic of Congo
For Better or Worse: With an average age of 22.0, this is the country where MEN marry the youngest*Nepal
KAOS: The Top 10, First Names for GIRLS in England and Wales (2001)*Chloe*Emily*Megan*Jessica*Sophie*Lauren*Charlotte*Hannah*Olivia*Lucy
KAOS: The Top 10, First Names for BOYS in England and Wales(2001)*Jack*Thomas*Joshua*James*Daniel*Harry*Samuel*Joseph*Matthew*Lewis
Let's Get Political: New Zealand was the first country to give women the vote, in 1893. In 1902, which country was 2nd*Australia
Let's Get Political: Since a reorganization in 1979, Libya's Colonel Gadhafi has held no formal position, but continues to rule under what ceremonial title*Leader of the Revolution
Let's Get Political: This UK Queen ruled 63 years, from 1837-1901, and her name would be*Victoria
Let's Get Political: This Netherlands Queen ruled 58 years from 1890-1948, and her name would be*Wilhelmina
Let's Get Political: This Hungarian Queen ruled 40 years from 1740-1780, and her name would be*Maria Theresa
KAOS: The Top 10, Current monarchies having the most rulers*Japan*England*Sweden*Denmark*Norway*Brunei*Monaco*Spain*Netherlands*Liechtenstein
Hey, I was First! : On June 30, 1859, Jean Francois Gravelet became the first person to do this, and did it several times. On one occasion, he even paused to cook and eat an omelette. What did he do*Cross Niagara Falls by Tightrope
Hey, I was First! : On Dec 14 1911, Norwegians Oscar Wisting, Helge Sverre Hassel, Helmer Julius Hanssen, Roald Amundsen, and Olav Olavsen Bjaaland became the first people to do this*Reach the South Pole
Hey, I was First! : New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay of Nepal became the first people to do this on May 29, 1953*Climb Mt Everest
Hey, I was First! : Christopher Columbus became the first explorer to land in the Americas in 1492. In 1497, who was second*John Cabot
Hey, I was First! : John Cabot became the first person to explore Canada in 1497. In 1534, who was second*Jacques Cartier
Hey, I was First! : A pioneer in the use of snowmobiles for Arctic exploration, this explorer led the first confirmed overland expedition to the North Pole in 1968, after a 43-day journey*Ralph Plaisted
RAW Paste Data
What is the stage name of film actress Caryn Johnson born 1949*whoopi goldberg On clothing, what does the symbol of a circle crossed-out indicate*do not dry clean In what sport do teams compete for the Swaythling Cup*men's table tennis What animal is represented by the constellation Monoceros*unicorn Who shared the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize with Menachem Begin*anwar sadat How many VCs were awarded in the Falklands War*two In which city are the Headquarters of INTERPOL located*lyons In which city are the Headquarters of OPEC located*vienna What units are used to measure the size of pearls*grains Which car manufacturer was the first to introduce front wheel drive in 1934*citroen What is best viewed from two tourist viewpoints - the North Rim and the South Rim*grand canyon What is the name of the island that separates the two waterfalls at Niagara*goat island Who was nominated for a BAFTA Award in 1997 as a result of an interview with the Duchess of York*ruby wax Who recorded the 1997 album "Flaming Pie"*paul mccartney Endorphins are produced in the brain and in the pituitary gland. What is their function*pain killers In medical descriptions, what is the meaning of the term "chronic"*lingering, lasting Who recorded the 1996 alburn, "Older"*george michael In Mathematics, the Greek capital letter "sigma" is used to denote what process*the sum of (summation) In Physics, what type of length is represented by the small Greek letter "lambda"*wavelength What is the first name of the French painter Matisse*henri Who, in literature, is eligible to be nominated for the annual award called the Carnegie Medal*authors of children's books What is the first name of the French painter Monet*claude Which substance, occurring naturally in fruit, causes jams and preserves to set*pectin What was the title of Joe Loss's signature tune*in the mood What was the title of Mantovani's signature tune*charmaine Which substance causes milk to curdle, and is used to make cheese*rennet Who was the author of the series of novels referred to as the Raj Quartet*paul scott Which country (capital Kiev) lies just south of Belarus*ukraine The name of which musical instrument means "sound of wood"*xylophone Which 1978 film from the book of the same name by Ira Levin, tell of the cloning of Adolf Hitler*the boys from brazil Which country (capital Luanda) lies just south of Zaire*angola Which airline has its home base in Atlanta, Georgia*delta Which gemstone has the highest value per carat*ruby Which city's airport is the home base for Cathay Pacific Airlines*hong kong In Gulliver's Travels, what is the name of the flying island inhabited by scientific theorists*laputa Rubies are a red variety of corundum. What name is given to corundum gemstones of any other colour*sapphires In The Pilgrim's Progress, which city of Christian's final destination*celestial city Who is the Roman equivalent of the Greek god Dionysus*bacchus What is the name of the dark fine grained rock of which the Giant's Causeway is formed*basalt Who is the Greek equivalent of the Roman goddess Diana*artemis Which modem country was formerly Nyasaland*malawi Who was the Scottish mathematician who drew up the first logarithmic tables*john napier Whose epitaph reads "He snatched the lightning from the skies and the sceptre from tyrants"*benjamin franklin Xizang (spelt X-I-Z-A-N-G) is now a province of China. What is its other name*tibet Which word comes from the Roman "where three roads meet" as a place where messages were left*trivia In which city will you find the epitaph "Rest in peace, the mistake shall not be repeated"*hiroshima Which country in Africa has the largest area*sudan Which opera/musical is set in Catfish Row*porgy & bess What name is given to the part of the sundial that casts the shadow*gnomon Name one of the countries to join the Commonwealth in 1995.cameroon*mozambique Who was the last King of Italy*humbertii*umberto ii The Bible: "The Prodigal Son". What does "prodigal" mean*wasteful*lavish Which great Asian river flows into the sea near Karachi*the indus Give another name for hydrocyanic acid (HCN), sometimes wrongly called cyanide*prussic acid Name the ship lost off Zuyder Zee in 1799 from which a famous item was salvaged in 1858*lutine At which battle did General James Scarlett lead the Charge of the heavy Brigade*balaclava The word "Hellas" appears on the stamps of which country*greece Which John Updike novel features three divorcees on the make who are seduced by the devil*the witches of eastwick Which 1956 film about the pocket battleship Graf Spec starred John Gregson*battle of the river plate A mule is sired on a mare by an ass. What is the offspring of a stallion and a female ass*hinny Which literary traveller was accompanied by Passepartout*phileas fogg Once married to Ted Hughes, which American poet committed suicide in 1963*sylvia plath Which type of wheat yields flour used to make best quality spaghetti*durum By what name is Harry Angstrom known in the titles of John Updike's trilogy*rabbit Which literary traveller was accompanied by the dog Toto*dorothy What more attractive name do fishmongers use for dogfish*rock salmon Which entire novel is set in June 16th 1904*ulysses Who was the original lead singer with the Moody Blues*denny laine Which disease is now known as Hansen's disease*leprosy What shape is something that is reniform*kidney shaped Which character from Dickens' "Great Expectations" had been jilted on her wedding day*miss havisham In which Australian State is Wagga Wagga*new south wales In which Australian State is Kalgoorlie*western australia Wolfram is the alternative name for which element*tungsten What does Sweden call itself on its stamps*sverige Which singer is the son of former bandleader and singer Ross McManus*elvis costello What did American Harland D. Sanders give to the world in 1939*kentucky fried chicken Which hereditary form of anaemia largely affects people of sub-Saharan African descent*sickle cell anaemia Name the British novelist, a successful member of the Bloomsbury Group, who drowned herself in 1942*virginia woolf What word is used for the branches of willow used to make baskets*osier What shape is something that is cuneiform*wedge shaped In which opera does the US naval officer Lieutenant B.F. Pinkerton appear*madam butterfly Who was the first woman to sail single-handed around the world*naomi james Who wrote "The Black Prince", "The Sea The Sea", and "The Philosopher's Pupil"*iris murdoch Who won an Oscar for his role in the film 'The Fugitive"*tommy lee jones In what field was Erie Shipton famous*mountaineering Who played the title role in the 1921 film 'The Sheik'*rudolf valentino In which city is the eastern terminus of the Trans-Siberian railway*vladivostock Which Italian composer's funeral in 1924 was said to have brought Rome to a standstill*puccini Which painting medium is an emulsion of egg yolks and water*tempera Name the variety of brassica, whose thickened stem, resembling a turnip, is eaten as a vegetable*kohlrabi In which State is the Little Bighorn, scene of Custer's last stand*montana What kind of creature is a redpoll if it isn't a red cow*bird In which film did Roger Moore first appear as James Bond*live and let die Queen Berengaria never came to England, although she was married to the King. Which King*richard the first The town of Beersheba is in which country*israel Which American clarinettist and bandleader created the jazz idiom known as swing*benny goodman Much loved by Scrabble players, what kind of creature is a zebu*ox Which US President won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906 for his mediation in the Russo-Japanese War*theodore roosevelt Which day is the first day of Holy Week in the Christian calendar*palm sunday Who was lead singer and principal songwriter with the American pop group Bread*david gates Who wrote the classic war novel "All Quiet on the Western Front"*erich maria remarque Who wrote the classic spy novel "The Thirty-nine Steps"*john buchan Which Apostle didn't believe in the resurrection until he had seen the Saviour's wounds*thomas Name the lead singer and principal songwriter of the American group "The Doors"*jim morrison What did the Romans call the tenth part of a legion - between 300 and 600 men*a cohort What is the purpose of an analgesic drug*to reduce pain Dogs bark and cows moo, but what does a Khaki Campbell do*quack In 'David Copperfield', which of his so-called "Aunts" has the Christian name Clara*aunt peggotty In which country is the port of Chittagong*bangladesh What kind of creature is a redback*a spider 25 years after first playing James Bond Sean Connery won an Oscar for his part in which film*the untouchables Which Alabama city was the first capital of the Confederacy during the Civil War*montgomery What do Christians call the place which the Hebrews called Golgotha, (Place of Skulls)*calvary Which horticultural fungicide, consisting of equal parts of copper sulphate and lime, has the same name as a French port*bordeaux mixture Name the evil slave owner and villain in "Uncle Tom's Cabin"*. simon legre Which 1949 comedy film featured Scottish islanders looting a stricken ship laden with Scotch*whisky galore As what is Beethoven's piano sonata in C-sharp minor more commonly known*the moonlight sonata What type of bird is a 'Khaki Campbell'*duck Which American city is served by Dulles Airport*washington d c Who was the Supreme Allied Commander at the end of World War One*marshal ferdinand foch What is the more popular name for the plant convallaria majalis*lily of the valley Who, in Greek mythology, was chained to rock with an eagle picking at his liver*prometheus What name is given to a vertical bar dividing a window*mullion Who played 'Cricket Blake' in the 1960s T.V. series Hawaiian Eye*connie stevens Which American city is served by Logan International Airport*boston What type of bird is a 'Beltsville'*turkey What is the more popular narne of the plants belonging to the genus galanthus*snowdrop Who played 'Kookie' in the T.V. series Seventy Seven Sunset Strip*ed byrnes Which chemical element is named after the Greek word for 'green'*chlorine According to the Gospel of Saint John, what 'lay on the other side of the Brook of Cedron'*garden of gethsemane On which river is the city of Florence situated.*arno Who became the first Prime Minister of Tanganyika in 1961*julius nyerere The Sublime Porte was the Court of Government of which Empire*turkish/ottoman Which chemical element is named after die Latin word for 'red'*rubidium Who was the last Roman Catholic monarch of England*james the second On which river is the city of Mandalay situated*irrawaddy What company was founded by Sir Allan Lane in 1935*penguin books Who were the learned class of the ancient Celts whose name means 'knowing the oak tree'*druids Who became the first Prime Minister of Malawi in 1964*hastings banda In horse racing, what is the maximum age of a filly*four years To which instrument does an orchestra normally tune*oboe Which vegetable is used if a dish is described as 'a la Crecy'*carrots Who created WinnieThe Pooh*a a milne For which film did Humphrey Bogart win an Oscar in 1951*the african queen Who, in 1889, painted the picture called The Starry Sky*vincent van gogh What is the highest-pitched woodwind musical instrument*piccolo Who wrote The Bad Child's Book of Beasts, first published in 1896*hilaire belloc Which vegetable is used if a dish is described as 'a la Bretonne'*haricot beans For which film did Anthony Quinn win an Oscar for Best Suporting Actor, in 1956*lust for life Who wrote a series of novels about C.I.A. analyst, Jack Ryan*tom clancy Who, in 1874, painted the picture called La Loge*auguste renoir Who was the second man to step onto the Moon in 1969*buzz aldrin Who succeeded Caligula as Roman Emperor*claudius Which country left the Commonwealth in 1949 and has not rejoined*eire Who is the subject of Anouilh's play L'Alouette ( The Lark )*joan of arc Which group had a British top five hit in the 1960s with Monday, Monday*mamas and the papas From which country are the European Space Agency Ariane rockets launched*french guiana Who was The Man of Destiny in George Bernard Shaw's play of that name*napoleon bonaparte Which country left the Commonwealth in 1987 and has not rejoined*fiji Which group had a British number one hit in the 1970s with I Don't Like Mondays*boomtown rats In what year was the Battle of Balaclava*1854 Which city, capital of the Assyrian Empire, was destroyed by fire in 612 B.C.*nineveh Which of Shakespeare's plays is set in the Forest of Arden*as you like it According to the Acts of the Apostles, from where did Christ's Ascension into Heaven take place*olivet*mount of olives In which Latin American country is the Quetzal the main unit of currency*guatemala From which large South American country do the beers 'Brahma Chopp' and 'Antarctica' come*brazil What is the name given to the science of improving the population by controlled breeding*eugenics Which English poet wrote 'No man is an island, entire of itself.'*john donne Which British physician, 1749 to 1823, developed the first effective vaccine against smallpox*edward jenner For the development of a vaccine against which disease is Jonas Edward Salk best remembered*poliomyelitis (polio) In which city were the summer Olympic Games of 1900 held*paris In 1984 Los Angeles hosted the Summer Games, which city hosted the Winter Games that year*sarajevo Which group of Australian origin had a top twenty hit in 1965 with The Carnival is Over*the seekers Whom did Isabel Peron succeed as President of Argentina in 1974*juan peron In which year did Charles de Gaulle die*1970 Of which country was Anastasio Somoza president during the 1960s and '70s*nicaragua Reaching number two in the UK charts in 1991, which was the first hit single for Right Said Fred*i'm too sexy Before coming a full time author, what was the profession of Frederick Forsyth*journalist Fredericton is the capital of which Canadian province*new brunswick How many times did Fred Archer win the English Derby*five At which weight was boxer Freddie Mills World Champion*light heavyweight Fredcrick the First, 1657 to 1713, was the first king of which country*prussia The Portuguese capital, Lisbon, stands on which river*tagus Which Latin phrase translates into English as 'peace be with you'*pax vobiscum What is the literal English translation of the French phrase 'cordon bleu'*blue ribbon Who won a Best Actress Academy award for her performance in Annie Hall*diane keaton What were the two forenames of dramatist and novelist J.M. Barrie*james matthew What do the letters 'T' and 'S' stand for in T. S. Eliot's name*thomas stearns Who played Tchaikovsky in the 1971 film The Music Lovers*richard chamberlain Which actor played Mozart in the 1984 film Amadeus*tom hulce Which forename, deriving from the Germanic 'rulehard', has been held by three English kings*richard Which ovine expression is used to describe a wishful amorous glance*sheep's eyes Which ovine expression is used for a disreputable member of a family or group*black sheep Which Australian state capital was named in honour of a British naturalist*darwin Which Australian state capital was named in honour of a British Prime Minister*melbourne Which dormant volcano is the highest peak in Japan*fujiyama Which historian wrote "The Lays of Ancient Rome"*macaulay Which boxer holds the record for the longest-reign as World Heavyweight Champion*joe louis For what condition is the drug Mogadon prescribed*sleeplessness With which group is Damon Allbarn the lead singer*blur What word is used in a balance sheet to mean "Everything a company owns"*assets Name the Japanese Stock Exchange Index.*nikkei Which Greek did Cicero call "The Father of History"*herodotus What is the official language of Cambodia*khmer Which French brothers were responsible for the development of cinematography*lumiere Which Panamanian boxer's nickname, translated into English, means "hands of stone" or "stone fists"*roberto duran Which is the only work by Dukas most people have ever heard of*the sorcerer's apprentice The film "The Innocents" was based on which Henry James story*the turn of the screw Which fantasy writer's latest book is called "The Fifth Elephant"*terry pratchett The cocktail "Daiquiri" contains limejuice and which spirit*rum What is the official language of Ethiopia*amharic Which British bird is the largest of the European grouse*capercaillie In the 1998 film "Titanic", who played the part of Captain Smith*bernard hill With which group is Keith Flint the lead singer*prodigy In which novel is Phoebe Caulfield the hero's younger sister*catcher in the rye Which city is the capital of the Austrian province of Tyrol*innsbruck The cocktail "Margarita" contains cointreau, lime and which spirit*tequila In the traditional song, what did the children dance around "on a cold and frosty morning"*the mulberry bush From whom did Peter Mandelson borrow the money for his house*geoffrey robinson Which is the only work by Leoncavallo most people have ever heard of*i pagliacci With which musical instrument is Dizzy Gillespie chiefly associated*trumpet Who is the subject of the book "Longitude" by Dava Sobel*john harrison Which novel by Louis de Bernieres is set in Cephalonia*captain corelli's mandolin Which city is the capital of the Italian region of Tuscany*florence To which family of birds does the fieldfare belong*thrush The film "High Society" was a musical remake of which 1940 film*the philadelphia story Which novelist's latest chiller is called "Bag of Bones"*stephen king What word is used in a balance sheet to mean "What a company owes to its suppliers and lenders"*liabilities With which musical instrument is Julian Bream chiefly associated*guitar In Germany, where would you be if you were in a "Krankenhaus"*hospital What is the name of the Nike sports logo*swoosh Which author wrote the four best-selling crime novels known as "The LA Quartet"*james ellroy In which city is the horse race the Palio run*sienna Bette Midler won an Oscar nomination for playing a rock singer in the style of Janis Joplin in which 1979 film*the rose The Rose Bowl, America's oldest college football contest, is held annually in which city*pasadena Which wild flower is also known as Fireweed, because it is the first to grow back after a fire*rose bay willow herb Which Arthur first conceived the idea of geostationary satellites*arthur c clarke In 1938, Pearl S. Buck became the first American woman to be awarded what international honour*nobel literature prize A woman described as a Magdalene in the 17th Century was a repentant what*prostitute Which species of fir is named after the plant collector. who sent its seeds back to Britain in 1827*douglas fir Who died at Gravesend in March 1617 when she was about to embark for her homeland in America*pocahontas Who starred as Jimmy Porter in the film version of John Osborne's play Look Back in Anger*richard burton Doubly-ionised helium atoms, when emitted by some radioactive nuclei, are known as what*alpha particles Who starred as History lecturer Jim Dixon in the film version of Kingsley Amis' novel Lucky Jim*ian carmichael Also known as the Chile Pine, what is the common name of the tree Araucaria araucana*monkey puzzle What is the name of the strong, heavy grating lowered to block the entrance to a castle*portcullis What is the name of the central tower of a castle, the innermost and strongest part*keep Which country was invaded by Soviet troops in August 1968*czechoslovakia Which country was invaded by Soviet troops in December 1979*afghanistan Jacqueline du Pre was a soloist on which instrument*cello Evelyn Glennie is the world's first full time soloist on which part of the orchestra*drums Which is the second largest city in Norway*bergen Which is the second largest city in Sweden*gothenburg The Bay of Naples and the Gulf of Salerno are inlets of which sea*tyrrhenian Whose best-selling album is An Innocent Man which reached number two in the charts in 1983*billy joel Who was the defeated Socialist Prime Minister in the Spanish General Election of March 1996*felipe gonzalez The Gulfs of Taranto and Corinth are inlets of which sea*ionian sea Who was the defeated Labour Prime Minister in the Israeli General Election of May 1996*shimon peres Which duo's best-selling album, The Innocents, topped the album charts in January 1989*erasure Which Jane Austen novel was originally entitled First Impressions*pride and prejudice Who wrote the novel The Last of the Mohicans, first published in 1820*james fenimore cooper In which Italian city is the original of Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper to be seen*milan Which band reached number two in the charts in 1988 with the album The First of a Million Kisses*fairground attraction With which country did Britain break off diplomatic relations in April 1984*libya With which country did Britain break off diplomatic relations in February 1991*iraq In cookery, what term is used for the sprinkling of food lightly and evenly with flour, sugar, etc*dredging In which American city can the Liberty Bell be found*philadelphia Who succeeded Georges Pompidou as President of France*valery giscard d'estaing Which is the second largest of the Japanese islands*hokkaido Who won the best Actress Oscar for "Blue Sky"*jessica lange Which is the last of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments to be played in the year*us open The Mason-Dixon line ran between Maryland and which other American State*pennsylvania Which American president renamed "Shangri-la" as "Camp David" after his grandson*eisenhower Which band comprises sisters Andrea, Sharon, and Caroline with their brother Jim*the corrs Which island is known to its inhabitants as Kerkyra*corfu Who composed the opera "Boris Godunov"*moussorgsky What name is given to an equilateral parallelogram which contains a right angle*a square Which sport uses the terms knuckleball, cycle, and bunt*baseball Grenadine is a syrup from the juice of which fruit*pomegranate Who had a 1999 hit single with "I Try"*macy gray In the nursery rhyme, what medication was applied to Jack's head after his tumble down the hill*vinegar and brown paper Which planet has a moon called Charon*pluto Which is the only country to represent a letter in the phonetic alphabet*india Which band comprises Shaznay and Melanie plus sisters Natalie and Nicole*all saints The small tree Camellia Sinensis provides us with which digestible product*tea Name the character played by John Cleese in "A Fish called Wanda"*archie leach What was the nickname of bank robber Charles Floyd, killed in a shoot-out in 1934*pretty boy The port of Oran is the second city of which North African country*algeria Who won the best Actor Oscar for "Scent of a Woman"*al pacino Jimmy Carter's family grew goober peas in Georgia. What's their more familiar name*peanuts Which band had a 1999 hit single with "Flying Without Wings"*westlife In an isosceles triangle, if the two equal angles are 35 degrees, what is the third angle*110 degrees Name the chief port of Iraq*basra In the TV series "The Beverley Hillbillies", who played Jed Clampett*buddy ebsen Which planet has a moon called Europa*jupiter As what was Anne Bonney notorious in the 18th century*pirate Which character in Bond films has been played by Donald Pleasance, Telly Savalas, and Charles Gray*blofeld Name both of the cities to represent a letter in the phonetic alphabet*lima & quebec A carbohydrate consists of carbon, hydrogen, and which other element*oxygen Where did the dormouse finish up at the Mad Hatter's tea party*in the teapot For which 1949 film did Anton Karas write and perform the music*the third man Which is the only Shakespeare play with the name of an English town in the title*the merry wives of windsor Which UN Secretary-General was killed in an air crash in 1961*dag hammarskold Which group recorded the albums Regatta de Blanc and Ghost in the Machine*the police What was the unit of work in the c.g.s. system, which was replaced by the Joule in the S.I. system*the erg Which poet described autumn as 'the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness'*john keats On which temperature scale does water freeze at 0 degrees and boil at 80 degrees*reaumur la Picardy is a region of which European country*france Which brand of sportswear takes its nape from a South African gazelle*reebok Who, in the Holy Bible, was the father of David*jesse Which magazine is subtitled 'The International Magazine for Men'*penthouse Who recorded A Walk in the Black Forest in 1965*horst jankowski The song Love is All Around, performed by Wet Wet Wet, is featured in which Richard Curtis film*four weddings and a funeral Which political party was founded in West Germany in 1972 by the late Petra Kelly*the green party In the film The Great Escape , what were 'Tom', 'Dick' and 'Harry'*three escape tunnels Which medical condition is detected using the Ishiharo Test*colour blindness On George Martin's farewell album In My Life, which actor sings the title song*sean connery What name is given to a statistician employed by an insurance company to calculate risks*an actuary Name the singer who won the 1998 Eurovision Song Contest with the song Diva*dana international Name one of the birds which Noah released from the Ark*raven or dove In which country is the chief range of Drakensberg Mountains*south africa Which is the largest of the Canary Islands*tenerife Which opera, based on Bizet's Carmen, is set in a parachute factory*carmen jones Who was the Prime Minister of Malta between 1971 and 1984*dom mintoff According to the Holy Bible, where did Cain go after killing Abel*land of nod Which European country is ruled jointly by the Spanish Bishop of Urgel and the President of France*andorra The name of which disease comes from the Italian meaning 'bad air'*malaria In which country was guitarist Django Reinhardt born*belgium In which year did Roger Bannister run the first sub-four minute mile*1954 Which religion's holiest shrine is the Golden Temple at Amritsar*sikh Which religion's holiest shrine's are in the Ise Shima National Park near Osaka*shinto Born Georgios Panayiotou in England in 1963, by what name is this singer better known*george michael Which Greek philosopher was appointed tutor to Alexander the Great in 342 B.C.*aristotle Which 1995 film, starring Tom Hanks, used the publicity blurb "Houston, we have a problem."*apollo 13 In 65 A.D., which Roman emperor forced his former tutor, Seneca the Younger, to commit suicide*nero The name of which of the seven hills of Rome is the origin of the word 'palace'*palatine hill Which of the seven hills of Rome gives its name to the Italian presidential palace*quirinal hill Which Oscar-winning actor's only film as a director was the 1961 Western One-Eyed Jacks*marlon brando Known as 'The Ace of Aces', who was the leading American fighter pilot of World War One*eddie rickenbacker What are wrapped in rashers of bacon to make the dish Angels on Horseback*oysters Which French artist, in 1883, gave up his job as a stockbroker to paint full time*paul gauguin Which is the most westerly South American country through which the Equator passes*ecuador What is added to a Welsh Rarebit to make a Buck Rarebit*poached egg What are train drivers called in the U.S.A.*engineers Which of Charles Dickens' novels is mainly set in the Marshalsea Prison*little dorritt Thomas Gradgrind and Sissy Jupe appear in which of Charles Dickens' novels*hard times What name is given to the blend of Black China and Darjeeling teas, flavoured with oil of Bergamot*earl grey Which saint founded a monastery at Iona in the sixth century*saint columba In which month of the year are Nobel Prizes presented*december On which object would you find a crown, a waist, a sound-bow and a clapper*bell Who produced the album In My Life, featuring covers of Beatles' songs by various artists*sir george martin Which river forms part of the southern boundary of the state of Indiana, separating it from Kentucky*ohio If you left Oklahoma by crossing the Red river in a southerly direction, which American state would you enter*texas A welt, a vamp, a tongue and a quarter can all be found on which object*a shoe The sacred book of which religion is divided into 114 chapters called Suras*islam What was the Russian city of St. Petersburg called from 1924 to 1991*leningrad Which 19th Century poet was known as 'The Bard of Rydal Mount'*william wordsworth Which 18th Century poet was known as 'The Bard of Ayrshire'*robert burns In the 1960s, which company made a version of the Austin Mini, called the Elf*riley 1n the 1960s, what was the name of the Wolseley version of the Austin Mini*hornet Which garden pest, which can cause great damage to lawns, is the grub of the crane fly*leatherjacket Nancy Cartwright and Yeardley Smith provide the voices for which brother and sister on television*bart & lisa simpson Which class of racing yacht has the same name as a Wagner opera*flying dutchman Which class of racing yacht has the same name as a Shakespeare play*tempest In the 1960s, Alan Reed and Jean Vander Pyle were the voices of which television husband and wife*fred & wilma flintstone Israel Baline, born in Temum, Russia, on 1lth May 1898, became famous under what name*irving berlin Name the title which, together with Berlin Game and London Match completes Len Deighton's trilogy*moscow set Which city is, in terms of population, the second largest in Mexico*guadalajara In which Australian state or territory is the Kimberley Plateau and Eighty Mile Beach*western australia In which Australian state or territory is the Flinders Range and Lake Eyre*south australia Which is Argentina's second most populous city*cordoba Gypsum is a hydrated sulphate of which metal*calcium What name is given to the broad gap between the outermost and the brightest of Saturn's rings*cassini division Who, in 1655, discovered Saturn's rings*christiaan huygens Talc is a hydrated silicate of which metal*magnesium What is the name of the weak attractive bonds which exist between molecules*van der waals forces What name is given to the bonds which link amino acid molecules together to form proteins*peptide bond The malleus and the incus are two of the three auditory ossicles. Which is the third*stapes In which ship did Captain Scott sail to the Antarctic on his ill-fated expedition of 1910 to 1912*terra nova In which ship did John Cabot sail to the New World in 1497*mathew Which American aircraft company makes the F15 Eagle*mcdonnell douglas What was the name of the Royal Navy's first nuclear submarine*h m s dreadnought Which German firm produced the World War Two plane the Condor*fockewulf What is the name of the Kellogg's cereal prefixed with the word 'healthwise'*bran flakes What is the alternative name of the foodstuff called sea asparagus*samphire What is the alternative name of the foodstuff called scallions*spring onions If you saw the word 'sag' on an Indian menu, which vegetable would it signify*spinach If you saw the word 'aloo' on an Indian menu, which vegetable would it stand for*potato What is the name of the Kellogg's cereal prefixed with the word 'Optima'*fruit and fibre The foodstuff 'carambola' is known by what alternative name*starfruit In the U.S.A., this food is known as 'granola' how is it known in europe*muesli Princeton University is in which state*new jersey In which state is Cornell University*new york Which film links Harrison Ford and novelist Scott Turon*presumed innocent Which actor played Alain Chanier in The French Connection*fernando rey In the film Friday The Thirteenth, which character was the killer*mrs. vorhees In the film Copycat , which entertainer played serial killer Daryll Lee*harry connick jnr Which film links novelist Ira Levin and Sharon Stone*sliver Who composed the Goldberg Variations*j. s. bach What does a petrologist study*rocks Who wrote the Booker Prize-winning novel The Old Devils*kingsley amis What is the large central inner tower of a castle called*keep Who married antonio banderas, her co-star in the film too much*melanie Griffith What is the young of this animal called: Antelope*calf What is the young of this animal called: Bear*cub What is the young of this animal called: Beasts of prey*whelp What is the young of this animal called: Beaver*kit What is the young of this animal called: Birds*fledgling*nestling What is the young of this animal called: Cat*kitten What is the young of this animal called: Codfish*codling*sprat What is the young of this animal called: Cow*calf What is the young of this animal called: Deer*fawn*yearling What is the young of this animal called: Dog*puppy*pup What is the young of this animal called: Duck*duckling What is the young of this animal called: Eagle*eaglet What is the young of this animal called: Eel*elver What is the young of this animal called: Elephant*calf What is the young of this animal called: Elephant seal*weaner What is the young of this animal called: Fish*fry What is the young of this animal called: Fowl*chick*chicken What is the young of this animal called: Fox*cub*pup What is the young of this animal called: Frog*tadpole What is the young of this animal called: Goat*kid What is the young of this animal called: Goose*gosling What is the young of this animal called: Grouse*cheeper What is the young of this animal called: Guinea fowl*keet What is the young of this animal called: Hawk*eyas What is the young of this animal called: Hen*pullet What is the young of this animal called: Hippo*calf What is the young of this animal called: Horse*foal*yearling*colt*filly What is the young of this animal called: Kangaroo*joey What is the young of this animal called: Lion*cub What is the young of this animal called: Owl*owlet What is the young of this animal called: Partridge*cheeper What is the young of this animal called: Pig*piglet*shoat*farrow*suckling What is the young of this animal called: Pigeon*squab*squeaker What is the young of this animal called: Quail*cheeper What is the young of this animal called: Rabbit*bunny*kit What is the young of this animal called: Rat*kitten What is the young of this animal called: Rhino*calf What is the young of this animal called: Rooster*cockerel What is the young of this animal called: Salmon*parr*smolt*grilse What is the young of this animal called: Seal*pup What is the young of this animal called: Shark*cub What is the young of this animal called: Sheep*lamb*lambkins What is the young of this animal called: Swan*cygnet What is the young of this animal called: Tiger*cub*whelp What is the young of this animal called: Turkey*poult What is the young of this animal called: Whale*calf What is the young of this animal called: Zebra*foal To within 3 mph, at what speed in m.p.h. does a wind become a hurricane*seventy three*73 In which year did Britain's coinage go decimal*1971 In which year did prohibition end in the USA*1933 What relation was Queen Victoria to George III*granddaughter Who was Chairman of British Coal during the miners strike of the 1980s*ian mcgregor Who was Arthur Scargill's predecessor as President of the NUM*joe gormley What is the first name of the son of David and Victoria Beckham*brooklyn What was the name of Minnie Caldwell's cat in Coronation Street*bobby Who sang the song Raindrops keep falling on my Head" in the film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid"*b.j. thomas What is the state capital of Alaska*juneau In which city is the Blue Mosque*istanbul In which city is the Alhambra Palace*granada In Shakespeare's play who was the wife of Othello*desdemona What is the colour of lobster's blood*blue Which man has made the highest individual innings at Lord's, an innings of 333*graham gooch Who painted "The Naked Maja"*goya Who painted "Resurrection: Cookham"*stanley spencer In Shakespeare's play, who tamed the shrew*petruchio Which is the only living bird with two toes on each foot*ostrich On which ground did Brian Lara score 501 not out*edgbaston Which Gloucestershire town, famous for its abbey, lies on the confluence of the Severn and Avon*tewkesbury What is the technical term for long-sightedness*hypermetropia Which writer created Detective-Inspector Bucket*charles dickens Which country produces Dao wine*portugal Which country produces Franconia wine*germany Which writer created Sergeant Cuff*wilkie collins Where in the body are the Haversian canals*inside bones Which Yorkshire river is formed by the confluence of the Swale and Ure*ouse Who was the Head of State of Vichy France*petain In what year was the "Marshal Plan" devised*1948 What links the Isle of Portland to the mainland coast of Dorset*chesil bank The Welland Canal links Lake Erie to which other of the Great Lakes*lake ontario Who is the current Secretary of State for Social Security*alastair darling Who was the dictator of Portugal from 1932 to 1968*salazar Which Marilyn Monroe film was adapted for a stage play starring Daryl Hannah in London in 2000*seven year itch In the culinary world, what is passata*sieved tomatoes Which game is played at 12 a-side for women, but at 10 a-side for men*lacrosse Which element has the lowest boiling point*helium Name the man who developed the first practical pneumatic tyre.*john dunlop Which American devised a noise reduction system, now in general use, for tape-recorders etc*ray dolby Which member of the Cabinet draws the largest salary*lord chancellor To what fabric does the French city of Nimes give its name*denim In medieval Spain which city was noted for its quality leather*cordova Which "daring young man on the flying trapeze" gave his name to a garment*jules leotard What fruit is the basis for guacamole*avocado Which former child star made his debut on the London stage in October 2000*macaulay culkin Who was the English born Surveyor-General of India who completed the first trigonometrical survey of the Sub-Continent*sir george everest In medieval Spain which city was noted for its quality steel*toledo Who was Speaker of the House of Commons immediately prior to Betty Boothroyd*bernard weatherill Which newspaper owner's career inspired the film "Citizen Kane"*william randolph hearst Which newspaper owner's name became an exclamation of surprise or disbelief*gordon bennett Which town in Brazil, 1,000 miles up the Amazon, was at one time the major port for the rubber trade*manaus Which statesman said that Germany's problems could only be resolved by "blood and iron"*bismarck How many facets has a snowflake*six*6 What is the name of the "Oklahoma Bomber"*timothy mcveigh Who wrote the words that are engraved on the Statue of Liberty*emma lazarus What does a pteridologist study*ferns Who is credited with inventing the transistor*dr william shockley Who wrote the poem "The Owl and the Pussycat"*edward lear What in the USA is celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November*thanksgiving How many standard bottles of wine are there in a Jereboam*four*4 Of what is hippophobia a fear*horses Which British rock group released a 1990s album called Parklife*blur Which country is the only one to have won the Rugby Union World Cup twice*australia Which planet in the solar system was discovered in 1846*neptune Who wrote the novel "To Kill a Mockingbird"*harper lee In which region of France is the red wine Chateauneuf du Pape produced*rhone valley Which Prime Minister introduced Income Tax*pitt the younger In which year was the Berlin Wall built*1961 What is the culinary term meaning to coat or sprinkle with flour or sugar*dredging Which metal is combined with lead to make pewter*tin Which US President ordered the dropping of the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki*truman What name did the Romans give to Wales*cambria Which army rank is equivalent to the naval rank of Lieutenant-Commander*major Who was the first South African in space*mark shuttleworth "Hot lesbian witches Ouch, that's hot!"*being john malkovitch "I am totally butt crazy in love with Josh."*clueless "I feel a hate crime coming on. "*chasing amy "Why, I guess you don't know everything about women yet"*the empire strikes back 1996-1997 Movies: A sports agent (Cruise) forms his own company centered around Cuba Gooding Jr.*jerry Maguire 1996-1997 Movies: Annie falls victim to hijacking--again, this time on a boat.*speed 2 cruise control 1996-1997 Movies: George Clooney and Michelle Pfeiffer have a rocky relationship.*one fine day 1996-1997 Movies: This trilogy was restored and re-released February of 1997.*star wars 1996-1997 Movies: Tom Cruise in a remake of a popular 1966 series.*mission impossible Actors Common Ground 1: Lifeboat, Cocoon.*hume cronyn Actors Common Ground 1: My Mother the Car, Coach*jerry van dyke Actors Common Ground 1: The Donna Reed Show, Pete and Gladys, M-A-S-H*harry morgan Actors Common Ground 1: The Untouchables, The Man Who Would Be King.*sean connery Actors Common Ground 1: Zorro, Lost in Space.*guy williams Actors In Film : Pierce Brosnan, Patrick Stewart*detonator Actors In Film: David Caruso, Stacy Keach*mission of the shark Actors In Film: Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline, John Cleese*a fish called wanda Actors In Film: Sean Penn, Al Pacino, John Leguzamo*carlitos way Actors In Film: Willem Dafoe, Tom Berringer, Charlie Sheen*platoon B Movies: 1989-Japanese feature about 5 years in a Hiroshima-surviving family*black rain B Movies: BAD medical school comedy with Steve Gutenberg and Julie Hagerty*bad medicine B Movies: Steve McQueen's first starring role was in this 1958 B-Movie*the blob B Movies: Sting and Jennifer Beals in this remake of The Bride of Frankenstein*the bride B Movies: William Hurt and Holly Hunter team up in this comedy about the network news*broadcast news Beverly Hills 90210: For what popular singer did David play keyboards at a campus function*babyface Beverly Hills 90210: Jamie Walters (Ray Pruitt) also starred on what short-lived Fox series*the heights Beverly Hills 90210: This SUPER-hunk played Brenda's love interest in France.*dean cain Beverly Hills 90210: What was the name of the guidance counselor at West Beverly*mrs. teasley Beverly Hills 90210: Which character had an unrequited crush on Brandon through most of high school*andrea zuckerman Bleeding Heart Movies: "Gimme some sugar, baby."*army of darkness Bleeding Heart Movies: Brad Pitt knifes a man in a bathroom stall.*kalifornia Bleeding Heart Movies: Debra Winger is turned prostitute and gets her finger cut off.*the piano Bleeding Heart Movies: Jewish boy escapes death by impersonating a German and becoming a Nazi.*europa Europa Bleeding Heart Movies: Will Smith knifes himself to get aquantied with high society folks.*six degrees of Seperation Brady Mania: Allan Melvin played...*sam Brady Mania: Bobby's small size enabled him and Greg to escape from the inside of one.*freezer Brady Mania: Eve Plumb played...*jan Brady Mania: Greg learned the meaning of "let the buyer beware" after purchasing this.*car Brady Mania: She crashed her bicycle in the garage when she wasn't wearing glasses.*jan Character Creators: Elmer Gantry*sinclair lewis Couples: Rhett Butler and _______ _____*scarlett ohara Couples: Ricky Ricardo and ____*lucy Dick Van Dyke Show: In what year did the show premiere*1961 Dick Van Dyke Show: What body part would Rob lose if he became a Twyloite*thumb Dick Van Dyke Show: What instrument did Buddy play*cello Dick Van Dyke Show: What kind of sports car did Rob Petrie buy*tarantula Dick Van Dyke Show: Who played Rob Petrie in the original pilot for the series*carl reiner Dr Seuss: _Hop on ---_*pop Dr Seuss: Dr. Derring's Singing Herring sing this to you!*happy birthday Dr Seuss: He owned a bottomless pool*mcelligot Dr Seuss: The number of hats Barholomew Cubbins wore*500 Dr Seuss: The totalitarian turtle*yertle Entertainment Potpourri: Garp's sport in The World According to Garp*wrestling Entertainment Potpourri: Mustached comedian who portrayed Frankie in North to Alaska*ernie kovacs Entertainment Potpourri: TV show that featured a buzzer named Beulah*truth or consequences Entertainment Potpourri: Whose father ran the Gillis Grocery Store*dobie gillis Famous Celebrities: What is the surname of 8-times married actress Zsa Zsa*gabor Famous Celebrities: What nationality is Sophia Loren*italian Famous Celebrities: Which Gareth's summer miss of 1996 made him a household name*southgate Famous Celebrities: Which TV show made Canadian Pamela Anderson famous*baywatch Famous Directors: Directed "Bicycle Thieves"*vittorio de sica Famous Directors: Directed "Blow-Up"*michelangelo antonioni Famous Directors: Directed "Fear Eats the Soul"*rainer werner fassbinder Famous Directors: Directed "Out of Africa"*sidney pollack Famous Directors: Directed "Shadowlands"*richard attenborough Film Air: "How To Marry A Millionaire" co-starred 3 film legends: Monroe, Bacall, and who*betty grable Film Air: Film which won Audrey Hepburn an Oscar for best actress.*roman holiday Film Air: First man to play Chester A. Riley on TV version of "The Life of Riley"*jackie gleason Film Air: In "The Maltese Falcon," what was Peter Lorre's character named*joel cairo Film Air: Voice of Jack Benny's hispanic friend Sy (Sy...Si!), his car, and Bugs Bunny.*mel blanc Film Roles: Elmer Gantry*burt lancaster Film Roles: Ghandi*ben kingsley Film Roles: Norman Bates*anthony perkins Film Roles: The Music Man*robert preston Film Roles: The Sheik*rudolph valentino Flicks: Archaeologist teams up with long lost father in search of the Holy Grail*indiana jones and the last Crusade Flicks: Dim-witted man finds himself in important histrical events in the USA*forrest gump Flicks: Documentary about the pressure placed on women to be thin and beautiful.*the famine within Flicks: Exquisite movie about a boy who tames and races an Arabian horse.*the black stallion Flicks: Jack Nicholson movie about mental hospital and R.P. McMurphy.*one flew over the cuckoos nest Flicks: Mountain Ranger races terrorists on mountain to find three money suitcases*cliffhanger Flicks: Movie featuring the immortal characters Blanche DuBois and Stanley Kowalski.*a streetcar named Desire Flicks: Policeman visits wife in Los Angeles and battles terrorists on highrise*die hard Flicks: Spielberg movie about a group of kids who go looking for buried treasure.*the goonies Flicks: Suicidal cop is partnered with reluctant aging cop. Fight drug runners*lethal weapon Get Smart: In Smart's _apartment_, the phone is hidden inside this.*phone Get Smart: Siegfried's faithful sidekick and dummkopf.*shtarker Get Smart: Smart calls this Chinese KAOS agent "The Craw".*the claw Get Smart: Smart's call number.*86 Get Smart: This actor plays Smart and also provides the voice of Inspector Gadget.*don adams Grease: Frenchy dropped out of beauty school after tinting her hair this color*pink Grease: Sandy left Danny while seeing this movie at the drive-in.*the blob Grease: She got her name because she was the best dancer at St. Bernadette's.*chacha Grease: This was the rival gang of the T-Birds.*scorpions Grease: What did Frenchy do that made Sandy puke*pierced her ear Highlander: On Highlander The Series, what is the name of Duncan MacLeod's young partner*richie ryan Highlander: What is the backdrop for the infamous 'cut scene' in the first movie*world war ii Highlander: What is the full name of Connor MacLeod's mentor (hint: 5 words)*juan sanchez villa lobos Ramirez Highlander: What was the name of Duncan MacLeod's monk mentor*darius Highlander: Who plays Duncan MacLeod*adrian paul Indiana Jones: In Latin, what letter does Jehova start with*i Indiana Jones: In the Temple of Doom, what bodily fluid is Indy forced to drink*blood Indiana Jones: In what type of institution does Marcus Brody work*museum Indiana Jones: What animal is Indy's father terrified of*rat Indiana Jones: What does the penitent man do in the presence of God*kneel Indiana Jones: What kind of scientist is Indiana Jones*archaeologist Indiana Jones: What nationality was rival archaeologist Rene Belloq*french Indiana Jones: What nationality was rival archaeologist Rene Belloq*french Indiana Jones: What was the name of Indy's dog from childhood*indiana Indiana Jones: What woman conspires with Nazis to steal the grail diary (first name only)*elsa Marx Movies: Chico and Harpo are spies Chicolini and Pinkie in this movie*duck soup Marx Movies: In this movie Chico is a tooty-fruity selling tout*a day at the races Marx Movies: Say,if you get near a song , play it*animal crackers Marx Movies: The first part of the party of the first part .... the second part...*a night at the opera Marx Movies: This movie contains their celebrated state room scene aboard an ocean liner*a night at the opera MASH: Colonel Potter paints him throwing a discus.*klinger MASH: Klinger wears dresses to earn himself one of these.*section 8 MASH: Trapper John and Hawkeye build one of these in their tent.*still MASH: What is Klinger court-martialed for*theft MASH: Who directed the final episode*alan alda Mostly Older Movies: Anne Francis and Robby The Robot starred in this SciFi classic:*forbidden planet Mostly Older Movies: Early Nat'l Lampoon film; John Belushi plays Bluto:*animal house Mostly Older Movies: Jimmy Stewart had an invisible friend by this name:*harvey Mostly Older Movies: Musical about Viet Nam with Treat Williams and Beverly D'angelo:*hair Mostly Older Movies: Older scifi movie starring Sigourney Weaver:*alien Movie Actors: He starred in Lassie Come Home and Planet of the Apes*roddy mcdowall Movie Actors: He was in Silkwood and Backdraft*kurt russell Movie Actors: The mute Marx Brother*harpo Movie Actors: The piano-playing Marx brother*chico Movie Actors: The Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz*jack haley Movie Actresses: Actress in Psycho and Touch of Evil*janet leigh Movie Actresses: She was Oscar nominated for Sunset Boulevard*gloria swanson Movie Actresses: She was the star of 40s MGM swimming spectaculars*esther williams Movie Actresses: She won Oscars for (ch) Kramer vs. Kramer and Sophie's Choice*meryl streep Movie Actresses: The star of Roman Holiday and Breakfast at Tiffany's*audrey hepburn Movie Lines: Excuse me while I whip this out.*blazing saddles Movie Lines: I sound my barbaric YAWP...*dead poets society Movie Lines: Show me a move, Q Ball*under siege Movie Tag Lines: 1979: In space, no one can hear you scream.*alien Movie Tag Lines: 1985: 17 year old Marty McFly got home early last night. 30 years early.*back to the future Movie Tag Lines: 1995: What kind of man would defy a king*braveheart Movie Tag Lines: 1997: A message from deep space. Who will be the first to go*contact Movie Tag Lines2: 1940: Walt Disney's Technicolor FEATURE triumph!*fantasia Movie That Features: Fisher Stevens, Ally Sheedy, and Steve Guttenberg*short circuit Movie That Features: Julia Roberts, Cameron Diaz, and Dermot Mulroney with wedding bell blues.*my best Friends Wedding Movie That Features: Matthew Modine, Mercedes Ruehl, Dean Stockwell, and Michelle Pfeiffer*married to the Mob Movie That Features: Patrick Swayze, Cynthia Gibb, Ed Lauter, and Rob Lowe*youngblood Movie That Features: Stephen Rea, Miranda Richardson, Jaye Davidson, and Forest Whitaker*the crying Game Movie Trivia: "Citizen Kane" won this many Academy Awards*1 Movie Trivia: Amount of money "E.T." grossed in first 2 weeks of release (in millions)*44 Movie Trivia: Madonna and sean Penn starred together in this 1987 film*shanghai surprise Movie Trivia: MGM is an acronym for this*metro goldwyn mayer Movie Trivia: Number of movies Burton and taylor made together*10 Movies: Jane Wyman had no speaking role, but lots of acting, in this movie.*johnny belinda Movies: Ronald Coleman played Charles Rainier, an amnesia victim from WWI, in this film*random harvest Movies: Timothy Dalton starred in this flashy sci-fi film*flash gordon Movies: Western in which Gable said, "Why don't you jump in and get wet all over"*honky tonk Movies: William Hurt plays Macon Leary in this movie.*accidental tourist Music Movie Trivia: "Arnold" solos this Cole Porter song in Torch Song Trilogy.*love for sale Music Movie Trivia: Each Mad Max movie has a version of this song.*happy birthday Music Movie Trivia: Sound of Music song: "The sun has gone to bed and so must I...".*so long farewell Music Movie Trivia: This famous jazz musician was the band leader in "Hello, Dolly!"*louis armstrong Music Movie Trivia: This Gypsy song's footage is thought to be lost forever.*together we go Name That Actor: ...who played Charles Foster Kane*orson welles Name That Actor: ...who played Dirty Harry*clint eastwood Name That Actor: ...who played Mozart in "Amadeus"*tom hulce Name That Actor: ...who played Obi Wan Kenobi*alec guiness Name That Actor: ...who played Willy Wonka*gene wilder Name That Celebrity: Director and dixieland clarinetist*woody allen Name That Celebrity: Star of one-man shows thar portrayed Harry Truman and Will Rogers*james whitmore Name That Celebrity: The director of Citizen Kane and The Third Man*orson wells Name That Celebrity: The male anchor of 20/20*hugh downs Name That TV Show: Goober, Floyd, Opie, Barney*andy griffith Name That TV Show: Hayden, Christine, Dauber*coach Name That TV Show: Max Weinberg, Andy Richter, Conan*late night with conan obrien Name That TV Show: Urkel, Laura, Carl*family matters Name That TV Show: Wapner, Rusty, Doug*peoples court Name Their Network: Candice Cameron*abc Name Their Network: Craig T. Nelson*abc Name Their Network: Lloyd Robertson*ctv Name Their Network: Principal Skinner*fox Name Their Network: Sandy Rinaldo*ctv Pop Music On Film: This singer can currently be seen on film in "Little Buddah"*chris isaak Pop Music On Film: This singer has hit #1 four times with movie themes, including 2 from "Buster"*phil collins Quantum Leap: Dr. Sam Beckett was born in this year.*1953 Quantum Leap: First name of Sam's wife.*donna Quantum Leap: How many degrees does Sam have, including one in ancient languages*six Quantum Leap: In "The Beast Within", Sam meets this legendary creature.*bigfoot Quantum Leap: In the 1st episode, Sam Leaped into Tom Stratton, who was of this profession.*test pilot Quantum Leap: Modern-day tycoon who with his dad exits a cab Sam is entering, in one ep.*donald trump Quantum Leap: Sam usually says these 2 words just after Leaping, sometimes more than once.*oh boy Quantum Leap: Sam's true love that he sees again when he leaps into one of her professors.*donna Quantum Leap: Show name of the boxer Sam leaps into in the ep. The Right Hand of God.*kid cody Quantum Leap: The main character, Dr. Sam Beckett, was played by this actor.*scott bakula Rush Limbaugh: Call letters of the EIB flagship station in New York.*wabc Rush Limbaugh: Rush's chief of staff.*kit carson Rush Limbaugh: Rush's on-air name as a disc jockey.*jeff christie Rush Limbaugh: The name of Rush's newletter.*limbaugh letter Rush Limbaugh: The name of Rush's second book.*see i told you so Sports Actors: Besides Field of Dreams, what other baseball movie starred Kevin Costner*bull durham Sports Actors: Who co-starred as Gale Sayers in Brian's Song*billy dee williams Sports Actors: Who co-starred as Gale Sayers in Brian's Song*billy dee williams Sports Actors: Who played Babe Ruth in The Babe Ruth Story*william bendix Sports Actors: Who played Lou Gehrig in Pride of the Yankees*gary cooper Sports Actors: Who played Roy Hobbs' old girlfriend and eventual wife in The Natural*glenn close Sports Actors: Who played the manager in The Natural*wilfred brimley Sports Actors: Who played the pesky sportswriter in The Natural*robert duvall Sports Actors: Who starred as an Olympic skier in Downhill Racer*robert redford Sports Actors: Who starred as an Olympic skier in Downhill Racer*robert redford Star Trek Next Generation: Captain Edward Jellico commanded this ship in Chain of Command, Part I.*cairo Star Trek Next Generation: Data can process this many trillion operations per second.*60 Star Trek Next Generation: First encounter with Moriarty occurs in this episode*elementary dear data Star Trek Next Generation: Picard becomes a Borg in this episode*best of both worlds Star Trek Next Generation: The musical instrument Picard prizes most.*flute Star Trek Next Generation: Characters: Picard had a fling with this woman who left him for Q.*vash Star Trek Next Generation: Characters: The first character from TOS to make an appearance on TNG*mccoy Star Trek Next Generation: Characters: Transporter Chief with a constantly changing rank...*obrien Star Trek Next Generation: Characters: Who is the Chief of Engineering*laforge Star Trek Next Generation: Characters: Worf's son's name*alexander Star Trek Next Generation: Tech: This type of electronics is used in computer systems and networks*optical electronics The 80s: This actor was with Wagner and Natalie Wood when she drowned.*christopher walken Disney Afternoon: BO What is Bonkers' full name*bonkers t. bobcat Disney Afternoon: DD What is Darkwing's often-humorous battle cry in the face of danger*letus get dangerous Disney Afternoon: RR According to one episode, where did dinosaurs come from*space Disney Afternoon: RR What is the name of the fly*zipper Disney Afternoon: TS What is Baloo's term of endearment for his employer*beckers Threes Company: Chrissy won this fabulous prize in a grocery store contest*turkey baster Threes Company: Jack faked this condition after wrecking Janet's car*amnesia Threes Company: Janet became a real floozy when she got this fashion accessory*blonde wig Threes Company: The girls convinced Mr Roper to let Jack live with them by telling him Jack was*gay Threes Company: Three's Company spun off this show focusing on Jack*threes a crowd TV Pets: Name Roscoe P. Coltrane's dog on "Dukes of Hazzard."*flash TV Pets: Name the dog on "The Brady Bunch."*tiger TV Pets: Name the dog on "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir."*scruffy TV Pets: Seen/heard after "Family Ties": "Sit, ___, sit. Good dog!"*ubu TV Pets: What breed of dog was Lassie*collie TV Themes: Believe it or not, it's just me*greatest american hero TV Themes: But those dreams have remained and they've turned around...*welcome back kotter TV Themes: I've been down this road, walking the line that's painted by pride...*ally mcbeal TV Themes: These days are ours...*happy days TV: 1960's series followed the exploits of Kelly Robinson and Alexander Scott.*i spy TV: McHale's rank in McHale's Navy.*lieutenant commander TV: Name of the character on "Have Gun, Will Travel".*paladin TV: She shared an apartment with Jack Tripper and Chrissy Snow (full name).*janet wood TV: This product goes "plop plop fizz fizz"*alka seltzer UK TV: What type of programme is Sophie Grigson most likely to present*cooking UK TV: Which Eamonn spoke the first words on GMTV*holmes UK TV: Which Gaby presented the first series of "Whatever You Want"*roslin UK TV: Which Jill replaced Sue Cook on "Crimewatch UK"*dando UK TV: Who is Mrs. Lenny Henry (Full name)*dawn french Wizard Of Oz: Chevy Chase movie which takes place in 30's Hollywood.*under the rainbow Wizard Of Oz: First kind of animal heard in the MGM film.*lion Wizard Of Oz: In the book, these items give the Emerald City its green appearance. (2 words)*green spectacles Wizard Of Oz: It makes the muskrat guard his musk.*courage Wizard Of Oz: The actor who played the scarecrow.*ray bolger World Of Disney: In "Pinocchio", what is the name of Geppetto's pet cat*figaro World Of Disney: In "The Toroise and the Hare," what's the Hare's first name*max World Of Disney: In what state was "Old Yeller" set*texas World Of Disney: What are the only 2 words that Pluto has every said*kiss me World Of Disney: What color is the fairy that grants Geppetto's wish to bring Pinocchio to life*blue Movie Lines: Your ego's writing checks your body can't cash.*top gun Earth's outer layer of surface soil or crust is called the _____________.*lithosphere This county has the lowest point in South America.*argentina What US City is known as The River capital of the world*Akron Who created Maudie Frickett*Jonathan Winters Who sought to create The Great Society*Lyndon Johnson Who wrote the Father Brown crime stories*GK Chesterton What does the C stand for in the equation E=mc2*Speed of light What's a funambulist*tightrope walker What's the worlds widest river*Amazon What weapon is tattooed on Glen Campell's arm*dagger Who was kidnaped on the night of March 1, 1932*Charles Lindbergh Jr What subject did Mr. Chips teach*Latin What did Wilhelm Roentgen discover in 1895*X-rays What's the better-known name of the card game Twenty-One*Blackjack What are the Twin Cities*Minneapolis and St Paul What film did Art Carney win the 1974 best actor Oscar for*Harry and Tonto What organization was given the only Nobel Peace Price awarded during World War I*The Red Cross What day of the week did Solomon Grundy die*Saturday What's the only day named for a planet*Saturday What hobby was developed by the Palmer Paint company of Detriot*Painting by numbers What's the capital of Wyoming*cheyenne Where's the famed Arch of Hadrian*athens What tropic passes through Australia*capricorn What's the longest river in Asia*yangtze Where is Dam Square*Amsterdam What's the largest museum in the world*louvre Who was winnie the pooh's neighbor*piglet What seaport's name is Spanish for white house*casablanca Who signed the Emancipation Proclamation*Abraham Lincoln Quotations: "Discipline without freedom is tyranny; freedom without discipline is chaos."*Cullen Hightower Quotations: "The greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our disposition and not our circumstances."*Martha Washington Quotations: "The greater the difficulty, the more the glory in surmounting it."*Epicurus Quotations: "The greatest difficulties lie where we are not looking for them."*Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotations: "The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved - loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves."*Victor Hugo Quotations: "The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes."*Sir Winston Churchill Quotations: "The greatest of all faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none."*Thomas Carlyle Quotations: "Distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes."*Henry David Thoreau Quotations: "Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."*George Bernard Shaw Quotations: "Do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of."*Benjamin Franklin Quotations: "A bikini is like a barbed-wire fence. It protects the property without obstructing the view."*Joey Adams Quotations: "A billion here, a billion there - pretty soon it adds up to real money."*Everett Dirksen Quotations: "A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog."*Jack London Quotations: "A converted cannibal is one who, on Friday, eats only fishermen."*Emily Lotney Quotations: "Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person."*Mother Teresa Quotations: "Do one thing at a time, and do that one thing as if your life depended on it."*Eugene Grace Quotations: "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."*Theodore Roosevelt Quotations: "Do you realize the responsibility I carry? I'm the only person standing between Nixon and the White House."*John F. Kennedy Quotations: "Doctors are the same as lawyers; the only difference is the lawyers merely rob you, whereas doctors rob you and kill you, too."*Anton Chekhov Quotations: "Doctors can bury their mistakes, Architects can only advise their clients to plant vines."*Frank Lloyd Wright Quotations: "I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is to try to please everyone."*Bill Cosby Quotations: "I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts."*Will Rogers Music: Who recorded 'Cuts Like a Knife' in 1983*Bryan Adams Music: What was REO Speedwagon's 1983 chartbusting LP*High Infidelity Music: What group did Steve Howe join in 1982*Asia Music: Who recorded 'Shadows of the Night' in 1982*Pat Benatar Music: Who recorded 'In the Air Tonight' in 1981*Phil Collins Music: What group taped the first 3-D rock video in 1983*Aerosmith Music: In what year did the 'Pretenders' release their first LP*1980 Music: What 80's band included members from Bad Company and Led Zeppelin*The Firm Music: What was the first album Roger Waters released after leaving Pink Floyd*The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking Music: Who replaced Ronnie James Dio in Black Sabbath*Ian Gillan Music: What Rush album cover features rabbits and a magician's hat*Presto Music: What is Paul McCartney's real first name*James Music: What was John Lennon's real middle name*Winston Music: What is Ringo Starr's real name*Richard Starkey Music: Who is Pat Andrejewski better known as*Pat Benatar Music: What is Ozzy Osbourne's real first name*John Music: Who is David Robert Jones better known as*David Bowie Music: Who is Don Van Vliet better known as*Captain Beefheart Music: What is Ray Charles' real last name*Robinson Music: What guitar company created the 'Flying V' guitar in the late 1950's*Gibson Music: Who recorded 'Long Tall Sally' in 1956*Little Richard Music: Who was known as 'The Killer' in the 1950's*Jerry Lee Lewis Music: What year did Chet Atkins release his first solo album*1953 Music: What song by Frankie Avalon went to #1 in 1959*Venus Music: Who played stand-up bass on Elvis' songs for Sun Records*Bill Black Music: What band did James Brown tour and record with in the 1950's*The Famous Flames Music: What 1958 song was The Coaster's only #1 hit*Yakkety Yak Music: What 1958 Eddie Cochran song became his biggest US hit and a rock classic*Summertime Blues Music: What was Sam Cooke's only #1 song*You Send Me Music: Who recorded 'I Can't Explain' in 1965*The Who Music: Who recorded 'Be True to your School' in 1963*The Beach Boys Music: What Rolling Stones album originally had a 3-D cover in 1967*Their Satanic Majesties Request Music: What was the only hit song for the band 'It's a Beautiful Day'*White Bird Music: What was the original name of the group 'Chicago'*Chicago Transit Authority Music: What instrument does Ravi Shankar play*The Sitar Music: What group is Phil Lesh with*The Grateful Dead Music: Who replaced Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd*David Gilmour Music: What female rock star did Mike Wallace of '60 Minutes' interview in 1969*Janis Joplin Music: Who sang vocals for 'Big Brother and the Holding Company'*Janis Joplin Music: What band did Dion form in 1958*The Belmonts Music: Who sang lead vocals for Lynyrd Skynyrd*Ronnie Van Zandt Music: What is Leslie West's nickname*Mountain Music: Who was Jesus on the LP version of 'Jesus Christ Superstar'*Ian Gillan Music: Who re-recorded 'Secret Agent Man' in 1979*Devo Music: Who recorded 'Blue Morning Blue Day' in 1978*Foreigner Music: Who played guitar for 'The James Gang'*Joe Walsh Music: Who replaced 'Bernie Leadon' of 'The Eagles' in 1975*Joe Walsh Music: What Stevie Wonder song was recorded by 'Beck Bogart and Appice'*Superstition Music: What Beatles song did Dr. John remake*Yesterday Music: What did Pat Benatar sing before she went into Rock music*Opera Music: What John Lennon/David Bowie single went to #1 in 1975*Fame Who was the first U.S. President to use a word processor*Jimmy Carter What was the first personal computer: Kenbak, Scelbi, or Apple1*Kenbak Which of these is NOT a computer: MANIAC, SILLIAC, BRAINIAC,ILLIAC, JOHNNIAC*BRAINIAC What was the first computer software company to go public on the New York Stock Exchange*Cullinet What is the significance of the moth found in the Harvard Mark I computer*First computer "bug" What does VAX stand for*Virtual Access eXtension Where is the world's largest computer manufacturing plant*Japan The relative speed of the TRS-80 to the ENIAC is __:1*20 What do you call the three wires on a transistor*Emitter, Base, Collector What is the name of Jonny Quest's Dog*Bandit What is the name of the theme song for The People's Court*The Big One What is the name of Mighty Mouse's girl friend*Pearl Pureheart What Indian word means "big village"*Canada What animals cannot walk backwards*Emus What animal's milk does not curdle*Camel "Mr. Mojo Risin" is an anagram for...*Jim Morrison. What animal only blinks one eye at a time*hampster Barbie's measurements if she were life size:*39-23-33 Who invented scissors*Leonardo Da Vinci What is the most common name in the world*Mohammed. What color was Coca Cola originally*green The Hawaiian alphabet has how many letters*12 What is the only bird that can fly backwards*Hummingbird Who was the original voice of Darth Vader (hint: NOT James Earl Jones)*David Prowse What foreign country's phone book is alphabetized by first name*Iceland What animals eye is bigger than its brain*ostrich What did Al Capone's business card say he was*used furniture dealer What is the longest recorded flight of a chicken*13 seconds What was Wilma Flintstone's maiden name*Wilma Slaghoopal What was Betty Rubble's Maiden name*Betty Jean Mcbricker What animal, other than humans, can get leprosy*Armadillos Who played John Candy's obnoxious brother-in-law in "The Great Outdoors"*Dan Akyroyd How many Jews were saved on Schindler's List*1,100 In the movie "Mall Rats", What famous author was signing comic books*Stan Lee Where were the Toltecs from*Mexico What US city was the capital from 1789 to 1790*New York City What rare metal melts at 86 degress Fahrenheit*Gallium What yummy snack is used in the construction of dynamite*Peanuts What city exists on every continent*Rome What actor was freshman college roommate to Al Gore*Tommy Lee Jones What is Pogonophobia the fear of*Beards The first toilet ever seen on television was on what show*Leave It To Beaver What is Barbi's full name*Barbara Millicent Roberts Who was Queen of England for only nine days*Lady Jane Grey Whose comment on the first moon landing was "This is the greatest week in the history of the world since the creation"*Richard Nixon What century saw the War of the Roses*The 15th century James Hepburn, the fourth Earl of Bothwell, died in 1578. Who did he marry in 1567*Mary Queen of Scots Who did Spain fight in the 1808-1814 Peninsular War*Portugal Who went on to become an Eastern Communist leader after working as a pastry chef at London's Carlton Hotel*Ho Chi Minh Which lawyer broke the law by refusing to be finger-printed in the Transvaal during 1907*Gandhi Which cosmetics giant began in 1886 as the California Perfume company*Avon Who was the first woman to lead a British trade union*Brenda Dean In what years were the "Great Plague" and the "Great Fire" of London*1665 and 1666 Napoleon had connections with three islands, he was imprisoned on Elba and died on St. Helena, where was he born*Corsica Which country saw the Mau Mau uprising*Kenya What happened to lady Jawara , the President of Gambia's wife when he was at Prince Charles wedding*She was kidnapped What year saw the launch of Sputnik I*1957 In 1936 King Edward VIII abdicated from the British throne to marry an American divorcee, who was she*Mrs. Wallis Simpson Which great battle took place from July 1st to November 18th 1916*The Battle of the Somme With what acid do nettles cause irritation*Formic acid What did the old woman who lived in a shoe give her children for supper*Broth without any bread Which is the only English word to both begin and end with the letters U-N-D*Underground Which famous artist took up painting with his left hand when he lost the use of his right hand at the age of sixty*Leonardo da Vinci Who was the first person to make a million pounds out of playing golf*Arnold Palmer From what is rum distilled*Sugar cane What is the most common surname in the Barcelona telephone directory*Garcia Who was the last to stab Caesar in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar*Brutus Quotes: A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.*William James Quotes: The trouble with being punctual is that nobody's there to appreciate it.*Franklin P Jones Quotes: Experience enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.*Franklin P Jones Quotes: All paid employments absorb and degrade the mind.*Aristotle Quotes: A little inaccuracy saves a world of explanation.*CE Ayres Quotes: I don't want to achieve immortality through my work, I want to achieve it through not dying.*Woody Allen Quotes: In his private heart no man much respects himself.*Mark Twain Quotes: A stand can be made against invasion by an army; no stand can be made against invasion by an idea.*Victor Hugo Quotes: To my embarrassment I was born in bed with a lady.*Wilson Mizner Which jazz trumpet virtuoso is credited as having invented scat' singing*Louis Armstrong Which 9-fingered pop pianist starred in the film Its all Happening*Russ Conway Who, according to a song, damaged her foot on a piece of wood and fell into a raging torrent*Clementine Which musical includes the Barbara Dickson/Elaine Page song I Know Him So Well*Chess Which musical was based on the play The Matchmaker*Hello Dolly What type of singing does Pavarotti use*Baritone Which single didn't get banned by the BBC despite the line, "Candy never lost her head even when she was giving head"*Walk on the wild side Which new-wave band rocked the Casbah*The Clash What country controls access to the North Sea from the rivers Schelde, Meuse & Rhine*Netherlands Music: Who sang "Everybody wants to Rule the World?"*Tears for fears In Korean, what does Seoul mean*Capital What is the birthplace (city) of the late John Candy*Toronto What insects do isopterpophobics fear*Termites What was Lestat's mother's name*gabrielle This Canadian art-metal trio sings sci-fi themes a lot.*Rush What's the only property an orthodox Hindu woman can own*Jewelry What is Venezuela named after*Venice Music: what was Steve Miller's magical incantation in 1982*abracadabra He is known as "the father of geometry".*Euclid The compound of this sect was under siege in Waco, Texas.*Branch Davidians What did Emerson, Lake & Palmer burn on stage during their concerts*The American flag What did Americans call the first Cuban in space*Castronaut Who played Little Joe on "Bonanza"*Michael Landon What are the names of the Ninja Turtles in alphabetical order*Donatello Leonardo Michelangelo Raphael How many squares are on a Shogi (Japanese chess) board*eighty one What was Donald Fagen's first solo album title (1982)*The Nightfly What tv series starred six female impersonators during its 17 year run*Lassie Hitchhiker's Guide: What race writes the third worst poetry in the Universe*Vogons Lazy Susans are named after who*Thomas Edison's daughter The Voyage of the Beagle told of which scientist's discoveries*Charles Darwin She starred in Broadcast News & The Piano.