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CBS has ordered a third season of drama series Zoo to air in summer 2017.
Zoo was the only CBS summer scripted series from last year to return. It is down in the ratings from its freshman run but remains the strongest scripted performer on the network, easily topping newcomers BrainDead and American Gothic, whose future is uncertain.
CBS’ summer scripted series are all owned by CBS and have streaming deals, making them financially advantageous even at modest broadcast ratings levels. Zoo‘s deal is with Netflix. While Live+same day is not a very reliable indicator, Zoo most recently drew 4.4 million viewers and 0.9 rating in adults 18-49 while American Gothic did 2.5 million and 0.5 and BrainDead 1.7 million and 0.3.
The two-hour second season finale of Zoo airs September 6.
Zoo is the second CBS summer series to be renewed for next year, joining reality staple Big Brother, renewed for two more seasons.
Based on the bestseller by James Patterson, Zoo chronicles a wave of violent animal attacks against humans across the planet. Zoo is produced by CBS Television Studios, distributed domestically by CBS Television Distribution and worldwide by CBS Studios International. Jeff Pinkner, Josh Appelbaum, Andre Nemec, Scott Rosenberg, Michael Katleman, James Mangold, Cathy Konrad, James Patterson, Bill Robinson, Leopoldo Gout and Steve Bowen are executive producers. |
Former Park Tudor basketball coach Kyle Cox, 31, resigned unexpectedly and abruptly in mid-December. (Photo: Matt Kryger/IndyStar 2015 file photo)
Kyle Cox resigned Tuesday as boys basketball coach at Park Tudor.
Park Tudor’s players were informed after school on Tuesday. An email from Park Tudor head of school Matthew Miller to parents of team members, and provided to IndyStar by a source, said that Cox had “tendered his resignation and is no longer employed at Park Tudor.”
Cox, 31, was also the assistant athletic director at the school. When reached by the IndyStar, Cox said he couldn't disclose his reason for resignation.
Reached by phone on Wednesday, Park Tudor director of strategic communications Cathy Chapelle said: “Our policy is not to comment on personnel matters.”
According to Miller's email to parents, assistant Jim Melton will serve as interim coach.
Cox had led Park Tudor to a to a 55-6 record and back-to-back Class 2A state championships. The Panthers are 5-0 and ranked No. 1 in Class 3A after moving up a class.
Cox was hired in 2009 at Park Tudor as an assistant coach and assistant athletic director. He is a former basketball standout at Blue River High School in Henry County, and played golf and basketball at Ball State.
Call Star reporter Kyle Neddenriep at (317) 444-6649. |
?Horror movie villains love to kill people. Actually, that’s a bit of an understatement. These guys enjoy murder as much as Grant Morrison enjoys causing readers to shoot blood out of their ears in confusion. Movie after movie, young, usually extremely sexually active teens practically line up to die in the most awesome and gruesome ways possible, whether by a heart-slicing stab from a machete or by a large object plowing through their innards like a fist through Jell-O. And from the safety of our couches or from sticky-floored movie theaters, we the audience get our own personal thrill from criticizing the seemingly mentally challenged victims of the kill-happy psycho as they fail at every possible decision in their attempt to escape their inevitable fate.
But what if you weren’t watching a movie? What if walking around one day, presumably doing the Leo Strut, you turned the corner and there stood the crazed, hulking form of Leatherface, licking his lips and swinging around his chainsaw. Most of us would probably employ the very sound strategy of running away screaming like a little girl with a warm, yellow trail following closely behind.
Granted, some horror movie icons are easier to defeat or escape from than others. If you happen to run into Chucky, just punt the little bastard. Seriously, he’s a doll. Climb the nearest tall object and laugh as he comically shakes his toddler-sized fists of fury at you. But the baddies on this list represent the worst of the worst, the horror movie icons you’d best hope you personally never run into.
10) Pumpkinhead
?Sweet Mary Marvel, look at that damn thing. That shit looks like the bastard love child of whatever the hell that creature was from the end of Alien: Resurrection and Madonna. Just gazing at that ugly fuck is probably enough to cause you to poop your pants in sheer terror. An instrument of revenge, Pumpkinhead goes after its mark and kills anything and everything that stands in its way. Funny enough, that actually ends up in your favor — presuming of course you haven’t recently pissed someone off enough to the point of them going through the trouble of digging up a corpse in a pumpkin patch and summoning a demon to hunt your ass down and murder you. If you did, well, shit man. I guess you kind of deserve it.
9) Predator
?A master hunter whose entire existence revolves around killing for sport, the Predator carries around a fuck ton of weapons that all have the ability to wreck your shit up bad. It could slice you in half with some sort of crazy ass space disc. It might gut you with two three-foot long, razor sharp claws. Or, if you’re really lucky, it’ll just plasma burst your chest cavity open. Thankfully, there is a surefire way to not end up as the latest wall mount for alien with the Sarlacc’s Pit for a mouth. Curl into the fetal position and cry like a baby. Seriously, piss yourself if you need to. Try to look like the most pathetic, unworthy prey possible because otherwise, the Predator will kill you and Sub-Zero your head and spine right the fuck out of your body.
8) Michael Myers, Halloween
?The first of the two infamous silent stalkers on this list, Michael Myers should not be confused with comedian Mike Myers, who, actually, you probably also don’t want to run into lest he annoy you to death with one of three impressions that he always uses in every damn movie he makes. Anyway, old Mikey gets his rocks off going around stabbing people for no particular reason. (If you mention “ancient Celtic curse” I swear to god I will punch you in the neck). Generally, he goes after his siblings, so, yay, for you if you’re not related to him in some way. Then again, maybe you’re parents lied to you all these years. You probably should be upset about that, but by that point, you’d be too busy bleeding to death with the expressionless face of William Shatner looking down at you.
7) Pennywise the Dancing Clown, It
?Fucking. Clowns. You’d think with a name like Pennywise the Dancing Clown, he might not be so bad. In reality, they probably call him that because he dances on your mutilated corpse once he’s finished slicing you to pieces. This clown isn’t looking to put a smile on your face. He’s looking to eat it right the fuck off. To this day, people who saw the TV movie miniseries It still can’t approach a McDonald’s much less walk over sewer drains. The good news is that Pennywise usually only goes after children, so if you’re older than 12, you might be in the clear. But, again, I said usually. This is why you really should just punch every clown you see in the face. You know, just to be sure.
6) Jason Voorhees, Friday the 13th
?Probably one of the most well known icons on the list, Jason originally kept his murder and mayhem confined to shores of Camp Crystal Lake. Things apparently changed though because somehow or another, Jason made his way out of Crystal Lake to Manhattan, other space and the future. That’s right, you’re boned no matter where or when the hell you are. Like Michael, Jason tends to stalk his victims. But unlike Michael, there stands a far less likely chance of being able to escape from Jason. Why? Well, one, Jason is pretty damn indiscriminate about who he kills, but more importantly because of the simple reason that Jason manages to turn virtually anything in his near vicinity into a lethal weapon. He’s butchered people with pitchforks, ice picks, a party horn, a deep fryer and even a goddamn sleeping bag. When motherfucker can end you with a SLEEPING BAG, you know you’re in some deep shit.
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5) The Xenomorph, Alien
?The best advice I can give you here is RUN, STUPID! Seriously, get the hell out of there as fast as possible. If you’re lucky, it’ll just brutally kill you — either ripping you apart or cracking your skull open with its tongue thing. The alternative? Well, if you’re a girl and this thing catches you, there’s a good chance it might rape you. And if you’re a dude, there’s still a good chance it might rape you. That’s not a colorful metaphor either. Don’t believe me? Check out that scene with Lambert again from the first film. Then, you get the pleasure of experiencing it violating your face and knocking you up through your throat. Again, not a metaphor. Finally, you get to die a little while later when baby bursts out your ribs. And if all that isn’t bad enough, let’s just go ahead and assume it rapes your corpse some more afterward because why the fuck not?
4) Candyman
?Now we begin to approach the “you’re fucked no matter what” territory. If the Candyman is standing in front of you, one of two things probably happened: a friend of yours summoned him, in which case you’re just a pawn in the Candyman’s plan for your buddy and he’ll just gut you with his hook hand, OR you personally called him forth by saying his name in the mirror five times. If the latter, why would you do that? Now you have a scary ass dude, albeit with a totally badass voice, coming after you. But he won’t kill you. Not immediately anyway. Instead, he first psychologically messes with you and ruins your life. Who can pop out from the shadows and freak the fuck out of you, kill all your friends and frame you, too? The Candyman. The Candyman can and will. Then he’ll gut you like a bitch.
3) Freddy Krueger, A Nightmare on Elm Street
?The good news is you’re dreaming. Bad news is, um, you’re dreaming. Dreaming about Freddy means that the bastard son of a thousand maniacs already wants your blood on his claws. That or you have some really, really kinky fantasies, in which case, what the crap, dude? Your best bet involves hoping you wake the fuck up and then never, ever sleep again because the moment you pass out, Freddy’s coming for you. The worst part? Killing you isn’t even what gets Freddy off. No. He really pops his claws over playing with his food. This guy loves turning your worst fears against you, messing with your head and shaping your dream world into the most nightmarish deathtrap ever. He also habitually kills nerds like us. He once killed a comic artist by turning him into an actual paper drawing and then cutting him into pieces. He even took out a wheelchair bound D&D player. But hey, unlike Jason and Michael, Freddy chats you up as he chases and eventually murders you. And he’s pretty funny. So, while you’ll certainly die, painfully of course, at least you might die laughing.
2) Death, Final Destination
This one here’s a bit tricky because you never actually see a personification of Death in the Final Destination films. What you probably will see, however, is some sort of complicated and convoluted Rube Goldberg-like string of events that somehow end with your death. A fire escape ladder falls, that hits a garbage bin, that rolls a few feet into a piece of wood, that actually acts like a see-saw and launches a rock into a trash can lid that flips over an springs a metal rod into your hand. Then lightning strikes and kills you… look, I don’t know. Watch the damn films. There are plenty of examples of Death going out of the way to make his job look like a string of extremely random coincidences. Granted, it’s actually pretty easy to get the hell out of the way and avoid your demise. But Death obviously put a lot of work into his plan and it would be a pretty dick move to have him go through all that trouble and you simply skip the end. There’s no point anyway because he’s going to get you eventually. Don’t run from Death, people. You’ll just die tired.
1) Pinhead, Hellraiser
?You opened that damn puzzle box, didn’t you? Well, congratulations. You officially fucked yourself over in the worst goddamn way possible. It’s hard to top Death, but Pinhead and his crew certainly know how to do it because it’s not death that’s the problem here. It’s everything else. Prepare to experience hardcore pain and torture beyond your wildest imagination. Even after they eventually kill you — taking their sweet ass time before getting to that point — you’ll still receive no reprieve because as they themselves say, “We’ll tear your soul apart.” That’s right. Even your soul isn’t safe. Pain is their profession and they have chains with hooks, barbed wire whips and all types of sick devices as their tools of the trade. “Your suffering will be legendary even in Hell,” which is exactly where you’ll be… for all eternity. |
As Florida lawmakers begin a special session in Tallahassee today to address a budget agreement between Gov. Rick Scott and legislative leaders, voters in state Senate President Joe Negron‘s Treasure Coast-Palm Beach district are getting mailers from a newly formed Illinois-based PAC criticizing Negron’s role in an education bill that’s closely identified with House Speaker Richard Corcoran, R-Land-O’Lakes.
HB 7069 promotes charter schools and has drawn the wrath of teacher unions and others who say it will weaken traditional public schools. After passage by the House and Senate, it’s up to Scott to sign or veto the bill, which was a top priority of Corcoran.
Corcoran softened his hard-line opposition to funding business and tourism incentives and agreed to increase public school funding in the budget deal with Scott. Many Tallahassee watchers believe Corcoran moved toward Scott’s position on the budget in exchange for a pledge from the governor to sign HB 7069. Scott, however, said he’s still reviewing Corcoran’s bill.
Negron, a Republican from Stuart, also supports HB 7069.
The mailer from a group called SunshinePac from Evanston, Illinois, criticizes HB 7069 and focuses on Negron rather than Corcoran.
SunshinePac was formed May 25 as a federal committee, according to Federal Election Committee records. It is headed by John Hennelly, a former Florida director for the Service Employees International Union who’s now a consultant with the liberal Chicago-based firm Democracy Partners.
Donors to SunshinePac won’t be revealed until the organization files its first FEC report in July.
“What has politician Joe Negron been up to in Tallahassee this Session? Making backroom deals and our schools are paying the price,” says one side of the mailer, which shows a picture of Negron and Corcoran but doesn’t identify the House speaker.
“Behind closed doors, Joe Negron and his friends in Tallahassee passed HB 7069 which takes away much needed funding to our public schools,” the other side of the mailer says. It urges recipients to “Call Governor Rick Scott…and tell him to VETO Negron’s Deal (HB 7069) and stand up for our students!”
Negron is Senate president through 2018. He’s been mentioned as a potential candidate for attorney general (a position he briefly sought in 2006), but said Tuesday: “I’m completely focused on being Senate president right now.” |
Barack Obama gets a Nobel Peace prize in 2009 for all of his accomplishments as U.S. president.
Photo by STR/AFP/Getty Images
The greatest personal revelations in David Maraniss’s Barack Obama: The Story, about Obama’s youthful drug use and romantic dalliances, have already been comprehensively excerpted.
The biggest substantive revelations with today’s book release seem to be the extent to which Obama embellished portions of Dreams from My Father. The GOP came out with a listing of all of these exaggerations today, calling the president’s memoir “a load of you-know-what.”
But as Andrew Sullivan notes, even these exaggerations are kind of boring. It also seems unlikely that anyone is going to be able to make political hay out of the hyperbole of a 17-year-old memoir when the American people’s personal views of Obama are already so well-established.
There are plenty of minor stories from the book, however, that seem very much to confirm the biggest anti-Obama clichés. As a favor to conservative talking heads and GOP apparatchiks, I’ve collected these anecdotes. For convenience’s sake, I’ve stripped out as much context as possible to leave you with hopefully the purest evidence for your unadulterated talking points. You’re welcome!
Talking Point One: Obama wastes too much time doing thing X (playing golf, talking about sports, watching television, etc.):
In the White House, he said, he often watched the television show Mad Men…
Talking Point Two: Obama hates stay-at-home moms, probably because his mom hated them too:
Whenever his mother heard Barry or his friends complaining about the lack of food in their fridge, he noted later, “she would pull me aside and let me know that she was a single mother going to school again and raising two kids, so that baking cookies wasn’t exactly at the top of her priority list….”
Talking Point Three: Obama is a “food stamp president” who loves the idea of getting something for nothing:
… Obama had concocted a desperate plan. Their lease was to expire on December 7, but rather than pick it up themselves (they were subletting), he suggested they let it run out, not pay the last month’s rent, and stay until they were evicted or found another place.
Talking Point Four: Obama is a class warrior:
In his memoir… he wrote that he felt disconnected from his mother and sister because they seemed so content staying at the Park Avenue apartment of one of Ann’s friends and enjoying typical bourgeois tourist activities…
And:
The fancy cars, the exquisitely outfitted people, the snooty airs, it all overwhelmed Obama… The polo and disco scene left Obama feeling dispirited… “Everything is bought and sold, with unconscious satisfaction. From discothèques to the Finals of the Southeast Asia Games polo match,” [Obama wrote].
Talking Point Five: Obama has a Kenyan anti-colonial worldview:
… He reported that his “mother and sister are doing well…. but the struggling seems out of her, and the colonial residue of her lifestyle—the servants, the shopping at the American supermarket, the office politics of the international agencies—throw up continual contradictions to the professed aims of her work.”
Talking Point Six: Obama is an Alinskyite radical:
[His bookshelf contained] Reveille for Radicals by Saul Alinsky.
Talking Point Seven: Obama is ambitious beyond his actual abilities:
According to Mahmood, young Barack also took very seriously the channeling of grand ambitions… By his account, they had known each other only a few months when Obama posed this question to him: “Do you think I will be president of the United States?”
Talking Point Eight: Obama is an insincere striver:
Obama said that he had been sending out “letters of inquiry” to various social service organizations in hopes of finding a job after graduation that June, and would be “making up a resume (no comment) soon. I’ve also written an article for the Sundial purely for calculated reasons of beefing up the thing.”
Talking Point Nine: Obama is an effete, pretentious pseudo-intellectual—see all of these letters to girlfriends and this:
Loretta: “We’d take him to lunch and we’d have sandwiches and burgers and he’d have a spinach salad.”
Talking Point Ten: Obama is a fake Christian:
“He is trying to make sense out of it, and the more successful he becomes the more pressure there is on him to find a church,” Love said… “I suggested to him that he should not join a church just simply to fulfill a requirement, that he had to get his relationship with God settled first…”
BONUS TALKING POINT (for liberal critics): Obama is too conciliatory, to the point that he’s a wimp:
This leads to the characteristic that was most problematic for Obama as an organizer, a tendency that would crop up again and again later in his career: his caution.
And from pastor Alvin Love:
“Barack did not agitate. No fist pounding. No raising of the voice…. Sometimes I wish he would pound his fist on the table.”
And from fellow community organizer Ernie Cortes:
“He never had an edge, what we call a bias toward action, a willingness to combat, to draw a line at some point.” |
On Thursday, FOMC voters continued to hint a hike may come in the near future. Fed Governor Jerome Powell said an interest rate hike could be appropriate "fairly soon," adding that he supports gradual increases if data underpin forecasts for an improving economy.
Earlier Thursday, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard told reporters he believes markets "read the minutes correctly" when they priced a higher chance of a hike.
Yellen on Friday said the Fed needed to avoid raising rates too quickly, as it could cause a slowdown.
"If we were to raise interest rates too steeply and we were to trigger a downturn or contribute to a downturn, we have limited scope for responding, and it is an important reason for caution," she said.
Aside from her comments on rates, Yellen gave a broader assessment of the U.S. economy. She said it has made "a great deal of progress" in the "slow recovery" since the global financial crisis.
Yellen highlighted improvement in the labor market, saying it has nearly reached a point that most economists would associate with full employment. However, she outlined out some areas of weakness, including wage and productivity growth.
One widely followed market watcher did not think Yellen's comments necessarily meant the Fed will hike in June. DoubleLine Capital's Jeffrey Gundlach said Yellen's remark "doesn't suggest" a hike in June, according to Reuters. |
Twitter has all sorts of uses for sports stars: engaging with fans, promoting charitable efforts and even talking trash, just to name a few. But now we can add a new one to the list, thanks to Washington Capitals forward Joel Ward.
Ward used Twitter to help escape from a locked bathroom stall on Saturday morning.
The drama started with this tweet from the team hotel, hours before a Caps road game in Dallas:
“I tried to come out and I flipped the switch a little bit, but it wasn’t really coming undone,” Ward told The Washington Post. “I’m in panic mode because I realized the door wasn’t going to open on me. I texted Karl [Alzner] to see if he was still around.”
The door wouldn't open from the outside, either. This delighted Ward's teammates, including star Alex Ovechkin:
Making matters worse, Ward the door in his bathroom stall extended all the way to the ground — so he couldn't even wriggle under. The Post reported that nearly 45 minutes after Ward's fiasco began, hotel staff was able to free him from his temporary prison using a ladder (and some professional help) as Ward clambered over the door.
Of course, Caps teammate John Carlson documented the daring rescue:
Plain proof that Twitter is the perfect restroom companion.
Image: Bruce Bennett/Getty Images |
CLOSE This million dollar t-shirt making company failed to catch a customer's racist design and now they are apologizing for the error. Susana Victoria Perez (@susana_vp) has more. Buzz60
A T-shirt sold by third-party vendor Teespring on the Walmart site. It was taken down by the company when it was alerted to the wording by the Radio Television Digital News Association on Nov. 29, 2017. (Photo11: Walmart)
SAN FRANCISCO — Custom T-shirt design company Teespring is once again on the defensive after a media group found it was selling a T-shirt about lynching journalists on its site and as a third party seller on Walmart.com.
Walmart was alerted to the shirt's presence on its site on Wednesday by the Radio Television Digital News Association and that day removed it from sale. The T-shirt read "Rope. Tree. Journalist. SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED”.
The discovery highlights the ongoing problems created by technology companies that largely lean on software to screen out harmful or abusive content. These automated systems are cost effective, underwriting healthy profit margins, but have made Internet companies — including Facebook and Google — vulnerable to individuals that figure out how to skirt the system for harm.
"Until there’s an economic cost for companies that are doing moderation poorly, there’s not really an incentive to do it well,” said Libby Hemphill, a professor of information studies at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
Teespring is a San Francisco-based company that has raised millions of dollars from Silicon Valley sources such as start-up incubator Y Combinator and venture capital firms including Andreessen Horowitz and Khosla Ventures.
Its business model is to act as an intermediary: Customers upload designs for custom T-shirts and other logo items. They then sell the items either on the Teespring site or on their own sites. Teespring takes a cut of all sales from users.
Multiple examples of inappropriate material have dogged the company. Teespring was in the news in May after shirts saying “Black Women are Trash” were discovered for sale on the site.
In a statement to USA TODAY, Walmart said the item was sold by a third-party seller on its marketplace and clearly violates its policies. "We removed it as soon as it was brought to our attention, and are conducting a thorough review of the seller’s assortment," the statement read.
In this instance, an individual created the T-shirt on the Teespring site, which was then automatically aggregated to Walmart's site.
A T-shirt sold on the Teespring website featuring an image of Bill Cosby on a page titled "Party Time with Bill Cosby." The shirt's slogan reads, "drinks on me ladies," a reference to accusations against the television star that he drugged and raped women. (Photo11: Teespring)
Walmart has moderation policies in place to vet material sold on its site but did not immediately respond to questions about how the system functioned or how the T-shirt was not picked up by those systems.
Teespring's acceptable use policy bars racist and other offensive content as well as content that promotes or glorifies harm or violence to individuals. According to the company, it monitors for such content by using a combination of automation and human review.
In the May incident, Teespring blamed new computer code pushed out by its engineering team that tagged the slogans as offensive but failed to remove them from the store as the company's policies dictated, according to a statement sent to USA TODAY at the time.
More: Teespring blames code, human error for 'Black women are trash' T-shirts
In a statement to USA TODAY on Thursday, Teespring did not explain why the T-shirt was able to slip through its systems, which include an image recognition scan by a San Francisco-based company called Pavlov.
The company said it also has a human team based in Hebron, Ky., that checks for items the automated sites don’t find.
“While a very small amount of problematic content does still slip through our filters, we are working hard to close those gaps and continue to improve our systems,” the statement read.
However, inappropriate content continues to appear on the site, a USA TODAY analysis found.
Shirts reading “Hitler Did Nothing Wrong” are currently for sale on the site, as is a T-shirt featuring an image of Bill Cosby on a page titled "Party Time with Bill Cosby" featuring a slogan that reads, "drinks on me ladies," a reference to accusations against the television star that he drugged and raped women.
In October, a shirt reading, “Eat Sleep Rape Repeat” was also available on Teespring. It was later removed from the site
The slogan found on the journalism shirt has been around for several years. During the 2016 presidential election cycle it was spotted at campaign rallies and in public areas around the nation.
A T-shirt bearing the message "Eat Sleep Rape Repeat" offered for sale on the Teespring site in May of 2017 which violated the company's terms of service. It was later removed from the site. (Photo11: Teespring)
Moderating potentially inappropriate content is an ongoing issue for many Internet companies that rely on user-generated content. None thus far have come up with good solutions, experts who study the problem say.
“I don’t think these sites really want moderation. I don’t think they care,” said Kishonna Gray, a professor of communication at Arizona State University who studies online moderation issues. "They don’t want to disturb their profit margins."
Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2nkrmpC |
The success of the “classic album” gig format, where a nominally iconic record is played in its entirety in exchange for a hefty ticket fee, means veteran artists are increasingly being encouraged to look back, possibly because they can’t figure out a way to move forward. But for the Manic Street Preachers, the decision to revisit their caustic, harrowing 1994 masterpiece The Holy Bible – their last LP before the disappearance of guitarist Richey Edwards – coincides with a period of almost unprecedented creativity.
The band’s one-two punch of recent albums – 2013’s stripped-back Rewind the Film and this year’s dreamily Euro-influenced Futurology – accumulated their most admiring reviews in years, with scorching live shows to match. They didn’t need to mark the 20th anniversary of an album that was so demonstrably out-of-step with the first zeitgeist-y stirrings of Britpop that it almost ended the band. It seems more likely they felt they had to.
You could call it a military re-enactment. James Dean Bradfield, Nicky Wire and Sean Moore take to the stage in the mismatched army surplus gear that was the band’s gang uniform of 1994, and perform against the same camouflage netting backdrop. The atmosphere is volatile, the sound cavernous. When there’s a problem with Bradfield’s mic during opener Yes, the audience bellow out the missing lines.
What originally sounded deleteriously bleak and claustrophobic on record gains a crackling new energy, at least half of which emanates from the crowd. There’s a committed moshpit during Of Walking Abortion, and the usually peacocking Wire removes his sunglasses to see what’s going on. An unexpected highlight is Die in the Summertime, newly revealed to be weaponised baggy, while even the deliberately upsetting Intense Humming of Evil is roundly cheered.
Before PCP, the thrashy full stop to the claustrophobic back half of the record, Bradfield belatedly addresses the crowd. “It goes without saying this is for Richey James Edwards,” he says. The fact that they’ll play this brooding, traumatising album in full at Cardiff Castle next year seems bewilderingly odd, but wonderful.
One costume change later, the Manics return with their current full band touring line-up for a breezier set that kicks off with a preening, gleaming Motorcycle Emptiness and concludes with the thumping brace of You Love Us and A Design For Life. These songs are more traditional Manics crowd-pleasers, through intent or familiarity. But as raucous as they sound, it’s the alienating pulse of The Holy Bible that sticks.
• At Albert Hall, Manchester. Box office: 0871-220 0260. 10-11 December, then touring. |
Some of the leading digital businesses are already securing significant advances in their use of AI for everyday dealings with the consumer, and more will surely follow.
There’s no doubt that customer experience is absolutely essential for brand survival. AI and analytics will increasingly be deployed to support the customer experience, as well as being the principal means to deliver it.
That makes trust and transparency every bit as important as technology in achieving success.
So what are the components of customer experience? Personalisation is one key element. But there’s been a tendency to see personalisation in terms of the value and advantage brands accrue from exploiting ever-more granular customer data in real time.
Instead, the focus needs to be on what personalisation means for the consumer.
And some more forward-thinking brands are starting to do just that. They’re looking at their relationships with customers and their data in a new way.
Mindful of the need to earn and retain digital trust, these brands are being more open and transparent with consumers. For example, some organisations are enabling their customers to see all the data they held on them. This allows them to modify and control how their interactions with the brand happen in the future.
Fair value exchange
A more open and transparent relationship with the customer and the concept of fair value exchange sit at the heart of the customer experience in the digital era. When this is done properly, consumers are willing to share more because they recognise the value that they receive and have a degree of control over how brand interactions take place.
Many of these interactions are now managed by artificial intelligence, machine learning, chatbots and virtual assistants. As more of the consumer experience of a brand is driven by AI, the emphasis on fair value becomes even more important. And it’s a crucial component underpinning the ability to build ‘living brands’ that adapt and evolve with every consumer interaction. As such, this becomes a powerful potential source of competitive differentiation.
AI becomes the face of the brand
Some of the leading digital businesses are already securing significant advances in their use of AI for everyday dealings with the consumer.
In only a few years, it’s likely that most interactions won’t require a keyboard. Instead, they will be based on voice, gesture and augmented or virtual-reality interactions. And as screen time declines, the ability to ‘own’ an interface will become a critical goal and a potential source of disruption.
Of course, using AI interfaces as the primary source of interaction and a key source of data needs to strike a balance between offering ‘cool’ features consumers value and safeguarding against ‘creepy’ intrusions that turn customers off.
This reinforces the need to give consumers a degree of control that goes beyond simply setting channel preferences to provide a deeper understanding of how and when communications take place. It means that the ‘right time’ rather than ‘real time’ becomes the key attribute consumers appreciate and respond to.
Moving forward
So what do organisations need to think about when integrating AI as their spokesperson and first point of contact with the customer?
The right operating model and governance:
Pervasive use of AI to support the customer experience requires a radically different approach to operating models, processes and governance. Entrusting customer data to analytics, machine learning and AI requires the right kind of robust capabilities and controls.
Evolving the data supply chain:
Having AI, machine learning and analytics as the drivers of the customer experience relies on collecting enormous amounts of data. This data can be internal, external, structured and unstructured from right across the value chain, as well as being augmented from other sources. In addition, overlaid on this is ‘derived data’ and consumer insight. Making all this work together depends on a sophisticated and evolving data supply chain to feed the AI.
Keeping pace with changes in technology:
The sophistication of analytics, AI and machine learning is increasing exponentially. Techniques are in play today that didn’t exist a few months ago. So it is essential to make the right choices regarding technology, and have solutions that can keep pace with a rapid rate of change.
People and machines working in tandem:
Tools and techniques need to be augmented with people. Human intervention and control must support AI and its adoption within these enterprises as it becomes the foundation for the customer experience. It’s critical to test, learn and develop technology in ways that keep in step with the lightning-fast pace of change.
To find out more visit: www.accenture.com |
Supply and the Man Pay Attention to Washington's Difficulties with Legal Weed. Oregon Might Be Next.
THE NUG SHELVES are empty again at the Portland-area's largest retail pot store, so Brian Budz suggests we meet for lunch in a Vancouver shopping center.
Over brisket and red wine, the co-owner of Vancouver, Washington's New Vansterdam is animated as he lays out the insanity of recent weeks. He talks of money-hungry pot farmers raising prices to untenable levels, and of the unfortunate state policies that gave them that power. He bemoans a confusing tax structure that has customers paying through the nose for their buds, but leaves retailers like him with painfully thin margins.
Since unlocking the doors of New Vansterdam a little more than a month earlier, Budz hasn't been able to keep them open for even a week at a time. He sold 30 pounds of pot in the store's first two hectic days, and then promptly had to close due to lack of product. Each new, precious influx of product brings long lines—lines choked with Portlanders, no doubt—and higher prices for both Budz and his customers. Even with the meteoric cost of a gram of weed in Washington's new market, his product still moves.
But Budz is worried he won't be able to keep up.
"If the state chooses not to correct it, I will not stay in business," he says. "If they don't correct it, it's going to fail."
He's got company. Since Washington's first retail shops opened on July 8, the market resembles a trigger-happy frontier town in the throes of a very limited gold strike. Growers and retailers are squaring off against each other, squabbling among themselves, making dire predictions, and damning the state for ill-conceived strictures on their sweet green schemes.
It's ugly—a far cry from the comparably placid legalization process in Colorado. And it could be Oregon in the near future.
TWO YEARS AGO, Budz and his fellow Washingtonians were like Oregonians today—contemplating a pot legalization measure that promised a well-regulated market, despite offering few concrete details on how that new policy would look. Like our Measure 91, which voters will decide in just two months, Washington's Initiative 502 included a loose framework for legalization while placing the majority of discretion in the hands of the state's liquor control bureaucrats.
There are key differences in the proposals, but if Oregon gives the nod to legal weed as many expect, the law's success or failure is going to depend a lot on an agency that sees few positive headlines as-is: the Oregon Liquor Control Commission (OLCC).
Washington's lessons, then, are partly ours.
"What you vote for in the people's initiative is not always what you get," says Hilary Bricken, a Seattle attorney who's worked extensively with business owners laboring under the state's recreational pot laws. "Because of the mechanism, people are writing a blank check to the liquor control commission. In Washington, nobody saw this coming."
Measure 91 does offer some specifics—and apparent lessons. In pitching the law, proponents often say they've taken the best parts of both Washington's and Colorado's systems, for a solution "tailor made" for Oregon.
"The biggest benefit that Oregon has over Washington is learning from both Washington and Colorado," says Anthony Johnson, an attorney, pot advocate, and chief petitioner behind Measure 91. "We think we've taken a balanced approach."
JEREMY MOBERG figures he's probably one of the gougers everybody's talking about.
A trim and outspoken pot farmer in a sun-soaked expanse east of Washington's North Cascades, Moberg runs CannaSol Farms, where he cultivates as much pot as his state currently allows: a 21,000-square-feet canopy. But unlike many of the state's growers, CannaSol grows solely outdoors, slashing costs by using the sun instead of power-chugging lights.
Despite that lower overhead, Moberg's product—strains like "Burmese Kush" and "Girl Scout Cookie"—can cost shops more than $12 a gram. That retails in Vancouver for upward of $30 before sales tax, far higher than black market or medical marijuana prices. It's not the most expensive product around, but it's up there.
Moberg says that's how it should be. He disdains retailers who are whining about high prices.
"The price is too high when you don't have 150 people lined up outside your door anymore," he says, "and you're not selling out your product in five hours."
And it goes both ways, Moberg says. He mentions a recent story in the Seattle Times that told of a small-scale grow operation in Seattle selling product for $7.73 a gram, and the retailer turning around and charging $42.33.
"I was offended by that story," Moberg says. "Basically they gouged the producer." But then he offered an absolution for the cutthroat jockeying: "There's no blame to go around when scarcity drives the market."
That scarcity is a big reason for the current squabbling in Washington. And it's largely due to how the Washington State Liquor Control Board (WSLCB) used its discretion under I-502 to implement legal weed.
Fearing the wrath of the feds, the WSLCB created a choke point for how much pot could be grown in the state: two million square feet of canopy. That's enough, the agency says, to satisfy between 13 percent and 25 percent of demand for pot in Washington. It is a starting point.
But the WSLCB, in deciding not to explicitly limit the number of pot farmers and processors (the folks who trim and package marijuana flowers, or change the buds into oils and edibles), also didn't count on the amount of people who'd want in on this new market.
It received thousands of applications for producer and processor licenses during a 30-day window late last year, according to spokesman Brian Smith. In the crush that followed, the board hastily chopped the amount of licenses people could receive, down to one each, and the amount of pot they'd each be able to grow by 30 percent. Licenses dribbled out to producers slower than expected, and growers ready to produce hundreds of pounds were forced to wait for official permission.
When Washington's first retailers were allowed to open their doors on July 8, nowhere near enough crop stood ready. There's still not enough, and no one really agrees on when that's going to change.
"I was ready [to grow] on February 15," Moberg says. "I could have had 1,000 pounds to market on July 8, and you wouldn't be talking about how bad prices are. But I didn't get licensed until the end of May."
To date, the state has licensed 190 growers and processors, accounting for 1.7 million square feet of canopy, Smith says, and is still working through applications. The WSLCB has given the green light to 50 retailers statewide out of a maximum of 334. In the first month of sales, the board recorded $804,000 of tax obligation (it's collected $780,000 so far).
THE MUDDLED licensing process and low initial ambitions for pot supply are some of the most frequent criticisms leveled at Washington's pot policy. (High taxation, actually written into I-502, is another biggie.)
At a maximum 25 percent of demand, two million square feet won't come close to eradicating the black market, one of I-502's stated goals, critics point out. And they say the state should have planned better to avoid imperiling nascent pot businesses.
A recent report from the Brookings Institution called the WSLCB's efforts "an odd mix of deliberateness and irresoluteness" (while lauding the state for efforts to study the long-term effects of legal pot). Libertarian magazine Reason compared the canopy limit to the downfall of the Soviet Union, noting the USSR discovered that "coordination of supply and demand is a pretty complicated problem when you try to arrange it from the top down."
"It makes me nervous," says Ed Dolan, a Yale-trained economist and Washington resident who voted in favor of I-502. "If they restrict the development so it's too restrictive, the market fails; the black market continues with business as usual."
No one could have predicted these criticisms back in September 2012, because I-502 never mentioned canopy limits or license criteria. Instead, like Oregon's Measure 91, it gave the liquor control agency broad discretion in how to craft the details of legalization, and the WSLCB ran with it. The thinking was that alcohol and pot would be essentially the same to regulate.
"It's coming out that they're not similar at all," says Bricken, the Seattle business attorney. "Eventually marijuana will move almost exclusively to departments of health or agriculture. They're better equipped."
(In Colorado, the department of revenue oversees regulation.)
WSLCB spokesman Smith is used to the gripes—and dismissive of them.
"A lot of guys get a chance to bellyache with the press," he says. "It's not necessarily the reality."
Smith says the limit of two million square feet will go up, but couldn't say when. It was set low to get the market started, he says, and to assuage the federal government's fears that legal weed might end up on the black market. (Pot might be okay in the eyes of Washington State officials, but it's still illegal to the folks in Washington, DC, who've set tight, tenuous conditions on the Washington and Colorado markets.)
"Of course the [US] Department of Justice is going to balk at a 40-million-square-foot canopy," Smith says
But if the WSLCB has plans to raise the limit—which is written into its rules—it's done a poor job communicating that to the public. No growers or retailers contacted for this story knew of any plans to raise the canopy limit, though some assumed it would happen.
"Washington's going to have a very robust supply, and it's going to come soon," Smith says. "The system is emerging. It's doing well."
THE STORY PAINTED by many in the market is rockier.
Retailers like Budz tell the Mercury of some farmers arbitrarily driving up prices with each new delivery, and the fear that shortages and frequent closures will drive customers back into the arms of the black market.
"There are growers out there who don't have a clue what they're doing," Budz says. "They don't know what their margins are. They're picking numbers out of the blue, and they're selling stuff that is just subpar."
Other retailers talk of bidding wars erupting over the scarce product. John Evich, who works at Bellingham's Top Shelf Cannabis, says a competing shop recently tried to snake his incoming shipment of marijuana edibles by offering the processor double his price. Similar bidding wars among suppliers crop up all the time, he says.
"One of them was offered $20 a gram for their product," Evich says, "so where's the price gouging really coming from?"
At the same time, there is disagreement between farmers who choose to grow indoors and those who use the sun.
Moberg, who leads a coalition of outdoor growers, argues his product is more environmentally sustainable, because it doesn't tax the state's power grid. But he says indoor growers have an unfair advantage: They can harvest year-round. He's dictated by growing seasons.
"We want parity with the indoor growers," he says, suggesting an annual cap on how many pounds of marijuana a producer can harvest.
"Well, then, fucking grow indoors," says Brian Stroh, owner of Vancouver's CannaMan Farms. "That's like people telling me, 'You should find a way to cut your electricity cost.' I don't fucking care about my electricity cost. It's a cost of doing business."
But it's not all acrimony, either. Budz and his business partners have started approaching other retailers about their experiences. They're hoping to find common ground that might help pot shops better understand and navigate the market's choppy seas. But they've also got to be cautious.
"The problem with this is people think it's like price fixing," he says. "[It's actually] trying to get an understanding of who the reputable growers are."
IF ALL THIS SEEMS MESSY, it is. And these are questions Oregon's probably going to have to grapple with if Measure 91 passes—as polling and the massive war chest of pro-pot campaign New Approach Oregon suggest it might.
Like Washington's law, the measure would give Oregon officials—both the OLCC and Legislature—the power to establish a system out of whole cloth. But there's also nothing in Measure 91 saying lawmakers can't merge retail marijuana sales with the state's existing medical market, as Colorado has done with success.
The OLCC says it's too early to comment on any potentialities, but spokeswoman Christie Scott says the agency is carefully watching the Washington and Colorado markets.
"The measure hasn't gone to the voters," Scott says. "There's not a lot of work we can do yet."
Of course, Measure 91 does include specifics, and some observers are heartened by what they see.
"I just think that Measure 91 is a more thoughtful initiative and a less political animal," says Bricken, the Seattle attorney. Washington's initiative, she says, was designed with heavy regulations to placate voters who might be on the fence, but ignored larger realities. "Nobody thought about business logistics here."
Key advantages to Measure 91, according to Bricken and others, are lower taxes—an average of $28 an ounce, with revenue going to schools, law enforcement, and drug treatment—and the opportunity for marijuana growers to also own retail shops, something strictly prohibited in I-502. Oregon's measure, in fact, sets no explicit limits on the number or type of licenses (producer, processor, wholesaler, retailer) a single person can have.
And Measure 91, unlike I-502, has no residency requirements, meaning licensees and investors don't have to live in Oregon. That's got dueling implications. On one hand, Oregon's retail pot market will almost certainly have an easier time getting off the ground without such limitations. On the other, the state may well be flooded with outside interests, creating difficulties for Oregonians who want in on the new economy. Washington's pot pioneers are already licking their chops.
"We very well might come down to Oregon and set up a grow down there," says Steve Walser, co-owner of Buddy Boy Farm, northwest of Spokane. "We know our way around the block."
Evich, of Bellingham's Top Shelf Cannabis, is also mulling over an incursion across the Columbia.
"Dude, it's gonna be fucking anarchy," says Budz. "The OLCC is going to have their pants over their heads and not know what's happening."
MAYBE. Or perhaps Measure 91, opposed by law enforcement officials and some drug treatment types, will fail. Recent polling suggests the race may yet be tight, and might be determined by how many younger voters bother to fill out a ballot.
But if Oregon does decide to join the great pot legalization experiment come November, Washington's experience makes clear just how much work lies ahead. Much of that effort, presumably, will be held in legislative hearings and public forums.
And if you'd also like to make your voice heard in that process? Bricken has some perhaps unsurprising advice: Lawyer up, once next year's legislative session opens.
"It's going to be high season for lobbyists," she says. "I encourage people to get wise now and understand that it's pay to play." |
In the last decade, Mormons and the LGBTQ community have had major instances of tension. After all, Mormons provided key support for California's Proposition 8, the 2008 measure which outlawed same-sex marriage in the state. Then there's the recent story of church leaders silencing a young girl in Utah when she tried to come out went viral. But there is a growing group of Mormons who want to bridge the gap between their faith and LGBTQ activism — specifically, through hugs.
It is no secret there are LGBTQ people who still identify as Mormons and believe in the Church of Latter Day Saints, and there are Mormon church members who support LGBTQ rights and expression. "I've always been interested in juxtaposition and defying simplistic ideas, challenging binaries," Erika Munson, who co-founded the group Mormons Building Bridges in 2012, tells Bustle. In an effort to bring LGBTQ activism to the Mormon community, she started organizing a group of Mormons to go to pride parades, express support, give hugs and sometimes apologies, and most importantly, spark conversation between two fractured demographics.
Munson says she attended her first Pride parade in 2012. "I'd never been in a gay pride parade, so I signed up to march in Utah, hoping to gather 25 friends to march with me as committed Mormons showing unconditional love and support to our LGBTQ friends." She describes how she and other Mormons showed up to the Salt Lake City Pride parade in their church clothes with scriptures to show there was a church presence supporting the LGBTQ community. "I thought it was going to be a one-off thing, but I realized there's so much reason to reach out," she says.
Courtesy of Mormons Building Bridges
Following the parade in 2012, Mormons Building Bridges began looking for ways to create a space for conversation between the two communities, particularly LGBTQ Mormons: "People need a place to talk about ... [and show] support for all sexual orientation and gender identities," she says.
