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You couldn’t have had a clearer demonstration of what democracy now counts for in Europe than this week’s immolation of Greece. In January, after five years of grinding austerity imposed by the troika of creditors had shrunk its economy by a quarter and pushed millions into poverty, Greeks rebelled and elected an anti-austerity government.
Following months of fruitless negotiations, the country voted last week to reject the latest cuts, tax rises and privatisations demanded to deal with the disastrous impact of the first phase of austerity. The response of the eurozone’s masters was immediately to ratchet up the pain still further. For the “breach of trust” of daring to put the terms to its people, Athens was to be punished. So on Monday – threatened with expulsion from the eurozone and economic collapse courtesy of the European Central Bank’s cash blockade – the Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, bent the knee.
The left must now campaign to leave the EU | Owen Jones Read more
In exchange for what is called a bailout, but is in reality the imposition of new debts to pay existing creditors, the Greeks must hand over €50bn (£35bn) of public assets to an “independent” privatisation fund. On top of that, they have to inject more austerity into a shrinking economy and reverse any legislation deemed unsuitable by the eurozone’s overlords – in other words, the opposite of everything Tsipras and his Syriza party were elected to do.
That’s why European officials were so keen to let it be known that Tsipras had been “crucified” and “mentally waterboarded”. Greece would be turned into an economic “protectorate”, one purred, where all key decisions would be taken by foreign governments and unelected EU bureaucrats. No wonder Greek leaders declared that they had been subjected to a coup, while the ex-finance minister Yanis Varoufakis compared the “deal” to the Versailles treaty. This is the diktat of a bankers’ ramp that can barely tolerate even a facade of democracy.
That’s been a familiar pattern in the developing world for decades, in the guise of IMF and World Bank structural adjustment programmes. But the eurozone has now given it permanent institutional form. The idea that this crisis has simply pitted one democratic mandate – that of Greece – against the hard-pressed taxpayers of 18 other eurozone members is nonsense.
Not only have the loans that bailed out French and German lenders, rather than Greece, been highly profitable. But the real fear of eurozone governments is that if Greece’s rebellion against austerity is rewarded, other European electorates will want to go the same way. Which is why Syriza must not only be defeated, but utterly crushed.
That this is about politics more than economics should now be obvious. It’s not just that the austerity imposed on Greece has delivered a 1930s-style depression, or that Ukraine was recently bailed out with generous debt write-offs but without any crucifixions or waterboarding. One part of the troika, the IMF – dominated by a US anxious to keep Greece in the Atlanticist camp – has now revealed it is well aware Greece’s debts will never be repaid without massive relief and that this week’s deal could swell them to more than 200% of GDP. In other words, it won’t work. But pre-Keynesian balanced-budget economics has the eurozone’s rulers in its grip, as they seek to overcome the crisis by restoring corporate profitability.
It was Syriza’s commitment to opposing austerity while remaining in the euro at all costs that led to capitulation. What helped win the election became a fatal handicap in office, as Tsipras resisted pressure even to make contingency plans for Grexit. That would have strengthened his negotiating hand, as well as giving Greece the option of escaping indefinite economic depression.
The short-term costs of exit would certainly be harsh. But, combined with measures to take control of the economy and tax the oligarchs, it at least offers the chance of longer-term recovery. That’s now the view of many inside Syriza and beyond, including those who voted against the eurozone diktat in the Greek parliament yesterday, and support is likely to grow as economic asphyxiation resumes. Otherwise, the far right will be the main beneficiary.
Either way, the fallout from what has happened this week is likely to be momentous. Even if the latest deal is softened and holds for a few months – under the formal aegis of a wounded Syriza-led government, or not – it won’t last. Sooner or later Greece will be forced out of the euro, or leave of its own accord. The only question is who will control that process.
Once that happens, and euro membership is seen to be reversible, the future of the wider eurozone will be thrown into question. A half-baked currency union, without fiscal transfers or democratic structures, cannot last. A eurozone nakedly dominated by one state, Germany, enforcing destructive austerity on its vassals with such brutality, can have no enduring legitimacy.
What kind of a union treats one of its members like a recalcitrant colony and dismisses its democracy as an affront?
While it has benefited German capital, 16 years of the euro have delivered flat wages to German workers and stagnant growth and productivity to countries such as Italy. This week has made a mockery of monetary union as a path to a united democratic Europe and opened the way for the eurozone’s breakup.
Once that process begins, expect the future of the European Union itself, with the eurozone at its heart, to be put in question. What kind of a union of partners treats one of its members like a recalcitrant colony, destroys its economy if it steps out of line, and dismisses its democracy as an impudent affront? In fact it’s one that has always ducked democratic accountability, embedded deregulation and privatisation in treaties, and preferred to fix policy – including the race-to-the-bottom Transatlantic Trade Investment Partnership – with corporate interests in secret.
British progressives and the European Union: should we stay or should we go? | Letters Read more
It’s hardly surprising that hostility to the EU, which shows no signs of being open to deep-seated reform, is growing across the continent. Or that many progressive people in Britain, previously attracted to what seemed its cooperative internationalism, are moving towards voting no in the planned in-out referendum in the face of its brutal authoritarianism towards Greece. In their zeal to discipline the eurozone, the continent’s elites are killing their European project. |
Jordanian police beat protesters during a demonstration in Amman on July 15, 2011[AFP]
The Jordan Press Association says it plans to sue the police department after 15 journalists, including Al Jazeera's senior journalist in the country, were beaten up as they covered a demonstration on Friday in Amman.
The announcement comes one day after four policemen suspected of attacking the journalists were arrested.
"The union will file individual and collective lawsuits against the public security department," Tareq Momani, the JPA president, said on Sunday at a sit-in outside the association.
At least 17 people, including journalists and policemen, were injured on Friday when police tried to stop clashes between pro-reform demonstrators and government supporters in central Amman.
Yasser Abu Hilala, Al Jazeera's Amman bureau chief, said he was among those targeted by police.
"I was attacked as I was doing my job with other journalists," Abu Hilala said. "Several policemen and thugs tried to pull the cord of the camera and as I tried to stop them they started to punch and kick me."
"Al Jazeera has been singled out from the rest of the media outlets because they see [Al Jazeera] as instigators who highlighted what happened on [Friday 15 in Nakheel Square] ... This kind of brutality against media is unheard of in Jordanian history."
Abu Hilala said four of the injured journalists were still in the hospital and that unofficial pro-government websites had been calling for people to attack and kill him.
'Especially shocking'
Police used batons to break up Friday's clashes outside city hall, assaulting journalists wearing orange vests marked "Press".
"I apologise to journalists for agreeing with the police department to make them wear the vests. This was apparently nothing more than a trap," Momani said.
"The attack on the journalists reflects an alarming hostility by the security forces towards the media," Lamis Andoni, a political commentator, told Al Jazeera. "It is especially shocking because the head of the public security had given gurantees that journalists would be protected by the police."
"So far, people have been demanding reforms but such actions by security forces will only provoke more popular anger and more radical demands," she said.
A statement from the criminal investigation department said "[Chief] General Hussein Majali has formed a committee of inquiry into the attacks on the journalists who were simply doing their jobs".
The results of the probe were to be announced within 72 hours, it said, vowing to "refer to courts those who have a case to answer".
"These police measures are not enough. There are dozens of policemen who should be held accountable," Momani said.
MPs and Islamist leaders took part in Sunday's sit-in, and, during a parliamentary session, issued a statement condemning attacks on freedom of speech and expression, Al Jazeera's Nisreen El Shamayleh, reporting from Amman, said.
The statement stressed that parliament would not tolerate attacks on journalists, and said everyone linked to the violence must be held accountable.
"I salute the journalists. What happened will not silence calls for reform," Hamzah Mansur, head of the opposition Islamic Action Front (IAF), said.
"I congratulate our journalists who insist on reporting the truth about our people's grand aspirations."
Anger at the PM
Protesters are demanding that Maaruf Bakhit, the Jordanian prime minister, face trial over the incident.
About 400 people demonstrated outside his office on Saturday, condemning Friday's violence and demanding the resignation of his government and his trial.
"Freedom, freedom! No to martial laws. We say to the intelligence services that Jordanians are still alive," they chanted amid a heavy security presence.
The protesters carried banners reading: "The people want the downfall of the government. We want to put Bakhit and the attackers of demonstrators on trial."
Since January, Jordan has faced a protest movement demanding political and economic reforms and an end to corruption. |
Palmer Luckey has IT issues. We’re due to speak – but he can’t be contacted. Eventually, his UK PR gets in touch. “Palmer hasn’t even received any emails,” he says. “Emails can’t get in from outside the building.”
It’s September 19, 2016, the day before the Oculus Rift, the virtual reality headset Luckey invented, goes on sale in the UK.
It’s also the date of Luckey’s 24th birthday.
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Do you remember your 24th birthday? Maybe you do; maybe you don’t; maybe it hasn’t happened yet. Whatever: take all thoughts about this event and remove them from your mind. Because Palmer Luckey has lived a life unlike any twenty-four-year-old you have ever met.
Consider this: you’re 19 and you invent a virtual reality headset. A month before your birthday, you post it on Kickstarter, where it raises $2.4 million. By the time you’re 20, you’re a millionaire.
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“It is potentially the final computing platform. This is generalising, but if you have perfect virtual reality, you don't have to perfect much else.” Palmer Luckey, Oculus founder
You drop out of college to go full time on Oculus. Then Facebook buys your company for $2 billion. You’re 21 and worth $700 million.
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What else? Oh yes: TIME puts you on its cover, floating in front of an image of a beach. Now you’re a meme. Someone sues you, claiming you’re a fraud. And then there’s the business, now a multinational operation with “several hundred people” – such is the level of secrecy you can’t reveal the exact number. And still you’re barely 24. It's unimaginable.
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But if you ask Luckey himself, he says: “You know, it's kind of weird, but I don’t think all that much has changed. Until very recently we've been very much doing the same thing we're always doing.”
Read next Will HTC's eye-tracking tech be enough to take VR mainstream? Will HTC's eye-tracking tech be enough to take VR mainstream?
It’s the day after our scheduled meeting, and in San Francisco, where Luckey is based, it’s 9am. He joins our call with a boisterous, “How's it going!” If he’s tired or hungover he’s doing a good job hiding it. How did he spend his 24th birthday?
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“I worked.”
Oh. Is that all?
“I also went out to dinner with some friends. But mostly I really like being at work. That’s where all my friends are right now anyway.”
Luckey’s official title at Oculus is “founder”, but he’s not the boss. “I've never wanted to be a CEO,” he says. “I handed over that role real fast when I started the company.” Thirty-seven-year-old Brendan Iribe runs the place, worrying about things like why emails aren’t getting through. (Luckey: “Yeah, we're rolling through some kind of email migration, I'm not sure what the details are.”) Luckey, who dislikes shoes, wanders around barefoot or in surfer-style flip-flops. When he decided to deliver the first Oculus Rift in person, he was photographed wearing a Hawaiian shirt in the Alaskan winter.
Read next Forget the VR hype. In healthcare, it's making a real difference Forget the VR hype. In healthcare, it's making a real difference
Day-to-day, his role is hard to define. He helps external developers create material for VR, and works on cool new hardware, such as Oculus’ long-awaited Touch hand controllers, which he says should be launching soon. “That was my pet project for a couple of years, so that's pretty exciting to finally get that out there.”
Luckey also thinks about the future of virtual reality. Not so much the next steps: “Higher resolution, lighter weight, lower cost – those are just really obvious.” He’s excited by facial recognition, eye-tracking or the ability to make virtual scans of your immediate environment.
“Those are the types of things that are eventually going to turn virtual reality and augmented reality, which is really just the same technology but on a different end of the use case spectrum, into something that we actually use every day,” he says.
Luckey spends “a lot of time” playing games, but when he talks about the uses of VR he has far bigger things in mind than gaming. “This idea of virtual reality as a gaming technology is actually a really very recent idea. If you look back 10, 20 even 30 years, virtual reality in science fiction is always depicted as an enabling technology to enable people to do all kinds of things. Like working remotely, education, medical training, really anything you can imagine in this kind of digital parallel world where the rules of the real word don't apply.”
Ah yes, science fiction. Speak to anyone in VR and it’s never long before it comes up. At Oculus, the inspiration is explicit: on arrival, each new employee is presented with a copy of Ernest Cline’s VR novel, Ready Player One. Which is weird when you think about it, because Ready Player One isn’t motivational reading, it’s a dystopia.
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Luckey downplays that aspect of the book. He’s spoken to Cline, he says, as well as other science-fiction authors. He doesn’t think their books were intended as predictions. “The reality is that when people make dystopian worlds based on VR, whether it's Ready Player One, or Snow Crash or The Matrix, the honest truth is, they’re trying to tell a good story, and a good story has conflict.”
“Nobody really wants to make a story about VR,” he continues, “where the plot is that virtual reality comes around, changes the world, makes it a better place and everything kind of goes on as it is but better, because that’s not an interesting story to tell.”
That’s also not the way the world tends to work. In fact, for Luckey and Oculus, conflict is already here, most notably in the form of HTC and Valve, whose rival Vive headset beat Oculus to market. Sony and Google are releasing competitors, as is – reportedly – Apple. And of course Oculus is owned by Facebook, an aggressive giant whose founder and CEO roused his troops by chanting the Latin battle cry, “Carthago delenda est!”
Is Luckey ready for the wars to come? “Well, I think we have to be!” he says. “The platform wars are of course inevitable.” But, he adds, “I want good VR to exist, I want to use it for all the things I've always wanted to use it for. Making the best VR platform is certainly an end to that, but my goal at the end of the day is not to go to bed and then wake up to win a platform war. It's to wake up and go make VR incredible.”
Maybe Luckey’s just glad to have company. After all, he’s been working on virtual reality since he was 16 – and back then, he says, most people just thought he was crazy. “When you're the only company working on something, you really do seem like a bunch of nutters. When there's a bunch of companies that are all working on it, that's kind of a good sign. It means other people see what you see, and that they agree it's going to be significant.”
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But here’s the thing: when Luckey says all he wants to do is to see VR exist, he seems to mean it. On his Twitter feed, he regularly endorses rival products: the new, more powerful Playstation earned a “This is good for VR!”, even though it was designed for Sony's competitor headset. In the early days of Oculus, Luckey planned to sell the blueprints to the Rift for enthusiasts to build themselves. Even after all this time, he appears to feel the same way. He’s heading towards the promised land of science-fiction, where all conflicts will be resolved and we will have freedom to do whatever we want.
“VR is basically the ultimate technology,” he says. “It is potentially the final computing platform. This is generalising, but if you have perfect virtual reality, you don't have to perfect much else.” In other words, you can stop fighting, because there’s nothing left to conquer.
But in tech, very little is accomplished without a fight. Fun matters, but so do tactics and strategy, the IT issues of the daily grind. Will Palmer Luckey still be dreaming happily of VR on his 25th birthday? “I've been going at this for quite some time,” he says. “And I still like doing it.” Maybe, ultimately, that’s all that matters. |
Pedro Calderón de la Barca y Barreda González de Henao Ruiz de Blasco y Riaño, usually referred as Pedro Calderón de la Barca ( Spanish pronunciation: [ˈpeðɾo kaldeˈɾon de la ˈβaɾka]; 17 January 1600 – 25 May 1681), was a dramatist, poet and writer of the Spanish Golden Age. During certain periods of his life he was also a soldier and a Roman Catholic priest. Born when the Spanish Golden Age theatre was being defined by Lope de Vega, he developed it further, his work being regarded as the culmination of the Spanish Baroque theatre. As such, he is regarded as one of Spain's foremost dramatists and one of the finest playwrights of world literature.[1]
Biography [ edit ]
Primera parte de Comedias verdaderas (1726) Calderón de la Barca's portrait, in(1726)
Calderón was born in Madrid. His mother, who was of Flemish descent, died in 1610; his father, an hidalgo of Cantabrian origins who was secretary to the treasury, died in 1615. Calderón was educated at the Jesuit College in Madrid, the Colegio Imperial, with a view to taking orders; but instead, he studied law at Salamanca.
Between 1620 and 1622 Calderón won several poetry contests in honor of St Isidore at Madrid. Calderón's debut as a playwright was Amor, honor y poder, performed at the Royal Palace on 29 June 1623. This was followed by two other plays that same year: La selva confusa and Los Macabeos. Over the next two decades, Calderón wrote more than 70 plays, the majority of which were secular dramas written for the commercial theatres.
Calderón served with the Spanish army in Italy and Flanders between 1625 and 1635. By the time Lope de Vega died in 1635, Calderón was recognized as the foremost Spanish dramatist of the age. Calderón had also gained considerable favour in the court, and in 1636–1637 he was made a knight of the Order of Santiago by Philip IV, who had already commissioned from him a series of spectacular plays for the royal theatre in the newly built Buen Retiro palace. On 28 May 1640 he joined a company of mounted cuirassiers recently raised by Gaspar de Guzmán, Count-Duke of Olivares, took part in the Catalan campaign, and distinguished himself by his gallantry at Tarragona. His health failing, Calderón retired from the army in November 1642, and three years later was awarded a special military pension in recognition of his services in the field.
Calderón's biography during the next few years is obscure. His brother, Diego Calderón, died in 1647. A son, Pedro José, was born to Calderón and an unknown woman between 1647 and 1649; the mother died soon after. Calderón committed his son to the care of his nephew, José, son of Diego. Perhaps for reasons relating to these personal trials, Calderón became a tertiary of the order of St Francis in 1650, and then finally joined the priesthood. He was ordained in 1651, and became a priest at San Salvador church, in Madrid. According to a statement he made a year or two later, he decided to give up writing secular dramas for the commercial theatres.
Though he did not adhere strictly to this resolution, he now wrote mostly mythological plays for the palace theatres, and autos sacramentales—one-act allegories illustrating the mystery of the Eucharist—for performance during the feast of Corpus Christi. In 1662, two of Calderón's autos, Las órdenes militares and Mística y real Babilonia, were the subjects of an inquiry by the Inquisition; the former was censured, its manuscript copies confiscated, and remained condemned until 1671.
Calderón was appointed honorary chaplain to Philip IV in 1663, and continued as chaplain to his successor. In his eighty-first year he wrote his last secular play, Hado y Divisa de Leonido y Marfisa, in honor of Charles II's marriage to Maria Luisa of Orléans.
Notwithstanding his position at court and his popularity throughout Spain, near the end of his life Calderón struggled with financial difficulties, but with the motivation of the Carnival of 1680 he wrote his last work of comedy, Hado y divisa de Leonido y de Marfisa. He died May 25, 1681, leaving only partially complete the autos sacramentales that he had been working on for that year. His burial was austere and unembellished, as he desired in his will: "Uncovered, as if I deserved to satisfy in part the public vanities of my poorly spent life". In this manner he left the theatres orphaned in which he was considered one of the best dramatic writers of his time.[2]
Style [ edit ]
Calderón initiated what has been called the second cycle of Spanish Golden Age theatre. Whereas his predecessor, Lope de Vega, pioneered the dramatic forms and genres of Spanish Golden Age theatre, Calderón polished and perfected them. Whereas Lope's strength lay in the sponteneity and naturalness of his work, Calderón's strength lay in his capacity for poetic beauty, dramatic structure and philosophical depth. Calderón was a perfectionist who often revisited and reworked his plays, even long after they were first performed. This perfectionism was not just limited to his own work: several of his plays rework existing plays or scenes by other dramatists, improving their depth, complexity, and unity. Calderón excelled above all others in the genre of the "auto sacramental", in which he showed a seemingly inexhaustible capacity to giving new dramatic forms to a given set of theological and philosophical constructs. Calderón wrote 120 "comedias", 80 "autos sacramentales" and 20 short comedic works called entremeses.
As Goethe notes, Calderón tended to write his plays taking special care of their dramatic structure. He therefore usually reduced the number of scenes in his plays as compared to those of Lope de Vega, so as to avoid any superfluity and present only those scenes essential to the play, also reducing the number of different metres in his plays for the sake of gaining a greater stylistic uniformity. Although his poetry and plays leaned towards culteranismo, he usually reduced the level and obscurity of that style by avoiding metaphors and references away from those that uneducated viewers could understand. However, he had a liking for symbolism, for example making a fall from a horse a metaphor of a fall into disgrace, the fall representing dishonour; the use of horoscopes or prophecies at the start of the play as a way of making false predictions about the following to occur, symbolizing the utter uncertainty of future. In addition, probably influenced by Cervantes, Calderón realized that any play was but fiction, and that the structure of the baroque play was entirely artificial. He therefore sometimes makes use of meta-theatrical techniques such as making his characters read in a jocose manner the clichés the author is using, and they are thus forced to follow. Some of the most common themes of his plays were heavily influenced by his Jesuit education. For example, as a reader of Saint Thomas Aquinas and Francisco Suárez, he liked to confront reason against the passions, intellect against instinct, or understanding against will. In common with many writers from the Spanish Golden Age, his plays usually show his vital pessimism, that is only softened by his rationalism and his faith in God; the anguish and distress usually found his œuvre is better exemplified in one of his most famous plays, La Vida es sueño (Life Is a Dream), in which Segismundo claims:
¿Qué es la vida? Un frenesí.
¿Qué es la vida? Una ilusión,
una sombra, una ficción,
y el mayor bien es pequeño.
¡Que toda la vida es sueño,
y los sueños, sueños son! What is life? A frenzy.
What is life? An illusion,
A shadow, a fiction,
And the greatest good is small;
For all of life is a dream,
And dreams, are only dreams.
Indeed, his themes tended to be complex and philosophical, and express complicated states of mind in a manner that few playwrights have been able to manage. Like Baltasar Gracián, Calderón favoured only the deepest human feelings and dilemmas.
Since Calderón's plays were usually represented at the court of the King of Spain, he had access to the most modern techniques regarding scenography. He collaborated with Cosme Lotti in developing complex scenographies that were integrated in some of his plays, specially his most religious-themed ones such as the Autos Sacramentales, becoming extremely complex allegories of moral, philosophical and religious concepts.
Reception [ edit ]
Although his fame dwindled during the 18th century, he was rediscovered in the early 19th century by the German Romantics. Translations of August Wilhelm Schlegel reinvigorated interest in the playwright, who, alongside Shakespeare, subsequently became a banner figure for the German Romantic movement.[3] E. T. A. Hoffmann based his 1807 singspiel Liebe und Eifersucht on a play by Calderón, La banda y la flor (The Scarf and the Flower), translated by Schlegel. In subsequent decades, Calderón's work was translated into German numerous times, most notably by Johann Diederich Gries and Joseph von Eichendorff, and found significant reception on the German and Austrian stages under the direction of Goethe, and Joseph Schreyvogel. Later significant German adaptations include Hugo von Hofmannsthal's versions of La vida es sueño and El gran teatro del mundo.
Although best known abroad as the author of Doctor Zhivago, Boris Pasternak produced acclaimed Russian translations of Calderón's plays during the late 1950s. According to his mistress, Olga Ivinskaya,
In working on Calderón he received help from Nikolai Mikhailovich Liubumov, a shrewd and enlightened person who understood very well that all the mudslinging and commotion over the novel would be forgotten, but that there would always be a Pasternak. I took finished bits of the translation with me to Moscow, read them to Liubimov at Potapov Street, and then went back to Peredelkino, where I would tactfully ask [Boris Leonidovich] to change passages which, in Liubimov's view departed too far from the original. Very soon after the "scandal" was over, [Boris Leonidovich] received a first payment for the work on Calderón.[4]
Twentieth-century Calderón reception suffered significantly under the influence of Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo, but a revival of interest in Calderón scholarship can be largely attributed to British reception, namely through the works of A. A. Parker (who considered La hija del aire to be his finest work ),[5] A. E. Sloman and more recently Bruce Wardropper.
English [ edit ]
Although not well known to the current English-speaking world, Calderón's plays were first adapted into English during the 17th century. For instance, Samuel Pepys recorded attending to some plays during 1667 which were free translations of some of Calderón's. Percy Bysshe Shelley translated a substantial portion of El Mágico prodigioso. Some of Calderón's works have been translated into English, notably by Denis Florence MacCarthy, Edward FitzGerald, Roy Campbell, Edwin Honig, Kenneth Muir & Ann L. Mackenzie, Adrian Mitchell, and Gwynne Edwards.
Works [ edit ]
Plays [ edit ]
Amor, honor y poder ( Love, Honor and Power ) (1623)
( ) (1623) El sitio de Breda (The Siege of Breda) (1625)
La vida es sueño (Life is a dream) Calderon dela Barca, Life is a dream, act II, scene 19, Monologue of Segismundo Problems playing this file? See media help.
La dama duende ( The Phantom Lady ) (1629)
( ) (1629) Casa con dos puertas ( The House with Two Doors ) (1629)
( ) (1629) La vida es sueño ( Life is a Dream ) (1629–1635)
( ) (1629–1635) El mayor encanto, amor ( Love, the Greatest Enchantment ) (1635)
( ) (1635) Los tres mayores prodigios ( The Three Greatest Wonders ) (1636)
( ) (1636) La devoción de la Cruz ( Devotion to the Cross ) (1637)
( ) (1637) El mágico prodigioso ( The Mighty Magician ) (1637)
( ) (1637) A secreto agravio, secreta venganza (Secret Vengeance for Secret Insult) (1637)
(1637) El médico de su honra ( The Surgeon of his Honor ) (1637)
( ) (1637) El pintor de su deshonra ( The Painter of His Dishonor ) (1640s)
( ) (1640s) El alcalde de Zalamea ( The Mayor of Zalamea ) (1651)
( ) (1651) La hija del aire ( The Daughter of the Air ) (1653)
( ) (1653) Eco y Narciso ( Eco and Narcissus ) (1661)
( ) (1661) La estatua de Prometeo ( Prometheus' Statue )
( ) El prodigio de Alemania (The Prodigy of Germany) (in collaboration with Antonio Coello)
Operas [ edit ]
Celos aun del aire matan 1660
Autos Sacramentales (Sacramental plays) [ edit ]
La cena del rey Baltazar ( The Banquet of King Balthazar )
( ) El gran teatro del mundo ( The Great Theater of the World )
( ) El gran mercado del mundo (The World is a Fair)
Comedies [ edit ]
For a time the comedic works of Calderón were underestimated, but have since been reevaluated and have been considered as masterfully composed works as being classified in the genre of comedias de enredo, such as his works La dama duende (The Phantom Lady), Casa con dos puertas, mala es de guardar (A house with two doors is difficult to guard), or El galán fantasma (The Heroic Phantom).
In modern literature [ edit ]
Calderón de la Barca appears in the 1998 novel The Sun over Breda, by Arturo Pérez-Reverte, which takes up the assumption that he served in the Spanish Army at Flanders and depicts him during the sack of Oudkerk by Spanish troops, helping the local librarian save books from the library in the burning town hall. Latin American author Giannina Braschi based her dramatic novel United States of Banana (2011) on Calderón de la Barca's La vida es sueño (Life Is a Dream), recasting the tragic hero Segismundo in 21st-century New York City, where his father, the King of the United States of Banana, locks him in the dungeon of the Statue of Liberty for the crime of having been born.[6]
Bibliography [ edit ]
Calderón de la Barca, Pedro. Life's a Dream: A Prose Translation . Trans. and ed. Michael Kidd (Boulder, Colorado, 2004). Forthcoming in a bilingual edition from Aris & Phillips (U.K.).
. Trans. and ed. Michael Kidd (Boulder, Colorado, 2004). Forthcoming in a bilingual edition from Aris & Phillips (U.K.). Calderón de la Barca, Pedro. Obras completas / don Pedro Calderon de la Barca . Ed. Angel Valbuena Briones. 2 Vols. Tolle: Aguilar, 1969–.
. Ed. Angel Valbuena Briones. 2 Vols. Tolle: Aguilar, 1969–. Cotarelo y Mori, D. Emilio. Ensayo sobre la vida y obras de D. Pedro Calderón de la Barca . Ed. Facs. Ignacio Arellano y Juan Manuel Escudero. Biblioteca Áurea Hispánica. Madrid;Frankfurt: Iberoamericana; Veuvuert, 2001.
. Ed. Facs. Ignacio Arellano y Juan Manuel Escudero. Biblioteca Áurea Hispánica. Madrid;Frankfurt: Iberoamericana; Veuvuert, 2001. Cruickshank, Don W. "Calderón and the Spanish Book trade." Bibliographisches Handbuch der Calderón-Forschung / Manual Bibliográfico Calderoniano . Eds Kurt y Roswitha Reichenberger. Tomo III. Kassel: Verlag Thiele & Schwarz, 1981. 9–15.
. Eds Kurt y Roswitha Reichenberger. Tomo III. Kassel: Verlag Thiele & Schwarz, 1981. 9–15. Greer, Margaret Rich. The Play of Power: Mythological Court Dramas of Calderón de la Barca . Princeton, N.J.: Princeton UP, 1991.
. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton UP, 1991. Muratta Bunsen, Eduardo. "Los topoi escépticos en la dramaturgia calderoniana". Rumbos del Hispanismo , Ed. Debora Vaccari, Roma, Bagatto, 2012. 185–192. ISBN 9788878061972
, Ed. Debora Vaccari, Roma, Bagatto, 2012. 185–192. ISBN 9788878061972 Parker, Alexander Augustine. The Allegorical Drama of Calderon, an introduction to the Autos sacramentales . Oxford, Dolphin Book, 1968.
. Oxford, Dolphin Book, 1968. Regalado, Antonio. "Sobre Calderón y la modernidad." Estudios sobre Calderón . Ed. Javier Aparicio Maydeu. Tomo I. Clásicos Críticos. Madrid: Istmo, 2000. 39–70.
. Ed. Javier Aparicio Maydeu. Tomo I. Clásicos Críticos. Madrid: Istmo, 2000. 39–70. Kurt & Roswitha Reichenberger: "Bibliographisches Handbuch der Calderón-Forschung /Manual bibliográfico calderoniano (I): Die Calderón-Texte und ihre Überlieferung". Kassel, Edition Reichenberger 1979. ISBN 3-87816-023-2
ISBN 3-87816-023-2 Kurt & Roswitha Reichenberger: "Bibliographisches Handbuch der Calderón-Forschung /Manual bibliográfico calderoniano (II, i): Sekundärliteratur zu Calderón 1679–1979: Allgemeines und "comedias". Estudios críticos sobre Calderón 1679–1979: Generalidades y comedias". Kassel, Edition Reichenberger 1999. ISBN 3-931887-74-X
ISBN 3-931887-74-X Kurt & Roswitha Reichenberger: "Bibliographisches Handbuch der Calderón-Forschung /Manual bibliográfico calderoniano (II, ii):Sekundärliteratur zu Calderón 1679–1979: Fronleichnamsspiele, Zwischenspiele und Zuschreibungen. Estudios críticos sobre Calderón 1679–1979: Autos sacramentales, obras cortas y obras supuestas". Kassel, Edition Reichenberger 2003. ISBN 3-935004-92-3
ISBN 3-935004-92-3 Kurt & Roswitha Reichenberger: "Bibliographisches Handbuch der Calderón-Forschung /Manual bibliográfico calderoniano (III):Bibliographische Beschreibung der frühen Drucke". Kassel, Edition Reichenberger 1981. ISBN 3-87816-038-0
ISBN 3-87816-038-0 Rodríguez, Evangelina y Antonio Tordera. Calderón y la obra corta dramática del siglo XVII . London: Tamesis, 1983.
. London: Tamesis, 1983. Ruano de la Haza, José M. "La Comedia y lo Cómico." Del horror a la Risa / los géneros dramáticos clásicos . Kassel: Edition Reichenberger, 1994. 269–285.
. Kassel: Edition Reichenberger, 1994. 269–285. Ruiz-Ramón, Francisco Calderón y la tragedia . Madrid: Alhambra, 1984.
. Madrid: Alhambra, 1984. Roger Ordono, "Conscience de rôle dans Le Grand Théâtre du monde de Calderón de la Barca", Le Cercle Herméneutique, n°18 – 19, La Kédia. Gravité, soin, souci, sous la direction de G.Charbonneau, Argenteuil, 2012. ISSN 1762-4371
References [ edit ]
Attribution
Sources [ edit ]
Corrections have been made to biographical information using
Cotarelo y Mori, D. Emilio. Ensayo sobre la vida y obras de D. Pedro Calderón de la Barca. Ed. Facs. Ignacio Arellano y Juan Manuel Escudero. Biblioteca Áurea Hispánica. Madrid;Frankfurt: Iberoamericana; Veuvuert, 2001.
The style section uses the following bibliographical information |
As you know, lichess is built and run by a vibrant community of chess lovers. Some are coding the site itself, some are catching cheaters, some keep the servers up and scaling; and these two guys, veloce and freefal, are doing wonders with the mobile app.
So what's new since the previous mobile app review?
Play tournaments
You have been requesting that for a while, and I didn't think it was possible.
Well, the amazing mobile app developers proved me wrong. The always-popular lichess arena tournaments are now playable on the mobile app! Leaderboards, win streaks, berserks: it's all there, same as or even better than the website.
Native Stockfish 7
The best chess engine is now powering the lichess mobile app. It's up to date and it runs native code optimized for your phone. That means faster and stronger analysis, and lower battery consumption. We used a weaker JavaScript port of Stockfish before; now you can face the real final boss of mobile chess.
Use it as an offline opponent (get ready for a tough challenge!) and to analyse your games. Stockfish provides a position evaluation in centipawns, and best move recommendations. Props to srenault for the help with this feature!
Board editor
Set up any position and play it with Stockfish or a friend, online or offline.
Note that all variants are now playable offline.
And more!
The mobile app is catching up on the website to provide a complete and powerful chess experience.
We added:
Player rating stats (screenshot above)
Timeline of your friends' chess activity
Puzzle of the day
Search and challenge users
Support for Kid mode
All free and available now for Android and iOS
You know the drill: lichess is free, without any ads, and open source. So is the app.
So enjoy the new mobile app, and may your army always find its way to your opponent's king. |
West Bromwich Albion have sacked Tony Pulis – the manager who has never been relegated - and are targeting an experienced replacement to help secure Premier League survival.
Pulis was dismissed on Monday morning after talks with chairman John Williams as the strugglers took action following a torrid run of two wins from 21 games, stretching back to last season.
He becomes the fifth top-flight casualty of the campaign after a decision which has polarised opinion outside of the Black Country, due to his record of never suffering the drop in over 1,000 games as a manager.
Albion feel they were left with no alternative but to wield the axe as a result of the disenchantment from supporters over Pulis’ defensive style of play and tactics, combined with results and a highly-paid underperforming squad.
West Brom were thrashed 4-0 by champions Chelsea on Saturday - their 11th game without a win - and Pulis endured chants for his dismissal from fans, with owner Guochuan Lai also making a rare visit to the Hawthorns.
Williams and Lai discussed their next move on Sunday and Pulis has paid the price, six weeks before his three-year anniversary, with the club already on the hunt for a successor ahead of Saturday's game against Tottenham Hotspur. |
Get the Mango update now. Without being a developer.
Posted on 07-04-11 09:38 am
A little birdie gave this to us this morning. It was evident that Microsoft's releasing of Mango would lead to leaks, such as the one over at XDA Developers. Unfortunately, these leaks required the users to already be developer unlocked, which more or less took the point out of it. Thankfully, a solution is now available.
This tool will run the UpdateWP.exe file to provision your device to receive beta updates. It requires the Windows Phone Support Tools to be installed, and your device needs to be updated to NoDo or beyond. It, however, does not require a developer unlock. Simply download the file, connect your phone, run the batch file, and it should take care of the rest. After it's done, fire up Zune, and you'll be prompted to install the beta.
Keep in mind this tool does not backup your phone, so you might want to use this tool to backup your phone. Other than that, well, we're told you should enjoy.
Please note we are not responsible for any damage caused to your device, in trouble in get into, etc. Do it at your own risk. It hasn't been fully tested, so you may run into some issues. Let us know in the comments if you have issues and we'll try to help.
Updating to Mango
Requirements: Windows Phone Support Tool, Zune
Download the tool 64bit) Make sure Windows Phone Support Tool is installed ( 32bit Connect your phone to your computer Run the tool and follow on-screen instructions
Update: Version 0.2 of the tool will automatically backup your device, copy the backup to a safe place, and provides an option to automatically roll back to NoDo.
Download: here. (Please do not hotlink this file, link to us instead. Thanks.)
Before running update.bat, make sure you have the stock version of Zune installed. There are 2 updates to install (not including update.bat's update). If you have a URI error, run update.bat from the command line.
If you would like to thank us, please feel free to Subscribe to our Youtube channel. ;)
Notes: (Thanks WWPX)
A. Close Zune program before executing Update.bat. Otherwise, Update.bat only copies the old Zune backups to C:\PreMangoState and doesn't touch the phone at all (because Zune already own the connection to the phone). One warning message scrolls by too fast for anyone to catch this problem.
B. Make sure you have enough disk space in C: drive because Update.bat copies the old backups in there. For me, they were NoDo and pre-NoDo backups which consumed 4GB. I had about 8GB left so it was a close call. I could have lost my NoDo backup if I had less than 4GB left on my C drive.
Restoring NoDo
You must restore NoDo before the Mango update is released, according to Microsoft. This applies to everyone, including registered developers.
To restore NoDo, run the Restore.bat file. Alternatively, the updated version provides a readme.txt file for manual restoring instructions.
For the techies
If you'd rather provision your phone yourself, here's the info you need:
[HKEYLOCALMACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DeviceUpdate\Agent\Protocol]
"TestTarget"="15c00000-0003-0001-c0d4-m4a1f005ba11"
[HKEYLOCALMACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DeviceUpdate\Agent\Settings]
"GuidOfCategoryToScan"="0fdd4743-cba1-4a2b-af7c-5af9fd93951a"
Good luck, and let us know what happens in the comments. |
In a new PSA, Chicago Bears wide receiver Brandon Marshall discusses his experience with mental illness, as well as the social stigma around mental health — especially for men.
Marshall entered the NFL in 2006. His first few years in the league were riddled with arrests and violence. However, in 2011, he was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), a mental illness characterized by a persistent instability of emotions, relationships and behaviors. He has since become an advocate for awareness around mental illness.
In the video above — a partnership between Marshall’s Project 375 and Glenn Close’s non-profit organization Bring Change 2 Mind — Marshall talks about how he thought about mental health before his diagnosis.
“Before I was at MacLean hospital, if someone had said mental health to me, the first thing that came to mind was mental toughness, masking pain, hiding, keeping it in … that’s what was embedded in me since I was a kid. You know, never show a sign of weakness. And it’s funny, because now I know it’s the total opposite. It’s being able to have the strength to pick up the phone and ask someone for help.”
The campaign also includes a 30-second PSA, featuring Marshall, as well as Edmonton Oilers goalie Ben Scrivens, Passion Pit frontman Michael Angelakos and actor Wayne Brady. Check it out, below.
(Thanks to Sports Illustrated for bringing this to our attention.) |
Indian Roasted Corn on the cob – Street style Butta or Bhutta Recipe with lime juice, red chili powder, ground cumin and chaat masala. Easy BBQ side. Summer corn recipe.
Jump to Recipe
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Masala Butta or Spiced fire roasted corn on the cob is a favorite street snack in India when corn is in season. Street vendors roast the corn on coal fire or open grill, use a lime to rub in the Indian spices and serve it hot. People can be seen walking around with the corn in hand.
The spices can range from just salt + cayenne/red chili powder, to one or all of the following spice additions like ground cumin, chaat masala (recipe can also be found in my book), kala namak (Indian black salt) or Amchur (dry mango powder). Or rub Mint cilantro chutney all over! Try this favorite spiced corn for Labor day!
In the below picture, the front corn has been rubbed with the spices.
More Indian Potluck or Barbecue Snacks/side |
Have you been having trouble casting videos or other content to your Chromecast or Android TV device lately? You're not alone - we've been getting tips for the last day from all over the Android world about casting failures, and based on threads on Reddit, XDA, Google's support forums, and even NVIDIA's SHIELD forums, the issue has been affecting hundreds and possibly thousands of people. Various culprits have been suspected, from a recent Marshmallow update for the Nexus Player to compatibility tweaks for the new Chromecast model. According to a Reddit user claiming to be a member of Google's Cast on Android TV team, it isn't either of those.
Luckily there's a quick solution, at least for Android TV users: just install the latest version of the Cast Receiver app to fix it. Updated APKs for both standard ARM devices and x86 hardware (Nexus Player) have been posted to the Play Store. You might not see the new version of the app right away thanks to Google's usual staggered release, but civic-minded users of our sister site APK Mirror have already posted both of them for others to manually download. You should see casting return to normal after the update. Of course there's no way to manually update a Chromecast, but we're expecting to see an automatic update come for both the old and new versions very soon.
Here are the downloads, ARM followed by x86 - you only need the x86 download if you're on the Nexus Player. If you've never installed an Android TV APK manually before, download ES File Explorer from the Play Store. It's compatible with Android TV and includes a cloud storage tool for Google Drive and Dropbox.
Download (ARM)
The APK is signed by Google and upgrades your existing app. The cryptographic signature guarantees that the file is safe to install and was not tampered with in any way. Rather than wait for Google to push this download to your devices, which can take days, download and install it just like any other APK.
File Name: com.google.android.apps.mediashell_1.16.45911-459111_minAPI21(armeabi-v7a)(nodpi).apk
Version: 1.16.45911 (459111)
MD5: d53d6ad55a8ce1c67f8eb184be8a4ce4
Download (x86)
The APK is signed by Google and upgrades your existing app. The cryptographic signature guarantees that the file is safe to install and was not tampered with in any way. Rather than wait for Google to push this download to your devices, which can take days, download and install it just like any other APK.
File Name: com.google.android.apps.mediashell_1.16.45911-459112_minAPI21(x86)(nodpi).apk
Version: 1.16.45911 (459112)
MD5: 0b9434cd5c101d6ac307bc7a44e3b9eb |
Insignia is the in-house Best Buy brand. I bought this monitor to replace an old CRT monitor. It's not flashy but so far its getting the job done. I had bought a Dell monitor similar to it and found that this Insignia was better in the fact that it has ports for DVI, HDMI, VGA and a headphone jack (all located at the bottom and behind the monitor). *Remember DVI cables carry audio if you want to use the head phone jack. There are no speakers (that I know of on the monitor and no place to mount a speaker bar). The Dell monitor had left off the DVI port while Insignia got this right. Boo on Dell for that! The Dell monitor's base was a little more solid than the Insignia. The Insignia does wiggle around a little if your desk is not solid enough and you bump the desk. The image quality shows the colors are off a little if you are not looking directly right at it. The max resolution on this monitor is about average for an economical purchased. I will be using it for Microsoft office, web surfing and watching some Netflix. I have this hooked up to two computers using a KVM switch. Each of the PCs are Windows 7 and 8.1. There was no software CD to install drivers, I just used the drivers that Microsoft installed during installation. Buttons are directly on the front. Actually scratch the word button it is just a touch to the area the buttons would be at. The power light at the front does go off when you shut it down. The Insignia logo comes up for a second or two on the screen before you can use the monitor. I've had this up and running for a couple of weeks now since this review. So... so far I am satisfied with my buy.
Read more |
Primal Scream's new album Chaosmosis is out March 18 via First International/Ignition. Sky Ferreira duets with Bobby Gillespie on the album's lead single, "Where the Light Gets In." Below, watch the video. "Where the Light Gets In" was produced by Gillespie, Andrew Innes, and Peter Bjorn and John's Bjorn Yttling.
Even more special guests have also been revealed for Chaosmosis. Haim appear on "100% or Nothing" and "Trippin' on Your Love," and Rachel Zeffira from Cat's Eyes is featured on "Private Wars."
Find Primal Scream's tour dates below.
Read our interview with Ferreira and our "5-10-15-20" with Gillespie.
Embedded content is unavailable.
Primal Scream:
03-29 Aberdeen, Scotland - Beach Ballroom
03-30 Glasgow, Scotland - O2 ABC Glasgow
04-01 London, England - Palladium
04-02 Manchester, England - Albert Hall
05-28 Southampton, England - Common People
05-29 Oxford, England - Common People
07-24 Huntingdon, England - Secret Garden Party
08-13 Durham, England - Down to the Woods |
According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), approximately 80 percent of all flowering plant species reproduce with the help of pollinator animals like bees, butterflies, birds, and more. This accounts for at least one third of the world’s food crops, including tomatoes, pepper, strawberries, coffee, apples, carrots, almonds, cocoa, and thousands of others.
Without pollinators, most plants could not produce fruits and seeds, and agricultural biodiversity would suffer--according to FAO, bees, bats, birds, and other pollinators, increase global food production by 87 percent. Unfortunately, the world is seeing a decline in pollinator populations. From land-use change and pesticide use to monoculture agriculture and climate change, there are numerous threats to pollinator populations.
That’s why gardeners, farmers, governments, and companies are finding innovative ways to protect wild pollinators and improve cultivation of commercial pollinators.
Last year, Australian father and son Stuart and Cedar Anderson invented a new bee hive design that allows beekeepers to harvest honey without disturbing bees. The Honey Flow is uniquely designed with a partial honeycomb frame and a specialized built-in tap that carefully extracts the honey and allows it to drain directly out of the hive, leaving the bees to continue their work.
This method is easier and safer for amateur beekeepers, but it is also a much less stressful method of honey collection for bees. Excess stress on bee colonies can make them more vulnerable to disease. The simple hive can also help attract more small-scale hobby beekeepers instead of large-scale commercial apiaries. Independent hives can boost local crop fertilization and improve genetic diversity of bees by reducing the chance of mites or viruses spreading between colonies in close proximity.
In The Gambia, an organization called BEECause is working to reverse the decline of bee populations. BEECause has trained hundreds of people to keep bees and make beeswax products, and their Bees for Trees program establishes self-supporting bee reserves in community-managed sustainable forests.
The European Union has made sweeping changes to protect bees from toxic insecticides. In 2012, the European Food Safety Authority assessed the effects of several neonicotinoids on bee populations. They subsequently banned the use these pesticides in agriculture.
In Latin America, the Mexican NGO Pronatura is working to preserve wild and cultivated plant species that feed bees. They work with local producers in these efforts, and they also carry out conservation projects such as restoring wild forests and protecting mangroves and other ecosystems.
Urban beekeeping is becoming more popular across the world. In Japan, the Ginza Honeybee Project relies on volunteers to harvest honey from rooftop hives in the Ginza district of Tokyo. The organization also lobbies to increase the planting of nectar-rich flowers in the city. And hives are also a teaching tool for elementary school students who take field trips to see the bees in action. The honey is used by local bakeries, hotels, bars, and other companies.
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Promoting pollinator health is an issue of global importance, but individuals have the power to help in small ways in backyards or community spaces. Here are four things you can do to attract and protect pollinators, according to the U.S. Forest Service.
Plant native species. Pollinators have evolved alongside native plants, so they are best adapted to feed on these species. Non-native plants often don’t have enough nectar or pollen. As an added bonus, native plants typically require less water, so they are easier for gardeners to maintain. When choosing species, opt for a diverse selection of plants with different flowering times so that flowers are blooming throughout the growing season, rather than all at once. Consult native plant guides in your region to determine which plant species attract certain types of pollinators. Avoid the use of chemicals. Many pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides are harmful to pollinator species. Use compost as a natural fertilizer, weed by hand, and look for non-chemical treatment methods to take care of pest infestations. Provide a welcoming environment. When planting your garden, arrange each species in large patches so that pollinators can forage more efficiently. Avoid the use of weed cloth or heavy mulch, as many native bee species nest underground. Provide habitat for pollinators by making piles of branches to attach chrysalises or cocoons. Leave stumps, rotting logs, and fallen organic material for nesting bees. Let dead or dying trees remain standing for woodpeckers. Educate your community. Share what you know about pollinator health and encourage schools, businesses, and public parks to make their green spaces pollinator-friendly.
This article first appeared at Food Tank. |
When people ask me how can I be divorced with two children and pay no child support, I tell them I took a cue from Nancy Reagan; I “just said no.”
I took the road less traveled. One that more men should be allowed to travel.
For the past 13 years, I have been fortunate to be a full-time musician. Since the time of our daughter’s birth in 2003, I was at home with her during the day and working at night. Three years before my marriage ended, my wife and I agreed to switch roles. In order to make this arrangement work, I was extremely ambitious and found a way to work a 9-5 job as well as teach, perform in an Off-Broadway show and perform in weddings and corporate events. I paid all the bills while she took care of our daughter.
After two years of trying to fit back into the corporate world, I noticed a lack of communication between my wife and I. My focus was on our family; her attention appeared to be on the social calendar. My frustration with what seemed to be a lop-sided allocation of duties in our home-made for several stress filled months. Not only was I the sole breadwinner, I took care of many of the duties at home. The birth of our second child only intensified the tension in our home.
Working a full time job, gigs and doing much of the house work burnt me out so I quit my corporate job. Meanwhile my wife was unwilling to continue the therapy sessions we’d set up to find a way to repair our marriage. She hired an attorney and filed for divorce.
Our custody battle began in Family Court. During our first hearing, I received a court order for spousal support, which stated I was to continue paying all the bills until our case went to Supreme Court. On top of paying the household expenses, I had to pay my ex an additional $500 cash each month. I was furious. I questioned why I was responsible for everything and my wife was only responsible for being with the children.
Soon after filing, my wife began using the children as pawns. She filled the kid’s day with play dates, and after one of our many heated arguments, took the kids to her mother’s home in another state for two weeks so I could not see them. In addition to the attempts at alienating me from my children, my wife called the police after several arguments in futile attempts to have me vacate the marital residence and be thrown in jail. Luckily for me she was never psychotic enough to hurt herself or abuse the criminal justice system’s bias against men.
When our case was transferred to New York State Supreme Court, things began to change. A few months into our dispute I received an unlikely source of inspiration. My family had given me a father’s day gift certificate to a men’s spa. Here is where I received life-changing advice from a female staff member who’d gone through a divorce several years before. She and her former spouse had mutually agreed that their son be raised by his father. She informed me that in New York State, couples had the option to “opt out” of paying child support upon dissolution of marriage. I immediately called my attorney and told him I wanted to do just that: opt out.
I must acknowledge one piece of the puzzle that gave me a slight advantage that no one has today. At the time of my lawsuit, New York was the last state who hadn’t adopted no-fault laws. This gave me leverage that no one can use in court today. Now, everyone is at the mercy of their spouse and can’t contest their divorce. In fact, most people have no idea that your spouse can file for divorce for any reason and not have to prove why they want out of the marriage. This is a real disadvantage for the monied spouse in my state because the custodial parent gains an advantage with the child support guidelines. The spouse who makes more money is ordered to pay the non-custodial parent.
At the time, my attorney and I decided to contest my ex’s grounds for divorce. We were willing to compel her to tell the truth under oath. My ex would have perjured herself in court since there were several inconsistencies in her sworn deposition. Her attorney decided it would be unwise for her to proceed in that manner. This was the turning point that forced a settlement.
After 11 months in and out of court, we agreed that my parenting time would take place during the day; hers at night and that no one would pay child support. I wouldn’t have it any other way. I walked out of the courtroom secure in the knowledge that I could financially support our two children in a way that made much more sense to me. I did not succumb to the societal pressure to pay an ex-wife, child or spousal support because men have historically done so.
I’m not sure many men have the testicular fortitude to endure the pain it takes to achieve this goal today. Particularly since the avenue I pursued is now closed off to men in the family court’s crusade against fatherhood. I certainly thought of giving up but never did. I was also determined to get the court to understand the seriousness of my desire to be a fully committed parent and I was willing to go through the financial expense of seeing it through.
During my custody battle, I came to a deeper understanding how the courts system works and how the law applied in my particular case. I persevered by demonstrating that I was rational, reasonable, and always focused on the best interest of my children. Instead of relying solely on my attorney’s advice and historical precedent, I saw the bigger picture and thought long term.
I used several tactics to my advantage. I never left or was forced out of our marital residence, I managed to avoid physical altercations by keeping my emotions in check as much as possible, avoided being taken to jail by the NYPD by calmly explaining my side of the story and kept my focus by remaining totally devoted to my two children. I always took the high road and never talked badly about my ex to our children, no matter how tempting. I still don’t-she is the mother of our kids. They love her just as much as they love me.
I know all too well the stories of men who get taken advantage of by unscrupulous attorneys who don’t offer alternatives and other potential options their clients can pursue. State ordered child support should only be enforced when a spouse chooses to abdicate the responsibility of raising their children. There is no excuse for a parent to abandon their children. In my subsequent research, I have discovered that many fathers do not want to leave their children. Many times they are FORCED out.
Mandatory arrests laws that were written to protect women over the years have often been abused and are at times used to force fathers from the home straight into jail. This, in conjunction with punitive child support orders and the threat of imprisonment if it isn’t paid have been just a few of the reasons for the increase of widespread fatherlessness over the past 40 years.
The threat of divorce, child support orders or jail should ever stop a devoted father from having a healthy relationship with his children. No one should have the right to deny that important relationship unless there are serious criminal matters and there is due process.
Today it seems that many women intentionally abuse a system that was set up in the 1950’s and 1960’s to assist with the necessary expenses of child rearing for children that both parents gave consent to have. Now that women have joined the workforce in unprecedented numbers–and birth control frees them from the constraints they were otherwise under–it makes little sense to keep men stuck back in an era that has long passed. Women don’t want to go back to that era-men don’t either. If times have progressed for women, why are men forced to stay in the past?
I have seen many cases where spousal and/or child support is automatically assumed to be part of divorce even though it may be unwarranted, and most attorneys don’t even discuss potential options for their clients. I truly feel that men who desire to be a part of their children’s lives need not pay their future ex-wife at all.
My ex wife and I, more often than not, peacefully co-exist without a state ordered child or spousal support. I must emphasize this particular point: if anyone chooses the road I took, it requires a lifelong commitment of taking care of your children – something that unfortunately, most men today are not even given an opportunity to do.