*Holly Hunter What is the name of the capital of Quebec*Quebec City What does yellow gold contains 10% of*Copper Movies: Who played andy thompson in The Headmaster*Andy Griffith Music: Who admited stealing a copy of his girlfriend's autobiography from an airport stand*Rod Stewart How many tusks does an Indian Rhinocerous have*one How many sides does a hexagon have*six What is the symbol for the zodiacal sign Aries*ram What features of the African elephant are larger than those of the Indian elephant*ears What are you if you're hirsute*hairy What city did Jacques Guernerin make the first parachute jump over, in 1797*paris What is the cube root of 27*three What grass has a capability of growing 36 inches in one day*bamboo How many zeros are there in a British billion*twelve What are you if your IQ is below 25*idiot What, translated literally, is the ninth month*november What birds feathers does superstition say should never be in a house as decoration*peacock How many hearts does an octopus have*three What is the most common colour of topaz*yellow What type of bomb is a Mills bomb*grenade What is quicksilver*mercury What do vampire bats usually go for on sleeping humans*toes What are rats unable to do, making them extra vulnerable to poison*vomit Which nightingale sings the male or the female*male What insect lends its name and gives its body to a food colouring*cochineal How many engines does a B-52 bomber have*eight What is the only native North American marsupial*opossum What is measured in curies*radioactivity How many chambers are there in the human heart*four What bird provided the quills that were used for writing*goose What yellow, fossilised resin did the Greeks and Romans use in jewellery*amber What day of the week will January 1st 2001 be*monday What is the Diamond Anniversary*sixtieth What resin used in varnish is a secretion of the lac insect*shellac Whose profession is considered the greatest insurance risk in the US*astronaut What colour is a Granny Smith apple*green What do gasoline and napthenic and palmatic acids combine to form*napalm What is commited if a person murders his father*patricide What does an androphobic maiden fear*men What gas did Joseph Priestley discover in 1774*oxygen What planet is best known as both the morning and the evening star*venus What was the name of Charles Darwin's survey ship*beagle What sign of the zodiac covers November 22nd to December 21st*sagittarius What is the first sign of the zodiac*aries How many landing weels does a Concorde have*ten What is the collective term for crows*murder How many times thicker than water is blood*six What fabric derives its name from the French for cord of the king*corduroy What is the zodiacal symbol for Capricorn*goat What is the longest living land mammal after man*elephant What African animal kills the most people*crocodile What was Christ's zodiacal sign*capricorn What animal was revered by the ancient Egyptians*cat Which shoulder should you throw spilled salt over*left What animal is the provider of coney fur*rabbit What are igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary the three classes of*rock What constellation represents a hunter with club and shield*orion What is the crystal anniversary*fifteenth What is January's birthstone*garnet Who was the Sun god of ancient Egypt*ra What natural phenomenon is Iris the goddess of*rainbow What is the common term for the tympanic membrane*eardrum What planet's moons include Io, Ganymede and Hades*jupiter What alloy do tin and lead form*pewter What plant is revered by the lovers of the stinky rose*garlic What brewing aid is obtained from the sturgeon*isinglass What does a pluviometer measure*rainfall What tiny vessel connects an artery with a vein*capillary What is a group of bears called*sleuth What civilisation invented the arch*roman Who's known as the father of geometry*euclid Who are the queen's best mates in bee hives*drones What is the largest planet in the solar system*jupiter What animal provided the hair for hairspring watches*pig What is the only female animal that has antlers*caribou What worm prefers the mulberry*silkworm What class of animals makes up more then two thirds of known species*insects What is the seven letter term for a person who shoes horses*farrier What is known as The Royal Disease*haemophilia What number cant be represented in Roman numerals*zero What fabric are Harris, Lewis and Donegal the leading examples of*tweed What do bees collect*nectar What abbreviation comes from libra, meaning pound in Latin*lb What age is adolescence considered to end at*eighteen What were broccoli and cauliflower developed from*cabbage What domestic fowl lives the longest*goose How many sides does a nonagon have*nine What colour is produced by the complete absorption of light rays*black What is the square root of 900*thirty What is the more common name for sodium chloride*salt What is the only prime number that is even*two What is converted into alchohol during the brewing process*sugar What are you caught in if a haboob blows up*sandstorm What is the term for a limestone deposit rising from the floor of a cave*stalagmite What is the term for a limestone deposit hanging from the ceiling of a cave*stalagtite What must a Mensa member be*genius How many sides does a snowflake have*six What is the study of fossils called*paleontology What does a meteorologist study*weather What creature does the Galapagos Islands take their name from*tortoise What is the most common colour of garnet*red What by product of the manufacture of Coca Cola is sold to pharmaceutical companies*cocaine Is the thumb considered to be a finger*yes What animal's fleece yields lanolin*sheep What is the Roman numeral for 50*l What are sheep if cats are feline*ovine Which moves faster, frogs or toads*frogs What element do all organic compounds contain*carbon What is the only day named after a planet*saturday What planet did the Mariner space craft explore*venus How many tines are there on a standard dinner fork*four What valuable edible fungus grows undergound*truffle What is statistically the safest age of life*ten What one type of cattle produces more than eighty percent of the UK's milk*friesian How many points are there on a Maltese cross*eight How do you write ninety nine in Roman numerals*xcix What part of the human body is most commonly bitten by insects*foot What is another term for radiolocation*radar What is South America's version of the Ostrich*rhea What is a shadow clock*sundial What does a panophobe fear*everything What is the nearest galaxy to our own*andromeda What bird has a 46 foot long small intestine*ostrich How many years of bad luck follow breaking a mirror*seven What type of bird is South Africa's aasvogel*vulture What is the zodiacal symbol for Pisces*fish What plant is sometimes referred to as a 'sparrow grass'*asparagus What disease do the French call 'la rage'*rabies What line divides a circle into two semi circles*diameter What reptilian feature evolved into feathers*scales What went from 405 to 625 lines*television Where is the line of life*palm What is the chemical symbol for gold*au What is a pipistrel or a flittermouse*bat What is the only mammal that can not fly that can fly*man What does barley become when prepared for brewing*malt What is the simplest gem in chemical composition*diamond What zodiacal sign is represented by the balance, or scales*libra What is the world's fastest dog*greyhound What does a phonophobe fear*noise What celestial body is the centre of the Jovian system*jupiter How many pecks are there in a bushel*four What is a Canis Lupus*wolf Where are a cow's sweat glands*nose What fruit is packed with the most calories*avocado What is the common name for the fruit Citrus grandis*grapefruit What colour on black produces the most visible combination*yellow What bird is a symbol of peace*dove What is a female swan called*pen What uncomely creature inspired sailors tales of mermaids*manatee How many sides does a heptagon have*seven How many nautical miles are there in one degree of longitude at the equator*sixty What was the 24 disc John Gabel Entertainer the first example of*jukebox Which are barnacles, plants or animals*animals How many gases make up 95 percent of the sun*two What was the first parachute jump made from*balloon How many wings does a bee have*four How many gallons of water are in a bath if the water weighs 100 pounds*ten What is the fastest land animal*cheetah What are Walrus tusks made of*ivory What is the only month that can have fewer than four moon phases*february What is tripe on a menu*stomach What type of snake is the Egyptian asp*cobra What does a mahout mind*elephant What is the international radio code word for the letter O*oscar Is a spider an insect*no What is the secret identity of lysergic acid diethylamide*lsd What is a male swan called*cob How many teats does a cow have*four What recording innovation was introduced in 1958*stereo What is your zodiacal sign if you are born on August 9th*leo How many rows of whiskers does a cat have*four How many dimensions does a solid have*three What is the common name for a Japanese dwarf tree*bonsai How often are brain cells replaced*never What mammal ranks after man on the evolutionary scale*ape Which is colder, minus 40 degrees centigrade or minus 40 degrees fahrenheit*neither Where is the human skin least sensitive*heel What planet did Percival Lovell discover*pluto What is the term for mass per unit volume*density What type if people have an appetite for anthropophagy*cannibals What planet has a pink sky*mars What strikes a bell to make it ring*clapper What animal is used to locate truffles*pig What drug can be found in tonic water*quinine What is considered the luckiest number worldwide*nine What do a pen and a cob produce*cygnets What membrane controls the amount of light entering the eye*iris What is the psychiatric term for self love*narcissism What colour is demerara sugar*brown What is the opposite of the nadir*zenith How many eyes does an earthworm have*none What is the only dog that doesnt have a pink tongue*chow What is the syrup drained from raw sugar*molasses What alloy do copper and tin form*bronze What is the only mammal that cant jump*elephant What does a heliologist study*sun How many equal angles are there in an isosceles triangle*two What does a gynephobic man fear*women How many daily tides are there*two What is the paper anniversary*first How many minutes does it take the typical person to fall asleep*seven Where in an old house would you find wattle*walls What sort of drum is the tympanum*eardrum What part of the body does glaucoma strike*eyes What is shredded to make sauerkraut*cabbage What constellation contains the twins Castor and Pollux*gemini What strikes the Empire State Building more than 50 times a year*lightning What is missing from a navel orange*pips What was the first instant coffee*nescafe How many years make up a vicennial period*twenty What is the term for opposition to an electrical current in a conductor*resistance What is the winter counterpart to estivation*hibernation What acid is the cause of a nettles sting*formic What get larger when one thinks harder*pupils Which have warts, frogs or toads*toads What is the longest bone in the human body*femur What metal makes up 10 percent of yellow gold*copper What Roman god is January named after*janus What is the standard of strength of distilled alcoholic liquors called*proof What is a community of ants called*colony How many tenths of the earths surface lie under water*seven How many legs does an oyster catcher have*two What is the fourth sign of the zodiac*cancer What mountain range is the natural habitat of the Llama*andes What adjective is used to describe trees which shed their leaves periodically*deciduous What number is represented in Morse code by five dots*five What did Archimedes say upon discovering the principle of buoyancy in his bath*eureka What is the term for any four sided figure*quadrilateral What is a male witch called*warlock What is the nearest star to earth*sun What is a Portuguese man of war*jellyfish What is April's birthstone*diamond What is the most common colour of Amethyst*purple How many sides does a cube have*six How many land miles are there in a league*three How many colours are there in the spectrum*seven What is the most abundant element in the Sun*hydrogen What drink is the best thirst quencher*water What does the camera shutter speed b stand for*bulb What fastener did Whitcomb Judson patent in 1893*zip What food got its name from the way it hung in bunches like grapes*grapefruit What cult of people do Stonehenge and Eisteddfods have in common*druids What are love apples*tomatoes How many queen bees reign in a hive*one What is a smooth blenny*fish What seasonal south Asian wind is characterised by heavy rains*monsoon What do a kangaroo, an anteater and a seahorse have in common*pouch What is the most common atom in the universe*hydrogen What are quasi-stellar radio sources better known as*quasars What facial feature typically contains about 550 hairs*eyebrow What is the worlds longest snake*python Which is larger, the British or US pint*british Which sex is twice as likely to contract leprosy*male What is the medical term for cancer of the blood*leukaemia What is the most intelligent subhuman primate*chimpanzee What was Linus Yale's occupation*locksmith What is the largest gland in the human body*liver What does the Kelvin scale measure*temperature What insect can jump 200 times its own height*flea Where is the Sea of Showers*moon What vegetable yields the most pounds of produce per acre*cabbage What drug is obtained from the cinchona tree*quinine What did an IBM 7090 computer calculate to 100,265 decimal places in 1961*pi What is 40 percent of 40*sixteen What is the oldest known vegetable*pea What drug was named for Morpheus, the greek god of dreams*morphine What is the largest cat in the Americas*jaguar What is the smallest bird in the world*hummingbird What kind of cats are seal points and blue points*siamese What is another name for tetanus*lockjaw What is banana oil produced from*coal What is an eagles nest called*eyrie What does the disease Impetigo affect*skin What gives beer its distinctive bitter flavour*hops Which way do the clocks go in winter*back What number did Adolf Hitler believe possessed supernatural powers*seven What country saw the origin of the Asian flu*china What is a somnambulist*sleepwalker What is the minimum number of bars on an abacus*nine What feline is the baboons chief natural enemy*leopard What isnt outstanding about a Manx cat*tail What is known as The Bishops Stone*amethyst What organ contains the island of Langerhans*pancreas What is removed in a splenectomy*spleen What is the chemical symbol for iron*fe What is the hogs largest living relative*hippopotamus How do you write 49 in Roman numerals*xlix What is known as the universal solvent*water What does a cooper make*barrels What is a pyrotechnic display*fireworks Which of the five senses is less sharp after you eat too much*hearing What month features the harvest moon*september What adjective describes an animal that eats both plants and animals*omnivorous What is another term for a black leopard*panther What is receding from Earth by half an inch a year*moon What is the most intelligent creature on Earth after man*dolphin Which side of the bed does superstition say is the wrong side*left What are feta and portella*cheeses What is a dried plum*prune What London station did Brunel's Great Western Railway terminate at*paddington Is a jellyfish a polyp*yes Which of the Wright brothers flew their plane based on the toss of a 50 cent piece*orville What is a rhinoceros horn made of*hair What organ did Aristotle think the blood cooled*brain What inhabitant of rivers and lakes plays host to the bilharzia worm*snail What sailor's disease resulted from a deficiency of Vitamin C*scurvy What colour beards grow the quickest*blonde What kind of animals was Napoleon terrified of*cats How many times more than the brain does the human body typically weigh*forty What is 550 times sweeter than cane sugar*saccharin What is the geometric shape of the cells in a honeycomb*hexagonal What is consumption otherwise known as*tuberculosis Does Uranus have an aurora*yes How many claws does a house cat have*eighteen What appear when the sun activates your melanocytes*freckles Which have a better chance of running you down on land, alligators or crocodiles*alligators What letter is to the right of k on a keyboard*l What is the term for oscillation of water particles*wave What do you call an infant whale*calf How many humps does an African camel have*one Who discovered Saturn's rings*galileo How is the year 2000 written in Roman numerals*mm What does a burglar call a crow bar*jemmy What did Ira Remsen discover in 1879, perhaps proclaiming 'How sweet it is'*saccharin What are Saddlebacks, Middle Whites and Berkshires*pigs What type of building has sails*windmill What country has the third most satellites in orbit*france Which sex has the shorter human vocal cords*female What is another name for a may tree*hawthorn What is the process of splitting atoms called*fission Where did voodoo originate*haiti What do humans catch zoonose diseases from*animals How many degrees are there in each house of the zodiac*thirty What plant does a natural vanilla flavouring come from*orchid What is 3.14159 better known as*pi What disease is carcinomaphobia a fear of*cancer What ore is aluminium made of*bauxite What is permanently frozen sub soil called*permafrost What is your zodiacal sign if you are born on July 15th*cancer What is the most widely used tranquiliser in North America*valium What is the square root of 121*eleven What is the smallest mammal*shrew What are Lincoln Red, Galloway and Welsh Black*cattle What takes eight minutes to reach Earth*sunlight What is the first day of the week*sunday What planet boasts the Great Red Spot*jupiter What is the term for a young hare*leveret Which of the five senses develops first*smell What constitutes 12 percent of an eggs weight*shell What is the science of growing plant in liquid nutrients rather than soil*hydroponics What is the pure spirit distilled from wine*brandy What is 400 in Roman numerals*cd What are the two ends of a magnet called*poles What is the symbol for the zodiacal sign of Taurus*bull What do trees get 90 percent of their nutrients from*air What is shed when you desquamate*skin What constellation is known as The Water Bearer*aquarius What number is represented in Morse code by five dashes*zero How many times a year does a penguin have sex*one What is your zodiacal sign if you're born on New Years Day*capricorn What is the name of Jacques Cousteau's research ship*calypso What is a Lent lily otherwise known as*daffodil What type of steel did Englishman Harry Brearly invent in 1913*stainless How many wings does a flea have*none What Tibetan mammal lives at a higher altitude than any other in the world*yak Where are the convolutions of Broca*brain What is a nightjar*bird What is the term for the physical disintegration of a nuclear reactor's core*meltdown What is a Bombay Duck*fish What do frogs have in their mouths that toad's dont*teeth How many pips are there in the BBC's radio time signal*six What animal is considered to have the highest blood pressure*giraffe What does the E stand for in the equation E=mc2*energy What is the fruit of a rosebush called*hip What is the common name for Hydrogen Hydroxide*water What is the international radio code word for the letter Z*zulu What turns blue litmus paper red*acid What are the front cutting teeth called*incisors What science deals with the motion of projectiles*ballistics What is the collective term for flying geese*skein What causes bakers itch*yeast What planet did Viking 1 Land on*mars What is the symbol of the zodiacal sign Gemini*twins How many astronauts manned each Apollo flight*three How many stars are there in the Big Dipper*seven What fungus is used in making bread*yeast What process forms drumlins, eskers and cirques*glaciation What company is the worlds largest user of silver*kodak What planet has the longest day*venus What travels through space at 66,700 miles per hour*earth What is the international radio code word for the letter Y*yankee What bird is a shag*cormorant What plant takes its name from the Italian for 'Beautiful lady'*belladonna What bodily function can reach the breakneck speed of 200 miles per hour*sneeze What sign is the water carrier the zodiacal symbol for*aquarius What insect transmits yellow fever*mosquito What is the largest feline*tiger What mammals travel in pods*whales What is another term for Wildebeest*gnu What is 'nutty slack'*coal What planet has the shortest year*mercury What is the outermost layer of skin called*epidermis Whose army were canned foods developed to feed*napoleon What type of wool is obtained from angora goats*mohair How many noggins are there in a print*four How many astronauts manned each of the Project Gemini flights*two What are 'electric shadows' to the Chinese*films What was the name of Armstrong and Aldrin's lunar module*eagle Which is more tender, the left or right leg of a chicken*left What bird in Greek legend was given the 100 eyes of Argus*peacock What is a dactylogram*fingerprint What sport features sculls, strokes and slides*rowing What do the five olympic rings represent*continents How many fingers are used to draw a bow*three What would you get from a vintner*wine What country is home to the football team Anderlecht*belgium What thirst quencher was promoted with the line 'Probably the best lager in the world'*carlsberg What type of bird is preserved at Lords since being bowled to death in 1936*sparrow How many points does it take to win a Cribbage game*121 How many players are there in a Rugby League side*thirteen What tool gave a puzzle its name*jigsaw What does an archer carry his arrows in*quiver What strikes the ball in a game of fives*hand How many numbered coloured balls are there in pool*fifteen What Olympic event's winner is considered the world's greatest athlete*decathlon What player on a basketball team usually plays the post or pivot position*centre Who owns the Jules Rimet trophy*brazil What country hosted soccer's 1978 world cup*argentina What did Dougal Haston excel at*mountaineering Where were the 1952 Summer Olympics*helsinki What number is at 6 o'clock on a dart board*three What is the practice of training hawks called*falconry What did Alan Webster fire 1,231 yards to set a world record in 1982*arrow What was Wembley's Olympic year*1948 Where was snoooker invented*india How many squares are there on a Snakes and Ladders board*100 What age does a filly become a mare at*five What colour shirts must table tennis players wear in official competitions*black How many rings are there on a five zone archery target*four How many strokes are tournament golfers penalised for slow play*two What was Lord John Oaksey's highest ever placing in the Grand National*second Where is the Longchamps racetrack*paris What did cowboys refer to as tonsil plant*whisky What did a pack of cards not include until 1857*jokers What are B&O, Reading, Pennsylvania and Short Line on an American Monopoly board*stations What sport requires stones to be thrown at houses*curling What is Surrey Cricket Club's home ground*oval What country has the best defensive position in the board game Diplomacy*england What herb is most often used as a garnish*parsley What country has won the most Contract Bridge world championships*italy How many laps are there in a speedway race*four What year saw the first League Cup final played at Wembley*1967 Where did Ian Botham score his 149 not out Test snatching innings in 1981*headingley How many years old are horses that run in the Derby*three How many tiles are there in a Scrabble game*100 Does tennis service begin in the left or right court*right What do you call a left arm bowler's off break to a right handed batsman*chinaman How many bowling balls does it take to make a spare*two What country did roulette originate in*france What game made Monte Carlo*roulette How did Paul Wilson run 100 yards in 13.1 seconds on September 22nd 1979 to set a world record*backwards What is the classic fillies race run over the Derby course*oaks What sport could see six chinamen in a maiden and a nightwatchman with a duck*cricket How many players are in a water polo team*seven What is the point value of the letter C in Scrabble*three What is Tio Pepe*sherry What is the liqueur Kirsch made from*cherries What year saw the first colour broadcast of the F A Cup Final*1968 What continent is considered the easiest to defend in the game of Risk*australia What sport is played in more countries than any other*soccer What does a red flag mean in auto racing*stop What is considered tennis's most illustrious championship*wimbledon What is the maximum number of coins that can be turned up with four players of Spoof*twelve How many pawns does each player have at the start of a chess game*eight What is the other name for the card game Patience*solitaire What year did football's Munich air disaster happen*1958 What is the game if your balls are black and blue and your opponents are red and yellow*croquet What is the main ingredient in bouillabaisse*seafood What is the better known name of Edson Arantes do Nascimento*pele What game does the New York Institute for the Investigation of Rolling Speroids specialise in*marbles What is the near side on a horse*left What colour light is displayed on the port side of a boat*red Which colour moves first in draughts*black What is the highest ranking suit in Bridge*spades What sport was Boris Onishchenko caught cheating at in the Montreal Olympics*fencing How many sleds may each country enter in the four man Olympic bobsled event*two What is a jockeys uniform called*silks How many English Test Cricket venues are there*six What combat sport did Dr Jigoro Kano devise in Japan in 1882*judo What term applies to the consistency, thickness and substance of a wine*body What does a piscatologist excel at*fishing What is the name of the piece flipped into the cup in tiddlywinks*wink What sport is played on the largest field*polo What country played host to the 1982 soccer World Cup Finals*spain What soccer player was known as The Black Pearl*pele What American dice rolling game can be won with an initial throw of seven or eleven*craps How many balls were there in the old Australian over*eight What water sport, other than fishing, might you catch crabs in*rowing What sport originated when William Ellis grabbed a soccer ball and ran with it in 1823*rugby What football team calls Vetch Field home*swansea What is the metal favoured by most dart players*tungsten What is the nickname of the Australian Rugby League side*kangaroos What vegetable will a chasseur add to your food*mushrooms Where were the 1960 Summer Olympics held*rome How many Olympic Games were cancelled because of World War II*four How many players make up a water polo team*seven What alcoholic beverage is made from honey and water*mead What is the centre division of a backgammon board called*bar Where did the rumba originate*cuba What craft uses a kiln and kick wheel*pottery What is the prize money in a horse race or a boxing match called*purse What is the captain of a curling foursome called*skip How many clubs can a professional golfer play a round with*fourteen What colour is Chablis*white What was the site of the first modern day Olympic Games*athens What board game derives its name form the Persian word for king*chess How many lanes does an Olympic swimming pool have*eight What is a long legged snooker rest called*spider What is the first word played in the Scrabble rules demostration game*horn When did the three points for a win system start in the football league*1981 What sport was standardised under the Queensberry rules*boxing How many triple word score spaces are there on a Scrabble board*eight What are the clay targets in trap shooting called*pigeons How many heads are there on a croquet mallet*two How many rooms are there on a Cluedo game board*nine What non mechanical sport achieves the highest speeds*skydiving What sport features snatches and clean jerks*weightlifting What colour on Monopoly properties are landed on most often*orange What sporting target has a point total of 1,335*dartboard What is the minimum number of masts on a schooner*two What is the term for the rook in chess*castle What boxing division has Britain held the most world titles in*flyweight What is the bullseye worth in archery*nine What british car was the Le Mans success story of the 1950's*jaguar What do opposite faces of a die always add up to*seven How many classic horse races are there*five How many footballers died in the Munich air crash*eight What is the closely cut grass that surrounds a golf green*apron How many layers of tobacco are there in a handmade cigar*three What is par on a 245 yard golf hole*three What Latin American country is home to the World Boxing Council*mexico Where was the football ground stampede that caused 66 deaths in 1971*glasgow What make of British car won the Le Mans motor race five times from 1924 to 1930*bentley What drink was invented by oilmen, who used their tools to stir it*screwdriver What make of car did Jim Clark die in*lotus What is a meerschaum*pipe What card game can you peg out in*cribbage What do chefs cal The Master Spice*pepper What flavour is Grand Marnier*orange What colour bottles do good Rhine wines come in*brown What is England's best known rifle range*bisley How many players are there in a volleyball team*six What handicraft requires you to interlace your warp and weft*weaving Which way does the jack of hearts usually face*right How many holes are there in a ten pin bowling ball*three How many points are there on a star in a Chinese chequers board*six What were 'ivories' to an Old West gambler*dice How many furlongs are there in a mile and a quarter racetrack*ten How many spaces are there on a Monopoly board*forty What country is considered the cradle of horse racing*england What is an off break ball that is bowled with a leg break action called*googly What space precedes Park Lane on a Monopoly board*chance How many spaces are there on a Scrabble board*225 What wood is a cricket bat made from*willow What is the tallest piece on a chessboard*king What is the lowest ranking suit in Bridge*clubs How many drops make a dash in cooking*six How many nail holes are there in a standard horseshoe*eight Where would you see a horse jump over the chair*aintree What horse was ridden by Walter Swinburn Jr for his first Derby win*shergar What second division side defeated Manchester United in the 1975 F A Cup Final*southampton What is the only country to have qualified for all of the soccer World Cup finals*brazil What hobby uses the term cast on*knitting What country saw the origin of lawn tennis*england What is the point value of the standard vowels in Scrabble*one What do fletchers make*arrows How many metres can an Olympic swimmer swim without turning*fifty What tennis term is said to come from the French word for eggs*love What colour is the danger flag in auto racing*yellow What soccer club won three consecutive league titles in the 1930's*arsenal What did the Crane brothers run the length of in a record 101 days in 1983*himalayas What site staged the original Olympics*olympia What sport featured Mick McManus and Jackie Pallo*wrestling How many counters of each colour does backgammon have*fifteen What seagulls have played at Wembley*brighton What is usually thrown the farthest in a track and field competition*javelin What is the Scrabble point value of the word jar on a double word score without blanks*twenty What South American country has the world's highest golf course*peru How many years did Alf Ramsey reign as England team manager*eleven What type of fish is most commonly caught on hempseed bait*roach What sport did Mark Twain describe as 'a good walk spoiled'*golf Which direction are greyhound races run in, clockwise or anticlockwise*anticlockwise What popular card game originated in Turkey*bridge What sport might you shoot a clout in*archery How many players are there in a baseball team*nine What is the nearest country to the UK to have staged the Winter Olympics*france What board game's name is derived from the Latin for 'I Play'*ludo What sport is it recommended that you duck the boom in*yachting What is Sebastian Coe's middle name*newbold What is another term for a badminton bird*shuttlecock What is the minimum number of letters in the first word of a Scrabble game*two What horse carried Lester Piggott to his record breaking Derby win in 1983*teenoso What would you be doing to the instructions k1, p1, k2tog*knitting What term applies to the aroma of wine*bouquet What is the most popular finishing double in darts*sixteen What sport do Americans play on a diamond*baseball What does a boxer's second throw into the ring to stop a fight*towel How many fences does a Grand National winner jump*thirty What is the most frequently rolled number with two dice*seven What fish, weighing in at 388 pounds, is the largest ever caught in a British river*sturgeon What did Abebe Bikila go without in winning the 1960 Olympic marathon*shoes What colour of boxing trunks was Muhammad Ali partial to*white How many bottles are there in a magnum of champagne*two What is the traditional trade for aspiring Spanish Bullfighters*bricklaying What is mixed with Kahlua or Tia Maria to make a Black Russian*vodka What is better than stone in the paper, stone and scissors game*paper What board game was originally called criss cross*scrabble What board game is called checkers in North America*draughts How many cherubs are there on a Trivial Pursuit board*nineteen What sport did Olga Korbut excel at*gymnastics Who released Back Home in 1970*England world cup football squad Which sport used a Pavarotti performance as its theme in 1990*football What was the nickname of former Oasis guitarist Paul Arthurs*bonehead Who had hits with Bed Sitter and Torch*soft cell How many siblings has Celine Dion*thirteen*13 How old was Billie when she had her first number 1*fifteen*15 How old was the sweet person Neil Sedaka wished Happy Birthday to in 1961*sixteen*16 In which decade did Kool and the Gang have their first hit*1970’s Which country does Bryan Adams come from*canada Which boy did Sister Sledge take to number 1*frankie Who, or what, is or was a bridewell*prison What is the capital of Denmark*copenhagen Who wrote Alice's Adventures in Wonderland*lewis carroll Where are the 2006 Winter Olympics to be held*turin What is the name of the Queen Mother's London home*Clarence house Walter Matthau starred as a slovenly sports reporter in the film The Odd Couple, what was his character name in the film*oscar madison What type of game bird is a capercailzie*grouse Who said, in song, The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore*the walker brothers In which city would you find the Wailing Wall*jerusalem Who was British Prime Minister on Sunday 3rd September 1939*Neville chamberlain Crikey, It's a Sniiike: Although the South American Anaconda is sometimes claimed to be the longest snake, this is actually the longest recorded snake*Reticulated Python KAOS: The Top 10, The world's sleepiest mammals, at 12 hours or more per day*Koala*Sloth*Armadillo*Opossum*Lemur*Hamster*Squirrel*Cat*Pig*Spiny Anteater Land Animals: This animal has the longest gestation period, at 660 days*African Elephant Land Animals: Insects and Spiders are the most abundant animal class. Which class holds the number two spot*Crustaceans Land Animals: At a weight of 220kg(485lb) and a height of 200cm(6'7"), what is the world's heaviest primate*Gorilla Land animals: Any and every spermologist knows that the cheetah is the world's fastest mammal, but only the best can name number two*Pronghorn Antelope KAOS: The Top 10, Heaviest Mammals on the face of the Earth, go*Elephant*Rhinoceros*Hippopotamus*Giraffe*Bison*Camel*Polar Bear*Moose*Tiger*Gorilla Talk about an IQ! : With a weight averaging 7,800kg (17 lbs), this critter boasts having the heaviest brain*Sperm Whale Aquatic Animals: With a maximum weight of 704kg (1,552lbs), this is the world's heaviest turtle species*Pacific Leatherback KAOS: The Top 10, Countries that still find it necessary to kill the most whales*Japan*Norway*Brazil*Russia*France*Greenland*St. Lucia*United States*South Korea*South Africa Aquatic Animals: This fish has a recorded maximum speed of 112kph (69mph)*Sailfish Aquatic Animals: The Sailfish is the fastest fish, try and guess either number two or three*Marlin*Wahoo Aquatic Animals: Living up to the ripe old age of 200 years, this is the world's longest-lived marine animal*Bowhead Whale Old Man of the Sea: The ______, the unique member of the family dungongidae, is a large and long-lived marine mammal that may have contributed to the myth of mermaid sightings*Dugong Flying Animals: Birds with the Largest Wingspan, 1st place goes to*Great White Pelican Flying Animals: Birds with the Largest Wingspan, 2nd place goes to*Wandering Albatross Flying Animals: Birds with the Largest Wingspan, 3rd place goes to*Andean Condor Flying Animals: With a distance of 19,000 kms (11,806 mi), this bird holds the record for the furthest migration route*Pectoral Sandpiper Flying Animals: The world's fastest flying bird, at over 76kph (47mph)*Common Eider Flying Animals: The world's fastest swimming bird, at over 35kph (21mph)*Penguin Flying Animals: The world's fastest running bird, at over 72kph (44mph)*Ostrich Creepy Crawlies: Name the world's largest butterfly, with a wingspan of 280mm (11in)*Queen Alexandra's Birdwing Creepy Crawlies: Name the world's largest moth, with a wingspan of 300mm (11.8in)*Atlas Moth KAOS: The Top 10, Creepy Crawlies, Creatures having 8 or more legs*Spider*Crab*Shrimp*Woodlice*Symphylan*Millipede*Centipede Creepy Crawlies: What is the world's largest Mollusc, with a length of 16,764mm (660in)*Giant Squid Creepy Crawlies: What is the wolds largest snail species, with a length of 770mm (30.3 in)*Australian Trumpet KAOS: The Top 10, Countries with the largest areas of forest*Russia*Brazil*Canada*United States*China*Australia*Congo*Indonesia*Angola*Peru KAOS: The Top 10, Types of animals kept as livestock worldwide (plurals please)*Chickens*Cattle*Sheep*Pigs*Ducks*Goats*Rabbits*Turkeys*Geese*Buffaloes KAOS: The Top 10, World's most-produced cereal crops*Corn*Rice*Wheat*Barley*Sorghum*Millet*Oats*Rye*Triticale*Buckwheat KAOS: The Top 10, This one will get your goat, name the top goat producing countries of the world*China*India*Pakistan*Bangladesh*Iran*Nigeria*Ethiopia*Indonesia*Somalia*Tanzania The Human Body: The most common health disorder, affecting both males and females*Depression KAOS: The Top 10, The most common phobias that people have*Spiders*Social situations*Flying*Open spaces*Confined spaces*Heights*Vomiting*Cancer*Thunderstorms*Death KAOS: The Top 10, According to the United Nations, the best countries to live in*Norway*Australia*Canada*Sweden*Belgium*United States*Iceland*Netherlands*Japan*Finland The Human Condition: Norway is the country with the best quality of life (per the UN). Name the country in either 2nd or 3rd place*Australia*Canada Cradle to the Grave: Name the country with the highest birth rate (49.3 live births per 1,000 people)*Niger Cradle to the Grave: Name the country with the lowest birth rate (8.0 live births per 1,000 people)*Bulgaria Cradle to the Grave: Name the country with the highest life expectancy (81.5 yrs)*Japan Cradle to the Grave: Japan is the country with the highest life expectancy, name the 2nd or 3rd place countries*Sweden*Iceland Cradle to the Grave: Name the country with the lowest life expectancy (36.1 yrs)*Botswana Cradle to the Grave: Botswana is the country with the lowest life expectancy, name the 2nd or 3rd place countries*Mozambique*Swaziland For Better or Worse: Which is the country having the lowest divorce rate, with a rate of .11 per 1,000*Colombia For Better or Worse: Which is the country having the highest divorce rate, with a rate of 10.97 per 1,000*Maldives For Better or Worse: Comoros and Gambia are among 4 countries where virtually 100% of the women are married by age 50, name one of the other two*Ghana*Nauru KAOS: The Top 10, Per Modern Bride magazine, the most chosen Honeymoon Destinations for U.S. couples*Hawaii*Mexico*Jamaica*Bahamas*Europe*Virgin Islands*St. Lucia*Aruba*Canada KAOS: The Top 10, Most chosen wedding songs in Canada*Unchained Melody*Unforgettable*At Last*Can't Help Falling in Love*You Light Up My Life*Truly, Madly, Deeply*The Power of Love*Everything I Do*Have I Told You Lately*Endless Love For Better or Worse: With an average age of 16.6 yrs, this is the country where WOMEN marry the youngest*Democratic Republic of Congo For Better or Worse: With an average age of 22.0, this is the country where MEN marry the youngest*Nepal KAOS: The Top 10, First Names for GIRLS in England and Wales (2001)*Chloe*Emily*Megan*Jessica*Sophie*Lauren*Charlotte*Hannah*Olivia*Lucy KAOS: The Top 10, First Names for BOYS in England and Wales(2001)*Jack*Thomas*Joshua*James*Daniel*Harry*Samuel*Joseph*Matthew*Lewis Let's Get Political: New Zealand was the first country to give women the vote, in 1893. In 1902, which country was 2nd*Australia Let's Get Political: Since a reorganization in 1979, Libya's Colonel Gadhafi has held no formal position, but continues to rule under what ceremonial title*Leader of the Revolution Let's Get Political: This UK Queen ruled 63 years, from 1837-1901, and her name would be*Victoria Let's Get Political: This Netherlands Queen ruled 58 years from 1890-1948, and her name would be*Wilhelmina Let's Get Political: This Hungarian Queen ruled 40 years from 1740-1780, and her name would be*Maria Theresa KAOS: The Top 10, Current monarchies having the most rulers*Japan*England*Sweden*Denmark*Norway*Brunei*Monaco*Spain*Netherlands*Liechtenstein Hey, I was First! : On June 30, 1859, Jean Francois Gravelet became the first person to do this, and did it several times. On one occasion, he even paused to cook and eat an omelette. What did he do*Cross Niagara Falls by Tightrope Hey, I was First! : On Dec 14 1911, Norwegians Oscar Wisting, Helge Sverre Hassel, Helmer Julius Hanssen, Roald Amundsen, and Olav Olavsen Bjaaland became the first people to do this*Reach the South Pole Hey, I was First! : New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay of Nepal became the first people to do this on May 29, 1953*Climb Mt Everest Hey, I was First! : Christopher Columbus became the first explorer to land in the Americas in 1492. In 1497, who was second*John Cabot Hey, I was First! : John Cabot became the first person to explore Canada in 1497. In 1534, who was second*Jacques Cartier Hey, I was First! : A pioneer in the use of snowmobiles for Arctic exploration, this explorer led the first confirmed overland expedition to the North Pole in 1968, after a 43-day journey*Ralph Plaisted
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A muumuu is a brightly coloured dress traditionally worn by women on which island? | muumuu - definition of muumuu in English | Oxford Dictionaries
Definition of muumuu in English:
muumuu
A woman's loose, brightly coloured dress, especially one traditionally worn in Hawaii.
Example sentences
‘She wore tons of jewelry and her muumuu was the brightest shade of green that Abbey had ever seen.’
‘Try to keep to your typical style of dress, but only slightly flowier - we are not talking caftans or muumuus!’
‘Some Hawaiian women wear the muumuu, a voluminous dress originally designed by modest missionaries for Hawaiian women.’
‘She was wearing a bright green muumuu with large orange flowers printed on it.’
‘The younger women also wore shorts, jeans and T-shirts, and the mature ladies colorful muumuus.’
Synonyms
| Hawaii |
Laconia is a southern region of which European country? | muumuu - Memidex dictionary/thesaurus
muumuu
a woman's loose unbelted dress
Class:
Hawaiian mu'u mu'u, literally "cut off", name given to the local adaptation of...
(Source: Online Etymology) [more]
Wikipedia:
Muumuu | muʻumuʻu
a loose dress of Hawaiian origin that hangs from the shoulder. Like the Aloha shirt, muumuu exports are often brilliantly colored with floral patterns of generic Polynesian motifs. Muumuu for local Hawaiian residents are more subdued in tone. Muumuu...
(39 of 514 words, pronunciation, 1 image )
Merriam-Webster:
muumuu
a loose often long dress having bright colors and patterns and adapted from the dresses originally distributed by missionaries to the native women of ...
(24 of 53 words, pronunciation)
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What is the large dog breed named after a town in south-west Germany, with St Bernard, Newfoundland and Pyrenean Mountain Dog ancestry? | Large Dog Breeds: Is Bigger Better? | CanineJournal.com
Home > Training > Breed > Large Dog Breeds: Is Bigger Better?
Large Dog Breeds: Is Bigger Better?
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When talking about large dog breeds the first breeds that often come to mind are those of the Mastiff, the Great Dane and the Saint Bernard. While these over-sized dogs certainly classify as large dog breeds there are a variety of other large dog breeds which fall in to this category. There is no specific weight or height limit that sets a dog in to the large dog breed category, however, in general a dog that stands at around 26” at the shoulder and / or weighs in at 100lbs or more is a dog that fits the bill.
Some of the breeds of dog that fall definitively in to this category include the Anatolian Shepherd, the Saint Bernard, the Newfoundland, the English Mastiff, the Great Pyrenees, the Great Dane, and the Irish Wolfhound.
Large Dogs Bred to be Working Dogs
For the most part large dog breeds were bred to be working dogs, usually used to hunt larger animals, pull heavy carts or tow in fishing nets to fishing boats in frigid waters. As such working dogs these breeds developed large and muscular frames to enable them to perform their given tasks with ease. While most of these dogs no longer serve their original purpose they still maintain the characteristics that allowed them to excel at their work and as such they all require extreme amounts of exercise as well as mental stimulation to keep them happy and healthy. In general these breeds are all classified as gentle larges, dogs with sociable demeanors that are both hard working and family oriented.
The Anatolian Shepherd
The Anatolian Shepherd generally stands between 29 – 36 inches tall as males and between 69-79 inches tall as females. The Anatolian Shepherd can weigh in anywhere between 90 – 150lbs with the males generally being larger than females. The Anatolian Shepherd has a thick double coat which is generally cream colored with brown patches and is wiry to the touch. The Anatolian Shepherd breed is particularly popular in Turkey where it serves as an independent livestock guardian, protecting farmer’s flocks of sheep from such predators as wolves, jackals, bears and cheetahs. As such the Anatolian Shepherd is a sturdy breed with a particularly thick coat which enables it to survive cold nights out in the fields. The Anatolian Shepherd is generally thought to live on average between 12-15 years with the dog usually succumbing to failing joints in old age, heart trouble or cancer. While 12 – 15 years may not seem like a particularly long life span for such a large breed it is significantly longer than other large breeds and is thought to be a result of the rugged nature of this dog.
While an accomplished guardian of flock, the Anatolian Shepherd also tends to be a good guardian of its family and when raised with children and with an understanding of its position in the family an Anatolian Shepherd can make a good family and guard dog. The Anatolian Shepherd can be rather stubborn, however, and with an inexperienced owner or an owner who is not sensitive to the dogs exercise needs the Anatolian Shepherd can become destructive as well as dominant in the household.
The Saint Bernard
The Saint Bernard is a well known large breed following the movie series “Beethoven.” This large breed generally stands anywhere from 27 to 35 inches tall with the females generally measuring on the lesser end of the scale. Saint Bernard’s can weigh anywhere from 140 to 260lbs, again with the females of the breed weighing in at the smaller end of the scale. The Saint Bernard has a particularly thick coat which can be flat or rough and is a red-brown and white mixed color with black markings on the face. The Saint Bernard has a thick long tail. In general the Saint Bernard breed was bred as a mountain dog whose job was to rescue mountaineers from avalanches. When they are portrayed in the media the Saint Bernard generally has a barrel of brandy around its neck which was supposed to warm avalanche victims. On average the Saint Bernard breed has a lifespan of 8 years which is not uncommon for large dog breeds.
In general the larger a dog breed the more strain is put on their joints and organs to support the weight of the body. Unfortunately due to their size the Saint Bernard is prone to hip and elbow dysplasia, their size also poses a problem to them being family dogs. While the Saint Bernard is a gentle and family oriented dog it does not particularly realize its size and strength and often knocks down small children. The biggest complaint about the Saint Bernard breed is their clumsiness with smaller children or their slobbering habit, which can be found with many of the large dog breeds.
The Newfoundland
The Newfoundland generally stands at 22 – 28 inches at the shoulder and males can weigh anywhere between 130 – 150lbs and females can weigh anywhere from 100-120lbs. These large water dogs have particularly thick coats which require daily grooming and are usually black, brown, gray and landeer in color. Due to the fact that the Newfoundland were bred as a fisherman’s dog to retrieve fishing nets in the freezing waters of Newfoundland they have particularly thick and water resistant coats as well as webbed feet. These extremely strong dogs have thick bones as well as large lung capacities as a result of their intended purpose.
A Newfoundland finds it hard to resist water even when it is not a working dog but its jowls, designed to allow the dog to breathe even while in the water, make this another breed that is particularly prone to slobbering. As a result of their immense size the Newfoundland is also another large breed that is prone to hip and elbow dysplasia as well as heart defects. On average the Newfoundland has a lifespan of 8-13 years with most dogs falling at the shorter end of the scale. The Newfoundland does well as a family dog but as with the Saint Bernard often knocks down smaller children since it is unaware of its large size and hefty weight. The biggest complaint about the Newfoundland aside from drooling and clumsiness with smaller children is their shedding.
The English Mastiff
The English Mastiff is one of the most well known large breeds of dog and in general stands between 27-30 inches in height. The male English Mastiff can weigh anywhere from 150 – 250lbs and the female can weigh anywhere from 120-200lbs. The English Mastiff was originally bred as a baiting and fighting dog, however, over the years came to be used in more constructive ways for their size. The English Mastiff has a short and close coat that is apricot-fawn, silver-fawn, fawn or dark fawn-brindle in color and always has black markings on the face on the muzzle, ears, nose and around the eyes.
Due to their immense size the English Mastiff succumbs to quite a few health problems including hip dysplasia, gastric torsion and various cancers. The average lifespan of an English Mastiff is between 7-13 years with most dogs falling at the lower end of the scale due to poor breeding and sheer size. The English Mastiff is generally a good family dog; however, as is the common complaint with similar large breeds the English Mastiff is known for being clumsy with small children, and for drooling excessively. They are, however, generally good temperamented dogs and the epitome of the gentle large.
The Great Pyrenees
The Great Pyrenees is often confused with being a white Newfoundland; however this large breed is a breed in and of its own. The Great Pyrenees male can stand anywhere from 27-32 inches tall and the female can stand anywhere from 25-29 inches tall. The male Great Pyrenees weighs on average anywhere from 110-120lbs and the females anywhere from 80-90lbs. The Great Pyrenees has a thick and fluffy white coat with jet black eye rims and nose. The Great Pyrenees dogs were originally bred as shepherd dogs to guard flocks in the Pyrenees Mountains in France and Spain. The white coat of the dog enabled it to guard effectively and remain disguised against the snow, the thick coat also managed to protect the large dog from the colder temperatures.
In general the Great Pyrenees lives between 10 – 12 years and despite being hardy dogs they often succumb to dysplasia from poor breeding or joint and organ wear and tear from the sheer weight of their large frames. The Great Pyrenees, being shepherds by nature make particularly good family dogs, however, they do not thrive in warm temperatures and are known for being heavy shedders.
The Great Dane
The Great Dane is certainly known for being one of the tallest large breeds in the dog world and on average the male Great Dane should measure 30 inches or more at the shoulders and the female Great Dane should measure 28 inches or more at the shoulders. The male Great Dane should weigh on average 120lbs while the female should weigh around 100lbs. This large dog was originally bred for German hunting dogs, however, generally served as house dogs at the time. These large dogs can have a variety of coat colors and their short, close coats are generally fawn, brindle, blue, black, harlequin, or mantle in color. While the Great Dane is not known for being a big shedder it is certainly known for being a big drooler as well as a big leaner. Due to the fact that this is such a large dog that likes to lean it generally does not do as well in households with younger children since they tend to get knocked down easily. The Great Dane does, however, have a great temperament and is well suited to family life.
The Irish Wolfhound
The Irish Wolfhound is a lesser referred to large breed of dog, however, males generally standing between 34-38 inches and females generally standing at 30-35 inches, certainly qualify as a large breed! This large wiry coated breed was originally bred to hunt wolves in Ireland and have been shown in art from years as early as 273BC. These large but nimble hounds are particularly talented at running and certainly cannot be happy without adequate exercise. The Irish Wolfhound is usually gray, brindle, black, red, white or fawn in color; however, they are usually dark gray when depicted in the media. The Irish Wolfhound has a particularly short lifespan even for a large breed of dog with lifespan estimates coming in anywhere from between 5-10 years. The Irish Wolfhound generally succumbs to heart defects or bone cancer and is also particularly susceptible to epilepsy. As a family dog the Irish Wolfhound thrives with contact from its people and is not suited to being left alone for long periods of time. Irish Wolfhound’s are unusually aware of their size when young children are present in the household and they are generally gentle and subdued dogs inside the home.
The Black Russian Terrier
The black Russian terrier is not a dog that is commonly seen on the street, this giant breed is a rare find and a powerful dog. The black Russian terrier male grows to anywhere from 25 to 29 inches tall and the female grows to anywhere from 25 to 28 inches tall. These large solid black dogs can also weigh in at anywhere from 80 to 143 lbs with the males being considerably larger than the females. The black Russian terrier is a strong dog that is recognized for having a good nervous system. The most commonly recognized feature in this schnauzer looking dog is the mustache and beard that give the snout of the dog a square appearance. This terrier is a brave dog that is suspicious of strangers and very protective over its people. This breed of dog is particularly demanding of human contact and requires a strong owner who both values and has a firm alpha position over all animals in the household. This giant breed has a relatively long lifespan of between 10 and 14 years. The most common health problems with this large breed are hip dysplasia, elbow dysplasia and otitis.
The Borzoi
The borzoi, also known as the Russian wolfhound is a dog that was bred by Russian nobility by crossing sheepdogs with greyhounds. As a result of this cross breeding the breed has a sheepdog like coat with the body shape of the greyhound. The long and silky coat of this breed is relatively easy to care for but it does demand a degree of care. The male borzoi tends to grow to around 28 inches tall or more and the females to 26 inches tall. Males will weigh in at around 75 to 105 lbs and the females will weigh in at between 60 and 90 lbs. These deep chested dogs can be a variety of colors but commonly they are tan, black, white, tan or grey with black markings or golden. These dogs are intelligent and very loyal to their people “pack” but they do not take well to rough play which makes them less than desirable as a dog for a family with young children. The borzoi needs a firm owner who is patient and willing to dedicate time to training as this breed is not as driven to please humans as many other breeds are. By nature these dogs are sight hounds and will chase after most things that they see so they do not do well off leash and should always be supervised with small pets. The borzoi is prone to canine bloat and is particularly sensitive to drugs which can pose problems when veterinary care is needed. This giant breed tends to life for an average of 10 to 12 years.
The Greater Swiss Mountain Dog
The greater Swiss mountain dog is a large and muscular dog developed from the Roman mastiff for a number of working jobs. This large breed was commonly utilized as a “horse,” being used as a draft dog in addition to being used for guarding and herding livestock. The greater Swiss mountain dog was also commonly used as the sentinel for farms. This giant dog is classified as a working dog and a mastiff and can grow to anywhere from 23.5 to 28.5 inches. The weight of these incredibly large dogs varies anywhere from 130 to 135lbs. Like many of the other giant breeds, the greater Swiss mountain dog has a deep chest which unfortunately leaves it prone to bloating. This dog is specifically recognized for its unique tri-color coat with a black base and rust and white markings which are specific to the breed. Even though the greater Swiss mountain dog is a giant breed it is an excellent dog when it comes to interacting with children, they are easygoing, sweet and eager to please. This breed makes an excellent watchdog as they bond quickly to their family and is sensitive to changes in its home. The greater Swiss of Swissy as it is sometimes called has the potential for a number of health conditions including epilepsy, bloat, hip dysplasia, digestive disorders and having extra eyelashes. This giant breed has an average lifespan of 10 to 11 years.
The Kuvasz
The Kuvasz is another giant breed that is certainly not spoken of as often as many of the more common giant breeds. This giant breed, also known as the Hungarian kuvasz actually originated in Tibet but was further developed in Hungary where it was used as a sheepdog and protector of the flock. The kuvasz is a fearless dog that can be found with only a white or ivory coat that can be wavy or straight but is always thick. Due to the thickness of this dogs coat it does not do well in hot climates. The kuvasz can make a good family dog but it is not a dog that can make do with minimal exercise. This giant breed demands an experienced owner who is firm and authoritative and it is best to have the dog raised around children for the best results as a family dog. This is an extremely dominant dog and owners cannot be lax in training them. The male kuvasz can grow from 28 to 30 inches tall and the female can grow from 26 to 28 inches tall. The males are also heavier than the females weighing in between 100 and 115 lbs where the females weigh from 70 to 90 lbs. This large breed can suffer from hip dysplasia, osteochondritis dissecans, hypertrophic osteodystrophy, allergic reactions and skin problems. The average life expectancy for this giant breed is between 10 and 12 years.
Bernese Mountain Dog
The Bernese mountain dog stands between 23 to 28 inches and weigh in between 80 to 110 lbs. Females of the breed most often smaller than the males. Originating in the Swiss Mountains, these working dogs were used to pull carts to market as well as drive cattle and secure family farms. Many of the original traits of this breed still exist today and these dogs excel in search and rescue, carting, herding, watch dog, tracking, guarding and competitive obedience work. The Bernese mountain dog is considered a member of the AKC working group of dogs and as a mastiff breed.
This large breed has a thick weather resistant coat that is tricolor with white, black and rust coloration. The long coat of this breed requires frequent brushing. This is a seasonally heavy shedder. This is an easy to train large breed but does require a good leader in order to become a psychologically healthy dog. The Bernese mountain dog does require “family time” with its people and must be well socialized from an early age. In order to keep energy levels and behavior in check, this breed requires regular exercise which can be tricky during warmer months when the Bernese is overly sensitive to hotter temperatures. The average lifespan of the Bernese mountain dog is between 6 to 8 years, much lower than it once was at 10 – 12 years. The most common health conditions for this breed include bloat, cancer, hip and elbow dysplasia, obesity and eyelid conditions.
Akita Inu
The akita inu grows between 24 to 28 inches tall and weighs in between 75 and 120 lbs. Female akita’s are almost always shorter and lighter than males. Native to Akita, Japan, this dog has been implemented in a variety of working jobs including: police work, bear hunting, sled dog work, military work, guard dog work and retrieval work. The akita breed is considered to be sacred among the people of Japan and is believed to bring good health and rapid recovery to those who receive its statue as a gift. There are two recognized akita breeds, the Japanese and the American standard. The differences between these two breeds include coloration (the Japanese does not allow for the black mask present in the American standard) and the size (the Japanese measuring between 24 to 26 inches tall but having a similar weight range.)
The coat of the akita inu is a double coat with a thick but soft undercoat that keeps the dog insulated and a rough waterproof outer coat that protects the dog from the elements. Colors for the American akita are various and include: pinto, brindle and white and all but the white may have a mask. Colors for the Japanese akita include: pure white, sesame, red, fawn and brindle. The akita requires vigilant grooming and sheds twice a year heavily. Akitas are calm and intelligent breeds but can be very hardheaded if not provided with solid leadership. It is important to allow this dog a regular exercise routine not only for physical but also for mental health. The average lifespan for this breed is between 11 and 15 years. Common health concerns for the akita include: hip dysplasia, thyroid conditions, skin conditions, knee problems, immune diseases and eye conditions.
Old English Sheepdog
The old English sheepdog is a recognizable breed for many and stands between 20 to 24 inches tall and weighs anywhere from 60 to over 100 lbs. This breed is a working dog that was developed for sheep herding and cattle driving. Today this breed is still used for herding as well as for retrieving and watchdog work. Most old English sheepdogs are born tail-less and for many that aren’t their tails are amputated (where not forbidden by law.)
The long shaggy coat of this breed is a double coat with a soft undercoat that protects the skin from water and a rough outer coat. Common coat colors for this breed include blue, grizzle, blue grey, grey, grey with white markings, blue merle or white with grey markings. The coat of this breed demands constant attention in order to prevent mattes and skin infections as well as parasites. Many people that own pet old English sheepdogs have their dogs shorn every few months to help with coat maintenance. This large breed is particularly active and requires a significant amount of exercise in order to keep in shape. It is also necessary that this dog receive leadership from a strong human leader. The average lifespan of this breed is between 10 and 12 years. Common health conditions that affect this dog include: hip dysplasia, anemia and a genetic sensitivity to certain drugs.
Scottish Deerhound
The Scottish deerhound stands between 28 to 32 inches tall and weighs in between 75 to 110 lbs. With a similar body shape to the greyhound this large breed was at one time the dog of royals. In Scotland, no one with less than an Earl’s title was permitted to own one of these hounds. These dogs were bred for and used to hunt deer for a long period of time until guns were invented. Numerous times throughout its history the Scottish deerhound has been close to extinction. Today the breed has managed to maintain its existence and is renowned for its sense of sight and its sense of smell. Some of the activities that these dogs are known to excel in today include: tracking, sighting, agility, racing, hunting and lure coursing. The Scottish deerhound is a gentle and sociable dog that requires consistent and firm leadership to overrule their natural hardheadedness.
The coat of the Scottish deerhound is wiry and is shorter in length on the chest, head and belly. This dog comes in grey, blue grey, yellow and sandy red, red fawn, brindle and black. The coat of this dog is wiry and needs to be groomed regularly to avoid knotting. Due to the wiry nature of the hair this dog is an average shedder. This is a breed that demands a regular exercise schedule and a stern but calm owner. The average lifespan of this breed is under ten years. Health concerns that face this breed most commonly include: bloat and epilepsy.
Tibetan Mastiff
The Tibetan mastiff stands between 25 to 28 inches tall and weighs in between 140 and 170 pounds. Despite being named “mastiff” these dogs look considerably different than many of the other dogs that bear this name. Most notably the Tibetan mastiff has a thick double coat that makes the dog appear much larger than it actually is. This double coat is particularly thick around the dog’s neck and gives it the appearance of having a mane. These dogs come in blue gray, brown or black with various colored markings. Originally used in the Himalayan Mountains these dogs are built for colder weather. The Tibetan mastiff makes a great guard dog as well as livestock guardian but it is a strong willed dog that demands an experienced and firm owner to give it leadership. These dogs do well as family dogs but require regular exercise as well as regular grooming. While good dogs for allergy sufferers, the Tibetan mastiff will “blow” its coat twice a year and during this time it must be brushed daily to remove dead and shedding hair. The average lifespan of this dog is around 15 years old and common health concerns include: hip dysplasia, canine inherited demyelinative neuropathy, skin conditions and ear infections.
Neapolitan Mastiff
The Neapolitan mastiff stands between 24 and 30 inches tall and weighs as much as 165 pounds. Unlike the Tibetan mastiff, the Neapolitan mastiff has a much more “mastiff like” appearance with the smooth coat and wrinkled facial appearance and large jowls. The coat of this breed is short and dense and can come in a number of different colorations including: tawny, mahogany, chocolate, gray, black, blue and brindle. The rarest of Neapolitan mastiff colors is chocolate. As with most mastiff breeds, the Neapolitan mastiff is a heavy drooler and as such it is not the dog for everyone. While they look vicious, the Neapolitan mastiff is a very calm and affectionate breed. Simply due to their size it is important to socialize these dogs well and provide them with dominant leadership. The Neapolitan mastiff that believes that he or she is pack leader can have a number of behavioral concerns. These dogs are natural guard dogs and are serious and intelligent by nature. Neapolitan mastiffs require plenty of exercise but do not thrive in warm weather. Due to their size these dogs have a particularly short lifespan of around 10 years. Common health concerns include: hip dysplasia, bloat, joint pain and cherry eye.
Dogue de Bordeaux
The dogue de Bordeaux is also known as the French mastiff and stands between 23 to 30 inches tall and weigh between 120 to 145 pounds. Much like the Neapolitan mastiff this breed has the typical physical characteristics of the mastiff family. The coat of the dogue de Bordeaux is short but not coarse and it features loose skin folds giving it a wrinkled appearance. Dogs of this breed are always a shade of reddish brown that falls between fawn and mahogany. The dogue de Bordeaux always has a face mask that is black or red in color. This calm and loyal dog demands an experienced dog owner who can lay down the rules and enforce them. It is also important that this breed be well socialized from a very early age in order to prevent aggressive behavior in adulthood. This large breed demands more daily exercise than the Neapolitan mastiff and must also be provided with plenty of mental stimulation to avoid problem behaviors. This natural watch dog has an average life span of 10 to 12 years. Common health concerns in the dogue de Bordeaux include: hip dysplasia, heart conditions, hyperkeratosis and epilepsy.
Bullmastiff
The bullmastiff stands between 25 to 27 inches tall and weighs in between 100 to 135 lbs. Commonly confused with the English mastiff, the bullmastiff has a similar appearance but results from the cross breeding of the English mastiff and the old English bulldog. The bullmastiff hails from Europe and features a short, dense and rough coat where the English mastiff has a short but fine coat. The bullmastiff is a minimal shedder and does not require frequent grooming. The coat of this breed comes in brown and red coloration where the English mastiff is silver and black and tan in color. The bullmastiff is a quiet but intelligent breed with an independent streak. Although independent however, these dogs are fiercely loyal to their families and make great watch dogs. As with all mastiffs however, it is crucial for this breed to receive firm and authoritative leadership. Bullmastiffs must be well socialized from an early age in order to prevent aggression. In order to maintain a well behaved bullmastiff, it is also important for this breed to receive regular exercise. Unfortunately, this large breed has a particularly short lifespan of less than 10 years. Frequently seen health conditions in this breed include: hip dysplasia, bloating, cancer, eye conditions, obesity and tumors.
Briard
The briard stands between 24 to 27 inches tall and weighs in at around 75 pounds. This breed is recognized by many for its long wavy coat. The double coat of the briard features a fine undercoat with a course outer coat. Common colors for this breed include grey, tawny and black. The coat of this breed is fluffy in appearance and longer hair around the muzzle and eyes give this dog an old man type appearance. Naturally a herding dog it is important to provide socialization and training early for this breed in order to reduce herding behavior with family members and other animals. A very affectionate and intelligent breed, the briard is loyal to its family and fearless when it needs to be. This dog requires both firmness as well as a gentle hand when being trained. Easily bored, the briard requires regular exercise and stimulation to prevent troublesome behavior. The average lifespan for this large breed is between 10 to 12 years. Common health concerns for the briard include: hip dysplasia, bloat, progressive retinal atrophy and cataracts.
Akbash Dog
The Akbash dog is also known as the Coban Kopegi and is a rare breed native to what is now Western Turkey. This breed made it first appearance around 3,000 years ago when it was bred to guard sheep and it is believed to be a relative of the Komondor and Kuvasz. This dog stands anywhere from 28 to 32 inches tall and weighs in between 90 to 130 pounds. The Akbash has a medium length double coat that does not matt and is weather resistant; this coat is always white in color. A very muscular breed, the Akbash requires experienced owners who understand how to be a dominant member of the pack hierarcy. The Akbash is recognized as a “primitive” breed meaning that it is more accustomed to working solitarily than it is used to being a family dog. It is crucial that this dog receive plenty of exercise as well as socialization in order to make sure that the dog is well adjusted. It is important to note that as a primitive breed, the Akbash is naturally aggressive since it is meant to stand up to flock predators, this is why a dominant and experienced owner is required. The biggest health concern for this breed is hip dysplasia so it is important to purchase from certified stock. The average lifespan of this breed is around 10 to 11 years.
Leonberger
The Leonberger was established as a breed in 1846asa dog that would resemble the lion in appearance. A popular and versatile German breed, the Leonberger is known for its ability to guard livestock, participate in search and rescue and work in tracking. This breed is also commonly recognized for its popularity as a family dog. The Leonberger gros to between 27 and 31 inches tall and can weigh anywhere from 100 to 170 lbs. The Leonberger is a large and muscular dog and has a medium to long thick coat. This double coat is water resistant and can be golden, red, lion yellow, red brown, pale yellow, cream or sand but the dog should always have a black mask. Male Leonbergers have thick manes that develop over the years, females have much smaller manes. As a larger breed, the Leonberger require a long daily walk and are avid swimmers. This breed is a naturally brave and affectionate one and they are known for being devoted completely to their families. Friendly and trustworthy these dogs are not great guard dogs and in most instances they will walk away from situations rather than face them with aggression. Although patient, the Leonberger requires a firm trainer and leader who understands that this breed does not respond to harsh training. The Leonberger is prone to hip dysplasia and bone disease and has an average lifespan of 8 to 9 years.
Tosa
The Tosa is a Japanese breed that was unfortunately bred as fighting dogs when the sport was popular and legal in the country. This is not a common breed in the United States and has been banned in a number of countries due to the use of the breed in dog fighting in illegal dog fighting rings. When handled and trained well this breed can make a great family companion as well as a great watch dog. This member of the Mastiff family grows to around 24” tall and weighs around 80 to 200 lbs. Variations in weight seem to stem from U.S and Japanese breeds of this dog. A very muscular breed, the Tosa has a short thick coat that is brindle, solid or multicolored. Multicolored coats are fawn, apricot, black, yellow, black and tan, black and brindle or red in color. Often this dog also has a black mask. Despite being known as a fighting breed, the Tosa is sensitive dog when it comes to training and requires a firm and authoritative leader who is also calm in nature. Socialization and training must begin as early as possible for this breed in order to ensure that the dog is well trained. The Tosa can have problems with other animals in the home so early animal socialization is also crucial. This breed requires a long daily walk or jog to burn off excess energy and avoid obesity. The Tosa breed is prone to bloating, hip and elbow dysplasia and genetic eye conditions. The average lifespan for this breed is around 10 to 12 years.
Native American Indian Dog
The Native American Indian dog is a controversial dog for many because while some claim that this breed is a recreation of the dogs most commonly used by Native Americans; others claim it is a creation of breeders. Regardless, this dog breed has two distinct variations. A long haired NAID and a short haired NAID both of which can range in color including: silver, black and tortoise shell coloration. The NAID coat resembles that of a husky or in the longer haired breeds, the sheltie. The NAID grows to around 23 to 34 inches tall and can weigh anywhere from 55 to 120 lbs. A very intelligent breed, the Native American Indian Dog is easy to please its companions and is protective of them at the same time. This is a particularly sensitive dog breed that should not be trained with a firm hand, rather an authoritative leader. Socialization is important with any dog but the NAID is naturally good with children as well as other animals as long as it understands its position within the pack. This breed does not do well living in confined spaces such as apartments, and they also do not do well with crate training because they are “wanderers” by nature. A large yard to play in, daily walks and off leash running are great ways to allow this dog to burn off excess energy. The NAID sheds once a year during which time the coat should be thoroughly brushed. The most common health condition for this large breed is hip dysplasia. The average lifespan of the Native American Indian dog is 14 to 19 years.
Weimaraner
The Weimaraner is a descendent of the bloodhound and was bred as a hunting dog and a pointer. This dog was initially bred to hunt large game like wolves and deer but today they are more often used as bird dogs and for retrieving. The average size of this breed is between 22 and 27 inches tall with a weight of 50 to 70 lbs. males are almost always larger than females. The coat of the Weimaraner is short and smooth and comes in a range of gray shades. There is such a thing as a long haired Weimaraner; however, it is a much rarer variation of the breed. The eyes of this retrieving dog are gray, amber or blue-gray. The Weimaraner is an affectionate breed that learns quickly but requires adequate exercise in order to prevent troublesome behavior. This breed should be socialized from an early age and should never be trusted alone with smaller animals due to their natural hunting instinct. This dog demands a strong leader. The Weimaraner is prone to bloating, tumors, excessive rapid growth and hip dysplasia. The average lifespan for this breed is between 10 to 12 years.
Vizsla
The Vizsla is also known as the Hungarian Pointer and was originally developed as hunters used for hunting rabbit and waterfowl. The Vizsla has a short coat that is a variety of gold shades. It is common practice for this breed to have a docked tail; however, tail docking has been outlawed in many areas. The Vizsla grows to between 20 and 26 inches tall and weighs between 40 and 60 lbs. This is a gentle dog that requires a patient but firm leader and plenty of exercise. This breed is particularly active and as such it may not make the best companion for homes with smaller children. Without an appropriate level of exercise the Vizsla can become extremely destructive, in particular they are noted for being chewers. The Vizsla is prone to hip dysplasia and has an average lifespan of between 12 and 15 years.
Standard Poodle
The standard poodle has a somewhat mysterious origin with no real record of the country of origin. Many people say that this is a water retrieval dog that hails from Germany. The standard poodle is very fond of the water but has also been used as a gun dog. The standard poodle can have a curly or a corded coat that comes in a number of solid colors including white, brown, black, blue, apricot, red, silver and gray. A large part of the poodle’s coat is the clip given by professional groomers. This breed can measure in at anything over 15 inches tall and can weigh between 45 and 70 lbs. The standard poodle is a cheerful dog and does not have extreme exercise requirements. It is important however to give this breed adequate exercise daily in order to avoid the dog becoming highly strung. This breed requires a firm but calm leader and excels as a family oriented dog. Despite being a long lived breed, the standard poodle is susceptible to a variety of health conditions including bloat, Von Willebrand’s Disease, cataracts, allergies, hip dysplasia and runny eyes. The average lifespan for this breed is between 12 and 15 years.
Spinone Italiano
The Spinone Italiano is a lesser known large breed of dog that is also known as the Italian pointer. This breed is still not too common in the United States; however, it is frequently seen in Italy where it is used as an all around hunting dog. The Spinone Italiano excels at retrieving and recovering game due to its incredible sense of smell. This breed stands between 22 ½ to 27 ½ inches tall and weighs anywhere from 61 to 85 lbs. The Spinone Italiano has a thick wiry coat that comes in a variety of colors including: white with brown markings, orange roan, orange roan with orange markings, white, white and orange, brown roan and brown roan with brown markings. This is an incredibly strong dog that is both intelligent and easy going. This breed excels with children as well as other animals; this friendly nature makes this a poor breed choice for those looking for a protective dog breed. It is crucial that this breed understand its position within the family hierarchy in order to be a well rounded dog. Hip dysplasia can be a concern with this dog, as can cerebellar ataxia. The average lifespan of this breed is 12 years.
Saluki
The saluki is also recognized as the Persian greyhound. This breed requires a lot of exercise in order to maintain both physical and psychological fitness. It is important not to let this sight hound off leash at any time due to their chasing instinct. The Saluki was bred as a sight hunter and was frequently utilized as a hunter of antelopes and hare in rough desert terrain. This slender dog has a greyhound type build with a deep chest and a long neck. This breed has a short coat that features longer silky hair on both the ears and tail. Common coat colors for the saluki include white, black and tan, grizzle and tan, golden, cream and fawn. This breed can grow to anywhere from 23 to 28 inches tall and can weigh anywhere from 29 to 66 lbs. This breed is a very devoted one that tends to attach itself to a single leader who should be firm but gentle in teaching obedience. This breed is easily distracted and requires consistent leadership. This is a sensitive dog that does not do well with roughhousing that younger children can sometimes bring. This dog is a good watchdog breed. As an instinctive hound they should not be trusted with smaller animals. This breed is prone to cancer as well as genetic eye diseases. It is also important to know that the Saluki is easily sunburned and should be protected from direct sun exposure. The average lifespan of this breed is 10 to 12 years.
Giant Schnauzer
The giant schnauzer hails from Germany and was primarily used as a police and military dog as well as a cattle driving dog in Bavaria. This herding breed stands between 23 and 28 inches tall and weighs in between 55 and 105 lbs with the males being larger and heavier than the females. The giant schnauzer has a double coat with a softer undercoat and a wiry top coat that is either salt and pepper or solid black in color. These dogs often have longer hair around their whiskers, beard and eyebrows. These are exceptionally intelligent dogs but can naturally be quite dominant and so require a confident and stern handler. It is crucial that this breed receives plenty of exercise since they are very energetic and need an outlet for that energy in order to avoid behavioral issues. These giant dogs are prone to cancer, bloating, hip dysplasia and epilepsy. The average lifespan for this breed is between 12 and 15 years.
Otterhound
The otterhound is believed to be a French breed in origin and is so named due to the fact that they were used to prey on otters that were stealing fish from local rivers. This large breed grows to between 24 and 26 inches tall and weighs between 66 and 115 lbs. The otterhound is known for having an exceptional sense of smell as well as a rough shaggy coat. The outer coat is rough but the undercoat is water resistant and soft. The coat of the otterhound can come in a variety of colors including grizzle and wheaten with black markings. This is another breed recognized for having the appearance of having shaggy eyebrows. This breed has webbed feet and is known for being particularly strong swimmers that will even dive when looking for a perceived prey item. Although the otterhound can give the appearance of being a calm companion it does require a consistent and determined owner in order to avoid behavioral issues. The otterhound requires plenty of daily exercise as well as regular grooming in order to prevent matting of the fur. Health concerns for the otterhound include hemophilia, bloating, hip dysplasia and thrombocytopenia. The average lifespan for this breed is between 10 and 12 years.
Plott Hound
The plott hound is a breed with American ancestry that resulted from the breeding of bloodhounds and curs in North Carolina. A little smaller than some other large breeds, the plott hound tops out at around 24 inches tall with a minimum height of 20 inches tall. This breed weighs between 45 and 55 lbs but this can also vary greatly based on height and breeding. The plott hound’s coat is short and glossy and can range from a single to a double coat depending upon breeding. The most common coloration for this breed is a brindle black and brown coloring but they can also be solid black, brindle with a black saddle, buckskin and black with a brindle trim. These dogs make great hunters as well as companions but require early socialization and obedience training early on from a confident handler. This breed requires plenty of exercise and is known for drooling like many hounds are. The plott hound is prone to bloating and has an average lifespan of 12 to 14 years.
Rottweiler
Bred in the German town of Rottweiler, this large, heavily built breed had many applications including police work, messenger dog work, guard dog work, herding and draught dog work. This mastiff breed has a smooth and glossy coat that is rough to the touch and is always black with mahogany markings on the legs, paws, muzzle and cheeks. It is also possible to have a red Rottweiler with brown markings however, these are seldom seen over their black and mahogany counterparts. This muscular dog stands between 22 and 27 inches tall and weighs between 85 and 130 lbs and requires plenty of exercise. Daily walks for this breed are a must in addition to other “playtime” activities to burn off energy. The Rottweiler requires a natural leader willing to begin training and socialization early on in order to develop a dog with a well rounded personality. The Rottweiler is prone to entropion, snoring, hip dysplasia, ACL damage and overeating (obesity.) The average lifespan for this breed is between 10 and 12 years.
Rhodesian Ridgeback
The Rhodesian ridgeback is native to Zimbabwe where they worked as guard dogs and hunters. Once the dog was introduced to Rhodesia it became known for its ability to hunt big game such as lions which is how it also became known as the African lion hound. This hound is a very muscular dog with a long tapering tail and a short coat that features a ridge along the back where the fur grows in the opposite direction of the rest of the coat. The Rhodesian ridgeback’s color varies and includes lighter wheaten colors to darker shades of red. While known for their hunting ability, the ridgeback is a calm family dog that is both gentle and obedient. These dogs must be handled by strong and confident owners that can enforce rules of the home. Without appropriate handling, the ridgeback can be stubborn but with a good master it will learn quickly. It is important to socialize this breed from an early age and to be consistent in obedience training. This is a very energetic breed and requires daily runs as well as intellectual stimulation to prevent problem behavior. While few dogs are known for being more destructive than bored Labradors, Rhodesian ridgebacks are when not given enough stimulation! Although a hardy breed health-wise, the ridgeback is susceptible to cysts, hip dysplasia and dermoid sinus. The average lifespan for this breed is between 10 to 12 years.
Beauceron
The Beauceron is also known as the Berger de Beauce, Bas Rouge, Red Stocking and Beauce Shepherd. This breed is a French herding breed that has been recorded as far back as 1578. This dog stands between 24 and 27 ½ inches tall and weighs as much as 100 pounds. In general this breed is both brave and intelligent but much receive adequate stimulation in order to receive enough physical and mental exercise. Without adequate exercise this breed can be very destructive and turn to herding its human family. The Beauceron has a short double coat with a harsh outer coat and a softer undercoat. This dog can be black with tan markings or may also have patches of gray, black and tan. Although a generally healthy breed, the Beauceron is prone to hip dysplasia and bloat. The average lifespan of this large breed is between 10 and 12 years.
Belgian Sheepdog
The Belgian sheepdog is also known as the Belgium Shepherd, Belgian Shepherd Groenendael, Belgian Groenendael, Chien de Berger Belge and the Groenendaeler. This breed is a high energy working dog that hails from Belgium and is one of four known Belgian sheepdogs. This herding and guardian breed stands between 22 and 26 inches tall and weighs between 60 and 75 pounds. This is the most popular breed of all of the Belgian sheepdogs but it is imperative that you understand what it means to be a leader to your dog when bringing one of these dogs in to the home. This is an exceptionally intelligent breed that should be trained and socialized from a very early age. The Belgian sheepdog has a weather resistant coat that is of medium length and has a thicker mane around the neck. Most often this dog is solid black in coloration but may also have a small amount of white coloration on the chest. The most often seen problems with this large breed include: temperament concerns, hip and elbow dysplasia and obesity. The average lifespan for this breed is between 13 to 14 years.
Belgian Tervuren
The Belgian tervuren is also known as the Belgian Shepherd Malinois, Tervuren and Chien de Berger Belge. Like other Belgian sheepdogs, the Belgian tervuren is a working breed that hails from Belgium, more specifically the village of Tervuren. This herding breed stands between 22 and 26 inches tall and weighs between 60 and 75 pounds. It is crucial to socialize this breed well and train from an early age as they are instinctively protective and need to be directed and taught appropriate versus inappropriate behavior. The coat of the Belgian tervuren is a weather resistant double coat with long guard hairs and a thick undercoat. Coat colors can be various shades of gray as well as fawn to mahogany. It is not unusual for the coat of this breed to become darker as the dog ages. Minor health concerns for this breed include skin allergies, hip and elbow dysplasia, obesity, eye problems and epilepsy. The average lifespan of this breed is between 12 and 14 years.
Belgian Malinois
The Belgian malinois is also known as the Belgian Shepherd Malinois, the Malinois, the Chien de Berger Belge and the Mechelse Shepherd. Named after the Belgian city of Malines, this breed was bred as a sheepdog and is relatively rare in the United States. This large working dog stands between 22 and 26 inches tall and weighs between 55 and 65 pounds with females being smaller than males. This breed has a weather resistant double coat that is straight and short and held closely to the body. Coat colors are fawn, red, mahogany and black – all hairs have black tips. This breed also has a black mask and ears. This is a protective and territorial dog that requires socialization and training from an early age. This breed as with other working dogs requires plenty of exercise. Although a relatively healthy breed, the Belgian Malinois is prone to skin allergies, disposition concerns, hip and elbow dysplasia and eye conditions. The average lifespan for this breed is between 12 and 14 years.
German Shepherd
The German Shepherd is also known as the Alsatian and the Deutscher Schaferhund. This breed was originally developed in Germany as a herding dog and currently is one of the most popular working dog breeds. The German Shepherd stands between 22 and 26 inches tall and weighs between 75 and 85 pounds. This working dog can have a double coat, a plush coat and a longhaired coat that can come in black and tan, sable or all black coloration. Other colors are generally not accepted for this breed. The white German Shepherd is considered a breed of its own. A courageous and alert dog, the German Shepherd is a high energy breed that requires adequate exercise to avoid destructive behavior. Due to irresponsible breeding patterns a number of hereditary diseases have become prominent with the German Shepherd breed including: epilepsy, digestive trouble, blood disorders, hip and elbow dysplasia, Von Willebrand’s disease and degenerative myelitis. The average lifespan for this breed is 13 years.
Chesapeake Bay Retriever
The Chesapeake Bay Retriever is also known as the Chessie or the Chessy Dog. This breed began with the mating of Newfoundland’s and retrievers and eventually became a breed of their own used to hunt waterfowl in the Chesapeake Bay. This breed stands between 21 and 26 inches tall and weighs between 55 and 80 pounds. This is not a dog designed for apartment living and has a need for regular exercise. This breed also does not do well in hotter climates. The coat of the Chessie is oily, coarse and rough, it is also water resistant and has a wave to it. The most common colors for this breed are red, brown, tan and sedge and they may sometimes have a small white patch. This breed also has a particular odor to its coat that is distinguishable to other Chessie owners. Unfortunately this breed is prone to hip dysplasia and eye problems. The average lifespan for this breed is 10 to 12 years.
Large Dogs Need an Experienced Owner
While certainly not all of the dogs that fall in to the large dog breed category are listed here, some of the most recognized and popular large breeds of dog are. It is true that for the most part these dogs have stereotypes attributed to them, but as a responsible dog owner, it is your job to assess the temperament of each individual dog and assess its compatibility with your specific needs. While certain dogs may generally be good with children one particular dog of that specific breed may not be as good with children; just like people, dogs differ in temperament as individuals. Aside from assessing a dog’s personality to match it to your own family it is also important to assess the needs of a large dog breed when bringing one in to a family life. Large breeds of dogs are certainly more expensive to feed and are much more work when it comes to exercising. Without being devoted to providing a quality diet and a thorough exercise routine to your new large breed dog’s life, it is pointless to even attempt to bring such a large dog in to your home. A tired dog is a happy dog; a bored dog is a destructive dog.
| Leonberger |
Named after the Greek words for good and sound, what is the valved brass tenor instrument resembling a small tuba? | Dog breed gift, glasses, wine glass, whisky tumbler, Vase, Photo Frame,
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Airedale Terrier
The Airedale Terrier originates from England and was bred originally for hunting badger and otter. It's origins can be dated back to the 1800's. It is named after the Valley of Aire in Yorkshire, England. The Airedale Terrier is also known by the other names of Waterside Terrier and Bingley Terrier.
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Akita
The Akita is the largest of all the Japanese breeds and was originally bred in the province of Akita in the 1600's. Some believe the dogs were originally bred for hunting such prey as wild boar, deer and black bear, others believe they were bred for pit fighting. However, when the Japanese (and European) dog-fighting sport lost favour, the dogs were then employed for hunting. In the late 19th century other breeds such as the German Shepherd Dog and the Pointer were imported, making the Japanese breeds suffer in popularity. The Society for Preservation of Japanese Dogs was then formed for the purpose of preserving the native breeds. This Society then declared that all native breeds were national monuments. After World War 1, Akitas were protected because they were becoming so scarce and The Akita Inu Hozankai Society of Japan was founded in 1927 to preserve the breed. In the 1930's, the Akita was so rare that only the very wealthy could afford to buy one, if indeed one could be found!