We have hugging booths at Pride festivals where we offer hugs and conversation about this dissonance between the church and LGBTQ community. It can be tricky. But we're trying to be church affirming and LGBT affirming, and that's a difficult and interesting road to travel.
Courtesy of Mormons Building Bridges
While the Mormon church opposes same-sex marriage in their official theology, for Munson, and many like her, keeping her faith means something different. "This is what Jesus taught," she says. "He was concerned about church hierarchy forgetting the greater commandment of loving your neighbor."
The presence of active Mormon LGBTQ groups hasn't just been a product of the last few years. John Gustav-Wrathall, a member of the International Leadership Team and former president of Affirmation, a LGBTQ supportive Mormon organization, tells Bustle their organization has been around since the 1970s.
We started in 1977 with some BYU (the flagship Mormon university) students who found each other and started to meet. These were individuals who were trying to make sense of being gay, and acknowledging their experiences as gay and lesbian people. There just didn't seem to be any logical place for that in the context of Mormonism. The assumption of the founders was: There has to be a place for us in the context of LDS Faith.
Courtesy of Affirmation
While Affirmation has been around for decades, serving as a space to discuss Mormon theology, LGBTQ issues, and the combination of both, Gustav-Wrathal shares that they've seen huge growth in recent few years.
"Since 2012, the attendance at our conferences was quadrupled. We have a website with tens of thousands of people from all over the world," says Gustav-Wrathal. "So there's been this huge growth. I think it's all been driven by this rising tide of discussion in and out of the church around LGBTQ issues."
Courtesy of Affirmation
Gustav-Wrathal tells Bustle that Proposition 8 caused huge division in the Mormon church, and it both directly and indirectly lead to the growth of Affirmation.
"There was a lot of pain and trauma, particularly in congregations in California, in churches that were trying to pass Prop 8 and becoming strident in their efforts to stifle gay rights," says Gustav-Wrathal. "Then there were members of these congregations who were LGBTQ and in the closet, and this heightened rhetoric was causing tremendous pain. There was a reaction, people started coming out and talking about their family members or themselves."
Courtesy of Affirmation
Despite the tension, there have been many cases in which the increased conversation has brought a change of perspective.
"We had a guy who reached out to us a few years ago. He literally sent us an email that said something to the effect of, 'I was a supporter of Prop 8 and I said and did things that I just didn't understand. I feel terrible, and I want to do something to help,'" Gustav-Wrathal recalls. "Then he offered us a substantial, I think $15,000, to help us."
While Gustav-Wrathal acknowledges that there is still a long road ahead for LGBTQ activism in the Mormon community, he has seen such large strides in recent years, that he has hope.
"The grassroots Mormon people are much more understanding than they were 10 or 20 years ago. That's certainly reassuring," he says. "I think there is an element of faith, that God can move things forward in the church and eventually church leaders will be able to receive a new understanding." |
How do programmers differ, and why should you care? Steven Clarke from Microsoft’s usability labs has identified and demonstrated at least three different programmer styles, which has been reported in quite a few places, hence programmers do indeed differ. The types Clarke found are:
THE SYSTEMATIC DEVELOPER: Writes code defensively. Does everything he or she can to protect code from unstable and untrustworthy processes running in parallel with their code. Develops a deep understanding of a technology before using it. Prides himself or herself on building elegant solutions.
THE PRAGMATIC DEVELOPER: Writes code methodically. Develops sufficient understanding of a technology to enable competent use of it. Prides himself or herself on building robust applications.
THE OPPORTUNISTIC DEVELOPER: Writes code in an exploratory fashion. Develops a sufficient understanding of a technology to understand how it can solve a business problem. Prides himself/herself on solving business problems.
Now why should you care?
Almost every mention I’ve seen of this online – or of any other personality type categorization system – is usually followed by a “which type are you?”. This misses the point utterly and completely. Psychological research like this first becomes really valueable when you stop thinking about yourself and start asking how this can help you understand other people. If you design API’s and base your design on what makes most sense to your own coding style, you will create something that two thirds of your audience will find difficult to use. Even if you don’t like or agree with their style.
Granted, that makes the assumption that programmers are always equally distributed among styles, which is a pretty wild assumption. The point is that other people are more likely to think differently than similarly to you.
That is also a good thing to keep in mind when formatting code for readability: if your coding style differs from standard Perl Tidy or your company’s coding standard, keep in mind that you are not formatting for yourself, but a colleague, maintainer or anonymous CPAN downloader. They are more likely to understand a common standard than your standard. It sounds obvious, don’t it? I don’t think many (any) programmers think like this even so.
Now, Clarke, in an article to Dr. Dobbs Journal, has an example of a cognitive mapping of programmer types and API traits which is quite illustrative. In Figure 1, thick blue lines shows the expectations of a particular programmer type, while the dark lines shows the score of a particular API. As you can see in this case, the match is bad. Now the good thing is that Clarke’s research gives you a framework to discuss how and why.
That’s important because programming style isn’t related to experience level or educational background. An programmer with an opportunistic style will not necessarily grow into a systematic programmer with more experience, neither will a systematic programmer become more pragmatic with age. Or perhaps they will – but you can’t assume that.
Finally, the dimensions which Clarke suggests APIs can be understood on at a cognitive level:
• Abstraction level. The minimum and maximum levels of abstraction exposed by the API, and the minimum and maximum levels usable by a targeted developer. • Learning style. The learning requirements posed by the API, and the learning styles available to a targeted developer. • Working framework. The size of the conceptual chunk (developer working set) needed to work effectively. • Work-step unit. How much of a programming task must/can be completed in a single step. • Progressive evaluation. To what extent partially completed code can be executed to obtain feedback on code behavior. • Premature commitment. The amount of decisions that developers have to make when writing code for a given scenario and the consequences of those decisions. • Penetrability. How the API facilitates exploration, analysis, and understanding of its components, and how targeted de- velopers go about retrieving what is needed. • API elaboration. The extent to which the API must be adapted to meet the needs of targeted developers. • API viscosity. The barriers to change inherent in the API, and how much effort a targeted developer needs to expend to make a change. • Consistency. How much of the rest of an API can be inferred once part of it is learned. • Role expressiveness. How apparent the relationship is between each component exposed by an API and the program as a whole. • Domain correspondence. How clearly the API components map to the domain and any special tricks that the developer needs to be aware of to accomplish some functionality.
Steven Clarke seems to have discontinued his blog, but his scientific work is chronicled at Scentific Commons.
(Found, among other places, assertTrue() ). |
Anadita Dutta Tamuly completed her eye watering challenge in just two minutes on Friday under the watchful eye of chef Gordon Ramsay, who was monitoring her record attempt.
She then shocked onlookers by smearing handfuls of seeds from the "ghost chillies", or bhut jolokia, into her eyes.
The Guinness Book of Records first recognised the bhut jolokia as the world's hottest chilli in 2007.
The ghost chilli has more than 1 million Scoville units, the scientific measurement of a chilli's spiciness while jalapeño peppers measure between 2,500 and 8,000. Classic Tabasco sauce ranges from 2,500 to 5,000 Scoville units.
Ramsay, who was filming in India for a Channel 4 programme, could manage only one of the chillies before calling for water and screaming: "It's too much."
Despite the formidable reputation of ghost chillies, Mrs Tamuly dismissed her achievement.
She said: "I have been eating bhut jolokia since my childhood and never felt the hotness in my mouth.
"When I was five I had a sore tongue and my mother applied a chilli paste to cure the infection. Since then I developed a penchant for chillies.
"After that I found eating chillies was a great way to stay healthy. Every time I have a cold or flu I just munch on some chillies and I feel better.
"To be honest, I barely notice them now."
She added she was disappointed not to have managed even more having swallowed 60 chillies in practice sessions before the record attempt in the Assam region of India where Mrs Tamuly lives.
The previous record was held by a South African woman who ate eight jalapeños in one minute in 2002.
In September last year an aspiring chef died after eating a chilli sauce as part of an endurance competition with a friend. |
Yamaha’s simple recipe for the original MT-09 was a moment of pure genius. Now three years old, the firm has gifted the 850cc triple a host of significant updates for 2017, making this a genuine second-generation bike.
While the most obvious differences are as plain as the MT-10-aping new twin-eye headlamps, the changes are more than skin deep – but there’s no doubt it’s the new face and rear end that immediately grab your attention.
The restyled face is headlined by an aggressive LED twin-eye headlight, a departure from the more traditional single light unit of the original.
Each of the slanted twin-eye headlights is equipped with two LED bulbs, and the bold new unit matches the full width of the fork tubes – rather than sitting between them – to reinforce its menacing stance. A pair of slim running lights sit below the headlights, complimented by a pair of sharp-looking winglets.
The multi-function full LCD dash is unchanged, but the instruments are moved closer to the headlight assembly, and the indicators have been relocated next to the radiator.
The tail end is a striking departure, too. The upwardly slanted subframe has been shortened by 30mm, and houses an integrated three-dimensional LED taillight. The new seat is flatter, 5mm higher than before, and claimed to offer better support.
That stubby tail unit also ditches the conventional numberplate hanger, which is now mounted on an ugly and incongruous arm that bolts to the swingarm. We reckon there’ll be a roaring trade in slimmed-down aftermarket solutions.
Beyond aesthetics, the new Nine gets the firm’s Assist & Slip (A&S) clutch, delivering more precise engagement, while acting as a slipper clutch under negative load. Lever action is reduced by a claimed 20%, making town work lighter on your left hand.
And you won’t need to worry about the lever at all on upshifts, as Yamaha’s Quick Shift System (QSS) is fitted as standard. It will be slick and smooth if the MT-10’s is a good indicator.
The 2017 model also gets an uprated 41mm fork, with adjustable compression damping in the left fork, rebound adjustment in the right. Oddly, considering feedback from owners and press, Yamaha appear to have left the rear shock – so easily overwhelmed on the current model – untouched. |
In 2016 if you are high income, you will be paying a lot of tax. I mean a LOT of tax.
[np_storybar title=”The $10-million lifetime tax bill: Welcome to Trudeau’s new tax rate” link=”https://business.financialpost.com/investing/investing-pro/the-10-million-lifetime-tax-bill-welcome-to-trudeaus-new-tax-rate”%5D
According to prime minister-designate Justin Trudeau, “Canadians who have done well have always been willing to help out in meaningful ways.”
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Based on the current tax rules and budget, below is a strategy that would add $760,000 in future wealth to our fictional family. While every situation is different, you might benefit from this new thinking.
In Ontario, the marginal tax rate for income above $220,000 is 53.5 per cent. Add HST, real estate tax, extra taxes on gasoline, alcohol, etc. and some people are now paying well over 50 per cent of their income in taxes. Changes in the recent federal budget mean that, if you have children under 18 and your family income is more than $200,000, you will no longer receive any child benefits. This wouldn’t be too bad in general if it was part of budget cuts, but under the new Canadian budget, many families with lower income will be receiving $10,000 to $25,000 tax-free under the new Canada Child Benefit.
Not that the general public sheds any tears for those with high incomes, but these changes certainly cause those in the top tax bracket to become even more interested in strategies that might help lower the burden.
To help uncover some ideas, I asked my partner at TriDelta, Asher Tward, to analyze a couple of strategies to determine the long term impact of the changes.
We will use this fictional family of five for the scenario: husband, 50 and a dentist; wife, 47 and an office manager; and three children, ages nine, 11 and 13. They live in Toronto in a house valued at $2 million, with a $300,000 mortgage. They have set up a professional corporation and, after expenses, they could potentially dividend out as much as $300,000 a year if needed.
Previously, this couple could determine how much they would need to spend in a year, decide on the right level of income and whatever was left over remained invested within the corporation. Living in Toronto with three children, they found that their expenses were $180,000 a year (including RRSP contributions).
What they had been doing was taking about $220,000 in combined salaries. They did this rather than take dividends, as they found it to be a virtual wash from a combined tax perspective (company and personal taxes) and liked being able to save in their RRSPs. In total, this allowed them to save some funds in the corporation each year as well. At this level of income, this family will now receive $0 in child benefits.
Of interest, if the family’s income were $30,000, then their CCB would be $16,200, tax-free.
In addition, they would probably see another $1,000 to $2,000 in benefits around GST credits, Ontario property tax credits, Ontario health premium and medical expenses. Let’s say their extra benefits from this low income are $17,700 for the year, tax-free. This is on top of having a very low tax rate. That could be a huge benefit for this family.
The only problem is that this family doesn’t make $30,000 in family income. They make about $220,000. So, how do they make $30,000 and, even if they make $30,000 in taxable income, how do they fund their $180,000 lifestyle?
A new for 2016 strategy for this family is as follows:
1. Pay themselves a combined income of $30,000, using dividends from the company.
2. Put a home equity line of credit in place on their home. Since it has $1.7 million of real estate equity, and their income has been strong, they can likely get a $1 million line of credit priced at Prime + 0.5 per cent, which today is 3.2 per cent.
3. After their $30,000 draw and $17,700 of tax benefits, they will still need to draw over $100,000 from other sources to fund their lifestyle. They would defer RRSP contributions. Year one they would borrow the funds from the corporation at one per cent interest.
4. In year two, they would do it all again, but this time they would need to borrow from their line of credit to pay back the corporation, and to fund year two expenses. They now have a line of credit loan of $218,000. Fortunately the 3.2 per cent interest rate is much lower than any tax rates, and the interest costs are easily covered by a portion of the extra tax benefits. Interest rates could rise on the line of credit, but look stable for a while. We have assumed 3.5 per cent as an average interest rate.
5. They would continue this process for five years, but in year six, their eldest child turns 18. The bad news is that the child will no longer qualify for the CCB; the good news is that she can now be paid a dividend by the corporation. As a university student with little income, she can receive maybe $40,000 in dividends with a low single-digit tax rate. This child can gift these funds to her parents to pay down their line of credit.
6. The net result in year six is that the parents’ family income remains the same, but instead of needing to borrow another $100,000+, they need to borrow only $65,000+.
7. In year eight, the second child turns 18. Family income remains the same, but with the same scenario as before, new borrowing is now less than $30,000.
8. In year 10, everything changes. There are no children under 18. All three children receive dividends from the company, and the company pays out $320,000 in total dividends to the parents and children. They no longer care about family income for CCB, as there are no more eligible children. The line of credit balance was up to $730,000 (total debt was still under 40 per cent of house value). We assume the kids receive dividends from age 18 to 23.
9. Depending on interest rates on the line of credit, comfort level with risk and tax rates, the parents can now choose to aggressively pay down the line of credit or to let the balance sit there.
If you are uncomfortable paying a lot more tax in 2016, now is the time to explore the new strategies that are emerging.
As you can imagine, there are a lot of moving parts, both personally and in the corporation. We tried to do an apples-to-apples comparison of two different strategies, and we found that if we went to year 35 (ages 84 and 81 for the parents), they would be $760,000 ahead after tax by using the low income and line of credit strategy than they would be if they continued to draw their current salary, including inflation adjustments.
If we assume a two per cent inflation rate, this would equate to roughly $380,000 of benefit in today’s dollars — maybe not life changing for this couple, but certainly enough to make the strategy make sense. A possible further benefit is that there are tax strategies using life insurance that might help the family get funds out of the corporation more tax effectively down the road.
We recognize that every situation is quite different, and only those with a corporation may have the flexibility to choose their annual income. However, given that a decent percentage of high-income earners are business owners and/or have a professional corporation, we believe this approach may have real merit for some families.
Despite some frustration, new taxes always represent new rules and new strategies. If you are comfortable paying a lot more tax, then don’t adapt your planning. If you are uncomfortable paying a lot more tax in 2016, now is the time to explore the new strategies that are emerging.
Illustration by Chloe Cushman/National Post
Financial Post
Ted Rechtshaffen is President and Wealth Advisor at TriDelta Financial, a boutique wealth management firm focusing on investment counselling and estate planning. [email protected] |
It’s no secret that T-Mobile has been struggling as America’s number four mobile carrier for some time now.
First, there was the deal with AT&T, which failed miserably but got T-Mobile some cash and spectrum rights. More recently, there was the acquisition of MetroPCS, which shored up T-Mobile’s LTE footprint. And this month, the company says it wants to finally get in bed with Apple—a longstanding sore spot with its potential user base (myself included). As of 2013, T-Mobile will finally be selling some Apple products on its network, although unauthorized iPhone users have been on their network for some time now.
But this week brings renewed attention to another revelation made during Deutsche Telekom’s (T-Mobile parent German company) Capital Markets Day in Bonn, Germany. There, the company unveiled its plan not only to sell Apple devices, but also to entirely eliminate carrier subsidies on new phones. That means if you buy a smartphone, you’re paying full price for it. T-Mobile will allow new customers to bring their own phone, or buy a new phone and pay for it all at once or in installments. But everyone will be shepherded into what the company calls its Value Packages.
As Digital Trends points out, T-Mobile's new gamble is going to be to show users that its deal, when spread out over two years, is better than its competitors'.
"As a baseline, a T-Mobile Value plan with unlimited voice, unlimited messaging, and 2 GB of 'high speed' data runs $60 a month," the site wrote. "Over 24 months that rolls out to $1,440. Verizon charges $100 a month for a roughly equivalent plan ($2,400 for two years), AT&T is $85 a month (for just 1 GB of data a month; $2,040 for two years), and Sprint is $80 a month ($1,920 for two years, although voice is limited to 450 minutes)." |
A breed of herding dog originally developed in Australia for droving cattle
Dog breed
The Australian Cattle Dog (ACD), or simply Cattle Dog, is a breed of herding dog originally developed in Australia for droving cattle over long distances across rough terrain. This breed is a medium-sized, short-coated dog that occurs in two main colour forms. It has either brown or black hair distributed fairly evenly through a white coat, which gives the appearance of a "red" or "blue" dog.
As with dogs from other working breeds, the Australian Cattle Dog is energetic and intelligent with an independent streak. It responds well to structured training, particularly if it is interesting and challenging. It was originally bred to herd by biting, and is known to nip running children. It forms a strong attachment to its owners, and can be protective of them and their possessions. It is easy to groom and maintain, requiring little more than brushing during the shedding period. The most common health problems are deafness and progressive blindness (both hereditary conditions) and accidental injury; otherwise, it is a robust breed with a lifespan of 12 to 14 years.
In the 19th century, New South Wales cattle farmer Thomas Hall crossed the dogs used by drovers in his parents' home county, Northumberland, with dingoes he had tamed. The resulting dogs were known as Halls Heelers. After Hall's death in 1870, the dogs became available beyond the Hall family and their associates. They were subsequently developed into two modern breeds: the Australian Cattle Dog and the Australian Stumpy Tail Cattle Dog. Robert Kaleski, who wrote the first standard for the breed, was influential in its development.
Australian Cattle Dog has been nicknamed a "Red Heeler" or "Blue Heeler" on the basis of its colouring and practice of moving reluctant cattle by nipping at their heels. Dogs from a line bred in Queensland, Australia, which were successful at shows and at stud in the 1940s, were called "Queensland Heelers" to differentiate them from lines bred in New South Wales; this nickname is now occasionally applied to any Australian Cattle Dog.
Characteristics
Appearance
Black mask and tan markings on a blue dog
The Australian Cattle Dog is a sturdy, muscular, compact dog that gives the impression of agility and strength. It has a broad skull that flattens to a definite stop between the eyes, with muscular cheeks and a medium-length, deep, powerful muzzle. The ears are pricked, small to medium in size and set wide apart, with a covering of hair on the inside. The eyes are oval and dark, with an alert, keen expression. The neck and shoulders are strong and muscular; the forelegs are straight and parallel; and the feet round and arched, with small, sturdy toes and nails.[1]
The Cattle Dog breed standard states that it should have well-conditioned muscles, even when bred for companion or show purposes, and that its appearance should be symmetrical and balanced, with no individual part of the dog exaggerated. It should not look either delicate or cumbersome, as either characteristic limits the agility and endurance that is necessary for a working dog.[1]
Size
The female Australian Cattle Dog measures approximately 43–48 centimetres (17–19 in) at the withers, and the male measures about 46–51 centimetres (18–20 in) at the withers. The dog should be longer than tall, that is, the length of the body from breast bone to buttocks is greater than the height at the withers, in a ratio of 10 to 9.[1] An Australian Cattle Dog in good condition weighs around 15–22 kilograms (33–49 lb).
Coat and colour
Red hairs will grow through the puppy's white coat as it matures.
There are two accepted coat colours, red and blue, though chocolate and cream do occur. Blue dogs can be blue, blue mottled, or blue speckled with or without black, tan, or white markings. Red dogs are evenly speckled with solid red markings. Both red dogs and blue dogs are born white (except for any solid-coloured body or face markings) and the red or black hairs grow in as they mature. The distinctive adult colouration is the result of black or red hairs closely interspersed through a predominantly white coat. This is not merle colouration (a speckled effect that has associated health issues), but rather the result of the ticking gene. A number of breeds show ticking, which is the presence of colour through white areas, though the overall effect depends on other genes that will modify the size, shape and density of the ticking.[2]
In addition to the primary colouration, an Australian Cattle Dog displays some patches of solid or near-solid colour. In both red and blue dogs, the most common are masks over one or both eyes, a white tip to the tail, a solid spot at the base of the tail, and sometimes solid spots on the body, though these are not desirable in dogs bred for conformation shows. Blue dogs can have tan midway up the legs and extending up the front to breast and throat, with tan on jaws, and tan eyebrows.[1] Both colour forms can have a white "star" on the forehead called the "Bentley Mark", after a legendary dog owned by Tom Bentley.[3] Common miscolours in the Australian Cattle Dog are black hairs in a red-coated dog, including the extreme of a black saddle on a red dog, and extensive tan on the face and body on a blue dog, called "creeping tan".[4] The Cattle Dog has a double coat—the short, straight outer guard hairs are protective in nature, keeping the elements from the dog's skin while the undercoat is short, fine and dense.[3]
A Cattle Dog with a single mask and a bentley mark shows the breed's typical alert expression.
The mask consists of a black patch over one or both eyes (for the blue coat colour) or a red patch over one or both eyes (for the red coat colour). Depending on whether one or both eyes have a patch, these are called, respectively, "single" (or "half") mask and "double" (or "full") mask. Dogs without a mask are called plain-faced. Any of these are acceptable according to the breed standard. In conformation shows, even markings are preferred over uneven markings.[1]
Tail
The breed standards of the Australian, American and Canadian kennel clubs specify that the Australian Cattle Dog should have a natural, long, un-docked tail. There will often be a solid colour spot at the base of the tail and a white tip. The tail should be set moderately low, following the slope of the back. It should hang in a slight curve at rest, though an excited dog may carry its tail higher. The tail should feature a reasonable level of brush.[1]
In the United States, tails are sometimes docked on working stock. The tail is not docked in Australia, and serves a useful purpose in increasing agility and the ability to turn quickly.[5] The Australian Cattle Dog is a breed distinct from the Australian Stumpy Tail Cattle Dog, a square-bodied dog born with a naturally "bobbed" tail. The Stumpy Tail resembles the Australian Cattle Dog, but has a taller, leaner conformation. It occasionally has a natural long thin tail, but most are born without tails.[6]
Temperament
Like many working dogs, the Australian Cattle Dog has high energy levels, an active mind, and a level of independence.[7] The breed ranks 10th in Stanley Coren's The Intelligence of Dogs, rated as one of the most intelligent dogs ranked by obedience command trainability.[8] The Cattle Dog needs plenty of exercise, companionship and a job to do, so a non-working dog might participate in dog sports, learning tricks, or other activities that engage its body and mind.[7]
When on home ground, the Australian Cattle Dog is an affectionate and playful pet.[7] However, it is reserved with people it does not know and naturally cautious in new situations. Its attitude to strangers makes it an excellent guard dog when trained for this task, and it can be socialised to become accustomed to a variety of people from an early age as a family pet. It is good with older, considerate children, but will herd people by nipping at their heels, particularly younger children who run and squeal.[9] By the time puppies are weaned, they should have learned that the company of people is pleasurable, and that responding to cues from a person is rewarding.[10] The bond that this breed can create with its owner is strong and will leave the dog feeling protective towards the owner, typically resulting in the dog's never being too far from the owner's side. The Australian Cattle Dog can be the friendliest of companions although it is quick to respond to the emotions of its owners, and may defend them without waiting for a command.[11] The ACD was originally bred to move reluctant cattle by biting, and it will bite if treated harshly.[9] The Australian Cattle Dog's protective nature and tendency to nip at heels can be dangerous as the dog grows into an adult if unwanted behaviours are left unchecked.[12]
While an Australian Cattle Dog generally works silently, it will bark in alarm or to attract attention. It has a distinctive intense, high-pitched bark. Barking can be a sign of boredom or frustration, although research has shown that pet dogs increase their vocalisation when raised in a noisy environment.[13] It responds well to familiar dogs, but when multiple dogs are present, establishing a pecking order can trigger aggression. It is not a breed that lives in a pack with other dogs.[9]
Data accumulated from Council reports in New South Wales from April to June 2013, showed that dogs identified as Australian Cattle Dogs were involved in 66 attacks, where an attack is defined as any incident where a dog rushes at, bites, harasses or chases any person or animal. Staffordshire Bull Terrier (155 attacks), German Shepherd (89) and American Staffordshire Terrier (88) were reported to be involved in more incidents.[14] Expressed as a percentage of registered dogs, 0.1% of Australian Cattle Dogs were involved in attacks.[15] The data gathered in 2011–2012 listed the ACD twenty-seventh in involvement in incidents ranked by percentage of dogs registered.[16] [note 1] A review of incidents in Melbourne where a dog bit, rushed at or chased a person or animal in a public space, found that there were sixty breeds involved and the German Shepherd and German Shepherd crosses, and Australian Cattle Dog and Cattle Dog crosses accounted for 9% of incidents.[17] Surveys of U.S. breed club members showed that both dog-directed aggression and stranger-directed aggression were higher in the ACD than the average of breeds studied, with dog-directed aggression being the more prevalent of the two aggression types.[18] The American Temperament Test Society reports a test pass rate of 79.3% for Australian Cattle Dogs.[19] The average pass rate for all breeds is 80.4%.[20]
As pets
Grooming
Known as a "wash and wear" dog, the Australian Cattle Dog requires little grooming, and an occasional brushing is all that is required to keep the coat clean and odour-free. Even for the show ring it needs no more than wiping down with a moist cloth. It is not a year-round shedder but blows its coat once a year (twice in the case of intact females) and frequent brushing and a warm bath during this period will contain the shedding hair. As with all dogs, regular attention to nails, ears and teeth will help avoid health problems.[21]
Training
In Katherine Buetow's guide to the Australian Cattle Dog, Ian Dunbar makes the point that while people think of dog training as teaching a dog to sit, speak and roll over, the dog already knows how to do these things. Training, he says, involves teaching the dog that it is a good idea to do these things when a particular word is said or signal is given. He goes on to explain his belief that training is about opening communication channels, so that the dog knows what the handler wants it to do, and knows that it will be worth its while to do it. Consequences for the dog can be rewards for doing what is required, as recommended by Dunbar, or corrections where an unwanted behaviour is performed.[22] Like other working breeds, the Australian Cattle Dog is intelligent and responsive; both of these traits can be an advantage in training where a structured, varied program is used, but can lead to unwanted outcomes if training is not consistent, or is repetitive and boring for the dog.[23] Stock dog trainer Scott Lithgow recommends making training a game so the Cattle Dog learns that obedience leads to enjoyment.[10] Many of a Cattle Dog's natural behaviours are undesirable in a pet: barking, chewing, chasing, digging, defending territory, and nipping heels. Training, therefore, involves helping the dog adopt a lifestyle that is probably very different from that of its droving ancestors.[23] The Australian Cattle Dog is biddable, and responds well to training.[24]
Activities
The breed is well suited for agility trials.
The Australian Cattle Dog demands a high level of physical activity. Like many other herding dog breeds, the Cattle Dog has an active and fertile mind and if it is not given jobs to do it will find its own activities. It will appreciate a walk around the neighbourhood, but it needs structured activities that engage and challenge it, and regular interaction with its owner. While individual dogs have their own personalities and abilities, as a breed the Australian Cattle Dog is suited to any activity that calls for athleticism, intelligence, and endurance.[7]
Kennel club-sponsored herding trials with a range of events suit the driving abilities of the Cattle Dog and other upright breeds, while sheepdog trials are more suited to the "eye" breeds such as the Border Collie and Australian Kelpie. Herding instincts and trainability are measured at non-competitive herding tests, and basic commands are sometimes taught through herding games, where rules such as "stay", "get it" and "that'll do" are applied to fetching a ball or chasing a yard broom.[25]
The Australian Cattle Dog was developed for its ability to encourage reluctant cattle to travel long distances and may be the best breed in the world for this work.[10] However, some working dog trainers have expressed concern that dogs bred for the show ring are increasingly too short in the legs and too stocky in the body to undertake the work for which they were originally bred.[10]
Australian Cattle Dogs were bred to drive cattle, but are also used to herd sheep.
Among the most popular activities for an Australian Cattle Dog is dog agility. It is ideally suited for navigating obstacle courses, since as a herding dog it is reactive to the handler's body language and willing to work accurately at a distance from the handler. Agility has been used by Cattle Dog owners to instil confidence in their dogs, and enhance their performance in training and competition.[26]
The Australian Cattle Dog thrives on change and new experiences, and many handlers find training the breed challenging for this reason. An Australian Cattle Dog can excel in obedience competition. It will enjoy the challenges, such as retrieving a scented article, but the breed's problem-solving ability may lead it to find solutions to problems that are not necessarily rewarded by the obedience judges. Rally obedience offers more interaction with the owner and less repetition than traditional obedience trials.[27]
Australian Cattle Dogs have been successful in a range of dog sports including weight pulling, flyball and schutzhund.[28] The breed is particularly suited to activities that a dog can share with its owner such as canicross, disc dog, and skijoring or bikejoring. It is an effective hiking companion because of its natural endurance, its general lack of interest in hunting, and preference for staying by its owner's side.[27] Most Australian Cattle Dogs love the water and are excellent swimmers.[29] It is not a hyperactive breed, and once one has had its exercise, it is happy to lie at its owner's feet, or to rest in its bed or crate while keeping an ear and eye open for signs of pending activity. The Australian Cattle Dog is an adaptable dog that can accept city or indoor living conditions, if its considerable exercise and companionship needs are met.[30]
The Australian Cattle Dog can be put to work in a number of ways. Cattle Dogs are service dogs for people with a disability or are therapy dogs,[28] some work for customs agencies in drug detection, some as police dogs,[27] others haze pest animals, such as geese, for city or state agencies,[31] and some work as scat-detection dogs, tracking endangered wildlife species.[32]
Health and lifespan
An active seventeen-year-old Australian Cattle Dog
Lifespan
In a small sample of 11 deceased dogs, Australian Cattle Dogs had a median longevity of 11.7 years (maximum 15.9 yrs).[33] A larger survey of 100 deceased dogs yielded a mean longevity of 13.41 years with a standard deviation of 2.36 years.[34] The median longevities of breeds of similar size are between 11 and 13 years.[35] There is an anecdotal report of a Cattle Dog named Bluey, born in 1910 and living for 29.5 years, but the record is unverified.[36] Even if true, Bluey's record age would have to be regarded more as an uncharacteristic exception than as an indicator of common exceptional longevity for the entire breed.[34] It remains, however, that Australian Cattle Dogs generally age well and appear to live on average almost a year longer than most dogs of other breeds in the same weight class.[34] Many members of the breed are still well and active at 12 or 14 years of age, and some maintain their sight, hearing and even their teeth until their final days.[37]
Common health problems
Cattle Dogs have more injuries than illnesses.
The Australian Cattle Dog carries recessive piebald alleles that produce white in the coat and skin and are linked to congenital hereditary deafness, though it is possible that there is a multi-gene cause for deafness in a dog with the piebald pigment genes.[38] Around 2.4% of Cattle Dogs in one study were found to be deaf in both ears and 14.5% were deaf in at least one ear.[39]
The Australian Cattle Dog is one of the dog breeds affected by progressive retinal atrophy. It has the most common form, progressive rod-cone degeneration (PRCD), a condition that causes the rods and cones in the retina of the eye to deteriorate later in life, resulting in blindness. PRCD is an autosomal recessive trait and a dog can be a carrier of the affected gene without developing the condition.[40]
Hip dysplasia is not common in the breed,[21] although it occurs sufficiently often for many breeders to have their breeding stock tested. The Cattle Dog has a number of inherited conditions,[41] but most of these are not common. Hereditary polioencephalomyelopathy of the Australian Cattle Dog is a very rare condition caused by an inherited biochemical defect. Dogs identified with the condition were completely paralysed within their first year.[42] Based on a sample of 69 still-living dogs, the most common health issues noted by owners were musculoskeletal (spondylosis, elbow dysplasia, and arthritis) and reproductive (pyometra, infertility, and false pregnancy), and blindness.[33] A study of dogs diagnosed at Veterinary Colleges in the United States and Canada over a thirty-year period described fractures, lameness and cruciate ligament tears as the most common conditions in the Australian Cattle Dogs treated.[43]
History
In Australia
An early Australian Cattle Dog, photographed in 1902
George Hall and his family arrived in the New South Wales Colony in 1802. By 1825, the Halls had established two cattle stations in the Upper Hunter Valley, and had begun a northward expansion into the Liverpool Plains, New England and Queensland. Getting his cattle to the Sydney markets presented a problem in that thousands of head of cattle had to be moved for thousands of kilometres along unfenced stock routes through sometimes rugged bush and mountain ranges. A note, in his own writing, records Thomas Hall's anger at losing 200 head in scrub.[44]
A droving dog was needed, but the colonial working dogs are understood to have been of the Old English Sheepdog type, commonly referred to as Smithfields. Descendants of these dogs still exist, but are useful only over short distances and for yard work with domesticated cattle. Thomas Hall addressed the problem by importing several of the dogs used by drovers in Northumberland, his parents' home county. At that time dogs were generally described by their job, regardless of whether they constituted a breed as it is currently understood. In the manner of the time, the Hall family historian, A. J. Howard, gave these blue mottled dogs a name: Northumberland Blue Merle Drovers Dog.[45]
Thomas Hall crossed his Drovers Dogs with dingoes he had tamed, and by 1840 was satisfied with his resulting progeny. During the next thirty years, the Halls Heelers, as they became known, were used only by the Halls. Given that they were dependent on the dogs, which gave them an advantage over other cattle breeders, it is understandable that the dogs were not distributed beyond the Hall's properties. It was not until after Thomas Hall's death in 1870, when the properties went to auction with the stock on them, that Halls Heelers became freely available.[46]
Cattle Dogs were accustomed to horses in the 1900s.
By the 1890s, the dogs had attracted the attention of the Cattle Dog Club of Sydney, a group of men with a recreational interest in the new practice of showing dogs competitively. None were stockmen working cattle on a daily basis, and initially they were interested in a range of working dogs, including the Smithfield. They reportedly adopted the term "Australian Cattle Dog" to refer to the dogs being bred from bloodlines originating from Thomas Hall's "heelers", and prominent members of the group concentrated on breeding these lines.[47] Of these breeders, the Bagust family was the most influential. Robert Kaleski, of Moorebank, a young associate of Harry Bagust, wrote "in 1893 when I got rid of my cross-bred cattle dogs and took up the blues, breeders of the latter had started breeding ... to fix the type. I drew up a standard for them on those lines".[48] This first breed standard for the Cattle Dog breed was published, with photographs, by the New South Wales Department of Agriculture in 1903.[49]
Kaleski's standard was adopted by breed clubs in Queensland and New South Wales and re-issued as their own, with local changes. His writings from the 1910s give an important insight into the early history of the breed. However, dog breeder and author Noreen Clark has noted that his opinions are sometimes just that, and he introduces some contradictory assertions in his later writings, as well as some assumptions that are illogical in the light of modern science.[50] Some of these have persisted; for example he saw the red colour form as having more dingo in it than the blue form, and there is a persistent belief that reds are more vicious than blues. The most enduring of Kaleski's myths relate to Dalmatian and Kelpie infusions into the early Cattle Dog breed. These infusions are not referred to in Kaleski's writings until the 1920s and it seems likely that Kaleski sought to explain the Cattle Dog's mottled colouration and tan on legs by similarity to the Dalmatian and Kelpie, respectively.[51] The genetics of coat colour, and the current understanding of hereditary characteristics, make the infusion of Dalmatian to increase the cattle dog's tolerance of horses an extremely unlikely event. There were relatively few motor vehicles in Australia at the beginning of the 20th century, so most dogs of any breed would have been accustomed to horses.[52] The Kelpie breed was developed after the Cattle Dog type was described, so its infusion is unlikely.[53] It is possible that there was some infusion of Bull Terrier but there is no verifiable record of this, and the Cattle Dog has not had the Bull Terrier's instinct to bite and hold, which would have been an undesirable trait.[54] Early in the 1900s there was considerable in-fighting amongst members of the Cattle Dog Club, and a series of arguments about the origin of the breed appeared in newspapers and journals of the time. While many of these arguments were misleading, some irrational, and the majority not supported by historical facts, they continue to be circulated,[47] resulting in a number of theories on the origins of the breed. In recent years, information technology enabling the manipulation of large databases combined with advances in the understanding of canine genetics has allowed a clearer understanding of the development of the breed.[55]
Little Logic A medal awarded to A. Bevis, owner of
Through the 1890s, Cattle Dogs of Halls Heeler derivations were seen in the kennels of exhibiting Queensland dog breeders such as William Byrne of Booval, and these were a different population from those shown in New South Wales. Little Logic was bred in Rockdale, New South Wales, however Sydney exhibitors saw Little Logic for the first time after the dog had been added to the Hillview kennels of Arch Bevis in Brisbane. The show records of Little Logic and his offspring created a demand in New South Wales for Queensland dogs.[56] By the end of the 1950s, there were few Australian Cattle Dogs whelped that were not descendants of Little Logic and his best known son, Logic Return. The success and popularity of these dogs led to the growth of the nickname "Queensland Heeler".[57]
The prominence of Little Logic and Logic Return in the pedigrees of modern Australian Cattle Dogs was perpetuated by Wooleston Kennels. For some twenty years, Wooleston supplied foundation and supplementary breeding stock to breeders in Australia, North America and Continental Europe. As a result, Wooleston Blue Jack is ancestral to most, if not all, Australian Cattle Dogs whelped since 1990 in any country.[58]
In the United States
Soldiers stationed in Australia during WWII played a role in the breed's introduction to the US.
US soldiers met the Cattle Dog mascots of Australian divisions overseas. This puppy is being bathed in preparation for a visit by General Douglas MacArthur
In the 1940s Alan McNiven, a Sydney veterinarian, introduced Dingo, Kelpie, German Shepherd, and Kangaroo Hound into his breeding program; however, the Royal Agricultural Society Kennel Club (RASKC) would not register the cross breeds as Australian Cattle Dogs, even though McNiven argued they were true to conformation, colour and temperament. McNiven responded by giving his pups registration papers from dead dogs, and was consequently expelled from the RASKC and all of his dogs removed from the registry. Meanwhile, Greg Lougher, a Napa, California cattle rancher who met Alan McNiven while stationed in Australia during World War II, had imported several adults and several litters from McNiven. After his de-registration McNiven continued to export his "improved" dogs to the United States. Many U.S. soldiers who were stationed in Queensland or NSW during the War discovered the Australian Cattle Dog and took one home when they returned.[59]
In the late 1950s a veterinarian in Santa Rosa, California, Jack Woolsey, was introduced to Lougher's dogs. With his partners, he bought several dogs and started breeding them. The breeders advertised the dogs in Western Horsemen stating they were guaranteed to work and calling them Queensland Heelers. Woolsey imported several purebred Australian Cattle Dogs to add to his breeding program, including Oaklea Blue Ace, Glen Iris Boomerang and several Glen Iris bitches. The National Stock Dog Registry of Butler, Indiana, registered the breed, assigning American numbers without reference to Australian registrations.[59]
Australian Cattle Dogs had been classified in the "miscellaneous" category at the American Kennel Club (AKC) since the 1930s; to get the breed full recognition, the AKC required that a National Breed Parent Club be organised for promotion and protection of the breed.[59] In 1967 Esther Ekman met Chris Smith-Risk at an AKC show, and the two fell into conversation about their Australian Cattle Dogs and the process of establishing a parent club for the breed. By 1969 the fledgling club had 12 members and formally applied to the AKC for instructions. One of the requirements was that the Club had to start keeping its own registry for the breed and that all dogs on the registry would have to be an extension of the Australian registry, tracing back to registered dogs in Australia.[59] The AKC Parent Club members began researching their dogs, including exchanging correspondence with McNiven, and discovered that few of them had dogs that could be traced back to dogs registered in Australia. The AKC took over the club registry in 1979 and the breed was fully recognised in September 1980. The Australian Cattle Dog Club of America is still active in the promotion of the breed and the maintenance of breed standards. The National Stock Dog Registry continued to recognise Cattle Dogs without prerequisite links to Australian registered dogs, on the condition that any dog of unknown parentage that was presented for registry would be registered as an "American Cattle Dog", and all others would still be registered as "Australian Cattle Dogs".[59]
In Canada
The breed gained official recognition from the Canadian Kennel Club in January 1980 after five years of collecting pedigrees, gathering support, and lobbying officials by two breeders and enthusiasts.[60] The small number of Australian Cattle Dogs in Canada at the time were primarily working dogs on farms and ranches scattered across large distances. However, the fledgling breed club held conformation shows, obedience and agility competitions, and entered their dogs in sports including flyball and lure coursing. At the end of 1980, Landmaster Carina was named the first Australian Cattle Dog in Canada to gain both her conformation and obedience titles.[60]
In the United Kingdom
The first registered Australian Cattle Dogs to arrive in the United Kingdom were two blue puppies, Lenthal Flinton and Lenthal Darlot, followed in 1980 by Landmaster Darling Red in whelp.[27] Landmaster Darling Red was imported by John and Mary Holmes, and proved to be an outstanding brood bitch. Over the next few years additional Cattle Dogs arrived in the UK from the Netherlands, Kenya, Germany and Australia, although prior to relaxation of rules regarding artificial insemination, the UK gene pool was limited. In 1985 an Australian Cattle Dog Society was formed and officially recognised by the Kennel Club; before this they had to compete in the category "Any Variety Not Separately Classified". Australian Cattle Dogs were competing successfully in obedience and working trials in the UK during the 1980s.[27]
Cross breeds
The Texas Heeler is a cross between the Australian Cattle Dog and the Australian Shepherd that was first registered with the Animal Research Foundation (ARF) in 1970. The ARF has registered Australian Cattle Dogs without papers as "Australian Cattledog Queensland Heelers" since 1965 and was the first organisation to recognise the Australian Shepherd.[61] Although originally bred for its ability to work cattle,[62] the Texas Heeler is increasingly used as a pet and a companion in dog sports. As with most cross breeds, the Texas Heeler's size and appearance is a variable combination of the parent breeds.