I feel the default option in custody cases should be joint legal and physical custody with no court ordered child support absent a strong reason. Start with a 50/50 split of parenting time with the children. If that can’t happen and money needs to be transferred, the person receiving the funds needs to be held accountable for how the money is being spent. As it stand now, there is no way to account for how the funds are being used for the children.
The more often we keep the filthy claws of state and federal government out of our lives, the better. Once they get in, they never let go. The formation of the family court system, the state and federal offices of child support enforcement and all of the affiliated positions associated with it, has resulted in the creation of a massive state controlled Industry whose sole function is to affect the massive transfer of wealth from the father to the mother. The increase in state intrusion in our personal lives coupled with the culture of entitlement and unreasonable expectations currently embedded in our public consciousness, creates a system that feeds upon itself. It appears that this former government safety net has turned into a spider web. Eventually it will bleed fathers dry and the real victims will be their children.
When there are two loving parents that want to be actively involved in their children’s lives after divorce, there is no need to travel down the expected path of family court and mandatory child and/or spousal support. Women can learn from my story and understand that just because you may no longer love the father of your kids, your children do. Children need their mother AND father. Find a way to stay out of that hell hole they loosely call “Family Court.” I am living proof that there is another way.
For father’s day, give your ex the gift of letting him be a father. |
Senator Hillary Clinton is still struggling to connect with a group she refers to, in a grandmotherly way, as “the young people.”
The Democratic presidential hopeful made ever-so-tiny gains with the college crowd during Thursday night’s Democratic candidate debate — but still lags well behind her opponent, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders among millennials, according to data released by Yik Yak.
The social media app, popular on college campuses, has been analyzing the conversations around the presidential debates since last October to gauge shifts in sentiment among its users — 98 percent of whom are millennials.
Yik Yak is careful to note that it isn’t a polling organization like Gallop, American Research Group or Rasmussen Reports. But the volume of conversation around the debates and the 2016 presidential election is sizable enough to reflect the sentiment among its users on college campuses.
“We’re very very confident,” said Marsal Gavalda, Yik Yak’s director of machine learning. “There’s less than 1 percent error in characterization of sentiment.”
That’s not great news for Clinton, who saw her approval rating inch up to nearly 13 percent Thursday among Yik Yak’s college users, from 8 percent during the Feb. 4 MSNBC debate before the New Hampshire primary. Her disapproval rate hovers around 55 percent.
Sanders, meanwhile, burnished his reputation as the big man on campus — a group of voters that polls suggest are looking for independence from the Washington establishment, worrying about climate change and jobs, and seeking relief from crushing student debt.
Yik Yak said Sanders saw his approval rating among users rise to 50 percent, from 46 percent a week earlier.
Voters aged 18 to 29 turned out in big numbers in the New Hampshire primary, matching the record-breaking participation in 2008, according to the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University. Some 43 percent of these millennials voted in the primary, helping to propel Sanders to victory in the Democratic primary (83 percent support), as well as Republican primary winner Donald Trump (37 percent support).
Gavalda said Yik Yak developed its own technology for analyzing the sentiment users express in their conversations (known as Yaks), using a combination of machine learning and human spot-checks to improve accuracy. He declined to describe the sample size beyond noting that it is statistically significant.
Yik Yak is used on more than 2,000 college campuses and some have pegged its user base at around 3.6 million people.
A spokesperson for Clinton did not respond to a request for comment. |
You have to be available 24 hours a day, every day of the year, and be able to collect a dead body within one hour.
Those are some of the terms of an ACT government request for tender to collect and deliver the hundreds of bodies the ACT Coroner must examine annually.
In contrast to the usual hearse ride on the day of a funeral, any windows of vehicles used for moving bodies for the coroner must be opaque. Credit:Andrew Sheargold
Applicants must be a member of a specified funeral directors association or meet the same accreditation, but there are some differences from the service delivered by a standard hearse.
Vehicles – which can't be marked with the business's name – must block any external vision into the body storage area. |
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Former Liverpool striker Rickie Lambert reckons his beloved Reds have found 'the one' in manager Jurgen Klopp as the German closes in on his first signing.
Anfield chief executive Ian Ayre travelled to Serbia to conclude a £5million deal for Marko Grujic, 19, who would officially sign in January but then remain at Red Star for the rest of the season.
Klopp has taken a hands-on role in persuading Grujic to turn down interest from Inter and Chelsea and Lambert who returned to Anfield with West Brom for Sunday's 2-2 draw believes that the Reds are on the verge of something special with their new boss.
He said: “If he starts winning and starts getting a run together he will create a frenzy there because I think he is the type of character the Liverpool fans will love.
“I think he could finally be the man.
“He is going to get used to the Premier League a little bit more and be a little bit more frustrated than he was on Sunday - it’s going to happen quite a lot.
“But I think he can be very good at Liverpool, I think he can be the one.”
While Lambert's Baggies team-mate James McClean branded Klopp “an idiot” for the way acted in Sunday's game which included marking Liverpool's late fightback with a salute to the Kop, Lambert, who was speaking after handing over Christmas presents to children at Sandwell General Hospital, understands the Reds boss' passion.
He said: “I have never seen them celebrate like that. He is obviously trying to get momentum and get the fans behind him. And they are, they are right behind him.
“It was a bit strange for me, I have been back a few times now so I am used to it.
“I am just disappointed we didn’t get the win, the last couple of minutes were a bit of a kick in the teeth.” |
While he may have lost his bid for the White House, John McCain did not lose his sense of humor.
“I’ve been sleeping like a baby,” the GOP candidate said on The Tonight Show Tuesday. “I sleep two hours, wake up and cry. Sleep two hours, wake up and cry.”
The Arizona senator’s 14th visit to the show brought a loud and spontaneous ovation from Jay Leno’s special Veteran’s Day audience of U.S. service men and women.
Noting that Americans “don’t like a sore loser,” McCain defended his choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate and of Joe the Plumber as his campaign everyman.
Asked why he thought he lost, he deadpanned: “I think my personality. Or maybe too many people saw me on the Jay Leno show.”
Avoided the Newspaper
On the day after the election, McCain said he and wife Cindy celebrated, if not a political victory, at least their release from the smothering oversight of the Secret Service.
“We got in the car and we went down to get a cup of coffee,” he said. “Not the newspaper though. We knew what it would say.”
McCain called Barack Obama “a good and decent person,” adding, “I salute and admire the Senator, uh, President-elect Obama.”
Leno noted that there seemed to be “two McCains” – one the funny Tonight Show guest and the other a not-so-entertaining presidential candidate.
“Well,” said McCain, “these are tough times. Frankly, I don’t think people wanted a stand-up comic.”
Proud of Sarah Palin
Although some polls – and any number of reports from unnamed “top advisors” – suggest that Palin hurt his candidacy, McCain would hear none of it.
“Nah,” he said. “Sarah Palin and her husband. … I’m so proud of her and very grateful she agreed to run with me. She inspired people and she still does. (She is) among a group of young Republicans who are the next generation of leadership of our party.”
But don’t expect another McCain-Palin ticket.
“In 2012, you’ll be 76,” said Leno.
“I’ll be ready to go again,” McCain joked to cheers. “No, I wouldn’t think so, my friend. It’s been a great experience.”
Who’s your Favorite Star Under 35? PEOPLE.com and the People’s Choice Awards are counting your votes! Click here to vote now!
RELATED GALLERY:
• John McCain has Usher in his iPod! |
Donald Trump's family settles in for the good times
MIKE SEGAR/REUTERS There are shades of The Godfather in how the Trump family permeates the business, the business permeates the presidency and the presidency permeates the family.
Washington: The Trump brain and its fabulous functioning will fascinate researchers long after POTUS 45 leaves the Oval Office. But as he arrives, we can only wonder at where Donald Trump sits on a great American continuum - at one end, sweet innocence and Willy Wonka; at the other, the ethical netherworld of Don Corleone.
There's an element of the Wonka chocolate factory in the crowds that queue around the block at Trump Tower in Manhattan, patient and wide-eyed as they wait to shell out $US100, even $US200, for a swag of hot new presidential memorabilia at the gift kiosk, which is sandwiched between the Trump Ice Cream Parlour and the Trump Grill on the ground floor.
There are little chocolate bricks with "Trump" stamped on their foil wrappings; and sweaters, towels and glassware - all with a discreet Trump monogram. Fans can't leave without a MAGA baseball cap - Make America Great Again. There's even a Trump cologne for men - it's called Success.
JAN KRUGER/GETTY IMAGES There are queues around the block at the Trump Tower gift kiosk for 'Make America Great Again' caps.
But there are shades of The Godfather in how the Trump family permeates the business, the business permeates the presidency and the presidency permeates the family. And in defence of all this, the emerging argument, implied as much as stated, is that the Trumps ought to be trusted to do the right thing - and hiding in plain sight behind that, a dismissive "we don't care if you don't".
So, sons Eric and Donald jnr and daughter Ivanka help to run the executive overseeing Dad's transition to power; but the kids, we were told, were to be taking the running of the business off Dad's hands. The daughter moves seamlessly from Dad's meetings with foreign leaders, to Dad's meetings with foreign business partners.
While the daughter vets would-be cabinet members, her staff tend to an unprecedented new line in presidential product placement. And as a power behind Dad's throne, the daughter's husband, Jared Kushner, wants to be a White House adviser - and despite the obvious nepotism, he'll most likely get the gig, because Dad thinks he's capable of negotiating an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal - after he's purged the transition team of those he suspects as disloyal interlopers.
We had a window into this family-first ethic in son Eric's priorities while commenting to CNN on Mike Pence's performance in the vice-presidential candidate's debate in October: "I really think he represented the family, and I think he represented the party incredibly, incredibly well tonight."
The family firm is booming - as Trump said this week, his stunning victory makes the Trump brand "hotter". The newest property, Trump International Hotel in Washington's old Post Office building, is booked out - and fawning foreign diplomatic delegations most likely will keep it that way.
As Trump flits between his Manhattan skyscraper; a New Jersey golf club, the entrance to which reminds him of 10 Downing Street; and his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, which The New York Times likens to the Palace of Versailles, the President-elect keeps the firm's key brands in the public eye - ka-ching!
Meanwhile, business partners from Baku in Azerbaijan to Mumbai in India congratulate themselves on their very good foresight in getting into business with a realtor who they can't have seriously countenanced would become leader of the free world - ka-ching! ka-ching!
In all of this, and in the global web of Trump business, there are enough conflicts of interest to consume an army of ethicists and lawyers.
But in contemplating it all, it wasn't until Wednesday that a real OMG! moment dawned, when Politico magazine made a remarkable observation of Trump, who as a callow candidate had refused to publicly release his tax returns because he was being audited by the Internal Revenue Service - but who confirmed with some pride during the campaign that he had paid no personal income tax for almost two decades, because of dubious losses worth almost $US1 billion.
As President, Trump gets to pick and appoint his own tax auditor, because IRS commissioner John Koskinen's term expires in November 2017 - or sooner if congressional Republicans succeed in a bid to drive him out earlier.
On another front, Trump's newly appointed Attorney-General could be taking over a Justice Department still locked in negotiation with the German Deutsche Bank, with which Trump businesses reportedly hold loans currently worth as much as $US360 million.
US federal regulators reportedly have levied a $US14 billion fine on the bank as punishment for its trading in toxic mortgages during the housing crisis that pushed the US to the brink of financial collapse in 2007.
There's speculation in the German media that Berlin might end up bailing out Deutsche Bank by taking an ownership stake - an outcome that would leave a President Trump as Borrower Trump, in a troubled bank that conceivably might see itself having commercial leverage over Client Trump who is President Trump; at the same time as the bank's newest shareholder, the Berlin government, might see itself having diplomatic leverage over Ally Trump who is President Trump who is Borrower Trump.
China is another case in point. The Bank of China is a tenant in Trump Tower and a major lender to a consortium, of which Trump is a member, which owns another New York office tower - but the bank also is a powerful financial instrument of the Beijing government, which Trump has threatened to designate as a currency manipulator and to target in a trade war.
Ditto Russia - the nature of Russian investment in Trump businesses or any Trump investments in Russia are unclear. But in 2008, his son Donald jnr told a property conference in New York that "Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets ... we see a lot of money pouring in from Russia."
Ditto Turkey - during the campaign Trump confided to a radio interviewer that he had "a little conflict of interest" in Turkey that might impact his handling of US foreign policy were he to become president. "I have a major, major building in Istanbul. It's called Trump Towers. Two towers, instead of one."
And we can only guess about Saudi Arabia, which Candidate Trump recently declared needs his protection. In the course of the election campaign, Entrepreneur Trump reportedly established eight companies to develop luxury real estate projects in Saudi Arabia, and in August he told a rally in Alabama: "Saudi Arabia, I get along with all of them. They buy apartments from me. They spend $40 million, $50 million. Am I supposed to dislike them? I like them very much."
Trump's Indian partners in a luxury residential project near Mumbai came to Trump Tower for happy snaps with their powerful partner - which they released to the Indian press as they confirmed that, of course, they had discussed future developments with the next president of the United States.
Both Trump and Argentinian President Mauricio Macri denied reports in the Argentinian press that when Macri called to congratulate the President-elect, Trump has asked Macri if he could nudge along the permit process for a long-delayed office development in Buenos Aires.
In Manila, the Trump-like leader of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, appointed Trump's local development partner as a trade envoy to the US.
Last week about 100 foreign embassy representatives attended a show-and-tell at the new Trump hotel in Washington - and several happily explained to The Washington Post that having their visiting delegations stay in the hotel was surely a good way to curry favour.
Think about this - at this hotel just a few blocks from the White House, Trump has appointed an executive to go after the business of foreign officials who will be coming to town to, um, see him. And of course they'll be coming for his inauguration - only $US20,000 a night for the penthouse, and bookings will be accepted only for five or more nights.
A further, minor complication with the DC hotel is this - because the Trump organisation leases the property from the federal government, Tenant Trump and Landlord Trump are technically one and the same.
More than 100 of Trump's 500 companies have done or do business overseas - including seven resorts, hotels and other projects, 11 more under construction and many more reportedly on the drawing boards in 18 countries, including Britain, Uruguay, Turkey, Indonesia, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates.
Trump will be the first president to come to office while controlling a global corporate empire - a detailed description of which was mysteriously removed from Trump's greatagain.gov website in recent days.
A problem in all this is that despite Trump's occasional use of the phrase "conflict of interest", there is no sense that Trump understands its application to his circumstances - his tax policy leaves intact the developer-friendly loopholes through which he massaged his near $US1 billion losses onto the backs of American taxpayers, but eliminated those by which hedge fund managers, as he complained so bitterly, were "getting away with murder".
The take-away from Trump's meeting this week with staff of The New York Times was that at this late stage of the process, his thinking in response to repeated ethics-based demands, from both sides of the political aisle, that he divest and/or put all his corporate holdings in a genuine blind trust, remains vague and non-committal.
It's very probable that his talk of needing to do something with the business, at the very least to go through the motions of guarding against conflicts of interest by putting it in the hands of his children, will go the same way as the promised release of his tax returns - America, don't hold your breath.
Ben Carson, Trump's one-time rival for the GOP presidential nomination and this week Trump's nominee as the next US secretary of housing, is a neurosurgeon who claims to be "God's hands".
But as the absence of real restraints on the office of president comes under intense scrutiny, it's as though Trump will have almost godly freedom and power to act as he likes in the Venn diagram overlaps of his family, business and presidency.
A semblance of tradition and protocols, premised on a sense of decency, apply to conflicts of interest in American public life - but very little of the relevant law actually applies to the presidency. Nonetheless, presidents Reagan, Clinton and the two Bushes voluntarily put their more meagre assets in "blind trusts" which were controlled by independent trustees.
Congress has no oversight powers on presidential conflicts of interest. What is called the Emoluments Clause in the constitution bars officials from accepting "any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state" - but its applicability to the presidency has never been tested legally.
"The level of entanglements here are unprecedented," Ken Gross, a lawyer who has advised presidential candidates from both parties, told The Washington Post. "He'll have to deal with conflict entanglements almost on a daily basis, based on the holdings he has, particularly those involving international issues. It's just going to plague him, one way or another."
Richard Painter, chief White House ethics lawyer under George W. Bush, told the Post: "There are so many diplomatic, political, even national security risks in having the president own a whole bunch of properties all over the world.
"If we've got to talk to a foreign government about their behaviour, or negotiate a treaty, or some country asks us to send our troops in to defend someone else, we've got to make a decision. And the question becomes: Are we going in out of our national interest or because there's a Trump casino around?"
Stripped back, the response of Trump, his offspring, their surrogates and lawyers amounts to a demand that he and his family be trusted - a big ask, given how much Americans now know of how Trump has conducted himself as a businessman and corporate citizen, - with a dash of arrogance.
"The law is totally on my side, the president can't have a conflict of interest," reporter Maggie Haberman tweeted from Trump's meeting with The New York Times' editorial staff. The Post's Chris Cillizza immediately nominated the quote for inclusion in the hall of dangerous political statements - right up there, beside Richard Nixon's "well, when the president does it, that means it is not illegal".
Trump surrogate and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani had made a similar comment to CNN: "You realise that those laws don't apply to the president, right? So the president doesn't have to have a blind trust. For some reason, when the law was written, the president was exempt."
With that kind of talk in mind, it's worth pausing to think about Trump's election win and of what it reveals about the current mindset of American voters.
Here is a president who used social media to speak to voters over the heads of the MSM - the mainstream media; he was openly contemptuous of the MSM's clinging to fuddy-duddy principles of political propriety and integrity - what New York Times commentator Ross Douthat this week described as "Timesian sensibilities".
But it seems the voters were with Trump - a good number of them are contemptuous too.
The MSM looks for precise meaning and accountability in what Trump says. But a good number of Americans, for now at least, look for comfort in how he makes them feel. It's an asymmetrical engagement, one in which the risk of long-term damage to the national political psyche and institutions doesn't count for a lot because there's not a lot of respect for those making the argument that these things matter.
These are rare circumstances in which an unconventional president, who knows all about licensing his brand, may have been licensed by the people to get away with more than any of his predecessors.
Time will tell. Stay tuned - because as sure as hell, the Trump era will be a walk on the wild side.
- Sydney Morning Herald |
The guys at the Librairie Mollat, a bookshop in France, have been gathering quite a bit of attention lately thanks to their awesome photo series, in which they match readers with their book covers.
The bookshop’s Instagram account has already garnered the attention of over 23,000 followers, and you’re about to understand why. The pics are not just quick snaps, they’re executed so painstakingly well, that we had to double check if it’s not Photoshopped. The cool bit is that you can easily do the same at home. And if you do try it out, make sure to share the results in the comments! More info: instagram (h/t)
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Here are examples of the same juxtapose technique used to travel back into Parisian past. |
Investors got what they wished for.
In a Sunday sitting of the lower house of Congress, legislators voted by a landslide to end Brazil’s misery and begin impeachment proceedings against President Dilma Rousseff.
For foreign exchange traders it marked the culmination of a rally that has sent the Brazilian real soaring for months.
Yet the outlook is far murkier than the view projected from the markets, Olivier Desbarres, an independent currency strategist previously with Barclays and Credit Suisse, says on this week’s Emerging Opportunities show with Frontera Managing Editor Gavin Serkin.
With a far from straight-forward political and legal battle ahead, he advises short-selling the real as the currency will reverse its gains once the new reality sets in.
- Advertisement -
Brazil’s political crisis is one of many unknowns confronting emerging market investors. North Korea’s increasingly long-range nuclear capability, Islamic State’s spread into Asia and Vladimir Putin’s expanding influence are part of the big picture analysed on the show by Phill Hynes, the head of ISS Risk. |
Gov. Scott Walker is asking for donations to pay off his campaign debt. Credit: Associated Press
By of the
Facing an estimated $1 million in debt from his failed presidential campaign, Gov. Scott Walker is now soliciting donations to pay it off.
"As things changed dramatically in the presidential race, 'Walker for America' incurred a campaign debt and it is my hope that you and all of our supporters will chip in and make an online contribution of $10, $35, $50, $100, $250, or more so we can end this campaign in the black," Walker wrote in a fundraising email sent this week. "It is a lot to ask, I know, but we feel personally obligated to make sure that every small business that extended us their good faith and credit is repaid."
The Wisconsin governor dropped out of the 2016 presidential race in September, and campaign finance reports released last month showed his short-lived campaign raised $7.4 million but spent money as quickly as it came. Those reports showed the campaign burned through about $90,000 a day, in part due to exorbitant salaries paid to a massive staff.
Walker's email noted that the race "didn't turn out the way we wanted" but stressed that he is back at work in his office in the state Capitol.
"While we are disappointed, there are always new ways to serve others and plenty of conservative reforms to enact in Wisconsin," Walker wrote. "For a kid who grew up in small-town America, whose family didn't have a lot of money, the opportunity to run for president of the United States is an experience I will never forget."
On Friday, Walker said that while he wouldn't be on the stage when Republican presidential candidates descend on Milwaukee for Tuesday night's debate, he plans to be in the audience with his family.
"Tonette and I and the boys will be there. We wanted to participate in it because it's here in Wisconsin. And because we know not just the candidates, we know a good chunk of the families," the governor said Friday. "A number of the governors, in particular, our families have known each other for years. We've gotten to know some of the senators along the way. And so it will be nice to welcome them here to the state of Wisconsin."
Walker will also make appearances on Monday with two 2016 hopefuls, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio. Walker is scheduled to join Bush at a charter school event at La Casa de Esperanza in Waukesha, and attend a campaign fundraiser Rubio is doing for Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester).
The governor spoke with reporters at the Milwaukee Art Museum on Friday after addressing a young professionals convention there.
In his fundraising email, Walker briefly addressed questions about his political future.
"When God closes one door, another one opens," he wrote. "While I don't know exactly what the future holds, trust me, we will continue leading the fight for big, bold conservative change in Wisconsin and across America."
The liberal group One Wisconsin Now slammed Walker for doing fundraising rather than focusing on economic problems in the state, such as the announcement this week that the Oscar Mayer plant in Madison would be shuttering, resulting in the loss of 1,000 jobs.
"Wisconsin families are being thrown into chaos and losing their jobs because Scott Walker was more focused on chasing his own presidential ambitions than doing his job as governor," One Wisconsin Now Executive Director Scot Ross said. "And now, instead of taking even one iota of responsibility for his failure, he's shaking down donors to pay off the debt he rang up on the campaign trail paying bloated salaries to political operatives and even his own family."
On Friday, Walker said the decision by the corporate parent Kraft Heinz Co. to close Oscar Mayer in Madison was "part of a global corporate decision" that was "not a reflection of Wisconsin."
He added that he was still trying to meet with the Kraft Heinz CEO.
Walker had faced criticism from Madison Mayor Paul Soglin, who said he was mystified that the state had apparently not done anything to keep the plant in Wisconsin.
Walker responded Friday by voicing concern about people pointing fingers but added that he couldn't understand why Soglin didn't contact him if he was concerned about a possible plant closure.
"I think just about any other mayor we've dealt with in the state would immediately respond by reaching out to us. We had no communication from the mayor or his office to our office or to the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp.," Walker said. "That's a little surprising to us." |
The pack-in Kinect is no more, and while Microsoft remains bullish on the camera's place at the heart of "the premium Xbox One experience", the reality is clear: for all the right reasons, Kinect has gone from being an integral component to an optional peripheral.
This solves many problems: the price differential with PlayStation 4 has now been addressed, while internal resources dedicated to Kinect processing can now be returned to game developers. On the flipside, the original vision for Xbox One as a multi-faceted all-in-one entertainment system as well as a games machine now lies in ruins. Kinect was at the heart of everything that made Xbox One different and without it we're left with a machine that offers pretty much the exact same proposition as PS4, but without parity in hardware specifications.
This week's announcements are all about levelling the playing field with Sony. The price is the same, Games with Gold moves closer into alignment with PlayStation Plus, while non-gaming services are also like-for-like thanks to the removal of the almost criminal paywall that saw users paying for the privilege of using Internet Explorer, Skype and even non-Microsoft services like YouTube and Netflix - a state of affairs entirely unique to Xbox in a world where all of those services are free on virtually every other device available. It's the latest in a long line of U-turns, but there's the sense that Microsoft is finally listening.
But of all the repositioning carried out this week, it's the removal of Kinect that feels most important, because it's the end of Microsoft's vision for an all-in-one entertainment system. In hindsight, packing in Kinect and making media integration central to the Xbox One proposition looks like an awful mistake. However, put into context, there were perfectly logical reasons for every single element of its failed strategy. So what were they? And what kind of legacy do they leave now that things have changed so dramatically?
"Of all the repositioning carried out this week, it's the removal of Kinect that feels most important - it's the end of Microsoft's vision for an all-in-one entertainment system."
Kinect is the main gateway to Xbox One's media functions - without it, we're left with a piece of hardware that looks more like the set-top box replacement it was designed to be rather than a state-of-the-art next-generation games console.
If we turn the clock back to the time where the key technological decisions were being made - towards the end of 2010 and moving into 2011 - we were looking at a fundamental change in the console audience and how gaming hardware was actually being used. Microsoft looked at the ways that gaming was adapting, attempted to anticipate future trends and produced a hardware concept that ticked all the boxes.
Let's not underestimate the sheer wealth of data Microsoft (and indeed Sony) has on its userbase and how we interact with hardware. Online services allow the platform holders to monitor information how your console is being used, what peripherals are attached, what displays you're using and what games and apps are being loaded. Statistics showed that for many users, the Xbox 360 was being utilised more for media streaming than it was for actual gameplay. Nielsen's 2011 research demonstrated that after watching directly from a computer, games consoles were the next most popular form of media streamer.
Meanwhile, the late 2010 launch of Kinect for Xbox 360 was a staggering success, with a phenomenal eight million units shifted, making it the most successful consumer electronics launch in history - and also, according to sources at Microsoft, making Xbox 360 the first console to sell more in its fifth year on the shelves than it did in its fourth. Each of these factors had a profound impact on Microsoft's thinking behind the next-gen Xbox.
Thanks to the remarkable Xbox 720 vision document leak, we actually have a unique insight into the thought processes that produced the Xbox One. Put together as a discussion document for an internal summit hosted during September 2010, the PowerPoint presentation showed us in extreme detail how Microsoft were approaching the follow-up to Xbox 360. Apple and Google were defined as key competitors as well as Sony and Nintendo, while "next-gen sensors" like Kinect and VR/AR glasses were viewed as key points of differentiation that Microsoft could exploit. The need to "appeal to broad audiences" and "scale the business" to set-top boxes and beyond was identified.
"The leaked 2010 'Xbox 720' document reveals that the pack-in Kinect and the media strategy were in place some time before the core Xbox One design was finalised."
On 24th September 2010, Microsoft held a meeting to discuss the vision for the console that would become Xbox One. What's clear is that the mandatory Kinect and the idea of a console that was more than just a games machine was already locked in - indeed, the hardware was built around this concept.
It's an ambitious document in many ways, but it's notable that AAA gaming capabilities were probably the least forward-looking element - a target of a mere 4x to 6x Xbox 360 quality is mentioned more than once (though 8x gets a look-in on one occasion). Instead we see more focus on the intriguing new concept of transmedia gaming, where real-time TV and gaming are combined, again with Kinect as the centrepiece. Why just watch the golf when you can actually take part in the event, with stats and performances inserted into the game as it happened? It never happened of course, but it's indicative of the thought processes of the time. There's a sense that Microsoft felt it owned AAA gaming and wanted to do something more, something different. It wrongfully perceived threats from companies that have still yet to mount any kind of challenge to the traditional home console and considered mobile devices as companion technology, rather than the actual destination for the majority of the more casual gamers it craved.
A lot changed in the final Xbox One design, of course. The fact that Microsoft was still debating whether to use ARM or x86 cores demonstrates that the internal discussion took place some time before the hardware was finalised. Xbox 360 backwards compatibility never happened, a mooted modular design that could have led to an upgradable console was shelved (but patents were applied for), OnLive was never acquired and cloud streaming functionality is unlikely to appear on Xbox One any time soon.
But much of the discussed spec made it to the final product - eight x86 cores, ESRAM, a cool and quiet set-top box design and of course the second-gen Kinect. The $50 budget per unit for the main processor sounds about right and even the 120W power envelope mooted in the leaked document was actualised in the final design. But more important than specifics in hardware detail is the overall vision for what the box should be capable of - gaming had to co-exist with media and apps in order to appeal to the broadest possible audience and Kinect was omnipresent in Microsoft's thinking. We can't help but wonder what Sony's equivalent 2010 document would look like. We suspect it would be nothing like this.
"The notion of a multimedia set-top box dominated Microsoft's thinking, defining the core design of the machine - a legacy that may impact its new role as a more traditional console."
What happened next was a mixture of changing market conditions, a stunning revitalisation in Sony's fortunes and poor decision-making on Microsoft's part. The Xbox 720 document points towards a $299 price point - the sweet spot that had served the PlayStation and its successor so well - but the ambition of Microsoft's design along with the need to break even on hardware brought about a $499/£429 sticker price that killed off any idea of Xbox One going mainstream at launch, especially with Sony coming in much cheaper with PS4. Meanwhile, Kinect for gaming simply ran out of ideas on Xbox 360 - it was a one-year flash in the pan, third parties deserted it and, remarkably, even Microsoft itself failed to back the second-gen Kinect with must-have exclusive games for the Xbox One launch.
By the time the new hardware was revealed, controller-free motion gaming felt more like a punchline than the future, and the notion of a mandatory buy-in cost was clearly a bad idea without the software to support it. There was the sense that Microsoft was not listening to the core gamers that defined the success of the Xbox 360 - Kinect was a negative, not a positive, while the TVTVTVTV media functionality was perceived as a value-added feature - not the core of the device as it was presented at the initial reveal. On top of that, the notion of an always-on Kinect surveying our living rooms didn't sit well with allegations that the US government had extensive access to Microsoft's (and others') internet services. Once a mandatory extension of Xbox One, Microsoft was forced to make Kinect detachable from the console, with further privacy options implemented. The decoupling of the camera from the Xbox One had begun even before launch.
By the time the console reached stores, the media features were looking promising but under-developed where it really mattered. Voice control turned out rather well, the ability to seamlessly switch sources also worked beautifully, and the multiple biometric login feature was extremely cool technology. However, the focus on the bleeding-edge tech was at odds with the lack of basic features: there was no sign of DVR options, no 50Hz support, the Blu-ray app was bugged and local/network file playback was left off the spec sheet. Perhaps worst of all, the showcase OneGuide simply didn't work at all outside of the USA. By extension, Blu-ray aside, Xbox One didn't offer any must-have media services that weren't already available on Xbox 360.
"In pre-production, Microsoft considered ambitious concepts to integrate gaming and live TV in ways that never made their way to the final Xbox One."
In retrospect, Microsoft may be wondering whether it should have dropped Kinect pre-launch, much as Sony had done with the PlayStation Camera. However, to do so would have effectively killed all the non-gaming functions before the console had even hit the shelves, and our understanding is that Microsoft still retained faith in the media strategy even when it became clear that sales were flagging.
Internally, the discussion was framed as being about the first platform holder to reach 100m units, not the first to hit five million. The thinking was that Xbox One and Kinect media functionality would win over the mainstream when the price was right. Unfortunately for Microsoft (and indeed Sony), the conditions that allow for a current-gen console price-cut are highly limited - CPU and RAM costs remain at a premium and won't be falling substantially in the immediate future. In the meantime, enthusiasm for Xbox One was flagging. Titanfall was a system-seller, but sales dropped off again with each passing week and the added momentum was short-lived. Dropping the camera or paying for the price-cut itself were the only options available to Microsoft. With that, Kinect was history.
The decision to drop Kinect clearly has more advantages than disadvantages, but it places Xbox One in a difficult situation. The key media and apps strategy decided upon four years ago had a profound impact on the machine's design. Microsoft wanted a cool and quiet unit that could work as a set-top box - a decision that would have informed GPU and memory choice, key areas where it is outspecced by PS4. But it goes beyond that. The basic aesthetics of the console were defined by the media strategy to the point where Xbox One even looks more like an anonymous, slab-like STB as opposed to a stylish state-of-the-art games console.
From a gaming perspective, Kinect wasn't a well-supported device, so moving away from it feels like the best decision Microsoft could have made, but in many respects Xbox One now comes across as a machine designed around a series of concepts that are no longer relevant, elements of its core identity whittled away piece by piece. Microsoft made the decision to trade raw gaming power for a more rounded entertainment concept, sinking enormous amounts of time, money and effort into technologies that much of the userbase never used and that future buyers are even less likely to experience - and we're not just talking about Kinect.
"Is this the end of Kinect? If Microsoft is still working on its 'Fortaliza' VR/AR concept, the camera will play a key role."
Always online, always connected, designed to be left on for 10 years: this was a significant challenge with much time, effort and engineering sunk into it - now pretty much irrelevant as Xbox One becomes more games console than media centre. The HDMI input and passthrough remains, but doesn't work as well without voice control, while centralised control of your TV and sound system is now gone without Kinect. The innovative multi-OS virtual machine set-up is a breathtaking technological achievement, but always came across as unwieldy in action and now falls by the wayside in general usage now that the voice input has gone. Out of the box, the Kinect-free Xbox One is really no more of a media centre than its predecessor - and we can't help wonder whether all that time, effort and energy would have been better spent making the best games console possible instead.
While there is price parity with PS4, a brutal assessment of Xbox One is that we're still looking at a less capable machine retailing for the same price, with few points of differentiation. Communicating whatever it is that makes Xbox One unique, original and different is the new challenge facing Microsoft. Primarily it will be about exclusive titles and third-party content deals, but it's also about rebuilding a relationship with a core userbase that has lost its close sense of connection to the Xbox brand and has grown distrustful of Microsoft itself.
The good news for Microsoft is that games and content will always trump hardware spec. Yesterday's Halo 5 tease was short on details but at least re-introduced a key title with an immense level of goodwill associated with it, and the E3 line-up should be strong. Beyond that we understand that Microsoft isn't done with the cloud, and that games are being built around Azure that go beyond the utilisations we've seen thus far. Microsoft's third-party publishing team never lifted the foot off the gas in terms of securing exclusives, and doubtless we'll see more of their efforts at next month's press event. We won't see a total reboot of Xbox One, but at the very least the focus will be where it should have been from day one - on the games. |
Julian Assange has no First Amendment freedoms. He’s sitting in an Embassy in London. He’s not a US citizen.
You would think that by the time a person becomes the Director of the CIA, he would have a correct understanding of the Constitution, which is the founding document of the federal government, which the CIA is part of. This should be especially true when the CIA Director is a former member of Congress, a graduate of West Point, and the holder of a law degree from Harvard.Embarrassingly, such is not the case with CIA Director and former U.S. Congressman Mike Pompeo. In a speech delivered at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., Pompeo demonstrated a woeful lack of understanding of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, specifically the First Amendment.Referring to his belief that WikiLeaks official Julian Assange, who is a citizen of Australia, should be indicted and prosecuted by the U.S. government for revealing secrets of the U.S. national-security establishment, Pompeo stated:That is quite an amazing statement. It’s also a misleading and fallacious one.What Pompeo obviously doesn’t get is that no one, including American citizens, has First Amendment freedoms. There’s a simple reason for that: Freedoms don’t come from the First Amendment. Or to put it another way, the First Amendment doesn’t give anyone, including Americans, any freedoms at all.People’s freedoms also don’t come from the Constitution. They don’t come from the federal government. They don’t come from the troops, the CIA, or the NSA either.Freedom comes from nature and from God. Even if the Constitution had never been approved by the American people — that is, even if the federal government had never been called into existence — people would still have their fundamental, natural,God-given rights. That’s because freedom and other natural, God-given rights preexist government and, therefore, exist independently of government.Thomas Jefferson makes this point clear in the Declaration of Independence when he points out that people are endowed with unalienable rights by nature and God, not by government or by some document that calls government into existence.There is something else that is important to note here: As Jefferson points out, everyone, not just American citizens, is endowed with these natural, God-given rights, including life, freedom, and the pursuit of happiness. That includes people who are citizens of other countries. Citizenship has nothing to do rights that are vested in everyone by nature and God.At the risk of belaboring the obvious, that includes Julian Assange. His freedom does not come from the Constitution or the First Amendment or by the Australian government. His freedom comes from the same source that your freedom and my freedom come from — from nature and from God.So, what is the purpose of government? Jefferson makes it clear: Government’s job is to protect the exercise of natural or God-given rights, including liberty.What about the First Amendment? If its purpose is not to give people rights, including freedom, what is its purpose?The purpose of the First Amendment, in part, is to protect the preexisting, natural, God-given freedom of people to publish whatever they want, including the dark, illegal, illicit, immoral, and evil secrets of the federal government, including such dark-side, totalitarian-like nefarious activities as assassination, murder, disappearances, coups, torture, abuse, partnerships with dictators, rendition, kidnapping, illegal surveillance, rendition, destruction of incriminatory evidence, illegal invasions and wars of aggression, and secret prison facilities.That’s what Pompeo and others of his ilk just don’t get: The purpose of the First Amendment and the rest of the Bill of Rights is to protect people from federal officials like him — officials who are hell-bent on destroying our lives, freedom, and prosperity, and well-being, all in the name of “keeping us safe” or protecting “national security.”Our ancestors were wise people. They knew that the federal government would inevitably attract people like Pompeo. That’s why the Constitution brought into existence a government of extremely limited powers rather than a general power that would enable federal officials like Pompeo to just do the “right” thing.That’s also why the Constitution didn’t empower the federal government to have a CIA, NSA, and standing army. Our ancestors knew that a national-security establishment would inevitably end up destroying people’s freedom in the name of “keeping them safe” and that it would inevitably try to punish people for publicizing and opposing its destruction of liberty.That’s why our ancestors demanded the enactment of the First Amendment and the rest of the Bill of Rights as a condition for approving the Constitution. They wanted to protect people’s fundamental rights and liberties from federal officials like Pompeo, who they knew would be the biggest threats to people’s fundamental, natural, God-given rights and freedoms.Reprinted with permission from the Future of Freedom Foundation |
In late August 2016, a group of experts recommended the declaration of a new geological epoch to the International Geological Congress.1 This new epoch, the anthropocene, presents a gestalt shift in the way that human being live and interact with the world. Whereas humanity was before a being in the world of the holocene, the anthropocene presents what Timothy Morton describes as “disturbing moment at which human history intersects decisively with geological time.”2 Despite its widespread use in the humanities and earth sciences since the 1980s, the potential declaration of a new geological epoch by a major geological organization has the potential to shift the way that humans exist in the world. Philosopher Rosi Braidotti has suggested that the anthropocene brings about a “time of deep epistemological, epistemological, ethical and political crises of values in human societies.”3
As many already know, climate change is intimately connected with racism and sexism.4 Climate change is caused by the richest countries at the expense of poorer counties and disproportionately impacts marginalized populations. As German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk points out, the anthropocene leads humans to “Humans create their own climate”5 through their technological prowess. The ability to create ones own climate leads humanity to be regarded as the designers of their own climate The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact that the anthropocene’s “crisis of values” has on religious values and practice. Specifically, how should Christians6 handle and grasp humanity’s responsibility as designers of the world?
Pope Francis’s anthropocentric stewardship
Any attempt at interrogating the relationship between Christianity and the anthropocene must engage with Pope Francis’ 2015 encyclical Laudato si’. In this controversial encyclical–written for all of humanity–, the Pope calls “for a radical transformation of politics, economics and individual lifestyles to confront environmental degradation and climate change, blending a biting critique of consumerism and irresponsible development with a plea for swift and unified global action.”7 Pope Francis suggests that capitalism and individualism are at the heart of the climate crisis. Climate change contains “environmental, social, economic, [and] political”8 implications, and it impacts are most likely to impact and shape the lives of those in areas of poverty. This happens in at least two ways. First, Capitalism allows rich countries control over poor countries through debt which leads to a global situation in which “developing countries, where the most important reserves of the biosphere are found, continue to fuel the development of richer countries at the cost of their own present and future.”9 Second, Climate Change is most likely to affect poorer countries who remain “largely dependent on natural reserves and ecosystemic services such as agriculture, fishing and forestry.”10 Pope Francis suggests that the rise in temperature produces disproportional “repercussions on the poorest area of the world […] where a rise in temperature, together with drought, has proved devastating for farming.”11
Peter Sloterdijk has argued that the anthropocene “paves the way for a fundamental change in attitude whereby human beings lose their status as would-be ‘lords and masters’ of nature and become atmosphere designers and climate guardians.” 12 The Pope gives a similar message stating that ““our “dominion” over the universe should be understood more properly in the sense of responsible stewardship.”13 With the anthropocene, the ability to design the world has been placed in human hands. The climate crisis is not only an ecological event, but also a socio-political crisis which means that human design pervades into this realm as well. Creation care cannot be separated from issues of economic or social oppression. Thus, when designing a response to the climate crisis one must consider the social, economic and political in addition to the ecological.
Pope Francis’s call for stewardship incorporates the intersectional nature of climate change. The stewardship of Francis’s design is inseparable from communion with all of creation. This is “the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and the world”14 which is expressed in a communitarian embrace of love. Paragraph 231 describes the solution to capitalism and individualism as a “civilization of love” in which “social love moves us to devise larger strategies to halt environmental degradation and to encourage a “culture of care” which permeates all of society.”15 A community where love takes precedence over greed and individualism, and where domination is not seen as ownership, but as care. Rather than a disconnected ownership with all creatures of the earth, Francis suggests that “It also entails a loving awareness that we are not disconnected from the rest of creatures, but joined in a splendid universal communion.”16 One might go so far as to suggest that Francis is advocating a design in which Dasein is being in loving community with all of being.
Yet, despite Francis’s advocacy for communion with all of creation, his writing retains an anthropocentric or human centric assumption. Francis argues that part of God’s design for the earth contains a provision that “Each community can take from the bounty of the earth whatever it needs for subsistence, but it also has the duty to protect the earth and to ensure its fruitfulness for coming generations.”17 Thus, while Pope Francis argues against dominion and ownership over the earth, his message of stewardship is still centred in a preservation of the earth for future humanity. Futhermore, despite his talk of stewardship and communion, the text retains at least some notion of dominion: “We are not God. The earth was here before us and it has been given to us.”18 The move away from damaging authoritarianism to a communitarian society retains a hierarchical notion of humanity as guardian or steward above those which they are guardian or steward of. Francis’s community retains the human at its centre and stewardship is presented as sustainability and preservation of the earth for humans.
Against Sustainability
The retention of the human centre is problematic because it retains a notion that earth and the creatures upon earth belong to humanity. Thus, when we talk about sustainability, it is centred on how to design the world so that it is beneficial to humans. In his recent New York Times opinion piece, “Against ‘Sustainability’” Jeremy Butman argues for an adaptable design rather than a conservational design. In order to do this Butman begins by discussing the lineage of the environmental movement. Traditionally, environmentalism is seen as coming out of 18th century romanticism, and Butman does not disagree. The traditional narrative suggests that Descartes, in his reduction of “nature” to mathematics, opens the door for a scientific, technological worldview which “cleared the way for the domination of nature by industry and prepared philosophy for Nietzsche’s dramatic declaration of the death of God.”19
What is left out of the dominant narrative is the idea that the central attributes of God “were in different ways transposed onto the body of nature” 20 in various discourses such as German and English Romanticism and American transcendentalism. What is problematic in this transposition is that nature is given the attribute of perfection – if perfection changes it becomes imperfect. Thus, the Aristotelean notion of nature as physis or change is discarded and nature becomes a Garden of Eden with the Death of God. Thus, when humans talk about sustainability our hope is to sustain nature for humans. Humans wish to retain their understanding of a perfect nature. Butman suggests that “we preserve the resources needed for human consumption, whether that means energy consumption or aesthetic consumption. In one sense, we preserve nature for industry.”21 Thus, Pope Francis suggestion that humanity ought to preserve for human consumption in ensuring the earth’s fruitfulness for future generations doesn’t undermine industrial consumption, but affirms it.
The problem with preservation is that it is based upon the idea that changes to the earth are destroying humanities perfect Garden of Eden. As Butman states, extinction is “only tragic if nature is viewed as something perfect that we are destroying rather than as a state of flux in which we are participating.”22 The idea of participation is powerful. It leads to a new conception of humanities communion with the earth, animals and inanimate beings. Rather than being “rulers over” the other, or even “guardians” of the other, Butman situates humanity as “participants” with the other. Participation with the other means saying “yes” to the anthropocene. Saying “yes” means that instead of the oppositional position of sustainability, humans should speak of adaptability. Butman envisions a worldview which sees the earth not as something other from humanity, but “…as a bustling world of colleagues, both human and nonhuman, animate and inanimate, over whom we have influence, but also influence us.”23
The Posthuman
In proposing humanity as participants within a greater community of adaption, Butman begins to move beyond the humanistic sustainability of Pope Francis and other environmentalists in order to envision a posthuman communion. Rosi Braidotti’s work in the Posthuman will allow us to explore what this interdependence community of participants might do. In order to examine the community, it is important to first understand the lineage of humanism to posthumanism which Braidotti outlines in the first chapter of The Posthuman. It is only after one is grounded in an understanding of this posthuman that one can begin to explore what a posthuman community might become.
Braidotti defines humanism as a tradition which, going back to Protagoras, centres man as the subject of universal rationality (i.e. man as the measure of all things). Against this universal “man” stand the sexualized, radicalized, and naturalized Other. The Other, through their otherness, is capable of calling out the power and imperialism of the universal. It is in the Other’s response to humanism that anti-humanism emerges. Anti-humanism is a dialectical move which positions itself in opposition to humanism. It was prevalent throughout the 1960’s in both American opposition to the war in Vietnam and the1968 student protests in Europe. Anti-humanism “appealed directly to the subversive potential of the texts of Marx, so as to recover their anti-institutional roots”24 – a subversive potential which reaches its climax in Foucault’s “Death of Man”. It is out of this human/anti-human dichotomy that posthumanism is able to emerge. While anti-humanism rejects humanism it still retains universalizing qualities in the human/antihuman binary. The binary itself functions as a universal either/or. In anti-humanism one is either a human or not a human – and these details are strictly black and white. Posthumanism is an attempt to escape this binary and dichotomous thinking.
Braidotti presents to the audience 3 types of humanism: 1. Reactive posthumanism which is a reactionary movement against anti-humanism and attempts a return to universal humanism; 2. Scientific or analytic posthumanism which alters the understanding of human and technology by proposing a merging interconnectivity between the two (while in a sense retaining an understanding of human – just a different one then before); and 3. Critical posthumanism which is the humanism Braidotti adopts. This is a posthumanism which can be traced back to the “post-structuralism, anti-universalism of feminism, anti-colonial phenomenology of Frantz Fanon and of his teacher Aimé Césaire.”25 Within posthumanism the human centre of humanism is decentred and the critical posthumanist moves beyond liberal universalism to embrace complexity and subjectivity while at the same time resting on a Deleuzian ethic of becoming. A critical posthumanism “raises issues of power and entitlement in the age of globalization and calls for self-reflexivity on the part of the subjects who occupy the former humanist centre, but also those who dwell in on of the many scattered centres of power of advanced post-modernity.”26 This critical posthumanism is a decentred network of subjectivities which is not reducible to humans. It is “vitalist, embodied and embedded, firmly located somewhere, according to the feminist ‘politics of location’.”It is a becoming which usurps the dominant centre. In rupturing the centrality of the human subject, the new subjectivity comes to include a flux of being – including, but not limited to, humans, machines, the earth, and animals.
Thus far, we’ve looked at Braidotti’s posthuman in an attempt to expand upon the decentring of the human subjectivity. Now we’ll interrogate how a inter-relational community being might become. Braidotti adopts a Spinozist monism – a unity or univocity of being. Using the Deleuzian method of becoming27, Bradotti argues for a Zoe-centric egalitarianism through which interdependence with multiple other can take place. Zoe is the structure of life that brings vitality, and it is a zoe-centric egalitarianism which the posthuman strives for. Braidotti’s monism “implies the open-ended, interrelational, multi-sexed and trans-species flows of becoming through interaction with multiple others. A posthuman subject thus constituted exceeds the boundaries of both anthropocentrism and of compensatory humanism, to acquire a planetary dimension.”28 Within the taxonomy of being a radical decentreing of humanity takes place. Animals, machines, humans and earth are no longer considered strict categories of being. They are constantly and consistently beings together bound within a monistic framework of relationality. Through this relationality in which these animals, humans, machines and earth no longer function as seperate concepts, but participants wrapped up together through interdependence, a community based praxis is able to emerge. This is a community bounded by an “interdependence with multiple others”29 which includes animals, humans, earth, technology.
Within such a community a zoe-egalitarianism is possible where Zoe is “the ‘generative power that flows across all species.”30 Like the community Butman envisions, this community is not one that strives but preservation or sustainability, but instead affirms adaptability and creative designs. With the posthuman is the potential for a community of interdependence in which the division between human and non-human dissolves into a community of interdependence where individualism – not just for individual actors, but anthropocentrism as a whole – is replaced with a community fully engaged in zoe-centric and communal care. In order for this to happen, humans must develop new positive relationships with animals, the earth, and technology through processes of becoming which allow for an ending of hierarchical measure. The interdependence of zoe-centric communities allows for the creation of new ways of looking at the anthropocene and embracing it as designers of new, post-anthropocentric worlds in new post-human rhythms and flows.
Creativity
Both Pope Francis, Jeremy Butman, and Rosi Braidotti stress the important of a communality within their articulation of how to respond to the anthropocene. The difference between their responses is that Pope Francis favours the negation of change while Butman and Braidotti strive for the affirmation of it. Both recognize the ability of humans to design and shape the world, but while Francis centres his design on humanism where humans act upon the world, Butman and Braidotti goes beyond to a community of posthuman actors acting upon one another. In striving for community, all three thinkers stress the important of being with in community. In a sense, the community is able to work together in what Sloteridjk might label a co-immunizing force.31 For Pope Francis, this results in a communitarian movement of return. For Rosi Braidotti, it results in a zoe-centric egalitarianism which affirms the anthropocene and attempts to adapt the world to new rhythms and flows. In either case, there is a need for the creation of design strategies for interaction within the community. For Pope Francis this creativity requires “an ecological conversion can inspire us to greater creativity and enthusiasm in resolving the world’s problems,”32 for Butman it requires new adaptability, and for Braidotti it means the creation of new rhythms and flows which repeat throughout being. In all of these there is a desire for creation.
Since my sympathies lie with Braidotti, my conclusions will as well, but I don’t think that they are so far divorced from the humanism of Pope Francis that a bridge cannot be seen at some point in the distance. How is it that we, Christians or otherwise, should respond to the anthropocene? Through affirmation! By affirming that we play – within a community of interrelated multiple others – a role in the design process of new worlds, we must affirm and encourage creation and adaption of new designs that push forward an zoe-egalitarianism which has at its focus a love of being. This means developing new creative ways of circumnavigating capitalism in order to benefit the earth and those on it. This might also mean moving away from certain practices that do not fit within the new affirmative rhythms.
Going forward I’m not sure exactly what this goes, or where these pathways lead. Andrew Culp’s thesis that “We need to stop saving the world in order to find new ones”33 is one that works against sustainability and towards the new becoming, outside of ‘the world’. For Culp, the “[d]iscourse of domination is winning…we need to explore new discourses of the anthropocene”34. Yet, it still doesn’t unlock or give a simple answer to what these discourses look like. Creating and affirming new ways to explore and work within the anthropocene is the next step. This involves the affirmation of technologies that are used in ways that benefit zoe, rather than harm. Rather than Francis’ return to a simpler time, we must contemplate technologies that move outside of capitalism and consumption. Affirming new technologies that strive towards zoe-egalitrianism. Now it is up to us to create these affirmative intensities.
footnotes
[1]Carrington, “The Anthropocene Epoch.”
[2]Morton, “This Is Not My Beautiful Biosphere,” p. 229
[3]Braidotti, The Posthuman, p. 79
[4]c.f. Klein, This Changes Everything
[5]Sloterdijk, Globes, p. 985. It should be noted that Sloterdijk is talking about climate in two senses – the sociological climate and the physical climate. In pre-enlightenment era, humans created immunological climates which functioned to protect against the exterior. After the enlightenment we see a shift to what Sloterdijk calls “atmotechnics” which lead to humanities “air conditioning” of the world (c.f. Sloterdijk, Globes, p. 961-967).
[6]I admit that when one talks about “Christianity” one is always already talking about a multiplicity of diverse members and groups. Christianity, as a concept, contains a plurality of different denominations, sects, religious texts, interpretations, etc., and talking about these groups as a cohesive unit can at times appear disingenuous. I recognize this problem, and move forward cautiously, understanding that the message is aimed at an ecumenical church.
[7] Yardley and Goodstein, “Pope Francis, in Sweeping Encyclical, Calls for Swift Action on Climate Change.”
[8]Pope Francis, Encyclical on Capitalism and Inequality, Paragraph 25. While Pope Francis focuses here on socio-political phenomena at the state level, it would be a mistake to think that climate change doesn’t impact poorer people domestically. Elderly people who cannot afford air conditioning are at increased risk of heat stroke due to a rise in temperature (c.f. NIA: Hyperthermia: Too Hot for Your Health). Drought also raises food prices which leads to higher costs of living which is particularly harmful for people below the poverty threshold.
[9]Pope Francis, Encyclical on Capitalism and Inequality, Paragraph 52.
[10] ibid., Paragraph 25.
[11] ibid., Paragraph 51
[12] Sloterdijk, Terror from the Air, p. 89
[13]Pope Francis, Encyclical on Capitalism and Inequality, Paragraph 116.
[14] ibid., Paragraph 229
[15] ibid., Paragraph 231
[16] ibid., Paragraph 220
[17] ibid., Paragraph 67
[18] ibid
[19] Butman, “Against ‘Sustainability.’”