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Alaskan Malamute
The Alaskan Malamute originates from Alaska and was bred originally for hunting large game, including polar bears, and sled pulling. It's origins can be dated back to Ancient Times. The word Mahlemut comes from Mahle, an Alaskan name for the Inuit tribe, and mut, meaning village.
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American Bulldog
The Old English Bulldog was preserved by working class immigrants who brought their working dogs with them to the American South. Small farmers and ranchers used this all-around working dog for many tasks including farm guardians, stock dogs and catch dog
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Australian Shepherd
The Australian Shepherd Dog was developed in the USA and was bred for herding sheep. It's origins can be dated back to the 1700's and is believed to have originated in the Pyrenees, where they were used by the Basque Shepherds. These Shepherds came into the USA from Australia in the 1800's, hence the name.
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Basenji
Basenjis orginate from pariah dogs, having characteristics particular to this group of canids. Pariahs have the tightly curled tail and a once year oestrus cycle, rather than the more common bi-annual oestrus cycle of the domestic dog. Basenjis were probably bred to be companion dogs for the Pharoahs and there are portraits of Basenjis in the Egyptian pyramids.
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Basset Hound
The Basset Hound comes from France and is a dog of medium size with a long barrel shaped body with short stumpy legs. It was bred originally to hunt small game such as badger, rabbit and hare. It's origins can be dated back to the 1500's. The Basset Hound belongs to the collection of dogs referred to as Scent Hounds, which specialise in following the scent or the smell of its quarry. In fact, the Basset Hound's sense of smell is second only to that of the bloodhound.
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Beagle
The Beagle originates from England and is a dog of medium size - it has short legs which affords it the title of the smallest of the Scent Hound Dogs. It is also referred to as the English Beagle. It was bred originally to hunt small game such as rabbits and hares. It's origins can be dated back to the 1400's. The Beagle's ancestors date back as far as the Greeks who were known to hunt with packs of dogs. The Romans were no doubt responsible for the spread of this type of breed throughout the realms of the Roman Empire.
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Bearded Collie
The Bearded Collie Dog originates from the UK but is believed to have come from Polish ancestors and was bred originally to drive and herd sheep and cattle. The Bearded Collie Dog is also known by the other name of the Beard Collie and the Highland Collie. It is reputed to be one of the oldest British breeds.
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Bedlington Terrier
The Bedlington Terrier originates from the town of Bedlington, Northumberland, England and was bred originally for hunting badgers, rats and mice. It's origins can be dated back to the 1800's. The Bedlington Terrier is also known by the other name of the Rothbury terrier.
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Belgian Shepherd
The Belgian Sheepdog comes from Belgium and was bred originally to herd and guard sheep. The Belgian Sheepdog is also known by the other names of Groenendael and Chien de Berger Belge. Although bred as a herding dog this breed was used as in World War I and became a real hero on the battlefields where they worked as message carriers and ambulance dogs.
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Bernese Mountain
The Bernese Mountain originates from Switzerland and was bred originally for herding and droving. It's origins can be dated back to antiquity. The Bernese Mountain is also known by the other names of Berner Sennenhund and Bernese Cattle Dog. Its name derives from the Swiss region of Berne where the breed was developed.
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Bolognese
The Bolognese is a small breed of dog of the bichon type, originating in Italy. The name refers to the central Italian city of Bologna. It is part of the Toy dog group and is considered a companion dog.
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Border Collie
The Border Collie Dog comes from the border lands between England and Scotland ( hence the name ) and was bred originally for herding and guarding sheep. An extremely intelligent dog with a rare ability to herd animals without people in attendance.
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Border Terrier
The Border Terrier originates from the borders of England and Scotland and was bred originally for hunting small game and ratting. It's origins can be dated back to the 1700's. The Border Terrier is also known by the other name of the Coquetdale terrier. This particular breed was adaptable and able to keep up with hunters on horseback. Its quarry was run to ground and the Border Terrier had the ability to squeeze into small places. The appearance of this dog is very distinctive and described as having the 'Head of an Otter'.
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Boston Terrier
The Boston was, in the 1800's, originally a cross between an English Bulldog and an English White Terrier. More crossbreedings were carried out and the Boston was further developed. This occurred around 1893. The breeds used for this further crossing were the English Bull Terrier, Boxer and the Pit Bull Terrier along with other terriers. Originally the Boston weighed over 20kgs but was bred smaller and smaller until they became the size we know them as today.
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Borzoi
These tall and elegant sight hounds are pictures of grace and aristocracy. Borzois are dogs of beauty and give every suggestion of power, courage and speed. They are the best known Russian dogs and have been used there for coursing wolves since the early 17th century. A Russian duke imported several sighthounds from Arabia but they could not survive Russia's harsh winters. Second time around he crossed the hounds with native coated breeds, possibly Tartar coursing hounds or long-legged shepherd dogs. Because of their gentle temperaments and exotic appearances, they made ideal gifts from the Czars to the crowned heads of Europe and in 1903, Joseph Thomas went to Russia to find the ideal Borzoi. He came to the kennels of Artem Balderoff at Woronza and of His Royal Highness, the Grand Duke Nicholas at Tula. The dogs that Joseph Thomas imported were the basis of breeding programmes on both sides of the Atlantic. After the Russian Revolution in 1917, Borzois were associated with the ruling class and many kennels of beautiful dogs were destroyed and the breed only survived thanks to the original gifts to the western world.
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Boxers
The Boxer originates from Germany and was bred originally for a variety of tasks including hunting wild boars, deer and small bears and bull baiting. It's origins can be dated back to the 1800's. There are several theorise relating to how the Boxer got his name. The most common is that the names derives from fighting and playing with its front paws. The lesser known theory is that the breed was once called 'Boxl' and 'Boxer' is a corruption of this word.
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Brittany
The Brittany originates from the centre of Brittany in Callac (France). It was originally liver & white or black & white and was short and fairly small. In 1865, British Lords used to come over to France shooting Partridge and Woodcock with their dogs, which they left behind with the local farmers because of quarantine. These dogs were mainly Setters, but also Pointers and were therefore crossed with the local spaniels. These matings produced a hybrid of all colours (the Brittany). And shooting men noticed an improvement in scenting ability with better working style. The Brittany is today the most popular gundog in France.
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Bulldog
Bulldogs come form the ancient breed of Bullenbeissers a mastiff-like dog used for guarding and attacking wild animals in Assyria, Greece, Egypt and Rome. The Bullenbeisser, which came in various sizes, was also certainly used by Teutonic and Celtic tribes. In England, the originally huge Bullenbeisser was bred to be a smaller dog and during the reign of King John (13th century) began its career as a bull baiter. Over the years, an ideal dog for bull baiting was created. First of all, the dog was bred for tenacity, i.e. once latched on, it wouldnt let go. Secondly, the dog was bred to be impervious to pain. In addition, the Bulldogs weight is primarily in the head so that when the bull shook, the dog was less likely to have its back broken. Thankfully, baiting and dog fighting were outlawed in England in 1835. From that day, Bulldog owners began selective breeding to eliminate the more aggressive elements of the breed and establish a good natured, yet still determined family pet.
Although stubborn and not terribly easy to train, the breed is intelligent, devoted and a bit of a clown.
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Bull Terrier
The Bull Terrier originates from England and was bred originally for dog fighting. It's origins can be dated back to the 1800's. The Bull Terrier is also known by the other name of the English Bull Terrier and has the nickname of the " White Cavalier" reflecting its defensive fighting strategy.
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Cairn Terrier
The Cairn Terrier originates from Scotland and was bred originally for hunting and killing rats and mice. It's origins can be dated back to the Middle Ages. The Cairn Terrier is most famous as it was the breed of dog who played Toto in the movie the Wizard of Oz.
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Cavalier King Charles
The Cavalier King Charles Spaniel originates from England and was bred originally for flushing small birds and as a lapdog during the Tudor period. It's origins can be dated back to the 1600's. King Charles II was so closely associated with his favourite dogs that they became known as King Charles spaniels. It is believed that the sign "Beware of the Dog" originated in his court meaning, not that they were dangerous, but don't tread on them! King Charles II was renowned for his love of plays and revels which explains the nickname of 'The Merry Monarch's Dog'
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Cesky Terrier
The breed is the result of one man, Dr Frantisek Horak who bred Scottish and Sealyham Terriers in Czechoslovakia in the 1930s. He wanted a terrier that would be suitable for hunting in a pack, be a loyal and loving family pet and that would also make a successful show dog. It was not until 1950 that his dream came true and the first litter was born.
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Chihuahua
The Chihuahua has a colourful, almost hair-raising past. The breed may go as far back as 5th century Mayan Civilization. Pyramids in Chichen Itza, Yucatan, have carvings of small Chihuahua like dogs. At the Monastery of Huejotzingo, between Mexico City and Pubela, there are more Chihuahua images in the Toltec stones used to build the monastery. These date from the 9th century. It is known that a small dog, called a 'Techichi', was an important part of Toltec and Aztec cultures. Techichi were the pets of the wealthy and were an essential facet in the religious practice of these ancient Indian cultures. The dogs were cremated with the dead in order to take on the deceased's sins so that the person could enter the next world without angering the gods. The dogs were also supposed to guide the deceased through the underworld and fight off evil spirits. Some people believe that the Chihuahua is the product of breeding between the Techichi and a small, hairless dog from Asia that would have entered the Americas across the Bering Strait. Whatever the origins, the devastation of the Central American civilisations was reflected on the dogs and this small, religious figure of the canine world was nearly lost. Chihuahua is a state in Mexico and it is from this state that the modern Chihuahua was first exported to America. Theory has it that the modern breed developed from the ancient strains of the Techichi, mixed with small dogs of Mexico, Arizona and Texas. The breed rapidly gained popularity and is a much loved pet all over the world today.
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Chinese Crested
The Chinese Crested originates from China and was bred originally for Hunting rats and as a lapdog and companion and it's origins can be dated back to the 1200's.
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Chow Chow
The Chow Chow originates from China and was bred originally as a hunting & pointing dog but it was also used for its fur pelts and as a source of food. It's origins can be dated back to antiquity. The Chow is famous for its unusual tongue which is black-blue in color.
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Clumber Spaniel
The Clumber Spaniel is a breed of dog of the spaniel type, developed in the United Kingdom. It is the largest of the spaniels, and comes in predominantly one colour. The name of the breed is taken from Clumber Park in Nottinghamshire. It is a gundog that specialises in hunting in heavy cover. They are gentle and loyal, and can act aloof with strangers. The history of the breed is uncertain prior to the mid-19th century with two theories being prevalent. Clumber Spaniels have been kept and bred by various British Monarchs, including Prince Albert, King Edward VII and King George V. They were introduced into Canada in 1844, and in 1884 became one of the first ten breeds recognised by the American Kennel Club.
Their temperament is described as gentle, loyal and affectionate, but dignified and aloof with strangers. They can appear to be a sedate breed and enjoy curling up on the couch, eating and sleeping.
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Cocker Spaniel
The Cocker Spaniel comes from England and was bred originally to hunt small game. It's origins can be dated back to the 1800's.
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Corgi
The Pembroke Welsh Corgi comes from Wales and was bred originally for herding and guarding sheep.
It's origins can be dated back to the 1100's. In the Welsh language 'corgi' means tiny dog. The Celts introduced the breed when they migrated to Wales around 1200 B.C. Farmers developed the breed in the Welsh region of Pembrokeshire. Now famous for being a favourite breed of Queen Elizabeth II.
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Dalmation
The Dalmatian is an ancient breed, dating back to 2000BC, when spotted dogs appeared on Greek friezes and tablets, showing them working with the chariots of ancient Greece, Rome and Egypt. Some very early records of the breed are found in Dalmatia, Croatia from whence the name came. Over the years Dalmatians have been used as dogs of war, border patrols, cart pullers, sheep herders, dogs of the hunt, circus performers and, of course, coaching dogs. Whatever the origin, Dalmatians have worked with horses since at least the Middle Ages. With the breed's introduction to Britain in the 18th century, the Dalmatian became very popular with the aristocracy as an additive to their ornate carriages, especially because of their ability to work horses under the rear or front carriage axles. The dogs were adopted in the 1800's by fire departments and it was not an unusual sight to see Dals running through the streets of London to clear the way for the horse-drawn water-wagons. The breed remains friendly with horses and modern day field trials still test the abilities of the Dal to perform these duties.
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Dandie Dinmont Terrier
This short legged terrier was developed in the 17th Century as an otter and badger specialist in the Cheviot and Teviotdale Hills. Sir Walter Scott was so impressed by them that he included them in his book Guy Mannering published in 1814. This fictional character also gave his name to the breed and the colours, pepper and mustard, were adopted from the names of his dogs. The Dandie Dinmont is the only breed to be named after a character from fiction and some say is the most ancient of all pure terrier breeds
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Deerhound
Shaggy haired hounds have been known to exist in Scotland since before the 16th century. It is thought that short-coated hounds were introduced to Britain before the Roman invasion. When these hunting dogs were used in the Scottish Highlands they were at a disadvantage because of their short coats. These hounds were then probably crossed with native hairy-coated dogs to get the Deerhound. They were used, in packs, by the Scottish Chieftans to hunt deer and had to be strong enough to pull a stag to the ground. When guns were introduced and the forests began to be cut down in the early 1700s these dogs were no longer needed. Some were still kept but they did not become popular again until the 1830s.
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Doberman
The Doberman Pinscher originates from Germany and was bred originally as a guard dog. It's origins can be dated back to the 1800's. The Doberman Pinscher is also known by the other name of the Dobermann and was named after Louis Dobermann of Apolda in Thuringen, Germany. Dobermann was a tax collector and dog pound keeper who wanted watchful guard dog to accompany him on his rounds. It is believed that he crossed many breeds including the German Shepherd, Rottweiler, German Pinscher, Terrier, Greyhound and Weimaraner to produce the Doberman Pinscher.
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Dogue de Bordeaux
The Dogue de Bordeaux is an ancient breed of France, thought to be a direct descendent of the Molossus of Rome. They were used on the French estates in the 12th century as hunters. They hunted pigs, boar, wolves and bears. During the middle ages they were used to drive cattle. They were even used in wars and to guard the flocks. Also they have been known to be used for sports such as animal baiting and dog fighting.
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English Pointer
The exact origin of the Pointer is not entirely clear: whether they originate from Spanish Pointers or from Continental Pointers is uncertain. What is certain is that English Pointers date back to the 1600's, a native breed to the British Isles, being used to 'point' game out to hunters. These early dogs worked with Greyhounds in hare-coursing, the Pointers being used to point out hares for the Greyhounds to seize. In the early 1700's, wing shooting came into fashion and this was when their true skills became apparent. To this day, Pointers are exceptional hunting dogs.
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English Setter
The English Setter was bred originally to hunt small game - bird setting and retrieving. It's origins can be dated back to the 1300's.
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Finnish Spitz
The Finnish Spitz originates from Finland and was bred originally for hunting birds and small game. It's origins can be dated back to antiquity. When its quarry is located the hunter is notified with a series of continuous high pitch barks, which sound like yodels which is responsible for its name the "Barking Bird Dog of Finland.The Finnish Spitz is also known by the other names of Suomenpystykorva and Finsk Spets and is the National Dog of Finland.
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Flatcoat Retriever
The Flat Coated Retriever comes from Great Britain and was bred originally to hunt small game - water retrieving. The flat-coated retriever is a natural water dog, although it also has excellent retrieving abilities on land.The labrador is one of this breed's ancestors. This breed is based on the Newfoundland dog and Mr. Shirley, founder of the UK Kennel Club was chiefly responsible for the current form of the breed. It is believed that, amongst others, he crossed a Collie to build the build and appearance of the dog.
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Foxhound
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French Bulldog
Some stories say that the French Bulldog is a descendent of a Spanish bull-baiting dog. It seems more likely that in the 1860's when bulldogs were very popular in Britain some small varieties began to appear; these small dogs were imported to France by the French breeders and then crossed with French terriers. The result was the French Bulldog as we know it today.
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German Pointer
The German Shorthaired Pointer comes from Germany and was bred originally to hunt small game. It's origins can be dated back to the 1600's. The German Shorthaired Pointer is also known by the other names of Deutscher, Kurzhaariger Vortsehund and Kurzhaar. This breed was created through the cross-breeding of Spanish hounds and the Hanover Hound.
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German Shepherd
The German Shepherd Dog comes from Germany and was bred originally for herding and guarding sheep .
It's origins can be dated back to the 700's. The German Shepherd Dog is also known by the other names of Alsatian and Deutscher Schaferhund. The advent of the two World Wars influenced the history of this dog. The association with Germany was unpopular following the wars and the breed was therefore given the name of the Alsatian Wolf Dog after the German-French border area of Alsace-Lorraine. The term 'Wolf Dog' was then dropped as it was believed that this would also prove to be unpopular. Finally, in 1977, the breed name was changed back to the German Shepherd Dog.
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Golden Retriever
The Golden Retriever comes from England (1800's) and was bred originally to hunt small game - retrieving. The Golden Retriever is believed to descend from the old Black Wavy coated retriever which is known to occasionally have produced yellow, or gold, puppies. Much of the improvement to the breed can be attributed to Lord Tweedmouth at the end of the 19th century, the breed drew considerable attention when they were first being exhibited in 1908. There is believed to be elements of the Newfoundland, setter and spaniel in this breed. There is a story that the Golden Retriever actually originates from 8 Russian Sheepdogs who performed in a Circus Troupe - although it is impossible to find any historic evidence of this legend.
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Gordon Setter Resting
The Gordon Setter can be traced back to 1620 when it was known as the "black and fallow setting dog." It owes its origins to the Spanish pointer and various early spaniel breeds. The breed owes its name to the 4th Duke of Gordon who set out to establish the breed officially at his castle in Banffshire, Scotland in 1827. The Gordon is the only native Scottish gundog and was bred specifically to hunt gamebirds, especially grouse. With more stamina than other hunting breeds, Gordons do well hunting on the moors and are reputed to bring home more birds than the other gundogs, though they may take longer in the field.
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Great Dane
The Great Dane originates from Germany, and not Denmark as the name indicates, and was bred originally for hunting large game, including the wild boar. It's origins can be dated back to the 1400's. The Great Dane is also known by the other names of Deutsche Dogge and German Mastiff.
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Greyhound
The Greyhound originates from Ancient Egypt and is a dog of medium size with a lean, powerful body, it is believed share common ancestors with the Pharaoh hound. The Greyhound was bred originally to hunt large game - antelopes, wolves and deer. The greyhound is characterized by swiftness and keen sight ideal for coursing game and racing. It's origins can be dated back to antiquity and the Ancient World. The Greyhound is a very old sight hound dog breed claiming an ancient heritage. The Pharaohs of Egypt kept the the Greyhound's ancestors and references to these appear as hieroglyphics and are also found engraved in cuneiform ( written in wedge-shaped characters) on ancient papyrus, pillars and tablets. The greyhound was bred originally to hunt large game - antelopes, wolves and deer. The greyhounds were given as gifts to Roman Emperors and Greek nobility and the breed spread right across the Roman Empire. As time went by and man's requirements changed the greyhound was bred specifically for dog racing, where they can reach speeds up to 45 mph. They are the fastest dogs on earth and only the cheetah can beat them for speed in the animal kingdom. Greyhounds are therefore extremely fast sprinters but they are not not endurance runners. It is believed that greyhounds were introduced to England in the sixth century and were used by commoners for hunting and providing food and by the nobility for sport. In 1014 the Forest Laws prohibited all but nobility from keeping greyhounds 'No meane person may keep any greyhounds.' The dogs elite status remained for a further 400 years when the law was finally repealed. The grey hound found its way to America with the first English settlers. The name greyhound is believed to have been derived from the Middle English word for greyhound - 'grehound' akin to grighund Old Norse for grey bitch (grig) and hound (hund).
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Husky
The Siberian Husky originates from Siberia, Russia and was bred originally for sled pulling and are now famed for there sled racing. It's origins can be dated back to antiquity. The Siberian Husky is also known by the other name of the Arctic Husky.
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Irish Setter
The Irish Setter comes from Ireland and was bred originally to hunt small game - bird setting and retrieving. The Irish Setter is also known by the other name of the Red Setter. The Irish Setter reached its current state mainly due to its breeding in Ireland as its name would imply. However, the fact that it was known originally in the early 18th century as the English Spaniel points at its origins. It was a cross of the Irish Water Spaniel, Spanish Pointers and the English and Gordon Setters. The breed truly became popular during Queen Victoria's England where its energy and colouring made it popular as both a Gun dog and Show dog.
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Irish Red & White Setter
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Irish Wolfhound
The Celts invaded Greece in 275 BC and there acquired dogs similar to greyhounds that then accompanied them on their conquests around Europe. These dogs may then have been crossed with mastiff type dogs to produce even larger dogs. The Romans then found these dogs when they invaded Britain in the early centuries AD. There are stories from Ireland of a great Irish hound in 200 BC to 200 AD. From written records of the 5th century it is known that breeding of dogs resembling the wolfhound type was very organised and profitable. So profitable that many of them were sold abroad, and given as gifts to royalty. These dogs were used for guarding, hunting boar, stag, elk and wolf. In the 15th and 16th centuries this hound was mainly used for hunting wolves. As so many of these Wolfhounds were being exported and wolves were still a problem in Britain in the mid 1600s, Oliver Cromwell stopped their export. When the last wolf was allegedly killed in Ireland in 1780 the Wolfhound decreased in numbers, so much so that it almost died out. Towards the end of the 1800s the Wolfhound was starting to make a slow comeback. They were being bred with Deerhounds and crossed occasionally to the Borzoi and Great Dane. They were first shown in the 1870s.
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Irish Terrier
The Irish Terrier is believed to be one of the oldest Irish breeds originating from the districts around Cork in Southern Ireland. Very little history is documented although it is believed the breed is probably descended from old black and tan and wheaten terriers. The breed was used as messenger dogs in the first World War, which attributed to their fearless reputation.
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Italian Spinone
The Spinone is an old breed, that much is certain; however it is not exactly know how they came about. One theory states that they are descended from the Segugio Italiano, which was an ancient hound from the Middle Ages. Another theory claims that they are descended from the Barbet, Griffon and other types of hounds from the Alps. Traditionally a hunter, pointer and retriever, this fellow is full of character and is up there with the best of them when it comes to nabbing waterfowl in the marshes. There's a bit of French Pointer and Griffon hound in him somewhere, but Italy is his true home.
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Jack Russell Terrier
The Jack Russell Terrier originates from England and was bred originally for fox bolting and hunting - it was small enough to enter a fox-earth or drain, yet large enough to run with the hounds. It's origins can be dated back to the 1800's. The Jack Russell Terrier is also known by the other names of Jack Russell or the Parsons Terrier. The name derives from the original owner and breeder the "Hunting Parson'" the Rev. John Russell ( The name John is often changed to Jack ).
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Japanese Spitz
The breed is believed to have come from the Samoyed although they do bear a strong resemblance to the American Eskimo, which in turn comes from the German Spitzen. The Japanese continued to down size the Samoyed, the end result being the Japanese Spitz. According to records, the first Spitz arrived circa 1918 from America, Canada, China and Australia and it is believed that these dogs became the bases of the Japanese Spitz as we know it today. The Kennel Club officially recognised the breed in 1981.
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Keeshond
The Keeshond was named after the 18th-century Dutch Patriot, Cornelis (Kees) de Gyselaer (spelled 'Gijselaar' in Modern Dutch), leader of the rebellion against the House of Orange. The dog became the rebels' symbol; and, when the House of Orange returned to power, this breed almost disappeared. The word 'keeshond' is a compound word: 'Kees' is a nickname for Cornelius (de Gyselaer), and 'hond' is the Dutch word for dog. In the Netherlands, "keeshond" is the term for German Spitzes that encompass them all from the toy or dwarf (Pomeranian) to the Wolfsspitz (Keeshond).
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Labrador
The Labrador comes from Canada and was bred originally to hunt small game - retrieving. The Labrador was first given this name in Great Britain in the 1830's when it was brought to British shores by fishermen from Newfoundland and Canada who had used the dog for some considerable time to aid them in landing their nets.
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Lakeland Terrier
The Lakeland Terrier originates from England and was bred originally for hunting otters, foxes, rats and mice. It's origins can be dated back to the 1700's. The Lakeland Terrier is named from its origins in the Lake District of Northern England. At one time they were known as Patterdale, Fell and Elterwater terriers.
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Leonberger
The Leonberger dog was created in the 1840s to resemble the lion of the Leonber town crest. It is a cross between a Newfoundland and St Bernard, and a backcross to a Pyrenean Mountain dog. Another dog may also have been used in the creation of the Leonberger in order for the colour we see them in today to be developed. They became very popular and many distinguished people owned them. However during World War I they almost died out as people could not afford to feed them. The handful of dogs that were left were bred from carefully until the World War II when they were nearly all lost again. Today the Leonberger is still relatively rare but it is gaining in numbers and popularity.
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Lhasa Apso
The Lhasa Apso was only bred in Tibet, by the holy men and the nobles, for at least two thousand years. They were used as watchdogs in the temples and monasteries. The people of Tibet greatly respected these little dogs as they believed they were the reincarnations of the holy lamas. They were never sold or bought but given as gifts, and it was considered a great honour to receive one.
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Lowchen
The Lowchen origins are uncertain but claims for the breed come from Germany, Russia and France. The dog was bred originally for the nobility as a Lapdog and companion. It's origins can be dated back to the 1500's. The Lowchen is also known by the other names of Le petit chien lion. (Little Lion Dog)
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Lurcher
A Lurcher is a fun-loving, affectionate, lovable dog who thrives on the leadership of his master. These dogs were bred to hunt rabbit and hare in Ireland and Great Britain by Irish gypsies and tinkers in the 1600's. They have inherited fast agile movements from the sighthound crosses in them. Lurchers have the strong hunting instincts of the sighthounds. This combination also proved to be a good obedient dog which learns commands fast.
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Mastiff
The Mastiff originates from England and was bred originally for dog fighting, bull-baiting and bearbaiting but later for hunting and guarding. A fierce War Dog and used by the Romans for an attraction in the arena. It's origins can be dated back to antiquity.
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Newfoundland
The Newfoundland originates from Canada, the coast of Newfoundland, and was bred originally for hunting fish, herding and guarding. It's origins can be dated back to the 1700's. The Newfoundland is strongly associated to the famous artist Sir Edwin Henry Landseer (1802-1873) so much so that it is sometimes called the Landseer Dog.
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Norfolk Terrier
The Norfolk Terrier has been around for over 100 years. The ancestors of this little dog may have included the Border Terrier and its ancestors, the Cairn Terrier and a red terrier from Ireland. During the late 1800s they were popular with the students at Cambridge University, so much so that they became their mascot. This dog was originally known as the Norwich Terrier and was first recognised in the UK in 1932. However some of these dogs had erect pointed ears and others had ears that dropped down close to the head. In 1965 the drop eared terrier was renamed the Norfolk Terrier.
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Norwegian Elkhound
The Norwegian Elkhound comes from Norway and is a dog of medium size and stocky build. It was bred originally to hunt elk (moose) bears and mountain lions. It's origins can be dated back to antiquity, it was used by the Vikings and is sometimes referred to as the "Viking War Dog"
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Norwich Terrier
The Norwich Terrier has been around for over 100 years and is also known as the Jones Terrier. The ancestors of this little dog may have included the Border Terrier and its ancestors, the Cairn Terrier and a red terrier from Ireland. During the late 1800s they were popular with the students at Cambridge University, so much so that they became their mascot. The Norwich Terrier was first recognised in the UK in 1932. Some of these dogs had erect pointed ears and others had ears that dropped down close to the head. In 1965 the drop eared terrier was renamed the Norfolk Terrier.
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Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever
The Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever is sometimes know as "The Splasher" and comes from Canada. The breed was bred originally for retrieving Water Fowl. The dog splashes around in the water and the water fowl, especially the ducks, being curious creatures come to investigate the noise - thus attracting attention like the tolling of a bell - the hunter then shoots the duck.
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Old English Sheepdog
The Old English Sheepdog comes from Great Britain and was bred originally for herding and guarding sheep and cattle. It's origins can be dated back to the 1700's.
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Otterhound
The Otterhound originates in England although its heritage can be dated back to antiquity. It is a very special dog and rare dog as it verged close on extinction when the otter was made a protected species. The Otterhound is a dog of considerable size and was bred originally to hunt the otter in order to ensure the trout supply in rivers.
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Papillon
The breed dates back around 700 years although the exact country of origin cannot be confirmed although it is generally accepted that the origins date back to the European Toy Spaniels. The breed spread across Europe in the sixteenth century and became popular with many royal families and were used in many of the royal portraits at that time. Also known as the Butterfly Dog and the drop eared variety as the Phalene (Moth)
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Pekingese
The Pekingese originates from China and was bred originally as a lap dog and companion. It's origins can be dated back to antiquity. The Pekingese is also known by the other names of the Lion Dog and the Peking Palasthund. The name the Lion Dog is so named as has the look of the face of a lion. It relates to the Lamaist form of Buddhism in China of which the lion was a sacred symbol of Buddha.
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Poodles
The Poodle originates from Central Europe and Asia, but is commonly associated with France. It's skills cover a whole range of functions including hunting water animals, military dog, guide dog, guard dog and performer. It's origins can be dated back to the 1500's. The Poodle is used as a working hunter and duck retriever. The distinctive and stylish hair cut that has a real function. Whilst the Poodle's body coat protects and buoys the dog in the water the hindquarters are shaved in order that the dog can swim more easily. The Poodle is also known by the other names of Barbone and Caniche.
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Pomeranian
Pomeranians are almost certainly descended from the sledge-pulling dogs of the Arctic and are probably related to the Keeshond, Norwegian Elkhound and the Samoyed. The first reliable records of the breed came from Pomerania, a region bordering the Baltic, and date from the 1800's, although these dogs were much larger (around 13kgs). Litters of around 10 puppies were being born and soon the smallest of these were preferred. By the mid 1800's, the breed had spread to European countries and in 1888 Queen Victoria fell in love with the breed and brought it home from Italy.
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Pug
The Pug originates from China and was bred originally as a lap dog and companion. It's origins can be dated back to the Ancient Times. The Pug is also known by the other names of Mops and Carlin.
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Pyrenean Mountain
The Pyr originates from the Pyrenees Mountains that separate France from Spain. Their exact history is unknown but they have been guarding the flocks in France for millennia. Fossils predating the Bronze Age (1800-1000BC) of the breed type have been found. Before the French Revolution, the breed could be found guarding the large chateaux in southern France. Exactly what breeds contributed to their make-up are not known but the Kuvasz of Hungary, the Maremma Sheepdog of Italy and Anatolian Sheepdog of Turkey are all likely candidates bearing similar appearances to that of the Great Pyrenees. Dauphin Louis X1V named the breed the Royal Dog of France, though the peasants still used them to watch their flocks. These dogs were also used to smuggle contraband over the border between France and Spain as their sure-footedness enabled them to use passes that were impossible for humans, thereby avoiding detection by custom officials. Early in the 20th century, however, the breed was scarce and Bernard Senac-Langrange and M Dretzen can both be credited for saving the breed. To this day, the breed works in France guarding their flocks of sheep and herds of cattle from bears, wolves and other stock thieves.
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Rhodesian Ridgeback
The Rhodesian Ridgeback comes from Zimbabwe ( previously known as Rhodesia) in Africa and was bred originally to hunt large game. The Rhodesian Ridgeback is also known by the other name of the Lion Dog.
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Rough Collie
Rough Collies are dogs of dignity and beauty with sweet, expressive and intelligent looks. They are perfectly balanced and with their abundant coats and elongated, narrow, chiseled heads, they are easily recognisable. Their action is smooth and appears effortless, with great drive coming from their hindlegs.
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Rottweiler
The Rottweiler originates from Germany and was bred originally as a cattle driver and guard dog. It's origins can be dated back to antiquity.
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Saluki
The Saluki or Persian Greyhound is a dog breed originating in the Fertile Crescent and Persia. The Saluki is classed as a sighthound and is typically deep-chested and long-legged. Salukis tend to be independent animals requiring patient training and are gentle and affectionate with their owner
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Saint Bernard
The breed takes its name from the Hospice of the Great Saint Bernard Pass which was founded in AD980 by St Bernard de Menthon as a refuge for travellers through the dangerous Alpine pass between Switzerland and Italy. By 1707 the overworked monks realised that dogs with their superior noses, strength and weather-resistant coats were better equipped to rescue travellers. They had an in-bred sense of direction which was the key to survival in blizzards which caused humans to become totally lost and disorientated. Early records have been lost but by 1800, the monks had established their own breeding programme, calling the dogs Alpine Mastiffs. Edwin Landseer painted these dogs on canvas, one entitled, 'Alpine Mastiffs Reanimating a Distressed Traveller' portrayed two dogs standing over a fallen traveller. One of the dogs was baying for help, and the other had the well-known brandy cask around its neck, attempting to revive the man by licking his hand. This famous, though non-existent brandy keg has carried as a symbol through the years. Tales of great rescues were reported with one of the most famous dogs, Barry, having saved the lives of 40 people. Around 1810 the breed was often referred to as Barry hounds. In the 1830's many of the dogs were lost due to interbreeding, disease and bad winters causing the monks to outcross the remaining dogs with Newfoundlands, Great Pyrenees and also, it is thought, Great Danes. This established the St Bernard's breed. Today the breed is still a mascot at the monastery.
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Samoyed
The Samoyed dog takes its name from the Samoyedic peoples of Siberia. An alternate name for the breed, especially in Europe, is Bjelkier. These nomadic reindeer herders bred the fluffy, white dogs to help with the herding, to pull sleds when they moved.
The Samoyed tail is one of the breed's more distinguishing features. Like the Alaskan Malamute, their tail is carried curled over their backs; however, unlike the Malamute, the Samoyed tail is held actually touching the back. In cold weather, Samoyeds may sleep with their tails over their noses to provide additional warmth. Almost all Samoyeds will allow their tails to fall when they are relaxed and at ease, as when being stroked or while eating, but will return their tails to a curl when more alert.
Samoyeds' friendly disposition makes them poor guard dogs; an aggressive Samoyed is rare. With their tendency to bark, however, they can be diligent watch dogs, barking whenever something approaches their territory. Samoyeds are excellent companions, especially for small children or even other dogs, and they remain playful into old age.
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Schnauzer
The Standard Schnauzer originates from Germany and was bred originally for hunting vermin, especially rats and as a Guard dog. It's origins can be dated back to the Middle Ages. The Standard Schnauzer is also known by the other name of the Mittelschnauzer. The word schnauzer means "small beard".
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Scottish Terrier
The Scottish Terrier originates from Scotland and was bred originally for hunting rats and mice. It's origins can be dated back to the 1800's. The Scottish Terrier is also known by the other names of the Aberdeen Terrier and nicknamed as "Diehard" due to its hardy character. The Scottish Terrier is also often referred to with the affectionate term " Scotty". The most famous owner of the Scottish Terrier was Franklin Roosevelt, his beloved dog was called Fala.
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Sheltie
It is extremely difficult to trace the early history of Shetland Sheepdogs, as no written records were kept. However, it seems that in the early 1800's visitors to the remote Shetland Isles brought them back to England and Scotland.
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Smooth Collie
Opinions differ, the Smooth Collie is the same breed as the Rough Collie but whereas the Rough Collie has a long heavy coat to cope with the harsh weather in the Scottish Highlands, the Smooth Collie has developed a shorter coat more suited to the milder lowlands. Most people believe that the Smooth Collie was bred to herd sheep or drive cattle so stamina and endurance are traits of this breed with the ability to work in all weathers
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Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier
The Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier originates from Ireland and was bred originally for hunting rats and mice.
It's origins can be dated back to the 1700's. The Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier is so named for its distinctive shade of wheaten (the colour of ripe wheat). Its nickname is the "Teddy Bear" due to its soft and cuddly appearance.
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Springer Spaniel
All spaniels can trace their origins back to the spaniels of Spain. Up until the 1600's all spaniels were considered as being of the same group of dogs, with various sized dogs in the same litter. The larger of these were the forefathers of today's English Springer Spaniel. In 1892 the Kennel Club of Great Britain recognised Cocker and Springer spaniels as separate breeds even though they sometimes appeared in the same litter. This was soon stopped by the two breed clubs and a standard conformation was made of each breed. The Kennel Club of Great Britain granted breed recognition in 1902; the American Kennel Club granted recognition in 1927. This breed is of the oldest sporting gundogs. Their original purpose was for finding and springing game for the net, falcon or greyhound. Nowadays they are used to find, flush and retrieve game for the gun.
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Staffordshire Bull Terrier
The Staffie emerged around the 17th century from crosses between Bulldogs and terriers of the time. Due to the breeding the characteristics of both temperaments came through. The resulting offspring became known as the Bull and Terrier or Pit Dog. They came about when Bull and Bear baiting was outlawed in the 1830s and the interest in dog fighting increased. Although they were known for their ferociousness and courage in the dog pits they made excellent family pets, being exceptionally good with children. They belonged to people from all walks of life, from lords to miners. Dog fighting wasnt the only thing they were used for; they were also worked in badger hunting and as ratters. When these activities were outlawed some owners decided that they would try to maintain the breed by introducing them to the world of dog showing. A breed standard was created and the Staffordshire Bull Terrier was officially recognised by the Kennel Club in 1935.
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Shih Tzu
They are believed to have originated in Tibet, where they lived in the Temples and were occasionally given as a gift to the Emperors of China. Once they were in China they were crossed with the Pekinese to become the breed we recognise today. They arrived in Britain after 1912, but they were not given recognition until 1949. It wasnt until the 1960s that they were recognised in America. The Shih Tzu is also known by the other name of the Chrysanthemum Dog.
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Tibetan Spaniel
This old breed is thought to have originated from the Himalayan Monasteries and villages of Tibet. Their love of sitting high on viewpoints made them excellent guard dogs for these isolated monasteries. Their keen eyesight saw the approach of strangers and they would bark to warn their masters. They were much-loved companions to the monks who would place them under their flowing robes in the winter with both benefiting from the warmth created. The earliest record of the breed in the UK seems to be that of a dog been brought over in 1895 by a sailor returning from the Middle East.
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Tibetan Terrier
The Tibetan Terrier originates from Tibet and was used for a herding, good luck, holy dog and companion. It's origins can be dated back to Ancient Times. The Tibetan Terrier is also known by the other name of the Dhokhi Apso and is referred to a a Good Luck or Holy dog due to its mystical associations with the Lamaist monasteries.
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Weimaraner
The exact origins of this breed are unknown although a dog of the Weimaraner type appeared in a Van Dyke painting of the early 1600's. It is believed that the breed comes from stock similar to the German Short-Haired Pointer, with Bloodhound being added early through crosses with one or more of the various schweisshund breeds. The breed takes its name from the nobles of the court of Charles August, Grand Duke of Weimar and was once used to hunt big game, wolves, wildcats, deer, mountain lion and bears etc. When the big game disappeared from Europe by the late 1800's, Weims became a rarity. However, with selective breeding, they became small game hunters and bird dogs, once again, increasing their popularity. Their breeding was kept a close secret in Germany for many years by a very strict breed club and it was not until 1929 that the Weimaraner was introduced to America by Howard Knight, a member of the breed society club of Germany.
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Welsh Springer Spaniel
It is believed that the Welsh Springer has existed as a breed since the 1600's. They were found mainly in Wales and the west of England, being used for shepherding and cattle droving. It is possible that crosses of the Welsh Sheepdog and the Corgi were conducted. After centuries, the breed became known in the east of England and Scotland where they were used as gundogs and for breeding. Their versatile abilities and hunting instincts made them prime candidates for worldwide ownership and by the 19th and 20th centuries were exported abroad to countries including America, India and Australia.
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Welsh Terrier
The Welsh Terrier was was originally bred for hunting fox, rodents and badger, but during the last century it has mainly been bred for showing. The Welsh Terrier originates from Wales and has been claimed to be the oldest existing dog breed in the UK. The Welsh Terrier was a latecomer to the British show-ring (being primarily a working dog) and was not officially registered until the 19th century. The Welsh Terrier is colored tan on the head, legs and underbelly while having a black or sometimes grizzle saddle. The body shape is rectangular, with elongated, "brick-like" face. This shape is formed by the whiskers and beard.
The Welsh Terrier has a typical terrier temperament. In the right hands, it is a happy, lively, and seldom shy or timid dog, but sometimes can have an attitude!
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West Highland Terrier
West Highland White Terriers were bred to hunt otters, foxes and vermin. They share their ancestry with the Scottie, Cairn and Dandie Dinmont terriers. From the rough-coated terrier stock in Scotland, white whelps were selected to form this breed. Records show that James 1, King of England in the 1620's requested some 'little white earth dogges' out of Argyleshire in Scotland and these were possibly Westies! Col Malcolm of Poltalloch, Argyleshire, accidentally shot and killed his favourite terrier (a dark coloured one) and vowed from then on only to have white dogs. He may have been the originator of the Highland Terrier but at that time they were called Poltalloch Terriers. The Duke of Argyll's estate at Dumbartonshire was called Roseneath and in the 19th century, Westies were known as Roseneath Terriers in honour of his patronage and interest. In the first organised dog shows in the late 1800's they were known as White Scottish Terrier until 1904 when they were classified under the name of West Highland White Terrier.
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Whippets
The Whippet was developed during the latter part of the 19th century from various sporting, coursing and running dogs, including small greyhounds. He was bred to race and his ability to reach speeds of up to 35mph suited him to track racing. This breed was adopted by the miners of North-east England who were keen dog racing enthusiasts but they also used him for coursing, as he is capable of catching rabbits and hares. He gained his nickname of Snapdog from his ability to kill rats and rabbits with a sharp snap. Although he is still used as a working and racing dog and takes part in agility and obedience activities, his main role is as a companion.
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Wire Fox Terrier
The Wire Fox Terrier from England and was bred originally for hunting rats and mice and fox bolting - it was small enough to enter a fox-earth or drain, yet large enough to run with the hounds. It's origins can be dated back to the 1700's. The Wire Fox Terrier has an adventurous and mischievous temperament hence the nickname of "The Live Wire".
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Yorkshire Terrier
The Yorkshire Terrier originates from England and was bred originally for hunting small vermin. It's origins can be dated back to the 1800's.
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Car exhaust fumes contain mainly what poisonous gas? | What gases are found in car exhaust fumes? | Reference.com
What gases are found in car exhaust fumes?
A:
Quick Answer
Exhaust fumes from cars contain carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons. Carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide are particularly dangerous as they are toxic and carcinogenic. Water vapor is also a part of the exhaust fumes.
Full Answer
Carbon dioxide contributes to global warming. Nitrous oxides enter the bloodstream through the lungs and do irreparable damage to cells and tissues.
Exhaust gases are produced by the combustion of gasoline and diesel in the internal combustion engine of cars and other vehicles. These gases are released through an exhaust pipe, generally found at the rear of cars.
Pollution from cars is a major factor in environmental pollution. The number of cars on the road is rising, and most of this vehicular pollution is in regions with high population density.
| Carbon monoxide |
How many imperial gallons are in an imperial peck? | BBC - Standard Grade Bitesize Chemistry - Fractional distillation : Revision, Page 6
formed from the heat and pressure found in a car engine
sulphur dioxide
sulphur impurities in the fuel burn
Carbon monoxide is a poisonous gas. Nitrogen oxides react with other pollutants, in sunlight, to form a photochemical smog, which causes breathing difficulties. Nitrogen oxides and sulphur dioxide also form acid rain. This has several effects on the environment, including:
killing plants and aquatic life
eroding stonework
corroding metals
Reducing pollution
Petrol is so flammable that early car engine makers had trouble with pre-ignition, i.e. the explosion of petrol before it reaches the cylinder. It was found that putting lead compounds in fuel stopped this.
Unfortunately, lead is toxic, and further ways of stopping pre-ignition had to be found. Developing special 'unleaded' fuels has addressed this problem (though these are currently under investigation for their carcinogenic properties).
Air pollution from the burning of hydrocarbons can be reduced by special exhaust systems, or by altering the fuel-to-air ratio.
Catalytic converters
Car exhaust systems have catalytic converters. These convert carbon monoxide to carbon dioxide:
carbon monoxide + nitrogen monoxide → nitrogen + carbon dioxide
2CO + 2NO → N2 + 2CO2
Transition metal catalysts can convert the pollutant gases to harmless gases. Catalytic converters usually have a honeycomb shape to increase the surface area for reaction with the gases. The catalysts are platinum or rhodium.
Fuel-to-air ratio
Decreasing the fuel-to-air ratio improves the efficiency of combustion, thus decreasing pollution.
The graph shows how the percentage of pollutant gases can be decreased by decreasing the fuel-to-air ratio.
This means there is more oxygen present, and less chance of fuel being unburned, or carbon monoxide made.
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David Low created what pompous British cartoon officer character, first appearing in London's Evening standard in the 1930s? | David Low
David Low
References
David Low, the third son of four children of David Brown Low, a businessman, was born in Dunedin , New Zealand on 7th April 1891. His father's family had originally come from Fife in Scotland in the 1860s and his mother's from Dublin, Ireland, in 1850. (1)
In 1902 his eldest brother died from peritonitis. His parents believed he had been weakened by "overstudy" and Low, aged eleven, was withdrawn from school. "He thus went into adolescence without the advantages and disadvantages of a peer group. His discipline was self-discipline." (2)
As a young man he had discovered a pile of old copies of Punch Magazine in a second-hand bookshop in Christchurch . Deeply impressed by the work of Charles Keene , Linley Sambourne and Phil May , Low decided he wanted to become a cartoonist. In his autobiography he wrote: "The more I poured over the intricate technical quality of these artists the more difficult did drawing appear. How impossible that one could ever become an artist! But then I came on Phil May, who combined quality with apparent facility. Once having discovered Phil May I never let him go." (3)
David Low's first published cartoon was printed in a New Zealand paper in 1902, when he was eleven years old. "It represented the local authorities as lunatics because of their reluctance to remove certain trees that obstructed traffic." It was have his drawings published in other magazines and newspapers. (4)
Low published anti-gambling cartoons for the War Cry , the newspaper of the Salvation Army , and illustrations for New Zealand Truth , a weekly newspaper specializing in sensational crime and sex . Still a teenager, Low was appointed the regular political cartoonist of the New Zealand Spectator . He drew two full-page political cartoons and four of five small ones weekly. He also contributed two half-page cartoons to a new socialist newspaper, the Weekly Herald. (5)
His fame spread to Australia and at the age of eighteen he was asked to join the Sydney Bulletin , where he worked with two other great cartoonists, Livingstone Hopkins and Norman Lindsay . (6) David Low enjoyed his time on the newspaper: "The men behind the Bulletin, notably Jules Francois Archibald, a master journalist, and William Macleod, an artist with solid business ability, had made it a major policy of their paper to encourage native Australian talent.... The Bulletin was radical, rampant and free, with an anti-English bias and a preference for a republican form of government. No more imported governors nor doggerel national anthems, no more pompous borrowed generals, foreign titles, foreign capitalists, cheap labour, diseased immigrants, if the Bulletin could help it." (7)
During the First World War Low became a strong opponent of the Australian prime minister, William Hughes . General William Birdwood managed to persuade Hughes that conscription was necessary. In December, 1915, Hughes argued: "We must put forth all our strength. The more Australia sends to the front the less the danger will be to each man. Not only victory, but safety belongs to the big battalions. Australia turns to you for help. Fifty thousand additional troops are to be raised to form the new units of the expeditionary forces. Sixteen thousand men are required each month for reinforcements at the front. This Australia of ours, the freest and best country on God's earth, calls to her sons for aid. Destiny has given to you a great opportunity. Now is the hour when you can strike a blow on her behalf. If you love your country, if you love freedom, then take your place alongside your fellow-Australians at the front, and help them to achieve a speedy and glorious victory." (8)
However, the vast majority of members of the Labor Party were opposed to the measure. Eventually he was expelled from the party over this issue. Hughes now joined forces with the Commonwealth Liberal Party to form the Nationalist Party of Australia . At the May 1917 election Hughes and the Nationalists won a huge electoral victory. A second plebiscite on conscription was announced. In July, Low produced a cartoon on the subject but it failed to get past the censor. (9)
David Low, Give us a spell, boys (July 1917)
In October 1917, Hughes was again defeated, this time by a wider margin. Hughes claimed it was a black day for Australia. "It was a triumph for the unworthy, the selfish, and anti-British in our midst. It was a triumph for the insidious propaganda that had been actively at work in every Allied country since the war began.... The defeat was interpreted by those sections amongst us who had led the campaign as proof that Australia was war weary, that their campaign of lies and poisonous propaganda had done its work sufficiently, and not only misled the electors on this one question, but had sapped their loyalty to the Empire." (10)
The publication of The Billy Book (1918), a collection of cartoons of William Hughes sold 60,000 copies. Low was attacked by the pro-government press for his personal hostility towards the prime-minister. However, Low insisted that "political opposition need not mean personal malice". (11)
Norman Lindsay , who worked with Low on the Sydney Bulletin , claimed: "He (Low) was ruthlessly determined to get on and submerged all other interests to that objective". (12) Low's biographer has defended the cartoonist's behaviour: "The ruthlessness - or singlemindedness, as friends might have chosen to call it - was not directed against others: Low did not try to displace his colleagues. Nevertheless, he seemed rather obviously on the make. His drive must have rested largely on enormous self-confidence... With self-confidence too came resourcefulness, individuality and practical curiously." (13)
David Low moves to Britain
Low sent some of his cartoons to the Manchester Guardian . They could not afford their own cartoonist but did publish the occasional drawing from Low. The British writer Arnold Bennett was impressed with one of these cartoons that appeared in the newspaper on 25th January, 1919. He wrote in The New Statesman that "if the Press-lords of this country had any genuine imagination they would immediately begin to compete for the services of that cartoonist and get him to London on the next steamer." (14)
This article resulted in Low being offered a job in England with The Daily News and the company's evening paper, The Star . Low arrived in England in 1919 but was unhappy with the space that he was given for his cartoons. After threatening to resign, the editor of the newspaper agreed to publish the large, half-page cartoons that he had been doing in Australia. In London Low became a close friend of the other great political cartoonist of the period, Will Dyson of The Daily Herald . (15)
Low found the British public had a different attitude towards cartoons than those in Australia: "Australian wit and humour, though following English forms, had had, besides our native tartness, a touch of American smartness. The English, by all the evidence, had much more appreciation of humour than of wit. Wit was rather the diversion of the intellectuals, narrowed to more or less obscure or esoteric references and associations. In 1920 there was no radio and Hollywood was young; and the British masses still had not only music, songs, plays, pictures but especially their own local jokes, farce and broad comedy, none of it as yet overlaid by streamlined American imports." (16)
David Low on the David Lloyd George Coalition (1919)
When he arrived in Britain, David Lloyd George , was prime minister of a coalition government. Although a member of the Liberal Party, Lloyd George relied on the support of the Conservative Party . To represent the coalition, Low invented a two-headed ass. During the 1918 General Election campaign, Lloyd George promised comprehensive reforms to deal with education, housing, health and transport. However, he was now a prisoner of the Conservatives , who had no desire to introduce these reforms. (17)
Low attacked Lloyd George for betraying his radical past. In one cartoon, Reflections, he refered to a speech he had made on 30th July 1909 at Limehouse in the East End of London, where "he had bitterly attacked dukes, landlords, capitalists - the whole of the upper classes". Lloyd George welcomed the criticism as it helped to inform the public that it was the Conservative Party that was blocking his reform measures. (18)
David Low, Reflections (1920)
David Low became very friendly with Ramsay MacDonald . He later wrote: "I was perhaps too greatly impressed by Ramsay MacDonald, who looked to me a real leader. He seemed taller in tjose days and more craggy, as he stalked up and down. A handsome figure, fine voice, shabby blue serge suit, handlebar moustache solid black against solid white of hair forelock. I enjoyed drawing him." (19)
Low was commissioned by The Star to draw the portraits of the fifty most distinguished people in Britain. His subjects included George Bernard Shaw , Arnold Bennett , H. G. Wells , Hilaire Belloc , G. K. Chesterton and Arthur Conan Doyle . Only two men refused to sit for him: John Galsworthy and Rudyard Kipling . Some of his cartoons for the newspaper were used as posters for the Liberal Party in the 1922 General Election . (20)
After a disagreement with the editor about how this should be presented in The Star , Low eventually had them published in The New Statesman . Low also had cartoons published in other journals in Britain such as Punch Magazine , Illustrated London News and The Graphic . Low later recalled: "I worked an eight-hour day - sometimes ten-hour - day and with evenings spent moving around seeing people, it was a busy life. Making a cartoon occupied usually about three full days, two spent in labour and one in removing the appearance of labour." (21)
David Low was highly critical of Lord Rothermere and his friend, Lord Beaverbrook , the owner of the The Daily Express . In December, 1923, he drew a cartoon of Stanley Baldwin , the Prime Minister, "quailing before the ruffians Rothermere and Beaverbrook". This started a series of cartoons that featured the two men, who he described as the "Plot Press". (22)
Low explained in his autobiography that the portrayed the "two press lords" as the "wicked uncles in Babe in the Wood... two mischievous conspirators in mock-sinister cloaks and hats. The figures, fat Rother and little Beaver, were such naturals to draw and the newspaper public gave them such popularity that in no time I found myself running a series dealing with their dark doings. Various incidents and accidents turned up by grinning fate in succeeding months tended to support and confirm the lightsome fancy... The Plot Press became one of my major properties and a regular feature of the Star." (23)
David Low , The Plot Press (1924)
Low had a meeting with two of Britain's leading cartoonists, Bernard Partridge and Leonard Raven-Hill . Low found them the two men "ultra-conservative, even reactionary" but enjoyed talking to them about the use of symbols in cartoons. Partridge and Hill often used the Lion to represent Britain but Low thought this provided the wrong impression of the country: "With his waving mane and his tufted tail he could be made to look very striking, crouching in dignified anger or glaring nobly at nothing... But apart from this purely aesthetic consideration, there seemed no justification for continuing to libel the British people by likening it to this unworthy creature, notoriously a load roarer but a cruel and cowardly beast, only bold when facing something weaker than itself." (24)
The Evening Standard
In 1927 Low was persuaded by Lord Beaverbrook to work at the Evening Standard . Although Beaverbrook was a strong supporter of the Conservative Party , he promised Low that he would have complete freedom to express his own radical political views. Low's biographer, Colin Seymour-Ure , has pointed out: "The two men had sharply differing political attitudes. But each was a showman and a colonial boy made good, with an element of detachment about Britain, and they thrived on mutual flattery. Beaverbrook paid extremely well, and the Evening Standard had a more sophisticated, if less numerous, readership. Above all, cartoonist and proprietor played up to the claim that Low was entirely free to express his own opinions." (25)
Low produced four cartoons a week and these were syndicated to 170 journals worldwide. Time Magazine reported: "Cartoonist Low is a unique combination of a student of contemporary politics and a superb draughtsman. A passionately sincere democrat, he is also a hard worker. He begins the day at 8 o'clock, digesting thoroughly the daily papers. Breakfast is a political meeting, with the cartoonist, his wife, and his two young daughters threshing out the news. After breakfast he walks to his roomy, book-lined studio where with much pacing and squirming and pipe-smoking, he struggles to express a complex idea in a few vivid lines and a brief, usually wry, caption. The final drawing is done rapidly with a fine brush." (26)
Unhappy with the political leadership of the British establishment David Low created his cartoon character, Colonel Blimp in 1934. In his book, Low's Autobiography , he explained that Blimp represented everything he disliked in British politics: "Blimp was no enthusiast for democracy. He was impatient with the common people and their complaints. His remedy to social unrest was less education, so that people could not read about slumps. An extreme isolationist, disliking foreigners (which included Jews, Irish, Scots, Welsh, and people from the Colonies and Dominions); a man of violence, approving war. He had no use for the League of Nations nor for international efforts to prevent wars. In particular he objected to any economic reorganization of world resources involving changes in the status quo." (27)
Low's principal weapon was ridicule, not the arousal of hate or horror. He believed there was "more stupidity than wickedness in the world". He saw himself as heir to James Gillray and Thomas Rowlandson than John Tenniel . It has been claimed that whereas Max Beerbohm dealt in "comic ideas seriously illustrated", Low preferred "serious ideas comically illustrated". (28)
Low's cartoons banned in Nazi Germany
Low was appalled when Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor. On 31st March 1933 he published a cartoon entitled The Aryan Race - Germany, 1933. Low explained the reasons for the cartoon: "President von Hindenburg and Nationalist leader von Papen no doubt hoped to avoid political chaos through a government of National Concentration, and thought they could 'manage' Hitler, even as Chancellor. They acquiesced in his methods, therefore, but they did not bargain for his brushing aside all constitutional hindrances to his own complete executive authority; nor for the intensive campaign carried on by Göring, new controller of Prussia, of suppressions, arrests and executions of Social Democrats, Communists and Jews." (29)
Low responded to the decision by Hitler to the withdrawal of Germany from the Geneva Disarmament Conference in October 1933, by drawing a powerful cartoon, The Difficulty of shaking hands with Gods. " Colin Seymour-Ure has pointed out: "As if in a music-hall turn, Low's figures misunderstand their cues. Goebbels, Göring and Hitler, armed with the lily of innocence, distance themselves from the proffered hand of friendship. Litvinov, Simon and Dolfuss (front) look perplexed." (30)
David Low, The Difficulty of shaking hands with Gods (9th November, 1933)
In November, 1933, Low drew a cartoon of a bonfire outside the League of Nations building, with Hitler saying "It worked at the Reichstag - why not here?" Hitler was furious and Low's cartoons were immediately banned from appearing in Nazi Germany. (31) Mussolini took similar action in Italy. However, the cartoon, which was more attack on the cowardice of the League members, now appeared in newspapers all over the world. (32)
David Low was also added to a Gestapo priority list of persons to be arrested after invasion. In has been argued that "more than anyone, Low defined the image of Hitler which the history books perpetuate: a strutting figure, with toothbrush moustache and diagonal forelock". (33)
David Low and Lord Rothermere
David Low attacked those who supported Oswald Mosley , the leader of the National Union of Fascists . This included Lord Rothermere , the owner of the Daily Mail and Evening News . Low wrote in his autobiography: "A British Fascist Party grew up overnight; and the Daily Mail, then Britain's biggest popular newspaper, approved it. With the zest I added the first Lord Rothermere, its proprietor, to my cast of cartoon characters. He made up well in a black shirt helping to stoke the fires of class hatred. Lord Rothermere was much incensed and complained bitterly. Dog doesn't eat dog. It isn't done, said one of his Fleet Street men, as though he were giving me a moral adage instead of a thieves' wisecrack." (34)
In January 1934, he drew a cartoon showing Rothermere as a nanny giving a Nazi salute and saying "we need men of action such as they have in Italy and Germany who are leading their countries triumphantly out of the slump... blah... blah... blah... blah." The child in the pram is saying "But what have they got in their other hands, nanny?" Hitler and Mussolini are hiding the true records of their periods in government. Hitler's card includes, "Hitler's Germany: Estimated Unemployed: 6,000,000. Fall in trade under Hitler (9 months) £35,000,000. Burden of taxes up several times over. Wages down 20%."
David Low , But what have they got in their other hands, nanny? (26th January 1934)
Lord Beaverbrook , the owner of the Evening Standard , was a close friend and business partner of Lord Rothermere, and refused to allow the original cartoon to be published. At the time, Rothermere controlled forty-nine per cent of the shares. Low was forced to make the nanny unrecgnisable as Rothermere and had to change the name on her dress from the Daily Mail to the Daily Shirt. (35)
Martin Walker , the author of Daily Sketches: Cartoon History of Twentieth Century Britain (1978) argues that Low was one of a couple of cartoonists in Britain who criticised Mosley and his fascist movement: "A fascist rally at Olympia, marked by the brutality of Mosley's stewards towards hecklers in the audience, began to swing public opinion in Low's direction. But in the summer of 1934, Low was almost alone in his opposition in the popular press; the Daily Mail gave Mosley regular and favourable publicity." (36)
David Low was highly critical of the way the British government dealt with the threat of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini . As Anthony Rhodes has pointed out: "His left-wing sympathies turned him violently against the Fascist dictators... When Hitler and Mussolini achieved power, Low quickly realized that to satirize them as tyrants with blood dripping from their fingers, far from embarrassing them, only gratified their vanity. What piqued them, he says, was to be depicted as clowns." (37)
In June, 1934, Hitler decided to purge members of the Nazi Party who were critical of some of his policies. The people murdered included Ernst Röhm , Edmund Heines , Karl Ernst , Hans Erwin von Spreti and Julius Uhl . Others killed were Gregor Strasser , Kurt von Schleicher , Hitler's predecessor as chancellor, Gustav von Kahr , who crushed the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923, Herbert von Bose and Edgar Jung , two men who worked for Franz von Papen , Erich Klausener , the President of the Catholic Action movement and Fritz Gerlich , a journalist who had investigated the death of Hitler's niece, Geli Raubal . (38)
Joseph Goebbels wrote in his diary: "Executions nearly finished. A few more are necessary. That is difficult, but necessary... It is difficult, but is not however to be avoided. There must be peace for ten years. The whole afternoon with the Führer. I can't leave him alone. He suffers greatly, but is hard. The death sentences are received with the greatest seriousness. All in all about 60." (39)
David Low responded to what became known as the Night of the Long Knives by producing a cartoon that deeply angered Hitler. He wrote about the cartoon in his book, Years of Wrath (1949): "Nazi Party members and S.S. men got out of hand, clamouring for jobs in a Nazified industry and in an army under Nazi control; but Hitler had promised the Conservatives and the generals that in return for their support he would leave the economic structure and the Reichswehr alone. On the night of June 30, 1934, several hundred important Nazis, including Röhm, the Brownshirt Chief of Staff, were killed under his orders." (40)
David Low , The Salute with both hands now (3rd July, 1934)
Joseph Goebbels broadcast the Nazi account of the executions on 10th July. He thanked the German press for "standing by the government with commendable self-discipline and fair-mindedness" and accused the foreign press of issuing false reports so as to create confusion. He stated that these newspapers and magazines had been involved in a "campaign of lies" which he compared to the "atrocity-story campaign waged against Germany" during the First World War . (41)
Spanish Civil War
In 1935 Low joined with other radicals, such as Stafford Cripps , Nye Bevan , Ellen Wilkinson , J. B. Priestley , Victor Gollancz , Henry Nevinson and Norman Angell to complain about Britain's foreign policy towards Nazi Germany . Low was especially appalled by what he called the "Government's supine attitude to foreign intervention in Spain" during the Spanish Civil War . (42)
On 5th August 1936, Low published a cartoon entitled Correct Attitudes in Spain. A man marked "Democracy" is being attacked by two men "Army Fascism" and "Fascist Intervention". Standing alongside is Anthony Eden , the British prime minister, and Leon Blum , the French premier. Eden is saying: "Heah, I say, fair play! You shouldn't encourage the agressor, you know. After all, my friend and I aren't trying to help his victim."
David Low, Correct Attitudes in Spain (5th August, 1936)
Although he was a staunch socialist, Low, did not usually join political groups because he thought he could be more effective by remaining and independent critic. However, he did become a member of Friends of the Spanish Republic and the International Association of Writers for the Defence of Culture. He felt so strongly about the situation in Spain that he wrote letters to The Times and made public speeches on the subject. (43)
Appeasement
On 8th July, 1936, Low produced a powerful attack on Anthony Eden and other European leaders failed to respond to Hitler's aggressive foreign policy: "When German troops reoccupied the Rhineland demilitarized zone, Hitler justified the breach of the Versailles and Locarno Treaties by asserting that both were already dead. He had, he said, a peace-plan of his own to take their place - a 25-year Western non-aggression pact. When Eden, to the anxious interest of Van Zeeland (Belgium), Flandin (France), Litvinov (Russia), Titulescu (Rumania) and others, asked for the precise meaning of vague and ambiguous details, Hitler evaded reply." (44)
David Low, "How much will you give me not to kick your pants for,
say, twenty-five years?", Evening Standard (12th March, 1936)
This was followed by another cartoon that attacked the way the politicians dealt with Hitler's decision to reoccupy the Rhineland . "Both the rearming of Germany and the reoccupation of the Rhineland caught Western statesmanship off balance between the French policy of resistance to Germany and persuasion to Italy and the British policy of resistance to Italy and persuasion to Germany. The German General Staff had been unable to make war, but Hitler gambled on there being no resistance from the French without British support. When he was proved right, and leaders of both democracies still refused to accept the risk, his generals were impressed by his intuition". (45)
In September, 1937, Percy Cudlipp , the editor of Evening Standard , started refusing to publish Low's cartoons attacking Hitler: "The state of Europe is extremely tense at the present time. That being so, I don't want to publish anything in the Evening Standard which would add to the tension, or inflame tempers any more than they are already inflamed. There are people whose tempers are inflamed more by a cartoon than by any letterpress. So will you please, when you are planning your cartoons, bear in mind my anxiety on this score." (46)
David Low, Evening Standard (8th July, 1936)
Low's cartoons criticizing Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini resulted in his work being banned in Germany and Italy . After the war it was revealed that in 1937 the German government asked the British government to have "discussions with the notorious Low" in an effort to "bring influence to bear on him" to stop his cartoons attacking appeasement . Lord Halifax, the foreign secretary, went to see Low: "When Lord Halifax visited Germany officially in 1937, he was told that the Führer was deeply offended by Low's cartoons of him, and that the paper in which they appeared, the Evening Standard, was banned in Germany.... On Halifax's return to London, he summoned Low and told him that his cartoons were impairing the prime minister's policy of appeasement." (47)
Lord Beaverbrook made it clear to David Low that he believed: "European problems, especially eastern European, were nothing to with Britain." According to the authors of Beaverbrook: A Life (1992) Low "agreed to moderate his contemptuous depictions of Hitler and Mussolini, and invented an only slightly less offensive composite, named Muzzler; but he afterwards regretted that he had made any concessions at all." (48)
David Low, Evening Standard (18th February, 1938)
David Low was attacked by the conservative press as a "war-monger" because of his hostility towards Neville Chamberlain . He came under considerable pressure from his friends. Margot Asquith , the wife of the former Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith , wrote to Low about his cartoons. "I thought your cartoon on Wednesday (20th April, 1938) in the Evening Standard both cruel and mischievous. I know the P.M. - do you? He is a man of iron courage, calm and resolution. Neville is doing the only right, wise, thing, unless you want war. Hate, threats - which you can't carry out - and suspicion do not advance peace, and if the P.M. fails we can always go back to the policy of the war-mongers - Winston Churchill and Co. I think Neville has saved the world by his courage - and so do much cleverer people than I." (49)
However, others welcomed his criticisms of Adolf Hitler . This included Sigmund Freud who wrote: "A Jewish refugee from Vienna, a very old man personally unknown to you, cannot resist the impulse to tell you how much he admires your glorious art and your inexorable, unfailing criticism." David Low thought that the British had problems with cartoons as propaganda. "I had been told often enough that the British never had taken propaganda seriously, because they believed in themselves so much as to regard the rightness of their causes to be self-evident. Certainly, although they were fighting what was ostensibly a war of ideas, in striking contrast to the Nazis, the Russians, the French and the Americans they placed little value upon the presentation of their case to the enemy in cartoons." (50)
David Low, Evening Standard (10th October, 1938)
David Low visited the United States in order to persuade American cartoonists to join his campaign against Hitler. He advised them to "scrap this Uncle Sam business". He went on to argue: "Your Uncle Sam is no more representative of the American people than my boot or my foot... "When you hold a man up as a public menace you lend him dignity. You don't destroy him at all.... I saw an American cartoon, for instance, which was opposed to Mussolini and Hitler. The cartoonist drew them as huge, huge figures.... Now Mussolini is a short man, and his large jaw is largely due to a fold of fat that is carefully touched out in photographs. Hitler is not an impressive figure. He has a turned up nose, good eyes, an absurd little mouth and a slightly receding chin. All the opportunities in these two men for very destructive caricature." (51)
Zbyněk Zeman , the author of Heckling Hitler (1987) believes Low "belonged to the small group of artists who do not only illustrated but also influenced public events." According to Zeman: "Low was doubly fortunate. He could resist manipulation by politicians, and he aimed his darts at Hitler from a politically powerful base. He was possessed with the quality of courage, even in other, more local contexts... The combination of Low's talent and inventiveness and the accidental fact that he worked for a free British press raised him high above the ranks of ordinary newspaper." (52)
Zeman is not really correct about David Low's freedom and was constantly in conflict with his employer, Lord Beaverbrook . According to Low's biographer: "Low enjoyed a reputation for outspoken independence, Beaverbrook for proprietorial tolerance. The arrangement was set out in a letter of agreement... Low could not be required to draw to order: but nor was Beaverbrook required to publish everything he drew. Over the years, at least forty cartoons were omitted and others were modified." Nor was Low as influential as he claimed over the subject of appeasement : "The great international issue that gives the letter of agreement its interest was the appeasement of the fascist dictators in the 1930s. Beaverbrook - with probably the majority of readers - was in favour, Low against. (53)
Nazi-Soviet Pact
David Low believed that the best way to stop Hitler invading European countries was to form a military alliance with the Soviet Union. Low reported: "Sensing the weaknesses of his opponents, Hitler raised his bluff from day to day with threats and menaces, and in the end he made his own terms. Hitler, Mussolini (whom Chamberlain had called in as peacemaker), Daladier and Chamberlain met in Munich to sign over Sudetenland to Nazi Germany. Stalin had been ignored and the prospects of Britain and France being drawn into a 4-Power anti-Soviet pact with the two dictators seemed accordingly increased." (54)
David Low, What, no chair for me? (30th September, 1938)
Stalin's own interpretation of Britain's rejection of his plan for an anti-fascist alliance, was that they were involved in a plot with Germany against the Soviet Union . This belief was reinforced when Neville Chamberlain met with Adolf Hitler at Munich in September, 1938, and gave into his demands for the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia . Stalin now believed that the main objective of British foreign policy was to encourage Germany to head east rather than west.
Stalin tested Chamberlain out when on 17th April, 1939, he proposed an alliance between Britain, France and the Soviet Union, where the three powers would jointly guarantee all the countries between the Baltic and the Black Sea against aggression. (55) Neville Chamberlain , the British prime minister, did not like the idea. He wrote to a friend: "I must confess to the most profound distrust of Russia. I have no belief whatever in her ability to maintain an effective offensive, even if she wanted to. And I distrust her motives, which seem to me to have little connection with our ideas of liberty, and to be concerned only with getting everyone else by the ears." (56)
David Low agreed with Winston Churchill that Stalin's proposal made sense. "Undoubtedly, the proposals put forward by the Russian Government contemplate a triple alliance against aggression between England, France and Russia, which alliance may extend its benefits to other countries of and when those benefits are desired. The alliance is solely for the purpose of resisting further acts of aggression and of protecting the victims of aggression."
Churchill argued in the House of Commons . "There is no means of maintaining an eastern front against Nazi aggression without the active aid of Russia. Russian interests are deeply concerned in preventing Herr Hitler's designs on eastern Europe. It should still be possible to range all the States and peoples from the Baltic to the Black sea in one solid front against a new outrage of invasion. Such a front, if established in good heart, and with resolute and efficient military arrangements, combined with the strength of the Western Powers, may yet confront Hitler, Göring, Himmler, Ribbentrop, Goebbels and co. with forces the German people would be reluctant to challenge." (57)
On 19th May, 1939, Chamberlain made it clear that he was unwilling to form an alliance with the Soviet Union. Stalin now realized that war with Germany was inevitable. However, to have any chance of victory he needed time to build up his armed forces. The only way he could obtain time was to do a deal with Hitler. Stalin was convinced that Hitler would not be foolish enough to fight a war on two fronts. If he could persuade Hitler to sign a peace treaty with the Soviet Union, Germany was likely to invade Western Europe instead.
Stalin now dismissed Maxim Litvinov , his Jewish Commissar for Foreign Affairs. Litvinov had been closely associated with the Soviet Union's policy of an anti-fascist alliance. Meetings soon took place between Vyacheslav Molotov , Litvinov's replacement and Joachim von Ribbentrop , the German foreign minister. On 28th August, 1939, the Nazi-Soviet Pact was signed in Moscow . Under the terms of the agreement, both countries promised to remain neutral if either country became involved in a war. (58)
Neville Chamberlain now appealed to President Franklin D. Roosevelt for help. Joseph P. Kennedy , the United States ambassador to Britain, informed the State Department that the British government wanted the Roosevelt administration to "put pressure on the Poles" to make concessions to Hitler. (59) Roosevelt rejected the idea. Jay Pierrepont Moffat , chief of the State Department's division of European affairs, wrote: "As we saw it here, it merely meant that the British wanted us to assume the responsibility of a new Munich and to do their dirty work for them." (60)
David Low , Rendezvous (20th September, 1939)
On 31st August, 1939, Hitler gave the order to attack Poland . The following day German troops crossed the Polish frontier. Instead of declaring war on Germany, Neville Chamberlain decided that if Germany would suspend hostilities and withdraw her troops, a solution without war would still be possible. Lord Halifax was instructed to carry out these negotiations. On 2nd September, Chamberlain announced in the House of Commons that he was offering Hitler a conference to discuss the subject of Poland if the "Germans agreed to withdraw their forces (which was not the same as actually withdrawing them), the British government would forget everything that had happened, and diplomacy could start again." (61)
David Low responded to the invasion of Poland with one of his most important cartoons. Entitled, Rendezvous, the drawing shows "the two unlikely allies congratulate each other over the body of Poland". (62) Low wrote: "Eight days after the signing of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, while the world was still thunderstruck at the accord of two regimes which had been so inimical to each other, the German Blitzkrieg tore through Poland from the West to meet Russian troops oncoming from the East. The pact had arranged for a partition of Poland. Officially, past recriminations between the new associates were forgotten in present admiration of mutual interests". (63)
The Second World War
Once the Second World War began Low was willing to produce cartoons to inspire the British people at a time when many feared a German victory. He was pleased when Winston Churchill became prime minister and responded with the cartoon, All Behind You, Winston. The cartoon showed members of his coalition government marching behind Churchill. This included Clement Attlee , Ernest Bevin , Herbert Morrison , Leo Amery , Neville Chamberlain , Arthur Greenwood , Lord Halifax , Duff Cooper and Anthony Eden .