Notes
^ In the reports the Department of Local Government advises that care should be taken when interpreting the figures, as breed is a poor indicator of whether or not an animal is going to be aggressive.
References
Bibliography |
It used to be that when we talked about the state of education in the islands, the discussion would usually revolve around the public school system.
No longer. The University of Hawaii system — in particular the system’s flagship campus, the University of Hawaii at Manoa — is increasingly being seen more as a liability than an asset.
The “Wonder Blunder” (aka the fundraising concert scam that drained at least $200,000 from UH-Manoa’s coffers), the firing of former UH Chancellor Tom Apple and budget shortfalls and fiscal issues are just some of the headline-grabbing issues that have rocked UH-Manoa.
PF Bentley/Civil Beat
However the biggest issue of significance to the general public is the rising cost of tuition. Trends in College Pricing 2014, a report from the College Board that examined resident tuition and other costs charged by state universities across the country, found that UH Manoa is now the 19th-most expensive state school in the country.
This is no surprise when you consider how much tuition costs now not only throughout the UH system — a system that includes not only such colleges such as UH West Oahu and UH Hilo, but several community colleges — but as at UH Manoa itself.
The February issue of Hawaii Business had an article on student debt that showcased tuition figures from 2014. Resident tuition at UH Manoa is at least $10,610 per year and non-resident, $29,402. UH Hilo charges $6,842 for in-state tuition, and my alma mater, UH West Oahu, demands $6,948 per year.
Even the state’s community colleges, which are normally seen as the cheapest and most easily available educational option for Hawaii’s college-age population, have hiked their tuition rates by more than 70 percent, according to the same issue of Hawaii Business.
Add all this up and any rational, logical person can easily come up with the same conclusion that I have reached: Attending college or university in Hawaii is no longer a financial bargain.
I state this not as some aloof, outside observer of higher education in Hawaii but as someone who attended and graduated from a college here in this state. I have some skin in the game.
Watching tuition costs spiral upward may just strike me as sad, but students going to school within the UH system may more likely see them as unjust. One UH Manoa student told me on a Civil Beat Facebook thread that she works two jobs and has a scholarship in order to pay for her schooling.
What also should be taken into account is what I call the “six degrees of integration” — how tuition costs must be taken into account along with the cost of living, housing and other costs for college students. It should be remembered that simply paying off tuition is not the only concern for college students — they have to buy food, purchase clothing, pay rent and cover other mundane, day-to-day costs. Bigger costs in one area, such as tuition, can have an impact on other economic aspects of daily life for college students, and I don’t think I need to go into detail about how expensive and costly living in Hawaii can be.
UH Costs Count More Than Other Campuses
Some people may wonder: What does it matter if the UH system raises its tuition rates? Don’t private colleges and universities in the state charge more as well? What’s the big deal?
It’s true that some major private colleges such as Hawaii Pacific University ($20,930) and Chaminade University ($20,810) have tuition rates that are fairly competitive with UH-Manoa. However, the UH system has far more students than HPU, Chaminade and other private schools in the state. Therefore, since the UH system educates more people and awards more degrees to local residents, its financial well being and its rates of tuition are of great concern to parents, their college-age children as well as other potential applicants in the state.
And speaking of well-being, it is only fair to note that UH-Manoa has suffered from cutbacks in state funding over the past few years — about 27 percent from 2007-12. Therefore, it is not surprising that tuition rates have gone up as a percentage of revenues for UH-Manoa.
Still, declining legislative appropriations, while admittedly a plausible reason for hiking tuition rates, cannot account wholly for the wholesale alteration of the UH system of colleges from affordability to near luxury.
The propensity for both UH Manoa and the UH system of colleges to simply raise tuition year after year has got to come to some kind of end. At the very least, there needs to be a moratorium at some point.
If all things were equal and the cost of living in Hawaii was at least moderately affordable with reasonable rents and decent wages for even part-time jobs, maybe raising tuition wouldn’t be as much of an issue. However, higher tuition costs create further challenges for students already having to deal with the daily expenses of living in the islands.
State colleges and universities differ from all other types of schools in that it is their duty to educate the local citizens of their particular state. This includes providing an affordable amount of education.
If the UH system continues to keep hiking up tuition and costs to students attending its campus, public collegiate education may one day become largely out of reach for most of Hawaii’s residents. And that would be a much bigger blunder than the Wonder Blunder. |
For the American politician, see Dorothy Bell Lawrence
Dorothy Lawrence (4 October 1896 – 4 October 1964) was an English reporter, who secretly posed as a man to become a soldier during World War I.[1][2][3]
Early life [ edit ]
Lawrence was born in Hendon, Middlesex,[1][4] of parents unknown. Probably illegitimate, she was adopted as a baby by a guardian of the Church of England.[2]
There is some discrepancy in her parentage. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (which at time of publication in 2004 did not mention details of her life after 1919) reports that Lawrence was born on 4 October 1896 in Polesworth, Warwickshire and was the second daughter of Thomas Hartshorn Lawrence and Mary Jane Beddall.
War correspondent [ edit ]
Wanting to be a journalist, she had success in having some articles published in The Times.[2] At the outbreak of war she wrote to a number of the Fleet Street newspapers in the hope of reporting the war.
Travelling to France in 1915,[1][2] she volunteered as a civilian employee of the Voluntary Aid Detachment but was rejected.[1] Deciding to enter the war zone via the French sector as a freelance war correspondent, she was arrested by French Police in Senlis, 2 miles (3.2 km) short of the front line, and ordered to leave.[1][5] Spending the night sleeping on a haystack in a forest,[1] she returned to Paris where she concluded that only in disguise could she get the story that she wanted to write:[6]
“ I'll see what an ordinary English girl, without credentials or money can accomplish. ”
Transformation [ edit ]
Lawrence in 1915, secretly posed as a soldier of the BEF
She befriended two British Army soldiers in a Parisian café, and persuaded them to smuggle her a khaki uniform, piece by piece, within their washing; ten men eventually shared in this exploit, later referred to in her book as the "Khaki accomplices".[1][7] She then began practising transforming herself into a male soldier, by: flattening her figure with a home-made corset; using sacking and cotton-wool to bulk out her shoulders; and persuaded two Scottish military policemen to cut her long, brown hair in a short military style. She darkened her complexion with Condy’s Fluid, a disinfectant made from potassium permanganate; razored the pale skin of her cheeks in the hope of giving herself a shaving rash; and finally added a shoe-polish tan. Finally she asked her soldier friends to teach her how to drill and march.[2][7]
Wearing a blanket coat and no underwear, lest soldiers discover her abandoned petticoats, she obtained forged identity papers as Private Denis Smith of the 1st Bn, Leicestershire Regiment, and headed for the front lines.[2]
Front line [ edit ]
Targeting the British sector of the Somme, she set out by bicycle.[2][7] On her way towards Albert, Somme, she met Lancashire coalminer turned British Expeditionary Force (BEF) tunnel-digging sapper Tom Dunn, who offered to assist her.[2] Fearing for the safety of a lone woman amongst female-companionship starved soldiers, Dunn found Lawrence an abandoned cottage in Senlis Forest to sleep in. During her time on the frontline, she returned there each night to sleep on a damp mattress, fed by any rations that Dunne and his colleagues could spare.[2][7]
In her later book, Lawrence writes that Dunn found her work as a sapper with the 179 Tunnelling Company, 51st Division, Royal Engineers,[2] a specialist mine-laying company that operated within 400 yards (370 m) of the front line.[2][7] Lawrence writes that she was involved in the digging of tunnels.[7] But later evidence and correspondence from the time after her discovery by British Army authorities, including from the files of Sir Walter Kirke of the BEF's secret service, suggest that she did not undertake this highly skilled digging work, but was at liberty and working within the trenches.[2]
The toll of the job, and of hiding her true identity, soon gave her constant chills and rheumatism, and latterly fainting fits.[2] Concerned that if she needed medical attention her true gender would be discovered and the men who had befriended her would be in danger, after 10 days of service she presented herself to the commanding sergeant, who promptly placed her under military arrest.[2]
Return to England [ edit ]
Taken to the BEF headquarters and interrogated as a spy by a colonel, she was declared a prisoner of war. From there she was taken cross country by horse to Third Army headquarters in Calais,[2] where she was interrogated by six generals and approximately twenty other officers. She was ignorant of the term camp follower (one meaning of which is "prostitute") and she later recalled "We talked steadily at cross purposes. On my side I had not been informed what the term meant, and on their side they continued unaware that I remained ignorant! So I often appeared to be telling lies."[8]
From Calais she was taken to Saint-Omer and further interrogated. The Army was embarrassed that a woman had breached security and was fearful of more women taking on male roles during the war if her story got out. On the orders of a suspicious judge, fearing she could release sensitive intelligence, he ordered that she remain in France until after the Battle of Loos.[1] Held within the Convent de Bon Pasteur, she was also made to swear not to write about her experiences, and signed an affidavit to that effect, or she would be sent to jail.[1] Sent back to London, she travelled across the English Channel on the same ferry as Emmeline Pankhurst, who asked her to speak at a suffragette meeting.[2][7]
Once in London, she tried to write about her experiences for The Wide World Magazine, a London-based illustrated monthly, but had to scrap her first book on the instructions of the War Office, which invoked the 1914 Defence of the Realm Act to silence her.[2] She later commented:[9]
“ In making that promise I sacrificed the chance of earning by newspaper articles written on this escapade, as a girl compelled to earn her livelihood. ”
Later life [ edit ]
In 1919, she moved to Canonbury, Islington, and published an account of her experiences: Sapper Dorothy Lawrence: The Only English Woman Soldier.[5][10] Although well received in England, America and Australia,[2] it was heavily censored by the War Office, and with a world wishing to move forward it did not become the commercial success that she wanted.[2][7]
With no income and no credibility as a journalist, by 1925 her increasingly erratic behaviour was brought to the attention of the authorities. After confiding to a doctor that she had been raped in her teenage years by her church guardian, and with no family to look after her, she was taken into care and later deemed insane. Committed first to the London County Mental Hospital at Hanwell in March 1925, she was later institutionalised at the Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum in Friern Barnet, north London.[2][7] She died at what was by then known as Friern Hospital in 1964.[1][7] She was buried in a pauper's grave in New Southgate Cemetery, where today the site of her plot is no longer clear.[2]
Legacy [ edit ]
In 2003, Richard Bennett, the grandson of Richard Samson Bennett who was one of the soldiers who had helped Lawrence in France, found note of her within the correspondence files of Royal Engineers Museum in Chatham, Kent.[1] On further investigation, East Sussex historian Raphael Stipic found a letter written by Sir Walter Kirke about Lawrence.[1] Military historian Simon Jones then found a copy of Lawrence's book at the REM and started collecting notes to write a biography.[2]
Her story later became part of an exhibition at the Imperial War Museum on women at war. Jones later found that Lawrence's rape allegations were sufficiently compelling to be included in her medical records, held in the London Metropolitan Archives but not available for general access.[2][11]
References and sources [ edit ]
References
Sources |
Censoring My Software
by Richard Stallman
[From Datamation, March 1 1996]
Last summer, a few clever legislators proposed a bill to “prohibit pornography” on the Internet. Last fall, the right-wing Christians made this cause their own. Last week, President Clinton signed the bill. This week, I'm censoring GNU Emacs.
No, GNU Emacs does not contain pornography. It's a software package, an award-winning extensible and programmable text editor. But the law that was passed applies to far more than pornography. It prohibits “indecent” speech, which can include anything from famous poems, to masterpieces hanging in the Louvre, to advice about safe sex … to software.
Naturally, there was a lot of opposition to this bill. Not only from people who use the Internet and people who appreciate erotica, but from everyone who cares about freedom of the press.
But every time we tried to tell the public what was at stake, the forces of censorship responded with a lie: They told the public that the issue was simply pornography. By embedding this lie as a presupposition in their other statements about the issue, they succeeded in misinforming the public. So now I am censoring my software.
You see, Emacs contains a version of the famous “doctor program,” a.k.a. Eliza, originally developed by Professor Weizenbaum at MIT . This is the program that imitates a Rogerian psychotherapist. The user talks to the program, and the program responds—by playing back the user's own statements, and by recognizing a long list of particular words.
The Emacs doctor program was set up to recognize many common curse words and respond with an appropriately cute message such as, “Would you please watch your tongue?” or “Let's not be vulgar.” In order to do this, it had to have a list of curse words. That means the source code for the program was indecent.
So this week I removed that feature. The new version of the doctor doesn't recognize the indecent words; if you curse at it, it replays the curse back to you—for lack of knowing better. (When the new version starts up, it announces that it has been censored for your protection.)
Now that Americans face the threat of two years in prison for indecent network postings, it would be helpful if they could access precise rules for avoiding imprisonment via the Internet. However, this is impossible. The rules would have to mention the forbidden words, so posting them on the Internet would violate those same rules.
Of course, I'm making an assumption about just what “indecent” means. I have to do this, because nobody knows for sure. The most obvious possible meaning is the meaning it has for television, so I'm using that as a tentative assumption. However, there is a good chance that our courts will reject that interpretation of the law as unconstitutional.
We can hope that the courts will recognize the Internet as a medium of publication like books and magazines. If they do, they will entirely reject any law prohibiting “indecent” publications on the Internet.
What really worries me is that the courts might choose a muddled half-measure—by approving an interpretation of “indecent” that permits the doctor program or a statement of the decency rules, but prohibits some of the books that any child can browse through in the public library. Over the years, as the Internet replaces the public library, some of our freedom of speech will be lost.
Just a few weeks ago, another country imposed censorship on the Internet. That was China. We don't think well of China in this country—its government doesn't respect basic freedoms. But how well does our government respect them? And do you care enough to preserve them here?
[This paragraph is obsolete:]
If you care, stay in touch with the Voters Telecommunications Watch. Look in their Web site http://www.vtw.org/ for background information and political action recommendations. Censorship won in February, but we can beat it in November. |
Cussing the company that you just quit online? If you’re that type, you might have a lawsuit on your hands.Given how easy it is today for disgruntled or ex-employees to vent in cyberspace, a number of Indian companies are introducing social media policies and non-disparagement clauses.Globally, companies adopt social media policies that dictate what any employee can say, or more importantly, not say online. Use is also made of non-disparagement clauses, especially in top-level exits. Steven Sinofsky , a key executive who resigned from Microsoft , and Conan O’Brien, who had an alleged fallout with NBC, have both signed severance agreements containing such clauses. Albeit this is linked to severance payout, and O’Brien was reportedly paid a cool $32.5 million.With 10 crore Facebook users and more than three crore active Twitter accounts in the country, India Inc is now following suit. As Shivaram T, HR leader at SAP Labs, India, points out, “In today’s networked environment, negative remarks spread quickly and have a multiplier effect. Thus companies are moving towards having legally watertight clauses in employee agreements, which protect the company, its brand, customers and other stakeholders.”Most likely to bad-mouth a firm are former employees so companies are making severance agreements of key employees tighter. “We have increasingly seen use of non-disparagement clause linked to exit packages in severance agreements with senior employees. We are also seeing a trend of including non-disparagement clauses in new executive employment agreements. Automatically, employees would be under an obligation to comply with the clause on exit,” says Anand Mehta, partner, Khaitan & Co, a law firm. A few years ago, during a top-level shake up at Diageo India, newspaper reports indicate that non-disparagement clauses were adopted.“In most cases, when top-level employees exit, they prefer to negotiate a mutual non-disparagement clause under which even the company is prohibited from disparaging and harming the interests of the outgoing employee,” says Vikram Shroff, head, HR law at Nishith Desai Associates.“We have also seen cases where the PR and legal teams of a company work with the exiting employee and draft joint release statements for both internal and external communications,” adds Nohid Nooreyezdan, partner at law firm AZB & Partners.In the US, there are stray instances of employees challenging use of non-disparagement clauses. The Indian Constitution also guarantees freedom of speech. “However, it also allows reasonable restrictions to be placed on exercise of the right to free speech if it could lead to defamation,” explains Shroff. So far, non-disparagement clauses haven’t been challenged in court and appear to be here to stay.Some companies are detailing their social media policies in their offer letter itself. “Our social media policy is part of our offer letter. RPG’s code of ethics, which is signed by all employees on joining, provides that no employee should post any defamatory comments about the company, its employees, clients and associates. Sharing of proprietary information of the company or its clients is also prohibited. Under this code, even ex-employees cannot engage in activities that could affect the company’s interest,” says Arvind Agrawal, president HR, RPG Enterprises.“Often employees make comments in jest or in a fit of frustration. These policies help educated them on appropriate usage of social media platforms," says Mohandas Pai, chairman, Manipal Global Education.“In addition, access to social media sites within office premises can be curtailed or monitored via an IT security system,” adds Amit Das, chief HR officer at Reliance Communications. At Reliance Communications, access within the office is available only to select social media sites that meet the specified business requirements. To prevent undesired behavior after office hours, the company also has an exhaustive social media policy in place. For example, employees are required to abide by national and international copyright laws or those governing libel or defamation. They cannot make personal comments about other employees or the company on networking sites. Social media policies adopted by companies even prescribe for disciplinary action in case of errant behaviour, such as at SAP Labs. HR personnel also caution against the use of anonymous accounts, as the culprits can always be traced. |
UTSA used a team effort Thursday night to defeat I-35 rival Texas State in its home opener in a four-set victory at the Convocation Center. The Roadrunners won by scores of 22-25, 25-12, 25-20 and 25-20.It was the first win over Texas State since the 2012 season when UTSA (7-3) swept the Bobcats at home.andreached double digits with 24 and 11 kills, respectively, to lead the squad.Collectively, UTSA hit a .308 clip and is the third consecutive match this season the Roadrunners hit .300 or better.Meanwhile,recorded her fourth match of 40-plus assists with 48 helpers and was a dig shy of a double-double with nine.had an exceptional performance for the Roadrunners once again with seven kills for a .600 attack percentage and a season-best six blocks.After UTSA dropped the opening frame 25-22, the Roadrunners turned it on in the second set as they closed out the set on a 16-1 run to win 25-12. UTSA hit a set best .417 and held Texas State to a -.100 hitting percentage.Texas State (7-7) attempted to spoil the Roadrunners third set victory after UTSA reached set point on a kill by Boskovc and then scored four straight points before a kill bysecured the win, 25-20.UTSA played from behind in the fourth set after a 6-0 run by the Bobcats had the visiting team leading 9-4. The Roadrunners rallied back and eventually tied the score at nine on a block byand. The Roadrunners never looked back to win its fourth straight match of the season.The team will return for the second day of the Roadrunners Roundup and take on Texas Tech at 1 p.m. on Friday. |
Because the costs of harvest are so high, he has been cutting his losses by doing something no farmer wants to do: disking viable crop, which means cutting spears and leaving them in the field. “How can you grow a crop and not be able to sell it?” he laments.
Loss of Market Share
Asparagus was first planted in California in the 1850s in the fertile Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, and the state still leads the nation in asparagus production. But acreage has been in decline in recent years. According to the National Agricultural Statistics Service, there were 12,000 acres of asparagus in 2012, down from 29,000 in 2003.
“The asparagus industry in our area is dying a slow death,” says Roscoe.
Over the last two decades, free trade agreements like NAFTA have contributed to this shift, dramatically changing what’s on the American plate. The glut of imports has created a year-round expectation for cheap asparagus, tomatoes, raspberries, and other seasonal crops.
While global trade seems like a win in terms of food availability and access, particularly in colder parts of the US, the elimination of tariffs means that wholesale prices have fallen, making it difficult for US growers to compete with countries like Mexico and Peru. Today, more and more Americans are eating asparagus, but it is estimated that imports make up as much as 90 percent of the market.
Food of the Kings
Though it is referred to in the industry simply at “grass,” asparagus has historically been considered an aristocrat of the plant kingdom, commanding higher prices than most vegetables. Few consumers understand the patience and hard work that go into growing this unusual perennial crop.
Planting asparagus “crowns” is a significant time investment for farmers, as new plants must establish themselves for two or three years in the ground before producing harvestable shoots. Once mature, the plants may be harvested for up to 20 years, but only about half a pound of spears may be picked from each plant over the course of a season.
It’s a demanding plant that requires vigilant attention from growers. “Asparagus is temperature- and light-driven,” Roscoe explains. “For example, during a full moon, you have water that’s coming up in the soil, which gives the plants more oomph. You’ve also got light from the moon, so production usually spikes.”
On hot days, asparagus can grow upwards of 7 inches a day, which means that Roscoe may be sending workers out into the field to harvest from the same plants within 18 to 24 hours.
Fair Share for Labor
Harvesting asparagus is one of the more labor-intensive jobs in agriculture. Roscoe estimates that every spear is touched by human hands about 20 times from field to market, as it is cut, picked up, passed down rows, put in piles, and eventually sorted by size in the packing shed. Thick shoots come from younger, stronger plants, while the thin shoots are from older plants.
Second-generation farmer Thaddeus Barsotti of Capay Organic, which grows 60 acres of organic asparagus for direct sales as well as wholesale markets, estimates that his asparagus harvest costs are 30 to 50% of the total production cost.
A discrepancy in labor standards is a significant factor in the higher price of locally grown asparagus. Zuckerman’s conventionally grown asparagus sells for $3.50 a bunch at the farmers market, while Capay’s organic asparagus is $5.
“In California, we’re required to pay minimum wage and we have Cal/OSHA responsibilities,” explains Thaddeus. “These things are important, and they are also expensive.” According to Roscoe, a Mexican laborer gets paid $10 a day.
Taking “Stalk” in Direct Markets
In a depressed wholesale asparagus market, both Zuckerman’s Farm and Capay Organic rely heavily on farmers markets and CSAs to keep their sales afloat. “The only business that I can make money at is farmers markets, which includes restaurant trade,” says Roscoe. He estimates that farmers markets make up half of his business.
Farmers markets also offer the opportunity to communicate the freshness of a locally grown product that is harvested the day before market, in contrast to asparagus that has traveled thousands of miles and may be a week old before it hits market shelves.
Direct channels also allow farmers to talk about the true costs of their product. Thaddeus notes, “I think free trade has its place, but it can make things difficult for local ag producers, because when a product comes across the border, people don’t know the story behind it.”
“That’s what’s cool about farmers markets, CSAs, and any direct connection farms can have with the consumer,” he continues. “People are willing to pay fair prices for fair food.”
Support Zuckerman’s Farm on Saturday, Tuesday, and Thursday and Capay Organic on Saturday at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market. |
You must enter the characters with black color that stand out from the other characters
— Within hours of the House giving final approval to a bill that would allow magistrates and other public officials to refuse to perform marriages for religious reasons, Gov. Pat McCrory vetoed the measure.
Senate Bill 2 would allow magistrates and employees of county register of deeds offices who object to same-sex marriage to recuse themselves from performing or recording any marriages, gay or straight, for a period of at least six months.
"I recognize that, for many North Carolinians, including myself, opinions on same-sex marriage come from sincerely held religious beliefs that marriage is between a man and a woman. However, we are a nation and a state of laws. Whether it is the president, governor, mayor, a law enforcement officer or magistrate, no public official who voluntarily swears to support and defend the Constitution and to discharge all duties of their office should be exempt from upholding that oath," McCrory said in a statement. Officials said Friday that McCrory vetoed the measure late Thursday.
Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore said they "respect but disagree with" McCrory's decision, but they stopped short of saying whether they plan to override it.
"Senate Bill 2 is necessary because a bureaucracy failed to make reasonable accommodations and instead forced some magistrates to make an impossible choice between their core religious beliefs and their jobs," Berger and Moore said in a joint statement. "A majority of the people’s elected representatives in both chambers agreed that this bill strikes an appropriate balance between the expansion of rights for some and our constitutionally-protected freedom of religion.”
The Senate has enough votes to override the veto, but it's unclear whether the House could also sustain an override. The final House vote on the bill was 67-43, which barely meets the three-fifths threshold of present members for an override.
Groups on both sides of the debate were quick to respond to the promised veto.
"We urge the General Assembly to keep government services open for all North Carolinians by sustaining the governor’s veto,” Sarah Preston, acting executive director of the ACLU of North Carolina. "Senate Bill 2 is a transparent attempt to deny gay and lesbian couples the freedom to marry, but it is so broadly written that it would also allow court officers to deny services to interracial couples, interfaith couples and others. No couple should have to spend their wedding day rushing from one courthouse to another trying to prove they meet the religious criteria of a magistrate."
"Senate Bill 2 will protect the fundamental American freedom to exercise one's religious beliefs, and it is unacceptable for any Governor who calls himself 'conservative' to veto legislation like SB 2," Jessica Wood, spokeswoman for the North Carolina Values Coalition, said in a statement.
House debate heated for second day
Under the proposal, if all magistrates in a county recuse themselves from performing marriages, then the chief judge must request an outside magistrate or perform the marriages himself or herself. Similarly, if all employees of a register of deeds office recuse themselves, the elected register must issue marriage licenses.
How area House members voted Republicans Marilyn Avila - yes; John Bell IV - yes; Jamie Boles - yes; Jeff Collins - yes; Leo Daughtry - yes; Jimmy Dixon - yes; Nelson Dollar - yes; James Langdon - yes; David Lewis - yes; Chris Malone - absent; Susan Martin - yes; Allen McNeill - yes; Gary Pendleton - yes; Paul Stam - yes; John Szoka - yes; Larry Yarborough - yes Democrats Gale Adcock - no; Nathan Baskerville - no; Larry Bell - no; William Brisson - absent; Jean Farmer-Butterfield - no; Elmer Floyd - no; Rosa Gill - no; Rick Glazier - no; Ken Goodman - no; Duane Hall - no; Larry Hall - no; Yvonne Lewis Holley - no; Verla Insko - no; Darren Jackson - no; Marvin Lucas - no; Paul Luebke - no; Grier Martin - no; Graig Meyer - no; Mickey Michaux - no; Garland Pierce - no; Robert Reives - no; Bobbie Richardson - no; Brad Salmon - no; Shelly Willingham - no; Michael Wray - no
The bill also specifies that civil marriages must be available in every county at least 10 hours a week, spread out over three business days. Currently, there is no minimum time set in state law, so the availability of civil marriage varies widely from one county to the next.
"What this bill does is provide a balancing act," said Rep. Dean Arp, R-Union. "That ensures that marriages are performed in a blind fashion."
Rep. Paul Luebke, D-Durham, noted that he would never be allowed to pick whom he teaches in his classes at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
"We are state employees, and as such, we have an obligation to teach everyone," Luebke said. "It’s a shame this bill is even on the calendar."
Rep. Paul Stam, R-Wake, said the opt out is needed to conform to employment discrimination law.
"They're entitled to accommodation," Stam said. "We can change the duties. We can change the authority of the magistrate. The individual magistrate does not have such and such a duty."
Rep. Larry Pittman, R-Cabarrus, noted that North Carolina voters approved a constitutional amendment in 2012 defining marriage in the state as being between one man and one woman, effectively barring same-sex marriage.
Federal judges threw out that amendment last fall after the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found a similar law in Virginia to be unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court is currently weighing the legality of such laws nationwide.
"These magistrates, by refusing to do this, are seeking to uphold the constitution as enacted by the people," Pittman said.
Following the federal court ruling last fall, North Carolina's Administrative Office of the Courts issued a directive to magistrates statewide to perform same-sex marriages or face disciplinary action and possible firing.
Berger sponsored the bill after a magistrate in his Rockingham County district resigned rather than preside over a same-sex wedding.
"We understand that everybody doesn't agree on everything all the time, and we don't try to force people to change their beliefs just to comply with what other folks would like to do or have a right to do," Berger said after the bill cleared the House. |
I just returned from watching 2016: Obama’s America, arch-conservative Dinesh D’Souza’s election-year documentary (based on his book The Roots of Obama’s Rage) with my 19-year-old daughter, Chassé. As someone who is now a secular progressive single mom of seven kids, five of whom live at home, I wouldn’t normally choose to spend our family’s perpetually-insufficient income to see this Obama-bashing movie, let alone take along one of my kids.
But we went because I wanted to see the movie that our former church, a central Nebraska Salvation Army congregation, thought was an appropriate selection for its bi-monthly “Teen Night” one Friday evening earlier this September.
Here’s what D’Souza wants us to know about President Obama:
That while he may have to concede that Barack Obama is an American by birth, at heart the president is still an anti-American Communist, socialist, Marxist, and Muslim sympathizer who supports abortion and his anti-colonialist father’s dream of stripping rich nations of their wealth. In D’Souza’s nightmare vision, if we elect Obama to another four-year term, by 2016 we will have the United States of Islam.
D’Souza, an Indian immigrant, spends a considerable amount of time at the beginning of the movie showing that racism is no longer a big problem in America (before jamming into a whiplash-inducing reverse when he concludes that Obama only won by working Americans’ racism to his advantage). The premise of the film is that we can’t perceive the president’s values without understanding those of his Kenyan father.
As Chassé and I sat in the theater after the film ended, I wondered again why the local Salvation Army pastors, known as “officers,” felt it was appropriate to take my daughter and seven other youth group members—mostly disadvantaged, mostly Hispanic kids between the ages of 10 and 19—to see such a partisan film as part of their Bible study discussion on “justice.”
When Chassé had first seen it, she had returned home from Teen Night with a barrage of accusations against President Obama, the candidate she had been planning to vote for this November. “Is it true that Obama’s trying to get rid of all of America’s nuclear weapons so that we are defenseless against Islamic terrorists?” she asked me, repeating questions that had arisen in the movie and subsequent Bible study. “Why waste American money to buy their expensive oil when we could have our own cheap oil?” “Why is he trying to make rich people poor?” “How is it right to punish rich people for working hard and realizing the American Dream?”
It was late on a Friday night and I was tired, so I half-heartedly responded by explaining that there are other factors to consider in every charged question she’d been armed with. But I wondered, “Why the hell was the Salvation Army youth group watching a political movie anyway?”
Losing My Religion
I was a Christian for over twenty-five years—not a “buffet-style,” live-and-let-live Christ follower, but a hardcore fundamentalist true believer. I was “radically pro-life” to the point of shunning all forms of birth control. I desired to raise “a quiver full of arrows” for God’s army: mighty warriors who would valiantly battle the forces of darkness, battering against the Gates of Hell and ultimately ushering in Christ’s Kingdom on Earth. I homeschooled my seven children to ensure their education was built on the firm foundation of biblical truth and to protect them from the ungodly influences of secular humanist teachings on evolution, comprehensive sex-ed, tolerance, and multiculturalism; I called public schools “Satan’s indoctrination centers.”
I was also the editor and publisher of a local “pro-family” conservative newspaper which encouraged Christian citizens to actively work to restore America to its historically Christian roots, “redeeming the time because the days are evil.” And my family attended a fundamentalist Quiverfull home church, having rejected all the local evangelical and even fundamentalist congregations as “too wishy-washy.”
About five years ago, an email correspondence with my long-lost atheist uncle encouraged me to question my “biblical worldview.” In time, the questioning led me to reject my literalist reading of the Bible, and eventually, my Christian faith. I divorced my patriarchal husband, enrolled my kids in public school and sold the newspaper. I eventually founded a website, No Longer Quivering, for women escaping and healing from spiritual abuse.
But I didn’t quit going to church right away. Even after admitting that I had become an atheist, I began attending the local Salvation Army church to give my kids some continuity amidst the many changes in our lives. We had friends at the church and I liked having Thursday morning coffee with Lieutenant Heather, the enthusiastic pastor whose response to all my questions was, always and only, “Jesus.”
But when Heather and her husband moved away, and a new couple was assigned as pastors to our corps, I took it as an opportunity to step further away from church attendance.
My kids are still in the process of sorting out their beliefs. A couple say they are atheists, a couple call themselves Christians—and sometimes they still go to church, which is how Chassé happened to be in attendance on Friday evening when the new pastors, Captains RC and Miranda, took the teens to watch 2016: Obama’s America.
During the discussion after the film, Chassé told the youth group that she had been planning to vote for Obama; Miranda responded, “Oh really?” When Chassé pushed back, asking questions about the movie’s anti-Obama claims, her opinions were dismissed. “Every time I said something, she would just go back to her point and ignore mine,” Chassé told me. Later on, after we’d spoken, Chassé felt manipulated, like they’d tried to indoctrinate her.
Captains RC and Miranda are a young, personable couple with the unenviable job of administering an impressive array of community outreach and social service activities, from Sunday school to a thrift store, soup kitchen, and rent and utility assistance programs. In the midst of their busy schedules, the pastors met with me the first Monday after the weekend to discuss my concern that paying for the teens to watch this movie crossed the line from teaching good Christian behavior to political advocacy.
Both were friendly, and our meeting wasn’t confrontational, but several times during our conversation, I felt like I was flashing back to another lifetime, when I shared the same fundamentalist worldview as the Captains, perceiving “the World, the flesh, and the devil” as tangible enemies intent on deceiving believers into forsaking eternal life. (For all the Salvation Army’s good works, they are still an extremely conservative church, where a rogue Australian officer recently suggested that gays and lesbians should be put to death.)
To explain where I was coming from, I asked at first whether they would have a problem with a public school teacher using class time to show a Michael Moore film, thinking this would be a relevant counter-example. Miranda wasn’t familiar with Moore, and insisted that she saw the D’Souza documentary as neutral—a way to get the kids talking about the president’s policies and the upcoming election. Both pastors assured me that they in no way endorsed one candidate over another (RC suggested that Christians might sidestep the entire issue of the presidential election, and Romney’s Mormonism, by writing in “Jesus” or “the Bible” as a protest vote at the polls).
“We just wanted to get the kids thinking,” they told me.
When I wondered if purchasing tickets for the kids using Salvation Army funds could be a violation of the church’s tax-exempt status, Miranda argued that she didn’t see a problem. Since the Bible is applicable to every facet of private and public life, she reasoned, how it would be possible to talk to the kids about anything government-related without jeopardizing their tax-exemption? “Our hands would be tied!” she complained.
That would be the point, at least when it comes to political candidates. When a church applies for tax exemption, the institution agrees to abide by certain rules, which are intended to enforce the separation of church and state. Officially, the IRS prohibits “voter education or registration activities with evidence of bias that (a) would favor one candidate over another; (b) oppose a candidate in some manner; or (c) have the effect of favoring a candidate or group of candidates.” Unofficially, however, enforcement of this policy is so toothless that only one church has ever lost its tax-exempt status, and pulpit politicking is the norm across the country.
But that disagreement was just one of many. As we kept talking, it became clear that we didn’t see eye-to-eye on much of anything. While I saw the showing of this film as indoctrination, tying political propaganda to a Bible study lesson, Miranda argued it was appropriate, since “America is one nation under God.” While Miranda suspected that all news media was biased, portraying believers as ignorant and out of touch, I recognized a persecution complex I used to share. When I explained that I saw my old way of thinking as “the box that my brain was trapped inside,” Miranda instead saw conservative news sources and bible-based thinking as “a hedge of protection” safeguarding the minds of believers against secular lies—indoctrination, as they saw it, of another kind.
We were speaking two different languages.
While I saw the Salvation Army’s support for Republican politics as wildly out of sync with the realities of the disadvantaged kids and families they serve—the very people who would benefit from health care reform and other progressive social policies—Miranda believed that the kids would be better served learning to trust that God, not the government, would provide for their physical needs.
It was at this point that Miranda decided to display her own trust in God by submitting the movie ticket receipt for reimbursement from the Salvation Army, taking a daring stand for truth, 501c3 be damned. She later told me the Salvation Army headquarters had supported her decision, but in the future, they’ll have permission forms for parents to sign, “So if anyone is afraid of a certain movie,” there won’t be a problem.
But the larger point I took away from the discussion was more about my perspective as a former card-carrying member of the Christian Right, and how our different worldviews shaped our ability to see the teen movie trip as a problem. From inside the “hedge of protection”—a Christian ghetto undisturbed by competing viewpoints—the pastors could not fathom 2016: Obama’s America as blatant propaganda.
But after Miranda asked whether I had myself seen the movie I was complaining about, I decided to go, and I took my daughter with me. Chassé and I both fell in love with President Obama’s half-brother, George, a humanitarian activist featured in the film who chooses to live among the poor in Nairobi, Kenya. When D’Souza tried to goad him into disavowing Barack, by asking why the U.S. president is not taking care of his own brother, George responded with sincere respect and admiration, “He is taking care of the world. I am a part of the world.”
After watching the movie for a second time, Chassé came away with more questions than she had originally—only this time, her questions were more nuanced. She wants to read Barack Obama’s book, Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, which is frequently referenced in the movie. She really wants to read George Obama’s book, Homeland: An Extraordinary Story of Hope and Survival. She’d like to understand more about race relations, colonialism, corporate welfare policies, the American political system, and how all of these impact our environment.
Salvation Army officers, RC and Miranda, took their youth group to watch a polarizing right-wing documentary in the hopes of getting the kids interested in politics; at our house, at least, they’ve succeeded. Chassé cannot wait to cast an informed vote in the upcoming presidential election. |
CLOSE Dylan Kohere is an 18-year-old college student and member of the U.S. Army Reserve Officers' Training Corps program. If President Trump's military transgender ban is allowed to stand, Kohere would lose tens of thousands of ROTC scholarship dollars. USA TODAY
Attorney General Jeff Sessions departs after speaking during a vigil ceremony marking the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. (Photo11: Zach Gibson, Getty Images)
WASHINGTON – Attorney General Jeff Sessions said that federal civil rights law does not protect transgender people from discrimination in the workplace, reversing an Obama administration policy issued nearly three years ago.
In a directive earlier this week to federal prosecutors across the country, Sessions said that the Justice Department would take the new position "in all pending and future matters.''
According to Sessions' memo, the prohibition on sex discrimination "encompasses discrimination between men and women but does not encompass discrimination based on gender identity, per se, including transgender status."
The directive effectively rolls back 2014 guidance provided by then-Attorney General Eric Holder, which stated that the "most straightforward reading" of the civil rights law also guards transgender workers from discrimination.
"Although Congress may not have had such claims in mind when it enacted Title VII (sex discrimination protections), the Supreme Court has made clear that Title VII must be interpreted according to its plain text, noting that 'statutory prohibitions often go beyond the principal evil to cover reasonably comparable evils.' "
In the new memo, Sessions vowed that the Justice Department "must and will continue to affirm the dignity of all people, including transgender individuals."
"The Department of Justice cannot expand the law beyond what Congress has provided," Justice spokesman Devin O'Malley said Thursday.
"Unfortunately, the last administration abandoned that fundamental principle, which necessitated today's action. This department remains committed to protecting the civil and constitutional rights of all individuals, and will continue to enforce the numerous laws that Congress has enacted that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation."
James Esseks, director of the ACLU's LGBT & HIV Project, blasted the Justice action as part of "an explicit agenda" to undermine the civil rights of vulnerable communities.
"Today marks another low point for a Department of Justice, which has been cruelly consistent in its hostility towards the LGBT community and in particular its inability to treat transgender people with basic dignity and respect," Esseks said.
Protesters display placards against US President Donald Trump during a demonstration in front of the US Army career center in Times Square, New York. In a series of three tweets last month, Trump upended an Obama-era policy of more than a year that allowed transgender troops to serve openly. (Photo11: Jewel Samad, AFP/Getty Images)
Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2yKkl23 |
NOBEL-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has described the Irish ability to suck up pain associated with austerity as 'astonishing'.
NOBEL-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has described the Irish ability to suck up pain associated with austerity as 'astonishing'.
And he described our ability to deal with the pain without taking to the streets and rioting like our neighbours in southern Europe as akin to religious ideology.
"It's like a view that you have sinned, Greece has sinned - redemption through pain. It's almost a religious notion that if you sinned so badly, you have to feel the pain to get redemption," he told RTE's Morning Ireland in an interview.
He said the notion of taking billions out on economy in austerity budgets, as has happened here, was 'totally absurd' and that economists know it does not work.
"Why that was not understood by European leaders was beyond me."
Columbia Uniiversity Professor Stiglitz has never been a fan of austerity and the former chief economist at the World Bank has voiced his views in the past but he said Ireland will recover.
While Ireland will recover, he said, it will not be back to the growth path we were on before the economy tanked.
"Yes you will get back to where you were...but it will be a lost decade, at least, I think that's the reality that Europe needs to wake-up to."
And he reiterated his theory that bondholders should have been burned during the bank bailout instead of laying the responsibility at the hands of taxpayers when €60bn was pumped into the Irish financial system.
"The first mistake was to make citizens pay for it. The bondholders - in a conventional bankruptcy if you are the owner of a firm that goes bankrupt you suffer.
"You get the upside in capitalism and you get the downside.
"The European Central Bank and others in Europe wanted to save the banks and the other investors in Europe......So it was really a trade off between banks all over Europe and Irish citizens.
"It was Irish citizens not so much bailing out the economy as bailing out the bondholders."
Ailish O'Hora
Online Editors |
Getty Images
At a time when the jury seems to be out on whether Eagles quarterback Nick Foles will perform at the same level he did in 2013, a former Eagles quarterback is ready to entering a verdict, beyond a reasonable doubt.
Recently appearing on 97.5 The Fanatic in Philadelphia, Jaworski was asked whether he’d want Foles or Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, who like Foles entered the NFL via round three of the 2012 draft.
“I’m taking Foles,” Jaworski said. “Not even close. Russell Wilson is just . . . because of that system he is in. Russell Wilson plays with that defense, the best in football. He just managed the game very well. I think Russell Wilson has played terrific, a great maturity, but I’m going to take Nick Foles.”
While Jaworski is entitled to his opinions (and ESPN is entitled to milk three days or programming out of each of them), this one seems a little kooky.
As to Foles, it’s possible his success can be attributed in part to working with Andy Reid ad a rookie and Chip Kelly in 2013. Also, since Mike Vick was the starter entering the 2013 season, defenses didn’t have tape on Foles, giving him an advantage during his truncated first tour through an NFL schedule.
As to Wilson, he’s hardly a game manager. By all accounts, he’s a dynamic and driven young leader who has done a lot more for the Seahawks than hand off the ball and throw safe, first-read passes. Wilson threw for more yards in 2013 than Colin Kaepernick, who helped ESPN create several days of news churn last year when Jaws declared Kaepernick could become one of the best to ever play the position. Also, Wilson’s passer rating exceeded 100. (Kaepernick’s didn’t.)
More importantly, Wilson wins. Yes, it’s a cliché and it’s not very insightful and it draws a fine from producer Matt Casey if it’s uttered on NBCSN’s Pro Football Talk when we return from hiatus on Monday. But the game is about winning, and Wilson has shown from the outset of his career that he can and does.
Wilson also has shown that he can continue to perform at a high level even after opposing defenses have had seven months to break down everything he did in his first season of action. Foles will have to do the same thing in 2014 before there’s even a fair debate as to whether he’s in the same conversation as Russell Wilson. |
In just two to five minutes, one lucky entrepreneur could convince the City of Yellowknife to give them free rent downtown for a year.