[20] ibid
[21] ibid
[22] ibid
[23] ibid
[24] Braidotti, The Posthuman, p. 22
[25] ibid., p. 47
[26] ibid., p. 51
[27] I do not have enough space here to fully explain how becoming works in Deleuze’s ontology. For an introduction I recommend the sections on Becoming, Becoming + Music, and Becoming + Performance Art in Parr’s, The Deleuze Dictionary, p. 25-31
[28] Braidotti, The Posthuman, p. 89
[29] ibid., p. 101
[30] ibid., p. 103
[31] Sloterdijk, You Must Change Your Life, p. 450 “All social organization in history, from the primal hordes to the world empires, can, from a systemic perspective, be explained as structures of co-immunity”.
[32] Pope Francis, Encyclical on Capitalism and Inequality, Paragraph 220
[33] Culp, “The ‘Anthropocene’: A Problematic Term for Problematic Times.”
[34] Culp, “Aliens, Monsters, and Revolution in the Dark Deleuze.”
Works Cited
Braidotti, Rosi. The Posthuman. 1st ed. Oxford: Wiley, 2013.
Butman, Jeremy. “Against ‘Sustainability.’” The New York Times, August 8, 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/08/opinion/against-sustainability.html.
Carrington, Damian. “The Anthropocene Epoch: Scientists Declare Dawn of Human-Influenced Age.” The Guardian, August 29, 2016, sec. Science. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/aug/29/declare-anthropocene-epoch-experts-urge-geological-congress-human-impact-earth.
Culp, Andrew. “The ‘Anthropocene’: A Problematic Term for Problematic Times.” presented at the 2016 Anthropocene Consortium Series, Evergreen State College, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6Hvz3VVu6Y.
Culp, Andrew. “Aliens, Monsters, and Revolution in the Dark Deleuze.” Anarchist Without Content, August 26, 2016. https://anarchistwithoutcontent.wordpress.com/2016/08/26/aliens-monsters-and-revolution-in-the-dark-deleuze/.
Klein, Naomi. This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate. Reprint edition. Simon & Schuster, 2015.
Morton, Timothy. “This Is Not My Beautiful Biosphere.” In A Cultural History of Climate Change, edited by Tom Bristow and Thomas Ford, 229–39. Routledge, 2016. http://www.tandfebooks.com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/isbn/9781315734590.
Parr, Adrian. The Deleuze Dictionary. 2nd Edition. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010.
Pope Francis. Encyclical on Capitalism and Inequality: On Care for Our Common Home. Edited by Same Lavigne. Verso, 2015.
Sloterdijk, Peter. Globes: Spheres Volume II: Macrospherology. Translated by Wieland Hoban. Los Angeles, CA: Semiotext, 2014.
Sloterdijk, Peter. Terror from the Air. Translated by Amy Patton and Steve Corcoran. Semiotext(e) Foreign Agents Series. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2009.
Sloterdijk, Peter. You Must Change Your Life. 1 edition. Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2014.
Yardley, Jim, and Laurie Goodstein. “Pope Francis, in Sweeping Encyclical, Calls for Swift Action on Climate Change.” The New York Times, June 18, 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/19/world/europe/pope-francis-in-sweeping-encyclical-calls-for-swift-action-on-climate-change.html.
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The owner of a dog shot dead by Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies Saturday is speaking out about the way the situation was handled.
Deputies were canvassing a Norwalk neighborhood for a man with a gun at 161 Street about 3:30 p.m.
Eddie Perez says they asked him to remove his pit bull from the backyard so they could search it. He says he told the deputies he needed a leash for the 2-year-old dog, Ziggy, but says he was ordered to bring the dog out anyway.
A neighbor captured what happened next on camera: Ziggy spotted the deputies' canine and broke free to attack the police dog.
"I'm telling the Sheriff's, 'Taser my dog, Taser my dog.' His exact words were, 'No, shoot that (expletive) dog,'" Perez said.
With his assault rifle drawn, witnesses said one of the deputies shot Ziggy in the head as about a dozen kids looked on.
"They shot the dog in front of everybody," said Eric Castaneda, a witness. "My daughter, she's 12 years old, she just ran in crying. How could they do that?"
Witnesses said the dog limped back to its home before collapsing in the driveway.
Perez said he is devastated by Ziggy's death, but what upsets him most is how the situation was handled.
"They don't apologize," he said. "They saw their dog was more important to them than my dog. They're the ones that told me to do what I did. They're not taking responsibility for it."
The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department has not commented on the incident.
Perez said the deputies didn't end up searching his backyard and that he later found the suspect's weapon.
Perez said he has hired an attorney. |
From the AP:
Republican Rep. Rick Renzi has been indicted for extortion, wire fraud, money laundering and other charges related to a land deal in Arizona. A 26-page federal indictment unsealed in Arizona accuses Renzi and two former business partners of conspiring to promote the sale of land that buyers could swap for property owned by the federal government. The sale netted one of Renzi’s former partners $4.5 million.
Here’s the indictment.
Update: The charges boil down to this, basically. Renzi (who’s already said he won’t seek re-election) is charged with doing everything he can as a congressman to strong-arm others into buying land from his buddy James Sandlin — Sandlin then allegedly kicked back sizable chunks of cash back to Renzi in a series of complicated financial transactions (thus the money laundering charge). The main details of these charges were reported by the Arizona papers and The Wall Street Journal last year.
Update: Yikes. In a completely separate matter, the indictment charges Renzi with a conspiracy to “embezzle and misappropriate client premiums [from his insurance company] to fund his congressional campaign.”
Update: It’s worth recalling that the Renzi case played a small role in the U.S. attorneys’ firings scandal. One of the fired U.S. attorneys was Arizona’s Paul Charlton. The investigation dates way back to June of 2005, but it did not surface publicly under shortly before the 2006 midterm elections. Renzi’s people, obviously, weren’t happy, and an aide to Renzi put in a call to Charlton (who in turn reported the contact to the Justice Department leadership).
And the Wall Street Journal later reported that investigators and prosecutors in Arizona had been frustrated with senior Justice Department officials’ general reluctance to pursue the investigation. The thrust of the piece was that the investigation had been slow-rolled in the run-up to the election.
Update: Renzi is, at least for the time being, a co-chair of John McCain’s Arizona Leadership Team (he’s one of 24 co-chairs). One imagines he won’t be such a public advocate for McCain this election. |
Over the past several years, the web has been kind to extroverts. Social networks have offered a new platform for people to broadcast their thoughts, connect with each other and expand their contacts in the online realm. The social web has even ushered in a new kind of extroversion, in which people who might be shy or uneasy in traditional social settings can express themselves online.
Much less noticeable is another trend: the rise of the web introvert. But while some web introverts might be introverted in the classic sense — that is, uncomfortable in social settings — many of them aren’t shy at all. They are simply averse to having a public presence on the web. And in time, they are going to present a problem for social sites like Facebook and Twitter, whose potential growth will be limited unless they can successfully court them.
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Web introversion isn’t a question of technophobia or security concerns. Anyone who has tried to build out their online networks on Facebook knows that there are a lot of people they know in real life that they can’t friend online. Many people who have been involved in technology for years — or who are entirely comfortable shopping at Amazon (s amzn), paying bills online, buying songs from iTunes (s aapl) — will have nothing to do with social networks. Others see it as a chore necessary for their jobs. Still others have accounts languishing on all the major social networks.
If you ask a web introvert why he or she isn’t into social networks, the response often comes down to a matter of trust – or rather, a lack of it. It’s frustrating enough that each social network has its own etiquette to master, but many people are loathe to make the effort because of the unpleasant reality that there is no such thing as privacy on the web.
And typically, the more that web introverts understand the nature of the web, the less willing they are to expose themselves on it. For while you might start off thinking you own your tweets, you really don’t. And if you don’t want your Facebook information open to the public, you need to follow closely that site’s constant privacy changes. Moreover, regardless of the site, a casual comment that, in an offline conversation would be forgotten, is preserved for years on the web — and could come back to haunt you.
For extroverts, this is all just part of navigating the social web. But enough people are uncomfortable with social networks that it’s going to become a barrier to growth in the coming years. For now, Facebook’s growth is continuing simply because there are more and more extroverts signing up. And Twitter is still in the stage of experimenting with ways to make money.
Eventually growth rates will slow and these companies will see web introverts as an alienated part of the market that they need to court. Each introvert, after all, is a lost opportunity for revenue. But it may be that these characteristics are so inherent in the social web that such people simply can’t be courted.
Image courtesy of Flickr user creatingkoan. |
Same-sex marriage advocates could learn lessons from republic vote
Updated
Malcolm Turnbull's heart must've sunk when he read that John Howard would be teaming up with Tony Abbott for the campaign against same-sex marriage.
The Prime Minister knows what it's like to be at the sharp end of a popular cause, only to see it blunted and then broken by the Howard-Abbott duumvirate.
As chairman of the Australian Republican Movement almost two decades ago, Mr Turnbull was up against Mr Abbott who led Australians for Constitutional Monarchy with the encouragement of then-PM Mr Howard.
Like same-sex marriage now, polls at the time variously suggested an Australian republic either had majority support or at the very least more support than opposition.
But the Yes vote lost in the 1999 republic referendum, as republicans splintered over the preferred model and in the face of what Yes campaign director Greg Barns ruefully regards as simplistic and misleading claims.
Mr Barns said this week that if the same-sex marriage advocates split like the republicans did in 1999, they face a similar fate.
"They will lose if there's disunity and if they fail to counter what has already started to be an outrageous fear and scare campaign with blatant lies," Mr Barns told The Australian Financial Review.
"Disunity and an inability to counter these misleading claims Abbott is throwing around will defeat what should be a no-brainer."
Abbott's culture war over values
Mr Abbott, the most lethal political wrecking ball of his generation, unofficially launched the No campaign on Tuesday.
There was no bunting, no stage or fancy backdrop, just a few devastating lines delivered at the House of Representatives doors to a handful of reporters.
"I say to you, if you don't like same-sex marriage, vote no. If you're worried about religious freedom and freedom of speech, vote no, and if you don't like political correctness, vote no because voting no will help to stop political correctness in its tracks," he said.
Religious freedom. Freedom of speech. Political correctness. Mr Abbott framed the fight against same-sex marriage as the generational culture war over values.
He calls for dissent against the progressives' entire agenda and rails against the Left's encroachment of tradition and institution.
His fight against same-sex marriage is, in effect, his life's work. And he suggests the battle against legalisation of same-sex marriage is a crusade for liberal democracy and not against it.
And he praised the Government's pursuit of the postal plebiscite, which instantly worried some of his pro-gay marriage colleagues, recognising that Mr Abbott had seen instant opportunity to wage successful war.
Just as Mr Abbott distilled a No vote in 1999 as the democratic defence against the "politicians' republic", he celebrates the postal plebiscite on same-sex marriage as a strike against the "politicians' vote".
It is a typically Abbottesque inversion that depicts as undemocratic the very democratic institution of which he is member.
Shorten declares his hand
For more than two days, the Abbott articulation was left unchallenged by other political leaders.
Indeed, for most of the week it looked like no-one in Australia's political leadership, either in the Government or the Opposition, would take a hands-on role in the Yes campaign.
Mr Turnbull remains hesitant, neither wanting to take ownership of a deeply flawed process nor wanting to inflame the right who have long warned of giant conflagration over the gay marriage push.
The PM said he would vote yes but said other prime ministerial commitments would keep him from active campaign; it was unconvincing and meek.
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten, strung between a process he detests and an outcome he desires, took until Thursday to declare his hand.
When it came, Mr Shorten's declaration was strong, passionate and barbed.
"I will be voting yes. I will be campaigning for a Yes vote," he told Parliament on Thursday.
"We say to young Australians who are gay, we are voting in this survey, we are participating in this survey because of you.
"Not because we respect the process, but because the Labor Party will not let gay Australians and young gay people cope with this survey, this evaluation of their relationships, on their own."
He said he would hold Mr Turnbull personally responsible for "every hurtful bit of filth" unleashed by the postal vote, having shown "moral cowardice" by licensing the debate.
Vote could ruin Turnbull
It was a condemnation of character so personal it will invite retaliation. The Government will step up its "Kill Bill" strategy in weeks ahead to offset the brand damage done to the PM on the same-sex marriage debacle.
While Mr Shorten pledged to campaign for the Yes campaign, his insurance policy is in blaming Mr Turnbull for failure. Rather than ownership of the debate, Mr Shorten has taken a short lease.
The PM has no such political insurance, yet he needs the Yes vote to win. His allies know this.
And yet by aligning himself alongside Mr Shorten, Greens leader Richard Di Natale and gay rights advocates, Mr Turnbull again risks setting himself against the majority of his partyroom.
But think what a No vote in the postal vote would herald: Liberal agitators, already dismayed by their leader, would seek to bring on a private member's bill to legalise same-sex marriage.
The conservatives would revolt, accuse their colleagues of ignoring the popular view. Arguments about legitimacy of the vote would ensue. Tony Abbott would be at his destructive peak.
Mr Turnbull would be ruined.
And with the nation reeling that a popular cause had been brought unstuck by a process of connivance there'd be a rush to steal the line Mr Turnbull once used against Mr Howard after the republic debate:
Malcolm Turnbull would be the prime minister "who broke the nation's heart".
Topics: marriage, lgbt, government-and-politics, federal-government, australia
First posted |
Last year for Easter, I made a set of 6 superheroes with long ears :
But apparently Marvel superheroes and DC comics superheroes didn’t get along with each others very well in that egg box (especially Batman and Superman, who know why :p). So this year, I thought I would separate them in two different sets !
1. The Avengers set
2. The DC Comics set
Did you recognize them all?
Avengers set : Captain America, Black Widow, Thor, Hulk, Iron Man, Hawkeye
DC comics set : Batman, Superman, Flash, Wonder Woman, Hellboy, Green Lantern
As I didn’t want to have to box them after Easter, having to wait one year to unbox them, I also made them as egg cozies to be useful all year long !
As a bonus here is my first animated GIF ever :p
Now also available as a bundle : |
By now, you all know that Nokia did the unthinkable yesterday and announced an Android line-up of devices at Mobile World Congress, after criticizing the platform for years and pushing Windows Phone with their Lumia brand. That launch comes so close to the company’s smartphone division being completely enveloped under Microsoft — end of Q1 2014 should be the final date — that we’re left scratching our head. Despite the huge amount of hands-on videos that have showed us everything we need to know about the X series, we’re left with many unanswered questions. Here they are.
WHY? We’ve heard Elop’s explanation, we’ve read thousands of words as the ink is being consistently spilled in dozens of reports, but still, we can’t help but wonder why did Nokia launch the X series? Why now? Why bother? Why does it matter? Just seriously … why? What will happen to the X series once the Microsoft acquisition is complete? Will Microsoft really launch and sell Android devices? If the point is for the X series to replace the Asha series, and Asha as a brandname is exclusive to Microsoft as part of the acquisition for the next 10 years, will Microsoft sell Asha Android phones? Isn’t that like Pizza Hut selling Dominos Pizza? Will Nokia have to pay licensing fees to Microsoft like all other Android OEMs? That would be, well, hilarious. Where do the cheap Lumias fit now? The Lumia 520, for example, was selling well in emerging markets mainly because it was a Nokia branded device at a cheap price, with good build quality, and with smartphone features. Isn’t that exactly what the X series is? If the X series is supposed to be a stepping stone for consumers to join the Lumia and Microsoft ecosystem, what will happen when a Nokia X owner who got used to Android apps on his phone decides to “upgrade” to a Lumia and doesn’t find those same apps available for Windows Phone? Conspiracy theory time: if Microsoft owns the right to use the Asha and Lumia brandname, and Nokia can’t use their own brand on a smartphone, could the X be (what’s left of) Nokia’s way of later releasing smartphones that aren’t Asha or Lumia or Nokia branded or under the Microsoft umbrella? Would that be a way to stay in the smartphone space without breaking their sale deal? Will people really care about an Android device that doesn’t run Google Apps? Will they know the difference? Or is Nokia banking on people not even being aware what Android is to sell these phones? If you were ever a Nokia fan and user, did your first reaction to the announcement go along the lines of: “Would things be different if Nokia chose this strategy, or even full Android support with Google certification, three years ago?” That was then followed by a small pinch of the heart and a “We will never know, will we?” Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore said one day earlier, during the Windows keynote, that the company isn’t too excited about some of Nokia’s extra-curricular activities. Isn’t it ironic how that turned around overnight to be full-blown support for the X series, with Microsoft offering 10GB of free OneDrive storage and 1 month of free worldwide Skype calls to the device’s buyers? How much will anyone trust buying apps from the Nokia Store, given Nokia’s horrendous track record at opening, managing and then closing application stores? If you buy a Nokia X phone now, is there any guarantee, anywhere, that Microsoft won’t cancel the project by the end of Q1 2014 and you’ll be left with no support, no service center, no app store, no one to complain to, and practically nothing? Will developers really bother to update their apps and submit them for approval to the Nokia Store? Or will they just wait to see what Microsoft will do with this whole side-project? And if developers do submit their apps to the Nokia Store, will they try to keep them up-to-date as they do on the Play Store? Who’s to say that there won’t be year-old versions of apps plaguing the Nokia X? How will Android apps and games that require Google Play Services or Google+ login work? Is it still a few lines of code changes, or will developers have to re-write chunks of the app from scratch? Will the Nokia X series be updated along with AOSP Android, or will it be stuck on Jelly Bean? Should we call Microsoft and ask them about their plans? Will the hacker folks at XDA-Developers find a way to extract those Here Maps and Drive .apk files so we can run the apps on our own Android devices? Here is notorious for its offline navigation feature, and extensive maps that are quite better than Google’s in emerging countries and remote areas. Also for the hackers, we’re crossing our fingers that there would be a way to port Google Apps to those devices, for a blessedly awkward marriage of Nokia hardware, tiled UI, and Google apps. How ironic would that be? Will the CyanogenMod team be able to port CM to the Nokia X series? That would make quite an appealing combination, wouldn’t it? Is it just us, or do you also feel a bit weird seeing Android AOSP and apps running on a Nokia handset, and Nokia news being covered on Android sites? Doesn’t it feel a bit like seeing your divorced parents online dating profile after knowing them only as a married couple for many years? And the most important question – will every over-loyalistic Nokia fanboy/fangirl who proclaimed for years that they wouldn’t ever use Android, that Android apps numbers don’t matter, that Windows Phone has everything they need, that Android apps are ugly, and so on, change their mind now? Oh the fun…
Do you have any other perplexing questions regarding the Nokia X? Share them with us!
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The culture of Britain’s youth faces being “shaped and defined” by American giants such as Facebook, Amazon and Netflix, the BBC fears, as it announces major investment in children's television.
The BBC has confirmed it will invest £34 million in expanding digital programming for children, as it attempts to win their attention in a changing online world.
In a speech to staff, Lord Hall, the director-general, will spell out how the BBC must “reinvent” its offering to its youngest audience in the coming years, moving beyond television programmes to become a serious rival to “global media giants”.
In the BBC’s first Annual Plan, released today and setting out the corporation’s ambitions for the coming year, Lord Hall and chairman Sir David Clementi will announce the “biggest investment in children’s services in a generation”. |
Yesterday this popped up in my Twitter mentions:
I loved it for 3 reasons:
1. The guy is asking for pointers – I’m always impressed by people who ask questions and seek direction.
2. The tweet itself reads ever so slightly passive-aggresive, which means that Nowhere Man and I could probably be BFF’s in real life.
3. Duh. I’m a missionary – Hoping that a person will give the Bible a chance is, like, what I do.
Also? This really resonated with me because when I first became interested in the whole Jesus thing, someone gave me a Bible and I practically ran home because I was so excited to dive in. But, unlike my twitter friend, Nowhere Man, I wasn’t smart enough to ask for suggestions as to the best way to do that. So, since the Bible is a book (and I’ve always been in the habit of starting books in the beginning and ending them at the end) I opened it to page one and just started reading.
Now, you may already know this, but the Bible is kinda… weird.
No one had ever mentioned that to me before.
I had always heard the Bible described with words like ‘inspiring’ and ‘true’ and ‘life-changing’.
No one ever warned me that the old Testament is forever talking about creepy things like incest and murder and foreskin. And everybody is raping everybody. And they’re stealing everybody’s wives and their cattle and their inheritance and junk. By the time you get to Leviticus, you might be horrified disgusted appalled alarmed by the constant spilling of blood and semen, and the all too regular seduction of men by their daughters, and sons who fool around with their step-Moms, and by all kinds of whoring and concubining, and family betrayal, and the killing of babies, and other completely messed up stuff that you just weren’t expecting. And you might be inclined to close the Bible and push it across the table wishing you could unread some of it, because you feel like, “Seriously, God?! What was that about?!”
It’s that weird.
And that’s exactly what happened to me. I sat down and started reading in Genesis, ready for the all the words I’d ever heard about the Bible to come true, ready for all of its wisdom and truth and to come pouring into my soul. And maybe some little part of me really did believe that I’d open up this ancient text and be instantly moved, indwelled by some kind of Spiritual understanding, and that it would change my life forever and ever. But that’s not even close to what happened.
Instead, I opened the Bible, read a few chapters, and closed it – feeling confused and kinda disturbed. I was disappointed. And I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be diving back in for more anytime soon. I didn’t find it relatable, or even sensible. Mostly, it just left me scratching my head, like “For real?!“
Luckily, around that same time a dear friend invited me to a Bible study at her house. I was beyond reluctant, but I went anyway – probably because someone promised brownies. The people in that group never made me feel like a dumbass for my Bible-idiocy. Like, I practically lost my nut when someone pointed out that the Bible had a Table of Contents, right there in front (Who knew?!), but nobody acted like I was a moron for not knowing that. That group would continue to walk with me, slowly and carefully, through the pages of the Bible for years to come. They became the friends who would guide me past the weird stuff I’d gotten hung up on in my first foray and on to other themes, good stuff, like Grace and Mercy and Hope. It was with that same group of spiritual caretakers that I would first read through the Gospels, hear from James and Paul, and learn the plight of the early church. And from those fellow lovers of Jesus, I would come to understand the Bible as one whole story, with its greatest message being the sum of its parts… even the weird parts.
Which brings me to my two big awesome tips for reading the Bible:
1. DON’T START AT THE BEGINNING (because it will freak you out)!
I asked El Chupacabra what advice he would give a first time Bible reader and he recommended starting off by reading the Gospels in chronological order (Bible-y folks call this a “Harmony of the Gospel” because Christians can’t be trusted to use secular words, like “chronology”). This method will have you bouncing around a bit, but it can give you a cohesive idea as to how Jesus lived, taught, traveled and spent his time. I’m a fan. And, yes, El Chupacabra is a genius.
2. DON’T GO IT ALONE! Find someone whom you trust, and who is farther along than you are in the process of following Jesus, and study the Bible WITH that person (or, better yet, people). And ask a TON of questions. Also? Use the bazillion resources at your fingertips to find answers to your questions. (*hint* When not being used to feed ugly porn habits, the internet can be a rich source of material related to understanding the Bible. Help yourself…. to the Bible stuff, not the porn stuff. Stay away from the porn stuff.)
And the only other thing I would add to my list of super-incredible-how-did-I-not-think-of-that-?!-Bible-reading-tips-of-the-Century is….
GIVE IT TIME.
Let it marinade. Let yourself stew in it for a bit.
For me, understanding the Bible is a process. I had to learn to give it time to sink in. I had to soak it up. I had to wrestle with it for a long while before any of it made any sense at all. But I find that the more time I spend with it, the more of it I am able to take on. I don’t always get it. I still close it sometimes to push it across the table and scratch my head in confusion. But, for me, one thing is certain; Having a Savior isn’t just an idea that I carry in my head anymore, it has become a Truth which has penetrated my very flesh and bone, it beats in time with my heart, whispers in my breath, and stirs my soul…
And I pray, Nowhere Man, as you begin to search the wonder and weirdness of the Bible, that the same may be true for you.
…. ….. ….. |
0 PHOTOS Federal courthouse shooting See Gallery Man dies after being shot at federal courthouse Up Next See Gallery Discover More Like This HIDE CAPTION SHOW CAPTION of SEE ALL BACK TO SLIDE
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- A defendant died after being shot by a U.S. marshal on Monday during an attack on a witness during a trial in a new federal courthouse in Salt Lake City, the FBI said.
Siale Angilau, 25, died at a hospital after he was shot in the chest as he rushed the witness with a pen in an "aggressive, threatening manner," the FBI said in a news release.
Angilau was shot several times in front of a jury that had been selected on Friday.
Angilau was one of 17 people named in a 29-count racketeering indictment filed in 2010 accusing gang members of assault, conspiracy, robbery and weapons offenses.
Under standard procedures, Angilau was not restrained in the courtroom, the FBI said.
Perry Caldwell, who was in the courtroom with his adult daughter, said Angilau was shot several times as he lunged toward the witness stand.
At least six shots were fired, he said.
The witness, who was not injured, appeared to be in his mid-20s and was testifying about gang initiation, Caldwell said. The person was not identified.
Caldwell and his daughter were in court to support his mother, Sandra Keyser, who was punched in the face during a holdup in 2002 and was scheduled to testify.
"It was kind of traumatizing," Sara Jacobson, Caldwell's daughter, said of the shooting.
Prosecutors said Angilau robbed convenience stores and assaulted clerks in Salt Lake City on five occasions from 2002 to 2007. A clerk was shot in the final robbery, according to the indictment.
Angilau was accused of assault on a federal officer with a weapon and discharging a firearm during a crime of violence on Aug. 11, 2007.
Angilau was the last defendant in the case to stand trial, U.S. attorney's office spokeswoman Melodie Rydalch said.
A mistrial was declared after the shooting. In her order, U.S. District Judge Tena Campbell said members of the jury were visibly shaken and upset.
Angilau's attorney, Michael Langford, declined to take questions as he left the courthouse.
Angilau was in Utah state prison from September 2007 until he was handed over to U.S. marshals on Friday, said Utah Department of Corrections spokeswoman Brooke Adams.
He was arrested in August 2007 for a probation violation and pleaded guilty a year later to obstruction of justice and failure to respond to a command of a police officer, court records show.
His trial in the robbery case was among the first at the new $185 million federal courthouse opened just one week ago in downtown Salt Lake City next door to a century-old federal courthouse. The towering building is designed to withstand blasts and also contains bulletproof glass in some areas.
The security measures include separate routes in and out for judges, prisoners and the public. In the old courthouse, they all used the same hallways.
The courthouse was temporarily closed after the shooting and later reopened.
--
Associated Press writers Ken Ritter in Las Vegas and Brady McCombs in Salt Lake City contributed to this report. |
Drugs crush a woman's maternal instinct, new brain scans reveal.
Researchers from Baylor College of Medicine and the University of Iowa warn the finding is particularly concerning in light of America's drug addiction epidemic.
The team of obstetricians analyzed MRI scans of 36 mothers who suffered from substance use disorders.
They also videotaped them interacting with their infants at five months old.
Compared to healthy control groups, these mothers experienced a much weaker emotional response to their babies' smiling faces.
Researchers from Baylor College of Medicine and the University of Iowa found drug-addicted mothers are less maternal - and warn it is concerning in light of America's addiction epidemic
Lead author Dr Sohye Kim, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Baylor, said all 36 of the mothers found their children less intrinsically rewarding and more stress-provoking than other mothers.
'Unlike many mothers who find engaging with their infants to be a uniquely rewarding and gratifying experience, mothers with addictions, even when they are not actively using substances, may be less able to respond appropriately to their infants' cues,' Dr Kim added.
The mothers in the study recruited from an inpatient treatment facility for substance use disorders.
They underwent functional MRI scanning six months after delivery, while viewing happy and sad face images of their own infant.
Typically, seeing the smiling faces of their own infant is rewarding to mothers.
OPIOIDS ARE WILDLY OVER-PRESCRIBED AFTER C-SECTIONS Opioids are over-prescribed to women after a cesarean section in America, a new report warns. Most new mothers received double the amount of painkillers they need for a c-section - 40 pills rather than 20 - according to a study that looks at prescription rates in six parts of the US. That is a huge overflow, the researchers warn, give that a c-section delivery is the most common inpatient surgical procedure in the United States, with around 1.4 million c-sections performed each year. Crucially, they found women tended to take more pills if they had them, even if their pain levels were not strong. The review is one of the first attempts to collate data from providers and institutions nationwide, to offer a clear national picture. Opioids, most commonly oxycodone, are the standard pain medications prescribed to women following cesarean delivery. But the number of pills that are prescribed varies between providers and institutions, and there is little data regarding how much pain medication patients actually require to manage their pain.
This reward experience is what underlies and promotes the mother-infant attachment, which essentially motivates the mother to continue to care for the infant even when being a mother is extremely exhausting, Dr Kim said.
Previous studies have shown that mothers without addictions illustrate strong activations in the dopamine-associated brain reward regions when seeing their infants' happy faces.
However, researchers discovered that mothers with addictions showed a striking pattern of decreased activation in these same brain regions when viewing happy face images of their own infant.
'Our results are particularly noteworthy in two respects,' Dr Kim explained.
'First, they were specific to cues from the mothers' own infants and not unknown infants.
'Second, they were in response to what could arguably be considered the most rewarding cues from infants – their smiling faces.
'This is powerful because the smiling cue is probably the most rewarding cue one can get from one's own infant, yet the key reward regions appear to be shut down in response to these cues in mothers with addictions.'
The findings suggest a neurobiological reason for drug-addicted mothers finding it difficult to meet all their infants' needs.
'The transition to motherhood is inherently stressful,' Dr Kim said.
'It is the enhanced perceived reward value of infant cues, coupled with the sense of reward and pleasure experienced by the mother, that often help to sustain a mother's attention and responsiveness to her infant during a critical developmental period.
'When the functions of the dopamine- and oxytocin-associated maternal circuitry go awry, as our study has suggested here in the case of substance addictions, mothers may be compromised in their abilities to care for their infants, and the risk for abuse and neglect may rise.'
She added that public health officials need to start prioritizing research into the neurobiological relationship between substance addictions and impaired maternal responses.
Better understanding, she said, may facilitate earlier and more refined interventions to help support mothers with substance addictions and the infants in their care. |
The Daily Rundown's Chuck Todd explains how the Obama campaign will take on the Romney-Ryan ticket.
Romney picking Ryan shakes up the race, but will it last? … Big crowd turns out for Romney-Ryan in Wisconsin… Three questions we have: 1) Is Romney already distancing himself from Ryan’s budget plan?... 2) Which party is more comfortable debating the Ryan budget -- the GOP or Democrats?... 3) And just how will the Medicare debate play out, especially in Florida?... Romney stumps in the Sunshine State today, while Ryan heads to Iowa… And Obama begins three-day bus tour through the Hawkeye State.
*** Shake it up: By selecting Paul Ryan as his running mate on Saturday, Mitt Romney did something that Walter Mondale, Bob Dole, Al Gore, and John McCain did in previous presidential contests: They used their VP pick to try to shake things up. Trailing in the summer, they chose a running mate -- be it Geraldine Ferraro, Jack Kemp, Joe Lieberman, or Sarah Palin -- to change the fundamentals of the race. These picks all worked in the short run, but only once (with Lieberman) did it serve its purpose for the rest of the campaign. (Gore, after all, was able to battle back to where he actually won the popular vote.) So how will this play out for Romney? By picking Ryan, he made the calculation that he needed to pick someone to help redefine himself, first and foremost. The move also serves to fire up conservatives, give the GOP ticket a jolt of youthful energy, and make the case he now stands for something big. But it also wasn’t the kind of VP selection we saw from George W. Bush in 2000 or Barack Obama in 2008 that essentially said: “I’ve got this thing.” Instead, by picking Ryan, Romney said: “I need some help.”
Following the news that Rep. Paul Ryan will serve as Mitt Romney's running mate, senior Romney adviser Kevin Madden and Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter assess how it will affect the campaign.
*** Big crowd turns out for the GOP ticket in Wisconsin: And help is what he got last night. Per NBC’s Garrett Haake and Alex Moe, the largest campaign crowd of the season greeted Romney and his new running mate on Sunday in Waukesha, WI. “The energy generated by Ryan seemed to inspire the man at the top of ticket, who took on a heckler midway through his own remarks, then turned the moment into an indictment of President Obama's campaign, whose tactics have riled Romney in recent weeks.” In the first 48 hours after the Ryan pick, Romney looked like he’s enjoying being a candidate again. But after just two days of campaigning together -- during the final days of the Olympics (including yesterday’s USA vs. Spain basketball gold-medal basketball game) -- Romney and Ryan are now going their separate ways, and they possibly might not campaign together until the GOP convention. Romney today stumps in Florida, while Ryan heads to Iowa, where Obama also begins a three-day bus tour.
*** Romney: “I have my budget plan”: Is Romney already distancing himself from Ryan’s budget plan? It seemed that way in yesterday’s Romney-Ryan interview on “60 Minutes.” When CBS’s Bob Schieffer asked Romney if Democrats were going to be able to turn the presidential contest into a referendum on Ryan’s budget plan, the former Massachusetts governor responded, “I have my budget plan as you know that I've put out. And that's the budget plan that we're going to run on.” So wait a second: Romney selects as the running mate a man best known for his budget plan -- under the rationale that this race needs to be about big ideas. But then Romney says he has his own budget plan? On “TODAY” this morning, NBC’s Savannah Guthrie asked Romney spokesman Kevin Madden if Romney would sign the Ryan budget if it came to his desk. Madden replied -- as Romney has said before -- that he would sign it.
The Daily Rundown's Chuck Todd is joined by Obama Campaign Adviser Robert Gibbs to discuss Mitt Romney's new running mate and key issues hitting the campaign trail including Medicare.
*** Which party is more comfortable debating Ryan and his plan? Here’s another question to ponder: By picking Ryan, are Romney and the Republicans playing on their turf? Or on the Democrats’ turf? On the one hand, the Romney-Ryan ticket will double down on the argument that Obama and the Democrats have failed when it comes to the deficit/debt. After all, the deficit was $1.4 trillion in FY ’09; $1.3 trillion in ’10; $1.5 trillion in ’11 (projected); and $1.1 trillion in ’12 (projected). On the other hand, Obama and the Democrats have been DYING to turn the presidential contest into a race against House Republicans. And guess what: Romney just selected a House Republican to be his running mate. As one of us wrote over the weekend, Obama has already delivered three big speeches in the past two years taking aim at House Republicans and the Ryan budget. “It’s a vision that says if our roads crumble and our bridges collapse, we can’t afford to fix them,” Obama said during his April 2011 speech at George Washington University. “If there are bright young Americans who have the drive and the will but not the money to go to college, we can’t afford to send them… It’s a vision that says America can’t afford to keep the promise we’ve made to care for our seniors.” Obama’s other two speeches were in Kansas (in Dec. 2011) and at the AP luncheon (in April 2012).
Shannon Stapleton / Reuters Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney claps as vice president select Congressman Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., gives the thumbs up to supporters during a campaign event in Waukesha, Wisconsin August 12, 2012.
*** The battle over Medicare: And here’s a third question we have: Just how is the Medicare debate going to play out? One of Romney’s demographic strengths is with seniors, and three of the oldest populations in the country happen to be in these battleground states: Florida, Iowa, and Pennsylvania. But Romney -- already at a disadvantage with other demographic groups like women and Latinos -- can’t have seniors turn into a jump ball in November. So far, Romney and Republicans will counter that Obama’s health-care law is the bigger threat to seniors and Medicare. "There's only one president that I know of in history that robbed Medicare, $716 billion to pay for a new risky program of his own that we call Obamacare," Romney told “60 Minutes” yesterday. "What Paul Ryan and I have talked about is saving Medicare, is providing people greater choice in Medicare, making sure it's there for current seniors. But here is the challenge for the Republicans: Romney and Ryan are talking about FUNDAMENTALLY changing Medicare whereby future seniors will receive vouchers/premium support for LESS than they currently get under Medicare. What Obama did under the health care law was reduce the rate of growth in non-essential services (like Medicare Advantage), as well as increase premiums for higher-income recipients. That doesn't affect the Medicare benefits that current/future seniors receive.
Watch: How Ryan formed his economic plan
*** The battle over Florida: In fact, Romney today campaigns in Florida. And he’s being greeted by headlines like this one from the Miami Herald: “Ryan could be a drag on Romney in Florida.” It is possible for Romney to get to 270 electoral votes without Florida -- but it’s extremely unlikely. If Obama were to win Florida, Romney would need to win CO, IA, NV, NH, NC VA, and WI. In other words, he’d have to run the table. By the way, we can report that according to a Romney-Ryan campaign source, Ryan will make his first visit to Florida next weekend.
*** Today’s back-and-forth: The Romney camp is up with its second TV ad hitting Obama welfare. “Barack Obama has a long history of opposing work for welfare,” the ad goes. “On July 12th, Obama quietly ended work requirements for welfare. You wouldn’t have to work and wouldn’t have to train for a job.” However, as First Read and others have pointed out, it’s a BIG stretch to say that the HHS’s waiver to states ends work requirements for welfare; work requirements are clearly stated in the HHS announcement… Meanwhile, the Obama camp has a web video of Floridians commenting on the Ryan budget plan and its cuts to Medicare.
*** On the trail: President Obama begins a three-day swing through Iowa. Today, he hits Council Bluffs at 10:15 am ET and Boone at 6:15 pm ET… Romney stumps in Florida, visiting St Augustine at 8:20 am and Miami at 5:25 pm… Paul Ryan stops by the Iowa State Fair at 2:00 pm ET, while Joe Biden campaigns in North Carolina… And First Lady Michelle Obama appears on the “Tonight Show.”
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There's an action movie cliché in which a cop inspects the body of a felled assassin or foot soldier and discovers a curious tattoo that ultimately leads to a rogue black-ops squadron, a secret religious sect, or an underground drug trafficking ring.
The trope isn’t entirely Hollywood fantasy, but the reality of emerging tattoo recognition technology is closer to a dystopian tech thriller. Soon, we may see police departments using algorithms to scrape tattoos from surveillance video or cops in the field using mobile apps to analyze tattoos during stops. Depending on the tattoo, such technology could be used to instantly reveal personal information, such as your religious beliefs or political affiliations.
For years, law enforcement has used tattoos to identify criminal suspects as well as unidentified victims. Police have also used tattoos to map out subcultures and networks of gangs and hate groups. Until recently, however, tattoo matching and analysis has involved flipping through the pages of photo binders; any computer-assisted matching has been limited to metadata searches of keywords.
NIST's Official Tattoo Recognition Technology Logo
In 2014 and 2015, federal researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) joined forces with the FBI to launch a program to accelerate tattoo recognition technology. As part of Tatt-C (the code name for NIST’s "Tattoo Recognition Technology Challenge"), officials assembled a giant dataset of prisoner tattoos and divvied it out to biometric companies, research institutions, and universities. They were asked to run five experiments to show how well their algorithms could match tattoos under various circumstances.
Some tests involved matching different photos of the same person’s tattoo. Other experiments sought to match similar tattoos on different people based on their characteristics—such as a crucifix, Minnie Mouse, and Chinese calligraphy. These tests pose serious concerns for privacy, free expression, religious freedom, and the right of association.
Each one of these experiments correlated to a specific law enforcement use. The Tatt-C results, released last summer, now serve as a crystal ball into what law enforcement has planned for this technology over the years to come.
Here are the five tests and what they tell use about the future of tattoo recognition technology.
Related: Learn why EFF is calling for an end to this research.
Note on the data: The Tatt-C dataset contained 15,000 images obtained by the FBI from prisoners. The dataset was split into subsets and sub-subsets for individual trials. Tatt-C participants self-reported their results, which were not independently verified. The percentages below reflect the accuracy within the experiment, and not necessarily how accurate the technology would perform in the real world.
Tattoo Detection: Why would police want algorithms that can detect whether an image has a tattoo or not?
Any given law enforcement agency may be sitting on an immense, unsorted collection of images. Mugshots, scars, birthmarks, and tattoos—all mixed up together, some unlabeled, some mislabeled. Without computer assistance, it could take significant staff-power to sort through it all. NIST suggests that automated tattoo detection would streamline an agency’s ability to classify images.
Perhaps the more concerning use case for privacy advocates is that tattoo detection technology would also pave the way for algorithms to isolate tattoos from images scraped from the Internet or captured by security cameras.
The bad news is the technology is already highly sophisticated.
Tatt-C’s research team reported back that three different organizations’ algorithms could detect a tattoo in an image with more than 90% accuracy. The private biometric technology company MorphoTrak (a subsidiary of Safran) claimed the best result; their algorithm was able to detect whether an image contained a tattoo or not with 96.3% accuracy.
Tattoo Identification: When we say biometrics, we are talking about unique physical or behavioral characteristics that can be used to identity you. Fingerprinting has been used by criminal justice agencies for over a century to identify suspects; tattoo recognition can be used in much the same way.
Let’s say a cop is questioning someone on the street who refuses to provide an ID card. The officer could run a photo of one of the person’s tattoos through a database to find a photo of the same tattoo captured during a previous arrest. One situation NIST imagines is applying tattoo recognition technology to video surveillance of a robbery in which the suspect is wearing a mask but a neck tattoo is visible.
Just as facial recognition technology raises serious privacy concerns, people should be wary of tattoo recognition technology’s invasiveness. Not only can it identify everyday people caught on camera while going about their business, it could eventually lead to tracking people using their tattoos.
NIST asked Tatt-C participants to match a photo of a tattoo to other pictures of the photo taken over time. Four different companies and research institutions reported that their algorithm could return a hit on the first result with more than 95% accuracy. Again, MorphoTrak came out on top, returning a hit with 99.4% accuracy.
Region of Interest: NIST uses “Region of Interest” to describe how well an algorithm can match a small piece of a tattoo to a wider image of the whole tattoo. For example, could the algorithm recognize that a tiny skull tattoo is part of a larger half-sleeve arm tattoo.
The idea here is that sometimes only a portion of a tattoo is caught on surveillance; is that enough to identify someone if police have the whole tattoo on file? This technology would also help police match a tattoo, even if the person subsequently added more to the design.
Yet again, MorphoTrak provided the most accurate results: the algorithm could return a hit on the first result with 94.6% accuracy. Purdue University, which has developed an app [.pdf] with support from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, was close behind with 91.6% accuracy.
Mixed Media: When you get a tattoo, the artist rarely inks their first draft on your skin. The artist will draw it out on paper, then turn it into a purple transfer to trace out with the needles. The question for researchers is whether an algorithm can reverse engineer this process; rather than matching tattoos to tattoos, can they match a tattoo to an image in another medium.
If a witness sees a tattoo during a crime, they could describe it for a sketch artist, who could run the sketch through a tattoo database. Or, if an officer wants to see if a tattoo correlates to a gang symbol, the tattoo could be compared to street graffiti.
But this technology sets law enforcement on a dangerous path, since it would allow a police officer to learn more than just your identity, but your interests, political beliefs, or religion. An investigator could plug an image of an Anarchist circle-A or the Republican elephant into its database to return a list of people who have tattoos of those images.
This technology is on the horizon, but at this stage it is still relatively underdeveloped.
The MITRE Corporation—a non-profit organization that manages research centers on behalf of the federal government—produced the most successful results. The algorithm could produce matches within the first 10 results with 36.5% accuracy.
Although that number is fairly low, that may not prevent law enforcement from using it to generate leads. However, less reliable algorithms have greater potential of capturing innocent people in investigations.
Tattoo Similarity: One of the most worrisome applications of tattoo recognition technology is its potential ability to reveal connections or shared beliefs among a population. For example, rather than matching a particular tattoo of a crucifix with an individual, police could run the image of a crucifix through a database to produce a long set of people with similar cross tattoos. This essentially means police would be able to create lists of people based on their religion, politics, or other affiliations as expressed by their tattoos.
This type of tattoo matching could sweep up fans of the same bands or members of the same labor union or military unit. This application has a high likelihood of generating false positives—matching someone whose tattoo may be visually similar, but not actually symbolically similar. That could result in people being improperly associated with groups, such as gangs, with which they have no actual affiliation.
Law enforcement primarily wants to use this technology to identify members of gangs and hate groups, who often use coded symbols to express their affiliation. But that’s not necessarily what NIST researchers focused on during Tatt-C’s “Tattoo Similarity Experiments,” which tested how well algorithms could match different tattoos with similar visual features. Many of the images NIST asked participants to analyze were religious symbols—often Catholic iconography, such as hands holding rosaries and Jesus Christ’s crucifixion.
This should raise bright red flags for those concerned about religious freedom, especially in light of how authoritarian governments have used tattoos to oppress religious minorities. Nazi Germany’s use of tattoos to track Jews during the Holocaust comes to mind. Indeed, the six-pointed Star of David was one of the images used during the NIST experiments. However, in that case, the star also serves as the symbol of the Gangster Disciples, a Chicago street gang. So even when law enforcement is attempting to use tattoos to investigate gangs, people who are simply expressing their religion could be labeled as affiliates of criminal gangs.
The good news is that the technology is still in its early stages. Researchers attributed the drop in accuracy to a problem they called the “semantic gap.” That refers to the difficulty computers have in divining meaning from tattoos that contain relevant symbols, but are not clearly visually similar. MITRE achieved the best results; its algorithm could establish a correct match within the first 10 results with 14.9% accuracy.
What’s Next
Although the NIST and FBI experiments were largely academic research exercises, law enforcement is already deploying the technology. Purdue University, with support from the Department of Homeland Security, has developed a graffiti and tattoo matching app—GARI—that is now in use by law enforcement agencies across the state of Indiana. Meanwhile, companies like MorphoTrak and DataWorks are now offering tattoo recognition as part of biometric software packages that also include fingerprint scanning, iris scanning, DNA analysis and facial recognition. We know that sheriff's departments in California have contracts with these companies.
It’s also clear that the lessons learned from the Tatt-C project are being used to refine future research and tattoo recognition technology. Following the Tatt-C project, NIST released training materials for law enforcement that explained how camera framing and lighting can make tattoos more easily recognizable by algorithms. Researchers further recommended that an even larger dataset—more than 100,000 images—be compiled for distribution to third-party researchers.
This summer, NIST plans to launch its next major series of experiments: Tatt-E, short for the Tattoo Recognition Technology Evaluation. Using tattoo databases from the Michigan State Police, Tennessee Department of Corrections, and the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office in Florida, NIST intends to run a similar set of tests internally, connecting to each algorithm through an API.
For the sake of civil liberties, privacy, and dignity, we believe that NIST should halt this program immediately. Take action now to call for an end to experimentation with our tattoos. |
News Release 15-138
Establishing a brain trust for data science
Awards for Big Data Regional Innovation Hubs create consortia to catalyze multi-sector partnerships
Storm surge visualization of Hurricane Joaquin. Several BD Hubs will focus on natural hazards.
November 2, 2015
This material is available primarily for archival purposes. Telephone numbers or other contact information may be out of date; please see current contact information at media contacts.
The ability to access, analyze and draw insights from massive amounts of data already drives innovation in areas ranging from medicine to manufacturing, leading to greater efficiency and a higher quality of life.
To accelerate this emerging field, the National Science Foundation (NSF) today announced four awards totaling more than $5 million to establish regional hubs for data science innovation.
The consortia are coordinated by top data scientists at Columbia University (Northeast Hub), Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of North Carolina (South Hub), the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Midwest Hub) and the University of California, San Diego, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Washington (West Hub).
Covering all 50 states, they include commitments from more than 250 organizations--from universities and cities to foundations and Fortune 500 corporations--with the ability to expand further over time.
"This program represents a unique approach to improving the impact of data science by establishing partnerships among likeminded stakeholders," said Jim Kurose, NSF's assistant director for Computer and Information Science and Engineering, which funds the program. "In doing so, it enables teams of data science researchers to come together with domain experts, with cities and municipalities, and with anchor institutions to establish and grow collaborations that will accelerate progress in a wide range of science and education domains with the potential for great societal benefit."
Building upon the National Big Data Research and Development Initiative announced in 2012, the awards are made through the Big Data Regional Innovation Hubs (BD Hubs) program, which creates a new framework for multi-sector collaborations among academia, industry and government.
The "big data brain trust" assembled by the hubs will conceive, plan and support regional big data partnerships and activities to address regional challenges.
Among the benefits of the program are greater ease in initiating partnerships by reducing coordination costs; creating opportunities for sharing ideas, resources, and best practices; and bringing top talent to address important issues.
Issues the BD Hubs have identified as priorities include:
new technologies for big data and data-driven discovery, including in healthcare and local health disparities;
management of natural resources and impacts on habitat planning and hazards;
precision agriculture and the food, energy and water nexus;
education and smart and connected communities;
precision medicine;
energy, materials and manufacturing; and
finance.
The BD Hubs will be sites for transitioning research into practice. They will also educate and train the next-generation workforce in data science.
The projects from this first phase of the program will help establish the governance structure of the BD Hub consortia, support the recruitment of executive directors and administrative staff for each BD Hub and begin developing approaches for interBD Hub collaborations.
In addition, the Computing Community Consortium will sponsor a program for the BD Hubs to bring together academic and industry researchers, including those early in their careers, to facilitate long-term partnerships to promote the goals of each BD Hub.
Support for projects at each BD Hub will come from a variety of sources in addition to NSF's investments.
Big Data Spokes
NSF anticipates awarding $10 million in grants for the next phase of the BD Hubs, called the Big Data Spokes (BD Spokes), contingent upon the availability of funds. The BD Spokes program solicitation aims to help initiate research in specific priority areas identified by the BD Hubs.
Each BD Spoke will focus on a specific BD Hub priority area and address one or more of three key issues: improving access to data, automating the data lifecycle and applying data science techniques to solve domain science problems or demonstrate societal impact.
"The BD Spokes aims to advance the goals and regional priorities of each BD Hub, fusing the strengths of the individual institutions and investigators and applying them to problems that affect communities, populations and groups within the region," Kurose said.
(For more information regarding due dates and eligibility requirements, please see the solicitation.)
BD Hubs leadership meeting
The announcement of the BD Hubs awards and BD Spokes solicitation comes days before the first national stakeholders meeting of the BD Hubs, to be held Nov. 3-5 in Arlington, Virginia.
This meeting will allow leaders and researchers representing each BD Hub to discuss governance and sustainability models, coordinate ideas for BD Spokes and identify next steps.
The last day of the meeting, Nov. 5, will include two public webinars.
At the first webinar, BD Hubs representatives will discuss their plans, as well as mechanisms for governance and coordination among BD Hubs stakeholders.
The second webinar will be held in conjunction with the National Data Science Organizer's Workshop. It will discuss the role of BD Hubs in engaging with grassroots data science organizations, such as Meetup groups and non-profits--as well as other data science consortia--as they help the U.S. make the most of the opportunities afforded by big data.
-NSF-
Media Contacts
Aaron Dubrow, NSF, 703-292-4489, email: [email protected]
Program Contacts
Fen Zhao, NSF, 703-292-7344, email: [email protected]
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering. In fiscal year (FY) 2019, its budget is $8.1 billion. NSF funds reach all 50 states through grants to nearly 2,000 colleges, universities and other institutions. Each year, NSF receives more than 50,000 competitive proposals for funding and makes about 12,000 new funding awards.
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Story highlights US-backed fighters are preparing to move in the coming weeks to assault the city of Raqqa
Raqqa is ISIS' self-declared capital
(CNN) US Marines have arrived in northern Syria with artillery to support US-backed local forces fighting there, two US officials told CNN.
The US-backed fighters are preparing to move in the coming weeks to assault the city of Raqqa, ISIS' self-declared capital, according to the officials. The Pentagon and the Marine Corps have declined to confirm the deployment because of security concerns in the region. They have also declined to specify the exact location of the forces or how many are there.
The Washington Post was the first to report the deployment of the Marines.
Photos: Life inside Raqqa In this photo from November 29, 2015, provided to CNN by the activist group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, residents assess the damage to a building in the northern Syrian city -- ISIS's headquarters -- which has been the target of French airstrikes in recent weeks. Hide Caption 1 of 8 Photos: Life inside Raqqa In this photo from November 6, 2015, an ISIS fighter walks along a street in Raqqa with his 3 wives walking behind him, according to RBSS. Hide Caption 2 of 8 Photos: Life inside Raqqa A child looks at a stand selling military fatigues in Raqqa on October 1, 2013. Many in Raqqa say they don't want to live under ISIS but have no choice. Hide Caption 3 of 8 Photos: Life inside Raqqa Men look at a large black jihadist flag in Raqqa on September 28, 2013. In Raqqa today, school is banned -- and even small pleasures, like chocolate, are an unaffordable luxury because many cannot work. Hide Caption 4 of 8 Photos: Life inside Raqqa A Syrian man mourns the deaths of six of his siblings, killed in a bomb attack during fighting between rebel fighters and Syrian government forces in Raqqa on August 10, 2013. Hide Caption 5 of 8 Photos: Life inside Raqqa A man carries two children away from the scene of an explosion in Raqqa on August 7, 2013. Hide Caption 6 of 8 Photos: Life inside Raqqa In this undated photo, provided to CNN by RBSS, you can see normal life in Raqqa -- once one of Syria's most liberal cities -- before the start of the civil war. Hide Caption 7 of 8 Photos: Life inside Raqqa The streets of Raqqa before it was under ISIS control, in an undated photo provided to CNN by RBSS. Hide Caption 8 of 8
The deployment does not come as a surprise. Military commanders have discussed for weeks the possibility of putting artillery forces into the area, with the goal of accelerating the capabilities of the US-backed Arab and Kurdish forces there. A similar deployment last year near Mosul, Iraq involved several hundred Marines equipped with artillery guns that fire shells to provide covering fire for advancing forces.
Because Marines were already deployed to the region, the movement into Syria did not have to be specifically approved by President Donald Trump or Defense Secretary James Mattis -- but both the White House and Pentagon were aware of the plan, officials said.
Read More |
While Mike Davis has gained a meager 3.3 yards per attempt on his 58 carries this season, he has flashed the ability to make plays in this offense. During the Seattle Seahawks’ victory over the Dallas Cowboys, Davis gained 25 yards on 15 carries. Even though this number is certainly not impressive, he did this behind some very hit-or-miss blocking by his offensive line. For this breakdown, I want to highlight some of his plays to show you some of the impressive things he did on tape and how he will continue to gain more snaps versus the Arizona Cardinals.