David Low , All Behind You, Winston (20th September, 1939)
David Low later wrote about the background to this cartoon: "In Britain, criticism of the Government's short-comings reached a climax. Winston Churchill became Prime Minister and formed a National Government including Labour and Liberal leaders. He promised nothing but 'blood, sweat and tears'. The people were inspired with new energy and confidence." (64)
Colin Seymour-Ure , the author of David Low (1985) points out that during the Blitz he worked from home. "He could not get brushes and improvised with his own hair. He got his cartoon ready earlier in the day or even, if he could, several days ahead. Knowing he was on the Gestapo black-list, he made arrangements for the safety of his family if there was an invasion, and he shaved off the beard which by now made him recognisable in the street." (65)
David Low , Message from Flanders (28th May, 1940)
Low always took the side of the soldiers. In May, 1940, he produced a cartoon entitled, Message from Flanders, about the retreat from Dunkirk . It shows a British soldier writing on a broken down tank: "You can't stop tanks with brave hearts alone - send us more machines". In his book, Years of Wrath (1949), Low commented: "During the fiercely fought retreat that ended in the evacuation of the British from Dunkirk it was evident that against the new Nazi tank-plane technique of war the Allies were heavily handicapped by lack of sufficient tanks and planes." (66)
David Low , Very Well, Alone (18th June, 1940)
Another popular cartoon was Very Well, Alone (18th June, 1940). As his biographer, Colin Seymour-Ure , points out, drawings like this "were deeply affecting at the time and still illustrate the quintessence of the Dunkirk spirit". Foreign writers claimed Low was guilty of producing propaganda. Some of of his wartime work was inevitably propagandistic, but he refused to get involved with official propaganda. (67)
Low admitted that sometimes his work was propagandistic but this was necessary during the war: "I had been told often enough that the British never had taken propaganda seriously, because they believed in themselves so much as to regard the rightness of their causes to be self-evident. Certainly, although they were fighting what was ostensibly a war of ideas, in striking contrast to the Nazis, the Russians, the French and the Americans they placed little value upon the presentation of their case to the enemy in cartoons." (68)
On 2nd May 1940, Low produced one of his most successful compositions, The Harmony Boys. It shows Adolf Hitler conducting a choir that includes Joseph Stalin , Francisco Franco and Benito Mussolini . Hitler is coordinating "official" statements from Italy, Spain and the USSR, none of whom was yet in the war. The Spanish Government made a complaint to the Foreign Office about the cartoon. (69)
David Low, The Harmony Boys (2nd May, 1940)
David Low published several drawings on the plight of the Soviet Union. He called on the British government to provide more military help to the latest recruit in the fight against Nazi Germany. In August, 1942, Low called for an opening of a second front in Europe. (70) Boris Efimov , the leading cartoonist in the Soviet Union thanked Low for his efforts: "I wish to tell you, Mr. Low, with interest I and other Soviet artists have been and are now following your magnificent work, which has won for you the well-deserved fame of the best cartoonist in the world. The future of history hangs in the balance. On one hand light, progress, democracy, life; on the other darkness, corruption, barbarism, death, that is Hitlerism. I am happy, dear Mr. Low, that in this decisive hour I am with you - a great artist whose creative work I regard with admiration and from whose works I learn." (71)
David Low was one of the first cartoonists to publicize details of German extermination camps . On 14th December, 1942, he published the cartoon, I've Settled the Fate of Jews - and of Germans. "Details of the Nazi methods of mass extermination of Jews in Poland by shooting, poison gas and electrocution revealed appalling depths of cold brutality. All told, approximately six million Jews were killed in the Nazi concentration camps." (72)
David Low, I've Settled the Fate of Jews - and of Germans (14th December, 1942)
During the Second World War there was a strong feeling that the British people should be rewarded for their sacrifice and resolution. To encourage the British people to continue their fight against Nazi Germany, the government promised reforms that would create a more equal society. Low wrote: The powerful unity born of early reverses in the war had inspired a widely expressed wish for social change to give every Britain security from unemployment." (73)
The British government asked Sir William Beveridge to write a report on the best ways of helping people on low incomes. In December 1942 Beveridge published his report. He proposed that all people of working age should pay a weekly contribution. In return, benefits would be paid to people who were sick, unemployed, retired or widowed. Beveridge argued that this system would provide a minimum standard of living "below which no one should be allowed to fall". (74)
Winston Churchill refused to give his full backing to the report. When it was discussed in the House of Commons several Conservative Party MPs attempted to have the proposals amended: "The House of Commons has said its say. It has not precisely rejected the Beveridge Report - indeed, so far as words go, it gave it a kind of welcome. It has not even quite killed the Report. It has done something different. It has filleted it. It has taken out the backbone and the bony structure. It has added up the portions that are left - and assured us that they amount to 70%. Sixteen portions out of twenty-three by the Herbert Morrison reckoning - and the only proviso attached is that none of these portions is quite definitely and finally guaranteed. The opponents of the Report - from Sir John Anderson all the way down to Sir Herbert Williams - spoke as though the basis of the Report were an attempt to cadge money off the rich on behalf of the not entirely deserving poor." (75)
David Low published a cartoon on 7th October, 1943, entitled The Good Old Days, in support of the Beveridge Report : "As peril receded, old habits of thought reasserted themselves and voices were heard demanding the sacking of planners, the removal of controls and return to the old ways of free enterprise - with its corollaries, a 'healthy' margin of unemployment and the incentive of want." (76)
David Low , The Good Old Days (7th October, 1943)
David Low got the Second Front with the D-Day landings in June 1944. Joseph Stalin responded to the news by claiming that "the history of wars does not know of any such undertaking, so broad in conception, so grandiose in its scale and so materly in its execution". Low argued that Operation Overlord had "showed the Allies in a new light to the Russian people, who had never appreciated the difficulties of making a full-scale invasion from the sea". (77)
As the war neared its end, Low, a strong supporter of the Labour Party, became more critical of Winston Churchill and in his cartoons began to highlight the divisions in the coalition government: "Party divisions reawakened in Britain's domestic policies. Churchill wanted to continue his non-party Government into peacetime, but Labour supporters held that his Tory friends had shown no disposition to face the drastic measures necessary to deal justly with domestic reconstruction problems." (78)
Nuremberg War Trials
In public Winston Churchill accepted plans for social reform drawn up by William Beveridge in 1944. However, he was unable to convince the electorate that he was as committed to these measures as much as Clement Attlee and the Labour Party . In May 1945, Churchill made a radio broadcast where he attacked the Labour Party: "I must tell you that a socialist policy is abhorrent to British ideas on freedom. There is to be one State, to which all are to be obedient in every act of their lives. This State, once in power, will prescribe for everyone: where they are to work, what they are to work at, where they may go and what they may say, what views they are to hold, where their wives are to queue up for the State ration, and what education their children are to receive. A socialist state could not afford to suffer opposition - no socialist system can be established without a political police. They (the Labour government) would have to fall back on some form of Gestapo." (79)
Clement Attlee's response the following day caused Churchill serious damage: "The Prime Minister made much play last night with the rights of the individual and the dangers of people being ordered about by officials. I entirely agree that people should have the greatest freedom compatible with the freedom of others. There was a time when employers were free to work little children for sixteen hours a day. I remember when employers were free to employ sweated women workers on finishing trousers at a penny halfpenny a pair. There was a time when people were free to neglect sanitation so that thousands died of preventable diseases. For years every attempt to remedy these crying evils was blocked by the same plea of freedom for the individual. It was in fact freedom for the rich and slavery for the poor. Make no mistake, it has only been through the power of the State, given to it by Parliament, that the general public has been protected against the greed of ruthless profit-makers and property owners. The Conservative Party remains as always a class Party. In twenty-three years in the House of Commons, I cannot recall more than half a dozen from the ranks of the wage earners. It represents today, as in the past, the forces of property and privilege. The Labour Party is, in fact, the one Party which most nearly reflects in its representation and composition all the main streams which flow into the great river of our national life." (80)
David Low was delighted when Attlee had a convincing victory: 393 Labour MPs against 213 Conservatives and their allies. (81) As Timothy Benson has pointed out: "The colourful Churchill, with his egocentric personality and his capacity for political misjudgement, offered a tempting target for Low... Yet while Low may not have cared for Churchill’s demeanour or politics, he was prepared to champion his cause when justified. He was totally in sympathy with Churchill’s warnings over Hitler’s intentions in the late 1930s. When war eventually broke out, Low’s cartoons portrayed Churchill as the only man capable of offering Britain the stoic leadership that it needed... Throughout the war Low upheld Churchill's role as war leader without once denigrating or ridiculing him. (82)
Low, had always admired Winston Churchill as a war leader and he produced a cartoon that showed Churchill sitting on a monument entitled "The Leader of Humanity". He says to a upset looking Churchill with the label, the Tory Party: "Cheer up! They will forget you but they will remember me always." (83)
Franz von Papen , Walther Funk and Hjalmar Schacht (14th December, 1945)
Low wrote: "Jodl wears a poker face and moves rarely.... The most pitiful figure in the company is Funk. With the earphones clamped like horns to the fat, sick face sagging into the small dumpy body, he is the perfect model for a gargoyle. In colour he is light green. The next most frightened, I should say, is Saukel. He Is the cartoonist's fat-necked, square-headed German, but on a small scale. His uneasiness is painful to see. To make up for him, at his elbow is Baldur von Schirach, the ex-pin-up boy of the Hitler Youth, still good-looking with his scornful, pitiless eye... One for the 'most perturbed person' prize is Schacht, who is worried to pieces, too, but in a more refined way... von Papen looks more than ever like the fox shifting his tiny close-set eyes about the room." (86)
and Karl Doenitz (14th December, 1945)
Low wrote down his thoughts about Joachim von Ribbentrop , Julius Streicher , Hans Frank and Karl Doenitz : "Ribbentrop, changed surprisingly into a meek person like a family solicitor, with disordered hair, pursed lips and large spectacles, fussing shakily with a sheaf of papers.... Streicher, the obscene Jew-baiter-no loathsome ape, but another little man with another nervous twitch. He has a trick of throwing his head right back and contemplating the ceiling with an air of preoccupation with Higher Things. In prison Streicher has grown a fluff of hair over his horrible baldness and this catching the light gives him a rind of halo.... Opinions might differ about the award for `nastiest person present', but I should choose unhesitatingly Frank, the butcher of Warsaw. He wears a fixed sneer and mutters... In a corner Doenitz sits impassive like a little acid drop. (87)
David Low's drawings of Hermann Göring and Rudolf Hess (14th December, 1945)
Low found Göring a fascinating subject: "Göring turns out to be about 5 feet 8 inches, still fat despite weight lost in prison; jolly, you would say, until you noticed the cruel cut of his mouth; vital, with periods of rumination when the countenance is sicklied over with desperate worry. Göring stands out by a mile as the boss in this company. He is a restless prisoner, leaning this way and that, flapping his pudgy little hands about, patting his hair, stroking his mouth, massaging his cheeks, resting his chin sideways on the ledge of the dock. Goring is not permitted to make speeches, but he manages to get a good deal of expression across with facial action. Nods, shakes and eye play.... Hess, down to skin and bone, going bald, wild eyes set in deep-sunken cavities, he has a nervous twitch and jerky movements. If, as he now insists, he is not mad, he looks it." (88)
Labour Government 1945-1951
Low was a strong supporter of Clement Attlee and his government. (89) He felt especially strongly about the introduction of the National Health Service (NHS) and gave his full support to Aneurin Bevan , the Minister of Health. (90) The right-wing national press was opposed to the idea of the NHS. The Daily Sketch reported: "The State medical service is part of the Socialist plot to convert Great Britain into a National Socialist economy. The doctors' stand is the first effective revolt of the professional classes against Socialist tyranny. There is nothing that Bevan or any other Socialist can do about it in the shape of Hitlerian coercion." (91)
David Widgery , the author of The National Health: A Radical Perspective (1988) admitted that "the Act was bold in outline; a National Health Service entirely free at the time of use, financed out of general taxation and able to organise preventive medicine, research and paramedical aids on a national basis... Bevan himself was apparently well prepared to deal with conservative pressures, and he was quite prepared for the out-break of near-hysteria by doctors, skilfully orchestrated by Charles Hill of the BMA, who had endeared himself to the listening public during the war as the smooth-spoken, concerned Radio Doctor." (92)
Between 1946 and its introduction in 1948, the British Medical Association (BMA), led by Charles Hill , mounted a vigorous campaign against this proposed legislation. In one survey of doctors carried out in 1948, the BMA claimed that only 4,734 doctors out of the 45,148 polled, were in favour of a National Health Service. One doctor was cheered at a BMA meeting for saying that the proposed NHS bill was "strongly suggestive" of what had been going in Nazi Germany . (93) In January, 1948, Low published a cartoon attacking the BMA entitled, Operation Sabotage.
David Low, Operation Sabotage (15th January, 1948)
Winston Churchill led the attack on Bevan. In one debate in the House of Commons he argued that unless Bevan "changes his policy and methods and moves without the slightest delay, he will be as great a curse to his country in time of peace as he was a squalid nuisance in time of war." The Conservative Party voted against the measure. The Tory amendment stated that it "declines to give a Third Reading to a Bill which discourages voluntary effort and association; mutilates the structure of local government; dangerously increases ministerial power and patronage; appropriates trust funds and benefactions in contempt of the wishes of donors and subscribers; and undermines the freedom and independence of the medical profession to the detriment of the nation." However, on 2th July, 1946, the Third Reading was carried by 261 votes to 113. Michael Foot commented that the Conservatives had voted against the "most exciting and popular of the Government's measures a bare four months before it was to be introduced". (94)
By July 1948, Aneurin Bevan had guided the National Health Service Act safely through Parliament. The Government resolution was carried by 337 votes to 178. Niall Dickson has pointed out: "The UK's National Health Service (NHS) came into operation at midnight on the fourth of July 1948. It was the first time anywhere in the world that completely free healthcare was made available on the basis of citizenship rather than the payment of fees or insurance premiums... Life in Britain in the 30s and 40s was tough. Every year, thousands died of infectious diseases like pneumonia, meningitis, tuberculosis, diphtheria, and polio. Infant mortality - deaths of children before their first birthday - was around one in 20, and there was little the piecemeal healthcare system of the day could do to improve matters. Against such a background, it is difficult to overstate the impact of the introduction of the National Health Service (NHS). Although medical science was still at a basic stage, the NHS for the first time provided decent healthcare for all - and, at a stroke, transformed the lives of millions." (95)
David Low , Evening Standard (July, 1948)
The Manchester Guardian commented on the passing of the National Health Service Act: "These two reforms have sometimes been greeted as a large installment of Socialism in this country. They are not strictly that, for many besides Socialists have contributed something to them. What they mark is rather an advance of the equalitarianism which has been the mainspring, though not the exclusive possession, of the British Labour movement. They are designed to offset as far as they can the inequalities that arise from the chances of life, to ensure that a "bad start" or a stroke of bad luck, illness or accident or loss of work, does not carry the heavy, often crippling, economic penalty it has carried in the past. It is important to realise the fundamental change in attitude which this implies, and its consequences for our social evolution." (96)
David Low tended to support the left-wing of the Labour Party . He was especially close to Harold Laski : "I had a warm spot for Harold. Who, among those who knew him, hadn't? He had no ambitions in active policies. He was a teacher and took pride in it." Low, like Laski, began to get disillusioned by Attlee's cautious leadership. (97) On 12th August 1947, Low produced a cartoon entitled, Giving a Lead, which shows Attlee at the head of a march of Labour Party members, who he appears to be holding them back.
David Low, Giving a Lead (12th August, 1947)
Low's support of the Labour government caused him problems with Lord Beaverbrook and after complaining about censorship he left the Evening Standard in 1949. The following year he joined the Daily Herald , a mass circulation working-class paper, that supported left-wing causes. The contract was for Low to draw three cartoons a week for £10,000 a year. (98)
Low was allowed to criticise McCarthyism in the United States. One cartoon showed him comparing the behaviour of Joseph McCarthy to the way that Joseph Stalin behaved. However, as Martin Walker has pointed out: "Men like Low, and many in the Labour Party , were deeply uncertain of the wisdom of taking America's part in the Cold War. But as Low pointed out, if a choice had to be made, then at least the US conducted its witch hunts in public." (99)
David Low's cartoons criticizing Winston Churchill caused a great deal of controversy. He was often portrayed as "Micawber" who was not fully committed to the the development of the Welfare State. On 27th January 1950 Low published a cartoon showing Rab Butler , the leader of the liberal wing of the party, being squashed by a backward-looking Churchill who faces a somnolent Lord Woolton , chairman of the Conservative Party . The road sign gives two possiblities, "Tax Cuts" or "Welfare State".
David Low, Daily Herald (27th January, 1950)
In June 1952 David Low moved to the The Manchester Guardian where he became the newspaper's first staff cartoonist (it had previously used syndicated cartoons). Mark Bryant has argued that "Low has been perhaps the most influential cartoonist and caricaturist of the twentieth century - he produced over 14,000 drawings in a career spanning 50 years and was syndicated worldwide to more than 200 newspapers and magazines." Low, who had refused a knighthood during the war in order to retain his independence, finally accepted the honour in 1962.
David Low died on 19th September 1963.
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posted by Digant | 9:29 AM | 0 comments
Bruce Bairnsfather as Political Caricaturist by Tonie & Valmai Holt
Bruce Bairnsfather is known for creating the character Old Bill and is best remembered for drawing the most famous cartoon of the First World War, "If you know of a better ole go to it". Bairnsfather was also a skilled caricaturist and political commentator. The popularity of his anti-hero came to the notice of the Establishment (who initially thoroughly disapproved of the old codger s degraded type of face& the very type which the Army is anxious to suppress ) and gave the Warwickshire Regiment Captain a unique title: Officer Cartoonist . His Fragments from France cartoons depicted life in the trenches as it really was dirty, wet, dangerous and uncomfortable but being met with stoical humour. These cartoons were published in the Bystander and had an astronomical effect on the magazine s circulation. The War Office Intelligence Department was forced to recognise Bairnsfather s potential for morale raising and agreed to a request from the French for him to do as much to raise the Poilu s spirits as he had lifted Tommy s. Then the Italians wanted him to heighten their country s awareness of their struggle against the Austrians along the Isonzo and the American Propaganda Department invited him to their sector in Alsace-Lorraine.
In February 1998, the Public Records Office at Kew released hitherto secret First World War files that contained one on Bairnsfather. At that time we were researching for the new edition of his biography and were intrigued to learn that there was far more to the Officer Cartoonist appointment than we had originally realised. It proved that the Earl of Onslow recruited Bairnsfather into the Secret Service in August 1916. Bairnsfather was then at the peak of his popularity and receiving hundreds of fan letters a week which he duly answered. The plot was that he would instil in his replies a propaganda sentence or subject for the day or the week . There were hopes that it may develop into a big concern . Sadly no further proof exists of the outcome of the scheme.
Bairnsfather s next probable foray into propaganda on behalf of the Government was his post-war play Old Bill MP. It was 1921 and there was much social unrest in the aftermath of the War. Bairnsfather put Old Bill and his cronies in a coalmine, from where he progressed through industrial strife s to Westminster. We were fortunate to find a member of the original cast, Clinton Davies during our research. He was convinced that the Secret Service (in the shape of Admiral Blinker Hall who had been Head of Naval Intelligence during the War and who was part of the syndicate who backed the venture) was behind the production, which had a strong propaganda message. Sadly the extensive production with a large cast ran out of money the following year and its message was short-lived.
As well as writing plays, and sometimes starring in them, doing variety and lecture tours and writing books, Bairnsfather was in much demand for writing articles and drawing cartoons for newspapers and magazines. He wrote a major article for the Daily Herald accompanied by a cartoon of Old Bill in an ole in before the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing, when it was unveiled by the Prince of Wales in 1932. The article strongly implied that Old Bill (by which he meant Captain Bairnsfather) felt that the true memorials were the thousands of war wounded who were still languishing in hospitals all around the country. Another typical commission was to comment on the 1934 Labour Party conference at Hastings.
Although still criticised by art critics as a poor draughtsman , Bairnsfather had an undoubted talent for catching a political likeness. He was sent by the Daily Express to Germany and Russia to record his views on Hitler, the rise of National Socialism, and the Stalin regime. Bairnsfather was in great demand again when Britain declared war against Germany in September 1939, He produced propaganda posters, notably Walls Have Ears he produced two books entitled Old Bill Stands By and Old Bill Does It Again., Then having been spurned by his own country, Bairnsfather, who General Hamilton called The Man Who Won The War , was appointed Official War Artist to the United States Forces in America . For them he wrote two books, Jeeps and Jests and No Kiddin , and in all four publications his eye for a political caricature emerged strongly, such as his images of Churchill and Monty.
Happily this much under-valued cartoonist was recognised in the prestigious exhibition A Century of Britain s Cartoonists , which was opened at the V & A in November 1999, where he took his rightful place alongside the greats such as Giles, Illingworth and Strube et al.
Tonie & Valmai Holt are authors of In search of a Better Ole: A Biography of Captain Bruce Bairnsfather including a Listing of his Works and Collectables.
posted by Digant | 9:03 AM | 0 comments
'Drawing to the end of an era' by Lawrence Pollard
The political cartoon has long held a vital place in newspapers around the world, often a means of ridicule or poking fun in circumstances where mere words might fall foul of the law or a repressive regime.
But the age of spin, Draconian press laws and the pressures of self-censorship are combining to make the cartoonist s job more difficult and forcing subtle changes in a craft that its practitioners see as vital to freedom of _expression.
"I think there s no doubt that syndication and the downturn of the local newspaper industry in the US is damaging editorial cartooning" says Kevin "KAL" Kallaugher, the cartoonist for The Baltimore Sun and the Economist in London. "In an age where politicians present themselves more and more via their image, who will be left to de-spin, to unpick that if not the cartoonist who deals in image?"
Kallaugher is a veteran of the traditional single frame political cartoon. He sees that form slowly dying, but has an IT vision of the future. "Kids today don t grow up with comics and cartoons as we use to. They have computer games and their technology the cartoon of the future will be animated in a virtual world, maybe 15 seconds long, and sent to your mobile phone or laptop.. I think there s a bright future for visual satire."
His concerns are echoed by Ravi Shankar, deputy editor of India Today and a campaigning cartoonist. "Cartooning has become an irrelevance like most political commentary . India s going through a consumer revolution and people don t care about politics. If a politician s a thief, who cares. There's no outrage how s a cartoonist to get oxygen?"
However, just as economic pressures are damaging those countries with cartooning traditions, the form is assuming a vital reformist importance in other societies. Iran s cartoonists have long been admired, but have been working in difficult circumstances. "We are surrounded by red lines the problem is you don t they are there until you tread on them," says Nikahang Kowsar, who s been embroiled in the political struggles in Tehran. Since he was last let out of prison his mission has been to establish the cartoon as a permitted part of the political ecology. "I want to show the political authorities that we are not their rivals ; that I m a journalist not a politician. We have to speak out loud what other people won t say."
This is the role so contested by the powerful that they ll imprison, harass and occasionally sponsor the killing of cartoonists. They fear the magic of cartoonists, where the tables are turned. One of the most effective ways is caricature Jonathan "Zapiro" Shapiro has worked in South Africa for many years. "When the police arrested me they asked why do you draw us police as pigs? I said because I like to draw what I see . They put me into solitary."
Dr Bro Russell of the cartoonists Rights Network, recalls the case of a Rumanian cartoonist who drew his local mayor as a pig. The cartoonist was arrested and taken to jail.
As well as political pressures, there s also the censorship that raises the issue of taste Ted Rall, in New York, outraged American sensibilities with his strip Terror Widows, which attacked some relatives of victims of September 11 tragedy. It provoked calls for new censorship laws to suppress any "assault on the decent national sensibilities crucial to the war effort", and was removed from The New York Times and The Washington Post websites. "I never apologised because I did nothing wrong," Rall says. "My cartoon strip attacked what I saw as some lousy people using the events to promote their religious and political agendas. I got a load of support from other victims relatives."
Rall went to Afghanistan last year to produce a cartoon strip on the war and the country, a growing development in political cartooning.
Maltese-American Joe Sacco calls himself a comics journalist. He produces comic books on the Middle East and the conflict in Bosnia, which look like Spiderman and read like dispatches from the edge. He spent four months in Gorazde, and took more than three years to write and draw the book. "I use comic book art and tell journalistic stories. A photojournalist aspires to tell a story with a singe image, I use repeated images to land you in a place , take you down an alleyway and into someone s head." And it works.
posted by Digant | 9:02 AM | 1 comments
'A Cartoonist's response to the events of 11th September 2001' by Martin Rowson
On Thanksgiving Day last November over 100 members of the American National Cartoonists’ Association dropped their usual storylines to stage a collective act of tribute to the victims of the 11th September terrorist attacks. While the continuing national trauma in America is understandable, most of this stuff was pretty mawkish, perhaps the worst being the eternal GI Beetle Bailey riding an American eagle past a cloud labelled "Peace".
Such levels of solidarity and, indeed, self-denial are unlikely to happen among British cartoonists in any circumstances, even after something as horrifying as the attack on the World Trade Centre. True, in the immediate aftermath most cartoonists exercised some levels of self-censorship: personally, I was initially too numb to do anything other than the kind of "why oh why" cartoons I normally deplore. At least I got them published, unlike cartoonists Tom Halliday and Martyn Turner, who both had cartoons rejected by The Scotsman, being told to draw something less critical of America. Financial Times pocket cartoonist Jeremy Banks had it worse, being instructed to leave the whole subject alone and to concentrate on other, unrelated news stories (of which there weren’t any).
Steve Bell didn’t feel so constrained in The Guardian, which ran a cartoon on 13th September of Bush saying "We’re gonna bomb... abroad!" The following Monday I said on Radio 4's Front Row that in his place I wouldn’t have drawn a cartoon like that so soon after the event, when cheap gags seemed wholly inappropriate. The next day Steve and I had a full and frank exchange of views in which he called me a "pompous c**t" and berated me for drawing a weeping Statue of Liberty for The Mirror, while I called him an insensitive w****r. Interestingly enough, Times cartoonist Peter Brookes upbraided me for a cartoon of mine in that day’s Guardian showing a bruised and battered Uncle Sam swallowing Fast Acting Pain Relief Missiles, ignoring the Middle East tumour on the back of his neck, for its callous insensitivity.
The destruction of the World Trade Centre was an act of such unbelievable horror that, in a way, it almost has to be taken out of context and left, by cartoonists wielding their bluntest of blunt instruments, untouchably alone. But the political consequences of that instigating atrocity are fair game. After all, isn’t the freedom to attack our leaders as hypocritical, sanctimonious megalomaniacs one of the freedoms we’re supposedly fighting this supposed war for? As a profession, unlike our American colleagues, British cartoonists are more detached and have reacted to the War Against Terrorism, after having recovered from the specific events of 11th September, in the same way we react to everything, which is pretty much no holds barred and as much as our editors will let us get away with (and there’s nothing new there). And among cartoonists themselves life carries on as normal. As I heard the Standard’s Patrick Blower say gleefully to Steve Bell in the pub a couple of weeks ago:
"Not having a very good war, are you, Steve?"
posted by Digant | 9:02 AM | 0 comments
'Dr. Seuss Went to War' by Dr Richard H. Minear
In the United States Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel, 1904-1991), the best selling American author of all time, is a household name. Recite the first half of a Seussian line today, and someone nearby will supply the rest. Many of his books have been turned into videos (animations he himself worked on). How the Grinch Stole Christmas became the disastrous Hollywood production, The Grinch, starring Jim Carrey; a Broadway musical, Seussical, also died of asphyxiation. The whimsy that is a Seuss staple dies easy, especially when producers throw money at it.
But Dr. Seuss doesn’t travel well. He is well-known in Australia but less so in Great Britain (and hardly at all in the non-English speaking world). To gain some idea of Dr. Seuss’s popularity, those in Britain today might think Harry Potter. Better, think Beatrix Potter some time ago. She is more to the point because her balance of pictures and text more nearly approximates that of Dr. Seuss. But where the prim and proper Beatrix Potter introduced children to big words ("with alacrity," for example), the zany Dr. Seuss kept his vocabulary simple—single syllables in the two wildly successful books The Cat in the Hat and One Fish, Two Fish , both of which he wrote explicitly for beginning readers. His long words he made up: Big Boy Boomeroo, Yazzmatazz, Beezle-Nut.
Aficionados knew that Dr. Seuss had been part of Frank Capra’s team that produced the Why We Fight propaganda movies of 1943-45. But even fans didn’t know that between 1941 and 1943 he had drawn political cartoons--some 400 in all--for PM, a left-wing small-circulation newspaper in New York City. But he had: cartoons of Hitler and Mussolini and Stalin and a stereotyped Japanese. He also drew England as a tree being pecked down by a woodpecker with the face of Hitler (5/11/41), as the recipient of U. S. aid, as a lion (who with the American eagle is disdainful of a child-like Japan with a slingshot, 11/12/41), as John Bull tied on a rope-climbing team with Russia and Uncle Sam (3/11/42), and as colonial overlord of India (3/31/42, 4/2/42).
The best of Dr. Seuss’s editorial cartoons, I think, rival those of Low, the greatest cartoonist of those years. Among his best I put cartoons of a headless Hitler (3/19/42, 4/3/42) and of Mussolini (12/22/41, playing off the civilian aid effort, Bundles for Britain). Among his worst are the racist depictions of Japan—a "Jap" stereotype created out of whole cloth, resembling neither Tojo nor the emperor. One cartoon (1/13/42) pilloried a pacifist preacher who stated, "The unhappy people of Japan are our brothers." Readers wrote in to complain, and Dr. Seuss lashed back:
In response to the letters defending John Haynes Holmes…sure, I believe in love, brotherhood and a cooing white pigeon on every man’s roof. I even think it’s nice to have pacifists and strawberry festivals…in between wars. But right now, when the Japs are planting their hatchets in our skulls, it seems like a hell of a time for us to smile and warble: "Brothers!" It is a rather flabby battlecry. If we want to win, we’ve got to kill Japs, whether it depresses John Haynes Holmes or not. We can get palsy-walsy afterward with those that are left.
--Dr. Seuss
Dr. Seuss’s "Jap" represented Japanese Americans, too: in the week before the Roosevelt administration ordered 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent on the West Coast rounded up, Dr. Seuss drew a cartoon depicting them all as saboteurs. This lapse into gross racism stood in sharp contrast to his cartoons assailing anti-Semitism and anti-Black racism, cartoons that put him and his newspaper well ahead of the curve. Most of his output was less controversial, falling into the category of morale-building, urging everyone to pitch in, produce more, buy war bonds, and not complain.
In the wake of September 11, 2001, and the attacks on New York’s World Trade Center and Washington’s Pentagon, many people wonder what sort of cartooning Dr. Seuss would do were he alive today. Which Dr. Seuss? If the Dr. Seuss of 1941-43, there would be racial stereotyping of Arabs and Americans of Arab descent. If the Dr. Seuss of his later years, there would be little cause for concern. The later Dr. Seuss was an environmentalist. He called for Richard M. Nixon’s departure from office in 1974. He was a skeptic about the Cold War as well as the nuclear deterrent (Butter Battle Book, 1981). Shortly before his death in 1991, he answered a question from his future biographers—whether he still had any message for his readers--in writing:
'Any message or slogan? Whenever things go a bit sour in a job I’m doing, I always tell myself, "You can do better than this." The best slogan I can think of to leave with the kids of the U. S. A. would be: "We can…and we’ve got to…do better than this."'
Then he crossed out "the kids of," so the message is for "the U. S. A." Were this Dr. Seuss drawing political cartoons about September 11, they would be great cartoons.
posted by Digant | 9:02 AM | 0 comments
Low on Churchill - By Dr Timothy S. Benson
The proprietor of the Evening Standard, Lord Beaverbrook, said of David Low's cartoons that as 'comments on contemporary events they stand triumphantly the test of time'. Who then better to capture with humour Sir Winston Churchill's illustrious career as politician and war leader than his contemporary Sir David Low. Few other cartoonists drew Churchill over such a long and momentous period. From 1919 to 1962, working for the Star, Evening Standard, Daily Herald, and the Manchester Guardian, Low drew with what A.J.P. Taylor called a 'savage realism' to portray Churchill in whatever guise he saw appropriate.
Low had a genius for depicting those that displeased him as both foolish and ridiculous. This naturally meant that the eccentric Churchill, with his egocentric personality along with his capacity for political misjudgement, offered a welcome target. From his futile attempts to persuade Lloyd George to intervene in the Russia Civil War in 1919 through to his retirement, Churchill was taken to task by the cartoonist at every available opportunity.
Yet while Low may not have cared for Churchill's demeanour or his politics, he was prepared to champion his cause when justified. He was totally in sympathy with Churchill's warnings over Hitler's intentions in the late 1930s. When war eventually broke out in September 1939, Low's cartoons portrayed Churchill as the only man capable of offering Britain the stoic leadership that it needed. On him becoming Prime Minister, it was Low's cartoon 'All behind you Winston' that captured the public mood of Churchill's determined leadership. Throughout the whole of the Second World War Low continually upheld Churchill's role as war leader without once denigrating or ridiculing him.
Low's astute understanding of character and personality made him quickly appreciate that Churchill, despite his flaws, was a unique figure in British politics. He recognised the man's genius if at times this led him to draw him as a restless and often misguided figure within the British establishment. From Low's own political and social standpoint, he saw fit to deride Churchill. Unlike the many biographers who have since been happy to reproach or praise Churchill in the light of history, Low never had the benefit or luxury of hindsight. His cartoons show us a contemporary view that has stood the test of time.
Low's draughtsmanship and 'high political intelligence' as Michael Foot, his former editor at the Evening Standard, called it were legendary, but his foresight set him apart from other cartoonists. For example, he quickly foresaw that the cost of war reparations to the vanquished German people would lead to a future war, as Germany would eventually demand revenge for such humiliating treatment. He foresaw the futility of Churchill's anti-Bolshevik crusade in 1919, and in 1930 foresaw Ramsay MacDonald's desertion from the Labour Party to form a National Government. Most impressively of all, he prophesied, as early on as 1931, the dangers to European stability from Adolph Hitler.
From a social standpoint Low and Churchill had little in common. The aristocratic Churchill was born at Blenheim Palace, grandson to the Duke of Marlborough, and son of an ex-Tory Cabinet Minister. Low on the other hand was a native New Zealander whose grandfather, a marine engineer, had emigrated there from the Scottish highlands. Low's upbringing in the egalitarian and liberal environment of New Zealand and Australia led him to develop a distaste for the snobbery and inequalities which he found upon his arrival in England.
In October 1919, David Low left Australia and the Sydney Bulletin where he had earned a reputation as one of Australia's leading cartoonists. On Arnold Bennett's recommendation the Star, a London evening newspaper owned by the Cadbury family, had offered Low the opportunity of becoming their new cartoonist. This he gratefully accepted. Churchill was Lloyd George's Secretary of State for War at this time, having been appointed in January 1919 with the responsibility for quickly demobilising British troops after the ending of the First World War. His reputation as a politician had at this time still not recovered from his wartime role as First Lord of the Admiralty. It was common for his public meetings to be still interrupted by cries of "What about the Dardanelles?" (a reference to the failed landing against Turkey for which Churchill was seen to be responsible.) What is surprising, is that while concentrating on the Allied war effort at the Sydney Bulletin, Low had kept an open mind over Churchill's contribution to the disastrous Dardanelles campaign. None of his cartoons during the conflict ever featured or directly attributed blame to Churchill for what in effect became the futile slaughter of many thousands of Australian and New Zealand troops. The British politician that took most of Low's ridicule was the then Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith. It was his inability to maximise fully Britain's war effort on the Western Front that had led in no small part, to Churchill's concept of an alternative front against Turkey.
The first time Low met Winston Churchill in person was just after the 1922 General Election. He had been invited by Lloyd George to a dinner at the House of Commons, where he found himself sitting right opposite Churchill. Low having caricatured him for the previous three years from afar, noted that Churchill in the flesh belonged 'to that sandy type which cannot be rendered properly in black lines. His eyes, blue, bulbous and heavy lidded, would be impossible. The best one could do with them would be an approximation. At this time all the political cartoonists were using the approximation worked out by E.T. Reed, the Punch caricaturist who was feeling a bit disgruntled about the plagiarism. 'That fellow.' Reed complained to me about a colleague, 'he's a thief. He stole my Winston's eye."'
Low then recalled how his perception of Churchill since 1919 had differed little from the man he now conversed with at the dinner table:
'I already knew about Churchill. Who hadn't? Born in the inner circle, but combining with that long start exceptional abilities; determined to be a big noise; broke from Tory Party to Liberal Party when young to find opportunity; Sydney Street; the Admiralty; The Man Who Had the Navy Ready... and so on. A democrat? An upholder of democracy? Um-ah-yes... when he was leading it. Impatient with it when he was not. Consequently not naturally a good politician, but astute from experience. As might be expected from his origins and temperament, inwardly contemptuous of the 'common man' when the 'common man' sought to interfere in his (the common man's') own government; but bearing with the need to appear sympathetic and compliant to the popular will. In those days, whenever I heard Churchill's dramatic periods about democracy, I felt inclined to say 'Please define.' His definition, I felt, would be something like 'government of the people, for the people, by benevolent and paternal ruling-class chaps like me.' Remembering him as one of the most energetic miseducators of public opinion in the early nineteen twenties, when his dislike of political onrushes from below took him within hail of fascism, when the rabbits of the T.U.C. were held up as Russian bears and the idea of a Labour Government was alleged to mean the enthronement of Bolshevism at Westminster, I could never accept him as a democrat in the Lincolnian sense. Winston's characteristics were confidence in himself and love of his country. His defence of England was always against threatening foreigners rather than against threatening 'isms or 'ologies, which did not worry him, since he was sure he would eventually turn up leading the winner. A high sense of the dramatic; a talent for self-advertisement; and to cap all, imagination and guts.
Churchill was witty and easy to talk to until I said that the Australians were an independent people who could not be expected to follow Britain without question they were, in the case of new wars, for instance, not to be taken for granted, but would follow their own judgement. His eyes bulged a little, his face seemed to rise and hang in the heavens and he ended the subject with a piece of rhetoric to which there could be no reply. The conversation turned to Art. An enforced political "rest" had turned his interest to a new hobby, painting. His ideas of how I worked were fantastic. He thought I made a drawing in half an hour, and I had some trouble in explaining that it would take longer than that to put the lines down on paper in disorder, without trying to draw at all. But for all that he had a genuine appreciation of quality in caricatural draughtsmanship. He flattered me by recalling some of my old cartoons which I had thought forgotten. Once on another and later occasion he made me blush by advancing across a roomful of people with pencil and paper, ostentatiously pretending to make a sketch of me, till I threatened to make a political speech. For all his playfulness I find that I wrote at the time of these first impressions: 'Churchill is one of the few men I have met who even in the flesh give me the impression of genius. Shaw is another. It is amusing to know that each thinks the other is much overrated.'
Such sentiments meant that Low invariably found in Churchill a worthy target. His attitude towards Empire, the working classes, and his fear of a Labour Government, meant that the cartoonist took full advantage in making him Labour's most valuable propaganda asset. When Churchill began his almost personal campaign against Bolshevism in Russia, demanding a commitment from Lloyd George to send British troops to intervene in support of the Anti-Bolshevik forces, Low continually depicted him as a warmonger and arch reactionary. To the Star readership, Low's cartoons confirmed Churchill as an irresponsible eccentric who could not be trusted. Even Lloyd George who had become increasingly exasperated by Churchill over his zealous pre-occupation over the Bolshevik threat described him as 'the only remaining specimen of a real Tory'.
Low began caricaturing Churchill in a cast-off Napoleonic uniform, embodying his image as an adventurer with an obsession, like that of Napoleon himself, to conquer Russia. This image of a Napoleonic Churchill was also popular amongst contemporary opinion, as most people viewed him at the time as an emblem of concealed reaction. H.G. Wells also had little sympathy for Churchill's view of the new Communist State, and parodied him as Napoleon in his play Men Like Gods.
Churchill, who had a reputation for being unable to manage his own personal finances, was made Chancellor of the Exchequer after the 1924 General Election by the then Conservative Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin. Low saw that although the appointment was inappropriate, it did offer further scope for amusement especially at Budget time. Churchill did not let him down, his Budget speeches were always hugely entertaining, while his handling of the economy gave the cartoonist a perfect pretext to castigate him.
During the General Strike in 1926 Low and Churchill once again found themselves in opposite camps. Churchill was the leading advocate within the Cabinet of taking on the miners. He denounced the British worker as the 'enemy' and demanded 'unconditional surrender'. To Low fighting seemed Churchill's natural response to any challenge, but unexpectedly he did not feature him in any of his cartoons during the General Strike. Churchill only appeared months later and remarkably as a sympathetic conciliator on behalf of the miners, who had continued to stay out on strike despite the failure of the General Strike (57). Despite this one would have thought that Low's antipathy would have grown because of Churchill's earlier course of action, but surprisingly he declared at the time that:
'Churchill is far and away the best actor, he is now the most striking and drawable personality in British public life. I like drawing Mr Churchill, his face is full of humorous atmosphere.'
Many commentators believe that Churchill grew to loathe Low. There is little substance to this. Churchill, himself an enthusiastic artist, greatly admired Low's draughtsmanship. According to Low, 'Winston is very interested in caricature and will yarn for hours on the technical side of art.' Churchill also acknowledged Low's genius: 'Low is a great master of black and white; he is the Charlie Chaplin of caricature, and tragedy and comedy are the same to him.' In January 1924 Churchill paid what was at the time another striking tribute to Low:
''It was the turn of the Press to satirise the politician at the present moment if they were not satisfied already by the very full indulgence which we daily see in the brilliant cartoons of Low.'
Not surprisingly, Churchill became an avid collector of Low's original drawings in which he appeared. He even on occasions, while Prime Minister, requested Low's originals as presents for foreign emissaries, as in the case of Harry Hopkins who was at the time President Roosevelt's special advisor. Churchill described Hopkins's present as a cartoon of himself with President Roosevelt sitting on a sofa; 'with a scruffy looking Harry in the background'. Finally, as late as the early 1960s, Churchill still admired Low to such an extent that he chose him, above all others, to illustrate the North American serialisation of his memoirs.
Yet there is also no doubt that Churchill disliked Low's politics, his left-wing sympathies and what he often saw as his continual attempts to deride the British Empire. He therefore described him politically as:
'A little pre-war Australian radical. When he was growing to years of discretion, the best way of getting a laugh was to gibe at the established order of things, and especially at the British Empire. To jeer at its fatted soul is the delight of the green-eyed young Antipodean radical.'
According to an interview with Frank Owen in October 1937, Churchill had bitterly attacked Low as a scoundrel, whom he said, 'never drew a single line in praise of England'. There were even times in 1940, when Churchill, under enormous pressure due to Britain's precarious position, believed Low was even a dangerous subversive, doing great harm to the morale of the country. Towards the end of the war, Churchill due to his stronger ties with Beaverbrook, was able to block a cartoon about the situation in Greece. The explanation given to Low was that this was 'in the interests of western democracy'.
Though Churchill was usually happy to be caricatured by Low, he sometimes became very concerned when his son Randolph, whose insolent manner made him an easy target for the media, was also derided. On such occasions, Churchill would often contact Beaverbrook to make his feeling plainly known. After one such complaint, Beaverbrook wrote to Sir Samuel Hoare stating that:
'Winston is not on good terms with me at present. He is very sulky about a caricature in the Evening Standard. 'Rival Foundlings'. He spoke to me on the telephone last night for the first time since the affront.'
Apart from attacks on Randolph, Churchill enjoyed Low's sharp wit, even though his cartoons may have at times hurt him deeply: 'I owe him no grudge. Tout comprendre c'est tout pardonner'. One such cartoon was 'On Tour' which was published on 29th January 1935. Seeing it in the Evening Standard that day, Churchill wrote to his wife Clementine stating that:
'I send you a number of cartoons, one a Low cartoon, most amusing, which should make you laugh.'
This was an extraordinary response to a cartoon that ridiculed Churchill's opposition to Indian self-government, which by 1935 seemed to be in its last desperate throes. On another occasion, Churchill had written a letter to The Times attacking the intrusion of 'candid camera' fiends who were taking unflattering close-ups of celebrities and politicians such as himself. Churchill's anger brought an immediate response from Low. In his 'Topical Budget', a full-page cartoon which appeared every Saturday, he drew three caricatures portraying Churchill's own eating habits as he mischievously saw them. One would have expected a furious response from Churchill. Instead, he requested the cartoon which when received was carefully framed with his published letter cut out and stuck on the back of the frame.
Churchill, recognising Low as the greatest cartoonist of his generation appreciated the political importance of appearing in his cartoons. Low believed that Churchill, as a result from his earliest political days, studied his own caricatures and endeavoured to live up to them. He specifically recalls Churchill's enthusiasm for self-publicity:
'I always try to find Winston Churchill out in something cartoonable mainly because he is so plump and because he likes it and encourages one. He hangs my most vicious works around the Treasury Office.'
Politicians were therefore aware of the importance in enhancing their image amongst the general public by regularly appearing in the cartoons of the day. Politicians would often go further and encourage the cartoonist to advertise what Low called their 'tags of identity.' Baldwin felt it vital to be seen smoking his pipe, which he believed gave him an affinity with the common man. Other politicians promoted their image even if it was detrimental to their person. For example, Austen Chamberlain in an attempt to emulate his famous father Joseph would wear only a monocle even though he was dreadfully short-sighted. This meant that he could barely recognise people at a distance greater than a few feet. On one occasion while sitting for Low, Chamberlain asked 'Must I wear my monocle? I cannot see to read with it very well...' Such blatant attempts by politicians to portray themselves in such favourable light, explain why Churchill became so keen to promote himself this way using cigars, hats, and of course the V sign. Low explains Churchill's keenness for 'tags of identity':
'Statesmen must advertise. Indeed it is vital to the working of our modern democracy that the persons of political leaders be readily identifiable. Cartoonists and caricaturists have their use in creating or embellishing tags of identity, a fact which is not lost on astute politicians... Winston Churchill, for an obvious instance, deliberately advertised himself in his early political days by wearing a succession of unusual hats, and in later years, by always carrying an outsize cigar, foibles which were eagerly used and improved upon by the cartoonists, with his open encouragement. Since the inspiration of these tags is frequently poetic imagination, political analogy or plain prejudice, they are to be accepted as faithful reflections of truth with as much reserve as one accepts the pictures on seed-packets... The early Churchill wore normal hats when the photographers were not around; and in his later years it was noticeable to keen eyes that his public cigars were smoked never more than about one inch.'
As Churchill appreciated, it was the cartoonist's portrayal of him that lodged in the public mind. Low was even bold enough to claim that Churchill's image as war leader was in some way created by the cartoonists: 'Don't imagine', Low said, 'that the familiar wartime idea of Churchill with his V sign and cigar was all his own invention'.
Politicians have always been delighted in finding themselves caricatured in the cartoons of daily newspapers however foolish they may appear. Losing the cartoonists' attention was often the consequence of their fall from the political spotlight. Churchill himself noted that:
'Just as eels are supposed to get used to skinning, so politicians get used to being caricatured. In fact, by a strange trait in human nature they even get to like it. If we must confess it, they are quite offended and downcast when the cartoons stop. They wonder what has gone wrong, they wonder what they have done amiss. They fear old age and obsolescence are creeping upon them. They murmur: "We are not mauled and maltreated as we used to be." The great days are ended.'
The nadir in Churchill's political career can therefore be simply pinpointed by noting his lack of appearances in Low's cartoons for much of the 1930s except over his opposition to Indian self-rule. Churchill's appearances did not even increase when he became one of the few opponents of Chamberlain's policy of appeasing the dictators. Now in his middle sixties, Churchill had become alienated from the Tory leadership, distrusted by both the Liberals and Labour, and appeared to be at the end of his parliamentary life. He was perceived as politically passé, a 'Busted Flush' as Beaverbrook referred to him at the time. Consequently, his warnings over Hitler were not seen as significant even by a sympathetic Low. It was Eden and not Churchill that the country saw as the focus for opposition to Appeasement. According to Low:
'There had never been any doubt about the uncompromising and consistent attitude of Churchill and Eden. But up came that question of loyalty to Chamberlain. Churchill lacking Eden's tact, had become Tory Hate No 1.'
Churchill's years in the political wilderness began with his resignation from Baldwin's shadow cabinet in January 1931. This was as a result of his refusal to accept Baldwin's support for the Labour Government's plans for Indian self-rule. His hostility to Baldwin and the National Government over this issue was to be seen as futile and inevitably detrimental to his chances of ever becoming leader of the Tory Party. Without support in Parliament, or the country, apart from a few Tory die-hards, Churchill was the only prominent politician to lead the opposition to Indian self-government. Alienated from the Tory leadership, many came to think that Churchill's real aim was not the preservation of British rule in India, but an issue on which he could overthrow Baldwin as the leader of the Tory Party. Low's sympathies were obvious, to him there seemed little sense in delaying the legitimate claims of Indians to the right of self-determination. Low saw such a damaging and foolhardy crusade as the efforts of an old fashioned imperialist. For five years, he mercilessly made fun of Churchill's opposition to Indian self-rule, as Low recalls:
'The affairs of India came into my cartoons a lot in the late nineteen-twenties and early 'thirties. The personalities engaged tempted attention on their picturesqueness alone and Churchill supplied enough vehement opposition to the idea of Indian self-government to invite pertinent comment. To the harsh wranglings which brought the break between Baldwin and Churchill I contributed a string of cartoons which directly and indirectly, by ridiculing their die-hard opponents, supported Baldwin and Hoare and their Government of India Bill. As a result I came in for some of the anger flying about. Churchill wrote me off (in his book Thoughts and Adventures, 1932) as a 'green-eyed young Antipodean radical... particularly mischievous... Low's pencil is not only not servile. It is essentially mutinous. You cannot bridle the wild ass of the desert, still less prohibit its natural hee-haw.'According to Churchill I delighted to 'gibe at the British Empire' and was 'all for retreat in India' - which was pretty rich, since by birth, growth and viewpoint I was considerably more representative of the Empire than he was, and probably more advanced too, so far as India and the Commonwealth were concerned.'
Having broken with the Tory leadership over India, Churchill found himself exiled to the back-benches. There he found that without the responsibility of government office, the time to exploit his vast and somewhat neglected literary skills. Apart from writing a voluminous biography of his ancestor the Duke of Marlborough, he found time to contribute a regular article to the Evening Standard every fortnight that mainly concentrated on foreign affairs. Churchill and Low now became colleagues on the same newspaper, which later had the effect of intensifying their mutual opposition to Appeasement in the Evening Standard.
At first, Churchill's views on the European dictators were diametrically opposed to those of Low's cartoons. While Churchill often sang the praises of Hitler and Mussolini as saviours of their respective countries, Low constantly ridiculed both men to the extent that the Evening Standard was banned in both Italy and Germany. As the 1930s proceeded, Churchill woke up to the realisation that Hitler posed a very real threat to peace in Europe, and in 1938 he attempted to rally public and political support for Czechoslovakia. His call for collective action in order to deter German aggression was now very much in tune with the sentiments of Low's own cartoons. However, such views were being actively opposed by their proprietor, Lord Beaverbrook, whose determined optimism over Chamberlain's ability to maintain peace in Europe became too extreme to allow the continued employment of Churchill. His contract was as a result terminated and the Evening Standard Editor R.J. Thompson was given the job of explaining why he had been dismissed. Thompson wrote;
'... your views on foreign affairs and the part which this country should play are entirely opposed to those held by us.'
Churchill indignantly wrote back noting that while he had been sacked, Low was still gainfully employed by the Evening Standard:
'With regard to the divergence from Lord Beaverbrook's policy, that of course has been obvious from the beginning, but it clearly appears to me to be less marked than in the case of the Low cartoons. I rather thought that Lord Beaverbrook prided himself upon forming a platform in the Evening Standard for various opinions including of course his own.'
Thus Low remained, as he was still far too popular amongst the Evening Standard readership even though his cartoons differed little in opinion to Churchill's articles. Such an event could have done little to further endear Low to Churchill, even though the two men were closer in their beliefs on foreign affairs than at any time in the past. In fact, Low's cartoons were becoming so effective in deriding Nazi aspirations that even the Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, under pressure from the German Foreign Office, found himself denouncing the Evening Standard cartoonist. According to Low:
'So far as I was concerned Mr. Chamberlain himself set the example. Addressing the Newspaper Society's annual dinner he said that 'German Nazis have been particularly annoyed by criticisms in the British Press and especially by cartoons. The bitter cartoons of Low in the Evening Standard have been a frequent source of complaint.'
Low now found himself labelled along with Churchill as an irresponsible warmonger:
'Abuse grew hysterical. People I knew turned away and wouldn't talk to me. Complete strangers held me up in public places and would talk to me. My tobacconist refused to serve me.'
As both Low and Churchill confidently predicted, Chamberlain failed in his appeasement of Hitler and had little alternative but to declare war against Germany after its invasion of Poland in September 1939. Low appreciated that it was now important to deride the enemy and not the Government in order to boost British morale. However, it appeared that the country was totally unprepared for war and, worse still, Chamberlain seemed to lack any sense of urgency in rectifying the position. To Low this was unacceptable. Only Churchill appeared to have the energy and the appetite for the battle ahead, as his appearances in Low's Topical Budget and cartoons at the time confirm. When Britain's position deteriorated after the Fall of France in June 1940, and the resulting evacuation from Dunkirk, Low knew that Churchill, having replaced Chamberlain as Prime Minister, had an uphill - almost impossible; struggle in lifting the morale of the British people. Although having drawn such cartoons as 'All behind you Winston' and 'We have gone too far Adolph' Low was not personally as confident as his morale boosting cartoons suggested. Like Churchill, he knew that he was high on the Nazi death list, and should a German invasion of Britain take place, his chances of survival were minimal:
'But for all the Churchill assurances at the microphone that this was Britain's 'finest hour'; and despite the firm resolve in my suburb (and there were many indications that it was representative) that the invaders would meet a desperate defence by the whole population with any weapons handy, it would have been over-romantic not to recognise that the chances were against us.'
The continued lack of any military success meant that Low carried on ridiculing. His target was not so much Churchill's leadership, but his Government's failure to fight back effectively. This led Churchill to complain consistently to Beaverbrook, who was now in the War Cabinet as Minister for Aircraft Production, about the damage Low's cartoons were doing to the credibility of his Coalition Government. Beaverbrook later referring to this difficult period recalled:
'I had two artists on my hands. One at night-time - that was the Prime Minister complaining about Low. The other in the morning - that was Low complaining about Churchill.'
On one such occasion in December 1940, Churchill was furious about a Low cartoon that had made fun of Arthur Greenwood, the then Labour Cabinet Minister without Portfolio. In a letter to Beaverbrook, in what appeared to be something of an overreaction, Churchill wrote:
'The cartoon in today's Evening Standard against Greenwood will certainly make your path and mine more stony. I know the difficulty with Low, but others do not, and cartoons in your papers showing your colleagues in ridiculous guise will cause fierce resentment.'
In fact, Arthur Greenwood found little offence in the cartoon: "I have no personal feeling against Low." Churchill, however, still continued to remonstrate with Beaverbrook in his belief that such attacks would cause:
'all those ministers conceiving themselves threatened to bank up against you and your projects, and owing to my friendship with you they will think that I am condoning the attacks made upon them. He does you and your work disservice by these cartoons, and he is too well aware of what he does.'
On such occasions Beaverbrook always denied control over Low, stating that it was:
'a matter of real grief" that he should be the occasion of such attacks upon 'my Prime Minister. I do not know how to deal with the situation. I do not agree with Low. I have rarely done so. I do not interfere with Low. I have never done so.'
At this time of great tension, Churchill is believed to have also told Beaverbrook that Low was a: 'Communist of the Trotsky variety'. Although Low's political beliefs were undoubtedly left-wing, to insinuate that he was a Communist subversive was typical of Churchill's own train of thought on this matter. Throughout his political career he always found it difficult to differentiate between British Socialism and Soviet Communism.
So sensitive did Beaverbrook become over Churchill's complaints over Low, that an amusing episode occurred when he spoke on the telephone at cross purposes with the Prime Minister, which as a result nearly ended with the sacking of Stalin. One morning, in the earlier editions of the Evening Standard, there had appeared a Low cartoon which had been highly unpopular with Churchill. Beaverbrook was nervous and guiltily felt some responsibility. Unknown to him, Churchill had since received a particularly insulting cable from Stalin. He later that same day phoned Beaverbrook, and David Farrar, who by accident happened to listen in, heard the following conversation:
Churchill: (in rich post-prandial voice): Max, that fellow Uncle Joe -
Beaverbrook: (On tenterhooks and mishearing): Don't worry, Prime Minister, don't worry.
Churchill: What are we going to do about him? He's sent me -
Beaverbrook (interrupting): Don't worry. I'll sack him tomorrow morning.
Churchill: What are you saying?
Beaverbrook: I'll sack him. He shall never appear in my newspapers again.
Churchill: What are you talking about? I said Uncle Joe.
Beaverbrook: (after a pregnant pause) Oh!
By 1942, Churchill had become increasingly mistrustful of newspaper cartoonists whom he felt were unjustly critical of his Government's running of the war. Philip Zec was severely reprimanded for a cartoon published in the Daily Mirror on 6th March 1942 which Churchill saw as a direct attack on his Government. In fact he had completely failed to grasp the cartoon's message. In a subsequent attack on the press, which was specifically aimed at left wing cartoonists such as Low and Zec, Churchill declared that 'our affairs are not conducted entirely by simpletons and dunderheads as the comic papers try to depict'.
Low, not one to miss an opportunity to hit back at such a comment, replied in the New York Herald that 'for the successful performance of his duties as Nuisance, Low had had to invent a wide variety of imaginary characters to use in his cartoons. Among the most notable of his creations was Winston Churchill and Lord Beaverbrook, who were freely imitated at the time of their appearance by persons claiming to be the originals'.
In 1934, Low had created a reactionary character for his full page 'Topical Budget' that appeared every Saturday. His name was Colonel Blimp, a symbol for stupidity and reaction in British society. Blimp quickly became synonymous with Churchill's attitude towards India. Many believed Blimp had actually been inspired by Churchill, who later became extremely defensive over the character. John Charmley in his recent biography of Churchill, The End of Glory, even entitled a chapter dealing with Churchill's opposition to Indian self-rule as the 'The last stand of Colonel Blimp'. So when in 1942, the British film directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger decided to produce a film based on Low's Colonel Blimp, Churchill naturally became apprehensive over such a project. Since British forces had failed to bring a single victory that could turn the course of the war in their favour, it was generally believed that Blimpishness was alive and well amongst the British high command, and thus detrimental to the war effort. The film, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, was therefore going to focus on the limitations Britain faced in fighting a modern war with out-dated methods associated with Colonel Blimp. Churchill not only saw the project as a personal slight upon himself and his leadership, but also as an attack on the morale of the British Army's officer corps. Seeing the film as propaganda in support of the enemy, he did his utmost to have the film banned. Churchill minuted Brendan Bracken at the Ministry of Information:
'Pray propose to me measures to stop this foolish production before it gets any further. I am not prepared to allow propaganda detrimental to the morale of the Army...'
Government financial assistance, which was generally available to the film industry, was as a result refused, and it was made clear that an export licence would not be granted. Although Churchill succeeded in obstructing the export of the film until August 1943, the film became a box office hit, mainly because of his continued efforts in attempting to ban it. A frustrated Brendan Bracken wrote to him emphasising how the Government had inadvertently helped to boost ticket sales for the film:
'As a result of our illegal ban on this wretched film 'Colonel Blimp' has received a wonderful advertisement from the Government. It is now enjoying an extensive run in the suburbs and in all sorts of places there are notices - 'See the banned film!' If we had left that dull film alone it would probably have proved an unprofitable undertaking, but by the time the Government have finished with it there is no knowledge what profits it will have earned.'
For all the Government's anxieties, the suspected focus that Blimpishness was alive and well in British high command was all rather muted. Roger Livesey's splendid but sentimental portrayal of Major General Clive Wynne Candy VC did in no way represent the 'upper class bonehead of invincible stupidity' of Low's own Colonel, while the film's real controversy lay in Anton Walbrook's performance as a sympathetic German, a unique happening in wartime cinema. So why did Churchill, even after attending the film's premiere and seeing for himself that it was all rather harmless, still devote so much time and effort to having the film banned in what was in the midst of a world war? In any event, the war had significantly turned in the Allies' favour by the time the film opened in 1943. Notions of Blimpishness in High Command had also been dispelled by victories in North Africa. Whatever the reasons for Churchill's paranoia and the jumpiness of the government, it does highlight the power of Colonel Blimp's image at the time.
The defeat of Germany led to a peak in Churchill's popularity with the whole country unanimously thanking him for his unique leadership characterised by Low's cartoon of 10th May 1945 (165). Unfortunately for Churchill such a tidal wave of support was personal and did not extend to the Conservative Party. The decision by the Labour Party, to leave the Coalition Government before victory over Japan had been achieved, forced the Prime Minister into becoming for the first time, a party leader rather than a national one. Low had wholeheartedly supported Churchill's leadership throughout the war, but strongly believed that the Conservative Party should be properly judged on its pre-war track record, however great the war-time achievements of its leader. The public was not prepared to risk having the same post-war broken promises that had occurred after the last war in 1918. According to Low:
'The fighting men and their families did not forget the pre-war years of Tory rule, when it came to the 1945 election. They admired Churchill and owed their freedom to him but they remembered the Baldwin-Chamberlain years of Tory rule. They remembered Lloyd George and his land fit for heroes khaki election.'
With a general election imminent, Low mercilessly attacked the attempts both by the Prime Minister and his Party to remain in office, even though his proprietor was in overall charge of the Tory election campaign. Low describes how this affected allegiances during the campaign:
'Beaverbrook and his newspapers had loyally upheld Churchill and the Conservatives and I had consistently supported the Labour Party and ridiculed Churchill's attempt to make the prominent Socialist Professor Laski the bogey of a scare campaign. Not for the first time the Evening Standard and I had been in flat opposition. Yet, as should be in a civilised community, that made no difference to personal relations.'
Low took full advantage of the Tories' rather negative election strategy, especially Churchill's first election broadcast in which he insinuated that the Labour leader Clement Attlee, would, if elected, have to fall back on some form of Gestapo in order to create a Socialist State. When the election results were eventually announced, they were not as expected. There was no victory for the man who had won the war, but instead a landslide victory for the Labour Party. Lord Beaverbrook became the Tory Party's favourite scapegoat, as leading Conservatives blamed him for their disastrous electoral performance. To them his employment of prominent left-wingers, like Low, who had done their damnedest to vilify their Party over the years, had had a cumulative effect on public opinion. Had not the frequent appearances of Colonel Blimp as the archetypal reactionary Tory, proved so damaging to the public's perception of the Conservative Party?
The Labour Party had a majority government for the first time in its history. Although their manifesto had differed little to that of the Tories in substance, it was the public's general consensus that it was Labour, rather than the Tories, that would be more likely to carry out its election promises. Low saw the now despairing Churchill in terms of both hero and anti-hero. In one respect Churchill was still the great war leader, while on the down side he was the failed politician, the man who had frequently misjudged the political climate, and had just led his Party to a humiliating defeat. As Leader of the Opposition, Churchill offered only criticism of Socialism instead of offering an alternative in the way of new Tory policy. With Labour having such a big majority there was little he could achieve in any case for the next five years. Low derided Churchill's refusal during the whole of Labour's term in office to be pinned down on specific policy. Churchill would only repeat that he would wait and see what the economic circumstances were at the time of the next election. According to Low:
'The Conservative Party has not a policy but it has Churchill who has elevated not having a policy into a virtue, scoffs at the Labour men as having one, and once advised his friends to have no ideas at all until the necessity arose. Mr C is universally loved. The general view is that he won the war, and on that account most people would like to clear away the Nelson monument from our best site to make room for a statue of Winston on the top of a 500 foot high stone cigar.'
Consequently, Low created Micawber Churchill who made his first appearance in February 1947(183), pronouncing that he was 'waiting for something to turn up'. Had Low gone too far this time? There was immediate uproar amongst Evening Standard readers, who filled the letters pages denouncing Low's ridicule of such a great man. Naturally they demanded Low's head. Under pressure the Editor announced: 'What shall we do with Low?' 'Send him back to New Zealand!' was the response from one retired ex-Admiral.
In Churchill's desperate attempt to regain office, Low began to exploit the contradictory nature of his recent acceptance of the Welfare State and his promise to accept the bulk of the Labour Government's legislation. Churchill had become, to Low, not so much the leader of the Conservative Party but of himself:
'Churchill had stolen his new programme from the Labour clothesline. Nationalisation yes, controls, rationing priorities, state trading, Labour like planning, Tories were to do it with tears in their eyes.'
Churchill, happy to allow his own Party to be dominated by those on the left, found that by the 1950 General Election, Conservative policy differed little to that of Labour. Although the Tories lost once again, a very tired Labour Government had its large overall majority reduced to only five seats, and as a result survived only for a further year, with Churchill finally winning the 1951 General Election. His second term in office, as Low illustrated, was dominated by his preoccupation with foreign affairs. This culminated in his wish to bow out of politics after having secured, and participated in, a summit between East and West in order to reduce the continued threat of nuclear war. Hence, few of Low's cartoons during this period relate to Churchill's concerns over Britain's domestic problems on economic or social issues. Low also captured the inherent frustrations of Anthony Eden, Churchill's heir apparent, and other Cabinet Ministers who felt he was becoming more and more of a liability the longer he remained in office. Churchill had originally let it be known that he would retire soon after becoming Prime Minister again, but having once more tasted high office, he successfully delayed any plans for his retirement for a further four years.
Low by now at the Guardian, was also winding down after a long and remarkable career. His cartoons were no longer the great works of draughtmanship they once were, but his astute understanding of politics and his ability to satirise were still at times as good as ever. He had by now been caricaturing Churchill for nearly 40 years and was beginning to admit that he 'had exhausted the possibilities of Churchill and there was no longer pleasure in drawing him'. But his affection and respect for the old man as he approached his 80th birthday kept bursting through. Commissioned by the London Illustrated News to draw a commemorative cartoon for an eightieth birthday edition, Low painted in colour a cartoon featuring a room packed with Winston Churchills, all at different stages of his long and eventful life. Signed 'from your old castigator', London Illustrated News presented the original cartoon to Sir Winston who was delighted with it, unlike his official present, the Graham Sutherland portrait, which his wife later destroyed.
As the years took their toll, Churchill became subjected to attack from those who wished to portray him as senile and ineffectual. It had never been in Low's style to extenuate the signs of physical or mental decline in any of his subjects. Although appearing somewhat bedraggled, Low's elderly Churchill always had a dynamic energy even during the bleak years of his retirement. Unlike Low, Malcolm Muggeridge was one of the first to underline Churchill's faltering abilities when he allowed Leslie Illingworth to produce a cruel cartoon for Punch which depicted an incapacitated Prime Minister. Churchill was bitterly hurt by the cartoon: 'Yes, there's malice in it. Punch goes everywhere. I shall have to retire if this sort of thing goes on.' While in contrast, Low's last cartoon of Churchill 'Battle of Middlesex Hospital' typified the spirit in which he had always drawn him. Here we see an ailing 88-year-old Sir Winston hospitalised but nevertheless still indomitably battling on against all comers (Field Marshal Montgomery in this instance). By the time that Low and Churchill had died, in 1963 and 1965 respectively, both had left their own indelible impression on 20th Century. One can be considered its greatest cartoonist and the other its greatest statesmen.
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Oracle Data Pump is a new and unique feature of Oracle Database 11g. A new public interface package, DBMS_DATAPUMP, provides a server-side... infrastructure for fast data and metadata movement between Oracle databases. It is ideal for large databases and data warehousing environments, where high-performance data movement offers significant time savings to database administrators. Data Pump automatically manages multiple, parallel streams of unload and load for maximum throughput. The degree of parallelism...
Export, Import, International trade 824 Words | 3 Pages
Examine the key features of situatiion ethics
Examine the key Features of Situation Ethics Situation ethics teaches that ethical decisions should follow flexible... guidelines rather than absolute rules, and be taken on a case by case basis. Situation ethics, most commonly associated with Joseph Fletcher and J.A.T Robinson, emerged at the time when society and the Church were facing drastic and permanent changes. Fletcher wrote a book called Situation Ethics, which was published in 1966, a time when the ephemeral nature of the country was...
Cher, Ethics, Joseph Fletcher 1210 Words | 4 Pages
The Small Key Analysis
Education at the University of the Philippines (UP) in Manila where she also attended a short story writing class under a key figure in... Filipino literature in English, Paz Marquez Benitez of "Dead Stars" fame. Before the year ended, the Marinduque native won the third prize in Jose Garcia Villa's Roll of Honor for the Best Stories of 1927 for her story, "The Small Key." For her final year of college in 1927, Latorena transferred to UST to finish her Education degree. She became the...
Fiction, Literary criticism, Literary theory 1573 Words | 5 Pages
Examine the Key Features of the Teleological Argument?
Examine the key features of the Teleological argument. The word teleological comes from the Greek word ‘Telos’ which means... purpose. The teleological argument is a posteriori and like the cosmological argument, attempts to prove the existence of God. It claims that certain phenomena within the universe appear to display features of design and are perfectly adapted to fulfil their function. Therefore, if features of the universe are so perfectly designed, for example the structure and function...
Charles Darwin, David Hume, Existence of God 1485 Words | 4 Pages
Article 258 Tfeu - Key Features
procedure, it has now become a common, fairly transparent and highly technical procedure.” Prete & Smuldres “The coming of age of infringement proceedings”... (2010) 47 CMLR 9 Has the infringement procedure finally “come of age”? Critically outline the key features of the Article 258 TFEU procedure and relevant caselaw. Article 258 TFEU (Formerly Art 226 EC) empowers the European Commission to deliver a reasoned opinion to a member state when it considers that the state has failed to fulfil an obligation...
European Coal and Steel Community, European Commission, European Court of Justice 1257 Words | 3 Pages
Unit Y key features of 3 theraputic therapies
Kelly Wellens Unit Y 2.1 - Identify the key features of at least three major therapeutic models. Person-Centred Therapy 1.... What do you understand by the term actualising tendency? I understand that the term actualising tendency means that a person has a potential to grow, if we have had the right environment to grow. If we received enough unconditional acceptance and love throughout our childhood through our peers, parents, teachers, friends etc then this has given us the right environment to...
Abraham Maslow, Behavior, Human behavior 1694 Words | 5 Pages
Transactional analysis
philosophy of Transactional Analysis Transactional analysis is a system of psychotherapy that... analyzes personal relationships and interactions in terms of conflicting or complementary ego states that correspond to the roles of parent, child and adult. "Berne referred to Transactional Analysis as social psychiatry, meaning a form of therapy or counseling used by every day people.” It is a therapy that is used to create growth and change. Eric Berne introduced Transactional Analysis in the 1950's...
Behaviour therapy, Cognitive behavioral therapy, Eric Berne 4137 Words | 8 Pages
Transactional Analysis
Dr. Eric Berne was a prominent Psychiatrist and is the author of “Game People Play” in which he introduces Games and Transactional... Analysis to the world. Transaction: When two people communicate, each exchange is a transaction. A transaction consists of a singular stimulus and a single response, verbal or nonverbal from one person to another. It is called a transaction because each party gains something by it. Berne said that when people are in their different ego states and they interact with...
Claude Steiner, Communication, Eric Berne 459 Words | 2 Pages
Event driven program key features P1
Event-driven programming is a flow of programs which are determined by events like user actions for example mouse clicks, sensor outputs, or messages from... other programs. There are a lot of key features that are used in event driven program. Without these feature then certain event can’t happen. The key features of event driven programs are service oriented, time driven, event handlers, trigger functions, events, form, user interface, event loops, flexibility, suitability for graphical interfaces and...
Computer, Computer program, Computer programming 1433 Words | 3 Pages
Transactional Analysis
TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS The reaction of people to a management problem cannot always be anticipated. But, we can predict the... kind of responses our interventions may evoke from people. How? The answer is –with the help of transactional analysis. When people interact in assertive or non-assertive ways, there is a social transaction in which one person responds to another. The study of these social transactions between people is called transactional analysis. It is a method of analyzing and understanding...
Childhood, Eric Berne, Games People Play 4318 Words | 17 Pages
Key Passage Analysis Great Gatsby
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F. Scott Fitzgerald, French Riviera, Ginevra King 1271 Words | 4 Pages
An Analysis of Two Key Passages in Antigone
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Antigone, Creon, Jean Anouilh 2676 Words | 7 Pages
Transactional Analysis - Communication
Transactional analysis Eric Berne's Transactional Analysis - early TA history and theory... Transactional Analysis is one of the most accessible theories of modern psychology. Transactional Analysis was founded by Eric Berne, and the famous 'parent adult child' theory is still being developed today. Transactional Analysis has wide applications in clinical, therapeutic, organizational and personal development, encompassing communications, management, personality, relationships and behaviour. Whether...
Childhood, Claude Steiner, Developmental psychology 3345 Words | 10 Pages
Features
The basic features of Elizabethan Poetry During the Elizabethan age England felt the complete effect of the Renaissance. There occurred... a revival of the old and classical literature of Greece and Rome and this was manifested in the poetry of the age. The Elizabethan age was characterized by an extreme spirit of adventure, aestheticism and materialism which became the characteristic features of Elizabethan poetry. Many poets displayed their skill in versification during this time and England...
Iambic pentameter, Meter, Poetic form 1141 Words | 3 Pages
Product Analysis
Analysis of existing products: • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Product analysis This product would be suitable for age... group 17-30 The function of this lamp would be a table lamp. The aesthetics of the lamps are the shape the bright red color and the way the light is designed The cost is £175.00. Size not mentioned Method not mentioned The material used is Acrylic. It has a self finish. The key features are the shape the way the light is desighed. This would be suitable for age group between...
Color, Help me, Lamps 458 Words | 3 Pages
Organizational Behavior Analysis for Key Bank
May 21, 2009 BusinessWeek, February 21, 2009 KeyBank Profile – Internet By Richard Barrett, Building a Vision-Guided, Values-Driven Organization, PART I:... WHY VALUES ARE IMPORTANT Organizational Behavior Analysis for Key Bank Over the past several weeks I have discussed the strengths, challenges and areas improving behavior and performance at KeyCorp. This discussion has come primarily from my personal observations and experiences at the bank. I also...
Bank, KeyBank 2276 Words | 6 Pages
Online Banking Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2012 - 2018
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Bank, Economics, Market research 811 Words | 3 Pages
Dependence Analysis of Transactional Workflow Models
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Compilers, Concurrency control, Data dependency 463 Words | 2 Pages
Key Factor Cultural Analysis of Karachi
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Ethnic group, Ethnic groups in Pakistan, Karachi 829 Words | 5 Pages
Woolworths Analysis
growth. Activities in food, liquor, petrol, consumer electronics, general merchandise, retailing through chain store operations, together with hotel,... gaming and entertainment operations (data analysis, 2007). HR position (employees) 180,000 employees across 3,000 stores. Other related factors Key macro environmental factors General economic condition - Global Legislation and regulation ACC, TPA, FIRB. monitors and regulates the industry Population demographics (geographic distribution...
Culture, Life cycle assessment, Management 573 Words | 4 Pages
Briefly Outline the Key Features of a Cognitive-Behavioural Approach to Counselling
Briefly outline the key features of a cognitive-behavioural approach to counselling and discuss some of the ways in which this... approach differs from one of the other main approaches to counselling. In part two reflect on and write about which of the two approaches discussed in your essay you prefer and why. This essay will explain key aspects of a cognitive-behavioural approach to counselling. Revealing how this method of counselling differs from the psychodynamic approach, and demonstrating my...
Behavior, Carl Jung, Psychoanalysis 1491 Words | 5 Pages
Transactional Style Inventory
The instrument used for the data collection in this study is “Transactional Styles Inventory – Managers (TSI - M)” It helps the respondents... examine their interaction and transactional styles. Transactional Analysis concepts are quite popular and two basic concepts can be used to understand interaction styles, the Ego States and the Existential positions. Transactional Analysis (TA), originated and developed by Eric Berne, is a new theory of personality structure and a method of treatment through...
Dimension, Id, ego, and super-ego, People 1477 Words | 5 Pages
Outline the Key features of the Just War Theory
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2003 invasion of Iraq, Gulf War, Iraq 1189 Words | 2 Pages
Key Political and Social Features of Kaiser Reich
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Conservatism, German Empire, Liberalism 1545 Words | 4 Pages
Transformational and Transactional Leadership
A Discussion of the key differences between transactional and transformational leaders Zoltan Blazek S0192734 This essay... contrasts the benefits of transactional and transformational leadership in the context of its usefulness in organizations. It argues that while transactional leadership is most commonly used in organizations to establish goals and clarify roles nowadays, it’s transformational leadership that holds the key to long-term high performance and therefore to continuous improvement...