'Win your Space,' a contest launched by the City of Yellowknife this month, is awarding a free 12-month lease downtown to the person who presents them with the best new business idea.
The winner will choose one of 11 downtown locations to operate out of, worth a value of up to $4,000 in rent a month — $48,000 for the full year.
In a short, two- to five-minute video, participants are asked to make their best pitch on what business they would like to bring downtown.
Stephanie Vandeputte, an economic development and communications officer with the City, says the pilot project is from the community, for the community.
"In 2015, we undertook the Business Incentive Strategy, and from that, we learned the commercial vacancy rate downtown is actually a lot higher than the rest of Yellowknife," she said.
"That, as well as [supporting] council's goals and priorities... we wanted to support the business community, support entrepreneurs, while supporting the downtown revitalization."
Particpants must be over 19 years old, and must be a legal resident of Yellowknife, Dettah or N'dilo in order to be eligible to win the contest.
While franchises and restaurants aren't eligible to apply, the City will accept proposals from current business owners if their pitch is unrelated to their existing business and they don't already work downtown.
The contest closes the evening of May 28. |
United States attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president. Here’s hoping that it is the pleasure of President-elect Donald J. Trump to keep junkyard-dog federal prosecutor Preet Bharara on the job long enough to finish the extraordinary work he has undertaken in New York.
Custom has it that US attorneys stand ready to depart when a new president is inaugurated. Bill Clinton, taking office in 1993, demanded — and received — resignation letters from all 93 federal prosecutors. New brooms, as they say, sweep clean. Bharara, if not a new broom, is certainly a big one, and he’s been sweeping clean since President Obama — on the recommendation of Sen. Charles Schumer — appointed him US Attorney for the Southern District of New York in 2009. That’s one of the most challenging prosecutorial posts in the federal government, albeit one that has generally focused on Wall Street and the financial markets. Bharara widened the brief to include New York government at the state and local level — scoring spectacular, if substantially incomplete, results.
Former New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and one-time state Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos are on their way to federal prison; former key aides to Gov. Cuomo await formal indictment in separate scandals; and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration has been hamstrung by at least five investigations — most of them conducted, initiated, or materially aided by Bharara.
Not since Manhattan District Attorney Thomas Dewey went after Tammany Hall to splendid effect some 80 years ago has a single prosecutor had the effect on political corruption in New York that Bharara has already achieved. Yet for all of that, much remains to be done, with not much time to do it if standard succession conventions are observed.
New York will never be free of corruption. Greed, stupidity, and arrogance are part of the human condition — arguably nowhere more acutely than in the Empire State. Bharara’s singular service to date has been to impose a measure of restraint on business as usual.
Going forward, rare will be the gathering of politicians and other players where the folks at the table won’t wonder who among them is wearing a wire. And that is all to the good in a state known for its political culture of corruption.
De Blasio is heading into his re-election year, with Cuomo presumably to follow in 2018. For better or worse, each deserves unequivocal conclusions to the investigations and related activities that Bharara has initiated.
The prosecutor needs to drop the hammer or lift the cloud, to be blunt. And New Yorkers need a clean resolution also, for otherwise, a restoration of confidence in their government is impossible.
For any of that to happen, Bharara needs time and support. Questions loom, not least among them this: Will the new US attorney general — whoever that might be — provide Bharara that time and support? Any president-elect has a lot on his plate. Given the circumstances, President-elect Trump likely has more distractions than most.
But he is a New Yorker; he can’t help but understand what’s at stake. He can do his hometown — and the rule of law — a substantial favor by extending Preet Bharara’s tenure.
Bob McManus is a contributing editor at the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal, where this piece first appeared. |
A gaggle of illegals and their pals swarmed Capitol Hill on Thursday where they insisted on a big amnesty for DACAs and Dreamers and all their cousins ad infinitum.
The scene looked pretty rowdy, verging on unsafe, as a large crowd of angry illegal aliens loudly demanded citizenship privileges to which they have no right.
Who’s in charge of public safety in the Senate office building? After the attempted mass murder where Rep. Steve Scalise was nearly killed last summer after being shot during a baseball practice with several other Republicans and Senator Rand Paul had six ribs cracked by a neighbor a few days back, it seems like the safety of elected officials should get more consideration.
Tucker Carlson found the lack of law enforcement to be disappointing:
“A literal horde of illegal immigrants stormed Capitol Hill today — hundreds of illegal immigrants and their supporters assembled in the Hart Senate Office Building very close to right here, chanting slogans in an effort to pressure Congress to disallow the deportation of people here illegally. Now protesting inside the Hart Building is against the law; many protestors were students cutting school, and of course an illegal immigrant participating in an illegal protest inside the US is illegal on about eight different levels. Nevertheless only 15 arrests were made, and seems unlikely anybody will be deported over this or ever for any reason because we don’t deport people in America. Howie Carr is a Boston area radio show host, and he joins us tonight. Howie, I mean not to put too fine a point on it, but for people here illegally to show up and scream at elected American representatives about how they demand this, that or the other thing, and then no one does anything about it kind of tells you that the law is toothless now.”
Howie Carr said he didn’t get it either, and went on to cite cases of violent crime in the Boston area committed by illegal aliens, like the Cambodian who beat and robbed an elderly woman in a wheelchair
Here’s a spare video in case of disappearance and an audio version:
http://www.limitstogrowth.org/ltg-uploads/2017/11/Illegal-Immigrants-Take-DACA-Protest-To-Congress-Tucker-Carlson.mp3
Interestingly, a recent poll found support for DACA forgiveness to be dropping: less than 30 percent of Americans want to see those illegals get an amnesty. |
The sale and subsequent closure of the Cannery Café on Moncton Street, in the heart of Steveston Village, has a past president of the Richmond Heritage Commission renewing the call for more definitive measures of protection for historic sites.
Stevestonite Kathleen Beaumont, a former planner at the University of B.C., recalls many memories of sitting in the café or simply walking by and admiring the early 1900s cannery cookhouse, that still features a classic gabled roof, wood frame windows, pebble dash siding and a large picket-fenced patio for gatherings.
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“For many of us, the café represented one of those places where you could go for coffee and meet friends,” said Beaumont.
The building is listed in a 2009 city study — the Steveston Village Conservation Strategy — as one that has adapted over time and thus is “an important reflection of the continued evolution of the village.”
Beaumont said there are rumours the café will be turned into a Chinese restaurant or a daycare and isn’t sure what the sale to an offshore owner means for the future of the building.
Part of the problem of not knowing is what Beaumont describes as an ad-hoc, outdated vision for the village.
Heritage, said Beaumont, provides communities with a sense of place and puts progress in perspective. And she’s concerned new developments will “max out” and ruin valued open spaces where community interactions take place. In Steveston, older buildings provide for a unique tourism experience, she added.
“Very little in the village is actually protected from demolition” and Steveston “may be in for some surprises,” said Beaumont, looking eastward toward a large building recently erected on Bayview Street.
The vast majority of village buildings listed in the strategy are not “designated” as heritage.
Meanwhile, the city’s Steveston-specific design guidelines (Sakamoto guidelines) are more than 25 years old and open to interpretations by developers, said Beaumont.
The city also has a 2005 heritage inventory, which it plans to update with $150,000 in new funding approved by Richmond city council (Coun. Carol Day objected) on Monday. However, the old inventory also did nothing to protect heritage buildings and sites, case in point six Japanese gardens on Moncton that were recently bulldozed for a micro house development.
“There are a lot of buildings on the inventory that are heritage buildings but they’re not designated as such and that means anyone can come along and rip them down. And even if it was a designated building, Richmond has never put any real money on the table to try and help with heritage preservation. It’s incumbent on the person who buys the building to keep the look and feel,” explained Beaumont.
Because the Cannery Café building is listed in the conservation strategy, council must approve any alterations or demolitions.
“If anything, it will be the strength of the conservation strategy that saves this building,” said Beamont.
However, Beaumont said she left the heritage commission, claiming the city paid it lip service.
“There was no real sense in working with — or really giving some recognition to the fact these are — the people who are the most concerned,” said Beamont, adding that the idea of forming a heritage foundation would be a good idea if the culture at city hall was less dictatorial.
She noted there are some instances of “reasonable” development, such as the new building at the southeast corner of No. 1 Road and Moncton.
Otherwise, much is left up to developers, or in some cases, council, which, according to Beamont, hasn’t always worked out, pointing to an English garden next to the Steveston Museum that has recently been ripped up after council approval.
“We had a beautiful garden here with a rich history. Why do we need another Japanese garden? We already have Japanese gardens.
“This was barrelled through by council and now the trees are gone,” said Beamont. |
Here’s some cloud computing news you probably didn’t see coming: Microsoft has partnered with Cray to bring that company’s supercomputers and its storage system to the Azure platform.
When you think of Cray, chances are you are thinking about the company’s (somewhat overdesigned) machines from the ’70s and ’80s (most likely the circular ones with the benches around them). After a few ups and down and ownership changes in the ’90s, Cray has started to find its footing again, and its newest systems, like the XC and CS series, are now standards-based supercomputers that use Nvidia GPUs and Intel processors (and, on select models, this also includes FPGAs) to achieve peak performance of a petaflop or more in a single cabinet.
Unsurprisingly, those machines are still extremely expensive, and Cray’s focus remains squarely on the high-performance computing needs of researchers in both academia and the industry. These days, this also often means running machine learning jobs on these Cray machines.
You won’t be able to rent a Cray for just a few minutes to run your latest analytics batch job, though. Microsoft and Cray are planning to offer dedicated Cray systems in Microsoft’s data centers so that Cray’s users can easily access the rest of the Azure cloud services. Similarly, potential Cray users can now also get access to these machines without having to own and maintain a data center themselves. As a Microsoft spokesperson told me, each Cray system “will be custom configured to match the individual customer’s needs.”
“Using the enterprise-proven power of Microsoft Azure, customers are running their most strategic workloads in our cloud,” said Jason Zander, corporate vice president, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Corp., in today’s announcement. “By working with Cray to provide dedicated supercomputers in Azure, we are offering customers uncompromising performance and scalability that enables a host of new previously unimaginable scenarios in the public cloud. More importantly, we’re moving customers into a new era by empowering them to use HPC and AI to drive breakthrough advances in science, engineering and health.”
It’s worth noting that this is the second time Cray has entered a partnership like this. The company is also making its machines available through Markley, a data center operator you may have never heard of, but that has been around since 1991 and currently manages more than 3 million square-feet of data center space across the U.S. and Europe. |
Friends have identified the cyclist struck by a car and killed on Bronson Avenue Thursday night as 27-year-old Krista Johnson, an avid runner and cyclist.
Johnson's boyfriend, Ben Boudens, said she was not wearing a helmet at the time of the crash, but he did not know if she had reflectors in the bicycle or a light.
"She was leaving Carleton University and she was going home. She lived on Gilmour Street … she just left the university on her bicycle with a packsack, had a run-in with a car," said Boudens by phone Friday afternoon.
The couple had been together for about four years.
Police said Johnson was travelling north in the southbound lane of Bronson just south of Holmwood Avenue when she was hit at about 7:45 p.m.
She was taken to hospital with life-threatening injuries but she was later pronounced dead.
Johnson, an avid runner and cyclist, was pursuing a master's degree in social work at Carleton University, Boudens said. She was originally from Petawawa and her parents moved to Quebec about five years ago.
Johnson lived in Ottawa during the week and travelled to her home in Pembroke on the weekends where she worked at a health and wellness centre. She was also involved in charity work for children and organized a race to raise money for a youth club earlier this year.
"She was very honest, very caring, very genuine," Boudens said. "[She] looked out for other people … giving. She loved to bake, she loved to cook, she loved food. She was very well liked.
"It's tough. It was like a bad nightmare," Boudens said.
On Friday morning, police said it is too early to determine whether charges will be laid in connection with Johnson's death. The driver of the vehicle that struck Johnson remained at the scene after the collision, police added.
Flags at Carleton University will be flown at half mast on Monday, according to an email sent to Carleton University students Friday. The university's school of social work will also gather on Monday from 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. in room 2017 in Dunton Tower.
A funeral is scheduled in Pembroke for sometime next week.
Anyone who witnessed the crash is being asked to call the collisions unit at 613-236-1222, ext. 2481. |
If you’ve ever had Skyline Cincinnati chili (or “Cincinnati-style chili”) on your way through Ohio or Kentucky, then you know what a delicious and filling treat that is. Take a heaping pile of spaghetti, top it 2, 3, 4, or 5-way, and dig in to some fantastic comfort food.
Here are the yummy options:
Bowl: chili in a bowl
Two-way: chili and spaghetti
Three-way: chili, spaghetti, and cheese
Four-way: chili, spaghetti, cheese, and onions (or beans substituted for the onions)
Five-way: chili, spaghetti, cheese, onions, and beans
If you think you can’t enjoy this fantastic meal on a keto or low-carb diet, you are wrong, wrong, wrong. The chili, cheese, and onions meet with keto approval easily (you may have to eat fewer onions than usual, but you can have about an eighth of a chopped onion per serving).
How to Lower the Carb Count
To make the chili, I use the Cincinnati Chili by Skytime, Inc. You need one pound of ground beef and a 6 oz. can of tomato paste . Be sure to watch the carb count on the tomato paste. [I corrected the amount listed next to the chili seasoning. It’s the amount in one cup of chili, or 1/8 of the packet.]
Chili seasoning – 1/8 of packet (amount in 1 cup of chili) = 3 net grams of carbs
Ground beef (0 g. carbs)
Grated cheddar cheese – 1 cup = 1.45 grams of carbs
Onions – 1/8 onion, chopped = ~1 grams of carbs
Hunt’s Tomato Paste = 5 g. net carbs
Now for the substitutions…
The beans – Have you heard of the black soy bean ?
One-half cup of black soybeans is 8 grams of carbs and 7 grams of fiber = only 1 net gram of carbs!
The spaghetti – use spaghetti squash in place of the pasta; 1/2 cup cooked spaghetti squash = 4 grams of carbs
Many die-hard Cincinnati chili fans are cringing. Just try it. There are so many delicious toppings on your mound of spaghetti squash that you will love it. The squash is pretty similar in texture to spaghetti (hence the name) and a little bit goes a long way.
Carb Count of Entire Adapted Recipe
So, let’s recap the carb count of the entire recipe:
Cincinnati chili seasoning – 8 cups – 24 g
Cheese – 8 cups – 11.6 g
Onion – 1 whole onion – 8 g.
Black soybeans – 1 cup – 2 g.
Ground beef – 0
6 oz. tomato paste – 5 g.
Spaghetti squash (4 cups) – 16 g.
Total for entire recipe = 66.6 grams
One serving (1/8 of recipe) = ~8.32 grams
Of course, you can add or subtract to the carb count depending on what ingredients you like best. I find that 1/2 cup of spaghetti squash is enough for one serving because there are so many toppings – lots of cheese, plus one whole cup of the chili is a pretty big amount. I don’t use many soy beans, but I use plenty of cheese (1 cup), and you could use a smaller amount. Play with the combinations and discover what you like best.
The most difficult thing about the recipe is cooking the squash. Check out my fool-proof method here.
Directions:
In a large pot , pour 6 cups of water, add one can of tomato paste, one packet of Cincinnati chili seasoning, and one pound of ground beef.
Do not cook the beef ahead of time; simply put it in with the water and seasoning and chop it up a bit as it starts to boil. Bring to a boil, then let simmer until the thickness you’d prefer.
While that’s simmering, cook the squash (using this method)
While the squash is heating, assemble the rest of the ingredients: grate cheese (or open package – lol), chop the onions, open the can of beans.
Follow the directions for making the squash. Heat the beans in a bowl in the microwave. Assemble delicious plate:
1/2 cup squash
1 cup of chili
1/2 cup beans
1 cup cheese
1/8 cup onions
It’s really not as difficult as it seems. I eat this about once a week and I don’t like to cook. Bonus: it’s just as good, if not better, reheated the next day. |
So many massively multiplayer games are all about what you make them. A wide-open atmosphere can make online experiences incredibly rewarding, adding a sense of freedom and community that isn't possible when playing solo. In the case of The War Z, however, freedom and community have been allowed to run wild to such a point that the game is almost unplayable. Hammerpoint Interactive's look at life after the zombie apocalypse is a complete disaster. It's ridiculous that this game is being sold, with unfinished features, loads of bugs, wildly out-of-control player killing, and a system of micropayments that couldn't steal more money from players if you gave it a mask and a gun.
The concept behind The War Z is straightforward. It is also remarkably similar to Dean Hall's extremely impressive ARMA II: Combined Ops mod DayZ, a vastly superior and free take on the same themes seen here. If you've viewed any post-Romero fright flicks where the dead come back to life with a craving to gnaw on cerebellums, you know what to expect. The setting is the wilderness of a postapocalyptic Colorado, where you have been unceremoniously dumped with nothing more than a flashlight (one of those big Maglite things that does double duty as a club),a soft drink, a granola bar, and bandages. There are no goals, no quests, and no storyline of any sort. All you have for motivation is the imperative to stay alive, which you do by avoiding being brutally murdered by either the other players or the zombies, and by keeping enough food and drink in your system to avoid starving to death.
If you're one of the millions of people who have gotten hooked on the Walking Dead comic or TV show, let alone the countless zombie movies that have followed in the 45-year wake of Night of the Living Dead, you can't help but be intrigued by the concept. But that's all the game is--a concept; there is virtually nothing behind it. While The War Z sounds nifty, it is close to a blank slate, with an open sandbox world that is nigh impossible to enjoy. The absence of any structure and any viable reasons to go after the zombies has unbalanced the game, resulting in a frustrating free-for-all where you murder one another so often and so efficiently that the undead are no worry at all by comparison.
It's hard to imagine how any game could be more unforgiving than The War Z. You can't settle in long enough to figure out the gameplay basics before you find yourself the recipient of a shotgun blast to the face from some guy looking to loot a corpse. There are no breaks anywhere on the map. Three settlements are supposed to serve as no-weapon safe zones and places where you can access your global inventory, but they function better as ambush spots where bandits (generally with spectacularly inventive offensive names) camp out waiting to kill other players. Opportunists constantly haunt the roads into such sanctuaries, ready to gun down anyone trying to enter or leave.
It may look spooky, but it's actually kind of ooky. The War Z is an unfinished, buggy mess of a game.
A great addendum to all of this frenzied murder is the inability to spawn back in after being slain, and this is when playing on normal difficulty, not the hardcore setting where death is permanent. Get killed, and you have to wait a full hour to send your character back into the fray. You can go right back in by creating a new survivalist in one of the five available character slots or by replacing an existing character with new cannon fodder, but the delay is still absurdly punitive given how often you can get killed.
Oddly enough, zombies are an afterthought. It soon becomes clear why you are mainly killing each other: there isn't any point bothering with the undead. The biggest problem is that zombies are found mostly in and around the scarce towns and various points of interest on the map, which are thoroughly watched by player-killing campers. Playing as a zombie-murdering machine like The Walking Dead fan-fave Michonne is out of the question. Wander toward a town with a hankering to cut off zombie heads, and you set yourself up to be shot in the head by a human player waiting for newbies to wander into firing range.
Undead also offer more risk than reward. Zombie-populated towns are scattered with goodies like bottles of water and food and medical supplies, but little is worth risking life and limb over, especially given the need to run those gauntlets set up by other players. You can also be quickly overwhelmed by gangs of zombies who pop up out of nowhere and move more quickly than you might expect.
Here's a message you see a lot in The War Z.
Combat isn't particularly difficult; you can generally button-mash the undead goons to death. But it is dull, with each zombie taking a dozen or more whacks before going down. It's possible to take down a group of four or five zombies, but the process is so boring that you soon wish they would just eat you. Sneaking around them is more interesting: meters show how visible you are and how much noise you're making, so you can avoid combat much of the time.
Slain zombies can at least occasionally be looted for in-game money. Kill a zombie, and you might be able to go through his pockets for 80 to 100 dollars. Still, this is not a good deal. Sure, it saves you from having to rely on killing other players to obtain gear. It even saves you real-world cash, since the only other alternative to acquire gear is to purchase it via micropayments (more on this later).
The items that can be bought with in-game moola are sold on a separate tier from the goods that can be bought with real-world money, meaning that you're stuck using in-game funds solely for such things as $6,500 knives and $5,000 bottles of antibiotics. You have to slay an absurd number of zombies to earn enough cash to afford, well, anything. Zombies are also worth experience points, but these seem completely useless at present since the character skill tree system is nonfunctional and grayed out on the main menu. Well, you can use them to buy character skins. Theoretically. It costs 150,000 XP to buy a single ex-cage fighter skin, and you get 5 XP for killing a run-of-the-mill zombie. The math does not work out in your favor.
The pay-to-play structure is a huge problem with The War Z across the board. The game can be bought three different ways solely from the official website. (It was pulled from Steam in December after buyer complaints.) You can spend $15 for the base game, which includes not a single shekel of in-game marketplace gold credits (GC), or you can go for either a $25 or a $50 package that includes the base game plus in-game bucks. Virtually no half-decent items come with the default character loadout, and there isn't much worthwhile gear to be found on the map. Another game currency earned by looting dead zombies can be used only on the aforementioned menu of spectacularly expensive stuff, so you soon find yourself all but forced to buy weapons and survival gear with real money to stay even slightly competitive.
The overall pricing scheme doesn't look too bad at first and seems somewhat balanced, since you can't buy things like guns. Five bucks gets you 625 GC, which sounds reasonable since you can pick up basic gear like a spiked baseball bat for 142 GC and binoculars for 89 GC. Even skins that are as pricey as the Hope Diamond when bought with XP come down to an affordable 376 GC.
But this micropayment system will bleed you dry in the long run. You rarely get to keep what you buy. Getting killed almost always results in your corpse being looted. You can easily spend $10 in the store kitting out your player with a weapon, binoculars, food, and drink--and then lose it all mere seconds into the game after a hidden bandit headshots you and swipes everything. This makes player killing an even more attractive strategy for anyone who doesn't want to spend real money, which further feeds into the vicious circle that is The War Z.
Melee combat is just mindless button mashing. So even when you win, you lose.
Technical problems cause more frustration. Hacking remains so common that the in-game chat thread is always packed with warnings of cheaters occupying sections of the map. A number of promised features don't exist. Bugs regularly boot you from servers, which can cause you to lose gear that you've just scavenged. Technical problems have also caused the servers to go down for lengthy stretches.
Zombies often freeze in place during combat, causing a crash. Even when the undead are shambling around, they have a weird inability to hit you when you've ascended to even the shortest of platforms: climb onto a crate, and you're invincible. Odd graphical artifacts are common, like your hat remaining suspended in midair long after a zombie has eaten you. Day-night cycles plunge you into pitch darkness for long stretches with only a flashlight and a dim moon to light your way. This ramps up the overall difficulty, especially if you spawn in at night for your first experience with the game. Nothing is quite so frustrating as appearing in complete darkness, flipping on a flashlight, and getting clubbed to death by a camping player lurching out of the shadows.
The look of the game is as backward as the rest of the production. Most of the map consists of generic wilderness with jaggy trees and grass, fairly realistic water, and blocky buildings that you generally can't enter. Animations are choppy, flicker is common, and the frame rate constantly dips into the teens on computers that more than meet the recommended system requirements. Zombies come at you with a weird, shoulders-locked shuffle frighteningly reminiscent of how that kid in the orange shirt danced in A Charlie Brown Christmas.
You got that right.
There is a small variety of character faces and bodies, so the game is populated with about a half-dozen models that you meet over and over again, living and living dead alike. Sound effects are nonexistent aside from zombie growls, atmospheric noises in the woods, and combat thunks. Music is limited mostly to the title screen, but that tune is a creepy number with an ominous bass line and jarring techno effects. Unfortunately, this song is also a barefaced rip-off of the title track from American Horror Story, just slowed down a bit and very slightly altered to ward off lawyers.
This interesting idea of combining zombie-themed survival horror with a massively multiplayer online game sandbox has been left unfinished and unfocused. The whole thing is tied up in the neat bow of a punitive payment system that all but forces you to shell out real-world cash for equipment that will likely be looted from your corpse mere minutes after the cash register has rung. The only way to draw even the tiniest bit of entertainment from the game is by playing on nearly empty servers to avoid the player-killing cheaters and focus on the undead. Even then, you soon get fed up with the dreary zombie combat, or some hacker shows up and puts you out of your misery. Fighting zombie hordes in an apocalyptic wasteland has never been so depressing. |
Social media is a powerful brand building tool that can drive long-term, organic growth which is sustainable through any micro- or macro-environmental threat.
Developing the value of your brand should always be a top strategic priority. Brand value has saved more than one company or product from going under in recent years. Playboy and Twinkie are just two brands that survived another day thanks to the value of their brand names.
3-Step Brand Building
With that in mind, your social media marketing efforts should always follow the three primary steps of brand building:
Consistency: Consistently communicate your brand promise in every interaction with your audience so they develop the desired perceptions of it. Remember, brand confusion is the number one brand killer. Persistence: Communicate your brand promise continually and always meet audience expectations based on their perceptions of your brand. Restraint: Never pursue opportunities that don't effectively support your brand promise or your audience's perceptions of your brand and expectations for it.
Unfortunately, those three core brand building steps are often ignored or forgotten in social media marketing, which is a huge mistake. Instead, those three fundamental steps should be at the core of every social media marketing activity you participate in and campaign you launch.
7 P's of Social Media Marketing for Brand Building
Once you have your foundation in place, it's time to take your brand to the next level with the seven P's of social media marketing success. As you review each step described below, notice how the three primary steps of brand building tie into each of the seven P's of social media marketing.
1. Perception
Consumers build brands, not companies. You must develop your brand reputation and persona, and you must consistently meet your audience's expectations in order to create the right perceptions. Follow the Pareto Principle and make sure at least 80 percent of your social media content, conversations, and activities are useful and meaningful to your target audience while no more than 20 percent is self-promotional.
2. Predominance
Extend your brand reach and social media influence by focusing your efforts on your target audience while avoiding activities that could negatively affect the social perception of your brand.
3. Progression
Don't give up. You must persistently publish useful and meaningful content and conversations so your target audience can obtain true social value from your brand.
4. Proof
Quality content and conversations trump quantity. Write amazing, shareworthy content to develop trust with your target audience, back up your marketing claims, and establish your authority.
5. Prevalence
It's true that quality trumps quantity, but quantity still matters. Ensure your brand is visible by publishing content and conversations frequently.
6. Prominence
Stand out from the clutter online by appearing in the right places to get in front of the right audiences. Identify where your target audience spends time online, and join the conversation on those sites.
7. Power
Social media power comes from the collective strengh of all of the previous social media marketing P's. Together, all of these elements drive your brand success over time, and it's the type of momentum that drives ongoing results.
Keep these steps in mind as you develop your long-term, brand building strategy and support that strategy with short-term social media marketing tactics. If you like visualizations, you can see the 7 P's of social media success in an infographic here. |
walkie talkie lingo What is common walkie talkie lingo?
1st AD putting his walkie talkie lingo in action
Before you can give yourself a walkie talkie code name, you gotta speak the radio lingo. Think of this list as a walkie talkie dictionary: 10-1 – “I need to go the bathroom” (number 1)
– “I need to go the bathroom” (number 1) 10-2 – “I need to go the bathroom” (number 2)
– “I need to go the bathroom” (number 2) 10-4 – “I understood the message”
– “I understood the message” 20 – Location; as in, “What’s your 20?”
– Location; as in, “What’s your 20?” Copy – “I heard and understood the message”
– “I heard and understood the message” Go Again – “I did not understand the message, please repeat”. You can also say “come back on that”.
– “I did not understand the message, please repeat”. You can also say “come back on that”. Eyes on… – When someone or something is spotted; as in, “I’ve got eyes on Spielberg” or “Does anyone have eyes on my lunch box?”
– When someone or something is spotted; as in, “I’ve got eyes on Spielberg” or “Does anyone have eyes on my lunch box?” First Team - The principal actors in in a scene, as in: “walking first team to set"
- The principal actors in in a scene, as in: “walking first team to set" Second Team - the stand-ins for the principal actors
- the stand-ins for the principal actors Lock it Up – “Don’t let anyone through”. This is usually an instruction to a PA who was told of a door or area they must block.
– “Don’t let anyone through”. This is usually an instruction to a PA who was told of a door or area they must block. Flying in – When someone or something is en route; as in, “I’m flying in masking tape.”
– When someone or something is en route; as in, “I’m flying in masking tape.” On it – When you understand the request and are actively working on it. Use only if you have started the work.
– When you understand the request and are actively working on it. Use only if you have started the work. Ethan for Nicky – ‘Ethan’ being your name, ‘Nicky’ being the person you want to reach.
– ‘Ethan’ being your name, ‘Nicky’ being the person you want to reach. Go for Nicky – The response. “I heard you call for me, what’s up?”
– The response. “I heard you call for me, what’s up?” Walkie Check – When you first turn on your walkie talkie. Someone will reply with “Good Check” so you know your walkie talkies working.
– When you first turn on your walkie talkie. Someone will reply with “Good Check” so you know your walkie talkies working. Keying – When someone is accidentally holding down the “talk” button on their walkie. Someone will catch it and say “keying” or “someone’s keying.”
– When someone is accidentally holding down the “talk” button on their walkie. Someone will catch it and say “keying” or “someone’s keying.” Going off walkie – When you’re taking off your walkie talkie or can’t talk anymore.
– When you’re taking off your walkie talkie or can’t talk anymore. Spin that, please – When something is said on channel 1 that needs to be passed along to other channels. This is usually assigned to a key set PA or 2nd 2nd AD before the shoot.
– When something is said on channel 1 that needs to be passed along to other channels. This is usually assigned to a key set PA or 2nd 2nd AD before the shoot. Standby – “I hear you, but I’m too busy to reply.”
– “I hear you, but I’m too busy to reply.” Standing by – “I’ve completed the task and am awaiting further instruction.”
– “I’ve completed the task and am awaiting further instruction.” Strike (or 86 ) – When something needs to be removed; as in “Strike that prop” or “86 those C-stands from staging”.
(or ) – When something needs to be removed; as in “Strike that prop” or “86 those C-stands from staging”. Kill – When something needs to be turned off; as in “Kill the fog machine.” WHAT DOES 10-1 MEAN ON A FILM SET? On a film set, 10-1 is the walkie talkie code for the bathroom. While literally meaning you need to pee, using as this as a catch-all saves your film crew from t.m.i. If you find you need more time (maybe the craft services is all beans), just ask to “Upgrade your 10-1.”
advanced walkie talkie lingo What are examples of advanced walkie talkie lingo?
An example of a 2nd AD using a walkie talkie
Film set slang is as infinite as it is weird. Now that we’re past ‘What’s your twenty,’ here’s some film crew terminology you could hear on a channel: Martini shot – The last shot of the day. The next shot is "Tequila."
– The last shot of the day. The next shot is "Tequila." Choker – A tight close-up of eyes only, as in: “Flying in Mr. Depp for the choker.”
– A tight close-up of eyes only, as in: “Flying in Mr. Depp for the choker.” Baby legs – The legs of a camera tripod.
– The legs of a camera tripod. Bogey – Sometimes “Bogie.” It’s someone not supposed to be on set.
– Sometimes “Bogie.” It’s someone not supposed to be on set. Four-banger – A large trailer with four doors, a production room, a dressing room, and a crew bathroom.
– A large trailer with four doors, a production room, a dressing room, and a crew bathroom. Hot Brick - A battery with a full charge. There’s obviously more walkie talkie lingo beyond that, but it gets kind of random.
radio etiquette on a film set What’s the best radio etiquette on a film set?
An example of a 1st AD using a walkie talkie
Give up your walkie talkie if someone higher than you runs out of battery. Speak slowly, clearly, and at a moderate volume. Cut back on jokes and other non-sequiturs. Learn your crew’s voices to avoid constantly asking who you're speaking with. Be brief and to the point. Bluntness is best. Think before you speak. Concise your point into walkie talkie codes. Are you saying something offensive? Just think. Wait a beat before you begin to speak. Don’t hit the button right when you speak. You’ll have to repeat yourself. Be aware of your walkie talkie’s buttons. Don’t accidentally switch your dials on, or turn down the volume and miss important instructions. Ask twice when needed. While it’s always best to say “10-4 over and out,” if you don’t understand, don’t be afraid to ask again. Repeating instructions back can help this. Check your channel often to make sure you didn't forget to switch back. Think about buying your own surveillance earpiece. These are cheap and may be in short supply when you get to the set. Keep your mic a good distance from your mouth while speaking. You don't want your voice to be too loud. 3-5 inches away should be good enough. Make sure your mic wires are underneath the back of your shirt. Loose wires are a danger to yourself and others. Learning radio etiquette is a matter of experience. But more often than not, treating a walkie talkie as a powerful instrument of communication rather than a toy resolves most issues.
PRO TIP: INVENT YOUR OWN WALKIE TALKIE LINGO Are you working with an ultra famous actor? Or how about a difficult to manage shark robot? Then create some walkie talkie code names. By tailoring your radio lingo to your specific project, you can save time and inject some fun throughout the production.
In StudioBinder, you can easily add walkie talkie channels when you create your call sheet. That way when your crew gets their call sheet text the night before, they’ll be in the loop.
StudioBinder's Call Sheet Builder has footer space for your walkie talkie channels.
walkie talkie channel on a film set What is each walkie talkie channel on a film set?
Here are some common walkie talkie channels you'll find on productions.
Now you that you the most common walkie talkie codes, it’s time to turn to the channels. While it can vary from set to set, the most common walkie talkie channels are: Channel 1 - Production
- Production Channel 2 - Open, for one-on-one conversation
- Open, for one-on-one conversation Channel 3 - Transportation
- Transportation Channel 4 - Open, for one-on-one conversation
- Open, for one-on-one conversation Channel 5 - Open, for one-on-one conversation
- Open, for one-on-one conversation Channel 6 - Camera
- Camera Channel 7 - Electric
- Electric Channel 8 - Grip
PRO TIP: CHECK THE CALL SHEET FOR WALKIE TALKIE CHANNELS Every film set is different. No two walkie talkie codes are alike. Before you walk on set, ready to sling radio lingo left and right, review the call sheet. The walkie talkie channels being used may have changed.
walkie talkie etiquette switching channel What’s the walkie talkie etiquette switching channels?
Here are some common walkie talkie channels you'll find on productions.
Each department has its own walkie talkie channel. The number of channels and departments vary from production to production. Channel 1, however, will be the main channel. Used primarily by the production coordinator and PAs, this is where people call for each other and make general requests and notifications. For one-on-one communication, switch to Channel 2. If you have a question or can’t reply with one of the terms above, Channel 2 is for you. To switch walkie talkie channels, call for someone to “Switch to 2.” The receiver will respond: “Copy, switching to 2” and then "On 2" after they switch. Then, chat normally. When you’re finished, call: “Back to 1.” The receiver should respond “Copy, switching back to 1.” And voila. On a hectic set, keeping walkie talkie channels open is key. A WALKIE TALKIE CONVERSATION EXAMPLE Knowing enough walkie talkie lingo, you can easily decipher this: 1st AD: Does anyone have eyes on The Falcon?
PA: Flying The Falcon in now.
1st AD: What’s your 20?
PA: Melrose and Santa Monica.
1st AD: 10-4. Can you bring him to make-up?
PA: Copy that, going off walkie. The PA mounts a series of hard turns. PA: Walkie-check.
1st AD: Good check.
PA: Falcon at make-up. Standing by.
1st AD: 10-4 over and out. |
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Announced just last week, Microsoft’s Surface Studio all-in-one computer has been met with excitement and touted as an example of the company’s new approach to innovation. With a mobile GPU on board, you shouldn’t expect to be able to run the most demanding VR titles, but Microsoft says Surface Studio will be able to manage some VR experiences.
Microsoft says Surface Studio is made for designers and creators. The computer’s crowning feature is a huge 4500 x 3000 display that gracefully tilts down to make the touchscreen and stylus-enabled display ready for hands-on interaction. And while it may have a relatively small footprint, the company is trying to play up the device’s performance.
Microsoft was at VRDC 2016 in San Francisco last week showing the Surface Studio powering an attached HTC Vive. Given that the computer includes a mobile GPU (which neither Oculus, HTC/Valve, or NVIDIA have explicitly approved of as ‘VR Ready’), the company isn’t going so far as to say that Surface Studio is properly VR Ready, but they do say that it’s capable of handling lighter VR experiences.
At the event, Microsoft had a demo list featuring 14 VR titles running on Surface Studio:
Tilt Brush
SculptVR
SoundStage
theBlu
The Night Cafe
Gnomes and Goblins
The Lab
Hoops VR
Space Pirate Trainer
Paddle Up!
Duo
Cloudlands Minigolf
Audioshield
Budget Cuts
I was told that this wasn’t an inclusive list of VR games the system could handle, just that these made for good first-time VR demos. I hopped into Space Pirate Trainer and blasted my way through a few waves of deadly robots and it all worked as expected: smooth 90 FPS gameplay on the Vive.
It’s nice that the Surface Studio can handle some VR, but the fact that it doesn’t quite qualify as a VR Ready machine means that none of the above titles will necessarily work in perpetuity as they are being built with a different recommended specification in mind. Oculus’ new “minimum” (not “recommended”) specification could give the Surface Studio a bit more breathing room for handling VR experiences.
The ability to play “light” VR experiences on Surface Studio is going to weigh heavily on your wallet. At the event, I was shown the top-end configuration of the computer which includes a Core i7 processor, 32GB of RAM, and the GTX 980M GPU, for a cool $4,200. Lesser models only have the GTX 965M, which is less likely to be able to push frames as fast as VR demands.
Why didn’t Microsoft just go with one of NVIDIA’s new VR Ready 10-series mobile GPUs? An engineer from the Surface team told me that the Surface Studio spec was locked down some time before that line was introduced; it seems likely that future iterations of Surface Studio will pick up a 10-series card at a minimum, and be properly VR Ready across all configurations. |
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Toronto-based R&B artist Tory Lanez publicly called out a Holt Renfrew Vancouver sales associate on Friday (June 9), alleging that he was mistreated during a visit to the store because the employee assumed he was “broke”.
However, it appears that Lanez—real name Daystar Peterson—got the last laugh when he chose to ring up his $35,000 purchase with another staffer, essentially denying the worker in question the commission from the sale.
In a now deleted Snapchat and tweet, the singer, who was in town to support Future’s Nobody Safe tour, published a video sharing his experience at the high-end Canadian retailer’s downtown Vancouver location. The video was captured and later re-uploaded to Twitter by content creator @IamAkademiks.
They tried to play Tory Lanez like he was some brokeboi window shopping and then he dropped $35,000 in the store pic.twitter.com/TgkicJ9CJe — DJ Akademiks (@IamAkademiks) June 11, 2017
“Say hello, say hello,” Lanez shouts while zooming in on the supposed employee in what appears to be Holt Renfrew’s men’s department. “Yeah, we balled out your shit. We walked in the store, he ain’t think we was gonna buy nothin’. We balled out his shit. We Gucci’d down, we Louis Vuitton’d down. We everything.”
The text in the video, meanwhile, reveals that Lanez dropped $35,000 at the luxury shop even after the unnamed salesperson tried to “play [him] like [he] was broke”. A number of Christian Louboutin shopping bags, among others, are visible.
After some criticized Lanez’s decision to continue patronizing the store, rather than take his business elsewhere, the “Say It” crooner reportedly clarified his actions in another now deleted tweet. “It’s not the fact that we spent $35K in there, we were already going to do that,” he stated. “It’s the fact that HE didn’t get the percentage.”
In a now deleted reply to one Twitter user, he also confirmed that the Holt Renfrew employee who ultimately received the commission was black. The associate who allegedly discriminated against Lanez appears to be white.
Holt Renfrew acknowledged the incident this morning (June 12), tweeting that “racism of any kind is absolutely not tolerated”.
We take all complaints seriously. Racism of any kind is absolutely not tolerated, and we have reached out to Tory Lanez to learn more. — Holt Renfrew (@HoltRenfrew) June 12, 2017
In a statement to the Georgia Straight, Nicole Plener, divisional vice president of marketing and public relations at Holt Renfrew, shared that the company has since spoken to Lanez.
“We have been in touch with Tory Lanez and are happy to report this has now been resolved,” she said. “We look forward to welcoming him back to Holts again soon. We want to reassure all of our valued customers that they will always be treated with courtesy and respect when shopping at Holt Renfrew, reflecting our values as a company.” |
Descarca
VIII. Corpul
A. (Mircea şi Dana)
– Dana! Unde eşti?
– Sunt în baie!
– Ce faci?
– Mă spăl pe cap! Of, nu mai am prosop aici... Mircea!
– Da!
– Te rog, adu un prosop curat din dulap!
B.
Alina are şase ani. Ea are o păpuşă. Păpuşa este mare şi se numeşte Rodica. Ea are părul lung şi ochii albaştri. Închide şi deschide ochii. Alina piaptănă păpuşa cu peria. Apoi o îmbracă cu o rochiţă albă. O pune în picioare pe pat şi spune:
– Acum mergem la şcoală!
C. (Nicu şi Manuela)
– Manuela, îţi plac animalele?
– Da, Nicu. Am o pisică cu blana neagră şi deasă. O lăbuţă este albă, ca şi cum ar avea un pantofior. Uite, acum miaună. Îi este foame. Îi dau mâncare pentru pisici.
– Ce mustăţi lungi are! Eu am un papagal cu pene verzi. Zboară prin casă.
D. Exerciţiu recapitulativ
(două persoane)
– Mă scuzaţi, unde este o farmacie?
– Pe aceasta stradă este o staţie de tramvai. Mergeţi cu tramvaiul trei staţii, până la piaţă. Lângă piaţă este farmacia. Dar azi este duminică. Nu este nimeni la farmacie.
– Această farmacie este închisă duminica?
– Da. Doar în centru este o farmacie deschisă. Pentru asta, mergeţi cinci staţii cu tramvaiul, apoi mai întrebaţi.
– Mulţumesc, la revedere!
– La revedere! |
On September 11, 2001, Lt. Heather “Lucky” Penney had one harrowing mission: bring down United 93. She took off from Andrews Air Force Base, but without weapons. No missiles, machine guns, etc.; she would have to ram into the commercial airliner to save American lives.
“I would essentially be a kamikaze pilot,” she said. The 13th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks has come and gone; we will always remember those who have died. But this story of a fighter pilot who was willing to sacrifice herself to save others is surely worth the read. For years, she never gave her account of what happened; she later escorted Air Force One back to D.C. Now, she’s a mother of two daughters and the head of the F-35 program at Lockheed Martin (via Washington Post):
“We wouldn’t be shooting it down. We’d be ramming the aircraft,” Penney recalls of her charge that day. “I would essentially be a kamikaze pilot.”