The first run I want to look at happened at the start of the second quarter.
In this play, the Seahawks run two-back inside zone to the right. The fullback in this play is Luke Willson and in my opinion, this is actually a really good position for him. For some reason Tre Madden and the running backs never seemed to execute their assignments properly hre, while Willson is a much better head-on blocker in this offense. As a sift blocker, he sometimes looks lost so I think this is better for him.
Going back to the play, since Seattle motioned Jimmy Graham before the snap from the left side to the right side, you can see that the Dallas Cowboys’ defensive line didn’t adjust. Their linebackers were instructed to shift and fill in the gaps. This created a natural bubble and a great two-on-one for the Seahawks’ lineman between the center and the right guard.
RT Germain Ifedi is able to use his upper body strength to move the defensive end out of position, while the combination block between Justin Britt and Ethan Pocic works well to move the nose tackle backside. This created a huge hole for Davis to run through and allowed him to gain eight yards on the play.
Davis’ sixth and seventh runs were his two best runs of the game in my opinion. They both featured elements of busted blocking by the offensive line in which Davis made an initial move to create more yards than what his offensive line gave him. I truthfully have not been that impressed by Davis’ initial lateral quickness, but I definitely admit that these plays had me reconsider as I was watching this game.
The first run was out of shotgun in which Seattle ran inside zone to the right. The defensive end, (#90) Demarcus Lawrence, pinched hard inside defeating the block by Ifedi. This forced Davis to cut backside. He then found the opening behind Nick Vannett for the 5-yard gain.
The second run was right at the start of the third quarter. The Seahawks run outside zone out of singleback aiming for the weakside of the formation. The nose tackle penetrates hard through the playside A-gap which forced Davis to cut behind him. Davis spins out of his block while the backside blockers did a great job in creating a running lane through the center of the defense. This initial spin move turned this run from a 2-yard loss into another 5-yard gain.
By my tracking, I graded him negatively on two runs. His very next run was one of those plays and it happened at 13:50 left in the third quarter.
The Seahawks run two-back inside zone to the right after motioning Graham from the backside to the frontside of the formation. Davis takes the handoff and bounces this run outside of the right tackle. In my opinion, he should have seen that Ifedi allowed the defender to gain outside leverage which should have told him to cut this play inside. If he did this then he would have seen the monstrous hole in the defense in the B-gap between Duane Brown and Luke Joeckel. However, he cut this play outside missing what could have been a big gain.
Speaking of Joeckel, I was actually really impressed by his run blocking during this game. After a disastrous game versus the Los Angeles Rams, he did a great job with his double teams especially on the outside zone runs to the left. Watch this play at the start of the second quarter where Joeckel and Justin Britt combination blocked (#68) Daniel Ross down the field. This created a huge running lane for Davis to run through and gain six yards.
Earlier in the season, I was pushing hard for the Seahawks to use more misdirection and motion to help set up running lanes. They attempted this on Davis’ fifth run of the game.
Tyler Lockett ran an end around attempting to move the linebackers while upfront the Seahawks ran their backside zone running play. This, like the end around, is meant to entice the linebackers to follow the flow of the offense to the right. However all of this still takes good blocking and Graham was thrown aside for the tackle for a loss.
As a receiver, Davis was mostly used on checkdowns over the middle of the field. He caught four passes for 18 yards on five targets. The one incompletion came on a pass that seemed to be underthrown due to pressure. Beyond that play, Davis was reliable for Russell Wilson and he helped the offense stay on schedule.
Overall, I gave Davis a “B” grade on this game. By my tracking, he had six positive scoring runs, two negative scoring runs, and seven neutral scoring runs. If he didn’t have the one big negative run that I showed above, he easily would have been a “B+” on the day but that bad play lowered his average.
In my opinion, Davis should continue to get the bulk of carriers in this offense. I am not ready to commit to him or any of the other running backs on the roster yet for next year, but I do think his play is intriguing.
Note: On Wednesday, I broke down Justin Coleman’s “pick-six” versus Dak Prescott. Make sure you check that out!
Follow me on Twitter @SamuelRGold and support me on Patreon. |
In a region where most would struggle to survive, a group of Moroccan runners consistently dominates the competition. Since 1997, either Mohamad or his older brother, Lahcen, had won the race, until last year, when Rachid el Morabity, their trainee, beat Mohamad by seven minutes. The Ahansals and Morabity share not only Moroccan descent, but they are all from Zagora, a town of around 35,000 in southern Morocco that lies on the outskirts of the desert. Lahcen is not competing in this year’s race.
Mohamad Ahansal went to live with his grandfather in Zagora when he was 7. School was more than four miles away and he walked or ran every day. He excelled in sports, but in a terrain where scouts and sponsors rarely venture, it is difficult to translate raw talent into opportunity.
“When someone comes out of the desert and there’s nothing there, no trainer, no sports stadium, nothing, it’s not easy,” he said. “They think only the people from Europe will manage it.”
Photo
It was hard for Mohamad and Lahcen to justify their first runs to their family and community. When Mohamad was around 18, he and Lahcen would leave the house with djellabas, traditional Moroccan robes, hiding their shorts.
“We went out of the house a little farther away from the village and then we would change and dig in the sand and hide the djellabas there,” he said. “We’d run and come back so that no one saw, because they thought it wasn’t good to run like that.”
The Marathon des Sables was created by a former concert promoter, Patrick Bauer of France. It requires self-sufficiency in one of the most challenging places on earth at a cost of almost $5,000, including travel and fees. Without sponsorship, neither Ahansal nor Morabity would be training or running the race. Ahansal and Morabity work in one of the largest industries in Zagora — tourism. Morabity said there are younger and faster runners in their hometown who cannot afford to enter competitions. Ahansal works with some of these runners to develop the quickness they need to compete in races of varying topography and distance. He emphasizes that runners’ mileage should gradually increase, as opposed to going straight to ultramarathons.
Last year, Morabity wore a pair of Ahansal’s shoes and his backpack during the race. When Mohamad and Lahcen first started racing, they would receive running shoes from friends, the same shoes that were passed down to the man who would interrupt the Ahansal reign.
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“You can’t just take everything for yourself,” Ahansal said in German, one of the languages he learned from tourists on his treks to the Atlas Mountains and the Sahara. “Alone, nothing is accomplished.”
Sportsmanship defines these racers. They recognize a “sport spirit” that mixes competitive drive with a humility not typically associated with professional athletes. During the longest day of last year’s race, Mohamad Ahansal started having problems in the 40th mile. He encouraged Morabity to pick up the pace and overtake Jordanian Salameh Al Aqra, who later finished third.
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“I said to Rachid, ‘Now you must win, because now either I’ll manage it or I won’t,’ ” Ahansal said.
This year Morabity, 30, will be sponsored by Essoulami Rahal Abdelouahed, who owns a Moroccan catering business. Morabity and three other top Moroccan runners make up what is called the Rahal Groupe.
Meryem Khali, 37, is the fifth runner and the only woman sponsored by Rahal. At her home in Salé, the neighboring town to Morocco’s capital, Rabat, she keeps her wedding ring in the same box as a gold medal from the May 2006 International Military Sports Council championships.
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Her participation in the Marathon des Sables is a first. As a leader of the military cross-country team, Khali identifies with a veteran group of Moroccan champions.
“We, the old generation, we always are proud when we win the medals, but we don’t care about the material stuff,” Khali said. “We used to love doing sports for sport, not for anything else.”
Beyond training and endurance, minute details separate a middle-of-the-pack finisher from a champion in the punishing ultramarathon. To meet the race’s daily 2,000-calorie requirement, Rahal Groupe’s runners and Ahansal will fill 15-pound bags with carbohydrates like pasta and rice, as well as dates, nuts and honey — native foods that are more common in the area than PowerBars.
One thing they will not be bringing for six days in the Sahara: sunscreen. They have no need for it, Morabity said, after a lifetime in the desert.
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Rahal Groupe meets before the marathon to develop a system for tackling the steep descents and dunes of the race, such as running uphill in a zigzag formation.
“Some of the other runners, they go directly up the hill,” Morabity said. “They don’t notice the secret.”
Is the secret to these runners’ success in the training, or are these Saharan athletes, most of them of Berber descent, born to be runners?
Ahansal or Morabity may have the same strength as a foreign competitor, but their upbringing separates them.
“It’s not a luxury life and that’s where you learn the resistance, the endurance,” Ahansal said. “The people are the same, but the life isn’t.” |
But that doesn't mean I am not still disappointed in the people inside Wizards who are taking the "ungenerous" way forward. The OGL lead to an explosion of creativity and new games, companies and memes in the gaming space, all of which must have improved both Wizard's (the company) and D&D's (the culture) survivability long term. A monoculture of one or two companies does not make for a long-term, successful roleplaying culture. You need an ecosystem for that.The OGL obviously created a thriving ecosystem. The OGL's ecosystem still exists, but it is greatly weakened by the loss of the "currently supported" version of D&D. I fear the GSL (even as revised) will actively prevent a new ecosystem from forming, and that the neither the OGL nor the GSL ecoystems (such as they are) will be strong enough to survive independently. And if they do survive they will surely not be as vibrant and creative as the OGL ecosystem during the 3.x era. |
DAMIEN MacRae’s life was turned upside down when he was diagnosed with stage four melanoma, but a project with his son has been the silver lining.
Two years ago Mr MacRae, of Petersham, found a mole on his ear and went to have it removed, only to discover it was a malignant melanoma.
As a result, he had a third of his ear removed, but that was just the beginning.
Last year doctors found a tumour on his lungs which was surgically removed, along with three of his ribs.
After getting the all-clear, he had a seizure three weeks ago and, while he was in hospital, more tumours were found. He now faces both surgery and radiation.
media_camera Damien Macrae and his son Aiden’s proposed lego campaign, they need 10,000 votes to make there idea a reality. Picture: Craig Wilson
Mr MacRae said one positive was that he got to spend more time with his seven-year-old son Aiden.
“Aiden is obsessed with Lego and we play it together every day,” he said.
“One day we came across this website called ‘Lego ideas’ encouraging people to come up with new sets.
“We talked about doing an Australian beach set with sunscreen and surf lifesavers connecting it to sun safety and melanoma.”
media_camera Damien Macrae and his son Aiden are campaining to have sun safe lego made up (they have designs with life savers with sunscreen on etc) they need 10,000 votes to make there idea a reality. Picture: Craig Wilson
It has been a passion project for the past few months and evolved into a classic Aussie beach scene, complete with lifesavers, a rescue boat, red-and-yellow flags and, of course, seagulls.
Mr McRae said they had put a lot of thought into the set, naming each character after a celebrity who has had skin cancer. Aiden and Damien need 10,000 votes to bring their Lego idea to stores all around the globe.
Vote at: ideas.lego.com/projects/155367/ |
The Greenwich Meridian before the ATC
Meridian Marks in the UK
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Click to see choices ALL MARKERS Arch Astronomical Beacon Bench Bollard Boulder Building name Business name Clock Finger post Ground (compass rose) Ground (line) Ground (mosaic) Ground (slab) House name Housing estate Industrial estate Lake MTL MTL disc(s) MTL? Marker 'stone' Millstone Obelisk/Pillar Park Path Pavement (compass rose) Pavement (line) Pavement (mosaic) Pavement (plate) Pavement (slab) Plaque (plinth) Plaque (post) Plaque (tree) Plaque (wall) Post Road (line) Road name School School name Sculpture Sign on post(s) Sundial Sustrans national cycle network post Telescope Time capsule Transmitter Tree Tree Council Wall (line) Weather vane
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Marks in close proximity are grouped together and marked with a blue flag. They can be ungrouped by either clicking the ‘deactivate cluster control’ button or by zooming in. |
Editor's Note: This is the second of a four-part series on senior offensive lineman Tyler Johnstone and the two knee injuries that have kept him from game action since Dec. 30, 2013. Parts 3 and 4 will run Thursday and Friday morning.
To read part one, click here
Despite the disappointment of a torn ACL and with months of tedious rehab awaiting, Oregon offensive tackle Tyler Johnstone took it all in stride. Friends made sure the person who lives for lazy afternoons wasn’t in danger of going stir-crazy by loading him up with fun projects while he began his recovery.
Coloring books were a popular choice during the first few days while he was laid up from the surgery. He even had some help from his Twitter followers when it became too hard to decide whether to create such masterpieces as a dragon, a “choo-choo train” or a “trippy iguana.”
Once he started to work his way back to the field, his support system sprung into action. His parents were of course front and center; Kevin with strong direction and tough love and Wendy providing the emotional support only a mother can give. Because Wendy works as a flight attendant, she has special access to open seats by flying standby, so she can head to Eugene at a moment’s notice.
Because his parents still lived in Arizona, girlfriend Ashley Laing became their eyes and ears, as did fellow Arizonan, offensive lineman and fellow Moose Andre Yruretegoyena.
“His biggest supporters are obviously his family; but also his girlfriend, and all of us close to him,” Yruretegoyena said. “He has no issue speaking his mind and going a little crazy to light a fire under everyone's butts.”
It was time for a little loving payback. His family, friends and teammates got the chance to light a fire under Johnstone’s butt for a change.
Apart from that support, being a member of an elite Division I college football program was a boon. Johnstone had access to top-level trainers and medical equipment in Oregon’s athletic health center.
On top of all that, he had offensive line coach Steve Greatwood and graduate assistant Joe Bernardi – the former a grisled patriarch, the other a bouncy older brother whose Fresno State biography lists former NFL offensive lineman Kyle Turley as his favorite because he was "the nastiest offensive linemen ever."
Bernardi had a unique perspective on what Johnstone was going through as the leg braces got smaller and the exercises harder -- he tore his ACL four times by the time his collegiate career ended in 2010. As Johnstone grew stronger, so did his relationship with his graduate assistant mentor.
“Tyler’s a kid and a personality where you just have to let him go. That’s his character and his personality,” Bernardi said. “You can’t put a collar on him all day long. When you’re around a kid every day for three years, you know how to deal with that dog.”
As August drew near, bringing the start of Oregon’s fall practice sessions, Johnstone appeared on the verge of a remarkable comeback. His knee passed all the necessary protocols and he was cleared to join his teammates for their first practice Aug. 4. Seniors Hroniss Grasu, Jake Fisher and Ifo Ekpre-Olomu had turned down the NFL for one more college go-round, along with potential All-America quarterback Marcus Mariota.
Johnstone was healthy and felt ready to rejoin his friends on the battlefield.
“When you’re hurt, we think we can get right back into it and play,” Grasu said. “We’re young and we think we can be like Superman, but the reality is we have to listen to the trainers and the doctors -- and Tyler did a great job. He did everything he could.”
Near the end of the second practice of the 2014 season, Johnstone was in his last drill of the day, a full contact, live-action session. Defensive end T.J. Daniel came crashing around Johnstone’s left side, his momentum putting a lot of pressure on the inside of the surgically repaired right knee.
Johnstone felt it buckle. It didn’t hurt, not much anyway, but it was enough that Bernardi came running over to help his left tackle get off the field. The knee swelled up some, but the initial tests came back clean.
Johnstone figured he dodged a bullet.
Johnstone (right) and Mariota celebrate a touchdown against Arizona State in 2012.
Then two days later, he jumped into a punt drill and felt the knee buckle again. At that point, his optimism faded; he couldn’t ignore his body any longer.
“I wasn’t sure anymore,” Johnstone said. “I just had a feeling of ‘uh-oh,’ a sense of doom. The coaches didn’t know either though; they were just worried. Somehow, subconsciously, I knew something wasn’t right. I was prepared for it to be torn.”
‘NEVER TOO LATE TO BEGIN AGAIN’
The next day, everyone was crowded around Dr. Gregory Skaggs’ computer. All of the futuristic equipment and decor in the training center make for a dark, sterile setting, fitting for delivering bad news. Despite the mural of an Oregon basketball player plastered across the only non-glass wall, the most notable green or yellow item in Skaggs’ workspace is a Brett Favre bobblehead.
The next few minutes were a blur of tears and emotions for Johnstone, who had bolted from the room -- as fast as one can without a right ACL. He didn’t make it far before Bernardi chased him down and gave his protege a shoulder to cry on. Once Johnstone gathered himself some, he and head coach Mark Helfrich called Johnstone’s parents, then Greatwood gathered Grasu and Fisher so they could tell the rest of the group.
As word spread within the football complex, Yruretagoyena made sure his best friend wouldn’t have to wait alone while the rest of the team finished their workouts. Laing was on the University campus when she got a phone call that made it clear to her she needed to get across the river without going into specifics.
After the second injury, Wendy and Kevin Johnstone flew to Eugene in search of answers. After everyone reviewed Johnstone’s surgery, his rehab, everything they could, there was still no good reason why his ACL had robbed him of a triumphant return.
“The only thing we could think was maybe with a body as big as his, some guys can come back quicker, but maybe he had to take more time,” Kevin Johnstone said.
The second injury affected Johnstone emotionally more than the first. The first few days after the MRI were among the hardest of his life. He dwelled on the months he’d spent working his way back, the hours of sweat and pain he now considers a waste of time. Not known for his patience from the day he was born, he wondered whether he had done enough, if he could have worked harder to prevent the disappointment he now stewed in. That he still stews in.
“Not every aspect of the first time was a failure, but I did re-tear it,” Johnstone said. “Nothing of that is on the trainers or anything, I just feel I didn’t go above and beyond what I would have needed to do to get it back to being ready. I don’t think I listened to myself, listened to my body after I passed those tests. I don’t think I listened to my knees the first time around, and that’s where I failed.”
Like the first time, though, Johnstone wasn’t despondent for long. Laing showed up at Autzen Stadium to find him waiting for her in the parking lot.
After consoling her now-boyfriend, she took him on a walk across the Autzen Footbridge to clear his head. It was on the bridge where they sat down to find the following inscription on the bench: “Good morning. It’s never too late to begin again.”
“It seemed so perfect at the time and it was pure chance we sat on that bench,” Johnstone said.
That was when he stopped feeling sorry for himself. It was time to get back to work. Back to his team. |
The left wants us to believe we can create utopia on earth, despite the pure evil that some religions and radical Islamic terrorists preach. These jihadists wouldn’t think twice about killing us if presented with the opportunity. There are radical elements of Islam that are quite sickening, but the left tries to cover up.
In fact, some of the extreme views of Islam actually believes it’s okay to rape someone in certain circumstances. Suad Saleh, a professor at the Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt, said that rape was acceptable in times of war between Islam and certain enemies such as Israel. This is what she said:
The female prisoners of wars are ‘those whom you own.’ In order to humiliate them, they become the property of the army commander, or of a Muslim, and he can have sex with them just like he has sex with his wives.
Not to mention, there are a few sections of the Quran that would support this claim. Although there are moderate Muslims who reject and condemn these sections, there are still extreme Muslims who really believe they have a right to rape.
This is why President-elect Trump’s plan for “extreme vetting” is more necessary now than ever. We cannot allow people to think rape is acceptable in our country.
Furthermore, we should not let people in who could possibly pose a threat to our society and our way of life. We should admit people who share our values and respect our laws. Plus, we need to do everything in our power to protect our citizens first. |
Ted Cruz, the Texas senator currently in fourth in recent polls of the Republican field, gave a shrewd performance at the debate in Milwaukee on Tuesday night. He largely avoided the spotlight, instead allowing Ben Carson, John Kasich, Donald Trump, and Marco Rubio to squabble among themselves. His talking points, however, when he offered them, were carefully crafted to appeal to Evangelicals, Tea Partiers, and voters who want an outsider in the White House. In other words: much of the Republican base. As MSNBC wrote last month, “The Texas senator could very well be the sleeper, the ambush predator, and the fabled tortoise of this election.”
As the New Republic's Elspeth Reeve pointed out last month, Cruz believes that the Republican Party breaks down into four main brackets: the establishment, the Evangelicals, the Tea Partiers, and the outsiders. When the current frontrunners fade, Cruz thinks he can unite those last three groups, counting on his Christian roots (his father is a pastor) to secure the Evangelical vote, his ties to the Tea Party to become its standard bearer in the presidential race, and his record criticizing Washington to appeal to the voters who want an outsider candidate. Indeed, on Tuesday night, his talking points were carefully crafted to appeal to those three brackets.
In response to a question about immigration, Cruz said: “If Republicans join Democrats as the party of amnesty, we will lose. The politics of it would be very, very different if a bunch of lawyers or bankers were crossing the Rio Grande, or if a bunch of people with journalism degrees were coming over and driving down the wages in the press,” he continued. “Then we would see stories about the economic calamity that is befalling our nation." Those talking points are likely to resonate with the disaffected white voters currently rallying around Trump, who want an outsider in the White House.
Cruz also leveled harsh critiques at the “cronyism” in Washington. “Washington is fundamentally corrupt,” he said. “There are more words in the IRS tax code than there are in the Bible.” He has built his career on criticizing Beltway insiders, even from within Washington itself. As senator, he has attempted to shut down the government over both the budget deficit and Planned Parenthood funding. That record will help secure the allegiance of the voters who want an outsider in the White House—if and when Carson and Trump drop out. Furthermore, his Biblical reference may play well with Evangelical voters, who may begin to sour on Carson, particularly after the revelations about his life story this week. |
Though each is demographically and physically unique, Canadian cities and towns will usually yield a number of tangible commonalities. You'll typically find a fire and police station, at least one school, a post office, and the town hall, where civic business is conducted. Sprinkled among these would be a host of shops and restaurants, many of which form the backbone of a lively main drag. But perhaps the most integral institutional asset — the public library — is really where the heart of the community lies. Not only are these valued establishments sources of free information, their ability to educate and foster engagement between family, friends, and even strangers becomes an immeasurable boon to the community.
The Library of Parliament in Ottawa, image by Marcus Mitanis
Many libraries across Canada have long been housed in historic brick or stone buildings, serving as a reminder of the institution's longevity across eras, even in spite of advancing technology that threatens the traditional library experience. It's important for a library to have a welcoming public face — something highly attractive on the outside will naturally invite users inside. While these preserved structures of yesteryear often catch the eyes of passersby, gleaming new libraries are popping up across the country too, challenging the lingering notion that libraries are an obsolete vestige of the past.
While not a public library, we'd be remiss not to mention the Library of Parliament in Ottawa, the nation's capital. Elegantly standing at the rear of the Centre Block, the Gothic Revival masterpiece is the only surviving section of the larger building's original incarnation, which was sadly gutted by a fire in 1916. Since its completion in 1876, the building has undergone multiple renovations, the most recent of which in 2006 saw a substantial rehabilitation of its facade.
A rendering of Calgary's Central Library, image via Snøhetta
The discussion in the thread for the upcoming Calgary Central Library inspired this article, with Calgarians proudly proclaiming the new facility among the best in the country. As the first pieces of cladding now appear, it's increasingly hard to argue with that position. With DIALOG, Norwegian architecture specialists Snøhetta have designed the under-construction building, adding to their list of bold and imaginative civic spaces. With an active LRT line piercing the base, and wood-laden interiors glowing with warmth, the library will become an instant icon in Calgary and a model for how buildings should interact with and integrate their surroundings.
The central branch of the Vancouver Public Library system, image by Flickr user Michael Muraz via Creative Commons
The central branch of Vancouver's Public Library system is anchored to the downtown core by a nine-storey rectangular box, which is hidden by a striking elliptical colonnade that houses diverse reading and study sections. A glass-roofed concourse bridges the gap between the two distinct structures, forming a grand entrance and animated pedestrian strip on the ground. The Colosseum-like building was the largest capital project undertaken by the City of Vancouver, and after a favourable public referendum, Moshe Safdie and DA Architects won the design competition for the development. An attached office highrise and an eclectic mix of retail and restaurants are also provided on the block, which was completed in 1995.
Surrey City Centre Library, image by Flickr user Colin Knowles via Creative Commons
The 2011-built Surrey City Centre Library is the second entry on this list from British Columbia. Replacing the Whalley Public Library, the Bing Thom Architects-designed complex forms part of a larger revitalization initiative undertaken in the downtown core. Awarded LEED Gold certification, the $36 million CAD project captures 7,200 square metres of usable space across four floors, though much of this space was not dedicated simply to standard book collections. Rather, the focus is on the reading and study spaces, which are arranged around a winding atrium culminating with two skylights. Illustrating the power of technology and social media, the building's modern architecture was heavily influenced by the needs and desires of the public, who were engaged through Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr throughout the design process.
The Toronto Reference Library, image by Marcus Mitanis
The Toronto Reference Library's interior motif of curving white balconies is somewhat similar in style, though it predates Surrey's by 34 years. Designed by Raymond Moriyama, the five-storey building also contains an airy atrium and skylight. This interior layout maximizes natural light and provides dynamic sightlines between floors. Located one block north of the busy intersection of Yonge and Bloor, the biggest public library in the city sees a steady stream of eager visitors every day. It's no coincidence either — with 100 branches, the Toronto Public Library network is the largest in Canada and the the world's busiest urban library system.
Halifax Central Library, image retrieved from Google Street View
Opened in 2014, the Halifax Central Library is one of the newest and most attention-grabbing libraries in Canada. Designed by Schmidt Hammer Lassen of Denmark with local practice Fowler Bauld and Mitchell, the flagship library replaced a surface parking lot at the corner of Spring Garden Road and Queen Street, a prime location in the downtown core. Designed to resemble stacked books, the building's cantilevered fifth floor is home to a light-filled indoor space called the Halifax Living Room, which features access to a cafe and a rooftop terrace. The elongated block hovers over the ground-level entry plaza in dramatic fashion. With an auditorium and multiple study spaces spread across the five-storey structure, the library has quickly become a central gathering place for Haligonians.
Calgary Central Library cladding installation, image by Forum contributor Surrealplaces
Canadians would be wise to pay a visit to their local library and discover everything it has to offer. From an architecture standpoint, the fusion between design and flexible educational spaces has spurred some truly amazing places that are worthy of in-person admiration. With Calgary's promising new library taking shape, the bar has certainly been set high for robust civic spaces in Canada.
Additional images and information about the Calgary Central Library can be found in the Database file linked below. Want to get involved in the discussion or share your photos? Check out the associated Forum thread or leave a comment at the bottom of this page. |
By Tae Hong
If there’s one thing Justin Chon loves, it’s movies.
For a second-generation Korean American kid growing up in a predominantly white Orange County neighborhood, movies — movies about cartoon rabbits, about Spanish treasure maps, about Neverland and about time-travelling cars — were the shaping blocks of childhood, of dreams.
And if he was sitting in theater seats all those years ago, it’s on the big screen that he now finds himself. Best known for big-name projects like “Twilight” and “21 & Over,” the 33-year-old actor most recently led an ensemble cast in Director Benson Lee’s “Seoul Searching.”
The indie effort, which follows a camp that gathers an eccentric group of Korean American kids in the 1980s in what critics have called “Bibimbap Breakfast Club,” premiered at Sundance Film Festival last month.
Chon, who had known Lee before the film through another project, plays Sid Park, a teen rebel based on Lee’s own experience visiting South Korea as a teenager.
Filming took Chon to the homeland, from which his parents hail and where his father was an actor.
“I like to do movies I care about. It’s not just about commerce,” Chon said. “That’s why I took the role on ‘Seoul Searching.’ I didn’t get rich off of it, I don’t think I’m going to get famous off of it, but I really respect Benson’s work, and I really love the script. As a Korean, and specifically as a Korean American, I thought it was important.”
The Korean cast, comprised of actors from Germany and Spain as well as J-pop star Crystal Kay, filmed for two months in both the Korean countryside and in Seoul.
He fell in love with both the food (“Korean-style fried chicken, Korean beef, insane dry-aged KBBQ.”) and with the cast, which also included veteran Korean actor Cha In-pyo.
“He’s so gracious, such a great person. Great humanitarian. He’s a stand-up guy. I learned a lot from him, not just about acting, but also about life,” Chon said.
The film deals with adoption, the after-effects of the Korean War and each of the kids’ Korean American experience.
“Especially in my own storyline with a Korean dad, it’s very much an issue that all Korean guys grow up with — miscommunication, identity issues, cultures clashing,” Chon said.
His own Korean American experience was a meeting of two worlds, a jam session of H.O.T and Tupac, of Death Row artists and Seo Taiji, of Korean film classic “Friend” and American film classic “Back to the Future.”
A Silicon Valley internship the summer he was 18 years old was enough to convince him that business was not his forte. He turned to acting.
“I didn’t think I would make anything doing it,” he said.
It’s been a 13-year journey through Hollywood since his first acting class, when he was asked to improvise a scene in which his grandmother was dying.
He remembers breaking down and crying, his back to the class, as he tried his hardest to suppress his emotions.
“As I turned, everyone started clapping and cheering. I think it was the first time in my life where I was applauded for being truthful with what I was feeling. No mask, just raw,” he said. “People find that beautiful, and that’s what acting is. It’s shedding light on the human condition. That was the most cathartic thing I had experienced. So I said, let’s do this.”
His end goal isn’t fame. It’s experience he’s after, whether it be a chance to film in places like New Zealand or Russia or taking up roles outside of acting.
Chon recently tried out the director’s chair for a low-budget film called “Man Up,” which he also wrote and produced. He called it the hardest job of his life.
An indie comedy about a teenage slacker who “mans up” after he accidentally gets his Mormon girlfriend pregnant, the film will be featured in upcoming film festivals, including CAAMFest in San Francisco.
It’s a part of a content-creating process he looks to continue, even as he sifts through project offers and a role on the Yahoo series “Sin City Saints.”
“[Films] are the things that shaped my childhood,” he said. “And to be even just a little iota, a little part of that? It’s a total honor. To be able to have that privilege — that’s amazing.” |
When I returned to the laundry a day later, I was given two shirts.
SOCHI, RUSSIA—Halfway through the Olympics, I brought four shirts in to be cleaned. They handed me a handwritten form more complex than a mortgage application.
On the ground, Sochi was a pleasantly surreal experience; a small glimpse into what life in Russia must once have been and sort of still is.
To the guy who is wearing my stolen shirts, enjoy them. I hope they keep you warm in the penal colony.
For instance — I stayed in a decent-ish hotel room that contained two single beds. The first night, I rolled over and right out of bed three times, smashing my head on the nightstand during the last of these trips.
So I pushed the beds together. It was a bit of an effort. They are oddly dense beds.
The next day, I get back to the room. The maid has pulled them apart again, replaced the nightstand and plugged a lamp back in.
Every evening, I’d push the beds together. Every morning, she’d pull them apart. I like to think of this as Our Thing.
There was a lot of talk when we got here that we were all being surveilled. Someone wrote somewhere that your computer would be hacked within a minute of connecting to the Internet in Russia.
So, to my hacker, I hope I haven’t scandalized you too much. I would prefer it if you waited until I got home before draining my bank accounts and stealing my identity. I can live without the money. I can’t survive the idea of being trapped penniless in the Domodedovo Airport for a decade.
All this talk of being watched led to a lot of healthy paranoia. I wrote a nasty piece about Vladimir Putin. The next morning, a note was slipped under my door: “Dear guest, Could you come to the reception please to clarify some information about you. Thank you! Reception.”
It was the exclamation mark that chilled me. I never went.
Someone sent me a lovely email advising me that I was “on the list” and that “you will be targeted”.
I wrote another nasty thing about Putin. When I got home that evening, the door to my hotel room was wide open. There was a key in the lock. Either my secret policeman was getting careless or cocky.
To combat this feeling, you need a safe place to hide. So you find a bar. A bar is your assembly point in case of disaster (and often the cause of it).
As Canadians, we are in the odd habit of finding The Worst Bar in (Country Name Here) wherever we go, and then claiming it. It’s our inferiority complex meeting our high-functioning alcoholism.
The place we chose is fetchingly named Bar Number Four. It was hideous, overlit and unfriendly. We loved it. It was run by an odd character named Ruslan.
Ruslan said he came from the back of beyond, but his English was perfect. He was deeply interested in each one of us, in our lives and political views. We grew suspicious.
When a couple of Quebec journalists burst into the bar one night, already with a good head on them, Ruslan hailed them in excellent French. We never went back.
Instead, we moved down the road to a decrepit shack selling the vintages of the Krasnodar region. Neil Davidson of Canadian Press called it “The Wines of Mordor”.
Far too many nights refused to die at The Wines of Mordor. The jet lag never really let go of any of us. Seven times here — SEVEN! — I performed what is known in the business as a wraparound. I got up from the bar and went straight to breakfast. I will require long-term hospitalization when I get home.
Of course, you get sick. We all got sick. We’d go from the sweaty confines of The Wines of Mordor, out into the dawn chill, then back into the swampy cafeteria. It was good to get there early, when the breakfast smelt is fresh.
Here was another consistent Russian oddity — heat. Everywhere in Russia is heated like a sauna — the buses, the bars, your room. This must be some cultural echo from the bad old days, when everyone froze.
The radiator in my room pumped out heat like a blast furnace. I honestly worried the drapes would catch fire. It had no knobs. To combat this swelter, I left all the windows in the room open at all hours. Another thing that drove the maid insane.
The only thing that isn’t hot in Sochi is food and the water in your bathroom. That is uniformly lukewarm.
As it ended, we were preparing for the shakedown. Some of us were given lists of items in our rooms, and their replacement costs. A problem — many of the items weren’t in the rooms when we arrived. We have been warned that we will require a signed document from our maid (obviously a KGB colonel) before we can leave our compound. Fortunately, I saw this coming and have been tunnelling for days.
Much of this may sound ungracious. And it is.
But it is tinged with a real sense of concern about the people we leave behind here. Sochi was transformed for these Games, but with no eye to permanence. I’ll be back in four years for the 2018 World Cup. I expect much of what surrounds me as I write this to have been reclaimed by the earth.
So I worry about these people, and what they will do now. Every Russian under 25 I met here was heartbreakingly hopeful. You look around at where they live, at the people who lead them, and you wonder why that is.
I was struck late in the Games by an op-ed written by Masha Alekhina, one of the members of Pussy Riot. It was framed as a cry for help.
“The quasi-fascist direction of this regime over the past 13 years depends on a deadening of the intellect. For as soon as obliviousness ends, so does Mr. Putin’s power. Those who are writing about the Olympics and who are currently present at the Games should not fall into this forgetfulness, because it is fatal.”
This echoes a line from one of the great opponents and poets of Communism: “The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.”
Sochi was weird and, in its way, wonderful. It was also a Mammon temple built on the backs of people who didn’t need it and could ill-afford it.
Beyond the small inconveniences that I’ll be dining out on as war stories for years, that’s what I’m determined not to forget. |
- Hi, I'm Louisa Winters. Welcome to this test preparation course for the 14CFR part 107 small unmanned aircraft system certification, required by the FAA in order to fly your drone commercially. Some of you may know me as an Adobe and Apple instructor, but in addition to that, I am a private pilot, and a certified advanced ground school instructor for the FAA. I have been flying unmanned aerial systems for a while, and have fallen in love with the technology and its possibilities.
That, together with my love of flying, keeps me busy for much of my time these days. Whether it's flying an airplane or flying a drone, I spend most of my working hours in the sky, and wouldn't have it any other way. In this title, I will start by explaining what major provisions exist in 14 CFR part 107. Then, we will go through all applicable regulations: aircraft registration, operational limitations, operations near airports and aircraft.
Weather, loading and performance, emergency procedures, physiology, medical conditions, and drugs and alcohol. Aeronautical decision making, or ADM, some risk mitigation, and maintenance and preflight procedures, and waivers. Then, we will go through a self-assessment section, in which you can see if you're ready to take the test or not. I am confident that this title will help you get prepared to take this important test. Let's get started. |
Like many of you, I’ve got a bit of a soft spot for the Volvo XC70. To me, it’s the perfect balance of utility, handling, and under-the-radar luxury for going up fire roads in the fall. Every once in a while, though, I find myself wishing the XC70 had a bit more of a summer vibe, you know? That’s where the Volvo XC70 Surf Rescue comes in.
First shown at the 2007 SEMA show as part of the launch of the then-new Volvo XC70, the Surf Rescue took the standard car and cranked it up- literally. The XC70 Surf Rescue is lifted a few inches over stock and equipped with some of the first diamond-cut wheels Volvo’s ever produced. The bright, primary color scheme, too, makes the Surf Rescue exactly the kind of vehicle you’d picture Miami’s South Beach lifeguards cruising around in.
You don’t need to listen to me rave about the XC70 Surf Rescue and whether or not it’s a proper homage to Old Milwaukee’s Swedish Bikini Team anymore, though. Check out the photos and the official SEMA press release from 2007, below, then let me know what you think of the Surf Rescue in the comments.
Las Vegas, NV (October 30, 2007) – It’s only fitting that a SEMA concept car from Volvo be focused on safety. It’s a natural fit. Yet 2007 marks the first year that Volvo has built a SEMA vehicle with a specific safety theme: enter the Volvo XC70 Surf Rescue (SR). Inspired by the surf rescue vehicles rolling up and down the Southern California beaches, the XC70 SR embodies Volvo’s core value of protecting life in a bold and eye-catching concept that will make its world debut at this year’s Specialty Equipment Market Association tradeshow.
As with every SEMA concept from Volvo, all of the XC70 SR’s standard safety equipment is intact and functioning. The 2008 Volvo XC70 is all new and incorporates the leading edge of passive and preventative safety systems.
“We developed the all-new XC70 with the goal that it should be the safest vehicle in its segment,” says Ingrid Skogsmo, Director of Volvo Cars Safety Center. “The XC70 model shares the same sophisticated network of interacting safety systems as the all-new Volvo S80. The patented body structure absorbs energy in a highly efficient way. And the interior safety system includes the latest generation of side airbags and whiplash protection. Furthermore, we are introducing a world innovation in the field of child safety.”
In a true demonstration of versatility of the family/adventure XC70, Volvo combines a height-adjustable integrated booster cushion – a world’s first – with an extended inflatable curtain to provide the industry’s best passenger safety system for precious cargo in the rear seat.
Safety innovations do not end there. The latest technological updates include a new, stronger side structure to optimize side-impact protection, not only for children but for all occupants. The body’s entire side structure is both stronger and lighter thanks to a well-balanced combination of high-tensile steel of different grades.
In addition, a new type of side-impact airbag – first seen in the all-new S80 model – refines Volvo’s patented SIPS (Side Impact Protection System) into an even more effective safety system. The new side-impact airbags have two separate chambers, one for the hip section and one for the chest. Since the hips can withstand greater force than the chest, the lower chamber inflates with up to five times more pressure than the upper section. The side-impact airbags interact with the inflatable curtains and the body’s network of safety beams to provide the most effective protection.
Volvo’s system for avoiding neck injuries – WHIPS (Whiplash Protection System) – is one of the most effective on the market. In the event of a rear-end collision, the front seat backrest accompanies the passenger’s initial body movement and dampens the incoming force rather like one’s hand does when catching a ball. The all-new XC70 features the next generation of WHIPS mechanism, further developed to ensure that the damping motion is gentle and to provide good contact between the head and head restraint throughout the impact sequence.
With the high ground clearance of the all-new XC70, there are relatively high-positioned bumpers which may create a greater risk of damage to an oncoming passenger car with lower positioned bumpers. To reduce the risk of injury in a collision, the front suspension sub-frame is supplemented with a lower cross-member positioned at the height of the bumper in a conventional car. This lower beam is integrated into the XC70’s structure and is neatly concealed behind the spoiler. In a collision, the lower cross-member is aimed to strike the oncoming car’s protective structure, activating its crumple zone as intended so the occupants can be given the maximum level of protection.
Protection for pedestrians and cyclists has also been further developed in the all-new XC70. The front has been given energy-absorbing properties, not least with a generously dimensioned soft structure in front of the bumper that helps reduce the risk of leg injuries. In addition, the spoiler’s lower edge has been reinforced and moved forward, almost on a level with the bumper. The aim is that the area of contact on pedestrians or cyclists should be distributed across a larger area, thus helping to further reduce the risk of injury. The hood lines are raised and a honeycomb structure underneath spreads the load in the event of an impact, thus helping to absorb the energy and reduce the risk of personal injury.
Further protecting the driver and passengers inside the all-new XC70 is the collapsible steering column which, upon deformation, moves horizontally for the best possible interaction with the airbag; pedals that functionally limit the risk of penetration into the passenger compartment; airbags with two-stage function; seat belt pre-tensioners and belt reminders for all five seats; force limiters for the front seat belts; reinforced, transversely fitted tubular beam between the A-posts; strong SIPS tubes in the seats and a sturdy magnesium bracket in the middle of the vehicle; diagonally fitted beams of Ultra High Strength Steel in the doors; and, as with all Volvo cars, a compact transversely mounted engine.
“The best way to protect the vehicle’s occupants is to avoid accidents,” says Skogsmo. “That’s why we’ve developed a number of advanced driving and support systems that interact intelligently to assist the driver in difficult situations, yet without taking over the driving itself or taking over responsibility for safe progress. The task is to assist the driver to take the right decisions, by alerting him or her and in various ways indicating how best to get out of the situation.”
In order to help the driver stay a safe distance behind the vehicle in front, Volvo has developed Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC). This system should be primarily regarded as a comfort function but it does also contribute to more controlled progress if the rhythm of traffic is uneven.
The technology also is used as a basis for several of Volvo’s advanced driving and support systems. Using a radar sensor, the adaptive cruise control continually monitors the gap to the vehicles in front and automatically adjusts the vehicle’s speed to ensure that this gap does not shrink too much. The driver activates the cruise control by setting a desired speed between 18 and 124 mph and then selecting the minimum time gap to the vehicles in front. There are five different time gaps to choose between.
Rear-end collisions are a common type of accident. In many of these cases, the reason is that the driver is distracted and fails to respond in time. Against this background, Volvo has developed a system known as Collision Warning with Brake Support. The area in front of the vehicle is continuously monitored with the help of a radar sensor. If the all-new XC70 approaches another vehicle from the rear and the driver does not react, a red warning light flashes in the windscreen. At the same time, a warning buzzer sounds. In certain situations, this is enough for the driver to respond and take action to avoid the danger.
If the risk of a collision increases despite the warning, the brake support system is activated. In order to shorten the reaction time, the brakes are prepared for action by automatic application of the pads against the discs. In addition, brake pressure is amplified hydraulically which results in good braking effect even if the driver does not press particularly hard on the brake pedal.
“If the road speed is not too high, brake support helps reduce the consequences of a collision,” says Skogsmo. “However, it is always the driver’s reactions that are crucial to the outcome.”
To help drivers maintain better control over the driving situation, the all-new XC70 is equipped with BLIS (Blind Spot Information System). Using cameras integrated into the door mirrors, BLIS registers whether another vehicle is in the blind spot offset to the rear. If there is a vehicle there, a light illuminates at the relevant mirror to alert the driver and increase his or her chance of making the appropriate decision.
The all-new XC70 has a highly advanced braking system with a number of functions that interact to ensure the shortest possible braking distance under all circumstances. They include Hydraulic Brake Assist (HBA), a new generation of Volvo’s emergency braking support system that utilizes both vacuum and hydraulic reinforcement to help the driver brake in the shortest possible distance in a panic situation; Optimized Hydraulic Brakes (OHB) to reinforce deceleration under hard braking by compensating for low vacuum pressure in the brake servo; Ready Alert Brakes (RAB) that can predict rapid braking and apply the brake pads against the discs even before the driver has time to press the brake pedal; and Fading Brake Support (FBS) that utilizes hydraulics to gradually build up braking pressure during long hard braking, thus helping cut the risk of brake fade and maintaining pedal feel.
In order to contribute to the best possible visibility during night-time driving on curving and twisting roads, the all-new XC70 can be equipped with Active Bending lights (ABL) — swiveling headlights that follow the sweeps and bends of the road. A mini-processor is used to calculate and analyze a number of parameters and optimize the light beam to suit the situation. The headlights can be swiveled up to 15 degrees in either direction. In order to save wear and tear on the system, it is automatically deactivated in daylight conditions.
In an increasingly insecure world, control is important even when the vehicle is parked. As a matter of theft-prevention and avoiding situations that may involve personal risks, Volvo’s Personal Car Communicator (PCC) provides information aimed at security and safety. This advanced pocket-sized control center can tell the owner if the vehicle is locked or unlocked, and if the alarm has been triggered. In the case of the alarm having been triggered, PCC will indicate whether someone is inside the vehicle via a highly sensitive heartbeat sensor and an advanced calculation process.
Furthering security, the all-new XC70 can be specified with laminated glass in all the windows, including the rear side windows and the tailgate, making break-ins more difficult. This means that the luggage compartment also gets effective protection. The rear storage system under the luggage compartment floor has a capacity of more than 1.62 cubic feet (without spare wheel), and it is now lockable. It is locked automatically and conveniently when the tailgate is closed and locked.
The all-new XC70 packages both security and convenience with its optional power-operated tailgate. With the press a button on the remote control, complete access to the storage area occurs courtesy of the vehicle’s hydraulics. In order to reduce the risk of accidentally squashing one’s hands or fingers, it is closed from the panel on the tailgate itself. In addition, a dual-stage safety function is integrated into the tailgate, involving a pinch protection molding on each side and an emergency stop. The hydraulic system is equipped with a force sensor, stopping immediately if it senses an obstruction during operation. |
HAVANA (AFP) - Cuba, one of North Korea's few allies, called on Wednesday (Nov 23) for "peace and stability" in the Korean peninsula and stressed the need for dialogue to reduce tensions between Pyongyang and Washington.
Upon receiving his North Korean counterpart Ri Yong Ho in Havana, foreign affairs minister Bruno Rodriguez said Cuba is "in favour of peace and stability," adding that "only after dialogue and negotiations can a lasting political solution be achieved," according to Cuban media.
In the wake of President Donald Trump's declaration of North Korea as a state sponsor of terror on Monday, Rodriguez also rejected what he called the United States' "unilateral certifications and dictates" on North Korea - insisting they served as a basis for "the application of coercive measures contrary to international law."
Meanwhile, Ri blamed the "increased use of imperialist military force" for the worsening situation in the Korean peninsula, and stressed the importance of Cuba-North Korea relations as "two socialism-building countries."
His visit comes as Pyongyang and Washington continue to clash over North Korea's numerous ballistic missile and nuclear tests - while US-Cuba relations, re-established in 2015 after a 50-year stand-off, have also deteriorated under President Trump.
On Sept 23, Ri denounced Trump in a speech at the United Nations, and expressed "strong support and solidarity with the Cuban government and people." In May, President Raul Castro also expressed Cuba's solidarity with Pyongyang to visiting North Korean union leader Ju Yong Gil. |
“I’m standing next to a guy who is the most blatantly dishonest answers I can remember in any presidential race in — in my lifetime.... I don’t know how you debate a person with civility if they’re prepared to say things that are just plain factually false.”
— Newt Gingrich, Jan. 29, 2012
The slugfest between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich comes to a head Tuesday in Florida, where Gingrich is running behind because of a deluge of negative campaign ads by Romney and his allies and the perception that Romney bested him in the last two debates.
It’s tough to keep up with the various charges the two men have thrown at each other — Gingrich even brought up an ancient Romney veto concerning kosher food on Monday — so here is a guide to their most recent and most frequent claims.
(In addition to various columns on attack ads and charges, we previously looked at some of Romney’s claims about Gingrich when the battlefront had first moved to Florida.)
“His experience as speaker of the House end[ed] so badly, with an ethics scandal and him having to resign in disgrace and with his own members, 88 percent of them Republican members, voting to reprimand him.”
— Romney, Jan. 30, 2012
Here, the former Massachusetts governor echoes one of his TV ads, which we have already labeled as misleading. Gingrich was reprimanded, but he did not resign until two years later for reasons that had nothing to do with the reprimand he received from the House over an ethics issue. That issue involved whether it was proper for a tax-exempt foundation associated with the speaker to finance a college course that he had put together.
Instead, Gingrich resigned because House Republicans unexpectedly lost seats during the 1998 midterm elections. The Romney campaign sent us a few news clips making reference to the ethics probe when Gingrich resigned but neither The Washington Post article nor the New York Times article on his resignation made any mention of it.
In fact, as our colleague Karen Tumulty noted, shortly after Gingrich’s resignation, “the Internal Revenue Service — having conducted its own investigation--determined that there was nothing illegal about the arrangement. The IRS concluded that the course was indeed “educational in content” (as opposed to political), and that the Progress and Freedom Foundation’s support for it was “consistent with its stated exempt purposes.”
“We nominated a moderate for president in 1996 and he lost, badly. We nominated a moderate for president in 2008 and he lost, badly. If we nominate a Massachusetts liberal, I don't see how he defends 'Romneycare' as being different from 'Obamacare.' I don't see how he defends his gun control as being different, his pro-abortion position as being different, or for that matter his tax increases being different.”
— Gingrich, Jan. 30, 2012
Gingrich, after weeks of calling Romney a “Massachusetts moderate,” now calls him a “Massachusetts liberal.” But Romney is no John Kerry, Michael Dukakis or Ted Kennedy. He ran as a relatively moderate Republican when he sought Kennedy’s Senate seat and won the governorship, but since then has staked out more conservative positions.
Here Gingrich is echoing some of the points made in a humorous cartoon ad, imagining a debate between Romney and President Obama, produced by the pro-Gingrich super PAC, Winning Our Future. We previously awarded One Pinocchio to that ad. As we noted, Romney’s positions on abortion and gun control are now different, but Gingrich, particularly in this statement, suggests they have not changed.
The reference to tax increases references another Winning the Future cartoon ad, in which the imaginary Obama congratulates Romney for disguising tax increases with phrases such as loopholes and fees. That charge is accurate. We have previously given Romney One Pinocchio for claiming he did not raise taxes as governor.
“Romney as governor eliminated kosher food from retired Jewish senior citizens on Medicaid and he has no understanding of the importance of conscience and importance of religious liberty in this country.”
— Gingrich, Jan. 30, 2012
The Hill amusingly said that in the primary’s waning hours, Gingrich threw the “kosher kitchen sink” at Romney. While we are not sure what this claim says about Romney’s understanding of religious liberty, it turns out that in 2003 he did indeed veto $600,000 in spending to run Massachusetts’s eight kosher nursing home facilities.
Romney’s campaign said he was practicing fiscal restraint in a time of fiscal crisis, but his veto was quickly overridden by an unanimous vote in the House and an overwhelming vote in the state Senate after tales emerged of people in their 80s and 90s faced with having to leave their homes or break kosher tenets for the first time in their lives. The New York Post resurrected this story in an article last week.
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Spin Class Remixes to Pay tribute to Our Beloved Musicians who died in 2016
Indoor Cycling without music?
Impossible.
These artist are our heart beat. The literal soul of the class. They reach out and touch Riders in diverse, indelible ways. This year we lost so many! These larger-than-life rockers, pop stars -poets! Without them we are nothing. So I feel it fitting to pay a little tribute to some of them.
I am sure I missed many! I started to make a one our playlist and when I looked up I had 90 min. So you have lots to choose from to make your theme class. The first 60 min is mine... the last 30 min in the playlist is a bonus... for those extra long classes!
So Here we go down Memory lane one last time! All of the following remixes are from the originals that were made, produced or written by: David Bowie, Glenn Frey (Eagles), Maurice White (Earth, Wind & Fire), George Martin (Beatles), Merle Haggard, Prince, Thomas Fekete (Surfers Blood), Christina Grimme, Pete Burns (Dead or Alive), Bobby Vee, Leonard Cohen, Muhammad Ali and George Michael.
Muhammad Ali MY HERO - The Greatest
The first song on the playlist is a little warmup I like. It was a tribute made by RTE. It's personal. Its Ali. In terms of a playlist I like to build in the odd motivational speech ... and I think this man had someting to say. Enjoy him in his own words:
"Last night I had a dream,
When I got to Africa,
I had one hell of a rumble.
I had to beat Tarzan’s behind first,
For claiming to be King of the Jungle.
For this fight, I’ve wrestled with alligators,
I’ve tussled with a whale.
I done handcuffed lightning
And throw thunder in jail.
You know I’m bad.just last week, I murdered a rock,
Injured a stone, Hospitalized a brick.
I’m so mean, I make medicine sick.
I’m so fast, man,I can run through a hurricane and don't get wet.
When George Foreman meets me,He’ll pay his debt.I can drown the drink of water, and kill a dead tree.
Wait till you see Muhammad Ali."
INDOOR CYCLING MUSIC ESSENTIALs: “ARTISTS WE’VE LOST IN 2016 TRIBUTE MIX”
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By now, we've all heard the silly rumor that the world is going to end on December 21, 2012. A few different causes are "threatening" to strip us of our mortal coils: the Mayans got lazy and stopped adding days to their calendar is a popular rumor, the risk of a mysterious planet named Nibiru colliding with our own world is another.
Will this winter solstice really be our last? According to the top minds at NASA, these Earth-death rumors have about as much substance as that viral privacy hoax you've seen spreading on Facebook this week. That is to say, none at all.
"Contrary to some of the common beliefs out there, Dec. 21, 2012 won't be the end of the world as we know it, however, it will be another winter solstice," writes NASA in a Google+ post.
To dispel these end-of-the-world rumors, NASA is hosting a Google Hangout today with a cadre of top scientists in relevant fields, including astrobiology and astronomy. (Sadly, John Cusack will not be attending). Among the panelists:
David Morrison, astrobiologist from NASA's Ames Research Center
Don Yeomans, asteroid scientist from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Mitzi Adams, solar/archaeoastronomer from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center
Lika Guhathakurta, heliophysicist from NASA Headquarters
Paul Hertz, astrophysicist from NASA Headquarters
Andrew Fraknoi, science educator from Foothill College in Los Altos Hills, Calif.
The NASA brain trust is gathering online at 2 p.m. ET on Wednesday afternoon. Got a question for them? Ask via the Hangout, Twitter with the hashtag #askNASA or on the Google+ and Facebook threads NASA will have open for the event.
For more on NASA's debunking of the world-ending myths, check out NASA.gov/2012. The Hangout can be accessed on Google+.
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, sdecoret |
Our contest to create a Telegram app for BB 10 is over.