Leadership, Management, Motivation 1568 Words | 5 Pages
An Analysis of Leadership Models
An Analysis of Leadership Models and their Influence on Educational Leadership Pamela Le University of Phoenix An... Analysis of Leadership Models Although there is no conclusive, comprehensive definition of leadership, there has been advances in researching leadership theories that have been uncovered and carried out over the last 200 years. In the late 1800s, the trait theory permeated the leadership theory. The World War era saw the beginning of the contingency/situation...
Charismatic authority, Education, Fiedler contingency model 1586 Words | 8 Pages
Industry Analysis
Industry Analysis The course is based on the ability of students to define their business, conduct an effective industry... analysis, and identify the "key success factory" for firms competing in the industry. Such industry analysis is based on: A. DEFINE THE BUSINESS. The boundary for industry analysis is the markets and products that describe the domain of the industry. Once you understand the business segment that is to be analyzed, identify the capabilities required to participate in that industry...
Barriers to entry, Business, Competition 809 Words | 3 Pages
Analysis on the characteristics and features of Facebook that promotes narcissism on the Filipino Youth
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Facebook, MySpace, Online social networking 1915 Words | 7 Pages
Essay On Features Of Economic Recession
Essay on features of economic recession questions economic recession essay and to at least five questions of my own. defining... features of these text types and so decide what needs to be taught. Cycle (or Trade Cycle) is divided into the following four phases :- Prosperity Phase : Expansion or Boom or Upswing of economy. Recession Phase :. Essay on features of economic recession pdf San Diego essays on identity and culture Augusta, Lubbock essays on plessy v ferguson Knoxville. how do i get all....
Business cycle, Great Depression, Late-2000s recession 930 Words | 4 Pages
Analysis
distribution' can be an asset for any business project. I’m not sure how to put this in words but gives the business a picture of what the outcome could... be both positive and negative outcomes. 3. Describe in at least two paragraphs the quantitative analysis approach, to include a high level overview of the importance of identifying the problem, developing a model, acquiring input data, developing a solution, testing the solution, analyzing results, and implementation. 4. Respond to at least two...
Cumulative distribution function, Errors and residuals in statistics, Normal distribution 1354 Words | 5 Pages
English Analysis
TXC 500 Assessment 1: Text analysis essay Hymes (1972) recognized bilingualism as the most widely recognized form of linguistic diversity... in communities (cited in Bauman & Sherzer, 1975). As such, he devised a tool or framework to analyse the ways that people interact with each other in order to communicate with each other effectively (Small, 2008). This tool can be broken down into eight parts, which are: Setting, Participants, Ends (Purpose), Acts, Key, Instrumentality, ‘Norms’ and Genre...
Conversation, Conversation analysis, Discourse analysis 1811 Words | 5 Pages
Critique of Transformational & Transactional Leadership
Transformational Leadership & Transactional Leadership “Leadership without perspective and point of view isn’t leadership-and of course it... must be your own perspective, your own point of view. You cannot borrow a point of view any more than you can borrow someone else’s eyes. It must be authentic, and if it is, it will be original, because you are original”. (Bennis, 1992, p.122) Introduction This paper assesses two popular leadership theories: Transformational Leadership & Transactional Leadership. It further...
Leadership, Management, Motivation 1794 Words | 6 Pages
Smartphone Industry Analysis
Smartphone Industry Analysis Team 5 University of North Alabama MG 498-I01 Dr. Dennis Balch Team 5: Bradi Reader – Document... Manager/Formatting and Editing Bailey Claunch – Industry Overview Kylie Corum – PESTEL Factors Kyle Stephenson – Porter’s Five Forces Matthew Vest – Sector/Strategic Groups Brantley Claunch – Current Issues Table of Contents Industry Overview 4 Smartphone Industry Analysis 4 Key Players 4 Smartphone Market Size 4 Growth Patterns 4 Customers 4 Suppliers 5 Factors...
App Store, Factor analysis, IPhone 512 Words | 9 Pages
Left & Right Realism - Outline the Key Features
(McLaughlin 2004). Left Realists have, whilst taking on board some of the issues raised by Marxism and Critical Criminology, distanced themselves away from a... direct link and also completely away from Right Realists. Durkheim saw crime as being a feature of society, not of individuals and his famous study on suicide rates showed an increase in affluent times, not just during economic depression (Durkheim 1895). As society actively supports the self aspiring individual and applauds rags to riches tales...
Crime, Crime prevention, Crime statistics 2420 Words | 6 Pages
A Summary of Transactional Analysis
A SUMMARY OF TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS CONCEPTS I USE By Fanita English (From “How Did You Become a... Transactional Analyst?“ Transactional Analysis Journal, Vol. 35 , #1 Jan 2005) “How did you become a transactional analyst?” I am often asked that question when I tell people what I do. I answer that originally my training as a therapist was in Freudian psychoanalysis and included eight years of personal psychoanalysis. I practiced as such for l4 years, treating both children and adults. Increasingly...
Claude Steiner, Eric Berne, Games People Play 7254 Words | 19 Pages
business model analysis
Business Model Analysis Assignment You have identified a concept that you believe could be a viable business and formed a team to write a... business plan. As part of the business planning process the team will conduct a business model analysis. Business Model Analysis The business model analysis investigates the fundamentals of your venture. It sets the stage for writing the various sections of the business plan. Opportunity o Define the market segment. What are the size and key trends? o What...
Bank, Competitor analysis, Entrepreneurship 528 Words | 3 Pages
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Who wrote the novel, Treasure Island? | Key Features Of Transactional Analysis Free Essays
Key Features Of Transactional Analysis
Introduction and History - Transactional Analysis is a theory to understand human behavior through concepts which have been... taken from psychology and psychotherapy. This method helps in understanding and to some extent – predicting how people behave in different situations. Transaction analysis was developed by Eric Berne during 1950’s and was made famous by his book – “Games People Play”. This theory was further developed by Dr. Thomas Harris in his book – “I am OK, You’re Ok” in late 1960’s...
Childhood, Eric Berne, Games People Play 856 Words | 3 Pages
Transactional Analysis
Transactional Analysis The following is an introductory description of Transactional Analysis. It is... designed to be understood by the layperson, written with approximately the same level of complexity that Berne used for Games People Play. Psychoanalysis before Eric Berne While there were many theories purporting to explain human behavior before Eric Berne, the most frequently cited and known is the work of Sigmund Freud. Freud emerged in the early 20th century with his theories about personality...
Ego psychology, Eric Berne, Games People Play 2059 Words | 6 Pages
transactional analysis
Transactional Analysis The following is an introductory description of Transactional Analysis. It is... designed to be understood by the layperson, written with approximately the same level of complexity that Berne used forGames People Play. Psychoanalysis before Eric Berne While there were many theories purporting to explain human behavior before HYPERLINK http//www.ericberne.com/eric_berne_biography/ o Biography of Eric Berne Eric Berne,the most frequently cited and known is the work of Sigmund Freud...
Claude Steiner, Developmental psychology, Ego psychology 3522 Words | 5 Pages
Transactional Analysis
Transactional Analysis Theories of Counseling Gabriele Lauer-Ballard Baker College of Jackson May 27, 2013... Transactional Analysis Transactional Analysis is one of the most accessible theories of modern psychology. Transactional Analysis was founded by Eric Berne, and the famous 'parent adult child' theory is still being developed today. Transactional Analysis has wide applications in clinical, therapeutic, organizational and personal development, encompassing communications, management...
Alter ego, Claude Steiner, Eric Berne 1110 Words | 4 Pages
Transactional Analysis
Transactional Analysis Dr. Eric Berne, the originator of Transactional Analysis, has explained... transaction is a unit of social intercourse. According to him, if two or more people encounter each other…sooner or later one of them will speak, or give some other indication of acknowledging the presence of the others. This is called transactional stimulus. Another person will then say or do something which is in some way related to stimulus, and that is called transactional response. What is transactional...
Eric Berne, Games People Play, Id, ego, and super-ego 1170 Words | 5 Pages
Transactional analysis
2. What is Transactional Analysis? How does it help in improving interpersonal relationships?... For more years than I care to remember I have been an enthusiastic supporter of a communications model called Transactional Analysis, first developed by Eric Berne in the 1950s and I find it equally as relevant to my practice today as I did when I first found it in the early 1980s. It has seen a recent increase...
Consciousness, Family, Interpersonal relationship 988 Words | 3 Pages
Transactional Analysis and Dysfunctional Behavior
Transactional Analysis: Transactional analysis is a social psychology developed by Eric Berne during... the 1960s, which has further evolved over the past four decades to include applications to psychotherapy, counseling, education and organizational development. Transactional Analysis (or TA as it is often called) is a model of people and relationships and is based on two notions: first that we have three parts or 'ego-states' to our 'personality. The other assumption is that these converse with one...
Behavior, Dysfunctional family, Eric Berne 1320 Words | 4 Pages
What is Transactional Analysis?
What is TA? Transactional Analysis was founded by Dr. Eric Berne – an innovative and creative thinker who brought together some... of the most effective ideas in psychotherapy (analytic, cognitive behavioural, phenomenological) into a powerful body of theory and practice. Although psychoanalytically trained, he espoused the values of the humanistic movement believing that change is possible and that human beings have a natural aspiration to live in harmony with themselves and others. Perhaps his most...
Eric Berne, Games People Play, Interpersonal relationship 1385 Words | 4 Pages
Transactional Analysis
Transactional Analysis Transactional Analysis (or often called TA) is a model of people and... relationships.The concept was developed by Dr. Eric Berne during the 1960s . It is based on two notions: first that we all have three parts or 'ego-states' to our 'personality. The other assumption is that these converse with one another in 'transactions' (hence the name). Transactional analysis,is a psychoanalytic theory of psychology. Ego States-Parent, Adult and Child We each have internal...
Adult, Black people, Developmental psychology 1811 Words | 6 Pages
What Are the Key Features of Academic Writing
Wondering what are the key features of academic writing and how does they differ from the characteristics of media writing is... indeed asking what tools should be known by a student to get good marks for an essay. Fist of all, before analysing each facet, every student must be aware of the value of good academic writing tools. In reality, the difference between two good writers or speakers and consequently two grades is influenced by the way the explanation has been constructed and justified with...
Academia, Academic writing, Allyn & Bacon 948 Words | 3 Pages
Explain the Key Features of Two Therapeutic Models (Cbt and Ta)
Explain the key features of two therapeutic models (CBT AND TA) Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (also known by its abbreviation... CBT) was primarily developed through an integration of behavior therapy (first popularized by Edward Thorndike) with cognitive therapy (developed by Aaron Beck and Albert Ellis). The first discrete, intentionally therapeutic approach to CBT to be developed was Rational Emotive Therapy (RET), which was originated by Albert Ellis, Ph.D. in the mid-1950's. Ellis developed...
Albert Ellis, Clinical psychology, Cognitive behavioral therapy 1412 Words | 5 Pages
Extraction of product key features based on customer reviews
Extraction of Product Key Features from Customer Reviews Lakshmi Bhargavi Gadamsetty, Naveen Kumar Gadamsetty ST.ANN’S... College of Engineering and Technology [email protected] Abstract Over the past few years consumers are forced to wade through many online reviews in order to make decision about a product. There has been a growth in the field of online reviews of products. These reviews serve as means of assessing decision about a product to the customers. Due to unstructured...
Data, Data analysis, Data mining 684 Words | 3 Pages
1901 and Key Features
Name: Bui Thi Ha Thu Task 1: The graph and table show the number of fishers in millions for different regions between 1970, 1980 and 2000, and the world’s... top ten exporters of fish in 2000. Summarize the information by choosing and reporting the key features, and make any relevant comparisons. The bar graph and the table indicate comparisons of millions of fishers in 5 regions in the world between 1970, 1980 and 2000 and the world’s top ten exporters of fish in 2000. As is illustrated by the...
1901, 1904, 1913 650 Words | 3 Pages
Key Features of a Bond
A. What are the key features of a bond? answer: if possible, begin this lecture by showing students an actual bond... certificate. We show a real coupon bond with physical coupons. These can no longer be issued--it is too easy to evade taxes, especially estate taxes, with bearer bonds. All bonds today must be registered, and registered bonds don't have physical coupons. 1. Par or face value. We generally assume a $1,000 par value, but par can be anything, and often $5,000 or more is used....
Bond, Bonds, Coupon 1542 Words | 6 Pages
Transactional Analysis
Corey TPCP(8e) / WebTutor / Transactional Analysis 1 TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS by Gerald Corey For... Web Tutor for THEORY AND PRACTICE OF COUNSELING AND PSYCHOTHERAPY Eighth Edition (2009) INTRODUCTION Historical Background KEY CONCEPTS View of Human Nature The Ego States The Need for Strokes Injunctions and Counterinjunctions Decisions and Redecisions Games Basic Psychological Life Positions and Lifescripts THE THERAPEUTIC PROCESS Therapeutic Goals Therapist’s Function and Role Client’s Experience...
Clinical psychology, Cognitive behavioral therapy, Decision making 17896 Words | 53 Pages
Key Features of Utilitarianism
Examine the key features of utilitarianism (21) The theory of Utilitarianism is based on the concept of utility, a theory of... usefulness. Utilitarianism is a system of morality that generates us with what the most useful thing to do in different situations and outcomes. Different Utilitarian approaches to morality have emerged each with their own theory of good and community of concerning individuals. Featuring the main influential contributors to this theory are Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill...
Animal rights, Ethics, Jeremy Bentham 1193 Words | 3 Pages
Explain the key features of Utilitarian
Explain the key features of Utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is the belief that the rightness of an action, rule or principle is... to be judged by its presumed consequences. Whilst Kant developed his view that human beings were rational animals who can develop a moral society based on reason. Kant based his moral philosophy on what he regards as a priori knowledge. Utilitarian’s in coming to a conclusion about the rightness of an action, rule or principle, are forced to answer two fundamental moral...
Ethics, Hedonism, Jeremy Bentham 1059 Words | 3 Pages
Discourse Analysis Features of Context
----------- Discourse Analysis Assignment 1 Text: [pic] [pic] Features of context 1. Addressor: a BBC journalist... 2. Addressee: the US readers 3. Audience: online readers 4. Topic: US to resume shortly Haiti medical evacuation flights 5. Setting: place: in a column of online BBC newspaper; time: February 2nd, 2010 6. Channel: writing 7. Code: Standard American English 8. Message-form: journal article 9. Event: BBC news 10. Key: informative, updated ...
2010 Haiti earthquake, Barack Obama, Charlie Crist 798 Words | 3 Pages
Outline key features of utilitarianism
Sabina Leng Outline the important features of utilitarianism (21 marks) The theory of utilitarianism determines the rightness or... wrongness of an action by its consequence. The theory uses a teleological approach where it primarily focuses on the amount of pain or pleasure created as the result of a given action. As such, it moves beyond the scope of one's own interests and takes into account the interests of others. Utilitarianism is a relativist system of which most versions do not set out...
Animal rights, Ethics, James Mill 1133 Words | 4 Pages
Transactional Analysis
TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS: A REVIEW OF THEORY Running Head: TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS: A REVIEW OF... THEORY Transactional Analysis: A Review of Theory Robin K. Walters-Powell Wayne State University SW 9220 Spring, 2010 Abstract Eric Berne, M.D. during the 1940’s as an alternative to psychoanalysis, created Transactional Analysis theory. Although influenced by the likes of Freud, Kahn, Federn, and Erikson, it was a transition to the optimistic side of human nature. It lends itself to the...
International Federation of Social Workers, International Transactional Analysis Association, Psychotherapy 5613 Words | 15 Pages
Analyse The Key Features Of Virtue Ethi
Analyse the key features of Virtue Ethics Virtue ethics is a custom which goes back to Plato and Aristotle; it is also known as... aretaic ethics, from the Greek word arête meaning excellence or virtue. There are a number of key features to virtue ethics, one of the most significant being that it is an agent-centered theory rather than act-centered theory. Therefore it asks the questions ‘What sort of person ought I to be?’ rather than ‘How ought I to act’. The concept does not focus on actions being...
Aristotle, Ethics, Eudaimonia 2104 Words | 5 Pages
Transactional Analysis
Transactional Analysis Psychotherapy (TA) Word Count: 2978... Abstract Transactional Analysis (TA), formulated by Eric Berne in the 1960s, is set apart from most therapeutic approaches in that it is contractual and decisional. In this essay, I would like to use the theories and concepts developed in this approach to identify certain key issues on a case study presented. Starting by constructing therapeutic alliances and forging a contract...
Claude Steiner, Eric Berne, Games People Play 3184 Words | 11 Pages
Key Features
Shaq Brown key features are editing and typing and knowing what to use as far as graphics and other things go. A few... business app programs may include microsoft powerpoint,mirosoft exel, and microsoft word. Some key features of microsoft word are the thesaurus, spell checker, the dictionary, tables and text editing. Main features in MS exel would be charts, graphs, inserting and removing row colunms and organizing data and adding grids. A few features of powerpoint would include the cropping...
Microsoft, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Word 562 Words | 2 Pages
Transactional Analysis
COMMUNICATION SKILLS TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS 1 TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS CONTENTS ... Why use transactional analysis (TA)? Definition of TA The Development of TA Areas of Application Ego States The three ego states Diagnosis of Ego States Transactional Analysis Strokes Life Positions The four life positions Psychological Games Individuals can change References and further reading 1 1 2 3 3 3 5 8 12 14 15 17 19 19 WHY USE TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS (TA)? We can: n n ...
Eric Berne, Games People Play, Parenting 4262 Words | 14 Pages
Oracle Data Pump Key Features
Oracle Data Pump is a new and unique feature of Oracle Database 11g. A new public interface package, DBMS_DATAPUMP, provides a server-side... infrastructure for fast data and metadata movement between Oracle databases. It is ideal for large databases and data warehousing environments, where high-performance data movement offers significant time savings to database administrators. Data Pump automatically manages multiple, parallel streams of unload and load for maximum throughput. The degree of parallelism...
Export, Import, International trade 824 Words | 3 Pages
Examine the key features of situatiion ethics
Examine the key Features of Situation Ethics Situation ethics teaches that ethical decisions should follow flexible... guidelines rather than absolute rules, and be taken on a case by case basis. Situation ethics, most commonly associated with Joseph Fletcher and J.A.T Robinson, emerged at the time when society and the Church were facing drastic and permanent changes. Fletcher wrote a book called Situation Ethics, which was published in 1966, a time when the ephemeral nature of the country was...
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| i don't know |
In which country was ex-England cricket captain Tony Greig born? | Tony Greig, ex-England cricket captain, dies after heart attack - Telegraph
Cricket News
Tony Greig, ex-England cricket captain, dies after heart attack
Tony Greig, the former England captain, died in Sydney on Saturday after a heart attack brought on by complications with lung cancer, aged 66.
England cricket captain Tony Greig in action against the West Indies during the 2nd test in 1976 Photo: Rex Features
Comments
Tributes were paid by cricketers around the world, both for his contribution on the field and for the impact he had on his profession.
Greig was one of the leading lights in World Series Cricket , set up in 1977 by the Australian television magnate Kerry Packer in opposition to official cricket, after the Australian Cricket Board refused to sell to Packer its broadcasting rights.
Former England cricket captain Tony Greig (Rex/PA)
“He was my first-ever captain for England. I’m very sad and very emotional,” Sir Ian Botham said. “He changed cricket for everybody as we know it now. The game suddenly leaped forward and players started to get paid more substantial amounts. The players of today have a lot to be thankful for in Tony and Kerry Packer.”
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David Richardson, chief executive of the International Cricket Council, said: “This is extremely sad news for cricket and the ICC send their condolences to Tony’s family and in particular his wife Vivian.
"Tony played a significant part in shaping modern cricket as a player in the 1970s and then provided millions of cricket lovers with a unique insight as a thoughtful and knowledgeable commentator.”
Geoff Boycott, who played alongside Greig for England, had offered him advice about combating cancer after Greig had been diagnosed with it this year.
“Tony was mentally ready to tackle the disease and prepared for his chemotherapy in the New Year. His death has come as a huge shock.”
The tributes extended beyond cricketers past and present. Australia’s Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, and sports minister Kate Lundy released a joint statement, saying: “Australia has lost one of the iconic voices of sport with the passing of Tony Greig.
"He was a wonderful example of someone who came to Australia and embraced his adopted country as his own.”
As an all-round Test cricketer, Greig has to rank among the best there has been. In his 58 Tests he had a batting average of 40 and a bowling average of 32.
This differential of eight has been surpassed by only four players who have scored more than 3,000 Test runs and taken more than 100 Test wickets: Jacques Kallis (South Africa), Garfield Sobers (West Indies), Imran Khan (Pakistan) and Shaun Pollock (South Africa).
Born in South Africa, and signed by Sussex, Greig played his first Test for England in 1972 and his last in 1977, shortly after he had been stripped of the England captaincy for his involvement in WSC.
He then went to live in Australia and, after WSC, became a television cricket commentator.
Greig is survived by his second wife, and four children from his two marriages.
A statement released by David Gyngell, CEO of Channel Nine Entertainment added: "He's a great bloke – one of the terrific characters of the game both as a player and then a commentator, never short of an opinion but always a generous man with a big heart. You just cannot say fairer than that.
"He will be sadly missed and our special thoughts go out to Vivian, and Tony's daughters Samantha and Beau, and sons Mark and Tom."
| South Africa |
What was Tom Jones' first UK number one single? | Tony Greig, ex England cricket captain, dies aged 66 - YouTube
Tony Greig, ex England cricket captain, dies aged 66
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Published on Dec 28, 2012
Tony Greig, ex England cricket captain, dies aged 66
Tony Greig deid Former england Cicketer
BREAKING NEWS : Cricketer Tony Greig Dies At 66
Cricketer and commentator Tony Greig dies
Cricket Legend and Commentator Tony Greig Dies At 66
Former England captain and broadcaster Tony Greig dies
PTI | Dec 29, 2012, 10.27 AM IST
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READ MORE World Series Cricket|Tony Greig|Nine Network|lung cancer|Cancer
Former England captain and broadcaster Tony Greig dies
Greig played for England between 1972 and 1977 before becoming a commentator. (AFP Photo)
RELATED Factbox: Former England captain Tony Greig Tony Greig reveals he has lung cancer
SYDNEY: Former England captain and celebrated television commentator Tony Greig passed away after losing his battle with lung cancer on Saturday.
Greig was 66. He breathed his last at a Sydney hospital after being brought in a "critical condition".
He was diagnosed with lung cancer in October this year after undergoing treatment for what was initially thought to be bronchitis in May.
He underwent tests after the World Twenty20 Championships in Sri Lanka and it was revealed that there was a small lesion at the base of his right lung.
"On his return to Australia he had fluid removed from the right lung and testing revealed he had lung cancer," the 'Sydney Morning Herald' reported.
Greig's son Mark told a newspaper that his father's cancer had progressed to "stage four".
While commentating during the coverage of the first Australia-South Africa in November, Greig spoke about the disease.
"It's not good. The truth is I've got lung cancer. Now it's a case of what they can do," Greig had said.
Born in Queenstown, South Africa, Greig qualified to play for England due to his Scottish parentage. His father was a Scot.
In his 58-match Test career, Greig scored 3,599 runs and picked up 141 wickets. In 22 ODIs that he played, Greig scored 269 runs and managed 19 wickets.
Greig was a leading international all-rounder for England.
Considered a controversial figure, he helped Kerry Packer start the World Series Cricket by signing up many English as well as some West Indian and Pakistani cricketers.
The move ended up costing him England's captaincy. The best performance of Greig's captaincy career came in 1976-77, when England toured India for a five-Test series.
The team had not won there for 15 years but went on to score one of their most convincing triumphs when they clinched the first three Tests by huge margins.
Greig turned into a successful commentator following the end of his playing career in 1977 and was forthright with his views. He was one of the bitterest critics of BCCI's opposition to the Decision Review System.
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What flavour is the liqueur cassis? | Why Crème de Cassis Deserves a Revival | Serious Eats
Why Crème de Cassis Deserves a Revival
9
Don't call it grandma booze. Crème de cassis is too good to relegate to your occasional Kir Royale. [Photo: Lejay Crème de Cassis]
Finding delicious, balanced fruit liqueurs can be a tricky business. After several unfortunate encounters with cloying bargain-priced brands in my early days of drinking, I have largely ignored that shelf at the liquor store. Until, that is, I discovered crème de cassis. Unlike other fruity, sugary liqueurs, cassis is captivating. It offers an exotic depth of flavor and an intriguing contrast between lush fruit and puckering acidity. These days, you'll spot crème de cassis at your best local cocktail bar, and it should be on your home liquor shelf, too.
The liqueur tastes unfamiliar and interesting mostly because it's made with a small berry that isn't found abundantly in America. When I first tasted black currant, I was overseas in England. Sipping on a tangy soda from popular brand Ribena, I knew instantly I was hooked. The soda had a dark crimson hue, and the flavor was shockingly foreign and exciting; an uneasy balance between tart and bitter, sweet and dry, dripping with rich fruit.
[Photo: Lejay Crème de Cassis]
Since then, I've searched high and low for black currants, and have been curious as to why the flavor never caught on with as much fervor in the States as it has in places like France and England. Turns out, the reason for fruit's obscurity here is because commercial cultivation is tightly regulated, as black currant sometimes carries a fungus that is detrimental to pine trees, thus threatening the timber industry. The regulations, put into place at the federal level in the early 1900s, have since been lifted in several states, allowing the once-forbidden fruits to grow in places including Oregon, New York, Vermont, and Massachusetts.
Yet you still don't see black currant spreading like wildfire. Perhaps because at its core, it's a flavor that's not as familiar to Americans as other fruits. Black currant has an astringent sharpness similar to cranberry that can be off-putting to some, meaning its uses and widespread appeal are limited. Personally, I tend to favor drinks that lean towards the sharp, bitter end of the liquid spectrum, so you can imagine my delight in discovering that black currant is available—just hiding in the obscure world of fruit liqueurs under the guise of cassis or crème de cassis. Here are some of the best brands that can be found at your local store, and how to drink them.
How to Drink It
[Photo: Emma Janzen]
If you like big-bodied red wines with plenty of tannin, rich bittersweet amari, or herbal and lush vermouths, black currant might be the right liqueur for you, too. If these descriptors sound appealing, try getting to know it on a few cubes of ice to quench the need for a light pre-dinner appetite stimulant.
Cocktail-wise, let's get the obvious out of the way immediately: yes, cassis is known for its role in the celebrated Kir and Kir Royale cocktails, and those drinks are pretty much its dominant use in both Europe and the States. There's no denying that the black currant flavor plays well with both white wine and Champagne, but with such a pungent, perky identity, it's a shame to relegate cassis to these drinks alone.
The liqueur works exceptionally well in an array of aperitif drinks and highballs like the Pompier cocktail , made with dry vermouth and club soda, or the tangy Teresa made with Campari and lime. It also shines in the classic Diablo , where it brings sweetness to spicy ginger ale (or ginger beer, if you like that ginger punch) and helps round out earthy, herbal tequila.
If the cassis you've purchased is well-balanced—not heavily tart or extra sweet—you can simply serve it with soda and a lemon twist. Adding a heavy spritz of lime draws out the cranberry-like tartness in the fruit—if you like sour drinks and are tired of the standard offerings, this is a must try.
In Europe, cassis is often used as a sweet kick in a creamy Guinness or to perk up a dry cider, and the berry liqueur also opens up and lengthens aged spirits as well. Thanks to its inherently opulent texture, it pairs well with sweet vermouth and the vanilla and oak characters of a fine bourbon in a riff on the Manhattan cocktail. Try adding a quarter ounce or half ounce to your normal recipe for a dash of added complexity.
Which Brand?
Since creme de cassis is somewhat obscure, you'll be lucky to find more than two or three brands at your local store—for a good-quality liqueur, expect to spend around $30 for 750 mL. Any of the recommendations below are worth checking out. The main differences between these brands are that some focus more on a syrupy sugar personality while others lean towards the tartness and acidity from the fruit instead. Read on to discover which might best suit your taste.
Briottet Crème de Cassis
This classic cassis ($30 for 750mL) makes a friendly introduction to the category for the uninitiated. The French company has been making black currant liqueur for over six generations using a single variety of cassis, the aromatic Noir de Bourgogne, sourced from three regions in the country. It has a soft fruit personality with hints of tobacco and very little acidity. Briottet shines best when paired with a dry Champagne in the classic Kir Royale.
Giffard Cassis Noir de Bourgogne
Many cassis producers will shy away from the raspberry comparison, as the black currant is very different flavor-wise, but the Giffard Cassis Noir de Bourgogne ($29.99 for 750mL) tastes the closest to that end of the red berry spectrum with a thick sweetness and lavender-like finish. It's one of the higher-proof of the bunch, hitting the 20 percent ABV mark, with vegetal notes emerging when diluted with soda.
Lejay Crème de Cassis
This French product is one of the newest on the American market, though its origins go back to 1841. Lejay Crème de Cassis ($29.99 for 750mL) includes cassis buds in the recipe in addition to the fruit itself, which adds a subtle layer of floral interest. At 18 percent ABV, it walks a fine line between zesty grapefruit-like citrus and dark rose flavors, and tastes great mixed with tequila, lime, and ginger beer, or on the rocks with soda water.
Clear Creek Cassis Liqueur
One of the only American-made cassis products on the market, the Clear Creek liqueur ($22 for 375mL) is a big departure from its French counterparts thanks to a focus on the beautiful, zingy nature of the fruit. Piquant Oregon berries shine through the brandy base with a crisp balance that makes it great for sipping on the rocks with a lemon twist.
Mathilde Cassis
The Mathilde line of liqueurs from the Cognac Ferrand company includes a Cassis ($16.99 for 375mL, $27.99 for 750mL) that has the thickest, richest sugar flavor of the ones we tasted. Musky fruit like prune, date, and extra-ripe cherry carry through the viscous liqueur, leaving little room for booze at a soft 16 percent ABV. Thanks to its high sugar content, it's a bit too intense to drink solo, but works great as a sweetener in dry cocktails.
Note: All liqueurs provided as tasting samples for review consideration.
| Blackcurrant |
What product was the first to appear in a UK TV commercial (in 1955)? | What does "cassis" refer to in a wine? | Ask Dr. Vinny | Wine Spectator
Do you have a question for Dr. Vinny? Ask it here...
Dear Dr. Vinny,
I am familiar with all the interesting smells and flavors of wine, but cassis is one that I need a little help with. Can you describe this often-used wine adjective?
—Andy
Dear Andy,
Cassis refers to an intense black currant character, and most often it is used to refer to crème de cassis, a darkly colored, sweet black currant flavored liqueur. This beverage dates back to the 16th century, when French monks produced it as a cure for snake bites, jaundice and wretchedness (seriously). We don't drink much crème de cassis here in the United States, but it's all the rage in the Dijon region of France, where it's added to white wine to make a Kir, or sparkling wine to make a Kir Royale.
When used to describe wine, cassis means the taster is picking up a ripe, concentrated black currant note with a slightly different connotation than fresh currants or currant jam or jelly. If you're not familiar with black currants, they're kind of like a tangy blackberry— think of a dark berry crossed with pomegranate. For about 10 bucks you can buy a bottle of the cheapest crème de cassis, but there are better and more sophisticated versions out there too. Next time you're out, ask your friendly bartender for a sip, just to taste it and register the memory.
—Dr. Vinny
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Which artist is famous for painting a portrait of his mother? | Most Famous Paintings – List of the World’s Most Popular Painting
By: Rembrandt van Rijn
Rembrandt’s painting of a city guard led by Captain Frans Banning Cocq moving out is famous for three reasons: its large size of 11’10” x 14’4”, effective utilization of chiaroscuro (light and shadow balance), and its portrayal of motion in what would have been a traditionally static painting. Rembrandt completed the piece at the height of the Dutch Golden Age.
Las Meninas , 1656
By: Diego Velazquez
Las Meninas, or The Maids of Honor, depicts a room in the Madrid palace of Spain’s King Philip IV. The painting is famous for its complexities regarding reality and illusion. Uncertainty is played out in the relations between the viewers and the figures, as well as between the figures themselves. These complex uncertainties have welcomed much discussion and analysis among critics and scholars.
Whistler’s Mother , 1871
By: James McNeill Whistler
Whistler painted his mother, Anna McNeill Whistler, when the original model failed to come to the appointment. The painting was not well-received when he submitted it to the Royal Academy of Art in London for exhibition, but shortly later the public showed much respect and deference for it, quickly restoring Whistler’s honor.
By: Vincent van Gogh
One of van Gogh’s paintings of Arles at a riverbank not far from the Yellow House he was residing at the time. The night scenery, lighting, and stars provided subjects for his more famous paintings, such as The Starry Night.
Dogs Playing Poker, 1903
By: C.M. Coolidge
Dogs Playing Poker is the collective name of sixteen oil paintings by C.M. Coolidge. Each painting was commissioned to advertise cigars for Brown & Bigelow.
By: Gustav Klimt
The Kiss, or Der Kuss, was Gustav Klimt’s most renowned art piece. He was done during the peak of his “Golden Period.” The Kiss depicts a man and woman kissing and embracing, with their bodies cloaked by elegant golden robes. Along with oil paint, gold leaf was used. His use of gold was influenced by a trip to Italy in 1903, after which gold and silver were used often in his art.
La Trahison des Images (Ceci N’est pas une Pipe), 1928-29
By: Rene Magritte
La Trahison des Images, or The Treachery of Images, was painted by Magritte in 1928-1929. Below is written: Ceci N’est pas une Pipe, meaning “this is not a pipe” in French. Magritte was trying to make the point that the painting was not an actual pipe, only a representation of one.
American Gothic , 1930
By: Grant Wood
American Gothic was inspired by the Dibble House in Iowa. Wood saw its Gothic architectural style and decided to paint the house along with the kind of people he imagined might live in it. The painting depicts a farmer and his daughter, both modeled by his dentist and his sister. Each element of the painting was done separately; the models sat separately and were never at the house.
By: Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso’s detest of the Spanish Civil War is manifested in an art piece known as Guernica. The piece was commissioned by the Spanish Republican government to portray the pain and suffering caused by wars. Guernica would become a monumental symbol of anti-war and peace.
By: Jackson Pollock
No. 5, 1948 was done on an 8 feet by 4 feet sheet of fiberboard, splattered with brown and yellow paint to give a nest-like appearance. The painting is supposedly abstract; the exquisiteness of how such a painting became so famous would most likely be misunderstood by many people.
| James Abbott McNeill Whistler |
Which singer was known as the 'Forces' Sweetheart'? | Whistler’s famous portrait of his mother resides temporally in Massac…
Published on
Jul 14, 2015
One of the most famous and recognizable of all American paintings, James Abbott McNeill Whistler’s portrait known as ‘Whistler’s Mother’ traveled to Massachusetts this July.
Formally known as “Arrangement in Gray and Black No. 1: Portrait of the Artist’s Mother”, the iconic portrait is displayed at the #Clark #Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts, starting July 4th and continue until September 27th.
The 1871 #painting is one of the most prominent works of art by Whistler. It belongs to the French state since 1891 and is currently owned by the #Musée #d’Orsay in #Paris.
Whistler was born in the northern Massachusetts mill town of Lowell, but he spent most of his life abroad, in France, Russia and Great Britain. In 1871, Whistler painted the iconic portrait of his mother, Anna, who was originally supposed to stand for the portrait, but the artist had to change his mind due to bad health of his mother, so she was seated in a chair in profile.
The Clark Institute is one of only two #American venues featuring the painting this year, located in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts. It houses European and American paintings and sculpture, English silver and early photography.
Click on this link to buy this Whistler’s piece of art - bit.ly/1IXgFfq
...
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What does a lepidopterist collect? | What does lepidopterist mean?
This page provides all possible meanings and translations of the word lepidopterist
Princeton's WordNet(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition:
lepidopterist, lepidopterologist, butterfly collector(noun)
an entomologist who specializes in the collection and study of butterflies and moths
Wiktionary(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition:
lepidopterist(Noun)
Someone who studies lepidoptery; someone who studies butterflies and moths.
Webster Dictionary(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition:
Lepidopterist(noun)
one who studies the Lepidoptera
Freebase(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition:
Lepidopterist
A lepidopterist or aurelian is a person who specialises in the study of Lepidoptera, members of an order encompassing moths and the three superfamilies of butterflies, skipper butterflies, and moth-butterflies. The term also includes hobbyists who are not formal scholars, who catch, collect, study, or simply observe lepidopterans. Post-Renaissance, the rise of the "lepidopterist" can be attributed to the expanding interest in science, nature and the surroundings. When Linnaeus wrote the tenth edition of the Systema Naturae in 1758, there was already "a substantial body of published work on Lepidopteran natural history". These included: ⁕Insectorum sive Minimorum Animalium Theatrum - Thomas Mouffet ⁕Metamorphosis Naturalis - Jan Goedart ⁕Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium - Maria S. Merian, whose work included illustrated accounts of European Lepidoptera ⁕Historia Insectorum - John Ray ⁕Papilionum Brittaniae icones - James Petiver
Numerology
The numerical value of lepidopterist in Chaldean Numerology is: 1
Pythagorean Numerology
| Butterfly |
What was Genevieve in the 1953 film of the same name? | LEPIDOPTERIST.ORG-HOME
Welcome
Lepidopterist is a person interested in butterflies and moths. This interest takes all shapes and forms, from making collections as pastime, to studies involving molecular biology.
Lepidopterist.org expands that definition to people who appreciate Lepidoptera for their aesthetic value. Whatever brought you to this page, we hope you find it by clicking an appropriate button on your left.
The page is always under construction. So, please, visit in the near future!
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In which UK cathedral is the Whispering Gallery? | Whispering Gallery, St Paul`s Cathedral « Sound Tourism
Whispering Gallery, St Paul`s Cathedral
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St Paul’s Cathedral is an iconic building in the centre of London. High up in the central dome is a Whispering Gallery, which I remember visiting as a child. Climb 259 steps inside the dome, stand on one side of the circular gallery and talk very quietly and your speech can be heard quite clearly on the other side some 30m away.
St Paul’s is a circular whispering gallery. In this case, sound hugs the walls, allowing it to move from one side of the room to another without getting a lot quieter – the diagram shows some of the paths that the whispers take around the perimeter of the gallery.
Sound paths in a circular whispering gallery
Location and Logistics
St Paul’s Cathedral, St Paul’s Churchyard, London, EC4M 8AD. Admission information . It’s worth arriving early in the morning and going straight to the Dome, because once the space gets busy it’s hard to pick out the whispering gallery effect amongst the hubbub.
| Saint Paul (disambiguation) |
What are Blue Mountain, Caturra, and Mocca types of? | Home - St Paul's Cathedral
Home
Today at the Cathedral View More
7:30am
Welcome to SM4!
Worship & Music
St Paul’s Cathedral has been here for over 1,400 years. It has been built and rebuilt five times, and always its main purpose has been as a place of worship and prayer.
Visit Us
St Paul's, with its world-famous dome, is an iconic feature of the London skyline. Step inside and you can enjoy the Cathedral's awe-inspiring interior, and uncover fascinating stories about its history.
Learning & Faith
Education is a core part of the Cathedral's work, delivered through a variety of events by St Paul's Forum, St Paul's Institute and the Schools & Families department.
History & Collections
For more than 1,400 years, a Cathedral dedicated to St Paul has stood at the highest point in the City. The present Cathedral is the masterpiece of Britain's most famous architect Sir Christopher Wren.
Support Us
Behind the scenes, the cost of caring for St Paul's and continuing to deliver our central ministry and work is enormous and the generosity of our supporters is critical.
Venue Bookings
Widely considered to be one of the world’s most beautiful buildings and a powerful symbol of the splendour of London, St Paul’s Cathedral is a breathtaking events venue.
GREAT FIRE 350
A programme of walks, talks and tours, special sermons & debates to mark the 350th anniversary of the Great Fire of London is taking place at St Paul’s until April 2017.
Read More >
JustWater Website
Cathedrals and churches on four continents have come together to raise awareness and activism about water by launching the JustWater website.
Read More >
ST PAUL'S INSTITUTE
St Paul's Institute seeks to foster an informed Christian response to the most urgent ethical and spiritual issues of our times: equality, stewardship and the meaning of the common good.
Triforium Tours
Visit some of the amazing lesser-seen parts of the Cathedral on a special tour of the Triforium
The Reverend Canon Philippa Boardman, MBE
We are pleased to announce that the Bishop of Southwark has appointed the Revd Canon Philippa Boardman MBE to the post of Priest in Charge of St Mary Magdalene, Wandsworth Common in the Deanery of Tooting. Philippa is Canon Treasurer of St Paul’s Cathedral. She has previously...
Martin Luther King at St Paul's
Martin Luther King left the United States in December 1964 to collect the Nobel Peace prize in Norway. He broke his journey in London - and came to St Paul's Cathedral at the invitation of Canon John Collins. He addressed a congregation of 4,000 people from the Cathedral...
Appointment of The Venerable Sheila Watson as Additional Chapter Member and Canon Non-Residentiary of St Paul’s Cathedral
St Paul’s Cathedral is delighted to announce the appointment of a senior women cleric as the first ordained additional member of its Chapter, the Cathedral’s governing body. The Venerable Sheila Watson will be joining the Chapter at the end of January 2016 following installation...
New art installation for Advent and Christmastide at St Paul's Cathedral
A work by Ian Hamilton Finlay has been installed for a short period during Advent and Christmastide. L'étoile dans son étable de lumière - The star in its stable of light- is on display opposite the crib at the West End of the Cathedral. The work and the words in neon...
Advent and Christmas at St Paul's Cathedral 2016
From surprise special celebrity readers to your favourite carols, and the wonder and worship of God's mystery - there's something for everyone at St Paul's during Advent and Christmas. Bring the children for a family-friendly carol service on a Saturday morning, join us for...
St Paul's Cathedral Community mourns the loss of a much-loved colleague
The whole Cathedral community remembers the pastoral care and support over the years that she was here. All of us are very sad to hear of this loss. Read Canon Mark Oakley's sermon dedicated to Sarah Eynstone preached at St Paul's Cathedral on Sunday 4 December 2016 We...
Working Together as the Church International - Dean of St Paul's Cathedral
Date:
17th November 2016
The Very Revd Dr David Ison, Dean of St Paul's Cathedral, speaks at a St Paul's Institute clergy learning day about the new JustWater project (www.justwater2017.org) and its significance in bringing together churches and cathedrals around the globe.
The Environmental Mission of the Church - David Shreeve
Date:
17th November 2016
David Shreeve, Environmental Adviser to the Archsbishops' Council of the Church of England, speaks at a clergy learning day hosted by St Paul's Institute as part of the JustWater programme (www.justwater2017.org)
Theology of Water and the Sea - Revd Canon Dr Edmund Newell
Date:
17th November 2016
The Revd Canon Dr Edmund Newell, Principal of Cumberland Lodge and Co-Founder of St Paul's Institute, presents a talk on the theology of water and the sea as part of a clergy learning day organised by St Paul's Institute for the JustWater global programme (www.justwater2017.org)
The Splash of Words: Believing in Poetry - Mark Oakley
Date:
15th November 2016
It’s easy to think the language of faith is in creeds, sermons and certainties, but Mark Oakley says that it is poetry that is the person of faith’s native language. In this talk he will invite us on an adventure into poetry’s power to startle, challenge and reframe our vision.
Soulfulness: Deepening the Mindful Life - Brian Draper
Date:
10th November 2016
Brian Draper discusses the profound benefits of mindfulness and how much they have in common with the ancient treasures of contemplative Christian practice, and can lead to us to a renewed understanding of our faith and the ‘life more abundant’ that Christ calls us to.
The Divide - Q&A on Inequality with Sir Alan Budd and Katharine Round
Date:
9th November 2016
The Divide creates a lyrical, psychological and tragi-comic picture of how economic division creates social division. This Q&A with the filmmakers and distinguished economist Sir Alan Budd, who was interviewed as part of the film, took place following a screening at St Paul's Cathedral.
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What is the monkey species on the Rock of Gibraltar commonly called? | Gibraltar Monkeys - Gibraltar Travel and Holiday Information Guide
Gibraltar Monkeys
Mar 21st, 2013 | By admin | Category: Sightseeing
Gibraltar Monkeys – Barbary Macaques
Your holiday in Gibraltar, or your relocation to the area of Gibraltar will bring you in contact with a few neighbors you may not know about. Unofficially called the National animal of Gibraltar, the Barbary Macaque is known the length and breadth of the area, and is in most cases, simply referred to as the Gibraltar monkey, or when spoken of in Spanish or the local language, are simply called monos.
Scientists believe that the Barbary Macaque population, the proper name of the Monkeys of Gibraltar, the last of such a population on the continent of Europe (although they do thrive in North Africa) was introduced to the area of Gibraltar by the Moors who lived there between 700 and 1492. The Gibraltar Monkeys were likely used as pets by the occupants, however there is another school of thought that believes that the original macaques were holdovers from a population that had spread over southern Europe up to 5 million years ago. One absolute certainty is that before the area became British territory, in the early 1700’s, the macaque population was present there.
This is known to be fact in that Portillo wrote, in about 1610 about those very Barbary Macaques, (Gibraltar Monkeys) saying “But now let us speak of other and living producers which in spite of the asperity of the rock still maintain themselves in the mountain, there are monkeys, who may be called the true owners, with possession from time immemorial, always tenacious of the dominion, living for the most part on the eastern side in high and inaccessible chasms.” In 1782 Ayala, another Spanish historian also wrote of the Gibraltar monkeys: “Neither the incursions of Moor, the Spaniards nor the English, nor cannon nor bomb of either have been able to dislodge them.” There are presently about 250 of the Gibraltar Monkeys, divided into five troops that live in the area that is known as the Upper Rock, and once in a while make brief forays into town that sometimes result in a bit of a fright of a little damage to personal property, but most of the locals believe that they are certainly worth the trouble as they are an integral part of Gibraltar and the Monkeys of Gibraltar certainly a draw to the tourists of Gibraltar.
Considered by many in the area, and vacationers to be the top attraction of Gibraltar, the Gibraltar monkeys attract attention where ever they are seen. One troop, which is called the Queen’s Gate group, living at Apes Den, are tame enough that they permit people to get exceptionally close to them, and will often come up to the tourists and quite often climb up on them. You are of course encouraged to use caution when this happens, as they are, regardless of how tame they appear, still wild animals and can bite or scratch if they are frightened or upset.
The Gibraltar Monkeys, or Barbary Macaques have so much contact with so many, including both tourist and local alike, that their social groups began to break down over time and they became quite dependent upon human interaction to feed them, which encouraged their foraging in the town, and doing damage to both clothing and people, as well as to buildings and automobiles.
This resulted in a law in Gibraltar that makes feeding the macaques punishable by law, so that if you are caught feeding the monkeys of Gibraltar you may net yourself a fine of up t £500.
The populace of Gibraltar Macaques was taken care of by the British Amry, and later on, by the Gibraltar Regiment, so that from about 1915 to 1991,they were under military supervision, who controlled their population, and appointed an officer who supervised their welfare, including food allowances of such items as fruit, vegetables and nuts, which they included in the budget that was made for the care of the monkeys. The officers also recorded the births of the macaques, and in proper military fashion, every single new infant was named when they were seen, many of them named after a governor, a brigadier or a higher ranking official.
Any which were taken ill or were injured in any way were taken to the Royal Naval Hospital and in fact received treatment equal to that of any other enlisted person.
With the withdrawal of the garrison, the Gibraltar Government received the responsibility for the care of the Macaques.
Today things are a bit different and the monkeys are managed now by the Gibraltar Ornithological and Natural History Society (GONHS) and the monkeys medical and nutritional care is provided by the Gibraltar Veterinary Clinic (GVC). Each day the macaques receive a supply of fresh water, are given vegetables, fruit and seeds as supplement to the natural food resources that they forage, and are regularly caught and checked to assure their good health.
With a nod to new technologies, today the animals are given a tattoo number and a micro chip as a means of identification. Once each year, a census is conducted to monitor reproductive success of the whole population, and to prevent what could prove to be a problem with the increasing population and the limited habitat of Gibraltar.
The fact that the monkeys are one of the tourist attractions of Gibraltar aside, there is also a legend, or a belief that exists here which also impels the locals to care for the monkeys.
The belief holds that as long as Barbary Macaques exist on Gibraltar, the territory will remain under British rule. In 1942 the population dwindled to just seven of the Gibraltar monkeys, and the British Prime Minister of the time, Sir Winston Churchill ordered that the numbers of the monkeys of Gibraltar be replenished immediately from both Morocco and Algeria due to this traditional belief.
For more photos and videos of the monkeys, visit: www.gibraltarmonkey.com
For something unusual, when it’s time to relax and unwind, to get away from the things that you need a break from, what better way to do that than a family vacation. What possible way could you better spend a vacation trip with your family than on an Africa safari tour. Share the love of the wild and the wildlife with your family on an adventure vacation. African safari tours are definitely a get away to remember. You simply can’t beat an African safari tour for the best way to show them a good time.
Learn more about Gibraltar!
| Barbary macaque |
In the human body what is the Trachea? | Gibraltar, cruises to Gibraltar | MSC Cruises
dec
The city of Barbary apes
On any Mediterranean cruise , Gibraltar’s interest essentially lies in its novelty: the genuine appeal of the strange, looming physical presence of its rock, and the dubious one of its preservation as one of Britain’s last remaining colonies. ..
During your excursion to Gibraltar you will discover the necessarily simple town layout, as it’s shoehorned into the narrow stretch of land on the peninsula’s western edge in the shadow of the towering Rock.
Main Street (La Calle Real) runs for most of the town’s length, a couple of blocks back from the port. On and around Main Street are most of the shops, together with many of the British-style pubs and hotels. From near the southern end of Main Street you can hop on a cable car, which will carry you up to the summit via Apes’ Den halfway up, a fairly reliable viewing point to see the tailless monkeys. Although not encouraged by the cable car’s fare structure, after riding to the top it’s possible to walk back down, a pleasant twenty- to thirty-minute stroll.
From The Top of the Rock you can look over the Strait of Gibraltar to the Atlas Mountains of Morocco and down to the town, the elaborate water-catchment system cut into the side of the rock.
The area at the top of the Rock, containing the Apes’ Den, St Michael’s Cave and other sights, is called the Upper Rock Nature Reserve. To walk down from The Top of the Rock (20min), follow Signal Station Road and St Michael’s Road to O’Hara’s Road and the Mediterranean Steps – a very steep descent most of the way down the east side, turning the southern corner of the Rock. You’ll pass through the Jews’ Gate and into Engineer Road, from where the return to town is through the Alameda Gardens.
Must see place in Gibraltar
Barbary apes
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What does an acrophobic fear? | Acrophobia | Define Acrophobia at Dictionary.com
acrophobia
[ak-ruh-foh-bee-uh] /ˌæk rəˈfoʊ bi ə/
Spell
a pathological fear of heights.
Origin of acrophobia
1890-95; < New Latin; see acro- , -phobia
Related forms
Examples from the Web for acrophobia
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Contemporary Examples
Contemporary society has gifted us with a phobia potentially as strong as acrophobia or the fear of flying: smartphone anxiety.
Do You Suffer From Smartphone Anxiety? (And if So, What the Hell’s Your Problem?) Melissa Fares April 29, 2014
Historical Examples
Probably the commonest is acrophobia, so that the detailed consideration of it shows the indications for other dreads.
Psychotherapy James J. Walsh
British Dictionary definitions for acrophobia
Expand
abnormal fear or dread of being at a great height
Derived Forms
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for acrophobia
Expand
n.
"morbid fear of heights," 1887, medical Latin, from Greek akros "at the end, the top" (see acrid ) + -phobia "fear." Coined by Italian physician Dr. Andrea Verga in a paper describing the condition, from which Verga himself suffered.
In this paper, read somewhat over a year ago at the congress of alienists at Pavia, the author makes confession of his own extreme dread of high places. Though fearless of the contagion of cholera, he has palpitations on mounting a step-ladder, finds it unpleasant to ride on the top of a coach or to look out of even a first-story window, and has never used an elevator. ["American Journal of Psychology," Nov. 1888, abstract of Verga's report]
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
| The Heights |
In which UK county is Hever Castle? | Acrophobia – Facts About Acrophobia – Causes and Treatment of Acrophobia
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Acrophobia
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Everyone is susceptible to a fear of heights, but when the fear causes a person to have panic attacks and consistently avoid situations that involve heights, their condition becomes a phobia. People who have acrophobia, also known as altophobia, have an extreme and irrational fear of heights. Individuals who suffer from this disorder can become terrified to the point that they cannot physically remove themselves from situations in which they become fearful. The phobia, in effect, becomes so paralyzing that it actually poses a danger to those who have it.
Common Facts About Acrophobia
The prevalence of acrophobia is between 2 and 5% of the population.
Twice as many women have acrophobia as men.
It is not vertigo. Vertigo is a spinning sensation that someone gets when he or she is not actually spinning.
Rational fear of heights is instinctual in many mammals.
Experiments have shown that even human infants are reluctant to crawl onto a glass floor with what looks like a few meters of free fall below it, showing that the phobia could be innate rather than a learned fear.
It may relate to poor recognition of visual cues.
Causes of Acrophobia
Like all phobias, researchers have theorized acrophobia to be the result of traumatic experiences . In other instances, acrophobia has been linked to fear of loud noises, fear of the poor structural integrity of buildings and instinct rooted in poor balance.
Treatment of Acrophobia
Treatment for acrophobia varies case by case. Some experts suggest that the phobia may stem from a person’s inability to perceive visual and spatial cues, including the positions of one’s own appendages. This would make the root of the phobia more of a physiological problem than a psychological problem, and thus more effectively treated with medications . However, most individuals who suffer from acrophobia have benefited from psychotherapy. Virtual reality treatment has proven quite effective, as has exposure treatment, which involves a systematic and gradual acclimation to the source of the phobia until it is no longer a problem.
If you are seeking help with acrophobia there are plenty of treatment options. The condition can range from a simple hindrance to a debilitating fear and if left unattended to, can preclude plenty of enjoyable and necessary activities. Ascending stairs, looking out the window of a multi-story building and even base-jumping will remain constant sources of fear and avoidance for the acrophobic unless they receive treatment. Do not let these everyday activities remain out of reach, seek the help and support needed to surmount this disorder .
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What colours are the flowers of the flax plant? | Flax
Flax
Linum perenne
Look at the delicate little flax plant with its masses of open, silky flowers, often in purest blue, and it's hard to imagine that it can also produce tough linen fibers. Each bloom lasts but a day, but the plant stays in bloom for a while since it produces so many -- not only in blue, but also clear yellow, depending on the variety.
Flax must have a light, free-draining soil. Wet feet will kill it. Flax enjoys full sun but will tolerate light shade, especially in the Southern portion of the United States.
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Under 6 inches to 3 feet
Width:
Peony
Perhaps the best-loved perennials, herbaceous peonies belong in almost every garden. Their sumptuous flowers -- single, semidouble, anemone centered or Japanese, and fully double -- in glorious shades of pinks and reds as well as white and yellow announce that spring has truly arrived. The handsome fingered foliage is usually dark green and remains good-looking all season long. Provide deep rich soil with plenty of humus to avoid dryness, and don't plant the crowns more than 2 inches beneath the surface. But these are hardly fussy plants. Where well suited to the climate, they can thrive on zero care.
Shasta daisy
Easy, always fresh, and always eye-catching, Shasta daisy is a longtime favorite. All cultivars produce white daisy flowers in various degrees of doubleness and size. The sturdy stems and long vase life make the flowers unbeatable for cutting. Shasta daisy thrives in well-drained, not overly rich soil. Taller sorts may need staking.
Veronica
Easy and undemanding, veronicas catch the eye in sunny gardens over many months. Some have mats with loose clusters of saucer-shaped flowers, while others group their star or tubular flowers into erect tight spikes. A few veronicas bring elusive blue to the garden, but more often the flowers are purplish or violet blue, rosy pink, or white. Provide full sun and average well-drained soil. Regular deadheading extends bloom time.
| Blue |
When is St Patrick's Day celebrated? | From flax to linen
From flax to linen
From flax to linen
Linum Usitatissimum translates from Latin as "most useful linen." In naming this species, botanists recognized the inherent value of the humble flax plant. For ten thousand years or more, man has known this gentle gift of nature was the source of textiles with special properties: soft hand, rich color absorption, lasting durability, and unrivalled comfort.
Always ecologically-correct, every part of the flax plant is at man's service. The seeds provide oil for dyes, paint, cosmetics and floor coverings. When ground, they form a flour used in poultices. The fibers have been used as sutures. The by-products of linen production are processed into a pulp used for banknotes or fiberboard. However, flax is most renowned as the raw material for an extraordinary fabric.
Flax is one of the few crops still produced in Western Europe, with nearly 75,000 acres under cultivation annually. Climatic conditions in this region are perfect for growing flax, and increasing worldwide demand for linen makes it an important cash crop.
The growing cycle is short and sweet, with only 100 days between sowing in March and harvesting in July. The plant ripens by the end of June into golden yellow color, and then it flowers, dotting the fields with blossoms of violet, blue and white. This display is over quickly, however, for each flax plant blooms for one day only.
Harvesting:
To preserve the full potential of each plant, flax is never mowed but must be uprooted. Up through the Second World War, this was an exhausting process done by hand. Today, mechanical grubbers do this tiring work.
Drying:
After harvesting, the flax is stacked in hedges to dry. Once dried, the seeds are removed.
Retting and Turning:
Then flax is exposed to moisture to break down the pectins that binds the fibers together. In the past, flax was retted in rivers, particularly in the Lys region, which imparted a lovely golden glow to the fibers. Today, for ecological reasons, retting is no longer performed in rivers. The preferred method still requires the intervention of Mother Nature as the flax is spread out in the fields and exposed to rain, dew and sunshine for several weeks.
Stripping and Combing:
During these mechanical processes the fibers are separated from the straw (shives), and then graded into the short fibers (tow) which is used for coarser yarns, or the longer fibers (line) which will be used to create the finest linen yarn.
Spinning:
Drafting and doubling, or carding, draw out the long or short fibers into sinuous "ribbons" which are then plied together on spinning looms in various weights and thicknesses. The fine yarn is "wet spun" to impart a smoother, shiny appearance. The tow are commonly "dry spun" yielding a less regular and napped yarn.
Weaving, Bleaching and Dyeing:
Before any weaving occurs, the linen yarns are examined for strength, evenness and pliancy. Close tolerances on these properties are required because of the great speed of today's power looms. The looms of Libeco·Lagae run around the clock and are monitored by a central computer to ensure quality and efficiency. During their 8-hour shift, each weaver can now be responsible for 10 to 15 looms.
After weaving, each yard of fabric is examined and quality tested. If the fabric is not being used in this raw state, it moves to the finishing department where it is bleached and/or dyed. Bleaching linen requires consummate skill-enough chemicals to remove any pectin or shive residue, but not so much as to compromise the structure of the fibers. After bleaching or dyeing, various treatments to make it crease- or soil-resistant can be applied.
Linen is crisp, clean and comfortable. Soft, yet strong and durable. The more it is used, the softer and stronger it becomes. It can absorb up to 20% of its weight in moisture before it feels damp, and easily releases moisture to the air to remain cool and dry to the touch. Flax remains colorfast and launders beautifully. It has the additional advantage to be non-allergenic. Flax requires considerably fewer pesticides and fertilizers than other crops. The fibers are recyclable and eventually biodegrade.
For all these reasons, linen offers fashion designers unlimited creative potential, and wearers lasting enjoyment. Bedding of pure or blended linen is in vogue once more. We never tire of linen at the dining table. The utility of linen in the kitchen is unrivaled. No other fiber can offer this unique blend of luxury and comfort, supreme elegance and down-to-earth practicality
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What is a village without a church called? | Village | Define Village at Dictionary.com
village
noun
1.
a small community or group of houses in a rural area, larger than a hamlet and usually smaller than a town, and sometimes (as in parts of the U.S.) incorporated as a municipality.
2.
the inhabitants of such a community collectively.
3.
a group of animal dwellings resembling a village:
a gopher village.
of, relating to, or characteristic of a village:
village life.
1350-1400; Middle English < Middle French < Latin villāticum, neuter of villāticus villatic . See -age
Related forms
The, a city in central Oklahoma.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Examples from the Web for village
Expand
Contemporary Examples
Historical Examples
The village was about six miles above the entrance of the Illinois into the Mississippi River.
The mass in the village church satisfied the religious instinct.
Society Henry Kalloch Rowe
British Dictionary definitions for village
Expand
a small group of houses in a country area, larger than a hamlet
2.
the inhabitants of such a community collectively
3.
an incorporated municipality smaller than a town in various parts of the US and Canada
4.
a group of habitats of certain animals
5.
(NZ) a self-contained city area having its own shops, etc
6.
(modifier) of, relating to, or characteristic of a village: a village green
Derived Forms
C15: from Old French, from ville farm, from Latin: villa
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for village
Expand
n.
late 14c., "inhabited place larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town," from Old French village "houses and other buildings in a group" (usually smaller than a town), from Latin villaticum "farmstead" (with outbuildings), noun use of neuter singular of villaticus "having to do with a farmstead or villa," from villa "country house" (see villa ). Village idiot is recorded from 1907.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
| Hamlet |
In German mythology what is the name of the siren who lived on a rock and lured boatmen to their deaths? | Village | Define Village at Dictionary.com
village
noun
1.
a small community or group of houses in a rural area, larger than a hamlet and usually smaller than a town, and sometimes (as in parts of the U.S.) incorporated as a municipality.
2.
the inhabitants of such a community collectively.
3.
a group of animal dwellings resembling a village:
a gopher village.
of, relating to, or characteristic of a village:
village life.
1350-1400; Middle English < Middle French < Latin villāticum, neuter of villāticus villatic . See -age
Related forms
The, a city in central Oklahoma.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Examples from the Web for village
Expand
Contemporary Examples
Historical Examples
The village was about six miles above the entrance of the Illinois into the Mississippi River.
The mass in the village church satisfied the religious instinct.
Society Henry Kalloch Rowe
British Dictionary definitions for village
Expand
a small group of houses in a country area, larger than a hamlet
2.
the inhabitants of such a community collectively
3.
an incorporated municipality smaller than a town in various parts of the US and Canada
4.
a group of habitats of certain animals
5.
(NZ) a self-contained city area having its own shops, etc
6.
(modifier) of, relating to, or characteristic of a village: a village green
Derived Forms
C15: from Old French, from ville farm, from Latin: villa
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for village
Expand
n.
late 14c., "inhabited place larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town," from Old French village "houses and other buildings in a group" (usually smaller than a town), from Latin villaticum "farmstead" (with outbuildings), noun use of neuter singular of villaticus "having to do with a farmstead or villa," from villa "country house" (see villa ). Village idiot is recorded from 1907.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
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In what year were dog licences abolished in England? | Should the UK reintroduce compulsory dog licenses? | Pets4Homes
Should The Uk Reintroduce Compulsory Dog Licenses?
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Did you know that up until 1987, you had to have a licence to own a dog of any kind within Great Britain, and that in Northern Ireland you still need a licence to own a dog? These days, literally almost anyone can legally buy and own a dog, and there are no restrictions on who can or cannot keep a pet, other than people that have been banned from keeping animals due to a conviction for cruelty. But despite over twenty five years having passed since dog licenses were abolished within Britain, many organisations including the RSPCA are lobbying for the re-introduction of a mandatory dog licence for every dog, and claim that this will help to reduce the number of homeless and uncared for dogs in the country and generally improve welfare standards. Are they correct? Why were the original dog licenses introduced, how effective were they and why were they eventually abolished? What would bringing in a new dog licence mean for dog owners today? Read on to find out more!
The original British dog licensing system
The old system by which all dogs owned within the UK had to be formally licensed, ended in Great Britain in 1987 but is still in place in Northern Ireland. While it is often thought that dog licensing in the UK was a way of monitoring dog ownership and the standard of care dogs received, and so reducing the amount of neglected or abandoned dogs resident in the UK, in fact this was not the case. The dog license was more of less simply a tax upon dog ownership, much like the TV license or any other tax. Under the rules of the old system, all dogs had to wear a collar and tag denoting the details of their legal owner. Any dog found on the streets without a collar and tag could be taken by the dog warden and not returned to their original owner without a license being presented.
Why was dog licensing in the UK abolished?
Despite it being mandatory to have a licence to own a dog within the UK up until 1987, it was estimated that less than 50% of dog owners actually complied with this law and registered their dogs and paid their license fees. The revenue brought in to the government from dog licensing was simply not matched by the effort, manpower hours and funding it took to follow up on complaints of non-compliance and unregistered dogs. The scheme was abolished in 1987, and replaced in 1989 with the Dangerous Dogs Act (DDA) and additional regulations pertaining to the control of dogs in public places were added to the Environmental Protection Act of 1990.
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Why does the RSPCA think re-introducing dog licensing is a good idea?
The RSPCA conducted an investigation in 2010 into the viability of the government re-introducing a type of dog licensing scheme- a mandatory registration system for all dogs, only this time, with the welfare and wellbeing of dogs at the heart of the scheme rather than a revenue-generating tax. The RSPCA believes that such a scheme would make it easier to reunite lost dogs with their owners, help to identify unethical and potentially unhealthy breeding practices such as puppy farming and crowded conditions, and encourage people to take a more responsible approach to lifelong dog ownership. A poll of almost 1,000 people, made up of a mixture of both dog owners and non dog owners found that 76% of people were in favour of a compulsory dog registration scheme for a variety of reasons. While this figure is impressive, that is the only formal survey that has been conducted within the UK, and so may not be representative of general public opinion. The Kennel Club has stated that they are opposed to any mandatory registration system, as they feel that the plan would penalise responsible dog owners. Similarly, The Dogs Trust believes that mandatory registration or licensing of dogs would be unfeasible, and is instead in favour of the compulsory microchipping of all dogs.
Could the mandatory licensing of dogs in the UK be viable again?
Whatever the full remit of any future compulsory dog licensing or registration scheme might entail, it is fair to say that it would be exceedingly difficult to implement it. Separate registration schemes would have to be brought in for England, Wales and Scotland, and introducing all of them and making them all work together would present significant challenges. Also, much as was the case with the now abolished dog licensing law, ensuring full compliance with a new scheme could prove almost impossible. Compliance with the old law was less than 50%, which hardly inspires confidence. The challenges of introducing and enforcing a new law appear to be almost overwhelming, and of course, responsible dog owners who already take good care of their pets would be the people most likely to comply; with dogs owned by less caring owners and irresponsible people again being left out in the cold.
Alternatives to dog licensing
Few dog lovers would argue that with the amount of stray and un-owned dogs awaiting re-homing within the UK, the current systems in place for their protection are not working totally effectively. If re-introducing mandatory dog licenses is not the solution though, what is? The Dogs Trust proposal for the mandatory microchipping of all dogs may have some merit, as does greater implementation of the existing laws and regulations pertaining to responsible dog ownership and the care of stray dogs. Currently, each individual local authority is responsible for the policies and procedures that they apply in their own area to deal with stray dogs, neglected dogs and dogs that require re-homing, and often, there simply are not enough resources to go around. However, much like every other aspect of pet ownership and breeding, the eventual onus for the care and welfare of any particular dog falls on the shoulders of the individual that owns it. Every dog lover and owner should think carefully about the long-term implications of bringing a new dog home, or breeding from their pet. However, the likelihood is that if you are reading this article, you are already one of those responsible people; reaching the remaining dog owners, breeders and potential buyers within the UK is the challenge. Spread the word!
| one thousand nine hundred and eighty seven |
What type of leaves does a silkworm feed on? | Readings - History Of The Death Penalty | The Execution | FRONTLINE | PBS
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As far back as the Ancient Laws of China, the death penalty has been established as a punishment for crimes. In the 18th Century BC, the Code of King Hammurabi of Babylon codified the death penalty for twenty five different crimes, although murder was not one of them. The first death sentence historically recorded occurred in 16th Century BC Egypt where the wrongdoer, a member of nobility, was accused of magic, and ordered to take his own life. During this period non-nobility was usually killed with an ax.
In the 14th Century BC, the Hittite Code also prescribed the death penalty. The 7th Century BC Draconian Code of Athens made death the penalty for every crime committed. In the 5th Century BC, the Roman Law of the Twelve Tablets codified the death penalty. Again, the death penalty was different for nobility, freemen and slaves and was punishment for crimes such as the publication of libels and insulting songs, the cutting or grazing of crops planted by a farmer, the burning [of] a house or a stack of corn near a house, cheating by a patron of his client, perjury, making disturbances at night in the city, willful murder of a freeman or a parent, or theft by a slave. Death was often cruel and included crucifixion, drowning at sea, burial alive, beating to death, and impalement (often used by Nero). The Romans had a curious punishment for parricides (murder of a parent): the condemned was submersed in water in a sack, which also contained a dog, a rooster, a viper and an ape. [1] The most notorious death execution in BC was about 399 BC when the Greek philosopher Socrates was required to drink poison for heresy and corruption of youth. [2]
Mosaic Law codified many capital crimes. In fact, there is evidence that Jews used many different techniques including stoning, hanging, beheading, crucifixion (copied from the Romans), throwing the criminal from a rock, and sawing asunder. The most infamous execution of history occurred approximately 29 AD with the crucifixion of Jesus Christ outside Jerusalem. About 300 years later, the Emperor Constantine, after converting to Christianity, abolished crucifixion and other cruel death penalties in the Roman Empire. In 438, the Code of Theodosius made more than 80 crimes punishable by death. [3]
Britain influenced the colonies more than any other country and has a long history of punishment by death. About 450 BC, the death penalty was often enforced by throwing the condemned into a quagmire. By the 10th Century, hanging from gallows was the most frequent execution method. William the Conqueror opposed taking life except in war, and ordered no person to be hanged or executed for any offense. However, he allowed criminals to be mutilated for their crimes. During the middle ages, capital punishment was accompanied by torture. Most barons had a drowning pit as well as gallows and they were used for major as well as minor crimes. For example, in 1279, two hundred and eighty nine Jews were hanged for clipping coin. Under Edward I, two gatekeepers were killed because the city gate had not been closed in time to prevent the escape of an accused murderer. Burning was the punishment for women's high treason and men were hanged, drawn and quartered. Beheading was generally accepted for the upper classes. One could be burned for marrying a Jew. Pressing became the penalty for those who would not confess to their crimes. The executioner placed heavy weights on the victim's chest. On the first day he gave the victim a small quantity of bread, on the second day a small drink of bad water, and so on until he confessed or died. Under the reign of Henry VIII, the numbers of those put to death are estimated as high as 72,000. Boiling to death was another penalty approved in 1531, and there are records to show some people boiled for up to two hours before death took them. When a woman was burned, the executioner tied a rope around her neck when she was tied to the stake. When the flames reached her she could be strangled from outside the ring of fire. However, this often failed and many were literally burnt alive. [4]
In Britain, the number of capital offenses continually increased until the 1700's when two hundred and twenty-two crimes were punishable by death. These included stealing from a house in the amount of forty shillings, stealing from a shop the value of five shillings, robbing a rabbit warren, cutting down a tree, and counterfeiting tax stamps. However, juries tended not to convict when the penalty was great and the crime was not. Reforms began to take place. In 1823, five laws passed, exempting about a hundred crimes from the death [penalty]. Between 1832 and 1837, many capital offenses were swept away. In 1840, there was a failed attempt to abolish all capital punishment. Through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, more and more capital punishments were abolished, not only in Britain, but also all across Europe, until today only a few European countries retain the death penalty. [5]
The first recorded execution in the English American colonies was in 1608 when officials executed George Kendall of Virginia for supposedly plotting to betray the British to the Spanish. In 1612, Virginia's governor, Sir Thomas Dale, implemented the Divine, Moral, and Martial Laws that made death the penalty for even minor offenses such as stealing grapes, killing chickens, killing dogs or horses without permission, or trading with Indians. Seven years later these laws were softened because Virginia feared that no one would settle there. [6]
In 1622, the first legal execution of a criminal, Daniel Frank, occurred in Virginia for the crime of theft. [7] Some colonies were very strict in their use of the death penalty, while others were less so. In Massachusetts Bay Colony the first execution was in 1630, but the earliest capital statutes do not occur until later. Under the Capital Laws of New-England that went into effect between 1636-1647 the death penalty was meted out for pre-meditated murder, sodomy, witchcraft, adultery, idolatry, blasphemy, assault in anger, rape, statutory rape, manstealing, perjury in a capital trial, rebellion, manslaughter, poisoning and bestiality. Early laws were accompanied by a scripture from the Old Testament. By 1780, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts only recognized seven capital crimes: murder, sodomy, burglary, buggery, arson, rape, and treason. [8]
The New York colony instituted the so-called Duke's Laws of 1665. This directed the death penalty for denial of the true God, pre-meditated murder, killing someone who had no weapon of defense, killing by lying in wait or by poisoning, sodomy, buggery, kidnapping, perjury in a capital trial, traitorous denial of the king's rights or raising arms to resist his authority, conspiracy to invade towns or forts in the colony and striking one's mother or father (upon complaint of both). The two colonies that were more lenient concerning capital punishment were South Jersey and Pennsylvania. In South Jersey there was no death penalty for any crime and there were only two crimes, murder and treason, punishable by death. [9]
However under the direction of the Crown, harsher penal codes were execution there until 1691 [sic]. In Pennsylvania, William Penn's Great Act (1682) made passed in the colonies [sic]. By 1776, most of the colonies had roughly comparable death statutes which covered arson, piracy, treason, murder, sodomy, burglary, robbery, rape, horse-stealing, slave rebellion, and often counterfeiting. Hanging was the usual sentence. Rhode Island was probably the only colony which decreased the number of capital crimes in the late 1700's.