…
But 10 years later, she is reflecting on one of the lesser-told tales of that endlessly examined morning: how the first counterpunch the U.S. military prepared to throw at the attackers was effectively a suicide mission.
“We had to protect the airspace any way we could,” she said last week in her office at Lockheed Martin, where she is a director in the F-35 program.
…
She was a rookie in the autumn of 2001, the first female F-16 pilot they’d ever had at the 121st Fighter Squadron of the D.C. Air National Guard. She had grown up smelling jet fuel. Her father flew jets in Vietnam and still races them. Penney got her pilot’s licence when she was a literature major at Purdue. She planned to be a teacher. But during a graduate program in American studies, Congress opened up combat aviation to women and Penney was nearly first in line.
…
A third plane hit the Pentagon, and almost at once came word that a fourth plane could be on the way, maybe more. The jets would be armed within an hour, but somebody had to fly now, weapons or no weapons.
“Lucky, you’re coming with me,” barked Col. Marc Sasseville.
…
“We don’t train to bring down airliners,” said Sasseville, now stationed at the Pentagon. “If you just hit the engine, it could still glide and you could guide it to a target. My thought was the cockpit or the wing.”
He also thought about his ejection seat. Would there be an instant just before impact?
“I was hoping to do both at the same time,” he says. “It probably wasn’t going to work, but that’s what I was hoping.”
Penney worried about missing the target if she tried to bail out.
…
It would be hours before Penney and Sasseville learned that United 93 had already gone down in Pennsylvania, an insurrection by hostages willing to do just what the two Guard pilots had been willing to do: Anything. And everything.
“The real heroes are the passengers on Flight 93 who were willing to sacrifice themselves,” Penney says. “I was just an accidental witness to history.” |
Kenya said it has launched interventions to deal with a severe drought, which is ravaging several parts of the country and affected over one million people. Government spokesman Eric Kiraithe said on Thursday that so far only one person had died due to drought but more than 15 out of the 47 counties were facing drought, Xinhua news agency reported.
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“The government has been closely monitoring the situation and is working with relevant stakeholders to coordinate effective short and long term interventions,” Kiraithe told journalists in Nairobi.
“Challenges have been encountered in some areas where the citizens in need are not reachable or information does not reach government agencies on time,” he said. He said numerous measures had been put in place by county governments to address the crisis, including significant investment in relief food, water trucking, livestock disease surveillance and livestock offtake.
About 1.3 million people mostly in arid and semi-arid areas in Kenya are in urgent need of food aid due to the prolonged drought, the government said last month. The government has been responding to ensure no lives are lost due to the drought.
Kiraithe said additional financing had been approved by the national government towards drought-related expenditure. Food security experts have warned that there could be tension among cattle herders in drought-hit areas as they fight over scarce water resources to ensure their own survival and that of their livestock.
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According to Kiraithe, with the expected early cessation of the recent short rains, all indications are that the drought will persist into 2017. “In the affected areas vegetation has greatly deteriorated and surface waters have all but run dry. Due to this, herders are not able to adequately feed their livestock leading to diseases and death caused by starvation,” he said. |
W. AXL ROSE
2001 BARRINGTON #100
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90025
GUNS N' ROSES
July 24, 1992
MARK D. ALLAN, (USED TO BE THE NAME OF OUR TRAVEL AGENT, WE FIRED THEM)
You don't get it... Wait, that's too easy... Maybe you don't want to get it - or you'd have to face yourself and oh my God that's just too scary. Maybe it's impossible and it's too late for you - you know, have someone stick a fork in your ass and turn you over you're done. Indiana needs to wake up and hey if that takes a little taunting and 2 and half hours of music + a fireworks show + cartoon for a total of 2 hours and 50 minutes to wake up maybe 5% of a 48,000 plus crowd then so be it. I can also suffer your redneck, blind, narrow minded refuse about ranting - you nor anyone will ever dictate my actions, attitudes, comments, oratation, and musical performances on stage. Don't kid yourself and act above, better than, or even comparable to me or G N' R. If that were true there'd be no reason to censor my language in your basic Indiana attempt at journalism.
I came here to enrage... Thank you, you have helped me know I succeeded. I've made my inquiries, I am your Rock N' Roll nightmare. And you... You're just gonna sit on your wanna be ass and watch me, born a Hoosier, grow larger than you could ever imagine or ever be able to stop. That's not to say I didn't appreciate your anger, hostility and general ignorance. It shows me my so called "RANTS" are a much needed, missing piece in our puzzle of society.
stay away from microwaves-
Love Axl
(Signed, 'W. Axl Rose')
P.S. Oh, and it was never a battle O' the bands, I imagined this thing, and everyone wins, as long as I show up to my own dream, that is!!!
----------------------------------------
REVIEW
July 24, 1992
MARC D. ALLAN
Guns N' Roses/Metallica
Opening band: Faith No More.
Where: Hoosier Dome.
When: Wednesday.
Ratings: Guns N' Roses 2 1/2; Metallica 3 1/2; Faith No More 1 1/2
Metallica won the Wednesday night/Thursday morning hard-rock wars at the Hoosier Dome, demonstrating how to vent anger and frustration in music without victimizing the audience.
The titans of hard rock played a taut 140-minute set that burst with brilliant flurries of music and contained no attitude other than gratitude.
By contrast, Guns N' Roses played its usual waiting game, taking the stage at 11:55 p.m. Wednesday — nearly two hours after Metallica had cleared out. Over the next 2 1/2 hours, the audience would be lectured to, briefly walked out on and forced to suffer Guns N' Roses' foolishness.
While Metallica played for its fans, profusely thanking them for their fierce loyalty, Guns N' Roses taunted the audience. At 1:40 a.m., singer Axl Rose announced that the band would take a short break until the fans up front decided to stand.
"I didn't come here with the intention of you liking my (bleep) tonight," Rose sneered at one point.
When Guns N' Roses decided to shut up and play, it successfully defended its standing in the hard-rock pantheon. Compared with the group's previous central Indiana performance, this show found the members playing as a unit rather than a loose collection of talent held together by drummer Matt Sorum.
Double-Talkin' Jive featured guitarist Slash reeling off several intricately textured runs and also spotlighted the muscular trio created when its lead guitarist, drummer and bassist Duff McKagen jammed.
Slash and harmonica player Ted Andreadis teamed for a swampy version of Bad Obsession. Later, during his solo, Slash again played the blues in tandem with keyboardist Dizzy Reed, displaying as fine a combination of speed and tastefulness as any hard-rock fan will see.
Rose's sole shining moment came during Welcome to the Jungle, a bitter assault that found him at his snapping-turtle angriest.
When Rose puts his spleen into the music, he has few peers. But his spoken tirades about Indi-(bleeping)-ana and boxer Mike Tyson's rape conviction display an arrogance and petulance that may be cute on the gossip pages but have no place in a concert setting.
Metallica wouldn't even think of wasting its audience's time with petty ranting. It knows the crowd has come to hear its engines-racing brand of music, and there's no time to waste.
The group's stripped-down set eliminated nearly all solos and occasionally created a whiplash effect by going from one song directly into the next.
During Fade to Black, Shortest Straw and One, the band entered an attack mode where it shut out everything else and played with unparalleled intensity. With guitars blazing and drums bashing, the four members sounded more cohesive than ever.
Perhaps they were trying harder, too. Metallica usually plays before its own crowd, a hopelessly devoted throng that knows every word, every beat, every stop and start.
Here, in trying to win over Guns N' Roses fans, singer/guitarist James Hetfield spent some time trying to rally the crowd, estimated at 40,000. He shouldn't have to. Metallica may not have easily accessible melodies, but that's not what its fans want. They want action.
Metallica provided that in abundance.
Faith No More ended up the big loser in this three-band bill. A miserable sound mix killed any chance the band had of trying to put across some of the considerable humor and subtlety in its music.
Confined to a small portion of the stage and forced to play while sunlight kept the dome bright, the band worked hard. But as much as singer Mike Patton tried — climbing ladders, acting like a human pogo stick, even jumping into the audience — he likely generated more cries of "what?" than "wow!"
On July 22nd of 1992, during their famous joint tour with Metallica Guns N' Roses co-headlined at the Hoosier Dome in Axl Rose 's home state of Indiana. They appeared on stage last, almost two hours after Metallica had finished their set, and were headed by an angry frontman. Two days later, a less-than-glowing review of his band's performance — which can be read below, in full, after the letter — appeared in The Indianapolis Star , written by the paper's music critic at the time, Marc Allan.Thanks to Marc, we can now enjoy Axl's entertaining response to that piece: a defiant letter he faxed to the paper's offices that day.Transcript follows. Huge thanks to Marc Allan for getting in touch. |
Giant Trees
Giant Trees is a plugin for adding procedurally generated giant trees to your world. Giant trees are generated in three ways:
Giant trees are grown in creative/survival mode by planting saplings and fertilizing with bone meal
Giant trees are summoned with a command
Giant trees naturally grow when new forested biomes spawn
Tutorials in other languages:
Planting Giant Trees
To plant a giant tree in creative/survival mode, perform the following steps:
Flatten a 5x5 area of dirt Surround an emerald block with two rings of saplings Fertilize a sapling with a stack of 64 bone meal Stand back
The type of sapling fertilized will determine the species of giant tree that grows.
Commands
To create a giant tree with a command, use the /tree-create or /gt command, followed by the name of the tree. Tree names are found in the plugin's data directory. For example, to summon a giant acacia tree, use the command
/ gt tree . ACACIA
To edit the model for an existing tree, or create a new tree model, use the /tree-edit command. This command can only be used from the server console.
/ tree - edit tree . ACACIA
Naturally Growing Trees
By default, Giant Trees will grow naturally in newly generated chunks in the default overworld (the world called "world"). To add giant trees to more worlds, increase the frequency of tree growth, or disable natural tree growth altogether, edit the plugin's config.yml.
Tree Species
For the beta the following species of trees can be summoned with the /gt command:
tree.ACACIA
tree.BIRCH
tree.DARK_OAK
tree.JUNGLE
tree.OAK
tree.SPRUCE
More tree species will be added in future releases.
Undoing Giant Trees
Trees summoned with the /gt command can be undone using WorldEdit's //undo command. This feature is automatically enabled if WorldEdit is installed.
Making Your Own Giant Tree Species
You can make your own species of giant tree. Start by using the /tree-edit command from the server console, giving it the name of the tree you want to edit or create. (For new trees, ignore the file not found error). As an alternative, you can double-click the Giant Trees plugin .jar file to start the visual tree editor.
Design your tree using the visual tree editor. When you are done, click save and exit the visual editor. To add roots to your tree, create another tree with the same name as your tree, with .root added to the end. For example, /tree-edit tree.ACACIA.root. Root trees are rendered upside down in the world and scaled to match their tree.
Is your new tree really awesome? If so, PM me the model and I'll include it in the next version of the plugin.
Permissions
gianttrees.create (default OP) - Allows the creation of a giant tree using the tree-create command.
(default OP) - Allows the creation of a giant tree using the tree-create command. gianttrees.grow (default true) - Allows a player to grow a giant tree by fertilizing a grid of saplings.
Source Code/Issues
https://github.com/rmichela/GiantTrees
Metrics
This plugin utilizes Hidendra's plugin metrics system. the following information is collected and sent to mcstats.org unless opted out:
A unique identifier
The server's version of Java
Whether the server is in offline or online mode
Plugin's version
Server's version
OS version/name and architecture
core count for the CPU
Number of players online
Metrics version
Opting out of this service can be done by editing plugins/Plugin Metrics/config.yml and changing opt-out to true. |
Buy Photo Vickie Fritzsche, of Ridge Hill Soap Company in Highland Heights, sets out her soaps under a multi-color umbrella at Campbell County Farmers Market in Highland Heights. (Photo: Chris Mayhew/The Community Recorder)Buy Photo Story Highlights Fox Run Produce, a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm brings pork, beef and chick to market.
Greensleeves Farm, another CSA south of Alexandria, has Farm to Plate dinners.
Farmers markets in Campbell County have gone beyond vegetables and fruits by selling local beef, pork, chicken, duck, waffles and even frozen fruit pops.
Markets in Fort Thomas and Highland Heights offer a chance to learn about, and buy food from, Community Supported Agriculture Farms (CSA) in Alexandria and Falmouth.
Campbell County’s and Fort Thomas’ farmers markets pop up weekly on different parking lots and days. Fort Thomas’ market days are Wednesday and Friday afternoons in different parts of town.
CAMPBELL COUNTY
For Campbell County, market days are Tuesday in Highland Heights, Friday in Alexandria and Saturday in Newport. Marty’s Waffle truck is setting up at Alexandria market days, and Little Rock Farm in Camp Springs is selling homemade hand pies in Newport filled with blueberry, strawberry or triple berry. Vickie Fritzsche’s Ridge Hill Soap Co., of Highland Heights, is a new vendor selling varieties including her two varieties red, white and blue “Patriotic Patchuli”
Ame Vanorio of Falmouth-based Fox Run Produce and Education Center, a CSA, sets up in Highland Heights and at Covington’s market.
“Covington is a pretty big happening market, and we don’t want to miss that,” Vanorio said.
Tucked underneath Vanorio’s red tablecloth-covered table are coolers filled with meats to sell. Vanorio brought pork to Highland Heights May 19. Chicken, beef and duck will be coming to market soon, she said.
“It’s all raised naturally, so it is grass-fed with organic feeds,” Vanorio said.
Asian lettuce, greens, mustard and kale varieties, peppers, melons and beans are among Vanorio’s other offerings. People can also find out about education workshops and internships teaching topics including self-sufficiency and gardening at Vanorio’s website.
Bert Neltner, owner of The Other Neltner Produce based in Highland Heights, is bringing Russian kale, mustard greens and lettuce varieties to Campbell County’s market now. Raspberries, onions and peas will be among foods Neltner said he will be sell later in the growing season.
Sandy Konnerman, of Alexandria, bought Russian red kale from Bert Neltner May 20. Konnerman said she tries to buy organic and raised local foods whenever she can get them.
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“Kale, I like to add it to salads and soups, and it with onion as a side dish,” she said.
Neltner’s farm’s name is a reference to being different from Camp Springs-based Neltner's Farm, an area farmers market mainstay, and a 123-year-old working family farm. Neltner’s sell at all Campbell County and Fort Thomas farmer markets spots, at Findlay Market each Saturday, and at a market each Monday at Nativity Church in Kennedy Heights.
FORT THOMAS
Fort Thomas’ Friday market moved Friday hours to a new location in Fort Thomas Antique & Design Center’s parking lot this year. Wednesday market hours remain at a parking lot at South Fort Thomas Avenue at River Road.
Sellers including Bello’s Bike Pops of Newport, and Fairfax, Ohio-based artisan bakery 16 Bricks, a new artisan bakery joining Fort Thomas this year, create an create an enhanced experience for market visitors, said Debbie Buckley, economic development director for Fort Thomas.
Farmers from Campbell County are at the heart of Fort Thomas’ market, but select growers and businesses from all parts of the region are there, she said.
“It’s all either locally produced or locally grown,” Buckley said.
Vendors at Fort Thomas include: Camp Springs Winery, Breezy Acres of Morningview, Neltner Farms of Camp Springs, Our Mother’s Garden of Villa Hills, Lobenstein Farm of Brookville, Ind., Sunflower Sundries of Mount Olivet, Ky.
Inverness Honey, Kenny’s Farmhouse Cheese, Inc.,Greensleeves Farm (CSA) of Alexandria, StoneBrook Winery of Camp Springs, Butterfly Hill Farm, Sixteen Bricks of Fairfax, Ohio, The Farm of Holiday Harbor of California, Ky. and Bello’s Bike Pops and Carabello Coffee Company, both of Newport.
Greensleeves Farm owner Gretchen Vaughn said shares to help work at her CSA south of Alexandria have been sold out for a few years.
Vaughn sells her extra crops at Fort Thomas’ and Covington’s farmers markets.
“We are bringing spring greens now, kale, mustard greens, chard and baby beets,” she said.
A new Farm to Plate dinner series, costing $40 a person, has started at Greensleeves, Vaughn said.
“Each month I partner with a different Kentucky chef,” she said.
July 12 will feature Allison Hines, chef at Butcher Betties in Florence and pork from Napoleon Ridge Farm in Gallatin County.
“The farmers and chef come and talk with the guests so they really make that face-to-face connection,” Vaughn said.
For information about Farm to Plate dinners and a Saturday, June 28 Garlic Festival visit Greensleeves’ website at http://bit.ly/1Hxkata
Read or Share this story: http://cin.ci/1SoM5Pi |
Mawlana Hazar Imam is one of two recipients of the 2013 North-South Prize of the Council of Europe. The prize was awarded by the President of Portugal in a ceremony held at the Portuguese Parliament on Thursday, 12 June 2014.
This webcast will take place on Thursday, 12 June 2014 and is expected to begin soon after 10:45 AM Lisbon time (GMT+1) This webcast has now concluded. Thank you for joining us.
Live webcast presented by TheIsmaili.org, the official website of the Ismaili Muslim community. This is a LIVE WEBCAST of the Award Ceremony of the 2013 North-South Prize taking place on 12 June 2014 in Lisbon, Portugal. It is expected to commence soon after 10:55 AM WEST (Lisbon time). If you are having trouble viewing this webcast, please refresh the page. Alternatively the webcast can also be viewed on the website of the Aga Khan Development Network. Follow @TheIsmaili and @akdn for live twitter coverage.
Mawlana Hazar Imam and Suzanne Jabbour received the 2013 North-South Prize of the Council of Europe. The prize was awarded by the President of Portugal in a ceremony held at the Portuguese Parliament on Thursday, 12 June 2014.
The annual prize is awarded to two recipients each year, and is announced by the North-South Centre of the Council of Europe. Based in Lisbon, the Centre seeks to “promote global citizenship based on human rights and citizen's responsibility through dialogue and cooperation between Europe, the Southern Mediterranean and Africa.” Past recipients of the prize include Kofi Annan, Mary Robinson and Queen Rania of Jordan. |
As part of our extensive Halo 5: Guardians coverage here at Forbes Games, I loaded up my review copy and headed to Twitch this morning to experience the opening trio of missions for the first time alongside the gaming community. You can watch the entirety of that stream at the bottom of this post.
As I cautiously walked down a narrow corridor in ONI research facility Argent Moon -- lit only by the flashlight attachments from Blue Team's weapon -- a Grunt hilariously broke the intense silence. "I'm going to kill at least 3 humans today!" it whispered gleefully. I broke out in laughter, partially at the return of my favorite comic relief character, and partially because it felt like a homecoming. It was but one moment among dozens in the first 90 minutes of Halo 5: Guardians that felt like a welcome return to the riveting sandbox combat that Bungie originally crafted with Halo: Combat Evolved.
I know what you're thinking. "That scenario sounds more like Dead Space than Halo." And it's true. At least during the first few missions, developer 343 Industries is balancing close-quarters combat with the more iconic, sprawling outdoor levels Halo is known for. The latter is when those classic, unscripted Halo moments happen. One example? I'm driving a Warthog with Nathan Fillion's Buck in tow, when suddenly a Promethean Soldier hijacks the Warthog (yep, that happens now!), scoops up another baddie to man the turret, and turns the tables on me, forcing my squad back into cover.
It takes a lot of restraint not to start gushing about some spoiler-y moments, or the way the majority of weapons have real impact in your hand. Or how ridiculously satisfying the Spartan Charge melee attack feels. Or about the technical accomplishment that's happening on this Xbox One hardware. Look, we know it's not the most powerful box, but seeing your AI squad acting independently, the dense activity happening on the battlefields, the variety of weapon and particle effects firing off in all directions, and a large enemy force all being rendered at a smooth 1080p/60fps is impressive. I haven't noticed any stutters or slowdown, either, but my colleagues will go into richer detail in the coming hours and days.
What you're probably here for is the gameplay itself. Well, what you're going to watch below is your typically pessimistic game critic (hey, I was the first to call out 343 Industries for the broken Master Chief Collection) rapidly reduced to a giddy fanboy, alternating between chill-inducing moments of reverence and excited laughter. This is why I'm not doing our official scored review! But I have to say this, and insist that you appreciate the weight of it: I've had more fun, more "holy crap" moments within the first few levels of Halo 5 than I did with the entirety of Halo 4.
Watch The First 3 Missions
Two brief disclaimers: 1) Expect some minor spoilers. 2) This footage was exported from Twitch, and streaming can be somewhat chaotic. It's anything but a quiet, solitary experience. This means you'll hear me talking over some cutscenes, as well as a touch of adult language. Other than that, I hope you enjoy this taste of what Halo 5: Guardians has to offer when it launches on October 27. Stay tuned for more coverage from everyone here at Forbes Games.
PART 1 (Skip forward to 8:45 for the opening cinematic)
PART 2 (Conclusion of Mission 2 and entirety of Mission 3) |
last night that I was having sex with someone. He wasn’t unattractive, and I made him use a condom, but I realized it was a dream and was glad that it was, because I don’t know if I even want to do that in reality. I think I might be some sort of demisexual. I just got through watching Shame starring Michael Fassbender. It made me kind of sad to see this human being struggling with obvious inner demons and taking that out through a sex addiction. It doesn’t apply here, but it just kept making me think, “How can people be so reckless?” Aside from the fact that Brandon actually had an addiction problem, I kept wondering, “How can you go and have all kinds of sex with so many people–prostitutes–meet complete strangers at bars, fuck those people, and then never see or speak to them again?” I have no interest in being sexually involved with a person unless it is real, unless there’s real emotional attachment and desire, monogamy. I don’t want to be one of the many faces of one’s endless one-night-stands, I want to mean something. If that’s not going to happen, I don’t want sex at all. I don’t care. |
Epilepsy that starts in adulthood often originates in the ‘temporal lobe’, a region of the brain that plays a particularly important role in laying down, storing and retrieving memories. Accordingly, memory problems are frequently seen among people with epilepsy. In some cases commonly used memory tests, for example testing memory for a list of words after a half hour delay, can measure the memory problem. However, sometimes these give normal results despite undoubted memory complaints. Through the TIME (The Impairment of Memory in Epilepsy) project we have been studying forms of memory impairment that are hard to measure but can be important to people with epilepsy. Autobiographical memory impairment is a case in point.
Autobiographical memory – relating to personal life events such as the births of children or exciting holidays – is a central aspect of memory that is commonly affected by temporal lobe epilepsy. There is evidence that autobiographical memory helps to sustain our sense of who we are, maintain our personal relationships and plan for the future. In work funded by Epilepsy Research UK, autobiographical memory was investigated in detail in a group of 14 patients with Transient Epileptic Amnesia, a subtype of temporal lobe epilepsy. These patients performed normally on ‘standard’ memory tests. However, when a more detailed method of assessment was used (designed to establish whether people can really ‘remember what it was like to be there’), a marked reduction in autobiographical memory was found in the patient group, which extended all the way back to the patients’ earliest memories. There was also a more subtle reduction in memory for recent public events.
This study helped to make sense of the memory complaints of people whose performance on standard tests of memory was surprisingly normal. In a follow-on project using a ‘functional imaging’ method (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging – fMRI) that allowed us to identify which brain regions became active when patients recollected their own past, it was shown that a region of the inner temporal lobe, called the right parahippocampal gyrus, was especially under active, and that its ability to communicate with other brain areas was reduced.
Now that we can measure this important type of memory loss and trace its explanation in altered brain activity, we can ask whether it might be preventable. Through this initial project funded by Epilepsy Research UK, we were able to obtain a further grant from the Dunhill Medical Trust to conduct a pilot study to establish whether treatment of temporal lobe epilepsy improves performance on a range of memory tests. These will include non-standard tests to probe the accelerated loss of memories (‘accelerated long-term forgetting’ or ALF) that sometimes underlies autobiographical amnesia.
The work funded by Epilepsy Research UK has enabled us to: measure a previously elusive form of memory impairment that occurs commonly in epilepsy; locate its source in the brain, and launch a study that will guide our approach to its treatment and, we hope, prevention. Our memory of personal past events is one of the keys to our identity, and recognising the effects of epilepsy on this kind of memory helps to explain why memory complaints are so common and important among people with epilepsy. We hope that this work will help to make these complaints a thing of the past. |
New York (CNN) -- A new prosecution document in the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case reveals that the former chief of the International Monetary Fund at first claimed to have diplomatic immunity when he was taken into custody after being removed from an Air France flight at John F. Kennedy International Airport but later said he was not invoking it.
Strauss-Kahn told a Port Authority detective, "I have diplomatic immunity," according to a transcript in the document. But four hours later, he told a New York Police officer with the Manhattan Special Victims squad, "No, no, no, I'm not trying to use that. I just want to know if I need a lawyer."
The IMF has said that Strauss-Kahn would have been entitled to diplomatic immunity only if his alleged crime involved official fund business, which is not the case in this situation.
Strauss-Kahn repeatedly questioned why he was being detained, at one point asking, "What is this about?"
Strauss-Kahn pleaded not guilty June 6 to seven charges involving a May 14 incident in which a housekeeping employee at New York's Sofitel hotel accused him of sexual assault.
When he was approached by Port Authority officers on the Air France flight, the first thing he said was, "Do you have my cell phone?" The report shows he called the hotel several times, looking for a phone he thought he left behind.
Later that night, just before 11 p.m., he was asked whether he'd like to speak to detectives about the incident. He responded, "My attorney has told me not to talk. I was ready to talk."
Strauss-Kahn, who was considered a front-runner in France's presidential race before his arrest, faces charges including criminal sexual acts and sexual abuse.
His attorney, Ben Brafman, declined to comment on details of the case in a brief statement outside the courtroom after entering the plea.
"We intend to defend this case and defend it vigorously, but we are going to do so in the courtroom," Brafman said, renewing statements that evidence in the case will reveal his client is innocent.
The new court filing indicates that several reports will be forthcoming, including a medical examination of the housekeeping employee, DNA reports, a sexual assault forensic examination, photographs and electronic recordings.
According to New York police, the attack happened soon after the housekeeper entered Strauss-Kahn's suite to clean it.
Strauss-Kahn emerged naked from a room, ran down a hallway, shut a door to prevent the woman from leaving and attacked her, according to police and prosecutors.
According to court documents and prosecutors, Strauss-Kahn grabbed the woman's chest, tried to take off her pantyhose and forcibly grabbed her between her legs.
The criminal complaint against Strauss-Kahn alleges that he forced the woman to engage "in oral sexual conduct" and tried to force her to engage in sexual intercourse.
The next court date for Strauss-Kahn is July 18, according to Erin Duggan of the district attorney's office. No date for a trial has been set, Duggan said.
The alleged victim, who has not returned to work, intends to testify against Strauss-Kahn, said her attorney, Ken Thompson.
"She is going to come into this courthouse, get on that witness stand and tell the world what Dominique Strauss did to her," Thompson said.
He declined to discuss specifics of any possible settlement negotiations with Strauss-Kahn, saying his focus is preserving the good name of his client.
She was described by a former attorney as a 32-year-old single mother living in the New York borough of the Bronx who moved to the United States from the West African country of Guinea.
At the hearing, defense lawyers formally requested that Manhattan prosecutors provide discovery materials: copies of scientific reports as well as police reports and formal statements made by the hotel employee.
Prosecutors have not turned over the information to defense attorneys, Duggan said.
The defense has said that some of that information has already been leaked to the media.
"Our client's right to a fair trial is being compromised by the public disclosure of prejudicial material even before these materials have been disclosed to counsel," Strauss-Kahn's attorneys wrote before the hearing in a letter to the judge.
They said that if they chose to, they could "release substantial information that in our view would seriously undermine the quality of this prosecution and also gravely undermine the credibility of the complainant in this case."
In response, Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Joan Illuzzi-Orbon wrote in a letter that the request for the materials would be addressed if the request was made in writing.
Illuzzi-Orbon told the defense she agreed with the need to safeguard information from leaks but was "troubled that you chose to inject into the public record your claim that you possess information that might negatively impact the case and 'gravely' undermine the credibility of the victim."
If the defense does possess such information, it should be forwarded to prosecutors, she said.
Strauss-Kahn was released from jail on bail but is under house arrest in a luxury townhouse in New York's Tribeca neighborhood, according to a source with knowledge of his whereabouts.
He is under court-ordered watch as part of the terms of his $6 million bail agreement and must pay for 24-hour armed guards posted at the door, as well as electronic surveillance. |
Backseat driver in Charlottesville
I went to UVA and lived in Charlottesville for sixteen years, so the weekend’s tragic events hit particularly close to home for me. At least two of my friends from college came close to being killed. The New Yorker interviewed one of them.
These atrocities were squarely the fault of white supremacists who came to Charlottesville looking to intimidate the community and pick a fight. While Trump has been rightly condemned over his “many sides” comments, it’s also important to remember his violent rhetoric against protesters at his rallies. You can find a rundown of some of the chilling remarks he made during his campaign here.
Today we learned that Fox News and The Daily Caller deleted posts celebrating video footage of liberal protesters getting plowed through by cars, a reminder that Fox is not a “news” network any more than Infowars provides “info.” |
How do I apply for SNAP in Massachusetts?* First, find out if you are eligible. Call Project Bread’s FoodSource Hotline at 1-800-645-8333 to speak with a counselor who can help you. If you are eligible: 1. Apply for SNAP Over the phone: call Project Bread’s FoodSource Hotline at 1-800-645-8333 to start an application over the phone, or have an application sent to you through the mail.
By mail or fax: find links to fill-able PDFs and Word documents to download and complete on the DTA website. Completed applications can be mailed to: DTA, PO BOX 4406, Taunton, MA, 02780-9975 or faxed to 617-887-8765.
Apply online: use the Mass.gov Virtual Gateway to apply online.
In person: visit your local DTA office. 2. Participate in an interview
Once your application has been received, a DTA caseworker will call you to conduct an interview over the phone. Your caseworker is the person you will work with and send updates to until your application is complete.
3. Submit verifications You can submit verifications with your application or separately. You have 30 days to submit these documents to your DTA. A document showing your name and address
Social security numbers for all household members applying
Proof of income for the previous four weeks
For non-citizens: proof of legal non-citizen status. Additionally, these optional documented expenses may significantly increase your benefit amount: Child and adult care expenses
Housing costs (rent or mortgage and utilities)
Out-of-pocket medical expenses (if age 60 or over, or disabled)
Child support payments being made to a child living outside of the household. You can mail copies (do not send origonals) of the verifications, fax them, or bring them to your local DTA office. If you mail or fax the verifications be sure to include your name and the last four number of your social security number on each of the documents. Verifications should be sent to:
DTA
PO Box 4406
Taunton, MA 02760-9975
FAX NUMBER: 617-887-8765. Click here for helpful information and tips about submitting verifications.
Receiving your benefits Once all of the verifications have been received and the interview completed, DTA will determine your eligibility and send an approval or denial letter. You may receive an EBT card in the mail right after you apply. Until the DTA processes and approves your application, you will not have any benefits on your card. Benefits are electronically transferred onto the card once the case is approved. Click here for more information on what happens once you are approved. For additional help If you have questions about how to apply for SNAP in Massachusetts, call Project Bread's FoodSource Hotline at 1-800-645-8333. To get information from the DTA about your pending case, call the DTA Assistance Line at 1-877-382-2363. *SNAP regulations vary by state. If you do not live in Massachusetts, call the USDA at 1-800-221-5689 or visit their website, http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/state-informationhotline-numbers, to find a contact in your state |
Nvidia appears to be in a real big hurry to cut into the momentum for AMD's forthcoming Radeon 6900 series of graphics cards. Its rumored answer -- the GeForce GTX 580 -- is not only being prepped to compete with (and beat) AMD's latest -- but it also appears to be coming as soon as next week.
A launch date of November 8 has leaked via a Chinese Web site, and another Chinese site has published some benchmarks comparing the new card to the GTX 480 and the Radeon 5870. The good news for the green giant: The average gain for the GTX 580 is around 17 percent over its Fermi predecessor and a whopping 45 percent better than the 5870. Of course, we don't know how it compares to the forthcoming Radeon 6970 and 6950, and that's ultimately the only thing that matters.
The performance gains come in part from the doubling of the 480's texture mapping units to 128 and increasing the number of CUDA cores to 512 from 480. Thermal design power is down slightly to 244W (from 250W), but it looks like Nvidia is still low-balling that measurement since the 480 runs at full load closer to 300W.
The GTX 580 is rumored to be offered for $499, which will help drive down the 480's price tag and will probably match the pricing for the eventual 6970. Assuming the 580 launch goes smoothly (never a given with Nvidia these days), it should set up an epic battle for graphics supremacy later this month.
[Via VR-Zone] |
We've all heard the rib-jabbing comments about makeup that some men like to spout, from "Take her swimming on the first date" to "This is why I have trust issues." All these comments allude to the fact that a person somehow "tricks" their date if they show up to dinner with highlighter and mascara on. Apparently, this fear has grown to such exponential heights that one man has now invented an app that digitally wipes makeup off any photo uploaded to the service. Real world problems, and we get this bullshit.
The app is called MakeApp, and its the creation of Russian founder Ashot Gabrelyanov. The digital "miracle" lets you wipe away the cosmetics from five photos for free before asking you to pay $0.99 to continue editing images and videos. While the app description doesn't specifically say it's meant to digitally throw a bottle of makeup remover on unsuspecting beauty lovers — and in fact, the app also allows you to add cosmetics onto a face — one can still infer it's the underlying "perk" of such a tool. A man can now snap a photo of a done-up woman, run it through his phone, and decide if she's worth his time from look at her supposed sans makeup face.
And as you can imagine, there are quite a few problems with that.
Courtesy of Marlen Komar
First off, can we please talk about beards? Because I've seen a good deal of men — from boyfriends, to friends, to brothers — who have shaved off their stubble, and all I can think is: THAT'S YOUR CONTOUR. Are makeup lovers pulling up bar stools and sighing heavily into their Wild Turkey shots on how they have been burned by a beard sculpt? No, no we are not. Mainly because we know what men do with their faces is up to them. And we still like you for you even after your "contour" comes off.
Another issue that comes to light with this makeup removing app is that men often can't think about women's interests or hobbies without centering themselves. Many women use makeup as a creative outlet or a mode of pampering. Catching the eye of an anonymous man has nothing to do with the beauty hobby, yet many men can't imagine a scenario where their interests aren't front and center on a woman's agenda.
This has been going on forever. For example, in 1925, when cosmetics really began to boom, a concerned husband wrote to an advice columnist to his local paper to lament about his wife's "change." Introducing himself as the "Sick-O'Paint Father," he wrote, "Once she was one of the prettiest girls in town," but now "it takes more stuff to get her ready to go out than it does to cook a five-course dinner."
Instead of focusing her attention on him, the wife now had a hobby of her own that pulled her focus elsewhere. So the troubled man asked his wife whether the gratuitous makeup application was to make other women jealous or for the benefit of men. To that she "gave the funniest reason of all."
"She says she does it to please herself," the man wrote. "Can you beat that? All that work TO PLEASE HERSELF!" The idea was so unfathomable, Sick-O'Paint had to use caps in 1925.
While it might seem easy to brush off these kinds of societal opinions, they manifest themselves in people's lives in a real way. Take for example the CoverGirl's project launched this June entitled "PDA — Public Displays of Application." The brand conducted a survey of over 1,500 women from around the country, and more than half shared that they felt uncomfortable doing their makeup in public. In interviews, women relayed stories on how everyone from taxi drivers to other women (because, internalized misogyny) approached them in order to let them know they were offended when they brought the lipstick tube out. Then there was Sleek MakeUP's #MyFaceMyRules campaign, which was made when the cosmetic company conducted a survey and found one in three people have felt judged for the makeup they wore.
No matter how much we say we can do whatever we want with our bodies and faces, shaming tactics and "good natured" ribbing still have a real-world impact on us. These numbers, coupled with this new app, make it seem like women can't have hobbies unless men sign off on them.
To that there's only one thing to say: It's 2017. Stop channeling Sick-O'Paint Father from the 1920's and let people do their own thing. |
Register now for the BOINC workshop & Hackathon in Paris!
What?
The BOINC workshop in Paris will cover discussions on the status of the open source project with a particular focus on the experience over the past year from the contributors. Some of the projects will present their current status and outlook. Plans for future developments will be presented and how this can be best realized by the community. The workshop will start in the morning on Wednesday September 6th and end on Thursday afternoon. On Friday September 8th there will be a hackfest for those who wish to stay around and do some hands on development with others. Please register before 29 August 2017 if you wish to attend.
When?
Starts
6 Sep 2017 09:00
Ends
8 Sep 2017 17:00
Where?
The 2017 BOINC Workshop will take place at:
Institut d'Astrophique de Paris (IAP)
98bis Boulevard Arago, 75014, Paris, France.
Talks will be held in the Salle des Séminaires located on the basement level of the institute.
IAP is located near the heart of Paris, a 10 minute walk from the latin quarter, and directly across from the Denfer-Rocherou RER-B commuter rail stop which makes accessing much of the rest of Paris quite convenient.
Some background about IAP:
The IAP itself is a multi-disciplinary laboratory, working at the forefront of both astrophysics and theoretical physics. It is the main home of the Cosmology@Home team. The principal areas of research at the IAP are the formation of planetary systems and extra solar planetary research, stellar physics, galactic evolution, large-scale structure, observational cosmology, physics of the primordial Universe, and high energy physics.
IAP researchers are observers, modelers, and theorists. Their research relies on large observational programs, numerical calculations, or advanced analytical methods. The IAP consists of about 150 researchers, engineers, technicians, administrators, post-doctorates and thesis students, and regularly welcomes interns and foreign visitors.
The IAP also hosts a second-year Master’s program entitled "Astronomy, Astrophysics and Space Engineering", as well as the UPMC’s branch for the l'Ecole Doctorale d'Astronomie et d'Astrophysique d'Ile-de-France ("Doctoral School for Astronomy and Astrophysics", ED 127). It has an exclusive partnership with the Paris Observatory, which is located on the same campus. It also hosts the general secretary of the International Astronomical Union (UAI) since 1988. The IAP actively shares scientific knowledge, in particular by organizing public presentations on the first Thursday of every month.
Agenda
Credits
The contents & images for this post were copied from the event registration page. |
Ten years ago, Nathan and I placed our firstborn son for adoption. I was barely 23 when I got pregnant with Benjamin. I had just graduated from Northwest University, a Christian college on the Eastside, and was preparing to spend two years in Jakarta, Indonesia, as an associate missionary. I got my acceptance letter to the program the same week I took a pregnancy test. Suddenly there stretched a chasm between my efforts and plans and where I found myself, faced with one of the biggest decisions of my life. A decision with a ticking, eight-month clock. Nathan, Benjamin’s father, walked through the entire adoption process with me. Our adoption counselor said it was the first time they’d had a birth father in their office.
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Together we went to doctor appointments and chose a family for our child. And then, on Aug. 30, 2005, as Hurricane Katrina raged in the Gulf and on our hospital TV, Ben came into the world. I have always wanted to be a mother. I have a fabulous example. My mom stayed at home with the three of us, pouring countless hours into me and my brothers, feeding and cleaning and teaching and protecting. I don't remember ever deciding I would have kids. I just knew that I would. The desire, the inclination, was embedded so deep in who I am that it was assumed. My unplanned pregnancy at 23 did away with that assumption. One of the biggest reasons I placed Benjamin for adoption was that I didn’t see Nathan as a viable partner. He was a friend, and I was headed overseas. I knew I couldn’t give Benjamin the life I would want with a child. I couldn’t wrap my mind around what that would look like. Writing now, a decade later, is an exercise in healing for me. It is the outpouring of the surreal realization, with pain and vivid nostalgia, that I am the mother of a 10-year-old. I have grieved the reality of not parenting Benjamin very deeply. I am sure I will continue to grieve that loss, at various points in my life and his, in innumerable ways. In June I took a road trip, and somewhere in Wyoming, I was so awash in fresh memories of him and his birth that I was unable to breathe.
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Sometimes grief is a sniper. You are struck with a memory, a smell, a comparison or an image when you are simply going about your day, and you are pierced to your core. I am amazed at how the pain can be so very near the surface after all these years. There are the moments so etched in my memory that I can see and feel them if I just close my eyes and put out the barest of efforts. I will never forget the pain I sensed from Benjamin's mother and father the first time we met. They told us their story with a practiced and partial vulnerability in the coffee shop at Third Place Books in Shoreline. It was a neutral place calculated to neutralize the gravity of the meeting, where we nibbled on scones for show and talked about giving them our baby. On Sept. 1, 2005, I placed my baby, my son, the warm, wriggling embodiment of a desire so deep I assumed it, into the arms of another woman. I will never forget the walk down the hallway in the hospital after his family had come to pick him up. They stayed behind in the postpartum suite with our adoption counselor.
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Nathan and I, faces swollen and streaked with two days of tears, shuffled toward the elevator. We carried flowers and hospital bags but no car seat. No diaper bag. The walls were pale green and lit with that fluorescent light that is the stuff of the worst scenes in movies. The tile on the floor was bland white and cream checkered. Each step was a leaden fight, a refusal to do what all my instincts told me to do: throw myself on the floor and allow the primal wail to escape from the pit of my stomach. Run back and burst through the door and say I was sorry, but I couldn't do it. When we made it to the elevator, I stood clinging to Nathan's hand like a life ring as our tiny steel compartment full of strangers sank toward the parking garage. They all stared and shifted uncomfortably and looked away. I'm sure they thought we had lost someone. And we had. I will never forget being two days out, lying in recovery and shock in bed, with bags of frozen corn laid across my chest to help the milk that had filled my breasts subside. I breastfed for the two days we were in the hospital, giving my son the parting gift of colostrum I knew was so full of antibodies and nutrients, instead of starting him right away on formula. The skin on my chest was so taut and burning hot it felt like it would explode. I was struck in the moment with the thought that even if the knowledge and the emotion of what had just happened disappeared, even for a second of reprieve, the physical pain would remain. My body ached and throbbed with one constant, desperate, accusatory question: "Where is he?" Beth on getting pregnant again 10 months later:
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I think it was the year Benjamin turned five, as Nathan and I walked away from our annual meeting with him and his family, that we realized the weight had shifted. It had taken five years, but finally the joy of what we had done for him and for his family outweighed the pain that we felt in losing him. All this said, I would change none of it. It is the decision in my life that I am proud of, if I need to point to just one. I believed the best way I could be a mother to Benjamin was to decide, with all of the herculean meaning behind that decision, to place him with a family that could give him what I could not. The certainty of a home, of parents who were prepared, of parents whose longing fit his timing. I am writing now because I want to live the fullest life I can, and for me that means sharing grief as well as joy. I want to be open about my own grief and to be intentional about processing it alone and with others. And sometimes in public. I want to be a person who can meet others in their grief – with empathy, at the right times and without fear.