As a result of the contest, 6 promising apps are now available for download in BB World. Please note that we cannot recommend any of these apps to our users the way we usually do with other Telegram products, as each of them requires a significant number of improvements. However, progress has been made since December, so today we are honoring the six winners.
Two developers won the first prize, $10,000 each. Another four developers won the second prize, $5,000 each.
First prizes
The first $10,000 goes to Sourabh Kapoor – the only participant to fully implement the design specified in our contest announcement. His app Unofficial IM App for Telegram provides all of the required functions, however, as a ported app, it lacks speed and its interface isn't quite responsive.
Another $10,000 goes to Marat Yakupov. His app Bomogram is the best attempt to create a fully native app for BB 10 from scratch. Bomogram is fast and smooth, but lacks functionality – all you can do with it is view your chats and send text messages. However, since Bomogram is a native BB app, it could become the most promising project submitted during the contest, should Marat decide to develop it further.
Second prizes
The first $5,000 goes to Marco Gallo and his experimental app Pintagram. Pintagram is basically a ported version of the official browser app at web.telegram.org. But the app is stable, good-looking and has all the functionality of the Web version. Great idea reusing the web app!
Another $5,000 goes to Gan Theng Hwee for developing DianBao for Telegram. This is a port of the official QT-based Telegram Desktop, it runs smoothly and is relatively fast. The app has all the functionality of Telegram Desktop, but in many cases (such as viewing photos, etc.) lacks adaptation for mobile screens. Still, it was definitely a smart move to build on top of QT and Telegram Desktop, so congratulations!
The third $5,000 is awarded to Petar Šegina, the creator of yet another native app, Teletonne. By the time our contest ended, Teletonne was less stable and functional than Bomogram (you could only view messages, not send them), but it is a great attempt at creating a native BB app nevertheless. If improved, it could catch up!
And the last but not least winner to get a $5,000 prize is Adrian Sacchi, who also built a native BB10 app, Telegrann. Just like in the case of other native apps submitted during these two short months, the functionality of Telegrann is limited (you can only view messages), but we always value the hard work invested into studying our API and building a smoother native experience, and think that this approach provides a proper foundation to build on.
Future prizes
Congratulations to all of the winners! Here’s an additional bounty for you: we will distribute another $10,000 between the developers who make the most progress by May 1, 2015. So good luck with further development!
If you are a BB10 user wondering which of these apps to use right now, we can only suggest to check out the contestants and judge for yourself. If you want an experience that would guarantee maximum security and stability, we would still advise to run the official Telegram app for Android on your BB10 at this point.
February 10, 2015
The Telegram Team |
Details have been released on AKB48‘s upcoming 50th single 11-gatsu no Anklet. This release is a big deal for fans, as it will serve as the graduation single for last remaining original “Kami7” member Mayu Wantanabe.
The single will have 10 different versions in total, 5 regular editions and 5 limited edition versions. Limited edition versions of the single will include an event ticket and voting card for “AKB48 Group Request Hour Set List Best 100 2018”. Regular versions of the single come with a random photo along with a voting card.
Wantanabe’s graduation song Sayonara wa owaru wake janai will be included on every version of the single, while 5 additional b-sides will be included on the various different versions of the single. This includes a song by STU48 titled Omoidasete Yokatta , and a song by Team8 titled Ikirukoto ni Nekkyo wo!
Type C versions of the single will feature a song by a completely new unit, however details on the song and unit name have not been revealed yet. Short version MVs of both 11-gatsu no Anklet and Sayonara wa owaru wake janai have been uploaded on AKB48’s official YouTube account.
The girls take a somewhat “artsy” approach in this MV. Donned in high-end designer clothes, the video starts with Wantanabe sitting in an empty room with her hands in her face. She begins to dance around the empty room and paint things with a “magical brush”. The next scene involves three members sleeping in a giant box located on the beach. After waking up they decide to dance on the beach and use mini rainbows as hula-hoops.
Sayonara wa owaru wake janai is a dramatic ballad that will surly cause some tears to fall at Wantanabe’s graduation concert.
11-gatsu no Anklet will be released nationwide in Japan on November 22nd, 2017. |
Review time, and a ukulele brand that is completely new to me in Aiersi. This musical instrument came winging its way to me on loan all the way from China and I have been enjoying it for a month or two. The SU-044T model.
UKULELE PROS
UKULELE CONS
UKULELE SCORES
OVERALL UKULELE SCORE - 8.5 out of 10
Despite the 'T' in the name, this is actually a concert scale ukulele, made in China and with some rather nice features. It's actually what I would call a 'budget' ukulele on account of the price point (about $150 or so), but there are some nice surprises with this one as you will see.The ukulele is traditionally double bout shaped and benefits from a solid spruce top that is really quite a nice piece of wood. The grain is uniform and looking at the edge of the sound hole, the wood is not too thick. It's finished in a satin coat and decorated with inlaid abalone edge binding and sound holerosette. I'm not a huge fan of spruce tops on ukuleles myself as I think they can look a bit anaemic, but that is just me.Elsewhere on the top we have a very standard looking tie bar bridge with plastic saddle, not much to say about that. I will say though, there are no flaws on the top that I can see.The back and sides contrast the pale top very nicely and are made of laminate zebra wood. This too is finished in satin, but the pores of the zebra wood show through the coat giving it a more organic feel to some of the other overly glossy or overly coated instruments that are around at this price. The back is slightly arched and also has cream edge binding where it meets the sides. I think the contrast is great and am a fan of this wood finish on ukuleles.A look inside the instrument shows a tidy build with notched kerfing and braces that are not over done. There is no mess and the brand logo inside is engraved on a piece of wood. No complaints here really.The neck is fairly standard in width and profile and is made from an unspecified hardwood. It's made of three pieces with a joint at the heel and one at the headstock. It too is satin coated, but it feels natural and isn't sticky in the hands.Topping the neck is a rosewood fingerboard with a very nice even colour and one that appears to be in good condition. The edges are unbound and stained meaning you can see the fret edges. We have 18 nickel silver frets in total with 14 to the body. They are all dressed well, with no sharp edges and they are quite low profile which I like. Position markers are facing outward in mother of pearly, but sadly there are no side markers. A fairly unremarkable neck, but one that I really don't have many complaints about either.Past the plastic nut we have a fairly generic headstock shape, spruced up by a veneer of the stripy zebra wood on the face. The Aiersi logo is engraved in the wood which I rather like.Tuners are unbranded silver geared tuners, but they are functional and not overly large. They work well enough.Completing the deal is a rather gaudy bright gig bag which aside from the looks, is pretty decent quality with good zips and straps. Strings are Aquila SuperNylguts.All in all then, a rather nice looking and nicely made instrument for a superb price. I really like what is starting to come over from China. Years back the majority of instruments from over there left a lot to be desired with thick woods, thick finishes and generally bad builds. Of course some of those still exist, but there are more and more who seem to be getting it right. I think this one fits that category.I must admit though, when I saw the price I WAS expecting a couple of things - either a bad build or that it would be over built and heavy (killing the tone).First of all, it's not over built. It's not heavy to hold and you can see that the woods are not over done. It's nicely balanced and the finish is thin such that it feels nice in the hands without being over bearing. Construction too seems to be decent, with intonation close to spot on and nothing out of place or splitting and failing.The sound surprised me actually. It's not a high end instrument tone, but it doesn't pretend to be, but the usual problems with instruments of this sort of price are really not there. First of all, it is not lacking volume. Sure, it's not the loudest I have played, but it's certainly no slouch. It projects well to my ears.It's also got a chime to the tone, probably helped by the spruce top, but reminiscent to me of what I felt about the Moselele Bambookulele instruments the first time I played them (similarly priced too). If anything I find it a little too bright and think it would benefit from a touch more bottom end, but it's not offensive in any way and very 'ukulele' sounding. It's not going to win awards for delicate clarity of tone and dynamic range, but it does what it does competently enough and I quite liked it.The constructions doesn't seem to be affecting the tone or accuracy in any way and I think it stands out as a good choice for an absolute beginner wanting something that beats the usual cheap badly made stuff on the market. I'd certainly take this over an overly finished brightly coloured acrylic coated monstrosity or a ukulele billed as 'solid' but made from thick woods - ANY day.So, sound wise and construction wise, for the price I am finding this to be quite a safe bet.My main gripe though - I don't think they are easy to find and certainly are not yet in the main dealers I recommend. Yes they can be found on eBay or Amazon sellers shops, but that leaves me with a dilemma because I don't like to recommend those places for buying. Saying all that, the price is an absolute steal, so might be worth a shot?Be sure to read all my other ukulele reviews here PriceGeneral build qualityNice gig bagNo side fret markersNot sure where to buy them reliablyLooks - 8.5 out of 10Fit and Finish - 8.5 out of 10Sound - 8 out of 10Value for money - 9 out of 10UKULELE VIDEO REVIEW |
MERCER COUNTY -- Hamilton Police at the end of last year were vexed by a spate of graffiti tagging that blighted various spots throughout town, causing thousands in damage, authorities said.
When officers finally caught up with a pair of teens responsible, they didn’t just charge them with a crime. They also seized their car, determining that it was used in the commission of a felony and making it a prime target for a growing law enforcement practice called “Civil Forfeiture.”
“The point of using forfeiture is that it’s a law enforcement tool for deterrence," Sean D. McMurtry, head of the Prosecutor’s Office Forfeiture Unit, said in an interview last week. “We’re not out to make money on this.’’
Once used mainly to take cash made from illegal drug sales from busted dealers, the practice is getting wider play in police departments across the country, including in Mercer County, where car seizures alone have risen 38 percent since 2007.
McMurtry is an expert on the topic and was the featured speaker in a law enforcement training video made three years ago for Garden State Continuing Legal Education, a Lawrence-based law enforcement training company.
“One of the first things I did was try and spread the gospel that you can use forfeiture as a crime fighting tool and a good deterrent in all kinds of crimes,” McMurtry, explains on the video.
The 1990 Buick Park Avenue taken from the Hamilton teens was one of 230 cars seized in Mercer County last year. In 2007, there were 88 cars seized, according to annual reports of the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office.
Under New Jersey’s civil forfeiture law, property can be taken by law enforcement if police determine that it was used in the commission of a crime – such as in the Hamilton case – or if it was purchased with the proceeds of a crime. But most disturbing to critics and civil libertarians, the move to take property sometimes can be done without criminal charges being filed.
“In fact, we don’t even have to have to charge anyone at all,” McMurtry said on the training video.
McMurtry detailed a case where a “high-end’’ car was seized from someone based on a hunch that it was bought with money from illegal drug sales. Without ever filing a criminal charge, police seized the car and McMurtry filed a civil suit alleging the car was bought in the process of laundering drug money, an indictable offense.
“We took a vehicle that we knew was purchased from the proceeds of criminal activity, through drug money,’’ McMurtry said on the video. “The way that the transaction to buy that car, this high-end car, was structured, to me, constituted money laundering.’’
The seizure was upheld in court. The car was forfeited. No criminal complaint was ever brought.
“So we did win on that,’’ McMurtry said on the video.
McMurtry said that the money laundering charge is the most useful charges to bring in a civil forfeiture action. He explains using another scenario:
“If a State Trooper pulls over a car, which is found to have a large amount of cash in it, but no one in the car will say where the money came from or where they were going with it, that’s where the money laundering statute comes in,” he said on the video. “We allege money laundering, which is an indictable offense, and we can go after the money that way.’’
Often, the action will never be contested.
“If they really want to fight this they have to answer interrogatories and go through depositions,” he said. “And they don’t want to do that.’’
That’s part of the problem, critics say.
“The laws are very pro-state,’’ said Trenton-based defense attorney John Hartmann. “It’s very difficult to win at these things.’’
Under civil forfeiture laws, the state merely has to allege an indictable offense and its up to the property owner to prove innocence. The burden of proof is also lower. In criminal court, prosecutors have to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. In civil cases, the state only has to prove a preponderance of evidence.
“Prosecutors can file these things on a mere allegation,’’ said Scott Bullock, attorney with the Institute for Justice, a Virginia-based nonprofit working against civil forfeiture laws. “The burden on the government is very little. They don’t need to have any solid evidence of any wrongdoing.’’
And, unlike criminal proceedings, the defendant is not guaranteed a lawyer if they cannot afford one. Any representation has to be paid for by the accused, which is why so many of the cases are settled out of court, Bullock said.
“Most property owners are forced into settling knowing to it’s going to take a long time to get property back, and they can pretty quickly exceed value of the property just to settle a case,’’ he said.
The majority of Mercer County car seizure cases are settled before they reach a courtroom. Of the 230 cars seized last year, 60 were actually forfeited. County government took several and others were given to municipal police departments for use as undercover vehicles, according to the office’s annual report.
The Buick used by the teenage spray-painters, for instance, was not among those McMurtry went after in court. The mother of one of the teens called him, and the two struck a deal to get the car back: $500 plus the towing and storage costs, he said.
“That’s a gift,’’ Hartmann said. “I’ve found that the prosecutor is very reasonable most of the time. He could have kept the car under the law.’’
While cars and cash are the biggest draw in Mercer County’s forfeiture effort, a wide range of items also have been seized in the past five years.
Computers, cell phones and jewelry are among the items taken by police in various arrests, according to a review of quarterly reports from the Prosecutor’s office.
Other items include “Asian-style folding partitions” and a sofa that were taken from a 2012 prostitution bust. A “thematic dictionary” was taken in another prostitution arrest later that year. Other items include an “X Box’’ system, a nail gun and a compressor.
Flat-screen TVs are a frequent item in the seizure reports. When forfeited, they are given to the police departments that seized them for use in 911 call centers or as video monitors, McMurtry said.
“Every flat screen we’ve taken has been put to use in a police headquarters or in a training room,’’ McMurtry said.
The property that is not used by law enforcement is sold at a public auction. The money is then split between the police department where the property was seized and the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office, McMurtry said.
Last year, the county made $440,832.53 from the sale of seized property, giving $234,604.57 to local municipalities, according to the annual reports.
Bullock calls this the ‘profit motive’ for budget-strapped law enforcement agencies fueling the rise of forfeiture use.
“If the concern is about the fair and impartial administration of justice, you don’t need the profit incentive behind it,’’ Bullock said. “That’s the reason behind some of the abuses we’re seeing.’’
McMurtry said the money helps offset the cost of training or equipment for police departments in the county, but by law it cannot pay salaries or be used in a general fund.
For instance, forfeiture money bought 600 kits of the heroin overdose antidote naloxone, better known by the trade name Narcan, which were distributed to all police departments in the county in October, McMurtry said.
McMurtry has repeatedly denied that profit is behind the use of civil forfeiture, saying the driving force is crime deterrence.
“No department is getting a windfall from forfeiture,’’ he said.
Hartmann acknowledged that the Mercer County Prosecutor's Office is “just going by the law.”
But for Bullock, the law is the problem.
“It’s just not a power that should exist in America,’’ he said.
Keith Brown may be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @KBrownTrenton. Find The Times of Trenton on Facebook. |
The health benefits of moderate drinking are likely overstated, say Canadian researchers who reviewed 87 long-term studies on alcohol and death rates.
Studies have reported health benefits from moderate drinking such as healthier hearts and longer life.
Tim Stockwell of the University of Victoria's Centre for Addictions Research in British Columbia has taken another look at published studies on alcohol and mortality on nearly four million people, including more than 367,000 deaths.
Moderate drinking was defined as no more than two standard alcoholic drinks per day for men or one standard drink a day for women, at least once a week, for any kind of alcohol.
The review in the March issue of the Journal of Studies of Alcohol and Drugs expands on his work on classifying abstainers. A problem arises when grouping those who abstain with former drinkers who quit or substantially cut back as their health worsened. The health and life expectancy of surviving moderate drinkers ends up looking better in comparison.
"We should drink alcohol for pleasure," Stockwell said in an interview. "But if you think it's for your health, you're deluding yourself."
The review concluded a "skeptical position is warranted" when it comes to alcohol's net health benefits. Researchers often did a poor job of asking about alcohol use and accounting for other protective factors among drinkers, such as wealth and eating more fruits and vegetables, Stockwell said.
When the quality of studies was considered, the risk was higher from each level of drinking.
Jurgen Rehm of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto knows how difficult it is to study abstinence. He's observed a disconnect among survey respondents who report never in their lives having drunk alcohol but who previously said they were prior or current drinkers.
There's substantial public interest in whether light drinking is protective or harmful, as well as commercial implications, Rehm said in a journal commentary published with the review.
Rehm called the message of health benefits from light alcohol consumption "exaggerated."
"In my view, nobody has to start drinking for health reasons," Rehm said. "Those who drink lightly, if they stick almost religiously to one drink per day, no real problem. I would not advise them to stop."
The research was funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health. |
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Daniil Kvyat could revive his motorsport career in Formula E.
After a tumultuous couple of years, Kvyat, a 23-year-old Russian, lost his Formula 1 ride not only at Toro Rosso, but in the entire Red Bull program. Kvyat has made 72 starts in Formula 1. He has zero wins and just two podium finishes.
Formula E could be his next destination. The all-electric racing series is now regarded as a viable alternative to F1 for drivers, manufacturers and sponsors.
Several former F1 drivers, including Jean-Eric Vergne, Sebastien Buemi, Kamui Kobayashi, Nelson Piquet Jr., Andre Lotterer, Lucas di Grassi, Jerome d'Ambrosio and Nick Heidfeld all race in Formula E now.
Recent Williams F1 retiree Felipe Massa is expected to follow soon, and the Russian news agency Tass reports that Kvyat is another potential Formula E driver of the future.
Tass says Kvyat has "held talks with at least two teams" and could take part in test drives in January. |
[Update, May 23, 2018: As I predicted almost a year ago, before the lawsuit was even filed, Trump’s twitter feed is indeed a public forum. A federal district court just denied his motion to dismiss. I haven’t read it in full yet, but I’ll update this post when I’ve had a chance.]
[Update, June 6, 2017: A week after I wrote the below, the Knight Institute wrote a letter to President Trump arguing the same. Eugene Volokh says there’s a “private capacity” argument. I addressed that below, the same way the Davison court ruled on it. Moreover, just today Press Secretary Sean Spicer admitted the tweets are “official statements by the President of the United States.” Also, Charles Ornstein has a good summary of other elected officials blocking constituents, and litigation over it.]
While in the White House, Donald Trump’s personal twitter timeline, @realDonaldTrump, remains a key method by which he communicates with the public. He uses it to conduct foreign policy, to urge specific action by Congress, to promote certain media articles, and, of course, to persuade the public on key issues, including with implied references to classified government information. And, critically for our purposes here, he allows the public, the media, and other elected representatives to post tens of thousands of comments in response to each tweet:
As Danny Sullivan pointed out, President Trump has recently become more aggressive in blocking people on Twitter, and so Sullivan has created a list of blocked users. Sullivan wonders if this creates a First Amendment issue, noting,
When Trump blocks, he doesn’t just impact himself. He blocks some Americans from speaking in arguably the most important forum, his tweets.
For our purposes here, I’ll refer to @realDonaldTrump’s tweets as “tweets,” and the responses to them as “replies,” so we don’t get confused. When @realDonaldTrump “blocks” someone on Twitter, they can no longer read his tweets or reply to them. That is in contrast to “muting,” which removes the person’s replies from @realDonaldTrump’s view but leaves them up for other users.
So, are President Trump’s tweets a public forum? If so, does that place limits on when President Trump can block users from replying?
I believe the answers are “yes” and “yes.” Because President Trump uses @realDonaldTrump for official business, and because President Trump allows (arguably, invites) replies on his tweets, he has made his Twitter timeline into a limited public forum. As such, the First Amendment applies. He can potentially impose content restrictions, but he can’t impose viewpoint restrictions.
Here’s why.
For years, legal scholars have wondered about how the First Amendment applies to government-sponsored social media accounts. For example, see this 2011 article on “Government Sponsored Social Media and Public Forum Doctrine Under the First Amendment: Perils and Pitfalls.”
The basic concepts of a “limited public forum” are well-settled in the Supreme Court:
It is axiomatic that the government may not regulate speech based on its substantive content or the message it conveys. Other principles follow from this precept. In the realm of private speech or expression, government regulation may not favor one speaker over another. Discrimination against speech because of its message is presumed to be unconstitutional. These rules informed our determination that the government offends the First Amendment when it imposes financial burdens on certain speakers based on the content of their expression. When the government targets not subject matter, but particular views taken by speakers on a subject, the violation of the First Amendment is all the more blatant. Viewpoint discrimination is thus an egregious form of content discrimination. The government must abstain from regulating speech when the specific motivating ideology or the opinion or perspective of the speaker is the rationale for the restriction. These principles provide the framework forbidding the State to exercise viewpoint discrimination, even when the limited public forum is one of its own creation. In a case involving a school district’s provision of school facilities for private uses, we declared that there is no question that the District, like the private owner of property, may legally preserve the property under its control for the use to which it is dedicated. The necessities of confining a forum to the limited and legitimate purposes for which it was created may justify the State in reserving it for certain groups or for the discussion of certain topics. Once it has opened a limited forum, however, the State must respect the lawful boundaries it has itself set. The State may not exclude speech where its distinction is not reasonable in light of the purpose served by the forum, nor may it discriminate against speech on the basis of its viewpoint. Thus, in determining whether the State is acting to preserve the limits of the forum it has created so that the exclusion of a class of speech is legitimate, we have observed a distinction between, on the one hand, content discrimination, which may be permissible if it preserves the purposes of that limited forum, and, on the other hand, viewpoint discrimination, which is presumed impermissible when directed against speech otherwise within the forum’s limitations.
Rosenberger v. Rector & Visitors of Univ. of Virginia, 515 U.S. 819, 828–30, 115 S. Ct. 2510, 2516–17, 132 L. Ed. 2d 700 (1995)(emphasis added, citations and quotations omitted). Rosenberger involved the use of student activities funds at state universities. As the Supreme Court recognized, “The [fund] is a forum more in a metaphysical than in a spatial or geographic sense, but the same principles are applicable.” Id. at 830.
So, what about the “metaphysical” forum of social media?
For starters, the Supreme Court has been quite clear that online speech is worthy of the same level of protection as other speech. See Reno v. ACLU, 521 U.S. 844, 870, 117 S.Ct. 2329, 138 L.Ed.2d 874 (1997); see also Ashcroft v. ACLU, 542 U.S. 656, 124 S.Ct. 2783, 159 L.Ed.2d 690 (2004). The federal appellate courts, too, have recognized that the use of social media can constitute expressive speech. Below is a passage from the Fourth Circuit; it might seem tiresome to read a lengthy discussion of the “like” button on Facebook, but that detailed analysis is critical to understanding how even minimal use of social media can be the exercise of free speech.
Here, Carter visited the Jim Adams’s campaign Facebook page (the “Campaign Page”), which was named “Jim Adams for Hampton Sheriff,” and he clicked the “like” button on the Campaign Page. When he did so, the Campaign Page’s name and a photo of Adams—which an Adams campaign representative had selected as the Page’s icon—were added to Carter’s profile, which all Facebook users could view. On Carter’s profile, the Campaign Page name served as a link to the Campaign Page. Carter’s clicking on the “like” button also caused an announcement that Carter liked the Campaign Page to appear in the news feeds of Carter’s friends. And it caused Carter’s name and his profile photo to be added to the Campaign Page’s “People [Who] Like This” list. Once one understands the nature of what Carter did by liking the Campaign Page, it becomes apparent that his conduct qualifies as speech. On the most basic level, clicking on the “like” button literally causes to be published the statement that the User “likes” something, which is itself a substantive statement. In the context of a political campaign’s Facebook page, the meaning that the user approves of the candidacy whose page is being liked is unmistakable. That a user may use a single mouse click to produce that message that he likes the page instead of typing the same message with several individual key strokes is of no constitutional significance. Aside from the fact that liking the Campaign Page constituted pure speech, it also was symbolic expression. The distribution of the universally understood “thumbs up” symbol in association with Adams’s campaign page, like the actual text that liking the page produced, conveyed that Carter supported Adams’s candidacy. See Spence v. Washington, 418 U.S. 405, 410–11, 94 S.Ct. 2727, 41 L.Ed.2d 842 (1974) (per curiam) (holding that person engaged in expressive conduct when there was “[a]n intent to convey a particularized message …, and in the surrounding circumstances the likelihood was great that the message would be understood by those who viewed it”); see also Tobey v. Jones, 706 F.3d 379, 388 n. 3 (4th Cir.2013). In sum, liking a political candidate’s campaign page communicates the user’s approval of the candidate and supports the campaign by associating the user with it. In this way, it is the Internet equivalent of displaying a political sign in one’s front yard, which the Supreme Court has held is substantive speech. See City of Ladue v. Gilleo, 512 U.S. 43, 54–56, 114 S.Ct. 2038, 129 L.Ed.2d 36 (1994).
Bland v. Roberts, 730 F.3d 368, 385–86 (4th Cir. 2013), as amended (Sept. 23, 2013).
Indeed, the federal court for the Eastern District of Virginia recently considered the exact issue we’re discussing regarding President Trump’s tweets: whether the government can properly “block” a user from commenting on a social media page used by a government official to facilitate a discussion with the public.
In Davison v. Loudoun Cty. Bd. of Supervisors, No. 1:16CV932 (JCC/IDD), 2017 WL 58294 (E.D. Va. Jan. 4, 2017), a resident of Loudoun County, Virginia, filed suit after he was blocked from commenting on a Facebook Page operated by the Chair of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors. The defendant claimed the Facebook Page was her personal page, not the Board’s official page, but the Court found the distinction was immaterial because of the way her page was used:
The page in question is titled “Chair Phyllis J. Randall, Government Official.” The “About” section of the page reads “Chair of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors” and includes a link to Defendant Randall’s profile on Loudoun County’s website. It does not include any information of a personal nature. The top of the page features an image of a plaque reading “Phyllis J. Randall Chair–At–Large,” as well as an image of what the Court presumes to be Defendant Randall sitting behind the same plaque in front of a United States flag. The image appended to Plaintiff’s Complaint includes four posts by Defendant Randall. The two most recent are specifically addressed to “Loudoun,” Plaintiff’s constituency. All pertain to matters of public, rather than personal, significance. Besides one warning of poor weather conditions in Loudoun County, all posts visible in the image involve Defendant’s duties as Chair of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors. They note recent events in the local government and solicit attendees for local government meetings. In short, the image of Defendant’s Facebook page substantiates Plaintiff’s claim that Defendant Randall uses the “Chair Phyllis J. Randall, Government Official” Facebook page in connection with her official duties. Drawing “all reasonable inferences” in Plaintiff’s favor, E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., 637 F.3d at 440 (4th Cir. 2011), Plaintiff has adequately plead that Defendant Randall’s Facebook page is a “Loudoun County social media site[ ],” governed by the County’s Social Media Comments Policy.
Davison v. Loudoun Cty. Bd. of Supervisors, No. 1:16CV932 (JCC/IDD), 2017 WL 58294, at *4 (E.D. Va. Jan. 4, 2017)(citations to the record omitted).
It’s easy to apply this analysis to the @realDonaldTrump account. As noted above, President Trump regularly uses it for official business – indeed, it’s hard to find any personal tweets at all these days. Moreover, his bio says he is “45th President of the United States of America,” and, at the moment, his cover photo is a picture of him sitting at the Resolute desk in the Oval Office while conducting official business. (This isn’t the first time the White House has made this mistake. President Trump’s social media director(!) previously got in hot water for making his personal account appear like an official account and then advocating voters choose a particular candidate.)
Back to Davison, once the Court found the defendant’s Facebook Page was officially sponsored, the next question was whether the First Amendment applied to the defendant blocking the plaintiff from commenting:
The Court is not required to determine whether any use of social media by an elected official creates a limited public forum, although the answer to that question is undoubtedly “no.” Rather, the issue before the Court is whether a specific government policy, applied to a specific government website, can create a “metaphysical” limited public forum for First Amendment purposes. See Rosenberger v. Rector, 515 U.S. at 830, 115 S.Ct. 2510. That answer to that narrower question is undoubtedly “yes.” “Limited public forums are characterized by ‘purposeful government action’ intended to make the forum ‘generally available’ ” for certain kinds of speech. Child Evangelism Fellowship of S.C. v. Anderson Sch. Dist. Five, 470 F.3d 1062, 1067 (4th Cir. 2006) (quoting Goulart v. Meadows, 345 F.3d 239, 250 (4th Cir. 2003)). At the time of the events giving rise to this suit, the County maintained a Policy stating that “the purpose of Loudoun County social media sites is to present matters of public interest in Loudoun County.” Compl. Exh. 11 [Dkt. 1–11]. The Policy provided that visitors were “encourage[d] to submit questions, comments and concerns,” but that “the county reserve[d] the right to delete submissions” that violated enumerated rules, such as comments that include “vulgar language” or “spam.” Id. Such a policy evinces the County’s purposeful choice to open its social media websites to those wishing to post “questions, comments and concerns” within certain limits. … A “metaphysical” forum created by a government policy like the County’s social media policy, see Rosenberger v. Rector & Visitors of Univ. of Virginia, 515 U.S. 819, 830, 115 S.Ct. 2510, 132 L.Ed.2d 700 (1995), is subject to the same First Amendment analysis regardless of whether that policy is applied to online speech. See Liverman, 844 F.3d at 407 (“What matters to the First Amendment analysis is not only the medium of the speech, but the scope and content of the restriction.”).
Davison v. Loudoun Cty. Bd. of Supervisors, No. 1:16CV932 (JCC/IDD), 2017 WL 58294, at *5 (E.D. Va. Jan. 4, 2017)(emphases added).
Careful readers may have noticed the Davison opinion hinged on the County’s “social media policy,” which expressly encouraged visitors to “submit questions, comments and concerns,” and limited the circumstances under which comments would be deleted to a few obvious categories, like spam.
At this point I’d say we should look at the White House’s own social media policy… but I can’t find one. There’s a White House Privacy Policy, but it doesn’t specifically reference @realDonaldTrump, and it doesn’t say anything about the deletion of comments. The Privacy Policy does, however, say that the White House might use “comments” collected through social media to advocate policy positions:
WE MAY ALSO USE MESSAGES OR COMMENTS COLLECTED THROUGH WHITEHOUSE.GOV OR OFFICIAL SOCIAL MEDIA PAGES FOR OUR OWN PURPOSES, SUCH AS TO INFORM POLICY DECISIONS OR IN PUBLIC ADVOCACY. … INFORMATION YOU CHOOSE TO SHARE WITH THE WHITE HOUSE (DIRECTLY AND VIA THIRD PARTY SITES) MAY BE TREATED AS PUBLIC INFORMATION. WE MAY, FOR EXAMPLE, PUBLISH COMPILATIONS OF MESSAGES OR COMMENTS COLLECTED THROUGH WHITEHOUSE.GOV OR OFFICIAL SOCIAL MEDIA PAGES AND PROVIDE THEM TO NATIONAL LEADERS, MEMBERS OF THE PRESS, OR OTHER INDIVIDUALS OUTSIDE OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.
That suggests the White House invites the public to comment on social media which, in turn, bolsters the argument that @realDonaldTrump’s account is a limited public forum when it comes to the public replying to his tweets. Similarly, the way President Trump uses @realDonaldTrump (e.g., stating his position on current issues and then allowing comments) suggests that the public is invited to reply to his tweets.
So, what then? “In a limited public forum, restrictions that are viewpoint neutral and reasonable in light of the purpose served by the forum are permissible.” DiLoreto v. Downy Unif. Sch. Dist. Bd. of Ed., 196 F.3d 958, 965 (9th Cir. 1999) (citing Rosenberger v. Rector & Visitors of the Univ. of Va., 515 U.S. 819, 829 (1995)). Here’s a recent succinct summary of how it works:
First, the government may permissibly restrict content by prohibiting any speech on a given topic or subject matter. Good News Club v. Milford Cent. Sch., 533 U.S. 98, 106, 121 S.Ct. 2093, 150 L.Ed.2d 151 (2001). The State may be justified in reserving its forum for certain groups or for the discussion of certain topics. Rosenberger v. Rector & Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U.S. 819, 829, 115 S.Ct. 2510, 132 L.Ed.2d 700 (1995). The state may properly exclude an entire subject. Choose Life Ill., Inc. v. White, 547 F.3d 853, 865 (7th Cir. 2008). Second, however, once the government permits some comment on a particular subject matter or topic, it may not regulate speech in ways that favor some viewpoints or ideas at the expense of others. Lamb’s Chapel v. Ctr. Moriches Union Free Sch. Dist., 508 U.S. 384, 394, 113 S.Ct. 2141, 124 L.Ed.2d 352 (1993). Accordingly, while a speaker may be excluded from a nonpublic forum if he wishes to address a topic not encompassed within the purpose of the forum, the government violates the First Amendment when it denies access to a speaker solely to suppress the point of view he espouses on an otherwise includible subject. Cornelius, 473 U.S. at 806, 105 S.Ct. 3439 (1985).
Sprague v. Spokane Valley Fire Dep’t, 196 Wash. App. 21, 54, 381 P.3d 1259, 1275 (2016).
In other words, once @realDonaldTrump allows replies to a tweet, he’s obliged to permit all views encompassed within the subject of that tweet, and he cannot do so in a manner that favors certain viewpoints or ideas at the expense of others. That permits President Trump a fair amount of leeway by the trolling standards of the Internet — if he wanted to get rid of harassing or vulgar replies that had nothing to do with the tweet, he theoretically could — but, when it comes to the subject matter of the tweet, the commentators have a broad free speech rights to address the topic at hand.
So that’s the law. A couple practical thoughts:
First, the White House needs a social media policy. Maybe they have one that I can’t find. Either way, it’d be helpful to everyone if they had a specific description of what they intend to do with comments on social media, and it’d be even better if they followed it.
Second, it is worth noting that @realDonaldTrump receives an immense number of critical comments to each tweet and yet, so far, only a handful of Twitter users have been blocked. That suggests there isn’t a systematic effort to block people, and that it’s instead an ad hoc decision. On the one hand it’s nice to see there’s not a concerted effort to suppress critical viewpoints; on the other hand, an “ad hoc” governmental policy rarely survives any degree of court scrutiny. Moreover, the absence of a concerted effort doesn’t change the free speech analysis for each blocked person.
Third, assuming @realDonaldTrump creates and enforces a social media policy that said, for example, that replies had to be related to the subject matter of his tweet, the technical limitations of Twitter would present a problem. As far as I can tell, Twitter doesn’t have an option for removing particular replies to a tweet. A user can block other users, mute other users, or mute a particular conversation. It would be difficult for @realDonaldTrump to truly enforce a social media policy that actually removed certain replies. As a practical matter, the only way he could remove particular replies is by using Twitter’s own system for reporting tweets that violated Twitter’s Terms of Service, i.e., by being abusive or spammy.
When all is said and done, @realDonaldTrump is likely better off unblocking everyone and just muting whoever is bothering him. If he keeps blocking users, he’ll eventually see himself the defendant in yet another lawsuit. |
RANGPUR, Bangladesh — “If they see me talking to you, they’re going to give me a lot of trouble,” says Abdul Rahim.
Standing at the very edge of his property on the Bangladesh-India border, the 48-year-old Indian farmer is half a step away from illegally crossing into the Bangladeshi village of Chander Haat. But it’s not the possibility of getting caught trespassing by Bangladeshi border guards that worries him.
Behind Rahim, a couple hundred meters into the Indian side of the border, is the world’s longest — and bloodiest — barbed wire fence.
Dubbed the “wall of death” by locals, the 4,000 km barrier spans the length of the fifth-longest border in the world, and is manned by India’s Border Security Force (BSF), whose guards kill both Bangladeshis and Indians with impunity.
Shiva Rules: Will the elderly bring down India?
Rahim claims the BSF routinely harasses him and has occasionally beaten him on suspicion of aiding or sheltering illegal Bangladeshi migrants and smugglers.
It's a tense border. Despite India helping Bangladesh gain independence in 1971, relations between the two countries have remained strained since the 1947 partition of India, when the subcontinent was split along religious lines, creating East Pakistan where present-day Bangladesh is. Partition resulted in a bloodbath, with over 1 million killed in the space of a few months and more than 10 million Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs displaced in one of the largest mass migrations in human history.
Little progress has been made over decades between the two countries on hot-button issues like smuggling, supplying arms and refuge to Indian insurgents, and control of the numerous rivers that flow through both countries.
Targeting undocumented migrants
But the standout crisis dominating Indian discourse is undocumented migrants.
Official estimates are that there are 2 million undocumented Bangladeshi migrants in India. A number frequently reported in India media is 20 million.
Like Mexican undocumented migrants in the United States, their Bangladeshi counterparts are the favored scapegoats of the Indian right — blamed for unemployment, crime, terrorism, "low-key Talibanization," and "disturbing our indian sex-ratio statistics."
This has created a situation where many say India’s border guards are trigger-happy.
On Jan. 7, 2011, Felani Khatun and her father arrived at the barbed wire a little after the early morning call to prayer had rung out from a nearby mosque. Dressed up in traditional bridal wear and wedding jewelry, the drowsy 15 year old had fallen asleep several times during their overnight journey to the border and could barely keep her eyes open.
Felani, born in India to parents who were undocumented migrants there, was returning to Bangladesh to get married. But it was daylight now, and Felani’s father Nurul Islam was afraid.
The local smugglers he had paid Rs 3000 ($70) to help him and his daughter across insisted however that everything was fine, and the two began to climb up the ladder that had been arranged for them.
Nurul Islam made it over successfully. Moments later, as Felani reached the top of the 2.5m high fence, Indian border guards who had spotted them came running out and shot her dead from close range.
Blame Gandhi: Did the great pacifist kill India, Inc.?
“[The BSF shot] without any warning. I don’t understand why they didn’t shout anything,” remembers Nurul Islam, who has been relocated with the rest of his family to the Bangladeshi village of Ramkhana, near where his daughter died. “I wish they’d said ‘stop.’ If they’d just said ‘stop’ she would’ve been saved.”
Felani’s lifeless body hung from the fence for five hours, in full view of Bangladeshi and Indian farmers living nearby. Eventually, the BSF slung her hands and feet onto a bamboo pole and took her away.
It was over 30 hours before her body was handed over to Bangladeshi authorities and returned to her father. “They took her jewelry,” Nurul Islam said, sardonically.
A photo, first published in Indian newspaper Anandabazaar, of Felani’s corpse hanging from the fence sparked a huge uproar in Bangladeshi media. The Indian Home Minister P. Chidambaram announced during a visit to Dhaka in July that the BSF would use non-lethal weapons, and that they would no longer shoot at civilians under any circumstances.
Stemming the cattle trade
Six months later the deaths on the border continue to pile up.
Except now they come about in more creative ways. Shootings are rarer, but Bangladeshi border guards report recent incidents of fatal beatings, strangling, stoning, and poisonous injections.
Human rights group Odhikar accuses the BSF of killing over 1,000 Bangladeshis in the past decade. The BSF themselves admit responsibility for the deaths of 364 Bangladeshis and 164 Indians since 2006.
That was when their government began constructing the fence, inspired by Israel’s West Bank barrier.
But neither the barbed wire nor the extrajudicial murders have been successful in stopping a lucrative, illicit trade in cattle.
Cows in Bangladesh sell for three to four times what they fetch in India, and resourceful traffickers have devised new, brutal ways to get around the obstacle.
Rahim, the Indian farmer who witnesses this happen almost nightly, describes the procedure: “They use ramps to get the cows up to the middle part of the wire fence. The wires here are a little bit further apart than the rest of the fence. They loosen the wires a little bit more, then they bind the legs and the mouth of the cow, haul it up the ramp and pass it through to the other side.”
“It takes 10 minutes to get 50 cows through,” says Rahim, “But it’s not easy to get 10 minutes. The smugglers always follow the BSF, keeping an eye on them, waiting for an opportunity.”
The BSF guards aren’t cartoon villains, and Rahim is aware that they are doing a dangerous job.
“The smugglers are reckless people,” he says, “they don’t hesitate to attack the BSF. They are armed with sickles, knives, and they threaten the BSF. They say ‘leave us alone if you fear for your life, we’re here to die anyway’.”
Though the anti-smuggling and anti-immigration efficacy of South Asia’s Berlin Wall is debatable, its impact on those living nearby is not.
Bangladeshis have predictably bristled at the prospect of being corralled in by their giant neighbor, which surrounds them on the west, north, and east, and which they have always been a little bit paranoid about.
With a growing population of 150 million packed into an area smaller than Iowa, the fence is also making many Bangladeshis claustrophobic.
“A barbed wire fence is a psychological expression of hegemony. They have surrounded the people of Bangladesh on three sides with barbed wire,” said Adilur Rahman, the general secretary of Dhaka based rights group Odhikar, “High powered floodlights, barb wire… it looks like a World War II concentration camp.”
The floodlights beam directly into the home of 9-year-old Anis Ahmed, who complains that they are so bright he has trouble sleeping at night.
Hostilities run deep
Anis works on his family’s farm every day on the Bangladesh side of the border near the northern village of Amgaon. Their land goes right up to the border, where lush green rows of rice plants imperceptibly switch from Bangladeshi to Indian.
According to international regulations, the fence cannot be closer than 150 meters to the actual border, so the actual fence falls behind rows of Indian crops.
There are no clearly visible signs demarcating the exact point where Bangladeshi soil becomes Indian. Locals are simply expected to know where the line is.
Most of them do, and they stay away. But the precocious Anis and his 11-year-old cousin Shohir Jamal often walk across it to examine what lies beyond the fence.
“We go up to see the barbed wire fence,” says Anis, “When we go up to it they [the BSF guards] mock us, scold us. They say ‘Ei Bengali admi, bhago giya, bhago giya [hey Bengali, go away].’ They swear a lot at us, but things we don’t understand really.”
The children here are growing up surrounded by an atmosphere of hostility and suspicion. Everyone in their village is viewed as a potential smuggler or an accomplice of smugglers.
Many are. People here are very poor, and supplementary income is precious.
Manik, the local schoolteacher, was recently arrested and given three years detention by the BSF during his first foray into cattle smuggling. Akbar Ali, an elected member of the local government here, has just returned having completed his own three-year term for trafficking cows.
Suspicions run deep. During the day Anis and Shohir work side by side with the Indian farmers like Rahim, whose crops fall between the border with Bangladesh and the barbed wire fence. The proximity, however, does not imply interaction.
“They don’t talk to us. The BSF don’t want them to have a good relationship with Bangladeshis,” says Anis, “They [the BSF] worry that they’ll end up helping people cross the border.”
Rahim regrets this new distance with once close neighbors.
“When we were children we used to play together every day,” he recalls. “We used to eat at each others’ houses. I went to school in Bangladesh.”
Because the fence had to be built 150 meters within Indian territory, Rahim and more than 100,000 other Indians have found themselves on the wrong side of the barbed wire.
Rahim is cut off from the rest of his country, trapped within a slice of land about as wide as an airport runway.
The gates at the fence open only for three hours: 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m., noon to 1:00 p.m., and 4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. These are the only times when Rahim and his family can move back and forth to visit relatives, go shopping, or send their kids to school.
Children frequently miss school because they arrive after the gate has been closed. Rahim’s daughter lives with a relative 40 kilometers behind the wire. He estimates that he sees her only once in five months or so.
“If we go to shop at 4:00 p.m., we have to make sure we’re back by 5:00 p.m., otherwise we’re locked out for the night,” he complains.
As he speaks, a woman comes wading through a stream on the Bangladeshi side of the border. She is carrying multiple cell phones in her hands.
“There’s no electricity in our houses,” explains Rahim, “We’re cut off from the electrical grid. So we have to sneak over to Bangladesh when the guards aren’t looking to charge our phones.”
“The wire fence makes us feel like prisoners,” he said.
One day, when he has saved enough, Rahim says he plans to move to the other side of the fence. His expectations aren’t high for what may be in store there, but at least he will have ended his status as collateral damage of a stalemate between nation-states. |
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The Catholic archbishop of Jerusalem said Saturday that he’s pleased the war in Aleppo is over, as now Christians can celebrate Christmas without fear for the first time.
Rev. Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, traveled from Jerusalem to Bethlehem for Christmas Eve to celebrate mass at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, the site where Jesus was born.
While in Bethlehem, Pizzaballa said he was pleased the war in Aleppo was over, since it provides Christians an opportunity to celebrate Christmas and rebuild the city, The Associated Press reports.
“I wish this joyous atmosphere of Christmas will continue in the year and not just for a few days and I hope the coming year will bring a little more serenity and peaceful relations in our country. We need it,” Pizzaballa said.
“I am happy that the war, at least the military war, in Aleppo is finished and that for the first time in Aleppo the Christians can celebrate without fear the Christmas season. I wish that they can now reconstruct, rebuild the city, not only the infrastructure but also the common relations that was a tradition over there,” he added.
In Aleppo, attendance at mass surged through the Christmas season, as parishioners had no fear of being the targets of rebel missiles. Christians celebrated by a Christmas tree in Azizya, where the tree had not been lit for four years.
Syrian government forces seized control of previously rebel-held parts of Aleppo in mid-December and announced an end to the fighting. Aleppo has been split between rebels and forces loyal to the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad since 2012. Christian leaders by and large have supported Assad, despite rampant opposition from the West, as Sunni extremists, often termed “moderate rebels” by the Obama administration, have no ethical compunctions about slaughtering Christians and burning down churches.
Given that Russia has renewed its role as protector of the faith in the region and stepped in to back Assad against groups like the Islamic State, al-Qaida affiliates and other rebel groups, church leaders believe that siding with Damascus is by far their best shot at survival.
Since the beginning of the war, the number of Christians in Aleppo plummeted from 250,000 to a mere 50,000.
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John Muir Wilderness, Calif. — The locals call it Mount Thoreau.
A vast pyramid of talus and scree in the Sierra Nevada range, it sits between the aptly named Wonder Lakes Basin and Mount Emerson, a namesake of the great 19th-century author Ralph Waldo Emerson. It might seem only fitting that it should bear the name of Emerson’s close friend and fellow transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau.
But the mountain cannot be named for Thoreau or anyone else. Since 1964, the government has decreed that except in extraordinary circumstances, unnamed features in federal wilderness areas will remain that way.
Now a group of 11 writers, printmakers, poets, wilderness enthusiasts, Thoreau devotees and fellow travelers is trying to correct what they say is a historic oversight. On Sept. 26, they made the trek to the summit of the unnamed mountain for a minor act of civil disobedience: a ceremony to name it for Thoreau.
While a number of authors have mountains named in their honor, Thoreau has none. Given his love of wilderness and wild peaks, that seems like a surprising slight, say members of the group, which includes Gary Snyder, the Zen Buddhist poet, and Kim Stanley Robinson, the science fiction author. |
The FAA, continuing to remove redundant and underutilized ground-based instrument approaches from service as new technology comes on line, has announced the fate of 125 of 198 procedures it had listed as candidates for cancellation.
According to a final rule published Oct. 17, 59 of the 125 instrument approaches will be canceled, with 66 either retained based on comments from system users, or determined to be duplications of approaches already addressed. The rule takes effect Nov. 10.
The announcement leaves unresolved for now the status of 73 procedures. The FAA said it might reevaluate the retained approaches under the ongoing review known as the National Procedures Assessment (NPA) initiative.
In a previous stage of the NPA, the FAA last November eliminated 334 instrument procedures, but backed off its original intention to cancel up to 736 procedures.
“Removing identified ground-based NDB and VOR SIAPs is an integral part of right-sizing the quantity and type of procedures in the National Airspace System (NAS). As new technology facilitates the introduction of area navigation (RNAV) instrument approach procedures, the number of procedures available in the NAS has nearly doubled over the past decade. The complexity and cost of maintaining the existing ground based navigational infrastructure while expanding RNAV capability is not sustainable,” the FAA noted in the newly published rule.
AOPA, serving on an RTCA study committee, helped draft the approach cancellation criteria published by the FAA in June 2014.
The association also is heavily engaged with the FAA as the agency pursues another NextGen initiative to establish a VOR Minimal Operational Network that would allow IFR aircraft to navigate in the event of a GPS outage, said Rune Duke, AOPA director of airspace and air traffic.
“AOPA continues to work closely with the FAA to ensure that pilots have all-weather access to airports and an efficient en route navigation structure,” he said. “As the FAA decommissions VORs and legacy procedures, we are working closely with our FAA counterparts to ensure the transition to Performance Based Navigation is smooth for general aviation.” |
SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco is preparing to become the first U.S. city to provide and cover the cost of sex reassignment surgeries for uninsured transgender residents.
The city’s Health Commission voted Tuesday to create a comprehensive program for treating transgender people experiencing mental distress because of the mismatch between their bodies and their gender identities. San Francisco already provides transgender residents with hormones, counseling and routine health services, but has stopped short of offering surgical interventions, Public Health Director Barbara Garcia said Thursday after the vote was announced.
The idea for a new program that included surgeries came out of conversations between public health officials and transgender rights advocates who wanted mastectomies, genital reconstructions and other surgeries that are recommended for some transgender people covered under San Francisco’s 5-year-old universal health care plan.
At the urging of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and the San Francisco-based Transgender Law Center, the commission agreed this week to drop sex reassignment surgery from the list of procedures specifically excluded from the Healthy San Francisco plan.
But Garcia described the move as “a symbolic process” for now because the city currently does not have the expertise, capacity or protocols in place to provide the surgeries through its clinics and public hospital.
“The community felt the exclusion on Healthy San Francisco was discriminatory and we wanted to change that as the first step,” she said.
Instead of expanding the existing plan, the Health Commission approved the establishment of a separate program that covers all aspects of transgender health, including gender transition. Garcia hopes to have it running by late next year, but said her department first needs to study how many people it would serve, how much it would cost, who would perform the surgeries and where they would be performed.
“Sex reassignment surgery is not the end all. It’s one service that some transgender people want and some don’t,” she said. “We can probably manage this over the next three years without much of a budget increase because we already have these (other) services covered.”
San Francisco in 2001 became the first city in the country to cover sex reassignment surgeries for government employees. Last year, Portland, Ore. did the same. The number of major U.S. companies covering the cost of gender reassignment surgery for transgender workers also doubled last year, reflecting a decades-long push by transgender activists to get insurance companies to treat such surgeries as medically necessary instead of elective procedures.
Kathryn Steuerman, a member of a transgender health advocacy group in San Francisco, said the city’s latest move would help residents avoid going into debt to finance operations related to gender transition, as she did.
“I am filled with hope and gratitude that we are achieving this level of support for the well-being of the transgender community,” Steuerman said. |
It’s the first day of school for many incoming freshman around the U.S., and at Duke, things are kicking off with controversy.
The North Carolina university chose Fun Home for its Common Experience summer reading program for the class of 2019. The students were to read the book, then spend the week of freshmen orientation discussing it in various group settings.
The author of Fun Home is Alison Bechdel, famed creator of long-running comic Dykes to Watch Out For. The comic introduced the world to the Bechdel Test, a tongue-in-cheek methodology that has become a common tool for measuring female representation in movies and television. Fun Home, her graphic novel about her childhood, has won numerous awards and critical acclaim. This year its smash hit stage adaptation snagged a Tony Award for Best Musical.
Yet Duke’s student newspaper, the Chronicle, reports that on the Class of 2019’s closed Facebook group, a number of prospective students have taken issue with the book. One freshman from Georgia reportedly posted that “because of the graphic visual depictions of sexuality,” he would be boycotting the comic. Other students followed suit, dubbing the novel “pornographic.”
Bechdel’s comic is a wry memoir about her father, a closeted queer and genderqueer man whose secrets and mistakes cast a pall on her childhood and hugely influenced her own coming-out process. Though the book does have some nudity, it is not pornographic in nature but rather done in service of the book’s themes of identity and exploration.
Sequart
Past selections of the summer reading committee—a group made up of staff and students—have included works by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Ann Patchett.
In June, when the controversy first arose, the University made this statement:
“We do understand that the novel may make some readers uncomfortable. It may create arguments and conversations, which are important to a liberal arts education.”
Duke’s Vice President for Public Affairs and Government Relations, Michael Schoenfeld, responded to a request for comment from the Daily Dot on Monday afternoon.
Like many universities and community, Duke has had a summer reading for many years to give incoming students a shared intellectual experience with other members of the class (you can see the most recent selections at https://studentaffairs.duke.edu/new-students/common-experience).
The reading is selected by a committee of students, and staff, who then solicit feedback from other members of the Duke community. Fun Home was ultimately chosen because it is a unique and moving book that transcends genres and explores issues that students are likely to confront. It is also one of the most celebrated graphic novels of its generation, and the theatrical adaption won the Tony Award for Best Musical, and four others, in 2015. As we have every year, we were fortunate to have the author join us on campus for a lively discussion of the book during orientation week. The summer reading is entirely voluntary — it is not a requirement, nor is there a grade or record of any student’s participation. With a class of 1,750 new students from around the world, it would be impossible to find a single book that that did not challenge someone’s way of thinking. We understand and respect that, but also hope that students will begin their time at Duke with open minds and a willingness to explore new
The many fans of the graphic novel on the Internet were quick to voice their disdain for the boycott.
[Placeholder for https://www.facebook.com/stephen.simpson.334/posts/10207405469918748 embed.]
In the South, Students Take Bold Stance Against Reading, Learning https://t.co/QaKxm7f19Y — Cooper Fleishman (@_Cooper) August 24, 2015
This isn’t the first time that Bechdel’s book has caused controversy. Last year, the South Carolina state senate cut $70,000 from the budgets of two public colleges that put books with queer themes on their reading lists, including Fun Home. Crafton Hills College in California, meanwhile, forced a professor to put a warning on his syllabus after a student complained that four award-winning graphic novels—Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel; YY: The Last Man, Vol. 1, by Brian Vaughan; The Sandman, Vol. 2: The Doll’s House, by Neil Gaiman; and Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi—were violent and pornographic.
The 20-year-old student told a local newspaper she didn’t think the books should be burned or banned, but she and her parents didn’t think they belong in a English course.