Some states were more severe. For example, by 1837, North Carolina required death for the crimes of murder, rape, statutory rape, slave-stealing, stealing bank notes, highway robbery, burglary, arson, castration, buggery, sodomy, bestiality, dueling where death occurs, hiding a slave with intent to free him, taking a free Negro out of state to sell him, bigamy, inciting slaves to rebel, circulating seditious literature among slaves, accessory to murder, robbery, burglary, arson, or mayhem and others. However, North Carolina did not have a state penitentiary and, many said, no suitable alternative to capital punishment. [10]
The first reforms of the death penalty occurred between 1776-1800. Thomas Jefferson and four others, authorized to undertake a complete revision of Virginia's laws, proposed a law that recommended the death penalty for only treason and murder. After a stormy debate the legislature defeated the bill by one vote. The writing of European theorists such as Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Bentham had a great effect on American intellectuals, as did English Quaker prison reformers John Bellers and John Howard. [11]
On Crimes and Punishment, published in English in 1767 by the Italian jurist Cesare Beccaria, whose exposition on abolishing capital punishment was the most influential of the time, had an especially strong impact. He theorized that there was no justification for the taking of life by the state. He said that the death penalty was "a war of a whole nation against a citizen, whose destruction they consider as necessary, or useful to the general good." He asked the question what if it can be shown not to be necessary or useful? His essay conceded that the only time a death was necessary was when only one's death could insure the security of a nation -- which would be rare and only in cases of absolute anarchy or when a nation was on the verge of losing its liberty. He said that the history of using punishment by death (e.g., the Romans, 20 years of Czaress Elizabeth) had not prevented determined men from injuring society and that death was only a "momentary spectacle, and therefore a less efficacious method of deterring others, than the continued example of a man deprived of his liberty...." [12]
Organizations were formed in different colonies for the abolition of the death penalty and to relieve poor prison conditions. Dr. Benjamin Rush, a renowned Philadelphia citizen, proposed the complete abolition of capital punishment. William Bradford, Attorney General of Pennsylvania, was ordered to investigate capital punishment. In 1793 he published An Enquiry How Far the Punishment of Death is Necessary in Pennsylvania. He strongly insisted that the death penalty be retained, but admitted it was useless in preventing certain crimes. In fact, he said the death penalty made convictions harder to obtain, because in Pennsylvania, and indeed in all states, the death penalty was mandatory and juries would often not return a guilty verdict because of this fact. In response, in 1794, the Pennsylvania legislature abolished capital punishment for all crimes except murder "in the first degree," the first time murder had been broken down into "degrees." In New York, in 1796, the legislature authorized construction of the state's first penitentiary, abolished whipping, and reduced the number of capital offenses from thirteen to two. Virginia and Kentucky passed similar reform bills. Four more states reduced its capital crimes: Vermont in 1797, to three; Maryland in 1810, to four; New Hampshire in 1812, to two and Ohio in 1815, to two. Each of these states built state penitentiaries. A few states went the opposite direction. Rhode Island restored the death penalty for rape and arson; Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Connecticut raised death crimes from six to ten, including sodomy, maiming, robbery, and forgery. Many southern states made more crimes capital, especially for slaves. [13]
The first great reform era occurred between 1833-1853. Public executions were attacked as cruel. Sometimes tens of thousands of eager viewers would show up to view hangings; local merchants would sell souvenirs and alcohol. Fighting and pushing would often break out as people jockeyed for the best view of the hanging or the corpse! Onlookers often cursed the widow or the victim and would try to tear down the scaffold or the rope for keepsakes. Violence and drunkenness often ruled towns far into the night after "justice had been served." Many states enacted laws providing private hangings. Rhode Island (1833), Pennsylvania (1834), New York (1835), Massachusetts (1835), and New Jersey (1835) all abolished public hangings. By 1849, fifteen states were holding private hangings. This move was opposed by many death penalty abolitionists who thought public executions would eventually cause people to cry out against execution itself. For example, in 1835, Maine enacted what was in effect a moratorium on capital punishment after over ten thousand people who watched a hanging had to be restrained by police after they became unruly and began fighting. All felons sentenced to death would have to remain in prison at hard labor and could not be executed until one year had elapsed and then only on the governor's order. No governor ordered an execution under the "Maine Law" for twenty-seven years. Though many states argued the merits of the death penalty, no state went as far as Maine. The most influential reformers were the clergy. Ironically, the small but powerful group which opposed the abolitionists were also clergy. They were, almost to a person, members of the Calvinist clergy, especially the Congregationalists and Presbyterians who could be called the religious establishment of the time. They were led by George Cheever. [14]
Finally, in 1846, Michigan became the first state to abolish the death penalty (except for treason against the state), mostly because it had no long tradition of capital punishment (there had been no hanging since 1830, before statehood) and because frontier Michigan had few established religious groups to oppose it as was the case in the east. In 1852, Rhode Island abolished the death penalty led by Unitarians, Universalists, and especially Quakers. In the same year, Massachusetts limited its death penalty to first-degree murder. In 1853, Wisconsin abolished the death penalty after a gruesome execution in which the victim struggled for five minutes at the end of the rope, and a full eighteen minutes passed before his heart finally quit. [15]
During the last half of the century the death penalty abolition movement ground to a half, with many members moving into the slavery abolition movement. At the same time, states began to pass laws against mandatory death sentences. Legislators in eighteen states shifted from mandatory to discretionary capital punishment by 1895, not to save lives, but to try to increase convictions and executions of murderers. Still, abolitionists gained a few victories. Maine abolished the death penalty, restored it, and then abolished it again between 1876-1887. Iowa abolished the death penalty for six years. Kansas passed a "Maine Law" in 1872 which operated as de facto abolition. [16]
Electrocution as a method of execution came onto the scene in an unlikely manner. Edison Company with its DC (direct current) electrical systems began attacking Westinghouse Company and its AC (alternating current) electrical systems as they were pressing for nationwide electrification with alternating current. To show how dangerous AC could be, Edison Company began public demonstrations by electrocuting animals. People reasoned that if electricity could kill animals, it could kill people. In 1888, New York approved the dismantling of its gallows and the building of the nation's first electric chair. It held its first victim, William Kemmler, in 1890, and even though the first electrocution was clumsy at best, other states soon followed the lead. [17]
The Second Great Reform era was 1895-1917. In 1897, U.S. Congress passed a bill reducing the number of federal death crimes. In 1907, Kansas took the "Maine Law" a step further and abolished all death penalties. Between 1911 and 1917, eight more states abolished capital punishment (Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oregon, Arizona, Missouri and Tennessee -- the latter in all cases but rape). Votes in other states came close to ending the death penalty.
However, between 1917 and 1955, the death penalty abolition movement again slowed. Washington, Arizona, and Oregon in 1919-20 reinstated the death penalty. In 1924, the first execution by cyanide gas took place in Nevada, when Tong war gang murderer Gee Jon became its first victim. The state wanted to secretly pump cyanide gas into Jon's cell at night while he was asleep as a more humanitarian way of carrying out the penalty, but, technical difficulties prohibited this and a special "gas chamber" was hastily built. Other concerns developed when less "civilized" methods of execution failed. In 1930, Mrs. Eva Dugan became the first female to be executed by Arizona. The execution was botched when the hangman misjudged the drop and Mrs. Dugan's head was ripped from her body. More states converted to electric chairs and gas chambers. During this period of time, abolitionist organizations sprang up all across the country, but they had little effect. There were a number of stormy protests against the execution of certain convicted felons (e.g., Julius and Ethel Rosenberg), but little opposition against the death penalty itself. In fact, during the anti-Communist period with all its fears and hysteria, Texas Governor Allan Shivers seriously suggested that capital punishment be the penalty for membership in the Communist Party. [18]
The movement against capital punishment revived again between 1955 and 1972.
England and Canada completed exhaustive studies which were largely critical of the death penalty and these were widely circulated in the U.S. Death row criminals gave their own moving accounts of capital punishment in books and film. Convicted kidnapper Caryl Chessman published Cell 2455 Death Row and Trial by Ordeal. Barbara Graham's story was utilized in book and film with I Want to Live! after her execution. Television shows were broadcast on the death penalty. Hawaii and Alaska ended capital punishment in 1957, and Delaware did so the next year. Controversy over the death penalty gripped the nation, forcing politicians to take sides. Delaware restored the death penalty in 1961. Michigan abolished capital punishment for treason in 1963. Voters in 1964 abolished the death penalty in Oregon. In 1965 Iowa, New York, West Virginia, and Vermont ended the death penalty. New Mexico abolished the death penalty in 1969. [19]
Trying to end capital punishment state-by-state was difficult at best, so death penalty abolitionists turned much of their efforts to the courts. They finally succeeded on June 29, 1972 in the case Furman v. Georgia. In nine separate opinions, but with a majority of 5-4, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the way capital punishment laws were written, including discriminatory sentencing guidelines, capital punishment was cruel and unusual and violated the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. This effectively ended capital punishment in the United States. Advocates of capital punishment began proposing new capital statutes which they believed would end discrimination in capital sentencing, therefore satisfying a majority of the Court.
By early 1975, thirty states had again passed death penalty laws and nearly two hundred prisoners were on death row. In Gregg v. Georgia (1976), the Supreme Court upheld Georgia's newly passed death penalty and said that the death penalty was not always cruel and unusual punishment. Death row executions could again begin. Another form of execution was soon found. Oklahoma passed the first death by lethal injection law, based on economics as much as humanitarian reasons. The old electric chair that had not been used in eleven years would require expensive repairs. Estimates of over $200,000 were given to build a gas chamber, while lethal injection would cost no more than ten to fifteen dollars "per event." [20]
The controversy over the death penalty continues today. There is a strong movement against lawlessness propelled by citizens' fears for their security. Politicians at the national and state levels are taking the floor of legislatures and calling for more frequent death penalties, death penalties penalty [sic] for more crimes, and longer prison sentences. Those opposing these moves counter by arguing that tougher sentences do not slow crime and that crime is little or no worse than in the past. In fact, FBI statistics show murders are now up. (For example 9.3 persons per 100,000 population were murdered in 1973 and 9.4 persons per 100,000 were murdered in 1992). The battle lines are still drawn and the combat will probably always be fought. [21]
A number of important capital punishment decisions have been made by the Supreme Court. The following is a list of the more important ones along with their legal citations:
Wilkerson v. Utah 99 U.S. 130 (1878) -- Court upheld execution by firing squad, but said that other types of torture such as "drawing and quartering, embowelling alive, beheading, public dissection, and burring alive and all other in the same line of...cruelty, are forbidden."
Weems v. U.S. 217 U.S. 349 (1910) -- Court held that what constitutes cruel and unusual punishment had not been decided, but that it should not be confined to the "forms of evil" that framers of the Bill of Rights had experienced. Therefore, "cruel and unusual" definitions are subject to changing interpretations.
Louisiana ex rel. Francis v. Resweber 329 U.S. 459 (1947) -- On May 3, 1946, convicted seventeen year old felon Willie Francis was placed in the electric chair and the switch was thrown. Due to faulty equipment, he survived (even though he was severely shocked), was removed from the chair and returned to his cell. A new death warrant was issued six days later. The Court ruled 5-4 that it was not "cruel and unusual" to finish carrying out the sentence since the state acted in good faith in the first attempt. "The cruelty against which the Constitution protects a convicted man is cruelty inherent in the method of punishment," said the Court, "not the necessary suffering involved in any method employed to extinguish life humanely." He was then executed.
Tropp v. Dulles 356 U.S. 86 (1958) -- The Court Ruled that punishment would be considered "cruel and unusual" if it was one of "tormenting severity," cruel in its excessiveness or unusual in punishment "must draw its meaning from the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society."
Furman v. Georgia 408 U.S. 238 (1972) -- The Court looking at three cases struck down the death penalty in many states and set up the standard that punishment would be considered "cruel and unusual" if any of the following were present: 1) it was too severe for the crime; 2) it was arbitrary (some get the punishment and others do not, without guidelines); 3) it offends society's sense of justice; 4) it was not more effective than a less severe penalty.
Gregg v. Georgia 428 U.S. 153 (1976) -- [The] Court upheld Georgia's newly passed death penalty and said that the death penalty was not always cruel and unusual punishment.
Tison v. Arizona 481 U.S. 137 (1987) -- [The] Court upheld Arizona's death penalty for major participation in a felony with "reckless indifference to human life."
Thompson v. Oklahoma 108 S. Ct. 2687 (1987) -- The Court considered the question of execution of minors under the age of 16 at the time of the murder. The victim was the brother-in-law, who he accused of beating his sister. He and three others beat the victim, shot him twice, cut his throat, chest, and abdomen, chained him to a concrete block and threw the body into a river where it remained for four weeks. Each of the four participants were tried separately and all were sentenced to death. In a 5-3 decision, four Justices ruled that Thompson's death sentence was cruel and unusual. The fifth, O'Connor, concurred but noted that a state must set a minimum age and held out the possibility that if a state lowers, by statute, the minimum death penalty age below sixteen, she might support it. She stated, "Although, I believe that a national consensus forbidding the execution of any person for a crime committed before the age of 16 very likely does exist, I am reluctant to adopt this conclusion as a matter of constitutional law without better evidence that [sic] we now possess." States with no minimum age have rushed to specify a statute age.
Penry v. Lynaugh 492 U.S. [sic] (1989) -- [The] Court held that persons considered retarded, but legally sane, could receive the death penalty. It was not cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment if jurors were given the opportunity to consider mitigating circumstances. In this case, the defendant had the mental age of approximately a six-year old child.
ENDNOTES
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Which UK newspaper had the first colour supplement? | British Newspaper History in the UK
Cultural Products >> Historic Commemorative Anniversary Newspapers
Milestones in 20th Century Newspaper history
in Britain ....
The history of newspapers in the UK in the 20th century is a fascinating story of the emergence of new titles, technologies and formats, and the disappearance of old titles, mainly through mergers. Once famous national titles like the Daily Sketch (later to merge with the Daily Mail in 1971) and the News Chronicle are now less known by younger generations. British newspaper history is also almost as much about the stories of the newspaper bosses - the big personalities, such as Lord Rothermere, Lord Northcliffe and Robert Maxwell, amongst others, who had a big impact on the course of this history.
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Jan 17 1902 - launch of the Times Literary Supplement.
Nov 2 1903 - launch of the Daily Mirror - the first daily newspaper illustrated exclusively with photographs. The Mirror was a broadsheet newspaper until the 1950s.
March 2 1909 - launch of the Daily Sketch. (merges with the Daily Mail in 1971)
Jan 25 1911 - launch of the Daily Herald (1st newspaper to sell two million copies a day)
April 12 1913 - New Statesman founded
March 11 1914 - First half-tone photo in the Times newspaper: a 4 by 3 inch picture of the Rokeby Venus, damaged in a Suffragette demonstration (the first ever half-tone in a daily newspaper appeared in the New York Graphic in 1880).
1915 - The Daily Mail launches 'Teddy Tail' - first UK comic strip.
March 14 1915 - the Sunday Pictorial launched (becomes the Sunday Mirror in 1963).
Dec 29 1918 - launch of the Sunday Express.
Nov 2 1924 - the Sunday Express publishes first crossword in a British newspaper
May 1926 - most newspapers cease publishing during the General Strike. The Government publishes the British Gazette and the TUC publishes the British Worker.
Jan 1 1930 - launch of the Daily Worker newspaper (becomes the Morning Star in 1966).
Feb 1 1930 - the first Times crossword appears (6 years after the first one appeared in Sunday Express).
June 2 1930 - the News Chronicle newspaper is formed by the merger of the Daily News and the Daily Chronicle. (merges with the Daily Mail in 1960).
Oct 18 1934 - the Daily Mail publishes the first photograph that was transmitted by beam radio (from Australia to London).
Oct 1 1938 - first issue of the Picture Post (last issue in 1957).
1940 - Newsprint rationing is introduced.
Nov 26 1940 - death of Lord Rothermere.
Aug 24 1959 - the Manchester Guardian changes title to the Guardian, based in London.
Feb 5 1961 - launch of the Sunday Telegraph.
Feb 4 1962 - first issue of the Sunday Times magazine, known as the Sunday Times Colour Section.
1964 - the Press Council replaces General Council of the Press.
Sept 6 1964 - the Observer colour supplement launched.
Sept 15 1964 - the Daily Herald becomes the Sun.
Sept 25 1964 - first issue of the Daily Telegraph.
May 3 1966 - the Times begins printing news on the front page.
1969 the News of the World is bought by Rupert Murdoch.
Nov 17 1969 - Rupert Murdoch re-launches the Sun newspaper as a tabloid.
1971 - Dail Sketch merges with the Daily Mail.
Nov 2 1978 - launch of the Daily Star newspaper.
Dec 1 1978 - publication of the Times and Sunday Times is suspended for 11 months.
Oct 31 1980 - the Evening News ceases publication and leaves London with just one evening newspaper.
1981 - Rupert Murdoch buys the Times and Sunday Times.
May 3 1981 - the Sunday Express magazine launched.
Sept 6 1981 - first issue of the News of the World Sunday magazine.
1982 - May 2 : the Mail on Sunday is launched: the first photocomposed national newspaper in Britain.
1984 - Robert Maxwell acquires the Mirror Group.
1985 - the Daily Telegraph is acquired by Conrad Black.
1986 - News International moves the printing of all national titles to Wapping.
March 4 1986 - launch of the Today by Eddy Shah, sold as the first national colour newspaper.
Sept 14 1986 - launch of the Sunday Sport newspaper.
Oct 7 1986 - first issue of the Independent newspaper.
1987 - the Today newspaper is acquired by Rupert Murdoch.
1987 - Wendy Henry (News of the World) and Eve Pollard (Sunday Mirror) become the first woman editors.
Feb 24 1987 - the London Daily News (ceases publication on July 23rd).
Aug 7 1988 - first issue of Scotland on Sunday.
Aug 17 1988 - the Sport newspaper is launched, published on Wednesdays.
March 5 1989 - the Wales on Sunday newspaper is launched.
Jan 28 1990 - first issue of the Independent on Sunday.
May 11 1990 - Robert Maxwell launches the European (ceases publication on 14th December 1998).
1991 - the Press Complaints Commission replaces the Press Council.
Oct 7 1991 - the Sport newspaper becomes daily.
Nov 5 1991 - Robert Maxwell dies.
1993 - the Guardian Media Group acquires the Observer.
Nov 17 1995 - the Today newspaper stops publication (1st national newspaper title to cease publication since the Daily Sketch in 1971).
April 21 1996 - first issue of the Sunday Business paper.
March 15 1998 - first issue of Sport First, the UK's first national Sunday newspaper focused on sport.
Feb 7 1999 - the Sunday Herald newspaper is launched in Glasgow.
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What type of creature is a mouthbrooder? | A History of Newspapers
A BRIEF HISTORY OF NEWSPAPERS
By Tim Lambert
Early Newspapers
Newspapers began circulating in the 17th century. The first newspaper in England was printed in 1641. (However the word newspaper was not recorded until 1670). The first successful daily newspaper in Britain was printed in 1702. The first American newspaper was printed in 1690. It was called Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick. The first newspaper in Canada was the Halifax Gazette in 1752. The first daily American newspaper was published in 1783.
In Britain the first Sunday newspaper was the British Gazette and Sunday Monitor published in 1780. In 1785 the Daily Universal Register was first published. In 1788 it was renamed The Times. In 1814 The Times was printed with a steam-powered press for the first time. In 1848 The Times used a rotary printing press with the printing face wrapped around a cylinder for the first time.
Meanwhile the Observer was founded in 1791. The Daily Telegraph was first published in 1855. The Manchester Guardian was founded in 1821. It changed its name to The Guardian in 1959. The Sunday Times was first published in 1822. The Financial Times began in 1888. Meanwhile The News Of The World was published in 1843. Meanwhile the first Australian newspaper was published in 1803. It was called the Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser.
Newspapers became far more common in the late 19th century. In the 18th century and the early 19th century stamp duty was charged on newspapers, which made them expensive. However in 1855 stamp duty on newspapers was abolished and they became cheaper and more common. In the mid-19th century newspaper reporters began to use the telegraph as a means to get news to their newspapers quickly. Then in 1880 The New York Graphic became the first newspaper to print a photo. In Britain the first tabloid newspaper was the Daily Graphic published in 1890. In 1891 it became the first British newspaper to print a photo.
Modern Newspapers
In the 20th century newspapers became still more common. The Daily Mail was first published in 1896, The Daily Express was first published in 1900 and the Daily Mirror began publication in 1903. In 1964 The Daily Herald became The Sun and The Daily Star was founded in 1978. Meanwhile The Sunday Telegraph was founded in 1961 and in 1962 The Sunday Times became the first newspaper to publish a Sunday color supplement. The Mail on Sunday began in 1982. The Independent was first published in 1986. Also in 1986 Today became the first color newspaper in Britain.
By the beginning of the 20th century Fleet Street was the center of the British newspaper industry. However in the 1980s newspaper owners moved away from Fleet Street. At that time computer technology replaced the old labor intensive methods of printing. The Press Complaints Commission was created in 1990. Metro, a free newspaper for commuters was first published in Britain in 1999. Then in 2010 an abbreviated version of the Independent called i was launched However in 2011 The News Of The World ceased publication.
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Which group had three consecutive UK Christmas number ones in 1996, 97 and 98? | No.1 facts and feats from ukcharts.20m.com
Fastest #1s | Slowest #1 (artists) | Slowest #1 (records) | Biggest leaps to #1 | Straight in at #1 before 1995 | Climbs to #1 since 1995 | Longest span of #1 hits | Longest gap between #1 hits | Most successful act not to have reached #1 | Shortest career of a #1 act | Ultimate One Hit Wonders | Most #1 hits | Most weeks at #1 by an artist | Most weeks at #1 by a record | Most consecutive number one hits | Records that returned to #1 | First three or more hits at #1 | Drops from the top | #1 in two or more versions | Longest #1 hits | Family connections | Other number one facts and feats
FASTEST NUMBER ONE HIT
In 1969, The Beatles with Billy Preston debuted at #1 with Get Back. It was their only single to debut at #1 in the official BBC/Record Retailer singles chart and was the debut chart appearence for Preston, who went on to moderate success as a solo artist.
Apart from Preston, and Al Martino, who debuted at number one by default in the very first chart, no act aside from charity collectives scored an instant number one hit until Whigfield nearly 42 years later. Here is the list of acts who have started at the very top since then:
17.09.94 Whigfield Saturday Night
20.05.95 Robson Green and Jerome Flynn Unchained Melody / The White Cliffs Of Dover
27.01.96 Babylon Zoo Spaceman
01.06.96 Baddiel and Skinner and The Lightning Seeds Three Lions
21.12.95 Dunblane Knockin' On Heaven's Door / Throw These Guns Away
25.01.97 White Town Abort, Retry, Fail? EP (Your Woman)
07.06.97 Hanson Mmmbop
13.12.97 Teletubbies Teletubbies Say Eh-Oh!
06.06.98 B*Witched C'est la Vie
11.07.98 Billie Because We Want To
24.10.98 Spacedust Gym And Tonic
27.02.99 Britney Spears Baby One More Time
03.04.99 Mr Oizo Flat Beat
01.05.99 Westlife Swear It Again
12.06.99 Baz Luhrmann Presents Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen) - The Sunscreen Song
19.06.99 S Club 7 Bring It All Back
06.05.00 Oxide and Neutrino Bound 4 Da Reload (Casualty)
26.08.00 Spiller Groovejet (If This Ain't Love)
16.09.00 Modjo Lady (Hear Me Tonight)
13.01.01 Rui Da Silva ft Cassandra Touch Me
24.03.01 Hear'Say Pure And Simple
02.06.01 DJ Pied Piper and the Masters Of Ceremonies Do You Really Like It?
18.08.01 So Solid Crew present 21 Seconds 21 Seconds
08.12.01 Daniel Bedingfield Gotta Get Thru This
09.03.02 Will Young Anything Is Possible / Evergreen
30.03.02 Gareth Gates Unchained Melody
11.05.02 Holly Valance Kiss Kiss
10.08.02 Darius Colourblind
09.11.02 DJ Sammy & Yanou ft Do Heaven
28.12.02 Girls Aloud Sound Of The Underground
25.01.03 David Sneddon Stop Living the Lie
The Lightning Seeds had, of course, hit in their own right before. Dunblane were a charity ensemble, but unlike previous charity ensembles they were not made up of previously-charting acts. Babylon Zoo and White Town both debuted at #1 with major-label reissues of previously unsuccessful independent singles. Dunblane, Teletubbies and Baz Luhrmann all debuted at number one with their only single releases.
So Solid Crew's previous single "Oh No (Sentimental Things)" would have charted at #13 the previous year, but was disqualified for having too many tracks. So Solid Crew members Megaman, Lisa Maffia and Romeo had previously appeared on Oxide & Neutrino's hit "No Good 4 Me". All formats of 21 Seconds consistently give the artist credit as So Solid Crew Present 21 Seconds rather than simply So Solid Crew.
The Baz Luhrmann Presents... record has the additional credit "performed by Quindon Tarver" hidden away in the detailed credits. The single is a remix of Tarver's cover of Rozalla's hit Everybody's Free (To Feel Good). Tarver can therefore also legitimately claim to have gone straight in at number one with his first hit.
"Featured" artists who have made their chart debuts at number one are:
28.10.95 Coolio featuring LV Gangsta's Paradise
28.06.97 Puff Daddy featuring Faith Evans and 112 I'll Be Missing You
06.02.99 Armand Van Helden featuring Duane Harden You Don't Know Me
10.03.01 Shaggy featuring Rikrok It Wasn't Me
22.03.03 Gareth Gates and The Kumars Spirit In The Sky
BeBe Winans' first individual chart credit was as featured vocalist on I Wanna Be The Only One by Eternal, but he had enjoyed (admittedly minor and fleeting) chart action as a member of The Winans.
Sophie Ellis-Bextor's first individual chart credit was as the featured vocalist on Spiller's Groovejet (If This Ain't Love), but she had enjoyed previous chart action as a member of theaudience.
Kelly Rowland's first individual chart credit was in collaboration with Nelly, but she had previously charted as a member of Destiny's Child.
The following artists "debuted" at number one with domestic releases, having previously charted on import:
21.05.98 Run DMC Vs Jason Nevins It's Like That (re-mix)
04.09.99 Lou Bega Mambo No.5 (A Little Bit Of...)
25.09.99 Eiffel 65 Blue (Da Ba Dee)
16.10.99 Christina Aguilera Genie In A Bottle
27.10.99 Wamdue Project King Of My Castle
24.06.00 Black Legend You See The Trouble With Me
22.09.01 DJ Otzi Hey Baby
27.10.01 Afroman Because I Got High
19.10.02 Las Ketchup The Ketchup Song (Asereje)
08.02.03 T.a.t.u. All The Things She Said
And these acts entered at number one having previously appeared on the chart in other guises:
16.08.97 Will Smith Men In Black (previously hit number one in DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince)
26.09.98 Mel B ft Missy Elliot I Want You Back (Melanie Brown is a Spice Girl; Elliot has had solo hits)
17.04.99 Martine McCutcheon Perfect Moment (previously hit with Uno Clio)
28.05.99 Shanks and Bigfoot Sweet Like Chocolate (previously hit as Doolally)
07.08.99 Ronan Keating When You Say Nothing At All (had #1s with Boyzone)
15.04.00 Craig David Fill Me In (previously hit with Artful Dodger)
SLOWEST NUMBER ONE HIT
Four solo artists - all American - have taken more than twenty years to achieve their first number one hit:
Jackie Wilson (29 years 42 days)
Isaac Hayes / Chef (27 years 29 days)
Ben E. King (26 years 19 days)
Cher (25 years 259 days)
Cher, of course, had hit number one as half of Sonny and Cher prior to her solo career.
Several other acts who have never had a #1 hit in their own right have waited a very long time to snatch a moment of chart-top glory in collaboration with others. The most patient of these was Eric Clapton, who first hit as a member of The Yardbirds in 1964 but had to wait 30 years 134 days before he was involved with a #1 hit in collaboration with Cher, Chrissie Hynde and Neneh Cherry. To be fair, The Yardbirds' second hit For Your Love, on which he appeared, was a number one in the NME chart but this was never recognised by Record Retailer. His first official number one was his 30th hit in a variety of guises, not counting three reissues. The only artist to score more hits prior to their first appearance at number one was The Artist Formerly Known As Prince, whose #1 The Most Beautiful Girl In The World was his 39th new hit.
Other people who've waited over 20 years are:
Lulu (29 years 148 days) - first hit solo in 1964, reached #1 with Take That in 1993.
Chubby Checker (29 years 85 days) - first hit solo in 1960, contributed original vocals to Jive Bunny and The Mastermixers' Let's Party in 1989 (having been sampled on the group's two previous #1s).
Gene Pitney (27 years 311 days) - first hit solo in 1961, reched #1 in collaboration with Marc Almond in 1989.
Lou Reed (24 years 201 days) - first hit solo in 1973, hit #1 with Various Artists in 1997.
Emmylou Harris (21 years 268 days) - first hit solo in 1976, hit #1 with Various Artists in 1997.
Joan Armatrading (21 years 44 days) - first hit solo in 1976, hit #1 with Various Artists in 1997.
Bob Dylan (20 years 26 days) - first hit solo in 1965, reached #1 with USA For Africa in 1985.
SLOWEST NUMBER ONE HIT (RECORD)
The recordings that took the longest to reach #1 after their first appearance on the chart are:
29 years 42 days Reet Petite (The Sweetest Girl In Town) Jackie Wilson (1957-86)
25 years 244 days Stand By Me Ben E King (1961-87)
25 years 83 days Unchained Melody Righteous Brothers (1965-90)
18 years 356 days He Ain't Heavy He's My Brother The Hollies (1969-88)
8 years 284 days Young At Heart The Bluebells (1984-93)
8 years 166 days Should I Stay Or Should I Go? The Clash (1982-91)
7 years 327 days Living On My Own Freddie Mercury (1985-93)
6 years 63 days Space Oddity David Bowie (1969-75)
5 years 70 days Imagine John Lennon (1975-81)
Between 1986 and 1993, no fewer than nine "golden oldies" topped the chart. They were the seven listed above plus Steve Miller Band's The Joker, which had failed to chart when originally released in 1973, and Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen, which became the first recording to top the chart on two entirely separate chart runs. The only other recording to match this feat is My Sweet Lord by George Harrison, which took the top slot for a second time in January 2002.
The slowest climb to number one on a single chart run is 14 weeks by Celine Dion with Think Twice.
BIGGEST LEAPS TO NUMBER ONE
Besides those which entered at number one, these are the singles which have made the biggest leaps to number one in a single week:
45-1: Hey Baby DJ Otzi (29.09.01)
33-1: Happy Talk Captain Sensible (03.07.82)
27-1: Surrender Elvis Presley (01.06.61)
26-1: Pass The Dutchie Musical Youth (02.10.82)
22-1: Green Door Shakin' Stevens (01.08.81)
21-1: Hey Jude The Beatles (11.09.68)
21-1: (Just Like) Starting Over John Lennon (20.12.80)
19-1: Are You Lonesome Tonight? Elvis Presley (26.01.61)
19-1: (If Paradise Is) Half As Nice Amen Corner (12.02.69)
19-1: Love Me For A Reason The Osmonds (31.08.74)
19-1: Stand By Me Ben E. King (21.02.87)
17-1: Get Off Of My Cloud Rolling Stones (04.11.65)
16-1: I Hear You Knockin' Dave Edmunds' Rockpile (28.11.70)
16-1: Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep Middle Of The Road (19.06.71)
16-1: Young Love Donny Osmond (25.08.73)
16-1: Dancing Queen Abba (04.11.76)
It should be noted that for most of the 1960s, the Record Retailer chart was out-of-sync with the sales week, meaning that debut positions for records such as Surrender were based on only one or two days' sales. Had the chart reflected a full week's sales, such records would undoubtedly have debuted inside the top ten and maybe even at number one, rather than making such spectacular but misleading leaps in their second week.
Hey Baby tops the list on a technicality. The single had already charted on import, and it went to number one when given a full UK release. Under the chart rules in force at the time, import and domestic releases were (and still are) to be regarded as separate, but because the UK release had the same catalogue number (and presumably barcode) as the import, the computerised chart system was unable to distinguish between them, and credited DJ Otzi with a 44-place climb. Since it would have been nigh impossible to disentangle the two releases, and since it would have been unfair to punish the record company for what was effectively a bug in the chart compilers' computer program, the outcome was allowed to stand.
The 18-place leap by Amen Corner is in part due to the changeover from the old Record Retailer chart to the new official BMRB compilation that week.
Incidentally, if we take the Top 200 into account, then there are several singles which have made even more spectacular climbs, mainly as a result of a small number of copies slipping out before their official release date. As far as this site is concerned, the Top 75 remains the "real" chart, but it may interest visitors to know that the biggest leap to the top within the Top 200 was from #196 by Westlife with Unbreakable in the 50th anniversary chart on 16.11.02. It beat the previous record set just one week earlier by DJ Sammy and Yanou with Heaven which leapt from #191. It still doesn't count though!
The biggest genuine jumps within the top 75 have been:
(70 places) 72-02 It's The Way You Make Me Feel Steps (13.01.01)
(66 places) 68-02 Addicted To Bass Puretone (12.01.02)
(63 places) 74-11 Macarena Los Del Rio (20.07.96)
(62 places) 66-04 Every Loser Wins Nick Berry (11.10.86)
(61 places) 74-13 Star Trekkin' The Firm (13.06.87)
(55 places) 62-07 Coming Up Paul McCartney (26.04.80)
(51 places) 60-09 Only You Flying Pickets (03.12.83)
Of these, Every Loser Wins, Star Trekkin' and Only You reached #1. All the rest peaked at #2.
STRAIGHT IN AT NUMBER ONE
Once upon a time, it was quite a spectacular occurrence for a single to go straight in at number one. It was confirmation of a group or artist's superstar status to sell enough in a single week to secure the top spot - rather than having to start small and build up like all the other acts in the charts. Nowadays, if a single doesn't enter at the top then it has virtually no chance of getting there at all. These are the records which entered at number one back when it really meant something:
01 14.11.52 Here In My Heart Al Martino (#1 in the first chart, so debuted there by default)
02 24.01.58 Jailhouse Rock Elvis Presley
03 03.11.60 It's Now Or Never Elvis Presley
04 11.01.62 The Young Ones Cliff Richard and the Shadows
05 23.04.69 Get Back The Beatles with Billy Preston
06 03.03.73 Cum On Feel The Noize Slade
07 30.06.73 Skweeze Me Pleeze Me Slade
08 17.11.73 I Love You Love Me Love Gary Glitter
09 15.12.73 Merry Xmas Everybody Slade
10 22.03.80 Going Underground / Dreams Of Children The Jam
11 27.09.80 Don't Stand So Close To Me The Police
12 09.05.81 Stand And Deliver Adam And The Ants
13 13.02.82 A Town Called Malice / Precious The Jam
14 04.12.82 Beat Surrender The Jam
15 26.03.83 Is There Something I Should Know? Duran Duran
16 16.06.84 Two Tribes Frankie Goes To Hollywood
17 15.12.84 Do They Know It's Christmas? Band Aid
18 07.09.85 Dancing In The Street David Bowie and Mick Jagger
19 04.04.87 Let It Be Ferry Aid
20 20.05.89 Ferry 'Cross The Mersey Christians, Holly Johnson, Paul McCartney, Gerry Marsden and Stock Aitken Waterman
21 10.06.89 Sealed With A Kiss Jason Donovan
22 16.12.89 Let's Party Jive Bunny And The Mastermixers
23 23.12.89 Do They Know It's Christmas? Band Aid II
24 05.01.91 Bring Your Daughter... To The Slaughter Iron Maiden
25 26.01.91 Innuendo Queen
26 02.11.91 The Fly U2
27 23.11.91 Black Or White Michael Jackson
28 07.12.91 Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me George Michael and Elton John
29 21.12.91 Bohemian Rhapsody / These Are The Days Of Our Lives Queen
30 13.06.92 Abba-Esque EP Erasure
31 01.05.93 Five Live EP Queen and Geoge Michael with Lisa Stansfield
32 17.06.93 Pray Take That
33 09.10.93 Relight My Fire Take That with Lulu
34 18.12.93 Babe Take That
35 19.02.94 Without You Mariah Carey
36 09.04.94 Everything Changes Take That
37 17.09.94 Saturday Night Whigfield
38 15.10.94 Sure Take That
06 and 07 represent the first instance of an act going straight in at #1 with consecutive single releases. 17-20 are all charity fundraising singles. 20 and 21 were the first instance of consecutive chart-toppers entering at the top; 22 and 23 were first such to enter in consecutive weeks. 24 was the first single already available on an album to debut at #1. 25 was the first single to enter at the top and fall every successive week until it dropped out. 26 was the first single to be promoted as being available for a limited time only in order to secure early sales and thus a high entry position. 27-29 were the first instance of three consecutive chart-toppers debuting at #1.
As can be seen from the list above, only two singles entered at number one in the Record Reatiler chart during its first nine years (March 1960-February 1969). By contrast, during the same period all of the following managed the feat in the NME chart:
26.03.60 My Old Man's A Dustman Lonnie Donegan
27.05.61 Surrender Elvis Presley
07.12.63 I Want To Hold Your Hand The Beatles
28.03.64 Can't Buy Me Love The Beatles
18.07.64 A Hard Day's Night The Beatles
21.11.64 Little Red Rooster Rolling Stones
05.12.64 I Feel Fine The Beatles
17.04.65 Ticket To Ride The Beatles
31.07.65 Help! The Beatles
11.12.65 We Can Work It Out / Day Tripper The Beatles
15.07.67 All You Need Is Love The Beatles
Number One singles debuting at the top became the norm from April 1995 onwards. Since then, the only records to climb within the Top 75 to reach number one are:
08.07.95 Boom Boom Boom Outhere Brothers (debut #15, reached #1 in its 4th chart week)
09.09.95 You Are Not Alone Michael Jackson (#3, 2nd week)
20.04.96 Return of The Mack Mark Morrison (#6, 6th week)
25.05.96 Ooh Aah... Just A Little Bit Gina G (#6, 8th week)
27.07.96 Wannabe Spice Girls (#3, 2nd week)
21.09.96 Ready Or Not Fugees (#2, 2nd week)
05.10.96 Breakfast At Tiffany's Deep Blue Something (#3, 3rd week)
18.01.97 Professional Widow (It's Got To Be Big) Tori Amos (#2, 2nd week)
12.04.97 I Believe I Can Fly R.Kelly (#2, dropped to 5 then climbed to #1, 3rd week)
01.11.97 Barbie Girl Aqua (#2, 2nd week)
17.01.98 Never Ever All Saints (#3, dropped as low as #6 during its meanderings, 9th week)
30.05.98 Feel It The Tamperer ft Maya (#3, 6th week)
02.01.99 Chocolate Salty Balls Chef (#2, 2nd week)
09.01.99 Heartbeat / Tragedy Steps (#2, dropped as far as #8 before climbing back up, 8th week)
04.12.99 The Millennium Prayer Cliff Richard (#2, 2nd week)
23.12.00 Can We Fix It? Bob The Builder (#2, 2nd week)
22.09.01 Hey Baby DJ Otzi (debuted outside the Top 40 on import sales only, jumped to #1 in its 6th week when released domestically).
LONGEST SPAN OF NUMBER ONE HITS
Elvis Presley (44 years 277 days) 1957-2002
Cliff Richard (40 years 145 days) 1959-99
George Harrison (31 years 2 days) 1971-2002
Righteous Brothers (25 years 286 days) 1965-90
Queen (24 years 250 days) 1975-2000
The Hollies (23 years 105 days) 1965-88
Bee Gees (20 years 34 days) 1967-87
Blondie (20 years 16 days) 1979-99
Michael Jackson (15 years 317 days) 1981-97
Madonna (15 years 36 days) 1985-2000
Kylie Minogue (14 years 248 days) 1988-2001
U2 (12 years 19 days) 1988-2000
If George Harrison's hits with the Beatles are taken into account, then he has a span of 38 years 274 days (1963-2002).
These individuals also have a span of more than 20 years in various guises:
Cher (33 years 112 days) Sonny and Cher 1965 - solo 1998
Tom Jones (32 years 309 days) solo 1965 - Various Artists 1997
Gerry Marsden (26 years 57 days) Gerry and The Pacemakers 1963 - Gerry Marsden and friends 1989
Paul McCartney (26 years 26 days) The Beatles 1963 - Gerry Marsden and friends 1989
Elton John (25 years 147 days) Elton John & Kiki Dee 1976 - Blue & Elton John 2002
Tammy Wynette (22 years 244 days) solo 1975 - Various Artists 1997
David Bowie (22 years 69 days) solo 1975 - Various Artists 1997
Diana Ross (21 years 128 days) The Supremes 1964 - solo 1986
Elton John's recent chart-topping stint with Blue has moved him up from seventh to fifth in this table.
LONGEST GAP BETWEEN NUMBER ONE HITS
Nine regular acts have endured a gap of more than a decade between appearances at the top:
George Harrison (30 years 325 days) 1971-2002
Righteous Brothers (25 years 259 days) 1965-90
Elvis Presley (24 years 258 days) 1977-2002
The Hollies (23 years 65 days) 1965-88
Blondie (18 years 77 days) 1980-99
Diana Ross (14 years 172 days) 1971-86
Frank Sinatra (11 years 238 days) 1954-66
Cliff Richard (11 years 124 days) 1968-79
Kylie Minogue (10 years 148 days) 1990-2000
Diana Ross appeared on the USA For Africa disc toward the end of her exile in 1985; this does not affect her place in the above table. The Righteous Brothers and The Hollies both returned with reissues of previous hits.
Queen waited 14 years 361 days between their own chart-toppers but appeared at #1 in collaboration with David Bowie in the meantime.
25 years 239 days passed between Sonny & Cher's only number one hit and Cher's first solo chart-topper. Tammy Wynette had to wait 22 years 175 days after her only solo #1 to reappear with Various Artists. Gerry Marsden was away from the summit for 21 years 200 days between chart-toppers with Gerry And The Pacemakers and The Crowd. Mick Jagger waited 16 years 9 days from his last #1 with The Rolling Stones to his reappearance in collaboration with David Bowie, who in turn waited 12 years and 55 days before featuring on Various Artists' #1. Eddy Grant hit #1 as a soloist 14 years 13 days after leaving the top spot with The Equals. Elton John waited 13 years 293 days between his #1 with Kiki Dee and his first solo table-topper. Suzi Quatro reappeared as part of Ferry Aid 13 years and 26 days after her last solo #1. There were 10 years 268 days between Smokey Robinson's group (The Miracles) and solo appearances at the top.
MOST SUCCESSFUL ARTISTS NOT TO HAVE REACHED NUMBER ONE
Billy Fury has spent more time on the singles chart than anyone else without a number one hit to their credit, with 281 weeks. However, Depeche Mode have had more hits and are still racking them up. The front-runners as of 1 October 2001 were:
Billy Fury (29 hits, 281 weeks)
Depeche Mode (37 hits, 234 weeks)
Nat King Cole (31 hits + 1 reissue + 1 b-side + 1 uncredited duet with Natalie Cole, 248 weeks)
The Who (28 hits + 3 reissues, 247 weeks)
Other notable non-chart-toppers include Gloria Estefan who has notched up 32 hits in all, including two uncredited as lead singer of Miami Sound Machine, but has never climbed higher than number 6. Siouxsie Sioux and Peter "Budgie" Clark have so far enjoyed 29 hits as part of Siouxsie And The Banshees and a further five as The Creatures. Siouxsie also had a hit in collaboration with Morrissey, bringing her personal total to 35. Morrissey himself has an even more impressive 41 hits without a #1, comprising 17 with the Smiths, 23 solo and the Siouxsie duet.
SHORTEST CAREER OF A CHART-TOPPING ACT
Weeks
10 Joe Dolce Music Theatre
10 Nicole
10 White Town
Band Aid II and Ferry Aid were, of course, charity ensembles including many acts who had hits in their own right. Hale & Pace & The Stonkers and Victoria Wood's only hits were the two halves of a double-A-side. Away from the charts, both are successful comedy acts. Bad II's nine weeks of chart action were on the AA side of The Clash's only number one hit, though their presence on the single went completely ignored at the time, and indeed since. Steve "Silk" Hurley also charted for 6 weeks as half of JM Silk and the Timelords went on to further chart success under a variety of other guises, including another #1 hit as The KLF. White Town and Nicole are the only acts on this list to have had more than one hit - each had 9 weeks on chart with their #1s and one week with a follow-up.
THE ULTIMATE ONE-HIT WONDERS
Back in the days when the Guinness books were still being edited by the GRR(R) team, they used to define a one-hit wonder as an act that has had one number one hit and nothing else - ever. Which is a rather narrower definition of the term than most people would use, but it does throw up an interesting list of acts who've made only one, albeit quite spectacular, impression on the public consciousness. This list, in fact:
1954 Kitty Kallen Little Things Mean A Lot
1956 Dreamweavers It's Almost Tomorrow
1958 Kalin Twins When
1959 Jerry Keller Here Comes Summer
1960 Ricky Valance Tell Laura I Love Her
1962 B.Bumble And The Stingers Nut Rocker
1966 Overlanders Michelle
1968 The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown Fire
1969 Zager And Evans In The Year 2525 (Exordium And Terminus)
1969 Jane Birkin & Serge Gainsbourg Je T'aime... Moi Non Plus
1969 The Archies Sugar Sugar
1970 Matthews Southern Comfort Woodstock
1970 Lee Marvin Wand'rin' Star
1970 Norman Greenbaum Spirit In The Sky
1971 Clive Dunn Grandad
1973 Simon Park Orchestra Eye Level
1974 John Denver Annie's Song
1975 Typically Tropical Barbados
1976 JJ Barrie No Charge
1977 The Floaters Float On
1978 Althia And Donna Uptown Top Ranking
1978 Brian & Michael Matchstalk Men And Matchstalk Cats And Dogs
1979 Anita Ward Ring My Bell
1979 Lena Martell One Day At A Time
1980 Fern Kinney Together We Are Beautiful
1980 The Mash Theme From M*A*S*H (Suicide Is Painless)
1980 St Winifreds School Choir There's No One Quite Like Grandma
1981 Joe Dolce Music Theatre Shaddap You Face
1982 Charlene I've Never Been To Me
1985 Phyllis Nelson Move Closer
1987 Steve "Silk" Hurley Jack Your Body
1987 M|A|R|R|S Pump Up The Volume / Anitina (The First Time I See She Dance)
1989 Robin Beck The First Time
1990 Partners In Kryme Turtle Power
1991 Hale And Pace And The Stonkers The Stonk
1991 Victoria Wood The Smile Song
1994 Doop Doop
1996 Dunblane Knockin' On Heaven's Door / Throw These Guns Away
1997 Teletubbies Teletubbies Say Eh-Oh!
1999 Mr Oizo Flat Beat
1999 Baz Luhrmann Presents... Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)
2001 Rui Da Silva fetauring Cassandra Touch Me
2001 DJ Pied Piper and the Masters Of Ceremonies Do You Really Like It?
Steve "Silk" Hurley also had minor success as half of JM Silk. John Denver had a minor hit in collaboration with Placido Domingo. Most of these acts released follow-ups which flopped; only The Mash, M|A|R|R|S, Dunblane, Baz Luhrmann and Teletubbies appear to have bowed out voluntarily. As noted previously, the Baz Luhrmann disc credits Quindon Tarver as performer, and he too is therefore a one-hit wonder.
Although Rui Da Silva has gone two years without following up his only hit, he is reportedly planning a comeback and is likely to escape this list before very long. Watch this space!
During the Top 50 era, both Scott MacKenzie and Hugo Montenegro narrowly avoided the one-hit wonders list by charting a follow-up for just one week at #50. The modern equivalent, a follow-up spending just one week at #75, was achieved by the 1982 Eurovision Song Contest winner Nicole.
Other acts who failed to follow-up a number one hit are Charles Aznavour, Bob The Builder, The Firm, Benny Hill, The Jam, Tommy James And The Shondells, Queen, Robson & Jerome, Spice Girls, Steve Miller Band, Kay Starr, Starship, Take That and Wham!. Queen's last hit was a collaboration with Five. Simon And Garfunkel's last original hit went to #1, though they have since charted with other tracks which had not been hits during the duo's active career. Only Bob The Builder, The Jam, Queen, Robson & Jerome, Spice Girls, Take That and Wham! retired of their own volition.
MOST NUMBER ONE HITS
18 Elvis Presley (includes 1 with JXL)
17 The Beatles
12 Shadows (includes 7 backing Cliff Richard)
11 Westlife (includes 1 with Mariah Carey)
10 Madonna
10 Ronan Keating (includes Various Artists)
10 Madonna
Hank Marvin has one more #1 than Bruce Welch because he was credited on Cliff Richard And The Young Ones' remake of Livin' Doll.
Beatles Ringo Starr and George Harrison did not appear on The Ballad Of John And Yoko.
Most number one hits achieved on the RR/MW chart in a calendar year is four, by Elvis Presley in 1961 and 1962; The Beatles in 1964; Spice Girls in 1997 and Westlife in 1999 and 2000. Elvis Presley in 1961 & 1962 and Westlife in 1999 are the only acts to achieve four new chart-toppers in a year; the other instances included chart-topping runs carried on from the year before. Though The Beatles did achieve four number one hits on the NME chart in 1963.
MOST WEEKS AT NUMBER ONE
77 Elvis Presley
69 The Beatles (Paul McCartney +17 solo; John Lennon + 7 solo; George Harrison + 6 solo)
46 Cliff Richard
44 The Shadows (28 backing Cliff Richard, 16 of their own)
32 Frankie Laine
31 Abba
23 Wet Wet Wet
22 Spice Girls (Melanie C + 2 solo; Melanie B + 1 solo; Emma Bunton + 2 solo; Geri Halliwell 20 with the group + 5 solo)
21 Take That (Robbie Williams 18 with the group + 8 solo; Gary Barlow + 2 solo)
21 Queen (includes 2 with David Bowie, 3 with George Michael and 1 with Five)
20 Slade
Totals do not include appearances with charity ensembles.
Freddie Mercury appeared with Queen for only 17 of the group's weeks at #1. He has two solo weeks to his credit for a total of 19.
The Shadows' chart history is made somewhat more confusing by the various line-up changes that occurred during their run of #1 successes. The members' individual totals are as follows:
47 Hank B Marvin was on all of their #1s, plus 3 weeks with Cliff Richard & The Young Ones in 1986.
44 Bruce Welch also appeared on all twelve #1s.
39 Jet Harris (36 as a Shadow, 3 with Tony Meehan).
25 Tony Meehan (22 as a Shadow, 3 with Jet Harris).
22 Brian Bennett (22 as a Shadow).
Brian Locking, who replaced Harris, has 8 weeks at #1.
MOST WEEKS AT NUMBER ONE (RECORD)
18 I Believe Frankie Laine (in three runs at the top 9+6+3)
16 (Everything I Do) I Do It For You Bryan Adams
15 Love Is All Around Wet Wet Wet
14 Bohemian Rhapsody Queen (two runs at the top 9+5)
11 Rose Marie Slim Whitman
10 Cara Mia David Whitfield
10 I Will Always Love You Whitney Houston
9 Here In My Heart Al Martino
9 Oh Mein Papa Eddie Calvert
9 Secret Love Doris Day
9 Diana Paul Anka
9 Mull Of Kintyre / Girls School Wings
9 You're The One That I Want John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John
9 Two Tribes Frankie Goes To Hollywood
MOST CONSECUTIVE NUMBER ONE HITS
11 The Beatles (From Me To You through to Yellow Submarine / Eleanor Rigby)
7 Westlife (Swear It Again through to My Love, includes one with Mariah Carey)
6 The Beatles (All You Need Is Love through to Ballad Of John And Yoko)
6 Spice Girls (Wannabe through to Too Much)
5 Elvis Presley (Little Sister / His Latest Flame through to Return To Sender)
5 Rolling Stones (It's All Over Now through to Get Off Of My Cloud)
Gary Barlow appeared on the last four #1 hits for Take That and then had two solo, for a total of six.
During the Beatles' run of 11, two cash-in singles on another label also charted. During their run of six, the double EP "Magical Mystery Tour" reached number two. An EP by Elvis Presley entered the lower reaches of the chart during his run of five #1s.
RECORDS THAT REGAINED THE NUMBER ONE SPOT
Normally, once a record is replaced at number one, there is no way back. But over the years a few records have managed to hang on with enough tenacity to return to the very top. Here's the list:
24.04.53 I Believe Frankie Laine (9 weeks)
24.04.53 I'm Walking Behind You Eddie Fisher and Sally Sweetland (1)
03.07.53 I Believe Frankie Laine (6)
14.08.53 The Song From The Moulin Rouge Mantovani & his Orchestra (1)
21.08.53 I Believe Frankie Laine (3)
06.11.53 Answer Me David Whitfield (1)
13.11.53 Answer Me Frankie Laine (8)
11.12.53 Answer Me David Whitfield / Answer Me Frankie Laine (top equal for 1 week)
12.03.54 I See The Moon Stargazers (5)
16.04.54 Secret Love Doris Day (1)
23.04.54 I See The Moon Stargazers (1)
30.04.54 Such A Night Johnnie Ray (1)
07.05.54 Secret Love Doris Day (8)
08.10.54 Hold My Hand Don Cornell (4)
05.11.54 My Son My Son Vera Lynn (2)
19.11.54 Hold My Hand Don Cornell (1)
07.01.55 Finger Of Suspicion Dickie Valentine (1)
14.01.55 Mambo Italiano Rosemary Clooney (1)
21.01.55 Finger Of Suspicion Dickie Valentine (2)
28.01.55 Mambo Italiano Rosemary Clooney (2)
25.11.55 Rock Around The Clock Bill Haley and his Comets (3)
16.12.55 Christmas Alphabet Dickie Valentine (3)
06.01.56 Rock Around The Clock Bill Haley and his Comets (2)
16.03.56 It's Almost Tomorrow Dreamweavers (2)
30.03.56 Rock And Roll Waltz Kay Starr (1)
06.04.56 It's Almost Tomorrow Dreamweavers (1)
04.01.57 Singing The Blues Guy Mitchell (1)
11.01.57 Singing The Blues Tommy Steele and the Steelmen (1)
18.01.57 Singing The Blues Guy Mitchell (1)
25.01.57 The Garden Of Eden Frankie Vaughn (4)
01.02.57 Singing The Blues Guy Mitchell / The Garden Of Eden Frankie Vaughn (1 week top equal)
28.07.60 Please Don't Tease Cliff Richard and the Shadows (1)
04.08.60 Shakin' All Over Johnny Kidd and the Pirates (1)
11.08.60 Please Don't Tease Cliff Richard and the Shadows (2)
12.09.63 She Loves You The Beatles (4)
10.10.63 Do You Love Me Brian Poole and the Tremoloes (3)
31.10.63 You'll Never Walk Alone Gerry And The Pacemakers (4)
28.11.63 She Loves You The Beatles (2)
The longest gap between runs at the top.
17.06.65 Crying In The Chapel Elvis Presley (1)
24.06.65 I'm Alive The Hollies (1)
01.07.65 Crying In The Chapel Elvis Presley (1)
08.07.65 I'm Alive The Hollies (2)
31.07.68 Mony Mony Tommy James and the Shondells (2)
14.08.68 Fire Crazy World Of Arthur Brown (1)
21.08.68 Mony Mony Tommy James and the Shondells (1)
11.12.68 Lily The Pink The Scaffold (3)
01.01.69 Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da The Marmalade (1)
08.01.69 Lily The Pink The Scaffold (1)
15.01.69 Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da The Marmalade (2)
11.12.93 Mr Blobby Mr Blobby (1)
18.12.93 Babe Take That (1)
25.12.93 Mr Blobby Mr Blobby (2)
01.06.96 Three Lions (Official Song Of The England Football Team) Baddiel, Skinner and The Lightning Seeds (1)
08.06.96 Killing Me Softly Fugees (Refugee Camp) (4)
06.07.96 Three Lions (Official Song Of The England Football Team) Baddiel, Skinner and The Lightning Seeds (1)
Three Lions returned to the top when England reached the semi-finals of the World Cup.
28.06.97 I'll Be Missing You Puff Daddy and Faith Evans (3)
19.07.97 D'you Know What I Mean? Oasis (1)
26.07.97 I'll Be Missing You Puff Daddy and Faith Evans (3)
29.11.97 Perfect Day Various Artists (2)
13.12.97 Teletubbies Say Eh-Oh! Teletubbies (2)
27.12.97 Too Much Spice Girls (2)
10.01.98 Perfect Day Various Artists (1)
09.05.98 Under The Bridge / Lady Marmalade All Saints (1)
16.05.98 Turn Back Time Aqua (1)
23.05.98 Under The Bridge / Lady Marmalade All Saints (1)
05.05.01 Don't Stop Movin' S Club 7 (1)
12.05.01 It's Raining Men Geri Halliwell (2)
26.05.01 Don't Stop Movin' S Club 7 (1)
08.12.01 Gotta Get Thru This Daniel Bedingfield (2)
22.12.01 Somethin' Stupid Robbie Williams and Nicole Kidman (3)
13.01.02 Gotta Get Thru This Daniel Bedingfield (1)
FIRST THREE (OR MORE) HITS AT NUMBER ONE
In 1963, Gerry And The Pacemakers were the frst act to take all of their first three hits to #1. For many years it was thought that this record might never be beaten, or even equalled, though some acts did come close - Adam Faith had already achieved an opening run of 1,1,2, and Engelbert Humperdinck later took his first three hits to 1,2,1.
But the record was equalled in 1984, by Frankie Goes To Hollywood. By a strange co-incidence, FGTH had covered Gerry And The Pacemakers' Ferry Cross The Mersey (not one of their #1s) as a bonus track on the 12" of their first chart-topper!
George Michael took his first two solo singles to number one in 1984 and 1986, followed by a duet with Aretha Franklin.
In 1989, Jive Bunny And The Mastermixers took their first three hits to number one. The last of these, Let's Party, made its debut at the top.
As the chart became more open to high new entries, it might have been expected that an act who had enjoyed a first number one would find it easier to follow it up with a second and third, but it wasn't until 1996 that a fifth act joined the club. In doing so, Robson & Jerome became the first act to go straight in at number one with their first three singles. As they retired immediately after the third, they also have a perfect 100% record of number one hits. Their final #1 - a triple-A-side - included a cover of Gerry's final #1, You'll Never Walk Alone.
Spice Girls took their first three singles to #1 in 1996, though contrary to popular belief they didn't enter at #1 with the first (it debuted at #3). The group went on to set a new record with all of their first six singles going to the top.
In May 1998, Aqua became the first overseas act to take their first three singles to number one. Their second and third had debuted at the top. They were followed by B*Witched, who became the first group to enter in the top position with each of their first four singles.
Westlife now hold the record, with their first six (seven including a collaboration with Mariah Carey) debuting at number one. Each of their first eleven singles entered in the top two, and each of their first thirteen entered inside the top five, both also new records.
In 2002, the Will Young / Gareth Gates duet The Long And Winding Road completed hat-tricks for both singers. Solo tracks by each artist also appeared on the single, though only the Gates track Suspicious Minds recieved a chart credit. Gates has since gone on to a fourth straight chart-topper.
DROPS FROM THE TOP
Although chart turnover has been faster than ever in recent years, it is still comparatively rare for a single to drop out of the top five from number one. These are the records that have done so:
To number 6:
16.01.53 Here In My Heart Al Martino
20.01.56 Rock Around The Clock Bill Haley & His Comets
23.06.60 Cathy's Clown Everly Brothers
11.04.63 Summer Holiday Cliff Richard and the Shadows
15.06.74 Sugar Baby Love The Rubettes
17.07.76 You To Me Are Everything Real Thing
26.06.79 Bright Eyes Art Garfunkel
10.01.81 There's No One Quite Like Grandma St Winifred's School Choir
14.11.81 It's My Party Dave Stewart with Barbara Gaskin
30.04.83 Let's Dance David Bowie
23.03.85 You Spin Me Round (Like A Record) Dead Or Alive
10.05.86 A Different Corner George Michael
11.03.89 Belfast Child Simple Minds
18.01.97 2 Become 1 Spice Girls
22.02.97 Discotheque U2
17.05.97 Love Won't Wait Gary Barlow
31.10.98 Gym And Tonic Spacedust
30.01.99 A Little Bit More 911
02.03.02 World Of Our Own Westlife
22.06.02 Light My Fire Will Young
To number 7:
14.03.63 Wayward Wind Frank Ifield
22.09.73 Young Love Donny Osmond
07.05.77 Knowing Me Knowing You Abba
08.02.97 Beetlebum Blur
19.09.98 Bootie Call All Saints
To number 8:
24.01.68 Hello Goodbye The Beatles
18.01.75 Lonely This Christmas Mud
12.04.97 Block Rockin' Beats Chemical Brothers
10.05.97 Blood On The Dance Floor Michael Jackson
15.04.00 Fool Again Westlife
25.11.00 Same Old Brand New You A1
28.04.01 What Took You So Long Emma Bunton
To number 9:
06.01.56 Christmas Alphabet Dickie Valentine
01.06.61 You're Driving Me Crazy Temperance Seven
17.03.66 These Boots Are Made For Walking Nancy Sinatra
19.01.91 Bring Your Daughter... To The Slaughter Iron Maiden
03.04.99 Blame It On The Weatherman B*Witched
To number 10:
14.01.84 Only You Flying Pickets
To number 12:
10.01.58 Mary's Boy Child Harry Belafonte
Four singles have dropped one place at a time, 1-2-3-4-5: Finger Of Suspicion by Dickie Valentine, It's All In The Game by Tommy Edwards, You Are Not Alone by Michael Jackson and Eminem's The Real Slim Shady. In fact, Finger Of Suspicion followed its week at number 5 with a week jointly at number 5 with a climbing record. Had a modern tie-break been used, Finger would have gone 1-2-3-4-5-6!
Speaking of ol' Dickie, from 1956, Dickie Valentine's Christmas Alphabet solely held the record for the shortest chart run of any number one hit - just seven weeks. This was equalled in 1987 by Ferry Aid's version of Let It Be, and again in 1989 by another charity disc Ferry Cross The Mersey by an all-star conglomeration led by Gerry Marsden. The record was finally beaten in January 1990 by two consecutive chart-toppers, Let's Party by Jive Bunny And The Mastermixers and Do They Know It's Christmas? by Band Aid II, each with just six weeks on chart. In 1991, Iron Maiden brought the record down to just five weeks with their classic Bring Your Daughter... To The Slaughter. U2 nearly matched this with The Fly later in the year, vacating the chart with a run of just five weeks but then spoiling its record by re-entering for a further week. In 1997, Blur's Beetlebum did likewise, but did set several new records on its way down: it was the first #1 to spend just 2 weeks in the top 20 and 3 in the top 40, and set the record for the biggest drop in the second week by a number one debutant, dropping 1-7 (this record broken only a few weeks later by Chemical Brothers with Block Rockin' Beats which fell to 8; the record is now 1-9 by Blame It On The Weatherman, the fourth and final number one by B*Witched.)
By way of contrast, the single which remained in the charts longest after dropping from #1 is also the single with the most consecutive weeks on chart: Englebert Humperdinck's extraordinary debut hit Release Me. Its last week at number one was its eleventh on chart; it went on to notch up a further 45 chart weeks taking it to an amazing total of 56 weeks on chart.
NUMBER ONE IN TWO OR MORE VERSIONS
One song has been #1 in four versions:
Unchained Melody Jimmy Young; Righteous Brothers; Robson & Jerome; Gareth Gates
Written by Alex North (music) and Hy Zaret (words).
The song was originally recorded by the Alex North Orchestra with vocals by Todd Duncan for the 1955 film Unchained. The movie flopped; the song survived. American singer Al Hibbler was credited with a number one version (with Jimmy Young at 2) in the Record Mirror chart.
Two songs have been number one in three versions:
You'll Never Walk Alone Gerry & The Pacemakers; The Crowd; Robson & Jerome
Written by Richard Rodgers (music) and Oscar Hammerstein II (words).
This anthemic singalong first appeared in the musical Carousel in 1948. Popularised in the USA by Louis Armstrong, in the UK it has become strongly associated with football, and especially with Liverpool FC, who have recorded it in various line-ups.
Spirit In The Sky Norman Greenbaum; Doctor And The Medics; Gareth Gates and the Kumars
Words and music by Norman Greenbaum.
Many people wrongly assume that Greenbaum was an evangelical Christian - in fact he was, and still is, Jewish, but thought it would be fun (and a little more profitable) to write a rock song about Jesus. Subsequent versions have kept the joke going by recording it in Pagan and Hindu contexts - but as yet, no Christian version. (Thanks to Jenny for pointing this out.)
The following songs have been #1 in two versions:
Answer Me David Whitfield; Frankie Laine
Baby Come Back Equals; Pato Banton
Can't Help Falling In Love Elvis Presley; UB40
Cherry Pink And Apple Blossom White Perez Prado & his Orchestra; Eddie Calvert
Dizzy Tommy Roe; Vic Reeves and the Wonderstuff
Do They Know It's Christmas? Band Aid; Band Aid II
Everything I Own Ken Boothe; Boy George
Eternal Flame Bangle; Atomic Kitten
I Believe Frankie Laine; Robson & Jerome
I Got You Babe Sonny & Cher; UB40 with Chrissie Hynde
Killer Adamski; Queen & George Michael (EP track - medley with Papa Was A Rolling Stone)
Lady Marmalade All Saints; Christina Aguilera, Lil' Kim, Mya & Pink
Living Doll Cliff Richard & the Drifters; Cliff Richard & The Young Ones
Mambo No.5 Lou Bega; Bob The Builder
Mary's Boy Child Harry Belafonte; Boney M (medley with Oh My Lord)
Seasons In The Sun Terry Jacks; Westlife
Singing The Blues Guy Mitchell; Tommy Steele
Somethin' Stupid Nancy Sinatra & Frank Sinatra; Robbie Williams and Nicole Kidman
Take A Chance On Me Abba; Erasure (EP track)
This Ole House Rosemary Clooney; Shakin' Stevens
The Tide Is High Blondie; Atomic Kitten (medley with Get The Feeling)
Three Lions Baddiel & Skinner & The Lightning Seeds (two different recordings)
Tragedy Bee Gees; Steps
Uptown Girl Billy Joel; Westlife
When The Going Gets Tough Billy Ocean; Boyzone
With A Little Help From My Friends Joe Cocker; Wet Wet Wet
Without You Nilsson; Mariah Carey
Young Love Tab Hunter; Donny Osmond
Ice Ice Baby by Vanilla Ice was heavily based on Under Pressure by Queen and David Bowie (even though Ice denied it at the time).
I'll Be Missing You by Puff Daddy and Faith Evans featuring 112 set new words to the backing of Every Breath You Take by The Police.
We're Going To Ibiza! by Vengaboys set new words to the backing of Barbados by Typically Tropical.
Both Fastlove by George Michael and Men In Black by Will Smith used samples from Patrice Rushen's #8 hit Forget Me Nots - the Smith track using Rushen's backing more heavily than Michael's.
Rise by Gabrielle was based on Bob Dylan's song Knockin' On Heaven's Door, a cover of which had been a #1 hit for Dunblane.
Angel by Shaggy was set to the bassline of The Joker by Steve Miller Band.
Freak Like Me by Sugababes was partly based on Tubeway Army's Are Friends Electric?.
The medley Swing The Mood by Jive Bunny And The Mastermixers incorporated bits of Bill Haley and his Comets' #1 Rock Around The Clock and remakes of Elvis Presley's #1s All Shook Up and Jailhouse Rock.
The medley That's What I Like by Jive Bunny And The Mastermixers included a snippet of Jerry Lee Lewis' #1 Great Balls Of Fire.
I actually had to listen to the Jive Bunny records to get those last two. Can I have my OBE now please?
LONGEST NUMBER ONE RECORD
The Animals caused quite a sensation when, in 1964, their House Of The Rising Sun became the first number one to top the four minute mark. But it wasn't until 1968 that The Beatles set the benchmark for really long number ones with the seven-and-a-quarter minute Hey Jude. Even today, such extent is considered uncommercial, and while long tracks may be released, most have shorter edits alongside to sweeten the pill. The following are therefore the only number one hits to run for more than seven minutes. It is probably fair to say that in all cases, the actual songs have been somewhat swamped by the artist's desire to create an "epic":
9.38 All Around The World Oasis
7.58 I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That) Meat Loaf
7.32 D'You Know What I Mean? Oasis
7.15 Hey Jude The Beatles
Don McLean's American Pie (8.27) and Laurie Anderson's O Superman (8.21) both peaked at number two; one place higher and either one would have comfortably made the list above.
The longest chart single, and longest top ten hit, is Blue Room by The Orb with a running time of 39.58 on one of two CD formats, though it was also available in several shorter edits. The longest chart single with no shorter edit available is N-Joi's Live In Manchester, an improvised jam which reached #12 in 1992. The shorter of the two parts is part 1, with a running time of 13.41.
The shortest number one hit is What Do You Want by Adam Faith, with a running time of 1.35. (Thanks to Theo for that one.) The shortest top ten hit is United States Of Whatever by Liam Lynch (1.26). It beat Elvis Presley's Party by one second. I have seen Hayley Mills' Let's Get Together listed as the shortest Top 40 hit but I do not have a precise timing for it.
The US record-holder for shortest Top 40 hit is Some Kinda Earthquake by Duane Eddy, which would have topped (or bottomed?) the list in the UK too - had it not been re-edited from its original 1.17 to a less paltry 2.01 for its UK release.
The shortest Top 75 hit is Millennium Chimes by Big Ben. Yes, that Big Ben.
FAMILY CONNECTIONS
The following combinations of relatives have topped the charts:
Father & Son:
Julio Iglesias (solo 1981) and Enrique Iglesias (solo 2002)
Chip Hawkes (in The Tremeloes 1967) and Chesney Hawkes (solo 1990)
Ringo Starr (in The Beatles 1963) and Zac Starkey (in The Crowd 1985)
Father & Daughter:
Frank Sinatra and Nancy Sinatra (both solo and together)
Mother & Son:
Hilda Woodward and Rob Woodward (both in Lieutenant Pigeon 1972)
Brother & Sister:
Shane Lynch (Boyzone) and Edele and Keavy Lynch (B*Witched).
Chart-topping groups which feature brothers in their line-ups include The Kinks, The Osmonds, The Real Thing, UB40, Oasis, Bee Gees, Spandau Ballet, The Jacksons (well, obviously) and no doubt plenty of others that I've forgotten. (And who'd bet against the The Pipes And Drums And Military Band Of The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards including at least one pair of brothers?). One impressive fraternal feat belongs to brothers Mike McGear and Paul McCartney, the only blood relations to write two consecutive chart-toppers (respectively, Lily The Pink by The Scaffold and Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da as recorded by The Marmalade) and incidentally the only brothers to have both had christmas number ones.
Chart-topping groups featuring sisters include Sister Sledge (uh-huh...), All Saints and B*Witched.
Very few husband-and-wife combinations have topped the charts. Esther and Abi Ofarim, Sonny and Cher, and Enigma were husband-and-wife duos. Abba were uniquely made up of two married couples (at least to start with). The Goombay Dance Band also featured a married couple. Happy couple Gillian Gilbert and Steven Morris of New Order don't count as they didn't marry until several years after their number one hit. Siobhan Fahey of Shakespear's Sister and David A Stewart of Eurythmics were married (to each other, that is) at the time of her chart-topper but not at the time of his.
OTHER NUMBER ONE FACTS AND FEATS
The youngest solo chart-topper remains Little Jimmy Osmond who was just 9 when Long Haired Lover From Liverpool gave him the 1972 christmas number one. However, Dawn Ralph was just 8 when she sang lead on There's No One Quite Like Grandma by St Winifred's School Choir, and it is likely that some members of the choir were even younger. A children's chorus also featured on Clive Dunn's #1 Grandad but I suspect these were older children.
The first act to write their own number one hit was Dreamweavers. Young songwriters Wade Buff and Eugene Adkinson formed the group in desperation after their song It's Almost Tomorrow was repeatedly turned down by music publishers.
The first number one hit to be written, produced and entirely performed by a single person was A Different Corner by George Michael.
The last single to reach number 1 without the benefit of a CD format being available was Bring Your Daughter... To The Slaughter by Iron Maiden. They did in fact release a CD format a couple of weeks later but it didn't count toward their chart position as the single was already available on the maximum five formats (four vinyl and one cassette).
Only one Nobel Prize winner has ever written a UK number one hit single. US Vice-President Charles Gates Dawes, who won the Peace Prize in 1925, also wrote the melody of Tommy Edwards' 1958 chart-topper It's All In The Game. Carl Sigman wrote the words.
Mr Vain by Culture Beat was the first single since the 1950s to reach number one without being available on vinyl.
Only once since 1955 has there ever been an instance of three consecutive chart-toppers all being covers of previously-charted songs: In September 2001, Too Close by Blue (previously a hit for Next); Mambo No.5 by Bob The Builder (previously a hit for Lou Bega) and Hey Baby by DJ Otzi (formerly a hit for Bruce Channel) each had a week at the top.
Speaking of covers, during 2000, five cover versions reached number one. In four cases, the original had peaked at number 2; the fifth (We Will Rock You) had been the b-side of a number 2 hit.
UB40 enjoyed a string of hits with original material, yet all three of their number one hits were covers.
During the 80s, Neil Diamond's song Red Red Wine and David Gates' song Everything I Own reached the top spot as reggae covers (for UB40 and Boy George respectively). In both cases, the artists who took the song to the top were unaware of the original folk-rock versions and had taken previous reggae-fied covers as their source - namely Ken Boothe's version of Everything I Own and Tony Tribe's remake of Red Red Wine.
The fastest hat-trick of number one hits was by John Lennon - he notched up three number one hits in the space of just eight weeks following his death in December 1980.
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In which war was the Battle of Bosworth Field? | 50 years of the pop charts
50 years of the pop charts
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50 years of the pop charts
1952: The UK's first official Number 1 record is Here In My Heart by Al Martino, a nine-week chart-topper from November 1952 until the following January, and therefore the only record ever to have been number 1 for a whole year.
1953: Frankie Laine manages a never-to-be-broken-not-even-by-Bryan-Adams chart record of 18 weeks at number 1. His song I Believe is later murdered by Robson and Jerome, who keep Oasis's Wonderwall off the top of the charts in 1995.
1954: The Top 12 is extended to a Top 20, featuring such classic artists as Max Bygraves, Jimmy Young, Vera Lynn and Winifred Attwell.
1955: In January Rock Around The Clock by Bill Haley creeps into the charts at number 17. It returns to top the charts in November, and things will never be the same again...
1956: The Top 20 is extended to a Top 30, just in time for the arrival of a debut single called Heartbreak Hotel. See, I told you things would never be the same again.
1957: Elvis Presley is the most successful chart act of the year with ten hits, seven of them in the chart simultaneously in early November. The music world is All Shook Up.
1958: Cliff Richard's Move It kick starts an unprecedented chart career, with number 1's in the 50s (Living Doll, ...), 60s (Summer Holiday, ...), 70s (We Don't Talk Any More), 80s (Mistletoe and Wine, ...), 90s (Saviour's Day, ...) and so nearly the 00s (The Millennium Prayer missed by a fortnight).
1959: Buddy Holly's It Doesn't Matter Any More becomes the first record to reach number 1 after his death. It won't be the last. In 2002 Aaliyah and George Harrison will have two consecutive posthumous number 1s.
1960: The Top 30 is extended to a Top 50. In the first week of December, seven of the records between 31 and 40 are instrumentals. Only chart anoraks notice things like that, of course.
1961: Jolly pianist Mrs Mills is the first chart act to include her own name in the title of her Christmas class Mrs Mills Medley. One day all the top mixing DJs will follow her example.
1962: Love Me Do is the very first hit by the Beatles, the most record-breaking chart-record-breaking band of all time...
1963: From Me To You starts the Beatles' unequalled string of eleven consecutive number 1s, which will falter only when Englebert Humperdink keeps Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields stuck at number 2 four years later.
1964: Top of the Pops begins, hosted by Jimmy Saville live from an old church in Manchester. The Beatles appear at number 1 and number 3, and the legendary Singing Nun holds firm at number 7 (but she doesn't sing on the show).
1965: Tom Jones has the number 1 record on the day I'm born. It's Not Unusual? He's so very wrong...
1966: For three consecutive weeks in March, the record at number 4 falls to number 7 and the record at number 12 drops to number 17. My chart anorak has a fur-lined hood, you know.
1967: In the second week of June, during the so-called Summer of Love, there are two tube stations in the Top 20 - Waterloo Sunset and Finchley Central. Meanwhile a new entry from Petula Clark at number 34 advises us Don't Sleep In The Subway.
1968: Louis Armstrong is the oldest artist ever to reach number 1, at the age of 66, with the wonderful It's A Wonderful World.
1969: Je T'aime... Moi Non Plus by Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg is the first number 1 to be banned by the BBC. Relax, it won't be the last.
1970: The first number 1 of the 1970s is Two Little Boys by Rolf Harris. This rather sets the seal on the decade to come...
1971: ... Clive Dunn takes Grandad to the top of the charts. See, I told you so.