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As many as six members of a terrorist cell involved in the Paris attacks may still be at large, including a man who was seen driving a car registered to the widow of one of the gunmen, French police said Monday.
The disclosure came as France deployed 10,000 troops to protect sensitive sites — including Jewish schools and neighbourhoods — in the wake of the attacks that killed 17 people last week.
Brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi and their friend, Amedy Coulibaly, were killed Friday by police after a murderous spree at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket. The three all claimed ties to Islamic extremist groups.
Two police officials told The Associated Press that authorities were searching the Paris area for the Mini Cooper registered to Hayat Boumeddiene, Coulibaly's widow. Turkish officials say she is now in Syria.
One of the police officials said the cell consisted of about 10 members, and that "five or six could still be at large," but he did not provide their names. The other official said the cell was made up of about eight people and included Boumeddiene.
Soldiers stand guard outside a synagogue in Paris, Monday, Jan. 12, 2015. All of France's 717 Jewish schools will be given extra security in the wake of the attacks. (Jacques Brinon/Associated Press) One of the other men believed to be part of the cell has been seen driving Boumeddiene's car around Paris in recent days, the two officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation with the media. They cautioned that it was not clear whether the driver was an operative, involved in logistics, or had some other, less-violent role in the cell.
An Interior Ministry official declined to comment on an ongoing investigation, and a spokeswoman for the Paris prosecutor's office was not immediately available for comment.
'The threat is still present'
One of the police officials also said Coulibaly apparently set off a car bomb Thursday in the town of Villejuif, but no one was injured and it did not receive significant media attention at the time.
Prime Minister Manuel Valls said the manhunt is urgent because "the threat is still present" from the attacks.
"The work on these attacks, on these terrorist and barbaric acts continues ... because we consider that there are most probably some possible accomplices," Valls told BFM television.
The nationwide deployment of troops would be completed by Tuesday and would focus on the most sensitive locations, Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said.
By midday Monday, soldiers and police filled Paris' Marais district — one of the country's oldest Jewish neighbourhoods. About 4,700 of the security forces would be assigned to protect France's 717 Jewish schools, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said.
Late Monday, the website of the newspaper Liberation, which has been hosting the Charlie Hebdo staff, posted an image of the next cover of the satirical weekly. It featured a cartoon of a bearded man in a turban with a tear streaming down his cheek, and holding a sign: "Je Suis Charlie" — "I Am Charlie."
Overhead was the phrase: "All is forgiven."
4th suspect believed to be in Syria
The attacks began Wednesday with 12 people killed at the publication Charlie Hebdo, which had lampooned Islam and other religions, by gunmen the police identified as the Kouachi brothers. Police have said, however, that the attack was carried out by three people.
Authorities said Coulibaly killed a policewoman Thursday and then killed four people at the kosher market Friday before he was slain by police.
Video emerged Sunday of Coulibaly explaining how the attacks in Paris would unfold. French police want to find the person or persons who shot and posted the video, which was edited after Friday's attacks.
Hayet Boumddiene, suspect in the kosher market attack, crossed the border into Syria on Jan. 8, according to a Turkish official. (Prefecture de Police de Paris/Associated Press) Boumeddiene was seen travelling through Turkey with a male companion before reportedly arriving in Syria with him on Jan. 8 — the day after the Charlie Hebdo attack and the same day Coulibaly began his murderous spree by killing the policewoman.
According to security camera video shown Monday by Turkey's Haberturk newspaper, Boumeddiene arrived Jan. 2 at Istanbul's Sabiha Gokcen airport. A high-ranking Turkish official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed the woman on the video was Boumeddiene.
Turkish intelligence then tracked Boumeddiene from her arrival.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told the state-run Anadolu Agency that she had stayed at a hotel in Istanbul with another person before crossing into Syria on Thursday.
Turkish officials said Boumeddiene had arrived in Istanbul from Madrid on Jan. 2. It is believed she made her way to Syria. (CCTV/Reuters)
She and her travelling companion, a 23-year-old man identified as Mehdy Sabry Belhoucine, toured Istanbul before leaving Jan. 4 for a town near the Turkish border, according to a Turkish intelligence official who was not authorized to speak by name. Little was known about Belhoucine.
Her last phone signal was Jan. 8 from the border town of Akcakale, where she apparently crossed into Islamic State-controlled territory in Syria, the official said. Their Jan. 9 return plane tickets to Madrid went unused.
Police release raid videos
French police have released videos of their operations around two sieges on Friday after the attacks by the Islamic militants.
The videos were issued by the Interior Ministry on Sunday in what French media said was an unusual move.
The videos show the prelude to the raid in Dammartin en Goele and footage of hostages released from the second siege at the kosher supermarket in Paris.
On mobile? Watch the video here
In the Paris footage, police from the Groupe d'Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale (GIGN) are seen hurrying hostages from the supermarket after the police blew up the shop entrance and stormed in to tackle Coulibaly, who had killed four hostages.
Islamophobic rallies in Germany
In Dresden, Germany, thousands of people attended a weekly anti-Islam rally — its biggest turnout yet — after organizers declared it a tribute to the victims of the Paris attacks.
Organizers said 40,000 people participated, while Dresden police put the figure at over 25,000 people — still considerably more than the 18,000 who came last week.
The group, which calls itself Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West, or PEGIDA, had asked supporters to wear black ribbons as a show of respect for those killed last week.
"The terrible acts of Paris are further proof that PEGIDA is needed," said Lutz Bachmann, one of the organizers of the Dresden rally. |
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His tiny body was only strong enough to cling to life for a matter of minutes, but little Teddy will always be a hero to his mum and dad.
Jess Evans and Mike Houlston knew their brave baby boy could never survive, but they were determined for his life to have a true meaning.
It was 12 weeks into her pregnancy when Jess was delivered the terrible news – one of the twins she was carrying was dreadfully ill.
Teddy’s condition was so severe that, at best, he would live for a day or two.
It was a heartbreaking hammer blow.
But as they battled to come to terms with the tragedy, Jess and Mike’s thoughts turned to helping others.
And despite their agony, they decided to explore whether there was any chance Teddy could become an organ donor.
(Image: Trinity Mirror)
On April 22 last year – a year ago – their beloved boy slipped away from the world, 100 minutes after he was born under the same hot, bright lights of the hospital’s delivery room.
Nothing could have prepared Jess and Mike for the deep sadness they both felt in that moment. Then something extraordinary happened.
Medics carried out pioneering surgery to donate Teddy’s kidneys and heart valves.
Three minutes after his death, he became Britain’s youngest ever organ donor .
He had saved an adult stranger’s life.
For Jess and Mike, his story is a source of pride, as they come to terms with their loss.
Mike, 30, said: “He lived and died a hero. It’s impossible to explain how proud we are of him.”
Jess, 28, added: “Although he wasn’t with us very long, and we brought him into the world knowing there was no hope of a life for him, we are incredibly proud of his heroism.
"We hope Teddy’s story will inspire families who find themselves in the position of losing a child.
"Knowing part of your loved one is living on in someone else is comforting.”
(Image: Trinity Mirror)
It is incredibly rare for new babies to be considered as donors and Dr Paul Murphy, of NHS Blood and Transplant, described Teddy’s gift of life as a “milestone moment”.
He said: “Every donation is inspirational. It is a selfless act of heroism.
“But Teddy’s story is exceptional. He was the youngest organ donor in the UK.”
Originally childhood sweethearts, Mike and Jess rekindled their relationship in their 20s, and quickly decided they wanted to share a life together – and start a family.
Jess, who has a three-year-old daughter from a previous relationship, found out she was pregnant days after the couple returned from Amsterdam, where they had become engaged.
She laughed: “The moment we found out we were having twins, we told everyone. We put our scan of the two little sacks on Facebook.”
Housing surveyor Mike grinned: “We couldn’t hold back.”
But their elation turned to sadness in the early weeks of pregnancy when they were told one of the babies was ill.
At first, it was not clear how serious his condition was.
(Image: Trinity Mirror)
Jess said: “They were all tiptoeing around what they were trying to say, and it got to the point where I said: ‘Listen, are you saying that one of the babies isn’t going to live?’.”
Teddy had anencephaly, a rare, fatal condition that prevents the normal development of the brain and the bones of the skull.
Almost all babies with anencephaly die before birth or within a few hours or days after birth.
His parents were told he would either be stillborn or die very shortly afterwards.
Jess described the moment she learned one of her sons would not survive as “soul destroying”.
She said: “I think the point when we actually accepted it was when we went for a 4D scan.
"We could see, in a very detailed picture on a TV screen, the fact that his skull hadn’t formed properly.”
Doctors offered the couple the option to abort Teddy many times, but this was never something they considered.
She said: “We thought that even if we had a moment with him, or 10 minutes, or an hour, that time was the most precious thing that we would ever experience.”
Jess and Mike continued with the pregnancy.
And they quickly decided that they wanted their baby to donate his organs, and hopefully help someone in need of a transplant.
Organ donation was something I’ve always felt quite strongly about ever since I was a child,” says Jess. They were determined his life would not be in vain.
(Image: Trinity Mirror)
Many newborns who die in hospital have the potential to be organ donors, and could save the lives of other seriously ill patients.
But, as Jess and Mike discovered, it is extremely unusual.
But the selfless pair fought tirelessly.
And finally, days before the twins were born, they were referred to a specialist nurse, who put a plan in place to make it possible.
The day after Easter Monday last year, Jess gave birth to Noah, and shortly after, Teddy.
It was a day of both heartbreak and hope.
Mike remembered: “The first time I saw him, I can remember thinking to myself: ‘He’s beautiful, he’s beautiful’. He had big hands.”
Teddy died aged 100 minutes, and had surgery to donate his kidneys – which measured 3.8cm – and his heart valves.
Kidneys fully function at around 37 weeks in the womb.
His kidneys saved the life of a patient with renal failure, who Mike and Jess have since exchanged letters with.
Jess said: “It helps us so much to know he has helped someone else and helped doctors realise donation from small babies is possible and is something people like us want to make happen.”
Britain’s previous youngest donor was a five-day-old baby girl, who was never publicly identified.
Teddy was named Teddy Noah Houlston, while his older brother is Noah Teddy Houlston.
On the anniversary, the family visited Teddy’s grave. And they have set up a Twitter profile in Teddy’s name.
They tweeted: “happy birthday to noah and teddy!! Brothers forever xxx”.
(Image: Trinity Mirror)
As well as saving a life, Teddy’s generosity has triggered changes to NHS policy , which may make it easier for babies who die early to donate.
Dr Murphy said: “These are magnificent achievements. But Teddy’s legacy must go far beyond this.”
More than 7,000 people are on the organ transplant waiting list in the UK. Three people die every day waiting for a donor.
The problem is not just that not enough people are signed up to the register.
It’s also that 40% of families refuse to allow donation to go ahead when asked, sometimes even when their loved one was registered.
Dr Murphy hopes Teddy’s story will spark “a revolution in public attitudes” and bring an end to this “senseless waste of life”.
He added: “In handing their baby over to the transplant team, Mike and Jess did so with love and hope and an absolute conviction that they were doing the right thing.
“In telling Teddy’s story, they demand that everyone, young and old, follows their example.”
The couple are keen to encourage anyone who isn’t on the NHS Organ Donor Register to sign up.
(Image: Trinity Mirror)
And they have begun fundraising for a charity, 2 Wish Upon a Star, which aims to improve bereavement services for parents who lose babies or children.
One year after that day, at the family home in Cardiff, Teddy’s three-year-old sister, Billie, clutched a teddy bear.
She pushed a button buried in its fur, and suddenly, a beat echoed around the living room. It was a human heart beating.
But it was not just anyone’s heart beating. It was her brother Teddy’s, recorded when Jess was pregnant.
Teddy remains a big part of the family’s life today, and Noah and Billie are encouraged to think about their little brother whenever they can.
“What happened after he died?”
Mike asked his stepdaughter Billie. “Where did he go?” added Jess.
Billie doesn’t need any time to think about her answer. “Heaven,” she says, smiling. “Playing football.”
Jess Evans and Mike Houlston are raising money for a charity, 2 Wish Upon a Star, which aims to improve bereavement services for parents who lose babies or children justgiving.com/teddysneverendingjourney/
Become an organ donor today - sign up online or call 0300 123 23 23. |
Story highlights Bouna Coundoul is New York Red Bulls' Senegalese goalkeeper
He moved to the U.S. aged 14, where his talents were spotted in high school
He's created the 'Bouna Time Academy' in Senegal
Now goalkeeper for the New York Red Bulls, as a child growing up in Senegal, Bouna Coundoul could only dream of being a professional footballer.
At the age of 14 Coundoul was sent to study in the unfamiliar surroundings of New York. But his passion for football followed him across the Atlantic.
"When I moved from Senegal to the United States in 1997, I didn't know that in the United States they played soccer -- all I thought is basketball or whatever," he says. "So coming here and seeing that soccer is well developed here, I went to high school."
Coundoul's shot-stopping talents started flourishing in his new environment. He soon made a splash on the local football scene as a talented goalie while playing in high school.
"In the United States, education can open the doors of any opportunity that you want, so when I went to high school, people started seeing, 'oh this guy has some talent, this guy can make it.'"
JUST WATCHED Goalkeeper saves memories of Senegal Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Goalkeeper saves memories of Senegal 07:00
In 2005 he fulfilled his dream of competing at the top level by signing for American Major League Soccer (MLS) team the Colorado Rapids.
These days he sports the red and white colors of the New York Red Bulls, whose fans have taken him to their hearts. On match days, a certain catch phrase can often be heard echoing around the team's imposing stadium: "It's Bouna Time."
It's a phrase Coundoul lives by, defining his attitude toward both football and life.
"The way I see it, the way I kind of come up with it (is to) be the best on the field," he explains. "Whatever you do in life, as long as it's positive, it can be Bouna Time."
"Try to do everything at your max so after, later on, you don't regret anything. That's why Bouna Time is all about (being) positive."
Coundoul says he's developed a special relationship with his team's fans: "As soon as I step on the field ... you can hear it. 'What time is it? It's Bouna Time.' And that really makes me feel like, OK, these guys are on my side, they really believe in me.
"I make sure I give them a good show so every time they come, they know it's going to be Bouna Time."
Now a teammate of French football legend Thierry Henry, Coundoul says he cherishes the moments he's on the same field as some of the sport's biggest names.
Thierry Henry, David Beckham , Rafael Marquez, Samuel Eto'o -- all those guys that back in the day I used to sit and dream and watch those guys play, now we're in the same field, playing with those guys, or against them," he says.
"I think that's a dream come true. Any soccer player would love to have that opportunity."
Coundoul's eye-catching performances in the MLS have also earned him a place in Senegal's national team.
"I represent it with pride, with honor," he says. "I want to serve the country the best way possible, which is playing soccer."
In 2007 he found another way to help his country on a deeper level, with the creation of the Bouna Time Academy, which provides after-school football training for some 60 children, and organizes matches for them at the weekend.
But Coundoul says that only top students are accepted by the academy. He wants the young athletes to understand that while few of them will have the chance to be professional footballers, their education can take them anywhere.
"I tell them, once you get your education, anything is possible," he says. "Even if you don't become a professional soccer player, you can become the next president.
"If you get your education, you can travel, you can read, you can do everything you want to do, and you can carry yourself in a way that they say, 'this guy is professional all the time.'" |
Jan 17, 2016 Ξ Comments are off
By Ed Diokno
Fresh off her rebuttal to President Obama’s final State of the Union, the Indian American South Carolina governor responded to a reporter asking what prompted her critical statements about some Republican’s positions on immigrants. Haley clarified that she was thinking about all the Republican presidential candidates. The last straw, she said, was Donald Trump’s call to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. “When you’ve got immigrants who are coming here legally, we’ve never in the history of this country passed any laws or done anything based on race or religion. Let’s not start that now,” she said.
Whhaa …??
Haley should have known better considering last summer she had to make the decision to take down the Confederate flag in front of the Charleston courthouse after white supremacist Dylan Roof shot and killed nine African American Bible class students.
There is a lengthy list of American laws based on race or xenophobia. Here are a few examples:
We can began at the founding of the United States when slave-owners helped write the Declaration of Independence. When they used the phrase, “all men are created equal” they were not referring to their slaves, which they considered “property.”
The 1787 Three-Fifths Compromise was created to make the Constitution – the very foundation of U.S. law – palatable to the slave-owning South. Also written into the Constitution was a provision to make it illegal to assist a slave’s escape to freedom, even if it is to a state forbidding slavery.
The Trail of Tears is the result of the the Indian Removal Act of 1830 forcing Native Americans off their traditional lands.
The Jim Crow laws which states used mainly against African Americans. Laws that provided segregated schools, separate drinking fountains, separate bathrooms and separate entrances for Euro Americans and African Americans.
The Chinese Exclusion Act which later morphed into a ban against all Asians and members of the “Mongolian” race.
There were laws in many states, including California, that prevented nonwhites to own land or to buy a home.
In the 19th century, there were laws forbidding Native Americans’ spiritual practices such as “ghost dancing.”
Anti-miscegenation laws which, if they were still in effect, would have prevented the marriage of the child of Indian American immigrants to a European American.
Executive Order 9066 mandated the internment of the West Coast’s Americans of Japanese descent during World War II.
Operation Wetback allowed federal authorities to deport over one million Mexican Americans throughout the Southwest. Many American citizens were victimized by the sweeps and forced to leave the U.S.
Our schools downplay these dark chapters in our history (if they are mentioned at all). The racist laws reinforced a sense of – let’s be frank – White exceptionalism that is not wholly deserved. That belief of White American superiority impacts our actions throughout the world and affects the treatment of foreign visitors, immigrants, refugees or anybody who is “different” from the what is generally perceived as the so-called (White) American image.
Demographic shifts indicate that European Americans will no longer be the dominant racial group in the U.S. by mid-century. The popular image of Americans solely being descendants of European immigrants perpetuated and reinforced by our media products (Motion pictures, television and Internet) needs to change, but I digress.
I often wonder why a person of color, including Nikki Haley, chooses to be a member of the current brand of the Republican Party with its hate-spewing rhetoric and xenophobic rants. A lack of historical context might be part of the explanation. That’s a topic for another post.
Haley’s performance after Obama’s SOTU pumped her up in the eyes of the GOP. Her name is in the mix when considering candidates for Vice President. As the child of immigrants, raised as a Sikh, who reportedly experienced racial bias while growing up in South Carolina, Haley needs to brush up on her history to understand whose shoulders she stands on.
Ed Diokno writes a blog :Views From The Edge: news and analysis from an Asian American perspective.) |
The Ten Planks of the
Communist Manifesto
1848 by Karl Heinrich Marx How "Marxist" Has
the United States
Become?
1. Abolition of private property in land and application of all rents of land to public purpose.
The courts have interpreted the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (1868) to give the government far more "eminent domain" power than was originally intended, Under the rubric of "eminent domain" and various zoning regulations, land use regulations by the Bureau of Land Managementproperty taxes, and "environmental" excuses, private property rights have become very diluted and private property in landis, vehicles, and other forms are seized almost every day in this country under the "forfeiture" provisions of the RICO statutes and the so-called War on Drugs..
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
The 16th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, 1913 (which some scholars maintain was never properly ratified), and various State income taxes, established this major Marxist coup in the United States many decades ago. These taxes continue to drain the lifeblood out of the American economy and greatly reduce the accumulation of desperately needed capital for future growth, business starts, job creation, and salary increases.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
Another Marxian attack on private property rights is in the form of Federal & State estate taxes and other inheritance taxes, which have abolished or at least greatly diluted the right of private property owners to determine the disposition and distribution of their estates upon their death. Instead, government bureaucrats get their greedy hands involved .
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
We call it government seizures, tax liens, "forfeiture" Public "law" 99-570 (1986); Executive order 11490, sections 1205, 2002 which gives private land to the Department of Urban Development; the imprisonment of "terrorists" and those who speak out or write against the "government" (1997 Crime/Terrorist Bill); or the IRS confiscation of property without due process.
5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.
The Federal Reserve System, created by the Federal Reserve Act of Congress in 1913, is indeed such a "national bank" and it politically manipulates interest rates and holds a monopoly on legal counterfeiting in the United States. This is exactly what Marx had in mind and completely fulfills this plank, another major socialist objective. Yet, most Americans naively believe the U.S. of A. is far from a Marxist or socialist nation.
6. Centralization of the means of communication and transportation in the hands of the state.
In the U.S., communication and transportation are controlled and regulated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) established by the Communications Act of 1934 and the Department of Transportation and the Interstate Commerce Commission (established by Congress in 1887), and the Federal Aviation Administration as well as Executive orders 11490, 10999 -- not to mention various state bureaucracies and regulations. There is also the federal postal monopoly, AMTRAK and CONRAIL -- outright socialist (government-owned) enterprises. Instead of free-market private enteprrise in these important industries, these fields in America are semi-cartelized through the government's regulatory-industiral complex.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
While the U.S. does not have vast "collective farms" (which failed so miserably in the Soviet Union), we nevertheless do have a significant degree of government involvement in agriculture in the form of price support subsidies and acreage alotments and land-use controls. The Desert Entry Act and The Department of Agriculture. As well as the Department of Commerce and Labor, Department of Interior, the Evironmental Protection Agency, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, Bureau of Mines, National Park Service, and the IRS control of business through corporate regulations.
8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of Industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
We call it the Social Security Administration and The Department of Labor. The National debt and inflation caused by the communal bank has caused the need for a two "income" family. Woman in the workplace since the 1920's, the 19th amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, assorted Socialist Unions, affirmative action, the Federal Public Works Program and of course Executive order 11000. And I almost forgot...The Equal Rights Amendment means that women should do all work that men do including the military and since passage it would make women subject to the draft.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the population over the country.
We call it the Planning Reorganization Act of 1949 , zoning (Title 17 1910-1990) and Super Corporate Farms, as well as Executive orders 11647, 11731 (ten regions) and Public "law" 89-136.
10. Free education for all children in government schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc. etc.
People are being taxed to support what we call 'public' schools, which train the young to work for the communal debt system. We also call it the Department of Education, the NEA and Outcome Based "Education" .
So, is the U.S. a "free country" today? Hardly! Not compared to what it once was. Yet, very few Americans today challenge these Marxist institutions, and there are virtually no politicians calling for their repeal or even gradual phase-out. While the United States of America may still have more freedoms than most other countries, we have nonetheless lost many crucial liberties and have accepted the major socialist attacks on freedom and private property as normal parts of our way of life. The nation, whose founders included such individualists as Thomas Jefferson, George Mason, James Madison, John Adams and Patrick Henry, has gradually turned away from the principles of individual rights, limited constitutional government, private property, and free markets and instead we increasingly have embraced the failed ideas and nostrums of socialism and fascism. We should hang our heads in shame for having allowed this to happen.
But, it is not too late to reverse these pernicious burdens and instead enact pro-freedom reforms to put our nation back on track again. It can be done.
In some ways the Left has a head start over us on the pro-freedom Right. The enemies of American freedom do admittedly dominate the entertainment industry, television news media, and academia -- but we have the tremendous strategic advantage that reality (including man's nature) is on our side; so, unlike the socialists and "liberals" (welfare-state fascists), we are not in the position of having to advocate a system which constantly tries to "make water to go uphill" -- or force human beings into a rigid utopian staitjacket based on the whims of some clique of central planning bureaucrats. We know that individual freedom for peaceful people within a constitutional republic works in practice; our country's history demonstrates that. The piecemeal abandonment of those principles and institutions which once made America great has proved to be a a dead-end road to failure. That is why I tend to be a long-term optimist even though things often look pretty glum in the meantime. Just as Prohibition was eventually repealed, I feel encouraged that such key statist achievements as the income tax, government schools, fiat money/central banking (the Federal Reserve), "environmentalist" regulations, property forfeiture laws, and other Marxist planks and leftist institutions can be rolled back and repealed altogether, although it may take several decades.
Those who would carry forward the ideas and principles of self-ownership, private property, free markets, laissez faire, the rule of law, and constitutionalism which informed America's founders must become more active on the key ideological battle fronts. We need more influence not just in politics, but in areas of entertainment, academia, journalism, think tanks, churches (we need our own individualist Walter Rauschenbushes), literature, art, and other venues of expression and activism.
Marxism and socialism have proved to be colossal failures all over the world. As Frederic Bastiat wrote in his classic The Law just prior to his death, "let us now try liberty"! |
Second Amendment advocates hope President-elect Donald Trump will reverse a new rule by the outgoing Obama administration under which the Social Security system could be used to block gun purchases for thousands of benefit recipients.
“We’ve already made the request to the Trump administration to look at repealing this,” Erich Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, told FoxNews.com.
The Social Security Administration finalized a rule in December under which the agency would submit information to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) on recipients of disability insurance and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) if the government determines they are “mental defectives,” and unable to manage their own affairs.
Gun control groups insist the government should take action to keep guns away from the mentally ill, citing the recent airport shooting in Fort Lauderdale. But critics of the SSA rule contend the system could use overly broad criteria to end up denying guns to “harmless, law abiding” people with no history of violence.
One concern is how a similar program has worked at the Department of Veterans Affairs, which has been reporting some veterans to the background check system when they have been unable to manage their own financial affairs. The VA reported the names of more than 257,000 military veterans who couldn’t manage their finances. A 2012 Congressional Research Service report found 99.3 percent of all names reported on the background check system as “mental defectives” came from the VA.
“Now it will be the same premise with Social Security if grandpa has trouble paying the bills,” Pratt said.
The SSA change was months in the making. President Obama’s White House announced a package of executive actions in January 2016 that said, “The Social Security Administration has indicated that it will begin the rulemaking process to include information in the background check system about beneficiaries who are prohibited from possessing a firearm for mental health reasons.” The rule was not finalized until Dec. 19.
Kate Folmar, spokeswoman for Everytown for Gun Safety, an advocacy group founded by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, said this is part of a larger push to ensure the mentally ill don’t obtain weapons.
“Certainly the Fort Lauderdale shooting incident highlights that more can be done to keep guns out of dangerous hands,” Folmer told FoxNews.com. “For example, four states -- Connecticut, Indiana, California and most recently Washington State -- have laws on the books that allow family members and law enforcement to petition courts to remove someone's weapons if he is a threat to himself or others; these laws include specific provisions to protect the individual's right to due process.”
The new rule is meant to comply with the 2007 NICS Improvement Amendments Act, which requires federal agencies to provide relevant information to the Justice Department for inclusion in the background check system, SSA spokesman Darren Lutz told FoxNews.com.
“This is why Social Security is planning to refer the records of affected individuals to the NICS, in accordance with the policies described in the regulation,” Lutz said. “Social Security will not refer the records of all Social Security beneficiaries to the NICS database.”
Specifically, the regulation affects anyone from 18 years old through retirement age who qualifies for disability because of a “mental impairment” that prevents the person from working who must have a “representative payee” for handling their finances, Lutz said.
According to the rule, if Social Security first determines that someone else is handling a person’s financial affairs, it will look at whether the person is mentally impaired. The rule states, “at the commencement of the adjudication process we will also notify individuals, both orally and in writing, of their possible federal prohibition on possessing or receiving firearms, the consequences of such prohibition, the criminal penalties for violating the Gun Control Act, and the availability of relief from the prohibition on the receipt or possession of firearms imposed by federal law.”
This will affect “tens of thousands of harmless, law-abiding people,” who will lose a constitutional right without due process, according to the National Rifle Association, which also plans to ask the incoming Trump administration to take “corrective action” on the matter.
“At no point in the actual ‘adjudication’ is the individual’s propensity for violence a necessary consideration,” said an NRA statement issued after the rule was finalized. “Rather, the question ultimately devolves to whether or not the individual has any sort of mental condition and can responsibly handle money, which is not a fair basis to strip someone of their constitutional rights.”
In July, Elizabeth Avore, legal director for Everytown for Gun Safety, expressed support for the regulation in a letter during the public comment period.
“Everytown applauds the White House for a set of recent executive actions aimed at improving the gun background check system and giving law enforcement tools to combat gun trafficking,” Avore’s letter said. “Those actions included initiating this rulemaking process, which seeks to bring the SSA in line with the NICS Improvement Amendments Act of 2007 ('the NIAA') requirement that federal agencies submit prohibiting records into NICS.” |
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At some point in my daughter’s life, when she’s old enough to avoid being traumatized by the thought of her parents’ sex life (if that’s even possible), I’ll point to a beer bottle and say, “That helped me make you.”
If nature and nurture have worked their magic, she’ll laugh. And then I’ll tell this tale.
My wife and I married in August 2011. We were each 33, an age when last calls are less important than waking up for work. We were two peas in a pod, ready for a third. In your thirties, making a baby is not as simple as throwing a fifth of Beam in the backseat of a car, removing your pants, and taking a ride to kingdom come. Time was required. Months disappeared. Our spirits lagged, beleaguered by one negative pregnancy test after another. After trying for some time, copulation becomes obligation. Beer helps. Oh, does it help.
One morning, after drinking myself into a state of disrepair, I awoke to a scream. Our dog barked bloody murder. “We’re pregnant!” my wife shouted, her words bringing pain and pleasure. Nine months later our daughter, Violet, debuted.
Alcohol is not an ideal coping technique. But damn, does a beer feel mighty good after changing a diaper.
To celebrate, I drank a Sierra Nevada Celebration. It was not the last one I drank in my daughter’s presence.
Having a child does not bathe your life in rainbows and magic-hour sunlight. After two days in the hospital (if that long!), you’re sent home with a wailing infant and simple instructions: Don’t shake the baby. You wonder why the nurses repeat that command, over and over…until your child will not stop screaming, and then you get it. You want to shake the baby. A million dollars to stop screaming! But you do not shake the baby. Instead, you soothe her and calmly drink beer.
Well, at least I drink beer. As a beer journalist and author, I have a built-in excuse. Research. It’s always for research, no matter if I have a deadline or a howling daughter. The howls. They are for several very good reasons. My daughter is hungry. She has a dirty diaper. She wants to be held. She’s tired. She doesn’t like that thing, which it is our job as parents to deduce, Sherlock-style.
Therapists, I hear you: Alcohol is not an ideal coping technique. But damn, does a beer feel mighty good after changing a diaper, feeding my daughter, or burping her. Parenthood is not easy; it devours your time, sleep, and sanity. It’s nice to take the edge off with daddy’s little helper, craft beer.
Here are my go-to brews for the five stages of my newborn daughter’s days and nights. People tell me that kids grow up quickly. I believe them. My challenge is drinking fast enough to keep up with her.
Feeding: Left Hand Milk Stout
As a human being accustomed to subsisting on foodstuffs ranging from dumplings to kale salad and folded slices of pizza, I’m amazed that my daughter solely subsists on breast milk. It’s like a fitness junkie reducing his diet to a vitamin-packed protein smoothie—as nutritious as it is boring. When I’m bottle-feeding my baby girl, I like to share the experience by drinking a lactose-packed milk stout, preferably Left Hand’s luscious version. One sip for her, one sip for me.
Burping: Victory Prima Pils
Much like an affinity for Natural Ice and frozen burritos, the celebratory burp is something you outgrow. For babies, though, a burp is not a social gaffe but a necessity, something they can’t quite accomplish without assistance. You need to pat that tiny back until, like a volcano erupting, a belch rumbles forth. The pain dissipates. You feel…pride? And the need to burp, too. A quickly quaffed Coors Light will do the trick, but I’m no longer 21. Instead, I look to a prickly, effervescent pilsner such as Victory Prima Pils.
Changing Diapers: Avery Ellie’s Brown Ale
I’m no stranger to fecal matter, having scooped my dog’s doo-doo for years. So when our daughter popped out, changing a diaper didn’t faze me. (Warning: too much information ahead.) That’s because the guano of breast-fed babies is innocuous, a streak of brown that’s slightly sweet. Naturally, that puts me in the frame of mind to drink affable brown ales, such as Smuttynose Old Brown Dog or, due to its lower ABV, Avery Ellie’s. It’s lightly nutty and has a bit of brown sugar sweetness. I warned you, didn’t I?
Rocking: Founders All Day IPA
One second, my daughter is smiling. The next, she’s auditioning to be Hollywood’s next scream queen. A soiled diaper? Hunger? Exhaustion? Answer: None of the above. She wants to be held and steadily rocked, like a living metronome. Calming can take a while. I need beer. I also need steady hands. (I would never forgive myself if I dropped my daughter while drinking. More importantly, neither would my wife.) To retain my wits and my reflexes, I reach for a citrusy, low-alcohol IPA like this Founders gem. It’s a beer designed for the long haul.
Post-Bedtime Beer: Lagunitas Hop Stoopid
From morning to night, you must be ready to answer your child’s every beck and call. By the time my newborn’s eyes are cinched shut and sleep, blessed sleep, has arrived—hopefully for more than a few hours—I’m exhausted. There is no gold sticker for another successful notch in the calendar. But there is an imperial IPA, such as Lagunitas’ piney and tropical Hop Stoopid. It’s a bitter and sweet end to my night.
Joshua M. Bernstein (@JoshMBernstein) is a beer writer and author of The Complete Beer Course (Sterling Epicure, 2013). If he’s half as good at fatherhood as he is at drinking beer, Violet’s gonna be in good hands. |
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American Urban Radio Networks reporter April Ryan pushed back against White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer's claim that she is biased, saying Tuesday on MSNBC that she has no political agenda.
Earlier in the afternoon, Spicer clashed with the White House correspondent, saying she was "hellbent on trying to make sure that whatever image you want to tell about this White House stays." At one point Spicer told Ryan to stop shaking her head during his answer, sparking a social media backlash.
Immediately afterwards, Ryan appeared on MSNBC.
"So April, you've got an agenda, you're shaking your head," host Katy Tur joked after playing a clip of the exchange.
"I don't have an agenda, Katy," Ryan insisted.
Tur was quick to defend Ryan.
"To be clear, April Ryan, a 20-year veteran in that press corps, does not have an agenda," she said.
"Nope," Ryan agreed.
Ryan is the same reporter who accused President Donald Trump of making racially-charged statements he never actually made.
"When he was Candidate Trump, he said things like, you know, ‘We made this country,' meaning white America, not necessarily black," she said during a February briefing.
"I don't know why you would say that. What do you mean?" Spicer asked.
"No, no, no. He said that. I heard him say that," Ryan said.
When pressed by fellow reporters, Ryan could produce no evidence that Trump had ever said anything of the sort involving race. Nonetheless, she stood by her claims, and appeared to accuse her critics on social media of being bigoted. |
What does a Living Building cost or save versus a LEED Platinum building?
In 2011, Skanska completed the West Coast’s first and the world’s fourth certified Living Building in Seattle: The Bertschi School Science Classroom addition. But Living Buildings — which must meet a series of ambitious performance requirements, including net zero energy, waste and water, over a minimum of 12 months of continuous occupancy – are still so rare that many questions remain about how they compare financially to its next closest neighbor, LEED Platinum.
So when the District of Columbia’s Department of Environment was looking to understand the costs and benefits associated with net zero energy, net zero water and Living Buildings, our team was eager to help with this effort of quantifying the rewards of ultra-green buildings.
The District of Columbia’s Department of Environment had two goals: first, to investigate the costs associated with upgrading existing buildings from LEED Platinum to zero energy, zero water and Living Building. And second, to collect data to advise policy makers on deep-green buildings and incentives. Their findings are published in: Net Zero and Living Building Challenge Financial Study: A Cost Comparison Report for Buildings in the District of Columbia. For the study, Skanska joined the New Buildings Institute (NBI) and the International Living Future Institute (ILFI) to conceptually transform three LEED v3 Platinum-designed buildings in the District to net zero energy, net zero water and Living Buildings. Three reference buildings were chosen to represent three of the most common developments in the District of Columbia: new office construction, new multifamily construction and office renovation.
A rendering of our 88 M Street NE project in Washington, D.C., one of the three reference buildings in the study.
NBI and ILFI determined the most appropriate energy efficiency and renewable energy strategies for the buildings, while Skanska determined the anticipated differential costs for the various energy strategies employed.
The team applied a set of energy efficiency measures to each building’s envelope, lighting, HVAC, operations, occupancy and direct loads, along with rainwater harvesting techniques in order to achieve reduced energy and water usage before adding photovoltaics and water-reuse strategies.
The costs for getting to net zero are difficult to distinguish from overall project costs. However, our team conducted an analysis to identify costs connected to energy and water conservation, as well as the photovoltaic and water reuse systems necessary for such a project.
So what’s the answer?
The initial cost for energy efficiency is approximately 1-12 percent higher, varying by the building type. This rises to 5-19 percent in net-zero energy buildings when considering the added cost of photovoltaic power supply. But the benefits make the added cost worthwhile: the energy efficiency measures alone offer a return on investment of 6-12 percent. After factoring current tax and renewable energy credits into these figures, the return on investment in net zero building is approximately 30 percent.
That is not to say the net-zero goal is appropriate or feasible in every case. When considered in isolation, even ultra-efficient 300,000-square-foot buildings with today’s onsite renewable energy technology cannot generate as much energy or collect as much water as they consume over the course of a year. In fact, these buildings would require up to seven equivalent rooftop areas to achieve net zero. And achieving net zero is not only a matter of design; it also requires careful attention in such areas as operations and maintenance.
But ultimately, this project yielded valuable results that will inform future design decisions on our journey to Deep Green. The largest benefit: it raises the dialogue over the value of net zero to a new level.
Facility owners now have something tangible to consider when looking at high-performance buildings. We’ve come a long way with Living Buildings, but there is now a true framework to have meaningful conversations shifting from first cost alone to life-cycle value, emboldening market leaders to explore building solutions that push the envelope toward a more sustainable future.
Steve Clem Skanska USA Vice president of preconstruction More Posts - LinkedIn |
James Franco, Andrew Neel and Killer Films are developing a movie based on stripper Azia “Zola” Wells’ saga of a wild road trip to Florida with Franco directing.
The project is based on David Kushner’s story for Rolling Stone, published in November and titled “Zola Tells All: The Real Story Behind the Greatest Stripper Saga Ever Tweeted.”
Franco will direct from a script by Neel and Mike Roberts. Franco and Vince Jolivette are producing through their Rabbit Bandini Productions with Killer Films’ Christine Vachon and David Hinojosa, and Gigi Films’ Gia Walsh and Kara Baker.
Kushner’s story was billed as an exclusive account of Wells’ 148-tweet about her October road trip to Florida with her friend Jessica, Jessica’s boyfriend Jarrett, and Jessica’s violent Nigerian pimp “Z.”
The first tweet read, “Okay listen up. This story long. So I met this white bitch at Hooters…” The tweets include a hustler getting murdered and Jarrett leaping from a four-story window.
“It reads like ‘Spring Breakers’ meets ‘Pulp Fiction,’ as told by Nicki Minaj,” Kushner observed.
Franco, Neel and Killer Films most recently collaborated on fraternity hazing drama “Goat,” which starred Nick Jonas and was produced by Franco with Neel directing. The film premiered at Sundance and sold last week to Paramount Home Media.
CAA, which represents Franco, Neel, Killer Films, and Kushner, will represent the film’s domestic distribution rights.
Franco’s directing credits include “In Dubious Battle,” “As I Lay Dying” and the upcoming “The Disaster Artist.”
Walsh previously executive produced “The Fixer,” starring Franco and produced by Rabbit Bandini.
Franco is also represented by Untitled Entertainment and Sloane Offer; Neel is also represented by Washington Square Films. Kushner is repped by Eric Robinson and Shari Smiley of Gotham Group. |
The time is right now to invest in NYM SP prospect Rafael Montero. If you have already invested him then I think you are quite savvy (and/or lucky). I don't think Montero has gotten nearly as much attention as he deserves. He has a rock-solid floor combined with a pretty decent ceiling.
If you are looking for a fantasy comparison, I'll give you three. One is a player who was drafted last season, Twins SP prospect Jose Berrios. I'm very high on him as well but the fact that he has gotten more attention than the pitcher he could be in a year or two doesn't make much sense to me. Berrios probably has a higher ceiling than Montero but he also hasn't proven nearly as much which is to be expected because he's 3 ½ years younger. This is no knock on Berrios at all but I think that he and Montero should be valued somewhat comparably. Rafael Montero signed with the Mets out of the D.R. when he was already 20 years old. This is kind of late for an international prospect to sign so it gives some explanation to the fact that he'll pitch this season at age 22 and will likely begin the year at AA, not that 22 is an unreasonable age to be starting the year at AA..
I'll also compare Rafael Montero to a couple of MLB starters in terms of possible future statistical performance, Doug Fister and Hiroki Kuroda. Don't get me wrong, I'm not comparing him to these two as far as arsenal and style, but rather for fantasy value and the type of fantasy statistics to expect. That's pretty good company to be in. He isn't going to be the next Wainwright or Felix, he's definitely not going to be the next Strasburg, but if things turn out as they should he will have fantasy value and a role on your team as long as you don't play in an extremely shallow league.
I play in a 30-team dynasty with 55-man rosters and I recently dealt a post-2013 1st round pick for Montero. I have one of the strongest teams in the league coming off of two championships so I fully expect that pick to be in the 1.25-1.30 range. I think I got a good price on him. I also just scooped him up in the Fake Teams dynasty league. If Montero picks up where he left off last season and dominates AA hitters while exhibiting exceptional control I expect his stock to rise very quickly. It's not out of the question that he joins the Mets rotation at some point this season.
On to the stats and hype: Montero pitched at A and High-A in 2012, posting a 2.36 ERA in 122 IP with 110 K to only 19 BB. He even improved his K rate as the year went on, striking out over a batter per inning at High-A where he had a K:BB ratio of better than 5:1. Jon Heyman reported that Rafael Montero is "thrilling Mets people" early in spring training. The NY Daily News reported that Collins commented "This guy is coming with rave reviews," and that "He may not have the fastball (Zack) Wheeler's got, but I had minor-league people tell me don't be surprised if he's up (in the big leagues) before Sept. 1." Montero's most recent spring start vs. the Nationals was 4 2/3 scoreless innings complimented by 3 K to 1 BB. I was planning to write this piece before that start but it certainly reinforces my belief in Montero.
Thinking of other somewhat under-the-radar SP prospects? Let's hear about them in the comments. |
We are almost through the book of Genesis. What remains is a discussion of the Joseph story or stories as we shall see.
A close reading of Genesis 37-50 would reveal that the Joseph story is a composite of two once separate versions of this story. When these two versions were later edited together minor narrative inconsistencies and contradictions were created. Since Joseph is a hero of the north, it is not surprising that most of the Joseph story as it now stands comes from the pen of the Elohist, and exhibits many of the Elohist’s features. The Elohist has an additional political stake in the Joseph story. Not only are Joseph’s two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, eponymously two northern tribes, but the text legitimates and explains how the tribe of Ephraim came to rule over the other northern tribes (Gen 48). This is not a coincidence. The founder of the northern kingdom, Jeroboam I, was from the tribe of Ephraim, and we will learn more about Jeroboam when we start looking closely at passages from the Exodus narratives.