The Duke student who made the original post told the Chronicle he’d succeeded in his goal of making other religious students feel less alone.
Update 4:53 pm CT, Aug. 24: This story has been updated to include a response from a Duke spokesman.
Illustration via Panels |
A growing number of sick Americans are traveling thousands of miles to India. Why? For huge discounts on prescription drugs.
Scores of life-saving medicines are sold for much lower prices in India, attracting foreigners who have been denied access to, or can't afford, them at home.
It's not an easy path. Foreigners must navigate the country's health care system, reams of paperwork and a language barrier.
But for many, including Gregg Bigsby, a commercial fisherman from Alaska, coming to India felt like the only option.
Bigsby had been living with Hepatitis C for more than 40 years when the disease stepped up its attack on his body. His liver was damaged and scarred, almost to the point of cirrhosis.
The fisherman's doctor recommended treatment that included a drug called sofosbuvir. But Medicare denied Bigsby's insurance claim, and he couldn't afford to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for the drug.
So Bigsby went online to contact an India-based "buyers club" -- a group that exploits wrinkles in international patent law and drug regulation in order to supply cheap medicine to people in need.
A special drug
Globally, more than 130 million people are estimated to be living with Hepatitis C. Left untreated, the disease can be deadly. But sofosbuvir, released in late 2013 by U.S. biopharmaceutical firm Gilead (GILD), is effectively a cure.
It's also expensive, costing $84,000 for a 12-week course in the U.S. Doctors often prescribe the drug -- sold under the brand names Sovaldi and Harvoni -- in combination with others, further raising the overall cost of treatment.
As a result, insurers and government healthcare providers often pay for its use in only their sickest patients.
But in India, a 12-week course of the drug's generic version can be purchased for just $500.
The Australian
Bigsby first made contact with the "buyers club" through a blog written by Greg Jefferys, an Australian who also suffered from Hepatitis C. The posts recounted Jefferys' 2015 trip to Chennai, an Indian city on the Bay of Bengal, to buy sofosbuvir.
It wasn't long before the story of Jefferys' trip to India spread, and he began receiving emails from people all the over world.
He jumped in, learning as much as he could about India's pharmacy system. Soon, he had developed a network of contacts in the country and found himself at the center of an informal "buyers club."
The mild-mannered Jefferys shares little with the swaggering, medicine smuggling cowboy played by Matthew McConaughey in the 2013 film Dallas Buyers Club -- but he is angry.
"There's millions of people with this disease in the world," Jefferys said. "People are dying because a really cheap drug is being marked up."
Jefferys says he gets up to 100 emails per day from people seeking advice -- half of them from America. Some travel to India to purchase the drugs themselves; others ask Jefferys to arrange for the drugs to be mailed to their homes.
There are limits on the value and amount of drugs that can be legally exported from India. Some of the group's shipments have been seized, but so far they have avoided major legal trouble.
How much should a drug cost?
Drug pricing has come under intense public scrutiny in the U.S. after Martin Shkreli, as CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, hiked the price of a medication used by HIV/AIDS patients from $13.50 to $750 per pill, earning him broad condemnation.
Much of the controversy has focused on drugs that are used by relatively few people. Sofosbuvir, however, is in a different class.
"There are drugs that are a lot more expensive, but this is the really the first time we saw a drug that was this expensive for this large of a population," said Steve Miller, the chief medical officer at pharmacy benefits manager Express Scripts.
Sofosbuvir has been a huge success for Gilead, which paid $11.2 billion to acquire its developer. Last year, the line of drugs accounted for roughly two thirds of the company's $32.2 billion in sales.
In an effort to protect market share in the face of competing new drugs, Gilead has begun to offer deep discounts on the $84,000 prescription. Critics, however, insist the price is still far too high.
"How egregious is the price on a scale of one to 10? It's like a 35," said Tracy Swan, the Hepatitis/HIV project director at Treatment Action Group.
Gilead said in a statement that it "responsibly and thoughtfully" priced the drug, and that "prices today are less than the cost of prior standard of care regimen." The company has also established a program that helps patients purchase the drug if they meet certain income, residency and coverage criteria.
Battleground India
India's patent laws have long been a thorn in the side of global pharmaceutical companies.
Unlike other countries, India does not award patents for minor improvements to existing drugs, and instead forces developers to prove they have made a significant scientific advancement.
"India has been the torchbearer of trying to show countries that there can be innovation and invention in the field, but making sure that unmerited patents don't get granted," said Tahir Amin, co-founder at the Initiative for Medicines, Access, & Knowledge.
The pharmaceutical industry and U.S. government have lobbied fiercely against India's rules. They scored a major victory in May, when regulators reversed course and approved one of Gilead's patent applications on sofosbuvir.
Advocates, who are appealing the decision, fear the precedent could disrupt global access to other expensive drugs.
"This is the end of the era of India being the pharmacy of the developing world," said Leena Menghaney, the head of Medecins Sans Frontieres' access campaign in South Asia.
Bigsby, the fisherman, was on a plane to India just one week after exchanging messages with Jefferys. In Chennai, he was able to purchase sofosbuvir, in combination with other drugs, for just $1,600.
After a few months, tests showed that Bigsby's Hepatitis C virus has disappeared.
"[India allows] foreigners to come in and buy the medicine because it's very humanitarian," said Bigsby. "Americans just want the money." |
A vampire scare in Malawi has at least eight dead and the United Nations evacuating some of its staff, Reuters reports. The southeast African nation, bordered by Mozambique, Zambia, and Tanzania, is one of the poorest countries in the world. A recent resurgence of fear of vampires in the two southern districts of Phalombe and Mulanje has triggered violent lynch mobs to attack and kill those accused of vampirism.
“These districts have severely been affected by the ongoing stories of blood sucking and possible existence of vampires,” the United Nations Department of Safety and Security said in a released security report. The U.N. has relocated some but not all of their staff in the two rural districts due to safety concerns, and is closely monitoring events in the area as they unfold.
The same report said the mobs set up roadblocks to trap vampires, and that the vampirism rumors might have originated in northern Mozambique. It recommends the “temporary suspension of U.N. activities in the area until the situation is normalized.” Non-government organizations (NGOs) providing aid and resources to the area have also pulled out.
Belief in both witchcraft and the real life existence of vampires is widespread in rural Malawi, with the latter superstition perpetuating paranoia and violence, and not for the first time either. During a devastating famine in 2002, vigilante retribution erupted after a viral rumor circulated the idea vampires were secretly working with the government to collect blood for international aid agencies.
Women and children claimed they were the victims of blood thieves, and terrified villagers abandoned their fields. Malawi government leaders publicly denied both the existence of vampires and the conspiracy, which they said was a malicious story created to undermine the government. Unsatisfied, the vigilantes took the law into their own hands, publicly stoning to death a man accused of being a vampire. Three Roman Catholic priests were beaten and detained overnight by an entire village.
People accused of vampirism are not the only victims. In Malawi, Mozambique, and Tanzania, people with albinism are regularly murdered and dismembered, their body parts sold for witchcraft rituals. Amnesty International reports the situation as a “human rights crisis” because Malawi’s albino population faces possible “systemic extinction.”
As the U.N. human rights council’s expert on albinism and an albino herself, Ikponwosa Ero reported last year that albinos are targeted because of a superstitious belief that their body parts “can increase wealth, make businesses prosper, or facilitate employment.” In addition, there is a driving economic motivation.
“Malawi is one of the world’s poorest countries and the sale of body parts of persons with albinism is believed to be very lucrative,” said Ero.
Sanguivoriphobia is the fear of vampires, with the direct translation meaning “fear of blood eaters.” |
Getting Pushbullet set up should be easy.
In Today’s Android app update, we’ve completely rebuilt our onboarding flow to make it as simple as possible. The results speak for themselves, here’s the before and after:
We’re working to bring this level of simplicity to our entire service.
Pushbullet does some amazing things. It’s not always clear to newcomers, however, just how much Pushbullet can do for them. Making Pushbullet more accessible is the first step in making our service better for everyone.
Have a suggestion for us? Here’s how to get in touch:
The best place to post suggestions or report bugs is on the Pushbullet subreddit. This way others can see and comment on them, adding their support.
If you’re not a reddit user (or just want to chat with us directly), you can always send us an email at [email protected].
Discuss this post here on reddit |
Carton Brewing's next small batch beer, IDIPA, will be released in the tasting room on Thursday, April 7th, 5-8.
Carton Brewing's next small batch beer, IDIPA, will be released in the tasting room on Thursday, April 7th, 5-8.
Carton Brewing's next small batch beer, IDIPA, will be released in the tasting room on Thursday, April 7th, 5-8.
Carton Brewing's next small batch beer, IDIPA, will be released in the tasting room on Thursday, April 7th, 5-8.
Carton Brewing's next small batch beer, IDIPA, will be released in the tasting room on Thursday, April 7th, 5-8.
Carton Brewing's next small batch beer, IDIPA, will be released in the tasting room on Thursday, April 7th, 5-8.
IDIPA
American IPA
ABV: 7% | IBU: 70 | SRM: 7
Not much to analyze about IDIPA. Sometimes you just crave a dank IPA to sip on, so thats what we made. Multiple hops, multiple malts, multiple yeasts combined in a way to placate the dank side of our desires. Drink IDIPA because it the dankness you need!
Upcoming Events
Beer Dinner at Beach Tavern, Monmouth Beach April 13th (33 West St, Monmouth Beach, NJ 07750)
NJCB Night at Paragon Tap and Table, April 14th (77 Central Ave, Clarke, NJ 07066
Tap Take Over at Cloverleaf Tavern, Caldwell April 19th (395 Bloomfield Ave, Caldwell, NJ 07006) We'll be bringing Boat, B.D.G. 077xx, 077-07006 Sorachi, Carton of Milk, Red Rye Returning, HopPun, Grape Swisher, Carton Canyon, Epitome, Decoy, Squashenator, Shipwreck, Stormy, Disaster, Cosmonaut and more.
Hackettstown Taste of the Town (Donaldson Farms, 358 Allen Road, Hackettstown, NJ 07840) April 30th |
Story highlights Kyriakos Amiridis was appointed ambassador in January, Agencia Brasil reports
His remains were found inside a burned car this week, police say
The widow's paramour is accused of carrying out the killing
(CNN) Police contend Greece's ambassador to Brazil was killed by his wife's lover -- a military police officer -- and the widow is being questioned in the crime, Brazil's state-run Agencia Brasil news agency reported Saturday.
Chief Evaristo Pontes, a police investigator in the Baixada Fluminense region, said Friday that Sergio Gomes Moreira Filho claimed he killed the ambassador in self-defense and then recruited his cousin to help dispose of the body, Agencia Brasil News reported.
Ambassador Kyriakos Amiridis, 59, had been missing since Monday, Pontes said. A burned car with Amiridis' charred body inside was found in Nova Iguaçu, a town outside Rio de Janeiro, on Thursday, he said.
"He (Moreira) says he got into a physical fight with the ambassador, and he had no choice other than to hit the ambassador and kill him," Pontes said. "He says he was in desperation and didn't know what to do, given what had happened, so he asked a cousin for help and they went to make the ambassador's body disappear."
Greek ambassador to Brazil Kyriakos Amiridis.
Besides Moreira, the ambassador's widow, Francoise De Souza Oliveira, and the officer's cousin, Eduardo Moreira de Melo, are also being questioned, Pontes said.
Read More |
The 2012 election process has shown that the relationship between science and public policy is in danger of becoming irreparably damaged. Mainstream politicians are no longer limiting scientifically baseless attacks to newer science like global climate change. They are also attempting to tear down long established scientific advancements in areas like womens health, once championed by the left and right.
Much of this is the inevitable result of a long-term trend that occurs when a large portion of our society loses trust in science. For American scientists who care deeply about the future of our great nation, it is time to take a stand and bring science back to the forefront of public debate and defend what is true.
In purest form, science has no ideological basis. In the same way, real public policy solutions are not inherently Republican, Democrat, Libertarian or Green. In fact, like the political philosophies of most Americans, real solutions are generally a mix of ideologies and shaped by reality. Therefore, what scientists-turned-politicians should focus on is public policy initiatives that are based on defensible reasoning, with sensible metrics that demonstrate success or failure. The trick will be getting enough scientists in position to ward off the constant barrage of attacks.
Oddly enough, the Tea Party victories in 2010 provide a model for a science based political movement. Run candidates in every single primary. The advantage of this strategy is that scientists span all political backgrounds. Therefore candidates can run in every single Congressional primary: Republican Democrat, Libertarian, Green, etc.
Like any good scientist, I performed an experiment to see whether it was possible to run for Congress as a Ph.D. Physicist. In January of this year I entered the 2012 New Mexico Senate race. After a massively successful online question and answer session, I raised several hundred dollars for my campaign. I was floored and began the process of collecting signatures.
Unfortunately, my Senate campaign stalled out after the initial interest. Social media is not yet a sustainable way to run an individual campaign. Because of my late entry into the race, I didn't have enough time to organize a ground game to collect nearly 9k signatures by the deadline.
However, by creating a large scale scientific political movement, infrastructure could be created to run scientists in every Congressional election. And it would be a relatively cheap proposition by American political standards. Every two years, we elect approximately 33 U.S. Senators. Therefore, only 66 scientists would need to run to cover each of the Republican and Democratic primaries.
If funds are spent smartly, it only costs about $15k to get on the primary ballot for the U.S. Senate. The numbers break down like this (and vary from state to state). In New Mexico, getting a guaranteed spot on the Republican or Democratic ticket takes about 9k signatures (2X the number of signatures allows a safety margin for contested signatures). Signature gatherers can be hired for about one dollar a signature, and you will need to hire someone to coordinate the gatherers (or about $15k for a lean campaign). |
Image copyright Reuters Image caption Police have cordoned off the area around the cafe and are investigating the gunman's motive
Five people have been shot dead and at least 20 injured in a cafe in north-eastern Serbia.
Police say the gunman killed his wife and another woman, before randomly shooting at other customers at the cafe.
Three children were among those injured in the attack near the city of Zrenjanin, the interior ministry said.
The gunman was arrested and police are investigating his motive, which is believed to be jealousy.
Witnesses told Serbia's state TV that the attacker came to the Makijato cafe and saw his wife there with a group of friends, the AP news agency reports. He apparently went home and came back with a gun.
"He just pulled out a gun and started shooting, first into the air," one of the witnesses, Svetozar Manojlovic, said.
Image copyright Reuters Image caption Police have been talking to witnesses
"It sounded like firecrackers at first," he said. "Then the guy next to me fell down and others started falling down. It was total chaos."
Serbia's Interior Minister, Nebojsa Stefanovic, said the cafe guests eventually managed to grab the weapon from the man's hands.
Mr Stefanovic said the automatic weapon was illegal, and he appealed to people to hand over any illegal weapons, which proliferated after the war in the Balkans in the 1990s. |
Shakira's 'Waka Waka (This Time For Africa)' has been named official song of this year's soccer World Cup.
The Columbian born 'She Wolf' singer will also fly out to the opening of the tournament - which is being held in South Africa - on June 10 to perform at a concert which will also feature Alicia Keys and Black Eyed Peas.
Shakira said: "I am honored that 'Waka Waka' was chosen to be part of the excitement and the legacy of the 2010 FIFA World Cup
"The soccer World Cup is a miracle of global excitement, connecting every country, race, religion and condition around a single passion."
The song will also be featured on the soundtrack to the tournament, called 'Listen Up! The Official 2010 FIFA World Cup Album', which will be released on May 31, with proceeds from its sale going to various African charities.
Also on the bill at the opening concert - held at the Orlando Stadium in Johannesburg - are R'n'B singer John Legend, Mali's Amadou and Mariam, Beninoise singer Angelique Kidjo, South African rock group BLK JKS, Columbian rocker Juanes, South African indie group The Parlotones, Saharan desert musicians Tinariwen, Malian singer and guitarist Vieux Farka Toure, and South African artist Vusi Mahlasela.
The concert is expected to be attended by an audience of 30,000 at the Orlando Stadium in Johannesburg. |
First published Sun Oct 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Nov 16, 2018
The second use of the concept is more specific. According to this, substances are a particular kind of basic entity, and some philosophical theories acknowledge them and others do not. On this use, Hume’s impressions and ideas are not substances, even though they are the building blocks of—what constitutes ‘being’ for—his world. According to this usage, it is a live issue whether the fundamental entities are substances or something else, such as events, or properties located at space-times. This conception of substance derives from the intuitive notion of individual thing or object, which contrast mainly with properties and events. The issue is how we are to understand the notion of an object, and whether, in the light of the correct understanding, it remains a basic notion, or one that must be characterized in more fundamental terms. Whether, for example, an object can be thought of as nothing more than a bundle of properties, or a series of events.
There could be said to be two rather different ways of characterizing the philosophical concept of substance. The first is the more generic. The philosophical term ‘substance’ corresponds to the Greek ousia, which means ‘being’, transmitted via the Latin substantia, which means ‘something that stands under or grounds things’. According to the generic sense, therefore, the substances in a given philosophical system are those things which, according to that system, are the foundational or fundamental entities of reality. Thus, for an atomist, atoms are the substances, for they are the basic things from which everything is constructed. In David Hume’s system, impressions and ideas are the substances, for the same reason. In a slightly different way, Forms are Plato’s substances, for everything derives its existence from Forms. In this sense of ‘substance’ any realist philosophical system acknowledges the existence of substances. Probably the only theories which do not would be those forms of logical positivism or pragmatism which treat ontology as a matter of convention. According to such theories, there are no real facts about what is ontologically basic, and so nothing is objectively substance.
Many of the concepts analysed by philosophers have their origin in ordinary—or at least extra-philosophical—language. Perception, knowledge, causation, and mind would be examples of this. But the concept of substance is essentially a philosophical term of art. Its uses in ordinary language tend to derive, often in a rather distorted way, from the philosophical senses. (Such expressions as ‘a person of substance’ or ‘a substantial reason’ would be cases of this. ‘Illegal substances’ is nearer to one of the philosophical uses, but not the main one.) There is an ordinary concept in play when philosophers discuss ‘substance’, and this, as we shall see, is the concept of object, or thing when this is contrasted with properties or events. But such ‘individual substances’ are never termed ‘substances’ outside philosophy.
Reflection on the concept of an object has its first theoretical articulation in Aristotle’s Categories, where he distinguishes between individual objects and the various kinds of properties they can possess. He illustrates the various categories:
each [individual term] signifies either substance or quantity or qualification or a relative or where or when or being in a position or having or doing or being affected. To give a rough idea, ideas of substance are man, horse; of quantity: four foot, five foot; of qualification; white, grammatical; of a relative: double, half, larger; of where: in the Lyceum, in the market-place; of when: yesterday, last year; of being in a position: is-lying, is-sitting; of having: has-shoes-on, has-armour-on; of doing: cutting, burning; of being-affected: being-cut, being-burnt. (1b25–2a4)
The individual substances are the subjects of properties in the various other categories, and they can gain and lose such properties whilst themselves enduring. There is an important distinction pointed out by Aristotle between individual objects and kinds of individual objects. Thus, for some purposes, discussion of substance is a discussion about individuals, and for other purposes it is a discussion about universal concepts that designate specific kinds of such individuals. In the Categories, this distinction is marked by the terms ‘primary substance’ and ‘secondary substance’. Thus Fido the dog is a primary substance—an individual—but dog or doghood is the secondary substance or substantial kind. Each arm of this distinction raises different issues. If one is concerned with kinds of substance, one obvious question that will arise is ‘what makes something a thing of that kind (for example, what is involved in being a dog)?’ This is the question of the essence of substantial kinds. But if one is concerned with individuals, the parallel question is ‘what makes something that particular individual of a given kind (for example, what is involved in a dog’s being and remaining Fido)?’ This is the question of individual essences and of identity over time. Aristotle was mainly, if not exclusively, concerned with questions of the first kind, but, as we shall see in sections 2.5.2 and 3, the latter question assumed a prominence later.
This association of substance with kinds carries over into a use of the term which is perhaps more scientific, especially chemical, than philosophical. This is the conception according to which substances are kinds of stuff. They are not individual objects nor kinds of individual object. Examples of this usage are water, hydrogen, copper, granite or ectoplasm.
There is a connotation of the word ‘substance’, reflected in the sense of substantial, which signifies durability or even permanence. Events, or Hume’s impressions and ideas are never substantial in this sense, because they are fleeting. Atoms, fundamental kinds of stuff, gods, or abstract entities, such as Platonic Forms or numbers, might be considered to be substantial to the point of being indestructible or eternal: they last at least as long as the world exists—and, in the case of gods or God, or abstract entities, perhaps longer.
It seems, in summary, that there are at least six overlapping ideas that contribute to the philosophical concept of substance. Substances are typified as:
being ontologically basic—substances are the things from which everything else is made or by which it is metaphysically sustained; being, at least compared to other things, relatively independent and durable, and, perhaps, absolutely so; being the paradigm subjects of predication and bearers of properties; being, at least for the more ordinary kinds of substance, the subjects of change; being typified by those things we normally classify as objects, or kinds of objects; being typified by kinds of stuff.
We shall see later that the Kantian tradition adds a seventh mark of substance:
substances are those enduring particulars that give unity to our spatio-temporal framework, and the individuation and re-identification of which enables us to locate ourselves in that framework. (It should be remarked in passing that at least one major expositor of Aristotle (Irwin: 1988, especially chs 1, 9, 10) attributes a very similar intention to Aristotle himself.)
In section 3.5 we shall introduce a notion grounded in Aristotle’s account, but which has not naturally found a place in the earlier discussion, namely the connection between substance and teleology. This can be expressed as:
The substances in a given system are those entities crucial from the teleological or design perspective of that system. ‘Crucial’ means that other things exist either to constitute them or to provide a context of operations for them.
Different philosophers emphasize different criteria from amongst this list, for reasons connected with their system as a whole. One could plausibly say that an account is intuitively more appealing, the more of the criteria it can find a place for. Probably, the Aristotelian tradition comes nearest to doing this.
Almost all major philosophers have discussed the concept of substance and an attempt to cover all of this history would be unwieldy. The selection made will concentrate on those philosophers in whom the broadly analytic tradition has shown most interest. First we shall look at the development of the concept in the ancient world, culminating in the work of Aristotle. His account dominated debate through the Middle Ages and until the early modern period. We shall consider various rationalist and empiricist treatments of the concept. Locke’s contribution will be considered in especial detail because so much contemporary discussion is inspired (as we shall see in section 3) by an Aristotle-Locke nexus.
Many of the pre-socratic philosophers in fact had a concept of substance rather like that above attributed to chemistry: that is, their emphasis was on criterion (vi) above. They thought, that is, that the being of the universe (hence they were pursuing substance in sense (i)) consisted in some kind or kinds of stuff. Thales, for example, thought that everything was essentially water, and Anaximenes that everything was a form of air. For Anaximander, the ‘stuff’ in question was indeterminate, so that it could transmute into the various determinate stuffs such as water, air earth and fire. By contrast, atomists such as Democritus took those determinate particular objects they called ‘atoms’ to be the substance of the universe. Atoms are objects in our ordinary sense, though they are not our ordinary objects: they are not dogs and cats or tables and chairs. They are the subjects of predication, but they do not change their intrinsic properties. Classical atoms are, therefore, strong instances of (i) and (ii), but somewhat deviant cases of (iii) and (v).
Plato rejected these materialist attempts to explain everything on the basis of that of which it was made. According to Plato, the governing principles were the intelligible Forms which material objects attempted to copy. These Forms are not substances in the sense of being either the stuff or the individuals or the kinds of individuals out of which all else is constructed. Rather they are the driving principles which give structure and purpose to everything else. In itself, the rest would be, at most, an unintelligible chaos. The Forms meet criterion (i)—ontological basicness—but in a slightly eccentric way, because they do not, in a normal sense, constitute things. They meet (ii)—durability—in a strong fashion, for they are eternal. They are not, in the intended senses, the subjects of predication, and in no sense the subjects of change, so they do badly on (iii) and (iv). They do not do well on (v) for they are not individual things in any normal sense, though they are individuals, of a very unusual kind. (Aristotle’s main criticism of Plato’s Forms was that they are a bastard confusion of universal and particular. See Fine (1993).) They are in no way kinds of stuff, hence failing (vi). But failure to meet these standards is not carelessness on Plato’s part. It reflects his emphasis on criterion (i), together with his particular view about the way in which forms are basic.
There are two main sources for Aristotle’s approach to substance, the Categories and Metaphysics Z. These will be discussed in turn.
2.2.1 Categories
Aristotle’s account in Categories can, with some oversimplification, be expressed as follows. The primary substances are individual objects, and they can be contrasted with everything else—secondary substances and all other predicables—because they are not predicable of or attributable to anything else. Thus, Fido is a primary substance, and dog—the secondary substance—can be predicated of him. Fat, brown, and taller than Rover are also predicable of him, but in a rather different way from that in which dog is. Aristotle distinguishes between two kinds of predicables, namely those which are ‘said of’ objects and those which are ‘in’ objects. The interpretation of these expressions is, as usually with Aristotelian cruxes, very controversial, but a useful way of looking at it is as follows. Dog is said of Fido because it characterizes him as a whole. Fat and the others are described as being in because they pick out a constituent feature that could be said to be, in a logical though not a physical sense, part of, or in him. Fido the individual is not attributable to any further thing at all.
This account is intuitive, but perhaps it cannot be treated as a formally adequate definition of the notion of primary substance or individual. Fido the individual could be said to be in a certain location and so attributed to something, namely a place. It is natural to reply to this that an object is not an attribute of a place in the same way as a property is an attribute of a thing: the property is in a thing ‘as a subject’, but a place is not a subject to which a thing is attributed: the place does not ‘underlie’ the thing as a thing ‘underlies’ its properties. Although this may be true, it presupposes that we already have a grasp on the sense in which properties belong to objects and how this differs from the various ways that objects belong to or can be attributed to things, and that we can call upon this informal understanding in interpreting the theoretical account. Whether this is legitimate might depend on what the objective was. If the objective were to explain the difference between substance and property in an entirely non-circular way by appealing to the fact that properties are in substances but substances are not in things, this would involve taking the notion of being in as primitive. If we have to distinguish the sense in which properties are in substances from the way in which substances can be in things—such as places—before we can make the original point, then there has not been a non-circular account. If, on the other hand, the objective is simply to differentiate between concepts already in play, then Categories achieves its objective.
Perhaps it is better, therefore, to see Aristotle in Categories not as defining ‘substance’, so that someone wholly lacking the concept might come to understand it, but as exhibiting the marks and characteristics of a primitive concept on which we have an intuitive grasp. If we understand his project in this way, we can see Aristotle as presenting various marks of substance in Categories. The marks of primary substance are:
Being objects of predication but not being themselves predicable of anything else (at least, not in the way entities in the other categories are: see the problem about attribution to location above). Being able to receive contraries. (4 a10) A substance can go from being hot to being cold, or from being red to being blue, but the instance of blue in an object cannot similarly take on and lose a wide range of attributes. If substance did not exist it would be impossible for things in any of the other categories to exist. There could be no instances of properties if there were no substances to possess them.
But these criteria do not show why ‘dog’ is a secondary substance term and ‘brown thing’ is not. So we need marks for being a secondary substance, or substance concept. On this he says two things.
‘It is reasonable that, after the primary substances, their species and genera should be the only other things called (secondary) substance. For only they, of things predicated, reveal the primary substance.’ (2 b28–30) ‘Of the secondary substances the species is more a substance than the genus, since it is nearer to the primary substance. For if one is to say of the primary substance what it is, it will be more apt to give the species than the genus.’ (2 b8–11)
The second of these two points is more uncontroversial than the first, for it is indubitable that species terms focus more precisely on particular things than generic terms. The first is, however, once again intuitive but not compelling. It appeals to the fundamental intuition that ‘dog’ tells you what Fido is better than ‘brown thing’ does, but does not really give a reason for this claim. Only in Section 3.3, when we discuss Wiggins’s theory, will we find more formal reasons for treating species or sortal concepts as more revealing of ‘what something really is’ than are other terms.
The division between being said of and being in—that is, between substance concepts and other properties—seems intuitively clear enough until one remembers that substance concepts are complex and are definable in terms of other properties. Thus, ‘man’ is defined as ‘featherless biped’ or ‘rational animal’, and it would seem that ‘featherless’, ‘two-footed’ or ‘rational’ are properties and hence the kinds of things that are in objects. Aristotle denies that this is so when they enter into the definition of a substance. The features that specifically make an object the kind of substance that it is, are called differentiae, and Aristotle says
the differentia also is not in a subject. For footed and two-footed are said of man as subject, but are not in a subject; neither footed not two-footed is in man. (3 a23–5)
It would seem that these properties belong to objects in different ways when they are part of a definition from when they are not. The issue is what constitutes the unity of the species or secondary substance: why is it not just a collection of properties and, if it is just such a collection, why is it so different from any other collection of properties? In order to begin to see how Aristotle tackled this problem we need the apparatus of form and matter, which does not appear in the Categories. (We will see when discussing contemporary theories in section 3.1, however, that it is not clear that even now can we provide a wholly non-circular account of substance.)
2.2.2 Metaphysics
The Categories sets out important logical distinctions between different kinds of attribute, but it does not enter into a metaphysical analysis of substance itself. This takes place mainly in Metaphysics, Book Z. In the latter, the analysis of substances in terms of form and matter is developed, whereas these notions have no place in Categories. The distinction has led some commentators to talk of Aristotle’s ‘two systems’, containing two radically different conceptions of substance. (Graham 1987) In the earlier, Categories, substances are simply individuals; in the later work they are complexes of form and matter. Whether this represents a change of view, or whether the purposes of the Categories simply did not require reference to the metaphysical analysis of substance is a moot point. It seems unlikely, however, given Aristotle’s Platonic background, that his early thought was oblivious to the role of form in substance. Whichever interpretation of the development of Aristotle’s thought is correct, the introduction of substantial form is what gives the fully developed Aristotelian account of substance.
Aristotle analyses substance in terms of form and matter. The form is what kind of thing the object is, and the matter is what it is made of. The term ‘matter’ as used by Aristotle is not the name for a particular kind of stuff, nor for some ultimate constituents of bodies, such as atoms (Aristotle rejects atomism). ‘Matter’ is rather the name for whatever, for a given kind of object, meets a certain role or function, namely that of being that from which the object is constituted. Relative to the human body, matter is flesh and blood. The matter of an axehead is the iron from which it is made. Relative to the elements, earth, fire, air and water, matter is an intrinsically characterless ‘prime matter’ which underlies the qualities of them all.
Aristotle acknowledges that there are three candidates for being called substance, and that all three are substance in some sense or to some degree. First, there is matter, second, form and third, the composite of form and matter. Aristotle acknowledges that matter can be a subject of predication and of change, thereby meeting one of the main criteria set up in Categories (1028 b35ff). This suggests an inadequacy or incompleteness in the account in Categories, for there he had seemed to assume that being the subject of predication belonged peculiarly to substance, and also that a subject is an individual of an appropriate kind—what he calls a ‘this such’: and matter is not an individual, but that from which an individual is made. Two of the criteria of substancehood presented in the Introduction above are: (v) being individuals and kinds of individual; (vi) being stuffs and kinds of stuff. Aristotle acknowledges that things under (vi)—‘natural bodies such as fire and water and everything of that sort’ (1028 b10–11)—are, or are thought to be, substances. But, without seeming to give much argument, he strongly favours (v) over (vi).
The elimination of matter as a good candidate for being substance, leaves either form alone or the composite of form and matter. The composite seems more consonant with the doctrine of Categories, for the composite is the individual. Aristotle, however, chooses the form as more paradigmatically substance. This has puzzled some commentators. Wiggins (1998: 232ff), for example, thinks that the change in doctrine between Categories and Metaphysics is wholly unhelpful. The choice of form as substance causes perplexity because the form seems to be a universal and equivalent to the secondary substance, and so not the most fundamental case of substance. But whether substantial forms are universals in Aristotle is a controversial matter. Interpreters disagree about whether the doghood that is in Fido is best regarded as the universal, or as the particular instance of the universal doghood, other dogs exemplifying numerically different instances of the same universal. (For example, Lloyd: 1981, Irwin: 1988, Woods: 1991, and Bostock’s commentary to Aristotle 1994.) On this view, the most perspicuous way of regarding the individual substance is not as the composite of form and matter (though this is not wrong) but as the form individualized in the matter. The matter is still an essential component in the substance, but not, so to speak, as an equal partner with the form, but as the catalyst by means of which the form becomes an individual substance. It is clear, however, that if one holds that Aristotle thinks that forms are universals, then forms are not substance, for, in his attacks on Plato, Aristotle makes it plain that universals are not substance. Substances for Aristotle are individuals, but it is much debated whether they are individualized forms or composites of form and matter.
There are at least three serious questions about Aristotle’s substantial forms. One we have already noticed, namely (i) whether such forms are universals or particulars. The others are (ii) what is the relationship between the substantial form and the properties which enter into its definition? We have already noticed this question when discussing Categories. (iii) What is the ontological status of such forms? This is connected with the second question, for it is connected with the question of what the substantial form is over and above the properties essential to it. What I mean by this is as follows. Let us agree, for purposes of argument, that human being is a kind of substance and that rationality and animality are the properties in terms of which that substance is defined. It is uncontroversial that these properties are meant to be objective features of the external world. But what is the relation between the substantial form and those properties? Is the presence of the substantial form human being nothing more than the presence of those properties, or is the form something further which is, in some sense responsible for the presence of those properties? We saw in the previous section that the differentia in terms of which a substance is defined is not treated as being ‘in’ objects, as other properties are. This seems to suggest that calling an object a substance of a certain sort is not just a way of attributing to it the properties in terms of which it is defined. Aristotle is undoubtedly a realist about substantial forms, in the sense of thinking them to be something more than a mere collection of properties, but how are we to understand this ‘more’?
It would be universally agreed by scholars that substantial forms are real in the sense that they play an irreducible and ineliminable explanatory role in the behaviour of the things in which they are the form. There are two interpretations of what Aristotle meant by this, one of which seems compatible with modern science and the other not. First the compatibilist one. Empiricist philosophers of science used to believe that the concepts in higher order sciences could be reduced, either by means of reductive definition or by ‘bridging laws’, to those in the more basic sciences. (See, for example, Nagel 1961.) By such means, everything could be understood in terms of the most basic science—presumed to be physics. Concepts in the other sciences are thus only a kind of shorthand for laborious descriptions in the language of physics. Few, if any, philosophers of science believe this now. They agree that, even if the world is ‘closed under physics’—every event has a complete set of physical causes—the concepts of the other sciences are irreducible and do autonomous explanatory jobs. Even if dogs are wholly physical objects and even if all the atoms in dogs follow very precise laws of physics, nevertheless when doing the biology of dogs one will need concepts not to be found in a physics textbook. This is not for mere shorthand convenience, but because of the kinds of things in which, for example, the biologist or veterinary scientist is interested. There are interpreters of Aristotle who think that this kind of irreducibility is all that Aristotle means—or needs to mean—by postulating an explanatory role for substantial form. His theory is at least neutral on the question of whether there is a closed system at the level of basic physics. (Nussbaum 1978, 1984)
The stronger, incompatibilist interpretation is that Aristotle did not believe that the behaviour of complex entities followed from the laws that govern their parts or their matter. (Gotthelf 1987, Robinson 1983) By contrast, the behaviour of the matter is influenced by what it is the matter of. The nature of the matter places restrictions on what the enmattered thing can do—an animal can only be made from living tissue, not of stone or fire—but exactly how that matter behaves depends on the substantial form present in it. The substantial form plays, therefore, an essential role, not merely in certain kinds of scientific explanation, but by being a fundamental efficient cause in its own right. Whichever of these is the correct interpretation of Aristotle, it was the second which was the core of ‘Aristotelian science’ as found in scholastic philosophy, and it was this aspect of the Aristotelian doctrine of substance that aroused most opposition amongst seventeenth century philosophers and scientists. They insisted that bodies behave as they do because of the mechanical consequences of the nature of the matter from which they are made: the matter is not ‘pushed around’ or organized by a substantial form. Philosophers and scientists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries believed that in rejecting such influences they were rejecting the Aristotelian doctrine of substance.
Finally, let us consider how Aristotle fares according to the criteria of substance with which we ended the introduction. Aristotelian substance, whether construed as individualized form or composite of form and matter meets (i), the criterion of ontological basicness. It also meets (ii), relative durability, although in a rather modest manner. Individual substances are more durable than instances of the properties in the other categories, for it is substances that can take on and lose those other properties. Individuals are not, however, very long-lived and on this criterion Aristotle makes what could be regarded as a concession to Plato, for it is form as universal, which Aristotle does not consider properly substance, which is most durable. There are at least two senses in which substantial forms are eternal. First, Aristotle believes the world to be eternal and all the same species to exist eternally. So that, even though particular objects are subject to degeneration and decay, the species as such are eternal. Second, generation and decay depend on the material component in composites. Any form that does not require matter for its activity will be eternal by nature. This applies to the active intellect, which is an essential feature of all human intellects, and to the immaterial movers of the cosmos described in Metaphysics, Book Lambda. (Further consideration of these topics would take us into Aristotle’s philosophy of mind and his theology.)
As we have seen, substances are the paradigm subjects of predication and change, so (iii) and (iv) are met. As Aristotle’s substances are individual things and kinds of things (v) is met. A nod is made in the direction of stuffs and kinds of stuff, but Aristotle does not develop this thought, so (vi) is barely met.
There were two major problems that the Aristotelian tradition has faced in the modern period. They are: (1) explaining and justifying the sense in which substantial forms have causal or explanatory power, especially in the light of a developed mechanistic chemistry or physics; (2) the difficulty in understanding the relation of substantial form to properties, especially those in terms of which a given substance is defined. These are connected. It is because the substantial form has genuine causal force that it is conceived of by Aristotle as a unified entity in its own right, and not just as a name for the collocation of properties in terms of which it is defined.
(One subject that has not been discussed is the connection between the doctrine of substance and teleology. Aristotle regards this relation as important, but in this entry it will have a section of its own, 3.5 below.)
The standard account of the medieval treatment of the topic is that S. Thomas Aquinas is the only important figure and what he says differs little from Aristotle, except for making things more rigid and formal. It is clear, however, that this is a serious oversimplification. For a more nuanced and sophisticated view, see Lagerlund (2012), on which this section draws extensively.
Our discussion of Aristotle ended by returning to the issue if the unity of substantial form – what is the difference between a collection of ‘essential’ properties and the form as a unitary entity. Various aspects of this issue of the unity of substantial form preoccupied medieval philosophers. According to Aquinas, a substance possessed only one form, and its matter was the essentially characterless prime matter. In other words the informed parts of an object – in the case of a living creature, its organs, and the various kinds of stuff that constituted it (in the end, quantities of earth fire air and water) did not possess their own forms, but were informed by the overall substantial form. Others disagreed. Some of the disagreements were internal to the hylomorphic system. Duns Scotus, for example, argued that a dead person’s body was the same body as had existed when that person was alive. The soul had departed, so the form which was the immortal soul could not be identical with the form of the body. This argument may seem to be specialized to the case of the human immortal soul, but, presumably, a similar problem applies to a dead parrot: it has lost its perceptive and vegetative souls, yet is the same body – even if it is no longer a parrot.
This line of thought proved to be a slippery slope, and, as so often, the downward slide was led by William of Ockham. On the one hand, Ockham was committed to hylomorphism, in that a substance is composed of form and matter. But he reverses the priorities of Aquinas and Scotus by saying that the parts are actual in their own right and do not derive their actuality from the whole: rather, the whole is nothing but the sum of its parts. This line of thought opened the way to atomism and to treating the unity of wholes as a matter of convention or degree. Buridan, who represents a further development in this direction, says
In this sense, I am not the same as I was yesterday, because something was part of my integrity yesterday, which has already been used up, and something was not part of my integrity, which has meanwhile been added by nourishment.(Buridan, Physics I,q.10, f. xiii: cited Lagerlund, 476)
It is clear that this way of thinking paves the way for atomism and its associated problems as they emerged in early modern philosophy.
The concept of substance figures centrally in a positive way for the rationalist philosophers, in a way that it does not for the empiricists. The rationalists’ substances are not, however, the individual objects of everyday life.
Descartes believed in only two kinds of substance: material body, which is defined by extension, and mental substance, which is defined by thought, which, in this context, is more or less equivalent to consciousness. Descartes (like Aristotle and unlike most of his contemporaries and immediate successors) was not an atomist. He did not believe in a void between bodies, so there is a sense in which there is just one material substance, numerically as well as specifically. For Descartes, therefore, material substance falls more naturally into the stuff category, rather than into the thing category. The situation is different for mental substance. The cogito shows that Descartes definitely believes that each person is a different individual mental substance.
Descartes, like the atomists, believed that matter operates in an entirely mechanical way. There is, therefore, no causal role for substantial form to play and, hence, no need for such forms. His two substances are each defined in terms of one property (extension for matter and thought for mind), hence there is no problem about the relation between substance and the properties in terms of which it is defined. As he does not have substances as individuals made of kinds of stuff, there is no conflict between individuals and stuffs.
For Spinoza, there is only one substance, the existence of which is demonstrated by a version of the ontological argument, which is thought of as being both God and Nature. It is an unending controversy whether Spinoza was a pantheist, or an atheist who called nature ‘God’ because it was the one true substance and existed necessarily. Everything else is a mode of this one substance. The view is analogous to a claim that the universe is space-time as a whole, with matter as distortions in it. If this were true, material objects would be modes of space-time. The analogy would be more exact if one also thought of the laws of nature as equivalent to the divine intellect immanent in nature. Spinoza’s view represents the extreme end of stressing the status of substance as the fundamental existent conceived of as wholly necessary and self-subsistent: that is, criteria (i) and (ii) in the original list come to take on maximum weight. Nothing but the universe as a whole meets this criterion fully.
Leibniz was not satisfied by this conception of divine substance, at least in part because it confines God to what actually exists. For Leibniz, God contains within himself all possibilities, not just the actual world: this latter is just that maximal set of possibilities that he has best reason to actualize. Leibniz acknowledges created substances, though they are very intimately dependent on God. In the Discourse on Metaphysics, (Section 14), he says:
it is clear that created substances depend on God, who conserves them and indeed who produces them continuously by a kind of emanation, just as we produce our thoughts. (1998: 66)
The analogy with thought hardly emphasizes the independence of substance! Nevertheless, created substances do constitute the created world, and do, in that sense, meet criterion (i) for being substance. They are also the subjects of predication, so they meet criterion (iii). Leibniz’s substances, however, are the bearers of change (criterion (iv)) in a very different way from Aristotle’s individual substances. An Aristotelian individual possesses some properties essentially and some accidentally. The accidental properties of an object are ones that can be gained and lost over time, and which it might never have possessed at all: its essential properties are the only ones it had to possess and which it possesses throughout its existence. The situation is different for Leibniz’s monads—which is the name he gives to individual substances, created or uncreated (so God is a monad). Whereas, for Aristotle, the properties that an object has to possess and those that it possesses throughout its existence coincide, they do not do so for Leibniz. That is, for Leibniz, even the properties that an object possesses only for a part of its existence are essential to it. Every monad bears each of its properties as part of its nature, so if it were to have been different in any respect, it would have been a different entity.
Furthermore, there is a sense in which all monads are exactly similar to each other, for they all reflect the whole world. They each do so, however, from a different perspective.
For God, so to speak, turns on all sides and considers in all ways the general system of phenomena which he has found it good to produce…And he considers all the faces of the world in all possible ways…the result of each view of the universe, as looked at from a certain position, is…a substance which expresses the universe in conformity with that view. (1998: 66)
So each monad reflects the whole system, but with its own perspective emphasised. If a monad is at place p at time t, it will contain all the features of the universe at all times, but with those relating to its own time and place most vividly, and others fading out roughly in accordance with temporal and spatial distance. Because there is a continuum of perspectives on reality, there is an infinite number of these substances. Nevertheless, there is internal change in the monads, because the respect in which its content is vivid varies with time and with action. Indeed, the passage of time just is the change in which of the monad’s contents are most vivid.
It is not possible to investigate here Leibniz’s reasons for these apparently very strange views. Our present concern is with whether, and in what sense, Leibniz’s substances are subjects of change. One can say that, in so far as, at all times, they reflect the whole of reality, then they do not change. But in so far as they reflect some parts of that reality more vividly than others, depending on their position in space and time, they can be said to change.
According to Locke, we have two conceptions of substance. One is a ‘notion of pure substance in general’ (Essay II xxiii 2), the other ‘ideas of particular sorts of substance’ (II xxiii 3). Both these conceptions of substance provide difficulties of interpretation. They also both relate to issues in contemporary philosophy of substance, in which Locke’s influence is almost as important as Aristotle’s.
2.5.1 Locke on ‘pure substance in general’
Locke expresses this idea as follows:
The idea then we have, to which we give the general name substance, being nothing, but the supposed, but unknown support of those qualities, we find existing, which we imagine cannot subsist, sine re substante, without something to support them, we call that support substantia, which, according to the true import of the word, is in plain English, standing under or upholding. (II xxiii 2)
The traditional rationale of Locke’s doctrine of ‘substance in general’ is as follows. Properties—or, in Locke’s terms qualities—must belong to something—‘cannot subsist…without something to support them’. Of course, they belong to objects, but what are objects over and above their properties? The special category of substantial form, as found in Aristotle, is rejected. All that seems to be left is a bare ‘something’, which on pain of regress, has no properties in its own right, except the property of being the owner or support of other properties.
This interpretation of Locke’s notion of ‘substance in general’ is, however, a matter of controversy. It is contested whether Locke actually believed in substance as a characterless substratum. Although the first quotation above seems to affirm it, Locke also in the same section speaks disparagingly about the idea, comparing it to the notion that the world rests on an elephant, which rests on a tortoise, and so on: in other words, as not constituting a real explanation at all. Michael Ayers (1975, 1991b: 39–50) believes that the only substratum that Locke acknowledges is the unknown—and, Locke thinks, unknowable by us—structure of the minute parts. This is what he elsewhere characterizes as the real essence. It is clear from the text that Locke is at least uneasy with the idea of ‘pure substance in general’, but it is less clear whether he feels obliged to accept an idea he dislikes, or whether he rejects it. (For the view that he accepts it, and why, see Bennett, 1971 and 1987.)
There are indications that Locke is confused about what he means by ‘substratum’. He argues that the notion of spiritual substance is in no worse a predicament than material substance, because
we have as clear a notion of the substance of spirit as we have of body: the one being supposed to be (without knowing what it is) the substratum to those simple ideas we have from without; and the other supposed (with a like ignorance of what it is) to be the substratum to those operations which we experiment in ourselves within. ‘Tis plain then, that the idea of corporeal substance in matter, is as remote from our conceptions, and apprehensions, as that of spiritual substance, or spirit;…. (II 23 v)
This argument seems to conflate the notions of substratum as pure logical support with that as minute parts. If he means minute parts, then, though it is true that we do not and, in his view, cannot know in detail what they are, we have a theory, which he endorses, that they are probably minute parts as conceived by the atomists, which means they have primary qualities similar in kind though not in scale to those possessed by macroscopic objects. This gives a coherent, though speculative, conception of material substance. Of spiritual substance, we have no similar hypothesis. If, on the other hand, he means pure logical substratum, there is nothing to know, for there is no more to it, in either the material or spiritual case, than its role as substratum. He seems to conflate the ignorance we have of minute parts with the logical emptiness of the idea of pure substratum.
In fact there are three issues concerning the material underpinning of things which Locke regards as mysterious, and he seems to move indifferently from one to the other. First, there is organization of the minute parts of particular kinds of objects, which is responsible for the manifest properties of those objects, and which he thinks will always fall beyond our knowledge. Second is the mystery of what holds the minute parts together: the problem of explaining attraction in a system that only understands influence by impact. (xxiii 23). Third, is that idea of substance as a bare substratum, which is “a supposed, I know not what, to support those ideas we call accidents.” (xxiii 15).
Perhaps it is more profitable to ask whether, in his own terms, Locke ought to have accepted bare substratum. If we accept that the question of what binds together the qualities of a macroscopic object can be answered by appeal to the minute parts, the issue would then be what binds the primary qualities of atoms. Do the size, shape, mass, solidity of a particular atom require a bare substratum to inhere in for them to constitute a coherent object? Would they, without such a substratum be just a stack of qualities, a house of cards with nothing holding them together? There does not seem to be anywhere in the text where Locke discusses this problem—that is, the coherence of atoms as opposed to composite objects—explicitly. One possible resort is to treat solidity as the core or master quality and all the others as features of it. One would never ask what binds together a patch of colour and its shape, because the shape is the shape of the colour patch, and, though the shape of something can change, its shape cannot come away from it, like a separable component. Perhaps the shape, size and density of an atom are similarly features of the solidity. The quality solidity would then become equivalent to the notion of material stuff or material substance and Locke shows no sign of wanting to elide the ideas of quality and substance in this way, though it should be noted that this is what Descartes does with extension. Because he does not believe in void, extension carries with it the other basic properties of matter as features of it.
2.5.2 Locke on ‘ideas of particular sorts of substance’
The ideas of particular sorts of substance—called sortals—are formed
by collecting such combinations of simple ideas, as are by experience and observation of men’s senses, taken notice of to exist together, and are therefore supposed to flow from the particular internal constitution, or unknown essence of that substance. Thus we come to have the ideas of a man, horse, gold, water, etc… (II xxiii 3)
Thus, for Locke, the real essence is an unknown atomic constitution. The types that we categorize them in depend on the properties we happen to be able to perceive and kinds or sorts are defined in terms of these observable properties. Definition in these terms he calls ‘nominal essence’. Our concepts of natural substances presuppose that the nominal essence hides a real essence—that is, that all water, gold, horses etc are in some way similar at a microscopic level. But he both denies that these real essences play any role in the formation of our concepts and is deeply sceptical of our ever being able to discover what they are. His attitude towards the Aristotelian view is expressed later in the paragraph just quoted:
…a philosopher…whatever substantial forms he may talk of, has no other idea of those substances than what is framed by a collection of those simple ideas which are found in them….
Locke’s doctrine of sortals is in some respects realist and in some conceptualist or conventionalist. It is realist in at least the following ways.
The properties [ideas] in terms of which sortals are defined do correspond to real qualities and powers in the world. There is no sense in which these building blocks of reality are creatures of our conceptual scheme. The properties invoked by nominal essences are “supposed to flow from the particular internal constitution, or unknown essence of that substance”(xxiii 3). This internal constitution “makes the whole subsist by itself” (xxiii 6).
Thus Locke is entirely realist about individual bodies and their properties. He is more conventionalist, however, about their classification under particular sortals. There are four ways in which he is a conceptualist about particular substances, as we classify them.
There is nothing over and above the properties of an object corresponding to our substance concepts—nothing, that is, like a substantial form—present in the world. Sortals are entirely formed by our minds, in the light of the properties perceived to be in the world. The boundaries we draw between kinds of things are, to some degree at least, arbitrary and concept relative. I do not deny, but nature, in the constant production of particular beings, makes them… very much alike and of kin one to another: but I think it nevertheless true, that the boundaries of the species, whereby men sort them, are made by men…. (III vi 37: italics in original) The situation in (ii) is greatly aggravated by our ignorance of real essences. If we could know those more accurately, we would know better where to draw the boundaries. The disposition of properties in nature need not have been as it is and might actually contain oddities not corresponding to any of our sortals. Sortals, unlike Aristotelian species, place no constraints on how individual objects must or ought to be.
Locke’s contribution is, therefore, three-fold. He brings to centre stage the question of whether properties require some substratum or bare particular to inhere in or belong to. He asserts that the substantial nature of the physical world is the unknown structure of atomic parts, not a substantial form which reflects our usual concepts. Third, he develops a theory of substance which is realist about particular objects and their properties, but conceptualist or conventionalist about our classifications, within the constraints that the facts about particulars and properties impose.
There is one important context, however, where Locke does not appear to talk in a conventionalist way about sortal identity, but in a way that seems to be reminiscent of substantial forms. This is when he is discussing the individuation of living things. He understands ordinary bodies as mereological sums of atoms. As such, any change of particle constitutes a new object, for a mereological sum is individuated by its parts and a change of parts means a change of the object constituted by those parts. Treating ordinary, non-living, bodies as complex enduring objects is a matter of convention determined by the concepts we happen to possess. Living things, however, have a deeper principle of unity.
That being then one plant which has such an organization of parts in one coherent body, partaking of one common life, it continues to be the same plant as long as it partakes of the same life, though that life be communicated to new particles of matter vitally united to the living plant…. (Essay II.27.4)
One might wonder what this ‘common life’ is supposed to be, especially in the light of his rejection of Aristotelian ‘substantial forms’. Furthermore, it is tempting to argue that all coherent, solid bodies—such as a lump of rock or plasticene—have some principle of organization which persists through change. Living objects are simply the most dramatic case of this. (Though Peter van Inwagen (1990) defends the view that only living things and atoms are real entities: inanimate complex bodies are not true individuals.) Nevertheless, though the appeal to ‘life’ seems to modify Locke’s conventionalism, it still leaves open the possibility that the divisions we make between different species are conventions, because, though we can recognize life (or a ‘continuing principle of organization’) itself, it is still relatively arbitrary and concept-dependent where life (or ‘principle of organization’) of one kind ends and another starts. So our division of things into species, though grounded in real continuities in the way that our non-biological (or non-natural) concepts are not, is still nominal.
As we shall see, the idea that there is a real unity which is passed on through the life of an object or through any principle of organization is something that Hume criticizes and rejects.