1972: Little Jimmy Osmond is the youngest solo artist ever to reach number 1, four months shy of his tenth birthday, though he seems a little young to be singing about long-haired lovers. Worryingly, Jonathan King is in the charts at the time singing Shag.
1973: Four records go straight in at number 1 during 1973 - the greatest total until this became commonplace in the mid 1990s. Three of them are by dyslexia-afflicted Slade (Cum On Feel The Noize, Skweeze Me Pleeze Me and Merry Xmas Everybody) and the other is by Gary Glitter (I Love You Love Me Love).
1974: The Faces' number 12 hit You Can Make Me Dance Sing Or Anything (Even Take The Dog For A Walk, Mend A Fuse, Fold Away The Ironing Board, Or Any Other Domestic Shortcomings) has a record-breaking 115 letters. Meanwhile the group with the most weeks on the chart in this year is the immortal Wombles.
1975: Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody reaches the top for the first time, destined to be the British public's favourite record for the rest of time...
1976: ... unless of course Yesterday by the Beatles is the British public's favourite record of all time. Unbelievably the song was first released as a single as late as 1976 and only reached number 8 in the charts. Far more believably, Paul McCartney first wrote the song using the lyrics Scrambled Eggs.
1977: Rumours by Fleetwood Mac starts a record-breaking 477-week run on the album charts although Dreams, the highest charting single from the album, only reaches number 24.
1978: The Top 50 is extended to a Top 75. Three of the top 10 best selling records of all time in the UK are from this year - two by Boney M (Brown Girl In The Ring is 5th and Mary's Boy Child is 10th) and one by John Travolta and Olivia Newton John (You're The One That I Want is 6th).
1979: January is a big month for costumed heroes, with the Village People at number 1 with YMCA, and smaller hits for the theme from Superman, the theme from Dr Who, Sarah Brightman losing her heart to a Starship Trooper, and not forgetting Elton John.
1980: Going Underground by the Jam is only the tenth record in the history of the chart to go straight in at number 1. From 1995 onwards, there isn't a year when less than ten records enter the charts at the top.
1981: Abba's Lay All Your Love On Me reaches number 7 in the charts, giving them a chart career with singles peaked at every number from 1 to 7. Later in the 1980s the Eurythmics will manage exactly one single peaking at every number from 1 to 10 except 7.
1982: The biggest ever jump to number 1 inside the Top 40 is made by Happy Talk from Captain Sensible, shooting straight to the top from number 33, back in the days when an appearance on Top of the Pops actually meant something.
1983: In 1983 Prince first releases the song 1999 (number 25), then re-releases it in 1985 (number 2), re-releases it again in January 1999 (number 10), and re-releases the earlier re-release in December 1999 (number 51).
1984: Wham's Last Christmas sells a million copies but fails to reach number 1 because Band Aid's Do They Know It's Christmas is there instead. This year also sees three consecutive million-selling number 1s from Frankie Goes To Hollywood, George Michael and Stevie Wonder.
1985: You Spin Me Round (Like A Record) by Dead Or Alive takes 15 weeks to climb the Top 75 to the number 1 position. Later in the year Jennifer Rush takes one week longer to get there with The Power Of Love.
1986: A Levi's commercial helps Reet Petite by Jackie Wilson to the number 1 slot, a record-breaking 29 years and 6 weeks after it was first released in 1957.
1987: From 4th October the Top 40 is now announced live on Sunday evening's Radio 1 chart rundown, rather than being released on the following Tuesday. By topping the charts either side of this change, Pump Up The Volume by M|A|R|R|S becomes the only record ever to spend exactly twelve days at number 1.
1988: In January AC/DC reach number 12 with Heatseeker, their highest ever chart placing. No other act has had as many as 27 hits with ever achieving a Top 10 record.
1989: Jive Bunny become only the third act to reach number 1 with their first three singles, following in the footsteps of Gerry And The Pacemakers and Frankie Goes To Hollywood. This record is later demolished by Westlife, whose first seven singles all debut at number 1.
1990: In September, the chart compilers are unable to separate the Steve Miller Band and Deee-Lite for the number 1 position based on identical weekly sales. They apply an obscure rule placing The Joker above Groove Is In The Heart because it has had the greatest increase in sales, although this rule is later revoked to allow records to hold equal chart positions in future.
1991: Everything I do (I do it for you) by Bryan Adams spends a record-breaking sixteen consecutive weeks at number 1. During those 16 weeks I leave my job, apply for a mortgage, attempt to buy a new flat 50 miles away, which falls through, then buy another flat next door, and move in. Yes, it felt like Bryan was number 1 forever.
1992: Indie band The Wedding Present release one hit record each month through the year, equalling Elvis's 1957 record of 12 hit singles in a year.
1993: Mr Blobby is the first chart act to have a number 1 with an eponymous single. Four months later Doop repeat the feat. Both records also share the feat of being 100% rubbish.
1994: Wet Wet Wet spend 15 consecutive weeks at number 1 with Love Is all Around, one week short of Bryan Adams' record. They are knocked off the top spot by Whigfield with Saturday Night, the first ever debut hit by an artist to enter the chart at number 1.
1995: Robson and Jerome become the third act to take Unchained Melody to number 1, following Jimmy Young and the Righteous Brothers, and followed by Gareth Gates seven years later. The two Soldier Soldier boys achieve the ninth best selling single of all time (...and, be very afraid, Gareth's mate Will Young is currently 12th in that list with Evergreen)
1996: During the World Cup, the Fugees and Baddiel, Skinner and the Lightning Seeds take it in turns to replace each other at number 1. First Killing Me Softly replaces Three Lions, then Three Lions returns to the summit, and finally Killing Me Softly wrestles the title back again. Three Lions will be back for a further three weeks at the top two years later.
1997: Candle In the Wind 97 is the best selling single of all time. Performed live by Elton John only twice, it sold 4.86 million copies in the UK and 37 million worldwide.
1998: The Spice Girls say Goodbye to a brief but meteoric chart career. The most successful all-girl group of all time achieve eight number one records in less than three years, while their only other hit (Stop) is a number 2.
1999: One-hit wonders The Wamdue Project have a hit with the longest chart title not to repeat any letters - the 14 different letters of King Of My Castle. Is this anorakky enough for you?
2000: From 24th June to 9th September, every week sees a new record top the chart. This 12-week stretch is the longest of such instances in chart history. This year also holds the record for the most number 1s in a year, all 42 of them (or 43 if you count Westlife's Christmas offering which dribbled across two millennia).
2001: Pure And Simple by Hear'say is the fastest selling single ever released by a group, shipping over half a million copies in its first week. The group later spontaneously combust and can probably now be found cleaning floors in burger restaurants.
2002: Elvis overtakes the Beatles as the act with the most number 1 records (18) and then, in the week of the chart's 50th anniversary, Westlife move into fourth place in that list behind Cliff Richard.
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Who wrote the opera Cosi fan Tutte? | The opera novice: Mozart's Così fan tutte - Telegraph
Opera
The opera novice: Mozart's Così fan tutte
While its music has always been adored, Mozart's Così fan tutte has been accused of being clumsy or even misogynist. But Sameer Rahim discovers an opera from which all lovers can learn.
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Unlucky lovers: Così fan tutte performed at The Royal Opera House. Nikolay Borchev as Guglielmo, Michele Losier as Dorabella, Malin Bystrom as Fiordiligi, Charles Castronovo as Ferrando Photo: Alastair Muir
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Così Fan Tutte performed at The Royal Opera House. Thomas Allen as Don Alfonso, Charles Castronovo as Ferrando, Nikolay Borchev as Guglielmo, Rosemary Joshua as Despina Photo: Alastair Muir
By Sameer Rahim , Assistant Books Editor
11:47AM GMT 17 Feb 2012
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“We have a certain Abbate da Ponte here,” wrote Mozart to his father in May 1783. “He promised to write me something new…but who knows whether he will keep his word or even wants to! You know these Italian gentlemen, they are very nice to your face…”
The Italian gentleman kept his promise. Lorenzo da Ponte and Mozart collaborated on two blockbuster operas: The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni. Their final work together, Così fan tutte, was not a great success. Mozart’s first biographer was puzzled that the composer could “waste his heavenly sweet melodies on such a miserable and clumsy text” and it was not popular until the 20th century.
Così fan tutte is rarely given its English name possibly because it’s quite hard to translate. The full title is Così fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti: “Thus do they all [ie women], or The School for Lovers” but the shortened form is usually “They’re all like that” or “All women behave the same”. This slipperiness suits a work known for being cynical about love yet which has wonderful love-music; and that satirises unreliable women while showing men are hardly faultless.
Così begins with two young bucks Guglielmo and Ferrando boasting about the loyalty of their lovers Fiordiligi and Dorabella. Their friend Don Alfonso, “an old philosopher”, warns they shouldn’t be so trusting: women are all the same. They settle things with a love-test familiar to anyone who’s read medieval fabliaux or seen the US reality show Cheaters . The young men pretend to go to war only to return disguised as Albanians. Each man woos the other’s lover to see whether they remain true. As you might imagine, their plan doesn’t exactly go smoothly.
I had seen Così about 10 years ago at the Hackney Empire but couldn’t remember much about it. This week I went to the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden to see a revival of Jonathan Miller’s “Armani” production . When it was first put on in 1995, you could have described it as being in modern dress. Nearly 20 years later – despite the addition of modern touches like iPhones and Starbucks – it looked more like a period piece. (Having the soldiers disguise themselves as Guns N’ Roses-style rockers, for example, might have seemed dated even in the mid-nineties.)
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But I must confess I wasn’t in a good position to judge the production – literally. One of Così’s funniest scenes comes at the finale of act one when the men pretend to be dying to get the women’s sympathy. All this happened on the right side of the stage, though, and from my restricted view in seat DD11, I couldn’t see a thing. All I can tell you is that the audience was laughing.
Unable to see all the action, I decided to listen more carefully. I have never understood what people meant by saying “the music was so witty” but Così has given me an idea. Take the overture : it begins with lordly violins that correspond to the men’s pompous certainty about their women’s faithfulness; then come the sinuous feminine notes of the English horn. The two call and respond to one another in a way that anticipates the back and forth of the love plot. As the overture ends the music slows and we hear five notes match the five syllables of the title: Co-sì fan tu-te, the warning words that Don Alfonso sings to the same tune in the last scene. Whenever the theme was played, I imagined the old man wagging his finger wearily.
As the men sail away to war, Fiordiligi, Dorabella and Don Alfonso sing a trio of enrapturing beauty: “ Soave sia il vento, tranquilla sia l’onda ”, “May the winds be soft, and the waves be calm.” I later learned this is very famous and a popular choice for funerals. In performance, though, it seemed oddly out of place. Miller presents the two women as flighty and self-obsessed, forever looking in the mirror or papping each other on their phones. Amusing enough but how can such shallow creatures produce such heartfelt song?
Maybe it’s unfair to blame the production. Having just sung so movingly with the women, Don Alfonso declares: “I’m not such a bad actor after all!” The opera often shifts between ethereal idealisation and messy reality. The men are in love with images (“Are they goddesses or women?” asks Don Alfonso); and the women simply love being loved – which is why the Albanians’ passionate declarations eventually sway them.
Così is often regarded as anti-women but I think it’s harsh on both sexes. Mozart’s letters reveal that he had his own intrigue with two sisters. While boarding with the Weber family, he fell in love with the daughter Aloysia. She was a singer for whom he wrote music but she would not have him. Rumour spread he was flirting with her sister Constanze. “If I had to marry all those with whom I have jested,” he wrote somewhat ungallantly to his father, “I should have 200 wives at least”. Yet in the end he married Constanze.
Anxiety about faithfulness (in the opera the word is Costanza) works both ways. Do you trust yourself to remain loyal to one person, especially when you know that he or she will, like everyone, slowly change into someone different? In Così’s final scene everything is revealed and the lovers reunited – but it’s unclear whether the women marry their original lovers or their new ones.
I saw the opera the night before Valentine’s Day. During the interval, I chatted to a medical student and his female companion. I sensed they were on an early date. Neither had been to Covent Garden before and though they told me they were enjoying the production, I wondered whether they could have chosen a more straightforwardly romantic opera. Then again this Così fan tutte shows us that if all women are like that, then all men are too; and that if love’s a game, it's worth learning how to play.
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Who is generally credited with having invented the telephone? | Overlooked Opera: Così fan tutte - WQXR
Overlooked Opera: Così fan tutte
Wednesday, November 27, 2013 - 03:00 PM
By Fred Plotkin
Cosi fan tutte at Salzburg Festival with Luca Pisaroni, Martina Janková, Marie-Claude Chappuis, Gerald Finley, Malin Hartelius, Martin Mitterrutzner (© Michael Pöhn)
Back in July, I wrote the first of what I said would be an occasional series called Overlooked Operas. Readers seemed to agree that Weber’s Der Freischütz has been undervalued, especially in the United States. I suspect there will not be similar consensus for today’s Overlooked Opera, Mozart’s Così fan tutte.
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"Così fan tutte," I can hear you shriek, “how is that an overlooked opera?” To which I would answer that “overlooked” is a word with shades of meaning. It can mean “ignored” or “forgotten,” but also can suggest something whose merit is not given its due. That is the case here.
I think Così (1790) is the victim of being neither here nor there in the public and professional perception of Mozart’s works. The composer’s two previous collaborations with librettist Lorenzo da Ponte are hard acts to follow. Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro, 1786) is often thought of as the first work in the standard operatic repertory that continues until Puccini’s Turandot (1924). Le Nozze di Figaro is brilliant comedy with beautiful music and is often said to have played a role in the political upheaval that spread through Europe in its wake.
Don Giovanni (1787) is thought by many people to be the best opera ever written, and there are certainly days when I agree with that. It is a cosmic miracle concerning issues great and small and is arguably one of the most difficult operas to stage and perform. But it is one of the rare works of art, along with Hamlet, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and a few others, that are universally revered yet never fully understood. How can one follow that with an opera about two sisters who are duped into taking each other's boyfriend?
It did not help that da Ponte himself referred to Così as "the drama that holds third place among the sisters born of that most celebrated father of harmony." I looked in the Cambridge Mozart Encyclopedia (Cambridge’s composer encyclopedias are catnip for music lovers) and discovered that da Ponte thought of this opera by the name – La Scuola degli Amanti (The School for Lovers) – that ultimately became its subtitle.
The librettist was not pleased when Mozart imposed a new title on the opera. Così fan tutte is often translated as "Women are all the same" but a more literal translation is “This is how all women do things” or perhaps “This is how all women are.” The lack of specificity in the title can prove frustrating to people who insist that everything be comprehensible and cut-and-dried. The ambiguity (a characteristic found in Don Giovanni) makes this opera more complex and more intriguing.
According to the Cambridge encyclopedia, the title came from a line in Le Nozze di Figaro: “Count Almaviva’s discovery of Cherubino hiding in Susanna’s room causes Basilio to comment: ‘Così fan tutte le belle/Non c’è alcuna novità’ or ‘All the beauties do it/There’s nothing new in that.’”
When directed and played as a sex farce of mistaken identities, Così remains superficial. But as an exploration of the quicksilver changes of the human heart, it makes the two previous da Ponte operas seem naive by comparison. If every heart harbors a mystery (to paraphrase a lyric from Verdi’s Ernani), what happens in Così fan tutte is that it is Mozart in his music, much more than da Ponte in his words, who plumbs the depths of the mystery in each of the six characters in the opera.
It takes a superb conductor to grasp this and a worldly stage director to also discover these mysteries in the music. Both of them must find ways to help the cast members use their own sensibilities to connect with these mysteries and then perform the opera without indicating emotions before they should be revealed. This is extremely challenging but richly rewarding on the rare occasions when everything works.
Matthew Polenzani, Susanna Phillips, Isabel Leonard and Rodion Pogossov in the Met's 'Così fan tutte' (Marty Sohl/Metropolitan Opera)
The opera has another element that makes it more challenging and rewarding than the previous two da Ponte works: The stage director has many ways to interpret the ending. At the start of the opera, soprano Fiordiligi is dating baritone Guglielmo. Her sister, mezzo-soprano Dorabella, is dating tenor Ferrando. At the instigation of a cynical older man, Don Alfonso, and with assistance of the sisters' maid Despina, the two young men return in disguise and pursue the other’s girlfriend. Dorabella falls first while Fiordiligi maintains a resistance to Ferrando's wooing. Ultimately, Fiordiligi and Ferrando are caught by surprise as they discover the genuine intensity of feeling (as opposed to raw lust) that they have for one another.
In most of the 170 years that followed the opera’s premiere, the four young people returned to their original partners and, supposedly, all ends happily. With more psychological study and the evolving status of women, by the 1960s, some directors staged the opera so that the couples switched partners at the end and all ended happily (we are asked to assume).
In recent years, I have seen productions in which the four characters stand alone at the end, dazed and confused by what they have experienced. This seemed logical until I saw the revelatory ending in Sven-Eric Bechtolf’s new production at the Salzburg Festival last summer. As the opera concluded, Fiordiligi and Ferrando had found soulmates in one another. Dorabella wanted to be with Guglielmo but he was not interested. With his preening male ego, he delighted in the fact that he was able to seduce his friend’s girlfriend while watching his own girlfriend remain faithful. When Fiordiligi opted for Ferrando, Guglielmo became enraged with jealousy and rejected Dorabella (about whom he never really cared) and stormed away. The message here was that all women do not behave that way but lots of men do.
Another reason I think Così should be held in higher regard is that when James Levine made his very-welcome return to the orchestra pit at the Met on September 24, this is the opera he chose. The other works he conducts this season are two operas he is closely associated with: Falstaff, in Robert Carsen’s wonderful production that receives its Met premiere on December 6, and Wozzeck , which Levine has led more than 40 times at the Met yet still finds depth and new meaning in this masterpiece each time he returns to it. If James Levine thinks so highly of Così fan tutte to put it with two of his very favorites, that is good enough for me.
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Fred Plotkin
FRED PLOTKIN is one of America’s foremost experts on opera and has distinguished himself in many fields as a writer, speaker, consultant and as a compelling teacher. He is an expert on everything Italian, the person other so-called Italy experts turn to for definitive information. Fred discovered the concept of "The Renaissance Man" as a small child and has devoted himself to pursuing that ideal as the central role of his life. In a “Public Lives” profile in The New York Times on August 30, 2002, Plotkin was described as "one of those New York word-of-mouth legends, known by the cognoscenti for his renaissance mastery of two seemingly separate disciplines: music and the food of Italy." In the same publication, on May 11, 2006, it was written that "Fred is a New Yorker, but has the soul of an Italian."
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What is the US state capital of Arizona? | Did You Know: Capital Of Arizona Moved 4 Times Before Settling In Phoenix | KJZZ
Did You Know: Capital Of Arizona Moved 4 Times Before Settling In Phoenix
Published: Friday, September 26, 2014 - 12:39pm
Updated: Thursday, May 28, 2015 - 11:19am
(Photo by Nadine Arroyo Rodriguez - KJZZ)
Part of the two-room Arizona history exhibit at the Arizona State Capitol Museum.
(Photo by Nadine Arroyo Rodriguez - KJZZ)
An exhibit at the Arizona State Capitol Museum.
During the 19th century Arizona’s legislative body was a traveling office. It moved between the northern and southern part of the state so often it eventually got a nickname. A two-room exhibit at the Arizona State Capitol Musuem highlights the history of what is often referred to by local historians as the "capital on wheels."
The Arizona State Capitol — the building that houses the Legislature — has been located on 17th Avenue and Washington Street for more than 100 years. The Legislature moved into the copper domed structure in 1901.
Did you know the capital of Arizona — the city that serves as the central site of government activities — was relocated four times before making Phoenix its final location?
“The first state capital of Arizona really depends what side you were on in the Civil War," said Luke Bate from the Arizona State Capitol Museum. “Tucson is if you’re on the confederate side is the first capital of Arizona.”
That was in 1862 when the Arizona territory was stacked horizontally below New Mexico and it seceded from the Union to join the confederate cause. No all too happy about this move, the federal government created a new Arizona territory boundary line that looks much like what it is today and identified a new capital. In 1864, the U.S. government named Prescott as the state capital.
“Throughout the Civil War, there are essentially two capitals of Arizona, two different Arizonas. And until the ending of the Civil War that really officially clarifies everything and puts Arizona into the shape that we recognize it is," Batesaid.
By 1867, the capital moved again, this time to Tucson. Bate said it was a well-developed city with more resources than any other area in the territory.
Bates also said the Arizona Territorial Legislature Assembly saw this as a way to assure Confederate sympathy no longer existed in the southern territory. In 1879, the Legislature decided it was time to move again, and it did. The capital was relocated back to Prescott.
“The government now at this point has spent almost an equal amount of time in both areas and so they feel it might be more representative to choose a location that’s half-way between the two point and that would be Phoenix, Arizona.”
In 1889, the Territorial Legislature moved to Phoenix and was at city hall while a permanent state capitol building was being constructed where it is today. Bate said the story doesn’t end there. He said in the 1950s there were discussions of moving the state capitol building to a larger site to accommodate the growing assembly.
Frank Lloyd Wright designed a structure that he thought would be ideal at Papago Park. But after much discussion, the Legislature at the time decided to just add two buildings on each side of the copper dome — one for the House and one for the Senate.
EDITOR'S NOTE: This story has been modified to clarify the difference between the terms capital and capitol.
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In which century was the first recorded Viking raid on England? | Arizona: History
Arizona
History
Early History
Little is known of the earliest indigenous cultures in Arizona, but they probably lived in the region as early as 25,000 B.C. A later culture, the Hohokam (A.D. 500–1450), were pit dwellers who constructed extensive irrigation systems. The Pueblo flourished in Arizona between the 11th and 14th cent. and built many of the elaborate cliff dwellings that still stand. The Apache and Navajo came to the area in c.1300 from Canada.
Spanish Exploration and Mexican Control
Probably the first Spanish explorer to enter Arizona (c.1536) was Cabeza de Vaca . Franciscan friar Marcos de Niza reached the state in 1539; he was followed by Francisco Vásquez de Coronado , who led an expedition from Mexico in 1540 in search of the seven legendary cities of gold, reaching as far as the Grand Canyon. Despite extensive exploration, the region was neglected by the Spanish in favor of the more fruitful area of New Mexico. Father Eusebio Kino , a Jesuit, founded the missions of Guevavi (1692) and Tumacacori (1696), near Nogales , and San Xavier del Bac (1700), near Tucson. The Spanish Empire, however, expelled the Jesuits in 1767, and those in Arizona subsequently lost their control over the indigenous people.
The Arizona region came under Mexican control following the Mexican war of independence from Spain (1810–21). In the early 1800s, U.S. mountain men , trappers and traders such as Kit Carson , trapped beaver in the area, but otherwise there were few settlers.
U.S. Acquisition and the Discovery of Minerals
In the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848), ending the Mexican War (1846–48), Mexico relinquished control of the area N of the Gila River to the United States. This area became part of the U.S. Territory of New Mexico in 1850. The United States, wishing to build a railroad through the area S of the Gila River, bought the area between the river and the S boundary of Arizona from Mexico in the Gadsden Purchase (1853).
Arizona's minerals, valued even by prehistoric miners, attracted most of the early explorers, and although the area remained a relatively obscure section of the Territory of New Mexico, mining continued sporadically. Small numbers of prospectors, crossing Arizona to join the California gold rush (1849), found gold, silver, and a neglected metal—copper.
In 1861, at the outbreak of the Civil War, conventions held at Tucson and Mesilla declared the area part of the Confederacy. In the only engagement fought in the Arizona area, a small group of Confederate pickets held off Union cavalry NW of Tucson in the skirmish known as the battle of Picacho Pass.
Territorial Status and Statehood
In 1863, Arizona was organized as a separate territory, with its first, temporary capital at Fort Whipple. Prescott became the capital in 1865. Charles D. Poston, who had worked to achieve Arizona's new status, was elected as the territory's first delegate to the U.S. Congress. The capital was moved to Tucson in 1867, back to Prescott in 1877, and finally to Phoenix in 1889.
The region had been held precariously by U.S. soldiers during the intermittent warfare (1861–86) with the Apaches, who were led by Cochise and later Geronimo . General George Crook waged a successful campaign against the Apaches in 1882–85, and in 1886 Geronimo finally surrendered to federal troops. When Confederate troops were routed and Union soldiers went east to fight in the Civil War, settlement was abandoned. It was resumed after the war and encouraged by the Homestead Act (1862), the Desert Land Act (1877), and the Carey Land Act (1894)—all of which turned land over to settlers and required them to develop it.
In the 1870s mining flourished, and by the following decade the Copper Queen Company at Bisbee was exploiting one of the area's largest copper deposits. In 1877 silver was discovered at Tombstone , setting off a boom that drew throngs of prospectors to Arizona but lasted less than 10 years. Tombstone also became famous for its lawlessness; Wyatt Earp and his brothers gained their reputations during the famous gunfight (1881) at the O. K. Corral. By 1880 the Santa Fe and Southern Pacific railroads both extended into Arizona. Ranching began to thrive and sheep raising grew from solely a Navajo occupation to a major enterprise among white settlers. After 1897, the U.S. Forestry Bureau issued grazing permits to protect public land from depletion.
In 1912, Arizona, still a frontier territory, attained statehood. Its constitution created a storm, with such "radical" political features as initiative, referendum, and judicial recall. Only after recall had been deleted did President Taft sign the statehood bill. Once admitted to the Union, Arizona restored the recall provision.
Modern Development
Irrigation, spurred by the Desert Land Act and by Mormon immigration, promoted farming in the southern part of the territory. By 1900, diverted streams were irrigating 200,000 acres (80,940 hectares). With the opening of the Roosevelt Dam (1911), a federally financed project, massive irrigation projects transformed Arizona's valleys. Although Arizona's mines were not unionized until the mid-1930s, strikes occurred at the copper mines of Clifton and Morenci in 1915 and at the Bisbee mines in 1917.
During World War II, defense industries were established in Arizona. Manufacturing, notably electronic industries, continued to develop after the war, especially around Phoenix and Tucson; in the 1960s, manufacturing achieved economic supremacy over mining and agriculture in Arizona. During the 1970s and 80s the state experienced phenomenal economic growth as it and other Sun Belt states attracted high-technology industries with enormous growth potential.
Arizona has contributed several major figures to national politics. Among them, Senator Barry M. Goldwater , the unsuccessful 1964 Republican candidate for the U.S. presidency, was long the standard bearer for American conservatism. Democrat Stewart L. Udall served as secretary of the interior under presidents Kennedy and Johnson.
With the development of irrigation and hydroelectric projects along the Colorado River and its tributaries, water rights became a subject of litigation between Arizona and California. In 1963 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Arizona had rights to a share of the water from the Colorado's main stream and sole water rights over tributaries within Arizona. In 1968, Congress authorized the Central Arizona Project, a 335-mi (539-km) canal system to divert water from the Colorado River to the booming metropolitan areas of Phoenix and Tucson. The canal, which uses dams, tunnels, and pumps to raise the water 1,247 ft (380 m) to the desert plain, was opposed by environmentalists, who feared it would damage desert ecosystems. Construction was completed in 1991, at a cost of over $3.5 billion.
In 1992 a six-year political controversy ended when Arizona voters approved a proposal to observe an annual state holiday honoring Martin Luther King , Jr. The state again became a focus of national (and international) controversy in 2010 when it enacted a law requiring local law officers to check the status of someone stopped for an offense if the person is believed to an illegal alien; although that aspect of the law was upheld in 2012 by the U.S. Supreme Court, other aspects were struck down.
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Olfactory relates to which of the senses? | Neuroscience for Kids - Chemical Senses
1. Overview of the smell and taste systems
Odor and food molecules activate membrane receptors
Sensations from our noses and mouths alert us to pleasure, danger, food and drink in the environment. The complicated processes of smelling and tasting begin when molecules detach from substances and float into noses or are put into mouths. In both cases, the molecules must dissolve in watery mucous in order to bind to and stimulate special receptor cells. These cells transmit messages to brain areas where we perceive odors and tastes, and where we remember people, places, or events associated with these olfactory (smell) and gustatory (taste) sensations.
The neural systems for these two chemical senses can distinguish thousands of different odors and flavors. Identification begins at membrane receptors on sensory cells, where odorant or taste molecules fit into molecular slots or pockets with the right "lock and key" fit. This latching together of ligand and membrane receptor leads to the production of an electrical signal, which speeds along a pathway formed by nerve cells (neurons) and their extensions called axons. In this way, information reaches brain areas that perceive and interpret the stimulus.
A membrane receptor will respond to several structurally related molecules
The activation of receptors by discrete chemical structures is apparently not absolute, for a given membrane receptor will respond to a group of structurally similar compounds. Probably hundreds of odor membrane receptors exist, but many fewer taste receptors, perhaps on the order of 10 or 20 (we only know of about five now). The fact that we can discriminate thousands of smells and tastes is a result of complex substances activating different combinations of odor and taste receptors. Researchers frequently test people or animals with pure chemicals in order to find the best stimulus for a receptor, but in the real world odors and foods consist of many different types of molecules.
The neural systems for taste and smell share several characteristics
Although the neural systems for taste and smell are distinct from one another, the sensations of flavors and aromas often work together, especially during eating. Much of what we normally describe as flavor comes from food molecules wafting up our noses. Further, these two senses both have connections to brain areas that control emotions, regulate food and water intake, and form certain types of memories.
Another similarity between these systems is the constant turnover of olfactory and gustatory receptor cells. After about ten days, taste receptor cells die and are replaced by cells that differentiate from a sort of stem cell in the taste bud. More surprising is the story of olfactory sensory cells. These are not epithelial cells as are taste cells, but neurons, which until recently were not known to be generated in adults. (Recent evidence shows that this can happen, even in the brain ). The olfactory sensory neurons are not only replaced every 60 days or so, but each must also grow an axon to the correct place in the brain. Researchers are investigating how taste perception and odor recognition are maintained in the face of this turnover and new axon growth.
2. Odor receptors are ciliated sensory neurons in the upper nasal cavity
Humans can detect on the order of 10,000 "odorants," or substances that stimulate the sense of smell, and can detect some of these at concentrations as low as a few parts per trillion. Special olfactory receptor cells, about fifty million of them, line the upper reaches of the nasal cavity in a sheet of olfactory epithelium. Hair-like cilia dangle from the ends of the cells into the mucous layer covering the epithelium, where odor molecules bind to membrane receptors on the cilia.
What is the mechanism for distinguishing aromas? As mentioned in Section 1, membrane receptors contain molecular pockets that accommodate only compounds with certain chemical structures. When an odorant molecule binds to a receptor, an intracellular "second messenger" system (usually using cyclic AMP) is engaged. After several steps, the membrane of the nerve cell propagates an electrical signal along its length and passes it on to the next nerve cell in the pathway. The second messenger system is a signaling mechanism used in many sensory nerve cells as well as in other cells in the body.
All vertebrate olfactory receptor neurons examined so far are "generalists." In other words, they respond best to one class of substances, more weakly to another group or two, and not at all to others. Insects and some other animals possess odor "specialists" that respond only to one pure substance, that is, a single molecule. Usually this is a pheromone that is employed in finding a mate. Researchers expect to find specialist cells in vertebrates as well; these are difficult to find because there probably aren't many of them, and scientists haven't yet identified their specific ligands.
3. Olfactory signals go to two types of areas in the brain
Where do odor messages go once they activate the sensory neurons in the nasal cavity? To get to the brain, the axons of the olfactory sensory neurons must get through the skull (see side view of the skull in Figure 1 on the left).
The olfactory epithelium lines the bone of the part of the skull just above the nasal passages, and the axons of the neurons pass directly through tiny holes in this bone. Here they enter the first relay station, the olfactory bulbs, one on either side of the bottom surface of the brain (Figure 2, right). The electrical signal generated when an olfactory sensory neuron is activated is passed along to a secondary neuron residing in the bulb, and from here the signal goes by way of the olfactory tract to other brain areas.
The olfactory system is often described as the most "primitive" sensory system because of its early phylogenetic development and its connections to older, subconscious portions of the brain. From the olfactory bulbs, odor messages go to several brain structures that make up the "olfactory cortex," an area that evolved before the cortical areas that give us consciousness. This part of the cortex is on the bottom surface of the brain, with some of the olfactory areas folded under the visible parts. These areas have connections to the limbic system (including the hippocampus, amygdala and hypothalamus), which is important in emotional states and in memory formation (see Figure 3). Thus, a smell frequently activates intense feelings and memories before a person even identifies the odor.
Messages also go to conscious cortical areas. After a relay in the olfactory cortex , signals enter a way station called the thalamus, and then travel on to the frontal cortex, where identification and other related thought processes take place.
Thus, odor messages go to primitive brain areas where they influence emotions and memories, and to "higher" areas where they modify conscious thought (Fig. 3, below).
FIGURE 3. Summary of olfactory pathways.
Note that not all intermediate relays are included.
4. Odors map onto specific brain areas
Because sight, sound, and touch sensations map in a spatial way onto brain areas, researchers wondered if this happens with odors. They have found that in the olfactory bulb, neurons, their cytoplasmic processes, and support cells are not evenly distributed but form clumps called glomeruli. Certain odorants activate only one or a small number of glomeruli, producing a kind of mapping, although it is not a spatial map of the location of odors in relation to the body, but a functional map of odor types. Whether this mapping is continued at higher brain levels is uncertain. A type of spatial mapping also exists in the olfactory epithelium, in the nasal passages. Here, scientists have shown that certain volatile chemicals attach to receptor cells in defined patches of epithelium and not to others.
5. Patterns of neural activity allow us to identify odors
To summarize the process of odor detection, let's follow an odorant into the nose. At 7 a.m., molecules from a cup of coffee float into the air and drift into your nose. You breathe deeply, drawing the molecules up into the top of your nasal passages. Several types of molecules are present, and each fits into a slot on a membrane receptor that can accommodate only that class of molecular structures.
As soon as the molecules stick to their receptors, intracellular systems of enzymes and substrates go into gear, quickly causing each cell to produce an electrical signal. The signal flashes through the axon of each olfactory sensory neuron and on to cells in the olfactory bulb. Each type of receptor neuron sends its signal to a specific clump of cells in the olfactory bulb, forming a sort of odor map.
From here, the message from each bulb cell zips to several places by way of branches from the cell's axon. Messages to the olfactory cortex give you that "aahhh" feeling, others activate memories of previous cups of coffee, still others wind up stimulating motor areas to cause salivation. The signals travel another pathway to your frontal cortex, which "says" to you: "COFFEE!"
The experiences of perceiving and interpreting the coffee odor are the result of activating a pattern of neural components, and in turn, specific memories, feelings, and thoughts.
6. Several mechanisms may contribute to olfactory fatigue
Adaptation, or fatigue, to constant stimulation is a general feature of sensory systems. For instance, the touch receptor cells in the skin adapt to the stimulation of our clothes, a fortunate thing, or we would be distracted by them constantly. Adaptation involves mechanisms at the level of the receptor cell, including the inactivation of ion channels in the membrane that generate the electrical signal. In a simplified explanation, after a stimulus causes a receptor cell to produce an electrical signal, the cell membrane soon stops allowing ions to flow, thus preventing further signals. Removal of the stimulus followed by restimulation activates the process all over again.
Researchers have noted that people adapt to odors, such as the smell of tobacco smoke in a room, more quickly than the properties of olfactory receptor cells would predict. Thus, they believe that olfactory fatigue involves some types of central nervous system mechanisms as well as receptor adaptation. Although these brain mechanisms are currently unknown, scientists speculate that inhibitory circuits in the brain "quash" the incoming sensory signals from receptors before they reach conscious levels.
7. Genes determine the kinds of odor receptors that we have, and experiences shape our perceptions
Olfactory abilities vary widely among individuals -- we all know someone who is able to smell things when no one else can, or someone who doesn't seem to mind an unpleasant odor when most people do. Studies have shown that people who are unable to smell one or one class of odors frequently have small genetic differences from the general population. The inability to smell is called "anosmia," and it may be general, or specific for one odor. Temporary general anosmia or "hyposmia" (lessened sense of smell) can result from a cold or certain medicines. "Hyperosmia," a heightened sense of smell, can be a genetic trait.
Previous experiences and our physiological states also affect our reactions to odors and our perceptions. The odor of frying trout or hot cocoa may smell wonderful to a hungry camper, but terrible to someone with the stomach flu. A child who remembers her mother sprinkling cinnamon on her little brother's vomit before cleaning it up may never want cinnamon cookies again, even as an adult.
Our expectations and beliefs can even affect measurements such as olfactory fatigue times. Studies have shown that the time for adapting to an odor is significantly different when people believe they are being exposed to a harmless aroma, compared to when they think they are smelling a hazardous substance, even when the odor is exactly the same.
8. Olfactory disorders may be genetic, or may result from illness or injury
While genetic differences account for some cases of anosmia or other olfactory disorders as mentioned above, most are caused by illnesses or accidents. Small growths in the nasal cavities (polyps), dental problems, hormonal disturbances, or sinus infections, as well as common colds, may cause chemosensory losses. Injury to the head may damage nerve fibers or break axons. Patients who receive radiation therapy for cancers of the head or neck often develop changes in their sense of smell.
Are these disorders serious? Our sense of smell alerts us to fires, poisonous fumes, leaking gas, and spoiled food. It can stop us from entering a dangerous area or putting something into our mouths that can make us sick. Further, such disturbances can be a signal that some other disease is present, such as Parkinson's disease, hypertension, or diabetes. People should see a doctor if they realize something is wrong with their sense of smell.
III. PLANNING AND TEACHING LAB ACTIVITIES
Provide background information
First, prepare students for lab activities by giving background information according to your teaching practices (e.g., lecture, discussion, handouts, models). Because students have no way of discovering sensory receptors or nerve pathways for themselves, they need some basic anatomical and physiological information. Teachers may choose the degree of detail and the methods of presenting the olfactory system, based on grade level and time available.
Offer students the chance to create their own experiments
While students do need direction and practice to become good laboratory scientists, they also need to learn how to ask and investigate questions that they generate themselves. Science classrooms that offer only guided activities with a single "right" answer do not help students learn to formulate questions, think critically, and solve problems. Because students are naturally curious, incorporating student investigations into the classroom is a logical step after they have some experience with a system.
The "Try Your Own Experiment" section of this unit (see the accompanying Teacher and Student Guides) offers students an opportunity to direct some of their own learning after a control system has been established in the "Class Experiment." Because students are personally vested in this type of experience, they tend to remember both the science processes and concepts from these laboratories.
Use Explore Time or Brainstorming before experimenting
To encourage student participation in planning and conducting experiments, first provide Explore Time or Brainstorming Time. Because of their curiosity, students usually "play" with lab materials first even in a more traditional lab, so taking advantage of this natural behavior is usually successful.
For some experiments, such as the olfactory lab, brainstorming is probably best. In these labs, if students investigate the materials before starting the experiments, they will probably identify (or hear others identify) and memorize many of them. Further, in activities to stimulate memories associated with odors, the "surprise" element of a sudden whiff of material is important in generating an interesting experience. Instead of letting students explore, the teacher can simply indicate the lab bench, saying that the containers of odor materials will be available for experiments. When students see that opaque, unmarked containers of materials are available, they can begin to generate questions for investigations, and the teacher can offer more ideas.
Class Experiment
After students gain an interest in the materials and subject, lead the class into the Class Experiment and help them to formulate the Lab Question. (Using the Teacher Demonstration suggested in the Teacher Guide will also help students focus on the subject.) Hand out the Student Guide and any worksheets after brainstorming, so students have a chance to think on their own. (See the accompanying Guides.)
"Try Your Own Experiment"
For the Try Your Own Experiment activity, follow the procedure above, adding the new materials for student-generated experiments. Let the students suggest a variety of ideas, then channel their energies to make the lab manageable. For example, when a number of groups come up with similar ideas, help them formulate one lab question so that the groups can compare data. The goal is to encourage students to think and plan independently while providing sufficient limits to keep the classroom focused. The Teacher and Student Guides contain detailed suggestions for conducting good student-generated experiments.
V. MEETING SCIENCE EDUCATION STANDARDS
By reaching Project 2061 Benchmarks for Science Literacy, students will also fulfill many of the National Science Education Standards and individual state standards for understanding the content and applying the methods of science. Because the Benchmarks most clearly state what is expected of students, they are used here. Below is a list of Benchmarks that can be met while teaching the olfactory sense activities. The Benchmarks are now on-line at: http://www.project2061.org/tools/benchol/bolframe.htm
The Benchmarks are listed by chapter, grade level, and item number; for instance, 1A, 6-8, #1 indicates Chapter 1, section A, grades 6-8, benchmark 1.
The process of inquiry used in the olfactory sense activities will help students reach the following summarized Benchmarks:
1A, 6-8, #1: When similar investigations give different results, the scientific challenge is to judge whether the differences are trivial or significant, and it often takes further studies to decide.
1B, 6-8, #1: Scientific investigations usually involve the collection of relevant evidence, the use of logical reasoning, and the application of imagination in devising hypotheses and explanations to make sense of the collected evidence.
1B, 6-8, #2: If more than one variable changes at the same time in an experiment, the outcome of the experiment may not be clearly attributable to any one of the variables.
12A, 6-8, #2: Know that hypotheses are valuable, even if they turn out not to be true.
12A, 6-8, #3: Know that often, different explanations can be given for the same evidence, and it is not always possible to tell which one is correct.
12C, 3-5, #3: Keep a notebook that describes observations made, carefully distinguishes actual observations from ideas and speculations about what was observed, and is understandable weeks or months later.
12D, 6-8, #2: Read simple tables and graphs and identify the relationships they reveal.
12D, 6-8, #3: Locate information in reference books, newspapers and magazines, compact discs and computer databases.
The neuroscience content in the olfactory sense activities and background material will help to meet the following benchmarks:
5C, 6-8, #1: All living things are composed of cells. Different body tissues and organs are made up of different kinds of cells. The cells in similar tissues and organs in other animals are similar to those in human beings.
5C, 6-8, #2: Cells repeatedly divide to make more cells for growth and repair.
6A, 6-8, #1: Like other animals, human beings have body systems for the coordination of body functions.
6C, 6-8, #1: Organs and organ systems are composed of cells and help provide all cells with basic needs.
6D, 6-8, #4: Attending closely to any one input of information usually reduces the ability to attend to others at the same time.
6D, 6-8, #3: Human beings can detect a tremendous range of visual and olfactory stimuli.
| Smell |
What was the name of the bottled water launched by Coca-Cola and then withdrawn? | Smell and Memory - How Smell Works | HowStuffWorks
Smell and Memory
William Thomas Cain/ Getty Images
A smell can bring on a flood of memories, influence people's moods and even affect their work performance. Because the olfactory bulb is part of the brain's limbic system, an area so closely associated with memory and feeling it's sometimes called the "emotional brain," smell can call up memories and powerful responses almost instantaneously.
The olfactory bulb has intimate access to the amygdala, which processes emotion, and the hippocampus, which is responsible for associative learning. Despite the tight wiring, however, smells would not trigger memories if it weren't for conditioned responses. When you first smell a new scent, you link it to an event, a person, a thing or even a moment. Your brain forges a link between the smell and a memory -- associating the smell of chlorine with summers at the pool or lilies with a funeral. When you encounter the smell again, the link is already there, ready to elicit a memory or a mood. Chlorine might call up a specific pool-related memory or simply make you feel content. Lilies might agitate you without your knowing why. This is part of the reason why not everyone likes the same smells.
Up Next
Break the Cycle of Negative Thinking
Because we encounter most new odors in our youth, smells often call up childhood memories. But we actually begin making associations between smell and emotion before we're even born. Infants who were exposed to alcohol , cigarette smoke or garlic in the womb show a preference for the smells. To them, the smells that might upset other babies seem normal or even comforting.
In the next section, we'll find out how some people use smell's ability to trigger memory.
Is that Cheese or Just B.O.?
Researchers have found that cognition significantly influences the perception of smell. A psychologist at the University of Oxford labeled an ambiguous Brie-like scent as either "cheddar cheese" or "body odor." Test subjects rated the odor higher when it was labeled cheddar cheese. MRIs even showed more activity in the olfactory region of the brain when subjects believed they were smelling cheese [source: Scientific American ].
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Which side of a coin is obverse, heads or tails? | RANDOM.ORG - Coin Flipper
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It is not always easy to decide what is heads and tails on a given coin. Numismatics (the scientific study of money) defines the obverse and reverse of a coin rather than heads and tails. The obverse (principal side) of a coin typically features a symbol intended to be evocative of stately power, such as the head of a monarch or well-known state representative. In the case of coins that do not have royalty or state representatives on them, the side that features the name of the country is usually considered the obverse.
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What word represents the letter K in radio communications? | The Anatomy of Coins | Coin Collecting Information | American Numismatic Association
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Obverse
Obverse, or “heads” side of a 2000-D Statehood quarter. The obverse side, depicting the familiar portrait of President George Washington, was modified slightly to include some of the wording previously used on the reverse.
Reverse
Reverse, or “tails” side, of a 2000-D Statehood quarter commemorating the founding of each state. Launched in 1999, the 50 States Quarter program features five new designs per year through 2008. The “D” mint-mark indicates it was made at the Denver Mint.
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Who was the first Plantagenet King of England? | The Plantagenets - Timeline of the Kings and Queens of England
British life and culture - England, Scotland and Wales
Timeline of the Kings and Queens of England
The Plantagenets
1154 - 1399
The Plantagenets were a huge powerful family not just in England but throughout Europe. The first Plantagenet was King Henry 2nd whose father owned vast lands in Anjou an area as big as Normandy around the modern town of Tours. Henry’s wife Eleanor ruled the even larger territory to the south called Aquitaine. Plantagenet Kings were thus the richest family in Europe and ruled England and half of France.
Their name came from planta genista, the Latin for yellow broom flower, which the Counts of Anjou wore as an emblem on their helmets.
This dynasty is normally subdivided into three parts.
1154-1216 - The first Plantagenet kings were the Angevins
1216-1399 - The Plantagenets
1399-1485 - The Houses of Lancaster and of York .
Normally separated from main stream Plantagenets because they are considered the first truly English rather than French Kings.
Altogether the House of Plantagents ruled for 331 years (includes The Houses of Lancaster and of York ).
Angevins
King Henry II 1154 - 1189
King Richard I the Lionheart 1189 - 1199
King John 1 1199 - 1216
Angevins
King Henry II 1154 - 1189
Henry II, the first 'Plantagenet' king, accedes to the throne. He was not only king of England, but also ruled over most of Wales, Normandy, Anjou, Gascony and other parts of France (acquired through his marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine).
Age 21-56
Born: 5 March 1133 at Le Mans, France
Parents: Geoffrey, Count of Anjou, and Empress Matilda
Ascended to the throne: 25 October 1154 aged 21 years
Crowned: 19 December 1154 at Westminster Abbey
Married: Eleanor of Aquitaine, Daughter of William X, Duke of Aquitaine
Children: Five sons including Richard I and John, three daughters and several illegitimate children
Died: 6 July 1189 at Chinon Castle, Anjou, France aged 56 years
Buried at: Fontevraud, France
Succeeded by: his son Richard
Came to the throne at just 21. He ruled for thirty-four years, but spent only fourteen of them in England.
Henry owed his Kingship of England to his Norman mother Matilda, daughter of Henry 1st and his vast lands to his father Count of Anjou and his wife Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine and Countess of Poitou.
Thomas Becket was Henry II's Chancellor before the king made him Archbishop of Canterbury, even though he had never been a priest. Henry is mostly remembered for his quarrel with Thomas Becket, and Becket's subsequent murder in Canterbury Cathedral on 29th December 1170.
Becket was slaughtered in the cathedral by four knights acting on the rash words of the king, who is said to have proclaimed in a fit of temper: "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" Henry was devastated and ordered himself to be lashed hundreds of times as penance.
Henry spent at least £6,440 throughout the 1180s – more than a quarter of his average annual income – building and furnishing the impressive keep at Dover Castle in Kent. The great tower is thought to have been constructed as a show of wealth and power to 'impress' foreign pilgrims and dignitaries on their way to the shrine of Thomas Becket.
Henry's eldest son, also called Henry, died before his father so in 1189 his second son, Richard, succeeded to the throne.
Henry introduced trial by Jury for the first time.
He also set up civil courts in each county shire.
Henry brought the church under the rules of the civil courts. (His arguments with Beckett.) Prior to this, backed by the Pope, the Church was literally getting away with murder.
Henry introduced the law that no man can be tried for the same offence twice.
King Richard I the Lionheart 1189 - 1199
Richard was later nicknamed 'Lionheart' for his bravery in battle. The crusades and the state of his French territories preoccupied Richard, such that he spent less than a year of his 10-year reign in England.
Age 31 - 42
Born: 6 September 1157 at Beaumont Place, Oxford
Parents: Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine
Ascended to the throne: 6 July 1189 aged 31 years
Crowned: 2/3 September 1189 at Westminster Abbey
Married: Berengaria, Daughter of Sancho V of Navarre
Children: Two illegitimate sons
Died: 6 April 1199 at Limousin, France, aged 41 years
Buried at: Fontevraud, France
Succeeded by: his brother John
King of England 1189–99.
Third and eldest surviving son of Henry II. In his 10 years of reign he only spent 10 months in England, with the rest of the time being spent leading the Third Crusade*. He spoke very little English.
He is usually depicted as a brave, warrior king, and was given the nickname 'Lionheart'.
Robin Hood England’s favourite outlaw lived in Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire, during Richard's reign.
Richard had no children, so the next king was his brother John.
*The Crusades were a series of nine religious wars waged from 1095 to liberate Jerusalem and the Holy Land from Islamic rule.
King John 1 1199 - 1216
Age about 32-49
| Henry II |
Which mountain was known as Peak XV until 1865? | Wikijunior:Kings and Queens of England/The Plantagenets - Wikibooks, open books for an open world
Wikijunior:Kings and Queens of England/The Plantagenets
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Henry II (1154-1189)[ edit ]
King Henry II
Henry II was born on 5 March 1133 in Le Mans. He ruled as Count of Anjou, Duke of Normandy and as King of England from 1154 until his death in 1189. Following the disputed reign of King Stephen, Henry's reign saw efficient consolidation. Henry II has a reputation as one of England's greatest medieval kings. At various times he controlled parts of Wales, Scotland, eastern Ireland, and western France. He was the first of the Plantagenet or Angevin Kings. Before becoming king Henry already controlled Normandy and Anjou. Whilst king, he had an empire, known as the Angevin Empire, that stretched from the Solway Firth almost to the Mediterranean and from the Somme to the Pyrenees. His mother was Empress Matilda, and his father was her second husband, Geoffrey of Anjou. He was brought up in Anjou, which is where the name Angevin comes from, though he visited England in 1149 to help his mother with her claim to the English throne.
Appearance[ edit ]
Peter of Blois left a description of Henry II in 1177: "...the lord king has been red-haired so far, except that the coming of old age and gray hair has altered that colour somewhat. His height is medium, so that neither does he appear great among the small, nor yet does he seem small among the great... curved legs, a horseman's shins, broad chest, and a boxer's arms all announce him as a man strong, agile and bold... he never sits, unless riding a horse or eating... In a single day, if necessary, he can run through four or five day-marches and, thus foiling the plots of his enemies, frequently mocks their plots with surprise sudden arrivals...Always are in his hands bow, sword, spear and arrow, unless he be in council or in books."
Early reign and Thomas Becket[ edit ]
Henry II's first task as king was to wrest more control from the barons, who had gained more power during King Stephen's reign. Castles that were built by barons during Stephen's reign without permission were torn down.
Henry II also made many legal reforms. Henry established courts in various parts of England. His reign saw the production of the first written legal textbook, providing the basis of today's Common Law. By 1166 trial by jury became the norm. The legal reforms also reduced the power of church courts. The church opposed this, and their most prominent spokesman was Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who used to be a close friend of Henry's who was made archbishop as Henry wanted to avoid conflict. Becket went into exile in 1164, but after a reconciliation with Henry in 1170, came back. However, Becket again argued with Henry, this time over the coronation of Prince Henry, and Henry II is famously reported to have said, "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?" Four knights took the king literally and travelled immediately to Canterbury, where they killed Becket in the Cathedral on 29 December 1170. In penance, Henry made a pilgrimage in sackcloth to Becket's tomb.
Marriage and children[ edit ]
In 1152 he married Eleanor of Aquitaine and added on her lands to his, therefore increasing the size of his empire. They had five sons and three daughters. Their first son died in infancy. Their second, Henry, was crowned king at age fifteen in 1170, when Henry II was still king, and was known as the Young King, but he never actually ruled and does not figure in the list of the monarchs of England. They also had Richard and John who both later became Kings of England. Henry also had a number of illegitimate children by various women.
Revolting sons and death[ edit ]
Henry II's attempt to divide his titles amongst his sons but keep the power that came with them provoked them into trying to take control of the lands assigned to them in the Revolt of 1173-1174. In Henry's eyes, this was treason.
When Henry's legitimate sons rebelled against him, they often had the help of King Louis VII of France. Henry the Young King died in 1183, after which there was a power struggle between the three sons that were left. Finally, Henry's third son, Richard the Lionheart, with the assistance of Philip II Augustus of France, attacked and defeated Henry on 4 July 1189. Henry died at the Chateau Chinon two days later and was laid to rest at Fontevraud Abbey near Chinon in the Anjou Region of present-day France. Richard then became King of England.
Richard I (1189-1199)[ edit ]
Richard the Lionheart
Richard I was born in 1157 in Oxford. He was King of England from 1189 to his death in 1199, and is often known as Richard the Lionheart or its French equivalent, Coeur de Lion.
He was brought up, mostly by his mother in France. Richard was able to compose poetry in French and in the Provençal language. He was also very attractive. He was blond, blue-eyed, and his height estimated at six feet four inches (1.93 m) tall. He gloried in military activity.
His father, Henry, made him Duke of Aquitaine in 1168, and of Poitiers in 1172. He therefore learned to defend these territories from an early age. In 1173, Richard joined his brothers, Henry and Geoffrey, in a revolt against their father. They were planning to dethrone their father and leave Richard's brother Henry as the ruling king of England. Henry II invaded Aquitaine twice. At the age of seventeen, Richard was the last of the brothers to hold out against Henry, though, in the end, he refused to fight his father face to face and humbly begged his pardon. In 1174, after the end of the failed revolt, Richard gave a new oath of subservience to his father.
After this, Richard concentrated on putting down internal revolts by the nobles of Aquitaine. His increasing cruelty led to a major revolt of Gascony in 1183. The rebels hoped to dethrone Richard and asked Richard's brothers Henry and Geoffrey to help them succeed. Their father feared that the war between his three sons could lead to the destruction of his kingdom. He led the part of his army that served in his French lands in support of Richard. The death of Richard's brother Henry in 1183, ended the revolt.
When in 1188 Henry II planned to concede Aquitaine to his youngest son John Lackland, later King John of England, Richard allied himself with Philip II of France. In return for Philip's help against his father, Richard promised to concede his rights to both Normandy and Anjou to Philip. Richard gave an oath of subservience to Philip in November of the same year. In 1189 Richard attempted to take the throne of England for himself by joining Philip's expedition against his father. They were victorious, and when Henry II died on 6 July 1189, Richard I succeeded him as King of England.
Reign[ edit ]
Soon after his accession to the throne, inspired by the loss of Jerusalem to the Muslims under the command of Saladin, Richard decided to join the Third Crusade, Afraid that during his absence the French might usurp his territories, Richard persuaded Philip to join the Crusade as well. Richard finally started his expedition to the Holy Land in 1190, and for England he appointed as regents Hugh, Bishop of Durham, and William de Mandeville, 3rd Earl of Essex, who soon died and was replaced by Richard's chancellor William Longchamp.
In September 1190 both Richard and Philip arrived in Sicily, where they became embroiled in a war for the succession after the death of King William II of Sicily the year before. As part of the peace treaty that ended the conflict, Richard officially proclaimed his nephew, Arthur of Brittany, who was only four at the time, as his heir. After signing the treaty Richard and Philip left Sicily. The treaty undermined England's relationships with the Holy Roman Empire and caused the revolt of Richard's brother John, who hoped to be proclaimed heir instead of their nephew. Although his revolt failed, John continued to scheme against his brother after this point.
In April 1191, Richard overthrew the ruler of Cyprus, gaining a major supply base for the Crusade that was not under immediate threat from the Turks as was Tyre. Richard looted the island and massacred those trying to resist him. Meanwhile, Richard married Berengaria, first-born daughter of King Sancho VI of Navarre. There were no children from the marriage, although Richard did have at least one illegitimate child.
Richard and most of his army left Cyprus for the Holy Land early in June. King Richard arrived at Acre in June 1191, where he and his forces captured the city. Saladin dragged negotiations on certain points of the surrender of Acre. As Richard's army could not move until 2,600 prisoners of war that he had taken hostage were disposed of, Richard took this to be a deliberate attempt to bottle the Crusaders up in Acre. In what history records as a fit of impatience, Richard ordered all 2,600 prisoners killed.
Richard was also involved in other disputes with his allies, Duke Leopold V of Austria and King Philip II of France. Leopold and Philip no longer supported Richard's Crusade. Still, Richard continued to march south, and Saladin's men were unable to harass the Crusader army into an impulsive action which might not have gone their way. However, the desertion of the French king had been a major blow, from which they could not hope to recover. Realising that he had no hope of holding Jerusalem even if he took it, Richard ordered a retreat. Despite being only a few miles from the city, he refused, thereafter, to set eyes on it, as he had vowed to look upon it only once he had conquered the city.
After the retreat from Jerusalem, there was a period of minor skirmishes with Saladin's forces while Richard and Saladin negotiated a settlement to the conflict: both had realised that their positions were growing untenable. In particular, both Philip and John were taking advantage of Richard's absence to make themselves more powerful at home. He and Saladin finally came to a settlement of the conflict on 2 September 1192.
Captivity and return[ edit ]
Bad luck dogged Richard on his return home. Bad weather forced his ship to put in at Corfu, the territory of the Byzantine Emperor, who was still angry at Richard for his annexation of Cyprus. Disguised as a Knight Templar, Richard sailed from Corfu with four attendants in a pirate ship, which wrecked near Aquileia, forcing Richard and his party into a dangerous land route through central Europe.
On his way to the territory of Henry of Saxony, his brother-in-law, Richard was captured shortly before Christmas 1192 only a few miles from the Moravian border, near Vienna, by Leopold V of Austria. Richard and his retainers had been travelling disguised as pilgrims, complete with flowing beards and tattered clothes. Richard himself was dressed like a kitchen hand, but was identified because he was wearing a magnificent and costly ring no menial worker could afford. The Duke handed him over as a prisoner to Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor.
His mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, worked tirelessly to raise the exorbitant ransom of 150,000 marks demanded by the German emperor, of which 100,000 had to be paid before release, with the remainder after. 150,000 marks represented twice the annual income for the English Crown. Both clergy and laymen were taxed for a quarter of the value of their property, the gold and silver treasures of the churches were confiscated, and money was raised from other taxes too. John, Richard's brother, and King Philip offered 80,000 marks for the Emperor to hold Richard prisoner until Michaelmas 1194. The emperor turned down the offer. Finally, on 4 February 1194 Richard was released.
One fictional aspect to Richard's life is the legend of his minstrel, Blondel, who, after Richard's capture, travelled Europe, going from castle to castle and loudly singing a song known only to the two of them. Eventually, the story goes, he came to the place where Richard was being held, and heard the song answered with the appropriate refrain, thus revealing where the king was.
Death and legacy[ edit ]
After his many famous battles, it was a minor skirmish with the rebellious castle of Châlus-Charbrol in Limousin, France on 26 March 1199 that would take Richard's life. Richard, who had removed some of his chainmail, was wounded in the shoulder by a crossbow bolt launched from a tower. Gangrene set in and Richard asked to see his killer, who he ordered to be set free and awarded a sum of money. However as soon as Richard died, with his 77-year-old mother Eleanor at his side, on 6 April 1199, the killer was flayed alive and then hanged. Richard's bowels were buried at the foot of the tower from which the shot came, his heart was buried at Rouen, while the rest of his remains were buried next to his father at Fontevraud Abbey near Chinon, France.
During Richard's absence abroad, John had come close to seizing the throne. However, Richard had forgiven him, and named him as his heir in place of Arthur. So it was John who became the next king. However, Richard's French territories initially rejected John as a successor, preferring his Arthur instead. However, the lack of any direct heirs from Richard was the first step in the dissolution of the Angevin Empire. While England continued to press claims to properties on the continent, it would never again command the territories Richard I inherited.
In the long run Richard's legacy includes the capture of Cyprus, which proved valuable in keeping the Frankish kingdoms in the Holy Land viable for another century. Secondly, his absence from England meant that the highly efficient government created by his father was allowed to entrench itself. Another part of Richard's legacy was romantic and literary. No matter the facts of his reign, he left an indelible imprint on the imagination extending to the present, in large part because of his military exploits. Indeed, due to his bravery, savagery, and fame in the Arabic world, Richard became a bit of a bogeyman in the Middle East for centuries after his death. Mothers would occasionally threaten unruly children with the admonition "King Richard will get you" well into the late 19th century.
On the downside, Richard has been criticised for doing little for England, and instead using the kingdom's resources to support his journeys away on Crusade in the Holy Land. He spent only six months of his ten year reign in England, claiming it was "cold and always raining". During the period when he was raising funds for his Crusade, Richard was heard to declare, "If I could have found a buyer I would have sold London itself".
John (1199-1216)[ edit ]
King John
John was born, probably in the year 1166, in Oxford. He was the fifth son of King Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. He reigned as King of England from 1199 until his death in 1216. He succeeded to the throne as the younger brother of King Richard I. John acquired the nicknames of "Lackland" and "Soft-sword".
King John's reign has been traditionally characterised as one of the most disastrous in English history: he lost Normandy to Philip II of France in his first five years on the throne, and his reign ended with England torn by civil war, with him on the verge of being forced out of power. In 1213, he made England a papal fief to resolve a conflict with the Roman Catholic Church, and his rebellious barons forced him to sign the Magna Carta in 1215, the act for which he is best remembered.
In 1185, John became the ruler of Ireland, whose people grew to despise him, causing John to leave after only eight months. During Richard's absence on the Third Crusade from 1190 to 1194, John tried to overthrow Richard's regent, despite having been forbidden by his brother to leave France. However, on his return to England in 1194, Richard forgave John and named him as his heir.
John's reign as King[ edit ]
After Richard's death, John did not gain immediate universal recognition as king. As we have seen above, some regarded his young nephew, Arthur of Brittany, as the rightful heir. Arthur enjoyed the support of King Philip II of France, and the two sides fought. The war upset the barons of Poitou, who sought help from the King of France, who was King John's feudal overlord in respect of some of his territories on the Continent. In 1202, King John was summoned to the French court to answer the charges. King John refused and, under feudal law, because of his failure of service to his lord, the French King claimed the lands and territories ruled by King John as Count of Poitou. The French promptly invaded Normandy, King Philip II invested Arthur with all those fiefs King John once held (except for Normandy), and betrothed him to his daughter Mary. As part of the war, Arthur attempted to kidnap his own grandmother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, at Mirebeau, but was defeated and captured by John's forces. Arthur was imprisoned first at Falaise and then at Rouen. No one is certain what happened to Arthur after that, but the rumour that he was murdered caused Brittany and later Normandy to rebel against King John.
John functioned as an efficient ruler, but he won the disapproval of the English barons by taxing them in ways that were outside those traditionally allowed by feudal overlords. John was a very fair-minded and well informed king, however, often acting as a Judge in the Royal Courts, and his justice was much sought after. John is also said to have founded the modern Royal Navy. In 1203 he ordered all shipyards in England to be responsible for at least one ship, with places such as the newly-built Portsmouth being responsible for several. By the end of 1204, he had 45 large galleys available to him, and from then on an average of 4 new ones every year. It was during John's reign that great improvements were made in ship design. He also created the first large transport ships.
When the Archbishop of Canterbury died on 13 July 1205, John became involved in a dispute with Pope Innocent III over who the next Archbishop should be. Eventually Innocent appointed a man who John coud not acceept and in July 1207 the Pope ordered an interdict against England. This meant no Church services could happen. John responded by seizing Church property for failure to provide feudal service. After a while, the pope realised that too long a period without church services could lead to loss of faith, and gave permission for some churches to hold Mass behind closed doors in 1209, and in 1212, the pope allowed last rites to be given to the dying. While the interdict was a burden to many, it did not result in rebellion against John. In November of 1209 John was excommunicated, and, in February 1213 Innocent threatened stronger measures unless John submitted, which he now did.
After putting down the Welsh Uprising of 1211 and settling his dispute with the pope, John turned his attention back to his overseas interests. His European wars ended in defeat at the Battle of Bouvines, after which John had accept an unfavourable peace with France. This finally turned the barons against him, and he met their leaders at Runnymede, near London, on 15 June 1215, Great Charter, which in Latin is known as the called, Magna Carta. Because he had signed under duress, however, John received approval from his overlord the Pope to break his word as soon as hostilities had ceased, provoking the First Barons' War. For a long time, schoolchildren have learned that King John had to approve Magna Carta by attaching his seal to it because he could not sign it. In fact, King John did sign the draft of the Charter that the negotiating parties hammered out in the tent on Charter Island at Runnymede on 15-18 June 1215, but it took the clerks and scribes working in the royal offices some time after everyone went home to prepare the final copies, which they then sealed and delivered to the appropriate officials. In those days, legal documents were sealed to make them official, not signed.
Marriage and children[ edit ]
In 1189, John was married to Avisa, daughter and heiress of William Fitz Robert, 2nd Earl of Gloucester. (She is sometimes referred to as Isabella, Hawise, Joan or Eleanor.) They had no children, and John had their marriage annulled around 1199, and she was never acknowledged as queen. In 1200, John married again, this time to Isabelle, the daughter of the Count of Angoulême, who was twenty years his junior. John and Isabelle had five children, including Henry, who went on to become the King when John died. John also had many illegitimate children.
Death[ edit ]
In 1216, Prince Louis of France invaded after being invited by the majority of English barons to replace John on the throne. John retreated, and whilst crossing the area known as The Wash in East Anglia lost his most valuable treasures, including the Crown Jewels, when he was caught by the incoming tide. This dealt him a blow, which affected his health and state of mind. He caught dysentery and died on 18 or 19 October at Newark in Lincolnshire. He was buried in Worcester Cathedral, and his nine-year-old son succeeded him and became King Henry III of England. Although Louis continued to claim the English throne, the barons switched their support to the new king, forcing Louis to give up his claim in the Treaty of Lambeth in 1217.
Henry III (1216-1272)[ edit ]
Henry III lands in Aquitaine, as shown in a 15th century from a later illumination.
Henry III was born on 1 October 1207 in Winchester Castle. He became King of England in 1216 aged only 9, when he succeeded his father, John. The barons who were in dispute with John quickly withdrew their support of Prince Louis as they considered Henry a safer option, especially as the regents who ruled for Henry declared their intention to rule by Magna Carta. Henry later grew into a thickset man of medium height, with a narrow forehead and a drooping left eyelid. When Henry reached maturity in 1227, the regency ended, and Henry was keen to restore royal authority.
Henry was extremely religious, and his journeys were often delayed by his insistence on hearing Mass several times a day. He was also much taken with the cult of the Anglo-Saxon King Edward the Confessor who had been made a saint in 1161. Told that St Edward dressed austerely, Henry did the same and wore only the simplest of robes. He had a mural of the saint painted in his bedchamber for inspiration before and after sleep, and named his eldest son after him. Henry designated Westminster, where St Edward had founded the abbey, as the fixed seat of power in England. Westminster Hall duly became the greatest ceremonial space of the kingdom, where the council of nobles also met. Henry appointed French architects to renovate Westminster Abbey in Gothic style, and work began at great expense in 1245. The centrepiece at the renovated Abbey was a shrine to Edward.
Henry's reign was marked by civil strife as the English barons, led by Simon de Montfort, the 6th Earl of Leicester, demanded more say in the running of the kingdom. After de Montfort married Henry's sister Eleanor without asking Henry, a feud developed between the two. Their relationship reached a crisis in the 1250s when de Montfort was brought to court on charges relating to actions he took as lieutenant of Gascony, the last remaining Plantagenet land across the English Channel. However, he was acquitted by the Peers of the realm, much to the King's displeasure.
Henry also funded a war in Sicily on behalf of the Pope in return for a title for his second son Edmund, which made many barons fear that Henry was following too much in the footsteps of his father and needed to be kept in check. De Montfort became leader of those who wanted to reassert Magna Carta and force the king to give more power to the baronial council. In 1258 seven leading barons forced Henry to agree to the Provisions of Oxford which effectively abolished the complete supremacy of the monarchy, and gave power to a council of fifteen barons to deal with the business of government and providing for a three yearly meeting of parliament to monitor their performance.
Henry was forced to take part in the swearing of a collective oath to the Provisions of Oxford. However, Henry's supporters and de Montfort's supporters grew further apart. When in 1262 Henry got the pope to say that he didn't need to take the oath anymore, both side raised armies and a civil war, known as the Second Barons' War started. By 1263 de Montfort had captured most of southeastern England by and at the Battle of Lewes on 14 May 1264, Henry was defeated and taken prisoner by de Montfort's army.
Henry remained king, but was kept under house arrest and the real power was held by de Montfort, who carried out a number of reforms, in particular increasing representation in parliament to include each county of England and many important towns rather than keeping it to the nobility. However many of the barons who supported de Montfort began to suspect that he had gone too far with his reforms.
Only fifteen months later, Henry's son Edward, who was held as prisoner with Henry, escaped and led the royalists into battle again. De Montfort was beaten at the Battle of Evesham in 1265, and revenge was taken on de Montfort and his supporters.
Marriage and children[ edit ]
Henry married Eleanor of Provence in 1236 and he promoted many of his French relatives to power and wealth, which was unpopular among his subjects and barons. He was also extravagant: when his first child, Prince Edward was born, Henry demanded the Londoners bring him rich gifts to celebrate, and even sent back gifts that did not please him. He had at least four other children by Eleanor.
Death[ edit ]
Henry died in 1272 and his body was first put in the tomb of Edward the Confessor, whilst his final resting place was constructed in Westminster Abbey. Henry was succeeded as King of England by his son, Edward.
Edward I (1272-1307)[ edit ]
Edward I was born in Westminster in 1239. He was King of England from 1272 until his death in 1307. Edward initially intended to call himself Edward IV, recognising the three Saxon kings of England of that name. However, for reasons unknown he was called Edward I instead - establishing the custom of numbering English monarchs only from the Norman Conquest. His nicknames include "Longshanks" because he was 6 foot 2 inch tall and the "Hammer of the Scots" as he kept Scotland under English domination. Unlike his father, King Henry III, Edward I took great interest in the workings of his government and made a number of reforms to preserve royal rights and improve the administration of the law.
Marriage and children[ edit ]
Edward married twice. His first marriage, in October 1254, was to Eleanor of Castile which produced sixteen children, and her death in 1290 affected Edward deeply. His second marriage, in September 1299, was to Marguerite of France (known as the "Pearl of France" by her English subjects), the daughter of King Philippe III of France. It produced three children.
Military campaigns[ edit ]
In 1269 a representative of the pope arrived in England and appealed to Prince Edward, as he then was, to participate in the Eighth Crusade alongside King Louis IX of France. To fund the crusade, Edward borrowed heavily from Louis IX and English Jews, even though the size of Edward's crusading group was quite small. The aim was to relieve the Christian stronghold of Acre, but Louis was diverted to Tunis. By the time that Edward arrived at Tunis, Louis had died of disease. Most of the French forces at Tunis returned home, but a small number of them joined Edward who continued onwards to Acre in the Ninth Crusade. After a short stop in Cyprus, Edward arrived in Acre with thirteen ships. While in Acre, Edward engaged in diplomacy with the Mongols hoping to form an alliance against Sultan Baibars of Egypt, but the alliance did not happen. In 1271 Hugh III of Cyprus arrived with a contingent of knights. These new forces encouraged Edward to raid the town of Ququn. Soon afterwards Edward signed a ten year peace treaty with Baibars. Around the same time, Edward was nearly killed, but fought off his attacker with a metal tripod. Edward left the Holy Land and returned to England in 1272.
One of Edward's early achievements as king was to conquer Wales. Under the 1267 Treaty of Montgomery, Llewelyn ap Gruffydd extended Welsh territories southwards into what had been the lands of the English Marcher lords, and gained the title of Prince of Wales although he still owed homage to the English monarch as overlord. Edward refused to recognise the Treaty, which had been concluded by his father. After Llywelyn repeatedly refused to pay homage to Edward in 1274-75, Edward raised an army and launched his first campaign against the Welsh prince in 1276-77. After this campaign Llywelyn was forced to pay homage to Edward and lost all his lands apart from a small amount of Gwynedd, although Edward allowed Llywelyn to keep the title of Prince of Wales.
However, Llywelyn's younger brother, Dafydd ap Gruffydd, started another rebellion in 1282. Llywelyn died shortly afterwards in a skirmish, after which Edward destroyed the remaining resistance. He captured, brutally tortured and executed Dafydd in the next year. To consolidate his conquest, Edward then built a string of massive stone castles around the coast of Wales. Wales was incorporated into England under the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284. In 1301 Edward named his eldest son Edward as the new Prince of Wales. Ever since this, the eldest son of each English monarch has taken the same title.
Edward then turned to Scotland and, on 10 May 1291, Scottish nobles recognised the authority of Edward I. He had planned to marry off his son to the child queen, Margaret of Scotland, but when Margaret died the Scottish nobles agreed to have Edward select her successor from the various claimants to the throne, and he chose John Balliol. Edward summoned John Balliol to do homage to him in Westminster in 1293 and made it clear he expected John's military and financial support against France. Balliol did not accept this and entered into a pact with France and prepared an army to invade England.
Edward gathered his largest army yet and razed Berwick and massacred its inhabitants. He next went to Dunbar and Edinburgh. The Stone of Destiny, on which Scottish kings were crowned, was removed from Scone Palace and taken to Westminster Abbey, where it stayed until 1996. Balliol gave up the Scottish crown and was imprisoned in the Tower of London for three years before going to his estates in France. All freeholders in Scotland had to swear an oath of homage to Edward, and he ruled Scotland like a province through English Viceroys. Opposition sprang up, and Edward executed the focus of discontent, William Wallace, in 1305. Edward was never able to conquer of all Scotland though.
Death[ edit ]
Edward died in 1307 at Burgh-by-Sands in Cumberland by the Scottish border, while on his way to wage another campaign against the Scots, who were led by Robert the Bruce. Against his wishes, Edward was buried in Westminster Abbey. His son, Edward, succeeded him as king.
Edward II (1307-1327)[ edit ]
Edward II was born in Caernarfon Castle on 25 April 1284, the fourth son of King Edward I by his first wife, Eleanor of Castile, but he became heir to the throne when he was just a few months old, when his elder brother Alfonso died. Edward II was the first English prince to hold the title of the Prince of Wales. There is a story that his father promised the Welsh a native prince who spoke no English and presented Edward II as a baby. However, this is not true, the story coming from a 16th century Welsh work. Edward was king of England from 1307. The new king was physically as impressive as his father. He was, however, lacking in drive and ambition. His main interest was in entertainment, though he also took pleasure in athletics and in the practice of mechanical crafts. He was deposed in January 1327, after he had alienated the English nobility. He died the following September, in what has been said to be a very brutal manner.