Commentators usually note that the conflict presented in the Joseph story between Joseph and his brothers may only include Dan, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher—i.e., the northern tribes—in one version of the story, while the other version suggests that it is with all his brothers. This contradiction, however, is barely visible in the text, and I only list it here because after we look at contradictions #71-73, it will become more apparent that chapter 37 is indeed a composite, a cut-and-paste job, of two once separate Joseph stories. Thus the story’s beginning may have existed in two slightly different versions as well. If we reconstructed the beginnings of both version, they would look something like this:
Genesis 37:2+3b
Joseph, at 17 years old, had been tending the sheep with his brothers, and he was a boy with the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives. And Joseph brought a bad report of them to their fathers. And he made him a coat of many colors.
Genesis 37:3a+4
And Israel had loved Joseph most of all his children because he was a son of old age to him. And his brothers saw that their father loved him most of all his brothers. And they hated him, and they were unable to speak peaceably toward him.
Both accounts are whole and complete narratives in and of themselves. Moreover, in one account only the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah despise Joseph because he brings a bad report against them. Yet in the other account all of Joseph’s brothers hate him for a different reason: because he is most loved by his father. Here also in this version our author uses quite consistently the name Israel. Again, further support for seeing these as two different beginnings of the Joseph story will come in contradictions #71-73. |
US officials have shrugged off Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s dictated terms for an alternative Iran deal as completely “impossible” to see accepted.
Officials said that not only would Iran never accept the terms laid out by Netanyahu, but that virtually none of the other P5+1 nations would tolerate the Israeli demands either.
The demand for a complete, unconditional dismantlement of Iran’s civilian nuclear infrastructure would never be accepted, and the call to couple it with a round of new sanctions, seemingly just for spite, would all but guarantee Iran would abandon the talks.
The current talks center on Iran agreeing to limit its civilian program in return for less sanctions. Netanyahu laid out a plan that would see more sanctions, and demands for no nuclear program at all. There was no “exchange” involved, except the implicit trade of Israel and the US not wiping out Iran militarily, something Netanyahu has been talking up for years.
Last 5 posts by Jason Ditz |
The end of the world is a popular refrain in fiction and film. While it may feel like a fairly modern phenomenon, it is actually part of a long literary tradition, from the great floods of the Bible and the Epic of Gilgamesh, both dating back to somewhere between 1000 and 2000 BC, through nineteenth century classics like HG Wells’s The Time Machine, right up to recent cult hits such as The Walking Dead.
There are all sorts of theories about why we find apocalyptical stories so fascinating, but for me, it’s about taking human characters and placing them in extreme situations, where all their quirks and characteristics are thrown into sharp relief. How do people react in life-or-death scenarios? What sort of society would rise from the ashes of the old world? What kind of morality would remain?
No matter how distant a particular vision of the future might be, I’m always looking for those recognisable human moments, those acute little observations that make me think Oh yes, that’s it. That’s how it is.
Authors are endlessly creative when it comes to orchestrating an appropriate apocalypse for the particular needs of their characters and their story. Here are five very different apocalypses (now there’s a word that’s not often pluralized) in five very different books. Some of these worlds end in a single cataclysmic event, while others involve a slow fade-out, but they all have strong characters and sharply-drawn observations about what it means to be human.
Nod by Adrian Barnes
A brutal, unflinching look at what lies beneath the trappings of civilization. Overnight, the vast majority of the world’s population stops sleeping. The main character is one of the few remaining “sleepers,” and he is forced to watch as society disintegrates with terrifying speed. The author describes the desperation of the sleepless with a stark clarity that’s just a little too real for comfort. Most people will have experienced a bout of insomnia at some point in their lives, so, unlike many end-of-the-world scenarios, this one feels very close and very possible. Probably not one to read just before bed…
The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell
I wasn’t entirely sure whether this one belonged on this list, but I decided to squeeze it in anyway. The book as a whole isn’t an apocalyptical tale, but it does end with the disintegration of society as we know it. Over the course of the book we see the main character, Holly, grow from a teenager in the eighties to an old woman, trying to scrape a living in a world where the power has largely gone off, sinking human civilization into a time of “Endarkenment.” A frightening and realistic portrayal of humanity clinging onto the last fragments of their old way of life, while realising, too late, that this particular end-of-the-world situation was entirely man-made, and quite possibly avoidable.
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
The fatal virus is a popular fictional device, but Emily St. John Mandel handles it with a light touch, focusing on the individual stories, both of those fated to die in the pandemic, and those destined to survive beyond the ending of the old world. Some classic apocalyptical themes—religion, brutality—are woven together with some more unusual elements, such as the travelling theatre at the heart of the story, and the eponymous Station Eleven comic. This is ultimately a story of hope. No matter how bleak things might be, people will still find beauty in the world.
The End of the World Running Club by Adrian J. Walker
This is another book where the experiences of the main character at times brush just a little too close to real life. The main character, Ed, is a husband and father, but struggles with what that means. When the northern hemisphere is reduced to rubble by a deadly meteor strike, he has to find a way to balance family life with basic survival. For me, one of the enduring images is that of Ed frantically searching for his older child’s favourite cuddly toy while a screaming horde claw at his front door and meteors streak towards the Earth. By turns a roar of defiance against the brutality of a broken world, and a lament for everything left undone and unsaid, this book tugs at your emotions in some unexpected ways.
The Chimes by Anna Smaill
I’m not sure quite how to describe the end-of-the-world scenario in this unique story. It’s something to do with music and memory, and quasi-religious order who use a giant instrument to essentially wipe people’s minds at the end of each day, leaving them with only the most basic understanding of their own identity and purpose. Music is the most important thing in this world, and the author’s skillful world-building focuses on musical language and imagery. Beautifully written and slightly elusive, this is something very different to most apocalyptical or dystopian tales.
Anne Corlett is originally from the north-east of England, but sort of slid down the map, ending up in the south-west. Her articles and short stories have been published in various magazines and anthologies and her debut novel, The Space Between the Stars is out June 1st in the UK and June 13th in the US. She lives just outside Bath with her partner and three young sons. One of these is currently trying to facilitate the writing of her second novel, while the other three are doing their level best to prevent it. |
ROGERSVILLE — Investigators were trying to determine what caused nine employees at a Rogersville health clinic to suffer a sudden illness Wednesday afternoon after being exposed to a patient emanating a chemical odor.
Shortly before 3:30 p.m., staff at the Hawkins County Rural Health Consortium on Route 66 reported a mass illness.
Hawkins County EMA Director Gary Murrell said a 52-year-old male came in for a regularly scheduled appointment when all of a sudden multiple staff members fell unconscious.
By the time police, fire and EMS personnel arrived, three employees had to be taken by ambulance to Hawkins County Memorial Hospital, and another six reportedly transported themselves to the emergency room.
“We don’t have a clue what we’re dealing with,” Murrell told the Times-News. “The symptoms are nausea, vomiting, dizziness, lightheadedness, and one went into a seizure. A bunch of different issues are going on with these patients, and nothing is adding up to what we thought it might have been.”
Rogersville Police Department Assistant Chief Travis Fields said the patient indicated he had been stripping the floors at his house using bleach and a cleaner prior to coming to the clinic. It was a regular scheduled doctor’s appointment and not an urgent care situation, Fields noted.
“A physicians assistant was seeing a patient who had a strong odor of something coming from him,” Fields said. “Of the three people transported to the hospital, two of them were doing OK, and one of them was still having seizures and having some medical issues. At this time, we still don’t know the cause.”
HCMH President Rebecca Beck told the Times-News that as of shortly before 8 p.m., all nine patients had been treated and released. Contrary to early reports, the hospital wasn’t closed after the nine patients arrived, although they were segregated from others in the facility until they were decontaminated.
Making the mystery even more puzzling is the fact that the male patient wasn’t experiencing those same symptoms. Murrell said the patient had not been affected the way consortium staff were, nor was his mother, with whom he resides in Rogersville.
Fields added, “We’ve searched his residence, and we’ve not found anything chemical that would cause something like this to happen. HAZMAT is checking the building and places where he was at to see if they can figure out what happened. He is at the police department voluntarily, and he is cooperating with us, and he will be submitting to some swabs as part of our investigation.”
Police also searched his house and found nothing suspicious. Fields said the male patient isn’t suspected of any wrongdoing at this time.
Murrell said Kingsport firefighters arrived at the HCMH around 5:30 p.m. Wednesday to conduct testing there to see if a cause of the illness could be detected.
Beck told the Times-News she’s not aware of the HCMH ever receiving as many as nine patients at one time from a single emergency event. But she said training paid off, and the facility was able to treat all nine patients without going on diversion.
“We were still accepting patients,” Beck said. “We were able to utilize staff from other parts of the facility to take care of patients that were in the ED and any others that came in from the decontamination event. We received nine patients. Those nine patients were taken through the appropriate decontamination process, and those patients have since been discharged from the hospital.”
Beck added, “Our staff mobilized very quickly. We had our instant command center up and running, and we followed all of our processes just as we had prepared for in the disaster drills that we do periodically for situations such as this.” |
Best value law schools to consider 4:06 PM ET Tue, 24 Jan 2017 | 01:08
The average law school graduate has more than $140,000 in student loan debt by the time they earn their degree. So picking a program that offers a high salary and a good return on investment is critical.
Online lender SoFi, a CNBC Disruptor, rated law schools based on verified salary and debt from more than 60,000 people who applied to refinance their student loans with the company from 2014 to 2016.
While elite schools still dominate SoFi's rankings with high average salaries, lesser-known programs, such as Brigham Young University, offered graduates a better value when you consider salary-to-debt ratios.
Graduates of the top three law schools on SoFi's highest salary list — Columbia University, Cornell University and New York University — all earn starting salaries above $175,000. The median annual wage for lawyers was $115,820, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. (See the list below.) |
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa broke his elbow in a bicycle accident Saturday evening, a spokesman said.
The mayor was riding in the bicycle lane on Venice Boulevard in Mid-City at about 6:50 p.m. when a taxi abruptly pulled in front of him. The mayor hit his brakes and fell off the bike.
He was transported to Ronald Reagan/UCLA Medical Center, where he was treated for the broken bone.
By 10 p.m. he had been released and was resting comfortably at Getty House, the mayor's official residence.
The mayor's accident comes as bicyclists in the city have increasingly been complaining about safety issues and pressing city officials to do more to make cycling safe.
Bicycle advocates have called for more dedicated bike lanes and appeared repeatedly before the City Council to argue that a specific share of funds from Measure R, the 2008 sales tax for transportation projects, should be set aside for bicycle- and pedestrian-related initiatives.
Bicycle activist Stephen Box filled out paperwork last week to run for City Council in the district represented by Councilman Tom LaBonge that includes Hollywood, Koreatown and North Hollywood. Box, who was run off the road by a bus while cycling on Sunset Boulevard several years ago, said Venice Boulevard already has bike lanes but needs considerably more attention from city officials.
"Venice Boulevard is notorious for having all of the trash cans block the bike lanes. Venice Boulevard is notorious for having motor homes block the bike lanes. And Venice Boulevard is notorious for having fast traffic that uses the bike lane to squeeze through even when bicyclists are in the bike lane," he said.
Police Chief Charlie Beck has made overtures to bicyclists, promising to make their safety a bigger priority and sending some of his officers to ride in the monthly Critical Mass bicycle ride in June. The LAPD issued a directive instructing officers that a motorist can be held responsible for causing a bicycle accident even if he or she did not make direct contact with the rider -- and can be arrested for fleeing the scene, Box said.
-- Andrew Blankstein and David Zahniser |
d4fmac/Deviant Art
If you downloaded a song in the late 1990s and early 2000s, you most likely did it with Winamp. This week, the world said goodbye to the legendary media player with plenty of nostalgia, but for me, Winamp's death means the end of a very personal era. Here are some of my memories of working at Nullsoft, the company that created it.
When I first started there in 2001, I wasn't sure what I was getting into. America Online had just bought the company, and Nullsoft employees weren't thrilled with the prospect of being told what to do by a large company with a lot of rules. Many of us were young and full of "piss off" energy.
Nullsoft's story started way before I arrived. In 1996, Winamp -- short for "Windows Amplifier" -- was created and released by computer programmer Justin Frankel. He went on to start his company Nullsoft (a parody of Microsoft's name) a year later.
Nullsoft's snarky attitude was obvious from the start with its mascot -- a llama named Mike who came with his own tagline: "Winamp, it really whips the llama's ass!" (a line inspired by the schizophrenic singer-songwriter Wesley Willis). The motto rang true, considering it kicked the asses of any other media play on the market.
Mariachi bands interrupted meetings. Staff wore inflatable Sumo wresting outfits for the hell of it. The ultimate video game area sat in the middle of the room. <br />
Fifteen million people downloaded Winamp in a little over a year after its release. It allowed users to not only easily play music on their computers complete with playlists, an equalizer, and Pink Floyd light-show-worthy visualizations, it also inspired fans to make their own player skins to share with others.
In 1999, AOL bought Nullsoft and everything changed. While working under AOL, Frankel (along with fellow computer programmer and Nullsoft co-founder Tom Pepper) released Gnutella, an open-source peer-to-peer file-sharing network that competed with Napster in both popularity and controversy, due to a very miffed AOL.
According to an archived Rolling Stone interview from 2004 with Frankel aptly entitled "The World's Most Dangerous Geek":
AOL ordered him to take the program down immediately, and the company put out a statement calling Gnutella an 'unauthorized freelance project.' But Gnutella, unlike Napster, couldn't be stopped. More than 10,000 people had downloaded the beta software that first day, and intrepid hackers had gone to work to reverse-engineer it and throw it into the hands of the open-source community, laying the foundation for BearShare, Morpheus, LimeWire, and other file-trading wares.
Gnutella was now impossible to shut down, and so was Frankel, though AOL tried to keep him on a short leash by forcing Frankel to get his blog posts preapproved. That backfired too. He uploaded an MP3 search engine for the masses, and AOL took it down within hours. Frankel uploaded a program called AIMazing, which replaced AOL's Instant Messenger banner ads with a musical heartbeat. AOL was not amused. Even The Wall Street Journal published a story in 2000 called "AOL's loose cannon: Justin Frankel."
AOL Music
So when I was hired at Nullsoft in 2001, tensions were high between the Nullsoft staff and AOL upper management. I was hired to be the editor of Winamp.com to most likely make sure nothing went "wrong" with the site. The Nullsoft team -- who called themselves "legitimate nihilistic media terrorists as history will no doubt canonize us" -- were under a microscope. But Nullsoft didn't need a babysitter, it needed a cheerleader.
The group I worked with understood the concept of working hard and playing hard. Mariachi bands interrupted meetings. Staff wore inflatable Sumo wresting outfits for the hell of it. The ultimate video game area sat in the middle of the room. Everyone there was dedicated to creating the best version of Winamp possible.
Fans flocked to Winamp.com over the years not only to download the latest player and find their favorite fan-made player skins (often created to honor favorite TV shows such as "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" or stylized to reflect love for bands like Nine Inch Nails) but also to connect with the Nullsoft creators themselves. Our forums thrived. The site featured news and personalities of our employees with themed months celebrating everything from ninjas to prom. We all wrote public blogs linked to the site. We had a voice. We had fun.
"I got hired to explain 'wasabi' to the world; that 'plugin' architectures needed to change into 'component' architectures; that 'skinning' meant something far more amazing than simply 'replacing bitmaps' on things; and a wonderful skins and development community 'flourished,'" former Nullsoft employee and self-proclaimed "Hot Green Mustard Evangelist" Mig Gerard wrote in his Nullsoft job description on LinkedIn.
Then came the announcement this week that AOL was finally pulling the plug on Winamp. Winamp's Web site posted this statement: "Winamp.com and associated Web services will no longer be available past December 20, 2013. Additionally, Winamp Media players will no longer be available for download. Please download the latest version before that date. See release notes for latest improvements to this last release. Thanks for supporting the Winamp community for over 15 years."
Nullsoft's founders, past employees, and fans gathered on Reddit to pay their respects to the company and the player it created.
"Just wanted to thank everyone for all the support over the years," Nullsoft co-founder Tom Pepper posted on Reddit. "While we haven't been involved with Nullsoft since the early 2000s it was incredible what you all did both for us, and for music. Our only goal was ever to make the tool we wanted to use, and it seemed to resonate with you all very clearly!"
And what is to become of the loyal Nullsoft mascot, Mike the Llama? Frankel reassured fans on Twitter this week that Mike always has a home.
RIP Winamp. You will be missed by many, including me. Long live the llama's ass.
Credit: Justin Frankel |
Bummer… Martin Luther King Jr. Stole "I Have a Dream Speech" From Black Republican
In her interview on Meet the Press with Tim Russert last Sunday January 13, 2008, Hillary Clinton claimed that, “He (Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.) campaigned for political leaders, including Lyndon Johnson.” This didn’t sound correct since Martin Luther King Jr. was thought to be a Republican so it didn’t make sense that he would be campaigning for a democrat.
While investigating whether MLK Jr. ever campaigned for democrat LBJ (which I was never able to verify) I did find a disturbing piece of information that was something I had not heard before.
Martin Luther King Jr. took his “I Have a Dream Speech” from a Black Republican…
Without ever giving proper credit to that Republican.
Gaven Tradoux reported on the MLK Jr. penchant to plagiarize previously:
“Even the much celebrated “I have a dream” speech of 1963 was plagiarized. By a peculiar turn of events, the source King raided for this was a speech given to the Republican National convention of 1952, by a black preacher named Archibald Carey.”
Archibald Carey was appointed Chair of the President’s Committee on Government Employment Policy by President Dwight D. Eisenhower on August 3, 1957. He was the first African-American to hold this position. Mr. Carey also served as an alternate delegate from the United States to the United Nations from 1953 to 1956.
In 1952 Rev. Archibald Carey gave a speech at the Republican National Convention. Here is part of that “not so well known” speech by Rev. Archibald Carey, Jr. at the Republican Convention in 1952:
“We, Negro Americans, sing with all loyal Americans:
My country ’tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,
Of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died,
Land of the Pilgrims’ pride
From every mountainside
Let freedom ring! That’s exactly what we mean —
from every mountain side, let freedom ring.
Not only from the Green Mountains and White Mountains
of Vermont and New Hampshire;
not only from the Catskills of New York;
but from the Ozarks in Arkansas,
from the Stone Mountain in Georgia,
from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia
— let it ring not only for the minorities of the United States,
but for the disinherited of all the earth —
may the Republican Party, under God, from every mountainside,
LET FREEDOM RING!”
And, here are the famous words from the “I Have a Dream” speech by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on August 28, 1963:
This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning,
“My country, ’tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,
Of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died,
Land of the pilgrim’s pride,
From every mountainside,
Let freedom ring.” And if America is to be a great nation this must become true.
So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.
Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.
Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!
Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!
But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.
From every mountainside, let freedom ring. And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”
This weekend as the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is celebrated, remember the Black Republican behind this great American Speech–
The Reverend Archibald Carey
Related… Senator Barack Obama gave a sermon today in the Ebenezer Baptist Church where he celebrated the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Lynn Sweet has photos from his church sermon. |
During the Brexit debate, one comment stuck in my mind and seemed to resonate with people on both sides of the argument. Responding to expert claims in June that Brexit would damage the UK economy, Leave campaigner Michael Gove delivered a line that sent shivers down the spines of our colleagues in all fields: “People in this country have had enough of experts”.
Four months on, we can start to see the results of the vote to leave the European Union. The markets are volatile, the future is uncertain and many of us are left trying to figure out what has caused the big divide in our country. Disillusionment, austerity and misinformation have all been blamed for the polarised result. So, what does this mean for science?
For centuries, Britain has been at the forefront of science and engineering. Science is not just part of our heritage, it is part of our future; the UK’s competitiveness and economy depend on it. But when Mr Gove made this statement, it made me wonder if our relationship with experts and scientists was changing.
Mr Gove’s comments are believable, since trust in many sectors has declined sharply in recent years. The Financial Services Compensation Scheme says that trust in the financial sector was shattered by the recession. Trust in charities has also dipped from a rating of 6.7 out of 10 to 5.7 since 2014, with people citing reasons such as aggressive fundraising tactics and the collapse of Kids Company as the cause of this dip. Trust in MPs also fell after the expenses scandal, according to Ipsos MORI. These events have shaken confidence in the people and institutions we considered to be experts.
Are scientific experts next to undergo a sharp decline in trust? What could this mean for the UK and our place in the world?
At the British Science Association, we monitor the relationship between science and society, and it’s complicated. On the surface, trust in scientists is very high – more people trust scientists to tell the truth (79%) than the police (53%) or the clergy (67%), according to Ipsos MORI’s Veracity Index. The Institute for Government also found that most of us want experts to be involved in policy decisions (85%), and for their evidence to be used by politicians (83%).
Delve a bit deeper and you find that this trust is less robust than it first seems. Our research shows that only 12% of the population actively seek out scientific information, media content or events. Around 52% are open to science but don’t actively seek it out, and 27% completely avoid it. With most of our citizens disengaged from science, is their trust in experts resilient?
This low level of engagement suggests that our relationship with science and expertise is based largely on blind trust. We allow scientists and scientific institutions to get on with their work, often with public funding, without much questioning or scrutiny. We rely on science to police itself. But who can blame us when science is so inaccessible: an academic article in a non-open access journal can cost more than £40 to read; funding decisions are made behind closed doors; and many scientists are not recognised or rewarded for their engagement with people outside their profession.
This blind trust has been analysed by sociologist Anthony Giddens as ‘civil inattention’. Many of us have no choice but to trust experts because it is difficult to challenge people who have more specialist knowledge than us. Events such as the MMR controversy, GM food protests, the BSE crisis and Climategate then come as a shock to those in the scientific establishment who are not used to being challenged.
From these examples, it’s clear that people get involved and question things when they matter to them, or when their trust in others is eroded. On the back of a public outcry over MPs’ expenses, charity fundraising and the financial sector, new regulators have been established to push for responsible conduct but it’s not yet clear whether the recent drop in trust for these groups will force them to re-evaluate the way they function. It has taken a crisis in these areas to force good practice.
Back in the world of science, many of our colleagues and partners are concerned that a scandal will destroy the seemingly fragile trust many have for researchers and experts.
At the British Science Association, we think it’s time to get ahead of the curve and make some radical changes. We’re working to enable people to access, question and scrutinise research. We think it’s a fast track to accelerated innovation, a democratic society and stronger citizenship. We want to see a population that is keen to actively engage as critical friends, with institutions that are open to challenge and scrutiny.
We organised the Huxley Summit to bring non-scientists into the leadership and decision-making structures of science. We hope that by bringing together leaders from across our society, we will blur the lines that separate science from business, politics, media, and the arts. With provocative talks from speakers such as Rt. Hon. the Lord David Willetts, former science minister; Dame Sally Davies, Chief Medical Officer; Karen Blackett, Chair of MediaCom and Sacha Romanovitch, CEO of Grant Thornton UK, we hope the Summit will spark the conversations I believe are needed to move our country forward in these uncertain times. All of the Summit speeches will be made available online so that these conversations can continue.
We named the Summit after Thomas Henry Huxley, a self-trained biologist who in 1860 gave his ferocious support to Darwin’s theory of evolution at the BSA’s annual meeting. Crucially, the debate included voices from science alongside those from religion and other areas. Huxley fought for a radical new idea against a powerful establishment, built a network of supporters and pushed for what he believed in. We hope the Summit will provide a platform for leaders of innovation to spark debate and build trust in the 21st century.
We at the British Science Association envision a world where everyone can learn, use and question the knowledge created by our institutions and contribute their ideas and findings. We want everyone to feel united in the aim of scientific and societal progress. To do this, we need support from all types of organisations and people.
We want to see an opening up of what happens inside science. More accessible communication is a first step towards being fully open and transparent. This means more dialogue between citizens and institutions, and crucially before the big decisions are made. Another step is citizen-led scientific research. After that, could we see new and disruptive ways to access information from organisations that take us away from blinkered trust and toward a sense of shared ownership and accountability?
We want to see a proactive approach to openness, to help rebuild the relationship between people, experts and institutions. We hope that this will help to prevent scandals in science and other sectors. These ideas are universally applicable across business, charity and government, and we hope to provide a platform to discuss them today. |
Update! Edit! I received a SECOND puzzle in the mail today and I can't believe that a stranger from the internet made and sent this to me!!! You guys! This is the best! This is the nicest thing the internet has ever done for me! I can't wait to pay it forward in my next round of exchanges! My Santa stalked me and found my honeymoon pictures, picked my FAVORITE one and turned it into a puzzle!!!1!!
I got really weirded out on Saturday because the tracking link said that my puzzles gift was delivered in Texas! But that just turned out to be clever misdirection, because my package was waiting at the post office for me today! I was super excited and pleased! There was a jigsaw puzzle and a puzzle book and a cute pouch of Disney pencils for working on puzzles! There was even a puzzle in the enclosed letter! And the promise of more puzzle on the way?!? What? Awesome! Super fun. |
Myanmar authorities have been able to rescue 102 victims of human trafficking from China so far this year, a police official on the Anti-Trafficking Task Force told 7Day. Legal action has also been taken against the 60 men and 114 women who were acting as brokers in the 70 cases that have been recorded since January.
With only five male victims, women made up an overwhelming majority of the victims. Past reports show that female victims are forced to become sex workers, while men are used as laborers, and children as beggars.
Despite the good news, activists feel that simply rescuing individuals from these situations is just the first step, and that more should be done to break the terrible cycle.
Tun Tun, an anti-human trafficking activist currently working in China told 7Day: “To be honest, if these individuals did this [went to China] because they couldn’t find work here, then the government needs to help create jobs for them once they’re brought back [home]. Otherwise, these people will find another illegal way to go back to China, and when they go back, they’ll also take other women with them and act as their broker.”
The majority of Myanmar victims are women who come from low-income families in remote villages. These women are promised better paying jobs by brokers, only to be sold off to Chinese farmers once they make it across the border. According to police reports, victims are ‘priced’ based on their age; women who are virgins are also priced higher than those who are not.
When the one-child policy was still in place, Chinese men would take Myanmar brides and force them to get pregnant until they gave birth to a son. One victim who spoke to the Myanmar Times in 2013 said that the men would kill the child if it was a girl.
An anti-human trafficking law was only first introduced in Myanmar in 2005. Despite increased efforts to prosecute offenders, many cases still remain unsolved. |
Mercy (Mercy): I am ready to revive you. (1 charge remaining)
As my thread ( https://us.battle.net/forums/en/overwatch/topic/20759239020 ) got locked, I am reposting the text here again. It is not really direct feedback to the resurrect, but rather a feature suggestion:I think it is important for a Mercy player to let your teammates know, that you can revive someone. If you can't or don't want to communicate in voice chat, there is no way telling your team besides typing it in the text chat (which obviously isn't pratical mid game).I would suggest to add this feature: If Mercy's resurrect is off cooldown / available for use, pressing the bound key (by default that's E) will let the player ping to their team that Mercy can resurrect (if there is no resurrection target in range of course). Also with the current Valkyrie, this pinging could also report the amount of resurrects (1 or 2) available, just like Symmetra with her teleporter charges. An other idea could be adding the amount of seconds left until the next resurrect is available to this ping message.Also, with this feature the existing voice lines of Mercy's former ultimate, could be used again ("I am ready to resurrect you", "I am ready to revive you") :)I would really appreciate this being a feature and I am keen to know what the community thinks about this. |
The Cretaceous beds of Patagonia have yielded the most comprehensive record of Cretaceous non-avian theropods from Southern Hemisphere, which includes at least five main theropod lineages: Abelisauroidea, Carcharodontosauridae, Megaraptora, Alvarezsauridae, and Unenlagiidae. These record facilitates the understanding of the origin, evolution, and radiation of theropods from Gondwana. The first remains of dinosaurs were found near Neuquen city by an officer army in 1882 and were sent to Florentino Ameghino, the “founder father” of Argentinian paleontology.
By the end of the 1880s, Santiago Roth collected some dinosaur remains from Chubut and sent them to Richard Lydekker and Arthur Smith Woodward. In 1901, A. Smith Woodward described Genyodectes, based on fragmentary skull bones, including portions of both maxillas, premaxillae, parts of the supradentaries, and some teeth. Genyodectes remained as the most completely known theropod from South American until the 1970s. In 2004, O. Rauhut concluded that Genyodectes is more closely related to Ceratosaurus than the more derived abelisaurs.
The Abelisauroidea reached a great taxonomic diversity and their fossils have been recovered in Argentina, Brasil, Madagascar, India, Morocco, Lybia and France. The group has been divided in two main branches: the Noasauridae which includes the small-sized abelisauroids, and the Abelisauridae which comprises medium to large-sized animals, like the popular Carnotaurus sastrei.
The group exhibits strongly reduced forelimbs and hands, stout hindlimbs, with a proportionally robust and short femur and tibia. It has been suggested that from the Cenomanian to the Maastrichtian, most South American abelisaurids may have been isolated from other Gondwanan relatives.
The Carcharodontosauridae includes the largest land predators in the early and middle Cretaceous of Gondwana, like the popular, Giganotosaurus carolinii. The group evolved large skulls surpassing the length of the largest skull of Tyrannosaurus rex. Another common trait is the fusion of cranial bones.
The Coelurosauria is also a diverse clade. Bicentenaria argentina is a very basal coelurosaur, medium sized with elongate and gracile hindlimb bones. Another basal coelurosaur is Aniksosaurus darwini.
Megaraptora is a clade represented by Megaraptor, Orkoraptor and Aerosteon. It has been suggested that megaraptorans were basal coelurosaurs that shared the role of top predators with abelisauroids and carcharodontosauroids.
The Alvarezsauridae is a group of highly derived theropods. The group exhibits, among other features, a lightly built skull bearing numerous small teeth restricted to the anterior portion of the snout, robust humerus with a proximally projected inner tubercle, a robust ulna and a hand with very robust digit I carrying a large and stout claw, and keeled sternum.
South American paravians are included within the clade Unenlagiidae: Buitreraptor gonzalezorum, Unenlagia comahuensis, Unenlagia paynemili and Austroraptor cabazai, all recovered from the Upper Cretaceous of Patagonia, Argentina.
The fossil record shows that the macroevolutionary patterns observed in Gondwana at the Late Cretaceous differ from the records from Laurasia, but both show a common macroevolutionary pattern during post-Coniacian times.
References:
Novas, F.E., et al., Evolution of the carnivorous dinosaurs during the Cretaceous: The evidence from Patagonia, Cretaceous Research (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cretres.2013.04.001
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I originally published this piece in January following the Charlie Hebdo attack. It has been lightly updated in response to the recent shooting in Garland, Texas.
At 7 pm on the evening of May 3, two gunmen opened fire outside a community center in Garland, Texas, where anti-Islam activists were hosting a contest that awarded a prize for the best drawing of the Prophet Mohammed. The shooters wounded a private security guard and were then killed by police.
The gunmen's motivation has not yet been confirmed. However, because the Texas event featured cartoons of Mohammed, there has been speculation that their motivation could have been similar to that of the gunmen who attacked the office of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in January. That attack was motivated, at least in part, by outrage over the magazine's cartoons mocking the Prophet Mohammed.
And regardless of attackers' motivation, the event itself was clearly designed to defy the Muslim taboo against depictions of the Prophet Mohammed. The event organizers portrayed the event partly as standing up for free speech — Charlie Hebdo was frequently cited. They also positioned the event as "sounding the alarm about Muslim encroachment into Europe and America, and its potential impact on American culture," according to Breitbart.
That taboo against drawings of Mohammed has, in the past, been the source of debates in Europe over how to balance free speech against the offense it causes to Muslims. In the past, cartoons have provoked protests by outraged Muslims. But this issue is often widely misunderstood. Discussion about it has conflated a number of disparate issues and sensitivities in Islam —and perpetuated long-running misconceptions about how Muslims actually perceive cartoons that mock their religion.
Is publishing a cartoon of Mohammed really blasphemy?
Many Muslims do believe that cartoons of Mohammed are offensive, but the reasons for that belief are widely misunderstood.
The explanation you most commonly hear for protests against depictions of Mohammed is that Islam condemns those portrayals as "blasphemy." But the truth may be simpler — and far more universal. Mohammed is a venerated figure among Muslims, who often perceive cartoons and other material critical of him — such as the 2012 film Innocence of Muslims — as an attack on their Muslim identity.
Dalia Mogahed, the director of research at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, explained that Mohammed is a beloved figure to Muslims, and "it is a human impulse to want to protect what's sacred to you."
Mogahed compared the cartoons to the issue of flag-burning in the United States, noting that a majority of Americans favor a constitutional amendment to ban flag-burning for similar reasons: the flag is an important symbol of a national identity, and many Americans see flag-burning as an attack on that identity, or even on the country itself. That's not extremism or backwardness; it's about protecting something you cherish.
Author and scholar Reza Aslan agreed, saying he experiences a similar backlash if he criticizes American foreign policy as he does if he comments on religious figures. "For some Americans, their national identity is sacred in the way that for some religious people, their religious identity is sacred," he said. "And to criticize America is to insult America."
In other words, although religious identity may be the source of anger over the cartoons, that does not mean the objections are necessarily theological. In fact, despite widespread belief to the contrary, there may be no such theological restriction at all.
The Koran does not specifically prohibit insulting the Prophet, Aslan said. Mogahed noted that there was no agreement within mainstream Islam over what constitutes blasphemy, what the response to it should be, or how it should fit within the context of freedom of speech. It would therefore be a mistake to reduce an entire cultural identity to a narrow question of religious law.
To be clear, even if there could be ambiguity or varied interpretations of the degree to which cartoon depictions of Mohammed are disallowed, there is no ambiguity over the possible decision of three men to murder 12 people over the Charlie Hebdo cartoons: the attack was, Mogahed said, unjustified in every way under Islam. That's not just her opinion; Muslims and Muslim groups immediately condemned the attack, often on religious grounds.
Author Mir Tamim Ansary was even more emphatic, calling the attackers "enemies of Islam, intent on rendering the lives of Muslims everywhere poorer and more insecure."
"No blasphemy could be more heinous than this crime," Ansary wrote in an email, "no matter what the magazine published or whom it offended. Judgment belongs to God. Those who claim to defend Islam with violence and horror are essentially asserting that God is incapable of carrying out His will and so they must act in His stead: that’s blasphemy."
There is a tradition of avoiding images of Prophet Mohammed
The degree to which cartoons like those in Charlie Hebdo are perceived as offensive may also relate to Islam's strong religious tradition of avoiding images of the prophet.
According to Aslan, the Koran does not explicitly prohibit depicting the Prophet Mohammed, and there have been images of Mohammed, his family, and other prophets throughout history. "The history of Islam teems with images of the Prophet Mohammed. You see this in the 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries."
Still, the idea that depictions of Mohammed are disallowed didn't come out of nowhere. Islam, Aslan explained, like Judaism is an iconoclastic religion that does not permit God to be anthropomorphized — that is, portrayed as a human being — and prizes textual scripture instead.
Over time, Islamic scholars extended that tradition to cover Mohammed and the other major prophets, as well, and discouraged artists from depicting them in images. That has created a strong cultural norm against images of Mohammed, even in the absence of a religious law against them.
According to Mogahed, there is now a "commonly understood" rule against depicting the prophet, which is seen as part of Islam's prohibition of anything that could become a source of idolatry. The worry, she explained, was that statues or images of the prophet could be used as idols — that people might call upon them to intercede with God, which would be against religious law.
A lot of this comes down to the perceived intent of the depictions
In seeking to understand the cartoons and their impact, it may be as important to understand the European secular identity of the cartoonists who draw them as it is to understand Muslim religious identity.
Although Western European countries are traditionally Christian, Western Europeans today are not particularly religious. This is especially pronounced in France, which holds secularism in high regard, but it isn't limited to that country. As a result, Mogahed notes, "holding religious symbols as sacred is in and of itself seen as backward, superstitious, and pre-modern."
By contrast, opinion polls consistently find that the majority of Muslims say religion is an important part of their daily lives. That is a significant difference — even before any overt conflict takes place. Cartoons depicting Islam negatively, then, end up hitting on a preconceived, and not totally groundless, sense among European Muslims that their core values, and not just Mohammed, are under attack.
Part of the offense may also come from the fact that the cartoons can appear explicitly designed to provoke. Aslan suggested that publications that print such cartoons may often be attempting to provoke an extreme response in order to make a statement about who belongs in European secular culture.
"I’ve had extensive conversations, for instance, with the editor of Jyllands-Posten who published the famous Mohammed cartoons," Aslan recounted. "And he says, without apology, that those cartoons were a deliberate attempt to poke a stick in the eye of Denmark’s Muslim community. To rouse them, to essentially prove that 'unless you can put up with this, you don’t belong in Denmark.'"
If the intent is to insult, then is it really such a shock that people could feel insulted? Of course, to some extent taking offense is still a choice, and an intent to provoke does not justify overreaction of any kind, much less violence. But it is a reminder that secular Europeans have their own identity politics, and that these play out in controversies over cartoons, as well. |
Introduction
Specifications
Specifications MANUFACTURER: MSI MODEL: Big Bang Z77 MPower CPU SUPPORT: 2nd & 3rd Gen Intel Core i3/i5/i7 processor family for the LGA 1155 Socket POWER DESIGN: CPU Power: 16 Phases
PCH Power: 1 Phase
Memory Power: 2 Phase
CHIPSET: Intel Z77 Express INTEGRATED GRAPHICS: Dependant on installed CPU MEMORY: 4 x DIMM, Max. 32 GB, DDR3 1066 to DDR3 3000+ BIOS: Dual AMI EFI BIOS with dual 64 Mb Flash ROMs SLOTS: 3 x PCIe 3.0 x16 slots (x16/x0/x0 or x8/x8/x0 or x8/x4/x4)
4 x PCIe 2.0 x1 slots HDD CONNECTIVITY: 2 x SATA 6.0 Gb/s (Intel Z77)
4 x SATA 3.0 Gb/s (Intel Z77) NETWORKING: Realtek RTL8111E PCIe Gigabit LAN PORTS: 10 x USB 2.0 ports (4 at back panel, 6 at front panel)
8 x USB 3.0 ports (6 at back panel, 2 at front panel)
1 x RJ45 LAN connectors
1 x Audio port with 6 audio jacks
1 x SPDIF Output(Optical)
1 x HDMI port
1 x Displayport
1 x CMOS Clear button
AUDIO: Realtek ALC898 HD CODEC FAN HEADERS: 5 x 4-pin PWM FORM FACTOR: ATX Form Factor (305 mm x 245 mm) EXCLUSIVE FEATURES: OC Certified
MSI Military Class III
Click BIOS II
OC Genie II
Command Center
Gaming Device Port
Super Charger
M-Flash
Active Phase Shifting
Winki 3
Live Update5
Instant OC
V-Check Points
Superpipe
It seems that quite a few new Intel Z77 Express board products have been released recently, with nearly every board manufacturer sending me a new model within the past few weeks. Not to be outdone by the others, MSI contacted me recently to inform me that they had a new product I was sure to like. Not one to judge hardware before it's in my hands, I eagerly awaited the board's arrival on my doorstep. MSI told me they'd be sending me a Big Bang Z77 MPower board, a board designed to overclock the pants off your CPU. |
DISTURBED singer David Draiman says that he is"done with social media" after dealing with Twitter trolls who have baited him about his sometimes-controversial views.
Draiman, who is the son of Israelis and the grandson of Holocaust survivors, spent much of the last few months linking to articles by conservative and pro-Israel blogs and has often used his fame to speak out against anti-Semitism. This led to frequent heated exchanges with his followers on Twitter, some of whom believe that Israel is not blameless in the ongoing conflict with Palestinians.
Draiman — who has extensive family in Israel, including his brother, Jerusalem-based folk rock and ambient musician Ben Draiman, as well as his grandmother — has just deleted his @davidmdraiman Twitter account, explaining to the 93X radio station in Minnesota: "I'm done with social media, personally. And it had nothing to do with the [upcoming release of the new DISTURBED] record. It happened to be coincidental, but it had nothing to do with the record."
He continued: "Social media has become a playground for trolls, a playground for these people who prey on one another. You can't get anything decent done on there anymore; you just open yourself up to constant attack. And I'm just done with it. I'm done with it. I hope that the couple of years of my being as involved in it as I was meant something to people. I hope that they gleaned something from it, or took something away from it, or at least were entertained or something, because, now, I'm becoming a recluse."
Draiman added: "At the end of the day, what people want from me is to get up there on that stage and make them feel powerful and give them a release for an hour and a half or two hours every once in a while. And if I'm still able to do that, hopefully I'm still making people happy."
DISTURBED's first new album since 2011, "Immortalized", is due out August 21. The CD is available for pre-order everywhere and follows 2010's gold-certified "Asylum", DISTURBED's fourth consecutive No. 1 on The Billboard 200 album chart.
In addition to 15 new songs — including 12 on the album and three more on the deluxe edition — "Immortalized" contains a cover of SIMON & GARFUNKEL's "The Sound Of Silence".
DISTURBED has yet to announce tour plans behind the new record. |
The study was undertaken to test whether obstetric procedures are of importance for eventual adult behavior of the newborn, as ecological data from the United States seem to indicate. Birth record data were gathered for 412 forensic victims comprising suicides, alcoholics and drug addicts born in Stockholm after 1940, and who died there in 1978-1984. The births of the victims were unevenly distributed among six hospitals. Comparison with 2,901 controls, and mutual comparison of categories, showed that suicides involving asphyxiation were closely associated with asphyxia at birth, suicides by violent mechanical means were associated with mechanical birth trauma and drug addiction was associated with opiate and/or barbiturate administration to mothers during labor. Irrespective of the mechanism transferring the birth trauma to adulthood--which might be analogous to imprinting--the results show that obstetric procedures should be carefully evaluated and possibly modified to prevent eventual self-destructive behavior. |
DETROIT - A 9-year-old boy is dead after accidentally shooting himself at a home on Detroit's west side, police said.
The shooting happened Saturday at a home in the 16000 block of Northlawn Street.
A neighbor said around 4:30 p.m. Saturday he saw a 10-year-old boy and 13-year-old girl run out the front door. The children had been home alone when the youngest found a gun and accidentally shot himself in the chest area, according to police.
The 9-year-old boy was rushed to Sinai-Grace Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, police said.
The boy's mother arrived at the home within a half hour of the shooting.
Neighbors said they often saw the boy walking his dog and that the family had recently moved to the area.
Detroit's police chief was troubled and visibly frustrated Saturday night. He mentioned this is the third incident in the past few weeks where a child has been hurt when they got access to a weapon.
No charges have yet been filed. Police told Local 4 News there's no law specifying how old a child must be to be left home alone. The issue, however, is that young kids were able to get access to a deadly weapon.
Watch Local 4 News and stay with ClickOnDetroit.com for updates on this developing story.