The potential for a stronger realism in Locke has been exploited by Putnam and Kripke in their development of a modern, essentialist conception of natural kind terms. Locke was pessimistic in two connected respects. First he was sceptical about the possibility of science discovering the nature of the real essences—the structures of atoms or molecules—that underlie kinds of substance picked out by our ordinary sortals. Second, he doubted whether the objects picked out by our actual substance concepts really shared a real essence in the way we assume that they do. He was not confident, that is, that everything we call gold, or iron, or a monkey, was actually interestingly similar at a non-superficial level. Both these forms of pessimism proved largely unfounded. The consequence of this is the possibility of bringing together real essence and the sortal concepts originally picked out by a nominal essence. We now know water to be H2O and iron to be the element of atomic weight 56. Our substance concepts were, often at least, tracking real essences in the world. This involves reinterpreting the rationale of our substance concepts. Locke thought that our concept of gold was properly expressed as ‘anything gold in colour, malleable, soluble in aqua regia’. He thought that we add the optimistic assumption that there will be similarity at the microscopic level. What many philosophers, under Putnam’s influence, now think he should have said is that gold is that kind of thing which is individuated by a particular kind of minute structure that underlies the stuff which is gold in colour, malleable, soluble in aqua regia. In other words, our confidence that these kinds have a genuine real essence is built into the concept. If this is correct, then our ordinary ‘natural kind’ concepts, like water and gold, have built into them intimations of a deeper unity than that supplied by superficial features, even if it be allied to a complete agnosticism about what that unity might consist in or whether we might ever uncover it.
How does Locke, then, rate against the six criteria for substancehood that were set up in the introduction? Accepting, for these purposes, that Locke believed in substratum, we can apply these tests both to substratum, and to his ‘ideas of particular sorts of substance’.
First, consider substratum. (i) Ontological basicness. There is a sense in which it is ontologically basic, but it is a rather empty sense: it is the substancehood of everything, without explaining the nature of anything. (ii) Durability. Again, it meets the criterion, but in an empty way. It is difficult to see how it could be destroyed (like Aristotle’s prime matter) but it has no positive nature. (iii) and (iv) Bearer of predication and subject of change. As with matter for Aristotle, it meets the first of these standards well, but, in so far as it is a component only in atoms, it is not the subject of change. (v) and (vi) Kinds of individuals and stuffs. Although in everything, it is itself no kind of thing and therefore no kind of individual or stuff. Substratum’s claim to substancehood does not rest, however, on meeting the tests itself, but on being what enables particular kinds of substances to be substances. According to the believer in substratum, it is in virtue of their inhering in a substratum that a collection of properties can constitute an enduring, change-sustaining thing of a certain kind. Without that support, individual instances of properties could, if they could exist at all, be no more than ephemeral events.
We have seen that Locke’s particular substances are kinds of things, and because they are kinds they correspond to Aristotle’s secondary substances. But we have also seen that the boundaries between these kinds are largely a matter of convention, which is not true of Aristotle’s secondary substances. In so far as their individuation is dependent on human convention, they are not ultimately real in their own right. But though they are not real as kinds, the individual parcels of matter that we classify in these ways are perfectly real. Locke does not, as far as I can see, refer to these individuals as ‘substances’. Substances, considered as kinds, or instances of kinds, can sustain change—living things, for example, change in size throughout their lives. Most individual parcels of matter, however, become different individuals if they change any of their parts; although we have seen that this does not apply to living things, where there seems to be a metaphysical component called sameness of life.
In general, Locke’s particular substances are not ontologically basic, because their essences are nominal, though this is not so clearly true for sortals naming biological kinds. Locke’s conceptualism about such substances makes most of the tests irrelevant, which are cast within a realist framework. Locke’s ‘particular substances’ are kinds which are individuated conventionally, and so are not real substantial kinds, by Aristotelian standards. But Locke is not without substance other than substratum, for his real essence—that is, the atoms and their structures—are his real substances, and what we say above about the substantiality of atoms also goes for Locke.
It is plausible to maintain the general thesis that there are many issues on which Hume was a sceptic or nihilist, but where his legacy is more reductionist than sceptical or nihilist. This general thesis can be explained and illustrated by considering his treatment of substance, for it is a case in question.
According to Hume, in the Treatise, our belief in substance is the result of a mistake or illusion.
When we gradually follow an object in its successive changes, the smooth progress of the thought makes us ascribe an identity to the succession…When we compare its situation after a considerable change the progress of the thought is broken; and consequently we are presented with the idea of diversity: In order to reconcile which contradictions, the imagination is apt to feign something unknown and invisible, which it supposes to continue the same under all these variations; and this unintelligible something it calls a substance, or original and first matter. (1978: 220)
Hume’s target is any account that postulates a unifying ‘something’ that underlies change, whether this be a characterless substratum, a substantial form or (though this is not explicitly mentioned) something like the ‘continuing life’ that Locke sees as passed on in living things. The crucial point is that a succession of very similar things does not constitute the real continuation of anything, only the illusion of real continuation.
Thus Hume’s treatment of substance is like his treatment of causation, in that he sees both as the projection onto the world of a tendency of our minds either to pass from one thing to another or to associate them in some way. He either doubts that there are such things as substance or causation (scepticism) or even positively denies that there are (nihilism). Out of Hume’s very forthright negative attitude there developed two more subtle variants. One of these variants is in the empiricist tradition. That tradition modified Hume’s approach by developing it into a form of reductionism. The experiences which gave rise, through habit, to the mistaken belief (in, for example, substance or causation) are presented as what the belief really affirms. That is, the empirical basis for what Hume deems to be an illusion, is reinterpreted as the reductive account of the concept. Causation then becomes constant conjunction, or substance a name for a bundle of properties organized in a certain way or the continuing of the possibility of certain sensations.
Kant developed the other variant. He took Hume’s ‘tendencies of the mind to pass’ from one idea to another, without which we could not construct the world, and canonized them as a priori categories of the understanding. Hume’s empiricist emphasis is psychological. It concerns what we are habituated to do. Because of his empiricism, he will not bring non-psychological necessity into it. Nevertheless, there is the implication that making these transitions is the only way in which one can understand the world. Kant drops the empirical psychology and makes it a matter of a priori psychology, that only by employing certain categories could we have experience as of a physical world. It is only by understanding the world as possessing enduring spatio-temporal objects, which enter into causal relations with each other (that is, it is only by applying the categories of substance and causation) that we can have intelligible experience. Substances—that is, a framework of stable, enduring objects—are essential, but the source of this necessity lies not how the world is in itself, but in the framework which we are obliged to impose.
In the Kantian philosophy of P. F. Strawson (1959, 1966), this framework of necessity is taken in a more common-sense and realist spirit. The world must possess such enduring objects for it to be intelligible for us—indeed, for us to be part of it, for we are essentially stable bodies amongst other stable bodies. The important point for both Strawson and Kant is that there must be substances for there to be a coherent empirical, spatio-temporal world. Substance has become a formal concept of central importance—that is a concept with a special central role in the structure of our conceptual scheme—rather than being the name for certain kinds of important things in the world. This distinction, however, is one that has to be handled carefully, especially within a realist Kantian framework, such as Strawson provides. This should become clear below when we discuss Wiggins’s theory, which is both Aristotelian and Strawsonian. Nevertheless, it gives ground for adding the seventh of the marks of substance mentioned in the Introduction, namely that substances are those enduring particulars that give unity to our spatio-temporal framework and individuation and re-identification of which enables us to locate ourselves in that framework.
Two major areas of controversy require attention. First, there are the issues concerning how to characterize substance in contradistinction to properties and the other categories. There are at least two major questions here. One concerns defining the notion of substance. In particular, there has been much debate about whether substance can be accounted for in terms of its special kind of independence. The other is whether substancehood require some extra component beyond properties, (and, if so, what?) or whether a ‘bundle of properties’ theory of substance is adequate. Second there is the relation between substances and our practices of individuation and reidentification. In particular, we shall look at the issue of whether objects must be individuated under the kind of sortal expressions that correspond to Aristotelian substance concepts, or whether a more generic notion, such as physical body, will suffice. This latter concern will lead on to a consideration of the connection between substance and teleology.
One natural response to the question of what distinguishes substances from properties is that properties depend for their existence on substances, for they are properties of objects (that is, of individual substances), but that substances do not similarly depend on properties for their existence. The point cannot be made quite so simply, however. Properties could not exist without objects to be properties of, but neither could substances exist without properties, so the dependence appears to be mutual.
This problem can be overcome by more careful expression of the point, making it clear that we are not talking about properties in general and substances in general, but about particular instances or cases of a property and the particular objects to which they belong. A particular property instance cannot exist and could not have existed without the substance of which it is a property, but the particular substance can exist and could have existed without that property instance. Thus, a particular instance of colour cannot exist, and could not have existed, without the object of which it is the colour, but the object can exist without the colour instance, for it may change colour and remain the same object, or it could have had a different colour from the start.
Various problems can be raised for this account. The most obvious is that it does not, as stated, distinguish between substances and events. Some property-instances belong to events rather than substances. The performance of a symphony, for example, is an event, and it may possess the property, in one of its movements, of being allegro. It seems plausible that this particular case of something’s being allegro could not have been exemplified by another performance, but the performance might go on to be andante in another movement, so the event can continue to exist without that original property. The assimilation of events with substances in this way seems strained, however. It does not seem natural to say that the same event was first allegro, then andante, because it is more natural to attribute the different properties to different parts of the event, which are themselves events (in this case, movements). This brings out a major difference between substances and events, namely that the temporal parts of events are themselves events in their own right, but the temporal parts of objects—meaning by that expression the temporal phases of an object’s existence—are not themselves objects. Indeed, it is not natural to talk of the temporal parts of objects, though some philosophers (led by David Lewis (1986), but see also Sider (2001), Hawley (2001) and the entry on temporal parts) think that there are compelling philosophical reasons for doing so. The rationale implicit in our ordinary concept is that an object is wholly present at all the temporal points of its existence. I say ‘implicit rationale’, because it seems no more natural to speak of an object as being ‘wholly present at all temporal points of its existence’ than it is to say that it has objects as its temporal parts. Nevertheless, one does not think of a long-lived object as consisting of a series of short-lived objects stacked end to end, but one does think it natural to think of a drawn-out event as consisting of a series of shorter events. If it is not natural to think of objects as having objects as their temporal parts, this seems to commit one to thinking of objects as wholly present at all times of their existence, strange though this form of expression may also be.
The difference between substances, events and properties can now be expressed as follows. Substances and events are distinguished from properties by the fact that properties are the kinds of things the instances of which depend for their existence on the particular substance or event by which they are instantiated, whereas substances and events are such as not to depend for their existence on particular instances of properties. And substances are distinguished from events in the following way: events are those property-instantiators that, when they exist through time, are temporally composed of further things of the same category (i.e., events): substances are those property-instantiators that, when they exist through time, are not temporally composed of things of the same category (i.e., of substances) but endure singly through the period.
Lowe, in his (1998), which contains a very thorough discussion of all the topics discussed in this section, defends an ‘independence’ account of substance, which he states in terms of identity, as follows:
x is a substance if and only if x is a particular and there is no particular y such that y is not identical to x and the identity of x depends on the identity of y.
He considers two objections to his own account which would seem to apply to all independence accounts. One is that it cannot cope with essential properties, for it seems to imply that, for any given property-instance, a substance can exist without it, which is not true of essential properties. The other is that it cannot cope with the necessity of origin for individual identity.
Lowe responds to the former objection by saying that essential properties are identical with the substance, so cannot be cited as something other than substance that meets his criterion for being substance. It is not clear that this will work. The idea that the essence is identical with the substance is Aristotelian, but it is not clear how this applies to essential properties, taken individually. We have already seen, in our discussion of Aristotle, that the relation between the essence as some kind of unity and the properties that seem to constitute it is not clear. He copes with the second by denying that origin is essential to identity. Unfortunately, he argues for this position by citing human subjects: Socrates, for example, would still have been who he was even if he had had different parents. This is, of course, controversial about humans, but it is our Cartesian intuitions that make it plausible in that case. That this table, for example, could have been the same object even if made from different material does not have the same plausibility.
Whether these objections to the above versions of the independence account can be answered is unclear. Hoffman and Rosenkrantz (1994 and 1997) develop a different, though probably not incompatible, conception of the relative independence of substances compared to other categories. Substance, they say, is the only category of thing which might have only one instance through at least a minimally extended period of time. Thus, for example, there is no possible world which has, in a given period of time, only one event, for any non-instantaneous event will be made of events which are its parts. Similarly for properties or tropes, there can never be only one because any one entails the existence of others, as, for example, the existence of a red property (instance) entails the existence of (an instance of) the property colour. By contrast, there could exist through a period of time just one substance, provided that it was atomic.
As Mackie (2000) points out, the full statement of this theory involves various relatively ad hoc restrictions. More importantly, it does not seem to explain what unifies the category of substance, for it does not say that it is true of any substance that it could conceivably be the only substance existing for a period of time—indeed, it could not apply to non-atomic substances, for complex ones can exist only if other substances—those that constitute their parts—also exist. It implies only that something from the category of substance might so exist and that this could not be true of any other category. One might wonder what enabled substances that could not exist alone to count as substances at all.
If either of the above accounts are successful, substances, properties and events are distinguished. The question remains, however, how far these are nominal and how far real distinctions. That there is a difference between substance concepts and property concepts has definitely been shown, but does it follow that there are, in reality two different kinds of thing, namely properties and substances? The answer might seem to be obvious. Given that there are substance concepts, if those concepts are instantiated, then there are substances in reality. Cat, table, human being, are substance concepts by the above accounts, and there are cats, tables and humans, so there are substances in reality as well as properties.
The matter is not so simple, however. It is possible, and not uncommon, for concepts of a certain kind to be exemplified, but for it to be the case that, nevertheless, entities answering directly to those concepts are not included in the most economical statement of one’s ontology. This is reductionism, and it can operate in either of two ways, namely either analytical reductionism or what one might call de facto or ‘nothing but’ reductionism. In the present case, it would conform to the analytical option if the concept of substance could be analysed in terms of properties or events (e.g., ‘to be a substance =df to be a collection of properties bound together in way W’). But one might still hold that, though the concept of substance is not precisely analysable and is indispensible, substances in fact are nothing but collections of properties. This latter is the de facto option. So the existence of substances does not show that the concept is important from a philosophical perspective, or, if it has some significance, whether this is just as a necessary part of our conceptual scheme, or as an ineliminable feature of reality itself.
3.2.1 Bundle theories and their problems
We have just noted that there could be analytically reductionist or de facto reductionist accounts of substance in terms of properties. It is also the case that the properties might be conceived of as universals, or as individuals—that is, property-instances, which are sometimes called ‘tropes’. There are, therefore, four options for the bundle theorist.
The concept of substance can be analysed in terms of some relation between properties conceived as universals. The concept of substance can be analysed in terms of properties conceived of as individuals, e.g., as property-instances or tropes. Substances are in fact no more than bundles of properties conceived of as universals. Substances are in fact no more than bundles of properties conceived of as individuals.
The main objections to the ‘universals’ form of the theory rest on its apparent commitment to the Identity of Indiscernibles, for if an object is no more than a bundle of properties, then if a and b have exactly the same properties, they are the same bundle. Whether it does carry this commitment may depend on whether one allows spatial points as particulars, in addition to the properties that are universal. If one did, then the universal theories would not entail the identity of indiscernibles, for the same universals could be in two bundles by being at two different locations.
If properties are conceived of as individuals—otherwise known as tropes, property-instances or individualized forms—then there cannot be a problem about the distinctness of exactly similar bundles, for the difference is built into the identity of the elements of the bundle, as it is not if the bundle is made of universals. The problem for this version of the bundle theory seems to be that it is difficult to individuate or distinguish tropes in a way that makes them suitable to be individuals—in one sense, the substances—from which objects are made. (Armstrong 1989, 115ff) For example, if an object has a size, a mass, and a motion, are the size and the mass different tropes and is it not strange to think of the size alone as a genuine particular suited to be treated as an ‘atomic’ component of the whole? One way out of this problem may be to resort to the notion of a master property which was invoked in the discussion of Locke on substratum (2.5.1); that is, to the notion of one property of which all the others are modes, as visual shape is a mode of colour, or extension is the master property of matter for Descartes. In the Newtonian model, solidity might fill this role, for shape is merely the outline of the solidity which constitutes the heart of the object. In a sense, theories of this kind are not ordinary bundle theories, for one property is chosen to fill the role of substratum, because the other properties inhere in, or are modes of, it. Whether anything could perform this role from amongst the properties that are basic to modern, post-Newtonian physics—properties such as charm, energy, spin and mass—is not easy to judge.
One objection often made against the theory is that bundles are mereological sums, rather like Locke’s ‘masses of matter’, and that, therefore, any change of property is a change in the identity of the object. Various forms of essentialist solutions to this problem have been suggested, for example, by Simons (1994), and Barker and Jago (2018). I must admit to having difficulties seeing why the view that objects are constituted solely out of property-instances should commit one to a mereological view, any more than the theory that they are constituted solely from material particles would, so I do not see this as a special problem for the bundle theory.
3.2.2. The concept of substratum or ‘thin particular’
If one is not satisfied with a bundle theory of substance, so that one thinks that an individual substance is more than a collection of properties, how is one to understand this ‘more’? This question can be given a deflationary or a substantive answer. The deflationary answer is that a substance is a thing which has properties, and that is all one needs to say. (See, for example, Crane and Farkas 2004, 143f, and Chisholm 1969.) An object is not composed of properties and some further ingredient—the ‘thingy’ bit—an object is something which simply has properties. Any feature of it can, of course, be regarded as a property, but that does not render an object nothing but a collection of properties. There seems to be a clash of intuitions at this point about what makes sense. An opponent of the deflationary view will say that properties, however understood, must be components of objects, conceptually or formally speaking. If they are not the only components in this sense, one must say something about the nature of the rest. The deflationist thinks that this line of thought embodies some kind of category mistake in the way it handles the idea of a component. The anti-deflationist will argue that the fact that we are talking about components only in a conceptual sense does not alter the fact that we are obliged, once we start, to offer an account that is complete and distinguishes the various elements.
Bennett offers one way out of the need to postulate a mysterious substratum.
When I say ‘This is an orange’ I mean that there are here instances of certain properties such as orangeness, sphericality etc., and I indicate that I am operating on my ideas of those instances in a certain combining manner. (1987: 202. Italics added.)
This solution, as Bennett recognizes, makes substancehood a function of how we operate on the properties we perceive. It is, in that sense, more Kantian than realist. As what it recognizes as out there in the world is just a bundle of properties, it does not dissolve the problem in the way that a deflationist would require.
Substantive theories take the thought of a further component seriously, and, though they do not seem to be generally distinguished, there are two main conceptions of this extra element, which I will call the ‘thin particular’ and the ‘substratum’ conceptions. ‘Thin particular’ is an expression of D. M. Armstrong’s. It is the particular in abstraction from its properties. When considered with its properties it is a thick particular. The important point is that thin particulars really are particulars. ‘Bertrand Russell might have been a fried egg’: that is, the thin particular associated with one set of properties and, hence, with one thing, might have belonged to another. Different properties might have been hung on this hook. It is not so clear, by contrast, that a substratum of the kind Locke considers, or like Aristotle’s prime matter, is a particular in this sense. It is more like a kind of stuff—the substantiveness on to which properties are stuck. On this conception, the suggestion that the ‘piece’ of substratum or ‘prime matter’ that is here in object a, might always instead have been there in object b, seems to lack content.
It is useful at this point to take note of the three different functions the thin particular or substratum might fulfil. Its role might be (i) to bind the properties into a unity, so that they do not ‘fall apart’: (ii) to individualize them, if they are universals: (iii) to carry one across the categorial barrier from property to substance; that is, to be what it is that makes something to be in the category of substance.
The first role will not be necessary if one thinks that there is a ‘master property’ of which the others are modes, or if one thinks that unity can come from some causal or organizational connection. (ii) will not apply to a tropist theory, or if one thinks that location will do the job. (iii) rests on the intuition that no collection of properties could, in themselves, amount to a substance: the very idea is a category mistake, and only the presence of a special ‘substantializing’ element could do that. It might be argued that this intuition begs the question against the bundle theory. At the current state of the debate, it looks as if there is no compelling reason for accepting substratum.
The Aristotelian tradition anchors the concept of substance, at least in nature, primarily to instances of species of natural object. The Kantian tradition ties it to those enduring bodies the individuation of which gives sense and structure to our spatio-temporal framework. David Wiggins (1967, 1980, 2001) has made a sustained attempt to prove that these two objectives necessarily go together and to make the Aristotelian notion of substance, even including its bias towards the biological, central to our practice of individuating objects.
Wiggins assumes that individuating a temporally enduring object involves being able to re-identify it at different times and under different descriptions. This assumption makes it possible to state substance individuation using the language of identity. Within the scope of this assumption, he makes two claims. The first is the sortal relativity of identity: that is, when any a and b are asserted to be the same thing, they must be the same something-or-other, and the something-or-other must be the kind of concept that answers ‘what is it?’ questions. In other words, there is no such a thing as ‘bare identity’—identity under no concept at all. Furthermore, the relevant concept must be an Aristotelian substance concept or sortal. More formally, this can be expressed as follows:
If a = b then (a) there is a sortal F such that: a is an F b is an F a is the same F as b.
The second claim is that is that if the object picked out by ‘a’ also falls under another sortal, G, then so will the object picked out by ‘b’, and it will be the same G as a. This is represented as an application of Leibniz’s Law, for if a is the-same-G-as-a (as it must be) then, as a = b, b must be the-same-G-as-a.
(b) for any sortal G, a is G iff b is G, if a is G then b is the same G as a.
The conclusion is striking because it is a denial that a and b might be identical under one form of identification, but not under another. In fact it implies that every individuable object falls under just one ultimate sortal. (Wiggins admits this in (2001: 67 n.7). What is meant by ultimate sortal will emerge below.) For every ultimate sortal has its own principle of individuation, and if an object fell under more than one, there could be a time at which it satisfied the criteria for one and not for the other. Wiggins’s thesis is a very strong claim, apparently backed up by a powerful argument. It is a strong claim for it purports to prove that any world with individuable objects must be constituted by Aristotelian substances. The argument is powerful because it follows by simple logic, granted seemingly plausible claims about identity, and Leibniz’s Law.
On the other hand, there seem to be many cases of objects which can be identified under a variety of concepts, leading to different life histories. This is termed relativity of identity. For example, a and b may be the same person but not the same child because b is a grown up and no longer a child. Or a and b may be the same lump of clay but not the same statue because b is the lump after it has been reshaped out of its statue shape. These are the most typical kinds of counter examples and Wiggins has responses to both. He deals with the first by invoking the concept of a phase sortal. A phase sortal is one that, by its meaning, denotes part of the life history of something, which, as a whole, is denoted by another sortal. So child is a phase sortal which applies to a phase of the things fully designated by human being. This illuminates an important aspect of the concept of a sortal. It is a necessary condition for F’s being an ultimate sortal that, whenever it applies to something, it applies in a present-tensed manner to the thing through the whole of its existence.
The statue and the lump of clay are dealt with by denying that the lump and the statue are identical: the lump of clay constitutes the statue, but is not identical with it. Notice that he could have argued that the statue was just a phase of the lump, but he does not do so because statue is not, by its very meaning, a phase sortal: statue, unlike child, does not indicate by its meaning a period in the existence of something.
So Wiggins deals with objections mainly by two distinctions. One is between sortals which apply to objects through the whole of their existence, and sortals appropriate only to a phase of their existence: the other is between the ‘is’ of identity and the ‘is’ of constitution. Correspondingly, criticism centres on whether the concepts under which we pick things out behave in as regimented a way as Wiggins requires, and on whether the ‘is’ of constitution is sufficiently different from the ‘is’ of identity to perform the task he wants of it.
3.3.1 The discipline of sortal identification
There are certain kinds of counter-example that Wiggins does not discuss in print. There might, for example, be a sword-stick, which has its blade removed and the inside of the cane filled with resin, so that it ceases to be a sword but remains the same walking stick. Walking stick and sword are perfectly good concepts for picking out objects, if any artifactual terms are, and, on pain of excessive artificiality, a sword stick is both a sword and a walking stick. This kind of example does not appear to occur amongst natural objects, but, as a swordstick is a perfectly good reidentifiable object, this fact about natural objects would seem to be a contingent truth about them. Of course, it is not an accident that nature works that way, but neither is it a conceptual requirement. Wiggins’s original proof was a priori, and it should allow no exceptions. Wiggins’s response to this example (in personal communication) is that the sword-stick ceases to exist when it loses its ability to function as a sword and is replaced by a walking stick. But this response too is ad hoc. It embodies the principle that if anything is both an F and a G, where F and G are normally ordinary sortals, then it is really an F/G and ceases to exist if it loses either its F or its G features and is replaced by something that is either just an F or just a G/
One possible way out of this kind of case is to say that the sword is a phase of the walking stick, thereby introducing ad hoc phase sortals. By the expression ‘ad hoc phase sortal’ I mean a sortal that can be used sometimes as a phase sortal, designating an object only through part of its existence, and sometimes as an ultimate sortal, designating an object through the whole of its existence. Of course, even normal phase sortal might, contingently, in a given instance, designate an object through the whole of its existence. One might say that the phase sortal baby could designate something through the whole of its existence if, for example, a human being died at the age of six months and hence never got beyond babyhood. But it remains the case that, by dint of the meaning of the term, a baby is a phase of a human being (or, perhaps, some other animal) even when a particular creature fails to get beyond that phase. A sword is not, however, in virtue of the meaning of the word ‘sword’, a phase of anything, and to use the term to name a phase of something in a given case, when it suits, is ad hoc. Allowing sortals of this kind would put the concept of sortal under pressure, for an ultimate sortal was originally thought to be a kind of concept that necessarily characterizes an object present-tensedly throughout its existence, not a concept that sometimes does and sometimes does not. If it were possible for a given sortal, such as sword, sometimes to be an ultimate sortal and sometimes a phase sortal, it is not clear how such an expression would differ from an expression such as brown thing, which may or may not characterize something through the whole of its existence. But it is vital that the distinction between sortals, phase or ultimate, and expressions such as brown thing be clearly maintained, if the notion of sortal is to serve any formal purpose.
More importantly, that there are no ad hoc sortals is essential to the significance of the formal proof that there is no such thing as relative identity. In logic and in the application of Leibniz’s Law, ‘a is F’ is normally equivalent to ‘a was, is or will be F’, otherwise the Law would not apply to such accidental properties as ‘is brown’. This is also the way phase sortals work: a human being is, was, or will be a baby. The argument against relative identity works by arguing that, if one allowed relative identity, a contradiction would follow, namely that one would get a situation in which a is G, a = b and b is not G. For this to be a contradiction, ‘is G’ must be univocal in both cases as either ‘—was, is or will be G’ or ‘—is at all times G’. For there is no inconsistency in a is, was, or will be G, a = b, and b is not at all times G. But if, whenever a contradiction is generated, one deems one of the sortals to be a phase sortal, and so to fall under the ‘is, was, or will be’ rubric, and the other to be the ultimate sortal which applies at all times, no contradiction will ever arise. All the cases of putative relative identity could be reconciled with Leibniz’s Law by deeming one of the sortals to be operating as a phase sortal in this instance.
Another possible line is that a swordstick is not one object, but two objects that share some of their matter. This introduces a category of what one might call Siamese objects. It can be argued, however, that allowing this kind of entity undermines Wiggins’s opposition to those, like Ayers, who think that the concept for reidentifying objects is, or often is, something more generic than sortal concepts; something akin to material body. To see how this may come about, we must consider the rationale for Ayers’s theory.
The fact that sortals do not seem to follow the discipline that Wiggins wishes for them might be taken to support the view that substances can be individuated under much more generic notions, such as same body or same material thing. (Ayers 1991a). On this view, material cohesion is what picks out paradigmatic physical things. Wiggins regards these ideas as too generic to be adequate on their own. Such a concept cannot be
understood except as determinable that has dog, horse, ball, [etc] among its determinations. (1997: 417–8)
Ayers, on the other hand, thinks that Wiggins takes the notion of body too loosely, because he [Wiggins] classifies as ‘lump-mass terms’ everything from bars of soap and pats of butter to pools of water and pots of stew. (Ayers 1991b: 229–30) Wiggins, in other words, does not take seriously enough the cohesiveness of real bodies, conflating them too easily with looser masses of matter. One natural thought is that we can reidentify middle-sized physical bodies that have fairly stable properties, irrespective of whether there is any interesting sortal term under which they fall. This is not to say that they could be reidentified under the purely generic notions body or physical thing, if there were no continuity of manifest properties.
That this may be a powerful criticism of Wiggins’s view can be seen by considering the notion of a Siamese object, which seemed to be necessary to answer the kind of problem posed by the swordstick. The physical mass that houses both the sword and the walking stick can be identified independently of either. If this were not the case it is difficult to see how one could even make the mistake of thinking of it as one thing. The composites Siamese entities form are quite identifiable, and yet that entity is not supposed to fall under a sortal in its own right.
The ontological status of complex bodies and ‘masses of matter’ (in Locke’s phrase) is an issue very much under dispute and we shall return to it below.
3.3.2 The ‘is’ of constitution
A statue and a lump of clay occupy the same place at a given time. What is their relation to each other? The apparent options are (i) they are identical (ii) they are not identical, but the clay constitutes the statue. (i) appears to be ruled out because they have different identity conditions. (ii) has seemed to many philosophers to be the natural solution to the problem, but it, too, faces difficulties. First, it has the intuitive disadvantage that it allocates two solid physical objects to the same place. Each of them weighs, say, ten pounds, yet the total of their weight is only ten pounds. It might seem natural to think—and it was formerly a well established maxim—that there can be only one solid physical thing at one place at a given time. Someone impressed by the idea that two bodies cannot be in the same place at the same time might think it more natural to say that there are two different ways of conceptualizing the material presence at that point, than that there are two material things. That way it is easy to see why two ten pound objects need not add up to twenty pounds when put together.
Second, the language of constitution is more natural if the situation is described in some ways rather than others. It is natural to say that the statue is made of clay or even from a piece of clay. But suppose one characterizes the clay more exactly, in terms of the particular atoms in a particular arrangement. Strictly, on modal grounds, this structured collection and the statue are different. The statue could have been made of a collection of atoms with at least some different members, but the entity defined as containing just those atoms could not. This entity—atoms A 1 …A n in given spatial arrangement S—is not a very natural kind of object, but it is a real body, in a way that something arbitrarily composed of, for example, half of this table and two toes from President Bush’s left foot is not. This collection of atoms in this structure is what investigation would show to be really there. Though it is natural to say that the statue is constituted by the atoms, it is less natural to say that the atoms and the structure taken together, are what it is made from: rather it might seem natural to say that that is what it is. To use the Aristotelian terminology, there is strong pressure to say that atoms and structure together are matter and form, and hence are the complete individual.
All these issues are very controversial, and different philosophers have different intuitions. (See, for example, Rea 1997.) But, if one were to conclude that the statue and the lump are neither identical nor stand in the constitution relation, what else could one say? One strategy is to take the notion of body or material object as basic. In the next section, this possibility is compared with other options.
3.3.3 A possible reconciliation of Wiggins and Ayers.
As we saw above, for Wiggins the concept ‘body’ is always generic, never sufficient in its own right to sustain identification, needing to be filled out by appeal to a more determinate sortal, such as ‘dog’ or ‘table’. Call this ‘sortalism’.
For Ayers, on the other hand the notion of a coherent, unified body or material object is the basic notion for individuating objects and is presupposed by sortal concepts. It is only in so far as dogs and tables are unified bodies that these notions can be used to individuate objects. Call this ‘somatism’.
We saw, briefly, in section 3.3.1., why Wiggins and Ayers think as they do. Although van Inwagen’s position is different from both, his reasons for thinking that the concept of a complex body is, of its own, an inadequate concept, are consistent with Wiggins’s claim that the idea is too determinable to function in its own right. Van Inwagen, therefore, more directly challenges Ayers. (For a brief discussion of van Inwagen’s argument, see section 3.4 below.)
How might we choose between sortalism and somatism? The dispute between them can seem difficult to pin down. Perhaps an irenic compromise is possible. Metaphysically, this compromise favours the somatist, but seems to give the sortalist everything he should want. The principle of the compromise is that Wiggins’s formal argument is correct: and hence it is necessarily true that Relative Identity is not possible. But it is only a contingent truth that the terms that can substitute for F in his formal proof are generally—but not always—sortals of an Aristotelian kind. Anything can be substituted for F which picks the object out as a unified body.
Take Wiggins’s formula, a = F b, where it is assumed that the F is a material object (not God or a spirit etc). The following theses might plausibly be maintained.
For any identifiable and re-identifiable object, there must be some predicate F which applies to it in a present-tense manner through the whole of its existence, and which, by its meaning, picks the object out as a unified physical whole. All natural ultimate sortals designate unified physical bodies in the manner prescribed in (1), and so are very suitable as substitutions for F. It is logically possible, however, that this might not have been so (there might logically have been natural sortals that worked like swordstick), but that they do follow this model, and are not like swordstick, is a pretty deep fact about our world and about any world with similar laws of nature to those that hold in our world. Artifactual sortals generally designate distinct, unified bodies (as do ‘sword’ and ‘walking stick’ in the ordinary cases), though exceptions ( as in the case of the swordstick considered above) are more common and less fantastic than in the natural cases. There are acceptable substitutions for F which would not normally be classified as sortals, but using concepts such as piece, or hunk or lump of stuff. In at least some of these cases, there is no sortal available. ‘[Unified] body’ could always do the job of F, because other, more specific, terms work just because the things they designate are unified bodies. On its own, ‘same body’ is just not very explanatory.
The account given in these five points has the advantage that it is compatible with the fact that most identities involving reidentification are categorizable under sortals, but that there are other cases—such as ‘piece of…’, ‘hunk of…’—where this is not so. It also avoids the need to employ the ‘“is” of constitution’ to link sortals and particulars, like lumps and hunks, rather than just mass terms, such as ‘clay’ or ‘gold’. The case where the lump and the sortally individuated object do not coincide, applies only to some problematic artefactual cases, and in those cases the sortal name of the artefact will not be suitable substitute for F, but the ‘lump’ expression will be. In that way, it will be possible to avoid the need to have two material objects in the same place.
Since about the mid 1990s there has developed a debate covering similar territory to that disputed by Wiggins and Ayers, but having rather different roots. It claims to be a revival of a broadly Aristotelian hylomorphism, but it comes mainly from disputes in mereology.
David Lewis famously propounded the doctrine of Unrestricted Composition: that is, any combination of things in the world con |
Buy Photo Quentin Bird at a preliminary hearing in April. He is accused of killing his pregnant ex-girlfriend and her unborn child. (Photo: Stephanie Ingersoll/The Leaf-Chronicle)Buy Photo
A Clarksville man is facing additional murder charges after he was indicted this month and charged with killing both his girlfriend and her 8-month-old fetus.
Quentin Bird, 22, was indicted by the December grand jury on six counts in the stabbing death of 20-year-old Allison Tenbarge and her fetus at his Fairview Lane apartment on April 18.
He was originally charged with criminal homicide and had his case bound over to a grand jury in June.
►RELATED: Pregnant woman stabbed 21 times in slaying by ex-boyfriend, police say
According to the indictments, Bird "unlawfully, feloniously, intentionally and with premeditation" killed Allison Leigh Tenbarge by repeatedly stabbing her with a knife causing her to suffer fatal injuries.
The attack also intentionally killed Parker Jackson Tenbarge, a fetus in a stage of gestation in utero, by stabbing his mother.
The indictment charges Bird with two counts of premeditated, first-degree murder, two counts of felony murder and two counts of especially aggravated kidnapping.
According to testimony at his preliminary hearing, Bird stabbed his ex-girlfriend at least 21 times and could face the death penalty when the case goes to trial.
At a preliminary hearing in General Sessions Court, Clarksville Police Detective Eric Ewing testified that after Bird was tracked down in Kentucky, he confessed.
Allison Tenbarge had broken off the relationship a few days earlier and moved back to Kentucky but went to the apartment the morning of April 18 with a female friend to get her belongings.
Bird left work after finding out she was there and they argued, with Tenbarge accusing Bird of seeing other women.
Bird told Ewing that Tenbarge slapped him twice.
"He said she had slapped him and a switch flipped and he stabbed her two or three times," Ewing testified.
Tenbarge's friend left the apartment briefly after Bird asked her to buy him some gum and when she returned, he was gone and no one answered the door.
Bird texted her several times saying he was with Tenbarge running errands, but when police went to the apartment for a welfare check several hours later, they found her dead inside.
Clarksville Police tracked down Bird the day after the slaying with the help of OnStar in his Camaro and the Kentucky State Police and U.S. Marshals.
After the preliminary hearing, Assistant District Attorney Robert Nash told The Leaf-Chronicle that he planned to examine the autopsy file and may seek the death penalty because Allison Tenbarge was eight months pregnant.
"The victim was close to giving birth," Nash said. "It's a very serious matter. In this case, it is definitely being considered."
►RELATED: Man charged with killing pregnant ex-girlfriend in Clarksville
Reach Reporter Stephanie Ingersoll at [email protected] or 931-245-0267 and on Twitter @StephLeaf
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South Korean national flags hang on a barbed-wire fence near the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas in Paju, South Korea, on Aug. 14. (Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters)
It has become the ultimate symbol of American resolve against the threat of North Korea: a visit by the U.S. commander in chief to "freedom's frontier," the heavily guarded demilitarized zone that has separated the North and South for 64 years.
Wearing bomber-style jackets, surrounded by military officers, peering through binoculars, all but one president since Ronald Reagan have gazed across the barren strip of land at the 38th parallel from an observation post where they've been moved to talk tough. In April, Vice President Pence, undertaking the same solemn ritual, said he toured the DMZ so the North Koreans could "see our resolve in my face."
But as President Trump prepares for a 12-day swing through five Asian nations next month to bolster international pressure on Pyongyang, the administration is divided over whether he should make the pilgrimage, an issue that remains unresolved. Some aides worry a visit could further inflame already heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula, while others have expressed concern over Trump's personal safety, according to people who have spoken to administration officials.
Asian foreign policy veterans of both the Obama and George W. Bush administrations said it would be foolish for Trump not to go. But the White House is facing opposition from South Korean President Moon Jae-in's administration and the U.S. State Department over fears that a visit would ratchet up Trump's war of words with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.
A White House spokesman declined to comment, saying the administration was not ready to release the full itinerary for Trump's trip, which is scheduled to last from Nov. 3 to Nov. 14.
Vice President Pence arrives at the border village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone in April. (Lee Jin-man/Associated Press)
Asked during a news conference this week whether a DMZ visit would provoke Pyongyang, Trump said the trip's details were not finalized and added: "I didn't hear in terms of provoking, but we will certainly take a look at that."
Trump has already done plenty of provoking amid reports that North Korea's ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs are making more-rapid advances than expected. Trump has repeatedly mocked Kim as "Little Rocket Man," and he declared during a United Nations speech last month that the United States is prepared to "totally destroy" the North if necessary.
Kim has responded with his own harsh rhetoric by calling Trump a "mentally deranged U.S. dotard" and by threatening to strike Guam and test a nuclear device over the Pacific Ocean.
Trump will have plenty of other chances to talk tough, starting with a tour of the Pearl Harbor military base in Hawaii on his way to Asia. In Tokyo, the president is scheduled to meet with the parents of a Japanese girl kidnapped by North Korean agents four decades ago, and in Seoul, he will deliver a speech to the South Korean National Assembly.
President Obama at Observation Post Ouellette in the Demilitarized Zone in 2012. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/Associated Press)
But current and former U.S. officials said a presidential visit to the DMZ sends a more pointed message to the American and South Korean troops who patrol the border region just 30 miles north of Seoul — as well as the enemy forces on the other side — that the United States remains committed to the bilateral defense treaty that has been in place since the armistice that halted fighting in the Korean War in 1953.
"The DMZ functions as a kind of amplifier," said Daniel Russel, who served as assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs under President Barack Obama and is now a senior fellow at the Asia Society. "The message takes on a more martial and ominous tone when it comes out of a military command post on North Korea's doorstep."
George H.W. Bush is the only president since Reagan toured the DMZ in 1983 not to visit, although Bush did make his own trip while serving as Reagan's vice president.
Obama visited the DMZ during a 2012 trip to Seoul for a nuclear summit, telling the troops that "the contrast between South Korea and North Korea could not be clearer, could not be starker, both in terms of freedom but also in terms of prosperity."
In 1993, President Bill Clinton told reporters during a DMZ tour that if the North ever used nuclear weapons "it would be the end of their country." Clinton walked so far across the "Bridge of No Return" that joins the two Koreas that U.S. Secret Service agents reportedly brought rifles into the area to protect him, in violation of the Korean War cease-fire.
Officials in Seoul and Tokyo are eager for Trump to reaffirm his commitment to the U.S. defense treaties with the East Asian allies. The president has unsettled Moon and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe by criticizing U.S. trade imbalances with those nations, pulling out of a 12-nation Asia-Pacific trade accord and demanding a renegotiation of a bilateral trade pact with South Korea that Obama signed in 2011.
President Clinton takes the lens caps off a pair of army binoculars after looking through them and not getting a very good view from the Oulette guard post in the demilitarized zone. (Greg Gibson/Associated Press)
At the same time, Moon's advisers fear that a Trump visit to the DMZ could increase the chances of a miscalculation that could provoke a military confrontation or have other unintended consequences, such as harming Asian financial markets or disrupting planning for the Winter Olympics, which will be held in February in PyeongChang, South Korea.
Evan Medeiros, who served as senior Asia director at the National Security Council under Obama, said Trump "needs to be crystal clear" on the U.S. position on North Korea and suggested that the costs of not visiting the DMZ could be greater than going.
"If he doesn't go, guess what the next story is?" said Medeiros, who accompanied Vice President Joe Biden to the DMZ in 2013.
Already some foreign policy experts are mocking the White House's hesitation. On Tuesday, Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear nonproliferation expert who operates a popular Twitter account, included a chicken emoji with his retweet of a South Korean news report that U.S. and South Korean officials were steering Trump away from the DMZ.
Former U.S. officials emphasized that Trump's national security team could craft a visit that achieves the symbolic message — speaking to the troops, touring Observation Post Ouellette — without directly provoking the North with hostile words.
But they acknowledged that the president, who would be accompanied by reporters, is prone to straying off message.
"We've never had a president go to the DMZ who has implied the U.S. is preparing for preventative war with North Korea," said Michael Green, who served as senior Asia director at the NSC under President George W. Bush.
In February 2002, Bush visited the DMZ less than a month after he had called North Korea, Iran and Iraq the "axis of evil" during his State of the Union address. The president's speechwriters proposed having Bush deliver remarks akin to Reagan's seminal "tear down this wall" speech in West Berlin in 1987.
George W. Bush gazes out at North Korea from Observation Point Ouellette in the demilitarized zone in 2002. (J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE/Associated Press)
But Green said Bush's team eventually came to conclude that such a moment could be misinterpreted as a provocative call for regime change in Pyongyang. Instead, they sent him to the Dorasan train station near the border to call on the North to open an uncompleted railway between the two countries.
"Like the United States, South Korea has become a beacon of freedom, showing to the world the power of human liberty to bring down walls and uplift lives," said Bush, who also visited the DMZ observation post. "Today, across the mines and barbed wire, that light shines brighter than ever. It shines not as a threat to the North but as an invitation." |
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From: "Miranda, Luis" <[email protected]> To: Mark Paustenbach <[email protected]> Subject: RE: Bernie narrative Thread-Topic: Bernie narrative Thread-Index: AQHRs8AvQtUQ9aKs30KucVWjje9Zyp/EG7Pk Date: Sat, 21 May 2016 17:34:09 -0700 Message-ID: <[email protected]> References: <CAPnVDtc=qGEycCVqA_JVHnN8oyN_5uzHzepXyhR97+tHRtE_8g@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <CAPnVDtc=qGEycCVqA_JVHnN8oyN_5uzHzepXyhR97+tHRtE_8g@mail.gmail.com> Content-Language: en-US X-MS-Has-Attach: X-MS-Exchange-Organization-SCL: -1 X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="_000_05E01258E71AC046852ED29DFCD139D54DF32AF5dncdag1dncorg_" MIME-Version: 1.0 --_000_05E01258E71AC046852ED29DFCD139D54DF32AF5dncdag1dncorg_ Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable True, but the Chair has been advised to not engage. So we'll have to leave it alone. ________________________________ From: Mark Paustenbach [[email protected]] Sent: Saturday, May 21, 2016 8:23 PM To: Miranda, Luis Subject: Bernie narrative Wondering if there's a good Bernie narrative for a story, which is that Ber= nie never ever had his act together, that his campaign was a mess. Specifically, DWS had to call Bernie directly in order to get the campaign = to do things because they'd either ignored or forgotten to something critic= al. She had to call Bernie after the data breach to make his staff to respond t= o our concerns. Even then they didn't get back to us, which is why we had t= o shut off their access in order to get them to finally let us know exactly= how they snooped around HFA's data. Same was true with the standing committee appointments. They never got back= to us with their names (HFA and even O'Malley got there's in six weeks ear= lier) for the committees. So, again, the chair had to call Bernie personall= y for his staff to finally get us critical information. So, they gave us an= awful list just a few days before we had to make the announcements. It's not a DNC conspiracy, it's because they never had their act together. --_000_05E01258E71AC046852ED29DFCD139D54DF32AF5dncdag1dncorg_ Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable <html dir=3D"ltr"> <head> <meta http-equiv=3D"Content-Type" content=3D"text/html; charset=3Diso-8859-= 1"> <style type=3D"text/css" id=3D"owaParaStyle"></style> </head> <body fpstyle=3D"1" ocsi=3D"0"> <div style=3D"direction: ltr;font-family: Tahoma;color: #000000;font-size: = 10pt;">True, but the Chair has been advised to not engage. <div><br> </div> <div>So we'll have to leave it alone. </div> <div><br> <div style=3D"font-family: Times New Roman; color: #000000; font-size: 16px= "> <hr tabindex=3D"-1"> <div id=3D"divRpF822574" style=3D"direction: ltr;"><font face=3D"Tahoma" si= ze=3D"2" color=3D"#000000"><b>From:</b> Mark Paustenbach [markpaustenbach@g= mail.com]<br> <b>Sent:</b> Saturday, May 21, 2016 8:23 PM<br> <b>To:</b> Miranda, Luis<br> <b>Subject:</b> Bernie narrative<br> </font><br> </div> <div></div> <div>Wondering if there's a good Bernie narrative for a story, which is tha= t Bernie never ever had his act together, that his campaign was a mess.&nbs= p; <div><br> </div> <div>Specifically, DWS had to call Bernie directly in order to get the camp= aign to do things because they'd either ignored or forgotten to something&n= bsp;critical.</div> <div><br> </div> <div>She had to call Bernie after the data breach to make his sta= ff to respond to our concerns. Even then they didn't get back to us, which = is why we had to shut off their access in order to get them to finally= let us know exactly how they snooped around HFA's data.</div> <div><br> </div> <div>Same was true with the standing committee appointments. They never got= back to us with their names (HFA and even O'Malley got there's in six week= s earlier) for the committees. So, again, the chair had to call Bernie pers= onally for his staff to finally get us critical information. So, they gave us an awful list just a few day= s before we had to make the announcements. </div> <div><br> </div> <div>It's not a DNC conspiracy, it's because they never had their act toget= her. </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </body> </html> --_000_05E01258E71AC046852ED29DFCD139D54DF32AF5dncdag1dncorg_-- |
Amazon could soon be facing a much tougher opponent in one of its most important overseas markets.
Flipkart, Amazon's (AMZN) top rival in India, is on track to complete takeovers of two big local competitors that will boost its arsenal in the battle for the country's online retail crown.
The Bangalore-based firm has moved a step closer to acquiring eBay's (EBAY) Indian business, after antitrust regulators approved a merger of the two on Thursday. EBay is swapping its India business and $500 million in cash for a stake in Flipkart.
Related: India's startup bubble has already burst
Analysts say the deal will further cement Flipkart's position at the top of India's online retail market, and give it extra firepower in its battle with Amazon, which is the country's second biggest player.
"This is good news for Flipkart as it solidifies it as a market leader at least in the short term, keeping competition especially Amazon at bay," said Sandy Shen, a research director at technology consultancy Gartner.
Amazon has pledged $5 billion towards growing its Indian business, but it continues to play catchup to Flipkart while also facing the occasional controversy.
Related: Amazon has an India problem
Another potential acquisition could widen that gap further. According to multiple reports, Flipkart is in talks to acquire Snapdeal, the third largest online retailer in India. A deal worth close to $1 billion is reportedly being brokered by Snapdeal's biggest investor, Japan's Softbank (SFTBF).
Softbank declined to comment on the reports, while Flipkart and Snapdeal did not respond to requests for comment.
Related: Indian startup founders take 100% pay cut as they slash jobs
The deal with an established global player like eBay, meanwhile, will give Flipkart some much-needed technological and market expertise, said Gartner's Shen.
"Although India's e-commerce market is still at an early stage, the market is seeing signs of consolidation," she added. "Flipkart has been and will continue to make acquisitions to increase scale." |
As a fan i am massively impressed with the directors cut of Iron Sky, it's like a whole new movie. The directors cut features 20 extra minutes of previously deleted scenes some of which alter the style of the original film, and that's not all, they've added a boatload of new visual effects throughout and made the Meteor Blitzkrieg even more awesome than before, they've even replaced some of the musical scores with new ones. What they basically have done is taken a "crazy B movie" and turned it into a "crazy B+ with an extra side of crazy movie", it's just like the back of the movie case reads: "It's an all-new take on the film".
I must suggest however (and this is just my personal opinion) that this directors cut only be watched by people that have already seen and love the original theatrical cut of the film, why is this? Because, the film really has been considerably changed by the inclusion of these deleted scenes and the new musical scores. Some of the new scenes work great in the film while some others are ether unnecessary or do harm to the flow of the scenes they were fit back into, even though i love this directors cut i have a strong respect to the way the theatrical cut was edited, the flow of the film was so much more balanced. A great example of another film with a theatrical and directors cut with similar levels of changes between the two is "Donnie Darko", If you've seen both versions of that movie then you know what i mean. The directors cut of Donnie Darko complements the theatrical cut, it just shouldn't be watched first, same thing goes for Iron Sky.
So if you're already a fan of Iron Sky then buy the directors cut, however, if you've never seen this movie before then i suggest buying or renting the theatrical cut and see what you think first. It's unfortunate that they didn't just include the theatrical cut in this release. |
Taller buildings could soon be coming to South Bend.
The South Bend Common Council approved a text amendment Monday night to increase the maximum building height in an area of the East Bank neighborhood.
This area is where the Commerce Center is, where developer Matthews LLC has proposed a 9-story apartment building with a grocery store, pharmacy and parking garage.
There have been many attempts by Matthews LLC and the city to get this project fully approved.
His building was too tall for that area under the old ordinance.
Officials say increasing the height restriction will let Matthews LLC build and encourage future development.
But many said Monday night they're in favor of the project, but not the height.
“We're likely now to see the river ringed on both sides by high-rises, if this takes off,” said Steve Francis, who lives in South Bend.
A 2008 “East Bank Plan” established the height rules for the Central Business District, a portion of land in downtown and the East Bank area separated by the St. Joseph River.
"There were hundreds of people involved, including businesses, residences, people from all over the city who weighed in on what the East bank should look like," said Francis, who also weighed in on the plan.
He supported the plan that allowed buildings on west of the St. Joseph River to reach 150 feet and capping those to the East at 60 feet.
He says he'd like to see things stay that way.
The Council's amendment wants to increase the max building heights on the island to 150 feet.
Some council members say that would fit Matthews LLC 's 9-story apartment building and grocery store and spur future development.
"We want to be responsive to the neighborhood and community members that want this,” said Councilman Gavin Ferlic – (D) South Bend. “I think by moving this to 150 feet we're going to see some mixed-use development and a lot of progress in that neighborhood.”
Many say they want to see development, just not tall buildings.
Councilman Ferlic says the height changes wouldn't be drastic.
City leaders agree it's time to try something new.
“When you're in an area where the plan developments that you would hope drive the plan don't happen, it's really hard to execute,” said Brian Pawlowski, director of Community Investment. “That's why we think revisions of this nature are okay to do.”
People like Steve say they're not opposed to revisions but they would like to have more public input on the plans.
Revisions that would paint a new picture of what the future of their neighborhood will look like.
Council members said it was hard for some of them to vote on this tonight – because it wasn't just a vote on a single project – it's a decision that could change the neighborhood. |
• Go head to head against another tank with the UK's only Tank Paintball Experience • Learn how to Drive a 17.5 Tonne FV432 turreted Tank • Load, Aim and fire the 40mm paintball cannon on the range • Experience driving using the Periscope • Be part of a three person Tank crew plus an on-board instructor • You will be issued with radio headsets, Kevlar helmets and tank suits • You will get the chance to drive the tank, aim the turret and fire the cannon at the opposing team • FREE entry to the on site museum displaying a large military vehicle collection • Tank battle experiences last approximately two hours
What Can I Expect
Attention - take part in our Tank Battles in Leicestershire! Tank driving in itself is good fun, but with this battle experience you'll actually take part in full on combat kicking off in the heart of Leicestershire, as your team of three crews a tank to attack the enemy - too much fun!
That’s right, you'll be going into a military warzone (albeit with paintball gear!) using 17 tonne FV432 armoured personnel carriers to battle against one another. This venue has an amazing 15 of these sturdy army APCs and all have specially modified cannons capable of firing 40mm paint rounds. In essence, you'll be testing your driving and shooting skills to the max.
You will be working as a team of three commandos with a mission. Each person will learn how to drive, aim the cannon and load the breach. Getting all the appropriate gear on is very much part of the war game, so you'll be wearing your military uniform and kevlar helmet, as well as being fitted with a radio headset so you can talk tactics with your tank crew before you go on the offensive.
As you are learning on the specially built obstacle course, you'll soon appreciate just how agile these fully tracked machines are. Whilst you and the troops are training you will drive the FV432 with the hatch open, so you can literally see where you're going as your head is outside the vehicles. But when it comes to getting into full operational mode, the hatch closes and it's communication by headset and driving using the periscope - a whole different battle game!