Edward's first favourite[ edit ]
As a prince, Edward took part in several campaigns against the Scots, but "all his father's efforts could not prevent his acquiring the habits of extravagance and frivolity which he retained all through his life". Edward I put his son's problems down to Piers Gaveston, a knight from Gascony that some believe to have been the prince's lover. Gaveston was exiled by King Edward I after the then Prince Edward gave him a title reserved for royalty. When Edward I died, and Edward became King Edward II, his first acts were to recall Gaveston and to abandon the Scots campaign on which his father had set his heart. In the early years of Edward's reign Gaveston was made regent when Edward went to France.
In January 1308, Edward married Isabella of France, the daughter of King Philip IV of France. Although Edward and his wife had children, Isabella was neglected by her husband. They had two sons, Edward and John, and two daughters. Edward also had at least one illegitimate son. However, Edward spent much of his time with the few friends he shared power with, and looking to limit the power of the nobles. This made him appear to prefer the company of his male favourites, and in particular, Piers Gaveston, and this led to rumours that Edward was homosexual.
Gaveston married the king's niece, Margaret of Gloucester, and was given the earldom of Cornwall. The barons grew to hate Gaveston and twice insisted on his banishment, and Edward twice recalled his friend. As a result, the barons, led by the king's cousin, Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, went to war against the king and Gaveston. Gaveston was assassinated in 1312. Edward was not strong enough to resist further, and he stood aside to allow the country to come under the rule of a baronial committee of twenty-one lords ordainers.
Bannockburn and the dominance of the barons[ edit ]
During the quarrels between Edward and the "ordainers", Robert the Bruce was re-conquering Scotland. His progress was so great that he had occupied all the fortresses apart from Stirling, which he besieged. The danger of losing Stirling shamed Edward and the barons into an attempt to make up their lost ground. In June 1314 Edward led a huge army into Scotland to relieve Stirling. On 24 June, his army was heavily defeated by Bruce at the Battle of Bannockburn. Bruce was now sure of his position as King of Scots, and took revenge for Edward I's actions by devastating the northern counties of England.
Edward II's defeat made him more dependent on his barons than ever, but they started to argue amongst themselves. Eventually a group of barons so hated the other barons they supported more power for Edward, and he gained more authority after 1318. Edward now found an able adviser in Hugh le Despenser, 1st Earl of Winchester, a baron of great experience. His son, Hugh the younger Despenser, became a personal friend and favourite of Edward, and effectively replaced Gaveston. The barons hated the Despensers as much as Gaveston and resented the privileges Edward lavished them.
The rule of the Despensers[ edit ]
In 1321, the barons met in parliament, and had Hugh le Despenser and his son banished. This inspired Edward to act. In 1322 he recalled the Despensers from exile, and waged war against the barons on their behalf, which he won. For the next five years the Despensers ruled England. They instituted the rule that no law was valid unless the House of Commons had agreed to it, and this marks the most important step forward in Edward II's reign. But the rule of the Despensers soon became corrupt.
The Despensers had a dispute with Edward's queen, Isabella, over the building of a fortified town by the English possession of Aquitaine by Isabella's brother, King Charles IV of France. The Despensers took away the queen's estates. Queen Isabella kept silent until 1325, when she went to France to negotiate a solution to the dispute. Isabella's polite attitude to Despenser and Edward, despite her hostility to them, meant that she was considered loyal.
Abdication[ edit ]
However, Isabella refused to return to her husband as long as the Despensers remained his favourites. On 24 September 1326 Isabella, with Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March, and her son, Edward, landed a large army in Essex. She intended to expel the Despensers. Edward's followers deserted him, and on 2 October he fled London and took refuge in the younger Despenser's estates in Glamorgan. When Isabella entered London, there was a violent revolution in her favour and weeks of anarchy followed. Isabella's army followed Edward and the Despensers, and Edward was captured on 16 November and taken to Monmouth, and then Kenilworth, Castle.
On 20 January, Edward was forced to abdicate. The Articles of Deposition accused Edward of many offences including: being incompetent to govern, unwilling to heed good counsel, allowing himself to be controlled by evil councillors, giving himself up to unseemly works and occupations, and plundering the kingdom. A parliament met that same month at Westminster and Edward's son was proclaimed King Edward III, although in practice Isabella and Mortimer held power. Both Despensers were tried and executed. And the next day they had a battle with the Franks, half his army was killed!
Captivity and death[ edit ]
On 3 April, Edward was moved from Kenilworth and handed over to two dependants of Mortimer, who imprisoned him at Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire. It is said the Edward died in October 1327 when a red-hot iron (earlier reports say a piece of copper) was pushed up his bottom, a supposedly deserved end for a homosexual. There is no proof that this happened, and he may just have been suffocated instead.
Edward III (1327-1377)[ edit ]
Edward III
Edward III was born at Windsor Castle on 13 November 1312. He was king from 1327 until his death in 1377. He was one of the most successful English kings of mediaeval times. Edward's reign was marked by an expansion of English territory through wars in Scotland and France. His reign was marked by the start of the Hundred Years' War.
Early reign[ edit ]
Edward III was crowned on 25 January 1327, at the age of 14. As he was still a child, the country was ruled by his mother, Queen Isabella, along with Mortimer. Mortimer and Isabella made peace with the Scots, but this was highly unpopular. In 1330, the Earl of Kent, brother of Edward II, was executed for plotting to restore Edward II, who the Earl of Kent believed to still be alive. The Earl's execution lost Mortimer his last support, and as soon as Edward III came of age in 1330, he executed Roger Mortimer on charges of treason, which included the murder of Edward II. Edward III spared his mother, Queen Isabella, but made her retire from public life. The reign of Edward III saw continued war with Scotland, and Edward's first major military success was early in his reign at the Battle of Halidon Hill in 1333, which he won in support of his puppet, the new Scottish king, Edward Balliol.
The Hundred Years' War[ edit ]
In 1328, Edward's uncle, King Charles IV of France, died without male heirs, although he did have a pregnant wife. This left Edward as the senior surviving male descendant of King Philip IV of France, who was Charles's and Queen Isabella's father. Edward's claim to the French throne was contested by French nobles who invoked Salic law, under which held that the royal succession could not pass through a female line. The French nobles therefore said that the legitimate king of France was Edward's cousin, Philip, who became King Philip VI of France.
Edward allied himself with the Holy Roman Emperor, Louis IV, in July 1337, and declared war on Philip VI. On 26 January 1340, Edward declared himself king of France. The conflict that had now started eventually became known as the Hundred Years' War. In fact it lasted longer than 100 years up to the 1450s, although this period did not see continuous fighting.
In 1346, Edward defeated the French at the Battle of Crecy, which was also fought by his sixteen year old son, Edward, the Black Prince. The Black Prince commanded England's victorious army at the Battle of Poitiers in 1356. The first phase of the Hundred Years' War was concluded in 1360 with the Treaty of Brétigny, marking the height of English influence in France and providing a three million crown ransom for the release of the captured French king, who by that time was John II.
Edward's reign in England[ edit ]
While the king and the prince campaigned abroad, the government was left largely in the hands of the prince's younger brother, John of Gaunt. Economic prosperity from the developing wool trade created new wealth in the kingdom, but the bubonic plague, or Black Death, had a significant impact on the lives of his subjects. Commercial taxes became a major source of royal revenue, which had previously been largely from taxes on land. The Parliament of England became divided into two houses. At the beginning of Edward's reign, French, which came over with the Norman Conquest, was still the language of the English aristocracy, in 1362 English was made the official language of the law courts.
The king also founded an order of knighthood, the Order of the Garter, allegedly as a result of an incident when a lady, with whom he was dancing at a court ball, dropped an item of intimate apparel. Gallantly picking it up, Edward tied it around his own leg, and remarked Honi soit qui mal y pense ('Shame on him who thinks evil of it'), which became the motto of the Order of the Garter. The woman in the incident is known only as the "Countess of Salisbury". Some say it was Edward's daughter-in-law, Joan of Kent, but a more likely candidate is Joan's mother-in-law from her first marriage.
Facing a resurgent French monarchy and losses in France, Edward asked Parliament to grant him more funds by taxing the wine and wool trades, but this was badly received in 1374–1375 as a new outbreak of bubonic plague struck. The "Good Parliament" of 1376 criticised Edward's councillors, and advised him to limit his ambitions to suit his revenues.
Marriage and children[ edit ]
Edward III married Philippa of Hainault on 13 January 1328, when he was aged 15. The couple eventually produced thirteen children, including five sons who reached maturity. Their eldest son and Edward's heir was Edward the Black Prince, who was born in 1330. Edward was a notorious womaniser. After Philippa's death in 1369, Edward's mistress, Alice Perrers, became a byword for corruption.
Death[ edit ]
Edward died of a stroke in 1377 at Sheen Palace and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His son Edward, the Black Prince, had died the year before, and so Edward III was succeeded by his young grandson, King Richard II of England, who was the son of the Black Prince.
Richard II (1377-1399)[ edit ]
Richard II was born on 6 January 1367 in Bordeaux. He was the son of Edward the Black Prince and grandson of Edward III, whom he succeeded as King of England in 1377, when aged only ten.
The Peasants' Revolt[ edit ]
Richard II watches Wat Tyler's death and addresses the peasants in the background
John of Gaunt, his uncle, ruled on Richard's behalf for the first years of his reign and it was the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 that brought Richard into the limelight. It fell to him personally to negotiate with Wat Tyler and the other rebel leaders and their massed armed ranks of several thousand. As Richard was only 14 at the time, this must have taken some personal courage. He offered a pardon to the leaders of the rebellion, but he went back on his word and the ringleaders were eventually arrested and executed. It remains a matter of doubt as to whether Richard always intended this to happen, or whether he was forced to go against his word by some of the English nobility. Either way, his tactics had the desired effect of dispersing the rebel forces from the streets of London back to the shires and bringing the disorder to an end. The young king seemed to be showing great promise. As he matured into adulthood, however, he was unwilling or unable to deal and compromise, which was an essential aspect of 14th century politics. This led to his downfall.
Marriages[ edit ]
On 22 January 1383 he married Anne of Bohemia, daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor, but they had no children, and she died in June 1394. On 31 October 1396 he married Princess Isabella of Valois, daughter of King Charles VI of France, but again the marriage was childless.
First crisis of 1387-88[ edit ]
As Richard began to take over the business of government himself, he sidelined many of the established nobles, and instead he turned to his inner circle of favourites for his council. The nobles he had snubbed formed the head of a group that called themselves the Lords Appellant. Their main aim was to seek to continue war with France, which went against Richard's policy of peace. This was an aim that many of them pursued in the interests of personal gain rather than the interests of the nation.
In 1387 the English Parliament, under pressure from the Lords Appellant, demanded that Richard remove his unpopular councillors. When he refused, he was told that since he was still a minor, a Council of Government would rule in his place. Richard had the Earl of Arundel, leader of the Lords Appellant, arrested, but Richard's small army was overpowered by the forces of the Lords Appellant outside Oxford, and Richard was held in the Tower of London. Richard's unpopular councillors were either executed or exiled, and Richard was forced to accept new councillors. Richard was effectively stripped of almost all his authority.
A fragile peace[ edit ]
In the years which followed, Richard became more cautious in his dealings with the barons. In 1390 a tournament was held to celebrate Richard's coming of age. The situation at court had improved since Richard's uncle John of Gaunt's return from Spain to lead the Lords Appellant. Richard’s team of knights, The Harts, all wore the identical symbol – a white hart – which Richard had chosen for himself. Richard himself favoured genteel interests like fine food, insisting spoons be used at his court and inventing the handkerchief. He beautified Westminster Hall with a new ceiling and was a keen and cultured patron of the arts, architecture and literature. However, his tastes were before his time and many began to see him as another Edward II figure, unworthy of his military Plantagenet heritage. Richard lacked the thirst for battle. His Scottish campaign in 1385 was not decisive, and he signed a 28-year truce with France in 1396 which was hugely unpopular at home in spite of the dividends that peace brought to the kingdom.
Richard's commitment to peace rather than war can also been seen in his first expedition to Ireland in 1394. He put forward a sensible policy based on the belief that the Irish rebels were motivated largely by the grievances they had against absentee English landowners. Those who he labelled the "wild Irish" - native Irish who had not joined the rebel cause - he treated with kindness and respect.
Second crisis of 1397-99[ edit ]
In spite of his forward-thinking attitude toward culture and the arts, Richard seems to have developed a passionate devotion to the old ideal of the Divine Right of Kings, that he could pretty much do whatever he wanted. In 1397 Richard decided to rid himself of the Lords Appellant, who were confining his power, on the pretext of an aristocratic plot. Richard had the Earl of Arundel executed and Warwick exiled, while Gloucester died in captivity. Finally able to exert his autocratic authority over the kingdom, he got rid of all those he saw as not totally committed to him, fulfilling his own idea of becoming God's chosen prince.
As Richard was still childless, the heir to the throne was Roger Mortimer, the Earl of March, and after his death in 1398, his seven-year-old son Edmund. However, Richard was more concerned with Gaunt's son and heir Henry Bolingbroke, whom he banished for ten years in 1399. After Gaunt's death, Richard seized Bolingbroke's lands and gave them to his own followers. At this point Richard left for a campaign in Ireland, which allowed Bolingbroke to land in Yorkshire with an army provided by the King of France. Richard's autocratic ways worried many nobles and were deeply unpopular, which helped Bolingbroke to soon gain control of most of southern and eastern England. Bolingbroke originally just wanted his inheritance and a return of the Lords Appellant, but with Richard remaining King and Edmund as his successor. But by the time Richard finally arrived back on the mainland in Wales, a tide of discontent had swept England. In the King's absence, Bolingbroke, who was generally well-liked, was being urged to take the crown himself.
Richard was captured at Conway Castle in Wales and taken to London, where crowds pelted him with rubbish. He was held in the Tower of London and forced to abdicate. He was brought, on his request, before parliament, where he officially gave up his crown. Thirty-three official charges were made against him, but he was not allowed to answer them. Parliament then accepted Henry Bolingbroke as the new king.
Death[ edit ]
Richard was moved in Pontefract Castle, and was probably murdered there in 1400. Richard's body was put on display in the old St Paul's Cathedral for all to see that he was really dead, and he was then buried in Kings Langley Church. His coffin was badly designed, however, and it was easy for disrespectful visitors to place their hands through several openings in the coffin and interfere with what was inside. It is said that a schoolboy walked off with Richard's jawbone. Despite all this, rumours that Richard was still alive continued well into the reign of King Henry, who decided to move Richard's body to its final resting place in Westminster Abbey with much ceremony in 1413.
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Who was the Prime Minister of Britain at the start of the First World War? | First World War.com - Primary Documents - British Prime Minister's Address to Parliament, 6 August 1914
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Primary Documents - British Prime Minister's Address to Parliament, 6 August 1914
Reproduced below is the text of the speech given to the British Parliament by Prime Minister Herbert Asquith .
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Given on 6 August 1914 - two days after Britain entered the war against Germany in defence of Belgium - Asquith recounted the background to the outbreak of general war in Europe in July/August 1914, placing great emphasis on the efforts of the British Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey , to secure continued peace in the face of German aggression.
Asquith finished his speech by stating that Britain would throw her entire Empire's resources into the struggle against Germany in order to ensure victory.
British Prime Minister Herbert Asquith's Address to Parliament, 6 August 1914
With the utmost reluctance and with infinite regret, His Majesty's Government have been compelled to put this country in a state of war with what for many years and indeed generations past has been a friendly Power.
The Papers which have since been presented to Parliament will, I think, show how strenuous, how unremitting, how persistent, even when the last glimmer of hope seemed to have faded away, were the efforts of my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary (note: Sir Edward Grey) to secure for Europe an honourable and a lasting peace.
Every one knows in the great crisis which occurred last year in the East of Europe, it was largely, if not mainly, by the acknowledgment of all Europe, due to the steps taken by my right hon. Friend that the area of the conflict was limited, and that so far as the great Powers are concerned, peace was maintained.
If his efforts upon this occasion have, unhappily, been less successful, I am certain that this House and the country - and I will add posterity and history - will accord to him what is, after all, the best tribute that can be paid to any statesman: that, never derogating for an instant or by an inch from the honour and interests of his own country, he has striven, as few men have striven, to maintain and preserve the greatest interest of all countries - universal peace.
The Papers, which are now in the hands of hon. Members, show something more than that.
They show what were the terms which were offered to us in exchange for our neutrality. I trust that not only the Members of this House, but all our fellow-subjects everywhere will read the communications - will read, learn and mark the communications which passed only a week ago to-day between Berlin and London in this matter.
The terms by which it was sought to buy our neutrality are contained in the communication made by the German Chancellor to Sir Edward Goschen on the 29th July. I think I must refer to them for a moment. After alluding to the state of things as between Austria and Russia, Sir Edward Goschen goes on:
"He [the German Chancellor] then proceeded to make the following strong bid for British neutrality. He said that it was clear, so far as he was able to judge the main principle which governed British policy, that Great Britain would never stand by and allow France to be crushed in any conflict there might be.
That, however, was not the object at which Germany aimed. Provided that neutrality of Great Britain were certain, every assurance would be given to the British Government that the Imperial Government"
Let the Committee observe these words:
"aimed at no territorial acquisition at the expense of France should they prove victorious in any war that might ensue."
Sir Edward Goschen proceeded to put a very pertinent question:- "I questioned His Excellency about the French colonies".
What are the French colonies? They mean every part of the dominions and possessions of France outside the geographical area of Europe - "and he said that he was unable to give a similar undertaking in that respect."
Let me cone to what, in my mind, personally has always been the crucial and almost the governing consideration, namely, the position of the small States:
"As regards Holland, however, His Excellency said that so long as Germany's adversaries respected the integrity and neutrality of the Netherlands, Germany was ready to give His Majesty's Government an assurance that she would do likewise."
Then we come to Belgium:-
"It depended upon the action of France what operations Germany might he forced to enter upon in Belgium, but, when the war was over, Belgian integrity would be respected if she had not sided against Germany."
Let the Committee observe the distinction between those two cases. In regard to Holland it was not only independence and integrity, but also neutrality; but in regard to Belgium, there was no mention of neutrality at all, nothing but an assurance that after the war came to an end the integrity of Belgium would be respected.
Then His Excellency added: "Ever since he had been Chancellor the object of his policy had been to bring about an understanding with England. He trusted that these assurances" - the assurances I have read out to the House - "might form the basis of that understanding which he so much desired."
What does that amount to? Let me just ask the Committee. I do so, not with the object of inflaming passion, certainly not with the object of exciting feeling against Germany, but I do so to vindicate and make clear the position of the British Government in this matter.
What did that proposal amount to? In the first place, it meant this: That behind the back of France - they were not made a party to these communications - we should have given, if we had assented to that, a free license to Germany to annex, in the event of a successful war, the whole of the extra European dominions and possessions of France.
What did it mean as regards Belgium? When she addressed, as she has addressed in these last few days, her moving appeal to us to fulfil our solemn guarantee of her neutrality, what reply should we have given? What reply should we have given to that Belgian appeal?
We should have been obliged to say that, without her knowledge, we had bartered away to the Power threatening her our obligation to keep our plighted word.
The House has read, and the country has read, of course, in the last few hours, the most pathetic appeal addressed by the King of Belgium, and I do not envy the man who can read that appeal with an unmoved heart. Belgians are fighting and losing their lives. What would have been the position of Great Britain to-day, in the face of that spectacle, if we had assented to this infamous proposal?
Yes, and what are we to get in return for the betrayal of our friends and the dishonour of our obligations? What are we to get in return? A promise - nothing more; a promise as to what Germany would do in certain eventualities; a promise, be it observed - I am sorry to have to say it, but it must be put upon record - given by a Power which was at that very moment announcing its intention to violate its own treaty and inviting us to do the same.
I can only say, if we had dallied or temporized, we, as a Government, should have covered ourselves with dishonour, and we should have betrayed the interests of this country, of which we are trustees.
I am glad, and I think the country will be glad, to turn to the reply which my right hon. Friend made, and of which I will read to the Committee two of the more salient passages. This document, No. 101 of the Papers, puts on record a week ago the attitude of the British Government, and, as I believe, of the British people.
My right hon. Friend says:
"His Majesty's Government cannot for a moment entertain the Chancellor's proposal that they should bind themselves to neutrality on such terms. What he asks us in effect is to engage to stand by while French Colonies are taken if France is beaten, so long as Germany does not take French territory as distinct from the Colonies. From the material point of view -"
My right lion. Friend, as he always does, used very temperate language:
"- Such a proposal is unacceptable, for France, without further territory in Europe being taken from her, could be so crushed as to lose her position as a Great Power, and become subordinate to German policy."
That is the material aspect. But he proceeded:-
"Altogether, apart from that, it would be a disgrace for us to make this bargain with Germany at the expense of France, a disgrace from which the good name of this country would never recover. The Chancellor also in effect asks us to bargain away whatever obligation or interest we have as regards the neutrality of Belgium. We could not entertain that bargain either."
He then says:- "We must preserve our full freedom to act, as circumstances may seem to us to require."
And he added, I think in sentences which the Committee must appreciate:-
"You should... add most earnestly that the one way of maintaining the good relations between England and Germany is that they should continue to work together to preserve the peace of Europe... For that object this Government will work in that way with all sincerity and goodwill.
"If the peace of Europe can be preserved and the present crisis safely passed, my own endeavour will be to promote some arrangement to which Germany could be a party, by which she could be assured that no aggressive or hostile policy would be pursued against her or her allies by France, Russia, and ourselves, jointly or separately.
"I have desired this and worked for it" - the statement was never more true - "as far as I could, through the last Balkan crisis, and Germany having a corresponding object, our relations sensibly improved.
"The idea has hitherto been too Utopian to form the subject of definite proposals, but if this present crisis, so much more acute than any that Europe has gone through for generations, be safely passed, I am hopeful that the relief and reaction which will follow may make possible some more definite rapprochement between the Powers than has been possible hitherto."
That document, in my opinion, states clearly, in temperate and convincing language, the attitude of this Government.
Can any one who reads it fail to appreciate the tone of obvious sincerity and earnestness which underlies it; can any one honestly doubt that the Government of this country in spite of great provocation - and I regard the proposals made to us as proposals which we might have thrown aside without consideration and almost without answer can any one doubt that in spite of great provocation the right hon. Gentleman, who had already earned the title and no one ever more deserved it - of "Peace Maker of Europe," persisted to the very last moment of the last hour in that beneficent but unhappily frustrated purpose?
I am entitled to say, and I do so on behalf of this country - I speak not for a party, I speak for the country as a whole - that we made every effort any Government could possibly make for peace.
But this war has been forced upon us. What is it we are fighting for? Every one knows, and no one knows better than the Government, the terrible, incalculable suffering, economic, social, personal and political, which war, and especially a war between the Great Powers of the world, must entail.
There is no man amongst us sitting upon this bench in these trying days - more trying perhaps than any body of statesmen for a hundred years have had to pass through - there is not a man amongst us who has not, during the whole of that time, had clearly before his vision the almost unequalled suffering which war, even in a just cause, must bring about, not only to the people who are for the moment living in this country and in the other countries of the world, but to posterity and to the whole prospects of European civilization.
Every step we took we took with that vision before our eyes, and with a sense of responsibility which it is impossible to describe.
Unhappily, if in spite of all our efforts to keep the peace, and with that full and overpowering consciousness of the result, if the issue be decided in favour of war, we have, nevertheless, thought it to be the duty as well as the interest of this country to go to war, the House may be well assured it was because we believe, and I am certain the country will believe, that we are unsheathing our sword in a just cause.
If I am asked what we are fighting for I reply in two sentences: In the first place, to fulfil a solemn international obligation, an obligation which, if it had been entered into between private persons in the ordinary concerns of life, would have been regarded as an obligation not only of law but of honour, which no self-respecting man could possibly have repudiated.
I say, secondly, we are fighting to vindicate the principle which, in these days when force, material force, sometimes seems to be the dominant influence and factor in the development of mankind, we are fighting to vindicate the principle that small nationalities are not to be crushed, in defiance of international good faith, by the arbitrary will of a strong and overmastering Power.
I do not believe any nation ever entered into a great controversy - and this is one of the greatest history will ever know - with a clearer conscience and a stronger conviction that it is fighting, not for aggression, not for the maintenance even of its own selfish interest, but that it is fighting in defence of principles the maintenance of which is vital to the civilization of the world.
With a full conviction, not only of the wisdom and justice, but of the obligations which lay upon us to challenge this great issue, we are entering into the struggle. Let us now make sure that all the resources, not only of this United Kingdom, but of the vast Empire of which it is the centre, shall be thrown into the scale.
Source: Source Records of the Great War, Vol. I, ed. Charles F. Horne, National Alumni 1923
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Saturday, 22 August, 2009 Michael Duffy
A "Dixie" (from the Hindi degci) was an army cooking pot.
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How many players does an American Football team normally have on the field at one time? | First World War.com - Primary Documents - British Prime Minister's Address to Parliament, 6 August 1914
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Primary Documents - British Prime Minister's Address to Parliament, 6 August 1914
Reproduced below is the text of the speech given to the British Parliament by Prime Minister Herbert Asquith .
Sponsored Links
Given on 6 August 1914 - two days after Britain entered the war against Germany in defence of Belgium - Asquith recounted the background to the outbreak of general war in Europe in July/August 1914, placing great emphasis on the efforts of the British Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey , to secure continued peace in the face of German aggression.
Asquith finished his speech by stating that Britain would throw her entire Empire's resources into the struggle against Germany in order to ensure victory.
British Prime Minister Herbert Asquith's Address to Parliament, 6 August 1914
With the utmost reluctance and with infinite regret, His Majesty's Government have been compelled to put this country in a state of war with what for many years and indeed generations past has been a friendly Power.
The Papers which have since been presented to Parliament will, I think, show how strenuous, how unremitting, how persistent, even when the last glimmer of hope seemed to have faded away, were the efforts of my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary (note: Sir Edward Grey) to secure for Europe an honourable and a lasting peace.
Every one knows in the great crisis which occurred last year in the East of Europe, it was largely, if not mainly, by the acknowledgment of all Europe, due to the steps taken by my right hon. Friend that the area of the conflict was limited, and that so far as the great Powers are concerned, peace was maintained.
If his efforts upon this occasion have, unhappily, been less successful, I am certain that this House and the country - and I will add posterity and history - will accord to him what is, after all, the best tribute that can be paid to any statesman: that, never derogating for an instant or by an inch from the honour and interests of his own country, he has striven, as few men have striven, to maintain and preserve the greatest interest of all countries - universal peace.
The Papers, which are now in the hands of hon. Members, show something more than that.
They show what were the terms which were offered to us in exchange for our neutrality. I trust that not only the Members of this House, but all our fellow-subjects everywhere will read the communications - will read, learn and mark the communications which passed only a week ago to-day between Berlin and London in this matter.
The terms by which it was sought to buy our neutrality are contained in the communication made by the German Chancellor to Sir Edward Goschen on the 29th July. I think I must refer to them for a moment. After alluding to the state of things as between Austria and Russia, Sir Edward Goschen goes on:
"He [the German Chancellor] then proceeded to make the following strong bid for British neutrality. He said that it was clear, so far as he was able to judge the main principle which governed British policy, that Great Britain would never stand by and allow France to be crushed in any conflict there might be.
That, however, was not the object at which Germany aimed. Provided that neutrality of Great Britain were certain, every assurance would be given to the British Government that the Imperial Government"
Let the Committee observe these words:
"aimed at no territorial acquisition at the expense of France should they prove victorious in any war that might ensue."
Sir Edward Goschen proceeded to put a very pertinent question:- "I questioned His Excellency about the French colonies".
What are the French colonies? They mean every part of the dominions and possessions of France outside the geographical area of Europe - "and he said that he was unable to give a similar undertaking in that respect."
Let me cone to what, in my mind, personally has always been the crucial and almost the governing consideration, namely, the position of the small States:
"As regards Holland, however, His Excellency said that so long as Germany's adversaries respected the integrity and neutrality of the Netherlands, Germany was ready to give His Majesty's Government an assurance that she would do likewise."
Then we come to Belgium:-
"It depended upon the action of France what operations Germany might he forced to enter upon in Belgium, but, when the war was over, Belgian integrity would be respected if she had not sided against Germany."
Let the Committee observe the distinction between those two cases. In regard to Holland it was not only independence and integrity, but also neutrality; but in regard to Belgium, there was no mention of neutrality at all, nothing but an assurance that after the war came to an end the integrity of Belgium would be respected.
Then His Excellency added: "Ever since he had been Chancellor the object of his policy had been to bring about an understanding with England. He trusted that these assurances" - the assurances I have read out to the House - "might form the basis of that understanding which he so much desired."
What does that amount to? Let me just ask the Committee. I do so, not with the object of inflaming passion, certainly not with the object of exciting feeling against Germany, but I do so to vindicate and make clear the position of the British Government in this matter.
What did that proposal amount to? In the first place, it meant this: That behind the back of France - they were not made a party to these communications - we should have given, if we had assented to that, a free license to Germany to annex, in the event of a successful war, the whole of the extra European dominions and possessions of France.
What did it mean as regards Belgium? When she addressed, as she has addressed in these last few days, her moving appeal to us to fulfil our solemn guarantee of her neutrality, what reply should we have given? What reply should we have given to that Belgian appeal?
We should have been obliged to say that, without her knowledge, we had bartered away to the Power threatening her our obligation to keep our plighted word.
The House has read, and the country has read, of course, in the last few hours, the most pathetic appeal addressed by the King of Belgium, and I do not envy the man who can read that appeal with an unmoved heart. Belgians are fighting and losing their lives. What would have been the position of Great Britain to-day, in the face of that spectacle, if we had assented to this infamous proposal?
Yes, and what are we to get in return for the betrayal of our friends and the dishonour of our obligations? What are we to get in return? A promise - nothing more; a promise as to what Germany would do in certain eventualities; a promise, be it observed - I am sorry to have to say it, but it must be put upon record - given by a Power which was at that very moment announcing its intention to violate its own treaty and inviting us to do the same.
I can only say, if we had dallied or temporized, we, as a Government, should have covered ourselves with dishonour, and we should have betrayed the interests of this country, of which we are trustees.
I am glad, and I think the country will be glad, to turn to the reply which my right hon. Friend made, and of which I will read to the Committee two of the more salient passages. This document, No. 101 of the Papers, puts on record a week ago the attitude of the British Government, and, as I believe, of the British people.
My right hon. Friend says:
"His Majesty's Government cannot for a moment entertain the Chancellor's proposal that they should bind themselves to neutrality on such terms. What he asks us in effect is to engage to stand by while French Colonies are taken if France is beaten, so long as Germany does not take French territory as distinct from the Colonies. From the material point of view -"
My right lion. Friend, as he always does, used very temperate language:
"- Such a proposal is unacceptable, for France, without further territory in Europe being taken from her, could be so crushed as to lose her position as a Great Power, and become subordinate to German policy."
That is the material aspect. But he proceeded:-
"Altogether, apart from that, it would be a disgrace for us to make this bargain with Germany at the expense of France, a disgrace from which the good name of this country would never recover. The Chancellor also in effect asks us to bargain away whatever obligation or interest we have as regards the neutrality of Belgium. We could not entertain that bargain either."
He then says:- "We must preserve our full freedom to act, as circumstances may seem to us to require."
And he added, I think in sentences which the Committee must appreciate:-
"You should... add most earnestly that the one way of maintaining the good relations between England and Germany is that they should continue to work together to preserve the peace of Europe... For that object this Government will work in that way with all sincerity and goodwill.
"If the peace of Europe can be preserved and the present crisis safely passed, my own endeavour will be to promote some arrangement to which Germany could be a party, by which she could be assured that no aggressive or hostile policy would be pursued against her or her allies by France, Russia, and ourselves, jointly or separately.
"I have desired this and worked for it" - the statement was never more true - "as far as I could, through the last Balkan crisis, and Germany having a corresponding object, our relations sensibly improved.
"The idea has hitherto been too Utopian to form the subject of definite proposals, but if this present crisis, so much more acute than any that Europe has gone through for generations, be safely passed, I am hopeful that the relief and reaction which will follow may make possible some more definite rapprochement between the Powers than has been possible hitherto."
That document, in my opinion, states clearly, in temperate and convincing language, the attitude of this Government.
Can any one who reads it fail to appreciate the tone of obvious sincerity and earnestness which underlies it; can any one honestly doubt that the Government of this country in spite of great provocation - and I regard the proposals made to us as proposals which we might have thrown aside without consideration and almost without answer can any one doubt that in spite of great provocation the right hon. Gentleman, who had already earned the title and no one ever more deserved it - of "Peace Maker of Europe," persisted to the very last moment of the last hour in that beneficent but unhappily frustrated purpose?
I am entitled to say, and I do so on behalf of this country - I speak not for a party, I speak for the country as a whole - that we made every effort any Government could possibly make for peace.
But this war has been forced upon us. What is it we are fighting for? Every one knows, and no one knows better than the Government, the terrible, incalculable suffering, economic, social, personal and political, which war, and especially a war between the Great Powers of the world, must entail.
There is no man amongst us sitting upon this bench in these trying days - more trying perhaps than any body of statesmen for a hundred years have had to pass through - there is not a man amongst us who has not, during the whole of that time, had clearly before his vision the almost unequalled suffering which war, even in a just cause, must bring about, not only to the people who are for the moment living in this country and in the other countries of the world, but to posterity and to the whole prospects of European civilization.
Every step we took we took with that vision before our eyes, and with a sense of responsibility which it is impossible to describe.
Unhappily, if in spite of all our efforts to keep the peace, and with that full and overpowering consciousness of the result, if the issue be decided in favour of war, we have, nevertheless, thought it to be the duty as well as the interest of this country to go to war, the House may be well assured it was because we believe, and I am certain the country will believe, that we are unsheathing our sword in a just cause.
If I am asked what we are fighting for I reply in two sentences: In the first place, to fulfil a solemn international obligation, an obligation which, if it had been entered into between private persons in the ordinary concerns of life, would have been regarded as an obligation not only of law but of honour, which no self-respecting man could possibly have repudiated.
I say, secondly, we are fighting to vindicate the principle which, in these days when force, material force, sometimes seems to be the dominant influence and factor in the development of mankind, we are fighting to vindicate the principle that small nationalities are not to be crushed, in defiance of international good faith, by the arbitrary will of a strong and overmastering Power.
I do not believe any nation ever entered into a great controversy - and this is one of the greatest history will ever know - with a clearer conscience and a stronger conviction that it is fighting, not for aggression, not for the maintenance even of its own selfish interest, but that it is fighting in defence of principles the maintenance of which is vital to the civilization of the world.
With a full conviction, not only of the wisdom and justice, but of the obligations which lay upon us to challenge this great issue, we are entering into the struggle. Let us now make sure that all the resources, not only of this United Kingdom, but of the vast Empire of which it is the centre, shall be thrown into the scale.
Source: Source Records of the Great War, Vol. I, ed. Charles F. Horne, National Alumni 1923
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A "Dixie" (from the Hindi degci) was an army cooking pot.
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What are the two ingredients of a screwdriver cocktail? | Screwdriver Recipe: 6 Ways to Improve the Vodka Drink
Stir well .
How to Make a Better Screwdriver
The Vodka. This is not the place for your best vodka (though use it if you like), but it's also important not to be a complete cheapskate when it comes to the single liquor used in any drink. There are many great tasting vodkas that are also budget-friendly on the market today. Explore these options and find the best 'well' vodka for your bar and use it in drinks like this.
The Orange Juice. If you want the best Screwdriver possible, you should use fresh-squeezed orange juice. It is very easy and takes just a few minutes to get enough fresh juice for the drink. If you are going to use a store-bought juice, look for the cleanest, most natural juice available.
How to Improve on the Simple Screwdriver
While there are only two elements in the Screwdriver, there are a number of other options available that can ramp up your average Screwdriver. Essentially, we're just using the vodka-orange juice base and adding a little to it because sometimes we need to break out of a routine.
Here are a few ideas for improving your Screwdriver game...
Flavored Vodka - It is the easiest way to add a little spark and flavor contrast. Citrus vodkas would be an obvious option, though something with a little more contrast and will add depth. Try one of the berry vodkas for starters. Either cucumber or vanilla vodkas are amazing here as well. Experiment with your own infusions ; rosemary-strawberry vodka is a very fun base for a Screwdriver.
Add a Sweetener - Orange juice has a natural acidity that can be combated with a little sweetener. To keep the flavor profile untouched, add a little simple syrup to your drink. If you want to add another flavor along with sweetness, take a hint from the Tequila Sunrise and add grenadine or a similar syrup like strawberry or raspberry-lavender . Just a small dollop of syrup will make a world of difference.
Add Sparkle - Lighten up your Screwdriver by topping it off with soda . Ginger ale and club soda are two perfect options, though you may also want to consider something a bit more fun like DRY Cucumber or Q Ginger . Also, you can take inspiration from drinks like the Mimosa and add a little sparkling wine.
Muddled Fruit - Before pouring your Screwdriver, muddle a few pieces of fresh fruit in your glass. Berries add a nice contrast and kiwi are an easy and fun addition. Lemon, lime, peach, and almost any fruit you can find will add just a little bit of dimension to this simple drink.
More Tall Vodka and Orange Juice Cocktails to Enjoy
Vodka and orange juice is a favorite combination for many drinkers. If you're looking to step beyond the Screwdriver, give one of these recipes a try.
Bocce Ball - Toss a little amaretto into the mix.
Creamsicle - How about some creamy vanilla?
Hairy Navel - Things get a little peachy in this drink.
Harvey Wallbanger - Top it with a Galliano float.
Madras - Cranberry juice dominates this fruity drink.
Related Articles
| vodka and orange juice |
In February 1967, Ronald Ryan became the last man to be hanged in which country, for murdering a guard while escaping from prison in 1965? | Screwdriver Recipe: 6 Ways to Improve the Vodka Drink
Stir well .
How to Make a Better Screwdriver
The Vodka. This is not the place for your best vodka (though use it if you like), but it's also important not to be a complete cheapskate when it comes to the single liquor used in any drink. There are many great tasting vodkas that are also budget-friendly on the market today. Explore these options and find the best 'well' vodka for your bar and use it in drinks like this.
The Orange Juice. If you want the best Screwdriver possible, you should use fresh-squeezed orange juice. It is very easy and takes just a few minutes to get enough fresh juice for the drink. If you are going to use a store-bought juice, look for the cleanest, most natural juice available.
How to Improve on the Simple Screwdriver
While there are only two elements in the Screwdriver, there are a number of other options available that can ramp up your average Screwdriver. Essentially, we're just using the vodka-orange juice base and adding a little to it because sometimes we need to break out of a routine.
Here are a few ideas for improving your Screwdriver game...
Flavored Vodka - It is the easiest way to add a little spark and flavor contrast. Citrus vodkas would be an obvious option, though something with a little more contrast and will add depth. Try one of the berry vodkas for starters. Either cucumber or vanilla vodkas are amazing here as well. Experiment with your own infusions ; rosemary-strawberry vodka is a very fun base for a Screwdriver.
Add a Sweetener - Orange juice has a natural acidity that can be combated with a little sweetener. To keep the flavor profile untouched, add a little simple syrup to your drink. If you want to add another flavor along with sweetness, take a hint from the Tequila Sunrise and add grenadine or a similar syrup like strawberry or raspberry-lavender . Just a small dollop of syrup will make a world of difference.
Add Sparkle - Lighten up your Screwdriver by topping it off with soda . Ginger ale and club soda are two perfect options, though you may also want to consider something a bit more fun like DRY Cucumber or Q Ginger . Also, you can take inspiration from drinks like the Mimosa and add a little sparkling wine.
Muddled Fruit - Before pouring your Screwdriver, muddle a few pieces of fresh fruit in your glass. Berries add a nice contrast and kiwi are an easy and fun addition. Lemon, lime, peach, and almost any fruit you can find will add just a little bit of dimension to this simple drink.
More Tall Vodka and Orange Juice Cocktails to Enjoy
Vodka and orange juice is a favorite combination for many drinkers. If you're looking to step beyond the Screwdriver, give one of these recipes a try.
Bocce Ball - Toss a little amaretto into the mix.
Creamsicle - How about some creamy vanilla?
Hairy Navel - Things get a little peachy in this drink.
Harvey Wallbanger - Top it with a Galliano float.
Madras - Cranberry juice dominates this fruity drink.
Related Articles
| i don't know |
In February 1942, Antonio Oscar Carmona was re-elected as president of which European country? | Portugal > History and Events > Date Table > Second Repubic
12th Period - Second Republic of Portugal
(20th Century)
20th C. -- --
Military Administration (1926-1932) 1926 31st May - Jos� Mendes Cabe�adas becomes Provisional President and Prime Minister (1926) 1926 3rd June - Ant�nio de Oliveira Salazar appointed Finance Minister 1926 3rd June - Congress of the Republic of Portugal (National Assembly) is dissolved 1926 3rd June - All Heads of Municipalities are substituted 1926 3rd June - The "Carbon�ria" (Police) is banned 1926 3rd June - All political parties are banned 1926 17th June - General Costa da Gomes provokes new military coup 1926 19th June - General Manuel Oliviera Costa da Gomes appointed Prime Minister (1926) 1926 19th June - Ant�nio de Oliveira Salazar resigns 1926 19th June - Offices of Republican newspapers are sacked 1926 22nd June - Censorship is instituted 1926 17th June - General Manuel Costa da Gomes becomes President (1926) 1926 9th July - General Costa da Gomes is dismissed and goes into exile 1926 9th July - Army coup places General Ant�nio �scar de Fragosa Carmona as Prime Minister (1926-1928) 1926 9th July - Ant�nio �scar de Fragoso Carmona as President (1926-1951) 1926 15th September - Another failed army coup 1926 16th December - Political police force is created in Lisbon 1926 2nd November - Offices of Republican Syndicates are sacked 1926 August - Another failed army coup 1926 December 1st - Students in Lisbon demonstrate against military dictatorship 1927 3rd February - Unsuccessful Republican revolt led by Agal�o Lan�a, first in Porto, followed by the Algarve, and finally some days later in Lisbon - some 1000 people arrested and deported to Colonies 1927 March - Political police force created in Porto 1927 April - Communist newspaper offices sacked 1927 May - Minimum school years reduced from six to four and separation of sexes in classrooms 1927 May - Trade Union Associated is dissolved 1927 26th August - Clashes between loyal Government troops and Republican rebels result in 150 killed and 800 injured. 1928 Construction commenced on Basilica de F�tima 1928 Failed coup by Republicans - Portuguese Communist Party offices closed 1928 February - Propaganda Commission is created 1928 18th April - Jos� Vicente de Freitas becomes Prime Minister (1928-1929) 1928 26th April - Ant�nio de Oliveira Salazar appointed Finance Minister for 2nd time and reorganises the national budget 1928 20th July - The commander and his soldiers in the Castelo de S�o Jorge in Lisbon revolted. This revolt was reflected in other parts of the country but all were quickly dispelled 1929 8th July - Artur Ivens Ferraz becomes Prime Minister (1929-1930) 1929 Catholic religious Orders are again permitted in Portugal 1929 24th October - Beginning of World Economic Depression in the USA. 1929 The Communist Party led by General Bento Gon�alves goes underground 1930 Colonial Act - defines Portuguese status and all its Colonies 1930 30th July - Ant�nio de Oliveira Salazar creates his new Party, the "Uni�o Nacional". 1930 Ant�nio de Oliveira Salazar presents his first declaration of adapting a dictatorial policy 1930 21st January - Domingos Augusto Alves da Costa e Oliveira becomes Prime Minister (1930-1932) 1931 Spain rejects their monarchy system and becomes a Republic 1931 June - Large shipment of arms for rebels discovered in Lisbon docks 1931 4th April - Inhabitants of Madeira support a General Strike against price of imported grain but are quelled by armed forces - riots spread to the Azores by 7th of April 1931 June - Foundation of "Alian�a Republicana Socialista" party led by General Norton de Matos 1931 26th August - Military and civilians join together and revolt in streets of Lisbon is violently quelled --
"Estado Novo" Administration (1932-1974) 1932 5th July - Ant�nio de Oliveira Salazar becomes Prime Minister (1932-1968) 1932 Death of Manuel II still in exile in England 1933 Creation of "Estado Novo" - dictatorship doctrine of Ant�nio de Oliveira Salazar with only one Political Party allowed 1933 Code of National Labour published banning all free Trade Unions 1933 26th August - Military rebellion in Bragan�a quickly quelled 1933 29th August - Creation of National Secret Political Police (PVDE) 1933 Censorship of Press is established 1934 Bento Gon�alves the leader of the Communist Party is arrested 1934 16th June - "Expo Colonias" in Porto 1934 18th January - General Strike and hundreds of demonstrators are arrested - Rioters take control of Marinha Grande but they are later severely put down by army 1934 16th December - Election results show 81.6% in favour of Oliveira Salazar 1935 Birth of sculptor Jorge Vieira (1934-1998) 1935 Birth of painter Paula Rego (1935-) 1935 17th February - Presidential Election results show 83.8% in favour of re-election of Ant�nio �scar de Fragoso Carmona 1935 10th April - Secret societies are banned in Portugal - however, leading members of Parliament remain members of the Masons 1935 Captain Mendes Norton and Dr Rol�o Pedro are arrested for planning a "coup d'etat" 1936 Creation of "Mocidade Portuguesa" under the command of Marcelo Caetano - compulsory paramilitary youth organisation for both men 1936 Outbreak of Spanish Civil War and Portugal supports Nationalist Party led by General Francisco Franco (1936-1939) 1936 Creation of "Batali�o de Viriatos" - Portuguese troops to support Nationalist Party in Spain 1936 National Secret Political Police (PVDE) is trained by German and Italian Fascists 1936 Birth of sculptor Jorge Vieira (1934-1998) 1936 Birth of painter J�lio Pomar (1936-) 1936 9th September - Two naval vessels attempt to desert to Republican forces fighting in Spain 1937 29th October - First political deported prisoners arrive at Tarrafal. 1937 Female section of "Mocidade Portuguesa" created 1937 "Campo de Contra��o do Tarrefal" opened in the Cape Verde islands for political prisoners - closed in 1945 1937 January - Students revolt in Lisbon and attack several State offices 1937 4th April - Bomb attempt on life of Oliveira Salazar 1937 10th June - Portugal participates in the International Exhibition in Paris, France 1937 4th July - Bomb attempt fails to assassinate Salazar in his car 1938 15th October - Radical political activist Em�dio Santana fails in his plot to assassinate Ant�nio Salazar 1938 30th October - Elections results show 83.7% in favour of Oliveira Salazar 1939 17th Mar - Portugal declares with Spain neutrality in outbreak of World War II and signs a Treaty between the two countries providing military support to each other in times of need 1939 Portugal participates in the International Exhibition in San Francisco, USA 1940 Portugal terminates South African control over Mozambique harbours, railways and mail 1940 Portuguese diplomatic relations with the Vatican partially restored 1940 International Exhibition of Portugal and its Possessions, Lisbon 1940 May - �lvaro Cunhal arrested and imprisoned 1940 December - Spain's leader Francisco Franco prepares a plan to invade Portugal and attack Gibraltar. Hitler dissuades him from this offensive 1940 22nd October - Political and Security Police forces remoulded under the title of "Pol�cia Internacional de Defesa do Estado" (PIDE) 1941 11th June - Salazar commences his persecution of members of the Communist Party. 1941 12th October - Germany sinks Portuguese merchant vessel to provoke Salazar into selling the mineral wolfram to Germany - they sink a second ship in December forcing Salazar to agree 1941 Timor is invaded by Dutch and Australian forces 1942 Ant�nio Salazar meets General Franco (Spain), to confirm mutual non-aggression pact 1942 13th February - Salazar meets with Gerneral Franco of Spain in Seville 1942 11th September - Political activist General Bento Gon�alves dies in prison at Tarrafal 1943 Portugal grants the U.S.A. Air Force usage of the air base at Pico in the Azores - this base was to prove essential in the War II 1943 Birth of footballer Eus�bio da Silva Ferreira (1943-) 1944 10th June - The "Est�dio Nacional de Jamor" inaugurated 1944 14th June - Salazar bends to the pressure of the British to stop supplying "wolfram" to Germany 1945 Birth of Dom Duarte in Switzerland, 22nd Duque de Bragan�a (1945-), Pr�ncipe de Beira 1945 National Secret Political Police (PVDE) is renamed (PIDE) 1945 8th October - "Movemento de Unidade Democr�tica" (MUD) is created with official permission 1945 Famine causes rebellion in cotton field workers in Angola 1945 Birth of Duarte Pio de Bragan�a 24th Duke of Bragan�a (1945-) 1946 11th October - Aborted attempt by military led by Lieutenant Quievoga Chaves to stage a "coup d'etat" 1947 Birth of sportsman Carlos Lopes (1947-) 1947 10th April - Aborted by Republican military supporters in Tomar 1948 In the Presidential election leading conservative politician Norton de Matos failed to be elected 1948 25th June - Death of political activist Bento de Jesus Cara�a 1949 Portugal is included into the organization of NATO 1949 President Ant�nio �scar de Fragoso Carmona meets with Francisco Franco of Spain 1949 "Movemento de Unidade Democr�tica" (MUD) supports General Norton de Matos who fails in a rigged Presidential election 1949 Ant�nio Egas Moniz awarded Nobel Prize for Medicine 1949 24th October - Elections results show 87.6% in favour of Oliveira Salazar 1949 13th November - Presidential Election results show 77.6% in favour of re-election of Ant�nio �scar de Fragoso Carmona 1950 27th February - Portuguese Government rejects suggestion that Goa becomes part of India 1951 18th April - Ant�nio de Oliveira Salazar as Prime Minister acts as Provisional President due to death of Ant�nio �scar de Fragoso Carmona(1951-1968) 1951 19th July - Presidential Election results show 77.6% in favour of Francisco Craveiro Lopes 1951 21st July - Francisco Higino Craveiro Lopes becomes President (1951-1958) 1951 All Portuguese colonies are renamed "Overseas Provinces" in an attempt to avert international political criticism 1952 1st June - Food rationing introduced during the war period is removed 1953 "Lei Org�nica Ultramar Portugu�s" - Law granting equality of opportunity in Portuguese Overseas Territories regardless of origin and education 1953 8th November - National elections return 120 Uni�o Nacional members and opposition registers only 10% of the total vote 1954 Oil is encountered in the north of Angola at Cabinda 1954 Am�lar Cabral founds in Guinea the MUD Party (Movimento de Uni�o Democratico) - he later also found another Party, PAIGC (Partido de Independ�ncia Nacional de Guin� e Cabo Verde) 1954 Dadra and Nagar Haveli Portuguese enclaves in Goa are occupied by India 1955 Portugal is admitted as a Member of the United Nations Organisation 1955 Portugal claim on the return of territories of Goa in the International Court of the Haque is upheld - India ignores the verdict 1955 Calouste Gulbenkian dies and wills his fortune to create a Cultural Foundation in Portugal 1955 7th July - Marcello Caetano is nominated to the Presidents Council 1956 "Partido Africano da Independ�ncia da Guin� e Capo Verde" is founded by Am�lcar Cabral 1957 "Frente Nacional de Liberta��o de Angola" (FLNA) is founded in northern Angola 1957 6th October - 1st Republican Congress held in Aveiro 1958 Birth of sportswoman Rosa Mota (1958-) 1958 8th June - Presidential Election results show 52.6% in favour of Admiral Am�rico Rodriques Tom�z - the Democratic candidate General Humberto Delgado was his only opponent 1958 9th August - Am�rico de Deus Rodrigues Tom�z becomes President (1958-1974) 1959 Portuguese soldier fire on protesters killing 50 at Bissau in Guinea 1959 12th March - Aborted attempt by Catholic military officers in Lisbon to stage a "coup d'etat" 1960 3rd June - �lvaro Cunhal escapes from Peniche prison near �bidos with 9 other prisoners on January 4th 1960 Portugal became a founding member of European Free Trade Association (EFTA) 1961 Acts of organised rebel sabotage commence in Guinea 1961 Ant�nio de Oliveira Salazar is appointed as Minister of National Defence in order to tackle the war in Africa 1961 1st January - Beja military led by Manuel Serra and Captain Varela Gomes stage a revolt which is quelled by forces of the State 1961 Famine causes another rebellion in Angola and the start of the Colonial War with an attack by FLNA on the capital Luanda on February 4th 1961 "Uni�o do Povo Angolano" (UPA) attacks in northern Angola killing hundreds of Portuguese colonialist and Africans 1961 22nd January - Captain Henrique Galv�o hijacks the passenger boat "Santa Maria" to draw attention to suffering under political dictatorship in Portugal 1961 3rd February - Rebel natives of MPCA (Movemento de Libera��o de Angola), assault two main prisons in Luanda, Angola leaving many injured and dead 1961 March - Portuguese troops commence their attempts to recover rebel controlled parts of Angola 1961 3rd March - A number of Portuguese settlers in the north of Luanda are massacred 1961 9th August - Portuguese troops retake town of Numbuangongo in Angola 1961 November - Palma In�cio distributes anti-government leaflets by air over Lisbon, Alentejo and Algarve 1961 4th December - A civil TAP airline is commandeered by Captain Henrique Galv�o to drop over Lisbon and the Alentejo leaflets supporting the cause of Democracy 1961 17th December - India annexes and occupies the Portuguese colonies of Goa, Dam�o and Diu 1961 19th December - Assassination of Marcelo Jos� Ant�nio Dias Coelho in Lisbon - presumably by agents of PIDE 1962 The FNLA (Frente Nacional de Libera��o de Angola) is formed by rebel leaders in Angola 1962 "Frente de Liberta��o de Mo�ambique" (MLF) is founded in Dar es Salaam in Tanzania 1962 Large student demonstration against the regime in Lisbon is suppressed by the Police 1962 PIDE uncover a plot by junior army officers to stage a "coup d'etat" 1963 Ant�nio Salazar meets with General Franco in M�rida, Spain 1963 Rebel military attack Portuguese military camp at Tipe, Guin� 1963 "Frente para a Liberta��o de Enclave de Cabinda" is founded and declare War on Portuguese colonialists 1964 Freedom fighters FRELIMO led by Eduardo Chirambo Moudlame attack Meude and gain control of most of northern Mozambique 1964 In Portuguese Guinea the joining of "The Peoples Army" with "The Peoples Guerrillas" forms the PAIGC 1963 Ant�nio Salazar meets with General Franco in M�rida, Spain 1965 Portuguese troops temporary regain control of rebel areas in Guinea 1965 13th February - Portuguese PIDE agents assinate Humberto Delgado in Spain 1966 6th August - Opening of "Ponte Salazar" over River Tagus - longest suspension bridge in Europe - renamed later after 1974 Revolution as "Ponte 25 de Abril" 1966 29th July - National Football team reach semi-finals in World Cup 1966 Creation in Portuguese in Angola of UNITA (Uni�o Nacional para a Independ�ncia Total de Angola), headed by Jonas Malheiro Savimbi 1967 17th May - Camilo Mort�gua robs Banco de Portugal in Figueira da Foz for political funds 1967 PAIGC had achieved occupation of two thirds of Portuguese Guinea 1968 25th September - Ant�nio de Oliveira Salazar resigns due to ill health 1968 25th September - Marcello das Neves Alves Caetano appointed Prime Minister - real power remains in the hands of President Admiral Am�rico T�maz and the pro-Salazar "Ultras" 1968 General Ant�nio de Spinola arrives in Angola to lead new military campaign against guerrillas 1969 The official only Party "Uni�o Nacional" is renamed "Acc�o Nacional Popular" 1969 The Police PIDE is renamed as DGS 1969 Second Congress of Democratic Opposition to the regime held in Aveiro 1969 May - President of Coimbra Academic Association is jailed for provoking political unrest 1969 13th February - Eduardo Moudlame assassinated in Dar-es-Salam - his leadership of the FRELIMO is taken over by Samora Marchel 1969 10th September - Election results show 88% in Marcello Caetano 1969 Marcello das Neves Alves Caetano fails in his attempt to open the regime to political tolerance 1970 Portuguese amphibious forces attack and free hundreds of prisoners of war held by the PAIGC in Conakry in Guinea 1970 27th July - Ant�nio de Oliveira Salazar dies 1970 20th August - First women joins Portuguese Cabinet 1970 The extreme left-wing radicals commence a bomb campaign on military and civilian targets - which include banks (1970-1974) 1971 Samora Marchel leader of FRELIMO in Mozambique requests the aid of United Nations to free its citizens from Portuguese rule 1971 12th December - Azores Meeting - Richard Nixon of the USA and Georges Pompidou of France meet in Azores 1972 Birth of footballer Lu�s Figo(1972-) 1972 10th April - Am�rico Thomaz visits Brazil to negotiate return of bones of Dom Pedro IV to Portugal(1972-) 1972 25th July - Presidential Election results in favour of Admiral Am�rico Rodriques Tom�z 1973 Am�lar Cabral is assassinated in Conakry 1973 Am�lar Cabral leader of PAIGC is assassinated in Conakry 1973 Independence of Guinea-Bissau (Portuguese Guinea) is declared 1973 4th April - Congress of Democratic Oppositio in Aveiro 1973 September - Meeting in Cascais of 200 anti-Salazar regime military officers 1973 1st December - Junior officers from the colonies meet secretly in �bidos and create the "Movimento dos Capit�es" and elect their leaders - Vitor Alves, Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho and Vasco Louren�o9 1973 Foundation of University of Minho in Braga 1973 December - General Kaulza de Arraiga putsch fails due to lack of other military support 1974 February - General Ant�nio de Spinola publishes his book "Portugal e o Futuro" and is removed from his position as he shows himself to in conflict to the regime - the book is inspires the army activists in plotting the downfall of the regime 1974 5th March - Leaders of "Movimento dos Capit�es" meet secretly in Cascais 1974 16th March - A military anti-regime coup from Caldas da Rainha organised by "Movimento dos Capit�es fails in its attempt 1974 Revolution by the armed forces and supported by the people on the 25th of April - only four people died on the day - also known as the "Carnation Revolution" -- -- 11th Period First Republic of Portugal (20th Century) 13th Period Third Republic of Portugal (20th Century)
| Portugal |
What was the nickname of the largest fixed-wing flying boat ever built, the Hughes H-4 Hercules, flown by Howard Hughes in November 1947, for just eight minutes, its only ever flight? | April 18 - History - On This Day
On This Day
On This Day in History for April 18
Full Calendar
Events 1 - 100 of 134
310 St Eusebius begins his reign as Catholic Pope
387 Bishop Ambrosius of Milan baptizes Augustinus
1025 Bolesław Chrobry is crowned in Gniezno, becoming the first King of Poland.
1506 The cornerstone of the current St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican, is laid.
1518 Bona Sforza is crowned as queen consort of Poland.
Event of Interest
1521 Diet of Worms: Cardinal Alexander questions Martin Luther
Founder of Protestanism
1552 Mauritius of Saksen occupies Linz
1663 Osman declares war on Austria
1666 Peace of Kleef: Netherlands & bishop Von Galen of Munster
1676 Sudbury, Massachussetts, attacked by Indians
1738 Real Academia de la Historia ("Royal Academy of History") founded in Madrid.
Event of Interest
1775 Paul Revere & William Dawes ride from Charleston to Lexington warning the "regulars are coming!"
American Patriot
1783 Fighting ceases in the American Revolution, eight years to the day since it began.
1797 France & Austria sign ceasefire
Event of Interest
1834 Charles Darwin sails to Rio Santa Cruz up Patagonia
Naturalist
Charles Darwin
Election of Interest
1835 William Lamb (Lord Melbourne) becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom after Robert Peel resigns out of frustration
British Prime Minister
1838 Wilkes' expedition to South Pole sails
1848 American victory at the battle of Cerro Gordo opens the way for invasion of Mexico.
1853 1st train in Asia (Bombay to Tanna, 36 km)
1856 Russian Chancellor Count Nesselrode resigns
1861 Battle of Harpers Ferry, Virginia, part of the Maryland Campaign (US Civil War)
Event of Interest
1861 Colonel Robert E. Lee turns down offer to command Union armies (US Civil War)
Confederate General
1862 Battle of Ft Jackson, Ft St Philip & New Orlean's, LA
1864 Battle of Poison Springs, AR (Camden Expedition)
Event of Interest
1865 Confederate Gen Johnson surrendered to General William T. Sherman in North Carolina
Union General
1868 San Francisco Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals formed
Event of Interest
1874 David Livingstone , African explorer, buried in Westminster Abbey
Physician and Explorer
1876 Daniel O'Leary completes a 500 mile walk in 139 hrs 32 min
1879 Trial of Standing Bear-Crook on indians citizen rights begins
1880 An F4 tornado strikes Marshfield, Missouri, killing 99 people and injuring 100.
1881 Natural History Museum opens in South Kensington, England
Event of Interest
1881 Billy the Kid escapes from the Lincoln County jail in Mesilla, New Mexico.
Frontier Outlaw
1890 NY Commission of Emigration ends, closing Castle Clinton
1899 John McGraw, at 36, managerial debut as Oriole manager
Event of Interest
1899 The St. Andrew's Ambulance Association is granted a Royal Charter by Queen Victoria .
Queen of the United Kingdom
1902 Denmark is first country to adopt fingerprinting to identify criminals
1904 L'Humanité, under Jean Jaurès begins publishing
1906 Calvinist Reformed Union in Neth Church forms in Utrecht
San Francisco Earthquake of 1906
1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire kills nearly 4,000 while destroying 75% of the city
1906 The Los Angeles Times story on the Azusa Street Revival launches Pentecostalism as a worldwide movement.
1907 Augustus Thomas' "Witching Hour" premieres in NYC
1907 Fairmont Hotel opens in San Francisco
1912 The Cunard liner RMS Carpathia brings 705 survivors from the RMS Titanic to New York City.
1912 Tripolitan War: in continuing hostilities, Turkey closes the Dardanelles Straits after an Italian naval bombardment of the coastline
1915 French pilot Roland Garros is shot down and glides to a landing on the German side of the lines during World War I.
1916 US Secretary of State Warns Germany that the USA may break diplomatic relations unless torpedo attacks on unarmed ships stop
1921 Junior Achievement incorporated in Colorado Spring
1921 Philip James Barry's "Punch for Judy" premieres in NYC
1923 74,000 (62,281 paid) on hand for opening of Yankee Stadium
1923 Poland annexes Central Lithuania
1924 1st crossword puzzle book published (Simon & Schuster)
1925 World's Fair opens in Chicago
1926 Rhein Stadium opens in Dusseldorf Germany
Event of Interest
1927 Chiang Kai-shek forms anti-government in China
Chinese Military and Political Leader
Chiang Kai-shek
1929 Palace for People's industry in Amsterdam devastated by fire
1930 Attempted raid on the armoury of police and auxiliary forces in Chittagong in Bengal province, British India by armed pro-independence revolutionaries led by Surya Sen popularly known as Master-da.
1934 1st "Washateria" (laundromat) opens (Fort Worth, Tx)
Event of Interest
1934 Hitler names Joachim von Ribbentrop ambassador for disarmament
Foreign Minister of the German Reich
1935 Gen Sarazen's double eagle on 15th, wins him his 2nd Masters
1935 Netherlands election (Musserts NSB wins 8% of vote)
1936 Pan-Am Clipper begins regular passenger flights from San Francisco to Honolulu
1938 Headless Mad Butcher victim found in Cleveland
1939 Franz von Papen becomes German ambassador in Turkey
1939 Hubert Pierlot forms Belgian government
1942 "Stars & Stripes" paper for US armed forces starts
Event of Interest
1942 James Doolittle bombs Tokyo & other Japanese cities
Aviation Pioneer
1944 Leonard Bernstein & Jerome Robbins' ballet premieres in NYC
1945 Epe freed (by corporal G van Aken)
1945 Clandestine Radio 1212, after broadcasting pro-nazi propoganda for months used their influence to trap 350,000 German army group B troops
1945 Diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and Bolivia are established.
1946 League of Nations dissolves (3 months after UN starts)
1946 US recognizes Tito's Yugoslavia government
1948 International Court of Justice opens at Hague Netherlands
1949 Republic of Ireland withdraws from British Commonwealth
1950 1st opening night-game, Cards beat Pirates, 4-2
1950 Polish Catholic church & government sign accord over relations
1951 Dutch Antilles government of Da Costa Gomez forms
1951 France, West Germany & Benelux form European Steel & Coal Community
1954 Colonel Gamal Abdal Nasser seizes power & becomes Prime Minister of Egypt
1955 1st "Walk"/"Don't Walk" lighted street signals installed
1955 1st Bandoeng Conference - Afro-Asian conference opens
1956 Egypt & Israel agree to a cease fire
1958 Government troops reconquer Padang, Middle-Sumatra Indonesia
1958 NL single-game record of 78,682, Giants lose to Dogers 6-5, in LA
Event of Interest
1958 A United States federal court rules that poet Ezra Pound is to be released from an insane asylum.
Poet
1961 CONCP is founded in Casablanca as a united front of African movements opposing Portuguese colonial rule.
1963 Dr James Campbell performed the 1st human nerve transplant
1964 Artisans strike in Belgium ends
1964 Sandy Koufax is 1st to strike out the side on 9 pitches
1964 Van Joe Orton's "Entertaining Mr Sloane"
1968 178,000 employees of US Bell Telephone System go on strike
1968 Dutch Department of Amnesty International forms
1968 London Bridge is sold to US oil company (to be erected in Arizona)
1968 Mart Crowley's "Boys in the Band" premieres in NYC
1968 Peter Luke's "Hadrian VII" premieres in London
1968 San Francisco's Old Hall of Justice demolished
1968 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1969 Melina Mercouri establishes Greek Aid Fund
1971 Gavaskar makes 220 in 2nd inning v WI after 124 in 1st
1972 The Widgery Report on 'Bloody Sunday' in Northern Ireland is published, causing outrage among the people of Derry who call it the "Widgery Whitewash"
Previous
1480 Lucretia Borgia, murderess (poison)/daughter (Pope Alexander VI)
1521 Francois de Coligny, ruler of van Andelot, French general (Jarnac)
1580 Thomas Middleton, English playwright (Game of Chess)
1590 Ahmed I, 14th Sultan of the Ottoman Emperor (1603-17); constructed the Blue Mosque
1732 George Colman, "the Elder
1740 Francis Baring, banker/merchant
1744 Pieter 't Hoen, Dutch journalist/patriot
1771 Karl Philipp Fürst zu Schwarzenberg, Austrian field marshal (d. 1820)
1797 Louis-Adolphe Thiers, president of France
1803 Charles F Pahud de Montagnes, gov-gen of Neth East Indies (1856-61)
1813 James McCune Smith, African-American doctor and abolitionist (d. 1865)
1817 George Henry Lewes, English philosophical writer (Life of Goethe)
1819 Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, Cuban Revolutionary (d. 1874)
1838 Paul Emile Lecoq de Boisbaudran, French scientist (d. 1912)
1839 Henry Clarence Kendall, New South Wales Australia, poet (Bell Birds)
1842 Antero Tarquinio de Quental, Portugal, poet (Beatrice)
1852 George Clausen, painter
1855 Abraham Bredius, Dutch art historian (Jan Steen)
1857 Clarence S Darrow, defense attorney at Scopes monkey trial
1859 Eduard G H H Cuypers, architect (Sanatorium High-Laren)
1864 Richard Harding Davis, American journalist and author (Soldiers of Fortune, The King's Jackal), born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (d. 1916)
1868 Didericus G van Epen, genealogist (Dutch Patriciate)
1872 Bernard Ogilvie Dodge, Mauston, Wisconsin, USA, American botanist and pioneer researcher on heredity in fungi
1874 Oskar Ernst Bernhardt, German author (d. 1941)
1875 Ivana Brlic-Mazuranic, Croatian writer (d. 1938)
1877 Vicente Sotto, Filipino patriot, author (d. 1950)
1881 Max Weber, Polish/Russian/US painter
1888 Arnold Henry Moore Lunn, skier
1889 Jessie Street, Austrialian pro womans/aborigine rights fighter
1896 C Eugene Wegmann, Swiss geologist (Le Jura plisse)
1897 Ardito Desio, Italian topographer (d. 2001)
1898 Lord Leatherland, British journalist/Labour peer
1900 Louise Tazewell, [Louise Skiller Tazewell], entertainer
1902 Giuseppe Pella, Prime Minister of Italy (d. 1981)
1905 George H. Hitchings, American scientist, Nobel laureate (d. 1998)
1906 Clara Eggink, [Ebbele], Dutch poetess (Life with JC Bloem)
1906 Edgar Unsworth, Justice of Appeals (Gibralter)
1907 Stephen Longstreet, American writer (All or Nothing)
1908 Edward Roberts, bishop (Ely)
1908 Henry Guinness, missionary
1910 Jamie L Whitten, (Rep-D-MS, 1941- )
1911 Francis Johnson, English architect, born in Bridlington (d. 1995)
1911 George Huntington Hartford II, American heir (A&P), born in NYC, New York
1912 John Lapworth Holt, boat Designer
1912 Wendy Barrie, Hong Kong, hostess (Wendy Barrie Show)
1913 Susan Bosence, textile designer
1914 Henk Lankhorst, pacifist/Dutch MP (PSP)
1915 Joy Gresham Lewis, American writer, wife of C. S. Lewis (d. 1960)
1917 Louise Frederika, Queen of Greece
1918 Roger de Grey, president (Royal Academy)
1918 Cliff Hillegass, American publisher (d. 2001)
1920 Walter Clegg, British politician (C), born in Bury, Lancashire (d. 1994)
1923 Beryl Platt [Baroness Platt of Writtle], British Engineer, politician and CEO (Equal Opportunities Comm)
1923 Leif Panduro, Danish writer ('k Have varnish on traditions)
1924 Henry J Hyde, (Rep-R-IL)
1924 Lord Mason of Barnsley, MP (Lab)/British defense secretary
1924 Raf de Linde, [Raphael van Hecke], author (Vaarwel on Gertrude)
1927 Tadeusz Mazowiecki, premier of Poland (1989-90)
Person of Interest
1927 Samuel P. Huntington , American political scientist (The Clash of Civilizations) and presidential adviser, born in NYC, New York (d. 2008)
Political Scientist and Presidential Adviser
1929 Peter Hordern, British CEO (Fina)
1932 Dominic Milroy, OSB/headmaster (Ampleforth College England)
1933 Alan Devereux, CEO (Scottish Tourist Board)
1934 Jaap Scherpenhuizen, Groningen, Netherlands, Dutch MP (VVD)
1935 Joel Hefley, (Rep-R-Colorado)
1936 Brian Fuller, commandant (Fire Service College, England)
1936 Madeleine Gillian Jinkinson, medical administrator
1937 Jan Kaplický, British architect of Czech origin
1938 Andreas J "Cat" Liebenberg, supreme commander (South African army)
1939 Thomas J. Moyer, American judge
1940 Ira von Furstenberg, [Virginia Caroline] Princess (Monaco), born in Rome, Italy
1940 Joseph L Goldstein, Sumter SC, physician (Nobel-1985)
1942 Dick K J Tommel, chemist/(D66) Dutch Asst Sec of State (1994- )
Person of Interest
680 Mu'awijja, kalief of Al-Schaam, dies
1161 Theobald of Bec, Archbishop of Canterbury
1504 Filippino Lippi, Italian renaissance painter, dies at about 52
1530 Francois Lambert d'avignon, French church reformer, dies at about 43
1552 John Leland, antiquary, dies
1556 Luigi Alamanni, Italian poet (Flora, Antigone), dies at 61
1558 Roxelana, wife of Suleiman the Magnificent
1567 Wilhelm von Grumbach, German military man, dies at 63
1587 John Foxe, author (Book of Martyrs), dies
1610 Robert Parsons, English jesuit leader/plotter, dies at 63
1612 Emanuel Van Meteren, merchant/historian, dies
1636 Julius Caesar, English judge
1650 Simonds d'Ewes, English antiquarian (b. 1602)
1674 John Graunt, English statistician (b. 1620)
1679 Hofmannswaldau, writer, dies
1684 Gonzales Cocx, [Coques], painter, dies
1689 George Jeffreys, 1st Baron Jeffreys of Wem/infamous judge, dies
1690 Charles V Leopold, Duke of Lotharingen/Austrian fieldmarshal, dies
1732 Louis Feuillée, French explorer (b. 1660)
1794 Charles Pratt, 1st Earl Camden, Lord Chancellor of Great Britain (b. 1714)
1796 Johan Wilcke, Swedish physicist (b. 1732)
1800 Pieter Fouquet, art merchant (Atlas of Fouquet), dies
1807 Erasmus Darwin, physician writer and botanist (Influence), dies (b. 1731)
1818 Pieter PJQ Ondaatje, Ceylon/Dutch lawyer, dies at 59
1845 Nicholas T the Saussure, Swiss chemist/botany, dies at 77
1853 William King, US VP, dies a month after his inauguration
1855 Jean-Baptiste Isabey, painter, dies
1867 Robert Smirke, architect, dies
1871 Omar Pasha, [Michael Lats], Croatian governor, dies at 64
1873 Justus Freiherr von Liebig, German chemist, dies at 69
1879 Anthony Pannizim, principal librarian (British Museum), dies
1898 Gustave Moureau, painter, dies
1906 Luis Martín, Spanish Superior-General of the Society of Jesus (b. 1846)
1917 Moritz F Freiherr von Bissing, gov-gen of Belgium (1914-17), dies at 73
1917 Vladimir Serbsky, Russian psychiatrist (b. 1858)
1935 Ignazio Guidi, Italian orientalist/archaeologist, dies at 90
1935 Panait Istrati, Romanian writer (b. 1884)
1940 Florrie Forde, music hall artist, dies
1940 Herbert Albert Laurens Fisher, historian, dies
1941 ... Korysis, PM of Greece, commits suicide
1942 Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, American socialite (b. 1875)
1943 I Yamamoto, admiral of Japanese fleet, dies
1945 John Ambrose Fleming, electrical engineer, dies
1945 Ernie Pyle, American journalist (b. 1900)
1949 Leonard Bloomfield, linguist/philosopher, dies
1951 António Óscar Carmona, 97th Prime Minister of Portugal and 11th President of Portugal (b. 1869)
1955 Eugen Herrigel, Zen philosopher/scholar, dies in Germany at 70
Person of Interest
1958 Maurice-Gustave Gamelin, French generalissmo (WW I, WW II), dies at 85
1958 Richard B Goldschmidt, German zoologist (butterflies), dies
1960 Emory Johnson, director (Phantom Express, Shield of Honor), dies at 66
1963 Henrietta Kreis, 3rd of famous Wallenda aerialist to fall to death
1963 Meyer Jacobstein, American politician (b. 1880)
1964 Ben Hecht, playwright (Child of the Century), dies at 71
1965 Guillermo González Camarena, Mexican inventor (b. 1917)
1974 Marcel Pagnol, French writer/movie (Topaz), dies at 79
1976 Percy Julian, holder of more than 138 chemical patents, dies at 78
1976 Mahmoud Younis, Suez Canal nationalization Engineer (b. 1911)
1986 Marcel Dassault, [Bloch], French airplane builder, dies at 94
1993 Arthur P Smith, US founder of Miami Planetarium, dies at 76
1993 Masahiko Kimura, Japanese judoka (b. 1917)
1993 Dame Elisabeth Frink, English sculptor and printmaker dies of cancer aged 62
1994 Ken Oosterbroek, South African press photographer, shot dead at 32
1995 Arturo Frondizi, President of Argentina (1958-62), dies
1996 Kalim Siddiqui, islamic campaigner, dies at 62
1996 Piet Hein, architect/poet/mathematician/inventor, dies at 80
1996 Robert William Paine, architect, dies at 88
1997 Edward Barker, cartoonist, dies at 46
1998 Terry Sanford, American politician (b. 1917)
Person of Interest
| i don't know |
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