Copyright 2014 by ClickOnDetroit.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
What if this tech boom is, gulp, not a bubble after all, but a major, sustained period of growth?
What if rather than tech corridors popping up all over the country, the need for a company to be here, of all places, only intensifies?
Where are the extra people going to live? Where are those 2 million additional people expected to flood the region over the next generation going to sleep?
These are some of the questions I’ve pondered as Apple gobbles up land in North San Jose, LinkedIn and Google tussle over swaths of real estate in Mountain View, Facebook’s workforce of 9,000 is predicted to grow as much as 20 percent annually and Toyota announced it is opening a $1 billion new innovation hub.
Global demand for tech products and services means a prosperity bomb is going off in the Bay Area that will reshape the region for decades to come.
In many ways, the impact is already being felt. Regional planners, in 2010, did their best, but they underestimated the five-year employment growth here by a whopping 90,000 jobs.
People grouse about the highway traffic, the crowded roads and inadequate public transportation. But that’s just a symptom of our current situation with jobs in one place and housing in another, says Steve Heminger, executive director of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.
“Transportation is a servant, not the master,” he said. “There’s a massive imbalance; the transportation has to work that much harder to serve the pattern we’ve built.”
Feeling crowded now? Expect to feel more so. Looking ahead, one high-growth projection is that by 2040, jobs will grow 32 percent — an extra 1.2 million jobs — on top of the 3.7 million already here in the nine-county Bay Area, according to a new report out by the Bay Area Council Economic Institute.
The Bay Area population is projected to rise 30 percent to 9.4 million by 2040, up from 7.2 million in 2010, according to updated projections from the Association of Bay Area Governments. This is a tsunami of people that the region, with its geographic constraints, will somehow have to absorb. Try 800,000 more housing units.
Of course, we need a strong regional response, as uncomfortable as that may be for those who eschew change. Cities that enjoy their roles as Bay Area job centers need to step up and allow housing projects. Residents in those cities need to vote in officials who support growth. Companies need to invest in offices that put jobs closer to where people live or near public transit. And homeowners like me who bought a while ago need to accept that things have changed and be open to accepting more neighbors and using public transportation to get around. Driving over the Bay Bridge in 20 minutes is not a birthright.
In the meantime, there’s sort of a self-help movement percolating among companies.
Later this month, Box, the enterprise content management and collaboration firm, is moving about 1,000 employees from Los Altos to its new headquarters 13 miles north in Redwood City in part to be closer to transit and where workers live. It will move into two buildings — one four stories and the other seven stories — giving the firm more room to expand.
Jiff, a health benefits software firm, recently left its Palo Alto headquarters to set up two main offices in other Bay Area locations in order to offer its 115 employees more flexibility. Its Mountain View office is where most of its engineers come to work. Its Oakland office — where some employees commute from San Francisco — tends to be for its sales and marketing staff.
The Oakland location gives employees more options for housing, said John Kemmerer, Jiff’s vice president of finance. “We are in a better position to grow,” he said.
Not only is there pressure to build, but also to tap the unused capacity of existing residential structures. Residents should be encouraged to rent out rooms, and cities should make it easier to get permits for in-law units.
This is the new Gold Rush after all, but at some point the unmet demand for housing at various price points will squelch this growth.
“How much housing we build will influence the jobs that are created here,” said Cynthia Kroll, chief economist at the Association of Bay Area Governments.
Young workers without families can continue to cram into apartments and homes in and around San Francisco, and the thriving businesses that hire them will keep creating new jobs. But that formula changes as maturing firms come to depend on more experienced middle wage workers and people with families. As the housing noose tightens on the region, they will find it hard to expand here. They will relocate, taking their middle class jobs with them.
This is a critical moment in Bay Area history.
I hope we seize the moment and build. If we don’t, we can look forward to finger-pointing about who is to blame for the stalemate in urban planning as well as the gridlock in traffic.
Contact Michelle Quinn at 510-394-4196 and [email protected]. Follow her at Twitter.com/michellequinn. |
On paper, Vince Staples headlining an NPR showcase doesn't make a lick of sense. He's a young, black rapper, with production that veers toward the dissonant and gritty, and aggressive, colorful lyrics that speak pointedly to the systemic issues that plague his hometown of Long Beach, Calif. But in action, Staples closing out a night that also featured soul, Chicano punk, indie rock and country made all the sense in the world.
The bulk of the material Staples performed came from last year's widely acclaimed Summertime '06 — an album that laid bare his experience growing up around gangbangers, drug dealers and addicts, fearful outsiders and corrupt cops. His silhouette the only thing visible, Staples launched into his set with the deceptively buoyant "Lift Me Up"; the audience immediately lifted with him, jumping at his command.
With charisma, comedy and a touch of cynicism peppered throughout, Staples played to his crowd without pandering — which, to be fair, has never been a part of his repertoire. (See: his Spotify showcase at SXSW.) The energy between Staples and audience was reciprocal, and only ticked up further as the night wore on. By the final two songs — the wildly charged "Senorita" and the jarring "Blue Suede" — there was full-out moshing, crowd surfing and stage crashing, much to the chagrin of security. Elbows were thrown and backs were shoved, but it was clear by the time Staples finished his performance, standing atop the rail directly in front of his adoring audience, that it was all a physical manifestation of unbridled, raw positivity.
Watch the entire set here, or check out individual songs in the set list below.
Set List
Credits
Producers: Saidah Blount, Mito Habe-Evans, Otis Hart; Technical Director: Josh Rogosin; Director: Mito Habe-Evans; Videographers: Nickolai Hammar, Katie Hayes Luke, Cameron Robert, A.J. Wilhelm, Lizzie Chen; Editor: Niki Walker; Audio: Timothy Powell/Metro Mobile; Assistant Audio Engineer: Loretta Rae; Production Assistants: Erin Conlon, Nathan Gaar; Special Thanks: SXSW, Stubb's BBQ; Executive Producer: Anya Grundmann.
Support for NPR Music comes from Blue Microphone. |
30th June, 2015 - Saint Paul, Minnesota - 2:54am CDT
boulderriver:
Forty-eight hours ago, I was walking back to my dorm room for my last hours of sleep at the 2015 International Thespian Festival. This summer’s first trip has come and gone, and I now know what it’s like to spend a week living on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln campus surrounded by theatre nerds. We observed, learned, performed, competed, created, ate, slept, laughed, and gossiped together. It was awesome. The only way I can really think of to properly communicate to you what I did in Lincoln is to give you a brief overview of each day, explaining the necessary as I go along. It’ll be long and boring, but this journal is more for myself anyway.
Day One (Monday 6/22)
I, and the other members of Thespian Troupe #1746 arrived at RAHS at an ungodly hour of the morning to board a bus and drive to Nebraska. We moved into our dorm rooms and had our first UNL meal.
Day Two (Tuesday 6/23)
The Roseville Humpbacks competed in Tech Challenge, taking 2nd in Quick Change and Button Sewing, 1st in Prop exchange, and 3rd overall (this is a very big deal, we are all extremely excited). The mainstage show was White Christmas, and later, after everyone had dressed up for the Curtain Call Ball, 1746 attended The 39 Steps.
Day Three (Wednesday 6/24)
I’m pretty sure I slept through breakfast on this day, but I’m not sure. Anyway, the mainstage show, Xanadu was wonderful (we got glow sticks), as was Lost In Yonkers.
Day Four (Thursday 6/25)
At this point all I remember are the shows we saw and what the dance was, so I’m sorry for my lack of interesting content. The mainstage was Big Fish and the just-off-maistage was the incredibly underwhelming* Twilight of the Golds. Oh and that evening’s dance was the Red & Black Formal Affair. I wore pants. They were awesome.
Day Five (Friday 6/26)
This day was by far my favorite day at ITF. I learned about the same-sex marriage ruling from a presenter at the NIES** Awards Showcase, and spent the rest of the day walking around campus hearing kids saying “I can get married now!” #LoveWins was even incorporated into the announcements later that evening, followed by Hello! My Baby, which is the most wonderful and amazing musical I have ever seen. Seriously, you should be thankful I’m limiting my review of it to two sentences–I could go on forever about it. We also saw The Addams Family and attended Drom (drama prom).
Day Six (Saturday 6/27)
I spent some time shopping in Lincoln before seeing The Little Mermaid, which was disappointing*** after Hello! My Baby the night before. I did not see Unexpected Tenderness, choosing instead to pack and get ready for the Generations Gala.
Day Seven (Sunday 6/28)
Most of the Roseville girls got very little sleep, choosing instead to spend our last night at ITF talking, laughing, and breaking into tears over donuts. Okay that last one was just me, but it’s an amazing picture of donuts.
I then spent a great number of hours on a surprisingly uncomfortable coach bus and made it back to RAHS in time to jump in the car my grandparents had left for me and race to Bjorn’s choir concert. He had just returned from a tour of the East Coast with the Minnesota BoyChoir, and this annual homecoming concert is always the best. I made it just in time for my favorite song, and I am so happy to be reunited with my best friend.
*It is incredibly freeing to realize you can say you didn’t like a performance. **NIES: National Individual Events Showcase. If you knew me before this past February, then you’ll know that me and my dear friend Miranda’s IE in duet acting received an Accomplished rating at the state level. While we were invited to compete at ITF, we were unable to due to Miranda’s being in Spain. ***These productions of Hello! My Baby and The Little Mermaid traveled from the same town in Wisconsin (the same theatre company I’m pretty sure), and so it was hard not to compare.
And here’s a bonus selfie because we’re cute.
Next up on the travel schedule: a month or so in Montana, during which I will try to update more regularly.
Peace,
Della |
1 January 2010
Video | ZJ on YouTube | Subscribe
ZJ: In several earlier videos, I discussed the genocides committed in the Bible and addressed Christians who believe that these genocides were the right thing to do. I challenged them to condemn these acts of genocide as unacceptable, just as all genocides are clearly unacceptable. And most of them refused, reiterating their support for biblical genocide.
The most common justification they provided was that God ordered these genocides, and anything God commands is morally right, even morally obligatory. Therefore, it is completely acceptable to wipe out an entire race of people, including children and infants, if God tells you to. They believe that it is right to commit genocide if God commands it. The alleged will of God is all the justification they need.
I find this stunning. And I think it raises a very important question: When something as horrific as genocide becomes acceptable to you if you believe God deems it so, is there anything you would consider unacceptable even if God commands it? Is there anything God could order you to do that would be such an affront to your sense of morality that you would refuse? Let me give you some examples.
In the book of Genesis, chapter 22, God tells Abraham to sacrifice his only son as an offering. Abraham complies, but an angel of God stops him at the last moment. In Islam, Abraham's willingness to obey God is celebrated as the holiday of Eid. Is it acceptable to kill your own child if you believe God wants you to? Yes or no?
In 2008, an 11-year-old girl died of undiagnosed diabetes. Her parents refused to seek medical help, even as her condition deteriorated, because they believed that prayer was the best way to help her. Their church taught them that they just needed faith. Is it acceptable to allow your sick child to die, without ever taking them to a doctor, if you believe God wants you to pray for them instead? Yes or no?
In 2006, a 18-year-old woman in Saudi Arabia was kidnapped and gang-raped by seven men. Under the court's interpretation of Islamic law, she was sentenced to 200 lashes for being alone with a man she wasn't related to. Is it acceptable to whip rape victims if you believe God commands it? Yes or no? And if so, how many lashes?
In 1994, Paul Hill murdered Dr. John Britton at an abortion clinic in Florida. Hill believed that the use of violence to stop abortion was sanctioned by God, and that God had called upon him to murder Dr. Britton. Is it acceptable to kill a doctor if you believe God wants you to? Yes or no?
Throughout the 19th century, the Bible was repeatedly cited by reverends and politicians to justify slavery in the United States. They referred to numerous verses from the Old and New Testament that endorse and regulate the keeping of slaves. Is it acceptable to enslave your fellow human beings if you believe God approves of slavery? Yes or no?
In the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, witchcraft was widely outlawed in Europe based on Christian doctrine and papal declarations. Accused witches were put on trial and often sentenced to death. They were typically executed by being drowned, hanged, or burned at the stake. Is it acceptable to burn someone alive for practicing witchcraft if you believe God wants them to die? Yes or no?
And if you answered "yes" to some of these questions, and "no" to others, why? If the will of God is sufficient to justify genocide, of all things, then why wouldn't it justify slavery, or lashings, or child sacrifice? And if you think this isn't a good enough reason to kill doctors or burn witches, then why would genocide become acceptable just because God says so?
If God's will is an adequate justification in some cases, but inadequate in other cases, then where do you draw the line? What could God command that would be so repulsive to you that you would not obey? After all, once genocide is acceptable, what isn't?
What wouldn't you do for God? I would really like to know.
← Video archive |
David Torke, fixBuffalo
A bike tour in Buffalo that aimed to "inspire feelings of civic duty and moral outrage" may have also exposed weaknesses in a movement's philosophy.
The most important event during this year's Congress for the New Urbanism wasn't in a convention center. Upwards of 75 people, myself included, took part in a "Tour de Neglect" last Saturday as this year's CNU, held in Buffalo, wrapped up. The guided bike tour took riders through the city's economically devastated and mostly African-American East Side, where some census tracts have lost as much as 89 percent of their populations since 1950. On a ride with wide streets and few cars, the first stop took us to a hulking but shuttered Catholic church a few minutes from downtown. There, someone in the crowd of bicyclists handed out a flier with a list of "five things to think about" during the tour. The first one said: The East Side is not a zoo. -These are neighborhoods where people live their lives every day. These residents are people just like you, with full lives and dreams of their own. -Do not romanticize or demonize what you see. -Do not treat them as lab rats to be observed for research. The woman, unaffiliated with the tour organizers, stealthily passed around the two-page, stapled list to the group of mostly self-identified New Urbanists. She disappeared as quietly as she arrived.
After a half-week of CNU sessions that spoke to the aesthetic values of cities (it was, after all, a large gathering of mostly planners and architects) more often than the poverty and inequality they too often host, there was reason to worry the tour would quickly unravel into an uncomfortable two hours of professionals and students marveling over the "potential" and "authenticity" of their surroundings. But it didn't. Leading the tour was activist and blogger David Torke. Torke has been living on the East Side and documenting its decline for a decade now. Involved with CNU NextGen, a group of young professionals who put together unsanctioned events for CNU attendees each year (this year, the Congress added NextGen events onto the official calendar, bypassing host committee consent), the bike ride was a rare opportunity for CNU attendees to find out about the other side of Main Street. "Otherwise," Torke tells us, "the East Side—the elephant in the room here in Buffalo—would have been swept under the rug."
A nearby resident, Atlas Johnson, happened to be riding his bike by our first stop, the fenced-off St. Ann's church. He not only decided to join but nearly took over narration duties. Sharing his own story and memories of the church standing behind him, we then went to another shuttered church nearby with Atlas enthusiastically leading the way.
Without mention, the path down Emslie Street took us by one of local celebrity-developer Rocco Termini's first forays into the construction world: a blighted, vinyl-sided apartment building built for a veterans housing non-profit before eventually sold to an overseas investor. Long before he became the face of downtown and North Buffalo's most luxurious, New Urbanist-inspired developments, Termini got his start building modest homes on the East Side that, in many instances, have aged poorly and without much notice. Earlier this year, he publicly wished Buffalo had "Manhattan rents." Cities are changing fast. Keep up with the CityLab Daily newsletter. The best way to follow issues you care about. Subscribe Loading... Heading further south, we arrived at Larkinville, the inner-city business district filled with whimsical public spaces and high-end offices inside former industrial buildings. In front of a massive old warehouse in rough shape but anchored by a popular Army Supply store, city planner Chris Hawley shared the story of old Buffalo's blue collar economic might. The remains of that era aren't hard to find in what was originally known as "the Hydraulics." Now, Larkinville attracts white collar jobs, mostly relocated from Buffalo's suburbs.
But as it continues to evolve into something more like the type of warehouse district you'd expect to find in Seattle or Pittsburgh, Larkinville has still failed to add much at all in the way of housing. Just before the neighborhood gained popularity, the census tract it sits on had lost 10 percent of its population between 2000 and 2010. An abundant amount of surface parking and a nearby highway make the site more attractive to employers than residential developers. After a stop inside the jaw-dropping Central Terminal, a former train station that has benefitted from a slow but impressive stabilization effort by a non-profit organization, we arrived at a nearby urban farm. Successfully operated since 2009 by a husband and wife team on formerly vacant land, Hawley and Torke reminded us that the city's new Green Code, once adopted, will make it easier to encourage similar successes.
On the way back downtown to the beautifully restored Hotel Lafayette (Termini's crowning achievement) we returned to the version of Buffalo the host committee wanted us to see.
Image courtesy David Torke, fixBuffalo.
Buffalo News arts critic Colin Dabkowski was one of the few local journalists to question CNU's priorities during the organization's time in Buffalo. In an open letter to them last Sunday, he suggested the movement often appears regressive and unwilling to shout as loudly for equality as it does for walkability. "While there was some talk about developing mixed-income neighborhoods," says Dabkowski, "neither the New Urbanist manifestos nor anything I heard during the conference proposed a convincing or coherent strategy for accomplishing that on a grand scale." He concluded, "we don’t need to rebuild a traditional city, a traditional neighborhood or a traditional way of life. What we desperately need is to create a new one."
For Buffalo, which spends a lot of energy on its past and has been failed by so many postwar planning decisions, New Urbanism is understandably appealing. But in many cities, developers, upon discovering the profitability of quaint architecture, walkability and transit access (all pillars of New Urbanism and things Buffalo certainly has), have helped turn what should be very basic neighborhood amenities into marketable commodities for luxury housing.
In economically stagnant cities like Buffalo, there's concern that leaves neighborhoods dependent on some sort of trickle-down renewal, where inequality and poverty wait to be addressed while each preservation effort and historically sensitive new building creates the illusion of a city being fixed. With a growing collection of art galleries, trendy restaurants, and rising rents on the city's West Side, and an abundance of construction cranes downtown not seen in decades, signs of so-called progress in Buffalo are easy to spot. According to the Buffalo-Niagara Enterprise, there's over $5 billion worth of completed, underway, or planned construction in and around downtown in the last decade. In the past year, however, the region's job force has shrunk nearly 2 percent while generating a growth rate (0.7 percent) that's about half the national pace. The city's racial and household income distribution reminds us just how unequal that modest growth looks. If you're a building, it's a more promising time than usual to be in Buffalo. But for the average person, not much is different. Reasons for the East Side's long decline are complex. Solutions for places like it, whether from the minds of New Urbanists or some yet-to-exist movement, will be challenging to execute. Today, few either have the answers or the ability to affect meaningful change, including many of those who spoke at this year's CNU. "If the revival of distressed cities does not become the mission of the Congress for the New Urbanism," stresses Torke, "the movement will become irrelevant." |
CHICAGO (AP) -- The two 18-year-olds had been schoolmates, police say. After meeting at McDonald's, they spent two days together, driving around visiting friends. Then a pretend fight between them escalated into a brutal beating of a mentally disabled teenager that has stirred racial tensions and outrage after being broadcast on Facebook Live.
How the white suburban teen ended up beaten by four black people, threatened with a knife and taunted with profanities against white people and President-elect Donald Trump is among the puzzles authorities are still trying to piece together after the four were charged with hate crimes on Thursday.
The alleged attackers will make their first appearance in court Friday, when they also face charges of kidnapping and battery for the assault, which was captured on cellphone video by one of the assailants and viewed by millions on social media.
"This should never have happened," said David Boyd, the victim's brother-in-law at a brief news conference in suburban Chicago. He said the victim was traumatized but doing as well as could be expected. Neal Strom, who is acting as a family spokesman, told The Associated Press that the victim has had "profound emotional and physical disabilities throughout his life." He did not elaborate.
The uproar over the beating has intensified the glare on Chicago after a bloody year of violent crime and protests against Mayor Rahm Emanuel and a police department that has been accused of brutality and hushing up wrongdoing. The department has also been the subject of a long civil-rights investigation by the Justice Department, which is expected to report its findings soon. It also stirred emotions still raw after a nasty presidential election campaign that split the nation.
The case heightened political tensions on social media, with some conservatives suggesting it was linked to the Black Lives Matter movement. Police said there was no indication of any connection.
The cruelty of the attack and the intense social media exposure prompted President Barack Obama to respond, calling it "despicable."
"I take these things very seriously," he told Chicago's WBBM-TV on Thursday. But he said the incident does not mean that race relations have gotten worse.
"We see visuals of racial tensions, violence and so forth because of smartphones and the internet and media ... a lot of the problems that have been there a long time," he said.
Chicago police initially said the youth was singled out because he has "special needs," not because he was white. But authorities later said the charges resulted from both the suspects' use of racial slurs and their references to the victim's disability.
Cook County prosecutors identified the suspects as Brittany Covington and Tesfaye Cooper, both of Chicago, and Jordan Hill, of suburban Carpentersville. All are 18. A fourth suspect was identified as Covington's 24-year-old sister, Tanishia Covington, also of Chicago.
Excerpts of the video posted by Chicago media outlets show the victim with his mouth taped shut and slumped in a corner of a room. At least two assailants are seen cutting off his sweatshirt, and others taunt him off camera. The video shows a wound on the top of the man's head. One person pushes the man's head with his or her foot.
A red band also appears to be around the victim's hands. He was tied up for four to five hours, authorities said.
The incident began Dec. 31, when the victim and alleged assailant Jordan Hill, met at a suburban McDonald's to begin what both the victim and his parents believed would be a sleepover, police said.
Instead, Hill drove the victim around in a stolen van for a couple of days, ending up at a home in Chicago, where two of the other suspects lived, Detective Commander Kevin Duffin said.
The victim told police what began as playful fighting escalated. A downstairs neighbor who heard noises threatened to call police. When two of the suspects left and kicked down the neighbor's door, the victim escaped. A police officer later spotted the bloodied and obviously disoriented man wandering down a street.
The grandmother of Brittany Covington said the granddaughter she raised from infancy is "not this person."
"I'm so upset, my head is about to bust open," said Priscilla Covington of Chicago. "I don't know if someone influenced her ... She had her ups and down. (She) was a good person. I'm so confused." |
"Sandler would benefit from going back to basics and giving audiences what made them love him in the first place," says one box office analyst.
For years, Adam Sandler was a veritable Pac-Man and one of Hollywood's most reliable stars in terms of gobbling up and spitting out solid box-office grosses.
Now, his ability to lure moviegoers is damaged after a string of disappointments, including his latest outing, Pixels, a love letter to the iconic videogames of the 1980s. Over the weekend, Pixels debuted to $23 million in North America, a poor start for an all-audience summer event film featuring an ensemble cast with Sandler at the center.
The movie was a departure for Sandler in terms of being a VFX-laden action-comedy vs. a straight comedy or a romantic comedy. Sony made Pixels for a reported $88 million after rebates; the full cost is said to be $110 million. Sandler's company, Happy Madison, produced Pixels alongside director Chris Columbus' 1492 Pictures.
"Sandler would benefit from going back to basics and giving audiences what made them love him in the first place," says Rentrak box office analyst Paul Dergarabedian. "Sandler has made some terrifically funny films like Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore and The Wedding Singer and even delved into the indie world with a great, restrained performance in Punch-Drunk Love in 2002."
To date, Sandler's films have earned north of $4 billion at the worldwide box office, an enviable showing. Yet outside of the Grown Ups and Hotel Transylvania franchises, he's had an uneven track record in North America since Reign Over Me in 2007, when accounting for inflation.
Last summer, Blended all-out bombed, opening to $14.3 million and topping out at $46 million domestically and $128 million worldwide. The romantic comedy reunited him with Drew Barrymore for the third time after box office hits The Wedding Singer, which earned north of $80 million domestically and $124 million globally in 1998 ($171 million by today's standards), and 50 First Dates, grossing $195.2 million in 2004, including $120.8 million domestically.
Other earlier Sandler hits in the U.S. include Big Daddy, which grossed a massive $163.5 million domestically in 1999 ($233 million by today's terms) and The Waterboy, which grossed $161.5 million in 1998. And in 2005, The Longest Yard took in $158.1 million in North America.
In 2011 and 2012, two of Sandler's films failed to impress. In summer 2012, That's My Boy topped out at $36.9 million domestically and $57 million globally. Jack and Jill fared somewhat better in November with $74.2 million domestically and $150.7 million worldwide, but that wasn't enough factoring in the film's $80 million budget and marketing spend. Nor did Just Go With It, co-starring Jennifer Aniston, rock the house in summer 2011, barely cracking $200 million worldwide. By way of comparison, Bridesmaids earned $288.4 million worldwide, including $169.1 million domestically.
Not long after Blended, Sandler and Netflix announced an unprecedented deal to make four original movies together at the same budget Sandler commands at a Hollywood studio, generally around $80 million. (Netflix says Sandler's films have a huge following on the streaming service.)
According to insiders, Sandler is said to be entirely focused on the Netflix titles. His only upcoming appointment with the big screen is Sony's Hotel Transylvania 2, which debuts Sept. 25.
First up in the Netflix deal is the controversial Western comedy The Ridiculous 6, set for release on the streaming service Dec. 11. Taylor Lautner, Terry Crews, David Spade and Luke Wilson co-star. And Sandler is currently filming The Do Over for Netflix. Also starring David Spade and Paula Patton, the comedy follows two down-on-their-luck guys who decide to fake their own deaths and start over with new identities.
"Netflix could offer a small-screen sanctuary for Sandler who could, if he chooses, reinvent himself and create content that could return him to the glory of his best days and generate renewed goodwill with audiences and critics alike," notes Dergarabedian.
Sandler's recent indies also have suffered. Tom McCarthy's The Cobbler was a high-profile miss, earning just $24,000 in the U.S. It fared better overseas, taking in $4.6 million. Jason Reitman's ensemble dramedy Men, Women & Children also stalled, failing to reach $1 million domestically. Like The Cobbler, it fared better overseas, earning $2.2 million.
Likewise, Pixels hopes to make up ground overseas, where it has earned north of $25 million in its early run. The movie stars Sandler, Kevin James, Peter Dinklage and Josh Gad as a group of friends battling aliens who have used video games from the 1980s to attack Earth. Pixels has been ravaged by critics, while audiences gave it a mediocre B CinemaScore. The tentpole was co-financed by LStar Capital and China Film Group, guaranteeing a run in China.
All told, Pixels is playing in 42 percent of the international marketplace, where it placed No. 1 in 23 of 56 territories this weekend, many of them smaller. It soared in Latin America, a huge family market, placing No. 1 in Mexico ($3.7 million), Brazil ($3.1 million) and Argentina, where it nabbed Sony's best debut of all time with $2.3 million. Pixels likewise debuted to No. 1 in Russia ($2.7 million) and in Spain ($1.3 million). It has yet to debut in China (Sept. 15) and the U.K. (Aug. 12), among other major territories.
Sandler's Happy Madison continues to have a film deal with Sony, although it's unclear when the pact expires. It's also unclear whether his relationship with film executives is damaged after leaked emails surfacing in the Sony hack revealed that some executives weren't unhappy with Sandler's spending on budgets. On the TV side, Happy Madison's deal with Sony was renewed for three years in January.
Rebecca Ford contributed to this report. |
Now first off it is worth pointing out that, unlike most bad ideas, gay marriage is charged with positive emotion. This makes absolute sense, for marriage is — to the most extent — recognized as a beautiful good. One can understand why this video was so popular:
But we all need to take a deep breath and look at the issue with a little more boredom in our hearts. The answer to this cannot be a slogan yelled to the other side. It takes some thought. In fact, if you are incapable of anything but high-charged emotion over this issue — which I understand entirely, as I’m often far too emotion-driven in the abortion debate — go watch this, no matter what side of the debate you’re on, let it all out, and come back.
The first question has to be: Why do governments recognize marriages at all? If the goal of the gay-marriage movement is for gay marriage to be legally recognized and receive all the benefits of that legal recognition, this must be answered.
Now shockingly, the answer is not that the government just really, really wants to affirm the love between husband and wife. I suppose that’d be nice, if we got tax breaks because we loved really freaking well. It’d also be drastically stupid. No, governments recognize the institution of marriage as the primary institution responsible for the creation and raising of its society’s members. If the family falters, the society as a whole falters. Governments depend on stable families for the health of the society they govern.
It might seem self-evident, that the breakdown of the family leads to the breakdown of society, but just in case: One only need look at the rise of the welfare state, the rise in adolescent suicide, or at the rise in crime to see this. We have a record prison population (2.4 percent of the population in 2003), record numbers of teen suicides, and — not coincidentally — a record number of “alternative” families. According to Harvard sociologist Robert Sampson “Family structure is one of the strongest, if not the strongest, predictor of variations in urban violence across cities in the United States.” When the nuclear family breaks down into divorce, cohabitation etc., society as a whole pays.
Now to be clear, this is not an argument against gay marriage quite yet. Rather, my argument relies on this foundation: That the reason marriage is recognized by the government is because the health of any society is directly affected by whether or not children are being raised healthily. (Duh.) Given this, the second question must be: Can children be raised just as well by two members of the same sex as by a biological father and mother?
There is not enough research to definitely show that homosexual parenting is worse than traditional parenting. Similarly, there is not enough research to definitely show that homosexual parenting is equal to traditional parenting. Of the research that exists, on both sides of the debate, most is inadequate due to failure to meet the the basic criteria for sample size, a lack of random sampling, lack of anonymity of research participants, and general presentation bias. So what are we to do? Since family is so crucial to the health of society, it’d be an idiot who says, “We don’t know therefore let’s just legalize gay marriage” and it’d be a jerk who says “therefore lets just ban it.” No, we need to look at other information.
This I maintain, that it has been shown time and time again that children thrive best with a biological mother and father because of the very nature of the parent’s opposite sexes. Child Trends, a nonpartisan research organization, summarized the scholarly consensus as such: “[R]esearch clearly demonstrates that family structure matters for children, and the family structure that helps children the most is a family headed by two biological parents in a low-conflict marriage.”(1) If this is true, it follows that removing that dynamic of two opposite sexes would be detrimental to the raising of children. This is all but admitted and bemoaned when it comes to divorce, single parenting and cohabitation. It is contested when applied to same-sex parenting. Let’s run through a couple of the benefits to children that arise solely out of the complementary nature of the two sexes, shall we?
Thanks to pregnancy and breastfeeding, women experience high levels of the hormone peptide oxytocin, a chemical that bonds them to their children. As a result, “mothers are more sensitive to the cries, words, and gestures of infants, toddlers, and adolescents, and, partly as a consequence, they are better at providing physical and emotional nurture to their children.”(11, 2, 3)
Fathers, on the other hand, “excel when it comes to providing discipline, ensuring safety, and challenging their children to embrace life’s opportunities and confront life’s difficulties. The greater physical size and strength of most fathers, along with the pitch and inflection of their voice and the directive character of their speaking, give them an advantage when it comes to discipline, an advantage that is particularly evident with boys, who are more likely to comply with their fathers’ than their mothers’ discipline” (11). This is not incidental to their gender; it is the result of it. The increased testosterone of men gives them this dominance and assertiveness. Thus two essential elements to the development of children – nurture and discipline – are fulfilled in the two sexes.
This is not to say that a gay couple could not play that missing role essential to the development of a child. It is simply to say that it is not innate, and thus not as likely to be fulfilled as would be in a traditional marriage. The evidence that being raised by just one sex is detrimental to a child can be seen in the children of single parent homes. A Cambridge study found that 37 percent of children born outside of marriage and 31 percent of children with divorced parents dropped out of high school, compared to 13 percent of children from intact families headed by a married mother and father. (4) A study of the entire population of Swedish children found that Swedish boys and girls in two-parent homes were about 50 percent less likely to suffer from suicide attempts, alcohol and drug abuse, and serious psychiatric illnesses compared to children reared in single-parent homes (5).
I suppose it could be argued here that this is simply because single-parent families are less likely to be wealthy. (UPDATE: This argument would essentially be saying that the problem that hurts children is not the lack of a particular sex but the lack of the economic stability that comes with having two people raising a child, and not just one. This update is necessary because folks in the combox keep saying “you’re mixing up single-parent families with gay families!” So to all those of that mindset, read and and understand:) But according to a review of all available American data/literature, family structure has more of a consequence on a child’s psychological and behavioral outcomes than poverty. It seems that the lack of money just doesn’t compare to the lack of a Dad or a Mom (6). Sex matters. The lack of a Mom and a Dad has been shown to be the foremost problem in single-parent families. Same-sex marriages — by default, not by failure — lack in this same regard.
Similarly, it matters for the sexual development of girls. “Teenage girls who grow up with a single mother or a stepfather are significantly more likely to experience early menstruation and sexual development, compared to girls reared in homes headed by a married mother and father” (7, 11). They are as a consequence more likely to experience teenage pregnancy (8). Why? Because sexual development is stimulated by the pheromones of non-biological males. This is a non-issue for lesbian parents, and a major issue for homosexual male parents.
But lesbian parents — and anyone else — who use artificial technologies and sperm donation to become pregnant have to face a serious truth. According to Yale psychiatrist Kyle Pruett, ART children by and large have a “hunger for an abiding paternal presence” (9). This was struck home to me by the website AnonymousUs, that includes stories about ART-produced children’s struggle for identity.
In the absence of good research on homosexual parenting, we have to look at the research on parenting in general. And this research consistently points to the fact that the best family situation is one with a faithful father and mother. It is a fact that the introduction will not lead to more father-and-mother families, and I sincerely doubt that the introduction of gay marriage will lead to more faithful families in general. General Social Survey, sponsored by the National Science Foundation and based at the University of Chicago, concludes that there is about a 25 percent lifetime infidelity rate amidst couples. Compare this to the 50% percent of gay men in Vermont entering civil unions who said that fidelity is not important to their relationships (10). Obviously, this is a single location, but it fits with the overall lack of fidelity in homosexual relationships. If there is a single study that shows homosexuals relationships to be equally as faithful as heterosexual relationships, and not drastically less, I have not found it.
The goodness of the nuclear family is a small part of why I think gay marriage is a bad idea. This is not to say that I believe the government should do this or that, it is simply to point out that — if our society depends on families — we should avoid undermining the family in favor of an “anything with love goes” mentality. Obviously, one can scarcely stand against gay marriage in this way without standing against divorce and cohabitation. I do stand against these. It’s not about gays not being accepted, or not being worthy, or not being in love enough. My life is full enough of awesome gay people to know that this is mere bigotry. It’s about the very purpose of marriage, and how well a mother and father fulfill it. But obviously, I’m a heterosexual and thus innately biased, so I’d like to take the opportunity to point out a couple of Catholic SSA men who strongly oppose gay marriage. There very existence should give the gay-marriage movement pause:
http://www.stevegershom.com/,
http://catholicboyrichard.wordpress.com/
http://jamesmerton.com/
And of course, read this:
http://youngandcatholic.net/2011/07/catholic-and-gay/
A Gay Reader Responds
Sources
1. Kristin Anderson Moore, Susan M. Jekielek, and Carol Emig, 2002. “Marriage from a Child’s Perspective: How Does Family Structure Affect Children, and What Can be Done about It?” Research Brief, June 2002. Washington, DC: Child Trends. p. 6.
2. Eleanor Maccoby. 1998. The Two Sexes: Growing Up Apart, Coming Together. Cambridge: Harvard University
3. David Geary. 1998. Male, Female: The Evolution of Human Sex Differences. Washington, DC: American
4. Sara McLanahan and Gary Sandefur. 1994. Growing Up with a Single Parent. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Wilcox et al. 2005. Elizabeth Marquardt. 2005b. Between Two Worlds: The Inner Lives of Children of Divorce. New York: Crown.
5. Gunilla Ringback Weitoft, Anders Hjern, Bengt Haglund, and Mans Rosen. 2003. “Mortality, Severe Morbidity, and Injury in Children Living with Single Parents in Sweden: A Population-Based Study.” The Lancet 361: 289–295.
6. Sara McLanahan. 1997. “Parent Absence or Poverty: Which Matters More?” In G. Duncan and J. BrooksGunn, Consequences of Growing Up Poor. New York: Russell Sage.
7. Bruce Ellis. 2002. “Timing of Pubertal Maturation in Girls: An Integrated Life History Approach.” Psychology Bulletin 130: 920–958.
8. McLanahan and Sandefur. 1994. Bruce Ellis et al. 2003. “Does Father Absence Place Daughters at Special Risk for Early Sexual Activity and Teenage Pregnancy?” Child Development 74: 801–821.
9. Kyle Pruett. 2000. Fatherneed. New York: Broadway. P. 207. See also Marquardt. 2005b and David Popenoe. 1996. Life Without Father. Cambridge: Harvard University Press
10. Esther Rothblum and Sondra Solomon. 2003. Civil Unions in the State of Vermont: A Report on the First Year. University of Vermont Department of Psychology.
11. Most of my understanding — and subsequent quoting — came from this awesome review of marriage in relation to the public good. Read it. |
(Newser) – When you think Harley-Davidson you probably think of rumbling engines, massive tailpipes, and long trips down dusty highways. But the company's newest project doesn't involve any of that. Instead, the company on Monday will unveil LiveWire, its first fully electric zero-emission bike, the AP reports. After an invitation-only event in New York, the company will take about two dozen LiveWires on a 30-city tour to let aficionados test-ride them. Harley is confident they'll enjoy the experience, too. "Some people may get on it thinking, 'golf cart,'" the lead engineer predicted. "And they get off thinking, 'rocket ship.'"
The bike has also been spotted on the set of the upcoming Avengers movie, Motorcycle.com reports. It will probably be a few years before the bikes are actually available for public purchase, which Motorcycle.com's editorial director thinks is a smart move, allowing the company to dip its toe into the market while evaluating demand. Still, Gizmodo thinks the performance specs on the early prototypes are "distinctly unimpressive." With a top speed of 92 mph and a range of 53 miles, LiveWire is "left in the dust of other electric motorcycles currently on sale." (Read more Harley-Davidson stories.) |
(CNN) -- The search for a second-grade student who disappeared last week after he arrived at his Portland, Oregon, elementary school intensified Monday.
Kyron Horman, 7, did not return home Friday from Skyline Elementary School, police said.
According to investigators, the boy's stepmother said she last saw Kyron on Friday morning while he was walking down the hallway toward his classroom.
"There was a science fair here at the school," Portland Public Schools spokesman Matt Shelby told CNN. "You had a situation with lots of parents and friends coming through the school, going class to class."
"Kyron was here with his stepmother, seen with his stepmother," Shelby said.
The science fair was held before the beginning of classes, Shelby added, "so working parents could come and participate."
The Multnomah County sheriff's office reported that no one at the school saw Kyron after 8:45 a.m. Friday and that the child never made it to his classroom.
Searches in the school area were conducted Friday and over the weekend by several agencies, including the Portland Police Bureau, Gresham Police Department, Fairview Police Department, Oregon State Patrol, and the FBI.
Authorities have also utilized Portland Police Bureau's air unit in an attempt to locate the child.
"My heart, and the hearts of everyone who is a part of Portland Public Schools, goes out to Kyron Horman and his family," Superintendent Carole Smith said in a written statement.
"We are all wishing for Kyron's safe return as quickly as possible and we are grateful for the efforts of all the law enforcement agencies who have worked so tirelessly over the past 48 hours to determine the cause of Kyron's disappearance, locate him and return him safely home.
"The reported disappearance of a student from one of our schools is unprecedented and deeply troubling. Portland Public Schools is doing everything we can to assist the authorities in their effort to find Kyron."
Counselors have been made available today to children and teachers at Kyron's school, Shelby said. "Our focus is on supporting the students and staff," he said.
Anyone with information on Kyron Horman's whereabouts is asked to call the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office at 503-261-2847. |
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on Tuesday doused the hopes of those who might want to enjoy state-legalized marijuana with him in the White House.
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"If you’re getting high in Colorado today, enjoy it," Christie, a Republican presidential candidate, said during a town-hall event in the early voting state of New Hampshire, according to Bloomberg.“As of January 2017, I will enforce the federal laws,” he added.Christie, who has long opposed recreational marijuana and said early this month that he has never tried pot, has stated that unlike President Obama he would not selectively choose which federal laws to enforce.“If you want to change the marijuana laws, go ahead and change the national marijuana laws," the former prosecutor said Tuesday, according to Bloomberg.Colorado and three other states have legalized recreational marijuana in recent years, including Washington, Oregon and Alaska, along with the District of Columbia.Christie currently sits ninth in a crowded GOP field of more than a dozen candidates hoping to make it onto the stage for their party's first debate Aug. 6, which is capped at the top 10 based on recent polls. |
THE HAGUE (Reuters) - An international arbitration court on Thursday handed Slovenia victory in a long-standing maritime dispute with Croatia, granting it direct access to international waters in the Adriatic Sea.
The Permanent Court of Arbitration’s decision is final and binding, but Croatia, which withdrew from the proceedings in 2015, said it would ignore the ruling.
The court found that Slovenia should have “uninterrupted access” to the sea it shares with Croatia, presiding Judge Gilbert Guillaume said, in the case between the European Union neighbours.
“This decision is not legally binding for us in any way and we have no intention to implement it,” Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said in a reaction.
“We’re open for a bilateral dialogue with Slovenia and we do not expect from Slovenia any one-sided action on this issue,” Plenkovic said.
Slovenia’s government welcomed the ruling, calling it “definitive and legally binding”.
“Slovenia will continue its good cooperation with Croatia and will not do anything that would aggravate mutual relations,” Slovenian Prime Minister Miro Cerar told a news conference.
The countries have been arguing over a stretch of their sea and land border since both declared independence from the former Yugoslavia in 1991 as it disintegrated into war and broke up.
The dispute, which centres on the bay of Piran, held up Croatian accession to the EU for many years. Only after both parties agreed to arbitration was Zagreb granted entry to the bloc in 2013.
The court has now ruled that Slovenia gets the vast majority of the Piran bay area recognised as its territorial waters. In addition, the tribunal established a 2.5 nautical-mile wide and some 10 nautical-mile long corridor through Croatian waters to give Slovenia much-coveted direct access to international waters.
“The zone shall give freedom of communication to all ships and aircraft, civil and military, of any state for the purpose of access to Slovenia,” the court ruled.
Croatia withdrew from the arbitration procedures in 2015 after a leaked tape showed a Slovenian judge on the panel improperly exchanging confidential information with the Ljubljana government.
The judge involved resigned and the court decided to continue with the case, saying the incident had not compromised the court’s ability to reach a final verdict.
It added that rule violations did not allow Croatia to withdraw from the arbitration process.
Slovenia has said Croatia should respect the verdict, while Croatian officials say the row should be resolved bilaterally.
The EU has looked to the arbitration between Croatia and Slovenia as a possible blueprint for the way to handle other border disputes that remain between several other Balkan EU-hopefuls.
Croatia’s unilateral withdrawal casts doubts on the success of future arbitrations, as well as whether promises made in order to obtain EU accession will be kept once a state has been admitted to the union. |
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