Once you are able to successfully operate the FV432 APC tank, it's time to let the tank battles in Leicestershire begin. Your trio will engage in full on armoured paintball warfare against an opposing team. It's all about settling your nerves to work together to drive, load and fire. So who will drive, who will load and who will fire? Just one gift idea from over 1000 gift ideas brought to you by IntotheBlue. |
An Indian may forget to have his dinner, but will never ever, ever, ever forget to watch The Newshour every weekday and of late, Sundays too. If not, how dare he? The nation would demand an answer!
To help newbie spokespersons survive the snake pit that is the Newshour debate, The UnReal Times presents an informative, world-class guide for representatives from various parties, beginning with the Congress party.
Chapter 1 – The Newshour Congress spokesperson 101
The best way to learn to be a Congress spokesperson on The Newshour is to watch Sanjay Jha for exactly 3 days. You will get the drift. Here is a simple algorithm
1. Hear what Arnab has to say (or maybe not, doesn’t really matter; plus Arnab’s voice doesn’t do any good to your ears anyway)
2. Start off by saying “Well, Arnab, before I answer your question, let me tell you 2 points…”
3. This is the MOST CRUCIAL part – BE 200% SURE TO START OFF by saying this VERBATIM - “The BJP is a party whose Prime Ministerial candidate in 2002 has orchestrated and perpetrated large-scale riots which claimed the lives of thousands of innocents.” THE QUESTION CAN GO TO HELL. THIS HAS TO BE YOUR ANSWER, NO MATTER WHAT. Then follow that up with “such being the case, it’s quite funny that they have to accuse us of such things…”
4. Say “Number 2,” and then slow down. By now, in all probability, the BJP spokesperson would have begun a counter-attack. If he/she hasn’t, Arnab himself would have started bashing you by lobbing a few tough questions at you.
5. Bear all the shouting calmly, as Arnab isn’t really looking for an answer from you. After hollering at you for a minute, Arnab will most likely turn to someone else, with a remark like this: “Let me get across to Sankarshan. Isn’t it really strange, Sankarshan?” No one knows why he does this, but why should you complain? :D You are saved from answering the question. Sit back, relax and enjoy some whisky. (Vinod Mehta 101)
6. When he comes back to you after about ten minutes, he might say, “This time, please stick to the point!” Don’t get scared. Say this, “Well, I’ll get to your question, but let me tell you, the BJP is making these vile accusations for the simple reason that they’re scared of the phenomenal groundswell of support which a young icon in Rahul Gandhi is receiving from the public.” If you manage to get this whole sentence out, CONGRATS! You have exceeded expectations by a country mile!
7. The more plausible scenario, however, is that Arnab would have interrupted within 3 seconds of you starting your sentence. Upon Arnab’s interruption, you shouldn’t stop immediately. You should act as if you want to continue. So say, “Hang on, Arnab! Let me finish!” or “Hold on, Arnab! One second, let me complete!” BUT, BUT…say this NOT MORE THAN TWICE. Because if you keep on harping on this, Arnab will indeed ask you to continue and you might have to conjure up stuff on the fly again. So, protest twice and then stop. By then Arnab would have gotten across to Vinod Mehta or Siddharth Varadarajan.
8. On the other hand, if it’s not Arnab, but some other party spokesperson interrupting, you are in luck! Say this: “Let me complete, Mr.___ or Mrs.____. I did not interrupt when you were speaking,” at least once. This allows you to claim the moral high ground and showcase your better manners. The interrupters, no matter how thick skinned they are, usually pause for a second when you rebuke them thus. In that second, quickly get this sentence out: “Mr. Modi doesn’t even have the basic courtesy to apologize for the riots.” The rival spokesperson will then SURELY interrupt again and this time, you can let go. Alternately, you can precipitate a circular loop of interruption-counter interruption with each party insisting that they be allowed to speak before their opponents interrupt.
9. When you get interrupted – this is important – you must not look relieved. Look disappointed. Look gutted. Remember, people are watching you 75% of the time. Ideally, they’d be watching you all the time while others are speaking, but since this is The Newshour, chances are, there are more than a dozen people on the panel, and even on a 40 inch TV, after half the screen is claimed by Arnab, each panelist occupies no more than a square inch. So there’s a good chance that you’ll be off the screen when other panelists are speaking. So yes, fake some disappointment at not being allowed to speak. Throw your hands up in the air; shake your head – the works.
10. The last tip – A Newshour debate usually lasts for 45 minutes to an hour, where about a dozen people speak ALONG with Arnab. You may hear only Arnab’s voice, but that’s just because he’s much louder than most of them. (Ashwin Kumar Newshour Theorem [Trademarked]: At any given point in The Newshour, there are a minimum of three people speaking, the loudest of them being Arnab) Newshour cockfights could get addictive and over time you may come to enjoy them immensely, but do NOT look like you’re having a ball out there. Remember, you’re out there to answer…er, no…you’re out there to LOOK LIKE you’re out there to answer questions. So don’t just stare into the camera like Dr Manmohan Singh. KEEP RAISING YOUR HAND every now and then. I know you definitely do not want to jump into the crocodile pool, but you should look like you want to! Just DON’T MAKE THE FATAL MISTAKE of saying, “Arnab, can I come in?” or “Arnab, can I make a point?” If you do that, he might bring you in and you’ll have to say something again. Just raise your hand and look agitated.
And finally, relax! You are not alone on the Newshour! Since you’re a Congress spokesperson, chances are that either Siddharth Varadarajan or Vinod Mehta will most likely defend your party with points other than the ones you’ve put out. So when they’re speaking, NOD YOUR HEAD IN AGREEMENT. You may not be able to hear what they say in the din, but you can safely assume they’ll back you up.
So, relax, be confident and enter the lion’s den with your head held high! The Newshour debate will get over before you know it! You can thank this UnReal Times columnist later.
(Continued in Chapter 2 – The Newshour BJP spokesperson 101)
(What happened to Arnab Goswami’s milkman when he tried to cheat him? Find out in our bestseller, UnReal Elections) |
Ronald Martinez/Getty Images
Like puzzles, football teams have many pieces that need to be assembled, and not each piece is created equal. Some are of smaller size, while others are medium sized. Then there's the large piece that is the keystone of a the puzzle, which in football terms is the quarterback.
The quarterback is a key piece to the puzzle in the NFL, giving the team a chance to win in every situation, but it also has to fit. Not every quarterback piece fits in every puzzle, because not all puzzles are the same—such as in the West Coast Offense, which requires less physical talent than the Air Coryell would.
Luckily for Washington Redskins fans, No. 2 pick to-be Robert Griffin III is a talent that fits in every system, especially in Mike Shanahan's West Coast Offense.
As NFL Network's Joe Theismann and many others, including myself, have explained, Shanahan's offense is based off of the zone running game. This is different than the original West Coast Offense, which was more balanced and didn't utilize such run concepts, but it's still effective. Washington's running game consists of base NFL runs such as draw and counter but also most notably inside and outside zone.
These two concepts are based off of synchronized zone blocking to the play-side (direction of the run), which feature the running back flowing and reading his given keys. In inside zone, the running back is to read the outside hip of the guard and make a cut to the backside alley that is created by undisciplined defenders, while on the outside zone concept, the runner often targets the outside hip of the offensive tackle and either continues to run on the front-side of the play or makes a cutback.
When these two run concepts are flowing and have success, it becomes a very dangerous part of the passing game because of play action, or as many call it, "boot action."
Shanahan's boot action has had a lot of success over the years, and what they have done is thrown deep passes out of them. The quarterback, which in Washington has-been Rex Grossman, rolls out to his assigned side and usually has three or four reads to go through in an effort to complete the pass to a likely crossing receiver.
It's not much different in Washington, as can be seen above, and although it's had success, it will have a new dynamic now with the presence of Robert Griffin III.
Griffin III, or "RG3" as he's called, is one of the best, if not the best, dual-threat quarterbacks coming out of college in this year's draft. He has the ability to pick up chunks of yardage on the ground while also delivering an eye-popping, backbone breaking deep pass for a touchdown. His running ability forces the defense to essentially cover an extra gap in run defense, forcing them to drop an extra defender in the box, consequently having less deep where Griffin throws very well.
While I believe he is more of a straight-line runner than others in years past, such as the Panthers Cam Newton, he is still a very effective runner and has the speed to do damage in the open field, as witnessed against the Washington Huskies in the Alamo Bowl this season.
Because of his mobility and ability to throw well on the run, the Bears coaching staff, led by head coach Art Briles, utilized play action passes that caused conflict for the defense. An example of this was against TCU early in the college football season, when Griffin put the ball in the belly of his teammate and plucked it back out.
Once he did this, he rolled to his right and found his target running a curl route. When moving and throwing, he does a good job of keeping his eyes up and going through his reads, opposed to immediately taking off and running with the ball.
Some have tried to state that Griffin is more of a runner than a passer, but this is not true. He has exceptional throwing ability and utilizes it. He is an ascending player whose week-to-week improvement is visible. He is a great fit for the Redskins and I expect them to fully utilize his athleticism and arm talent to cause problems for defenses both on the ground and through the air. |
The case management statement also describes what happened when Pianta and Sheehan arrived at the jail's booking desk:
Plaintiff was initially compliant during the booking process. However, her demeanor changed and she threw a hair tie at Officer Pianta which struck the officer. Inexplicably, plaintiff then began looking through her purse and refused the officer’s instructions to stop doing so. Plaintiff attempted to pull the purse away from him. Officer Pianta then placed plaintiff in an arm bar control hold to gain compliance. Plaintiff began resisting and attempted to punch the officer. Acting in self-defense, the officer used an arm bar takedown and guided plaintiff to the ground. Moments later the officer observed blood coming from plaintiff’s facial area and medical assistance was requested. ...
For what it's worth, that account seems to soften what Pianta wrote in his police report of the incident, which described the takedown of Sheehan as a response to her "violently punching with a closed fist at my face." He also describes using an "arm-bar" technique to "guide her to the ground." So, you get a couple of clear impressions: An officer was reacting to a persistent physical threat, and he exercised care in "guiding" the plaintiff to gain control of the subject.
As it happens, the scene was recorded from several angles and devices, including officers' body cameras and jail security video.
No two people will see these videos precisely the same way. But it's awfully hard to square Pianta's and BART's account with what the cameras captured. Yes, Sheehan was noncompliant. Did she pose a threat? That's not evident. The contention that Pianta "guided" Sheehan to the ground? Well, we can let the list of her injuries, inventoried at Eden Hospital and reported in the case management statement, speak to that claim:
Principal problem:
Active Problems:
Loss of consciousness
Fracture: Left maxillary depressed comminuted anterior wall, nondisplaced medial wall, displaced lateral wall
Left orbital wall lateral displaced comminuted fracture
Fracture: medial wall right maxillary antrum
Concussion with brief loss of consciousness
Eyelid laceration
Lip laceration
Less clinically, part of Sheehan's face was shattered.
The video of the incident is sickening -- an impression reinforced by the involuntary gasps of witnesses. Stated simply: Pianta slams Sheehan face first into the floor. You can hear a gruesome crack as she hits. There's no evidence he attempted to "guide" or control Sheehan as he propelled her downward.
How to explain such a use of force? Sheehan's attorney, John Houston Scott of San Francisco, told ABC7: "She was uncooperative. She was intoxicated. And I believe she had to be taught a lesson. In police jargon, she flunked the attitude test."
It appears that what happened to Sheehan caused barely a ripple inside BART itself. A spokesman for the agency says BART Police Chief Kenton Rainey reviewed and "signed off" on a report on the episode. Pianta was never placed on administrative leave, the agency says, and remains on the job. However, the lawsuit over the assault -- it's hard to call it anything else -- has apparently prompted some action: both BART police internal affairs investigators and the department's independent police auditor are conducting inquiries.
Sheehan has asked for a jury to hear the suit, which alleges Pianta used excessive force and violated her constitutional rights. It's hard to see that happening, given the video evidence. BART and other defendants will presumably settle rather than open the way to endless replays of Sheehan being brutalized.
But that won't end the matter. BART will still need to make a public accounting for how it's handling the case of an officer whose own account of his actions appears to differ so wildly from what the video shows.
Post updated to include details of BART's handling of Sheehan case to date. |
A thousand Japanese facebook users unknowingly endorsed and shared a fictitious image [ja] that seemed to be an official publication and highlighted the negative impact Japan's apologetic stance in history has on the country's children.
A citizen journalist traced the image, which even has the official government seal of Japan in its top-left corner, (although the government does not use this seal for its official publications) to a right-wing Facebook page.
Facebook user Tsubasa who liked the image wrote[ja] in support of a patriotic view:
自虐的な教科書には、もううんざり(´・ω・`)ちゃんとした教科書を、今の子供達に読んで欲しい!!戦争を美化するつもりは、ありませんがその当時の先人が、何を想い何のため戦い散ったのかを、教えて欲しいです。
I'm sick and tired of introspective history textbooks. I want the children today to learn from legit textbooks. I don't mean to glamorize the war, but people need to think what they fought and died for.
The fabricated image took a life of its own on Facebook when it was shared along with famous quotes, from Indian jurist Radha Binod Pal, Thailand politician Kukrit Pramoj, Indonesian scholar Arifin Bey and British historian Arnold J. Toynbee, that reinforced the idea that Japan's war posture was always for Asia's liberation.
Earlier this year, Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, almost offended China and Korea, when he signaled that he would “review” the country's apologies made in the past for its World War II aggression. Later, he backtracked and said would not review Japan’s wartime history and that he would abide by the official stances of his predecessors on the issue.
Facebook user Rie noticed it was fake:
この画像は偽造です。確認しましたが、このような政府広報はありません。誰かが何らかの意図を以て「政府広報」を偽造し、フェイスブックで拡散するのは異常な事態だと思います。一体何の目的で偽造するのでしょうか。分からない。
This image is fake. I've checked and I can tell you there's no such government publication. It's insane for somebody to intentionally create a fake government image and amplify it on facebook. I don't understand why they do this on purpose.
Citizen journalist Norifumi Ohtani at Miyazaki Citizen Media criticized [ja] social media users who shared this image without verifying its source and traced the image to right wing activists who apparently fabricated the image, and gave it an official government seal.
The image of the uniformed child originated from an online shopping site for children's school-bags. Ohtani wrote a series of analysis [ja] on how the image was edited and right-wing text and a government seal were added, before it was appropriated on a Facebook page and shared without context.
He adds:
It is okay to quote blogger's posts, but when you quote, make sure you name the source. I think people should refrain from abruptly sharing facebook images, [out of context] when they do not reflect the agenda of the author. Maybe it's nice to pause for a second and verify where the source comes from.
The alleged creator of the image was a Facebook fan page called “反日対策協議会” [eliminate anti-Japanese activity]. They have since admitted [ja] that it was fake, meant to be ‘parody.’ The Facebook page of Japanism also added a comment [ja], apologizing for sharing the image without checking where it came from.
Ohtani criticized [ja] the ‘parody’ which mislead citizens, saying that right-wing activists went too far in disguising themselves as a government publication.
The quoted blog post was written by Norifumi Ohtani in Japanese under Creative Commons License BY-NC-ND 2.1, by Nippon：Citizen's Media Miyazaki |
Yet another health care provider is accusing Genentech of fudging the amount of the Herceptin medicine that the company provides in each vial, causing the facility and many other hospitals to overpay for the pricey treatment.
In the latest instance, the Comanche County Memorial Hospital filed a lawsuit alleging that Genentech, which is a unit of Roche, shortchanges hospitals by placing less of the breast cancer medication in vials, or alternatively, misrepresenting the amount of the drug that must be mixed in a solution. Under either scenario, the lawsuit contends providers would unnecessarily be forced to purchase additional vials.
Given that the drug has a limited shelf life, this can have an even greater financial impact on smaller hospitals or clinics that do not treat a large number of cancer patients, according to the lawsuit, which the Oklahoma hospital filed last week in federal court in San Francisco. Herceptin costs about $70,000 for a full year of weekly infusions, the hospital noted.
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At least a dozen such lawsuits have been filed over the past year by hospitals and physician practices around the country. Each one noted that Genentech maintains that its medicine comes in vials as a freeze-dried powder, which must be mixed with a liquid. But the hospitals and health care providers contend that the resulting solution yields less than the amount claimed by the drug maker. An email filed as an exhibit in one of the lawsuits supports this contention, according to Robert Glass, who represents several of the health care providers.
We asked Genentech for comment and will update you accordingly. [UPDATE: The company sent us this a statement saying that “decisions on how we manufacture and package our medicines are taken very seriously and all of our medicines, including Herceptin, are packaged to meet FDA regulations and specifications.]
The lawsuits come amid furious national debate over the cost of medicines, an issue that is playing out in various ways. Some hospitals have been pushing back against drug makers. In one notable instance, several hospitals forwarded information to help the US Special Senate Committee on Aging with its investigation of outsized price hikes that Valeant Pharmaceuticals took on a pair of heart drugs.
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At the same time, the Obama administration has proposed overhauling Medicare Part B, which covers injected and infused medicines. The plan, which faces widespread opposition from physicians, is designed to emphasize greater use of lower-cost generics by lowering the amount of reimbursements that doctors would receive for more expensive, brand-name treatments.
The allegations against Genentech also arrive as attention is focused on the amount of expensive cancer medicines that are contained in vials. A recent analysis estimated that $2.8 billion is wasted each year by government and private insurers for these treatments that will ultimately be thrown away because the drugs are distributed only in vials that contain more than most patients need. Some argue, though, that the potential savings from increasing the number of available vial sizes is overstated.
To what extent the lawsuits will have an impact remains to be seen. But the growing number of claims suggest that a new front is opening up in the battle between health care providers and drug makers as pharmaceutical prices continue to rise.
Genentech, by the way, has also irritated many hospitals by shifting distribution for Herceptin and other medications to specialty wholesalers in late 2014. At the time, the drug maker claimed the move was designed to save money, but hospitals have complained bitterly that the distribution change deprived them of standard discounts, an issue that Comanche also raises in its lawsuit. |
TEHRAN: Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards killed 12 Kurdish rebels near the Iraqi border in clashes in which three Guards were also killed, an Iranian news agency reported on Thursday.
Wednesday evening’s fighting took place in Oshnavieh in the northwest, the Tasnim news agency said, citing a statement from the Guards.
Two separate groups of rebels had slipped across the border to carry out acts of “sabotage” and “create insecurity among the population”, it added.
Oshnavieh lies around 20 kilometres from the border with the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq.
Iran’s top police officer, General Hossein Ashtari, said the fighters killed were members of PJAK — the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan, an Iranian Kurdish group with close links to Turkey’s outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
“A large quantity of arms and ammunition was seized from this terrorist group,” Ashtari told Tasnim.
The incursion comes days after five Kurdish rebels and five militants were killed, along with a police officer, in separate clashes in the northwest and southeast of Iran.
“A team of five from the PJAK terrorist splinter group... has been identified and destroyed in the Sardasht region” on the Iraqi border, a Guards statement said on Monday.
Later that day, state television reported six more deaths in armed clashes in Sistan-Baluchistan province in the southeast.
One police officer and five militants were killed in the fighting, which pitted Iranian forces against Sunni militant group Jaish-ul Adl.
Published in Dawn, June 17th, 2016 |
When talking about ending the prohibition on Marijuana, it is almost impossible to wrap your head around the totality of problems and issues it touches. The externalities, long reaching negative effects, and indirect consequences create an enormous web that touches countless aspects of our society.
The amount that Marijuana prohibition costs us as a society can’t just be calculated based on lost tax revenue and the amount spent trying to police, prosecute, and incarcerate marijuana users and producers. There is the issue of lost wages and payroll taxes. Individuals who have been arrested for marijuana-related offenses can have trouble finding employment as a result. This can lead to extended unemployment or underemployment. Over a lifetime, this delayed start can add up to hundreds of thousands in lost tax revenue.
There is the damage done to the social contract and the public’s relationship with law enforcement when an illicit trade becomes a significant source of jobs and income in a community. Many of our rights have slowly been eroded in the name of the “war on drugs.” There are the many problems produced for our society that result in giving criminal enterprises a great source of revenues–revenues that can be used to bribe officials promoting a culture of corruption or funding the purchase of firearms for nefarious purposes. There is the side-effects on immigration into our country resulting from the power of the Mexican drug cartels.
There is also the indirect effect of what money we haven’t spent because limited state and local government resources end up going to keep marijuana illegal. Those funds could have been used to lower taxes or provide better services. How many students could afford to attend college, and go on to get higher degrees if the billions that could have be raised by tax cannabis were used to keep down tuition at public universities or provide for scholarships?
Destruction and danger in our national parks
For example, one of numerous, indirect, negative consequences of having cannabis be illegal is the increased danger and destruction to the pristine nature of national and state parks. Armed cartels have taken to growing large marijuana farms in national parks. From New York Times:
Mr. Heil [spokesman for the United States Forest Service] said drug operators could be blamed for a handful of wildfires each year in California, which is already dealing with a prolonged drought and budget-stretched firefighting resources. Environmental damage of a different kind can also be severe, with pesticides seeping into soil and streams, and trash and human waste left behind.
These clandestine operations can endanger people using the parks, and cleaning up the environmental destruction afterward can be very expensive. From a National Park Service new release:
They terrace hillsides, impound streams, introduce chemicals to pristine mountain water. “They don’t carry out their human waste or garbage,” [National Park Service Director Mary A.] Bomar said. “And they build and camouflage living quarters.” Bomar said park lands require millions of dollars of rehabilitation work – up to $15,000 per acre – and years to heal from damages growers can inflict in a single day.
This simply does not happen when things are legal
I don’t recall reading any stories about Jack Daniels running massive secret corn farms in the Great Smoky Mountains to make their mash. Charles Shaw is not destroying endangered plant species by using large amount of pesticides on illegal vineyard hidden in state forests. Samuel Adam’s Boston Beer Company is not sending armed gangs to ruin acres of Yellowstone by planting clandestine hops or getting into gun battles with Coors Brewery over the product. This does not happen in a legal and regulated market.
There is noticeable environmental, financial, and public safety damage done to our national and state parks directly as a result of cannabis being illegal. While it is unlikely to be an issue most people think about when debating possible legalization, it is a good example of a far reaching, interconnected web of negative consequences created by our current Marijuana policies. Allowing people to see the extent and nature of this web is critical to an informed debate about this issue. |
With voter distrust at an all-time time, Clinton's odds of winning in November are fading fast.
Hillary Clinton plans to continue her campaign for the presidency either this week or next. As the party’s confirmed nominee, that’s her right.
But her recent health scare, in which she deceived virtually everyone about the real severity of her illness and showed extraordinarily bad judgment in continuing her public appearances, can only feed the deep distrust that so many voters, including many Democrats, now feel toward the former First Lady.
Even worse, there is genuine concern about Clinton’s ability to withstand the rigors of the last two months of the campaign, to say nothing of the much greater pressure she would face as president if she manages to prevail. With Trump’s continuing rise in the polls and with the threat of more medical episodes looming, wiser heads among the Democrats should ignore the self-serving excuses emanating from Clinton’s inner circle and take whatever steps might be necessary to replace her as the nominee.
Technically, the person most entitled to replace Clinton would be second-place finisher Bernie Sanders. But there is no actual requirement that he do so and many Clinton supporters would be aghast at the idea. In fact, it could well split the party. A more natural “compromise” choice would be Vice-president Joe Biden, who very nearly threw his hat into the ring late last year, only to pull back at the last moment, a decision he says he now regrets.
Biden has three impressive virtues that could make him an attractive last-minute substitute. One is his reputation for strong values and good character. Many observers believe that were it not for Clinton’s email server and fundraising controversies, and her deceptive handling of them, she may well have put Trump away months ago. Instead, the constant and powerful stench of scandal has allowed the billionaire real estate mogul to position himself as the more honest and trustworthy candidate, largely offsetting his own high “negatives”.
Second, Biden, like Sanders, has authentic working class roots and appeal in states that Trump is seeking to “flip” to the GOP, including Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. His plain speaking manner and common touch could help stem Trump’s impressive inroads with low-income white voters throughout the Rust Belt, including battleground Ohio. Unless a higher percentage of this demographic, which includes disaffected Democrats, stays loyal, Trump and the GOP will continue to have a real path to victory in November.
Finally, Biden’s passionate public belief in the virtues of bipartisanship could prove attractive to independents and undecided voters. When Biden announced his decision not to run in the Rose Garden last year, he made a pointed reference to Clinton’s earlier remarks that she considered the Republicans her “enemy.” “The Republicans are not the enemy, they are the opposition,” Biden insisted, in a remark that was widely viewed as a public rebuke of Clinton.
In fact, many Republican in Congress seem to openly admire Biden despite disagreeing with his politics. That could prove bedeviling to the Trump campaign, which has already bought millions of dollars in advertising that focuses on Clinton. With just two months left in the race, it won’t be easy to reboot this effort let alone develop and target opposition research against a man that more than a few Republicans in Congress consider a “friend.”
Biden, in fact, stacks up incredibly well against Trump, according to polls. In late 2015, surveys showed that Biden performed better than Clinton – and even Sanders – in head-to-head competition with the entire GOP field. Against Trump, Biden had an 18-point lead. Clinton trailed all GOP candidates except Trump and her lead was relatively small – just as it is currently.
Make no mistake: Replacing Clinton this late in the game would be a huge gamble. It would demoralize some Democrats, especially Clinton’s female support base. The fact that Biden is so strong on women’s issues, including abortion, and has pushed the envelope on gay marriage and other elements of the liberal agenda might be small consolation for having to give up on the dream of the first female president.
There’s also the fact that Clinton’s already on the ballot in most states and early voting is about to begin. Is that a definitive roadblock? Not really. Both parties have periodically replaced their Senate candidates well into October. And though there’s no precedent for doing the same with a presidential candidate, an extraordinary push by the Democrats to replace Clinton would likely overcome any perceived obstacle.
It might seem premature, even reckless, to want to replace Clinton as the party nominee. But Clinton’s health status, on top of the continuing drip-drip of scandal, will cast an even larger – and darker — shadow over the race moving forward. Acting now could be just the catharsis Democrats need to rejuvenate themselves to win. |
Hugh Glass, the protagonist of the story, never was chased off a cliff, cut a dead horse open for warmth or had a half-Pawnee son. But the frontiersman played by DiCaprio lived a life even more fantastical than any film.
This story first appeared in the March 4 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
Before a grizzly tore a hunk of meat from his rump and lobbed it to her squalling cubs, Hugh Glass was just a middle-aged pirate who had abandoned ship, then dodged two tribes of cannibals only to witness his friend being roasted alive. And then things turned really nasty.
That's the story, anyway. But it's not the one told in The Revenant, the Alejandro G. Inarritu-directed Oscar favorite, in which Leonardo DiCaprio's Glass is chased off a cliff, recalls his Pawnee wife, eats raw buffalo liver — and mainly, drags his grizzly-ravaged body hundreds of miles through a wintry frontier, driven by bloodlust for the men who had left him to die.
The real Glass, however, made much of his journey in late summer. And he had no Pawnee wife. Even the liver is not a sure thing.
To separate mythology from biography, it helps to remember that the film is based in part on a 2002 work of fiction, which itself is based in part on the three earliest written and largely forgotten accounts of Glass' adventures. None of those authors knew Glass, and one of them, a novelist, wrote the forgettable sequel Monte Cristo's Daughter. Thucydides, these guys were not. But their accounts, as well as letters, testimony, trapper memoirs and a rich oral history, are what is left regarding Glass' life.
Based on those sources, this much is certain: Glass was alive, he survived a grizzly attack and he died. There is no evidence he had a Native American wife or girlfriend, or that he had a son by a Native American woman, or that he plunged off a cliff on a horse, or that he gutted and climbed into a dead horse to stay warm or for any other reason.
Glass lived in Pennsylvania, where he might have had a wife and two sons whom he abandoned. He was a sea captain already in his 30s when pirates attacked his ship off the coast of what is now Texas in 1819. The pirate captain offered Glass a choice: Join their crew, or join the scores of bleeding, gutted, naked, screaming and drowning men, women and children bobbing in the choppy waters below. Glass joined.
After a year of pillaging, kidnapping, killing and the like, Glass and another pirate jumped overboard and swam toward Campeche (now Galveston), the primitive headquarters of Jean Lafitte, who, it turned out, was Glass' pirate boss' boss. The two deserters slunk north toward St. Louis, the westernmost locus of American civilization. They took special care to avoid, to the east, the Karankawa, notorious for eating settlers (tribesmen called the dish "long pig"). The duo couldn't stray too far west, though, because there dwelled the slightly pickier Tonkawas, who included only severed human hands and feet in their diet (to ingest extra strength and speed).
On they pressed, away from these man-eating tribes and Lafitte's band of murderers and toward Comanche, Kiowa and Osage, the former two scary, the latter really scary (the Osage eschewed scalping in favor of decapitation). When Glass and his pal ultimately were captured, 1,000 miles after emerging from the water, it was by Pawnee, which should have provided a measure of relief. Alas, the Loup branch of the Pawnee regularly offered human sacrifices to the god of the morning star — usually young girls from the village. But an exception was made for a couple guys who represented the vanguard of an invading, land-grabbing, genocidal force.
A gang of Pawnee stripped and tied Glass' friend to a stake. As Glass watched, they stuck slivers of resinous pine into his friend's flesh, then lit them. When it was Glass' turn, he bowed before the chief, then reached into his pocket and produced a vial of cinnabar, the flaky red mineral then found in Texas and used around the world for makeup and pottery. War paint, too. The chief was impressed by the gift, as well as the sangfroid with which the white man presented it. Somehow, the pirate turned mutineer turned fugitive escaped the flaming porcupine treatment and became an honorary Pawnee.
Other than omitting a futile attempt by Glass to climb a tree and an early on-target gunshot, the grizzly attack depicted in 'The Revenant' largely is accurate.
He learned lance throwing, tomahawk chopping, and how to break and suck the marrow from buffalo bones. He ate his share of dog (don't judge). It was during this period that he likely procured his legendary and beloved rifle, the mighty and thunderous .54 caliber Hawken to which Glass grew profoundly attached and that later would cause him so much trouble.
After two years, in January 1823, Glass headed east with the chief to meet with the U.S. Superintendent of Indian Affairs in St. Louis. Afterward, the chief returned to lead his tribe while Glass stayed in town. He answered an ad placed in the Missouri Republican by the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, which was seeking 100 men to pack up and leave fancy duds, womenfolk and saloons behind to head into the Rocky Mountains. There, for $200 annually, they would trap beaver.
Men who didn't respond to the ad were enlisted from "grog shops and other sinks of degradation," according to a recruiter. Many would go on to form the sweaty, calloused core of the country's mid-19th century trapping force. It was risky, hard labor that favored the ornery. So maybe it's unsurprising that the trappers tended to be some of the more profane, violent, nature-despoiling, aboriginal land-trespassing, wildlife-poaching, gun-toting cusses ever to range the Rockies.
The party, led by Gen. William Ashley, set out on the Missouri River in early March, and except for one man falling overboard and drowning the first day, and three others being blown to bits when someone lit a pipe too close to a pile of explosives, the trip began smoothly. At least until Ashley went ashore to talk business with the Arikara (aka the Rees). Could Chief Grey Eyes and his warriors, by reputation suspicious and at times murderous regarding trespassers, spare 50 horses? Why yes, Chief Grey Eyes replied, as long as Ashley could spare a few kegs of gunpowder. A deal was struck, goods exchanged and most of the crew set up camp on a sandbar near the Arikara village. They would continue downriver in the morning.
All went without incident that evening, notwithstanding the throat-slitting of young Aaron Stephens, one of the many trappers who had visited the Ree village to celebrate the procurement of horses by fornicating with a village maiden.
The Rees attacked in the morning, wounding Glass and killing 15 of his companions. Which brings us to the film's first scene, with Leo dodging arrows and barely making it to the boat that took the trappers downriver to safety.
The film skips over the counterattack and subsequent siege of a Ree village that involved Ashley's men, another trapping party led by a Lt. Andrew Henry, 250 U.S. soldiers and hundreds of Sioux, who harbored a deep and abiding antipathy for the Ree. It was the first military encounter between the U.S. and Native Americans in the West, and relations pretty much went downhill from there.
John Fitzgerald and the teenager named Bridger did volunteer to stay with Glass until he died, and they did betray him, but the famed trapper’s quest ended without bloody vengeance in the mountains. In real life, Glass mostly just wanted his rifle back.
But back to the film — namely, that grizzly attack: Glass left Ashley's group to join Henry's (don't ask), and early in the journey, Henry sent two of his now roughly 30-strong group to hunt some meat, telling the rest, including Glass, to stay put. But our protagonist had never liked orders. Also, he hankered for some berries.
He was standing in a berry patch when Ol' Ephraim — that's what mountain men back then called grizzlies, even females — charged. Glass shot her with his rifle. It was a good shot, but Ol' Ephraim kept charging. Glass ran to a tree, but as he began to climb, O.E. grabbed him, threw him to the ground and tore some meat out of his rear. She tossed the meal to her cubs, who probably had never tasted man before (odds are they liked it). Then Ol' Ephraim returned her attention to Glass. She raked her claws across his back, bit him about the head and shook him like a rag doll. Glass moved in close and slashed the bear repeatedly with his knife. He tried to yell, but what came out was a kind of high-pitched gargling, as his throat had been torn open and was gushing blood.
The grizzly fell, dead either by Glass' shot or by those fired by two hunters who had heard the commotion. Fellow trappers bound Glass' wounds as best they could, using sweaty, soiled pieces of fabric ripped from their shirts. The next morning, having abandoned their boat, the group marched on, carrying Glass on a litter made from branches.
It slowed them down. They knew hostiles were nearby. On the fifth day or so, Henry offered cash (accounts vary between $80 and $400) to any two men who would stay with Glass until he died, then meet the others at his namesake Fort Henry.
One volunteer, an otherwise forgettable figure, was named John Fitzgerald. The other was a teenager named Bridger. They kept Glass comfortable and waited for him to die.
After five days, though, the men had a talk (which Glass reportedly later told another trapper he'd overheard). No one had expected Glass to live this long, and no one would want the pair to stay. Glass was going to die anyway, Fitzgerald told the kid. It was only a matter of time before Ree or Cheyenne found them. And besides, they had already earned their money. The two men left Glass next to a nearby stream, underneath a berry bush. Just in case.
Fitzgerald and Bridger took Glass' rifle, knife, tomahawk and flint; if they showed up empty-handed, Henry would have asked where the weapons were, and they wouldn't get paid.
In the film, Glass has a half-Pawnee son whose murder fuels his fierce pursuit of justice. There’s only one minor problem: Glass never had a half-Pawnee son.
But Fitzgerald never tried to suffocate Glass, as he does in the film, nor did he murder Glass' beloved half-Pawnee son — mostly because Glass didn't have a beloved half-Pawnee son. But seeking vengeance against a child killer is box-office gold.
The two minders set out for Fort Henry, and while the film depicts their journey as perilous and semi-epic, it was neither. They arrived two days after the others, displayed Glass' armaments and collected their reward. While the duo's conduct was dastardly by modern sensibilities, leaving their sure-to-die comrade wasn't what got mountain men talking. They were a hard lot with an affinity for risk management. Heinous and unforgiveable to mountain men, however, was taking a man's only means of survival — his tools.
As for what happens next — Glass' solitary crawl to Fort Kiowa, which comprises the bulk of The Revenant — all we have to go on is the savaged trapper's testimony, as passed on to a bunch of lying, hard-drinking louts with nicknames like Pegleg and Liver-Eating, who, in turn, relayed the account to reporters and writers of not much greater repute.
Still, one can ascertain with high probability a few things: One of Glass' legs was broken, and his throat had been mangled so terribly that he'd never speak in the same voice again. He would lie next to the stream for five days, subsisting on a large rattlesnake he killed with a sharp stone. (Filmgoers might have gone for the rattlesnake eating. Go figure.)
He did crawl, and then crawled some more, and after that, he limped. The film got that right.
He did not get chased off a cliff, nor did he crawl inside a horse carcass for warmth. He did not meet a Native American with a sly sense of humor who tossed him a buffalo liver. Perhaps he ate some liver on his sojourn, but the truth is, he ate far more dog. Dog eating was not such a big deal back then. The Comanche thought it was disgusting, true, but it was a staple of the Sioux diet. The Kickapoo revered dogs, believing they had spirits like humans and lived in heaven after death. The Kickapoo bottle-fed their dogs, kept their paws from the dusty ground, washed and swaddled and sang to them. They also ate puppy stew.
But enough with the dog-eating. What about the buffalo? Glass did, in fact, eat a calf that was being worked over by wolves. And yes, if the wolves hadn't gotten to it first, he probably ate the liver. And he did shoo the wolves away, but he waited till he saw they had eaten their fill.
Did he burn with rage and seethe with the compulsion to seek justice, to kill the men who had betrayed him, as the film depicts? You bet he did.
Three books on the life of Hugh Glass were written long before Michael Punke's 2002 novel, The Revenant, including the closest thing to a historical account, 'The Saga of Hugh Glass,' which was published in 1976.
But not for child murder — he just wanted his gun back. His beloved and trustworthy Hawken. And if he had to crawl and limp 350 miles to kill the bastard who stole it, so be it. The film doesn't get into the whole man-rifle bond too much. It also doesn't mention the few days Glass spent with some friendly Sioux, who welcomed him to their village, where they cleaned the maggots from his back wound and poured vegetable juice on it.
Glass kept walking. After many weeks, he joined six French traders at Fort Kiowa, who he thought might drop him off near Fort Tilton, where he suspected the rifle thieves would be. After six weeks he parted ways with the Frenchmen. Just a mile later, they were butchered by Ree. Some Ree spotted Glass and gave chase, but a Mandan on horseback swept in, pulled him aboard and took him to his village. Mandans generally didn't like Ree. The Mandan villagers made a big deal over him. For supper? Man's best friend.
Glass then decided to go to Fort Henry, about 400 miles back in the direction from which he'd come. He never floated downstream in frigid water (it would have killed him), but he did stop at a fort to ask after his two sworn enemies and to catch up on mountain man gossip. There was another Ree attack that he managed to survive. There was a stretch where he subsisted on more bison calf, but now, stronger, he simply walked into a vast herd, ran down a calf, killed it, cooked it and ate it.
Can you blame Inarritu for leaving out so much? Who wants to see a dog-and-calf buffet? Who would believe a guy went through all that trouble for a rifle? Too many miles, too many Ree attacks, too many arrows. The film already runs two hours and 36 minutes.
Glass eventually found Bridger at Fort Henry, and Bridger thought he was a ghost. Instead of killing him, Glass lectured the kid and told him he knew Fitzgerald had persuaded him to leave. Then Glass invoked God and told Bridger to behave better in the future.
Revenant's Glass finally tracks down Fitzgerald, wounds him, then floats him downstream to a gang of Ree, who finish the job. But that's not what really happened. When Glass arrived at Fort Atkinson in 1824, after another long trek, he learned that while Fitzgerald was indeed present, he had enlisted in the Army. A captain named Bennet Riley informed Glass that he could not kill a soldier — if he did, he'd be tried for murder. When Riley heard Glass' story, he offered to fetch Glass' beloved rifle back. What a reunion it must have been.
The film's final shot is of a terribly wronged but righteous man, peering with grit and hard-won wisdom into a forbidding but conquerable wilderness. Not even a Texas state school board would quibble with that vision of how the West was won. If you like Manifest Destiny, this ending is for you.
Another popular version of the Glass legend has him suffering and crawling, but instead of dispatching his arch-enemy, he finds himself swollen with empathy and love, and turns his chiseled, manly cheek and forgives Fitzgerald, as he did Bridger. This too syncs with our notions of how the West was won, or conquered, or not exactly stolen. Forgiveness works about as well as vengeance, as long as you get other stuff right.
What actually happened was more complex. Glass tried his hand at trading in New Mexico, didn't like it and went back to trapping. Then Europeans developed a taste for cloth hats, and the trapping business dried up. Wagon trains started coming, too, and along with them women, children, dogs whose owners objected to them becoming a source of protein. Civilization.
Fitzgerald was never heard from again. Bridger went on to establish, in 1842 in southwestern Wyoming, the first resupply post for settlers on the Oregon, California and Mormon trails, opening up the path west and effectively ending the era of the mountain man. And the ne plus ultra of those unruly, undisciplined, comfort-spurning creatures?
Glass endured, as the world he knew best faded away. He took a job with a new fur company. He trapped some himself. He told stories about the old days, including some juicy ones about grizzlies and rattlesnakes. Some say his greatest talent was in creating and polishing the Legend of Hugh Glass.
In the winter of 1832-33, Glass was living at Fort Cass, a new garrison built near the junction of the Yellowstone and Bighorn rivers. He worked as a hunter, procuring meat for the trappers of the American Fur Company, owned by John Jacob Astor. One cold morning in the spring of 1833, he and two other hunters left the fort looking to kill a bear or two. They hadn't walked far, and it was considered safe territory. As they made their way across the frozen Yellowstone River, 30 Ree on horseback surrounded them.
They took Glass' clothes, his gear. Then they scalped him.
Nothing heroic about his death. Nothing tied to the American dream or the nobility of pioneers. Glass had grown overconfident. He had grown careless. He had grown old. |
Algeria defender Liassine Cadamuro-Bentaiba challeges Senegal goalscorer Papakouli Diop
Algeria crashed out of the Africa Cup of Nations at the group stage after failing to win a single game in Gabon.
They were held to a 2-2 draw by Group B winners Senegal in a match they had to win to have any chance of avoiding an embarrassing early exit.
Islam Slimani scored both their goals, a two-yard volley and a scuffed effort that wrong-footed Algeria's goalkeeper.
But Senegal twice equalised, Papakouly Diop and then Moussa Sow both firing in efforts from the edge of the area.
Algeria went into the tournament as one of the favourites for the trophy but leave with their reputation damaged by three underwhelming performances.
After being held to a shock draw by Zimbabwe in their opener and then beaten by neighbours Tunisia, who booked their quarter-finals with a 4-2 win over Zimbabwe on Monday, Algeria have had a tournament to forget.
Their misery was compounded at the last by the fact they were held by Senegal's second-string side, which featured 10 changes from their last game.
Senegal coach Aliou Cisse had taken the opportunity to rest his first-choice players given the Teranga Lions had already won the group ahead of their final fixture.
And Cisse will be pleased by the resilience of his reserves who fought back to hold their own against a full-strength Algeria and ensure Senegal ended the group stage unbeaten.
Algeria might have signed off with a win but Slimani missed a chance to grab his hat-trick and a modicum of consolation when he shot wide when clean though.
Senegal will play Cameroon in the quarter-finals on Saturday. |
Toronto
The “free” post-secondary tuition program announced in last week’s provincial budget comes at a stiff cost to hundreds of thousands of Ontario college and university students.
About one million post-secondary students are expected to claim $365 million in provincial tuition and education tax credits this year — a popular tax break that is being axed to pay for the free tuition program.
According to the budget, 90% of college students and 70% of university students whose family’s annual income is below $50,000 will get grants covering more than the cost of tuition.
The new grant program, which takes effect in the 2017-18 school year, is not expected to reach as many students as the tax credits.
“We estimate that through the new Ontario Student Grant (OSG), over 150,000 students will receive grants that exceed their tuition each year,” Kelsey Ingram, a spokesman for Finance Minister Charles Sousa, said in an e-mail.
“All the additional revenue from eliminating the tuition and education tax credits will be re-invested to support the new Ontario Student Grant or other post-secondary, education, training and youth job programs.”
The Conference Board of Canada estimated that the cancellation of the tax credits will net the government $145 million in new revenue, but the entire budget of the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities is only going up by $94.7 million in 2016.
The Ontario government says this is not a tax grab because all the money will be reinvested in student-related programs.
“While we are continuing to finalize the design of the new OSG, we expect the total cost to be in line with the $1.3 billion we currently invest in student financial assistance,” Belinda Bien, a spokesman for Training, Colleges and Universities Minister Reza Moridi, said in an e-mail.
“This upfront, targeted grant is a smarter way to allocate taxpayer dollars and it will help those who need it the most, increasing access to a low-income segment of the population that is underrepresented,” Bien said. “It’s also important to keep in mind that no Ontario student will receive less than they are currently eligible for through the 30% Off Tuition Grant.”
PC MPP Vic Fedeli complained the government has failed to provide details on the free tuition program, despite its announcement in the budget.
“This was surely a case of ready, fire, aim,” Fedeli said. “We do know that 70% of all students are not going to be eligible for the full grant any further.”
Ontario has the most expensive post-secondary tuition in the country, but government overspending limits what it can do to help students, Fedeli said.
Premier Kathleen Wynne visited a Toronto high school Tuesday to talk about the free tuition plan in her budget, and to defend the decision to eliminate the well-used tax credits.
“As a premier whose top priority is to ensure everyone can have good jobs, it’s my job to fix these problems,” Wynne said. “It’s my job to erase any worries people have that a college or university education is out of reach.”
More than half of students whose families have annual incomes of $83,000 or less will receive grants that equal tuition.
Under the program it’s replacing, a student could receive 30% off tuition if parental income was under $160,000.
The tuition and education tax credits being cancelled mean up to hundreds of dollars a month to students or their parents who claimed them, many middle-class and higher-income earners. |
The state Department of Environmental Conservation has not be lax in inspecting polluters and taking action against them, an agency spokesman said today about a report issued by the Environmental Advocates of New York.
"This report distorts key facts, omits others, and outright ignores this administration's strong environmental record. It's disappointing that even after DEC officials provided Environmental Advocates with correct data, they proceeded to publish inaccurate information."
Constantakes said the DEC inspected every one of the 30 permitted hazardous waste facilities in NYS in 2012 and DEC has on-site monitors at six of these facilities.
In 2012, the DEC inspected 839 hazardous waste generator facilities, though the inspections weren't required by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Constantakes said.
He said inspections of facilities that possess clean air permits were consistent with those conducted in 2009. Constantakes also said air emissions in New York have decreased 20 percent since 2009 and compliance levels have improved over the past decade. |
NEW DELHI: Rain pounded several parts of the country throwing life out of gear as the southwest monsoon advanced to several states.Torrential rain led to a deluge-like situation in parts of Gujarat and triggered fresh landslides in Himachal Pradesh, even as the flood situation in Assam remained grim with more rain likely to hit the northeast region on Sunday.Sharp showers pounded Tankara taluka of Gurjarat's Morbi district in a short span of time. The rainwater breached several check dams, leading to heavy waterlogging on Saturday.Tankara gauged a massive 280 mm of rainfall in the last 24 hours. Teams of the disaster management department with the help of National Disaster Response Force personnel rescued around 14 people stranded in floodwaters in the district.Suigam taluka in Banaskantha, Kodinar taluka in Gir Somnath and Kalyanpur in Devbhoomi Dwarka received 110 mm of rainfall overnight, which led to traffic snarls.Chief Minister Vijay Rupani said the state's disaster management authority has been put on alert to tackle any emergency situation.The low-lying areas in Ahmedabad are waterlogged. The city recorded 31 mm of rainfall. The IMD has warned of "heavy to very heavy" rain in Gujarat in the next three days.A 17-year-old youth was killed after a cloudburst struck a village in south Kashmir's Kulgam district on Friday.Meanwhile, the 300-km-long Jammu-Srinagar national highway, the only all-weather road connecting the Valley to the rest of India, was reopened for vehicular traffic after a day-long closure due to rainfall-induced landslides in Ramban and Udhampur districts of Jammu and Kashmir.Widespread rain led to fresh landslides in Himachal Pradesh. The Manali-Leh road was blocked near Koksar.The MeT office has predicted moderate to heavy rain and thundershowers in the mid and lower hills, and snow and rain in the higher reaches up to July 7.In Assam, floods have affected more than 2.68 lakh people in Barpeta, Lakhimpur, Jorhat, Karimganj, Cachar, Dhemaji, Karbi Anglong and Biswanath districts.The Assam State Disaster Management Authority's report said 453 villages have been inundated and over 5,272 hectares of crop area damaged by the swirling flood waters.Karimganj is the worst hit with 1.53 lakh sufferers. 76,000 people have been affected in Lakhimpur. 5,670 people have taken shelter in 269 relief camps set up in four districts.The southwest monsoon advanced into the remaining parts of Bihar.Heavy and very heavy showers drenched northern Bihar, while the southern part of the state received light to moderate rainfall in the last 24 hours.Patna gauged 0.7 mm of precipitation, Gaya 0.6 mm and Purnea and 7.7 mm. Humidity levels soared up to 100 per cent in Patna, Gaya, Bhagalpur and Purnea.A fresh spell of rain and a cloud cover thereafter kept the heat at bay in the national capital. Several parts of the city gauged rainfall between 9.8 mm and 15.9 mm. It had a high of 35.1 degrees Celsius and a low of 25.4 degrees Celsius.People in several areas of the national capital woke up to showers on Sunday morning.It was another wet day for Punjab and Haryana on Saturday. Rains over the last two-three days have arrested the rise of the mercury in the region.The maximum temperature in the two states remained below the normal levels and was recorded in the mid 30s at most of the places.The weatherman has predicted very heavy rain in Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, sub-Himalayan West Bengal, Sikkim, Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh.A downpour is "very likely" in Arunachal Pradesh, Gangetic West Bengal, Odisha, Jharkhand, west Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Gujarat, Goa, Chhattisgarh and coastal Karnataka.The southwest monsoon arrived on Saturday in Kinnaur, Lahaul and Spiti, Kullu and Mandi and parts of Sirmaur, Shimla, Kangra and Chamba districts as the MeT said it will advance in remaining parts of Himachal Pradesh in the next few days.The state received 21 per cent excess rain and all districts except Bilaspur, Chamba, Mandi and Hamirpur had above average rains except.Una, Kullu and Sirmaur districts recorded 88 per cent, 82 per cent and 71 per cent rainfall above normal. The three districts received 142.5 mm, 156.5 mm and 262.8 mm of rains, respectively.Kangra recorded 46 per cent excess rain followed by Shimla at 35 per cent and Solan 34 at per cent while Hamirpur and Bilaspur had 9 per cent less rainfall. |
Scientists, engineers and policymakers are all figuring out ways drones can be used better and more smartly, more precise and less damaging to civilians, with longer range and better staying power. One method under development is by increasing autonomy on the drone itself.
Eventually, drones may have the technical ability to make even lethal decisions autonomously: to respond to a programmed set of inputs, select a target and fire their weapons without a human reviewing or checking the result. Yet the idea of the U.S. military deploying a lethal autonomous robot, or LAR, is sparking controversy. Though autonomy might address some of the current downsides of how drones are used, they introduce new downsides policymakers are only just learning to grapple with.
The basic conceit behind a LAR is that it can outperform and outthink a human operator. “If a drone’s system is sophisticated enough, it could be less emotional, more selective and able to provide force in a way that achieves a tactical objective with the least harm,” said Purdue University Professor Samuel Liles. “A lethal autonomous robot can aim better, target better, select better, and in general be a better asset with the linked ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] packages it can run.”
Though the pace for drone strikes has slowed down — only 21 have struck Pakistan in 2013, versus 122 in 2010 according to the New America Foundation — unmanned vehicles remain a staple of the American counterinsurgency toolkit. But drones have built-in vulnerabilities that military planners still have not yet grappled with. Last year, for example, an aerospace engineer told the House Homeland Security Committee that with some inexpensive equipment he could hack into a drone and hijack it to perform some rogue purpose.
Drones have been hackable for years. In 2009, defense officials told reporters that Iranian-backed militias used $26 of off-the-shelf software to intercept the video feeds of drones flying over Iraq. And in 2011, it was reported that a virus had infected some drone control systems at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, leading to security concerns about the security of unmanned aircraft.
It may be that the only way to make a drone truly secure is to allow it to make its own decisions without a human controller: if it receives no outside commands, then it cannot be hacked (at least as easily). And that’s where LARs, might be the most attractive.
Though they do not yet exist, and are not possible with current technology, LARs are the subject of fierce debate in academia, the military and policy circles. Still, many treat their development as inevitability. But how practical would LARs be on the battlefield?
Heather Roff, a visiting professor at the University of Denver, said many conflicts, such as the civil war in Syria, are too complex for LARs. “It’s one thing to use them in a conventional conflict,” where large militaries fight away from cities, “but we tend to fight asymmetric battles. And interventions are only military campaigns — the civilian effects matter.”
Roff says that because LARs are not sophisticated enough to meaningfully distinguish between civilians and militants in a complex, urban environment, they probably would not be effective at achieving a constructive military end— if only because of how a civilian population would likely react to self-governing machines firing weapons at their city. “The idea that you could solve that crisis with a robotic weapon is naïve and dangerous,” she said.
Any autonomous weapons system is unlikely to be used by the military, except in extraordinary circumstances, argued Will McCants, a fellow at the Brookings Saban Center and director of its project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World. “You could imagine a scenario,” he says, “in which LAR planes hunted surface-to-air missiles as part of a campaign to destroy Syria’s air defenses.” It would remove the risk to U.S. pilots while exclusively targeting war equipment that has no civilian purpose.
But such a campaign is unlikely to ever happen. “Ultimately, the national security staff,” he said, referring to personnel that make up the officials and advisers of the National Security Council, “does not want to give up control of the conflict.” The politics of the decision to deploy any kind of autonomous weaponry matters as much as the capability of the technology itself. “With an autonomous system, the consequences of failure are worse in the public’s mind. There’s something about human error that makes people more comfortable with collateral damage if a person does it,” McCants said.
That’s not to say anyone is truly comfortable with collateral damage. “They’d rather own these kinds of decisions themselves and be able to chalk it up to human error,” McCants said. Political issues aside, B.J. Strawser, assistant professor at the Naval Postgraduate School, says that LARs simply could not be used effectively in a place like Syria. “You’d need exceedingly careful and restrictive ROEs [rules of engagement], and I worry that anyone could carry that out effective, autonomous weapon or not,” he said.
“I don’t think any actor, human or not, is capable of carrying out the refined, precise ROEs that would enable an armed intervention to be helpful in Syria.” |
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